Chapter 24

“Don’t let your father’s experience affect you too much.”

~Grandpa Henry Daly

Penelope dismounted in front of the house and left her horse in the yard. She wouldn’t be there long. She stopped before the front door and raised her fist to knock. After a moment’s hesitation, she lowered her hand and pushed the door open. This had been her home.

“Jack?” she called. “I’m here.”

“So you are,” his voice answered from the parlor. “Finally.”

They were the first words they had spoken to each other since the night she had left. He was sitting in one of the chairs, waiting. In the afternoon sun, dark circles showed below his eyes; his jaw was clenched. He stood and reached in his pocket. He pulled out a wad of bills.

“This would be about half the worth of the land, including the house.”

“Thank you,” she said, taking it. “I―I’ll pack a few things, if that’s all right…”

“Go ahead. I’ve no use for any of it.”

Penelope held back a sob as she climbed the stairs for the last time. Through eyes blurry with tears, she found two traveling bags in the room at the end of the hall and carried them to what had been their bedroom. The bed they had shared loomed great and empty in the center. There had been many mornings when Jack had awakened her with kisses and late nights falling asleep beside his warmth.

She filled her bags with a few dresses and coats, an extra pair of shoes, and her folding knife. She held the garnet necklace Jack had bought her. She would never sell it, and she would never have cause to wear it. She put it back in her dressing table drawer. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve and carried her things back downstairs.

Jack hadn’t moved. He watched her descend until she stood before him, bags in hand, the money he had given her in her pocket. She looked around one final time at what had been her parlor, their parlor. This life had been a dream. Of course, she would have to wake from it.

“Thank you, Jack, for absolutely everything.”

He nodded, and she stood there, not wanting to leave.

“Why the letter…the messages?” he asked. “Were you afraid I would hurt you?” He kept his voice low; she heard the sorrow beneath the surface.

“No, not at all. I just couldn’t bear…couldn’t bear this.” Her voice broke, just a little.

“If you don’t love him, if you’re not leaving to be with him, why did you do it?”

Penelope shook her head. She couldn’t begin to explain the truth amid the burden of lies. He balled his fists and turned away. She watched her husband standing at the window with his back to her. There were things beyond words that he needed to know. Penelope set her bags down and took a tentative step toward him. She put her hand on his arm. She let out a shaky breath when he didn’t flinch.

“Before I go, may I ask something more of you?”

He turned toward her again, his face a stony mask.

“Make love to me one last time?”

The mask fell away as he blinked at her. “How could you even ask—”

He shook his head. But pain and longing mingled in his eyes.

“Please, Jack. Come upstairs with me?”

He nodded. He walked past her and began to climb the stairs. She followed, her steps echoing behind his. In their bedroom, he began unbuttoning his shirt. Penelope watched his broad chest and powerful muscles bared, along with the scars that she knew by heart. How she had loved the feel of him against her, his strength and his gentleness.

He stood beside the bed, and she realized that he was waiting for her to take off her clothes. He had always liked to do that before. His face was unreadable. Her fingers shook as she undid her buttons. She let her dress fall to the floor.

Never before had he looked at her that way, with such coldness. She had flashbacks to the parlor house and the hotel and the wagon with Oliver. Though Jack had seen her body a thousand times, she instinctively drew her hands over her chest and pelvis.

“Lie down,” he told her.

She swallowed and began to tremble. She had wanted a joyful memory of him…not this. She glanced at his face again. It wasn’t coldness, but pain. If this was what he needed from her, then she would give it to him.

She lay down on the bed, and he joined her, his long, hard body covering hers. She closed her eyes. His hands roamed over her shoulders, her breasts, her hips. He didn’t kiss her lips. He didn’t say her name. He didn’t tell her that he loved her. It should have been like what had happened in the parlor house. But it wasn’t because Jack still touched her the way he always had. Not as though he owned her, but as though he treasured her. She had been wrong. He was giving her what she needed. He stroked her body with tenderness; he delicately tasted her skin. He touched her like no one else ever had or ever would again. Penelope would never let any other man touch her. She belonged to him.

She held onto Jack tightly, memorizing the weight of him, his scent, the feel of him inside her. They cried out together, and he separated from her, lying quietly on his back. She watched his face and wished he would kiss her good-bye. He closed his eyes and took a breath. Then he made a low, frustrated growl, and pressed his mouth to hers.

“Don’t leave, Penny,” he whispered.

She looked at him with that same open wonder he had gotten used to seeing in her doe eyes. She had been with another man; she was likely carrying that man’s child, but it didn’t matter. Jack loved her. Penny was his wife. Maybe it was more pathetic to forgive her and ask her to stay than to miss her for the rest of his life, but he didn’t care.

“I don’t want to,” she answered, running her fingers through his hair. “But I have to.”

“You don’t have to. Whatever you’ve done doesn’t matter. I still love you.”

She shook her head, eyes filled with tears. “You wouldn’t. If you knew everything, you wouldn’t.”

“How can you say that? How can you know that, if you won’t tell me?”

“You’re better off not knowing.”

“Don’t make this about me,” he spat, getting out of bed and pulling on his pants. “About sparin’ me. Just because you’re too scared to tell me who you are.”

“Is it so wrong for me to want to keep my memories of us, of our life together?”

“But that’s just it, Penny. They don’t have to be memories. If you could only see how much I love you—”

“Not if you knew.”

“I don’t care if it’s his child.”

She started. Nell had been right.

“Nell told me she thought you might be pregnant. Were you even gonna tell me?”

“Yes. I just didn’t know when.”

“Well, I don’t care if it’s not mine. We can still—”

“It’s yours, Jack. It couldn’t be anyone else’s.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I’ve never been unfaithful to you.”

“You slept with him.”

“Yes. Three years ago. Nothing happened the day Ben saw us, or before, or since.”

Yet her eyes spoke of shame and regret.

“Why should I believe that?”

She shrugged. “Because it’s true.”

“But you lied to me,” he said quietly, “about everything.”

“Yes.”

“Was it all about money? Once you saw the house and I bought you the piano…Did I buy you, Penny?”

She shook her head.

“Did you ever love me?”

She opened her mouth, shut it, swallowed. She closed her eyes. He assumed this was her answer. Then she looked up, into his eyes. Her voice was quiet, heavy with emotion, but distinct. “More than anything.”

He blinked back the sudden blurriness in his eyes. “Then please just tell me the truth. Tell me everything.”

She nodded. He put on his shirt and waited for her to dress. Then they sat on the bed, side-by-side.

“Did you meet him in a brothel?”

She nodded again. He couldn’t imagine it. Penny in a place like that. That anyone would look at her and decide she was worth ten dollars or fifty, that they would have the gall to put any price on her, to see her as a body and nothing more. Just the thought made him want to kill someone.

“I’m not the woman you fell in love with. I have been a governess, a factory girl, an orphan, the daughter of a prostitute and her customer, a prostitute myself…”

“My wife.”

“Yes,” she said as tears streamed down her face. “And it’s made me happier than I’ve ever been.”

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, in that clumsy way that always broke his heart. He waited for her to continue.

“For as long as I could remember, I had lived in what you might call an orphanage, Spring Home. My friend Sissy and I went to work in the factory together when we were old enough. She got sick, and I needed more money than I could make at the factory.”

She stood up, turning away from him as she spoke.

“So I went to a parlor house and pretended I knew what I was doing. McKay picked me that night, and he gave me more than enough to take Sissy to the hospital. But she…they couldn’t help her. I was dismissed from the factory. After I paid for Sissy’s burial, I went back to the parlor house.”

“How long were you there?”

“One night. McKay came back and took me away. He set me up as a governess with Oliver’s family. More than a year later, Oliver asked me to marry him.”

“Did he know about…what had happened?”

“Yes, I told him when I agreed to be his wife. He said he would take me where I could be someone new, someone respectable. So we were married and set out for Missouri the same day. His family would have disowned him, so we had to take what we had and what cash he had on hand.”

“His family knew about your past?”

“No, they only knew I was a governess. But that was quite bad enough.”

She turned back toward him. He said nothing. What could he say?

“This is why I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to look at me like this,” she said. “With horror, like I’m broken and soiled.”

“That’s not—”

“You don’t need to lie, Jack. Look at your hands, clenched at your sides. I can see how angry you are.”

“Not at you, Penny. At every man who treated you like that, including McKay. But not at you.”

“You aren’t disgusted with me?”

“No.” He reached for her hand, holding it in his.

“Do you…do you still want me to stay?”

“Yes.”

“But why?”

“You just told me that you love me.”

“I do.”

“And you’ve been faithful to me?”

“Yes.”

He believed her. There were many things he didn’t know about his wife, but he believed he knew her heart. “Then why would I want you to leave?”

“But I’m…I’m not…”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter. I’m not at all the woman you thought you loved.”

He shook his head. “Let me explain what I know about you. You’re strong and fearless enough to walk across the country on your own. You’re devoted to the people you care about. And some you barely know. You’re my wife and the woman I love. I consider it my good deed in life to take care of you in any way I can.”

Her eyes were soft as she looked into his. “Is that really how you see me?”

“Yes, love. I don’t care who your parents were or what you had to do to survive before I met you.”

“But McKay said he’d tell everyone. You’ll be humiliated—”

“I don’t care.”

“You gave up part of your life for me when you settled here. I won’t let you lose everything you’ve built since then.”

“You silly little fool. That’s the reason you were gonna let my heart be ripped apart? Everything I built was for you.”

“That’s not true. I may have been the reason you settled here, but you’re happy here. It’s your home now.”

“Home is wherever you are, Penny,” he said. “If you think I’d be better off with you gone, you’re wrong.”

She knelt between his knees, and he snatched her into his arms. She pressed her soft cheek against his neck, and her warm tears slid down his skin.

“Thank you, Jack. For everything you’ve given me, for believing me, for loving me.”

“That one wasn’t even a choice, darlin’.”

“You deserve so much better than me.”

He chuckled into her hair as he held her. “That’s ridiculous, Princesa.”