The Beholding, page 28
Chapter Thirty-one
The invigorating waters stirred the trio’s appetite. Luke escorted Tess and Tommie into the inn and waited for the hostess to seat them. He scanned the patrons’ faces as was his habit when entering any room. No notorious outlaw here. Only a gray-haired lady’s face blocked by her menu prevented him from seeing everyone. Feeling confident that all was as it should be, Luke took a seat with his back to the wall.
After ordering food, he insisted Tess indulge herself in a glass of brandy. For Tommie, he ordered sarsaparilla.
When the brandy was poured, Tess sipped it and smiled at Luke over the rim, teasing him as the tip of her tongue darted out over her lips. “Mmmm. Brandy tastes almost as good as bourbon.”
Luke’s brow arched, but his lips curved in approval.
Soon a family of great number, painfully thin and modestly dressed, arrived at the table next to them. Luke watched the procession of tow-headed youngsters as their mother guided them to their chairs in quick precision. He guessed the woman’s age to be about ten years more than his own, but her face was deeply lined and sallow. Her red, gnarled hands gave signs of a hard life. Though their clothing looked frayed, no buttons were missing, and each of the children had been well scrubbed. A baby rested on one hip, while another refused to take a chair and stood tucked beneath the unused armpit.
Their father followed later. A good deal older than his wife, the man kept staring at Tess as if he knew her. Luke glanced back at her, aware she would not meet the man’s gaze. Who was he?
“Begging your pardon, sir… ma’am,” the fellow interjected, “but don’t I know you from somewhere?”
Tess shook her head slowly, clearing her throat. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”
The stranger’s brows veed as he puzzled over her answer. “I could’ve sworn. You from Arkansas, by chance? Hot Springs?”
Tess gulped the brandy, her hands visibly trembling, but she quickly set the goblet back down. “From Georgetown,” she insisted. “Sorry.”
Was he one of the men she supposedly seduced? Luke felt a strange sense of anger at Tess for lying, yet felt an equal need to protect her from that sad past.
The man continued to stand. “I could’ve sworn, ma’am. But you wouldn’t be that kind of lady, I’m sure. She was the no-good kind. Said the springs could cure just about anything. And it durned well did. Cured me of going anywhere without my Carolina and thinking I could trust folks so readily. Now Carolina holds my savings while I’m a’ bathing. Cain’t no thief steal my money whilst I’m easing these old bones.”
The food arrived. Luke looked at all the hungry eyes staring at his plate and found it difficult to begin eating. Though he had no idea how much the man had lost to Tess’s parents, perhaps there was a way to return it. “Please, why don’t you and your family join us, Mr.—?”
“Webster Krugg.” He motioned his wife over. “This is my missus, Carolina. And that’s all right, sir. We just come in for a drink.”
“I insist, Mr. Krugg. This is my treat, and it will give Tommie someone to visit.” Luke stood and nodded his acquaintance to Carolina.
“The Lord’s blessings to you, sir. I’m mighty grateful. If you won’t be offended, we’ll sit here and let you folks talk peaceful. With this big a brood, Carolina and I gotta take turns afeedin’ our little’uns. You drank the water yet? It tastes like a by-god, but it sure’ll knock anything loose that’s latched on where it shouldn’t be.”
“Mr. Krugg!” Carolina scolded. “Remember the children.”
Luke rose from his chair as the woman bobbed a curtsey.
“How do?”
“Kinda hard to forget nine young’ uns, Mrs. Krugg!” Webster grinned from ear to ear, offering his wife a wink. She blushed becomingly.
Luke introduced himself and halted when he nodded toward Tess. What if she didn’t want her name revealed?
“Contessa Harper,” she quickly interjected, “and this is my son, Tommie.”
“Now, I know I was mistaken. The gal I’m thinking of wasn’t a Harper, and she didn’t have no children.”
“Perhaps it’s someone who looks like me.” Tess visibly relaxed.
“Gosh, I wish I had so many bruvers and sisters,” Tommie announced, his voice full of awe.
Luke glanced at Tess, watching her blush match their guest’s. Carolina Krugg smiled shyly. The woman cast her gaze downward as the baby hid his face in her bosom.
“You have a beautiful family,” Tess complimented, to put the woman more at ease.
“I’m real proud of each and every one of them.”
“Guess if we stand here jawing, you folks are gonna miss your meal. Sorry about the mistake, Mrs. Harper. Guess my ol’ eyes are failing me.”
“That’s perfectly all right, Mr. Krugg. Frankly, I’m glad my life has led me away from being that kind of woman.”
When the couple returned to their brood, Tess would not look Luke in the eye. She became uncommonly quiet and ate her bites slowly. Luke didn’t want to talk much in front of Tommie, yet he couldn’t let her go on in misery. “Tess, there are going to be times when both of our pasts catch up with us. I haven’t been a saint either, you know.”
“For better or for worse, you mean?” She lay down the knife and glanced at Tommie. He seemed more interested in staring at the Krugg brood and their antics than anything being discussed at the table. “Believe me, Luke. My past is far worse than you can imagine. I need to tell you so much, but this isn’t the place.” Her gaze slanted to Tommie.
Luke shook his head. “You don’t need to explain anything. You are what you are now.”
Tess smiled sadly. “I pray you always feel that way, Luke, but I am what I am because of that past. I’m not sure it’s all gone. I don’t know if it will ever be. There will always be a Krugg who recognizes me. And I hope to God I can gain the strength to face them and the truth about myself.”
Placing his hands over hers as they twisted a napkin, he halted her from berating herself. “There’s only one in your past who concerns me, and you know which one I’m talking about. When I find him, I intend to kill him.”
“I won’t have it!” She pushed away his hand and flung the linen napkin down on the table.
“You two fighting?” Tommie asked and sat up straighten.
Tess blushed to the roots of her hair and quickly offered in a calmer tone, “You can’t go off trying to right my wrongs.”
“That’s one wrong committed against you, love. That means it was committed against me too.”
Tommie grimaced. With a bored sigh, he turned his attention to the family at the next table. One of the boys blew bubbles of sarsaparilla out his nose.
“Who is that woman staring at you?” Tess asked, agitation etching her features. “It’s awfully rude of her.”
Luke spun around and caught a glimpse of the profile deliberately turning to hide her face as she rose and headed for the restaurant’s entrance. He pushed back his chair and slammed his napkin down on his plate. “My past is catching up with me … damn her!”
“Olivia, what in God’s name are you doing here?” Luke grabbed Olivia’s elbow and made her face him.
“Lucas, what a pleasure. I had no idea—” The mask of surprise that graced her high cheekbones and lips could have won her a role on any stage.
“Don’t forget who you’re dealing with, Olivia. I’m your son, for whatever that means to this world, so I know you. Why were you trying to sneak out of here without being seen if you didn’t know I was here?”
“Oh, darling, really … don’t make such a scene.”
Her tone became angry, though her gaze darted around to see if anyone watched. He hated that about her. She couldn’t even be upset without thinking of the social considerations.
“I saw you were sitting with the young lady and the child, and I simply didn’t want to disturb you.”
“You didn’t want to disturb me? I haven’t seen you since I was eighteen years old, Mother dear. Don’t you think I needed a little disturbing after nine years?”
“Well, yes. Yes, of course, dear.” Olivia straightened the lace at her high-necked collar. “I meant to … visit you later. After your meal.”
Luke tugged on her arm. “Join us now, Olivia. I’m busy later. For the rest of my life maybe. Take the opportunity while I feel like giving it.”
“That’s no way to talk to your mother,” Olivia scolded but followed his urging anyway.
“No, it isn’t,” he whispered into her ear as they walked toward Tess. “But then you never have acted like my mother, have you?”
“Really, Lucas!” she said in exasperation, hurrying her steps to put distance between herself and her son. Seeing the surprised expressions of Luke’s company, she realized they had heard her exclamation. “What a darling child,” she crooned, attempting to draw attention away from herself. The boy offered his hand to shake, and she shook it, only to discover he had given her a gob of mashed potatoes.
Tommie giggled. Olivia looked horror-stricken.
“Thomas James Harper!” Tess rose to her feet. “Apologize this minute!” But the four-year-old scooped another spoonful and flung it at the Krugg boy who was making faces at him.
Luke laughed, a hearty baritone sound that echoed over the restaurant. Each mother took their child in tow, apologizing profusely to Olivia Reeves.
Tommie fussed and squirmed, causing so much ruckus that Tess pleaded the woman’s forgiveness. “I’m terrible sorry, ma’am. He’s on the mend from a broken hip and is tired and cranky. Do forgive me for not staying to visit. I’d best get him to bed.” She looked at Luke questioningly. “Will I see you later?”
Olivia’s eyebrows arched a notch higher.
“Perhaps tomorrow then,” Tess conceded.
Luke gave the tyke a playful spank on his bottom as Tess settled Tom on her hip. “You be a good boy and no more potato fights. Understand?”
Tommie held out his hand, and Luke opened his. The last glob of potatoes plopped onto the bounty hunter’s palm. “Here, Mista Luke. You can play with it.”
Olivia chuckled, then quickly cleared her throat.
Luke returned the glob to Tommie’s plate and wiped his hand with a napkin. “Take that kid to bed, tie him up, then beat on him for me, will you?” Luke teased.
“I would,” Tess countered, “but I’d be afraid he’d get loose and do the same to me. Think I’ll cuddle him up and read him a story instead.”
Waiting until the pair were gone, Luke ordered more wine for his mother.
“I see you haven’t forgotten some of what I’ve taught you,” Olivia said as he filled her glass, then his own.
“Some things are worth hanging on to,” he conceded. “Some aren’t.” The Kruggs had the good grace to keep their attention upon their own children and not his and Olivia’s conversation. Luke decided to have the chef wrap up an extra cake for the children to take with them.
“Such as?” Olivia asked.
“Such as the letters I never got. The visits from you and Father. I guess memories are something not on the Reeves’s agenda.”
“When did you become such a brash boy?” She sipped the wine.
A cord twitched in Luke’s jaw. “When you stopped caring if I ever became a man.”
“I never stopped, Luke.” Olivia stared at him with sincerity. “I might not have known how to deal with you, but I wanted to.”
“Was it the scars, Mother? Were they so terrible even you couldn’t look at me?”
Olivia’s gloved hand reached across to his larger one. Despite the proper upbringing that warned he would be displaying improper manners, Luke shied from her touch. Surprise and something else … disappointment? … etched her features, then were quickly hidden.
Her skin appeared pallid, wrinkled. She no longer looked the society beauty but had become an aging dowager. How it must hurt to see that time had its own justice for the vain.
“Is that what you thought, Lucas? That I couldn’t endure the sight of you?”
“More or less. You never proved differently.”
Regret shimmered in her eyes. Tears for him? Was this part of her act or did he dare trust the hope sprouting in his fragile heart? Tess had torn down the stone wall and left his emotions vulnerable, and it scared the hell out of him that he wanted to believe this new Olivia. This Olivia he had never known.
“Lucas … Luke, darling. I couldn’t look at your scars because I blamed myself for them. Not you. Your grandmother told me to take better care of myself during the time I carried you within me. I scoffed at her warnings. Horseback riding, dancing until dawn. Parties and social functions fed my sense of worth, you see. To be shut away for nine months was a custom unthinkable to me.
“Then you decided to be born. The delivery became difficult. The doctor said my bones had actually broken … cutting you and blocking your entry into this world. You almost died. But you were a fighter even then. Despite my stubbornness, I might say. When I discovered your scars, I blamed myself. I suppose every time I looked at you, I was reminded of my foolishness … my selfishness.
“Now I realize my actions after your birth were more cruel than before it.” She touched his face, caressing the scars that had kept them apart physically and emotionally. The scars that could not bring them back together. “Can you forgive me?”
Luke could not speak the words she wanted to hear, but instead made a concentrated effort to get to know her and allow her to know him. When he finally walked Olivia back to her hotel room, he actually felt a reluctance to leave her company. Before him stood no gray-haired dowager, but the woman of incomparable beauty he had adored in his childhood and longed for in the countless, tear-filled nights of loneliness that had been his youth.
He looked back at her now from the eyes of manhood and was astonished that he actually meant the words, “Perhaps one day soon the two of us will forgive each other.”
Chapter Thirty-two
Jim Daggert was angrier than Nugget had ever seen him. He paced the floor of the hotel room, lacing the curses with the name of Luke Reeves.
“That fool,” Jim thundered, “thinking with her legs instead of her head. I’m sorry for the day I ever asked her to marry me.” He turned on Nugget. “You know what Contessa has done? She’s gone and forgiven the bastard. No way I’ll ever get her to marry me now. We’ll just have to take the mine the hard way.”
“They will be after me for certain, monsieur,” Nugget reminded. “The boy saw me clearly.”
“You can deny it. Say he must have been out of his mind with pain.”
Sweat trickled down the Frenchman’s face. It stung his eyes, but Nugget refused to let them blink, not trusting the piercing gaze of the man who studied him. He and Daggert had managed to keep their partnership quiet until now, but things were going wrong and at a rapid pace. “It would do no good. You know Monsieur Reeves, he will check on such things.”
A worry dug at the Frenchman. He thought he knew the gambler. They had been partners in the mine scams for four years. After Clifton and Hoot no longer shared a fourth, Nugget had thought the partnership with just Jim would be better off. He wasn’t so certain anymore. The gambler was running scared. What if he started talking? It was his word against Daggert’s, but the gambler was a faster draw than he. He needed to keep Jim’s confidence.
“You want the widow, oui?” Nugget asked cautiously.
Jim’s eyes narrowed. “So?”
“So … the bounty hunter, he will not scare. We have found that out. The only way to stop him from getting too close to Madame Tess and our operation is to convince her not to marry him and send the gentleman on his way.”
Jim’s brow furrowed. “How do you propose we do that? I’ve tried everything I know, short of killing the boy.”
“That did not work either.”
The gambler’s eyes widened, then quickly masked their surprise. “You caused that accident?”
“Let us say the fall did not hurt him as much as the clubbing of his hip. I tried to hit his head, but the horse got in the way. I only hurt the child’s leg. Perhaps what you need do is use the mining claims to force Madame Tess to marry you, oui?”
Nugget found encouragement in the closing of Jim’s eyes. The gambler tugged at his chestnut beard, the way he always did when he mulled a problem.
Finally Jim nodded. “I guess there’s no other choice.” His face brooded. “She isn’t going to agree to it any other way.”
When Tess answered the knock on the door of her hotel room, she swung back the oak panel in anticipation of greeting Luke. “Hello, darling, I’m almost finished dres—” To her surprise, Jim Daggert stood there with one half-raised fist, the other clutching papers.
“When did you get here?” She looked out in the hallway to see if Luke had shown him to her room. “Let me finish dressing and I’ll meet you in the foyer.”
“No.” Jim barged his way into her room. “I’ll talk to you here.”
Tess tried to shut the door on him, but his greater strength prevented her from doing so. “Leave!” she demanded. “I’ll cause a scene.”
Jim laughed. “You don’t want that, do you, Contessa? A widow alone with a man in her room. Wouldn’t do much good to that fine reputation you’ve tried so hard to build over the years. Then again, you were considering letting Reeves in here, weren’t you? Or is someone else your darling this week?”
Tess glanced at the bed. “All right, come in, but keep your voice down. Tommie’s resting.” She moved aside, keeping a substantial distance from Jim.
“Here, read these.” The gambler thrust the papers toward her.
As Tess scanned the pages, her heart felt as if it were sinking. “Where did you get these?”
“I’ve had them for quite some time. You know what trouble they can cause, don’t you?” The look in his eyes matched his gloating tone.
“They can incriminate me of salting mines.” She stared at him in disgust. “What is it you want from me? What have I ever done to hurt you?”
