Slowly Christina said, “I’m thankful you told me how you feel about Philip Junior before we were married. Now there will be no marriage. If you don’t want my son, I can’t possibly marry you, Tommy.”
“Christina!”
“You don’t understand how I feel about my child, do you? He is my baby, Tommy, and I love him with all my heart. Nothing on this earth could make me give him up.”
“You never intended to marry me, did you?” Tommy screamed, his face contorted. A cold chill went down Christina’s spine. “You’ve loved that man all along! Well, you won’t have him, Christina. Mark my words! Philip Caxton will regret the day he ever came into this house. And so will you!”
“Tommy!” she screamed. But he ran from the house, slamming the entrance door behind him.
Christina started to shake uncontrollably. What was she going to do? What was Tommy going to do? She had to find Philip and warn him, but she had no idea where he was.
Christina ran up the stairs two at a time. She went straight into Philip’s room and closed the door. She would wait for him here. Oh, Philip—please hurry! Tommy was like a madman!
Twenty minutes passed while Christina paced the floor in Philip’s room. They seemed like hours. She kept going over what Tommy had said, wondering what he had meant. When she heard footsteps in the corridor, she held her breath, praying it was Philip. When the door opened, she almost fainted with relief.
“What the devil are you doing here? Are you trying to pay me back for last night?” Philip asked coldly. He came into the room taking off his heavy riding jacket.
Christina was stung by his harshness, but she remembered why she was here.
“Philip, I came here to warn you. Tommy made a threat against you, and he was acting so oddly that I—”
“Don’t be absurd, Christina!” Philip cut her off. “You asked me to leave your room last night, and now I am asking you to leave mine. Your brother has made it quite clear that he doesn’t want us alone again.”
“Did he say that?”
“Not exactly, but it amounted to the same thing,” he returned.
“But Philip, Tommy said he would make you regret ever coming here. He—”
“Do you actually imagine that I give a damn what Huntington says? I assure you, madam, I can take care of myself.” He turned away from her, leaving her in a state of confusion. “If your young lover attempts anything, I will try not to hurt him. Now kindly get out of my room!”
Christina grabbed Philip’s arm and turned him back to face her, her stormy blue eyes clashing with his angry green ones.
“I think he means to kill you! Can’t you get that through your thick head, damn it?”
“Quite right, Christina, that is exactly what I intend to do,” said Tommy.
Christina felt suddenly sick, and she felt the muscles tense in Philip’s arm. She turned slowly to look at Tommy standing in the doorway. He held two pistols pointed directly at Philip.
“I knew I’d find you two together. Well, your warning was a little too late, Christina. Nothing is going to save your lover now.” He laughed shortly.
She forced herself to speak despite the feeling that she would faint at any moment. “Tommy, you can’t do this! It’s—it’s murder! You are throwing your own life away.”
“Do you think I give a damn about my life anymore? I don’t care what happens to me as long as he dies. And he is going to die, Christina—right before your eyes. Do you think I don’t know you have been sleeping with him all the time we were engaged? Do you think I’m that much of a fool?”
“It’s not true, Tommy!” Christina cried. She edged around in front of Philip, but he pushed her aside forcefully and she fell back against the bed.
“Just stay out of the way, Christina. This is between Huntington and myself,” Philip said harshly.
“Very touching,” Tommy laughed. “But I don’t intend to shoot Christina.”
“Tommy, listen to me!” Christina pleaded. She had to stop him! She pushed herself off the bed and faced Tommy, her breasts heaving. “I’ll go away with you, Tommy. I’ll marry you today. Only please, please, put the pistols down.”
“You’re lying. You’ve always lied to me!”
“I’m not lying, Tommy. This is insane! You have no reason to be jealous of Philip. I don’t love him, Tommy. He doesn’t want me and I don’t want him. How could I want him after what he did to me? Please—you’ve got to listen to reason! I’ll leave with you today, and we’ll never mention this again. Tommy, please!”
“That’s enough, Christina! You’re playing me for a fool again, and I won’t have it. You have always wanted him, so don’t try to tell me otherwise!” Tommy raged, the muscles twitching in his cheek. “All the time we were engaged you wouldn’t even let me touch you, but you’ve let him put his hands on you, haven’t you? Well, no more! You won’t have him, Christina—nor his son.” Tommy laughed again when he heard her gasp, but he kept a steady eye on the motionless Philip. “Did you think I would leave that brat alive to remind you of him? No, Christina—they will both die! I have two bullets, one for each of them.”
“You will have to use them both on me, Huntington. And even then I will tear you apart.” Philip’s voice was calm but deadly.
“I doubt that, Caxton—I am an excellent shot. My first bullet will find your heart, and that will leave me one to kill that bastard son of yours. She will have nothing left of you.” He paused and stared blankly at the floor. “You were all I ever wanted, Crissy, but they took you away from me.” He looked up at Philip, and the madness returned to his eyes.
Tommy raised one of the pistols and aimed straight at Philip’s heart. A bloodcurdling scream escaped Christina, and she plunged forward just as Tommy fired. Philip had stepped aside to avoid the bullet, but he was able to catch Christina in his arms as she collapsed, blood pouring from a head wound.
Christina felt that she was falling, falling in slow motion and spinning around and around. Everything flashed red before her eyes—and then blackness engulfed her.
“Oh my God. What have I done? I’ve killed her!” Tommy cried. The color drained from his face, and with a sickening cry he turned and ran down the stairs. But before he’d reached the front door, John came tearing through the dining room, with Kareen and Johnsy right behind him.
“Tommy!” John yelled, halting him at the door. Tommy turned slowly around, and John paled at the sight of the two pistols in his hands. “My God! What have you done?”
Tommy dropped the weapons instantly, as if they burned his hands. But one pistol was still loaded, and it exploded with a horrible sound when it hit the floor. An anguished scream echoed from upstairs. Tommy fell to his knees, tears streaming down his cheeks.
“She’s come to haunt me already!” Tommy cried. “Oh, God, Crissy, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I loved you.”
“Stay where you are, Tommy,” John commanded in a choked voice before he ran up the stairs, the women right behind him.
“Where will I go?” Tommy mumbled to himself in the empty hall. “Why doesn’t Caxton come after me? Justice must be done! Oh, God, how could I have been so blind as not to see how much she loved him—so much that she would run into my line of fire to protect him? I can’t live with what I’ve done—I want to die!”
DAMN IT, DOCTOR, why won’t she wake up? It’s been three days now, and you said it was only a superficial wound—it didn’t even need bandaging!” John paced the floor in Christina’s bedroom as old Dr. Willis closed his bag.
“From what Mr. Caxton tells me, I’m afraid Christina’s condition is mental, not physical. When she awoke from the first faint and heard the second shot, she instantly assumed her son had been killed. There is absolutely no reason why she shouldn’t wake up—she just doesn’t want to.”
“But she has every reason to live!”
“We know that, but she doesn’t. All I can suggest is that you sit here and talk to her—try to bring her out of it. And don’t fr
et so much, John. In all my years, I have never lost a patient who died of plain stubbornness. Except your mother. But she was awake, she willed herself to die. Talk to Christina. Tell her that boy of hers needs her—tell her anything that might make her come out of it. Once she’s awake, she will be fine.”
After Doctor Willis left, Philip came into the room and stood beside the bed.
“What did Willis have to say?” Philip asked soberly.
“That there is no reason why she shouldn’t wake up, she just doesn’t want to!” John replied heatedly. “Damn it! She’s willing herself to die from grief, just as our mother did.”
Late that night, after John had spent the whole day talking to her, Christina finally opened her eyes.
She looked at John, who was sitting in a chair beside her bed, and she wondered why he was there. Then she remembered what had happened.
“Oh, God, no—no!” she cried hysterically.
“It’s all right, Crissy—Philip Junior is all right! He is alive, I swear it!” John said quickly.
“Don’t—don’t lie to me, John,” Christina implored him through her sobs.
“I swear, Crissy, no harm came to your son. He is in the next room sleeping.”
She couldn’t stop crying. “I heard the shot. I heard it!”
“The shot you heard came from downstairs, Crissy, when Tommy dropped his pistols on the floor. No one was hurt by it—Philip Junior is all right.”
Christina threw back the covers and started to get out of bed. But a blinding pain shot through her head, and she fell back onto the pillow. “I have to see for myself.”
“Very well, Crissy, if you won’t believe me. But sit up slowly this time. You’ve been in bed for three days.”
John finally had to carry her into the nursery. He set her down gently beside the bassinet and held her so she wouldn’t fall. Christina looked down at her sleeping son. She put her hand close to his small face and felt his warm breath, then she caressed his cheek. He stirred and turned his head.
“He is alive,” she whispered happily. John picked her up and carried her back to her bed. She started crying again from sheer joy.
“I’ll have some food brought up, Crissy. And then you should rest some more.”
“But you said I’d been sleeping for three days. The last thing I need is more rest. I want to know what happened, John,” Christina said soberly.
“One of the Huntington servants found me in the stables. Lord Huntington had sent the lad over to warn me that Tommy was coming here armed. I heard the first shot before I reached the house. I found Tommy in the hall. The second shot was fired accidentally. You screamed, and I thought Tommy had already killed Philip. But when I got upstairs, I found that you’d been shot. Crissy—I thought you were dead. But Philip assured me you had only fainted on hearing the second shot. If you hadn’t blacked out, you would have known that Philip Junior was all right. The first shot didn’t bother him, but the second shot echoing through the house scared him and he was screaming his lungs out. He wouldn’t even stop crying for Johnsy.”
“Philip is all right, too?”
“Yes. You both would have been all right if you hadn’t run into the line of fire. I know why you did it, Crissy, but I didn’t think it my place to tell Philip. Thank God the bullet only grazed you.”
“Where is Philip now?”
“I believe he’s downstairs getting drunk, as he has done these last three nights.”
“And Tommy—is he all right?”
“Tommy, I think, was more shaken than the rest of us. He really thought he’d killed you. He cried like a baby when I told him you were only unconscious. But I’m afraid he was arrested. After all, he did shoot you.”
“But I’m all right—it was only an accident. I don’t want him in jail, John. Tommy went crazy because I broke off our engagement. I want you to have him released—tonight.”
“I’ll see what I can do, but first I’ll get you some food.”
“Miss Crissy, love, wake up. There’s someone ’ere who’d like to see ’is mama.”
Christina turned over in bed to see Johnsy rocking Philip Junior in her arms. She smiled, for even though he was being cuddled, he was still fidgeting. She unbuttoned her nightgown, then put him to her breast while she watched Johnsy, who was obviously agitated, straightening the room.
“Whatever is the matter with you?” Christina asked.
“I don’t mind sayin’ you scared the wits out of me—you lyin’ up ’ere in bed three days. And your brother, of all things, tells me to come and ask you if you’re up to seein’ Master Tommy. If ’e’d asked me, I’d’a said no, but nobody asks me anything anymore.”
“Oh, stop your grumbling, Johnsy. I’ll see Tommy as soon as I’m finished feeding Philip Junior.”
“Perhaps you’re not up to it yet?” Johnsy ventured hopefully.
“There’s nothing wrong with me. Now get along with you and tell Tommy I’ll see him shortly.”
A while later, Tommy knocked on the door as Christina came back from putting Philip Junior in his bassinet. She opened the door and noticed that Tommy was wearing traveling clothes. She invited him into the room.
“Crissy, I—”
“It’s all right, Tommy,” she interrupted. “You don’t have to say anything about it.”
“But I want to,” he said, taking her hands in his. “I’m so sorry, Crissy. You’ve got to believe that. I wouldn’t have hurt you for the world.”
“I know that, Tommy.”
“I realize now how much you love Philip Caxton. I should have seen it sooner, but I was too obsessed with my own feelings. When Caxton came here, I saw him only as a rival. But now I know you were never mine to have—you were always his. Tell him I’m sorry for what happened. He’s still sleeping or I’d attempt to tell him myself.”
“You can tell him later.”
“No, I won’t be here. I’m leaving this morning.”
“But where are you going?”
“I have decided to enter the military, as John did,” Tommy said sheepishly.
“But what about your lands? Your father will need you,” Christina said. But she could tell that Tommy had already made up his mind.
“My father is still a young man. There’s nothing for me here. I’m like you were, Crissy, living all my life here. It’s time I saw a bit of the world.” He kissed her lightly on the cheek, his brown eyes warm with friendship. “I’ll never find anyone like you, but perhaps there will be someone.”
“I hope so, Tommy, I really do. And I wish you all the luck in the world.”
Christina stood in the middle of the room for a long time after Tommy left. She felt very sad and lonely, as if a little piece of her heart had just been chipped away. The Tommy she’d just spoken to was the old Tommy, the Tommy she loved as a brother, and she would miss him sorely.
PHILIP WOKE WITH a splitting headache. The sunlight streaming into the room didn’t help matters any. He pressed his hands against his temples to ease the pain, but it didn’t help. He glanced down at his fully clothed body, minus one shoe, and groaned slightly.
John had said last night that Christina had finally awakened. Or had he dreamed it all? Well, there was one way to find out. He stood up. A sharp pain shot through his head again, and he vowed he wouldn’t touch another glass of whiskey for a long time. He splashed water liberally on his face, then stood there holding onto the dresser until the pain eased somewhat.
After a while, Philip was able to kindle the fire that he hadn’t bothered to light the night before. He shaved the stubble off his face and changed his clothes. He began to feel almost human again, and decided this was as good a time as any to see Christina.
He walked the few feet to her room and went in unannounced, to find her propped up in bed and wearing her black-velvet robe, of all things, over a white-lace night-dress. Her long hair was spread out on the pillow behind her framing her in a golden halo of beauty.
“Don’t you eve
r knock?” she asked curtly.
“You would only tell me to come in, anyway, so why should I waste both your time and mine?” Philip closed the door and sat down in the chair that John had pulled up beside the bed. “So—you are finally awake. What the devil do you mean by sleeping three days, madam, and leaving my son to the mercy of a wet nurse?”
By the tone of his voice, Christina didn’t know whether Philip was chaffing her or if he was serious. She chose the latter and became annoyed.
“I’m sorry if my delay in waking has upset you, but I have seen my son this morning. And he seems to have fared rather well. And since you appear to have a dislike for wet nurses, tell me, Philip, how would you have managed if I’d agreed to give you my son?”
“Damn it, woman!” he bellowed, then groaned at the sound of his own voice.
Christina realized what was the matter with him, and she started to giggle.
“What the hell is so damn funny?” He scowled at her through reddened eyes.
“You are,” Christina said, repressing her laughter. “What could have possessed you to drown yourself in liquor three nights straight? I know you were upset about nearly losing Philip Junior, but is that any reason to make yourself sick? He wasn’t harmed.”
“You are up here in bed in an unconscious state, and I don’t know if you are going to live or die—and you ask me what possessed me to drink!”
“What would it matter to you if I lived or died? I am sure that if I hadn’t come through, John would have given you Philip Junior. You should have been quite happy at the prospect of getting what you wanted. I’m sorry I disappointed you.”
Philip leaned back in the chair and stared at Christina. “I ought to tan your hide for that remark! Ah, hell—never mind. I shouldn’t have come to see you this soon. I should have realized you’d be upset knowing your lover is in jail.”
“He was not my lover, damn it!” Christina snapped angrily. “For the record, Mr. Caxton, you are the only lover I’ve ever had.”