Mittman, Stephanie (16 page)

Overnight
the house had become too small. Ash didn't care if it did have fourteen rooms.
Since he'd stood on the roof with Charlotte, the walls of each and every one of
them had begun to close in on him. He needed to stretch his arms out. Like
Liberty he needed room to flap his wings. He needed to put his muscles into
something, to fight the elements, to...

He
kicked the heavy oak foot of his bed in frustration and winced as the sharp
pain danced up his leg and dissipated in his belly.

He
needed to get new boots with stronger toes in them. In fact, he might need new
toes if he didn't get his emotions under control.

Surely
he knew better than to try to tell Cabot anything, so why was he even
considering marching downstairs and telling the idiot that all the stiff muslin
shirtwaists and blue serge suits in the world weren't going to change that
sweet wife of his into a cigar-smoking, curse-wielding, tradition-flaunting
trouser-wearer?

And
what good would it do to tell Charlotte that he'd looked into the eyes of a
hundred women and none were as soft as hers, as full of life and love and all
that was feminine? Especially when she was trying so hard to deny it?

He
needed air.

Pulling
at his shirt collar, he unfastened two buttons. He threw open window sash after
window sash until breezes whipped the curtains around him. And still he couldn't
draw a breath.

Salt
air. Brine. That was what he needed. To be at sea again. Out of this house.
Away from this family.

Away
from her.

Her?
Charlotte?

Ridiculous!
Even if she wasn't his brother's wife— which she was and he had no intention of
forgetting that—she wasn't his type at all. He preferred women who relished
their femininity, waved it at him like a cape at a bull, and enjoyed the charge
as much as he did.

Charlotte?

He
could see her in the bullring, her arms crossed over her chest, trying to stare
down the bull. He sat on the bed, running his fingers through his hair and
fighting the image of heeling to her command.

She
was interesting, that was all. As a sister-in-law.

Naturally
he felt warmly about her. Wasn't she a relative? Didn't they break bread at the
same table? Sleep under the same roof?

She
was a curiosity. The lady lawyer.

If
only he hadn't seen those stockings, he was sure he wouldn't imagine the lace
around her thighs every time he looked at her tailored dark skirts. If he
hadn't come across her damn hairbrush again, hadn't conjured up pictures of her
sitting on the window seat brushing out that chestnut hair and watching some
sailboat on the lake, he could just have put her from his mind. If he hadn't
heard her sobs, he might have been convinced that she was as tough as she
pretended to be.

But
now that he had, even days later, he couldn't forget she was a woman. So how
the hell could she? How did Cabot do it?

The
how
puzzled him. The
why
left him with his jaw open, staring off
at Lake Merritt. He was wholly startled by the knock at his door.

Rosa
poked her head in and told him that the senor wanted to see him. He took no
offense that Cabot was the only one referred to as the mister of the house. It
was Cabot's house, after all, his staff, his life, into which Ash had come
barreling at full speed. It was a wonder he hadn't smashed it to kingdom come.

In
the conservatory, surrounded by his precious gardenias, orchids, and gloxinias,
a pair of tweezers in one hand and a magnifying glass in the other, Cabot sat
waiting for him. He turned at the sound of Ash's footsteps, each one echoing
deafeningly off the tile floor.

Ash
stopped walking and the noise became an awkward silence. The cloying sweetness
of gardenias made the place smell like a funeral parlor.

"Think
Greenbough could have set you up?" Cabot asked, bending his head once
again to his work.

"I
didn't think he was smart enough, but I don't know who else to suspect,"
Ash admitted.

"Well,
that's what the investigator is for. That and to find the woman you were with.
Charlotte's spoken with a couple of your crew and says that the truth is your
alibi is weak, at best." Cabot placed the tweezers down carefully next to
several other implements on a clean white cloth that all but covered a silver
tray.

"Well,
Charlotte's an intelligent woman," Ash answered. Cabot, who had been
reaching for a small brush, stopped, his hand in midair, to stare at his
brother.

"Did
you think I would marry just any woman? A twit to stand beside my chariot here
and impress my associates? Did you doubt for a moment that when I wed, if I
wed, it would be to the crème de la crème?
Stone walls do not a prison make,
nor rubber wheels an object of pity."

The
brush remained suspended in air as if it, too, waited for Ash's response.
"I don't believe anyone pities you, Cabot," Ash offered finally.

"Not
even you?"

The
man had a home, a calling, a wife, all of them exalted, and he thought that Ash
might pity him? "Especially not me," he answered honestly. He
gestured toward the brush. "What is it you're doing?"

"Pollinating,"
Cabot said.

Ash
held his breath, hoping that Cabot wouldn't remind him it was the only method
in which Cabot would ever, could ever, propagate.

"Making
perfect specimens," Cabot said after a while. "If I could, I would
surround myself with only perfection."

Ash
took the insult for what it was, and shrugged it off. One couldn't pick one's
brothers, and Cabot had every right to be dissatisfied. "Well, it seems as
if you've managed that with Charlotte."

"Ha!
Do you think so?" Cabot asked. "Sometimes I imagine she's all that
I've planned for her to be, worked so hard at. You know it wasn't easy teaching
her to rise above her emotions. Even now I'll catch a tear or, worse still,
hear a sob when she fancies me occupied."

Ash
smiled indulgently and waited for Cabot to admit he was joking. When no
admission came, he demanded one. "You aren't serious, are you?"

"You
don't know how far she's come," Cabot said. "Or you'd understand.
Why, she cried when that mangy cat of hers finally died! Sobbed like a
five-year-old who'd lost her mother! And throw things! I'd hear china crash
against the wall at all hours of the night. Couldn't handle unhappiness.
Couldn't abide frustration. Couldn't resist temptation. But she's learning. She
wanted to be the best damn lawyer in Oakland and I promised her she would be,
next to me, of course. And if I promise it, I see to it. You know that."

"And
if she were only a good wife?" Ash asked, remembering the sound of her
sobs in his bedroom. "Cabot, the woman's your wife and you're her husband.
Maybe she wouldn't be throwing things against the wall if you just treated her
like a wife now and then instead of a partner."

"What's
the difference?" Cabot asked, putting down the brush and dusting his hands
off over the cloth before folding it up carefully and placing the tray at the
edge of the table. "In our case a partnership is enough."

"Enough?
I've been here over a week and haven't once seen you hold her, touch her,
comfort her. I haven't seen—"

"Looking
for a show, are we? Then I suggest you go back down to the docks and put on one
of your own. There are half a hundred women down there who would gladly match
you thrust for thrust and half a hundred more that would let you watch. Maybe
you can even find the one you spent the night fiddling with while Rome
burned."

Bile
puddled in Ash's mouth. "Don't debase your wife with talk of two-bit
pokies, you bastard. This is Charlotte I'm talking about—about decent, tender
expressions of emotion with a good woman who has needs and desires that ought
to be seen to by you."

Cabot
shook his head as if Ash's words were senseless, baseless. "Do you suppose
my wife to be common because the women you know are of that ilk? Is it so hard
for you to imagine her and me on a higher plane? Above needs of the flesh and
satisfied with intellectual excitement?"

"Is
that why you don't even send her flowers? Cabot, the woman needs a pair of arms
around her to hold her and tell her everything is gonna be all right—is that so
demeaning to a man of your high standards and moral stature?" He was
pacing now, something his brother hated, no doubt for its excessive show of
ability.

"And
what would you propose she do? Crawl up into this chair with me? You of all
people should know better than to point out what my limitations are. You,
who—"

"I'm
not suggesting you..." He was stuck for the right word, a word that was
fancy enough for Charlotte, refined and demure enough to describe the loving of
a woman who would never know the fulfillment of her marriage to his brother.
"Damn it! All right. All right. I'm not suggesting you dance with her, on
your feet or on your back. Don't you know there are a million other ways to
love a woman? God in heaven, Cabot, haven't you done any more than kiss your
bride?"

The
room was stony silent as the truth settled in.

Cabot
sucked on his mustache and rubbed his hands on his thighs nervously. Finally he
said softly, "I made her a partner." Then he wheeled back until he
could get around Ash's shaky frame.

"Oh,
dear God—not even a kiss?" he asked the back of Cabot's chair. "Not
so much as that?"

Cabot
gave a tug on the bell pull by the door. "You mind your own damn business
when it comes to my wife," he said just before Arthur opened the twin
doors.

"Don't
you mean your partner?" Ash corrected, as Arthur struggled with the
conservatory ramp and left him surrounded by brilliant flowers, alone in the
rapidly darkening room.

***

Cabot
was as abominable at breakfast as he'd been at dinner the night before. At
Charlotte's suggestion that perhaps they call Dr. Mollenoff, Cabot had stonily
rung for Arthur and left the room, ignoring her questions and his mother's
pleas.

"I
don't know what's the matter with him lately," Charlotte told Kathryn,
pushing away her plate and rising to follow her husband to their offices.

Kathryn's
gaze fixed on her younger son before answering Charlotte. "Sit, Charlotte
dear. Finish your tea and we'll talk a bit."

"But
Cabot needs—" Charlotte began, gesturing toward the open doorway through which
Cabot's voice could be heard clearly as he berated Arthur for everything from
poor steering of his chair to leaving the curtains open to the morning sun.

"Sit
down, Charlotte," Kathryn repeated. "Cabot needs some time to come to
himself and a bit of space to do it in. Ashford, aren't you done with those
eggs yet?"

For
a moment her son looked surprised. For a good ten minutes he'd been playing
with the food on his plate, hardly aware, it seemed, that it was there for
eating. But he took her hint gracefully and excused himself, looking relieved
to be released from what was sure to be "girl talk." Once he'd left
the room, Kathryn made a ceremony of pouring them each another cup of tea.
Then, settling against the back of her chair as if ready for a long discussion,
the older woman asked after the small bird that had accompanied Charlotte to
court for Ashford's hearing.

"He's
doing well," Charlotte told her mother-in-law. "Feathering out and
eating up a storm."

The
older woman nodded. "And that one-eared rabbit?"

"Van
Gogh is fine too. He seems to have taken a liking to your son."

Kathryn
laughed, a hearty, throaty laugh that sat oddly with her delicate looks.
"Is there anyone who hasn't taken a liking to Ashford?"

Charlotte
smiled her response. The man had turned out to be ever so much more likable
than Cabot had led her to believe. He was friendly, easygoing, earnest.
Everything she spoke of seemed to interest him. There was a warmth about him
that enveloped her, a softness despite his manliness that wrapped about her
even when she was across the room from him.

"It's
what irritates Cabot so much about him, you know. That easy way of his that
makes people take to him so. I think Cabot would give anything to spend one day
in Ashford's shoes."

Charlotte
opened her mouth, but Kathryn continued quickly.

"I
don't mean because of his injuries either. Ashford always had that nimbus—that
sort of being comfortable in his own skin—that made Cabot all the more
uncomfortable by comparison."

"Are
you saying that Cabot is jealous of Ashford?" Charlotte asked. She had to
believe that Kathryn was surely off the mark, no matter how well she knew her
sons. Cabot's assessment might have missed the mark as well, but surely Cabot
thought that Ash was a ne'er-do-well, a rotten apple, a bad seed. While Cabot
was becoming the most well-respected lawyer in the Bay Area, he claimed that
Ashford carefully, deliberately, became a success at nothing. What was it Cabot
called him? A jack-of-no-trades?