‘Why didn’t you marry her?’ ‘Because I don’t love her, dammit!’
You don’t love me either. ‘I see,’ she said aloud. ‘A pity you didn’t rescue her. Then perhaps you would have – married her, that
is.’
‘I did rescue her, but not in the same way.’ She arched a questioning brow, saying nothing.
He eased down beside her on the coil of rope. The mainsail flapped overhead and the wind whipped through his hair. The smell of salt permeated everything. He wanted to tell Jules to get into the shade, for her fair complexion was turning a distinct red, but he didn’t. ‘Her name is Jane Branigan, and she’s a widow with two boys. Her husband died in one of the gold camps and I simply helped her to get started on her own. She owns a seamstress shop and is doing well now.’
‘Does she know about me?’
‘She knows that I was taking you back to Maui.’
Jules closed her eyes, fighting against the burdensome pain. He’d more than likely made love to Jane Branigan while she, Jules, was staying in his house. ‘She will be … upset?’
‘I don’t know. We are good friends, Jules.’ Will you still go to her when we arrive in San Francisco? Will you make love to her? … Where’s your pride, you stupid twit! She raised her chin. ‘Perhaps I shall have some good friends who are men.’
‘Perhaps you will,’ he said in a light voice. ‘Perhaps I shall even dream about them and call out their names and not yours.’
He sucked in his breath. You are twenty-nine years old, you stupid bastard. Have a little sense and wit. She’s lashing out because you frightened her, then called out another woman’s name.
‘Jules,’ he said slowly, ‘I am truly sorry for what happened. It is difficult for a man to be very close to a woman and not … well, respond to her. It is also very common for a man to dream about sexual things so vividly that they almost become real. Women do it too.’
‘I don’t.’
You haven’t because you don’t know what to dream about! ‘Perhaps someday you will understand what I mean. In any case, it won’t happen again, I swear it to you.’
Jules wished at that moment that he hadn’t awakened, that she hadn’t cried out. It would
have been over with, and she felt now that she could deal with any fear better than this. She said, ‘When we are home, you will continue to see this Jane?’
He hadn’t thought about it. It was the kind of thing that shouldn’t happen. A man married, his wife a virgin, and he so damned randy …
She was so beautiful, his Jules, so bright and vivid, and so very vulnerable. He would simply have to become a monk. He had no choice in the matter. A saint who was also a monk. He supposed it fit.
‘No,’ he said finally. ‘I will see her, of course, as a friend, but I won’t have sexual relations with her again. Marriage, for me, means fidelity.’
‘Fidelity seems to have no bearing on anything,’Jules said, and quickly rose, beating down her skirts as the ocean breeze swirled around her.
‘Just what is that supposed to mean?’
She ignored his question, merely shrugging. ‘I must fetch my bonnet.’
‘Yes,’ he said, his voice showing his weariness. ‘Yes, you should. You’re becoming quite red.’
216
14
San Francisco
‘Now, Molly, you’re an old hand at this. Breathe slowly, light shallow breaths. That’s it.’ Saint gently wiped Molly Tyson’s sweating brow with a cool damp cloth.
‘I was so scared you wouldn’t be here.’ Molly said as a contraction eased. ‘I heard you’d gone off to those Hawaiian Islands.’
‘Yes, I did, but my timing is always exquisite, and so, it appears, is yours. That’s it, Molly … no, don’t tense up. Here, squeeze my hand. That’s it.’
‘Damn, it hurts,’ Molly gasped. ‘How could I have forgotten how bad it hurts?’
‘I know. Scream if you want to. I know I would.’ Saint winced as she wrung his hand, her back arched up, her body rigid, in a contraction. ‘All right, Molly, the pains are coming closer now. Let me see how far along this little fellow is.’