Memory's Embrace

by Linda Lael Miller

  Satisfied that he looked as handsome as ever, Cedrick tried the door and found it open. A small bell tinkled over his head as he passed inside.

  “Tess?”

  She came down the stairs, a bounding, gazelle-like creature, her delightful hair tumbling about her shoulders and breasts, reaching well past her waist. There was a fetching pink glow in her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes that bespoke of an interesting afternoon.

  As he removed his fine beaver top hat, Cedrick wondered idly who had taken her. In the final analysis, he didn’t care—having her himself would be no less of a pleasure for it. Virgins were so tiresome, while women who knew the possibilities of pleasure were generally pliable, responsive.

  “Hello, Cedrick,” she said, somewhat shyly, averting her eyes for a moment. He pondered the fact that the bodice of her pink calico dress was misbuttoned and, imagining the plump delights hidden beneath, felt himself harden.

  He bowed slightly, his hat still in his hand, glad that he hadn’t worn his cutaway coat, but one that hid his masculine appreciation. “Tess,” he greeted her, in cordial return. “Have you read my play?”

  All day long he’d been preparing himself for whatever polite excuses she would offer. He was quite taken aback when she said, “Yes, I’ve read it. And I liked it. Very much. I have it here, in fact—if you’ll just wait a moment—”

  Suavely, Cedrick nodded. Oh, to get that little wench into a closed carriage or a dressing room at the theater ….

  She disappeared again, into the upper apartments, a place no doubt as dreary and common as the shop itself, returned in moments with the play. She offered the manuscript shyly, as she had offered her smile earlier.

  “You will consider reading for a part?”

  “I couldn’t,” came the soft response. God, whoever had tamed her had done a masterful job of it. Gone was the saucy hoyden of before, in her place was this angelic little confection, all pink and gold and pliant.

  Cedrick had been of the opinion that Tess needed nothing so much as a thorough spanking; he was almost disappointed to find her so docile. “Please reconsider,” he said. “And by the way, Cynthia and I were hoping that you might join us at dinner tonight. We don’t have a performance this evening, and Rod and his lovely new wife have already agreed—”

  “I’m busy tonight,” she said. Sweetly, but firmly, too. So taken was he with her that it had taken Cedrick all this while to realize that she was saying no to the role in his play. Saying no to everything.

  He was quietly furious. Oh, to toss up her skirts and doff her drawers and discipline her as she so richly deserved! But Cedrick didn’t dare, not until after he’d bedded her. Once that sweet chore had been taken care of, he would bring Tess Bishop swiftly to heel. Oh, yes. After she’d brought him a slipper and bared her sweet, plump bottom to his manly punishment a few times, she would obey him without question. “I’ll send our carriage by tonight, just in case you change your mind,” he said, calling on all his acting abilities, keeping a rein on his temper.

  Outside, his play under one arm and his pride under the other, Cedrick climbed back into his carriage, where a young actress awaited him. Eleanor was a woman who understood obedience, understood masculine superiority.

  The imaginary scenario with Tess was vivid in his mind. He couldn’t stop picturing the golden-ivory bottom, upturned in his lap. It would flush a pretty pink when he’d spanked her ….

  Cedrick hardened to the point of pain. He snapped his fingers and scowled at Eleanor, who promptly knelt between his legs, unbuttoned his trousers, and attended him. Because he imagined that it was Tess who pleasured him—a contrite and henceforth obedient Tess—his release was explosive.

  Still, when the carriage came to a stop, some minutes later, in front of his stately house, he glowered at Eleanor.

  “You have displeased me,” he said.

  It was a game, they both knew that. And Eleanor played for her own reasons. No flash of rebellion sparked in her blue eyes, and the flush in her cheeks was not one of anger. She climbed out of the carriage without Cedrick’s help and walked into the house.

  Cedrick loved this game; it made him feel strong, and in command. But today, as he took off his light suit coat and hung it on the hall-tree, along with his best beaver hat, he looked forward to the scene that would take place in his room with something other than anticipation—contempt. He felt contempt, for himself as well as Eleanor.

  Tess left the shop door open to the spring breeze after Cedrick had gone, though she couldn’t have said why. It was as though he had left a bad smell behind.

  She hummed as she dusted a counter she hoped would soon be lined with customers. And in addition to her business, she would have a husband, a man she truly, fiercely, shamelessly loved!

  Was ever a woman so wealthy?

  The bell over the door chimed in the soft wind, and Tess looked up automatically, smiling.

  Emma stood before her, looking plump and disgruntled in one of her many new dresses. “Oh, Tess,” she began, and then she positively blubbered with unhappiness.

  Inwardly, Tess was annoyed, but a look of concern for her friend passed over her face and she asked, “Emma, what is it?”

  “Rod is seeing another woman!” wailed Emma.

  Tess gathered her friend under one arm, ushered her to one of the chairs underneath the windows, where clients would soon await their sittings. “But you’ve only been married—”

  “I know how long we’ve been married!” cried Emma. “And he’s smitten with that—that blonde actress! He told me so himself.”

  Tess gritted her teeth. Rod certainly hadn’t waited long; the moment Asa and Olivia had left town, he’d dropped all pretense of being a real husband. “Emma, you did force him to marry you—”

  “I thought I c-could make him happy!” came the moistly nasal response. “But he didn’t even give me a chance!”

  “I’m sorry,” said Tess, in a gentle voice. For she was sympathetic, if not surprised.

  Emma was dabbing at her sodden cheeks with a handkerchief already bearing her monogram in silken thread. “There’s more!” she sobbed dramatically. “We’re being put out of our hotel, too!”

  “But Rod had money—I know he did!”

  Emma’s curvaceous little body trembled with outrage and hopeless despondency. “He invested it all in that stupid play of Mr. Golden’s! He says it’s going to make us rich in our own right, so that we don’t have to take so much as one more red cent from Mr. Thatcher—”

  “That fool!” spat Tess. “Did he get a part in the play, at least?”

  “W-We’re supposed to find out tonight. Oh, Tess, where will we live in the meantime? What will we do?”

  Tess would have liked to say that that was rightfully Rod’s problem, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Emma seemed so small and young and scared. “What did Rod say about it? About where you would live, I mean?”

  “He said you would put us up. Right here.” Emma sat up very straight and looked damply hopeful. “Oh, would you, Tess? Just until Roderick realizes that I’m the woman he needs—”

  “Emma, I’m being married today! I can’t have you and Rod here—”

  Emma’s brown eyes widened. “You’re being married? And you weren’t going to tell us? Your own family?”

  Tess had never wanted to slap Emma before, but the desire was all but irresistible now. “We made the decision rather suddenly—”

  “Who? Who is he?” Emma broke in, eager now. Even after her own devastating experience with marriage, the institution seemed to fascinate her.

  “Keith Corbin. His name is Keith Corbin. Emma, you and Rod will just have to—”

  “I won’t make a sound, I promise!” Emma swore, tears welling in her eyes again. “And Roderick—Roderick probably won’t even be here—”

  “Probably? Rod ‘probably’ won’t be here? Emma, you know how small my rooms are—”

  “I’ll be on the street if you turn me aw
ay.”

  Tess began to pace, wanting to scream. Wanting to throw things. Wanting to wring Emma Thatcher-Waltam’s neck.

  “I’d invite you in a moment,” Emma bristled, sitting up very straight now, “if the situation were reversed. And you know it, Tess Bishop!”

  Tess did know. She couldn’t refuse her friend shelter, for heaven’s sake. “You could leave Rod. I would buy you a train ticket back to Simpkinsville and—”

  “Never,” said Emma firmly.

  Tess gave a heavy sigh. Some wedding night this was going to be, with Emma blubbering in the spare room and Rod throwing in his hat at who-knew-what hour, after a tryst with Cynthia Golden. Some wedding night indeed.

  Chapter Fourteen

  IT WAS SO EASY TO FIND HIM. SO EASY.

  The Lord had His hand on Cornelia Hamilton’s shoulder. How else could she have known that she would find the peddler here, in Portland? How could she have encountered him, in a city where there were thousands of people, within minutes of her arrival?

  But there he was, walking out of a jewelry store. He was wearing finer clothes than he had in Simpkinsville, and smiling. Smiling.

  Cornelia hated him. He was a demon from hell, surely—look what he had done to her family. She fell into step behind him, her cloak pulled tight around her.

  He walked rapidly, as though eager to complete his business. Cornelia had to hurry to keep up with him.

  Once, he looked back, as though he had sensed that someone was following him. Seeing Cornelia, he dismissed her.

  A mistake.

  Oh, but he was handsome. She could almost see why Emma had succumbed to him. He had the face one might expect of a warrior angel.

  She had lost Jessup, lost Emma. Because of him. She reminded herself of that as she hurried along.

  The city was so noisy, and full of strange smells. Cornelia didn’t like the city, wanted to get away.

  He stepped into an alleyway, whistling. Never dreaming, probably, that justice was upon him. Or almost.

  Cornelia followed him into the alley; he was striding through the shadows, probably taking a short cut somewhere. He seemed so busy.

  “Mr. Shiloh?” Cornelia called after him.

  He stopped, turned. Cornelia read polite impatience in his manner.

  “Mr. Joel Shiloh?”

  He looked as though he might deny the name, then sighed and inclined his head. “What is it?”

  Cornelia drew the small, two-shot derringer out from beneath her cloak. She leveled it, he lunged toward her.

  He was too late. One bullet struck him in the head, the other in the area of his heart, as far as Cornelia could discern. He collapsed, face down, and blood stained the dirt around him.

  Cornelia heard the shouts, the running feet. There were people all around her, one of them wearing a badge, all of them chattering at each other. Talking so fast that she couldn’t understand them.

  She smiled, even as she was arrested. It didn’t matter what happened to her; she was the woman who had killed the devil.

  After settling the distraught Emma in the spare room, where she was now snoring like a lumberjack, Tess retired to her own small chambers to prepare for her wedding. Olivia had been able to save the yellow lawn gown that Rod had stained with wine that night at dinner; she would wear that.

  She brushed her hair until it shimmered with coppery brown highlights and then pinned it into a soft knot on top of her head.

  And then she paced.

  Twilight came and Emma still slept noisily in the spare room, but Keith did not return. Tess went to her window, time and time again, but none of the faces passing by on the street below were his.

  Where could he be? He’d said he would be back in a little while. But he had been gone for hours.

  He had changed his mind, that was it. Maybe he had never intended to buy a ring, never intended to marry her.

  Tess bounded out into the kitchen, blushed to remember what had happened on that table. Amelie’s ring, still affixed to its chain, was there, mute and heartening proof—

  Proof of what?

  Tess paced here as she had paced in the bedroom. Perhaps Keith was in a saloon somewhere, fortifying himself for the ceremony to come. Perhaps—

  But he didn’t seem to drink much; she’d only seen him intoxicated the one time, back in Simpkinsville, after Mrs. Hollinghouse-Stone’s free love lecture. Besides, he’d seemed eager to marry, not reluctant.

  Tess bit her lower lip. Where could he be? Where?

  The bell downstairs tinkled and she rushed to investigate, only to find a liquor-flushed, defensive Rod standing just over the threshold. “Is Emma here?” he demanded.

  Tess’s hand tightened on the stairway’s rickety banister. “Yes. She was very upset when she arrived, Rod.”

  He bristled, closed the shop door behind him. “Emma is too easily upset.”

  “Yes,” retorted Tess, with dry annoyance. “And over little things like having no money, no place to live, and a husband who openly admits to philandering.”

  “I invested that money!”

  “You might as well have tossed it down the privy, and we both know it, Rod. You were trying to buy a part in Cedrick’s stupid play.”

  “It isn’t a ‘stupid play,’ Tess—it’s a work of art. A part in it could make me—”

  “You are a total idiot.”

  Rod absorbed this accusation with a grimace, swaying slightly on his feet. His eyes swept over Tess’s salvaged yellow gown with brotherly appreciation. “At least you’re going to dinner with us. That might help.”

  “I’m not doing anything of the sort. I’m supposed to get married.”

  “Married?! When? To whom—that peddler?”

  “Yes, married. Tonight. To ‘that peddler.’”

  “Where is he, then?” asked Rod, reasonable in a testy sort of way.

  I wish I knew, despaired Tess, blanching just a bit and losing all her aplomb.

  Rod brightened. “Then you can help me. You can sell this shop and perhaps give me a loan from your account—”

  No longer did Tess sag; she went rigid. “There will be no loan, Rod, and I’m not about to sell my shop. I’ll look after Emma, and that’s the extent of it.”

  “What about me?”

  “You’ll have to fend for yourself. This place is too small for four people.”

  “So he’s going to live here, this husband you’ve snared. Can’t he even provide for his own wife?”

  “A remarkable question, coming from you, Rod—dear.”

  Rod had the decency to look somewhat chagrined. He thrust his hands into his no doubt empty trouser pockets and dipped his head. “It’s not that I don’t care for Emma—”

  “Flinging your fascination with Cynthia Golden in her face hardly constitutes devotion, Rod.”

  Rod flinched. “I was forced into this marriage, Tess. You know that.”

  “And for what? Money to give to Cedrick—who probably has plenty of his own?”

  “You’ve got to help me, Tess. Please. Be in the play—that’s all I ask. Then I can be in it, too, and prove to Cedrick that I—”

  “Cedrick, Cedrick. Rod, wake up. You’ve been had, don’t you see that? Fleeced. I have a shop to run and absolutely no desire to be an actress—”

  “If you won’t do it for me, do it for Emma.”

  Tess averted her eyes. Shadows were netting the streets, people were hurrying homeward for supper. Where, oh, where, was Keith? “There are some things I will not do, Rod—not even for Emma.”

  “At least go to dinner with us.”

  “I told you—”

  “I know. That you were getting married. You look a little frazzled to me, Tess. It’s almost as if you think—”

  “Think what?” snapped Tess.

  “That you’ve been had. Fleeced, as you put it before.”

  Tess paled again, her grasp on the banister tightened. Damn it, Rod had reached inside her, somehow, and touched her rawest fear.


  “He isn’t going to come back, Tess.” Again, Rod’s eyes swept over her, this time with something very much like contempt. “My guess would be that your peddler has already gotten what he wanted. No doubt, he’s moved on by now.”

  “No,” Tess said weakly. “No.”

  Rod only shrugged. “I want to see my wife,” he said, and as he passed his sister on the stairs, he was careful not to look at her.

  Tess went to the shop’s front window and peered out. Keith, she thought, in despair. Keith.

  He did not answer her summons; only strangers passed the shop.

  Full darkness came, and, with it, Cedrick Golden’s carriage.

  Emma and Rod came down the stairs arm in arm, as though this were their home and not Tess’s, ready to go and hobnob with the Goldens.

  “Come with us, Tess,” Rod urged softly. “It’s obvious, after all, that you’ve been stood up.”

  It was. Tess lowered her head as Cedrick came into the shop, filling it with that sweet-spicy scent that made her want to fling open windows.

  Cedrick caught her hand in his and suavely kissed it. “You’ve changed your mind. Oh, Tess, how lovely you look—”

  This is supposed to be my wedding night, Tess wanted to scream.

  “My sister is looking forward to joining us,” Rod put in archly. “Aren’t you, dear?”

  Tess glared at him, flushed. She was trapped. She had a choice between pacing that shop like a forlorn ghost or getting through the evening by visiting the Goldens. In her heart, she knew that Keith was not going to come, that there would be no marriage.

  “Yes,” she said lamely, not meeting Rod’s eyes or Cedrick’s or even Emma’s. “Yes.”

  “Wonderful!” crowed Cedrick, offering his arm, which Tess took with the greatest reluctance.

  He was spinning, end over end, through a wide tunnel. As he drew nearer to the dazzling light at the end, the warming, pulling light, his pace slowed and he floated.

  He did not seem to have a body, though he was conscious of being himself.

  The tunnel faded, and Keith was in a place he could not define or describe; a place that was not a place but more of an entity.