Read Online Galveston: Between Wind And Water (A Historical Literary Fiction Novel Filled with Romance and Drama) by Rachel Cartwright - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Rachel Cartwright
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his legs. “A perfect test. That’s what I paid you for.” He lowered his hooded face. “So shut up both of you and not another word.”
Ichabod folded the money and fastened the brass clip. He spat into his almost filled spittoon and shoved the clip into the pocket of his worn coveralls. He looked across to Louisa kneeling in front of the disturbing stranger and shivered.
What was it about the man that made him still search for a name and face from somewhere in his long, unfortunate past, a past filled with names and faces he wished he could forget but who refused to allow an old man any peace in his deathbed dreams.
Ichabod downed the last of his whiskey. Enough foolishness, old man. All unpleasant suspicions aside, a client’s business was his own. The gentleman had paid a premium and this allowed him more than the usual liberties.
Louisa didn’t raise her gaze off the dirty floor to meet his again.
The stranger unbuttoned his Inverness coat. He stepped back with his hands clenched.
Ichabod shivered again. He turned his chair around to face the wall and closed his eyes.
CHAPTER 7
Tuesday, August 28
Gabrielle lay in bed against her down-filled, silk pillows and toyed with the end of her single French braid. From all accounts, Bret had changed since returning to Galveston. He was less cheerful and, though his manner was still considerate at heart, she recognized a growing impulsiveness beneath his brooding composure.
As a charming, confident man he had delighted an innocent young woman with his adventurous promise, but now his temperament appalled her with its pathetic lack of virtue. Gabrielle knew she was as much to blame for her curious feelings as he was, perhaps more, since her childish infatuation with him had not completely disappeared as she had hoped. Unbraiding the ends of her hair she rubbed the ends between her thumb and index finger to calm her nerves.
Infatuation. That’s all it ever was or could have been between them.
After Bret left, she had still been able to rise in the morning and, by all appearances, regain her self-control and good sense much to the relief of her friends and father already maddened by her tempest of vulgar outbursts and crying fits.
Bret’s last words still stormed through her mind. “You’re wrong, Gabrielle. It’s not too late for you. You’re worthy of a far better man than me, a man who will give you everything you cherish, desire, and deserve.”
In the gloomy months that followed his leaving, those words were the only light of truth he had left behind to help her find her way again. Only by the sheer force of indomitable spirit was she able to pull herself out of that soul-crushing abyss of despair, spurred by the realization that even love is capable of such a cruel betrayal of trust.
Until she heard the dreadful racket Saturday on Market Street, Gabrielle had—after two years—come to consider Bret as having passed into insignificance, waiting to be left behind with the arrogant century that had made him a sad, supercilious man desperately trying to maintain appearances of his family’s paling grandeur.
Their time together had been the careless and naive adventure of her first and only deep romantic love, but even then, under his public exuberance, she had sensed his hidden, private fears. Bret was the past and, if she wanted the new life she desired, her feelings for him would have to stay there entangled within the knotted fiber of their difficult relationship.
He was lost to her, a captive of his own disturbing moods and intense longing for something that remained a dark secret in his distant heart.
If he behaved as a gentleman, he might still be allowed into the periphery of her social circle, but never within its center. A successful gentleman’s wife-to-be needs to be wooed and won with pride. Anything less would be a mistake, and she could never allow that to happen again.
She brushed back her hair. Today would be
Ichabod folded the money and fastened the brass clip. He spat into his almost filled spittoon and shoved the clip into the pocket of his worn coveralls. He looked across to Louisa kneeling in front of the disturbing stranger and shivered.
What was it about the man that made him still search for a name and face from somewhere in his long, unfortunate past, a past filled with names and faces he wished he could forget but who refused to allow an old man any peace in his deathbed dreams.
Ichabod downed the last of his whiskey. Enough foolishness, old man. All unpleasant suspicions aside, a client’s business was his own. The gentleman had paid a premium and this allowed him more than the usual liberties.
Louisa didn’t raise her gaze off the dirty floor to meet his again.
The stranger unbuttoned his Inverness coat. He stepped back with his hands clenched.
Ichabod shivered again. He turned his chair around to face the wall and closed his eyes.
CHAPTER 7
Tuesday, August 28
Gabrielle lay in bed against her down-filled, silk pillows and toyed with the end of her single French braid. From all accounts, Bret had changed since returning to Galveston. He was less cheerful and, though his manner was still considerate at heart, she recognized a growing impulsiveness beneath his brooding composure.
As a charming, confident man he had delighted an innocent young woman with his adventurous promise, but now his temperament appalled her with its pathetic lack of virtue. Gabrielle knew she was as much to blame for her curious feelings as he was, perhaps more, since her childish infatuation with him had not completely disappeared as she had hoped. Unbraiding the ends of her hair she rubbed the ends between her thumb and index finger to calm her nerves.
Infatuation. That’s all it ever was or could have been between them.
After Bret left, she had still been able to rise in the morning and, by all appearances, regain her self-control and good sense much to the relief of her friends and father already maddened by her tempest of vulgar outbursts and crying fits.
Bret’s last words still stormed through her mind. “You’re wrong, Gabrielle. It’s not too late for you. You’re worthy of a far better man than me, a man who will give you everything you cherish, desire, and deserve.”
In the gloomy months that followed his leaving, those words were the only light of truth he had left behind to help her find her way again. Only by the sheer force of indomitable spirit was she able to pull herself out of that soul-crushing abyss of despair, spurred by the realization that even love is capable of such a cruel betrayal of trust.
Until she heard the dreadful racket Saturday on Market Street, Gabrielle had—after two years—come to consider Bret as having passed into insignificance, waiting to be left behind with the arrogant century that had made him a sad, supercilious man desperately trying to maintain appearances of his family’s paling grandeur.
Their time together had been the careless and naive adventure of her first and only deep romantic love, but even then, under his public exuberance, she had sensed his hidden, private fears. Bret was the past and, if she wanted the new life she desired, her feelings for him would have to stay there entangled within the knotted fiber of their difficult relationship.
He was lost to her, a captive of his own disturbing moods and intense longing for something that remained a dark secret in his distant heart.
If he behaved as a gentleman, he might still be allowed into the periphery of her social circle, but never within its center. A successful gentleman’s wife-to-be needs to be wooed and won with pride. Anything less would be a mistake, and she could never allow that to happen again.
She brushed back her hair. Today would be
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