by Jane Goodger
“Let’s go home,” he said, finally pulling away.
“Your mother…”
“Feels terrible about what happened. Not an hour after you left, she regretted her rash demand that you leave.”
Sara shook her head with worry. “Surely she is still angry. And I wouldn’t blame her.”
“She is angry with both of us for lying. But she has forgiven us. I think she understands why we did what we did.”
“And Gardner?”
“Gardner was very angry,” West said, rubbing his jaw remembering the punch he’d received from his younger brother. “Is still angry.”
Sara for the first time saw the reddened, slightly swollen mark on West’s cheek, his split lip, and her eyes widened with alarm. “He struck you?”
“A sucker punch out of nowhere. He’s got a matching mark on his face,” West said with male smugness.
Sara worried her hands together. “That’s what I didn’t want to happen. I never wanted to cause a rift between you and your brother.”
“Then you should have stayed away from Gardner in the first place,” West said, letting out a bit of the hurt and anger he didn’t even realize he still harbored.
“I didn’t think I was getting between anything,” Sara said softly. She began to walk again, but West stopped her with an iron grip.
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t think you’d care if I married Gardner.”
“How could you think such a thing?” he said, shock clear in his face. “My God, Sara, my heart was ripped out of my chest so many times in the past three years, it’s a wonder there’s anything left of it. When I thought you had been killed in that storm, I wanted to die.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Sara whispered, remembering the pain of her broken heart when she left Hilo, the long, long months of mourning a love she finally convinced herself had never existed.
“Because I’m so damned noble. I didn’t think it was right to make you wait for me when I might be gone for another three years, or might not return at all. When you told me you loved me, I wanted to tell you then, but I couldn’t. Too damned virtuous. And then you left. I watched you in that boat, rowing toward the Bonny Lassie, and with every stroke of that oar I wanted to call you back.”
Tears filled Sara’s eyes. “But you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t,” West said, cupping her cheek with his hand, his eyes closing briefly, as if he were reliving those hellish months. “And I regretted it every day that passed. Regretted it until it was like a disease fouling my soul.”
“You sent a note. What did it say?”
He kissed her softly. “I asked you to wait for me.”
Sara swayed and he caught her against him. She shook her head in denial. How many tears would that note have stopped? How much pain could have been avoided? “It didn’t say that. Tell me it didn’t.”
He gave her a sad smile. “It did. That’s why when I returned home, and you seemed so happy to see me, I simply assumed you had received it. I assumed you had waited.”
Sara, her cheek resting against his chest, said, “I did, didn’t I? I waited. I think I would have waited forever.”
“My only regret is that Gardner got hurt.”
“I do love him, you know. But I don’t think I ever would have married him, though I told myself I would. He’s one of the most charming, handsome men I’ve ever known. Yet, he wasn’t you. Perhaps that’s why I allowed him to pursue me. I didn’t feel out of control when I was with Gardner. We had fun together, we were friends. I felt safe with him.”
“Safe?”
“West, you make me feel as if I’m shattering. I was ashamed of myself, embarrassed. I thought I had thrown myself at a man who didn’t love me.”
West brought his head down and captured her lips. His tongue swept inside, his hands crushed her against him. When he lifted his head, Sara nearly stumbled. “You see,” she said with breathless accusation, “I have no control over myself when I’m with you.”
“I think we should get married tonight.”
Sara giggled. “We can’t.” He kissed her. “We need a license, a priest.” More kisses, until her words faded away. “A dress,” she managed in a whisper.
“I can’t wait for all that,” he said, pressing himself against her so she would know how much he desired her.
“Well, really!” A elderly woman stopped to gape at the couple, clearly affronted by the public display before her.
West pulled slowly away, and gave the old lady a bow. “My apologies, Mrs. Finch.”
“West Mitchell!”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
A glint of amusement came into her faded gray eyes as she gave Sara, whose cheeks had turned scarlet, an assessing look. “See that you marry the girl,” she said, rapping her cane once before continuing her walk.
“I plan to, Mrs. Finch. I’ll tell mother to send you an invitation.”
She waved a hand acknowledging his remark, then disappeared around the corner.
“I know Mrs. Finch,” Sara said, mortified. “Thank God she didn’t recognize me.”
West let out a deep chuckle. “I’m sure she’ll figure it all out the day of the wedding.” Taking a fortifying breath. “Let’s go home, shall we?”
With little enthusiasm, Sara agreed, dreading the coming confrontation with West’s family. She dreaded something else more. Until her name was publicly cleared of murder, she would not marry West and bring shame to his family.
Chapter SIXTEEN
“You can’t be serious.”
Sara set her jaw stubbornly. “I’m absolutely serious. And if you take two minutes to think about it, I’m sure you’ll agree.”
The only thing West could agree upon was that he wanted to throttle her. Then make love to her. Perhaps not in that order. When Sara had dragged him to his mother’s small sitting room the moment they entered the house—managing to sneak inside without notice—the last thing he expected was for Sara to put off the wedding. He’d thought, with hope and lust singing through his veins, that she’d pulled him into that room to express some of her own desire. He stood, his hands clutching the back of a wooden rocking chair, and prayed for patience. How could she know that everything he’d dreamed about for two years stood not ten feet away from him? It was almost like giving a man lost for days in a desert a single drop of water before pouring the remaining cool liquid into the burning sand.
“I’ve brought enough trouble to this family,” she said. “I will not bring more.”
“What garbage.”
Oh, he could see that really ruffled her feathers. “It isn’t. It’s the truth. We cannot marry with the specter of an unsolved murder hanging over my head. How can you not see that?”
West moved away from the chair, setting it to rocking madly. “The only thing I see is the woman I love holding herself from me again. I’ve waited long enough, Sara.”
“It is your fault we were not married years ago,” she said with a triumphant note, and West found he could not disagree with her. He walked to her, saw her grow wary, as if suspecting he would try to kiss her into submission. He gave that idea a long thought before deciding in favor of an intellectual argument. Kisses might not sway his stubborn lady, but calm debate just might.
“Sara, listen to me. We might never be able to prove your innocence. We’d need one of those thugs to come forward, and I’d say that is highly unlikely.”
“But what about the investigator you plan to hire? Certainly he will find something out.”
He put his hands gently on her shoulders. “He might not. They could have all fled like that Nathan fellow. What will you have us do? Wait years, possibly in vain, for an answer? Sara, we may never find out who truly killed that man or your parents. Are you willing to wait forever? I can tell you now,” he said, his voice growing hard, “that I am not.”
West saw doubt in her eyes and knew he was close to convincing her. “I want children, Sara. Your chil
dren.” Her startling blue eyes darted up, her gaze searching.
“Perhaps it’s best we never know who was behind the murders,” she whispered. At his questioning look, she explained in a halting voice that she suspected her father was behind the murder of the young man found near their house.
“And I was an unwitting witness, so the thugs involved decided to get rid of everyone who knew anything. Including my father. So, you see, though I’d like to know in my heart my father wasn’t involved, I’m terribly afraid he was. But if there’s a chance he wasn’t, if we can find out what happened that night, I think we should try.”
West smiled down at her. “Of course we should try. But I don’t see why that should mean we need to delay our wedding.” If he expected her to immediately agree, he was disappointed. Instead, she pulled away from him and walked to the window, to look outside at a darkening world.
“Do you really want the daughter of a murderer for a wife? The daughter of an adulteress? Perhaps you can overlook these things, but will others?” She turned to him then, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears. “I haven’t much to bring to you, I’m afraid. Except shame.”
He was by her side in three strides, sweeping her into his arms, pulling her to him, silencing her words, expelling her doubts. “Don’t think that. Don’t you ever think that, Sara,” he said roughly against her ear. With a gentle hand on the side of her face, he forced her to look at him. “Do you know what you bring to me? Happiness, Sara. And love, and a reason to breathe. I wish you could have seen me when I thought you’d died, then you’d know without a doubt that I would cut my own life short to be with you. I even made a bargain with God that he could take my life if only he would give you yours. Thank goodness he didn’t take me up on that bargain,” he said with a deep chuckle. Sara gave him a watery smile.
“I always felt beneath you. Socially, I mean,” she said, and she pressed a hand to his mouth when he made to protest. “I know that’s silly, now. But the truth is, I lied to your mother and brother. I very well could be the daughter of a murderer, of a woman who had affairs with young men. I can’t help but feel tainted by that. Can you understand?”
“Hurt by it? Yes. But not tainted, Sara. You are separate from them. A good, kind, generous woman, who I love to distraction. And who, I might add, I want to make love to every night for the rest of my life. Starting tonight.”
She pursed her lips together in a way that made West’s blood surge hotly. “No,” she said with a coquettish smile so unlike her that West nearly laughed.
“Yes,” he growled, and kissed her, long and hard, giving her a convincing argument to begin the rest of their life that instant. He was intoxicated by her, a single kiss only serving to increase his need for more. And more. When he put his hand on her breast, she leaned into him, a sigh escaping her parted lips. When he rubbed his thumb across her hardened nipple and she moaned, he crushed her to him, giving a mental holler of triumph.
“You win,” she gasped, when he nipped her breast gently through her dress, and he immediately began working on the tiny buttons down the front of her bodice. Her hands stilled his near-frantic movement.
“West!”
He pulled away, just far enough so that his lust-dazed eyes could focus on her. “Yes,” he asked, moving his mouth to hers, tasting her soft lips.
“Oh,” she said. “You make this so hard.”
He pulled her against him. “Mmm.”
“Not that,” she said, laughing, and pushing away to re-do the buttons he’d undone. “I’m not going to take the chance on your mother or, God forbid, your brother coming in an discovering us.”
He gave her another scorching kiss before reluctantly stepping back. “One week. I want to be married within one week and I’ll not brook an argument from you. Do you understand?”
“I do hate it when you use that captain’s tone with me,” she said, unsuccessfully hiding a smile.
“That is something, I’m afraid, love, that you’re going to have to get used to.”
On Santa Maria island there stood a barrel post, where whalers would post letters to home in hopes a ship homeward bound would get them to their loved ones. Some would stay in that barrel for as long as a year, all waiting for some whaling ship to pass by and collect the missives that would give a bit of joy to those opening them. They were letters to wives and mothers and sweethearts waiting at home and hungry for some proof that their loved ones still lived, still thought of them. There were letters from sweethearts written to sailors long-departed on whalers, giving them the sad news that they had married. And there were those that told of deaths, of births, of people left behind that would not be home when the sailors returned.
One particular letter, though, held no true greeting. It was written by a young Harvard man who had been looking for a bit of adventure and signed on upon the whaling ship Fortune. Though from far different stations, this young man, Herbert Wharton, befriended another sailor, Nathan Wright. Wharton was running from the threat of a life of boredom sharing a law practice with his father and grandfather, Nathan from a charge of murder. And yet, they were both young, seeking adventure and escape, and instead found the harsh life on a whaler that was nearly unbearable. They stank of gurry, that sickening mess of whale blood, guts and oil, no matter how many cold, salt-water baths they took. And there weren’t many of those. They were exhausted sometimes, bored most of the time, and in the midst of men who would murder them as well as pass the time playing cards with them. They didn’t belong. They had only each other. Until one of them died.
But before death came, sneaking up painfully, slowly, Nathan Wright had a chance to redeem himself, to prove that he was worthy of a friend such as Herbert Wharton. He was dying and so very afraid he would end up in hell. It ate at him, this terror of dying, until the only thing he could do was confess his sins to the only man on board ship who would care. Wharton helped him word the thing, the whole time shaking as he painstakingly transcribed his best friend’s words. He was not shocked by the confession, only saddened that his friend would die with a murder on his soul. He urged Nathan to pray for forgiveness, and the two of them, when Nathan had the energy, prayed fervently for redemption.
“I, Nathan Wright, do solemnly swear upon my death bed, that I and three others are responsible for the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Dawes of New Bedford, and a young man from Vermont whose name I do not know. We were hired to kill the Vermont man for consorting with Mrs. Dawes. Though Sam did the killing, I did not stop him, so I have murder on my soul. We---Sam Trotter and I---were seen by Sara Dawes. We were ordered to get rid of all witnesses, and so set fire to the house. Sam, Jackson Taylor, Manny Perez, and I, were there that night. Judge Reynolds ordered the killings. I know not why.
May God forgive me. I cannot forgive myself.
Nathan Wright
Nathan died four days after putting his mark on the signed confession. Herbert signed it as a witness. When Nathan died, he left behind a body so wasted that the hardest of the sailors joked the corpse wouldn’t even tempt a shark. Herbert kept the letter safe inside his shirt until the time he could post it. He did so on a cold and blustery day when the ship made a stop at Santa Maria Island. And there the letter sat for nearly two years before finally being picked up by another whaler.
For another eight months, the letter was tucked among others in a leather pouch in the captain’s stateroom. The ship made its way to New Bedford, enjoying fair winds, its crew filled with the job of going home, unaware that its most important cargo wasn’t the precious oil in the hold, but a murder confession addressed to Zachary Dawes, of the whaler Julia.
Chapter SEVENTEEN
Sara awoke the day of her wedding slowly, a delicious curl of happy anticipation making her smile like a well-contented cat. She stretched, feeling her muscles quiver, feeling every inch of her body come alive. She nestled deeper into her covers, a cool breeze filtering through the window, filling her lungs with sweet spring air. She could not remember bein
g so happy, so contented, so utterly pleased with herself.
This would be the last morning she would wake up alone. She’d spent the last night clinging to a pillow instead of to the man she’d marry, the last hours as Sara Dawes. And when she remembered who Sara Dawes was, she pushed that thought resolutely away. Sara Dawes was the woman marrying West Mitchell, she was not the daughter of a murderer and a loose woman. After today, she wouldn’t be Sara Dawes at all.
She pressed the heels of her hands over her eyes. “Damn,” she said aloud. It didn’t matter how many times she tried to convince herself her past didn’t matter, it did. It hung there like a dark specter, a constant reminder of who she was, and that who she was had no right marrying a Mitchell.
She’d thought she’d gotten past a lifetime of being made to feel ashamed of who she was, but realized she could not. How many times had her mother warned her against even looking at a man who held a higher station. She knew now her mother was warning her away from the same life of misery she’d led. It was, perhaps, the only loving gesture her mother had ever given her. Now that Sara knew what her mother had gone through, she could put the events of her life in perspective, she could examine every nasty thing her mother had said to her and at least try to understand.
Evelyn Dawes had raised Sara to be a lady and yet told her to never look above her true low station. She’d made certain Sara knew how to read and write, to eat properly, to sit straight and hold herself proud. But she’d also told her time and again to expect nothing from life but drudgery. She wanted her daughter to act the part of a wealthy woman but tore down even the tiniest efforts Sara made to comply. She was, in effect, preparing Sara for her own twisted reality of what life had become.
Though only a small number of people were invited to the wedding, Sara feared hearing tell-tale gasps of outrage when the reverend said her name aloud during their vows. Having lived through the hysteria of a mob, Sara couldn’t help but picture the wedding guests turning against her, chanting, “Murderer, murderer.” She’d told West her fears and he’d chuckled.
