Thorne Brothers: With All My Heart Part 25

Berkeley darted Grey an uncertain glance. He was staring straight ahead, unmoved in any outward way by what he had experienced. He was pretending as though he didn't know he had just shared her premonition, yet he was fairly vibrating with the force of what she felt. The heartbeat she heard in her ears wasn't only her own. Grey's blood seemed to thrum through her veins.

The minister was speaking to her. She saw his mouth opening and closing with crisp precision, but Berkeley could not make out a single word or any sense of the whole. Every sound reached her vaguely distorted. Panic and dread were tangible forces that roiled through her. The knot in her stomach went as high as her throat and lodged there.

She felt Grey's eyes on her, and when she looked at him she saw that his expression was merely expectant. He didn't seem afraid. He wasn't accusing or concerned. There was a hint of a smile about his mouth that was both indulgent and encouraging. Berkeley wondered that he could project such a calm presence when she was on the verge of collapse.

The Reverend Amos Watkins shifted his spindly frame and his attention to Grey. Berkeley swayed a little on her teet as her hand was being lifted. Nat was there suddenly, extending his own hand, dangling a ring between his thumb and forefinger. He was looking up at her, his mouth set in a solemn smile befitting the occasion. Berkeley's glimpse of him was brief as he ducked behind Grey again. The gold ring in Grey's hand was left to mark the completion of his duty.

Grey spoke to her as he slipped the band over her finger. Out of the corner of her eye Berkeley saw the minister nod approvingly. In the other direction Donnel, Sam, and Shawn were grinning while Annie Jack clutched her handkerchief.

It was over with a kiss. Or perhaps it had begun with one. Berkeley couldn't be sure. She found herself in the circle of Grey's arms, and his head was being lowered while her face was raised. His mouth was gentle on hers, reverent and somehow very sweet. When he drew back she was aware her vision of him was not quite as clear as before, that his features shimmered in and out of focus, and that he seemed to waver on his feet. It was the first she understood that her eyes were wet with tears.

Grey found a sc.r.a.p of linen and lace folded neatly beneath the fitted wrist of Berkeley's gown. "Something old?" he asked, pressing it into her hand.

She gave him a watery smile. "Something new. A gift from Annie." Berkeley dabbed at her eyes and tucked the handkerchief away before turning to face the witnesses. Sam's eyes looked suspiciously wet, and Shawn was blinking rapidly. Donnel Kincaid's fiery brows were drawn together, and he was staring at the floor.

Annie Jack stepped out of the semicircle and wrapped her arms around Berkeley. "This only proves Annie was right all along about your powers," she said. "You put a spell on Mr. Janeway pure and simple. You'll never convince Annie it was anythin' else."

"I wouldn't try."

Grey was still chuckling when Annie took his hand and pumped it fiercely. "Mark my words, Mr. Janeway. You do right by your wife or there will be h.e.l.l to pay. Pardon Annie's cussin', Reverend, but some things got to be said so there's no mistakin' their meaning."

"I understand, Annie." Grey drew back his hand and laid it lightly on her shoulder. He kissed her on the cheek and brought a flush to her coffee-colored skin.

"Mind yourself," she said, wagging a finger at him. "Annie don't want trouble with Miz Berkeley herself."

When Annie stepped aside the others moved forward, offering kisses and congratulations, and in the case of Sam Hartford, an approving aside about Berkeley's wedding finery. Only Nat hung back. He had seen Pandora slinking along the foot rail during the ceremony and at his earliest opportunity he had cornered her. Now he stood by the mahogany bar clutching the cat and wondering if he could put any stock in what Grey Janeway had told him that morning.

Berkeley made a subtle gesture with her chin and eyes in Nat's direction. Grey followed it and saw the boy leaning against the bar pretending to enjoy holding the squirming, clawing cat in his arms. Separating himself from the gathering around Berkeley, Grey walked over to Nat.

"I think you saved the day," Grey said. "Remembering the ring and keeping Pandora from destroying Berkeley's gown."

Nat's head lifted. "You think so?"

"Oh, I'm certain of it. The cat's been eyeing Miss Shaw like she's a saucer of cream."

Nat's eyes darted toward Berkeley. The seed pearls in her bodice glowed. "She's a bucket of it, sir."

"Exactly." Grey gingerly separated cat from boy. "Perhaps you could go over there and wish her happy. I'll keep Pandora away from all that satin and lace froth." He gave Nat an encouraging nod and watched the boy trot off obediently before he released Pandora up the stairs. By the time he rejoined the group Nat was looking quite cheerfully at ease at Berkeley's side. Grey found himself satisfied with that.

Annie Jack and her a.s.sistants had prepared a wedding supper for the bride and groom and selected guests and a feast for all the well-wishers who would come when the Phoenix opened its doors that evening. Roast beef, salmon, trout, golden potato medallions, carrots, peas, and mushrooms, sourdough rolls, salads and sauces and raspberry ices were carried out and laid along the length of the bar and replenished by a parade of servers. The gaming house was transformed into a banquet hall with a fountain of punch which no one touched and a dozen kegs of beer that were tapped out before midnight.

There was no one who wasn't welcome at the Phoenix. Berkeley and Grey, with Nat beside them, greeted everyone who came through the wide double doors. Some came with the express intention of extending their best wishes, others because word that drinks were on the house and all bets were off was a message difficult to resist. The music was lively and the dancing was energetic. The women in attendance never lacked for partners. Neither did Nat. Twice Berkeley made Grey rescue him from the crush of generous b.r.e.a.s.t.s. It was when she sent him into the fray a third time that Grey escorted the tired, but very happy boy up to his room and tucked him in for the night.

"Buckets of cream," Nat whispered sleepily as he turned on his side. "Every one of them."

Grey chuckled softly and drew the covers over Nat's shoulders. "Exactly,'' he agreed. Grey looked down at his feet when he felt the familiar press of fur against his legs. He scooped Pandora up, scratched her under the neck, then placed her on the bed beside Nat. She nestled in the crook of the boy's thin arm and gave Grey a look that said she was in charge now.

Berkeley was no longer among the hundreds of guests in the gaming hall when Grey returned. He felt her absence almost immediately. He stood on the stairs, scanning the swirling figures on the dance floor, the throngs at the bar, the press of bodies near the entrance, and she was at the center of none of them. He looked for her in the kitchen and on the back porch. He offered to bring up a case of liquor from the bas.e.m.e.nt simply to have an excuse to look for her there.

No one seemed to realize she was missing, or at least no one offered to tell him where she had gone. Grey stepped outside the Phoenix and into the open courtyard of Portsmouth Square. The night was unusually warm for so late in the year but Grey saw men walking with their shoulders hunched and collars lifted as if they were experiencing something far different.

Grey stood on the lip of the sidewalk while his eyes moved around the square. In the moonlight Berkeley's gown would have shone like a beacon. She hadn't come this way to remove herself from the heat and stale air of the gaming hall. Still, he stepped off the sidewalk and began walking away from the Phoenix, drawn toward the center of the square by something he could neither identify nor define. It was only when he reached the middle and realized that indeed, there was nothing there, that he turned and finally saw what he was seeking.

Berkeley stood on the balcony outside his sitting room. Her arms were braced on the bal.u.s.trade, and she leaned forward, her posture a mix of antic.i.p.ation and defiance. Her hair had been released from the pearl-encrusted combs and was lifted on the back of a warm breeze.

She could have been Rhea, the exquisitely lovely and proud figurehead of the Lady Jane Grey.

His heart tripped again when he saw her move away from the bal.u.s.trade. It was everything he had felt when he took her hand at the beginning of the wedding ceremony, and ten times more. Blood roared in his ears, and his heartbeat slammed against his chest. He began running toward the Phoenix, his breathing labored even before he hit his stride. It took him minutes longer to make his way back through the crowd once he was in the hall. Now it seemed that everyone knew he was trying to get to Berkeley, and they all thought they knew why. Grey had no choice but to accept their good-natured teasing and suggestions about how he should proceed with his wedding night. His progress to the staircase was marked by improvised percussion. Hands solidly clapped his back, and gla.s.ses of beer were thumped loudly on tabletops. Miners applied their large boots rhythmically against the floor in a foot-stomping serenade that vibrated the hall.

The Phoenix erupted into enthusiastic applause when Grey finally reached the top of the stairs. He did not stop to acknowledge it.

The warm breeze that had met him in Portsmouth Square now circulated through his apartment. The balcony doors were wide-open. Drapes fluttered at the windows on either side. Lamplight flickered. A small, mostly ornamental fire had been laid in the grate. Slim fingers of orange-and-yellow flames wound around the kindling. They almost disappeared until the night air breathed life into them again.

Grey closed the door behind him. The drapes, the lamplight, the fingers of flame all stilled. Then Berkeley was there, in the center of the balcony, framed by the open doors as if she had been captured on canvas.

He went to her.

His worst fears were realized when she took a step back.

"Berkeley.'' His voice was hoa.r.s.e and almost without sound. She did not regard him with the wariness she would have reserved for a stranger, but with the contempt that was due a liar. "I can explain."

"Who are you?"

"Please. Come inside. We can talk there."

She ignored him and stayed her ground. "I've seen Rhea. I've seen the inscription below her. You should have had it sanded away when you brought her here. It's too obvious to be a mere coincidence." She gathered the slender threads of her composure and asked him again, "So tell me, who are you?"

"Grey Janeway."

Berkeley took another step backward, unsatisfied with his answer. Her thighs struck the heavy stone bal.u.s.trade, and she was brought up short. Her eyes darted to her left, and she pointed to the ship's figurehead mounted not far from the edge of the balcony. "It's from the ship where you were born," she said.

"Yes. I told you that."

"But not all of it. You were being evasive and clever when you said that. You didn't tell me when you were born."

He told her now. "Five and a half years ago.'' Grey reached for her, but she twisted sideways and eluded his outstretched arm. He made no attempt to follow when she went toward the figurehead.

Moonlight lent Rhea's perfect features a blue cast. She could have been sculpted in granite, not wood. Berkeley gave her back to Grey and turned toward the G.o.ddess. She was careful not to look down as she stretched out over the bal.u.s.trade and touched one of Rhea's curving locks. Her fingers slipped across the warm, smoothly polished shoulder. Berkeley's eyes fell to the ornate script carved below the figurehead's b.r.e.a.s.t.s. It was not the G.o.ddess's name, but the name of the ship that had carried her.

Lady Jane Grey.

Berkeley let her arm fall back and she stepped away from the rail. She didn't turn to look at Grey, but she knew he was just behind her now. "Grey Janeway is a name," she said quietly. "Not who you are."

"Then you have no cause to be angry with me. You know who I am."

She shook her head. "You deceived me."

"No, I didn't. Or at least no more than I've deceived myself."

"You're Graham Denison."

"It's only a name."

Berkeley hugged herself. Cornered, her back still to him, she had nowhere to go when Grey's fingers lightly traced the curve of her bare shoulder. "Why couldn't you tell me?'' she whispered. "You let me think you murdered him. Why did it have to be a secret?''

Grey's hand slipped under the silky fall of her hair. His thumb rubbed gently up and down her sensitive nape. He felt tension cord the slender muscles in her neck. "Because I don't know the truth of it myself," he said. "If I was Graham Denison, he has nothing to do with my life now." He eased her around and now his thumb pressed upward on the thrust of her small chin. "Do you understand, Berkeley? I didn't tell you because I don't know if it's true, and if it's true, it doesn't matter."

"How can that be?"

Grey could tell she wanted to believe him. Her eyes were wide and clear as she stared up at him. It was her mouth that hinted at her misgivings. It trembled. He bent his head and touched his lips to hers. There was more promise than substance in the kiss, but it was enough. He felt her still. Her hands dropped to her sides, and she breathed softly and evenly. When he drew back her face was raised and her eyes were closed.

"Come inside," he said. "Please."

Berkeley opened her eyes slowly. "You know I'm afraid."

"Yes."

"Since this afternoon, at the moment you touched my hand, I felt a threat I couldn't name. I thought you would be torn from me, from my heart. I thought it started with you, and I imagined you felt it as strongly as I did. Was I wrong, Grey?"

He didn't admit it immediately. He would have liked to have told her the explanation lay in their own apprehension as they faced the minister, but he couldn't belittle what she had sensed with a lie. He hadn't been afraid of what they would face together, only that he might face it apart from her. "I felt something.''

"Do you think this is what it was?''

"I hope so." He cupped the side of her face when she frowned. "Because it's nothing. When you hear me out, you'll know it doesn't have to threaten us at all."

She leaned her cheek into his hand and held it in place with her own. After a moment she signaled her readiness by kissing the heart of his palm. Berkeley lowered his hand and threaded her fingers through his. She led him into the sitting room.

Grey closed the balcony doors while Berkeley laid a small log on the fire. He sat on the sofa, but she took the wing chair, perching on the edge with her hands lying open in her lap. She looked as if a drink wouldn't come amiss, but he didn't offer, knowing that she would refuse. He realized his eyes must have strayed toward the sideboard because she was on her feet suddenly. Without a word of her intention she poured two fingers of bourbon in a crystal tumbler and carried it over to him.

He didn't think she could possibly know how much he loved her. "Thank you," he said, accepting the gla.s.s.

Berkeley returned to the chair. This time she sat back far enough to curl her legs under her. Her gown spilled over the edge like a cascade of white water. She touched the pendant at her throat. "You told me you didn't recognize this."

His eyes fell to the earring. "I don't. As far as I know I've never seen it before. I haven't lied to you, Berkeley, not in the manner you think. I took my name from the Lady Jane Grey. She was a clipper registered to the Asbury Line out of London. I was a member of her crew from '45 until she was abandoned in San Francis...o...b..y."

"Graham Denison disappeared in 1845. In the spring, I think."

"It was April when I began my service."

"He was sailing with a Remington clipper. Siren. He disembarked in Philadelphia, thena" She shrugged helplessly.

"Lady Jane Grey's port of call before I joined her was Charleston. I don't know anything about a Remington clipper."

"I don't understand," said Berkeley. "How can you not know?"

"Because I simply have no memory of any part of my life before I awoke on Jane Grey." One corner of his mouth lifted in a wry smile. Berkeley was sitting at attention now, her features a mixture of curiosity and disbelief. "It happens, I'm told. I'm not the first person to suffer this affliction. I've talked to one London physician about it, someone who's made a study of amnesia. That was a few years ago and more than eighteen months after I came aboard Jane Grey. He gave me no a.s.surances that I would recover what I'd lost. There was nothing much he could tell me at all."

"But how does it happen?"

"Some injury to the head provokes it."

Berkeley's eyes lifted to the crown of Grey's head. She made a thorough examination, as if the damage done to him might still be visible. "You appear perfectly fine to me."

Grey's smile was wry. "Thank you for that, but it's nothing you can see. There's no wound to speak of."

"How were you hurt?"

He hesitated, uncertain he wanted her to know.

"Please don't lie to me, Grey," Berkeley said. "What can be the harm if I know the truth?"

"I was beaten,'' he said finally.

Berkeley's mouth parted fractionally. It wasn't at all what she expected to hear. "Beaten? By whom?"

Grey shrugged. "I have no memory of it, Berkeley. The bruises I wore for nearly a month afterward suggest that more than one man took part and fists weren't the only weapons used. The beating took place in Charleston harbor, not on the clipper. I learned later that I was taken aboard Jane Grey by two of her crew. They happened upon the fight and frightened off my a.s.sailants." He raised the tumbler of bourbon in a mocking salute to his rescuers, then he knocked back a mouthful. "At least that's what they always told me."

"You don't believe them?"

"No," he said quietly. "I never believed them. Sheffield and Hanks were not inclined to put themselves out for anyone. Knowing them as I came to, the notion that they acted in my defense is hardly likely. I never saw any evidence that they were the thugs who beat me, but I think they were paid to take me aboard Jane Grey. I also think that if it hadn't been for my memory loss, I would have been met with an accident at sea. As it was, they saw no purpose in killing me. I presented no threat to them or the men who insisted on my disappearance. By the time we reached London, they were quite sure of that. Rather than bring any suspicion down on their heads, they elected to let me keep mine."

"You told me once the clipper had been abandoned here. Does that mean those two men are in San Francisco?"

"No. They left the ship in London five years ago. I've never seen them again. I imagine they were paid rather handsomely for getting me away from Charleston. There was no reason for them to stay with Lady Jane Grey."

"And you were satisfied with that?" asked Berkeley.

"I was." One corner of his mouth lifted in a wry smile. "Oh, I see. You think I should have forced some answers from them. Perhaps do the same turn to them that was done to me." Grey shook his head. "The truth is, I was glad to see them gone. Trying to force answers from them would have most likely resulted in my untimely death, not theirs. I wasn't all that well healed by the time we reached London. I managed enough work to keep the ship's master from tossing me overboard, but I was in no position to act on my suspicions about Sheffield and Hanks."

Berkeley believed that was only part of the truth. "You didn't want to know," she said quietly.

Grey didn't answer immediately. He finished his bourbon and set the crystal tumbler aside. "No," he said. "I didn't. Can you appreciate that?" He didn't wait for her response. "Do you think I haven't wondered why someone would want me dead or, at the very least, out of the way? Hardly a day pa.s.ses that I haven't considered it. Did I hurt someone? Did I pose a threat? Perhaps I had gambling debts. Perhaps I was a thief. I don't presume I was innocent in what happened, Berkeley, and neither should you. I may well have deserved what was done to me. I could have wronged someone. A woman. A partner. A friend. That's what I didn't want to know. If it was revenge that led to my beating, then I was willing to let it be."

"And if it wasn't? Your past was taken from you, Grey. What about your family? Didn't you ever think that someone deserved to know what had happened to you?"

"Of course I thought about it. Over the years I learned enough to know there were never any inquiries made out of Charleston. No one there was trying to find me, not in any obvious way. There were no rewards offered. More attention was given to runaway slaves. No one was looking for anyone matching my description."

"That's not true," she said. "The Thornes were looking for you. But you're correct in that their search was not conducted in any obvious way. They were paying for the discretion of their investigators. Decker and Jonna Thorne recognized there were some reasons for you to desire anonymity. They were trying to honor that while attempting to find you for their own purposes."

"We don't know that I'm Graham Denison. And if I am, what does it matter? There's nothing I can do to help the Thornes now. I certainly can't identify that earring. If they expect I can lead them to the youngest brother, then they're sadly out of it there.'' Grey rubbed the back of his neck. Tension had corded the muscles. He felt the beginnings of a blinding headache.

Berkeley watched the grooves deepen at the corners of his mouth. He looked weary suddenly, and she recognized it was pain giving his eyes their cool, distancing look. She stood and extended her hand. He didn't seem to know what to make of her offer at first, then he stood himself and placed his hand in hers. She led him into the bedroom.

After lighting the lamps, Berkeley helped him out of his jacket and loosened the collar of his shirt. "Sit there," she said, pointing to the bed. "I'll only be a minute." She disappeared into the adjoining dressing room.

Grey was pulling off his shoes and stockings when she returned. He frowned a little when he saw she was wearing her nightshift. "I would have helped you out of your wedding gown," he said. "In fact, I was rather looking forward to it."