Fletcher's Woman

by Linda Lael Miller

  He wanted to die. A torrent of shattering pictures whirled in his mind, sickening him, deepening the fury that sustained him. Rachel and Griffin. The prospect was intolerable. No matter what, he could not let it happen. “Just because you do your best work on your back, Athena,” he said, in a low, deadly tone, “that doesn’t mean Rachel does.”

  Athena shrugged, and the gesture was an almost laughable contradiction to the murderous gleam in her dark blue eyes. “Believe whatever you want to, Jonas. I can’t afford to delude myself any longer—something has to be done, and fast.”

  “Like what?” Jonas bit out.

  Athena raised one golden eyebrow. “What else? We arrange the one discovery Griffin could not bear to make.”

  Jonas turned the idea in his mind, examining it. His anger, he discovered, had not completely displaced his reason. “No,” he said, flatly.

  “Why not? You could wait until she was asleep, and then we could arrange for Griffin to find you beside her—”

  “You make me sick, Athena.” Bile burned in Jonas’s throat.

  The indigo eyes flashed with stunned offense. “And you are so noble, Jonas. Are you forgetting that it practically drove him mad the first time?”

  “It would push him even further now. Athena, I know you don’t give a damn, but he would kill me with his bare hands. Maybe you’ve never seen Griffin go crazy like that, but I can assure you, it isn’t a sight that inspires bravery!”

  “You’re afraid of him!”

  “You’re damned right I’m afraid of him!”

  “Then you don’t want Rachel as badly as you say you do.”

  “I want Rachel,” Jonas vowed, in a rumbling, dangerous rasp. “I love Rachel. And even if I happened to survive your little plan, by some miracle, she would spit in my face!”

  Now, it was Athena who paced. “Well, we’ve got to do something, Jonas. If he marries her, we’re both going to be out in the proverbial cold!”

  Jonas spotted a decanter of whiskey on a nearby table and poured a triple into a glass. He swilled the smooth liquor in a desperate need for its singular comfort. “He’s not going to marry her,” he said. “He’s not going to have her.”

  Athena looked skeptical. Her beautiful features were slightly blurred now, and her dress was like a piece of moving sky. “What if he already has, Jonas? Will it matter to you that she’s been with Griffin?”

  “No,” Jonas said. But the pain the image engendered was brutal, blinding.

  Suddenly, Athena was before him, and he could see her features clearly again. “There is one other option, Jonas,” she said, in a tortured whisper. “We could comfort each other.”

  Jonas’s laugh sounded raw, tremulous, and it ached in his throat. “Comfort?” he repeated, mockingly.

  Athena’s hands moved to his lapels, warm and compelling; even through the fabric of his shirt, he could feel the heat of them. But he felt nothing else—he seemed to be bound by a crazy, singular fidelity of some sort. He’d learned that with Fawn Nighthorse, and he wasn’t planning to test the theory again.

  “You used to enjoy my company,” she reminded him.

  Jonas pulled free of her and refilled his glass. “You know something, Athena? You disgust me. All evening you’ve been telling me how badly you want to make up with Griffin, start over and all that. And here you are, offering yourself to me like some kind of Skid Road whore!”

  The Frenchman’s ring flashed in the light as Athena raised her hand to slap Jonas’s face. He caught her wrist in a savage grasp and twisted it, pretending an interest in the diamond-and-ruby setting glistening on her finger. “You’ve been playing this game in France, too, haven’t you, Athena?” he asked. “Well, my hat is off to this Bordeau character for having the guts to turn you out!”

  Athena’s round, succulent breasts were rising and falling, straining at the tenuous confines of her dress. Jonas tightened his grasp, watched with grim satisfaction as she tilted her head back, breathing in little gasps.

  She hadn’t changed. Her tremendous passion was ignited by Jonas’s rough touch as he knew it had never been by Griffin’s tender courtship. Jonas doubted seriously that Griffin had ever made love to this woman at all.

  His own desire still dormant within him, Jonas slipped a hand inside her dress, grasped one plump breast, and squeezed it, hard. With his thumb, he brought the nipple to hard response.

  Eyes still closed, Athena cried out softly. It was interesting, if not surprising, that she made no attempt to resist. She simply said Jonas’s name, giving it the tone of a plea.

  Still feeling no responding need, Jonas tore the dress, exposed her breasts to his view and that of anyone who might happen to walk through the parlor doors. He knew that that possibility would only incline Athena toward even more drastic behavior.

  She opened her eyes, saw his contempt, and smiled. “You could always pretend that I’m Rachel,” she said. And then she caught the front of his trousers in her hand and began to knead him, in a slow, maddening rhythm.

  It was the suggestion, more than the action, that stirred uncontrollable needs in Jonas. Rachel.

  He felt both relief and fury as his manhood exerted itself, demanding fulfillment. He’d let the game go too far; now there was no turning back.

  He sank into a barrel-back chair, in front of the fireplace, and waited. Athena knelt before him and began the work for which she was most suited.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Rachel awakened late the next morning, to find the room filled to bursting with sunshine and Athena standing at the foot of her bed like a specter, staring furiously into her face.

  “Cook and Mother have prepared a bath for you,” she announced stiffly, her hair gleaming, like silver fire, in the bright light.

  Rachel stretched, and the sensation was patiently delicious. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “A bath sounds wonderful.”

  Athena’s indigo eyes swung to the billow of apricot lawn discarded the night before. The dress was draped over the back of a nearby chair, and its very presence spoke volumes. It was sadly rumpled, if not spoiled entirely, and there were leaves and bits of faded, browning apple blossoms clinging to its folds.

  Athena’s chin quivered, almost imperceptibly, and her knuckles were white where they gripped the foot rail of Rachel’s bed. “You and Griffin—how did you get back into the house last night, without being seen?”

  Rachel sat up in bed and yawned softly. They had crept, laughing, up the stairs rising from the kitchen, but she had no intention of revealing that. It was a part of the night, a part of the magic, and, as such, a personal thing. “I don’t know what you mean,” she lied.

  The dark blue eyes were fierce now, demanding. “You know very well what I mean! You may be fooling Mama and Papa, but I have no illusions about your wholesome, country-bred morals. Remember that, Miss McKinnon.”

  Rachel blushed slightly, but she felt no shame. Perhaps the lovemaking with Griffin had been ill-advised, but it had not been wrong. It could never be wrong.

  “I’m sorry you don’t approve, Athena,” she said, tossing back the lightweight comforter and swinging herself gracefully out of bed. “But now, if you don’t mind, I would like to get ready for my bath.”

  Athena made a soft, contemptuous sound in her throat. “Fool. Griffin is using you—you’re just a joke to him.”

  The feeling of inexplicable dread that had been plaguing Rachel for two days was back, but it had nothing to do with Griffin, or the things Athena was saying. It did, however, bring on a dull, gnawing ache at the nape of her neck. Gathering fresh underthings and a simple cotton shirtwaist and skirt, Rachel ignored Athena, hoping that she would go away.

  But Athena was following her as she moved about the room, as if prepared to pounce at any moment. Rather than feeling fear, Rachel felt a certain primitive hope that this spoiled, obnoxious woman would make a threatening gesture of some sort. It would be delightful to do battle with her, however unladylike.

&nb
sp; “You think he loves you, don’t you?” Athena went on, frantically. “You think he plans to marry you. And last night, judging by the state of your dress, you were probably rolling around on the ground with him, like some—some slut.”

  Rachel stopped, hairbrush in hand, and faced Athena with ferocious calm. “I know he plans to marry me,” she said evenly. “He proposed.”

  The look on Athena’s face was a stricken one, but she recovered quickly. Her beautiful shoulders, revealed by her strapless, sleeveless white eyelet gown, tensed. “I see. Well, did he tell you, Rachel, that he’s been boasting about taking you? He told Jonas.”

  There was a taut silence, and Rachel’s headache grew infinitely worse. “That’s a lie.”

  “Believe what you like, Rachel. Or ask Jonas.”

  Rachel felt a dizzying nausea churn up inside her. She tried to speak, tried to deny what Athena had said, and couldn’t.

  Athena was flushed with bitter triumph. “He told Jonas that you were a virgin when he took you.”

  Rachel turned, grasped the edge of a bureau for support. In her mind, she heard Griffin’s voice, heard him saying those terrible things to Field the day they’d ridden down the side of the mountain. The day she’d left Providence and Griffin had all but thrown her bodily onto the steamer.

  “I didn’t think she was a virgin—I succeeded—”

  She shook her head mutely, but the effort was useless. The truth remained, ugly and shameful—Griffin had told Jonas about that night in the lumber camp, he must have. How else could Jonas have had such an intimate knowledge of what had happened?

  In a frantic need for reassurance, Rachel’s hand closed over the beautiful pearl necklace Griffin had given her, and the golden bracelet beside it.

  But Athena was close, seeing the gesture, seeing everything. She laughed, and it was a soft, vicious sound.

  “He gave you presents? Oh, Rachel, surely you don’t think that meant anything! You innocent, don’t you know that men give gifts like that in payment for services rendered? It is so much more civilized than just leaving money behind when they’re through.”

  Hot sickness burned in Rachel’s throat, and she dosed her eyes against the brutal pain pulsing in every fiber of her being.

  Athena saw her advantage and pressed it. “You didn’t really think a man like Griffin would commit himself to someone like you, did you?” she mocked. “Merciful heavens, Griffin is a wealthy, educated man—what would he want with a timber brat?”

  Rachel’s knees threatened to buckle beneath her, but she used the last of her strength to make them serve her. “Get out, Athena.”

  Athena’s footsteps were light as she crossed the room, and her voice was airy as she sang out a smug farewell. Not until the door had closed behind her did Rachel stumble back to the bed and collapse, face down, too stricken to weep.

  She lay still for a long time, while scream after silent scream rang through the throbbing darkness encompassing her mind and heart. How could she have been so foolish as to believe Griffin’s declarations of love, so wanton as to offer herself in the way she had?

  And in return for a few promises, a string of pearls, and a bracelet!

  Rachel raised herself to a sitting position, wild with the need to put this house behind her, along with all her shattered dreams. Along with Griffin Fletcher and his boasting.

  If possible, she would leave Washington Territory entirely. She had money—she could take it and start over somewhere else, just as her mother had begged her to do in the first place.

  Her mother. Rachel closed her heart against all that Becky McKinnon had represented, all that Griffin had assumed she represented as well. He thinks I’m a whore, she thought brokenly. And I’ve given him no reason to believe otherwise.

  Forcibly, Rachel gathered her composure. There was a bath waiting downstairs, and probably a late breakfast, too. If she didn’t appear soon, Joanna or Cook would come in search of her.

  Unable to bear the thought of anyone finding her as she was, broken like a discarded toy, Rachel slipped into one of Athena’s colorful robes and marched down the back stairway, into the kitchen.

  It was later than she’d guessed; nearly two in the afternoon. Cook was nowhere in sight, and Joanna was probably in her garden, where it would be cool.

  Rachel wrenched her eyes from the clock on the kitchen mantel and made her way resolutely into the little room reserved for bathing. There, she removed her robe and slipped into the now-tepid water.

  Bathing was no longer a comfort or a luxury. No matter how hard she scrubbed her shame-pinkened skin, she still felt dirty.

  As Rachel dried herself, an awful, mystical knowledge came to her. She had conceived a child.

  Rachel tried to reason with herself. It was too early to tell, there were no signs, surely even her luck could not be so bad. But the conviction remained unshaken—Griffin Fletcher’s baby was growing within her, even as she prepared to disappear from his life forever.

  She felt a sort of tormented wonder as she put the robe back on, over her scoured flesh, and made her way back upstairs to the room that had been hers. There, she dressed slowly, carefully, her mind racing in converse chaos.

  Rachel wept, for herself, for the baby that had been conceived in either a lumber camp or an orchard.

  Where was Griffin now? Could she hope to escape this house without encountering him?

  She prayed that she could.

  But there was Joanna—Joanna had been so unfailingly kind Rachel could not go without saying good-bye, but the thought of facing that perceptive woman filled her with dread. It would be impossible to lie to Joanna.

  In desperation, Rachel found pen and paper and scrawled a hasty, heartfelt note of gratitude and farewell.

  Half an hour later, she left the note on the entry-hall table and walked boldly out the front door, carrying nothing but a beaded handbag. Behind, in the O’Rileys’ sun-brightened guest room, were the things she had cherished—the pearls, the bracelet, and the apricot gown.

  The heels of her shoes made a rhythmic clicking sound as Rachel strode purposefully down the front walk, her chin held high.

  • • •

  Athena stood at an upstairs window, facing the street. A startled smile trembled on her lips as she watched Rachel disappear around a corner—it had been so easy. Who would have thought it would be so easy?

  Reluctantly, she left the window, walked out into the hall and down, to Rachel’s open door. The pearls had been left behind, along with that silly little bracelet.

  Athena scooped both items up into one hand, amazed. What fun it would be to thrust these treasures back into Griffin’s hands and to watch the realization that Rachel was gone spring into that impervious face of his!

  She smiled. Jonas would be delighted.

  Athena paused as she heard a team and carriage come to a halt in front of the house. She could not tell Jonas what she’d done, she realized suddenly—if Rachel boarded a steamer and disappeared forever, he would be outraged. And Jonas’s vengeance was an eventuality that didn’t bear considering.

  Downstairs, the front doors were opening, closing again. She could hear the booming sound of her father’s laughter, the answering, unsuspecting note of Griffin’s.

  Again, Athena smiled. You haven’t a great deal to laugh about, my dear, she thought, the jewelry Rachel had forsaken warm in the palm of her hand. And your rage will be something to see, to remember, to savor.

  Fixing a look of gentle bewilderment on her face, Athena dropped the bracelet and pearls into the pocket of her skirt and rushed down the stairs. She was breathless when she burst into her father’s study, where he and Griffin were conferring over some tedious case.

  “Rachel is gone!” she gasped, wringing her hands a little, to lend the thing an air of tragedy.

  Griffin sprang out of his chair and whirled, for all the world like a panther poised to pounce on some unwitting prey and tear it to shreds. The taut misery in his face was gratifyi
ng to see.

  “What?” he rasped.

  Athena had second thoughts about her timing then, for all the sweetness of revenge—perhaps it would have been wiser to wait a few hours and be certain that Rachel couldn’t be found. “P-Perhaps she’s only out somewhere, with Mother… .”

  But Griffin’s stance was ominous; he could not be reassured now, could not be stalled. Heedless of her father’s presence, and the crushing strength of his hands, he clasped Athena’s shoulders and shook her once, hard. “What did you say to her?” he demanded, in a bitter snarl.

  Athena could only shake her head.

  Griffin glared at her for one dreadful moment, then flung her away and stormed out of the study without so much as a backward glance. Athena flinched as the front door slammed.

  • • •

  Rachel was confused, and her head ached. It was as though her mind and heart had somehow separated themselves from her body, unable to bear the pain.

  There were bells clanging, in an ear-jarring chorus of panic, but she could not be sure they were real. Nothing seemed real—not the grass beneath her feet, not the Guernsey cow grazing a few hundred feet away, not the odd haze roiling in the sky.

  She stopped, wondering which direction to go. Somehow, she had wandered off the main street that would have led her down the hill and into Seattle’s heart. The bank was there—she had to get to the bank and then the steamboat office.

  The bank. The steamboat office. She repeated the phrases in her mind, like a litany that would save her soul, and righted her course. After several minutes, she found the road again.

  People were rushing past, in buggies, on horseback, on foot. Some were going down the hill, as Rachel was, while others seemed to be fleeing up it. She thought it odd that both factions seemed equally determined.

  There were more bells now, and a roaring sound rose up on the June wind to rival their tolls and clangs.

  Rachel walked on.

  The air was hot, and the smell of it stung her nostrils and her throat. She stumbled as a man carrying a whimpering child rushed past, nearly knocking her down.