Tempest(46)

He glanced at her, lips pursed, and shook his head. “What have you done, darling? What were you thinking?” The sight of her looking so forlorn caused him to put down his fountain pen and stand up. “Let’s go in the kitchen and have a bit of port, shall we? That sounds like just the thing for you.”

When they were sitting at one of the big, rustic work tables, now cleared of food and scrubbed clean, Theo raised his glass to her. “Here’s to the future.”

“Are you being ironic? Yes, of course you are.”

“Well, I must say that I’m surprised. What has Lord Raveneau done that’s so appalling? I had the distinct notion that you were in love with him.”

Her forefinger found a long curl that had escaped and twisted it round and round. “I love him so much it hurts,” she said softly. “But I’m convinced it can never work.”

“Because of the child? No matter what shocked pronouncements your mother might make, you could still work it out. I know that your heart is big enough.”

Cathy gave a great sigh and sipped her port. “I think that Paul was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. I see now that the whole arrangement was flawed at its core. Adam doesn’t love me, and he hates the fact he needs my money. Our marriage makes him feel like a bought man, and he’s far too proud for that.”

“You’re quite certain he doesn’t love you? As a somewhat impartial observer, I can assure you that he is far from indifferent!”

She flushed. “Perhaps, but you are referring to flashes of jealousy, not real love. I’ve decided I will never understand men. Their primitive emotions always seem to trump tenderness...or loyalty.”

“I surmise that we are also speaking of your father?”

Cathy looked away, her eyes agleam with unshed tears. “It’s very hard to open one’s heart only to have it treated so casually. You said that my heart is big enough to forgive Adam, but it has been battered from many sides and I am very weary.”

“Perhaps you merely need a respite, then, though the rest of the island will gossip about your presence in my hotel.”

“I would like to stay for the time being, and I don’t care what anyone says. I’m going to help you with the hotel and be your silent investor. Perhaps, if you had a backer, you could buy the Ocean Breeze from Hazel Trotter one day!”

“I think the port is going to your head.” Theo’s eyes twinkled. “And, my dear, you know that this isn’t the place for you, don’t you?”

“I’m not certain of anything right now, except that I will never live with my mother again, no matter how she may coerce me. It’s been wrenching to accept the fact that I can never be close to her if I want to be strong and happy, but it’s true.” She gave him a pensive smile. “I’m thinking about buying a house of my own, and I then I could engage in some sort of meaningful work. Tutoring students, perhaps! I have put my foolish dreams about love and marriage behind me. And Adam... deserves another kind of woman, one who can—”

After a moment, he touched her averted cheek and prompted, “Yes?”

“Who can... match his passions. Someone who is as magnificent as he is, rather than a— a shrinking violet like me.”

“I see.” He saw a tear escape and held out a handkerchief. “Cathy, you are hardly a shrinking violet! As for your husband’s passions—”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” She drank the small amount of port that remained in her glass and stood up. “My heart hurts. I should go to sleep. You do understand, don’t you?” Then, reaching out, Cathy took his hand. “I am so grateful for your friendship, Theo. Thank you.”



“Look, Paul,” Adam coaxed the tiny boy. “It’s a special bed, just for you.”

Clad in a miniature nightshirt and clutching a tattered stuffed monkey, Paul stared at the crib with distrust. It had belonged to Adam’s father when he was a baby. Crafted of mahogany with turned spindles, it featured a tiny support for mosquito netting.

“Stripey?” Paul asked. He turned his curly dark head and looked around the spacious bedroom.

Adam’s head began to throb again as memories of his extremely taxing day flooded back. After the horrific scene of Cathy’s departure, how many hours had Paul, Stripey, and Alice spent chasing each other around Tempest Hall, leaving a trail of mayhem in their wake? It wasn’t that Paul paid no attention to his father’s command to behave; on the contrary, when Adam gave him a quelling stare or raised his voice, the little boy burst into tears and begged for his mother in pitiful tones. It was Retta who had finally taken him in hand, cleaned him up, fed him, and instructed Adam to bring the crib out. To his utter dismay, she had insisted that he put it in his own bedroom.

“Stripey is sleeping,” Adam now told Paul. He laid a forefinger over his mouth. “Shh.”

With a furrow of suspicion in his tiny brow, the child repeated, “Sleeping where?”

“He’s very cozy and happy; don’t worry!” He didn’t care where the kitten was as long as it was quiet. “Now let’s get into your fine new bed—”

He suddenly clung to Adam’s neck, sobbing. “Mummy, Mummy!”

Feeling as if he were losing his mind, Adam looked around and saw the cane rocker where Cathy liked to sit and read. Holding the boy close, he sat down in it and began to rock, hoping that the delicate piece of furniture didn’t collapse under his weight. “Don’t cry, Paul. It’s going to be all right. Shh.” As he rocked, he inhaled the child’s scent and felt the heat of his little body. Slowly, Paul loosened his grasp and his sobs turned to sniffles. “We’ll be all right, don’t worry.”

The rhythm of the rocking chair was soothing to Adam, too. And perhaps he was holding on to Paul for reasons of his own. They rocked long after the little boy fell asleep, until Adam finally stood and gently bent to put him in the crib. Sprawled on his back, his mouth open, the nightshirt tangled in his pudgy legs, Paul’s dependence upon him suddenly struck home.

It seemed impossible that his life could have changed so radically in one day’s time, that only last night he had brought his wife to a state of complete abandon, in a bed in this very house. Now she was gone and he was left to contend with a child he barely knew, who missed his mother and needed a parent’s love.

What did he know about being a parent? He had buried all feelings for his own father and mother years ago, while still a boy; the only person to whom he could talk about them had been Gran Adrienne, but even she couldn’t completely break through the shell he’d erected.

A bottle of brandy stared at him from his desk across the room. Raveneau stared back at it, longing to accept its invitation to take away his pain.

“Cathy,” he whispered and wondered how it all could have gone so horribly wrong. Unable to stay alone in the bedchamber another moment, he went out into the corridor, then down the back stairway in search of Retta. He found her in the little serving room near the back door, sitting in a straight-back chair and mending socks by the light of an oil lamp.

“I do t’ink you come,” she murmured. “But where de baby?”

“He’s sound asleep. Finally.” Adam sank into a chair across from her and propped his elbows on his knees. “Retta, I feel as if I’m going mad. One moment my wife was here and everything seemed to be fine - “ At the sight of her white eyebrows suddenly arching up, he paused. “All right, perhaps I haven’t been a perfect husband. But was I so bad that she had to leave? How did this happen?”

“You know how.” She nodded twice for emphasis.

“I should have listened to you. You tried to warn me.”

Shrugging, she peered at him through her spectacles. “Not so much. Jus’ do say you should not be ‘fraid of love, sir. You push you pretty wife away ‘cause you do fear love.”

Adam wanted to protest, but the fight had gone out of him. Instead, he gave a harsh sigh and leaned back in his chair, waiting.

Nodding, Retta continued, “An’ I say you build de bridge, an’ you try, sir, but den you do break it.” She gestured toward the ice cream freezer that now stood in the shadows near her chair. “Foolish man.”

He winced at the sight of it. “I meant well.”

“I tell you again, you gran’ma do leave everyt’ing you need to woo a wife.” After a telling pause, she added, “If you want dat.”

It came to him then, through the mist of pain and denial, how keenly he did want it. The possibility that he might have lost Cathy forever, that she would never turn her radiant smile on him or oversee Tempest Hall with him or stand on tiptoe in his embrace again, was too terrible to contemplate. “How can I bring her home, Retta?” Closing his eyes for a moment, Adam said the words that had hidden inside him for so long, bolted inside a secret room he hadn’t been able to enter. “I love her.”

“Good. Now, sir, first you mus’ fix you.”

Before he could reply, Adam heard a faint cry in the moment of silence.

“Papa! Papa!”

Everything else was forgotten as he jumped to his feet and ran up the back stairs, his heart clenching with terror and guilt. What if Paul had climbed out of the crib and started off toward those front stairs Cathy had warned him about? What if he’d fallen or discovered a sharp object and cut himself? He could be bleeding, pinned under a piece of furniture, burned by a kerosene lamp...