Worthy Brown's Daughter (20 page)

CHAPTER 46

A
fter completing his circuit, Jed Tyler returned to Portland under threatening skies. His home at Fifth and Yamhill was six blocks from the river, but there were few structures to act as barriers against the damp, chill air gusting inland from the Willamette, and the biting wind stung his cheeks and almost tore his hat from his head as he unlatched his front gate.

As soon as Tyler was safely inside, he submerged in the steaming hot bath his housekeeper had drawn for him. While Tyler bathed, Mrs. McCall heated up a pot of stew. After dinner, she went home, and the judge settled in front of the fire that had been set in the hearth in the parlor. Just before he had left to ride the circuit, a steamer had arrived bearing a gift from his brother, Gibbon’s
The History of the
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
. Tyler settled his heels on his footstool and was about to open the first volume when a knock at the front door intruded on his solitude. He carried an oil lamp into the foyer and looked through the leaded glass. Sharon Hill was standing on his doorstep.

The judge was dressed in black trousers and suspenders, his shirt was open at the neck, and his sleeves were rolled up, displaying forearms corded with a laborer’s muscles and matted with black hair. Tyler hesitated before opening the door, discomfited at the thought of Sharon Hill seeing him in this state of undress. Then he remembered the inhospitable weather and opened the door quickly.

The biting cold and vicious wind had played havoc with his visitor. Even with a hat, her hair was in disarray and her cheeks had been rubbed raw, but her distress only made Hill more beautiful in Tyler’s eyes.

“Thank goodness you’re home,” Hill exclaimed.

“Come into the parlor. I have a fire on.”

“Thank you. The cold was making me faint.”

“You shouldn’t have been out walking by yourself,” Tyler said as he ushered her in. “This is a sailor’s town. There are disreputable sorts about.”

“I doubt I was in danger. The hooligans probably have enough sense to stay inside on a night like this.”

Tyler smiled. “Maybe so.”

The judge threw some kindling on the fire, and it flared up. The flames licked the belly of a fat log, and warmth began to spread through the room. Hill held out her hands toward the heat.

“I feel better already.”

“Rest here. I’ll bring you some tea.”

“If it’s no bother,” Hill said, smiling sweetly.

Tyler hurried off, and Hill looked around. The room was sparsely furnished. A chair identical to the one on which she sat faced her across a small walnut table. A couch whose back was covered by an antimacassar rested against a wall under an oil painting that portrayed a sailing ship in turbulent seas. There was a bookcase against another wall, and folded reading glasses rested on a thick volume on the table. The room had an unused feel to it, and Hill guessed that few people were entertained here.

The fire warmed her. She leaned her head against the back of the chair and opened her coat. The heat made her feel deliciously sleepy. She shut her eyes and was drifting off when the clatter of a china cup against a matching saucer signaled the return of her host. When she opened her eyes, Tyler was standing over her, motionless.

“I almost fell asleep,” Sharon confessed, noticing that the judge had put on a jacket and string tie while waiting for the tea to brew. Tyler set the tea on the table and watched anxiously as his guest took a sip.

“Is it all right?”

“Perfect.”

Tyler sat opposite his guest and studied Hill as she sipped her tea.

“What brings you here at this time of night and in this weather?”

Hill had seemed at peace while she recovered from the cold, but Tyler’s question caused a sudden change, and he sensed desperation in the tension in her shoulders and the tight line of her lips.

“I’ve come to ask for your help.”

“What’s wrong?” Tyler asked.

“I’m being cheated by Orville Mason and Heather Gillette, and I can find no one to take my side. They’re throwing me out of my hotel. The lawyers are all against me. I have no one to turn to.”

“You must start at the beginning,” said Tyler, who could make no sense out of her disjointed statement.

“Ben and I traveled to San Francisco. We were married there.”

Sharon Hill could not have caused Jed Tyler greater pain had she shot him through the heart. If Hill was married to Benjamin Gillette, she was lost to him.

“I’ve shown the contract to several attorneys, but no one will help me. Mason has bought them off. It’s hopeless.”

“You have some sort of contract with Ben?”

“A marriage contract, duly notarized. An attorney in San Francisco prepared it. Ben signed it, but Heather Gillette swears it’s a forgery, and no one will risk her anger now that she controls Ben’s holdings.”

“I shouldn’t be listening to this. Litigation concerning this matter may come before me.”

“Not you, too,” Hill moaned.

Tyler felt terrible, but he also felt helpless. “You must understand—I want to help you, but I’m a judge. It’s my duty to remain neutral in matters that might come before me.”

Hill stood up. “I should have known you’d be like the rest. You were my only hope. I thought you would have the courage to stand up to Mason and Gillette.”

Tyler rose with her. “Wait, please. Sit down. You must calm yourself. I don’t understand why you’ve come to me if you’re married to Ben. Has he denied the contract?”

“Ben’s dead. Didn’t you know?”

Tyler was stunned. “I’ve been riding circuit. I had no way of knowing.”

“He died in my arms. And now his daughter is trying to cheat me and go against her father’s wishes.”

Tyler was torn. It would be totally inappropriate for a justice of the supreme court to intervene in a case that might come before him, but Sharon Hill affected him as no woman had before. He could not stand to see her in such distress.

“I’ll help. I’ll talk to Mason tomorrow. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

“Oh, Jed, I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”

She paused and looked upset.

“Is there something else troubling you?” Tyler asked.

Hill hesitated. Then she looked him in the eye. “When you see Mason he . . . he may say things about me.”

Tyler’s brow furrowed. “What kind of things?”

“Bad things.”

“Don’t worry, Sharon. I won’t believe Mason’s lies.”

Hill hesitated again before taking the risk she had debated taking since settling on the judge as her last resort.

“Some of what he says may not be lies. Jed, I’m going to be completely honest with you, even if it costs me your friendship. I know what I tell you will sound awful, but I can’t ask for your help and lie to you. You’re one of the few decent men I’ve met here, one of the few men besides Ben who has treated me with respect. So here it is.”

Hill looked away from Tyler and into the fire. “My life at home was terrible. My father . . .” Hill looked down. “He . . . There is no delicate way to put it. He mistreated me, Jed. Then he tried to marry me to a man for money. This man was so vile that it makes me ill to think of him. I had to escape, so I ran away to San Francisco. That’s where I met Warren Quimby.

“Quimby was a smooth talker. He took me in when I had nothing; he fed me. He said he loved me, and I believed him. He was sweet at first, but he soon controlled me completely. He . . . he forced me to . . . to do things with men against my will.

“I tried to run away, but he caught me and beat me within an inch of death. He kept me a prisoner in his room and starved me. It looked hopeless. Then he had a heart attack and died. I took what I could and fled to Oregon. I wanted to leave my old life behind. I wanted to be reborn. When Ben proposed, it was a dream come true.”

Hill looked directly at Tyler. “When I married Ben, I respected him and valued his friendship, but I never loved him. Marriage was my way out of the trap life had set for me. He was kind and he never mistreated me. And, yes, he was rich.”

Fire flashed in Hill’s eyes, defying Tyler to cast stones at her. “Do you see what that could mean to someone like me, who had lived a life filled with poverty and horror? And now Mason and Heather Gillette are spreading lies about me to keep me from inheriting Ben’s estate. They want people to believe I stole from Clyde Lukens even though the jury found him guilty. They’re even suggesting that a heart attack did not take Ben from me, that I had something to do with his death. Heather has always hated me. She’s spiteful, and she’s twisted Mason until he can’t see the truth.”

Tyler was stunned. What Hill had just told him was almost too much to absorb. How could he not have suspected the horrors Sharon had endured? How could there be no hint of the degradation to which she had been subjected? How brave must she have been to have gone through so much and still maintain her sanity?

“The whole city is against me, Jed. Now that you know the truth, where do you stand?”

Tyler hesitated, knowing that what he said next would either send Sharon Hill away forever or bind her to him. How much did she mean to him? he asked himself. The answer to that question was easy. She meant everything.

“I stand beside you,” the judge told Hill.

“I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”

“I’ll pay for your suite at the Evergreen. They won’t throw you out.”

“I can’t stay there. It’s been like living in hell. They refuse to clean my room or let me eat in the dining room. The staff smirks behind my back.”

“It’s the only decent hotel in town.”

“Then I’ll find a boardinghouse.”

Tyler made a decision. “I have a guest room in which you can stay.”

“I couldn’t. It would cause a scandal.”

“Sharon, I’ve been a respected member of this community for years. If I lose that respect by helping a woman in great distress, what was that respect worth in the first place?”

“Oh, Jed, I prayed you wouldn’t care what people thought. I prayed that you would stand by me.”

“I will,” Tyler swore. “They won’t hurt you anymore.”

JED TYLER FIXED DINNER FOR
Sharon Hill. Then he took her to the Evergreen Hotel, where they collected both her belongings and curious stares. Harvey Metcalf was at the front desk, and Hill delighted in the assistant manager’s servile attitude as he complied with the judge’s demand for assistance with her luggage.

Tyler’s guest room was at the other end of the hall from the judge’s bedroom. When Hill was settled in, the judge bade her good night and went to his own bedchamber, but it was difficult for him to sleep knowing that Sharon was so near and knowing that the choice he had just made could destroy the life he had built for himself.

Soon after they parted for the night, the judge heard a gentle knock on his door. He opened it and found Hill standing inches from him in a sheer nightgown.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said.

Moments later, Hill was in the judge’s arms.

After, as they lay together, Hill told Tyler that she had fallen in love with him when he’d held the lynch mob at bay in Phoenix. Then she told him how much Benjamin Gillette was worth and how rich they would be when her contract of marriage was upheld. They would own Gillette House. They would travel to Paris. They would drink the finest wines, wear the finest clothes, and make love on sheets made of silk. They would live in a paradise on earth. And they would have the power that wealth and Gillette’s business empire would bring them. Men would do what they willed, and they could do anything they imagined.

As she murmured in Tyler’s ear, Sharon Hill used the skills she had learned in her profession to arouse her lover again, and each time they made love she smiled with satisfaction, knowing that she had bound one of the state’s most powerful men to her through sex, the promise of wealth, and her power to make him love her.

CHAPTER 47

J
ustice Tyler rose shortly after dawn, despite having slept for only a few hours. Mrs. McCall arrived just as he was leaving to confront Orville Mason. It took all of her willpower to conceal her shock when she learned that the city’s most notorious female was bedded down in the judge’s home.

Orville Mason was surprised when his secretary announced that Jed Tyler was in his waiting room. He and Tyler were on opposite sides in the debate over slavery and in different political parties. They saw each other in court but had nothing in common other than the cases in which they were involved.

“I’ve come to discuss Benjamin Gillette’s marriage to Sharon Hill,” the judge said without preamble when the door to Orville’s office closed behind him.

“Benjamin Gillette and Sharon Hill were never married,” Orville stated firmly.

“I’ve seen the marriage contract.”

“I’m confused,” Orville said. “What possible reason can you have for involving yourself in this matter? You’re a judge, not an attorney.”

“I’m also Mrs. Gillette’s friend. Perhaps her only friend, since you’ve turned everyone in Portland against her.”

“Miss Hill is responsible for the town turning against her. Not only has she been trying to defraud Heather Gillette, but she’s been exposed as a perjurer. Miss Hill lied in Phoenix when she claimed that Clyde Lukens stole from her.”

“Nonsense. Lukens was found guilty by a jury in a case over which I presided. The evidence was clear.”

“You were deceived. Lukens’s company vouches for his honesty, and it has confirmed that the money Hill claims was hers was rightfully his.”

“You weren’t present in Phoenix. You didn’t hear the witnesses. In any event, what happened in Phoenix is irrelevant. There is a marriage contract signed by Benjamin Gillette. Sharon Hill and Gillette were betrothed, and I demand that you perform your duties as executor of his will.”

“I was Ben’s attorney, and he never told me anything about marrying Miss Hill. He didn’t ask me to change his will or take any other action consistent with marriage.

“More important, the contract is a fraud. When Joseph Baxter approached me on Miss Hill’s behalf, I gave him a document with Ben’s signature and asked him to compare it with the signature on the so-called contract. I’ve done the same with another attorney who wasted his time on this matter. I will give you the same opportunity to compare Ben’s actual signature with the signature on the so-called marriage contract. That signature is a blatant forgery, and that is why no attorney will represent Miss Hill.”

“Mrs. Gillette has given me her word that the signature is real. I accept her word.”

Orville sighed. “I have no wish to quarrel with you. I beg you to compare the signature on the contract with Ben’s real signature.”

“You refuse to recognize Mrs. Gillette’s claim?” Tyler asked.

“That is what I’ve been telling you.”

“Then we have nothing more to discuss.”

“Justice Tyler, Sharon Hill is a very dangerous woman. You have a sterling reputation. If you continue to assist her, it could ruin you.”

“We will see who will be ruined,” Tyler said, slamming the door as he left the office.

Orville slumped in his chair and massaged his temples. He was no friend of Jed Tyler, but he had no wish to see him brought low. He feared that would be the consequence of the judge’s actions if he continued to champion Hill’s immoral cause.