Jade Star (15 page)

“I don't know. We are good friends, Jules.”

Will you still go to her when we arrive in San Francisco? Will you make love to her? . . . Where's your pride, you stupid twit!
She raised her chin. “Perhaps I shall have some good friends who are men.”

“Perhaps you will,” he said in a light voice.

“Perhaps I shall even dream about them and call out their names and not yours.”

He sucked in his breath.
You are twenty-nine years old, you stupid bastard. Have a little sense and wit. She's lashing out because you frightened her, then called out another woman's name.

“Jules,” he said slowly, “I am truly sorry for what happened. It is difficult for a man to be very close to a woman and not . . . well, respond to her. It is also very common for a man to dream about sexual things so vividly that they almost become real. Women do it too.”

“I don't.”

You haven't because you don't know what to dream about!
“Perhaps someday you will understand what I mean. In any case, it won't happen again, I swear it to you.”

Jules wished at that moment that he hadn't awakened, that she hadn't cried out. It would have been over with, and she felt now that she could deal with any fear better than this. She said, “When we are home, you will continue to see this Jane?”

He hadn't thought about it. It was the kind of thing that shouldn't happen. A man married, his wife a virgin, and he so damned randy . . . She was so beautiful, his Jules, so bright and vivid, and so very vulnerable. He would simply have to become a monk. He had no choice in the matter. A saint who was also a monk. He supposed it fit.

“No,” he said finally. “I will see her, of course, as a friend, but I won't have sexual relations with her again. Marriage, for me, means fidelity.”

“Fidelity seems to have no bearing on anything,” Jules said, and quickly rose, beating down her skirts as the ocean breeze swirled around her.

“Just what is that supposed to mean?”

She ignored his question, merely shrugging. “I must fetch my bonnet.”

“Yes,” he said, his voice showing his weariness. “Yes, you should. You're becoming quite red.”

“Now, Molly, you're an old hand at this. Breathe slowly, light shallow breaths. That's it.” Saint gently wiped Molly Tyson's sweating brow with a cool damp cloth.

“I was so scared you wouldn't be here,” Molly said as a contraction eased. “I heard you'd gone off to those Hawaiian Islands.”

“Yes, I did, but my timing is always exquisite, and so, it appears, is yours. That's it, Molly . . . no, don't tense up. Here, squeeze my hand. That's it.”

“Damn, it hurts,” Molly gasped. “How could I have forgotten how bad it hurts?”

“I know. Scream if you want to. I know I would.” Saint winced as she wrung his hand, her back arched up, her body rigid, in a contraction. “All right, Molly, the pains are coming closer now. Let me see how far along this little fellow is.”

He rose and walked to the basin of hot water that Molly's eldest daughter, Elizabeth, had provided. He washed his hands, then returned to the bed. He wished there were another woman to be with her, but there wasn't, and he wasn't about to let twelve-year-old Elizabeth in here. As for Ranger Tyson—the man was useless as a fish flopping on the beach
when Molly had a baby. As Saint eased his hand into her, he was grateful that Molly wasn't embarrassed or a prude. Lord knew, he'd had to deliver babies when the women were suffering as much from embarrassment at his presence as from their labor pains. “Things are coming along just fine,” he said after a moment. “Not much longer, Molly.” He returned to the chair beside her bed and took her hand into his again.

“In a little while I'll give you some chloroform. No, don't tense up. Incidentally, did I tell you that Queen Victoria had chloroform used when she birthed her seventh child last year? If the Queen of England allows it, it's sure to spread.”

“I don't know, Saint, Ranger isn't so certain, and Father O'Banyon says that the Bible preaches that women should have pain with childbirth and—”

“To hell with Ranger and Father O'Banyon,” Saint said, interrupting her. “Neither of those blessed gentlemen has to do any of the hurting. I've heard that ridiculous argument about women and sorrow until I'm ready to kill. Now, you just think about this new little tyke. You're lucky you aren't an Indian wife, Molly. Did I tell you about the Indian tribe—I can't remember the name—but if a woman in labor wasn't birthing quickly enough, they tied her to a stake out in a field. Yes, indeed, it's true.” He grinned at her incredulous look, knowing she was now distracted. “Then, Molly, a brave would ride full tilt toward her, veering away only at the last instant.”

“Oh God, that's awful!”

“Yes, but you can imagine that such a fright would do something. Evidently it worked, or I can't
imagine that they'd continue scaring the woman out of her wits. That's it, Molly, pant.”

He administered the chloroform about ten minutes later. The birth of Molly's third child, a boy, came quickly after that. The chloroform didn't stop all pain, but it certainly lessened the utter agony a woman felt in the last minutes of labor.

“You just get your breath, Molly,” Saint said, grinning down at her, “and I'll take your beautiful baby out to Elizabeth.”

“Tell Ranger, if he isn't too drunk, Saint. He wanted another boy.”

Over an hour later, Saint mounted his horse, Spartan, and rode north back to the city. Ranger Tyson was partner in Hobson's Stables in San Francisco. Instead of money in payment for his services, Saint had bargained himself free stabling and feed for Spartan for six months.

Saint breathed in deeply the crisp, fog-filled air. It was near to dawn, and streaks of crimson had started to slash across the horizon. Why, he wondered, rubbing his jaw wearily, did women always tend to start their labor at night? He'd left Jules asleep, at least he hoped she'd been asleep.

They'd arrived in San Francisco three days before on a foggy, chill afternoon. Jules, used to the balmy weather of the islands, was shivering violently by the time they'd gotten to his house. Lydia Mullens, bless her, had wrapped Jules up and poured hot chocolate down her. He remembered clearly his feeling when he'd stepped into his surgery. It was as if he'd been living out of time. Everything was again as it had been, as it should be, except that he had a shivering
wife upstairs. She hadn't been cold before, he remembered, but then, she'd spent all her time in his house.

“Damn,” he said aloud with no particular heat, rubbing his hand over Spartan's satiny black neck.

Spartan nickered.

Saint grinned, staring between his horse's ears. “Well, old boy,” he said to his horse, “life isn't the way we left it, is it? The question is, what the hell is going to happen now?” Spartan wasn't obliging enough to nicker again.

Saint was tired to his bones, but it was a comforting physical weariness that he appreciated. At least he wouldn't have to endure those damned draining erotic dreams for a while. As for Jane Branigan, she'd behaved with great understanding when he'd visited her the day before. It was almost as if she'd expected it, he realized, thinking back to her words.

“She isn't all that much a child then, I gather,” she'd said, pouring him a cup of coffee in her small kitchen.

“She's nineteen,” Saint had said. “Not a child, no.” Had he given her the idea that Jules was still in puberty?

“And I don't suppose, you being as you are, that we'll be seeing much of you anymore.”

“Of course you'll be seeing me. I'm fond of the boys, Jane. It's just that—”

“I know, Saint,” she'd said quietly, “I know. Honor, fidelity, and all that.”

“I suppose so,” he said. He remembered that dream he'd had aboard ship, and clenched his fists at his sides.

His thoughts veered again to his young wife. Jules
had withdrawn from him after that last damned fracas aboard the
Oregon,
and he supposed he couldn't blame her. Lord, how should she have reacted when he'd very nearly forced her and called out another woman's name? Later, when he'd found Lydia unpacking Jules's clothes in his bedroom, he hadn't known what to say. He didn't want to sleep in the spare room—the damned bed was too short for him.

And he couldn't sleep with her. It was simply too much.

To his surprise and silent relief, Jules had taken the matter out of his hands. He'd been called away to treat a broken hand—the result of a fistfight, of course—and when he returned that evening, he saw that she'd moved all her things down the hall to the spare bedroom.

He didn't know what to say to her.
Thank you, wife, for not forcing me to sleep with you.
It was odd, he thought, frowning slightly. He'd never in his life been so damned obsessed with sex. Sex was just something that went along naturally with everything. I guess not having it makes my mind weird, he concluded, hoping it would go away.

And there was Jules, smiling, chattering gaily, primarily with Lydia, until his—no,
their
—housekeeper had left for the night. Then she'd become quiet and withdrawn again.

He'd settled quickly back into his routine. As for Jules, he wasn't certain exactly what it was she did when he wasn't there.

“Spartan, what about Jameson Wilkes?” he said aloud to his horse. Spartan nickered, but at their entry into the city, and not in response to Saint's profound question. Already, men were up and about.
He returned greetings and continued toward Hobson's Stables on Market Street.

“The bastard,” he continued to his horse after a moment, “is bound to discover that Jules is married to me. What the hell will he do?”
He won't believe she's a virgin anymore. She won't have any more value to him.
“True enough,” he said in response to his silent observation.

He left Spartan at the stable in the capable hands of John Smith, an unlikely name for an unlikely gnomelike individual, and walked the short ten minutes to Clay Street and his house.

He suddenly thought of Jules pregnant with his child, of Jules giving birth, and he felt a knot of fear. He hadn't exaggerated his birth size to her. He'd been enormous, but his mother, bless her humorous soul, had been a large-boned woman, capable of carrying him and birthing him without too much danger to herself. Jules wasn't large-boned, and he realized he didn't know how wide her pelvis was. He closed his eyes a moment, tripped over a discarded piece of pipe in the street, and cursed roundly. He let himself in quietly, and eased into his bed.

 

“You have some visitors, Jules,” Lydia Mullens said to her young mistress the following afternoon.

Jules quickly bounded to her feet, her book dropping to the floor beside her chair in their small parlor. “Vistors?”

A bright feminine voice said behind Lydia, “Please forgive us for just barging in like this, but we couldn't wait for an invitation from Saint! Married! Agatha and I had to meet the new Mrs. Morris.”

A very lovely young woman with high-piled
chestnut hair came gracefully into the parlor and thrust out her hand. “How do you do? I'm Chauncey Saxton, and this, my dear, is Agatha Newton. Oh, how beautiful you are—not that any of us doubted it for a moment! Saint has the most stunning taste.”

Jules took the gloved hand. “My name is Juliana, but Michael calls me Jules.”

“Michael?” said Agatha Newton, arching an eyebrow. “Lordy, so the dear man does have a real name! I'm Agatha, my dear.”

“Hello,” Jules said, a bit dazed. Agatha Newton was an older woman, massive-bosomed, with a booming, very kind voice.

“I'll bring in some tea, ladies,” Lydia said. “You just sit down, lovie, and entertain the ladies.”

“Mrs. Mullens,” Chauncey Saxton said, “must think she's died and gone to heaven. A lady, finally, in Saint's house.”

“Please,” Jules said, waving her hand, “please do sit down. Michael told me about the Saxtons and the Newtons, of course. He said you were all dear friends.”

“Yes indeed,” Chauncey said. “Jewels, huh? You mean like diamonds and emeralds?”

“No, actually, J-u-l-e-s,” she said, spelling out her nickname. “Michael didn't want to distort my real name too much.”

“Just wait until I tell Horace—my husband, you know—Saint's real name! Lord, the dear boy is in for a thorough razing.”

Jules smiled, relaxing for the first time. “Actually, ‘Michael' is only one of his real names,” she said with an impish smile.

“Both ladies leaned forward in their chairs, questions on their faces.

Jules laughed. “No, I must have loyalty to my husband.”

“Where is Saint, or Michael, by the way?” Chauncey asked.

“There was a problem of some kind. He said something about having to go see Maggie.”

“Ah,” said Chauncey. Her husband, Delaney, had told her about the new Mrs. Morris' experience. Now wasn't the time to bring up Maggie's profession, or the probable profession and sex of his patient.

Lydia Mullens came into the parlor at that moment, carrying a rather tarnished silver tray. “I didn't have time to polish the thing,” she said apologetically to Jules. “In fact, Saint's never used the tray before.”

“Things are very different now,” said Agatha with great complacency.

“Now, Jules,” Chauncey said after sipping the delicious jasmine teas, “Agatha and I are here to invite you to a small dinner party at our house. Saint has already accepted, but we wanted to meet you and invite you in person. It's time you met some of San Francisco's fair populace.”

Jules felt a bolt of excitement. “That would be wonderful,” she said enthusiastically. “Oh dear, I must buy a new gown, and I must ask Michael if . . .” She broke off suddenly. “Michael said it was all right?”

Chauncey paused a moment, suppressing the frown that threatened to crease her brow. What had this poor girl been through? What indeed was her relationship to Saint? She said finally, in a very firm voice, “Of course Saint agreed. He's very proud of you and wants you to get out and about. Why don't you accompany me tomorrow, say, to Monsieur David's? He's an excellent modiste—but that's a woman,
isn't it? Well, whatever he is, he's quite good and has a marvelous selection of lovely gowns, many of them from Paris.”

I'm blabbing like an idiot, Chauncey thought, bringing her flighty monologue to a halt.

“I should appreciate that,” Jules said. But she was worried about money. Clothes were expensive, she assumed. Perhaps Michael didn't wish to spend money on things like that.

Agatha and Chauncey stepped into Chauncey's open carriage some thirty minutes later after a thoroughly satisfactory visit. Chauncey said to their driver, Lucas, “Let's go to the Newtons' home now, please.”

“She's very . . .” Agatha broke off, shaking her gray head.

“Vulnerable? Frightened? Wary?” Chauncey said.

“Yes, I suppose all of those things.”

“I shouldn't care if she were a wretched individual,” Chauncey said. “We must take care of her, for Saint's sake.”