Paradise Wild (15 page)

Dr. Bryson finished his drink. “We had best get back in there.”

“But do you think Cori has had enough time yet, Doctor?” Florence asked with a doubtful frown. “Maybe seeing the baby and holding it won’t make her change her mind. She is such a stubborn girl.”

“Stubborn is hardly the word, Miss Merrill! I have never met such a cantankerous, hot-headed young woman.”

Florence had to grin. “She does have a bit of a temper, and very little patience.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Dr. Bryson grunted. “Well, come along with that water.”

When they entered Corinne’s room, they found her propped up in bed, gazing down at the child in her arms. When she looked up, there was no anger in her lime-green eyes.

“Be quiet,” Corinne whispered. “He’s sleeping.”

Florence set the small tub of water down on a table
and came over to the bed. “We’re going to have to wake him anyway, my dear, for his bath.”

“What took you so long?” Corinne demanded, though her voice wasn’t harsh.

“I’m afraid that’s my fault. I kept spilling the water,” Florence lied. “Heavens, you were in labor eighteen hours, Cori. I haven’t had a moment’s rest yet. I’m plumb worn out and couldn’t keep my hands from shaking.”

“Why didn’t Russell help you?”

“He’s been gone all night. The sun’s up, but he still has not come back.”

“I’m sorry,” Corinne replied. “I didn’t know he would desert us like that.”

Dr. Bryson chuckled. “That’s generally the way with all new fathers, Mrs. Drayton. Very few of them stick around for the birthing.”

Corinne wondered if Jared would have. But there was no point in thinking about that. Why, Jared didn’t even know he had a son. A son! she thought with awe.

She watched keenly as Dr. Bryson picked up the baby and took him across the room. His wailing started again as they washed him. When they were finished, he was wrapped in a small blanket and Florence started to leave the room with him.

“Where are you taking him?” Corinne asked.

“I’ll just put him in the next room for now,” Florence replied. “The family who is going to take him hasn’t been notified yet.”

“I will take care of that this afternoon,” the doctor offered. “You need your rest now. We all do. I will stop by tomorrow, Mrs. Drayton, to see how you’re doing.”

Corinne tried to let the exhaustion of the night take over, but though her body was willing, her mind
wouldn’t rest. She could hear the distant crying of the baby and the sound seemed to pull at her. Were they just going to let him wail like that?

What was the matter with her? She shouldn’t care. That was Jared’s child, and she hated it. What did she care if it cried itself sick? The baby would be gone soon and she would never see it again.

Corinne closed her eyes against the sound, willing it to stop. But a picture of the baby lying in her arms obsessed her. He had stopped crying when she offered him her breast. He had fallen asleep instantly, as if that had been the only thing he wanted. He had trusted her, depended on her to give him comfort.

The crying seemed to grow louder, reverberating in her mind until she couldn’t stand it anymore. She fought the insistent desire to go to him.

“Florence!” Corinne called desperately. “Florence, make him stop!”

There was no answer and the wailing continued. Corinne frowned. No, she couldn’t see him again. She had to put him from her mind.

“Oh, stop it, baby. Please stop crying!”

She choked back tears that wanted to come. She got slowly out of bed. Her whole body ached. She would just make sure nothing was wrong with him, then she could sleep.

Walking was most uncomfortable, but she managed slowly. The baby had been put in the empty room next to hers. No one was there with him, either. The infant was in the center of the bed, braced with pillows on each side.

Corinne looked down at him. He did look a little better now that he was cleaned up. But he was reddish-blue from so much screaming.

“Hush,” Corinne said softly, and touched her fingers
to the fuzzy black hair on his head. “You have to stop this, do you hear?”

That didn’t work. She opened his blankets to see if something was hurting him, but there was nothing. His poor little limbs were stiff with the effort he was making to be heard. He wasn’t just crying, he was screaming his heart out and breaking hers in the process.

“Please, don’t cry anymore,” she pleaded. “I can’t stand it.”

Corinne picked him up and tried to soothe him, but still he screamed. Would nothing work? She put him back down on the bed and moved one pillow so she could lie beside him. Giving up, she opened the front of her nightgown and pulled him gently to her. When his cheek touched her breast he jerked about frantically until his little mouth clamped onto her nipple. It took a while for his breathing to settle down, but as before, he relaxed and fell asleep contentedly.

Corinne could hold back the tears no more. “Oh, God, no!” she sobbed, pain tearing at her heart. “Why did you do this to me!”

Florence looked in a while later and found mother and son both sleeping peacefully. She smiled and closed the door very softly.

Corinne examined herself critically in the full-length, mahogany-framed mirror. Her dress was azure blue, a delicate cotton poplin with white lace trimmings—very cool, yet stylish. She carried a blue parasol. She wore her golden hair in the new style as well, pulled tightly up on the sides and back into a knot on top of her head, with a curled fringe on her forehead and temples. She didn’t care for the uncomfortable severity of the style. It was designed for shorter hair, not the thick long locks she was reluctant to cut. But at least it was quite cool.

Corinne had a complete new wardrobe. No more of those tentlike
muumuus
for her. She had to give the impression that she was newly arrived from the mainland, and she couldn’t do that in island clothes.

“You look lovely, my dear,” Florence remarked as she came into the room with a basket of fresh-cut flowers. “But why are you trying on those new dresses again?”

Corinne ignored the question and turned to catch different angles of herself in the mirror. “I did it, Florence,” she beamed. “After two grueling months of exercise, I have my old figure back. The new dresses
were measured from an old one, and they fit perfectly now.”

“It’s not too tight in the bust?”

Corinne frowned with confusion. “No, but it should be, shouldn’t it?”

Florence chuckled. “You can thank me for that. I told the seamstress to enlarge that area. It’s a good thing I thought of it, eh?”

Corinne couldn’t help but smile. “Another bit of taking things into your own hands? Like that trick you and Dr. Bryson played on me?”

“I won’t deny it.”

“Oh, Florence, what would I do without you?” Corinne embraced her old friend, something she rarely did.

“Not nearly so well, that’s a fact.”

Corinne laughed, thoroughly delighted. “You know, I only have this bigger bust line and two small stretch marks to show for what I went through. Did I thank you for insisting on all those applications of coconut oil to help my skin expand without stretching? Only two marks!”

“Well, that’s not all you have to show for it,” Florence said quietly.

“No. I can never thank you enough for that.” The two women looked into one another’s eyes. They understood each other, the childless one and the new mother.

They both heard the cry at the same time.

“You want me to go?” Florence offered.

“No,” Corinne grinned. “I’ll bet you thought that when I came to my senses and decided to keep him, you would get to care for him all the time. Well, you can help, but I enjoy him too much to give over all his care completely.”

“It’s not fitting,” Florence grumbled. “Why, your mother never bothered with you, except to show you
off to her friends. A woman of your breeding has a nurse to take care of the changing, bathing, and feeding.”

“I’m not my mother,” Corinne replied. “I happen to like all those little things. Can I help it if I just can’t get enough of him?”

Florence laughed. “No, I suppose not. But I still say it’s not fitting.”

“You’re just jealous. Why, I think you love him as much as I do,” Corinne said. “Come on then, we’ll both go. He adores the attention anyway.”

They both went into the room next to Corinne’s that had been turned into a nursery. The morning sun fell across the matted floor in patterns from the screened, opened windows. A delicate breeze stirred the dangling sculptured birds hanging over the bassinet, causing the wailing to stop.

Corinne smiled down at Michael Samuel Burkett. “He’s facinated by those birds you found in the antique shop. He is really starting to notice things.”

“The doctor told you there was nothing wrong with his eyes,” Florence replied, grinning down at Michael, who had turned toward their voices. “Babies don’t see so well at first. And I’m glad to see his eyes changed from that murky blue to your yellow-green. Lord, he’s going to be a handsome devil when he grows up, just like his—”

“No.” Corinne cut her off. “He’s not going to be
anything
like
him!
”

“If you say so, my dear.”

“I do,” Corinne returned firmly. “Michael is going to be special. I know he is.”

“Well, right now this special young man needs changing,” Florence replied and began to unwrap the diaper.

“Did Dr. Bryson leave more of that salve for his heat rash?”

“No, he said he would drop it by today. There’s nothing to worry about, though. The rash doesn’t seem to bother Michael at all.”

“I don’t like it. Maybe I should put an overhead fan in here.”

“You worry too much, Cori,” Florence chided her. “Michael was born in this climate. The muggy heat probably doesn’t bother him half as much as it does you and me. Look at him. He’s as healthy as can be.”

“I know. I just want him to stay that way,” Corinne replied, and lifted Michael from the bassinet.

She smiled down at his chubby little face, all the love in the world reflected in her eyes. He was her little angel. She still shuddered to think how close she had come to giving him up. She would never forgive herself for the awful thoughts she had had about him while carrying him. She could only think that she must have been a little crazy.

Michael was no longer Jared’s son, to be cast aside without a care. He was her son, and only hers. She had never dreamed that anyone could be so important to her.

“Are you hungry, precious?” Corinne fussed over him. “I suppose I should feed you again before I leave. Then you can sleep the afternoon away and won’t even miss me.”

“Leave?” Florence crooked a brow.

Corinne moved to the cushioned rocker by the window and opened the front of her dress to nurse Michael. “It’s time, Florence. Russell told me a ship is due in late this morning. We are going down to the harbor with some of my luggage and then ride from there to the Royal Monarch Hotel, as if I had just arrived from
the mainland. I will take a room there as Mrs. Jared Burkett.”

Florence shook her head. “So you’re still going through with it? I had hoped you’d forget all that.”

“Just because my heart has softened, doesn’t mean I have forgotten why I came here. Not for one moment have I forgotten.”

Florence had become sympathetic to Corinne’s fury once she learned of the rape. But since then she had had time to mull over it again, and she still thought leaving well enough alone was a good idea.

“Michael is old enough to travel, Cori. Why don’t we go home instead?” she suggested. “Your father is dying to see his grandson.”

“I know, but he can wait a few more months. I’m not going home until I have been revenged.”

“Damn and botheration! Corinne, you’re going to get yourself in trouble fooling with that man!”

Corinne was surprised and a little amused. “It’s not like you to use strong language, Florence,” she observed.

“One picks up the habit living around you,” Florence said testily. “Whatever possessed your father to let you run wild at the shipyard when you were a child, I’ll never know. Some of the words you picked up—!”

“He was happy that I showed an interest.”

“An interest that didn’t last. But it turned you into the most unladylike lady, Corinne Barrows.”

“Corinne Burkett,” she reminded her old nurse. “And besides, I don’t swear intentionally. It just happens when I get angry.”

“Which is most of the time.”

“Now, have I been disagreeable these last two months?” Corinne asked with a smile.

“No, but you will be once you run into
him
again,” Florence said knowingly.

“No, I won’t. I don’t have to see Jared in order to make a fool of him. I may not run into him at all, and that will be just as well. But if I do, why should I lose my temper? He can’t do anything to stop me. He can’t play the outraged husband, not when he deserted me. I have the upper hand this time.”

“I don’t like it, Cori,” Florence warned. “He fooled me well enough with his charm, and you even more. You seem to forget how ruthless he was.”

“Stop trying to talk me out of it, Florence,” Corinne said firmly, her green eyes hard. “Nothing has changed. I’m not going home until I’ve done what I came to do.”

“What about Michael?” Florence asked huffily. “Do you plan to keep him hidden in a stuffy hotel room while you parade about town?”

“Of course not. You and the baby will stay here. I am only checking into the hotel because it is a public place and I have to be seen in public. I will spend most of my time here, though no one will know it.”

“And if Jared follows you here and discovers Michael? Then what will you do?”

Corinne frowned. “That isn’t likely to happen, Florence. But if it does, the solution is simple. We will just say that Michael is your son, and that you are staying up here on Punchbowl because it’s cooler here and you had difficulty adjusting to the heat.”

“I’m not even married!” Florence gasped.

“Who is to say you’re not recently widowed, Mrs. Merrill?” Corinne said. “And that Michael wasn’t born in Boston, before we left? After all, we’re saying that we only arrived today. And we can say that Michael is a month older than he actually is.”

“You’re making things too complicated, Cori. Why lie about his age?”

“So Jared can’t possibly suspect anything if he does happen to discover Michael. Dr. Bryson is the only one here who knows that Michael is mine and that he was born June 14. And the good doctor knows me as Mrs. Drayton. It is doubtful that he knows Jared or will connect me with the soon-to-be notorious Mrs. Jared Burkett.”

“I don’t like any of it, Cori. You know I don’t like lies. I never could tell one convincingly.”

“You probably won’t have to lie at all. I will be careful when I come and go from here. And in the unlikely event that Jared does follow me here, we don’t have to let him in. So there is nothing to worry about.”

“So you say,” Florence replied. “But I’m afraid that does not relieve my mind in the least. Not in the least.”