Blessing (39 page)

She slipped out the gate.

Gerard took a deep breath and readied his pistol to come out at a moment’s notice. Nonetheless, he didn’t want to
plunge in blindly, wildly. Such action might endanger Blessing further. He edged nearer to the open window, where he could hear voices but see nothing more than the shadows of the two people inside. One was standing, one sitting. Why had Smith come here? More intimidation? Or something worse?

Closer now, Gerard heard Smith taunting Blessing. “You hold a grudge against me for your late husband.”

What about her husband?

“I don’t hold grudges,” Blessing replied. “Thee does.”

Smith snorted. “Mrs. Sanctimonious, admit it here. You hate me. And it all started with Richard Brightman.”

“I hate no one. But I do hate what thee does and what thee did to my husband.”

What did Smith do to her husband?

“Your
late
husband was a grown man. I didn’t make him do what he did.”

“Thee knew—and I learned, to my sorrow—that sin is addictive. Richard could not stop the drink nor the liaisons with the women thee introduced him to. Nor the gambling and opium he began to crave.” The widow’s voice was harsh.

“Well, at least I didn’t kill him,” Smith mocked.

What? Gerard was more certain than ever that Smith had lost his mental faculties. But he couldn’t help recalling what the men at his long-ago racetrack dinner had insinuated about Richard Brightman’s death. He tried to shake it off but listened more closely.

“Thee thinks I’m guilty of murder?” Blessing’s voice trembled at first but then grew stronger. “My husband came home from one of thy ‘establishments’ inebriated and fell and broke his neck.”

“That’s what you told the police, but I’ve always suspected—”

“Thee wants to paint everyone with the same tar as thyself,” Blessing cut in. “Why do I vex thee so much?”

“Where is Jewel?” he demanded.

So that was what had brought Smith here in this savage state of mind. Gerard wavered between staying where he was and moving to confront Smith immediately. But what if the man had a weapon? He could use it on Blessing long before Gerard could confront him.

“Thee keeps asking me that. And I say again, I do not know where Jewel is. If thee wanted to keep her, thee should have taken better care of her.”

The sound of a fist hitting wood. Gerard jerked back.

“I took care of her,” Smith declared. “I gave her everything.”

“Then why did she leave?” Blessing’s voice remained cool.

The fist hit wood again. “I want to make it right.”

“I doubt thee could. I heard the rumors. It is said thee smothered thy own newborn son—thy and Jewel’s son.”

Gerard felt ill.
Dear God, no.

“If that were true—” Smith’s voice had descended to a tiger’s growl—“I did the child a favor. Can you see me as any child’s father?”

“Thee could have brought the baby to me. I would have cared for him.”

“Yes, such a good work of charity,” Smith said, his voice dripping with acid. “I’d rather have my son dead than raised as someone’s bastard in an orphanage.”

“Did Jewel agree?”

The fist slammed down a third time.

Gerard measured the distance between his position and the back stoop, gauging how quickly he could get inside. Yet he once again cautioned himself against acting rashly. When would the watch arrive?

“I gave her everything she wanted,” Smith repeated as if flailing for words.

“She wanted her child.”

Smith rumbled with anger, menacing. “You believe in heaven. Any child of mine is better off there.”

“Is that what thee thinks of thy life? Has thee considered where thee might go?”

Gerard waited to hear the fist hit the table again. But only silence followed, ominous silence.

“I . . . hate . . . you.”

“I know.” Blessing’s tone had saddened.

“Why aren’t you afraid of me? You should be begging for mercy.”

Gerard lifted onto the balls of his feet, ready to move.

“Why is thee here?” she asked.

Smith slurred an imitation of a laugh. “I’m going to kill you so Ramsay feels how I do. I’m going to rob him of the woman he loves.”

Gerard’s scalp tightened. Sheer terror rippled up his spine.

“Thee thinks Gerard Ramsay loves me? He doesn’t.”

Smith barked another travesty of laughter. “You said it yourself. Sin is addictive. The man lusts for you.”

“But thee thinks thee loved Jewel?”

“I love her,” Smith insisted.

“Love can survive almost anything yet can be so fragile
too. Did Jewel love thee? Or did she just submit to thee because she had no choice?”

Smith bellowed with rage.

Tingling with fear for Blessing, Gerard edged toward the door. He could no longer wait for the watchman who might never come.

“Why was Gerard Ramsay so significant a target to thee?” Blessing asked. “Why is it so important to hurt him?”

Gerard froze. He’d wondered this too.

“Because he was born with everything!” Smith declared. “Wealth, position, a family! Everything I should have been entitled to.”

What? Why should Smith have been entitled to my life?

Smith raved on. “And he was willing to throw it all away—for what? To embarrass his father? He’s a fool. He deserves judgment.”

“Why does that concern thee? He isn’t the first to treat his birthright with scorn. My husband was a sad example. Is that why he became one of thy targets too?”

Peering through the edge of the curtain at the last window before the porch, Gerard finally glimpsed Smith. He was holding a pistol trained on Blessing, who sat at the table with a sleeping baby in her arms. Smith’s hair was wild and his eyes were unnaturally bright.

Stark terror electrified Gerard.

“Ramsay—” Smith said the name with loathing—“galls me because I deserved what he readily despised. Smith isn’t my real name—not the name I should have borne. My father was a Boston Brahman too, just like Ramsay’s father. They were neighbors. But my mother was merely an Irish maid in his house.”

“So that is the seed of thy jealousy.” Blessing’s tone was sympathetic, which somehow didn’t surprise Gerard. “I’m sorry thy mother was mistreated.”

“He supported us, visited us, but walked by me on the streets of Boston as if I were a stranger not worthy of even a nod. Do you know how that made me feel?” Smith’s voice vibrated with fury. “When I was a child, my mother took me to see his big house on Beacon Hill. And across the street I saw the Ramsay house and a boy playing there. I went back many times before I left Boston. I observed Gerard Ramsay many a day, a privileged, legitimate son. Not like me, the bastard. It wasn’t fair!” His last words sounded deranged.

It was time. With as much stealth as he could, Gerard ran up the steps and onto the back porch. He entered the kitchen, his pistol drawn. “Smith,” he challenged, “put the gun away.” Gerard raised his Colt to protect Blessing.

Just then the night watch called out, “Police!”

Smith swung his pistol toward his head and pulled the trigger.

Gerard charged forward.
No!

The gunshot exploded, deafening.

Blessing screamed. She leaped from her chair, the baby clasped to her, wailing.

Smith’s body hit the floor hard.

The night watch charged into the room, gun drawn. “What’s happened? Who’s shooting?”

Gerard tried to go to Blessing. But the night watch stood between them—only the first of many of the watch to come thundering into the kitchen.

The woman who’d alerted him about Smith entered and
went to Blessing’s side. “Are you all right, ma’am? He didn’t hurt you?”

The orphanage staff piled into the room, wearing hastily donned robes. And then came neighbors, pounding on the front door and running in the back door. More police crowded in as well.

Gerard looked across the jammed kitchen and tried to catch Blessing’s eye. She was trembling, her face downcast. The sight caught him, and all he wanted to do was draw her into his arms. But the police investigating Smith’s suicide intervened, keeping them apart.

Someone placed a sheet over Smith’s body. Blessing was led away by the orphanage staff. At last allowed to sit at the kitchen table, Gerard provided an account of what had taken place to the first night watch, then to a second one of higher rank, and finally to a deputy sheriff.

When the sheriff himself, who’d just arrived, demanded yet another recital, Gerard balked. “That’s enough. I have already given my statement to three other officers. They took notes. You can read their reports.” He rose.

The sheriff laid a hand on Gerard’s arm.

Gerard pulled from the man’s grasp. “Smith killed himself,” he snapped. “If you need to hold someone responsible, arrest him. Now why don’t you all leave and take this body with you? This is an orphanage with women and small children in residence. They need quiet.”

The sheriff grimaced. “Don’t leave town.”

Gerard glared at the man. “Don’t be foolish.” He left the kitchen and the diminishing crowd that remained.

In the parlor Gerard was met by a young woman of color.

“Where’s Mrs. Brightman?” he asked.

“I sent her home in her carriage,” the girl said. “She was pretty overwhelmed by all this.”

He nodded. “I’ll go there, then.”

“You can, but she may need her sleep.”

Gerard didn’t reply but walked to the front door and let himself out. No power on heaven or earth could keep him from going to Blessing. Nearby in the moonlight a police wagon had arrived and two men were carrying a sheet-covered stretcher to it. Gerard sorted through all he’d overheard, but one question clamored for an answer. Why had Smith shot himself?

Blessing sat in her rear parlor, wrapped in a large knit shawl. Salina, in her red print robe and leather slippers, had built up the fire and bullied Blessing into sipping a medicinal glass of sherry. Smith’s anguished expression glimmered before Blessing’s eyes like the firelight.

Salina stood over her until she had slowly downed the restorative, and then the housekeeper accepted the empty glass. “Now you sit and rock. That will help too.”

The brass knocker on the front door sounded, insistent.

“I bet I know who that be,” Salina said as she turned to answer the door. “’Bout time.”

Blessing heard Salina open the door and say from the foyer, “Well, Mr. Ramsay, what took you so long?”

Rapid footsteps hurried down the hall. Ramsay appeared at the doorway, the fire illumining his face. “I came as soon as I could get away from answering police questions. How are you?”

Blessing burst into pent-up tears, shocking herself.

He lifted her from the rocker and pulled her to him.

From the hall, Salina gave a murmur of approval and shut the door quietly but firmly.

Blessing buried her face in Ramsay’s chest, clutching his coat. His bracing arms encircled her. To be honest, she wanted to be in Ramsay’s arms, but she knew she couldn’t begin to depend on him. Smith’s words tonight about her late husband had brought up all the unhappy memories of the past: the pain of loving Richard, of watching him slowly, inexorably destroy her love for him. And then losing him so tragically.

“I’m so sorry you had to see that, suffer that,” Ramsay soothed near her ear.

“I’m so sorry that man was tortured enough to kill himself.” She pulled back, forcing herself to break away. “Why did he do it? I would never have guessed he’d take his own life.”

Ramsay claimed her hand. “We can never know, but perhaps in that instant he realized that this time he’d go to trial, face public humiliation. He was threatening to murder a prominent lady. Or . . .”

“Or?”

“Or maybe he couldn’t face living his own life anymore.” He recalled what he’d overheard Smith say about his illegitimate birth and his longtime envy of Gerard. The thought occurred to him that one never knew who might be watching and judging one’s life. He considered his visit to the Manhattan house. Bella and her mother had no inkling of what he’d felt sitting in their parlor, listening to them talk about their beloved husband and father—the father who both claimed and rejected him.

Needing her closer, he tugged Blessing toward him and stroked away the stray hair from her face, disturbing her widow’s cap. It fell to the floor, and her rich, dark hair glimmered where it caught the light. He gazed at her, forgetting that he wasn’t to want her.
I do want her, want to be with her.

These feelings prompted thoughts of Smith, of his cruelty to Jewel. Gerard understood a little of what Smith had felt at being deprived of the woman he needed. Obviously losing her had cut the last thread to the man’s sanity and driven him to violent threats and a violent end.

“If what you heard about what Smith did to the child is true . . .” Gerard shied away from the loathsome idea. “In any event, he’d lost the woman he loved and he knew it was his fault, his grievous sin,” he said. He couldn’t ignore his own yearning tonight. He wanted to kiss this woman, and he was going to.