The frontiersman turned his back on her and left in long furious strides. Elizabeth fought the nausea that climbed into her throat. How rude he was, but what was she to expect from a boorish westerner? Yet he possessed the capability to destroy the entire Spencer family’s reputation. No way could she allow that…not to her father.
Grinding her teeth, Elizabeth ran to keep up, following him down a long corridor illuminated by transom windows.
In that moment, she was without rescuers. Her mind spun with options. She could leave. Where would she go? How would she support her child? A teacher’s wages were below poverty level. Having Caroline in the orphanage where she was safe, fed, clothed, educated, and had a roof over her head was paramount, and, allowed Elizabeth to see her daily.
Why wasn’t she a man? A fierce, dark fury moved through her, wave upon wave, like the sea itself, and oddly a comfort to her. Who did he think he was? Her greatest hope came in charming him, find out what he wanted and be gone with him.
Perhaps he didn’t remember her. Was it conceivable all her worries and wretched imaginings were for naught? He stopped. She plowed into him. He turned, caught her before she plummeted to the floor. He took her weight without a waver, his balance flowing into hers. Held her, strong hands grasping her upper arms and began to pull her up. “No!” she violentlyprotested, placing her hand on his chest, trying to ignore how the warmth of his skin felt against her palm. Elizabeth flushed to the roots of her hair. Oh, how he stared at her like a predator identifying his desired meal and lying in wait to pounce as she haplessly wandered into his lair.
Time suspended. The air seeming to float around them. Flickering images. A whirlwind of memories. The walls, the muted sounds of returning orphans, the world just faded away.
She could feel him breathe. Smell the earthy scent of him. Was that her heart beating or his?
The muted daylight was…was what? Vigilant? Expectant? Or was she being dramatic? A heat skittered across her skin that had nothing to do with the unseasonable late-spring warmth. His gaze touched her. It peered past the art and artifice she’d tucked around herself, through the skin and sinew of her, to the cold and lonely darkness beneath.
“Are you able to stand?”
She felt his hands on her arms. How fiendishly strong. How vulnerable she’d be against that strength. Dear God. This was the man who could destroy her. Nostrils flaring, she pushed away from him as though to free a snake that had encircled her arms.
Shakily she stood, washed in the ghastly truth that the man in front of her, perfect and cold in profile, full of subtle potency and cast like a dark icon in his dusty clothes, had once touched her intimately.
“I’m at a loss for your name. That day when I delivered your child.” He spoke with clipped syllables mixed with a drawl her mind battled to place, and then he bowed to her with mocking deference.
Her mouth went dry. “You must be mistaken that you know me.”
His eyes turned cold and flinty as he kept his gaze on hers and waited. “I never forget.”
“Obviously, you have me mixed up with someone else.” Despite the growing lump in her throat, she managed to keep her voice steady.
“Then why is it you seek me out?”
“I-I–”
“One of the things I learned from an early age that has set me apart from other people is that I remember everything. I have the rare ability to recall information and visual specifics ingreat detail.”
She blushed, recalling how he’d seen her in her time of distress. “How did you get here?” she asked in an accusatory tone.
“By train.”
“Here…how is it that you are here?”
“I took a carriage and then walked.”
“That is not what I meant. How is it you are here? In this orphanage?”
“Answer my question first. What kind of mother would give up her child?” he demanded in a smooth, Virginia drawl, almost laconic, rolling off his tongue like heated honey. But not for one second did it hide his savagery.
“You don’t understand–”
A vein pulsed in his neck. “I understand plenty. You got yourself in a heap of trouble. Your family paid someone to house you until the child was born.”
“You don’t know me or my life.”
His lips flattened out in a curl. “I see a spoiled rich woman who didn’t have the guts to keep her child. Farmed your daughter out to some frontier farmer who’d raise her to be worked and beaten to death. You are all the same. Heartless bitches.”
He started to walk away from her when her daughter with her wide violet eyes blocked his path. “You will come back, won’t you? Promise.” Caroline peered around him. “Make him promise, Miss Elizabeth.”
Nerves rattled up Elizabeth’s spine as the frontiersman studied her daughter. He curled a frond of Caroline’s light hair around his finger, released it, and then with the same finger lifted her chin staring into her daughter’s violet-colored eyes. Jagged pieces of a nightmare sliced through Elizabeth’s brain.He knows.
