Chasing the Sunset(11)

Maggie firmed her chin. She was not a coward, and she could do this thing. With this decision came resolution and she dressed and made her way to the kitchens with a firm step, not faltering until she put her hand on the door.

He was in there. She could feel him. Maggie took a deep breath and pushed the door open. Nick sat with his back to her, at the table. His broad shoulders were slumped, his posture that of a defeated man. His face when he turned toward her made her gasp, for she had never seen such a maelstrom of emotion so clearly visible to the eye. His every thought was available to her, and she felt as if he had suddenly risen and stripped off every piece of his clothing. She saw

anger, and pity, and confusion, and desire, all jumbled together. He was naked to her for mere moments, and then he broke eye contact by turning away. When he turned back, a film had dropped over his magnificent eyes, and it was as if that moment of unity had never happened.

“I have made coffee,” he said quietly. “All I require this morning is a light breakfast, perhaps some toast and an egg. Oh, and Tommy will be moving into an upstairs bedroom today. Will you get one ready for him, please?”

Maggie stood and looked at him, then crossed the kitchen and poured herself a cup of the black, steaming coffee, breathing appreciatively of its comforting fragrance. She went to stand behind his chair, deliberately touching his shoulder with a trembling hand. She felt him stiffen beneath her touch, and she began.

“My parents died when I was fifteen, in a carriage accident,” she said. “They were coming home from a party at a friend’s house. They were very happy, and always laughing. It made others happy to be around them; they had lots of friends. My father’s name was Patrick, my mother’s was Suisan.”

His hand came up to cover hers and his head bowed. He knew how much courage it had taken for her to close the gap between them and lay that hand upon his shoulder, and his heart twisted in his chest. What did it cost her to do so? How excruciating was it for her to search so deeply inside herself for the mettle that she needed to do this? Her fear was glaring and tangible; it touched every aspect of her life, and it forced her to see all the ugliness that resided in the world, to see it without the filter of magic or dreams or even charm. And it was not because it was her nature to see it that way, but because circumstances had forced her to view it thus in order to survive. He wanted to hold her and tell her that from now on everything would be all right. But he didn’t dare.

“You do not have to,” he whispered. “I talked to Ned, and he told me what he knows.”

“Yes,” Maggie said. “Yes, I do have to. I have gone much too long without saying it, kept it locked up inside me for far too long. It is a poison inside me that is eating me up and killing me a little more every day. You have already done so much for me, Nick, and now I must do something for you, by trusting you. You have given me faith in someone again. You have shown me that the world is not all oppression and greed, that it is not all about neglect and cruelty to others. You have given me hope, and you must forgive me for not recognizing it right away. It has been so long since I felt that emotion, you see. So let me tell you this story, both for you and for me."”

Nick tightened his grip on her hand, and guided her to the chair in front of him. Maggie sat her coffee down and studied the grain of the wood table, unable to meet the pity she knew would be in his eyes.

“My mother was an artist, a painter. A very good one, and very much sought after in St. Louis and elsewhere. She even got commissions for portraits all the way in New York, and in Boston. My father was always chasing rainbows, full of dreams. My mother and I sometimes tried to bring him down from the clouds, but my father’s world was so beguiling that we always ended up believing in his schemes.”

A smile etched her mouth. Her face was soft with memories, and Nick wanted to trace the dreamy smile on her full lips. He wanted to touch her face with his fingers, softly, and teach her that all men were not bad, that they all did not hurt others for their own perverted pleasure.

“It always came out right in the end. We had the income from my mother’s paintings, and we were a family. We loved each other. I had the best childhood, the absolute best.” Maggie’s lower lip trembled just a bit, and a finger began to trace a pattern on the cup in front of her. The luminous glow in her emerald eyes began to dim.

“After they died, a solicitor came to visit me. He told me that his name was David, and he seemed very kind. He told me that my father had made foolish investments, which was certainly no surprise to me. But everything else he had told me was a surprise, for I never once thought that my mother and father would leave me without the means to take care of myself. But this solicitor, David, told me that he had just received word that my Uncle Ned was dead, that I had no other living relatives, and that my house and all its contents had to be sold in order to meet my father’s debts. He would, however, allow me to stay in his lodgings, fully chaperoned of course, until I found some other place to go or he could make arrangements for me.”

Maggie laughed, a bitter harsh bark so unlike her usual musical voice that it made Nick shift in his chair. “I was so grateful. I knew, of course, what my father was like, and it all seemed very possible, though my mother had told me that I had some money in trust. But I just supposed that my father had talked her into letting him spend it on one of his schemes. I was too shocked to make any decisions on my own and I was also too young to realize what that look in his eyes meant and I said yes . . . I went to live in his house and he treated me so gently, so carefully. Two months later he offered to marry me. I was so pathetically glad that I had somewhere to stay, I wanted so much to have a family again . . . and so I said yes and my days in hell began. He beat me into unconsciousness on our wedding night and told me that it was for my own good, and he smiled the whole time that he beat me.”

A shudder racked her whole body, and Nick tightened his grasp upon her hand. “I was not allowed to be alone, ever. If I smiled at someone in the street, he beat me for flirting. Once, he nearly horsewhipped a young boy to death for winking at me, and then he beat me for intervening. I was forced to work like a drudge in my own household, and the help were paid extra to spy on me. They all soon found out there was money to be made that way, so if there was nothing to report, why, they made it up, and I paid the price for it. I was allowed to have no friends, and if any of the servants were caught being too friendly to me, or got caught covering up for me, he turned them out without a reference."

She smiled a crooked smile that made Nick’s heart turn over in his breast. “I had no allies that way, you see. He locked me in my room for days on end with only a pitcher of water, no food, for any imagined wrongdoing. To teach me a lesson, he said. Then he would come at night to torture me. I slept under my bed some nights, wedged in the corner, waiting for him to come. He always dragged me out, though. I never got away from him.”

“I am so sorry,” Nick whispered. “Maggie, I . . . I am so sorry.”

Maggie smiled at him tremulously, and her free hand sketched an airy gesture. Her pointed chin rose almost defiantly.

“It is over now . . . and I lived through it.” She smiled grimly. “That bastard could not kill me, or my spirit, though he tried.” She hesitated, and looked down at the scarred wooden table. Her brows drew together in a frown.

“After . . . after he died, I found all the letters my Uncle Ned had written to me, and I realized that he had lied to me. He probably lied about the other things, too, the money and such, but it was too late to retrieve my parents’ possessions. I took the household money and left. I did not want any of his things. It would have made me feel . . . dirty. I felt dirty enough already.” Her gaze met his fleetingly, and then she bowed her head again. “I went to find Uncle Ned. It took me almost four months to get enough money to get here. I was lucky enough to find a kindly widow who let me stay with her for a while, and she paid me a pittance each week that I saved along with the money that I had taken. You know the rest. I had been here about a week when you hired me.”

Nick sat silently and stared down at Maggie’s small hand inside his own large one. Her fingers were delicate, the tiny palm callused. It made him feel sick to his stomach, to think of Maggie hurt, and bleeding, and no-one there to help her.

“I do not want to be afraid,” she said suddenly. She lifted her face to stare directly into his eyes. Nick fell down into the bottomless pit of swirling green, all the way down into her confusion and fright. He felt unprotected, as if he had lost a layer of skin. He wondered if she felt this way all the time, and if she did, how she could stand it.

“I ... I do not want to be like this any more. Will you help me?”

She turned her hand to curl her fingers trustingly around his, and his guilt flayed him raw. In answer, he squeezed her hand tighter, and made a silent promise to himself. This girl was too vulnerable, too hurt, for him to have the kind of relationship with her that he had in mind. She had given him something much more precious than her body in his bed, she had given him her trust, and he had never met anyone who needed a friend so very much. She needed him to be her friend, not her lover. He would just have to stop thinking of her that way . . . no matter how pretty her breasts were.