GET OUT.” DEVON HAD NO MORE THAN OPENED HIS EYES and looked up into Polly's face when he uttered the words.
Gently, Polly smoothed a lock of rumpled butterscotch hair from his forehead. Her own eyes brimmed with tears of both joy at his awakening and the poignant sorrow of his rejection. She said his name softly.
Devon tilted his head back, his bruised chin at a stubborn angle, and stared up at the ceiling. The next time he spoke, he wounded Polly almost as brutally as before. “Where is Lydia?”
She swallowed, mindful that she'd brought this sorry state of affairs on herself by trying to deceive Devon in the first place, and summoned up a watery smile. “She's moved to the blue house, on Main Street,” she answered, her voice shaky and brittle with the effort not to break down and sob on Devon's chest, begging for his forgiveness. “She and Brigham agreed it wasn't proper, their living under the same roof, with no proper chaperon in evidence.” She paused and sniffled, encouraged by the fact that Devon hadn't interrupted her chatter. “Of course, now the whole town will probably court her.”
At this, Devon's gaze swerved to Polly's face, and his expression sliced at her spirit like a knife. “I want to see her,” he said, with a coldness she would never have believed he could manage, after all the tender warmth he'd shown her before her dreadful confession. “Bring Lydia to me. Now.”
Polly rose slowly off the bed, swallowed hard. A sense of frenzied panic gathered in her stomach and rushed to the base of her windpipe, but she held on to her smile. “Lydia has come to visit you every day since the accident,” she said. “I'm certain today will be no different.”
“I want to see her now.”
She closed her eyes briefly, opened them again. “There's something I need to tell you, Devon,” she said. “You must listen.”
He looked away. “I'm not interested in anything you have to say,” he told her. “Get out.”
Polly hesitated, nearly overwhelmed by his hatred and by the magnitude of the trouble she was in. She actually considered jumping off the wharf at high tide, so great was her despair, but on some level she knew she could not take such a cowardly course.
She made her way into the hallway, her bearing as regal as she knew how to make it. Beyond the threshold, however, when the door to Devon's room had closed behind her, Polly gave a small, hopeless wail and fell against the opposite wall. Her whole body trembled with the force of her weeping, although she made no sound beyond that first moaning cry, and she raised her arms to brace herself lest she collapse.
Presently, the storm of grief began to abate. Polly had been vaguely aware that someone was standing behind her, but because she knew the person could not be Devon, she did not turn around.
Strong hands came to rest on her shoulders. “Mrs. Quade,” a masculine voice said.
Up until that moment, Polly had believed her bitter anguish to be nearly spent, but the title she could not claim clawed at her spirit, tearing it like sharp talons. She whirled, sobbing, and looked up into the sympathetic and genteelly handsome face of Dr. Joseph McCauley.
“There now, what is it?” he asked, and his tone soothed her somehow, like balm on a wound. “When I saw Mr. Quade earlier this morning, he seemed to be doing very well, so it can't be that.”
Polly brushed away her tears with the heel of one palm. “He's awake,” she said brokenly. The doctor's hands were still supporting her, and she began to feel stronger.
“Good,” Dr. McCauley said. Then he sighed, reached into his coat pocket and drew out a clean handkerchief. He offered it to Polly before going on. “Often an active man like Mr. Quade becomes—irritable when he finds himself immobilized. Also, we must remember that he is in significant pain. He'll be more tractable once he's adjusted to the reality of his situation.”
“I wish it were that simple,” Polly said distractedly, drying her face and then blowing her nose with as much delicacy as possible. She almost blurted out the new and fearsome secret she was keeping, but in the end she couldn't confide something so personal to a stranger.
The physician moved away from Polly, watching her with a kindly gaze, opened the door of Devon's room and went in.
Polly smoothed her hair and skirts, drew a deep breath, and set out resolutely for the stairs. When she reached Lydia's cottage, minutes later, she found her friend kneeling on the front porch, coaxing a distressed marmalade kitten to take milk from a saucer.
Lydia looked up when she heard the gate hinges creak and smiled. A light, lilac-scented breeze played with her spun gold hair, and her eyes were blue as the cornflowers on the Quades' best dishes. Polly wanted to dislike the other woman, on account of Devon's fascination with her, but she couldn't summon the necessary rancor.
After dipping the tip of her index finger in the milk, Lydia offered it to the kitten, who lapped hungrily at the droplet. “I was just about to walk over to the main house,” she told Polly pleasantly. “I want to borrow some books for the children's lessons. How is Devon today?”
Polly tried to smile and failed. She sat down on the top step, folding her arms around her updrawn knees. “He's awake,” she said. “He asked for you.”
Lydia came to sit beside her, holding the kitten on her lap and setting the saucer of milk on the step at her feet. She continued to feed the squirming creature with her finger. “I'll be sure to see him while I'm at the house.”
Watching the kitten, with its little ears pressed flat to its head, and its tiny, trembling limbs, Polly bit her lower lip and battled back another spate of tears.
Sensing Polly's suffering, Lydia brought her gaze swiftly to her face. The expression in Polly's violet-blue eyes was a questioning one.
“Babies are such helpless little things, aren't they?” Polly looked down at the kitten.
Lydia was still watching her when she raised her head again. “Oh, Polly,” she said softly. “Are you saying that you're—that you're expecting a child?”
Polly reached out, took the kitten and sheltered it gently against her bosom. “I think so,” she said. “My female-time was due last week, and it hasn't come. I've never been late before.”
“Have you told Devon?”
The laugh Polly uttered held no humor, only a rattle of grief. “Not yet. I'm not sure I ever will.”
Lydia's whisper revealed shock. “Why not?”
“The first words Devon said to me when he came around were, ‘Get out.’ He hates me.”
“He's angry,” Lydia said, “and probably in severe pain as well. The prospect of a child might be a lifeline to him right now.”
The soft, weightless kitten had drifted off into a contented sleep against Polly's breast. “It's bad enough that Devon doesn't want me,” she said, staring off toward the snow-covered mountains in the distance. “I couldn't bear it if he turned his back on our child, too.”
Lydia took Polly's hand, squeezed it. “Suppose he doesn't?
Polly lifted the snoring ball of silken fur and gently brushed it against her cheek. At the same moment, a horrible possibility dawned on her. Devon might well think she'd already been pregnant when he met her, that the baby was just another facet of the complicated deception she'd perpetrated.
“He may not believe me,” she said, with resignation, “and I have no one to thank for that but myself.” She handed the kitten back to Lydia and drew a deep breath in an effort to compose herself. “Where are Charlotte and Millie?”
Lydia sighed. “They're with the Holmetz children, and Elly Collier's boys, gathering plant specimens for this afternoon's botany lesson.”
Polly stood, watching as a small freighter came steaming around the bend toward the harbor. Perhaps she would board that boat, sail away from Quade's Harbor, make a new life for herself and the baby somewhere else. She could always go back to San Francisco, pretending to be a widow, and find herself another man.
She said a distracted good-bye to Lydia and moved down the dirt walkway to the gate, her emotions hopelessly tangled. Even then she knew running away wasn't the solution to her problems. Besides, she couldn't take another husband, not when she loved Devon so much. Just the thought of being intimate with anyone else made her shiver with revulsion.
Lydia carried the kitten and its saucerful of milk back into the house, but her thoughts followed Polly along the road to the mansion on the hill. She had half a mind to go straight to Devon Quade and tell him just exactly what she thought of him and his stubborn pride.
Even before she'd put the kitten in the little bed she'd made for it, using a small pillow and an apple crate, and before she'd smoothed her hair and splashed water on her face, Lydia knew she wouldn't broach such a personal subject with Devon. He and Polly would have to work it out themselves.
As Lydia walked toward the big house, she stopped to watch the freighter tie up to the wharf. Several tall men disembarked, followed by two women in plain dresses, sharing a parasol.
Since Mr. Harrington, Brigham's clerk, was on hand to greet the new arrivals, Lydia suppressed her curiosity and went on. She would seek out the women later, and welcome them to Quade's Harbor.
Reaching Brigham's front gate, she lifted the latch and went through. Her thoughts had shifted from the scene on the wharf to Polly's predicament, and she felt a headache taking hold at her nape. It was amazing, she reflected, how very costly pride could be.
The interior of the big house was cool and quiet. Lydia proceeded through the entryway and turned toward the study, with its leather furniture, Persian rug, and tall windows looking out over the water and the mountains. The mantel was a piece of furniture in its own right, ornately carved with small animals, birds, oak leaves and acorns, stretching from the hearth to the ceiling.
Lydia marveled, touching a remarkable image of a squirrel. The creature's bushy tail alone had probably required hundreds of strokes of the carver's knife. The oak leaves were marked with perfect veins, and the acorns looked real enough to spawn seedlings.
She stood for a long time, discovering more images in the mantel. High over her head she spotted a wizard, skillfully hidden among the other carvings, as well as a magnificent stag and a gnarled tree burdened with fruit. Finally, the pull of the many books lining the floor-to-ceiling shelves behind Brigham's desk became too strong to resist.
Lydia found a stool and climbed up to begin examining the titles. She told herself she would not tarry too long, but simply find a good volume on botany, leave a note for Brigham explaining that she'd borrowed it to teach a lesson, and hurry back to her cottage.
For all Lydia's good intentions, she had a fascination with books akin to a drunk's addiction to liquor. She loved to just look at books, touching their bindings, reading their titles, sampling just a paragraph or two from the ones that proved purely irresistible.
She was so absorbed in one author's true account of two years spent living among gorillas in the heart of Africa that when two hands closed tightly on her thighs, she screamed and nearly dropped the precious leather-bound volume.
Brigham looked up at her with a smile in his eyes, his hands lingering on her limbs for a moment, setting fire to her flesh despite the layers of calico and muslin covering her. “Hold your temper, Yankee,” he said wryly. “That stool is none too steady, and I didn't want to take a chance on startling you.” Having said that, he released his hold on her, though he still looked ready to catch her if the need should arise.
Cheeks hot with color, Lydia replaced the gorilla saga on the shelf. The problem now was to climb down from her shaky perch without breaking her neck.
Brigham grinned, gave his head a wry shake, and placed his hands on her waist. Before she could protest, he'd lifted her off the stool. Her bosom brushed against his chest as he lowered her slowly to the floor, and the sparkle in his eyes said he'd done that on purpose.
A searing arousal swirled through Lydia's being, making her personal parts throb with memory's sweet appeasement. She stumbled back, out of his grasp, only to find herself flush against the edge of his desk.
Brigham stepped in front of her. “I didn't know trespassing numbered among your remarkable talents, Miss McQuire,” he drawled. His expression grew solemn as he looked at her hair, the pulse at the base of her throat, and then her lips. “May I ask what you're doing, plundering my study?”
A warm shiver took Lydia, and she folded her arms across her chest. “You know very well that I wasn't ‘plundering your study,’” she replied, with flustered impatience. “I merely came to borrow a text on botany.”
He nodded indulgently, his eyes dancing at her obvious discomfort. “I see. I think the mating habits of gorillas fall under another category, however.”
Lydia wouldn't have thought she could summon up another blush; it seemed to her that every drop of blood in her body had already flowed into her face. Still, her cheeks felt even hotter than before. She glanced fitfully up at the spine of the book she'd been reading, then narrowed her eyes and glared at Brigham.
“I was not reading about the mating habits of anything,” she said tartly.
Brigham curled one finger under her chin and lifted it. His lips were so close to hers that she could feel their warmth, sense their texture, anticipate their pressure. “Enough of this foolishness,” he muttered.
Lydia told herself she should try to escape his kiss, but she made no actual attempt because she wanted it too much. Her whole body sang like a harp string when Brigham's mouth sampled hers. His hands rose from the sides of her waist to the delicate rounding of her breasts as his tongue played over the seam of her lips and then entered her mouth.
A soft and completely involuntary whimper escaped her. Instead of pushing Brigham away, as she knew she should have done, she clasped his shoulders as if to pull him closer. She felt the size and heat of his manhood against her abdomen, and a sweet dizziness swirled up around her as he pressed her against the edge of the desk.
Lydia was certain she would faint if he didn't release her, but the kiss went on and she stayed conscious. She felt as though she was astraddle a lightning bolt, and the beginnings of another scandalous inner explosion, like the one Brigham had brought her to on the bed at the cabin, seemed to be building inside her.
Just in time, just when she would have tumbled right over the brink, Brigham lifted his mouth. His eyes were full of challenge, and Lydia could see none of her own bedazzlement in their depths.
“Enough nonsense,” he said hoarsely, his thumbs playing freely with her nipples, which jutted against her camisole, frantic for contact with his fingers and tongue. “You have need of a husband, and I certainly require a wife. I want you to marry me, Lydia. Now. Today.”
She squirmed out of his embrace, and although he didn't make it easy, he didn't try to restrain her, either. She straightened her dress and raised her hands to the coronet of hair at the back of her head. That turned out to be a mistake, for Brigham's gaze slipped immediately to her breasts, and his glance proved almost as effective as a caress.
Lydia turned away, struggling to get her breath. When she'd finally succeeded, she lifted her head high, well aware that he was dose behind her, that he could easily draw her back against the hardness of his thighs and chest. “You've fallen in love with me, then?” she said, knowing only too well what his answer would be.
“No,” he replied, with wounding bluntness. “Love is a fatuous concept, invented by poets. I'm offering you something solid and tangible, a partnership, Yankee—half interest in everything I own. All I ask in return is that you share my bed, look after my daughters, and give me a son or two.”
Lydia whirled, her cheeks crimson again, but this time with fury and conviction, not embarrassment. “You may think that love is a ‘fatuous concept,’” she flared, “and no doubt you hold patriotism and personal honor in the same low regard. But I, Mr. Quade, will not settle for anything less than a true and deep sentiment from the man I marry!”
His mouth took on a disdainful slant, and he folded his arms. “That must be why you answered that handbill in San Francisco and willingly agreed to wed a total stranger. And what the hell does patriotism have to do with this?”
Lydia faltered. Her body was pulling her in one direction, her mind in another. She was a one-woman riot of conflict and confusion. “Marrying Devon would have been different,” she hedged. “He's a gentleman.”
Brigham pretended to pull a dart from his chest. Then he arched one eyebrow, and gave no sign that he meant to let her pass. “All right,” he said generously, “have it your way. But I still want an explanation for that remark about patriotism.”
She swallowed, wishing she'd never thrown out a challenge in the first place. When was she going to learn not to rise to the hook every time this man dangled a line in front of her nose? She fell back on bravado, too proud to admit she'd spoken rashly. “While other men were fighting and dying on the battlefields at Gettysburg and Antietam and Bull Run, you were out here cutting timber. Not only did you neatly avoid the danger, you had the brass to sell lumber to both governments!”
She had cause to regret that statement, as well as the earlier one, in the next instant. Brigham's eyes took on a chilly glint, and a white line edged his jaw.
“Are you calling me a coward?” he asked, his voice low and lethal.
“No,” Lydia said, and she wasn't trying to appease him. “You're a rascal and a rounder, but you don't lack for courage.”
His nod and brief smile were bitter. “Thank you for that much,” he said. With that, he backed her up to the desk and stood with his hands braced on either side of her, once again making escape impossible. “You have a fair share of gall yourself,” he said, measuring the words, practically biting them off. “You came into my house, like Sherman taking Atlanta, and then you demanded a place of your own, along with a fat salary and a school-house. Now I find you going through my belongings.”
Lydia had never been so rattled. She was practically on her back, her thighs pressed shamefully against Brigham's, and all her nerves were leaping beneath her skin. At one and the same time, she wanted to run away and to take him deep inside her, right there on the study desk, and hold fast to him.
“I was not—going through your belongings—” she explained breathlessly. “I've already explained—”
He pulled her upright in a sudden, wrenching motion. “Explain this,” he rasped, his nose practically touching hers. “Why is it that I'm such a ‘rascal and a rounder’ because I refused to take sides between the North and the South? Joe McCauley fought on the enemy side, Yank. How does it happen that you regard him so warmly?”
Lydia ran her tongue over dry lips. “He is a good man, a doctor. We have a great deal in common.”
Brigham sighed, then turned away from her, shoving one hand through his hair. While Lydia was still recovering her scattered composure, he went to the bookshelves and took down a thick volume with a green leather binding.
“Botany,” he said hoarsely, slamming the book down on the surface of the desk. Then, without another word, he strode out of the study, leaving Lydia to gaze after him and wonder at the wild sensations he'd stirred not only in her body, but in her soul, too.
She remembered nothing of the walk back to her cottage, except that she moved so fast she got tangled in her skirts twice and nearly fell.
The afternoon was pleasant.
Lydia took her six students to a high knoll overlooking the Sound and the site of the meetinghouse Brigham had promised her, and they sat in a circle. The botany text lay open on Lydia's lap, and one by one they identified the leaves and grasses the children had gathered that morning.
“Mr. Feeny told me Uncle Devon asked for you when he took his meal tray upstairs,” Charlotte confided, with concern, as they all walked back toward the town proper. The Collier boys would make their own way up the mountain, to the camp where their mother had taken up residence in a tent, and the Holmetzes lived in the yellow house at the opposite end of the street from Lydia's blue one. Millie had gone ahead to play in Anna's yard.
Lydia sighed. She had meant to look in on Devon, but after the incident in the study, with Brigham, she'd fled the house in panic. She wouldn't go back until she knew the master wasn't at home.
“Please tell your uncle that I'll definitely come to call tomorrow,” she said. The morning would be a good time, she decided, before she began the lessons she'd planned for the children. She knew Brigham would be either in his office or on the mountain before the rest of the household had even stirred. “How is he?”
“He's in a terrible mood,” Charlotte confided. “He raised his voice to poor Polly and made her cry. Not only that, but when she went to bathe him, he knocked the basin from her hands and got the floor all wet.” The girl's wonderful eyes were wide. “Is it proper for a woman to bathe a man?”
Lydia suppressed a smile. “It's perfectly proper, under the right circumstances.”
Charlotte was still pondering that when they passed the towering Quade house. She gave Lydia a distracted wave and headed up the shady driveway.
Reaching home, Lydia found a basket of fruit on her porch, along with a tin of chocolates and an armload of wildflowers. Undoubtedly, the oranges and candy had come in on board the freighter she'd seen earlier, since such treats certainly weren't available in Brigham's despicable “company store.”
Lydia gathered up the booty carefully, then turned to scan the street. She was being courted in earnest, quite possibly by several different men, but so far only Mr. Flengmeir had presented himself at the front door and declared his intentions.
With a sigh and a slight shrug, Lydia went inside. The kitten, whom she had named Ophelia, came scampering and tumbling over to meet her, batting ineffectually at her hem. She put the oranges in the center of the table, the flowers in a jelly jar with water, and the chocolates in the top drawer of her bureau.
She would eat two of the oranges herself, she decided, one after supper and one at breakfast time, and offer the rest to the children the next day, as an incentive to work hard on their studies.
Since the kitten was still attached to her skirts when she'd put the candy away, Lydia bent and gently freed its tiny claws from the fabric, then collapsed wearily onto the feather-filled mattress. Ophelia toddled unsteadily up to the base of Lydia's throat and settled herself there with elaborate ceremony.
Lydia's eyes filled with tears, and she caressed the cat lightly, with just the tips of her fingers, delighting in its warmth. A moment later, weary from a busy day and the encounter with Brigham, Lydia drifted off to sleep.
When she awakened, twilight was casting purple shadows through the window, and Ophelia was snuggled close to her right cheek, giving her soft, purring snore. Lydia lowered the cat carefully to the floor and sat up, yawning.
She hadn't meant to doze off; she needed to make supper, heat enough water to fill the hip bath she'd borrowed from the Quades' attic, and plan the next day's lessons. If there was time, she would seek out the ladies she'd seen getting off the freighter that afternoon and introduce herself.
With a sigh, Lydia swung her legs over the side of her bed and pinned a few loose tendrils of hair beneath her sagging coronet. Perhaps the women were unattached, and some of the loggers would turn to courting them instead of her.
She hoped so.
She made a trip to the small privy out back, washed her hands under the pump in the yard, and filled the largest kettle she had. She put the water on the stove to heat.
Supper was simple; Lydia cooked one of the eggs Mr. Feeny had brought to her, and browned a slice of buttered toast on a small griddle. After pouring a glass of milk, she sat quietly at the round table to eat.
Lydia was just finishing her meal when a knock sounded at the door.
Again her heart lurched. She wasn't up to another encounter with Brigham Quade, and besides, it wouldn't be proper for him to visit her. People would start saying she was his mistress, a kept woman.
“Who's there?” she called in an uncertain voice, fully prepared to refuse Brigham admission. Never mind that it was his house, his town. She was the one with everything at stake.
“It's Joseph,” her friend replied through the closed door. “I've come calling, Miss Lydia. It is my hope that we could sit on the front porch together for a while.”
Lydia's relief was matched only by her disappointment. She summoned up a smile and opened the door. “Hello, Joseph. Won't you come in?”
He was holding a small nosegay made up of buttercups and wild violets, and once again Lydia willed herself to fall wildly, passionately in love with him.
“It wouldn't be proper for me to do that,” he said, and there was an indulgent note of scolding in his tone. “We must think of your reputation, darlin'.”
Lydia sighed. If only Brigham Quade would concern himself with wild violets and propriety, things would be so much simpler. She smiled and stepped out onto the porch to accept Joseph's offering, and they sat together on the top step.
“How's Devon?” she asked, after taking a delicious sniff of the delicate wildflowers he'd brought.
“Mean,” Joseph answered, with a long sigh. “He's making life pretty miserable for Mrs. Quade.”
Lydia felt a flare of sisterly indignation. “He ought to be horsewhipped. Maybe Polly made a mistake, but she loves Devon, and he loves her. I just hope he realizes that before it's too late and there's the baby—” She broke off, horrified that she'd betrayed such an important confidence.
“Does Devon know?” Joseph asked after a long time.
Lydia didn't hesitate. Surely Polly had not kept something so vitally important to herself, fearful as she'd been of Devon's reaction. “He must. Polly had almost no choice except to tell him.”
The doctor didn't answer.