Thorne Brothers: With All My Heart Part 30

Grey returned the kiss, lifting her slightly against him, relishing the fullness of her response. It was with a large measure of reluctance that he slowly raised his head. His voice was husky and he made no attempt to hide his arousal. "This is a very public hallway," he whispered.

She nodded. In other circ.u.mstances she would have been embarra.s.sed. "Take me to bed." It was all she could think to say.

Grey reached behind Berkeley to open the door of her old room.

"No!" She pressed herself against Grey, rocking him back on his heels. "Not here. Our bed."

He grinned, his eyes endearingly sheepish for a moment. "I was thinking any port in a storm," he said. "But if the wind's blowing in the other directiona" He let his voice trail off as Berkeley grabbed his hand and pulled him down the hallway.

It was sometime later that Grey rolled onto his side and raised himself on one elbow. Berkeley was curled against him, her body warm and still. The fragrance of lavender mingled with the musky scent of her s.e.x. A quilt covered her naked shoulders, but he could make out the damp sheen of her skin along the length of her throat. Strands of pale hair curled at her nape. His fingers eased themselves lightly through the silky threads. She didn't stir although he knew she was awake.

He wondered at her silence and her distance. He had felt it all through their loving, this peculiar sense that she had retreated from him even while he was joined to her, especially while he was joined to her. Grey couldn't fathom her mood, yet he was coming to know her well enough to understand that something was wrong. She could deny it, probably would deny it, but he trusted the feeling of anxious restlessness in himself and realized she was its source.

He could have been satisfied to hold her and keep her close. He could have sheltered her in his arms and soothed her fears. She had wanted none of it. Almost as if she antic.i.p.ated his consideration, her mouth had cut off his words, kissing him deeply until consideration was pushed to the back of his mind. And when he thought of them again her eyes had darkened with need, and he gave her what she seemed to want.

They had both been satisfied in the moment. Now Grey did not believe he was alone in feeling curiously empty.

"I know you're not sleeping," he said quietly. "It's no good pretending otherwise."

Berkeley didn't open her eyes, but when his hand slipped around her waist her fingers laced through his. She squeezed them gently.

"I thought you had forgiven me," Grey said. "But perhaps not."

"There is nothing to forgive." Berkeley fully recollected their earlier argument. She felt very young and foolish for having been so hurt when he walked out. It seemed so petty in comparison to what confronted her now. "It's certainly your right to decide what you want the Thornes to know. It's selfish of me to ask you to do more than you're prepared to. I'm quite sure they don't expect to hear another word from me. I'm afraid I've been insistent with you because I don't want the Thornes to think I've cheated them." She fell silent a moment. Her thumb brushed the heel of his hand. "Is that what you meant when you said good intentions often arise from selfish motives?"

"Did I say that?"

"Something like that."

"And you didn't call me a pompous a.s.s?"

Her smile was watery as she felt his lips on the nape of her neck. His touch was profoundly tender. Berkeley's voice was trapped at the back of her throat, and she felt tears gather behind closed lashes.

Grey raised his head. "I walked for a while after I left here. Rather aimlessly at first. Or so I thought until I found myself at the harbor. Did you know there was a Remington ship making repairs?''

"I may have overheard it somewhere," she admitted.

Grey chuckled. "I wrote out a rather short and somewhat cryptic message for the captain to carry back to Boston. I have no idea what Decker Thorne will make of it, if anything. There may never be a response. I made no mention of you, not because I wanted to absolve you of anything, but because you've not done anything wrong. You never have."

Tears fell in earnest now. Berkeley wrested her hand away from Grey's and knuckled her eyes. "You can't imagine what I've done." The sentence was accomplished in fits and starts as her shoulders heaved and she left it to Grey to decipher. She was incapable of repeating it, not when he turned her over and pressed her face against his shoulder and held her in just that fashion until her sobs were silenced.

Grey released her long enough to take a handkerchief from the drawer in the bedside table. He handed it to her. Berkeley dried her eyes and heartily blew her nose. It was not a thing done prettily, but Grey found himself smiling anyway. He was thoroughly besotted, he thought, and not at all unhappy about it. He took the crumpled handkerchief from her and tossed it on the table. It unfolded slowly over the slender gold chain and pendant Berkeley had laid there earlier.

"Tell me what it is," Grey said. "I want to help."

She smiled a bit sadly. "That's your nature, isn't it? To help others."

"I'll deny it if you breathe a word." For a moment the hint of despair was banished. He held her eyes and willed her to talk to him. "Take my hand, Berkeley. Was it all a lie, the things you told me you sensed there? Can't you trust me to love you?''

"I'll hurt you."

"Your silence is hurting me."

Perhaps there was a way, Berkeley thought, to tell Grey something without telling him everything. If Garret Denison was only in San Francisco for the earring, he could have it. If Anderson needed to have his silence bought, she would pay him for it. They would have returned to their own rooms by then, knowing she wouldn't come back soon, frustrated a bit by her escape. It was a short reprieve at best. They had already learned how easily she could be cornered and how simple it was to command her silence. She didn't even know the names under which they were registered.

The earring and money. What else could they want from her that she wasn't prepared to give? Then she remembered what Anderson had said about her child. She suppressed a shiver.

"There's going to be a baby," she whispered, taking his hand.

Grey looked down at the palm she opened up. "I hope so," he said. "Four of them you said. Five, counting Nat."

Berkeley pulled his hand under the blanket and laid it across the faint swell of her belly.

"A baby."

She regarded him suspiciously. "You didn't know? You really didn't know?"

What to say? he wondered. Surely not knowing made him the most thickheaded man in all of San Francisco. On the other hand, admitting he had suspicions seemed wrong somehow. He took his cue from Berkeley and hoped for once that he'd got it right. "I really didn't know," he said. "A baby." This time his voice held more awe than surprise. "And this is what you didn't want to tell me?" Don't lie to me, Berkeley.

"Yesa noa" She squeezed his hand. "It's not so simple. Of course I wanted you to know but not before you asked me to marry you. I would have wondered if it were only about the baby, you see. You could have told me otherwise, but there would have remained a doubt. I did not want to doubt you. And thena afterwarda I wondered if I had done the right thing, marrying you without telling. Perhaps you would think ill of me for it. Or perhaps you would think I married you because I was carrying your child."

"Did you?"

"No!"

"I believe you," he said simply.

She stared at him. "You do, don't you?" If this were her only secret, Berkeley knew the entire weight would have been eased from her shoulders. She raised her hands and held his face between them. "You honor me with your trust," she said softly.

If only you would do the same. But Grey only thought the words. They remained unspoken as Berkeley kissed him.

"You're pleased?" she asked shyly. "About the baby?"

"Pleased." He kissed her lightly to hide his growing fear that all was not as it should be. "Tell me. Am I the only one who didn't know? Annie? Sam? Someone must have suspected."

"Why? Is it so obvious?" It had been to Garret, she remembered.

"Only in hindsight. The meals you missed or left abruptly. There were mornings you lay abed. And you were uncommonly tired."

"You're so gallant to ignore the fact that I'm increasing."

"It's a very nice little swelling." He pushed the blanket down a few inches and eyed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s consideringly. A blush fanned out across her skin, and her nipples hardened. Grey raised one brow. "Swelling and more swelling. I find all of it agreeable."

"So do I," she said. Beneath the blanket her hand closed around him in an intimate caress.

Anderson Shaw showed more patience than Berkeley would have credited. An entire week pa.s.sed before he appeared in the gaming hall of the Phoenix. Berkeley was well aware the waiting had been purposeful on Anderson's part. His intention had been to put her on edge, and he had succeeded, perhaps beyond his own imaginings. Berkeley had been helpless in the face of it.

For seven days even the cat found ways to avoid her. She couldn't concentrate, could barely eat, and had little patience for conversation. As her pregnant state became more widely known it was offered as the reason for her p.r.i.c.kly behavior. Outside of Berkeley's hearing it was generally agreed that the ninth month could not arrive too soon.

Berkeley's panic began the moment she thought she had lost the earring. While Grey slept she searched under the bed and between the sheets. She looked in the folds of her hastily discarded clothes and upended her shoes. Her hand flew to her throat a dozen times during her search in the unsupportable belief that she hadn't removed it all. It was as if she could feel the weight of it around her neck. Each time she was vaguely surprised when her hand came away empty.

Tears appeared in her eyes from the sheer frustration of her efforts. It was at that point that she picked up the handkerchief Grey had returned to the bedside table. Her blurred vision almost kept her from recognizing the very thing she had been seeking.

Berkeley had expected to feel a measure of relief as she took it into her hand. None was forthcoming. Not then and not a few minutes later when she left the bedchamber for the privacy of the dressing room and was sick in the basin. She disliked herself for being unaccountably angry at Grey, who continued to sleep. She did not want him with her and, perversely, she did. She would have resented any show of kindness in that moment, yet was resentful mat he had not made the effort.

Berkeley understood she was not being fair. She did not want to be fair. She wanted to be angry.

It was still daylight when Berkeley arrived at the small jeweler's shop on Kearney Street. The jeweler protested when she explained that she wanted the earring separated from the necklace and returned to her in its original condition. A gold post would have to be attached to the pearl stud, she went on, and it must be done with the same exquisite care that marked all the work on the earring. They haggled a bit on the cost of resetting the pearl in a new gold crown, but Berkeley knew what the jeweler did not: She would have paid any amount. They both believed they each made the better bargain.

She worried throughout that evening that Anderson would approach her. Now her protests that she was not in possession of the earring would have been quite real and no more likely to have been believed. She occupied herself fabricating excuses, none of which turned out to be necessary. Berkeley reflected later that she should have spent more time on the excuses she offered her husband. There seemed to be no end to the questions he put to her.

"You're looking quite lovely this evening," Grey said. He had come to stand just to one side and a little behind Berkeley's chair at the gaming table where she was holding court. His gaze swept the faces of his wife's admirers and found all of them quite happily in her thrall. Grey had had occasion to observe this last week that while Berkeley's mood was often unsettled and unpredictable, the Phoenix's guests were none the wiser. She saved the tart edge of her tongue for those she loved.

At least he hoped that was so.

Grey bent his head and dropped a light kiss on her temple. He felt Berkeley stiffen, but he gave no outward sign. Inside it was as if his gut was being squeezed. He began to inquire after her health but stopped himself. Grey had noticed that she did not welcome questions in that regard. He did not want to give her an excuse to remind him. "I have something for you,'' he said instead.

Berkeley turned slightly in her chair and raised her face. She realized that Grey could not know it, but it was a relief to look on Mm alone for a moment. He made it possible for her to lower her guard and show some measure of her pain and panic. She wished she could explain it to him but believed she could not. For the Phoenix's guests she had a fixed smile, kindly eyes, gracious manners, and none of it was real. She doubted that Grey could appreciate these glimpses she allowed him. In his place she knew she would not be so patient.

"Yes?" Even to her own ears her voice was cool. She saw that Grey had heard it too, but only his eyes flinched.

Grey reached inside his jacket and withdrew a slender velvet-covered box. He held it out to Berkeley. "Go on," he urged quietly. "Open it." It was wrong, he thought, to give her this gift in front of others, but he required their presence to a.s.sure she would not reject it.

Berkeley's fingers trembled ever so slightly as she raised the lid. A string of diamonds captured the gaming hall's oil lamps, making it radiate brilliantly from each of the ice-blue facets. She stared at it, quite unable to believe what she was seeing.

Leaning forward, Grey gingerly removed the diamond choker from the box. The men at the table leaned in to admire the necklace and the neck it was about to embrace. "Mother of G.o.d," one of them said with rather more reverence than not. He spoke for all of them.

Grey watched Berkeley raise her chin. She offered her throat, but there was defiance in the gesture. She had seen through his gift, had known it was given because he had remarked that she was no longer wearing her pendant. She offered an excuse about a loose catch, but he realized she was lying, and she was aware that he knew. The diamond necklace was not strictly a gift. It was meant to rest against her throat and remind her of the truths that always seemed to stick there.

Berkeley ran her fingertips along the diamond settings while Grey finished securing the clasp. She stood and caught a glimpse of a woman she did not recognize in the mirror behind the bar. Pale and elegant, remote and without warmth, Berkeley almost turned to see who was standing behind her casting the cool and distant reflection. Here was a woman she did not think she wanted to know. It was then she understood she was staring at herself.

Berkeley took a step toward Grey, using him to block her view of the mirror. "Thank you," she said. For the benefit of the gathering crowd, she was careful not to shrink from his hands when they grasped her at the waist. She lifted her eyes and then her face. She gave him her mouth. For once she noted his lips were cooler than her own.

Soon it would not matter what Anderson had in mind to threaten her marriage. Berkeley was discovering she was capable of destroying it all by herself.

She heard Grey excuse himself and watched him go. At her waist her fingers tightened. She wanted to reach for him, draw him back to her side. She lowered her hand and rested it on the back of her chair, steadying herself. When she turned back to the table her smile was in place.

It didn't falter once, even when Anderson Shaw placed his hand in hers and asked for a reading.

Berkeley's fingertips grazed his palm lightly. She pretended to examine the lines and the mounts. "I believe some rather unusual business has brought you to San Francisco," she said. "You're not a miner. Or a merchant."

"True enough," Anderson agreed. He glanced around the table at the other men and let them see that he was suitably impressed by Berkeley's first revelation. "Can you tell me my business?"

She pretended to consider that. "I believe you are a performer," she said after a thoughtful pause. "You've come here to entertain."

He chuckled appreciatively. "And be vastly entertained in turn."

"Your voice suggests you may be a trained actor."

"I've made a study of it," he agreed. He took a calling card from inside his vest and asked for a pen. One was produced quickly, and Anderson scribbled a few lines, his free hand curled protectively around the card to hide his work. When he finished he clamped one hand over it and gave Berkeley the other. "Tell me my favorite play and speaking role and extinguish my remaining doubts about your talent."

There was a collective protest from the others. Not one among them had any desire to see Berkeley challenged in such a fashion. They enjoyed her company too much to appreciate any attempt to show up her talent as a fraud.

Berkeley laughed lightly at the grumblings around her. "Have you so little faith in me?" she scolded. "You've not made any friends here, Mr.a""

"Lemer."

Berkeley's heartbeat tripped over itself. Lerner was her mother's maiden name. It had been her own until she became Mrs. Shaw. He had used the name deliberately to see if he could make her stumble. Berkeley recalled her reflection in the mirror earlier and felt the weight of the diamonds at her throat. She continued flawlessly. "I think you have allowed me to misrepresent your business here," she said. "Acting may be a pa.s.sion with you but I believe you've come here to expose me. Would that be accurate, Mr. Lerner?"

"And unwise for me to admit," Anderson said as he examined the glowering expressions turned in his direction. "Any one of these men may insist on calling me out if I agreed."

"I think you can depend upon it." Out of the corner of her eye Berkeley saw Donnel Kincaid leave the group that was standing nearby. He would have heard every word of the exchange between her and Anderson and understood the mood of the other men. Berkeley had no doubt he was going to bring Grey back to the table. "Why don't you give one of the others your card to hold?" she suggested. "Everyone then may be satisfied as to the absence of deceit." Berkeley had no idea if Anderson wanted her to succeed or fail. He could have written anything on the card. If he had not played fair, he would be lucky to leave the Phoenix with his life.

Anderson Shaw's subtle salute was for Berkeley alone. He made the gesture with his eyes. "As you wish," he said, his tone grave and formal. Without a sideways glance he slid the card to the stranger on his right.

Berkeley's eyes shifted long enough to watch Joseph Allen decipher Anderson's scrawl. "Very well," she said, returning her attention to the palm in her hand. She measured her words carefully, as if pondering her answer even as she spoke it. "The play would be something of Shakespeare's."

Joe Allen slapped his thigh. "d.a.m.n me if she ain't got it right!" He realized belatedly that perhaps he had spoken out of turn. He sheepishly held up the card to the men standing behind him for additional confirmation. "Shakespeare wrote that, didn't he, fellas? Or was it the other gent? Something-Or-Other Jonson?"

"Aaah." Grey approached the table. "A scholarly conundrum. You've raised an interesting point, Joe, and one that would be better entertained elsewhere." He laid one hand lightly on Berkeley's bare shoulder. "Gentlemen, the Society for Literary Discourse and Enlightenment meets on Tuesday afternoons in Mrs. Richards's home on Powell Street. This establishment will continue to remain a gaming hall."

There was appreciative laughter all around. Joe Allen's cheeks reddened, and he drew back the card he held before someone could s.n.a.t.c.h it from him.

"Dare I hope there's a wager on the table?" Grey asked.

Art Madden raised his mug of beer to his lips. "Seems the stranger in our midst doesn't think much of Mrs. Janeway's talent."

Grey's eyes strayed to Anderson Shaw. "Is that right, sir?"

"Nick Lerner," Anderson said. He removed his hand from Berkeley's, stood, and extended it to Grey. "I'm afraid too much is being made of it. Didn't think I'd be stepping into a nest of hornets tonight. Your wife's talent is much respected here."

"So is my wife," Grey said without inflection. Belatedly, he took the hand that was held out to him, shook it, then motioned Anderson to be seated again. "What was your challenge?"

"It's nothing," Berkeley said. To allay his fears, she reached up and patted the hand Grey still rested on her shoulder. The gesture appeared both absent and affectionate to others but she communicated her confidence to Grey. "Mr. Lerner is an actor. I'm to name his favorite play and role which he has been kind enough to write down and give to Joe. I've said I believe the play is one of Shakespeare's and Joe has confirmed ita"more or less." Deep chuckles rumbled around the table as Joe Allen was put to another blush.

Grey did not join in the laughter. He was studying Anderson Shaw. "I have no gift for fortune-telling," he said. "But even I would have guessed Shakespeare. Isn't he every actor's favorite bard?"

Anderson nodded. "You would be in the right of it there. But he has a number of plays from which an actor can choose. Your wife has yet to choose mine."

Grey fished out a gold coin from his pocket and placed it on the table. "I think she can do it."

Anderson laughed. "The odds are always with the house, aren't they? Very well. I started this. I may as well be poorer for it." He extracted a matching gold piece from his vest and laid it beside Grey's. "You have your wager," He glanced at Joe Allen. "And you keep your silence." His gaze swiveled back to Berkeley. His polished chestnut eyes were expectant, mocking and daring her. "Mrs. Janeway?"

Berkeley took his hand again. She had no desire to draw out the drama. "The play is The Taming of the Shrew," she said. "But your favorite role is from one of the tragedies. I believe you fancy yourself a credible Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.'' Berkeley knew even before Joe Allen started whooping and pounding the table that she had got it right. She scooped both coins from the table and gave them to Grey. They were properly his winnings. What she had won was Anderson's surprise.

He asked her about it later when he was waiting for her on the way to her room. "You must have thought I had forgotten you," Anderson said.