Frail Blood (19 page)

He clutched her as tightly as he dared and increased his
speed, listening to her slight groans and labored breaths with each gallop of
Bathsheba's hooves. The journey back to Placer Hills seemed interminable.

Shock had clearly set in. Emma's entire body trembled, her
jaws clattered, and she whimpered from the cold even though he'd wrapped her
tightly in his greatcoat.

When he reached Placer Hills, he slowed his horse to a trot
until he reached the crossroads where their properties diverged, his to the
left and hers to the right. He hesitated a long moment. If he took her home,
the news of this night's events might spread before they had time to squelch
the rumors. Questions, perhaps accusations, from her family.

But the confines of his small cabin would make her feel
uncomfortable. Sarah would know how to comfort her, and at any rate, the woman
might be waiting up for her. He angled the horse to the right.

"No!" Emma groaned. "I don't want to go home.
Please." Her thighs against his legs felt hot and damp in spite of the
night air. She reached her arms around his neck and her palms against his face
burned hot and feverish.

"Sarah can take care of you," he explained,
continuing along the rutted path. "You need to be attended to."

"No," she insisted.

She began a quiet, muffled sobbing, wetting his shirt with
her tears. Damn, he'd always been undone by a woman's weeping.

He edged Bathsheba around and negotiated the dirt road past
the juncture toward his home.

Chapter 20

"What wound did ever heal but by degrees?" –
Othello

Malachi cajoled Emma into a tub of warm water sprinkled with
Epsom salts, for the stiffness she'd feel in her limbs, he insisted, and draped
a sheet over a line of rope to provide some measure of privacy. Then he'd left
her in peace.

She lay back against the wooden rim, weary to the very
marrow of her bones, certain she'd never feel better again. Afraid the
experience in the alley had damaged something inside her beyond repair.

Remembering, she sat up quickly and wrapped her arms around
her knees. Those men, those filthy animals had gaped and groped at her naked
body. She'd never felt so exposed and utterly helpless as during the minutes
she'd suffered at their hands.

She dashed an angry hand across her cheeks and swiped at her
runny nose. She didn't want to feel so vulnerable, a casualty of the harsh
world of men whose power dominated women. During her four years at Wellesley,
she'd felt strong, a woman capable of surviving and prospering in the society
of men. But in a short span of time, the men in the alley had stripped her
confidence as surely as they'd stripped her clothing from her body.

Was this how women who lived on the docks felt every moment
of their existence? Was there no one they could turn to for protection?
Was
this Alma's fate?

Emma remembered the garish face of the prostitute who'd
referred her to the unknown "Johnny." Was he the person to whom these
desperate women looked for safety? And how protected could they feel when the
man who sold their bodies for profit purportedly secured their well-being?

She stuffed her knuckles against her mouth to smother her
sounds. Frustration, anger, and fear whirled around her as she emptied her
tears into the rapidly-cooling bath water. Prickles of goose bumps rose on her
arms and back as she shivered in the chilly air.

As if he'd known the exact moment when she needed him,
Malachi stepped around the makeshift curtain and held a thick white towel up
for her. She allowed him to drape the thick towel around her body.

That done, he lifted her in his arms and carried her into
the main room where he'd laid a crackling fire. He set her gently in the single
worn, heavily-padded chair and used another towel to rub briskly at her legs
and arms.

Turning his back to her, he banked up the coals and added
another log to the fire. When he looked at her again, his eyes flashed with an
emotion she didn't recognize. "Don't cry, Emma. It breaks my heart to see
you weep like this."

He traced one finger down the line of her jaw. "Don't
let the bastards win."

She wished Malachi had railed at her. Had he berated her for
the foolish trip to the docks, she'd have bucked up under his scorn and given
him back as good as he gave.

He reached for a heavy plaid robe that hung by the single
bed in the farthest corner of the room. Pulling her to her feet, he let the
damp towels drop to the hard floor. He scarcely seemed to notice her nakedness
and somehow his disinterest comforted her. Inserting her arms into the
oversized robe, he drew the belt around her waist several times and secured it
in front.

Then he led her to the bed, pushed her gently down onto
rough, but sweet-smelling, linen and pulled the covers up to her chin. He laid
an extra blanket over her feet and stood staring down at her for several long
moments. "Go to sleep now. Sleep heals everything, Emma. Trust me."

She prayed he was right. Her left breast was tender from the
young thug's bruising pinch and the scraps on her thighs stung from another's
dirty fingernails. She nodded, summoned up a weak smile, and was rewarded by
the sudden flashing of teeth against his dark skin.

The small dimple at the corner of his mouth winked at her
once before he became serious again. "I promise you're safe with me."
He uttered the words with the solemnity of a holy vow.

She nodded again and turned on her side, her eyelids feeling
like heavy bags of sand over her drooping eyes. She fluttered to keep them
open, to keep looking into the anchor of Malachi's face, but the effort became
too much.

She felt herself slipping away into the gentle safety of
slumber.

#

Malachi dumped the bath water off the back porch and hung
the towels to dry in the small mud room to the rear of the cabin. Finally, he
fixed the makeshift drapery so that it hung from a beam over the bed and
provided Emma with privacy while she slept. He hauled the rocking chair closer
to the fire and angled it so that he merely had to turn his head to glimpse the
back of her sleeping form.

She hadn't moved a muscle in nearly an hour.

He worked on his summation for the trial, but after thirty
minutes, put his work aside and donned a heavy coat. The least he could do was
inform the Ralstons that their mistress was safe.

Emma might not appreciate the effort, but he didn't want the
older couple to worry any more than necessary. He imagined a bizarre scenario
in which they had already set up a cry and hue about the surrounding woods only
to find their Goldilocks sleeping in the bed of the big, bad wolf.

All they needed was that kind of scandal.

He smiled to himself with no real mirth and set off at a
rapid pace to cover the several miles between their two houses, counting on
Emma to remain sleeping while he was gone. He arrived short of breath, only to
see her house lit up like a New Year's celebratory party.

A carriage sat in the graveled turnabout, and Stephen Knight's
Olds automobile waited at the farthest edge of the drive.
Damn!
The
honesty with which he'd intended to approach the Ralstons gave way to a quick
inventory for a credible lie, one that would satisfy Emma's family and maintain
her reputation.

Fortunately, the person to answer his knock on the heavy oak
doors was Stephen Knight himself. "Malachi!" The older man quickly stepped
out onto the landing and drew Malachi several yards away from the house.

"She's safe," Malachi said immediately to allay
the man's fears for his niece's safety.

A stern look of reproach in his eyes, Stephen glowered at
Malachi. "What have you to do with Emma's disappearance?"

By instinct Malachi pulled Stephen deeper into the shadows. "She
hasn't ... disappeared. Emma's at my cabin."

Stephen had every right to the look of anger and
disappointment on his unlined face at this admission, but he merely narrowed
his eyes and asked, "Have you harmed her?"

"No! God, no!"

A look of relief replaced the uncle's worried countenance. "Thank
God!" He staggered backward for a moment and Malachi caught him, lowering
him onto a gnarled stump by the largest of the outbuildings.

"Where in God's name has she been?" Stephen asked
when he'd caught his breath and bearings again. "Sarah and Ralston noticed
she was missing and came to me. We've called no one."

Malachi raked his fingers through his hair and down over the
scrap of rough beard on his jaw. He hated telling the man where Emma had gone. And
worse yet, why she'd gone there.

But there was no avoiding the truth. Perhaps between the two
of them they could concoct a story to satisfy her parents, for he now
recognized the opulent carriage in the driveway as belonging to Franklin Knight.

No doubt only the fear of scandal had kept them from alerting
Sheriff Butler.

He crouched beside Stephen so that their eyes were level. "It's
my fault," he admitted, staring at his hands. "I goaded her and she
took off for – "

"Say no more." Stephen sliced his hand through the
air. "It doesn't take much to get Emma to behave recklessly."

"She went to the Waterfront Street docks."

"My God, to that hell-hole?" Stephen leapt from
the stump. "Why would she risk going to such a place?"

Since the river's last flooding the surrounding area of
Sacramento had rapidly declined into the worst kind of slum, inhabited by
degenerates and thieves.

Malachi rose and put a hand on the older man's shoulder. "She
wanted to see where a woman like Alma Bentley was raised. To see the living
conditions of less fortunate women."

Stephen didn't suppress a glow of approval. "Damn, that's
exactly what the chit would do! But so late? At night? Hadn't she any idea of
the danger?"

Malachi shrugged. "Apparently, the cab was ordered to
wait for her." He smiled as he imagined the haughty tone Emma would've
taken with the driver. Clearly to no avail.

"And?"

"And he did not. When I arrived, Emma was fending off a
number of men with the heel of her boot."

Malachi would not tell her uncle of the heart-stopping scene
in the alley where the four degenerates had cornered her, stripping her to the
waist and lifting her skirts to ogle that which only a husband should see. Nor
would he speak of her near rape and degradation, for Malachi had no doubt the
men intended sadistic sport for the unlucky lady they'd captured in the alley.

Better that Stephen believe the experience at the docks was
another of Emma's humorous sallies in the name of her newspaper research.

Stephen surely questioned Malachi's easy lie, for the
chuckle he gave appeared forced. "That's my Emma. Tackling the world."

"She's resting at my cabin, sir. I promise she is safe.
No harm will come to her in my care." He paused a brief moment. "Nor
by my actions."

"I'll have your word on that, Rivers." The man
extended his hand and flashed a steely look. "Emma is very precious to me,
you know."

"I understand, sir." He clasped the man's hand in
a firm grip and inclined his head toward the house. "What story should we
tell the others?"

"Let me take care of that," Stephen said. "I
have a lady friend in New Castle. I'll spin a tale that Emma was interviewing a
witness for the trial and neglected to inform us of her whereabouts until just
now."

Malachi looked around him. "At this moment?"

"Of course." Stephen smiled slyly. "Did you
not hear the horseman who raced down from New Castle to deliver the news?"

Malachi grinned. "Emma is fortunate to have you,
Stephen."

Stephen gazed back at the house where the forms of Franklin
and Mary Knight silhouetted against the sheer draperies hung in the parlor
windows. "Emma's a rare one."

He sighed and jammed his fists into his pockets. "Sometimes
I wonder how she flowered into such a hothouse orchid in the cold frigidity of
her parents' marriage."

#

Emma was still sleeping when Malachi returned to the cabin. The
fire had died out and the room was beginning to chill. As quietly as possible,
he laid another log and tindered it until it caught and started to blaze up.

At last he returned to the rocking chair where he jotted
down a few additional notes for his summation. With luck, the trial would end
this week. With even greater fortune smiling on them, Alma would be a free
woman.

He must've dozed, for a sound awakened him and he jerked his
head from his chest, searching around the room. There, again, the rustling of
flesh against fabric. He glanced toward the bed where Emma lay.

She'd rolled over and now faced him, thrashing at the
bedding until it bunched at her feet. A groan came from her lips, but her eyes
remained closed. The robe he'd wrapped so carefully around her body had tugged
open with her tossing, and her bare breasts peeked beneath the robe's lapels. Her
pale, slender thighs gleamed beneath the hem.

She was an extraordinary woman. Beautiful, yes, but
unconventionally so with her richly-colored hair and perfect flesh, her eyes at
times as inky as midnight, and then again soft as the rich brown earth of his
land.

He'd taken her virginity – albeit unknowingly – but to
engage in further relations with her, as tempting as the notion was, went
against his notion of gentlemanly behavior. As inexperienced as she was, she
had no real conception of the consequences of engaging in an affair.

Still, he suddenly realized he very much wanted to be Emma
Knight's lover. Unless he was far off the mark, that's what she desired too. What
harm was there in two willing adults enjoying the pleasures of the flesh?

Not now, of course. Not when she suffered from memories of
what might have happened in Firehouse Alley near the docks. Later, when she'd
healed.

Now that her bothersome virginity was out of the way, they
could indulge in the true carnal delights between a man and woman. He rather
thought he'd enjoy showing Emma how earth-shattering the act of physical
satisfaction could be.

He hesitated in his musings. But to what end, he asked
himself?

Emma professed not to desire marriage. He certainly had no
inclination to marry again. What other option was there for persons of their
station? Her station, at any rate, for society might wink at his sexual
transgressions, but it would never approve a woman of Emma's social position
taking a lover for any length of time.

And, once he'd begun with her, he did not envision readily
giving her up.

But surely he did not love her.

#

Emma opened her eyes to take in the scene around her. Her
lids pressed down on her eyes as if she'd been drugged, but languor sent a
pleasant mellowness over her limbs.

Malachi rocked gently in a massive chair by the fireplace
which blazed with a roaring fire that reached her even in the corner of the
room. His head buried in a stack of papers, he reached occasionally for a book
from the stack on the floor, underlined something in pencil, and jotted notes
on a yellow pad.

For a lazy moment she couldn't remember why she was here in his
cabin, in his bed, but the sheer comfort of the worn quilts and the mesmerizing
dance of the flames lulled her into a drowsiness that closed her eyelids and
slowed her breathing until she slept again.