Jo Goodman (46 page)

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.

"Yes... no..." 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 then... afterward... 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 breasts 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 passed 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 prickly 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 that 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 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 him 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 assure 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 God," 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.—"

"Lerner."

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 passion 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.