The Daughters of Nightsong. V. J. Banis

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      “Not tonight,” he answered sharply. He threw back the coverlet and slipped into a robe. “I have some reports to do.”

      She watched her husband go out of the room. It was a blatantly masculine room, all leather and brass and mahogany so dark it was nearly black. Such a room could easily have overpowered a man, but it paled before Peter MacNair. The sight of him, his long legged stride, his splendid body, never ceased to stir up those tantalizingly sensual urges that churned inside her. Despite the coldness of her manner, Peter inevitably roused a desire within her, a desire she was often at pains to keep concealed until her natural demands grew unbearable.

      Afterward, when she’d groveled at his feet, she would burn with shame at the memory of how she’d writhed and moaned and clawed like a common whore, like a woman enslaved by her husband’s sexuality.

      It disgusted her to think that she was so enslaved to his masculinity. She would have preferred to hate him without reservation. She knew he had bought her with his pounding loins and sexual endowments. And she’d willingly exchanged her father’s wealth for the feel of Peter’s naked, muscular body.

      Socially he was beneath her, of course, and she seethed with scorn for him when he denied her as he just had. It gnawed at her when he turned to other women, which he did all too frequently, according to Mr. Ramsey’s reports. It especially enraged her when he was with Lydia, whom she knew was more to Peter than she or any other woman could ever be.

      Lorna sat looking at the closed door to the study. Her hunger for him filled her with both joy and despair. After several minutes she picked up her spectacles from the nightstand, gave them a hard push against the bridge of her nose and quickly returned to her own bedroom.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      April moved cautiously through the fog, clutching her shawl tight under her chin. She hated San Francisco with its damp, murky gloom that constantly crept over it from the ocean—the ocean that separated her from her beloved China, the homeland she wanted so desperately to see again.

      Not too long ago, at the beginning of this now ending summer, China had been beyond her reach, far on the other side of the horizon; but David would take her there after they were married, and there they would live happily forever after.

      The long rows of wooden buildings lining Market Street faded into the mist as she made her way toward the Embarcadero and the bay. Up ahead a light gleamed dully through the fog bank. It had to be the place where David said he’d be waiting. She quickened her steps.

      “April!” David called at the sound of her footsteps. He rushed forward as she appeared out of the fog and gathered her lovingly into his arms. “My dearest,” he whispered, touching his mouth to her hair, her eyes, her lips. He felt bold and safe in the swirl of mist that hid them from the disapproving eyes of outsiders who couldn’t understand the depth of their love.

      “David. Oh, David,” April cried as she clung to him.

      “It’s all right now, darling. We will never be apart again. No one will separate us now.” He smiled down into her lovely face and kissed her again to make sure she was real and not some exotic apparition that had drifted out of the mist. When he released her he noticed that she’d come empty-handed. “Your carry-all?” he asked anxiously. “You haven’t...?”

      She saw the fear in his eyes and said quickly, “I left it at the railway depot earlier. I was afraid Mother would catch me leaving the house with it tonight.”

      He took her in his arms again. “You gave me a fright. There for a moment I thought you’d come to tell me you’d changed your mind about eloping.”

      “I could never live without you, David, surely you must know that.” She let him kiss her again, then gently eased him away and glanced around. “Someone will surely see us and think me one of those ladies from the Barbary Coast.”

      He laughed softly and kissed her again. “And how would you know about such places?”

      A hurt expression clouded her loveliness. “I’ve been accused of being such a woman by passersby, people who taunted me, told me to go back there where I belong.”

      He held her close. “Let them say and think what they like. They shan’t ever hurt you again, April. I’ll see to that.” He tightened his arms around her. “You’re shivering,” he said.

      “Just excited, and a little chilled.”

      “Come inside. We can have some soup and then take the cable trolley to the depot to collect your reticule.” As he led her toward the lighted tavern he said, “And before this night is done we will be husband and wife and on our way away from this terrible city. The sailing ship leaves at eleven o’clock. I have already arranged for the Captain to marry us when we board. He’s expecting us within the hour.” He dug into his coat pocket and produced travel permits and tickets. “Passage for Mr. and Mrs. David MacNair all confirmed for one-way portage to Shanghai.”

      “You’re sure I’m not talking you into something you may one day regret?”

      “As long as you are with me, April, I will never be sorry about anything.”

      “You won’t miss your family?”

      David shrugged as they moved toward the tavern. “I’ll miss them least of all. There’s nothing here for me. My whole life is with you, April.”

      Several of the men sitting at the wooden tables that were strewn about the smoke-filled room looked up as David and April entered the tavern. April saw their looks of disapproval as she threw back the hood of her cloak. David ushered her to a table away from the bright lamps hanging from the central rafters.

      He squeezed her hand. “This will all be behind us very, very soon.”

      The hot soup and beef pie filled the emptiness that had gnawed at her all day, but the greater part of that emptiness was filled by David’s presence beside her.

      She knew her mother would be furious when she found the note April had left, but why should she care about her mother’s anger or disappointment? She was doing no more than Lydia herself would do. Her mother had always done whatever suited her. She had forced April to abandon her homeland and the people who’d nursed her and reared her and cared for her. Had she even once considered April’s wants or needs or desires?

      Her mother had dragged her from the Forbidden City to that awful opium den, then to the Embassy with all its strange people who had forced her to dress as they dressed in their constricting, uncomfortable clothing, and eat their bland, tasteless food, who laughed at her shyness, her timidity, all the things her own people prized so dearly.

      Her memories were faint, but in her girlish innocence all she could concentrate on were the happy times in Kalgan where her amah had fussed and doted upon her. She remembered too her aloof, regal father, an imposing man who had little to do with her but who was responsible for providing all the oriental luxuries April so dearly longed to have again.

      The hushed whisperings of Chinese unrest didn’t frighten her; her people had always been unhappy with the white foreigners who ravaged the land and exploited the innocent. She was the eldest daughter of Ke Loo, a royal prince, and she was a princess. Her royal relatives would see to her protection, as well as any needed protection for her husband. The people of China would not dare harm them.

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