Part 11

Late at night here was a knock on my hotel door and my first thought was that it was Jezebel. But, I considered, it might be Jezebel but with a .45 in her hand so after lighting the lamp, I slipped on my trousers and pulled my gun from its holster. Then I answered the door. It was Jezebel but she wasn't holding a gun but that didn't mean that she didn't have one in her reticule or somewhere else on her person. Jezebel Noble Caswell was a desperate woman—her face reflected that.

"You do realize it's past midnight?" I asked as I stepped aside to let her in. "What will your husband say? The one here in New Orleans, that is?" I closed the door and holstered my gun but I was careful not to turn my back to her.

"Please…Adam, please don't tell Lom about Mason and don't tell Mason about Lom. Please—I beg you. Just let me be gone from Nevada. It has nothing to do with you."

I crossed my arms across my chest and leaned against the bureau. I almost enjoyed the power I had over Jezebel—actually, I did enjoy it. If I had told her that I would remain silent if she fished out my cock with her tongue, she'd do it. Jezebel would do anything I asked her, she was that desperate but my only virtue is that I can't suffer bullies and so I controlled my urge to vaunt my position of power.

"I had never considered how many problems can arise for a woman with more than one husband. You have gotten yourself in quite the peccadillo, haven't you, Jezzie?" I put special emphasis on the nickname.

"Go ahead and be sarcastic. Call me names if you like but just swear that you won't tell anyone about me, especially Lom."

"I won't have to tell him" I said, "because you will."

Jezebel sat down on the bed as if her legs had given out on her. "Adam you don't understand—anything. If you did…."

"Do you know that we thought you were dead, that we searched for you for two weeks and that I continued to look for you? Everywhere I went, I looked for you since we never found your body. When I thought you were dead, I was devastated and so was Mason." She sat silently and then the tears started but I resolved not to weaken at her supposed frailty; she was probably acting.

"You don't know what it was like to be married to Mason. He is a decent enough man, I suppose,despite the fact that he took his belt to me but if I'm to be honest, I had just lain with someone—you. But I can't bear to have him near me. He repulses me and the fact that he grieved, well, I am sorry that I caused him distress but he must have known why I left him."

"You married him, Jezebel."

She looked up at me, furious. "I had no choice. My father gave me to him, forced me to marry Mason."

"Your father was that desperate to marry you off? I can't believe, as devious as you seem to be, that you couldn't get out of a forced marriage."

"I was in love with someone else. His name was Vincent Antonelli and we were in love, madly in love and wanted to marry but my father said no. Vincent was never going to amount to anything, he said, and besides, he had that…accent. I thought he was heavenly—so handsome and dark—like you, Adam. Anyway, I was determined so I had…relations with him and told me father thinking that now he would be forced to let me marry Vincent; no one would want me then as I was basically unmarriageable, I had lost my much-valued virginity but it only served to infuriate my father and he found someone to marry me; an old bachelor acquaintance of his named Mason Noble."

Jezebel looked to me but I revealed nothing—or at least tried not to. She continued.

"So I was unhappy—for years. I never knew what became of Vincent—never. I suppose he married a nice Italian girl—hopefully without a mustache. But I'm still young, still vital and I just couldn't bear the thought of wasting my life with Mason, not having love in my life anymore—no romance—no man to take me. I had even tried….I wanted to end it one night, I was so unhappy, so hopeless but then…I changed my mind and made myself retch but the laudanum I had taken, well, it made me so ill. Stupid. I was stupid but that's how unhappy I was."

"What about me, Jezebel? What purpose did I serve? Why spread your legs for me when you could lift your skirts for anyone?" My heart started pounding again at the memory of us on the sofa and Jezebel moaning in pleasure beneath me, of her silky thighs and her warmth and wetness. I wanted her again.

She looked up at me with her beautiful eyes—those deep, dark eyes. A poet would say something highly romantic such as her eyes were limpid pools in which the lover gladly drowned and in a way, it was like that. I lost myself for a moment as I looked at her and found I wasn't breathing waiting to hear what she would say.

"Because I chose you. Out of all of them, I chose you. You forget, I'm a woman, a woman made of flesh and blood who has needs and wants. I wanted to be touched and caressed, to be taken and feel a man's body against me and in me, muscled and hard. I wanted you, to be ravished by you. You are the most beautiful man I know, the only one I wanted. I also knew—somehow—that you would be discreet. My hope was that we could be lovers. I could go on in my sham of a marriage if there was something waiting for me-our next tryst. It would give me a reason to go on."

"So why didn't you stay? After all, we couldn't very well be lovers if you left."

"Would you have agreed to be my lover, Adam?" She looked up at me, her eyes narrowed.

I thought for a moment. "I don't know. I'd like to think I wouldn't but I do find you beautiful. I don't know, Jezebel. After the roll on the sofa, well, I would have to keep from ever being alone with you again."

"Mason suspected I had been with someone. It was the night before church service, do you remember?" I nodded. "Mason caught me pleasuring myself. He had walked into my bedroom to tell me goodnight, I suppose—if he didn't come home very late he would come to tell me goodnight-and there I was. It was almost funny the way he turned red with embarrassment and stammered and apologized. He looked everywhere else but at me and then he saw my skirts. He picked my underskirt from where I had thrown it. Your seed was dried on it and the fabric was stiff and stained at the area where it had pooled out of me. Then I panicked, tried to jerk it out of his hands. He accused me of being a whore—but he wasn't wrong, was he? He thought I was taking one of the ranch hands as a lover and said he was going to fire them all—or turn me over to them with instructions to enjoy me as many times as they wanted—he hadn't yet decided. I didn't know that Mason could be so determined but no man likes to be a cuckold, I suppose. He asked me who it was and I denied anything—just claimed that I spilled something on my skirt and it stained my petticoat as well. He didn't believe me, of course—it was a poor lie. Mason was furious. He pulled off his belt and he strapped me across my thighs and buttocks. No matter where I turned, how much I tried to avoid it, he kept at me until he could barely lift his arm and was wheezing pathetically. I hid in a corner as he tried to get his breath. Finally, he left and that was when I made the plans to leave him; it kept my focus off the stings of the leather. I tried to let you know that I was leaving—tried to apologize to you by giving you the sonnet."

"Sonnet 45." I still remembered.

"Yes. I thought it would be obvious but now, in retrospect, seeing how you really knew nothing about my situation, I see how foolish the idea was. Do you remember the lines at the end?

Then think, my dear, that you in me do read

Of lovers' ruin some sad tragedy:

I am not I, pity the tale of me.

I hoped that if you pitied me, you could forgive me, not just for leaving but for dragging you in. Now I can see that it was merely self-indulgence on my part but I honestly didn't think that Mason would have me declared dead, just maybe tell everyone that I had gone back east to visit family, some lie to save face. And now that you know it all, I ask you, please, Adam, don't tell Lom or Mason. Let me be happy here being Mrs. Caswell."

"I can't."

Jezebel stood up. "Why not? And don't say it's because you're friends with Lom. You haven't seen each other in years and besides, you should want Lom to be happy and he's happy with me—he loves me."

"He certainly seems to but then why shouldn't he? You play the part well. But I can't allow this fraud of a marriage to go on. If you won't tell him, that's fine. I won't tell him nor will I tell Mason. Actually, Mason and I had a small disagreement—he accused me of killing you and I expressed my annoyance. I came near to throttling him so I think I should tell Sheriff Coffee and he can inform Mason that his wife is alive and well and married to another man. And just to let you know, we looked for you. About twenty of us searched the countryside after Mason reported you missing. You could have at least had the decency to leave a note telling him you had run away from home. Even small children have the consideration to do that."

"You trivialize everything!" Jezebel was angry.

"No, Jezebel, I don't, and I certainly don't trivialize you. You could have come to me—I would have helped. Are you aware of how much damage you've done or doesn't that bother you?"

"Adam, it's been a long time since I left Mason. Can't you just forget all that? Please, please leave things be."

She stood in front of me, so close that I could smell her perfumed skin and see the lamp light reflected in her eyes.

"No."

Jezebel put a hand on my chest and I have to admit that a thrill ran through me at her touch. Damn, she made me hard. She moved closer to me, swaying a bit.

"Adam, what if I let you have me again? I'll let you do what you want—take me anyway you want, I'll… I'll pleasure you with my mouth. I'll do anything you desire—anything—if you will only just leave me alone afterwards and not tell anyone about seeing me again. I'll let you take your belt to me if that's what you want, if you would enjoy that. I noticed it excited you when I told you about Mason strapping me. I'll let you do it and won't make a sound. Will you feel better than, having punished me?"

Jezebel put one hand behind my neck and pulled my head down to kiss me and I have to admit that I enjoyed it. Her mouth was sweet, hot and inviting and she allowed my tongue to probe between her lips. Then she broke away from me and smiling, she went to the bed and sat down on the end. She reached down and pulled off her small heeled shoes and then, after pulling up her skirts and showing her legs with the garters holding up her black stockings, she lay back, stretching her arms out for me, inviting me to go to her.

I walked over and lifted her thighs off the bed and spread those lovely legs. I looked at the delicious sight moistly waiting for my mouth or my cock…I could practically taste her but I dropped her legs and she gave a small gasp of surprise.

"No, Jezebel, I do want you and I came close to taking you but I won't. Go home and tell Lom about Mason. If you tell him what you told me—that is if it's the truth—he'll understand and forgive you. Get a good lawyer as your marriage to Lom is illegal—null and void. And if you have no money to pay a lawyer, I'll loan you what you need—or you can pay him on your back."

Jezebel sat up. She glared at me while she slipped on her shoes. "You are a cruel man, Adam Cartwright. I hate you!" She stood up and smoothed her skirts. She went to the door but before she left, while she still had the door knob in her hand, she turned and glared at me. Had she been a man, I would have feared for my life. "I'll tell Lom about Mason. You've left me no choice. Lom loves me and he'll stand by me." She started to go out and then turned, her eyes wide. "You wouldn't tell him about us, about the time we-about the past or about, about what just happened?"

"No, Jezebel, I won't tell him. And nothing happened. I haven't told anyone about our little fuck and I don't intend to."

She nodded, dropping her eyes, and then left, closing the door behind her. And I have to admit that I regretted not taking Jezebel as she had lain on my bed, so inviting.

I knew I wouldn't get much sleep that night and I didn't. And the next morning as I shaved, the bellhop came to my door with a note. I gave him a nickel and unfolded it. It was from Lom Caswell.

"Adam, please take Mrs. Noble back to Nevada with you as I have asked her to immediately leave. She told me that you know about her true husband. I cannot bear to have her near me anymore. She will be waiting at the house for you to fetch her. I want her gone by the time I get home this evening and I would like you to be certain that she arrives at the sheriff's office in Virginia City. I know it's much to ask but please, for our friendship, take her away."

"Oh shit," I crumpled the paper. I hadn't expected this—it was the last thing I wanted but since I had brought this wall of bricks crashing down on Lom Caswell, it was the least I could do. And I wondered if he was cursing my name for being the harbinger of despair.