The Beloved Woman (32 page)

“There. You’ll sleep without misery.”

She exhaled raggedly. “You think I’m a dog who will forget a beating if her master pets her.”

“I didn’t beat you!”

She groaned in disgust. “You will never understand. Go away.”

“Fine.” He moved to his side of the bed and didn’t say another word.

Katherine quivered with anger and disappointment. His stubborn determination to make her do his bidding was born of pride, not love. Now he had let it ruin the lovely camaraderie that had given her so much hope for the future.

Before they had abandoned their traditions for the
more complicated dicta of white law, her people had regarded revenge as a good and necessary thing. It was the accepted way to rebuild honor and peace between enemies. She wanted revenge.

She pretended to sleep. Sometime later Justis slid close to her again. He untied her hands and rubbed the wrists gently. Tears pooled behind her eyelids as she felt him kiss her hair.
Scoundrel
! Why did he confuse her so? He sighed as if exhausted, then went back to his side of the bed. Within a few minutes she heard his breathing fall into the deep, even cadence of sleep.

She waited for more than an hour, until she knew he was settled firmly in his dreams. Then she tiptoed from bed and got her new doctor’s satchel.
Revenge
.

J
USTIS STRUGGLED TO
wake up. His arms and legs felt weighted, and his mind was groggy. It was puzzling but not unpleasant. He stretched and dragged a hand up to rub some life into his face. With any luck he’d be able to force his eyelids open.

There was something odd about his face, something different. He yawned and rubbed a knuckle over an itchy spot along his upper lip. His hand froze.

His mustache was gone.

With a bellow of disbelief he pushed himself upright and squinted painfully as morning sunshine struck his face. His throat was sore and his voice came out a deep, brutal rasp. “
Kath-er-ine
!”

“I’m right here.” She rose from an armchair near the fireplace and walked to the bed. She looked regal in a white dressing gown with her hair in a neat braid around the crown of her head. Her expression was troubled but stoic. Her dark eyes held no victory. “I didn’t run away after taking my revenge. There would be no honor in that.”

“Revenge,” he echoed hoarsely. “Honor.”

“I couldn’t live with you otherwise. I couldn’t bear it, after the way you disgraced everything good that we’ve shared. Now I have my revenge. If you accept it, we can go on together. If you don’t …” She looked at him sadly and waited for his response.

Speechless, he slung the covers back and rolled out of bed. He staggered to the dressing room and stared at himself in the mirror over the washstand. Years had passed since he’d last seen the scar on his upper lip. It was a distinct white ridge that ran just above the corner of his mouth to a little past halfway across. It made him look evil.

She had shorn the hair on his head to a uniform inch in length, all over. The luscious waves were gone. It was straight and so short on top, it bristled. He felt like an ugly cur dog with its hackles up.

To add insult to injury, she had shaved his chest hair off. Justis looked down in horror. His pubic hair was gone too. He braced his arms on the stand. His head drooped and he shut his eyes, then he cursed softly, viciously.

“It is a severe revenge, I know,” she said, watching him from the doorway. Her voice was low and anguished. “And I know you may do something terrible to me in return. But I would rather suffer that than be forced to leave you. At least I can stay with honor now.”

“You did this because I tied you to the damned bed?”

“The bed? Hah.” She dismissed that indignity with a wave of one hand. “No. Because you accused me of disloyalty. I
will
be friends with Vittorio Salazar and any other gentleman I wish to cultivate. But I will never be unfaithful to you. I’ve never given you any reason to think that I would.”

He gripped the washstand fiercely. “No, you haven’t.”

“Then why distrust me?”

Because you don’t love me and I can’t stand the thought of losing you to some other man
. “What kind of hellion are
you? I knew you were different from other women, but I’ll be damned if I expected this.”

“I won’t be owned. I won’t be treated like an
a-tsi-na-Ha-i
. Do you finally believe that?”

“By God, I guess I do after this.”

He gazed at her, frowning. It was either take her on her terms or not have her at all. Before she had come into his life he wouldn’t have been capable of such a compromise. In the brutal world where he’d grown up, compromise meant defeat and humiliation. In her world, compromise meant honor and trust.

He looked into the mirror again. “You’ve changed me a helluva lot.”

“You still look handsome. The scar … I don’t mind it.”

He hadn’t been referring to his hair. He had meant the way she’d changed his attitudes, making him less selfish and more willing to negotiate. It was amazing. Right now, despite the disgusting stunt she’d pulled, he felt himself falling even deeper in love with her.

“I’ll be growin’ all of my hair back—includin’ the mustache.”

“If you want.” She hesitated. “Are you going to do something violent now?”

He grunted. “What’d you think I’d do after I woke up this morning? Hit you? Throw you out?”

She gazed at him, her eyes calm and confident. “No. You’re not that kind of man. I wouldn’t be with you if I thought you were.”

“What kind of man am I?”

“One who has a terrible time trusting anyone but himself, yet who wants very badly to trust. One who thinks only fools are kindhearted, but who can’t resist being a fool. One who hides his fears and doubts because the world has never been merciful with him.”

“So—if you’re right about me—is it good or bad?”

“Good.” She came to him and slipped her arms around his neck. “You look confused.”

“I ought to be so damned mad at you that I can’t see straight. I ought to tie you to the bed again and keep you there until you promise not to get within a mile of that cocky Spanish nabob.”

“But you’re not. And you won’t.”

He sighed and put his arms around her. “Be friends with the devil. I won’t say a word.”

“Dear Lord,” she whispered. “I can’t believe it.”

“I don’t want to wake up with something more important than my mustache missin’.”

“I’d
never
harm that.”

He jerked her to his naked body and ground his hips against her. “I’m still a little numb. What did you use on me?”

She smiled tentatively. “Ether. While you were sleeping I held it under your nose.”

“An ether frolic and a shaving party. You must have had fun.”

Her smile faded. “No. I felt sorry for you.”

“But not sorry enough to leave my mustache alone.”

She kissed him and ran her tongue over the edge of his lip. “Hmmm. It will be different. Interesting. Though I do want your mustache back.”

“I’m starting to tingle.”

Her voice became sultry. “All over?”

He picked her up. “Where it will do us both some good.”

He carried her to the bed. He was still fuzzy-headed, and she took advantage of it to make him forget the ludicrous indignity she’d done to him. When she finished her seduction, he lay on top of her in a languid daze. She licked and nuzzled his naked lip, and promised that he wouldn’t regret trusting her.

He nibbled her neck to hide his frown. He trusted her, but he would never trust Vittorio Salazar.

CHAPTER 15

D
ELMONICO’S
was a place of fantasy, a romantic Italianate dream with gilded mirrors, marble tables, and waiters who were so formal and elegant that they seemed as elite as the diners they served. Katherine was torn between watching them and studying the menu, an artistic masterpiece that listed dozens of dishes, all described in French.

Even Adela, usually unimpressed by everything, was wide-eyed. Only Vittorio seemed perfectly at ease. He leaned toward Katherine and rested a hand on her forearm. She glanced down, startled. His hand was slender but strong, and it looked somehow unnatural and too commanding against the figured white material and blue lace of her sleeve. Katherine politely said nothing but wished that he would not touch her as often as had become his habit. She didn’t fear his motives—he was an exquisite gentleman—but she feared Justis’s reaction if he ever saw such familiarity between them.

A month had passed since the tempestuous night
when she’d shaved Justis in revenge, and since then he had tolerated, even joked about, her association with Salazar. She didn’t want to endanger his newfound trust. Also, she would prefer that he not strangle Vittorio. The Spaniard was a charming escort and a wonderful conversationalist.

“Ladies, do you know who we’re sitting near?” he asked. “See that heavyset gentleman at the table of honor?”

Adela peered over her menu. Katherine glanced delicately to one side. “Yes?”

“That is William Astor. The son of John Jacob. You are looking at the heir to the richest fortune in America.”

“He is a very ordinary hombre,” Adela commented. “Like a fat frog.”

Katherine smiled. “But his money makes the waiters love him. See how they pamper him.”

“Ah, love,” Vittorio said. “
Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras amet
. My Latin is poor—do you understand it?”

Katherine nodded. “ ‘May he love tomorrow who never has loved before, and may he who has loved love tomorrow as well.’ ”

“Do you believe in love, Señora?”

“Certainly.”

“And does your husband?”

She laughed, feeling uncomfortable and more than a little sad. “You’ll have to ask him that question.”

“Surely he expresses his love for you?”

“I am quite content with him.”

“Ah, the lady parries my question.”

Adela interjected drolly, “She may stab you with it if you persist.”

“Never,” Katherine assured him. “I would lose my only chess partner.”

He smiled directly into Katherine’s eyes. “I believe in love, Señora Gallatin. I love all beautiful things.”

Katherine clasped her heart dramatically. The man was a harmless flirt. “But do they love you in return?”

As a waiter approached their table, ending the discussion, Vittorio leaned close to her and whispered, “
Aut viam inveniam aut faciam.
”

Katherine felt a twinge of warning, but she laughed as if he’d made the merriest joke in the world.
Where there’s a will there’s a way
.

I
T WAS THE
most glorious feeling. He was sweaty and filthy, with his shirt torn, hand blistered, and forehead bleeding where falling glass had struck it. Justis lifted a glass of whiskey to the three equally disreputable-looking men who sat around the parlor table with him, their muddy boots propped on the marble surface. “To Ireland,” he said solemnly.

That produced a chorus of bawdy agreements, and they all swallowed another round of the hotel’s best stock, then immediately refilled their glasses. “To his fine self, Mr. Justis Gallatin, our host,” one man announced.

“Who will be a fireman yet!” another added.

“Who risked his own ugly hide to pull a pair of wee tots from a terrrrible burning hoose!”

“I thank you,” Justis said. He downed the liquor, and they followed suit.

He wasn’t drunk, just pleasantly relaxed, and just loose enough to whoop when he heard Katherine’s key in the lock. He went to the door and slung it open, saying loudly and cheerfully as he did, “Come in, wife! I’ve got meself an Irish toothache, and soon as I kick these boys out, I’ll explain what that is!”

She stood there looking at him warily. Beside her, Adela Mendez dissolved into chortles. Vittorio Salazar appraised him with a slight, cool smile.

Katherine frowned at the blood on his forehead. “You’re injured!”

“It’s nothin’.” He stepped back, all humor gone, and gestured stiffly. “Looks like we both have guests today. I thought you were gone till after supper.”

“We spent all afternoon at Delmonico’s. We decided to forego supper and play cards.”