Her Defiant Heart (60 page)

May 1867

"It's a good likeness of her," Scott said as he examined the front page of the
Chronicle.
"Everyone in New York is going to be able to put a face to the name of Caroline Van Dyke."

"You've captured her beautifully," Susan agreed softly, looking from the paper in Scott's hands to Christian. "There is already a groundswell of support for her because of the stories in the
Chronicle.
This sketch... well, it's easy to imagine that Stephen and William are going to pay dearly for what they did. No one can look at this and not be moved."

A faint frown pulled at the corners of Christian's mouth. It had been six weeks since the confrontation in Amalie Chatham's cellar. Time had only had an opportunity to heal the most visible wounds. Christian glanced down at his left leg, which was raised on the ottoman. He touched his thigh. Beneath his trousers he could feel the spiral wrap of the gauze bandage.

"Is it bothering you?" Scott asked. He handed the newspaper to Susan and began to rise for the purpose of looking at Christian's leg.

Christian sat up a straighter in his leather armchair. He warded off Scott's approach by picking up his ebony walking cane and waving it back and forth. "Get away from me, you quack. I'm fine. And I'm not dropping my trousers in front of Susan so you can gloat over what you've done to me."

"More's the pity," Susan said under her breath, flashing Christian a flirtatious grin.

Scott gave his wife a dark look and then addressed Christian. "I was only going to refill my glass." He thought the lie settled nicely on his lips as he lifted his crystal tumbler from the table beside the sofa. "Can I get you something?"

Christian raised his glass of whiskey to show Scott that he had hardly touched it. "Nothing for me." He lowered his cane as Scott went in the direction of the sideboard. "The leg's fine, Scott. I mean it."

"No pain?"

"Hardly a twitch. I touch it out of habit, I suppose."

"You lived with that ball in your leg too long," Scott said. He filled his glass, turned away from the sideboard, and studied Christian over the rim of his glass. "I told Susan months ago that I'd eventually find a way to remove it. Of course I didn't expect it would take another bullet to give me the chance. Damn queer twist of fate that was."

"Amalie couldn't have aimed better if she had tried," Christian said, shaking his head. It was hard for him to admit that the madam's bullet had ultimately served him well. It did not change his feelings toward her, not when the memory of what she had caused Jenny to suffer was still so clear in his mind, but it also did not mean that he could not appreciate the irony. Amalie had meant to kill him after all. What she had done had saved his leg, perhaps his life.

Susan knew the precise moment when Christian's musing ceased and his attention was caught by the movement in the doorway. His features relaxed almost instantly. The line of his mouth softened and his brow smoothed. His eyes lost their shuttered appearance. They became warm, tender, and welcoming. He released his grip on the cane and leaned forward in his chair.

Beth charged into the study, answering Christian's open smile. Her parents laughed as she crawled onto his lap and snuggled comfortably in the curve of the arm he put around her. Christian continued to look toward the open door.

Jenny was standing there, and her dark brown eyes were solemn, her gentle smile knowing. The invitation he had cast toward the doorway had been meant for her. Little Beth would never know.

Scott raised his glass, greeting Jenny. "I'm glad you're finally back. Christian's been scowling since you took Beth to see the nursery. It's just a guess," he added dryly, "but I don't think he likes having you out of his sight."

"That's the way newlyweds act," said Susan. "It pains me that you don't remember."

Jenny was grateful to Susan for proposing another explanation for Christian's mood. All of them accepted it, and all of them knew it was a partial truth at best. Jenny remembered nothing of the time she'd spent in Amalie's cellar, but Christian was not so fortunate. In his sleep, he still recalled every part of what had happened, and his most vivid memory was the moment when his Colt fired and he thought she had killed herself. It was at that point in the nightmare that he usually woke. He would reach for her then, sometimes just to hold her, sometimes to make love to her, always to reaffirm that he was awake, alive, and death was the dream.

Scott offered Jenny his seat beside Susan, but she chose the ottoman in front of Christian's chair. He moved his feet to one side to make room for her. Her slender arm rested lightly across his legs.

Susan motioned to her daughter to come and sit with her. Beth reluctantly slid off Christian's lap and joined her mother. "I think she's going to be jealous of the baby," Susan told Christian. "She's somewhat proprietary where you are concerned."

"Beth still has me all to herself for four more months," he said. "I think we can work out an equitable arrangement by the time tie the baby arrives."

Jenny nodded. "She approved of the nursery, and she has promised to stay sometimes and help me with the baby. Isn't that right, Beth?"

Beth's smile dimpled her cheeks and she giggled. She put her hand on her mother's belly. "Do you have a baby in there?"

The natural color in Susan's cheeks deepened. "No. No, I don't." She glanced at her husband, who was watching her over the rim of his tumbler. There was a wicked, suggestive look in his eyes. She averted her face quickly and pretended interest in smoothing her daughter's cap of curling hair.

Jenny placed her own hand on her rounded abdomen. "When we were upstairs I let Beth feel the baby kick."

Christian's feet dropped off the ottoman, and he leaned forward enough so that he could put his hand beside Jenny's. He was disappointed when he didn't feel any movement.

"I'll let you know," Jenny said. "Promise."

Susan urged Beth off her lap and stood. "No, don't get up. Either of you. We don't have to stand on ceremony after all we've been through together. It was a lovely wedding. It was kind of you to ask us to be witnesses."

"The wedding supper was good," Scott said, patting his stomach. He stopped when Susan poked him in the ribs with her elbow. "Well, it was," he insisted. Susan rolled her eyes while Jenny and Christian laughed softly. Somehow she managed to herd her husband and daughter into the hallway.

When the Turners were gone, Jenny made to rise from the ottoman. Christian stopped her. He pulled the upholstered footstool closer to his chair. "There," he said. "That's better. You were too far away."

Jenny turned so she could see her husband's face. Husband. It did not seem quite real. "I thought so, too." Her head bent forward as Christian's fingers threaded through her hair and massaged the back of her neck. His touch sent a frisson of heat down her spine. "I think Scott and Susan knew we wanted to be alone."

"We're newlyweds, remember?" he said, repeating Susan's excuse. "I make this marriage to be all of five hours old. Anyway, it's more likely that we gave them ideas. They won't be able to get Beth to bed fast enough tonight. I think there are definite plans afoot to enlarge the Turner family."

Jenny laughed lightly. "You think that, do you?"

Christian did not laugh in turn. His eyes wandered over her face, tracing the lines and curves, watching her cheeks flush pink. "I love you, Jenny Holland."

She nuzzled his palm as he cupped her cheek. She turned her head and kissed the heart of it. "It's nice to hear you still feel that way," she said.

"Still?" Now he did laugh. "After five hours? I am not likely to feel any differently. Not ever." His hand slipped away from her face and feathered in her thick hair again. "You were the one I was worried about. Any regrets, Mrs. Marshall?"

She smiled and shook her head. It would take some time to get used to that name. The household staff was going to have trouble remembering it. Before the marriage she answered to Jenny, Miss Holland, Miss Van Dyke, and occasionally, when no one thought she was listening, she heard herself called the princess. For Christian alone she was Jenny Holland. No one said her name the way he did. "No regrets, Mr. Marshall. You will notice I waited until Scott operated and relieved you of that limp."

That made Christian chuckle. In truth, it was he who had balked at marriage prior to the operation. He told Jenny she had no business being married to a cripple, but he was more afraid of making her a widow. Scott had never hidden the fact that the surgery could take more than a limb. Jenny's courage made him brave. "And you will notice I waited until you got rid of that albatross of a fortune."

"You don't care that I came to you without a cent to my name?"

"You know I don't. The Van Dyke Foundation was a brilliant idea. It not only satisfied the terms of your father's will, but it's eventually going to help a great many people. Moreover, no one can say I married you for your money." He smiled crookedly at her when she laughed. "Look at how much has been accomplished already. Morgan and Glenn are out at Jennings Memorial, and under the new head of the hospital, Scott's been named chief of surgery. The treatment and practices on the lunatic ward are all subject to new policies. Doctors are committed to the dignity and humanity of their patients. That was your doing, Jenny. You made people understand about that place."

Jenny shook her head. "No, that
was
your
doing. I couldn't have described what it was like to live there. I had no words to make the public understand the kind of suffering that went on in that ward. It was your photographs and sketches that allowed people to see. It was your newspaper that made them aware."

Christian knew where she was heading, but he didn't want to discuss it now. "I haven't made a decision about selling the
Chronicle.
I do know I'm not going to decide anything until after Stephen and his father are sentenced. Short of bribing the judge, I am not above using any means at my disposal to see that they get the sentence they deserve."

Jenny had to be satisfied with that. She knew Christian was leaning toward giving up all control of the paper, yet she believed that he would come to regret that decision. Lately, because of the interest he had in seeing the treatment of the insane exposed, Christian had been involved with the paper as never before. It was the cause that inspired him, but it was the
Chronicle
that gave him the forum. His sketches, most of them made from photographs, were powerful in their own right, but they would have been lost to the public if left to art galleries and private showings.
The
Chronicle
breathed life into Christian's work. People couldn't ignore his stark drawings of Alice Vanderstell huddled on a thin mattress in her cell. He had captured her glazed eyes, her thinning, matted hair, and the skeletal fingers that she stuffed in her mouth as if she would eat them whole. Christian's sketches showed that insanity was a great leveler. It ignored birthright, wealth, or breeding. If Alice Vanderstell could be given such ill treatment, the public argued, then what horrors were suffered by the indigent?

Christian showed them that as well. With Scott's help he exposed the practices of the treatment room in editorials as graphic as they were scathing. The circulation of the
Chronicle
had increased ten percent, and more importantly to Christian, the reforms he called for were being acted upon. People rallied, and legislators, always a beat behind their constituents' needs, were finally at the stage of proposing laws to protect the vulnerable.

"All right," Jenny said. "We won't talk about selling the paper. But that doesn't mean I want to talk about Stephen Bennington." Jenny spied the latest edition of the
Chronicle
on the sofa vacated by Susan and Beth. She reached for it, unfolded it, and studied the front page. Her own face, courtesy of Christian's fine hand, stared back at her. Below her picture was the announcement of her marriage to Christian. "You didn't tell me about this," she said. "I suppose you showed it to Susan and Scott."

"Yes."

"What did they think?"

"That it's a good likeness."

"That's all?"

"They're inclined to believe that it keeps the public's sympathy with you, that it's going to seal Stephen's fate."

She looked at the pen and ink sketch again. "Are you sure that's all it is? This is more than a mere wedding announcement, and you'll never convince me otherwise. I can't help but notice that your picture isn't here." She sighed and her voice softened. "I don't want to be the subject of public pathos, Christian. I don't like that idea at all."

Christian removed the newspaper from Jenny's fingers and laid it on the floor. He tilted her chin toward him. "It's not pity," he assured her. "People want to know about the woman who stood up to both Benningtons, saved the Hancock Trust, and married the finest looking man in New York."

Jenny's smile was wry. "Don't think much of yourself, do you?"

"Not much." He grinned and his entire face was transformed. He didn't realize it, but in that moment Jenny was thinking he probably
was
the finest looking man in New York.

Christian stood, drawing Jenny to her feet as well.

"Christian!" Jenny felt herself being lifted. "What are you doing?"

"I'm carrying my bride of five hours to our bedroom," he said matter-of-factly. "I'll let you know when we get there what I'm going to do with her."