Frail Blood (15 page)

"Conjugal amen – good God, girl, what would you have me
do?" He spat out the words because he could not – would not throw her over
his knee and beat her heartily on her perfect ass – although that was precisely
what he wished to do.

"I made that statement believing you to be a woman
experienced in the ways of men," he ground out. "Obviously, I was
mistaken."

"Patently."

"You deceived me," he accused, as furious with
himself as with her. "You led me to believe – "

"You chose to believe what you wanted," she
corrected him, her fists tight balls of anger kneading her thighs.

He stood and started pacing, his agitation over her
stubbornness mounting with every step. "You didn't want me to know you
were a virgin, Emma. Be honest with yourself, if not with me."

She tilted her chin defiantly. "And what if I didn't?"

"Are you insane? I'd never have — "

"F – fucked me? You've never have fu — "

"Don't." He knew she used this coarse language to
shock and anger him and realized what it cost her, but it was a pathetic
attempt at bravado. "That's not worthy of you, Emma."

He sat beside her on the bed and took one of her balled
fists in his hands, straightening the fingers out of their tight knots. "You
can see that we might have to marry now. If there are consequences of our
actions, there's no other option."

If she'd lied about her innocence, she'd surely lied about
contraception.

A mantle of resignation settled on his shoulders. Although
he hadn't intended marriage, he would not abandon her. But she surprised him
yet again.

"I won't marry you." She pulled her fingers from
his grasp and sidled away from him. "I told you I do not wish to be tied
to a man's whim and under his thumb."

"If this affair should become public, you will be
ruined," he warned. "And what if there should be a child? You made me
believe you were practiced, that you took  precautions."

Her eyes widened and he realized she hadn't even thought
that far ahead.
Jesus Christ!

He tightened his jaw. "You never thought of that?"

"Neither did you!"

Raking his hand across his scruffy beard, he jumped to his
feet and stared out the bedroom window to the tree line below. "I would
have withdrawn had I known," he ground out.

"No one need know," she muttered. He turned to see
her lips set in a thin, determined line. "I will tell no one."

"Nor I." He gazed at her mutinous face. "But
what if there are consequences? You must see that a child changes everything."

She agreed, but with a grudging nod, and sat quietly on the
bed examining her nails while he pondered their messy quandary.

"What of the trial?" she asked after a few moments.
"What of Alma Bentley's case?"

He cleared the tray items away, and gently pushed Emma back
in bed. After returning the chair to its proper place, he turned to her.

"We must proceed with the case as if nothing happened
between us. We cannot let an innocent woman suffer because of our foolishness."
The words sounded priggish and self-serving even to himself.

"Goodnight, Emma." He closed the door softly,
gathered his clothes from downstairs, and let himself out the front door,
clicking the lock in place behind him.

All the way home, he thought, God, what a beast he was to
spill her blood.

Chapter 15

"The law hath not been dead, though it hath
slept." –
Measure for Measure

The next morning before Sarah could discover the soiled
clothing, Emma wrapped the stained bed linen and her lavender gown and robe in
a burlap bag she found in the outbuilding. She placed the bag in the mud room
and explained to Ralston that he should burn it.

Sarah's husband gave her a strange look. "Burn it, Miss
Emma? Are you sure?" He scratched his wiry head.

"Positive, Ralston, burn the damn things!"

He scurried off without so much as a breath of reproach for
her language.

In truth, she did not know how she could face Malachi this
morning at court. He had every right to be furious with her deception, but she
wasn't going to apologize for her virginity.

Having given the idea much thought, she decided her thinking
was accurate – her right to sexual pleasure was as important as any man's –
even if her methods were suspect and she'd underestimated the power of the
experience.

Surely the act was not so painful for all women? If so,
there would hardly be a burgeoning  growth in the nation's population. She had
understood from the whispered, secret conversations of her schoolmates at
Wellesley that many of them enjoyed the sexual act. At least they behaved with
a giddy silliness she found interesting.

And the ones who'd spoken of pain, she'd dismissed as faint
of heart. Perhaps the act required some getting accustomed to. She had expected
blood, of course, but not such a profusion of it. Little did she know!

In spite of the debacle of last evening, Emma felt strangely
restless. Against Ralston's objections she drove the carriage herself into town
several hours before the court session was scheduled to begin. There was no
sense in putting off the awkward encounter with Malachi. She felt much better
today and wasn't going to let him assume the experience had defeated her.

It certainly had not.

Malachi would likely be in his law office preparing for
court, and she would ask him what he wanted her to do. Although he'd previously
asked her to speak with Alma again, Emma wasn't sure what he wanted from her
now. He'd said they would continue with the trial, but did he really welcome
her help?

She meant to find out right away.

#

When Emma entered
The Gazette
office, even Thomas had
not yet arrived. The large, gloomy machines lay silent. The overcast morning
gave the large room a forlorn and abandoned look in the dreary atmosphere.

Moving towards her office in the rear, she remembered
Malachi's suggestion of getting local help for the cleaning. Dust had settled
over the back room like a light snowfall. Past issues of newspapers littered
the shelves and floor, creating a general air of disuse. The place clearly
needed a proper cleaning.

She removed her jacket, hat, and gloves and sat down in the
swivel chair behind her desk, reaching for a pad and pencil. Making a list of
tasks to be accomplished always calmed her and focused her thoughts.

First, she must speak to Thomas about the Machado family,
about the quarrel between the older son and the parents. Interviewing the
Machado sister was another possibility she should investigate. Third, she'd ask
Malachi about the cleaning girls whose names she'd forgotten. She also must ask
him how to arrange a visit with Alma – that was fourth on her list.

Deciding that she would attend to these matters today, Emma
glanced toward the closed back door. Should she ask Malachi now about the
sister, Phoebe Machado?

She wanted Malachi to see that she'd recovered from last
night's experience. Not that she imagined he was likely to care, but she wanted
to appear strong. She hated him thinking of her as a weak, frail girl when she
certainly was not! In fact, she felt quite herself again.

With this determination fueling her, Emma pushed open the
back door and shoved a wooden stop beneath the bottom edge to keep it from
locking behind her. She rapped sharply on Malachi's law office door.

No response.

She knocked more loudly and then banged with the flat of her
open hand. Damn! Now that she'd gotten up the courage to face him, he wasn't
there. Or was he ignoring her? Who else did he imagine would pound on his alley
door at this hour of the morning?

The lack of response piqued her temper and she raised her
fist to pound again when suddenly the door flew open. Malachi stood there, a
scowl on his face, his shirt-sleeves rolled up, no neck cloth, no jacket, and a
great many dirty smudges on his forearms and face.

"What?" he shouted at her.

"I – I need to speak with you."

"Damn it, Emma, come to the front of the office like a
reasonable person!" He stepped back and grudgingly allowed her to sweep
past him.

His office was in as horrible disarray as his person, books
stacked on the floor, files flung about the room, some lying in piles on the
desk and others littering the wooden floor.

"What are you doing?"

His scowl deepened and his voice rasped with irritability. "What
are
you
doing
here?"

She took a deep breath to keep from snapping back at him. "You
said we needed to continue with the case as if ... as if nothing happened
between us."

"Christ, woman, I didn't think you'd take me literally!"
He returned to his dark frowning, while she bristled at the implication that
he
was the injured party.

"And on the very next day," he added darkly.

"I hardly thought justice would wait for Alma Bentley,"
she retorted airily. "In spite of what you called our ... our foolishness
last evening, our client deserves the best of our efforts, don't you think?"

He had the grace to look away and mutter something she
couldn't quite make out.

"What are you doing?" she repeated, gesturing at
the messy stacks of files.

"I'm searching for common law cases that involve women
who committed felonies, particularly heinous ones."

"Like murder."

"Exactly." He scooped up a pile of folders from
the floor, swept aside a clutter of papers on a straight-backed wooden chair,
and indicated she should sit.

"Here, start looking," he commanded thrusting the
folders in her lap.

"Don't you have bound books that contain this
information?" she asked, batting at the dust that settled on her skirts.

He raised a brow and gave her a quelling stare.

She ignored the look. "What is this 'common law'
anyway?"

He perched on the edge of his desk and linked his fingers
together. "We have no criminal cases as precedent to exonerate Alma. She
committed murder, apparently premeditated. She went to the Machado home with a
weapon and killed Joseph Machado."

Emma knew she should remain silent, but she could not help
making the old argument. "If she's guilty of such an awful deed, she
should be judged guilty. Why can't you see that Alma must be held to the same
standard as a man?" 

The litany was apparently tiresome to him too, for he gave
her a disgusted look and pushed off the desk. "Do you intend to help or
argue with me?"

When she didn't answer, he continued, "You have no idea
what Alma Bentley has endured, do you? The poverty, the hard work? And when she
finally believed a man would take care of her, he tossed her aside after a few
months and went to the bed of another woman."

"Still – "

"Stop being naive, Emma. Alma is not a wicked woman. She
acted impulsively, out of desire and rejection." He eyed her pointedly, one
brow arched. "Surely you can understand that perspective."

She felt warmth creep into her cheeks, but she couldn't
argue with his logic and fell silent, resisting the urge to squirm under his
steely reproach. He nodded as if her lack of response to his charge was
agreement enough.

In truth, after last night she
should
understand a
woman's motivations. Had Alma merely wanted to experience the same pleasures as
a man? Or having once tasted the forbidden nectar, had she become insanely
jealous of her rival?

When Emma failed to respond, Malachi stood in front of his
desk, looked down at her, and continued his explanation of what she should do. "We're
looking for judicial opinions or decisions that can be used as a precedent to
help Alma's case."

"What should I look for specifically?"

"Those are California cases." He nodded to the
stack in her lap and on the floor next to her. "Look for California versus
any woman's name. When you find one, scan it to determine what the primary
charge against the woman was. If you find something you think might apply to
Alma's case, put it aside for me."

He sat down at his desk and swiveled away from her as though
she wasn't worth any more of his time.

#

They worked in silence for nearly an hour until Malachi
stretched and glanced up from his reading to notice the time. Court began
shortly. Emma bowed her head over a case file, a tiny frown marring the smooth
skin between her brows. He watched her for another moment or two, noting the
way she fingered her bottom lip while she concentrated.

"Find anything?"

Emma reached for three files she'd placed on the floor by
her feet. "You might be able to use something in these cases." She
pushed them across the desk.

He skimmed through the contents. "Good work. This one –
California v. Margaret Striker – could be helpful."

She nodded and stood up. "Thomas should be here by now.
I'll speak to him about the Machado's older son." She opened the door and
stood in the alley a moment. "I'd like to speak with the Machado's
daughter too – Phoebe."

Steeped in planning how to use the Striker case, Malachi
stood and unbuttoned his shirt. He presented his back to her and fetched a
clean shirt from a hook behind the door. Chucking the soiled one, he quickly
fastened the buttons and faced her again. Her face had flushed slightly.

"Speak with Phoebe Machado during the morning session,"
he instructed. "We can talk to Thomas together at the luncheon break."

Emma nodded and quickly stepped across the alley toward her
office. He watched her slender figure retreat through the open door of her
office, her back straight, her hips swaying gently, until the door closed with
a firm click.

He scraped his hand over his shadowed face, wondering if he
had time to remove the whiskers that'd begun to sprout there. But his thoughts
weren't focused on his grooming.

How would he and Emma be able to work together if she
reacted to him so easily and he imagined her unclothed body every time he
looked at her? A startling vivid image of her hips, naked and slick with sweat,
stayed with him long into the court session.

#

Malachi presented three witnesses during the morning session
of court. As he watched Alma maintain her anxious, agitated demeanor, he
wondered again if the look of her would win the sympathy of the men of the jury
or simply irritate them.

The first witness testified that Alma was a hardworking
girl, one who'd been proper and meek until she began to work in the Machado
household.

"Then, sudden-like she changed." Maryanne Bell, a
plump, round-faced girl of twenty, had worked with Alma Bentley in her previous
employment.

"How did Miss Bentley change?" Malachi asked.

"Objection!" Charles Fulton's third objection in
almost as many minutes began to weigh on Malachi's patience. He tossed the
attorney a quelling look.

"Miss Bell is hardly qualified to explain how Alma
changed," Fulton intoned. "She's not a doctor, nor did she work with
the defendant during the last four months."

"Sit down, Mr. Fulton," Judge Underwood snarled,
apparently as annoyed as Malachi with the incessant interruptions. He waved a
beefy hand at Malachi. "Continue, Mr. Rivers."

Malachi hadn't missed how Fulton addressed everyone except
the defendant with the utmost respect. With Alma he used only her given name, a
clear attempt to lower her status in the eyes of the jurors. But Malachi hoped
the very ploy of painting the accused as a lowly, unworthy woman would work
against the prosecution.

"Please explain for the court," he asked the
witness, "how you came to notice Miss Bentley's changes."

"Well, we still saw each other regular on our days off,
you know. Weren't many, but usually Sundays we had a good visit and talked a
storm." Maryanne's thin brows knitted. "She changed after bein'
there, Mr. Rivers. She was louder, more brassy like, you know."

She blushed, a bright red that left her round cheeks as red
as apples. "She talked about things a proper girl ain't supposed to
discuss."

"What things?"

The girl dipped her head and twisted her fingers in the lap
of her garment. "Things sort of ... intimate, like."

After Malachi finished with Miss Bell, several other
witnesses testified to the change in Alma Bentley's demeanor. One former
employer explained what a good, trustworthy girl Alma had been until she came
under the influence of Joseph Machado and his womanizing nature.

A general buzz set up in the courtroom after the lady
testified and Malachi carefully calculated the jurors' faces. Their eyes
strayed from the small bundle of nerves that was Alma Bentley to the large,
florid face of Mr. Machado. It wasn't difficult to see them weighing Alma's
smallness against the overwhelming bulkiness of the Machado clan, imagining the
strength and size of Joseph through his father's imposing figure.

Good. If Malachi had gotten them to think about poor Alma's
plight, he'd opened a crack in the door to her acquittal.