She sighed. “It’s been a lovely party, but I think I shall retire.” As she gathered herself to rise, he reached down to help her, and before she could stop herself, she shrank back.
His hand dropped to his side.
She tried to cover her embarrassment by brushing imaginary dust from her skirt.
“I won’t hurt you, you know.”
That unruly forelock had fallen over his forehead again, softening the rugged angles of his face and giving him a boyish look. It disarmed her. Charmed her. How could she fear a man who couldn’t even make his hair behave? “I know.”
At least, her heart knew. But her mind had heard those words before and look what it had gotten her. “Good night, Brady.”
She felt him watching her as she crossed the courtyard. But once she’d stepped into the house, the thought of going back to the room that had been her prison for a fortnight sent her wandering the dim hallways. It was a sad house, a monument to a way of life long passed, and like the men who resided here, it needed tending. She passed her room and continued on until she found a doorway onto the porch that ran beyond her window. The tang of fresh-cut wood mingled with the sweet scent of roses growing against the foundation. There were only two usable chairs—an oversized rocker and a straight chair with a much-used saddle pad on the seat. All the others were either missing an arm or a leg or loaded down with a variety of horse paraphernalia, seed packets, catalogs, and discarded apparel. Jessica chose the rocker and settled back with a sigh.
The sinking crescent moon hung low, and pinpricks of starlight dotted the black dome of the eastern sky. The breeze was soft and cool, bearing the chirp of crickets and the lonely calls of night birds. It was a lovely evening. As she rocked, a feeling of contentment came over her. “We’ll be all right, Victoria,” she said as she gently stroked her rounded belly. “We can do this.” She would find George. She would have two beautiful babies to love and then she would feel whole again.
At a sound, she looked over to see Brady crossing the yard toward the porch. His head was down and he was talking to himself. It must have been something amusing because he laughed. He didn’t look frightening to her then. Just a man. A strong, honest man who liked to tease, who talked to himself when he thought no one was looking, who made promises he actually kept. Elena never need fear anything with him at her side. Except perhaps the wrath of God for his reprehensible language. She watched him draw nearer, wondering when he would see her, and was almost run over before he did.
“Whoa,” he said, jerking to a halt. “What’re you doing out here?”
“Rocking.” When he just stood there, she said, “Would you care to join me?”
“Sure.” His gaze flicked from her to the other usable chair and back. He didn’t move.
“Let me guess,” she said with a sigh. “This is your chair.”
“Well. Yeah. I’d break the other one.”
“So you want me to get up, even though I shouldn’t be on my feet more than necessary, and move to the chair with that nasty saddle pad, even though I’m wearing my best—”
With an economy of motion, Brady kicked off the saddle pad, lifted her out of the rocker, and gently deposited her in the straight chair. “There. Now we’re both happy.” Then with a long sigh, he settled into the rocker beside her. “You like my porch?”
Still disoriented and somewhat shocked that he would—or was even able to—hoist her about like a sack of feed, she glanced over at him.
He was looking up at the oversized logs that served as rafters, his profile a dark silhouette against the starlit sky. She noted the angles of his jaw, the way his Adam’s apple stood out in sharp relief, the cords of muscle in his neck as it dipped down to form a hollow at the base of his throat.
She had a theory about a man’s neck. If it was too thin, he looked weak. Too long, and he might be indecisive. If it was too thick or too closely attached to his shoulders, he lacked imagination and possibly good sense. But if it were the perfect blend of strength and masculine grace, it would look exactly like Brady Wilkins’s.
“It is very nice,” she finally answered. “And big.”
He looked over at her. “Too big? Jack thinks it’s too big.”
Jessica studied the uprights that were almost too stout to reach around, the floor made of slabs of wood rather than planks, the railing that would stand long after the house collapsed. It was a reflection of the man who built it—big, sturdy, beautiful in its simplicity. “It’s perfect,” she said.
He studied her for a moment, then said, “Yeah. Perfect.”
But it didn’t sound like he meant the porch. Ignoring a flutter in her chest, she looked away.
For a long while they sat without speaking, facing the valley and the stars hovering on the fingertips of the mountains. For Jessica, it wasn’t a comfortable silence, sitting in the dark with a man she scarcely knew. But she sensed her discomfort stemmed more from the lack of propriety than the presence of the man beside her.
“I’ll have Buck build you a rocker,” he said, ending the long silence. “You’ll need one for when the baby—babies—come.”
She was touched. “That’s not necessary, but thank you.” She would have to remember to add “generous” to her list for the archbishop.
“I’m not giving up mine.”
Or perhaps not. “I’m not asking you to.”
“Yeah, but you’re thinking about it.”
“You have no idea what I’m thinking.”
His head turned toward her, and even though his expression was lost in the shadows, she sensed his grin. “Don’t I?”
The audacity.
For one shocked and irrational moment, she wondered if he had read her thoughts then realized that was impossible.
“If you truly knew what I was thinking, you would be begging my forgiveness.”
“For what?”
“The list is endless.”
He grunted and faced the railing again. “I’ll have Buck make you a rocker anyway.”
How deflating to try to trade barbs with someone who wouldn’t play. Silence again. This time it was she who ended it. “I wanted to thank you for—”
“You already did.” He sounded almost irritated.
“Yes, well. It was a lovely party and I—”
“You already said that, too.”
“Nonetheless, you and Elena outdid—”
“I didn’t have anything to do with it. It was all her and the other women.”
“Are you trying to be disagreeable?”
“Am I being disagreeable?” He looked over. “I thought it was you.” The man was an unrepentant tease. “I don’t know how Elena can bear it,” she muttered.
“Bear what?”
“You.”
“Me?”
She waggled a finger at him. “You don’t deserve her and that’s the truth of it.”
“Elena is like a sister. Why is that so hard for everybody to understand?”
Jessica blinked at him. “You mean . . . you’re not . . . she’s not . . . ?”
“I mean there is no me and Elena. Christ! Do I have to carve a sign?”
Startled by his outburst, Jessica pressed back against the slats of the chair.
He saw it and gave a mocking laugh. “So now you’re afraid of me again?” In the dim light she could see white teeth beneath the black shadow of his mustache. A smile or a sneer? “Did you think you were safer with Elena between us? Did you think that would protect you?”
Protect her? From what? Was he threatening her?
He stopped rocking. He leaned closer. “I have news for you, Your Ladyship. If a man wants something bad enough, he won’t let anything stand in his way.”
Alarmed by his sudden change of mood, she started to rise. “Yes. Well—”
“Your brother’s not in Socorro.” He started rocking again.
She plopped back into the chair. “He’s not?”
“Left last year, headed up the northwest coast. Probably in Alaska chasing gold.”
Alaska?
How would she ever find him in Alaska? She wasn’t even sure where Alaska was.
He must have sensed her agitation. “It’s not as bad as you think. You’ve got three months to find him, right? Meanwhile you can stay here, where the ladies can take care of you, then you’ll have your babies and everything will—”
“Oh, be quiet!” she snapped. “You have no idea. None. And don’t you dare patronize me!” She felt him staring at her but was too distraught to care. She had to think, come up with a solution to this latest catastrophe. A plan. She needed a plan.
Two babies. No brother. No place to go. How could she plan for that?
“Maybe there’s someone else I could try to reach?”
She pressed her fingertips hard against her temple. She felt herself sinking, her mind sliding back into that dark place where fear and anger reigned. She could scarcely breathe, could scarcely think. How could she take care of Victoria with no home, no money? They would starve.
“Maybe someone in England?”
His voice sliced through her terror like a blade, severing the last frayed thread of her control. The next instant all her pent-up fear spewed out in a rush of angry words. “Who? My sister? She doesn’t even know where I am. My husband? I don’t have one. Or a lover. Or anyone who could help me.” Fury churned in her chest, rose in her throat like bile. “There is no one who would even care except the filthy beast who drove me from my home, my family—God.”
Tears she’d held back for too long spilled down her cheeks in a hot rush. That wounded part of her wanted to rise up and scream at the outrage, the unfairness of having her life, her soul, so violated. “It wasn’t my fault. I did nothing wrong.” Unable to stop herself, she pressed her clenched fists over her eyes and gave in to wracking sobs.
Brady sat stunned, not only by what she had revealed but also by the suddenness and rawness of her pain. Had he triggered this? Said something? He stared at her, this woman who was suddenly a stranger to him. Her anguish was a tangible thing, so powerful it held him pinned to the chair. If he knew what was wrong, he’d fix it. But what could he do? Reasoning wouldn’t work, and he was afraid if he touched her or said the wrong thing again, she might shatter into a thousand jagged pieces.
As if in great pain, she bent forward in the chair, shoulders shaking, hands over her face. Other than great gasping breaths, she made no sound.
Jesus.
He had to stop this. Now. “Come here.” A calm touch soothed fractious horses. Maybe it would work on her.
She began to keen.
“Okay. I’ll come to you.” He scooted the rocker over until it butted up against her chair. “Give me your hand.”
She didn’t, so he gently pried it from her face. It was wet from her tears. Twining his fingers through hers, he bound them together from palm to elbow along the arm of the rocker.
Then he sat back and waited.
Christ.
He hated this. Crying women made his stomach knot. His mother had cried a lot that summer Sam died, and Brady had been helpless to cope with his own misery much less hers. So he had blocked it, armoring himself against her grief and his own guilt and despair, until eventually when she slowly drifted away, he had felt nothing but a distant and regretful relief. It was a cowardly and unworthy act and it shamed him still.
He wouldn’t make the same mistake now.
Steeling himself to patience, he let her cry herself out, wondering if she would permit him to comfort her and, if she did, would he even know how. He didn’t have much practice in such things, but for her sake, he was willing to try.
It took a while, but in inches and degrees she gave in to him, first allowing herself to lean against him, then resting her forehead against his shoulder, and finally pressing her face into his arm as she wept. A small thing, but a victory nonetheless.
It scared the hell out of him. Not only because in breaking through her barriers he had formed a deeper connection to a woman he didn’t understand, but also because it revealed to him how deeply it mattered to have gained even a small measure of her trust.
You stupid bastard.
“Tell me,” he said once the crying slowed and she got herself in hand. He knew the cost of silence, and how unspoken words could grow into an unswallowable mass lodged in your throat.
“No.” With the back of her hand she blotted tears from her cheeks, a purely feminine gesture that made something clench deep inside his chest. “I just want to forget.”
“You’ll never forget. Tell me.”
At first he thought she wouldn’t. Then in a voice devoid of the firestorm of emotion that had burned through her earlier, she spoke. “His name is John Crawford. He’s my sister’s husband. She doesn’t know and I—I couldn’t tell her. She thinks he’s perfect, you see. A diamond of the first water. Perhaps he is and it’s only around me that—”
“It’s not your fault,” he cut in, furious that she would think it was.
With two fingers she plucked at a pleat in her skirt. She cleared her throat. “Thank you for saying that. But there’s no denying I brought it on myself. I chose wrong, you see.”
He waited.
“As the firstborn daughter, I inherited Bickersham Hall. He wanted to mortgage it to pay his creditors. I could either sign over the deed or suffer the consequences. I wouldn’t sign.”
He said nothing, just listened, chewing silently on his rage while she told him in short, faltering sentences absent of detail or emotion, how John Crawford, her brother-in-law, a man she had trusted, a man who was part of her family and who should have been her protector, had become her rapist instead.
Brady didn’t know what to say. What any man could say. It shamed them all.
“After—after it was over, he righted his clothing and asked if I had enjoyed ‘our little interlude.’ That’s what he called it. An interlude.” She made a strangled sound that could have been a laugh or a sob, he wasn’t sure which.
“I told him I would never give him the deed. He became very angry and he—he put his hands on me again—and hurt me. When that didn’t work, he used his fists, but only where it wouldn’t show.”