The Vow (24 page)
Then he strode out of the room.
Hannah went to Samuel, kneeling beside him and lifting his head off the hard floor, crooning his name over and over again as she begged him to wake up. Finally he groaned and struggled to sit up, his pale eyes glazed with pain and blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
“Are you all right?” she whispered, her eyes bright with tears. “Did he hurt you badly?”
He shook his head. “What about you?” The words were forced and slurred, as if talking pained him.
“Terrified.” Hannah trembled with the fear and shame of discovery. “What’s going to happen to us now? I’ve never seen Reiver so—so furious.” She closed her eyes against fresh tears. “I never should have asked you to meet me here. I’ve ruined everything. I’ll never forgive myself. I—”
“Hush.” Samuel stroked her cheek. “You’re not to blame. The fault is mine.”
“What’s going to happen to us?”
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“I honestly don’t know. Perhaps he’ll cast us out and we can go to Europe together. Perhaps he’ll forgive and forget, just as he expected you to forgive his transgression with Cecelia. But I won’t let him hurt you, Hannah. You know that.”
“Dear God, I feel as though the end of the world is coming and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
He brushed his bruised mouth lightly across hers and winced. “No, Hannah.
It’s not the end of the world for us. You’ll see.”
Reiver stood at his study window, his hands clasped tightly behind his back, when Hannah and Samuel came into the room. Hannah appeared suitably guilt-ridden and subdued, her eyes downcast, but Samuel held his brother’s gaze with infuriating defiance.
Reiver glared at them. “How could you? My wife and my own brother…”
Hannah’s head snapped up and the subdued wife disappeared. “How dare you stand there looking so self-righteous, Reiver Shaw! Need I remind you of Cecelia Tuttle?”
“Is that why you’ve betrayed me with my own brother, to get back at me for Cecelia? Such petty vindictiveness is beneath you, Hannah. At least I thought it was.”
She reached for Samuel’s hand. “I turned to Samuel because I felt lonely and unloved.”
“And you’re the one who made her feel that way,” Samuel said.
Reiver’s arms fell to his sides. “So I’m to blame for what you two have done, is that it?”
“No one is to blame,” Hannah said.
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“Does that assuage your guilt, Hannah?”
Her gaze slid away, and a blush stained her cheeks, “No.” She looked over at Samuel and drew strength from him. “I wish this had never happened, Reiver, but it has and there’s nothing any of us can do about it.”
He raised his brows. “Oh, but there is.”
Fear crept into Hannah’s eyes. “What do you mean?”
“You certainly don’t expect me to look the other way, to go on as if nothing has happened.”
She stiffened. “You expected me to act as though you had never had an affair with Cecelia Tuttle.”
“It’s not the same, Hannah. The world is willing to overlook a married man’s desires, but a mother must be above reproach.”
Samuel’s expression hardened. “Why, you damned, sanctimonious hypocrite!”
Hannah knotted her fingers together. “Our marriage is a sham, Reiver, and has been since the day I had to marry you. Samuel and I intend to go away together, and we’re taking the children with us.”
“Oh, no, Hannah,” Reiver said. “You’ll be going alone. I’ll not give up my sons.”
“I’m their mother!” Her voice rose in panic. “You wouldn’t separate children from their mother.”
“They’re also my sons, and the heirs to Shaw Silks.”
Samuel wiped fresh blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. “That’s all you’ve ever cared about, your precious silk mills.”
Reiver’s eyes narrowed. “Hannah may choose to stay. But I want you out.”
“Out? What do you mean?”
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“You’re no longer welcome here. You’re going to leave and never come back.
I don’t care where in the world you go, just as long as I never see your face again.”
Samuel looked as though he had been struck by lightning. “You can’t be serious. This is my home.”
“Not anymore. You’re forgetting that Father left me this land and the homestead because I’m the oldest. You and James have been living here through my generosity.” Reiver’s jaw clenched. “But you’ve betrayed me. And I don’t reward betrayal.”
Samuel turned white. “And what of all the times I gave you money to keep your precious silk mill afloat?”
Reiver shrugged. “You’ll always have my profound gratitude.”
“Who in the hell do you think you are, trying to banish me like some angry monarch?” Samuel said, eyes flashing. “I’m staying right here in Coldwater, whether you like it or not.”
“Then you can take Hannah with you, and explain to this town’s good citizens why you’re living in sin with your sister- in-law.”
Hannah stared at him, aghast. “You wouldn’t!”
“I will, if Samuel doesn’t agree to my terms.”
“Please, Reiver.” Hannah went to him and placed a beseeching hand on his arm. “Don’t do this. I’ll do anything you ask. I—”
“Don’t waste your breath pleading with him, Hannah,” Samuel said. “My brother always gets what he wants, and he never changes his mind once it’s made up.”
“You know me too well.” Reiver paused. “You have one week. I trust that will give you enough time to pack your bags and get out. Consider yourself lucky that I’m letting you off so easy.”
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Hannah didn’t hear Samuel’s reply. She focused her attention on the soft, silent snow falling outside the window, blanketing the land like a fluffy down comforter. She wanted its purity to embrace her, enfold her, drift over her, bury her.
Voices faded. The room slid away. Snow smothered the pain.
Hannah opened her eyes to find Reiver looking down at her with an unexpected air of concern.
Gradually her senses awoke and she realized that she was lying on the parlor sofa with several pillows beneath her head and a cold cloth draped across her forehead.
“You fainted,” he said. He knelt beside her, lifted her head, and held a glass to her lips, tending her as impersonally as a physician. “Drink this. It will make you feel better.”
Hannah took several sips of apple brandy, choked as it seared her throat, and coughed.
Reiver stood. “You needn’t look for Samuel. He’s gone back to the homestead.”
Hannah closed her eyes, trying to seek the snow’s comforting oblivion once again, but Reiver’s hand on her shoulder, shaking her, kept the snow outside.
“Do you feel strong enough to talk?” he asked. He sounded calmer now.
“We have much to discuss.”
Hannah took a deep breath and sat up. When the world stopped spinning, she faced her husband and wished desperately that Samuel were sitting beside her, giving her strength. Then she wouldn’t feel so awkward and alone.
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Reiver sat in the chair across from her and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “How long has this been going on?”
“Since after Amos Tuttle shot you.” She clasped her hands tightly. “I was suffering the humiliation of having everyone in Coldwater know that my husband had been keeping company with another man’s wife.” Her voice grew stronger and sharper as her strength returned. “Then I had to struggle with your refusal to love your own daughter no matter how hard I tried to bring you closer.
Samuel was always so kind and understanding, and—and before either of us realized what was happening—” She shrugged helplessly.
“For more than two years you and my brother have been lovers in my own house?”
“Not here. In the homestead. It was perfect for our…trysts. No one was ever around. No one ever suspected.”
A muscle twitched in Reiver’s jaw. “There will be no more trysts at the homestead or anywhere else before Samuel leaves, do you understand me?”
“You needn’t worry.”
Reiver raked his fingers through his hair and stared at the floor. “I know that I share the blame for what happened.”
Surprised by his admission, Hannah rose and went to the fireplace to warm her cold hands. “We’re all at fault.” She looked at him. “Why won’t you let me and the boys go away with Samuel? You and I don’t love each other. You married me for my uncle’s land, not because you loved me. What is the point of our staying together?”
“I’m not keeping you here, Hannah. You’re free to go with Samuel, if you wish. But my sons will stay here with me.”
“You know I couldn’t leave them.”
He rose. “Then it seems you’ve made the choice to stay.”
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“Won’t you let Samuel stay? This is his home, too.”
“No, Hannah. My brother betrayed a sacred trust. And if I allowed him to stay, who knows what would happen between the two of you again?”
“Nothing! I give you my word.”
He shook his head sadly. “I can’t take that chance.”
“People will wonder why Samuel is leaving Coldwater. Do you want another scandal?”
“There won’t be one. The curious will be told that he has wanderlust.”
“But James will surely wonder. Do you plan to tell him about Samuel and me?”
“Of course not. I do have my pride.”
She went over to a window and looked out at the snow. Her soul felt as bleak and empty as the shifting white landscape. “You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?”
“I usually do. That’s why I’m so successful.” He turned and left her staring at the snow.
Once in his study, Reiver put his feet up on his desk and leaned his chair back on two legs, balancing precariously. Hannah had surprised him. He never would have expected such wanton behavior from the mother of his children.
Though he wouldn’t admit it, her infidelity had hurt his pride as much as Amos Tuttle’s bullet had injured his body.
Reiver rose and went to the window, watching the snow drift against the house. He rubbed the stiffness out of the back of his neck, trying to shake the unsettling feeling that even after nine years of marriage, he didn’t really know his wife at all.
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“Where will you go?”
Hannah stood in the doorway of Samuel’s bedchamber, watching him pack several clean, folded shirts in the large brass-bound trunk standing in the middle of the room.
“I’ve decided to go to California,” he replied, “with the rest of the dreamers and fools.”
“Samuel, no!” She stepped into the room, forgetting her promise to Reiver.
“Go to Europe. At least there are museums there, and other artists. And you’ll be safe. California is so—so uncivilized.”
He winced because it still hurt to talk and grasped her hands tightly. “Don’t you see? I can’t go to Europe because you and I were supposed to go there together. Without you there, I’d miss you even more.”
Tears stung Hannah’s eyes. “Then why not go to Boston? Or New York?”
“Because I’d still be too close to you.” He dropped her hands and took a step back. “I hope the other end of the country will be far enough, but somehow I doubt it.”
She went over to his bed, where piles of neatly folded clothes awaited packing, and ran her hand down one of the shirts. “Will you prospect for gold?”
“I don’t know yet. But I do intend to make plenty of sketches and record the life out there. Who knows? Perhaps I’ll sell engravings to the newspapers back east.”
She turned to face him. “Reiver will change his mind, you’ll see. One day he’ll want you to come home.”
Samuel’s smile died. “Don’t delude yourself. My brother is a stubborn and unforgiving man. When he said he never wanted to see my face again, he meant for as long as he lives.”
“But you’re his brother.”
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“I also betrayed him.”
Hannah sighed. “I’m surprised he hasn’t cast me out along with you.”
“And sully the good name of Shaw once again? No, despite his claims to the contrary, Reiver cares what other people think of him. Our father was the object of ridicule because he was the town drunk. Do you think Reiver wants to be known as town cuckold? Not after what happened when Tuttle shot him.”
Samuel added his hairbrushes to the trunk. “I also think he’s feeling hypocritical about Cecelia.”
“In what way?”
“Well, he’s been unfaithful to you, so he can hardly spurn you for being unfaithful to him, now can he?”
“I didn’t become your lover to get back at Reiver.”
“I know that,” he said softly, “but Reiver thinks otherwise.”
Hannah just shook her head. “Has James guessed why you’re leaving?”
“No. I told him I’ve developed a yearning to see the world, and he’s accepted it. My innocent brother tends to believe what people tell him.”
Hannah grasped the bedpost. “I’d hate to have him think ill of me.”
Samuel stopped packing and looked at her. “No one who knows you could possibly think ill of you.”
Her lip quivered as she fought back tears. “I’m going to miss you so much.”
He closed, the distance between them in three strides and swept her into his arms, crushing her to him. She didn’t care who might walk in on them. She wound her arms around his neck, letting her body commit the feel of every muscle and bone of him to memory, storing up enough to last her a lifetime.
When she opened her mouth for his kiss, she surrendered to the rising passion, even though she knew it could never come to fruition.
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“I love you, Samuel,” she whispered through her tears. She took his beloved face in her hands and looked into his eyes, their merriment replaced by a profound sadness that broke her heart.
“And I do love you, Hannah Shaw.”