Silk and Stone by Deborah Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

doorway, wringing her hands. “They called from the hospital. Mrs. Vanderveer has gone into labor.”
    William leapt up and grabbed his hat from an ivory peg on the wall. He shook his head at Sarah. “I’ve got to get over there. Trust me, sister. I’ll make things right.” He rushed out past her, running.

    Alexandra knew the moment William took his newborn son into his arms that her power and influence were forever secure. Tears in his eyes, William cooed to the red, wrinkled baby, then kissed the top of his head. “He has my red hair,” William said in a husky, reverent voice. “He’s the most perfect … thank you, darling, thank you.”
    “It was my pleasure.” She relaxed on the hospital pillows with peaceful exhaustion. Once was enough. William wanted more children, but she would simply find a doctor out of town who’d prescribe birth control pills for her—thank God for that new resource—and she’d take them without telling William. “Would you mind if I hire a nanny for him?”
    “Well, I suppose not, but why?”
    “Because he deserves it. Because it’s the responsible thing for parents of our status to do.”
    “If it makes you happy.” William cuddled the baby and stroked his curled fingers. “I’d like to name him Timothy, after my … after my and Sarah’s father.”
    “Certainly. I’d love to think that gesture would make your sister feel more generous toward me. Maybe she’ll see that I want to be friends with her—and that our children should grow up playing together, like cousins ought to.”
    William sank into a chair beside the bed and looked at her tenderly. “No one will ever say you don’t have this family’s best interests at heart.”
    “I don’t want to be an outsider. I don’t want people to be suspicious of me. Oh, William, I
hate
that your tenant farmers think I caused the trouble for them. There’s no way I can prove my visit was innocent. I was such a fool for encouraging them to tell me all about their homemade liquor. Of
course
they think I was prying into their secrets, when it was just my clumsy way of showing polite interest.”
    “Shhh, I know that.” He rocked the baby in his arms with absurd delicacy for such a big, bearish man. Alexandra took a deep breath and added, “You’re going to think I’m cruel for what I say next. But I’m thinking of
you
. Of us. Of what we have to do to protect our good name—Timothy’s good name.”
    William shifted uneasily. “I do believe you want what’s best. That’s not cruel or selfish. Tell me.”
    “No matter how sad it is about your tenants, or how harmless their intentions were—they broke the law, William. You’re a judge. You have to set an example. We can’t have your career ruined by people saying you condone criminal activity whenever it suits you. And you
know
that as soon as those men come home, they’ll be back at their stills.” She reached out and entwined her fingers in his. “You have to put those families off your property.”
    He protested. He cajoled. She insisted. She cried, and begged him to consider how he’d explain to theirson why he’d let personal sentiment override the sanctity of the law. In the end, she won. He sat with his head bowed to Timothy’s, beaten. She controlled him with the very qualities that had drawn him to her; her unbending pride and beauty, and the steely grace that had seemed so charming when they first met. It shamed him to love her more than his own conscience, but he could not stop. After so many years of self-denial and loneliness as he played the role of both father and mother to Sarah, as he toiled in his law practice single-mindedly and rose to a judge’s bench by the dull forces of intellect and unending attention to others’ problems and needs, she was the one gift he had given himself.
    It shamed him to need her pampering so much, to slavishly pursue her gratitude and her willing sensuality. He was humiliated but unable to deny her