The Seduction of Roxanne

by Linda Jones

  "No,” she said quickly, and then he settled his eyes on her so hard and deep she shivered. “Well, just a little, and it was an accident.” She tried to smile, but he looked so devastated she couldn't quite pull it off.

  "I hit you,” he said softly, and this time it sounded as if he were talking to himself, not to her at all.

  She dropped her hand, not wanting to remind him of the glancing blow for another second. “Tell me what the nightmare was about,” she said. “Together we can make it better, I know we can."

  He didn't seem anxious to comply. Leaving her side, he lit the lamp and brought it to the bedside table, placing it among candles that had burned away to almost nothing before he'd extinguished them long ago.

  "I don't think so,” he whispered as he stalked beside the bed, occasionally glancing at her so intensely, so sadly she felt the glare on her skin. As if to protect herself, she clung to the quilt, hugged it to her body.

  Finally, he stopped pacing and stood beside the bed. “God in Heaven, what was I thinking?” His voice was soft and uncertain.

  She reached out and took his hand, and this time he let her hold it. “Is this about us?"

  He sat beside her on the bed, his weight making the mattress dip so that she rolled toward him. He didn't even seem to notice when her hip settled against his. “There is no us, and there can't ever be."

  She would've been insulted, heartbroken, if he didn't sound so desolate himself. “It's much too late for that,” she whispered. “You can't deny what's happened, what already is."

  He locked his eyes to hers. “I should've left town when I realized what was happening, but it never occurred to me that it would go this far. I never dreamed that you would end up.... “He looked at the rumpled bed where they'd passed the night. “Here."

  A shiver of unpleasantness ticked her spine. “What are you trying to say?"

  "Tonight was a mistake,” he said harshly. “This whole masquerade, with Calvin and the letters and the whispered deception, was a mistake."

  "Tonight was not a mistake,” she insisted. “And as for the rest,” she tried to slip up and forward to kiss him, but he leaned away from her in a move that spoke of clear, unmistakable rejection. She dismissed it. “I've already forgiven you for that."

  He took his hand from hers, breaking that tender connection, and glared grimly at her. “Maybe you have, but you'll never forgive me for this.” He pointed at the scar on his face, the old wound perfectly illuminated by the nearby lamp.

  Roxanne reached up and laid her hand over the damaged cheek, and this time Cyrus didn't move away. He allowed her to touch and caress the scar, to rest her hand on his face. “Do you really think me so vain that I'm bothered, or ever will be bothered, by something so trivial as a scar? I love you—"

  "Don't,” he said, wrapping strong ringers around her wrist and removing her hand from his face. “It's not the scar,” he said in a grave whisper. “It's what the scar means, what it reminds me of."

  Nothing could be so bad that she'd give up what she'd found with Cyrus. “It doesn't matter—"

  "I was with Louis when he was wounded,” he said crisply. “He asked me to tell you that he was thinking of you when he died. It was a simple enough request, but I never found the courage to do that for him."

  Cold fear knotted in the pit of her stomach. She didn't want Louis's memory to come between them. She'd just learned to put him in the past, to accept that he wasn't coming home and that she had the right to live her life without him.

  "I can understand why honoring that request would've been difficult for you."

  The fingers at her wrist were tight, almost too tight. “I could've saved him,” he whispered. “If I'd been fast enough that day I could have saved him for you. I tried.” He released the grip at her wrist and leapt from the bed to begin pacing again. “At least, I think I tried. Goddammit, I don't know anymore. All I know is that every time I look in the mirror and see this scar, I'm reminded that when it counted, when it really counted, I wasn't fast enough. Cyrus, with his fast hands and fast gun and quick reflexes, couldn't run quite fast enough that day."

  Roxanne gathered the quilt securely about her and left the bed, dragging it with her. “I know you,” she said angrily. “I know you well enough to be absolutely certain that if you could have saved Louis you would have. It's not your fault that he died. Don't punish yourself for something that's not your fault.” She raised one of the hands that held the quilt at her bosom, and laid it on Cyrus's back. “It happened a long time ago."

  He didn't turn to take her in his arms, but he didn't step away from her touch, either. His back was incredibly tense, and she rubbed her thumb against a knotted muscle.

  "Sometimes it feels like yesterday."

  "I know,” she whispered, planting a kiss on his shoulder.

  "If I could've given my life for his, I would've done it,” he whispered. “For you."

  "Don't say that.” A chill wracked her body, and it had nothing to do with the coolness of the night air. “I did love Louis, but I know now that I loved him as a child loves another child. We thought we were all grown up, but we weren't.” She took a deep breath. The words and memories caused pain, but this was what she needed, what they both needed; to let go of the past and embrace the future. “I love you the way a woman loves a man. My heart is deeper than I'd ever imagined, and you fill it. You, Cyrus, not a memory."

  For a few long moments they stood there. Lightning and thunder no longer shook the night, and the rain had slackened to a steady, light drizzle.

  "I held him as he died,” Cyrus whispered.

  "I know,” Roxanne breathed against his shoulder.

  "Louis, your husband, a boy who loved you with all his heart, asked me to tell you that he was thinking of only you when he died.” He sighed and then shuddered. “Then he asked me to take care of you, to make sure you were happy."

  A coldness grabbed at the pit of her stomach again. “He did?"

  Cyrus nodded. “He said it was up to me now, to take care of you, and I had to say yes, I had to promise him that I would...."

  Roxanne stepped back, allowing her hand to fall away. Cyrus Bergeron took his promises seriously, and she imagined he would rather die than fail. All those days he'd been there, standing silently on the street or the boardwalk, quiet and attentive....

  "Is that why you watched me, all these years, why you were always there?"

  "Yes,” he breathed.

  "Is that why you tried to give me Calvin after I was foolish enough to admire him from a distance?"

  "Yes,” he whispered, without hesitation.

  She tried to swallow but there was a knot in her throat, a large, bitter knot. Knowing Cyrus as she did, this was beginning to make sense. She didn't like it.

  "Is that why you pretended to be Calvin, whispering sweet words and writing those letters, to make me happy?"

  "Yes."

  She shivered, suddenly cold all over. “Was any of it true?” Do you love me? The question she couldn't bring herself to ask stuck in her throat.

  "I don't know,” he admitted with a low breath. “I believed it, every word, but—"

  "But what?” she asked, her voice suddenly cold.

  He didn't answer.

  "Tell me,” she said, her voice controlled once again. She shivered to her bones, but her voice was cool, icy and lifeless. “What was tonight about? A promise to my dead husband? Were you just trying to fulfill some ... some obligation?” She felt, all of a sudden, like a pitied whore. “Did you take me into your bed because I was foolish enough to tell you that I wanted you, and since you'd promised Louis—"

  "No,” he responded quickly. “Tonight was wonderful and I wouldn't trade it for anything.” He turned to face her again. “But tell me, Roxanne,” he said coldly. “Tell me you won't look at me one day, that you won't wake up one morning and see this scar and think If he'd only been a little faster. If he'd tried a little harder. If he'd taken care of Louis the way
he said he would."

  "I never should've asked that of you,” Roxanne whispered, suddenly horrified at the memory of that request and what had come of it.

  "But you did, and I promised, and I failed you."

  "You did your best—” she began, her whisper so low it was little more than a breath of air.

  "Did I?” Cyrus interrupted harshly. “How can you be sure? What if I loved you even then, and when the time came I failed you because somewhere in the darkest part of my soul I wanted Louis to die?"

  She shivered hard. “I don't believe that of you."

  "I didn't either, until tonight.” He stepped into his boots, grabbed a slicker from a rack near the door and his hat from the next peg over. He slipped the slicker over his bare chest and set the hat on his head. “Did I try hard enough? Did I let him die? Maybe you can live with the doubt,” he said as he opened the door onto darkness, “but I can't."

  Roxanne stared at the closed door, and listened to the soft rain as she hugged the quilt to her. He hadn't said so, but she knew that Cyrus expected her to be gone when he returned.

  * * * *

  He hated the rain, but not as much as he hated looking into Roxanne's face now that he'd finally told her everything. Everything.

  He stood beneath a tree that protected him from most of the rain, but still he was wet. Dammit, he hated to be wet. Most of all he hated it when his feet and head were soaked, and right now his boots were damp and water ran off the rim of his hat in a steady stream.

  During the war they'd marched through rain, been wet and cold for days at a time, crossed rivers keeping only their rifles dry. He'd been hungry, gone without sleep for days, worn rags on occasion, and still it seemed to him the worst hardship of war was being wet. Sometimes he still had nightmares about crossing endless rivers, feeling the wet material stick to his skin as he left the water behind, boots squishing, trousers clinging ... it was a stupid, senseless fixation he couldn't shake any more than he could shake his dreams of Louis.

  Tonight's nightmare remained with him, and Louis's accusation echoed through his brain. If only he could remember more about that day, if only he could separate the damned nightmare from reality. He'd tried to save Louis, hadn't he? He'd done his best. He just hadn't been fast enough. Not that day.

  You let me die so you could fuck my wife, didn't you Cyrus? The vulgar accusation echoed through his brain, making him question everything. When had he become obsessed with Roxanne? When had he fallen in love with her?

  His heart still pounded too fast, as if he really had been running instead of sleeping. Dammit, he couldn't live like this, ecstatic one minute, falling asleep with the woman he loved beside him; a moment later reliving the most horrible day of his life and hearing Louis's tortured, “Did you let me die?"

  He'd hit her, dammit. Coming out of that cursed nightmare he'd hit her. That alone told him there was no future for them, no way he could leave the past behind and start a new life. What if one night he came awake to find he'd really hurt her? Remembering some of the nightmares that plagued him on occasion and the way he woke from them, that horrible thought wasn't an impossibility.

  He would not hurt Roxanne any more than he already had, and he sure as hell wouldn't ask her to live with his demons.

  Roxanne, in her pink dress once again, left his house and ran across the street. She didn't have far to go, but he watched every step she took, every hurried jump over puddles and low plants that got in her way. She held her skirt off the ground, so that her ankles and calves were exposed as she took graceful leaps this way and that. The lightly falling rain didn't seem to bother her, not at all.

  He moved from beneath the tree so he could watch her slip through the front door of the Pierson house, waited until she'd had time to reach her room, and then he lifted his head to the balcony. He was almost certain he saw a flash of pink there, a hint of color just inside the shelter of the room.

  Ah, he did love her. Every word he'd said and whispered and written was true. In the past few weeks he'd known more moments of peace and happiness than he'd ever thought to know, and all because he'd finally admitted that he loved Roxanne.

  But he couldn't make her happy. Together their lives would be moments of heavenly bliss broken by haunted nightmares and unspoken accusations. Eventually she would doubt him, as he doubted himself, and then maybe they wouldn't even have those moments of bliss anymore. They'd both be miserable.

  He started walking toward his little house, knowing what he had to do. It didn't matter that he loved Roxanne, any more than it mattered that she thought she loved him. He'd been right all along; it was time to move on.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter Eighteen

  Roxanne did her best to hold her eyes wide open, in spite of her exhaustion, as her students read aloud. April Henley was reading from Dickens's Tale of Two Cities.

  Her only rest had come last night in Cyrus's bed; no more than two hours. After she'd returned to her own room, sleep had been impossible. Her mind spinning, she'd lain in her cold, wide bed and stared at the ceiling, wondering how everything could've gone so wrong so fast.

  She wanted to believe that whatever had shaken Cyrus last night would seem different to him, better, by the light of day. She didn't believe for a minute that he'd allowed Louis to die, and she didn't want to believe that he'd let the war that was over and done with come between them. Not now, not when they were so close to love and happiness and everything they wanted. Everything she wanted, anyway.

  She'd looked into Cyrus's eyes as he'd touched her, as he'd told her he loved her. She'd seen the truth there, had heard it in his soft words. It wasn't possible that such depth of feeling grew from nothing more than a promise to her dying husband, that everything that had happened between them, everything, was nothing more than an obligation. Cyrus did love her. He had to.

  "Mrs. Robinette,” April said softly.

  Roxanne lifted her eyes to the student who held the open book in her hands. “Yes?"

  "Isn't it someone else's turn to read? My throat is dry."

  "Of course.” Roxanne chose another student to take April's place. These were her best students, the older girls who had a love for reading and writing. Usually she enjoyed this class immensely, even when everything else seemed hopeless. But today ... today her heart wasn't in her teaching. Today her heart was battered and broken, and she couldn't even think clearly.

  As Betsy took up where April had left off, Roxanne turned her eyes to the window. It had started to rain again, and drops pattered against the glass and made the view—tall trees and fine homes beyond the well-kept lawns—seem foggy and indistinct. Josiah had delivered her to school via carriage this morning and had promised to pick her up in the afternoon, since the rain continued to fall softly and intermittently. She wouldn't have minded the walk, in her waterproof hooded cloak and oldest boots, but Josiah had insisted. She hadn't been able to find the heart to argue with him, not even over such a small detail.

  She wondered, foolishly she imagined, if Cyrus would be standing in the rain this afternoon, waiting for her to pass by.

  Likely not.

  Cyrus sat across the table from the slick, citified gambler who'd been ruining Hamlin's business. Almost as soon as Sir Latimer had left, this man had shown up. He called himself Johnny Black, and every time Cyrus had seen him he'd been dressed dramatically, all in black, a color to match his long hair and his last name.

  Black smiled across the small round table, shuffling the cards in his hands with an ease that comes from hundreds of hours of practice. The cards ruffled and danced, whispered and crackled. “What can I do for you, Sheriff?"

  Cyrus found himself in no mood to play games. “I hear you've been cheating at poker."

  Black's smile died quickly, and the cards stilled. “That's a mighty serious charge, Sheriff."

  "Yes, it is."

  "Has someone made an accusation?” Black glanced quickly over the room that was nearl
y deserted at this time of day. There were a few customers enjoying a drink or a conversation, but not one looked in their direction. They were all terrified of the gambler with good luck and a deadly reputation. Black returned his cold gaze to Cyrus.

  "I hear things,” Cyrus said, casually leaning back in his chair.

  Johnny Black raised his eyebrows almost elegantly and resumed shuffling. “Rumors, Sheriff. Ugly, insubstantial hearsay. Those rumors were started, no doubt, by someone who's jealous of my string of good luck."

  Cyrus leaned forward and placed his folded arms on the table. “You know, I really don't give a damn if you cheated or not."

  The gambler bristled again as Cyrus used the word cheated.

  "All I care about is that you're disrupting the peace in my town, and I want you gone. Today."

  Johnny Black's brilliant smile returned, but the gleam in his eyes remained calm and deadly. “Are you here to run me out of town, Sheriff?"

  "Yes.” No one watched, but Cyrus was well aware that everyone in the room listened. “But I really don't want any trouble today. I'm in no mood for it."

  "Neither am I."

  "So I tell you what,” Cyrus fastened his gaze on the cards that flew through Black's hands. He was good. Fast and careful. Ah, and the rumors were not completely groundless. There was a card up the gambler's left sleeve. Cyrus caught a glimpse of the very corner, no more than an edge. Most men would've missed it.

  "We'll draw for it,” he said. “One card. I win, you leave town this afternoon and never come back. You win, and not only do you get to stay, I'll talk Hamlin into letting you have, rent free, the best room he's got above stairs."

  "Cyrus!” Hamlin cried out, his distress evident.

  Cyrus didn't look in Hamlin's direction, but raised one hand to silence the owner of Nickels’ Saloon. “Deal?"

  Black beamed. “Absolutely."

  Cyrus reached across the table. “I deal."

  The gambler stopped shuffling, made a production of tapping the deck on the table to bring it to perfect order, and then offered the cards on his palm.

  How many countless nights, during the war, had he passed playing cards? Too many to count. So many that he got sick of it and didn't play anymore. As he took the deck with one hand he dropped it onto the table, undoing Black's efforts at bringing perfect order to the deck.