Upon a Mystic Tide (33 page)

Miss Hattie looked immensely relieved, though Bess couldn’t imagine why. “Proposal, proposition—whatever you want to call it, it boils down to the same thing.”

“Hmmm, he mentioned it to me.”

“He did?”

She nodded. “I daresay, by the end of the week—or was it two weeks?”

“It was two but we negotiated it down to one.”

“Whatever for?” Pushing a pin back into her snowy hair, the dear woman frowned. “Oh my, I do apologize, Bess. I shouldn’t be asking such personal questions.”

“I don’t mind.” Bess licked at the milk mustache above her lip. “Actually, it feels good to talk about it.”

“I’m glad.” Miss Hattie plucked at the skirt of her green floral dress. “You’ll have him realizing he still loves you long before then.”

“Good grief, Miss Hattie.” Bess laughed only so she wouldn’t cry. “Jonathan doesn’t love me.”

She stilled. “He doesn’t?”

“No, of course not.” Her face warmed. “He’s in lust.”

“Ah, I see. Do you love him?”

Bess opened her mouth to answer, then closed it without uttering a word. Did she? “No. No,” she said more emphatically. “It’d be foolish to love the man again.”

“Then why, if you don’t mind my asking, dear, did you agree to his proposal?”

“To keep him from suing me for custody of Silk.” That was true, wasn’t it?

“I see.”

Bess feared the dear woman did see—far too much. More than Bess herself wanted to see. “I know it sounds crazy, but truly, you only have to understand John. I think he’s jealous of Miguel, you see, and because Miguel gave me Silk and I won’t take John’s money, he wants to punish me. He doesn’t understand that we’re only friends.”

“You and Silk, or you and Miguel?”

“Both.”

“And so what you’re telling me is that for your friend—a dog—you’ve given yourself to your husband for a week.”

“Not exactly.” Bess again sipped from her mug. The warm milk felt good going down her throat. She propped her elbow on the desk, then dropped her chin into it. “I’m keeping him from filing the lawsuit and making fools out of both of us.”

“So you’re using Jonathan to spare him humiliation?”

“I’m not using him.” Bess bristled at the crass sound of that. “He’s being an arrogant pig on the settlement and I’m trying to encourage him to be decent about it.”
Encourage
worked for Tony, right? When a wheel works, there’s no need to reinvent it.

“I’m sure you know best, dear.” Miss Hattie tilted her head. “I have to wonder though why you’d agree to sell yourself to a man you don’t love. It doesn’t seem at all like you.”

It wasn’t like her. Or like the woman she had been when she’d arrived here. For a long moment, she stared at the antique washstand in the far right corner of the room, at its pretty cream-colored bowl and pitcher. “I’ll tell you the truth, Miss Hattie. I don’t know who or what I am anymore. When I came up here, I was seeking peace and refuge. Nothing has gone as planned, though, and now I don’t know what to think.”

“Maybe you need to give yourself some time before making any life-altering decisions.”

“Life-altering?” Bess stilled. Again getting the sensation that something important had been revealed to her.

“Dear, you seriously don’t think you can spend a week—”

“Seven days. We settled on seven days because of him going to Portland.”

“Seven days, then. You can’t expect to live with John again as his wife for seven days and for things not to change between you.”

“I know it’s risky, Miss Hattie.” Bess rubbed at her neck muscles. They were again as tight as a drum. “And if I didn’t say I was scared, I’d be lying. I’m finding out things about both of us that are changing the way I’m seeing things.” She glanced over to the terracotta berry box John had said he hated. “Frankly, I fully expect a good heartbreak out of this deal. But what else can I do? He won’t bend on the settlement agreement.”

“Why should he?”

“Because I can’t touch that money. I won’t.”

“Why not? You did help earn it, dear.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Explain it to me, then.”

Bess dropped her hands into her lap. She couldn’t meet Miss Hattie’s gentle emerald gaze. She wanted to, tried to, but failed. “If I take a single cent of that money, then it’ll prove John’s parents had been right about me.”

“But Bess, dear—”

“No, it’s true, Miss Hattie.”

“What do John’s parents have to do with this?”

Bess grimaced. “They’re rich.”

“They are?”

“I’m not.”

“Yes?” A puzzled frown creased Miss Hattie’s delicate brow.

She didn’t understand. But, bless her, Miss Hattie had such a heart of gold that she wouldn’t understand. “I wasn’t good enough for their son.”

“Oh, dear. Are you certain about this? You’re a lovely woman, and I’d think that so long as you loved their son, they’d be proud to have you in their family.”

“They weren’t.”

“Did they tell you so?”

“No, ma’am. They couldn’t.”

“Couldn’t?” Her perplexed brow-crease now had the company of a frown, and she fidgeted with the single strand of pearls at her throat. “Why ever not?”

“Because I’ve never met them.”

“Bess, you’ve been married to Jonathan for seven years and you’ve
never
met his parents?”

“No.” She sighed. “Not once.”

“Then how do you know they disapprove of you?”

“Why else wouldn’t I have met them?”

Miss Hattie stood up and threaded her way through the files to the door. “Did Jonathan tell you this, dear?”

“Of course not. He refuses to speak of his parents.” Bess rubbed at her cheek. “I’m not sure he even speaks
to
them. The subject is taboo.”

“Ah, I see now.” Miss Hattie visibly relaxed. “So you’ve just figured this out on your own.”

“I’ve had to. Jonathan won’t discuss them at all, Miss Hattie. I don’t even know his mother’s name. Isn’t that just the most awful, insulting thing to have to confess? A wife should at least know her husband’s mother’s name.”

“Hmmm, yes, I would say she should.”

Relieved at Miss Hattie’s affirmation, Bess again sipped from her mug, swallowed, then returned it to the corner of the desk. “I know it’s confusing, and I probably seem very foolish, but the truth is that they were wrong about me. And, well, I guess part of me agreed to his proposal because I need this time with him, too.”

Miss Hattie smiled softly. “Because you still love him.”

“No, I don’t. I’d be a fool to love a man I know is ashamed of me.”

“Ashamed
of you?” Miss Hattie forced her voice lower. “Bess, I can’t believe you’d honestly think Jonathan is
ashamed
of you.”

“He hasn’t introduced me to his parents.”

“Despite our short acquaintance, I know you well, and I don’t believe for a second that you’ve given yourself body and soul to a man you don’t love. Not for a moment, much less for a week.”

“Seven days,” Bess automatically corrected, then again sipped from her burgundy marble mug. “Actually, I agreed for more reasons than I told you. Aside from the custody suit for Silk, and to spare us public humiliation—honest, Miss Hattie, John has no idea how cruel the public can be—I agreed because
 . . .
” Bess stopped cold. If she disclosed the truth, Miss Hattie would think Bess a terrible person. That would hurt. What Miss Hattie thought of her mattered; Bess respected the woman.

“Because?”

Bess couldn’t lie. She stiffened, bracing to see the concern in Miss Hattie’s eyes turn to disappointment, then to revulsion. “Because once we’re divorced, I want him to remember what he’s missing in losing me.” Bess lowered her gaze to a strip of bare floor. “Not very noble, but true.”

“It isn’t my place to judge you, dear. But I daresay in your position, I’d want the man to know he’d lost a good woman, too.”

Bess looked up. “Really?”

“Of course.” Miss Hattie grunted, fluffing up the first of three brown-and-green-print throw pillows on the bed. “What woman wouldn’t feel that way? Why, none who’s honest, I’d wager.”

“I
 . . .
well, I agreed for me, too, Miss Hattie. Because, like I said, I need this time with him.” Getting used to losing him would take all of their seven days together and, she feared, more. Much, much more. A lifetime. Eternity. Infinity.

Cuddling the last of the pillows to her chest, Miss Hattie’s eyes twinkled. “Ah, the magic.”

Bess sighed, no longer surprised that Miss Hattie, like Tony, knew her deepest secrets. “I’ve called it lust with a kick, but you’re right. The magic.”

Miss Hattie smoothed the skirt of her dress. “Be careful, hmmm?” Worry deepened a soft wrinkle at the side of her mouth. “I’ve grown fond of you and John, and I’d hate to see either of you hurt. Lust is powerful, and that kick makes it more so. Unless it’s tempered with love, lust can be painful.”

Didn’t she know it? “Pain is exactly what I’m trying to avoid.”

Looking as if there were more she’d like to say but wouldn’t allow herself to, Miss Hattie nodded. “I’m sure you’ll do what’s best, dear.” She put the pillow back onto the forest green comforter, then left the room.

Bess again sipped from her mug. What else had been on Miss Hattie’s mind? What had she wanted to say but held herself back from saying? Whatever it—

You made promises, Doc. No more lies. What happened to no more lies?

Tony. A furious Tony. Bess shivered. “What’s wrong with you? I didn’t lie to Miss Hattie. I don’t think if anyone wanted to lie, they could lie to her. I didn’t want to. And I didn’t lie. So what are you so riled about?”

A stack of files near the foot of the bed lifted from the floor and flew throughout the room, their contents scattering, fluttering to the floor, to the bed, onto the rug.
Look at them, Doc. Look at them!

He wouldn’t hurt her. He wouldn’t. Two-handed, she set her mug down and stood up. Her knees felt as weak as water and at any moment she expected her heart to burst right out of her chest. “Would you just calm down? You’re scaring me.”

I hope I am. I hope I frighten you right into facing the truth.

“What truth?”

Crimney. Look at the papers, Doc!

He wasn’t going to hurt her. Furious, yes, but not harmful. She inched over to the bed, praying her legs would hold her upright, then looked down at the first paper. “It’s a report on a false lead.”

For God’s sake, woman, not the report. Look at the important stuff.

“What important stuff?”

The doodles, Bess. Look at the damn doodles.

She’d ignored doodles all afternoon. Now he wanted her to look at them, calling them and not the reports important? “John scribbles on everything. It’d take a month to read all his doodles.”

You’re trying my patience here. Look at the blasted doodles.

“All right, all right!” Geez, the man was a pain in the tush. She lowered her gaze to the paper. “Bess the Beautiful?”

Look at the date.