As if by some demonic conjury, Athena appeared before him, looking fresh and cheerful in her sprigged cambric dress. “Good morning, Griffin,” she drawled.
Griffin hoisted himself to his feet. “Go to hell,” he retorted, and his nausea grew measurably worse.
Athena showed no inclination to go anywhere. “Rachel is getting better,” she said. “She’s talking to that Fawn person, and she remembers everything. Absolutely everything. Guess who she’s asking for, Griffin?”
When Griffin said nothing, Athena rushed on, savoring her triumph. “Jonas. The only person she wants to see other than that squaw or Mother is Jonas. She definitely, Griffin Fletcher, does not want to see you.”
Griffin staggered to a side table, where some thoughtful soul had left towels and a basin of tepid water. He washed and dried his face and hands before he answered. “I suppose I have you to thank for that, don’t I?”
Athena smiled, like a coy child. “Yes, indeed.”
Griffin draped the soiled towel around his neck. “Why?”
She raised her chin, and the dark blue eyes flashed. “Because I love you.”
The irony of those words sickened Griffin further. “Because you love me,” he repeated, in a hoarse, savage whisper. “You are sick, Athena. And your love is an honor I can do without.”
“I have the right to fight for what—or whom—I want!”
Griffin shook his head in slow, purposely cruel denial. “I wouldn’t wish your affections on Jonas, Athena. Your ‘love’ is a murderous, destructive thing.”
Athena trembled. “Oh, Griffin, don’t say that—”
“I haven’t finished,” he snarled, as John O’Riley came into the room. “If you’ve turned Rachel against me, Athena, I’ll kill you with my bare hands!”
“Good God!” the old man cried, as his daughter whirled, in stifled hysterics, and fled the room. “Griffin, have you taken leave of your senses!”
Griffin strode past John, insane with rage. “I meant what I said!”
“Griffin!” bellowed John, from the study doorway.
But Griffin didn’t stop, didn’t turn back. In the middle of the stairway, he came face to face with an impervious Field Hollister.
“You can’t go up there, Griffin.”
“Damn it, Field—”
Field folded his arms. “I mean it, Griff. Rachel doesn’t want to see you.”
“Well, she’s going to!” Griffin yelled, outraged and panic-stricken. “Get out of my way!”
“No, Griffin.” Field’s blue eyes flickering with determination, moved to someone or something just behind his friend’s head. “I’m sorry.”
Griffin bellowed and lunged into Field’s midsection like a demented bull. Instantly, there were hands, inescapable hands, all over him.
“Watch his feet,” said Field, calmly.
Griffin struggled, but even as his mind seemed to be bursting with madness and fury, he could not, would not use his feet. Not against Field. “Damn you!” he roared.
Unseen men subdued him, dragged him backward, down the stairs. Before he could see any of their faces, one of them pressed a treated cloth to his face. The smell was unmistakable -—chloroform. He struggled, wildly, but it was too late.
There were tears—he would have sworn it—glistening on Field Hollister’s face as he bent over him. “I’m sorry, Griffin.”
Griffin’s tongue felt thick and dry in his mouth. He battled the rising darkness in his mind, but it overtook him, crushing him into a nightmare world of nothing.
• • •
Rachel could not imagine what all the fuss was about. Now that she’d rested, she felt perfectly all right-—physically, at least. Emotionally, she ached in a way that made her want to writhe.
Fawn sat on the edge of the bed, laying a cool cloth across Rachel’s forehead. In the distance, there was shouting, and the sound of a violent scuffle.
Rachel noticed that Fawn closed her eyes until the disturbance passed.
“What is happening?”
Fawn frowned. “Nothing, Rachel. There are a lot of people in the house, that’s all. The O’Rileys must have put up half of Seattle last night.”
Rachel sat bolt upright. “Griffin—that was Griffin.”
Field Hollister’s bride pressed her back onto the pillows with strong brown hands. “Maybe it is Griffin, Rachel. But they won’t hurt him.”
Rachel turned her head away, tears brimming in her eyes. Why should she care whether they hurt Griffin or not, after the way he’d used her? But she did—she did care, and it was anguish.
“I hate him,” she whispered.
Fawn’s hand enclosed one of hers. “You know that isn’t true, Rachel. Later, there will be time to talk, to straighten it all out. For now, you must rest.”
Rachel’s throat ached over a suppressed sob. “H—He bragged about me, Fawn—”
“Nonsense. I’ve known Griffin Fletcher most of my life; he would never do that.”
“He did,” Rachel insisted miserably.
Fawn was adamant. “There is some misunderstanding.”
How Rachel longed to believe that there was, but she couldn’t quite manage it. She’d let wishful thinking rule her life for too long as it was, and now she was in hopeless trouble. “I think there is a baby,” she whispered.
“Hush,” said Fawn. And then she began to sing softly, hauntingly, in a language Rachel did not understand.
Sleep came, and when Rachel awakened, the room was very dark. She thought she saw Griffin standing beside her bed, thought she heard his hoarse, gentle voice speaking to her. “I love you, Rachel McKinnon. I need you.”
The dream took on further reality as he bent and kissed her cheek, his face rough against hers. Rachel felt tears gathering in her eyes, but she could not speak for fear of breaking the spell, bringing on a wakefulness that would not contain Griffin Fletcher.
It did not surprise her that he was gone again, as quickly as he’d come. Dream people did those things.
• • •
Agile in the darkness, Griffin walked back into John’s study and resumed the role of prisoner. “You make one hell of a guard, Jonas,” he said, stretching out on the sofa again and folding his arms.
Jonas stiffened in his chair, awakened with a start. “What—”
“Nothing,” said Griffin.
But Jonas was awake now, and bent on talking. He fumbled for matches, muttered as he lit the kerosene lamp on John’s desk. “How long have you been awake?” he demanded.
Griffin grinned wanly. “Long enough.”
Jonas cursed roundly, then helped himself to a dose of John’s best brandy. “I kept my word, Griffin,” he said, after a long silence.
Griffin applauded, smiling sardonically. “A small thing, considering that you knew I’d cut your gizzard out if you didn’t. Come to think of it, I might anyway.”
Jonas turned his back, stared out at the darkness beyond the windows. “Will you back off for five minutes, you bastard? Sometimes I get so damned tired of this constant wrangling.”
Griffin crossed his booted feet at the ankles and pretended to relax. “You’re a snake, Jonas. Snakes don’t get tired—they just warm their cold blood in the sun.”
“We’re cousins, Griffin,” Jonas insisted, without turning from his post at the window. “Our mothers were the closest of sisters. What happened between us?”
“Bad blood,” observed Griffin, sitting up now. “Or maybe it was that you slept with a woman you knew I loved.”
Jonas turned slowly to face his cousin. “And now you’ve returned the favor, haven’t you?”
Griffin remembered the earlier betrayal, the foolish boast that had very possibly cost him Rachel’s love. “No,” he said.
The need to believe him shone clear in Jonas’s tortured face. Griffin saw his cousin embrace the lie, and hold it for a truth.
Chapter Thirty
By Saturday morning, things had calmed down considerably in the O’
Riley household. Though Jonas and Griffin were still in evidence—Rachel avoided them both conscientiously—the refugees had gone back to whatever charred remains they could claim as their own, and the Hollisters had returned to Providence to face their flock. Athena was so subdued that she seemed absent, even when she sat across the dining-room table from Rachel or brushed past her in a corridor.
Rachel was no more gregarious herself; it seemed to her that some kind of thick batting had wrapped itself around her mind and heart, insulating her from realities with which she could not yet deal. She made no attempt to shake off this peculiar numbness, knowing that it would, all too soon, give way to the pain lying in wait.
Taking an afternoon carriage ride was Joanna’s idea, and while the prospect generated neither resistance nor enthusiasm in Rachel, she agreed to go.
The weather was mild and burnished by a muted brass sun. Feathery clouds made an eiderdown tracery against the azure sky, and the bay sparkled, dappled with silver and gold. There was still a tinge of smoke in the air, mingled with the odor of charred wood.
As the carriage rattled down the hill, the full scope of the city’s destruction came home to Rachel with crushing clarity. The wharfs were gnarled and blackened, or gone entirely; while the business district itself, except for a few pathetically naked brick ruins, was completely destroyed. Was it possible that she had been right in the middle of the holocaust, as Joanna said she had, and remembered nothing?
Rachel drew in her breath, and tears of shock trembled in her voice when she spoke. “Oh, Joanna—it’s as though the world had ended… .”
Joanna’s voice was gentle, wise. “Look again, Rachel.”
Brow furrowed, Rachel stared out at the grim waste once more. Now, she saw what Joanna wished her to see—the tents rising from the rubble and somehow defying it, the federal and territorial flags waving beside a sooty but triumphant courthouse; the smiles of merchants who sold their goods and services from the backs of wagons and beneath canvas canopies.
“Look at Seattle,” Joanna urged softly. “Look at her, scrambling back to her feet!”
Rachel’s throat was unaccountably tight; and one tear slid, trickling, down her face. She dashed it away.
“Are you beaten, Rachel?” Joanna went on, a quiet challenge ringing in her words. “Or will you fight back, like Seattle?”
A ragged sob wrenched itself from her throat, but the challenge could not be ignored. All right. Her money was gone, the dress shop where she’d ordered new clothes was gone, Miss Cunningham’s boardinghouse was probably gone, too, with the things she had left there. But she still had her building, and she was still a tough timber brat, bred to roll with the punches.
She raised her chin and met Joanna’s gaze directly. “I’ll fight,” she said.
“Good,” replied Joanna, her blue eyes warm on Rachel’s face.
“I’m going back to Providence,” Rachel announced, even though she hadn’t been asked. “Yes,” she added, after a short interval, for her own benefit more than Joanna’s, “Yes, I’m going back.”
Joanna said nothing, and she seemed to be intent on the rollicking resurrection going on all over the city. A small smile tilted the corner of her mouth upward, however, and her blue eyes were very bright.
Rachel turned her attention inward, facing facts.
As her money was gone, so was the dream of being Griffin Fletcher’s wife. However, the sturdy building in Providence remained to her, as did the tiny, troublesome, and infinitely precious life nestled within her.
Life would be hard, for her and for her child, but it would be good, too. Rachel McKinnon meant to see to that, thank you very much.
A hundred misgivings sprang, tangled, into her mind. In a matter of months, her pregnancy would be visible to all and sundry, and in a town like Providence especially, that meant scandal. She would doubtlessly encounter Griffin time and time again. Wouldn’t he guess that the child swelling her middle was his own?
Rachel determined to deal with that problem when she came to it. In all likelihood, by the time her condition became noticeable, Griffin would be married to Athena and totally oblivious to the proprietress of McKinnon’s Rooming House.
Because all these things were churning in her mind, even after the carriage had shuddered to a stop in front of the O’Riley house and Rachel had gone into the garden to think, Jonas’s appearance took her completely by surprise.
She started when she saw him, felt color surge into her face. What must he think of her, now that Griffin had boasted of possessing her so fully? “Jonas,” she breathed, stricken.
He smiled, his hands resting comfortably in the pockets of his trousers, his white shirt open at the throat. His tone, when he spoke, was light, but startlingly blunt. “I trust your romance with Griffin is over?”
Rachel’s color deepened, and she folded her hands in her lap, lowered her head. “Yes,” she said miserably.
Boldly, Jonas sat down on the stone bench beside her. He was so close that she could smell the scent of his cologne and feel the frightening tension within him. “Rachel, perhaps it’s too soon to speak, but the plain truth is, if I don’t I’m going to go insane. I love you—I want you to be my wife.”
The garden bench seemed to be buckling beneath them; Rachel’s head spun, and her stomach knotted itself up tight. “What?” she managed, finally.
The sleeves of Jonas’s shirt were rolled up nearly to his elbows; when he reached out, suddenly, and took Rachel’s hand, she could see the tiny golden hairs glistening on his forearm.
“Urchin, will you look at me, please? I’m trying to declare myself here, you know, and you’re not making it any easier.”
There was no choice; in another moment, he would reach out, lift her chin, force her to face him. She met his eyes knowing that her own were brimming with tears. “Oh, Jonas, don’t—please—don’t.”
The briefest pain flashed in the depths of his golden eyes. “I have to, Urchin. My options are limited, you see—either I make you mine, or I lose my mind.”
Mutely, Rachel shook her head.
But Jonas stayed the motion with a grasp that bordered on pain, his fingers tight and cod on her chin. “God help me, Rachel, I know you love Griffin—I know you want him. But you must realize by now that he still belongs to Athena.”
Misery swept through Rachel, just as the fire had swept through Seattle. She swallowed an involuntary cry of grief and nodded.
Jonas’s hand fell away from her face, and she thought she saw her own desolation mirrored in his handsome, even features. “In spite of the things you’ve probably heard about me, I would be the most devoted of husbands, Rachel. I would love you, shelter you—”
A third voice broke in unexpectedly, harsh with malice. “Betray you, murder everyone and everything you hold dear.”
Griffin. Rachel’s heart struggled within her, like something wild caught in an inescapable trap, but she could not bring herself to look at him.
Jonas shot to his feet; out of the corner of one eye, Rachel saw his fists clench at his sides.
Griffin’s voice was low, contemptuous. “Marry him, Rachel, and you marry the man who murdered your father in cold blood.”
The world was reeling and tumbling around Rachel, and bile rushed, scalding, into her throat. “No!” she screamed, even as some primitive instinct hidden in the deepest recesses of her heart accepted the words as truth. She was on her feet, flailing her arms wildly, feeling her fists make contact with the hard width of a man’s chest.
And Jonas’s grasp was fierce on her wrists as he stayed the blows. When his face came into focus again, Rachel shuddered.
Jonas’s voice rumbled, like dark, distant clouds colliding in a night sky. “He is lying, Rachel! Would I be walking around free if I’d killed a man?”
Rachel stumbled back from him, shaking her head, struggling in his grip. She felt Griffin’s approach, felt the pull of him in all her senses.
He broke Jonas’s hold easi
ly, swung her up into his arms, held her close against him. He turned back toward the garden gate, still carrying Rachel, wordless with fury.
There was a soft thud; Rachel watched in horror as Griffin’s features went blank, fell helplessly as he fell. She was unhurt, but Griffin lay motionless on the stone floor of that part of the garden, the back of his head bleeding slightly. Screams clustered, unuttered, in her throat, tears poured down her face.
She dropped her forehead to the dark tangle of Griffin’s hair, certain that he was dead.
It was then that Jonas wrested her cruelly to her feet, one of his hands clamping over her mouth. She heard something hard fall from his other hand and clatter on the fieldstones beneath their feet. His voice was a madman’s voice, rasping savagely from his throat. “Remember what I told you, Rachel? The night we went to the Opera House and then my hotel? I said that when I took you, you would be ready. Now, Urchin, whether you know it or not, you’re ready!”
Terror and grief made Rachel strong; she twisted in Jonas’s grasp, bit the fingers of his constricting hand until she tasted blood.
He swore hoarsely and slapped her so hard that she would have fallen if he hadn’t caught her.
I must scream, she thought stupidly, but she could not make a sound; if her mind was given to calm reason, her body was stunned into a sort of hopeless paralysis.
Rachel could make no protest of any kind as Jonas dragged her out of the garden, across the lawn, and up to the door of his carriage. When he thrust her savagely inside, she fainted.
• • •
The first sensation Griffin Fletcher recognized was a pounding ache in the back of his head. He groaned, and nausea boiled into his throat.
“Lie still!” pleaded a familiar, feminine voice. “Oh, Griffin, please—don’t move.”
Athena. Griffin cursed and raised himself to his hands and knees, then to his feet. The familiar garden swayed around him, and it was shrouded in darkness.
It was a moment before his eyes focused on the flat, blood-splattered rock lying a yard or so away, before he remembered. When he did, he thrust Athena’s hand savagely from his arm and stumbled around her, toward the stables.
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