Read Edge of Time (Langston Brothers Series) Online
Authors: Melissa Lynne Blue
She was babbling, sobbing,
rambling uncontrollably
, her eyes crazed.
He stopped, blinked. “Are you mad?”
“
No!” She
cried in
panic. “Genie--Genie can tell you! Genie came from the future too. We still have our driver’s licenses. I have pictures. I can prove it to you!” Marissa ran toward the door.
“Jesus Christ,” he cursed. “Is your entire family insane? What next, is Carolyn going to sprout wings?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Craig.”
Me, don’t be ridiculous?
“They’re not really my family! Genie found me right after I bumped into you. She guessed what had happened because the same thing had befallen her, twenty years before.”
“Marissa,” he sighed, suddenly feeling resoundingly hollow, depressed. Oh, but he didn’t want to feel hollow and depressed; he wanted to stay angry, no, he
needed
to stay furious. He fought to maintain it even as he realized the woman he loved was quite clearly insane. He grasped desperately at the pulsating anger, drawing it around him like a defensive cloak, for if he gave in to
sadness
, he’d have to admit to himself
that his wife was totally mad
.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Marissa, but I am leaving.”
“Where are you going?”
Her whisper was so devastatingly soft and broken that for a moment his protective shield of anger faltered, wavered, and collapsed. Her beautiful, wounded eyes glowed in the center of the room as if trying to suck him into the
i
r depths, making it impossible to stay angry.
But, without anger,
what was left, despair? God, he didn’t want to feel that! Anything but that. He needed his anger. There was righteousness in it. Anger was powerful. Anger kept the billowing cloud of crushing sadness at bay. “The hospital,” he said. “I’ll take the nightshift for Dr. Rowe.”
Exhaling on a whoosh, he crossed the room and pressed his lips to her forehead. He couldn’t help himself. “We’ll talk about this later. But I don’t want you going anywhere, not tonight, not tomorrow. Don’t even go to see Genie. I want you to stay home and get some rest.”
Drawing a ragged breath Craig grabbed his uniform tunic and sidearm and jerked the door inward.
“Whoa!” Craig took a reflexive step back as four pistols and a shotgun trained on his chest. Raising his hands he dropped his own gun and stammered, “What the hell is
this
about, Jamison?”
Thirteen
“I should kill you right now, you
—
you
lecherous rake,” Mike Jamison growled
. “You know damn well why I’m here.”
“I can assure you I do not.” Craig’s eyes darted from the various muzzles to the fingers lingering at the triggers. None of them looked overly steady.
“My daughter!”
“What about your daughter?”
“You son of a bitch, she’s pregnant!”
“Christ almighty.” Craig felt the black hole of his life began to collapse in around him, and for a fleeting moment he wished for them to shoot him and be done with it.
“Her mother and I heard her retching and sobbing this morning. She told me it’s yours. I found you in her bed, so don’t even try to deny it.”
“I told you before that I never touched her! It’s a goddamn lie.”
“I should castrate you here and now!” Mike’s voice rose impossibly high as spittle flew from his mouth. “You don’t really expect anyone to believe that now do you?”
Craig looked the man dead in the eye. “Yes, I do, and so should you, considering the trick your daughter pulled the night before my wedding.”
Jamison hesitated for the barest instant, and Craig saw confusion and doubt warring with certitude in the man’s eyes. “But
I found
you in her bed, you bastard. In her bed! That was no trick! You got drunk and you
ruined
her. What will you do to take care of her, Langston? You’re already married, but I expect you will give the child your name and support my daughter and the child you sired on her.”
“Never!” Craig growled like a caged lion. “I didn’t father her bastard. How can you be sure if she even is pregnant?”
“The midwife confirms it.”
“Really? Then I suggest you look elsewhere because I am not, and will not be responsible for her!” Taking a definitive step back Craig put a hand upon the heavy door as though to close it. “If you’ll excuse me,
my
wife
is waiting.”
Slamming the door closed, he slid the bolt securely home and
leaned his back heavily
against it, sliding his own weapon back to his side as he waited for the sound of the men treading back down the walk.
Sinking to the floor, he leaned his head against the wall. Numb. What was he going to do? As if this situation with Marissa wasn’t enough to deal with, Kirsten had to go and throw her dirty ace on top of the pile.
Turning, he saw Marissa standing statue still and ashen before the winding staircase. “It’s not true,” he said.
Catatonically she slid onto the bottom step.
* * *
Visions of Marne and Kirsten merged as one. Memories of Brian’s betrayal assailed her and Marissa was frozen with horror that this was all happening to her again. At this moment she felt more lost than when she’d first found herself in Genie’s field. She’d been so desperate to find solace in her tumultuous life, to be loved, to be wanted, she’d fallen for the next lying man to come her way.
Marissa stared with empty, unseein
g eyes. “I believed you, Craig. W
hen you said she was lying
… I
believed
you.
”
“Marissa, I never touched her.”
“Why would she lie? And why would the midwife lie?”
A woman didn’t have to be from this time
—
this era
—
to understand the fear and uncertainty, the judgmental attitude of her community that went with an unplanned pregnancy outside of marriage.
Marissa knew too well the whispers of this society and she
experienced
a fleeting wave of empathy for Kirsten.
Craig groaned, dragging his hands down over his face. “Don’t you see it? They
’re still trying to set me up!”
“Why would they?” Marissa asked.
“At the beginning of the war her father converted all of his money into Confederate currency. The man is dead broke.” Craig heaved to his feet and stood in front of her. “When their plans for a shotgun wedding didn’t work out they decided to claim that she’s pregnant to coerce me
coerce us
into giving them money.”
Her ey
es searched his, probing,
seeking truth.
S
he wanted to believe him, to acce
pt that he hadn’t betrayed her—
that he was a better man than that,
but… she shook her head… In the end
she couldn’t.
“All right, Mari
ssa. Believe what you will. I’m going to the hospital
.”
The door slammed, jarring Marissa from her daze. “No!” she cried, clutching her arms to her middle as though to keep herself together. Collapsing against the stairs, she did not have the capacity to move or think, and certainly not to run after her husband.
Craig stormed through the streets of Charleston as visions of Marissa assailed him. Marissa laughing, Marissa crying, Marissa lying wanton in his arms… He could smell her, for Christ’s sake! Feel the rosy heat emanating from her skin. “Jesus,” he blasphemed for the umpteenth time that day. Even in the face of possible madness or more certain treachery, he was still crazy in love with her.
Was she a spy? A harlot? Insane, or none of those, or all?
Craig shook his head as the questions spun
round and round in his mind. Whatever the result of the rising dilemmas he was near convinced that none of it bode
d
well for him or Marissa.
Would it be best to cut his losses now? More to the point, if his suspicions proved true, he’d be obliged to report her to the authorities. And if she wasn’t in charge of her faculties, there was always the
Pembroke Asylum
…
No
!
His gut clenched.
The thought was entirely too much to bear.
“Dr. Bernstein.
”
Craig entered the hospital and hailed his support.
“I’ll take Dr. Rowe’s duty shift tonight, sir.”
“Very well.” The commander nodded quirking a brow in question.
“And I don’t expect my wife to be returning to work in the near future.” The words were terse.
Major Bernstein nodded. “I can understand why.”
“And just what is that supposed to mean?” Craig snapped.
“The rumors are getting worse, Captain. I just think it best she stay away for a while.”
“As I’ve already instructed her to do, Major.”
Does everyone think I’ve been blindsided by a common whore and a Union spy?
“Very well, Captain. I’ll see you again after your evening rounds.”
Craig worked through the night and the following day and to say the situation was stressful would have been an understatement. The rumor that his wife was a Yankee informant had spiraled out of control and the angry glares, malicious comments, and flat out refusals to see him as a physician were almost more than he could bear. Combined with Kirsten’s most recent ploy, Craig knew the intense desire to crawl into a dark hole and never resurface.
To make matters worse
—
if truly matters could get any worse
—
Kirsten appeared in the flesh at the hospital adding insult to injury, mincing and flirting, acting as if she owned him. It was as if a twisted version of his life had been placed on public display for scientific dissection by the city’s gossip mongers.
Whispers of speculation rang clear through every corner of the hospital and the city.
“To have married a woman with Marissa McClafferty’s reputation, Captain Langston must have been coerced. It’s no wonder he went looking for another woman.”
“Now wouldn’t you know, he’s got two girls in trouble? I never would have thought
it from a man like Dr. Langston,
”
one of
the most loyal lady volunteers
whispered to a companion from around a corner.