The boy got the message, for a moment later he gave Cole the name and address of a soup kitchen. "She waits in line there for free soup. Wait!" he called when Cole bolted out of the room. "She's--" Breaking off, Jeremy looked down at his plate, his face red.
"I'll take her whatever she is," Cole said, not bothering to wait to hear if Jeremy had any more to say.
When Cole at last made his way through the back streets of San Francisco to the soup kitchen and scanned the long line of people, at first he didn't recognize Kathryn, for she was heavy with child. His child, he thought, as several emotions went through him at once. First there was anger that she'd not told him, then there was more anger because she had taken something away that belonged to him. But then Kathryn turned and saw him, and when he looked into her eyes he didn't seem to remember what he had ever been angry about.
For a moment all he could do was stand there, on the other side of the street from her, and grin. But when he saw her put her hand to her forehead and start to faint, he ran in front of carriages, freight wagons, and over pedestrians as he made his way to her.
He caught her before she hit the ground, swept her into his arms, then carried her to the carriage.
"I can't stay here," Kathryn was saying as Cole put more shampoo on her filthy hair. "And you have no right to do this. We have no right. We shouldn't--"
She broke off because Cole had dunked her head under water in the bathtub. Kathryn came up sputtering.
"If you're about to tell me that we're not married, and I have no right to strip your clothes off and bathe you, I think that belly of yours is evidence that I have every right."
"It's not your child," she said, chin up as he used a rough cloth to scrub her back. "I have been to bed with so many men that--Ow! That hurts."
"Oh?" he said. "Maybe if you stopped lying and--"
"What makes you think I'm lying? I had to support my son and myself so what better way than prostitution? Jeremy and I--"
He was now using the cloth to soap her face so she couldn't finish the sentence. "First of all," he said, "you would die before you sold your body."
"But I--"
"Second of all, you're so beautiful that if you went into prostitution, you wouldn't be in the starved condition you're in now."
"Oh?" Kathryn said, looking up at him. She should, of course, be too embarrassed to speak, since she was in a bathtub naked and he was washing her as though she were a child. But somehow being with Cole seemed almost natural.
"You have to listen to me," she said with urgency. "There are things going on that you don't know about. I am a hunted woman. There is a reward for me. I--"
"You ready to get out?" he asked, holding out a thick Turkish towel.
Kathryn grimaced. She had to get through to him, had to make him understand how dangerous being around her was. "Turn your head."
"Not on your life," he said without a smile, then when she didn't move, he said, "You can stay in there all night if you want, but when you do come out I'm going to be here holding the towel for you."
"You're a very stubborn man," she said, then, with her eyes on his, she stepped from the tub into the waiting towel.
"I'm trying to match you," he said as he wrapped the towel around her and began to dry her. Then he carried her into the bedroom and set her on the edge of the bed while he picked up a hairbrush from the dresser. "And just where do you think you're going?" he said when she started to rise.
"I'm just going to check on Jeremy one more time," she said.
"Jeremy is fine. He's young. He'll recover. At least he'll recover if all this ends. Sit!" he ordered when Kathryn remained standing.
When she didn't move, Cole climbed onto the bed, spread his long legs across the bed, then motioned for her to sit between them so he could comb the tangles from her hair. She opened her mouth to say that it wasn't decent for them to be in this position, but his look made her close her mouth and give herself over to the deliciousness of having his big hands on her hair.
When he'd finished, he pulled her back against him, tightening his arms about her protectively. For the first time in six months she was warm and clean and fed. But it was too much for her as she leaned her head back, and she began to softly cry.
"I want to hear all of it," Cole urged, his lips on her ear. "Every word. From the time you were born."
Kathryn started to protest, but instead she began to tell him the story of her life. She repeated how she had been the daughter of the cook of a large estate in Ireland, nothing more than the child of a servant. But the daughter of the house had, according to her tutor, the intelligence of a parsnip, so Kathryn was taken from the kitchen to study with the daughter in the hopes that the young mistress would learn by osmosis.
It didn't happen. Over the years the tutor gave up, let the girl ride her horses all day, and instead taught Kathryn everything he knew.
The problem came when the daughter's older brother, the young man who was to inherit the estate, the tall, handsome Sean O'Connor, returned from school.
"I was quite mad about him," Kathryn said, ignoring the way Cole's arms tightened about her. "He was beautiful and elegant and his words were nothing but honey." She smiled. "I would have given in to him if it hadn't been for my mother, who said all the O'Connors were sweetness on the outside and treachery within. And besides, she made sure that Sean and I were never alone."
"But you were," Cole said softly. "Oh, yes," Kathryn said with anger. "He got me alone all right, but not until after he'd gone to a great deal of trouble. Do you know what he did to me?" She didn't wait for an answer. "He put on a pretend marriage, is what. He got one of his friends from Oxford to dress as a priest, and he put on a marriage. Just like one would put on a play."