Pride's Folly Page 5

  For a moment I was tempted to say yes, since I knew it would make him feel better, but I couldn’t. “No, sweetheart. You are too kind for me ever to be frightened.”

  “It’s so wonderful to hear you say that, my dear.”

  I gave him a reassuring smile.

  When he stooped to blow out the lamp, his nightshirt heaved up, giving me a glimpse of his buttocks, and for a moment my pulse quickened.

  I felt the mattress sag with his weight, and then he was on top of me, with a suddenness that took my breath away, He scrabbled at my nightdress with one hand while the other clutched my face. Kissing me wetly with a mouth smelling faintly of onions, he began to butt his moist erection against my legs. I opened them and he found the place, thrusting with a violence that shook the bed. Burying his whiskered chin in my naked shoulder, he lunged again, the next moment shuddering into a spasmodic gasping as he spilled his seed.

  It was over. I lay in the darkness, listening to his heavy breathing, punctuated every now and then with a light sigh and soon a rumbling snore. Tears stung my eyes. I had not expected much, but this . . .! A vision of Ian rose before me, his muscled arms and chest revealed in flashes of lightning, the lancing memory of his kiss, his strong hands moving expertly over my body, stirring me to tumultuous desire. Ian . . .Oh, God, I thought, what have I done?

  But in the morning as we sat in the common room, eating a hearty breakfast, Judah leaned over and kissed my cheek, smiling at me in a doting way, and I resolved even more strongly to make a success of my marriage.

  “I hope ...” He blushed a little. “I hope I was not too—ah—uncouth last night.”

  “No, Judah, you were not.”

  Perhaps it was nervousness, I told myself, that had made him so inept. His wife had been dead a number of years, and though he might have resorted to prostitutes in the interim, one didn’t bother to make proper love to a paid woman. Perhaps Judah would become more skilled as we got to know each other.

  But alas, time did not improve Judah’s lovemaking. He was as heavy-handed and quick to reach climax on the twelfth night as he had been on the first. I tried to prolong the act, subtly, of course, by being more affectionate, but my kisses only seemed to embarrass him. I think he enjoyed our coupling, what there was of it, but apparently it gave him a sense of guilt. I wondered if his wife had exacted a promise from him never to marry again or if it was simply that Judah shared the notion common among some men that a refined woman did not enjoy acting as a receptacle for a man’s lust. But I never dared ask. Except for that first morning, Judah showed a disinclination to discuss what went on between us in the black of night. It was a taboo subject, only referred to obliquely when he told me he wanted a son.

  I was willing to give him one, provided Page got Wildoak. That was what the whole thing was about. I could do without love and without the excitement of a man’s caress very well, but only if it meant that my boy would come into his true inheritance.

  We returned to Richmond in early September. I was now mistress of the house on Clay Street, and my first task was to have the interior redone. The previous Mrs. Harrison must have had atrocious taste or perhaps she had simply not found the courage to tamper with the antiquated furnishings, some of which must have dated back to Noah’s Ark. The curlicued wooden chairs, gloomy cupboards, and horsehair sofas, the faded petit-point stools and dull paneling would have to go.

  Agnes, as I expected, put up a fuss. Judah had a long talk with her one evening in the library. She emerged not red-eyed from weeping, as I had expected, but wearing the look of a cat who’s done away with the cream. Now what? I wondered. But Judah said nothing and Agnes was tight-lipped. She left two days later for an indefinite stay with relatives in Petersburg. Perhaps Judah had bribed her with an expensive trinket or a large sum of money, for Agnes set great store by costly baubles or the wherewithal to buy them. It was a relief to have her out of the house, to go on with my refurbishing without interference.

  Little Page was installed in his own bed and sitting room. He was a precocious child, bright as a new penny. Though everyone said he was far too young, I hired a tutor for him—Richard Malvern, an embittered ex-Confederate lieutenant of artillery, who had lost his two brothers on the battlefield and his mother and sister in a fire that destroyed their home in Richmond. He himself had been wounded in the Battle of the Wilderness and walked with a limp. But he had excellent credentials; he was a graduate of William and Mary and had taken the Grand Tour abroad before war broke out. Well read and conversant in several languages, he was also a strict disciplinarian, the sort of no-nonsense authoritative male that Page sorely needed at this stage of his life. As a result of my excessive love and protection and Judah’s indulgence, the boy was beginning to show signs of becoming the proverbial spoiled darling. I wanted none of that. I wanted my son to grow into a strong, resourceful man.

  Malvern had been with us for some months before I realized he did not like Judah. Always courteous (though never deferential), the tutor never let a word of disrespect or criticism about his employer pass his lips, but his reserve was excessive, almost like a distasteful drawing back. Watching him one evening at the supper table, I discovered why he felt the way he did.

  Several Yankee officers from the First District were our guests that evening. Judah had invited them for business reasons; he wanted to obtain a contract to supply the Occupying Army—as Richard Malvern scathingly termed them—with boots and belts from his own tannery rather than having them purchase these items from a northern factory. The fact that we actually received Yankees in our home was a heinous breach of the code and as we chitchatted over consomme I felt sure that before the meal was finished the news would have spread about town through the servants’ grapevine. But Judah, when it came to business matters, did not care about scandal. He thought Virginia’s refusal to accept the Fourteenth Amendment, in which the Negro received the right to vote, was sheer stupidity. “Our people will have to concede eventually, if they want to be readmitted to the Union. Why don’t we bury this cussed obstinacy and our nostalgia for a lost cause and face reality? The sooner we do, the sooner we will rebuild.’’

  Very few southerners shared this view—Richard Malvern, certainly not. He excused himself before dessert was served, making no attempt to hide his displeasure.

  It was an interesting evening not only because I learned why Richard Malvern disliked Judah but because one of the invited Yankee officers was Major, now Lieutenant Colonel, Ward Gamble, the same man who had touched his hat brim to me in the street six months earlier.

  He remembered me, he said, when my husband introduced us and hoped I did not still harbor resentment against him and his men for having commandeered Wildoak during the war.

  “Not at all,” I said. “But I do hold you to account for the vandalism. The trees you cut down for firewood were bad enough, but I cannot forgive you for destroying the inside of the house.”

  He lifted his brows. “But Mrs. Harrison, we left the house exactly as we found it. Nothing was touched, nothing moved, nothing destroyed. I would never permit my men to indulge in wanton mischief. The damage must have occurred after we left.”

  It was true that during the final days of the war bands of both Confederate and Union deserters had roamed the countryside, stripping houses that stood unoccupied. When the colonel said he had no part in the wrecking of Wildoak, I believed him. He was the sort of man one took at his word.

  “However, Mrs. Harrison,” he added, “allow me to apologize for the trees.”

  He was very military. Compactly built, he wore his blue-coated uniform, the buttoned-up white collar, and the sheathed ceremonial sword at his side with an air of masterful command. He had strong, even features, a good nose, thin lips, a cleft, clean-shaven jaw—a handsome face, had it not been so devoid of expression. Even his tigerlike eyes, yellow with brown irises, gave nothing away. Or very little.

  He was seated next to me on my right at the table, and once, I caught his g
lance going over my half-bared bosom in a distinctly unmilitary fashion. It was only a brief look, so fleeting as to make me wonder if I had imagined it. But when he did it again some minutes later, I was suddenly reminded of Ian and the blue fire that had leapt to his eyes in a blaze of desire.

  Lieutenant Colonel Ward Gamble began to intrigue me. In those days I was very much like most southern girls who enjoyed a mild flirtation. Though married and supposedly beyond such foolishness, I still got a thrill of satisfaction when a series of dimpled, provocative smiles elicited male flattery. It was an innocent game with set rules and no harm done. But what I didn’t realize then was that Ward Gamble was not like other men; he did not play games.

  “Tell me, Colonel Gamble,” I said, leaning just a little toward him, a wineglass in my hand, “how are you finding us here at Richmond?”

  “Hostile,” he said without hesitation. “But then you wouldn’t expect it otherwise, would you?”

  “Come, now,” I said, fluttering my eyelashes and giving him my most coquettish smile, “you don’t think I’m hostile? Or my husband?”

  “There are exceptions.”

  It was the sort of phrase that could very well have a double meaning, but his eyes told me nothing.

  “Thank you, Colonel. I’ll take that as a compliment.” A short pause. “Do you approve of your men bringing their wives down, as Major Young has done?”

  Major Young was our other Yankee guest. His wife, an ingratiating little wren of a woman, obviously impressed with the Harrison home, was surprised to learn that our black servants were paid (she had asked), had always been, and that Judah had never owned a slave.

  “It depends entirely on the situation,” Colonel Gamble said in answer to my question. “In my own case I prefer that my wife not make the move to Richmond. Sometimes duty and domesticity don’t mix.”

  “And duty is always uppermost?”

  “Of course.”

  I touched him lightly on the wrist with my fingers. “Now, Colonel, you can’t always think of duty.”

  The mask dropped for a fraction of a second and his yellow eyes flicked like a whiplash over my breasts. “But I do,” he said.

  By now I felt intuitively that whatever the colonel might profess, behind his stiff facade there lurked a man of passion. He was not only military but sexual, the sexuality compressed like a silent bomb just waiting for the fuse to be lit. I, however, had no intention of lighting it. A flirtation, yes— that was amusing—but I did not want an affair. I had too much at risk.

  “Where are you from, Colonel?”

  “Chicago.”

  “You’re city-bred, then. They say Chicago is fast becoming the railroad center of the continent.”

  “It’s much more than that, Mrs. Harrison.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yes.”

  Once more his words seemed to hold a double meaning, but as before neither his voice nor his eyes betrayed his true thoughts. I wondered what made him tick, if he ever unbent either in anger or in passion.

  From the other end of the table Judah said, “Well, ladies, you are excused,” and got to his feet. It was a signal that the meal was finished and that we women should adjourn to the drawing room while the men remained to converse over cigars and port.

  I had started to push back my chair when the colonel, on his feet, made to help me, his hand accidentally covering mine. The touch of his strong, square-tipped fingers sent a small shock through my body; the feeling was as unexpected as it was disquieting.

  I did not look at him as I went past, but I was keenly aware of his eyes watching me.

  Later, much later, for the men must have spent hours in their discussion, he came into the drawing room with Judah and Major Young, and I spoke to him again, taking care not to single him out above the other guests. He left at midnight, bending briefly over my hand, and as courtesy demanded I invited him to return. If I recall, he made no answer.

  In midweek Judah had to take an unexpected trip to Ashland. “I’m sorry.” He always apologized when he had to be away, though I think it was mostly for form’s sake. He loved every aspect of his business ventures and would never send anyone on out of the city when he could go himself. “I shan’t be gone more than four or five days, ten at the outside. Oh, and Colonel Gamble is coming by to drop off a document. Offer him a glass of wine and my excuses.”

  I was alone in the house when Gamble arrived. The servants had the afternoon off and Malvern had taken Page down to the riverbank to watch the rebuilding of the Mayo Bridge, which had been blown up by the Confederates on their retreat from Richmond.

  When the bell chimed for the third time, I remember hurrying down the stairs, feeling annoyed at its insistent stridency. Peering through the side window I saw the colonel. My first reaction was to pretend I wasn’t at home. I didn’t relish having Gamble in my parlor with no servant hovering in the background. But then I thought. Why not? What did I have to fear? Nothing, as long as I remained in command of the situation.

  I opened the door and, after explaining about my husband, asked him in. “Lovely day,” I commented.

  “Yes, isn’t it?”

  I led him into the library. He gave me the large Manila portfolio he had brought and I offered him a brandy.

  “If it’s no trouble, thank you.”

  He sat down, crossing his booted, blue-clad legs. “Aren’t you joining me?” he asked as he accepted the brandy glass from my hand.

  “I never drink before supper.” I seated myself rather stiffly in a leather chair opposite him. “But do go ahead,”

  He nodded, then sipped at his brandy, savoring it on his tongue.

  “Your husband has excellent taste,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said. “He can afford it.” His eyebrows lifted. “The brandy is French,” I added.

  “So I assumed.”

  Nothing more was said for a few minutes. I looked down at my hands, then across the room to a portrait of Judah’s father, a man with a drooping moustache and the Harrisons’ pointed nose. A clock began to chime the hour.

  “You’re not a very talkative man,” I said, breaking the silence.

  “I don’t see any point to talking for talk’s sake, do you?” I took his rhetorical question as an oblique criticism, not quite an insult, and it irked me. “Often small talk is the only communication people have with one another.”

  I was completely at ease with him now, so much so that I felt a perverse desire to bait him, perhaps even to tease.

  “True,” he said. “But then some people are not worth the effort.”

  I dimpled at him. “Are you suggesting, sir, that I’m not?” He studied me for a long moment over the rim of his glass. “Mrs. Harrison, would you like me to be frank?”

  “Of course. Say what you think.”

  Another look, the eyes lancing my face. “You are certain?”

  “By all means.”

  “Very well. I have little patience with flirts,”

  “Are you suggesting. . .?”

  “I’m not suggesting,” he said in a cold, hard voice. He put his glass down. “I’m saying. You have been fluttering your eyelashes at me ever since we met. The smile, the half-bare bosom, the short little breaths, the whole paraphernalia of a professional flirt. Do you take me for an idiot?”

  He was angry, but he had no reason to be. No man in polite society would dare speak to me that way.

  “If you were a gentleman,” I said caustically, “you would understand. A gentleman feels flattered if a woman flirts with him.”

  “I’m no gentleman. I’m the hated Yankee. And if a pretty woman wants to go to bed with me I’ll accommodate her. Otherwise I suggest she take her simperings elsewhere.”

  “How dare you!” I was on my feet. “How dare you insult me!”

  He rose. “Is it an insult? Or the truth? I can see what you really want. It’s in every gesture you make.”

  His eyes trailed scathingly down my body, mentally stripping th
e clothes from it, so I felt naked before him. His insolence enraged me.

  “Go at once!” I commanded. “I want you out of my house!”

  “Do you?”

  He didn’t smile. That was what was so deadly about him. No smile, no soft words, no feeling. Only that powerful emanation of dangerous virility, the ominous ticking of a bomb. “You are like so many women, Mrs. Harrison. Perhaps you want excitement, perhaps you are curious, perhaps your husband fails to perform in bed, is impotent, is—”

  I hit him. He had gone too far. He had jabbed a raw nerve. “How dare you!” And I hit him again.

  His eyes widened, the pupils going small then large like a cat’s. Suddenly he pulled me into his arms, crushing me to his chest, his thin lips coming down on mine in a punishing kiss. I couldn’t fight, though I tried. He held me so tightly that the gilt buttons of his uniform ground abrasively into my tender nipples.

  He raised his head, glaring down at me. “No one does that. No one. If you had been a man I would have ...” His hands came up around my throat, lay linked there over the living, leaping pulse for a moment, then fell.

  I stepped away. “Get out!” I ordered through bruised lips. “You Yankee scum!”

  Before I could evade him, he grabbed my wrist, his other arm circling my waist.

  “I’ll scream!”

  “I think you won’t.” And his mouth caught the edge of mine as I turned my face away. With fingers of steel, he brought my chin around.

  “Don’t!”

  But he stilled my voice, drawing my lips into a kiss that suddenly went soft, that played with my mouth, his tongue slipping inside in a surprise foray, probing my palate with consummate skill. I stiffened as Ian’s face flitted across the blackness of my closed lids. Sensing he had lost ground. Gamble shifted his head, kissing my cheeks, my eyes, my throat with a feverish intensity that soon raised the hairs on the back of my neck. His hand cupped my breast and the shock of it sent a tremor through my body. It had been so long—so long since I had thrilled to a man’s touch.

  “You musn’t . .”