That Other Katherine

by Linda Lael Miller

  "It certainly smells good," she said in an attempt to make conversation.

  "Yes, ma'am," the maid answered. "Cook does have a way with biscuits and gravy. The doctor likes that dish more than anything."

  "Dr. Franz?" Katherine asked. She was so grateful for the sound of a civil human voice that she tried to keep the chat going.

  "Dr. Winslow," the maid corrected, turning startled blue eyes to Katherine's face. "Your husband, ma'am."

  So Gavin was a doctor, too. "Oh," Katherine said quickly, brightly. "Yes, of course. He's had a lengthy practice here in…"

  "Seattle," the maid said, frowning.

  Katherine was ravenously hungry, and the food on her tray was fragrant and appealing. "Seattle," she confirmed. That was a relief. Maybe she'd changed centuries, but at least she was still in the same city. "Your name would be?"

  The young girl took another step toward the door, as though she expected Katherine to lunge at her, wild-eyed and foaming at the mouth.

  "Jemima," she whispered. With that, Jemima turned and bolted from the room.

  Katherine ate, trying to figure out what was happening to her.

  Maybe it was the food that restored her. She seemed to recall that her blood sugar tended to fall when she got too hungry…

  She remembered lying in a faraway hospital bed, remembered the nurses talking and the grasp of her brother's hand and the earnest way she'd begged the light surrounding the crystal bridge to let her live. Evidently, she concluded as the pleas of another woman echoed in her mind—oh, God, help me… let me die—she and Gavin's real wife had somehow exchanged places.

  That was too much to credit, Katherine thought, setting her tray on the bedside table and leaning back against her pillows, and yet here she was, in another woman's body. A body she liked far better than her old one, for all the problems inherent in the situation.

  Presently the Indian girl came in to take away her tray, and that made Katherine smile. Jemima must have been afraid to venture near her again after that little encounter earlier.

  "What's your name?" she asked pleasantly when the young woman had set the tray in the hall and returned. The baby awakened and gave a small, fitful cry.

  "Maria," the visitor replied, unruffled, bending to lift the infant from his cradle before Katherine had managed to swing her legs over the side of the bed. Maria sat down in the rocking chair near the dying fire and opened the bodice of her plain dress to nurse the baby.

  Again, Katherine felt envy. She didn't like the idea of sharing this child, or his father, with any other woman.

  Maria was conscious only of the baby, humming a soft, rhythmic tune as she held him to her breast and stroked his downy head with a light finger. The firelight flickered over the pair, gilding them in crimson and shadow.

  A deep loneliness overtook Katherine; she felt as though she'd been abandoned in some unknown galaxy. She remembered only the merest details about her other life, and in this one everyone seemed to dislike her.

  Presently Maria finished feeding the child and brought him to the bed for changing. She handed him to Katherine, who gently raised him to her shoulder to be burped.

  "Thank you," Katherine said, mesmerized by the bundled miracle in her arms.

  "What will you call the little one?" Maria asked, regarding Katherine with placid dark eyes that revealed nothing of her inner thoughts.

  Katherine ached with love as the child squirmed against her shoulder, and she longed to be able to feed him herself. "I don't know," she answered. "Perhaps we'll name him for his father."

  The silence that followed felt awkward to Katherine. Remembering the accusation her husband had thrown in her face, she blushed and blurted out, "Gavin. He'll be called Gavin, of course."

  Maria did not react, and her manner was neither friendly nor unfriendly. "Is there anything you'd like, Mrs. Winslow?" She went to the hearth without waiting for Katherine to reply and added a log to the fire. "The kitchen kettle is still on. I could brew you some tea."

  Katherine shook her head. "No. No, thank you. But if you'd please put the baby to bed…"

  The Indian girl assessed Katherine with narrowed eyes for a moment, then collected the infant and carefully put him into the cradle to sleep. "Good night, Mrs. Winslow," she said after turning off the gas that fed the lights.

  Only the glow of the fire and the strained silver shimmer of the moon lit the room after Maria closed the door behind her.

  Cautiously, Katherine lay down flat on the feather mattress. This body she had borrowed was very sore, and she felt like weeping with exhaustion and confusion, but beneath all these things ran an undercurrent of sheer exultation. She had been given another chance at life, and she meant to make the most of it.

  Watching the firelight waver against the dark ceiling, she wondered if Gavin had ever laughed in this room or made love to his wife here. Surely he hadn't always been so grim and solemn!

  It seemed to her that as she as just dropping off to sleep, the first solid memory of the other life came to her. She was driving along the Seattle freeway in her red convertible, her dark hair tossing in the wind, on the way to her brother Jeremy's downtown office. They were planning to have lunch together.

  In the space of a moment, everything changed. A truck jackknifed just ahead of her, and before she could slow down, her car struck the trailer with a deafening impact. Metal shrieked, pain racked her body, and then darkness exploded around her like a bomb.

  "Kathy!" Strong hands gripped Katherine's shoulders, and a firm masculine voice came to her through the smothering fog of fear that surrounded her. "Katherine, wake up!"

  Gavin was sitting on the side of the bed, and her longing to have him take her into his arms and hold her was a bleak and fathomless thing. The baby, frightened by the noise, was fretting in his cradle.

  Katherine started to get out of bed, but Gavin wouldn't allow her to rise.

  "Never mind," he said abruptly. "I'll get him."

  At once a stranger and a husband, Gavin lifted the child deftly from the cradle and handed him to Katherine.

  "I'm sorry," she crooned, her lips against the infant's cheek. "I'm so sorry I woke you up, sweetheart…"

  Something made her lift her eyes to Gavin then, and she saw that he was looking at her strangely again, as though he didn't quite recognize her.

  She drew a deep breath and made herself smile at the man who so clearly despised her. "Our son will need a name, you know," she said with a little sniffle. "We can't go on referring to this child as 'he' and 'him' for the rest of his life."

  Even in the firelight, she saw Gavin's powerful body go rigid. The brief, tenuous peace that had existed between them was obviously over.

  "Why not name him Jeffrey?" Gavin asked in a tone that was no less brutal for its softness. "For his father."

  Chapter 3

  "Get out," Katherine breathed, glaring at Gavin. She was trembling inside, but she was as strong and agile as a lioness when she sprang from the bed to return the baby to his cradle.

  Gavin stood his ground, arms folded. "May I remind you that this is my house?"

  "I don't care," she spat. "You're nothing but an arrogant bully, and if you're any example of nineteenth-century manhood, it's no wonder there was a women's movement!"

  "If we're going to call each other names—"

  "Don't you dare!" Katherine clasped her hands over her ears and at the same time maneuvered herself back into bed. "I know perfectly well what you think of me, Gavin Winslow, but I've been through a lot today, and I would appreciate it if you would leave me alone."

  To her surprise, Gavin's countenance grew a little less stern. He approached the bed and tucked the covers in around her with a certain brisk tenderness.

  "You're right," he said, in a husky voice. "I'm sorry." With that, unbelievably, he bent and kissed her lightly on the forehead, and at mat simple contact something deep inside Katherine was changed forever.

  Gavin didn't come to her room the
next day, or the day after that. Katherine spent her time caring for the baby, whom she could nurse now that her milk had come in, reading the books and magazines Maria brought her, and remembering.

  It was that other life that kept unfolding in her mind; she still knew very little about the woman she had become.

  As Katherine Hollis, she'd lived in a world of convenience and noise, working for a market research firm in Seattle and slowly paying off a one-bedroom condo overlooking Lake Washington. She'd been on the verge of getting married once, but in the end she'd realized Phillip Hughes was all wrong for her, and she was all wrong for him, and she'd given back his ring.

  She recalled that she'd grown up in a modest home on Seattle's Queen Anne Hill, and that her divorced mother, Julia, had taught piano lessons in the dining room to supplement meager child-support payments. Julia had died of ovarian cancer when her daughter was twenty, and after that, there had been only Jeremy…

  Now, Katherine marveled, she found herself in another world. Here there were no speeding convertibles, no market research companies, no semi-trucks to jackknife in the middle of the freeway. Beyond the walls of this house, which she'd had no chance at all to explore, carriages, buggies, and wagons rattled over dirt streets and cobblestones.

  The sunlight was bright, the sky so blue the sight of it twisted Katherine's heart.

  She was standing at the window, looking out over the garden with its gazebo and its tangle of colorful flowers, when there was a light knock at the door. Just as she would have turned to call out an eager "Come in"—she was so lonely that even Gavin would have been a welcome caller— she saw her husband walk through a gate in the side fence.

  He looked so handsome in his riding breeches, linen shirt, tailored charcoal coat, and boots that Katherine's breath caught. Just when she was about to tap impulsively on the glass and wave to him, forgetting all his insufferable qualities in the face of the breathtaking attraction she felt, a woman joined him. Her dress was yellow, like the roses mat climbed the walls of the gazebo and tangled on its roof, and her hair was the color of honey.

  As Katherine watched, stricken, the woman held out both hands to Gavin, and he clasped them in his own. His strong white teeth flashed in a cavalier's smile as he bent his head to kiss his companion's gloved knuckles.

  "There's Caroline Raynes again," a voice beside Katherine announced, and she jumped, startled. "You'd better look out for her, because she's sweet on Gavin."

  Katherine turned her head and saw a petite girl standing next to her. Her hair was dark, and her eyes were the same steely-gray as Gavin's, and from that Katherine deduced that this woman was her sister-in-law. The little golden pin affixed to the bodice of her plain but expensive dress shaped the letters of her name.

  "Hello, Marianne."

  Marianne's attention was fixed on the scene below; she didn't see Katherine study her, or glance at the bare ring finger of her left hand to determine her marital status.

  "Look at her," she said, her breath making fog against the windowpane. "What a hussy."

  Katherine looked, against her better judgment. Caroline was standing on her toes, her hands resting on Gavin's lapels while she whispered something in his ear. A feeling of such intense, primitive jealousy went through Katherine that she grasped the windowsill to keep from pounding on it with her fists.

  "Not that you didn't bring a lot of this upon yourself by stirring up that scandal with Jeffrey Beecham," Marianne added matter-of-factly, taking Katherine's elbow and steering her away from the window. "Come now, it's time to dress for the christening party. You can't very well attend in your slippers and wrapper, you know."

  The prospect of leaving that infernal room, even for a short interval, raised Katherine's spirits considerably. Every time she got up to walk around, it seemed, Dr. Franz or one of the maids came to chase her back to bed.

  "What will I wear?" she asked, confused.

  "What indeed?" Marianne answered, rolling her eyes. She opened a door to the left of the fireplace, which had always been locked when Katherine tried it, and swept through. "As if you didn't own more dresses than any woman in Seattle!"

  Katherine hurried along behind her sister-in-law, casting her gaze this way and that, taking in as much of the massive room as she could. "Maybe nothing will fit," she fretted.

  An enormous chandelier graced the high ceiling, and the fireplace was fronted in pale marble. The rugs were Persian, the walls were paneled in rosewood, and the bed was bigger than the living room of her apartment in that other Seattle.

  She stood in the middle of the chamber, looking around her in awe, while Marianne went straight to a set of double doors, opened them, and disappeared inside.

  Her voice echoed. "Nonsense. You were incredibly careful about what you ate, remember?" she called. "I think the dark blue taffeta would be exactly right, don't you? Given the state of your reputation, my dear, there's no point in even attempting propriety. No, the occasion calls for something that shows you won't be discounted and forgotten."

  Katherine flinched when the main door of the room swung open and Gavin, entered, carrying a black medical bag and a riding crop in one hand.

  His eyes swept over her rumpled wrapper and tangled hair with a sort of charitable contempt, and Katherine was instantly furious.

  "Where's Caroline?" she asked sweetly.

  Gavin set his things down on a table that Katherine thought would probably bring a small fortune at a modern-day antique show. "Caroline," he responded, his tone even and cutting, "is too much of a lady to engage in the sort of illicit rendezvous you specialize in, my dear."

  Color surged into Katherine's face, and she pulled her wrapper more tightly around her, as if to shield herself.

  "Too much of a lady, pooh," Marianne interceded, before Katherine could mink of a response. She thrust the aforementioned blue taffeta dress into her sister-in-law's arms and turned to face Gavin, her hands on her hips. "For someone who's supposed to be such a man of the world, Gavin Winslow," she said bluntly, "you are certainly naive."

  Gavin looked at Katherine, even though he was speaking to Marianne, and his expression was scathing. "I can't deny that," he answered, "since I once trusted my heart to a woman who probably doesn't have one beating in her bosom."

  Tears stung Katherine's eyes, and she swallowed hard to keep from giving full rein to her feelings. There was nothing she could say… the other Katherine probably had been guilty of flagrant adultery. Yet on every occasion when she encountered Gavin, no matter how rare and volatile those times were, she felt an elemental pull toward him, as though her soul had somehow been magnetized to his.

  Marianne popped him in the upper arm, and the gesture was so sisterly that it almost made Katherine smile, despite everything. "Stop being so mean, Gavin, and get dressed for your son's christening. That is, unless you plan on going in your riding clothes."

  The look that passed from Gavin to Katherine was a private one, since Marianne was by that time bustling toward the door of the other room. His gaze was as mocking as a slap, and Katherine hurried after her sister-in-law, wondering if Gavin meant to attend the christening at all.

  He did, as it happened.

  Gavin announced to the assembly, without ever informing Katherine, let alone consulting her, that the baby's name would be Christopher Jennings Winslow, and he looked for all the world like a proud father.

  He even took his place beside Katherine after the intimate ceremony held in the house's private chapel, and shook hands with the endless stream of strangers, well-wishers all, who passed by.

  The guests clearly admired and respected Gavin, but the looks they gave Katherine were plainly speculative. A wonderful meal was served in the garden, and inside the house, tables were heaped with gifts.

  Despite his attempts at keeping up appearances earlier, by the time Maria had taken the properly christened Christopher back inside the house, Gavin was totally absorbed in a conversation with the bouncy Caroline Raynes.
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br />   "I hate perky women," Katherine muttered, turning away only to collide with a tall, handsome man in an expensive tweed suit. He had green eyes and chestnut-brown hair, and his sensual mouth quirked into a sad little smile.

  "So do I," he said, taking both of Katherine's hands in his, just as Gavin had done with Caroline earlier in the day, when Katherine had been watching from the upstairs window. "How are you?"

  His words and tone were so solicitous that Katherine was caught off guard. She was still weak from giving birth to Christopher and bruised from various sparring matches with Gavin, so this man's attentions were like warm sunshine after a dip in a frigid stream.

  "F-fine," she said.

  "You shouldn't be on your feet." He led her to the edge of the fountain that graced the middle of the garden and gently sat her down. Then he brought her a glass of punch from the refreshment table, along with some small sweet cakes coated in sesame seeds.

  Katherine wished she had an inkling of the man's identity. She sipped her punch, thinking it was unfortunate that everybody didn't own a broach made up of the letters of their name, like Marianne.

  "Feel that sunshine," she said, lifting her face to the blue sky, closing her eyes, and smiling. "Isn't it wonderful?"

  "Wonderful," her companion said distractedly. "Katherine, about our plans… Don't you think we should delay a few more weeks, until you're stronger?"

  "Ummm," she answered, not really listening. A violin was playing nearby, and she began to sway happily back and forth with the tune. "I wish we could dance," she said, opening her eyes again, searching the stranger's handsome face. "Will you dance with me?"

  A third voice answered, and it was only too familiar. So was the proprietary grip on her forearm.

  "It's time you rested," Gavin informed his wife in a taut voice. "Come along, I'll see you to your room."

  Katherine didn't try to pull away, though she heartily resented Gavin's tone and manner. She was tired, tired enough to faint. Dancing, of course, was out of the question, though it had seemed like a marvelous idea only moments before.