Silver Lining (13 page)

"It's going to be hard to think of myself as Louise." She'd known Livvy McCord only a couple of hours and already Livvy was demanding changes. She wasn't sure how she felt about that.

"Since it doesn't seem like the men are coming back anytime soon, we might as well start some get-acquainted talk." Livvy took a well-seasoned, black-bottomed coffeepot off the woodstove and refilled their cups. "Naturally we're curious about your background, where you were raised, who your family is."

For one long shameful moment, Low Down considered painting a pink gloss over her past. But these people were her new family, and they deserved better. So did she. Lifting her chin and gripping the coffee cup between her hands, she drew a deep breath then told her new mother and sister-in-law the unvarnished truth about herself beginning with the orphan train.

At the end of her story, they stared at her in wide-eyed silence.

When the grandfather's clock in the hallway chimed the half hour, Livvy and Gilly blinked. "Max must be walking up to the Houser's door right now," Gilly said in a low voice.

He'd ridden away without saying good-bye to anyone. Low Down lowered her head and gazed at the gold wedding band circling her finger. She'd believed he would check on her before he left.

After a minute she realized she was being foolish. She'd never required looking after, and she didn't now.

She turned her attention back to Livvy McCord and her daughter, both of whom were staring at her as if she'd sprouted antlers.

Low Down squared her shoulders and forced a shy smile to her lips. "I know you ain't too happy about me. But I'm so glad to be part of a family. I used to wonder how it would feel to sit at a kitchen table with a ma and a sister and a niece and just talk about things. It feels nice."

"Would you tell the part about the Chinaman and the laundry again?" Sunshine requested, enthralled.

Low Down laughed and retold that part of her history.

«^»

A
terrible situation was about to get worse, Max thought, biting down on his back teeth as he tied his horse to the hitching post outside the Houser residence. There wasn't a thing he could do about it.

He'd awakened this morning feeling guilty and bowed with regret. Making love to Louise had been a mistake. The honorable thing would have been to wait until after he'd told Philadelphia that he couldn't marry her.

If he had waited, then he might have accepted his mother's surprising suggestion that he and Louise divorce immediately. He would have bet everything he owned that Livvy McCord would never advise a divorce under any circumstances, yet she had.

But if he'd divorced Louise without attempting to give her the baby she wanted, then he couldn't count himself as a man of integrity. Forever afterward, each time he made a promise he'd hear the men from Piney Greek shouting inside his head, telling him that he couldn't be trusted, that his word wasn't worth a plug nickel.

No matter what he did or didn't do, he seemed to make the wrong choice and ended by making the situation worse.

Standing beside his horse, delaying the long walk up to the door, he thought about the interminable ride to Fort Houser. If his plans had unfolded as they should have, he would have arrived at the ranch alone and received a joyous welcome. Instead, he'd brought shame and an unsuitable wife to his family.

He'd known the McCords would treat Louise cordially, and they had. But he'd sensed his sister's dismay, had read sympathy in Wally's and Dave's uneasy grins. He'd heard his mother step out of character and offer a suggestion that ran against everything she believed.

Thrusting a hand into his pocket, he gripped the green marble hard enough to bruise his palm, and he frowned at the Houser mansion, wondering if he imagined the curtains twitch beside the door.

This would be the last time he walked up those steps and knocked at that door. The last time Howard Houser called him son and shook his hand with warmth. The last time that his beautiful Philadelphia would gaze at him with a loving mischievous sparkle in her blue-green eyes or dimple into a smile for him alone.

The marble was such a small and insignificant thing to have had such a devastating impact on his life.

How was that possible? To wreak this much damage it seemed that something much larger and more dramatic was required.

The heavy carved door swung open as he lifted his fist to rap, and Mr. Houser's man, Ridley, beamed at him. "Welcome home, Mr. McCord. You're expected in the family sitting room." Smiling broadly, Ridley took Max's hat.

Then he heard her voice. "I won't wait another minute!"

She ran into the foyer in a swirl of rose-colored silk and bouncing gold curls and threw herself into his arms, not caring that she might shock Ridley. A week ago Max would have laughed and been charmed by her scandalous eagerness to see him. Today his chest tightened until he thought his ribs would crack.

"Oh Max. Thank heaven you're home!" Her arms circled his waist, and she gazed up at him with tears sparkling on her lashes. "When I learned you were so ill, I was desperately afraid you would die. I didn't know what I would do if that happened! Thank heaven, thank heaven!" Raising her fingertips, she lightly touched the tiny scars on his jawline, and he noticed the high color burning on her cheeks before she spun away from him. "You must see the wedding gifts. Every surface in the parlor is covered with wonderful things! No, you'll want to see Father first. Come with me, then. We'll have sherry, and dinner, andthen we'll examine the gifts." She stopped and cast him a long lingering look that he couldn't read. "I have so much to tell you." And then she hurried toward the double doors leading into the family sitting room where her father waited.

A sweet rose scent lingered where she had touched his skin. But this was a Philadelphia he hadn't seen before, spinning from one topic to another, whirling from one door to the next. Then it occurred to him that of course she would be nervous. This was mid-September; they hadn't seen each other since the end of May. She believed they would marry within days, without a real opportunity to become reacquainted.

Or was it more than that? He recalled thinking her last letters had seemed strained.

Wishing himself anywhere but here, wishing with every fiber of his being that he could reach into the hat again and this time draw an unscratched marble, he followed her into the family sitting room and shook hands with Howard Houser.

"Welcome home, son." Howard accompanied his greeting with what Max thought of as a banker's two-handed grip and direct sincere gaze. "You look tanned and fit after your final frivolous summer as a bachelor. Sit down, sit down. Ridley, bring glasses and the sherry decanter. And yes, my dear," he said to his daughter with a smile. "With the wedding so near, you have my permission to sit beside Mr.

McCord on the settee." To Max he winked and added, "Judging by a torrent of tears and sighs, I believe someone missed you a great deal this summer."

Rather than look at Philadelphia , Max gazed at a room he would never see again, a room he had always liked. All the worn and most comfortable furniture had found its way here after Mrs. Houser died. Unlike the mansion's other rooms, no effort had been made to coordinate color or style here. Yet the mismatched furnishings and crowded wall hangings fit together in a way that offered welcome and comfort.

"I don't care for anything to drink," Max said, standing abruptly as Philadelphia sat beside him and her skirts overlapped his legs. It wasn't possible to say what he had to say with the scent of her in his nostrils, with the warmth of her scorching him. He moved to stand before the unlit fireplace, leaving her with a puzzled frown drawing her brow.

Even frowning, Max decided she had never looked more beautiful than she did tonight. Her golden curls caught the lamplight and glowed like a halo around her milky complexion. The pink burning on her cheeks spoke of her pleasure and excitement at seeing him as did the moist shine in her eyes. The same shine had glistened in her eyes during their last evening together. He'd never forget how she had looked in the moonlight streaming through the fretwork edging the gazebo. Never forget opening the long row of buttons that ran down her back, and then the touch of her silky bare skin against his palms.

Oh God. Leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece, he covered his eyes with his hand. This was the worst moment of his life.

"Max?" she murmured in a puzzled voice. "There are a dozen details about the wedding that require your opinion before I make a decision." He heard her falter. "You seem… I don't know…"

With his mind's eye he observed how tonight should have been. Philadelphia bubbling with questions about his summer in the mountains and his relating amusing stories. After dinner Howard would take him into the library for a cigar and conversation about the bank and the position Max would fill there.

Discussing plans for the future would tack wings on the hours and make them fly until the longed-for moment when Howard discreetly allowed the couple an hour alone. Then Max would draw his bride into his arms and briefly discuss the wedding before he demonstrated how much he had missed her.

"Well, son, did you find what you were looking for up there in the mountains?" Howard handed Philadelphia a glass of sherry, then sank into his favorite chair.

"We need to discuss the period when I was sick with the pox." In about three minutes the smile would vanish from Howard Houser's mouth. The shine would fade from Philadelphia 's eyes. "I would certainly have died if not for the ministrations of a woman named Louise Downe."

"Your mother sent us a copy of some preacher's letter relating how deathly ill you were." Philadelphia 's full mouth pushed into a pretty pout. "It's your own fault, you know. I told you not to go up there. I begged you to stay here with me."

None of her arguments or wiles had changed his mind about prospecting for gold as his father had done years ago.

"You will never know," he said, remembering the taste of her mouth, how her skin had gleamed in the moonlight, "how much I wish I had stayed." A hint of satisfaction flashed in her eyes, but Howard sat a little straighter as his instincts flared.

When Max reached the point in his story where the surviving men agreed to give Low Down whatever she wanted as a token of their gratitude, the warmth departed Howard Houser's eyes. He frowned and set aside his sherry. He couldn't know what was coming, but he sniffed something unpleasant, something momentous.

Max ended the story by speaking directly to Philadelphia , watching her face turn ashen, cringing inside as she stiffened and her expression grew taut with horror. "I'm sorry," he said hoarsely, after describing his wedding on the side of a mountain.

Her hands lifted, palms out as if warding off a blow. "No!" She drew the word into a long wail. "No, this can't be true."

"You son of a bitch," Howard shouted, coming to his feet. "You could have walked away. What kind of no-good bastard would place himself in the running to marry one woman when he's days from marrying my daughter? How in the hell could you do that?"

"Oh no. No," Philadelphia whispered, staring at him in shock and disbelief. "You didn't. You couldn't have. No. You wouldn't do this to me."

"I ought to kill you, McCord! No one humiliates me or my daughter!"

"There was no choice."

Silent tears streamed down Philadelphia 's face. She trembled all over, and her hands shook so violently that sherry spilled unnoticed down her dress. "Good Lord above. What will I do?"

"I'll ruin you, you spineless piece of offal! Ridley! Bring my shotgun. So help me God, I'll blow you to kingdom come!"

"Oh Max. You don't know what you've done." Slowly Philadelphia rose to her feet, the sherry glass slipping from her fingers. Her arms rose to cross her breasts, she clasped her shoulders, and a long animal sound keened from her lips. Both men fell silent, frozen by her anguish.

"What am I going to do? Oh Lord, what am I going to do?" She gazed at Max with wet, panicked eyes.

Agony thinned her voice. "I'm with child."

Her eyelids fluttered and she crumpled to the floor in a billow of pink silk.

*

Ridley sent the cook's helper to fetch Livvy McCord while the housekeeper tucked Philadelphia into bed. Max found an ax in the backyard and split logs into kindling, working like a man possessed.

Grinding his teeth, he swung the ax above his head then down on the log, feeling the shock of contact ripple up his arms and into his shoulders.

She was carrying his child, and he couldn't do right by her. Couldn't marry her. Couldn't save her from disgrace, humiliation, shame, or a reputation ruined beyond redemption.

Swearing steadily, he placed a boot on the log and twisted the ax until the wood split into two pieces.

He wanted to shout at God or fate or whatever malicious power had guided his fingers to the green marble. He wanted to smash and destroy and turn back the clock and make everything end the way it should have.

Ridley's expressionless voice called through the darkness. "Mr. Houser wishes to speak to you before Mrs. McCord arrives."

Before he returned inside, he took a moment to run his fingers through his hair and compose himself. The answer was obvious. He simply had to divorce Louise without delay. But the baby would be born before a divorce was granted. Cursing, he shrugged into his jacket. No matter what happened, he'd smeared a stain of scandal on Philadelphia which would follow her to the grave. She didn't deserve that. She didn't deserve any of this. Her only crime had been to love him.

"Did you know my daughter was pregnant when you married that other woman?" Howard demanded when Max returned to the sitting room.

"Of course not."

"But you knew pregnancy was possible, you son of a bitch," Houser snarled.

Max braced a hand on the mantelpiece and stared into the unlit fireplace. "If she'd told me, if she'd 'even hinted, I would have left Piney Creek at once. We could have moved up the date of the wedding and this disaster wouldn't have happened." That was the tragedy. None of it had to have happened.