Mittman, Stephanie

by The Courtship

  She had filed the notice of appeal that Cabot had made her prepare just in case. Now all they'd needed was some grounds to base it on. And then she'd left by the side door as Cabot had told her to. He'd had his concerns about the case from the beginning, but she'd insisted on forging ahead. He'd advised her to wait until he could take care of the whole matter behind some chamber doors, but she had been adamant.

  She clutched her coat around her more tightly. Cold rain slipped down the back of her neck and the rawness of the day crept into her bones.

  If Ewing Flannigan didn't stop at a bar on his way home, she'd be the next mayor of San Francisco.

  It might just as well be her own fist that pounded that poor boy's sweet face, her own hands that boxed his ears. Whatever that man did to his son tonight, she had brought on him herself. What had all her high talk and overconfidence gotten that boy tonight? A bloody nose? A split lip? A broken bone?

  She fought with the cast iron gate that separated Whittier Court from the street, Argus squawking at her as if she were some intruder bent on destroying anything beyond herself.

  She had failed.

  And she had to face Cabot and Kathryn and Ash and tell them all that Davis wouldn't be brightening their lives anymore and that they had lost their opportunity to brighten his.

  The gate conceded and reluctantly allowed her entry. But Argus was less accommodating, pecking at her unmercifully, chasing her up the steps and into the house. When she turned to glare at him after Maria let her in, she found him happily picking apart her newly cropped navy hat. "You are the meanest thing that ever lived, Argus Whittier," she shouted at him, "and someday you'll get yours!"

  Gingerly and without a word Maria helped her out of her coat, as if the poor woman was just a little frightened of Charlotte's mood.

  "Where is everyone?" The house was quiet enough to hear the rain slipping down the windowpanes, and Charlotte's sniff echoed in the silent foyer.

  "The mister is in his office," Maria answered. "The Mrs. Whittier, she's not feeling so good. Her eyes they are smarting and she is in her room, where the other mister is reading to her."

  "Is she all right?" Charlotte asked, pulling a soggy scarf from around her neck and handing it to the maid. "Has Mr. Whittier been told she's not well?"

  Maria held the scarf away from her body, not pleased by the smell of the wet wool. "I think she is liking Mr. Ash's company. She don't want the mister and so he told her 'fine' and went to his office and yelled at Mr. Arthur to get out of his way."

  She gestured toward the inner hall, where Arthur sat in the chair usually reserved for Kathryn and stared at the closed office door.

  Charlotte rubbed her hands together, but it was no use. She would never be warm again. Not until she had managed to make Davis safe. She thanked Maria, nodded at Arthur, and went through her office into Cabot's. He started at the interruption and then nodded his head toward the seat across his desk, signaling her to sit.

  "Oh, it was dreadful," she began, her lip trembling uncontrollably.

  He put up one finger. "In a moment, Charlotte. Just let me finish this thought." He wrote furiously on the pad in front of him. And she waited.

  "It was O'Malley," she said while he continued to write. "Luck of the draw, huh? First Mallory and then O'Malley. And he wasn't interested in—"

  "I said just a moment, Charlotte." He didn't bother looking up.

  "He's going to beat that boy, Cabot. And it will be my fault." When the words were out they seemed even more awful than the thought had been.

  "We'll take care of it, Charlotte, but not now. I need another few minutes. Why not have a cup of tea and see if you can't compose yourself while I finish this up." Again he didn't bother raising his eyes to her.

  With a ragged sigh she pushed forward slightly on her legs, only to find that they were too rubbery to hold her up. She sat back in the old leather wing chair with the cracks that pulled at her clothes, and caught her face in her hands.

  What had she done to that innocent child?

  "Oh, my God," she said, seeing with closed eyes the boy's face the way it looked when Eli Mollenoff had first brought him to her. "What have I done, Cabot? What in heaven's name have I done?"

  "Beside interrupt me for the fourth or fifth time?" he asked, finally looking up at her. "Raining, is it?"

  "It's raining in my heart, Cabot. It's pouring in my soul." She fought to swallow and choked, coughing until she was nearly dizzy. When she was done she leaned back against the seat where a thousand clients' heads had rested before hers.

  "You did file for an appeal?" He flipped the days on his calendar, waiting for her response.

  "What about tonight, Cabot? What good will the appeal do Davis tonight?"

  "Calm down. Will the tears do him any good? Did you remember to change the date of Ash's jury selection?"

  "I've done a terrible disservice to that little boy, thinking I could win a motion on my own. And he's going to have to pay for my hubris. My pride will be his downfall!"

  "I'll take the appeal," Cabot said. "I should have gone down there in the first place. You get a date?"

  She nodded. It wasn't for three weeks. By then Davis could be in a hospital. Dear Lord, he could be dead!

  "When?"

  She couldn't recall the exact date. When the clerk had told her she'd been so distressed, she'd had to write it down rather than commit it to memory.

  "You have to go to court, Cabot," she said, jumping up and pushing things on his desk out of the way. "You can convince them to change their minds. Make him a ward of the court. Get an ex parte order or a temporary restraining order or—" He wasn't moving. "Cabot, come on! I'll tell Arthur to get your coat. It's terrible out there."

  "Sit down, Charlotte." He waited while she raced around the office like some sort of lunatic just let out from the asylum. Or maybe just committed, as the walls moved in and the room got smaller around her. "Sit down!"

  "I will not sit down," she cried. "There is a boy out there who needs us!"

  "It's four-thirty, Charlotte," he said, pointing to the clock on the mantel whose ticking had often driven her to distraction. "By the time I got down to court, the building would be closed."

  "We could go to Judge Pollack. You've done him enough favors, Cabot. Call one in."

  "I will not even discuss this with you when you are in this state. I will take care of the boy, Charlotte. Sit down. You are acting like a blubbering female!"

  She took a step toward the chair and then stopped. "I am a blubbering female," she said. Couldn't he see that? No one else in the world had failed to notice she was a female. Only this man seemed to be oblivious to the fact.

  "Well, Charlotte, that's nothing to be proud of."

  "It's nothing to be ashamed of either," she said. She wondered if she meant it, truly, and decided that she did indeed. "I do have feelings like a woman. And right now I'm cold, the kind of cold that a woman gets that makes a man pull off his coat and offer it to her. And I'm sad. I'm sad enough to cry and need comfort. I lost that case, Cabot, and it breaks my heart that Davis will have to pay for my failure."

  "Charlotte, believe me, I'm sorry that you lost this round. Sorry for you and sorry for the boy, and I'd cry along with you if it would do a damn bit of good. But a lawyer can't come apart with every setback. Lawyers don't cry—they file appeals, they—"

  She put her hand out across the desk. "Please, Cabot. I don't know what to do."

  He focused on her hand, but didn't take it. Instead he backed the chair away from the desk and she thought for a moment he might come around and take her in his arms.

  "Go wash your face," he said. "It'll be all right." And then she watched as he wheeled his chair from the room.

  ***

  Ash thought that Kathryn would never fall asleep. It had taken the whole volume of Sonnets from the Portugese (of all things for her to choose!) and two of Robert Browning's poems as well, but finally she was snoring lightly and Ash could tipto
e from the room without having to discuss with her his need to make sure that Charlotte was all right.

  From the moment Maria had brought them their tea and told them that Charlotte had lost her case, it had taken every ounce of willpower to stay nailed to his seat. And then there was his mother to help convince him, tightening her grip on his arm and assuring him that when it came to the law, at least, Cabot would be her refuge.

  Now he was going to make sure that Cabot hadn't let the woman down.

  They weren't in their offices, or in the parlor or the dining room. Maria said she was preparing a tray to bring upstairs, as everyone was taking their meals in their rooms. Would he like that as well?

  "I'm not hungry," he grumbled at her, trying not to imagine Cabot and Charlotte taking tea together in the bedroom. "I had enough tea with my mother to float a boat to China." He sounded sulky, even to himself, and he took the stairs two at a time, racing past the second floor without even looking at their doors.

  Whose room were they in? he wondered, baffled by how his brother could pass up the chance to share a room and a bed with Charlotte. Didn't he want her to be the last thing he saw before he shut his eyes? Didn't he want to watch her sleep in the first strains of daylight, her hair every which way, those long eyelashes of hers resting on those soft pink cheeks? Just because he couldn't fill her womb with children, didn't he still want to unlace her boots? Unfasten the buttons that ran in a row down her spine?

  His mother was right—someone was adding more steps to the third-floor stairwell every day. Today the flight went on forever and he could barely drag his feet to his door.

  Liberty, that fickle flirt who batted his eyes at both men and women, began his greeting before Ash had even opened his door. "The swell's here! The swell's here!" he shouted, following it with so much banging about the room that Ash had to wonder if he was stashing some lady bird in the closet.

  Jeez, it had been a long time since either of them had been free birds with room to fly.

  The room was dark, despite all the windows. The sky had turned grayer and grayer with the day as if in sympathy for the people beneath it. He lit the lamp beside his bed and stretched out, his hands behind his back, his eyes closed, and prayed that he would wake up from the nightmare of his life.

  It was cold, cold and wet, and reluctantly he opened one eye to find that the window had been left ajar. With his foot he swung the edge of the bedcover up and over his legs and watched the curtains blow in the wind until the chill forced him up.

  Two hands on the sash, he'd nearly closed the window before he saw her, huddled in a ball in the rain like so much wet laundry. "Charlotte?" he whispered into the wind.

  She nodded. At least he thought she did, as he squinted into the darkness trying to make out her shivering form. He didn't bother waiting to be sure. He was out the window almost before he'd gotten it fully open again, and had her collected up in his arms. "Charlotte, Charlotte, Charlotte," he kept repeating, gathering her soggy woolen skirt up with her and carrying her back through the window.

  Her blouse was soaked through. Her wet skirt probably weighed twenty pounds. He put her down onto the bed and she just sat there, shaking from the cold, not saying a word, those goddamn hazel eyes growing bigger as she stared up at him silently.

  He opened the top button on her blouse, the two under it, and one more still, so that his hands were working between her breasts. "I could get Maria or Rosa," he offered when she neither resisted nor offered help of her own.

  She shook her head, water droplets flying, and he pressed her against him, trying to dry her hair with his shirttails. Without letting go of her, he leaned toward the foot of his bed, grabbed the towel off the footboard, and wrapped her hair in it. Limply she sat in front of him, shivering wildly but making no move to warm herself.

  "Christ!" he said, taking one of her hands and placing it on top of her head to secure the towel. "Hold this. I'm going to get you out of these wet things."

  "He told me to stop crying," she said shakily, shuddering breaths interrupting her as she spoke.

  He unfastened the remaining buttons of her blouse and peeled it from her body, her wet skin fighting to keep it plastered to her. The hook of her skirt fought him as well, and he had to dry his fingers twice before he could convince it to let go. When it did, he pushed her gently onto her back and wiggled the skirt from beneath her hips.

  "No. He called it blubbering," she told him, sniffing and rubbing her nose with the back of her hand. "He called me a blubbering female, as if I had no relation to him. Like I was some stranger in the jury box who'd been swept away by some misplaced sentimentality."

  "Put your head on the pillow," he ordered, swinging her feet up and trying not to notice that her underthings were soaked through and that he could see what little nature had endowed her with, and how perfectly it suited her.

  She took a big shuddering sob and squirmed around on the bed. After she was settled, he folded the edges of his coverlet over her.

  "Get the rest of your wet stuff off," he said. He meant to turn away then, not to watch her movements under the blankets as she gyrated her hips before bending and straightening her legs several times. Finally her twisted little cotton drawers appeared against his footboard in a soggy heap. "All of it," he directed as he flicked the drawers out straight and then laid them over the back of his chair to dry.

  "I can't stay here," she said, the covers pulled up to her armpits as she held out another wet piece of cotton with a trembling naked arm.

  "No one knows where you are," he said, half a statement, half a prayer.

  "No. It's not that. I have to go find Davis before it's too late." She began wrapping the covers more tightly around her and inching toward the edge of his bed.

  "Too late for what?" he asked, pushing her back with very little effort. She was frozen, her bare skin still damp as he reached for his dressing gown at the foot of the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders.

  "His father. Oh! What have I done to that boy!" Dissolving in tears, she fell back against the pillows and turned her head away from him.

  "His father isn't going to lay a finger on him tonight," he said, uncovering just her feet and rubbing them hard. "You're an icicle! We need something warm here." He sat on the edge of the bed and unlaced his shoes, pulled off his socks, and slipped the warm soft wool stockings onto her tiny feet.

  "That feels wonderful!" She was still shivering, each of her words shaky when she spoke. "Ewing Flannigan was mad, Ashford. I really better—" She tried to sit up again, nearly losing the blanket in the process.

  He could feel his jaw drop, he just couldn't seem to do anything about it but stand there like some besotted fool. He tried swallowing, but with his mouth open couldn't manage so difficult a trick. If just the small swell of her breast left him breathless, he could only imagine what seeing what else hid under his blanket would do to him.

  He told himself this was ridiculous. Why, in the islands he'd seen more naked women than clothed ones. Once, two of them—he stopped the thought before it fully took shape. That was another lifetime.

  "Ashford?" She was slipping into his dressing gown, one naked shoulder at a time. Had her teeth not been chattering, her lips not been blue, her whole body not been shuddering wildly, he might not have been able to control himself. "Do you think you could sneak down to my room and get me some clothing? I have to get to the Flannigans."

  "I told you he's safe for tonight," Ash repeated. Safer, he thought, than they were. "Moss is waiting at home for them. He'll be camped outside the door all night."

  Her eyes glistened, then spilled over, tears streaking her face. "I should have known," she said, and picked up the pillow behind her to hug against her chest. The trembling continued, her breathing quavering with each breath.

  "Should I send for some tea?" he asked. "I could go down and send Rosa up to you."

  She shook her head nervously.

  "Then let me warm you." There was a huskiness
to his voice that unnerved him. He could only imagine its effect on her.

  Slowly, deliberately, she set the pillow aside and moved from the center of the bed so that there would be room for him. "I'm freezing," she told him when he sat down on the bed. He carefully propped himself up against the headboard, keeping the quilts between them, and rolled her against his side. "I've been freezing forever."

  She was awkward against him and he had to guide her to where her body would fit neatly against his.

  "He's never held you, has he?" he asked. He felt her shake her head against his chest and pushed her away so that he could see her face. "Why have you stood for it, Charlotte? Why haven't you demanded more of your marriage?"

  She averted her eyes, unwilling to meet his own. "He can't," she said softly, trying to burrow back into his armpit like one of her furry creatures.

  "Can't do this?" he asked, rubbing her arm briskly to warm her up. "Can't do this?" he asked again, planting a kiss on the top of her head.

  "Won't, then," she admitted, pushing herself closer against him until one of Liberty's feathers couldn't have gotten between them.

  "What about this, Charlotte? Can he do this?" He tipped her head back and kissed her hard on the mouth, no teasing of lips, no brushing cheeks or rubbing noses. Just a hard, demanding kiss that deepened until his lips were asking her for promises of now and forever, deepening still further until his tongue demanded that she be his alone for always.

  She was stronger than he would have guessed as she eased down onto the mattress and pulled him along with her. Her arms wrapped around his back, pressing him closer against her, every piece of her so hungry for affection that he felt as if he were somehow taking advantage of her need while slaking his own.

  With little effort he rolled her onto her back and hung above her, looking down at her as he would if he were about to take her. "Can he do this?" he demanded, searching for her breast with his kiss, running his lips against the silk dressing gown until he felt the pebble beneath it, toying with it until the pebble became a stone and the woman's hunger began to match his own.