M. Donice Byrd - The Warner Saga (35 page)

Pete nodded his head and then remembering his manners, thanked everyone at the table.

“It was all Lolly’s idea. She saw the book and thought of you.”

33

The room was chilly and dark but the woman in his arms radiated heat like an oven. He enjoyed these moments where he could watch her sleep and contemplate his life. Never had he been so content. He had never imagined he could feel this way. Not that his life was perfect, Pete still challenged him, but he didn’t know if it could get much better.

Blake slid his hand over her hip to her abdomen. He felt the ever-increasing swell of her belly under his splayed fingers. It wouldn’t be long before everyone could see….

Blake stopped his thoughts midsentence. Could he finish it? It wouldn’t be long before everyone could see the evidence of their love. Was this love? Was it possible to fall in love when you were dead set against it? Could he risk putting his heart on the line for her? He knew it meant a great deal to Meredith to hear those words but he refused to say them if they weren’t true. But he knew in his heart, beyond a shadow of a doubt, he loved her with all of his being. Why couldn’t he say the words aloud? It wasn’t as if not saying it voided the feelings.

Blake moved his hand to her waist and pulled her more tightly to his chest. Meredith snuggled against him.

“I love you,” she murmured, sleepily.

“I love you, too.” The words were out of his mouth before he thought about them.

It took about fifteen seconds for the words to penetrate Meredith’s barely awake mind. She wrenched her neck toward him.

“Do you?”

Blake lightly ran his finger from her shoulder down her arm to her hand.

I don’t want to
, he thought.

“I can’t help myself. You’re irresistible.”

Blake suspected, although he did know for
certain, that what he felt in the morning had nothing to do with love. He sunk under the water and rinsed the soap out of his hair. Meredith had been bouncing with happiness as she flitted about the room getting dressed. She sat on the edge of the tub and kissed him long and lingeringly before they heard Lolly emerge from her bedroom, leaving Blake to finish his bath alone. A few more minutes and Meredith would have been in the tub with him, fully dressed or not.

He didn’t know what it was about making love with her that made him lose himself so completely but it seemed to be the only time when he was not fighting the dread that he could not shake. Criminy! Why couldn’t he just be happy? He had fought so hard for so long trying to never find himself in this position. It wasn’t as if he didn’t understand why he felt this way. No, he had plenty of time to realize that this was all about his mother’s suicide. That being in love made him vulnerable to being hurt. If
Meredith ever left him, he would be devastated.

Blake cursed and, realizing the water had grown tepid, rose from his bath. Grabbing a towel, he stepped out. The job of toweling himself dry was perfunctory at best as he went about his routine by rote.

“At least you know what you want,” he said aloud to his penis before wrapping the towel around his middle. He grabbed the second towel began vigorously drying his unruly mop.

Blake the Great, indeed
, Blake thought remembering the nickname some of the up-and-coming bucks had dubbed him. He had been felled by a tiny five foot tall, guileless twenty-year-old orphan. He then did what he never imagined he could. He smiled over being forced to marry Meredith.

Blake ran his comb through his nearly dry hair then intentionally messed it up. It was going to get that
state on its own as it finished air drying but this way he didn’t feel that annoying movement all over his head as one by one the curl took over, releasing each strand from its damp confines. He had long ago given up trying to fight its natural tendencies. And frankly, women seemed to find it attractive, not that what any woman besides Meredith liked matter to him.

He looked in the mirror and forced a smile to his face then tried to make his eyes reflect his politician’s smile – as Beth had called it. His eyes closed involuntarily at the thought. Dammit, he didn’t want to think about her. He did as he always did when her face came to his mind. He pushed it back to the recesses of his brain and tried to focus on something else.

Blake pulled a matching navy blue sack coat and pair of pants off the hanger. He’d been avoiding wearing blue since Pete seemed to put significance to the color choice but Blake had opted for a gray striped waistcoat to go with it, hoping to appease him.

Blake honestly wanted to be the person he could lean on as he mourned his parents but Pete made it so difficult. An ironic smirk crossed Blake’s countenance as he tried to remember if he’d ever torn up a room like Pete had. In general, Blake’s aggression had mostly been turned against the boys and teachers at school rather than objects. If only one of those teachers had tried to get past his anger to find out why he was acting out, perhaps it wouldn’t have gone on so long or been as bad as it was. Originally, the administrators and teachers assumed he was just one of those boys who rebelled against being sent to boarding school when in truth, Blake was thankful for the warm bed at night, three meals a day and the chance to return to the normalcy of school. After what he’d been through
, school was heaven. Because he could not come to terms with Beth’s death, he felt completely off balance. Then, after he’d been expelled from the first one, the others had no tolerance for his antics.

Blake wondered if Pete would benefit from leaving the house daily to attend public school. He was practically a prisoner to the four walls of the house. But Blake knew although Sam would be willing to continue working with Pete in a school setting, Pete’s lack of formal education would ostracize him every bit as much as his inability to speak. Pete’s regular tutor, Mrs. Banyan, had estimated his formal education as being between three and four years and although bright as any boy his age, it would take years for him to catch up to where he should be.

Blake didn’t know if he could ever get through the boy’s hard exterior but he wasn’t going to stop trying. Ever. It had been such a good sign that he felt comfortable talking to Meredith and frankly, if she was the one who could help him, Blake would be content. But he certainly wasn’t finished trying. Not by a long shot. As a matter of fact, maybe Blake would talk to the tutor and take him out of the classroom early today. He and Pete could go pick out a carriage and they’d need another horse as Wunner was probably too small to haul the whole family by herself and he would never risk harnessing a temperamental brute like Viper to it. The new horse could be Pete’s horse. Surely, a boy his age would like that.

He wondered if he should take Pete to see
Frederick. Pete had said that he was not hurt when he tore up his room, but Blake wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth.

As Blake finished dressing, he felt something poking him in the chest as he pulled on his sack coat. He held out the left lapel as he reached into the interior pocket with his right hand.

The knot in the pit of his stomach tightened as he pulled out a brown envelope. Quickly rifling through his memories, Blake tried to remember when he had received the missive. It was months ago, the day after he returned to Chicago with Pete and Lolly. He had put it in his coat pocket to read later and when Pete and Lolly ran away, he completely forgot it. Blake sent out a silent prayer hoping no lives had been lost because he had neglected the letter.

He stuffed it back in the pocket without opening it and reached into the wardrobe for his shoes and cloak.

Pete, Lolly and Meredith were in the dining room when Blake came down. Meredith and Lolly were already seated at the table, eating their breakfast, with their backs towards the sideboard where a buffet of breakfast items awaited them in chafing dishes. Blake joined Pete at the marble-topped sideboard where he filled his plate.

Since Blake was leaving immediately, he grabbed a napkin instead of a plate and set two biscuits on it. As Pete reached for the spoon in the eggs, Blake mischievously slipped the two biscuits onto Pete’s plate then reached for two more.

Pete paused momentarily, the spoon in midair, as he saw the two biscuits that had not been there a moment before. He deposited the eggs and replaced the spoon in the chafing dish then handed the biscuits back to Blake. As Pete put bacon on his plate, the biscuits reappeared.

“Stop,” Pete signed. “I don’t want them.”

“I’m just thinking about that washboard of ribs you’ve got. You know if people ever saw you without your shirt, they’d think we never fed you. Here have some more eggs, too.”

Blake reached for the eggs, heaping the spoon with as much as it would hold. Pete blocked Blake’s arm with one hand and slid the plate away with the other. Blake tried to throw the eggs at the plate but the eggs landed on the sideboard with a splat.

“
Aahm,” Pete vocalized, then made a gesture that countless mothers and tattle tales made when saying
shame on you
. He picked up the pile of eggs with one hand and plopped them down on Blake’s linen napkin.

“Strawberry jelly, Pete?”
Blake said setting the jelly jar next to Pete’s plate.

“Blake,” Meredith said turning around so she could see Blake at the sideboard. “You know he’s allergic to strawberries.”

“I know,” was all Blake said.

“Are you going somewhere or is an overcoat the new breakfast attire?”

Blake turned around and took the knife from her place setting. “I have to go out,” he said kissing her cheek. “I should be home before lunch.”

The room was quiet for many seconds before Meredith found her voice. “Are you going to see Rebecca?”

Blake and Meredith were facing away from each other again. But she heard a soft sigh before he answered.

“Yes.”

“Is this the last time?”

He thought the last time was the end of it. He told Rebecca then he was finished spying. Unfortunately, this letter took precedence over his marriage or Meredith’s feelings. It wasn’t his place to expose Rebecca as a fellow spy but he’d ask her when he saw her if she minded if he told Meredith.

“Yes,” Blake said. “As far as I know.”

“All right.”

He could hear the resignation in her voice.

Blake folded up the egg and bacon sandwiches in a clean napkin and put them in his pocket. Meredith did not turn towards him as he leaned between the chairs to kiss her so Blake kissed her cheek.

“I love you,” he whispered into her ear.

She reached up to touch his face and noticed he hadn’t shaved. “Don’t be gone long.”

“I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

Meredith nodded but didn’t turn.

Blake sat atop his horse outside of Rebecca’s townhouse. The butler informed him that Rebecca had left town for a few weeks which meant Blake could not pass the errant assignment on to her. He had two choices, either he could find Lafe Baker, the head of the Union Intelligence Services, who was probably in Washington, and let him know what happened or he could take care of the matter as had been intended weeks earlier. He didn’t relish a meeting with Baker so Blake decided to take care of it himself.

Blake reached into his pocket to use his razor to open the letter. It needed sharpening already so using it on the paper would just hasten the use of the strop. He was surprised to find his pocket empty until he realized that he had forgotten to shave in his rush to take the letter to Rebecca.

Blake used his fingers to tear the envelope leaving a ragged edge that was against Blake’s tidy nature. He pulled out the papers and began reading. Relief washed over him as he realized the letter was a report on the war with the Indians in Minnesota. He was intended to messenger the letter to the war Department in Washington DC. It would mean a couple of weeks away from Meredith and the children but at least his distraction hadn’t gotten anyone killed. If Pete and Lolly weren’t still getting settled in, he would have taken the whole family to see the capital but their lives had been so unstable recently, he was reluctant to break their routine.

This trip he’d take alone.

After Meredith settled the children into the classroom with Sam and Mrs. Banyan, she changed into a riding habit – a real riding habit made of heavy wool and took Viper out for a ride in the park. She certainly had mixed emotions about Blake going to see Rebecca. He finally professed to
loving her; he even said it again this morning without any prompting from her. She smiled at the way he’d whispered it into her ear as if he were too shy to say it aloud or perhaps too embarrassed to say in front of Pete and Lolly.