“Is he dead?”
Emma and Jubal turned Macon over onto his back. He was breathing, but unconscious, and his shirtfront was soaked with so much blood that it was impossible to tell exactly where the wound was.
“No,” Emma said briskly. “Go and get the doctor, Nathaniel, right now.”
He nodded, turned, and groped his way out of the room.
Emma’s fingers were sticky with Macon’s blood as she unbuttoned his shirt and searched for the wound. It was high in the right side of his chest, and inch or two below the collarbone.
Macon groaned.
“Let’s get him onto the bed,” Emma said, and she and Jubal and another woman hoisted him to his feet and half carried, half dragged him back to Emma’s bed.
“He’s bleedin’ like a stuck pig,” Jubal fretted.
Emma found the nearest pulse point and pressed on it hard with three fingers, the way she’d seen Chloe do years before, when Emma had stepped on a rusted barrel hoop and cut open her knee. The flow slowed to a seepage. “Get some hot water,” Emma called to anyone who might be listening, and she was rewarded with the sound of footsteps thundering down the stairs.
During the coming hour Emma and Jubal managed to stop the bleeding, clean Macon up a little, and bandage his wound. He still hadn’t regained consciousness, though.
Another hour had passed before the doctor arrived, and he stared at Emma in amazement when she met him in the hall, her hair trailing, wearing a wrapper stained crimson with blood.
“I’m not hurt,” she assured the man, wondering what, if anything, Nathaniel had told him. “It’s Macon.”
The portly snowy-haired man followed her into the room where Macon lay, still white as the best linen tablecloth in Emma’s hope chest. “What happened?” the doctor demanded, snapping open his bag and taking out a stethoscope, which he promptly fitted to his ears.
He was bending over Macon, listening to his heartbeat and to Emma’s explanation at the same time. She stumbled over the description of Macon’s attempted assault; everything seemed unreal now.
“Didn’t know at I was going to find when I got over here,” the doctor replied when she’d finished. He stood up straight again. “That boy was about as upset as anybody I’ve ever seen. He kept saying there’d been a murder.”
Emma said nothing while he unwrapped the wound, disinfected it, and bound it again.
“Whoever looked after this wound did a damned good job,” the doctor said, turning to face Emma. “Was it you?”
Emma’s throat was tight, and she felt a perverse desire to laugh at the irony of it all. She could do nothing to save Steven, the man she loved more than life, but she’d dragged Macon, practically her worst enemy, back from the brink of death. “I had help from Jubal,” she said.
He peered at her over the wire rims of his spectacles. “You’re Steven’s bride, aren’t you? I would have thought you’d be at your husband’s trial. Of course, Macon always did have a way with the ladies.”
Emma felt the bottom fall out of her stomach as she absorbed his implication. Then her cheeks were suffused with sudden color. Despite this, she managed to speak evenly and with cool dignity. “Macon may very well have ‘a way with the ladies,’ Doctor, but this lady loves her husband. I did not encourage my brother-in-law’s attentions.”
The old man studied her for a moment, then smiled somewhat sheepishly. “I apologize, Mrs. Fairfax,” he said. “It just seemed odd to me that you’d be here at Fairhaven, instead of in town, at the courthouse, like practically everybody else in this parish. Even the threat of yellow fever doesn’t keep them at home.”
Emma wasn’t going to explain, feeling she owed this offensive man nothing, but then it occurred to her that he might well be the one to bring her baby into the world, should she be carrying one. “I was overcome by the heat and the foul smell of the air,” she confessed, “and I fainted.”
The doctor looked her over with astute eyes. “Could be you’re carrying a child.”
He would never know how devoutly Emma hoped he was right. She averted her eyes, disconcerted at the prospect of discussing so intimate a topic with any man other than Steven. “Perhaps,” she said.
He turned to start down the hallway, black bag in hand. “I’ll come back and check on Macon around sunset. My guess is by that time he’ll be awake and grousing about the pain.”
Emma nodded uneasily, already dreading the task of explaining the afternoon’s events to Steven. He would want to kill Macon with his bare hands, and the man’s near-fatal wound might not deter him.
Jubal appeared with a clean wrapper of pale pink corduroy, probably belonging to Lucy, and gently took Emma’s arm. “You need a bath, Miss Emma. Let me help you.”
Now that the crisis was over, Emma was feeling weak again, and her knees were like pudding. She leaned on Jubal’s arm as the woman led her down the hallway toward Macon and Lucy’s quarters. She had to get away from her own rooms.
The scent of Lucy’s jasmine perfume filled the air, though the suite was empty. Lucy, like Cyrus, was at Steven&217;s trial.
“You can just bathe right in here,” Jubal went on. “I know Miss Lucy wouldn’t mind at all.”
For her part, Emma was almost as nervous about Lucy’s reaction to the events of the afternoon as she was about Steven’s. Telling the truth and still sparing her sister-in-law’s feelings would be patently impossible.
The bathroom in the master suite was dazzling. The tub was made of gray marble, streaked with white, and the fixtures looked to be gold-plated. There were thick, fluffy white rugs on the tiled floor, and a row of high lace-curtained windows flooded the chamber with light.
Solicitously, Jubal seated Emma on the lid of the commode before turning to start water running in the tub. “These here rooms belonged to Mr. Macon’s mama and daddy when I came here,” the black woman said, and Emma found herself wondering how old Jubal was. Her face was unwrinkled, her hair without a trace of gray, but there was a wealth of experience and pain visible in her eyes. “Afore that, it belonged to Mr. Cyrus and Miss Louella. Didn’t have running water so long as that, ‘course.”
Emma didn’t comment. She was busy looking back over the afternoon, realizing that she’d nearly been raped, that the man who’d accosted her was lying unconscious in the very bed where he’d meant to force himself on her.
“You all right, Miss Emma?” Jubal asked.
Emma nodded glumly and pushed the splayed fingers of one hand through her hair. It was matted with dried blood, and the smell filled her nostrils. She shivered.
After hesitating a few more moments, Jubal turned and went out.
The moment she was gone, Emma ripped the spoiled wrapper off, only to discover that the garments beneath were stained as well. Gingerly, she peeled them away and stepped into the tub.
She felt better once she’d soaked away every trace of Macon’s blood, but the shaky, tremulous feeling in her knees and shoulders remained. When she’d shampooed her hair and scoured herself with lemon-scented soap, she climbed from the tub and began drying off with one of the thick white towels Jubal had laid out for her.
She was using Lucy’s comb to work the tangles from her hair when there was a rap at the door and Steven came in, looking grim and pale. “Jubal told me you were here,” he said when Emma froze at the sight of him. “She said Nathaniel shot Macon.”
Emma nodded, not trusting herself to speak. More than anything in the world, she needed to be taken into Steven’s arms and held. She needed reassurance from him, and tenderness.
“Why?” he rasped, though the lethal expression in his eyes told Emma he already knew.
“He—Nathaniel was trying to protect me. Macon meant to—to—rape me.”
A curse exploded from Steven’s lips, but he stood ominously still. He glared at Emma for a long moment, as though everything were somehow her fault, and in that time she suffered the agony of the damned. Then, however, he gathered her into his arms, wet, tangle
d hair and all. “Did he hurt you?” he asked hoarsely, his lips moving against her temple.
“No,” Emma managed, clinging to him. “But he frightened me. Oh, God, Steven—I’ve never been so scared—”
“Shh,” Steven whispered, and he lifted her easily into his arms. “You need to lie down.”
“How did the trial go?” Emma asked anxiously, as he carried her out of Macon and Lucy’s sumptuously furnished suite and across the hall to what was probably a guest room.
He set her gently on the four-poster bed, drawing the coverlet up to her shoulders. Then taking the comb she still clutched in one hand, he began to groom her hair for her. The ritual was comforting, but he still hadn’t answered her question.
“Steven,” she prompted.
“Not well,” he answered reluctantly. “The trial is not going well. I sat there listening while everybody in New Orleans came forward and testified that I killed Mary McCall.”
Emma closed her eyes for a moment, nearly overwhelmed by panic, but she fought it down. She couldn’t afford to fall apart, though sometimes she thought it would be a mercy to retreat into a strange little world all her own, as Lucy did.
One of his hands gripped her bare shoulder. “It’s all right, Emma,” he reassured her.
“Is—is Lucy home? Someone will need to be with her—”
“Jubal is looking after her, and Cyrus sent somebody for the sheriff.”
Emma whirled to look up into Steven’s face. “The sheriff? They’re not really going to arrest Nathaniel, are they? Oh, Steven, he’s only a boy!”
He silenced her by laying an index finger to her lips. “There hasn’t been any talk of arresting anybody. But the sheriff has to investigate things such as this, Emma. We can’t just say, ‘Someone’s been shot here at Fairhaven, but don’t worry—we’ll handle it.’“
Emma would have smiled if she hadn’t felt so much like breaking apart.
Steven grinned ruefully. “If I hadn’t been at the courthouse, on trial for murder, they probably would have blamed me.” He finished combing Emma’s hair and sat down on the edge of the bed, facing her.
She put her hands on his shoulders, rested her forehead against his and sighed. She was about to tell him she loved him when she sensed another presence and lifted her head.
Lucy was standing in the doorway of the guest room, her eyes round and wide, her flawless skin pale as milk. “What happened?” she said, staring at Emma, seemingly unaware of Steven’s presence. “Jubal said he was with you. He’s lying in your bed, half alive. What happened?”
Steven got up and went to Lucy, gently escorting her to a chair near the bed.
Emma looked at her husband, feeling devoid of courage. He was standing behind Lucy’s chair now, watching her just as his sister-in-law did, and Emma felt curiously alone. “Macon meant to—to force his attentions on me,” she managed to say. “Nathaniel interceded. H-he had a gun. Macon didn’t t-take him seriously—he said he was going to take his riding quirt to him. He started toward Nathaniel and—and the gun went off.”
For a long time Lucy just sat there, her eyes darting nervously between her lap, where her hands were twisted together, and Emma’s face. Finally she gave a choking sob and bent forward in her chair, her arms folded across her middle as though to hold herself together.
“I’m so sorry, Lucy,” Emma said gently, near tears herself.
Lucy went on wailing, and Steven hurried out of the room, returning a few moments later with a brown bottle and a small glass. He poured some of the amber liquid for Lucy, and she drank it down.
“What is that?” Emma asked, as Lucy’s sobs began to subside a little.
“Laudanum,” Steven answered. He got Lucy to her feet and helped her as far as the doorway, where a maid was waiting to collect her mistress.
“Does she take a lot of that?” Emma asked, looking at the bottle distastefully.
Steven sighed and set it aside. “She’s been using it ever since I’ve known her,” he said, screwing the lid back onto the bottle. “Obviously, being married to my brother is no field of daisies.”
His words triggered a sweet memory of the first time he and Emma had truly made love. Steven had taken her in a bed of daisies, and suddenly Emma wanted to be back there, reliving those innocent delights, all her terrible problems yet to be faced. “Hold me,” she said.
Steven closed the door, removed his jacket and his boots, and stretched out on the bed beside her. He was wearing suspenders, and Emma gave one of them a playful snap, even though she still felt like dissolving into tears, just as Lucy had.
He smiled and kissed the tip of her nose, one hand resting lightly on her naked hip. “It’s time this old house saw some joy again, don’t you think?”
Emma nodded. “Your father and Macon’s mother—were they happy?”
Steven shrugged. “All I really remember about my father is that he always gave me rock candy when he visited, and that he adored my mother. It doesn’t seem likely that he’d have kept a mistress if he loved the woman he married.”
“What about Cyrus and his wife, Louella?”
He grinned. “My guess would be they were happy. Granddaddy gets a certain light in his eyes when he talks about Louella, and he told me once that he’d never been unfaithful to her.”
Emma wet her lips with the tip of her tongue, her eyes wide and weary as she looked at her husband. “Would you ever take a mistress?”
He kissed her, his tongue sweeping her lips once, awakening her needs in spite of all that had happened that day. “Never,” he said with such quiet certainty that Emma was greatly comforted. “I get everything I need from you.”
She nestled against him, slipping her fingers beneath his suspender strap again. She felt him shiver slightly as she tilted her he back to kiss the base of his throat. His hand moved to encompass her small, plump buttock and squeeze it lightly, at the same time pushing her closer.
She slid her hand downward so that her fingertips were reaching just beneath the waistband of his trousers, and he gave a low moan.
“Speaking of what I need,” he muttered, capturing her mouth for a kiss that left her breathless, her lips swollen, her indigo eyes dazed.
He rolled over so that he was poised over Emma, still kissing her, and she dragged his suspenders down over both shoulders in a brazen motion of her hands. He raised himself, his mouth still consuming hers, and she unfastened the buttons of his white shirt, then the fastenings on his trousers.
One of her hands was there to greet him when he jutted free of his pants, and he moaned against her mouth as she caught hold of him firmly and ran one thumb over the moist tip of his manhood. His tongue lunged into her mouth, entangled with hers, foretelling another kind of conquering that would take place soon—very soon.
Emma dragged his trousers down over his hips and guided him to her, then spread her hands on his down-covered chest as he took her. This was one of those times when their common need for union was too ferocious to wait, and Emma arched her back as she felt Steven filling her, a little cry of welcome and need tumbling from her lips.
Soon nothing was real to either of them but their own two bodies, locked together in sweet combat.
Gyrus looked gray as wash water, and his hand trembled slightly as he lifted his customary after-dinner glass of brandy to his lips. “You’ve got to go and find Nathaniel,” he said to Steven, who had followed his grandfather into the study at his request.
Steven wanted to go back upstairs to Emma, to lie beside her and let her drive all the specters of death from his mind and soul, but he did care about his young cousin. He saw in Nathaniel the hurt, confused boy he’d once been himself.
“He won’t listen to me,” Steven insisted, pouring himself a drink. “He believes I killed Mary, that I ran away because of that.”
“I don’t give a damn what he believes,” Cyrus said. “I just want him safe under this roof, where he belongs.”
Because he’d never been a
ble to refuse his grandfather anything, Steven nodded, set down his drink untouched, and left the study without another word.
Nathaniel’s favorite horse, a spirited Appaloosa gelding, was not in the stables. Steven selected a bay, saddled it himself, and set out into the moonlit night. Instinct sent him into the swamps well behind the house and stables, rather than onto the road. He’d taken refuge there many times when he’d first come to live at Fairhaven.
Sure enough, he found Nathaniel sitting forlornly under a moss-draped tree, a lantern at his side, his horse tethered nearby.
“Maybe you don’t mind being eaten alive by mosquitoes,” Steven told him, crouching beside the boy on the soft, loamy ground, “but I’m of a different opinion entirely. Get off your rear end, Nate—we’re leaving.”
“Go to hell,” Nathaniel muttered, never looking at Steven. “You’re a coward and a killer, and now I’m no better than you.”
Steven gave a raspy sigh. “I’m not a killer, and Macon isn’t about to die, so neither are you.”
At last Nathaniel looked at him. His adolescent face was draped in shadow, but the pain inside him was clearly visible all the same. “If you didn’t kill Mary, why did you run away?”
Steven swatted at a horde of buzzing mosquitoes. “I ran because I knew I wouldn’t get a fair trial,” he said. “It was wrong, I know, but I didn’t want to die. If it hadn’t been for Emma, I probably would never have come back.”
“I stood up to them,” Nathaniel spat. “I stood up to the people who said you murdered Mary—you don’t know how many times I had to fight—and then you ran away!” These last words came out as a strangled sob of betrayal and hurt.
Steven grasped Nathaniel by the arm and hauled him to his feet, bending to take up the lantern. “I’m sorry, Nate,” he said, squiring his young, shaken cousin toward his horse.
Nathaniel was crying, but Steven could tell he begrudged every sob. “It was terrible—the way Macon looked at me—the way he fell—”
Steven slapped the boy on the back. “He’s going to be all right, Nathaniel.”
Emma and the Outlaw Page 33
