Bride in barbados, p.18
Bride in Barbados, page 18
She stirred self-consciously under his gaze. "Dot Howard seems to think it was a pretty normal birth. She said she'd assisted at longer deliveries than this one."
He shook his head once, an expression of disbelief in his eyes. "If that was normal, I hope never to see an abnormal one."
"I thought I heard the doctor telling you to leave the room. Why didn't you?"
"I couldn't leave you alone while you were in such pain, and yet there was nothing I could do to help. I've never felt so useless in my life."
The earnestness of his voice touched her, but she didn't want to be touched by him. She was too weak just yet to deal with that. "I guess we should give him a name. Would you like to call him Travis?" She hadn't known she was going to suggest that until the words were out.
He gazed into her eyes for a moment without speaking. Then, "I have another idea. Why don't we give him your maiden name?"
"Warren Sennett." Susan listened to the sound of it. She suspected that all men liked the idea of a son bearing their name, regardless of what Travis said. They could give him both names. "Warren Travis Sennett. That sounds nice and substantial. I like it."
"I'll tell the doctor then—for the birth certificate." His eyes held hers, and she thought he was going to say something more. But he got to his feet. "I'm going to shower and shave and catch a nap."
She wrinkled her nose. "I'm dying to get into the shower. Dot says I can get up this afternoon."
"Don't try to rush anything," he said a little anxiously. "Okay?"
She nodded, wondering if he was referring to more than her getting up.
"Good. I'll see you in a while."
He left her, and she lay, staring up at the ceiling. Had she really heard that anguished plea to save her, even at the cost of the baby's life? She couldn't believe it. Without the baby, Travis would lose his inheritance. No, she must have imagined it. Suddenly her arms ached to hold her child again and she drew a long, unsteady breath. There was now no doubt about one thing: She could never go away and leave the baby behind. She wasn't capable of it. So, what was she to do?
She closed her eyes. Later, she told herself. She would decide later when she had her strength back.
After lunch, the nurse brought the baby to her again, and when he was returned to the nursery, Susan was finally allowed to get up. While she showered and washed her hair, Mala changed the linens on her bed, thrusting her head into the bathroom every few moments to check on Susan.
In a fresh gown, her hair wrapped in a towel, Susan came back into the bedroom. Mala was running a dust cloth over the furniture. "I was about to come and see if you were all right," the older woman said.
Susan sat down in a chair and began to towel dry her hair. "You're worse than Travis, do you know that? I've only had a baby, for heaven's sake. Millions of women do it every day."
Mala's white teeth flashed in a grin. "Maybe I worry so 'cause you been unhappy lately. Things be all right now."
Surprised at Mala's perceptiveness, Susan murmured something noncommittal and began to brush her hair. She wished that she could feel as certain as Mala did that things would work out.
"That phone ringing off the hook all mornin'," Mala told her. "Everybody hear about the baby and want to know how much he weigh, what's his name."
Susan smiled. Any scrap of news traveled throughout the island almost as soon as it occurred. Gossip seemed to be a favorite Barbados pastime.
After Mala left, Travis came in carrying four floral arrangements in his arms; he set them in various spots around the room. He'd shaved and changed clothes, and he looked more rested than he had earlier. "The yellow and white roses are from me," he told her.
"Thank you," she murmured.
"The carnations are from the Williams. You remember, we had dinner with them a couple of months ago? Kay sent the ivy—and the orchids are from Wicksham." He grinned at her wryly, then added with reluctance, "He's a better loser than I thought."
"Loser?" Susan asked. "What has he lost?"
"You—your company, for one thing. He'll never try to contact you again. I made sure of that."
A familiar feeling of resentment stirred in Susan. "Why do you refuse to let me have friends?"
He sank into a chair and ran both hands through his hair, disordering its brushed smoothness. "That isn't true. I want you to have friends."
"Then why are you being so stubborn and impossible in this case?"
"Because I know Wicksham better than you do."
Susan laid her brush aside and leaned back in her chair. Her sigh was pure exasperation. "You've hinted before that there's something sinister about Jonathan. But, Travis, unless you can give me some good reason, I'll continue to count Jonathan as a friend and behave accordingly."
He studied her thoughtfully. "I didn't want to upset you before the baby came. You were always so tired and tense. But it seems I have to tell you now or you're going to keep rushing headlong into things that you've no idea of. Do you remember what I told you once about a small group of men who are trying to take over the government of the island?"
She nodded, silenced by his serious tone.
"I've suspected for a long time that Jonathan Wicksham is the moving force behind all our problems in that area. He has the money to finance a coup."
"A coup!" Susan was staring at him. "Are you suggesting that Jonathan is a—a revolutionary?"
He shrugged. "It happens to be to his advantage to avoid bloodshed and work through the opposition political party. I can't prove all my suspicions yet, but the evidence against him is growing all the time. We know now that he's hired men to mix with the unemployed and stir them up against the government and certain people that Wicksham sees as threats to his control of the island. I'm one of those people, Susan. I suspected from the beginning that he befriended you simply because you are my wife. He even tried to win you over with that rhetoric about the old families owning too much land at the expense of the poor."
"If you know this, why isn't somebody doing something about it?"
"We are, and we'll do more when there's enough evidence to keep him out of the country for good."
Susan felt bewildered, and she shook her head. "It's obvious that you believe what you're saying, but I can't. Jonathan has never been anything but kind to me."
"Even when he almost caused you to lose the baby?"
This was even more of a shock than what had gone before, and denial crowded into her throat. "That's preposterous! It was an accident."
"Was it?"
Her gaze faltered and she looked away from him, frowning. "Even if it wasn't, it was Curt who lost his footing and fell against me."
"I see," he stated ominously. "I should have known Wicksham wouldn't do his own dirty work. Curt left Barbados early this morning, by the way, as soon as he heard about the baby."
None of this was making sense to Susan. Jonathan had called Curt a clumsy oaf, and she had thought it was because he had caused her to fall. Could it be, instead, that it was because he hadn't caused her more serious harm? "What has the baby got to do with anything?"
He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to sound calm and reasonable in the face of her disinclination to accept what he was saying. "Wicksham wants me out of Barbados because he knows I'm on to him, and he also knows that the only circumstance under which I'd leave would be if there was nothing to hold me here. Curt wants me to lose control of the plantation and bank, too, but for quite different reasons. Apparently they decided to work together to achieve a mutually beneficial end." He lifted his head to look gravely into her eyes. "If you had lost the baby, I'd have had no heir and Curt and Violet would have come into two-thirds of my holdings here. They would have forced a sale and I would have had no reason to stay."
Was it possible that Curt and Jonathan had been conspiring together?
"I think," Travis went on, "that Violet learned what they were up to and, to her credit, wanted no part of it. Which is why she left here alone so abruptly. That piece of land Curt claimed to be considering for tourist cabins isn't for sale. I checked."
"Are you saying that Curt and Jonathan took me out there for the purpose of staging an accident?" She swallowed the sudden fright that dried her mouth.
He nodded. "I'd been expecting them to pull something before the baby was born, but it never occurred to me that they would try to hurt you. I didn't realize they had become so desperate. I'd have stopped Wicksham's seeing you months ago if I had." His words had become jerky, each one painful to utter. "Fortunately, I'd taken the precaution of having one of my men follow you whenever you went anywhere with Wicksham."
Abraham! So that's how he had happened to be in that desolate location in the middle of a work day. If Travis was right, Abraham might very well have saved her life—and the baby's.
She thought of Jonathan's kind gray eyes, his unfailingly solicitous manner toward her. But she also remembered that he had brought the word "abortion" into their conversation and had assured her that he could find a doctor who would do it. Now that she thought about it, it did seem rather farfetched for a successful business entrepreneur like Jonathan to consider forming a partnership with someone as weak and irresponsible as Curt Winston. It made a sick kind of sense that the "small enterprise" Jonathan had mentioned was a plan to ensure that Travis had no heir. The thought made her tremble with delayed reaction and she looked at Travis with stricken eyes.
"Why didn't you tell me all this long ago?"
"Would you have believed me? Lately you've been determined to pursue whatever course I opposed. Besides, I never guessed that Wicks-ham's opposition would take such a personal turn. I thought he'd befriended you merely to get information from you concerning my activities. I expected him to try to discredit me in the political realm."
It was true that she probably wouldn't have believed him. After all, he had warned her that Jonathan was dangerous and she had reacted with scorn. She thought of her son, the miracle of that precious bundle of life that she had so recently held in her arms for the first time. A wave of pure hatred and maternal protective-ness rose in her, making her feel sick. If she ever saw Jonathan again, she would want to fly into his face like a mother cat protecting her young with unsheathed claws.
"I never suspected," she murmured. She shuddered suddenly. "I think I could cheerfully kill him."
Travis's expression was portentous. "Now you know what I've been going through, watching you spend more and more time with him and unable to make you see that you should stop. I've given Wicksham one week to leave Barbados for an extended vacation or face being charged with assault against you. Abraham will testify against him. We might not be able to get a conviction, but Wicksham doesn't want the publicity of a trial and his name spread all over the newspapers."
"I—I'm glad you finally told me everything."
He smiled ruefully. "That may be the first thing we've agreed on in months." He unfolded his long length from the chair, standing with an abrupt movement. "I'll let you rest now. We have to have a long talk, though, when you're fully recovered."
She watched him go and, for a brief moment, she saw him as the man she had met in Miami, the man she had fallen in love with, the man she had thought to be everything she ever dreamed of in a husband.
A wave of infinite sadness overwhelmed her. How, in so short a time, could everything have gone so wrong?
Chapter Thirteen
Bank business took Travis to New York a few days later and, from there, contacts he wanted to make as a representative of his political party took him to Washington. He was gone for more than three weeks, checking in with Susan by phone every day or two. These long distance conversations dealt mostly with the baby and his progress. Travis apparently felt, as she did, that they couldn't discuss their personal lives satisfactorily with so many miles between them.
Susan used the time to good advantage. A daily routine for the baby was established, but with Mala and Dot on hand to help with him she still had a good deal of time to herself. Much of it she spent walking on the beach, thinking and renewing her strength. She was sitting in one of her favorite spots near the plantation's private cove on a promontory overlooking the sea when she decided it was time to give serious thought to her future and that of her son. She had come almost every day to this spot to watch the lashing waves batter themselves on the jagged reef that ran out from the land for several hundred yards. The unending roar of the surf was in tune with the stormy confusion that thundered in her brain.
Today, as she gazed out at the foaming crests, she felt a stilling of her inner turmoil, and the new serenity brought tears that overflowed and trickled silently down her cheeks. She sat there for more than an hour, long after the tears had stopped, her thoughts following the alternatives open to her, one by one, to their logical conclusions. When she rose, she felt depleted, but composed. Not fully recovered emotionally… it would take a little more time for that to be accomplished, but ready to set out on the only course that would lead to that recovery.
The birth of her son, the days since then and her tears had raised a wall between herself and her resentment. For the first time since she had learned about Harris Sennett's will, she was truly strong enough to face whatever had to be… and knew it.
She walked back to the old Sennett mansion with a straight back and a lifted chin. Now she knew what she was capable of doing—and what she could not do. She had plans to make and a fresh start to prepare for. At last she could face Travis calmly and talk everything out with total candor.
In the days that remained until Travis returned, she went about her activities with a readier smile and a lighter step than before. For long, quiet times she held her son in her arms as he nursed and slept, and she never tired of wondering at the beauty and perfection of this child that was a part of her and of Travis. There was no longer any feeling of pressure or urgency. Decisions would have to be made when Travis returned, but until then the days were for renewal and building inner strength.
She also began to make use of the kitchen as if she had a right to do so and not as a guest. She and Mala worked side by side for hours, planning and cooking meals, and chatting as friends. And each afternoon she prepared an elaborate tea tray which she shared with Dot Howard in the nursery as her son slept nearby.
In her eyes there was a mature serenity that had not been there before. She had known passion and love and heartache and betrayal, and now she knew that her life would go on and that she would find fulfillment and satisfaction again, perhaps not soon, perhaps not easily—but with her son to give a focus to her life, it could be good once more.
On the last evening before Travis's expected return, she took a thermos of coffee down to the cove. She sat on a sea-scarred rock, as battered as she had felt not long ago. She poured coffee into the thermos's plastic screw-on cap and cradled its warmth between her hands. She leaned back against a water-smoothed section of the rock and felt the wind-carried salt spray on her face.
The pale sliver of a quarter-moon glimmered far out over the water near the horizon. The ceaseless swoosh of the waves created an almost chantlike background to her thoughts as she sipped from her cup and felt her body relax.
Inexorable. Travis had used that word to describe the sea, and for the first time since coming to the island she felt a part of the inexorability of all things. Life was inexorable; in spite of individual pain and disillusionment, it went on, and the pain dulled, and eventually went away when the sufferer learned to let it go. When at last she left the rock and walked back to the house, she felt purged and free.
Travis pulled his car into the garage, got out wearily and lifted his suitcases from the trunk. In the house the lights were on in several of the second floor rooms and in the ground floor study. His plane had been delayed and the dinner hour was long past; he had eaten a meal that tasted like cardboard on the last leg of the flight. The lines fanning out from his eyes were more than squint marks; tonight they were deep slashes of worry and strain. He had welcomed the hectic pace of the past three weeks and the business that had kept him away from home. The time had provided a respite before the inevitable confrontation. But now there was no more possibility of delay, and his face was the face of a man who knows that everything that matters to his future will be decided before the sunrise. He no longer fought against the knowledge.
He gripped his suitcases and walked slowly toward the house. He had had many sleepless night hours during the past weeks to wonder if he had ultimately destroyed Susan's ability to trust and love him, or any man, again. What price had he made her pay for his arrogant decision to take all that she had to give, while deceiving her?
He had hoped to force her to love him again by keeping her with him until the baby was born, but now he was dreadfully afraid that he had succeeded only in driving her so far away that he could never hope to reach her. What if she still wanted the divorce? What if…
He shook his head as he stepped onto the back veranda, trying to clear his mind of the guilt that had burrowed into the secret crevices of his brain to mock him at every turn. His body ached with more than tiredness. It ached for her as strongly as it had ever ached during these last, lonely months. Sometimes at night he still dreamed that he was holding her and awoke to the empty spaces—in his arms and in his heart —as he called her name.
He had kept her with him physically, but in every other way she had shut herself off from him. It was slowly killing him, and he had only himself to blame. As selfish and greedy as Harris Sennett had ever dreamed of being, he, Harris's grandson, had grabbed what he wanted with no thought for the consequences to her or to himself.
He set one of the suitcases down and placed his hand on the door knob. He opened the door, retrieved the suitcase and walked into the back hall, which was dark and still. Leaving the luggage there, he moved down the hall, finding his way without the aid of lights from years of familiarity with the house. Instinctively he went toward the study, where the door stood open and light spilled out into the hall. He stopped in the doorway, staring, unable to speak, afraid to speak for fear that what he saw was merely what he wanted to see.
