“You’re right. I don’t.” His smile faded slowly. “Put the gun away, Lydia. I plan to do the honorable thing by you. Does it matter so much if I have you now or after the wedding?”
“You’re not going to have me at all. Take your hand away.”
His fingers merely tightened, and he caught her nipple between his knuckles. “Makes you want to scream, doesn’t it?” he asked softly, bending his head a fraction. “I could make you like it, Lydia. You know that? I could make you want me, want more. Put the gun away. Let me show you what I mean. Go on, Lydia…do it...”
Lydia reared back as the pressure of his hand became unbearably painful. Her breath caught on a sob and a gasp. Tears came to her eyes and Brigham’s features dissolved in a blur. Her finger convulsed on the trigger of the derringer, more in reaction to the pain than out of an intentional desire to hurt him.
The gun went off between them. The report was surprisingly quiet, muffled in part by Brigham’s flesh pressed against the barrel. Lydia jumped back and this time Brig let her go. Blood flowered on his vest, and when he covered the wound with his palm it stained his fingers. He looked, first at his bloody hand, then at Lydia, and his eyes were glassy, dazed. He meant to go forward; he wanted nothing so much as to wrest the gun from her hand and shove the barrel in the soft hollow of her throat. His feet carried him sideways and he stumbled, falling against the mantelpiece and striking it with his shoulder, then his head. His body folded unevenly, at the ankles, the knees, finally at the hips and waist, and Lydia watched, thinking of how he had folded her check earlier, and how he would not be pleased that his dying was not so crisp and clean.
The gun slipped through Lydia’s nerveless fingers and fell to the floor at the same time Brigham did. “Oh, God,” she whispered, dropping to her knees beside him. She felt for a pulse in his neck and found a faint one. His hand had fallen away from the wound and blood covered his shirt and vest in an ever widening circle. Lydia stood on trembling legs and pressed her fingers to her temples, trying to think clearly in the face of a raging headache. The tears had long since dried from her eyes, but her vision was still hazy, her sense of balance uneven. She made it to the bed and sat down hard.
“Nathan.” Lydia leaned toward him and shook his shoulder. If only she could rest, she thought. If only she could close her eyes for a few minutes, give herself time to think about what she should do. It was impossible, of course. She had as good as killed Brigham Moore if she didn’t get help. “Nathan. Wake up. I need you.” Lydia started to cry. She crawled toward him and shook him this time with both her hands placed firmly on either side of his neck. “Damn you, Nathan. You’ve got to w-wake up. I don’t know what to d-do.” Tears dripped over her cheeks and splashed on Nathan’s back. Her entreaties met with no response. “Please, Nathan. I’d marry you…I would. I’d do whatever you wanted. Don’t let me be a murderer. H-help me.”
He lay there unmoving, oblivious to Lydia’s fear, to Brig’s danger, to the small hands that pounded his back. Lydia slid off the bed again and directly onto the floor. She fought waves of dizziness and nausea and, after what seemed an eternity to her but was nothing longer than a few seconds, she reached Brigham. She searched his pockets and found the key that would get her out of the suite. She’d have to get help, she thought, even if it meant incriminating herself. It was self-defense after all. The authorities would understand that. “Wouldn’t they?” she asked aloud, stumbling forward into the sitting room. She braced herself against the outer door with her shoulder and fumbled for the knob with her hand. Unable to make the key fit the lock after several tries, Lydia tiredly slipped down the length of the door and met the keyhole at eye level. She raised the key and made a stabbing motion with it at the lock.
Her eyes closed.
Her head sagged.
Lydia crumpled and the key fell out of her outstretched and upturned palm.
Part II
Pacific Interlude
Chapter 7
Nathan nudged open the cabin door with the toe of his shoe. He dropped the valises he held in each hand and behind him he heard the captain’s men set down the trunk they were carrying. He turned to Lydia and lifted his hands slightly, palms upward and asked, “Shall I carry you across the threshold, Mrs. Hunter?”
Lydia’s smile was shy, her nod barely perceptible. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the two crewmen exchange knowing glances and grin widely. She realized she didn’t care. Holding out her arms, she slid them naturally around Nathan’s neck as he scooped her off the deck and carried her into their cabin. The crewmen followed with the trunk, then the valises, and left with hardly a snicker between them, shutting the door as they went.
Nathan let Lydia down slowly so that her body slid against his. They stood in the middle of their cabin, the place that would be their home for the next five weeks, and held each other in a loose embrace. Placing the back of his hand against Lydia’s cheek, Nathan rubbed gently, deepening the flush that had come to her face.
“You’re warm,” he said. “Perhaps you should lie down. The doctor said—” He stopped because she was shaking her head, completely uninterested in anything the doctor had recommended.
“I didn’t much care for that doctor,” she said, easing from the circle of Nathan’s arms. “I think he drank. Did you notice?”
“I noticed.” Nathan doubted that Dr. Franklin went anywhere without his flask. Lydia had known that once; now it was a revelation to her. “I should have found a better man to care for you,” he said.
Lydia raised her hand and placed a forefinger on Nathan’s lips to silence him. “I had a better man,” she said softly. He had been at her bedside day and night. “I had you.”
Nathan didn’t say anything. He kissed the tip of her finger, and when it fell away he missed the warmth and gentle pressure. What would she be saying, he wondered, if she could remember the kind of man he was?
Since the night of the shooting nearly a week ago, there was little Lydia recalled. What she knew now consisted primarily of the things Nathan had told her, a mixture of half-truths, slightly skewed stories, and outright lies. There were truths as well, things he realized she had to know because she would find them out when they reached Ballaburn, but he was cautious about sharing them. Nathan found Lydia’s loss of memory both a bane and a blessing. He had rewritten her personal history to suit his needs and now he had the wife he had set out to get months ago. It wouldn’t have been possible if she could remember, and while he marveled at her willingness to accept anything he told her, he also knew the reason. Lydia’s thinking was simple and straightforward. She couldn’t fathom having married someone she didn’t love, and she couldn’t imagine someone she loved lying to her.
When Nathan wasn’t counting his blessings, he was hating himself.
Unaware of the tenor of Nathan’s thoughts, Lydia was blithely investigating the cabin. It was sparsely furnished, with few amenities beyond the utilitarian. There was a small table for dining and writing, two chairs, an upholstered storage bench below the porthole, a cupboard which held a basin, pitcher, and chamber pot, a small Franklin stove, an armoire firmly bolted to the wall, and finally, a three-quarter bunk covered with a brightly patterned piece quilt.
“Not quite what you’re used to, is it?” he asked. He came up behind her and placed his hands lightly on her shoulders.
Lydia turned her head just enough to show him a cheeky grin. “I don’t remember what I’m used to,” she said. She removed his hands from her shoulders and drew them around her waist. She leaned backward and rested against him. “And I’m thinking this is just fine.”
His chin rested on the silky crown of her hair. His eyes wandered over their room. “You had a fireplace in your bedroom,” he said. “The mantel was cluttered with jade figurines and photographs and a vanity with ivory combs, perfumes, and powder. There were fresh flowers in a cut glass vase by your bed and your rugs were from the Orient. You had an enormous walnut wardrobe, an armchair and a rocker, and a bed that was half again larger than this one.”
It was as if he were talking about another person. Lydia felt no ownership of the things he described. She couldn’t have told him the color of her comforter, the pattern of the rugs, or the kind of flowers that filled the vase. She didn’t even try to remember. Those things seemed of minor importance when she compared them to what Nathan had inadvertently told her.
“You’ve been in my bedroom?” she asked.
