The Benedict Bastard (A Benedict Hall Novel) (22 page)

He couldn’t see her eyes yet, but he remembered them. He had never seen eyes like that, hazel dusted with gold flecks that gleamed in the sunlight, and were even faintly visible by moonlight. In most other ways, she was ordinary, but those eyes, and the soft brown curls that went with them . . .

Yes. Bronwyn Morgan was a very pretty girl. And of course she had adored him, which was gratifying.

None of it signified now. But it was nice to think that his son had an attractive mother. The boy should be good-looking. Well bred.

But what the hell was the girl doing here? How had Mother found her?

Edith was carrying a smallish valise, the brocade one they had all given her for a birthday eons ago. He hoped it was in there. He hoped she had remembered. Sometimes, these days, Mother didn’t seem to be precisely clear in her mind.

But it
must
be in there. That was how she had found Bronwyn Morgan! Great things happened to those who possessed Roxelana’s sapphire. And here it was, nearly within his grasp. Its power would be restored to him. Nothing would hold him back.

Poor Mother. When she realized, she would break her heart anew. It was regrettable, really it was.

 

It had been clear from the moment they climbed the neatly painted steps and went into the bright tiled lobby of the sanitarium that the management was eager to please Mrs. Edith Benedict, once they understood who she was. There were some startled comments about her visit being unexpected, but these were hastily amended to words of welcome, assurances that all was well, offers of tea and a comfortable place to sit while the patient was informed of her presence.

No one spoke Preston’s name, though, and Bronwyn was assailed by a fresh wave of anxiety. She wished she could speak to one of the staff privately, ask them what this was all about.

A Dr. Dunlap was called, and he came hurrying out of an inner office to bow over Mrs. Benedict’s hand and inquire after her husband and the rest of the family. Mrs. Benedict introduced Bronwyn as “my young friend, Miss Morgan.”

Dr. Dunlap was a silver-haired man with a dark mustache and thin dark eyebrows. He took Bronwyn’s hand in his large, smooth one, and raised an eyebrow at the uniformed nurse who had come to fetch him.

“Call Mrs. Dunlap,” he said. She nodded, and hurried off with a rustle of her starched apron.

The doctor turned back to Mrs. Benedict. “Were you planning to take Miss Morgan—er—up with you, Mrs. Benedict?” he said, with an air of delicacy.

“Of course,” Mrs. Benedict said. “They’re old friends.”

The doctor’s mouth pursed beneath his mustache. “Don’t you think that might be—er—just a little too much for your son?”

Bronwyn’s knees suddenly trembled. Your son.

He had said it, this doctor, this man who was obviously in charge here, and that meant it was true. Preston lived. The newspapers had been wrong. He hadn’t burned up in the fire after all, but was here, a patient in this sanitarium. The fact of it, the import of the realization, made Bronwyn’s head spin as if someone had struck her. She reached for something to steady herself, and her groping hand found the wall. It was a flocked pattern, and she focused on the feel of the flocking under her palm, something to keep her from fainting.

The doctor said other things, and Mrs. Benedict answered. Mrs. Dunlap appeared, a woman on the verge of old age, with gray hair and a thick waist. She wore a nurse’s uniform with heavy black stockings, but no apron. She joined in the conversation, but Bronwyn heard nothing that any of them said. The tumble of her own thoughts drowned out every word.

She hardly knew how they all made their way to the elevator, or what was said as it bore them up two floors, to the top of the building. The doors of the elevator parted to show a hallway drenched in sunlight from dormer windows set into the outer wall. Opposite the windows were several single doors, all closed. Bronwyn barely noticed any of it.

He was alive. Mrs. Benedict wasn’t deluded. She hadn’t brought Bronwyn all the way across the state on a fool’s errand.

Preston was alive. He hadn’t abandoned her after all. He had been ill. Injured in that terrible fire.

Stunned by the implications, she stumbled as they left the elevator, and Mrs. Dunlap turned to look at her. “Are you all right, Miss Morgan?”

“Yes,” Bronwyn said. Her voice sounded faint in the tiled corridor.

“Are you sure? Are you prepared for this?”

Bronwyn frowned at the question. The spinning of her mind slowed, and she focused on Mrs. Dunlap’s kindly face. “Prepared?” she asked.

“You know about Mr. Benedict’s condition, I hope,” the nurse said. They were still walking, following Mrs. Benedict, who led the way with eager steps, the valise bouncing against her knee. Dr. Dunlap hurried to stay beside her, a solicitous hand hovering behind her thin back. Bronwyn and Mrs. Dunlap trailed behind them.

Bronwyn said, “His condition?”

Mrs. Dunlap put a hand on Bronwyn’s arm, slowing her progress. Mrs. Benedict and Dr. Dunlap were already far down the corridor. Bronwyn glanced to her left, to one of the closed doors. Through its small, screened window, she could see that the room beyond it was bare and empty.

Mrs. Dunlap followed her glance. “There’s only one patient on this floor,” she said. “It’s that room at the end, the one facing us.” Her hand was still on Bronwyn’s arm, and she brought her to a stop with a gentle pressure. “Miss Morgan,” she began. “It would be best, before you visit Mr. Benedict, that you understand—”

Mrs. Benedict interrupted her. She looked back down the hallway, and called, “Miss Morgan! Oh, do come along! He’s waiting for us!” She had come to a stop before the last door at the end of the hall, and was shifting from foot to foot with eagerness as she waited for Dr. Dunlap to find the right key on a large ring.

Bronwyn started toward her, suddenly eager. It was simply marvelous, that after all this time—all the heartbreak and misery and loneliness—she would see him again. He was alive!

He would be changed, of course. He had been ill, after all. Still, her heart lifted in anticipation.

“Miss Morgan, wait,” Mrs. Dunlap said. She caught her arm again, and held it. “I’m afraid it’s going to be something of a shock—”

“Oh, no, Mrs. Dunlap,” Bronwyn said. “He knows me. I can’t think it will be a shock to him to see me.”

“Not for him,” Mrs. Dunlap said. Later, Bronwyn would think of this, and remember the grimness in the nurse’s face, but for now, impatience drove her. She tugged her arm free of Mrs. Dunlap’s hand, and hurried down the corridor.

She came to a stop just short of the room. In her haste, her hat had slipped askew. She put a hand up to straighten it, then dropped the hand to her throat to smooth the collar of her dress. After all this time, his first sight of her should be perfect. At least, as perfect as she could make it under the circumstances.

She found she was holding her breath. She released it, and took a fresh one, preparing herself.

The door opened, and Mrs. Benedict rushed past Dr. Dunlap into the room. Bronwyn heard Mrs. Benedict’s light voice, then a deeper, rougher one. A man’s voice. It didn’t sound familiar to her, but it must be Preston. Mrs. Dunlap reached her side, but she didn’t speak again. She stood just outside the door, gazing at Bronwyn with resignation.

The moment had come, the moment she had despaired of for so long. Bronwyn fluffed her hair a bit with her fingertips, fixed her most charming smile on her lips, and stepped forward.

C
HAPTER
21

As the old-fashioned skeleton key rattled in the lock—it was laughable, really, to see the faith old Dunlap placed in his antiquated locking system—Preston adopted a nonchalant pose, leaning against the wall, his scarred hands thrust into his pockets. When the lock clicked and the door opened, his mother fairly burst into the room, pushing past the doctor. She glowed with pleasure. She dropped the valise to the floor and crossed to Preston with her hands out.

“Preston, darling!”

“Mater,” he said, straightening, reaching with his own arms to accept her embrace, and return it. “How lovely of you to come all this way.” His voice was better than it had been, a little smoother, a bit more resonant. Oddly enough, though Dunlap was practically an antique himself, his hydrotherapy approach had helped a good bit with the scarring of Preston’s throat and lungs. The air here in Walla Walla was devilishly dry, but the steam of the hydrotherapy room was soothing, when he was allowed to go there.

“Darling, I have a surprise for you!” Edith withdrew from his arms, and looked up into his face with a coquettish air. She put up her hand, and stroked his scarred cheek as if it were still the fine-skinned surface it had once been.

“Oh, do tell, Mother,” Preston said with a smile. “I’m absolutely agog.”

Edith stepped aside, and indicated the doorway with a flourish of her arm.

Preston turned toward the open door just in time to see Bronwyn Morgan step into view. The sunlight from the dormer window behind her made a halo around her slight form. Her golden brown curls glowed with it, and the dotted swiss turned to gauze under the harsh light. She wore a smile on her pretty mouth, and those gold-flecked eyes were wide and eager.

She lifted one foot to step over the sill, then froze. One hand gripped the doorjamb. The color drained from her rosy cheeks until she was as white as the iron frame on his bed. Her smile faded, bit by bit, her lips parting, mouth open. The greeting she had been about to speak caught in her throat, supplanted by a single, wordless sound.

The mater took no notice. She said brightly, “It’s Bronwyn Morgan, dear! The girl you told me about, the one who—well, you know, don’t you! She’s come to see you.”

Preston pushed away from the wall, and walked with deliberate steps toward the door. “Bronwyn,” he said. “Time has been much kinder to you than to me.”

The girl’s pupils flared in those lovely eyes, nearly swallowing the irises. She pulled back her foot, then her hand, as if she were shrinking into herself. Mrs. Dunlap stepped up behind her, hands out in support, a look of fury on her face.

Nice woman, Mrs. Dunlap. Nice, but stupid. She should have known Mother wouldn’t warn the poor girl. Mother didn’t see his scars. She managed, in some magical way, to see her golden boy the way he had been, instead of perceiving the ruin he had become. It was perfectly understandable if Mother believed little Bronwyn Morgan would do the same. The Dunlaps should have known.

Bronwyn managed to close her mouth, at least. Her nostrils flared as she drew a long, noisy breath, and then another. Beads of perspiration appeared on her temples, and Mrs. Dunlap put a steadying arm around her waist.

Preston grinned, knowing how horrible the expression looked on his scarred lips. He said, “Pretty, ain’t I? So sorry to surprise you.”

The girl swallowed, and drew herself up with obvious effort. Mrs. Dunlap released her, but stayed close. Probably thought the poor kid was going to faint. “I knew there was a fire,” Bronwyn said in a frail voice. “I didn’t know you were so—so badly burned.”

“No. Bit of a surprise, isn’t it? I do think someone might have warned you.”

She lifted her little pointed chin in a gesture that was oddly courageous. “Yes,” she said. “That would have been good. But your mother thought we—that we should—” Her words trailed off into silence, and her face bore the look he had come to dread and hate. He would rather have seen her swoon, right there in the corridor, than have to see her look like that.

“Mother thought we should,” he snapped in his roughest tone, “and now you pity me. Not what you expected, was it?”

“No.” Her voice steadied, and the color returned to her cheeks. She stood as tall as she could, and didn’t look away, though she must have wished she could. Gutsy little thing, really. She said, “Of course I pity you, Preston.”

“Don’t.”

“Those are terrible scars. You would pity me, if I had suffered such injuries.”

He laughed with a grating sound that made her flinch. “No,” he said. “I wouldn’t.” He swayed toward her, without his volition. His hands were clenched, the scarred flesh aching as his fingers pulled on it. “Explain to her, Dunlap. Mother,
you
tell her, for God’s sake. Tell her the way I am. Make her understand.”

“Understand what, dear? I don’t know what you—”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” he shouted, directly into Bronwyn’s face. “Can’t you see it for yourself?”

Old Dunlap took a step toward him, saying in a warning tone, “Mr. Benedict—”

It happened fast, faster than he would have expected, so fast he had no control over it.

The old anger rose in his belly, burned in his lungs until he couldn’t breathe, blurred his thoughts. It was familiar to him, that anger, blazing up like a bonfire, flames and smoke and heat, all demanding an outlet. He had tried, all his life, to manage it in his mother’s presence, but there was nothing he hated more than that look of sympathy, that look of empty, meaningless sorrow for him. The great Margot wore that look all too often. He loathed seeing it on this girl’s face, this girl who had loved him, who thought he was a hero, her shining knight.

He couldn’t bear it. It made him shudder with fury.

“Listen to me, you little fool!” He staggered forward, a single step, wary of Dunlap’s interference. He had to get that look off her face or he would explode. “I wouldn’t pity you! I wouldn’t give a damn what happened to you! I
didn’t
give a damn, don’t you get that?”

“That can’t be true, Preston,” she said steadily. Her face still wore that sad expression—for him. Why should she be sad for him? It should be grief for herself. She was the one who had to carry the brat, after all. She was the one whose life path was altered, whose childish dreams were shattered. Why the hell should she feel sorry for
him?
What in damnation was the matter with her?

“Listen!” he cried. “You think I didn’t read your silly letter?”

Her smooth brow wrinkled. “My letter? You mean you received it? You read it? But you never answered me.”

“Why should I answer?” he snarled. “So you were pregnant!” Dunlap drew breath to protest, but Preston threw up a hand to silence him. “What did you expect me to do about it? You expected me to take on your brat?”

Mrs. Dunlap said, “Mr. Benedict—”

Bronwyn cried, “Naturally, I thought you would—when you knew, you would—”

“What?” he said, his voice rising, thinning. “What? You thought I would care?” He staggered forward, and was rewarded by seeing her fall back a step, into the corridor. “You thought,” he shrieked, “I would
marry
you? Christ, don’t parents teach their daughters
anything?
”

“Preston!” his mother cried. “Darling, there’s no need to be cruel! She couldn’t have known—”

But he couldn’t hear her anymore, nor could he see her. Rage blinded him, turned his vision scarlet, made his scarred flesh burn with agony, as if he had been plunged anew into the flames. He threw himself toward the door. He seized the girl, feeling the tender flesh of her arms give beneath his hard, burned hands, and he heard her cry out in pain. He shook her. He had to wipe that look of pity from her face. He had to force her to understand, to comprehend that he would never,
never
have had anything further to do with her, no matter—

Oscar burst into the room, a large, hairy tornado blocking his path, seizing him in thick, unsympathetic arms, tearing him away from Bronwyn. She fell back, and Preston gasped out a final curse.

He had lost all control. He hadn’t intended to harm her, only shake sense into her, but he wouldn’t bother explaining that. He regretted having such an outburst where his mother could see him, but it was done now. Like so many things, it couldn’t be changed. Couldn’t be reversed.

Oscar hauled him backward, away from Bronwyn, and well out of range of his mother’s reaching hands. A syringe appeared in Dunlap’s fist, and before Preston could draw another breath, the steel needle pierced his skin, sending the cold syrup of a sedative into the muscle of his arm.

His mother was weeping, of course. “Goddammit,” he muttered, as the drug began to quench the fire, to calm the tremors of his fury. “Goddammit, Mother. So sorry! I just—it’s all so—”

How many times had he persuaded her, with his heartfelt explanations, his clever justifications? How often had he heard her trying to explain to other people that he was just sensitive, that he felt things more deeply than anyone else?

How many excuses could there be?

He sagged against Oscar’s broad chest, the drug sapping all the strength from his muscles. His eyelids grew heavy, and the light in the room seemed to dim. He said again, “Goddammit,” but weakly.

Oscar lowered him to the bed, and he felt the humiliating pressure of straps being buckled around his arms, around his ankles. He heard, distantly, his mother’s sobs, her pleas to Oscar to be careful, not to hurt him.

He heard the patter of Bronwyn Morgan’s feet as she retreated down the corridor, and the heavier tread of Mrs. Dunlap going after her.

Dunlap was trying to persuade Edith out of the room, assuring her Oscar had everything in hand, that it would be all right, that they would give the patient a bit of time, let the sedative do its work. Preston, over the slowing thud of his heartbeat, heard all of that. He heard his mother’s cries escalate, heard her screeching his name from the corridor, heard her begging to be allowed back into the room, to talk to her son, to plead with him.

What he didn’t hear was his mother making excuses for him. He wondered if, at last, her supply was exhausted.

He turned his scarred face to the door to watch Dunlap leave, closing the door firmly behind him. Preston heard the heavy click of the key in the lock.

But on the floor, forgotten in the melée, was Edith’s small brocade valise. And inside it, if there was any justice at all, was his sapphire.

 

Bronwyn fled the commotion without a backward look. It had taken all her strength to conceal her horror at Preston’s appearance. There was almost nothing left of his face! He had been so handsome, with such silken skin and finely cut features! Now his golden hair was gone, his lips distorted, his cheeks drawn with scars. Only his eyes, those icy blue eyes, told her it was really he, and those had been filled with such anger, such—such
hate
—

She had done her best. She had swallowed her shock, tried to speak to him with kindness, and he had lashed out at her, raised his fists, said those awful things. She had never been witness to such an ugly scene. Could being hurt change a person so much? Could his disfigurement have altered his true nature?

If not, then he was not at all the person she had believed him to be. Not the man she had mourned, and had yearned for all this time.

She reached the end of the hallway on flying feet, pursued by shouts and screams and sobs. She didn’t bother with the elevator, but pushed through a heavy door leading to a stairway, and dashed headlong down the steps. She tripped on the first landing she came to, but caught herself on the wooden banister, and plunged onward. The door at the bottom of the stairwell opened onto a blank corridor, the sort used by servants and tradesmen. She raced on, not choosing a direction, simply moving, escaping.

As she ran, the last fragments of illusion fell away. She felt as if she were crushing each and every one beneath her feet. Mrs. Benedict was wrong. There could be no reunion between herself and Preston Benedict, and not because his looks had been destroyed. The man she thought she loved didn’t exist. Perhaps he never had. She couldn’t understand what he was, but she would never, ever, want to see him again.

She came upon a door and pushed it open. It led into a kitchen, where women in white aprons were working at long wooden counters. Bronwyn froze just inside the door, then spun back, searching for an exit.

One of the cooks, a girl hardly older than herself, stepped forward, saying politely, “Miss? Are you looking for Reception?”

Bronwyn’s mouth opened, but she couldn’t speak. She shook her head, and the young woman looked concerned. She put down the spoon she was using, and started toward Bronwyn, but before she reached her, Bronwyn gulped an awkward apology, backed out into the corridor, and ran the other way.

She burst through a set of double doors, and found herself on a loading platform. A truck was just backing up, its driver peering over his shoulder as he worked the gears. He spotted her, and braked with a squeal of metal and rubber. Bronwyn whirled, and crossed the platform to jump down from the far side. She dashed around the side of the building toward the gravel drive where their taxicab had dropped them. Bronwyn hardly knew where she was, or where she was going, but she raced down the drive, out to the packed dirt of the road, and on.