A Light For My Love (27 page)

Jake inhaled her dark, spicy scent as it
floated to him from the warm folds of her clothes. He felt as if
he'd never made love before, as if twenty-eight years of pent-up
desire and longing were to be satisfied at last by the soft,
fragrant woman in his arms. He could feel her heart beating like a
bird's just beneath his mouth, and every time she squirmed, the
heavy ache in his groin intensified. But while he told himself he
should let her go, that it was wrong to take her in his anger and
loneliness, he thought about spiriting her away to the bed in the
carriage house.

His face was bent to her soft flesh, his hand
restlessly stroking her hip, when she abruptly stiffened in his
arms and sprang to her feet. Startled by her sudden movement, he
looked up at her.

"What's—"

But she wasn't looking at him. He followed
the path of her gaze to the pale, stricken countenance of Susan
Price, who stared at them through the window in the kitchen door.
China gripped the edges of Jake's coat and closed them over the
gaping front of her blouse. She pushed at her hair, which had
worked free of its pins and hung down her back in long, black
skeins.

"Jesus Christ," Jake ground out, seeing the
woman. He jumped up, stepping in front of China to shield her from
Susan's prying eyes, and scowled back at her. She whirled and ran
from the room, her steps vibrating faintly through the porch
flooring.

For a moment, China thought she might faint.
She took a deep breath and waited for the sickening giddiness to
pass. The hypnotic spell of falling stars and Jake's lips that had
robbed her of good sense was replaced by scorching disgrace. She
slipped out of his coat and shoved it at him. With shaking hands
she hastily fastened her blouse, her fingers faltering at the gap
left by the missing button. Then she looked down at the wet mark
he'd left over her breast. The night breeze chilled the spot,
making her nipple pucker again. A low, dry sob escaped her. She
wrapped her shawl tightly across her chest.

Unable to look at him, she reached for the
doorknob.

He clutched arm. "China, don't go—"

She turned to face him then and gestured at
the bench sitting under the square of light. "Why? So you can shame
me in front of the rest of the family? I think one of them was
enough. You accomplished what you set out to do."

Jake dropped his hand from her arm, guilt
dousing the fire that raged through him. Though she whispered, her
voice lashed him like a whip. Her face was chalky in the dim light,
framed by her dark hair.

"God, China, you don't really think I—how the
hell did I know she'd come to the window?"

"Good night, Captain Chastaine," she choked,
and sped inside.

Jake sat heavily on the bench again, and
pushed his hair off his forehead, his coat in his arms. An odd
sense of grief welled up in his chest, as though he'd lost
something. He supposed he had. Whatever skimpy respect he'd gained
from China had just slipped away because he'd wanted so badly to
touch her, to hold her to him. And thanks to a whim of fate and bad
timing, he'd succeeded only in humiliating her.

Damn that crazy Susan Price, he thought.

CHAPTER TEN

China couldn't sleep. She listened to every
creak, every groan, waiting for the sound of footsteps going to the
room across the hall. Sometime near three o'clock, after hours of
tossing, she climbed from her rumpled bed to huddle on the little
sofa in front of her fireplace. Her hair was twisted into a curly
snarl around her head, and she grabbed a hairbrush from the table
beside her to work out the tangles. Throwing a shawl around her
shoulders, she tucked her feet inside her nightgown and watched the
flames burn down to crimson embers.

She thought of the scene that had taken place
on the back porch because she could think of nothing else: Jake,
full of an angry passion, an irresistible maleness, holding her
against his wide shoulder and igniting senses she hadn't dreamed
she possessed, edging her toward complete abandon. Then, Susan's
stunned face looming over them in the window, seeing, well,
everything.

China didn't know where Jake had gone and she
told herself she didn't care, considering the position he'd put her
in. Didn't that prove he wasn't the man for her? As if she needed
it proved to her.

Skulking like a wretched coward, she'd
hurried directly upstairs after leaving him, scared to death she
would meet Aunt Gert in the hall or, worse, Susan Price. Would she
tell what she had witnessed? China couldn't begin to guess what the
widow might do. But one thing was certain—in Susan's expression
she'd seen the look of a woman jilted. It didn't make any sense.
Despite his reputation, even China didn't believe that Jake had
been trifling with Susan. She gave him the creeps. There was no
other way to think of it; China had seen his reaction herself a
number of times.

It was like a nightmare, she fretted,
abandoning her hairbrush and rubbing her forehead. Still, those
endless seconds of humiliation had been pinpricks beside the one
feeling that, above any other, Jake had aroused while she sat in
his powerful arms. That feeling had been security. She'd felt safe
with him, protected, and that was something she hadn't known in
years. Of all people, that he should be the one to give her that
sensation—well, there was simply no accounting for it. But to have
a sample of such shelter, only to know it couldn't last, was
torment.

And the potpourri box? Jake claimed to have
given it to her. She could confirm what he'd told her—she simply
wasn't sure she wanted to. Three times tonight she'd gone to the
desk drawer where she stored her keepsakes. Inside, jumbled
together with old letters, postcards, and ribbons, there reposed
two notes—the one Quinn had left on her pillow the morning he'd
gone and the one she had always assumed was from Zachary Stowe. If
Jake had given her the gift, his handwriting would be on both
notes. But she hadn't been able to make herself open the
drawer.

Well, nothing was as bad as not knowing, she
decided. With strength of purpose, she went to her desk and lit a
candle, its flame casting long shadows on the walls. This time, she
allowed her hand to hesitate on the drawer handle for only a moment
before pulling it toward her.

A dry, papery smell drifted up to her as she
sifted through the contents, old valentines edged with scraps of
yellowing lace, a gull feather that she'd found on the front
doorstep two days after Ryan had been taken, a bumpy pearl she'd
discovered in an oyster from the fish market. Finally she found
what she sought. She withdrew the two notes and, sinking to the
hassock next to her, carefully unfolded them and smoothed them over
her lap.

Drawing the candle a bit closer, she first
examined Jake's scribbled signature on Quinn's letter. It was
carelessly, hurriedly written. She'd always resented seeing his
name at the bottom of the page, and had wondered why he'd bothered.
Then she studied the note that had been tucked inside the gold
filigreed box.

To the sweetest flower in Astoria.

The words were meticulously formed, and China
could envision the note's author practicing the short line many
times on scrap paper before committing it at last to this piece of
vellum. But for that very reason, she couldn't absolutely determine
whether Jake had written this or not. It was as painfully neat as
an example in a Spencerian penmanship book. She sighed and refolded
the letters. After working up her courage to look at them, she
still didn't have the answer she sought.

The only other way to verify Jake's story was
to do as he'd suggested—look at the bottom of the box. Tomorrow.
Maybe.

Beyond the warmth of her room, China became
aware that in the last six hours the weather had changed. The wind
had picked up, pushing ahead of it a hard rain that beat on the
windows. It was a fierce, cruel night, not one to be out in. She
turned her ear in the direction of the hall for a moment, not
really expecting to hear anything. Then, rising from her seat, she
padded to her door. After a second's hesitation, she opened it a
crack and peeked out. The oil lamp at the window burned like a
candent sentinel, a solitary beacon to light the night.

Jake's door was open and the room was
dark.

China knew without looking that he wasn't
there, or anywhere in the house. She closed her door again with a
quiet click and leaned her head against the jam, her heart as heavy
as a rock.

*~*~*

After China had run into the house, Jake
stormed down to the Blue Mermaid in a restless fury, with the
express intention of getting stinking drunk and buying the entire
night from one of Pug's saloon girls. Who needed her? he thought,
as he neared the Astor Street saloon. What did he want with a
snippy female who made him feel like a— a— Oh, God, sometimes she
made him feel like a wharf rat, but other times she gave him looks
that stirred his heart and his hunger. That was the woman who had
kissed him back tonight, who had clung to him with her arms around
his neck.

Jake found Pug behind the bar and stated his
wishes in very direct terms.

"We got just what you want, Jacob," Pug
grinned at him from his riser behind the bar. "Go find a table and
I'll send Matilde to you. That girl could make every man buried in
Hillside Cemetery stand at attention." He pushed a whiskey bottle
and a glass across the counter.

Jake threaded his way around customers and
spittoons to a seat at a dim corner table. A moment later, a
voluptuous woman approached, her breasts nearly bursting from the
top of her tight green satin dress. She sashayed to him and wedged
herself between his legs. The oversweet fragrance of violets
accompanied her.

"I'm Matilde, honey. Pug told me to take good
care of you because you're a special friend," she purred, and
looked him over with an experienced eye. Reaching out a dimpled
hand, she flipped her fingers through his hair. "I see what he
means. I like those goldy locks. I'd love to pleasure you, and I've
got the whole night to do it." She took one step forward and
pressed her thigh against his crotch.

Jake sat back in his chair and considered
her, trying to look beyond her ink black hair. He'd always avoided
physical entanglements with black-haired women, especially
prostitutes. It was stupid, but they made him feel unfaithful
to . . . 

Matilde leaned forward then and replaced the
touch of her thigh with her hand, lifting a brow at what she found
beneath the denim.

"Hmm, it feels like you need a lot of woman
to help you with this," she said, offering a professional
assessment. "And, honey, I'm a lot of woman."

She was a lot of everything, Jake thought:
huge white breasts, big hazel eyes, pouty rouged lips, heavy
perfume, coarse black hair. In fact, she was too much. He'd been
months at sea and hadn't shared a woman's bed since New Orleans,
but he felt his desire fizzle away like a spent match.

He downed a shot of whiskey. Then he
straightened in his chair to reach his front pants pocket. He
flipped a five-dollar tip into her hand. "Matilde, it's not that I
don't appreciate the suggestion. But I've got other things on my
mind tonight."

Catching the coin, Matilde laughed in genuine
amusement, her bosom quivering like aspic. "Believe me, Captain,
I'm not the least bit interested in men's minds." She chuckled
again and turned to walk away. "Except maybe to make them lose
them."

Jake rested his forehead on the heel of his
hand and poured another drink as he watched Matilde's green satin
hips sway up to a logger at the bar. She twined herself around him
like a tree snake. He almost laughed.

He didn't want just any woman, Jake realized
with weary resignation. It wouldn't have mattered if Matilde had
been a redhead or a blonde. He wanted China. And like the
irrepressible urge to touch a tongue to an aching tooth, he
couldn't stop himself from reviewing their brief moments together
in the dark of the porch. The sweaty, noisy, beer-soaked saloon
fell away as he recalled her black hair tumbling across his arm
like a crushed-velvet drape, her fine-boned gracefulness, the
unbelievable softness of her skin, her instant response to his
touch, the faint, spiced wood scent of her, the taste of her—

Oh, damn it to hell, he groaned inwardly. The
whiskey wasn't helping, and unless he drank himself senseless, the
memory of China wasn't going to fade. Neither would the eerie
specter of Susan Price's face staring at him through that window.
He drained his glass and threw a coin on the table.

Back outside on Astor Street, he glanced up
and saw clouds blowing in from the Pacific, hiding the wonder of
falling stars. He'd have to move fast if he wanted to make it to
Monroe's repair yard before the sky opened.

As he left behind the chaotic din of jangling
pianos, raucous laughter, and the confused babble of languages
common in a seaport town, he knew peace was just a few minutes
away. He was going to sleep with his ship tonight, the one woman he
knew who would ask nothing of him.

*~*~*

In the morning, Jake still hadn't returned
when China left her room to go to the league boardinghouse. She
walked to the hall window to turn down the lamp, then paused in his
doorway. The bed that he now made himself hadn't been slept in.
Misery swelled like a bubble in her chest.

Well, she was simply going to stop worrying
about him; he was a grown man, he'd sailed the world. And he'd put
her in a highly compromising position that she didn't want to
consider too closely in the light of day. Her face burned every
time she thought about it.

When she reached the hall downstairs, she
heard Aunt Gert in the kitchen, breakfast pans rattling. China
didn't think she could endure sitting at the same table with Susan
so soon after the incident last night. She supposed it was more
cowardice on her part, but she couldn't help it. Heaven knew how
long Susan had stood there, watching them.