Words Spoken True (25 page)

“Except you just got through saying Jimson will be finding a way to shut us down before that can happen.” Beck looked up at Blake.

“Unless we can stop him,” Blake said.

“We won’t be able to stop him,” Adriane said from the door of the pressroom. “Father owed him too much money.”

Blake turned to look at her. “How much?” he asked.

“A lot, I think. Father was never very good with finances. Beck can tell you that.”

“That’s a fact. The boss was always too ready to buy some newfangled piece of equipment.” Beck sighed and mashed his lips together.

“It doesn’t matter,” Adriane said. “Even if we had the money, that’s not what Coleman Jimson wants. It was never the money. It was the paper.”

“He’s won the election already,” Beck said.

“There will be other elections,” Adriane said. “I fancy he’d like being called governor.”

“Over my dead body,” Blake said with fervor.

Adriane’s face went pale at his words. “I’m sure he could find a way to arrange that. For all he cared, you might have been in your building last night when it burned.”

“True enough. He was probably hoping I was, but I wasn’t. And though the election may be over, the fight’s not.”

“No,” Adriane agreed. “Father’s death should give us a little sympathy time. He won’t pitch us out of his building for a couple of weeks and another newspaper office burning down might look suspicious, even to his supporters.”

“He won’t forget,” Blake said.

“Neither will we,” Adriane answered. “And we won’t run.”

“I don’t run from fights.” Blake faced her squarely as if expecting a fight right then. “I never have.”

“Jimson won’t have to burn the building down,” Beck said as he looked first at Blake, then Adriane. “The way you two strike sparks off one another, you’re liable as not to set it on fire yourself.”

Adriane dropped her eyes to the floor for a moment before she looked up at the old man. Blake was amazed to see what was almost a smile on her face. “Oh, print the papers, Beck, and hurry up. I just came down here to tell you to let us know when Mr. Mortimer gets here with the coffin. We’re going to have Father in here for people to pay their respects.”

Beck looked around the pressroom before he said, “The boss would like that, Addie, but I don’t know that Mrs. Elmore will think it’s proper.”

“Proper or not, that’s what’s happening. If Lucilla is too scandalized, she can stay away.” There was no hint of doubt in Adriane’s voice. Then her shoulders drooped as she went on. “Added to all the other scandalous things I’ve done in the last two days, it should keep the gossips happily buzzing for weeks.”

I
t was true. Adriane could almost hear the scandalized whispers sweeping through the parlors and drawing rooms. Have you heard what that Adriane Darcy has done now?

She didn’t care what anybody said, she thought as she quickly left the pressroom before Beck could think about pushing the paper he was holding at her. Even from across the room, she could see the thick black borders around the page. That by itself was enough to make her heart feel too heavy. She knew her father was dead. Hadn’t she just helped dress him in his best for his funeral?

Still, she was afraid that if she saw her father’s words telling about his own death, she wouldn’t be able to keep back the tears pushing at her eyes. She couldn’t cry now. There was too much to be done. No, she’d have to wait until sometime when she could be alone. Then she’d read it.

She didn’t think about when that might be, now that she was a married woman. It was hard for her to think about being married at all. None of it seemed real. Not the ceremony. Not Blake and Beck working together on the same paper. Not the funny light-headed feeling she’d had when Blake swept her up in his arms and kissed her after the preacher pronounced them man and wife. None of it.

It was almost as if she were walking around in a dream. Soon she’d wake up and everything would be the way it was before. Her father would be in his office firing off another volley of words against the
Herald
. Blake would be in his office doing the same against the
Tribune
. Stanley would still be expecting her to marry him.

And that’s where the dream dissolved and became a nightmare. A nightmare that was only too real. Even now, hours later, Adriane could still feel Stanley’s fingers bruising her arms. She could see the look in his eyes when he’d said how sorry he was about her father and hear his words as he’d warned her about Blake. The words were burned into her mind. Who was this Eloise Vandemere? What had happened to her?

Adriane wearily shook her head, but she couldn’t shake the questions away. She loved Blake Garrett. There was no use trying to hide from that fact, but it was just as true that she knew very little about Blake before he came to Louisville. What if he didn’t turn out to be the kind of man she thought he was, just as Stanley Jimson had turned out to be completely different than she’d thought? A few months ago she would have never believed Stanley would physically attack her.

She told herself Blake was not Stanley. And while she might not know a lot of things about Blake and his past, she did know him. There were times when their eyes met that she felt almost as if she were inside his mind and he inside hers. At moments like that, nothing was hidden.

“You look plumb wilted, missy,” Mary told her when she went back into her father’s bedroom where his body waited for the undertaker to arrive with the coffin. “You go freshen up, and I’ll sit with Mr. Darcy.”

“I can’t. I’ll need to clean the pressroom downstairs when they’re through running the papers.”

“Don’t you be worryin’ yo’ head about that. Me and the menfolk will take care of what needs doin’. You go on along and get cleaned up cause you wants to be ready when folks start comin’ by to pay their respects to yo’ pappy.”

Adriane did what the old black woman said. It felt odd going back into her room and looking at the familiar furniture and books and knowing that since she’d last slept there everything had changed. At her small desk, she opened her journal and dipped her pen in the inkpot. She stared at the empty page so long the ink dried on the nib of the pen. Finally she laid the pen aside and closed the book. Just as she couldn’t yet read the words, she couldn’t yet write them.

Instead she laid her hand on her Bible. She didn’t open it, but words seemed to rise up out of it to comfort her.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.

What had Beck told her? That her father was in the Lord’s hands now. He was right. Her father was gone. But she couldn’t keep from thinking he might still be alive if she had done something differently. If Duff had posted the letter instead of delivering it. If there had been time to warn her father. If only her father had truly known Stanley, then he wouldn’t have promised her to him and perhaps none of this would have happened. If only.

Another Bible verse rose up in her mind. One Beck or Grace had once taught her. She didn’t remember which.
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

Adriane raised her eyes toward the ceiling. “I don’t understand, Lord.”

Then trust.
The words came unbidden to her mind. She could trust the Lord. She could trust Beck. But could she trust Blake?

Wearily she stood up and pulled her good black dress out of the wardrobe and laid it across the bed. She stripped off down to her chemise and drawers. She had just poured cold water from the pitcher into the bowl and begun to sponge off when there was a knock on her door.

Before she could reach for her wrapper, Blake pushed through the door, his arms full of the same boxes he’d been carrying when he’d come in earlier to find Stanley in the pressroom. For a minute, Adriane thought he might drop them again as his eyes swept over her.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said, his voice strangely husky.

Her cheeks burned as she grabbed her wrapper.

“Don’t,” he said. “You’re my wife. I can look at you.”

“It’s not the time,” Adriane said softly as she pulled on the wrapper.

“Perhaps not.” He took a deep breath and seemed to remember the boxes he was still holding. “We were clearing out the pressroom, and I thought maybe I could store these up here somewhere till I get a chance to go through them. I’m afraid they smell of smoke.”

“You can put them by the desk,” she said.

After he set the boxes on the floor, he stood up and looked around. “The room’s small,” he said, his eyes on the bed.

“It’s large enough for me,” she said.

His eyes came back to her. “But now there are two of us.”

“Yes.” Color bloomed in her cheeks once more. He did seem to fill up all the empty space in the room until the walls needed to give way.

“We’ll work out something,” he said.

“I can sleep on the settee in the sitting room,” she offered.

“I hardly think so.” He didn’t quite smile, but looked as if he wanted to.

“You promised me time.”

“No, Adriane,” he said. “I promised you would never have any reason to be afraid of me. You don’t now.”

One step and he was beside her. She gripped the wrapper closer to her, but he gently pulled her hands away. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “I just want to see your arm. It looked as if you had a bruise there.”

She couldn’t fight with him. She didn’t want to fight him. She let him peel the thin wrapper off her shoulders and down her arms, and wanted nothing more than to lean against his chest and rest there for a while. To trust him completely. She was so tired, and the tips of his fingers touching her were so gentle.

Yet she couldn’t keep from flinching when he ran his fingers over the place on her arm where Stanley had grabbed her.

“How’d you do that?” Blake asked.

When Adriane saw the marks of Stanley’s fingers on her arm, she tried to pull her wrapper up to hide them, but Blake wouldn’t let her. He pushed down the other sleeve of her wrapper, with not quite as much care this time, to reveal a bruise on that arm as well.

“Who did this to you?” he asked.

She looked down at the floor as she desperately tried to think of some way to explain the marks. She couldn’t tell him the truth, because if she did he might want to go after Stanley, and that thought terrified her.

Blake put his hand under her chin and gently but insistently raised her face until she had to look at him. Even then she tried to shield the truth by not directly meeting his eyes.

He saw it anyway. “Jimson?” he said as if he couldn’t quite believe it was possible. “Stanley Jimson did that to you?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Adriane hastily pulled her wrapper back up to hide the marks. “He’s gone now. You sent him away. They’re only bruises. They’ll fade.”

The color drained from Blake’s face, and his features turned to granite. “I’ll kill him.”

She grabbed his arm as he started to turn away. “Please, Blake. There’s already been too much killing.”

His eyes were hard, and his voice rough as he said, “What’s going on here, Adriane? Are you telling me you care what happens to Jimson?”

“No.” Her own anger flared up to match his. She was no longer even aware of the fact that her wrapper hung open and her chemise was half unlaced. “But I won’t be the reason for another man dying. I won’t.”

“So I’m just supposed to pretend I haven’t seen those.” His eyes flicked down to her arms and back to her face. “I’m supposed to forget that he hurt you.”

“He won’t come back.” She tried to sound surer about that than she felt.

“How do you know?”

“He has too much pride.”

“Then why did he come today?”

At last she dropped her eyes away from his, but again he lifted her face and made her look at him. “Why did he come?” he asked again.

“He was angry. He didn’t think I’d really refuse to marry him to begin with and then . . .”

“And then you not only turned him down, you married me?”

“Yes.”

Blake’s eyes probed hers. “What did he tell you about me?”

“Nothing much.” Adriane didn’t want to think about the doubts Stanley had tried to put into her mind. But the name was there. Eloise Vandemere.

“You can’t keep secrets from me, Adriane. Not now.”

His eyes demanded the truth. She could give him no less. “He told me that I shouldn’t count on you too much. That other women who trusted you had ended up dead.”

“Did you believe him?”

“I don’t know what to believe, Blake. I hardly know you.”

His eyes on her were intense. “Yet you married me.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Why?”

“You asked me to.”

Suddenly without warning, he smiled. “So I did.”

Relief flooded through Adriane at the sight of his smile. She put her hand on his arm. “Promise me you won’t go after Stanley.”

His smile disappeared. “I don’t understand, Adriane.”

“My father is dead because I refused to marry Stanley.”

“You think Stanley Jimson had something to do with your father getting shot?”

“I know he did,” Adriane said.

“Then why are you trying to protect him?”

“I’m not protecting him,” Adriane said. “I’m trying to protect us.”

“Us?” Blake looked confused for a moment, then a look of wonder came into his eyes. “You’re afraid for me?”

“You don’t know Stanley. He’s not as he seems.”

Blake’s smile came back. “I can take care of myself, Adriane. Especially against the likes of Stanley Jimson. We’re not talking about his father here.”

“No, we’re not.” She looked at him squarely with determination setting her jaw. “But you have to promise me anyway.”

Again his smile disappeared as he studied her thoughtfully. “I don’t make promises I can’t keep,” he said finally. “But I will promise you to wait until we have time to talk about what’s going on, because there’s more here than I know about.”

“And more than I know about as well.”

“What do you mean?”

“Eloise Vandemere.” The name spilled from her lips before she could think better of saying it.

“What did Jimson tell you about her?” His voice sounded stiff suddenly.

“Nothing. He just said I should ask you about her.”

“So now you have.”

Adriane looked at him a moment while the barbs of doubt Stanley had planted in her mind dug deeper. “What happened to her?”

“I don’t talk about Eloise.”

“I see,” Adriane said after a moment. She pulled her wrapper tight around her and tied it before she went on in a tightly controlled voice. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to dress now.”