Broken Vows (28 page)

      
When the Silver Lady reopened, Amos Wells and his cohorts made a fortune. Patrick swore he would find proof one day, but first he wanted to return for the younger brother both he and Ryan had promised to retrieve.

      
By the time Patrick arrived, Rory had already left St. Vincent's, swallowed up in the boundless vastness of the West. Heartsick, Patrick had returned to San Francisco and set to work building his shipping empire. He hired agents to search for the youth; but Rory had vanished without a trace—until a cocky young horse breeder from Nevada delivered a fine racer to his town house one day four years ago.

      
If only Rory could forget his obsession with Wells' wife. He needed to concentrate on ferreting out evidence about Wells' criminal activities while they both were in Washington. Patrick misliked having Rory so near Rebekah during his term in Congress. What would happen if the two accidentally met? Or worse yet, what if Rory sought her out? He pushed the disturbing thought from his mind and sat down at his brother's big desk to dig through the piles of business correspondence.

      
“No sense borrowing trouble,” he sighed to himself.

* * * *

Washington

      
Rebekah sat in the center of her big, lonely bed, unable to sleep. Her jaw still ached from the blow Amos had delivered on the way home from the embassy earlier that evening, but not half as much as the other, more judiciously considered, blows he had given her in the privacy of her bedroom—blows to her body in places where no one would see them but Patsy. After all, she was his ornament, and one must not break such a beautiful bauble.

      
Bernice Gould had practically trampled her way through the press of guests to whisper to Amos about how his wife and the new Nevada congressman had danced so scandalously close and then slipped from the ballroom into the secluded garden. Amos was livid. She had lowered herself to consort with riffraff and made him a laughingstock. Her public display was even more heinous than if she had broken her marriage vows and let Rory do as he had so crudely put it—taken her right there in the ambassador's topiary.

      
She felt unclean, thinking of her husband's brutality and her former lover's cruelly mocking words—and fiery, punishing kiss. “He's right. I do still desire him. I would've let him do whatever he wished with me.” She shivered and hugged her bruised ribs. Suddenly, unable to bear being alone in her mockery of a marriage bed, Rebekah threw back the covers and rose. The pain from her beating made her wince as she drew on a robe. She walked over to the window of their big brownstone, which afforded a splendid view of the capital; but the beauty of the city did nothing to soothe her troubled spirit.

      
Rebekah tiptoed into Michael's room where his nanny slept on a pallet near the door. Amos had insisted on a wet nurse for him and then had hired a series of nurse-governesses, freeing the boy's mother for their arduous social calendar. At every turn, she defied him as much as she dared, slipping away from other duties to squeeze in precious moments with Michael. Kneeling beside his bed, she surveyed his beautiful little face.

      
He would be four years old in the spring and was already beginning to look like his father. Soon, this baby bed would be too small. She reached down and gently ruffled his inky-black hair. How fortunate, at least, that Amos, too, was dark, else he might have disowned the boy. As it was, she feared Michael's growing resemblance to Rory would create problems eventually. Amos had threatened her with boarding schools in cold, distant Massachusetts.

      
“It's only a means of keeping me in line. He won't separate us, darling. I promise.” She leaned down and kissed her son's forehead, then watched as he snuggled over on his side and sucked his thumb.
What would Rory think if he could see his son?

      
The question came out of nowhere. She had not considered it since Michael was a newborn, but meeting Rory tonight had triggered all her old hopes and fears. He must never learn about the boy. Already, Michael was a pawn in the ugly struggle between her and Amos. She would not let Rory try to use him as well. “I'm sure he doesn't give a damn about Michael. He's probably left a string of children from New York to San Francisco.” She was only another in a long series of foolish girls who had succumbed to his charms.

      
Rebekah rose and went in search of some warm milk to lace with laudanum. When she was desperate for sleep, she used the evil stuff sparingly. Amos had had the physician in Washington prescribe it for her nerves in a blatant attempt to addict her, which almost succeeded before she realized his scheme. She had grown so dependent that it cost her weeks of agony to overcome the craving. By sheer force of will, she succeeded. After that, he realized that his control over Michael was a sufficient threat to hold her in line. He did not need the laudanum.

      
But tonight, she needed something to assuage her pain, which was far beyond the mere physical aches of her beating. Amos had beaten her before, although not often. The physical pain she could endure, but the sort that Rory inflicted with his cruel words—that pain she could not withstand. The worst of it was that after all the years and treachery that stood between them, she had come to heel like his creature.

      
I was his creature, but no more!
She moved through the long empty corridors of the big house, headed toward the kitchen. The sound of several voices carried from Amos' study. It was late, nearly three a.m. Whatever kind of clandestine meeting her husband was having at this ghastly hour, she did not want to know. Amos was involved in all sorts of shady dealings with other members of Congress and high-ranking cabinet officials in President Grant's administration. She soundlessly passed the heavy walnut door, but then a stranger's voice froze her in her tracks.

      
“You're certain Madigan won't be a problem? He's been nosing around the capital ever since he arrived, asking discreet questions about your connection to the mining lobby.”

      
“That Irish upstart! He's nothing, I tell you. A one-term congressman elected by his fellow mickeys. A fluke because Bradley won the governorship. They'll both be gone come next election.” Amos pronounced.

      
“I just don't want any trouble in the meanwhile,” another voice interjected. Rebekah recognized it as belonging to a senior congressman from California who was a crony of Amos'.

      
“Have you spread word about the new vein in the Kettle Creek Mine?” the stranger asked.

      
Amos chuckled. “Rumor has it the mother lode is ten feet wide and deep enough to mine to China.”

      
“Good, good. How soon will it be safe to begin unloading that worthless Kettle Creek stock?”

      
“I'd wait another week or two. We're holding the miners underground—bribed them with free whiskey and whores. Everyone in the know will think there's a really big strike. I figure stock prices should triple in two weeks,” Amos replied.

      
“Let us hope so. My banking friends in Sacramento expect to maximize this—er, investment in Kettle Creek,” the California congressman added.

      
“Only be certain your new Nevada congressman and his troublesome brother don't get in our way. Patrick Madigan has had agents trying to link us to his elder brother's death for years. Now that he has a foothold in Congress through the younger brother—well, I don't like it.” The stranger's voice was petulant. “It was an ill day when those two were reunited.”

      
“If the Madigan brothers become a danger, we have ways to take care of them. Out west we know how to deal with troublemakers,” Amos replied in an ice-cold tone. “Don't fret, Stephan.”

      
Stephan! Stephan Hammer—an undersecretary in the Department of the Interior. So he was part of Amos' corrupt ring that got rich by manipulating mining stocks illegally. And they were threatening Rory—and his brother Patrick.

      
Patrick wasn't dead after all! Hearing the sounds of chairs scraping, Rebekah realized that the meeting was breaking up. She hurried around the corner and down the hall to the kitchen, where she sank onto a hard-backed chair and tried desperately to think.

      
Amos was utterly ruthless. She had always known that. And he had been involved in the death of Rory's brother Ryan. Had Rory set out to seduce her because Amos was courting her? It seemed farfetched, yet it was possible. Seeing him at the embassy made the deception easier to credit. He had been so cold and sarcastic, a distant stranger with newly acquired wealth and polish.

      
“Let them kill each other,” she whispered in the still kitchen. But in her heart she knew her words rang false. Whatever else he was, Rory had never been a criminal. He fought his own battles. He would not stoop to hiring assassins. But Amos would.

      
Out west we know how to deal with troublemakers.
Rebekah forgot about the milk and painkillers. She hurried back to her room to write a note.

* * * *

      
Rory crumpled the brief, cryptic message in his fist. Why would she send him a message warning him that Amos was watching his activities? Be wary, she cautioned.

      
“I'm damn sure it wasn't for love of me,” he said to himself bitterly, downing another swallow from the glass of brandy. He stared broodingly at the fireplace grate, empty of logs during the warm fall evening.

      
“Wells probably put her up to it—to scare me off. No doubt, her penance for creating gossip by dancing with me. He probably even heard we slipped outside for an indiscreet amount of time.” But Rory did not want to remember how she had felt in his arms again after all the years. He had sworn to make her beg, to come to him as a supplicant. If his loss of control that night was any indication, he would never succeed.

      
“Damn you, Rebekah Sinclair!” He threw the balled-up note into the empty fireplace and drained his glass.

Chapter Thirteen

Wellsville, May, 1878

      
After the mourners offering condolences had departed, only the immediate family remained at the parsonage with Ephraim. Amos had urgent business in the capital and quickly made his excuses, instructing his brother-in-law to escort Rebekah to the Flying W the next morning. Leah and their two sons were staying at the parsonage with Ephraim for a few more days. As her sister bustled her young boys upstairs for bedtime, Rebekah watched enviously.

      
She has them with her all the time while little Michael is a continent away from me.
The ache of loneliness filled Rebekah. The pain had been a constant companion over the years. She went into the kitchen to straighten up after her mother's funeral dinner, but found the church ladies had put everything in Dorcas' kitchen back in better order than her own daughter could have done. Ephraim had held up well during the last days, but only another who secretly grieved could recognize the anguish he held so deeply inside himself.

      
Standing at the kitchen window, she watched her father walk around to the opposite side of the church, where the graveyard lay. When he did not return as dusk began to settle, she went after him. Ephraim was kneeling at the side of his wife's grave.

      
“It's time to come in now, Papa,” she said gently, placing her hand on his shoulder.

      
He seemed not to take notice for a moment. Then, he spoke quietly. “I never loved her the way I should have. She always knew.”

      
“You were a good husband, Papa.”

      
“She knew about Kathleen.”

      
Oh, Papa, don't...
“Kathleen was in your past. Over and done with when you wed Mama. You never dishonored your vows to her.”

      
“I was unfaithful. The Commandments don't pertain just to overt actions, Rebekah. I lusted in my heart for another, and that made me guilty of adultery.”

      
“Then it never goes away, does it?” she said miserably.

      
They both knew what she meant.

      
He seemed more frail and stoop-shouldered than ever as he rose and looked down at Dorcas' freshly carved tombstone. “No, it never does.” He turned to her with anguish on his face, and their eyes met. “I've had a feeling for years that I made a terrible mistake about you and Amos.”

      
She could not bear to tell him of the humiliating sham her marriage had been from the wedding night on. He suffered enough guilt over Dorcas. “You did the only thing you could. The mistake was mine,” she said firmly.

      
He shook his head. “No. I scarcely consider a splendid boy like Michael to be a mistake. We all take great joy in him.” Her eyes shifted away from his and scanned the eastern horizon. “Amos has always known.” It was not a question.

      
They had not broached this subject since that fateful day in his study when he advised his frightened daughter to marry for the protection of her unborn child. Rebekah nodded her head, working up the courage to speak as tears welled up from deep inside her. She had been unable to cry when the news of her mother's sudden death from a heart seizure came. In fact, she had not shed a single tear during the seemingly endless days of the wake, nor at the funeral. Now, suddenly, grief overwhelmed her.

      
Ephraim took her in his arms and gazed heavenward, his heart breaking with every sob. “Has he abused you or my grandson?” His voice was quiet and terse.