Chasing the Sunset

by Barbara Mack

  He stood for a moment outside her door, head resting against the frame, palms flat against the cool wood. Then he walked slowly to the stairs above the stables and Ned’s room. He pounded fiercely until Ned answered the door, disheveled, obviously ready for bed despite the early hour. He had been up all night the evening before with a mare ready to foal for the first time, and Nick had sent him off hours before with orders to sleep for a while. His white hair stood up in spikes all over his head, and there was a crease on his face from the bedcovers.

  “What is it? Is it the mare? Why did Tommy not wake me?”

  “I want to talk to you about your niece,” he said heavily, and Ned’s face fell.

  “I have been expecting you,” he said heavily. “Come on in.”

  When Maggie awakened before dawn as she did every morning, she had a feeling that something was wrong. When she opened her eyes, the events of the night before came flooding back. She curled up in a tight ball in the middle of the bed, for she felt as if she were flying apart. She pressed a fist against her temple with a force that was sure to bruise later, but she needed the physical pain to distract her from the turmoil that thrummed inside her head. What was she going to do? She had no place to go, no money to speak of, no one else to turn to if he decided to make her leave. She would just . . . she would just die. Maybe she could give him what he wanted, what she saw in his eyes that he desired, and maybe then he would let her stay.

  Her heart trebled its rate at just the thought. Her mouth trembled, and she put a shaking hand up to it. No, she could not do it. No. She lay for a moment in her warm bed, underneath her soft sheets, and thought about what had brought her to this point. She could remember a time, vaguely, when she had not been afraid and she wanted that feeling back again . . . she wanted it so badly.

  She rose from the bed to stand at the window and stare out. The sky was just beginning to lighten with a rosy hint of dawn, and she watched the rising of the sun with eyes gone bleak and hopeless. When had it happened? How long had it taken to turn her into this spineless creature, the one who feared every touch, even obviously kind ones? When had she become the person who could not stop being afraid, the one who could not even live her own life anymore? She did not want to be this way, that part of her life was over, but she still relived it day by day and it seemed she had not escaped it after all. Once, and it seemed like such a long time ago, the world had been such a joyous, exciting place, full of grand adventures and shimmering surprises. She had met each day with a smile on her face, unafraid to walk in the sunshine, desperate to seek out new experiences.

  She wanted to be like that again, for what was the point of all of this if she lived this half life, cowering in her room and afraid of every shadow? She might as well have died in that place, but she was alive, alive, and she meant to live the rest of her life, not wallow in bad memories and self-pity.

  She would be that girl again, she would, and if Nick Revelle wanted her to leave then she would just beg him to let her stay. She would go down on her knees and kiss his feet if she had to. He was not like him, she knew that he was not. She could feel it all the way to the depths of her soul. He would not hurt her, or force her to do what he so clearly wanted to do. He had come upon her nearly naked, and he had put not one hand wrong upon her. He had been nothing but the soul of kindness and he did not deserve this distrust.

  She would do whatever it took, whatever was necessary, because she felt clearly in her own heart that this was her last chance. If she was forced to leave, if she ran from this place, there would be no more chances for her. She would fall down into that dark hole of memory that was waiting for her and she would never fight her way to the top. She would live in fear forever.

  Maggie firmed her chin. She was not a coward, and she could do this thing. With this decision came resolution and she dressed and made her way to the kitchens with a firm step, not faltering until she put her hand on the door.

  He was in there. She could feel him. Maggie took a deep breath and pushed the door open. Nick sat with his back to her, at the table. His broad shoulders were slumped, his posture that of a defeated man. His face when he turned toward her made her gasp, for she had never seen such a maelstrom of emotion so clearly visible to the eye. His every thought was available to her, and she felt as if he had suddenly risen and stripped off every piece of his clothing. She saw

  anger, and pity, and confusion, and desire, all jumbled together. He was naked to her for mere moments, and then he broke eye contact by turning away. When he turned back, a film had dropped over his magnificent eyes, and it was as if that moment of unity had never happened.

  “I have made coffee,” he said quietly. “All I require this morning is a light breakfast, perhaps some toast and an egg. Oh, and Tommy will be moving into an upstairs bedroom today. Will you get one ready for him, please?”

  Maggie stood and looked at him, then crossed the kitchen and poured herself a cup of the black, steaming coffee, breathing appreciatively of its comforting fragrance. She went to stand behind his chair, deliberately touching his shoulder with a trembling hand. She felt him stiffen beneath her touch, and she began.

  “My parents died when I was fifteen, in a carriage accident,” she said. “They were coming home from a party at a friend’s house. They were very happy, and always laughing. It made others happy to be around them; they had lots of friends. My father’s name was Patrick, my mother’s was Suisan.”

  His hand came up to cover hers and his head bowed. He knew how much courage it had taken for her to close the gap between them and lay that hand upon his shoulder, and his heart twisted in his chest. What did it cost her to do so? How excruciating was it for her to search so deeply inside herself for the mettle that she needed to do this? Her fear was glaring and tangible; it touched every aspect of her life, and it forced her to see all the ugliness that resided in the world, to see it without the filter of magic or dreams or even charm. And it was not because it was her nature to see it that way, but because circumstances had forced her to view it thus in order to survive. He wanted to hold her and tell her that from now on everything would be all right. But he didn’t dare.

  “You do not have to,” he whispered. “I talked to Ned, and he told me what he knows.”

  “Yes,” Maggie said. “Yes, I do have to. I have gone much too long without saying it, kept it locked up inside me for far too long. It is a poison inside me that is eating me up and killing me a little more every day. You have already done so much for me, Nick, and now I must do something for you, by trusting you. You have given me faith in someone again. You have shown me that the world is not all oppression and greed, that it is not all about neglect and cruelty to others. You have given me hope, and you must forgive me for not recognizing it right away. It has been so long since I felt that emotion, you see. So let me tell you this story, both for you and for me."”

  Nick tightened his grip on her hand, and guided her to the chair in front of him. Maggie sat her coffee down and studied the grain of the wood table, unable to meet the pity she knew would be in his eyes.

  “My mother was an artist, a painter. A very good one, and very much sought after in St. Louis and elsewhere. She even got commissions for portraits all the way in New York, and in Boston. My father was always chasing rainbows, full of dreams. My mother and I sometimes tried to bring him down from the clouds, but my father’s world was so beguiling that we always ended up believing in his schemes.”

  A smile etched her mouth. Her face was soft with memories, and Nick wanted to trace the dreamy smile on her full lips. He wanted to touch her face with his fingers, softly, and teach her that all men were not bad, that they all did not hurt others for their own perverted pleasure.

  “It always came out right in the end. We had the income from my mother’s paintings, and we were a family. We loved each other. I had the best childhood, the absolute best.” Maggie’s lower lip trembled just a bit, and a finger began to trace a pattern on the cup in front
of her. The luminous glow in her emerald eyes began to dim.

  “After they died, a solicitor came to visit me. He told me that his name was David, and he seemed very kind. He told me that my father had made foolish investments, which was certainly no surprise to me. But everything else he had told me was a surprise, for I never once thought that my mother and father would leave me without the means to take care of myself. But this solicitor, David, told me that he had just received word that my Uncle Ned was dead, that I had no other living relatives, and that my house and all its contents had to be sold in order to meet my father’s debts. He would, however, allow me to stay in his lodgings, fully chaperoned of course, until I found some other place to go or he could make arrangements for me.”

  Maggie laughed, a bitter harsh bark so unlike her usual musical voice that it made Nick shift in his chair. “I was so grateful. I knew, of course, what my father was like, and it all seemed very possible, though my mother had told me that I had some money in trust. But I just supposed that my father had talked her into letting him spend it on one of his schemes. I was too shocked to make any decisions on my own and I was also too young to realize what that look in his eyes meant and I said yes . . . I went to live in his house and he treated me so gently, so carefully. Two months later he offered to marry me. I was so pathetically glad that I had somewhere to stay, I wanted so much to have a family again . . . and so I said yes and my days in hell began. He beat me into unconsciousness on our wedding night and told me that it was for my own good, and he smiled the whole time that he beat me.”

  A shudder racked her whole body, and Nick tightened his grasp upon her hand. “I was not allowed to be alone, ever. If I smiled at someone in the street, he beat me for flirting. Once, he nearly horsewhipped a young boy to death for winking at me, and then he beat me for intervening. I was forced to work like a drudge in my own household, and the help were paid extra to spy on me. They all soon found out there was money to be made that way, so if there was nothing to report, why, they made it up, and I paid the price for it. I was allowed to have no friends, and if any of the servants were caught being too friendly to me, or got caught covering up for me, he turned them out without a reference."

  She smiled a crooked smile that made Nick’s heart turn over in his breast. “I had no allies that way, you see. He locked me in my room for days on end with only a pitcher of water, no food, for any imagined wrongdoing. To teach me a lesson, he said. Then he would come at night to torture me. I slept under my bed some nights, wedged in the corner, waiting for him to come. He always dragged me out, though. I never got away from him.”

  “I am so sorry,” Nick whispered. “Maggie, I . . . I am so sorry.”

  Maggie smiled at him tremulously, and her free hand sketched an airy gesture. Her pointed chin rose almost defiantly.

  “It is over now . . . and I lived through it.” She smiled grimly. “That bastard could not kill me, or my spirit, though he tried.” She hesitated, and looked down at the scarred wooden table. Her brows drew together in a frown.

  “After . . . after he died, I found all the letters my Uncle Ned had written to me, and I realized that he had lied to me. He probably lied about the other things, too, the money and such, but it was too late to retrieve my parents’ possessions. I took the household money and left. I did not want any of his things. It would have made me feel . . . dirty. I felt dirty enough already.” Her gaze met his fleetingly, and then she bowed her head again. “I went to find Uncle Ned. It took me almost four months to get enough money to get here. I was lucky enough to find a kindly widow who let me stay with her for a while, and she paid me a pittance each week that I saved along with the money that I had taken. You know the rest. I had been here about a week when you hired me.”

  Nick sat silently and stared down at Maggie’s small hand inside his own large one. Her fingers were delicate, the tiny palm callused. It made him feel sick to his stomach, to think of Maggie hurt, and bleeding, and no-one there to help her.

  “I do not want to be afraid,” she said suddenly. She lifted her face to stare directly into his eyes. Nick fell down into the bottomless pit of swirling green, all the way down into her confusion and fright. He felt unprotected, as if he had lost a layer of skin. He wondered if she felt this way all the time, and if she did, how she could stand it.

  “I ... I do not want to be like this any more. Will you help me?”

  She turned her hand to curl her fingers trustingly around his, and his guilt flayed him raw. In answer, he squeezed her hand tighter, and made a silent promise to himself. This girl was too vulnerable, too hurt, for him to have the kind of relationship with her that he had in mind. She had given him something much more precious than her body in his bed, she had given him her trust, and he had never met anyone who needed a friend so very much. She needed him to be her friend, not her lover. He would just have to stop thinking of her that way . . . no matter how pretty her breasts were.

  "Maggie," Nick said hoarsely. "You are safe here. I promise you that. I want you to know that you have a home here as long as you wish it."

  As for Maggie, she stared at Nick and wondered what he would do if she told him the part of the story that she had left out, if he would still offer her a home. The part where she had killed her husband, and that she was sure to be hanged for his murder if they found her.

  THREE

  Maggie stood beside the water and watched the sun go down. She was done with her work for the day, and she was spending a few minutes in the now-familiar bower. She tried to slip away every day to come here, and in the two months since her life-changing encounter with Nick in this very place, she had missed only a few days.

  Rays of gold shot out from behind a fluffy cloud and limned the blue with gold. It dappled the water with sparkling flecks of ochre. The color and spectacle of the dying sun was a study in azure and amber, so beautiful it made her ache.This picture that nature had drawn in the sky deserved a series of paintings all its own, and she studied the vision with the fervent joy of a condemned man. She always had the nagging feeling lately that she did not deserve to be this happy, that it all would be taken away from her, and so she threw herself headlong into each new experience, fearing to miss a sunrise, a sunset, the new puppies that Sadie the three-legged hound had in the stables. Maggie had gaped when she had first come across the homely, skinny dog in the stables, for she had never seen such a sight. Nick had told her that when Sadie was a puppy, she had been run over by a carriage. He had been so attached to the ugly little thing that he had taken her to Doctor Fell, who had amputated her crushed leg above the knee and fixed her other hurts. He was glad, he said, that he had done it, for Sadie was the best hunting dog that he had ever had, even with three legs, and a more loyal, loving hound could not be found in all of Missouri. She was renowned in this area, and folks came from miles around just for the chance to get one of her puppies.

  The evening breeze kissed her face and ruffled her skirt around her ankles, and Maggie closed her eyes and raised her face, loving the way everything felt when she could not see. When she closed her eyes, all her other senses exploded in delight, making scents and touch ever so very much more potent. The air smelled of warm grass and pine, and she drew the scent deeply into her lungs. She opened her mouth, trying to taste the wind, wondering what flavor it would leave on her tongue. Would it be sweet or sour, salty or bitter? A tart crispness burst on her tongue, reminding her of the sips of wine her mother used to give her at special occasions. She laughed softly, knowing that no wine had ever tasted this good. Maggie hugged her arms around herself and did a little dance of sheer delight. Life was so precious, and she wanted to drink it all up, dance it all up, live it all up. One day she might wake from this beautiful dream, and she wanted plenty of memories to comfort her when that happened. Life was turning into a great big series of wonderful surprises, and she could not wait to stick her hand down into it and drag something else out to play with. She did not want to follow rules that s
eemed wrong anymore, do things that were contrary to what she believed. She was not safe, no-one ever was despite what they might think, and she would rather be filled with joy and uncertainty for one minute than spend eternity in a fog of gray.

  She scuffed her bare feet in the warm grass on her way back to the house, boots dangling from the tips of her finger. A smile just barely turned up the corners of her mouth; her gait was languid and slow, her hips rolling in a way that set Nick’s blood to pumping as he watched her from the end of the path.

  His brows drew together in a scowl as he watched her; with her hair mussed and her clothes in disarray, she looked entirely too good to him, as if she had just come from her lover’s bed, and it made him angry that he could not control the sudden upsurge of desire he felt whenever he was in her presence. He was a grown man, for pity’s sake, and he felt seventeen again, always hiding his arousal behind something and praying that no-one would notice. He was as grumpy as a bear with a sore paw, snapping and snarling at anyone who dared to come near, and he was tired as hell of that, too. He knew that he was being a stupid bastard, and he could not seem to stop that, either. He hated this, hated this feeling of not being in command of his own body and thoughts.

  Ned had practically told him to go to hell this morning, and Kathleen, that fount of cheerfulness, who never had a harsh word to say to anyone except in jest, had told him to clean up his own damned office if he was going to be so rude. Then she had stomped out, her spine straight as a poker and her sturdy legs pumping so purposefully that they had sent her skirts swinging wildly around her. He grinned to himself, tickled all of a sudden by the memory. Somewhere along the way in her growing up, she had learned restraint. The last time Kathleen had got that angry with him, she had thrown half the contents of the library at him. ‘Course, she had only been eight at the time and he ten, and he had put a bug down her dress, so he had deserved it. He had got a terrible whipping from his mother, along with a lecture on the proper treatment of women, and Kathleen had been sent home early. Come to think of it, he was lucky that she had not thrown the whole library at him this time, because he had the sneaking suspicion that he deserved it.