Finding Bess Read online

  FINDING BESS

  by

  Victoria Gordon

  © 2004 by Victoria Gordon

  Print publication 2004 by FIVE STAR “EXPRESSIONS”

  ISBN: 1-59414-101-0

  ~~~

  This book must, of course, be first and foremost for Deni.

  But there is an “Ida” who played a part in it all.

  ~~~

  CHAPTER ONE

  “For Bess,” it said. Then:

  I fear that I’m headed for trouble, and I don’t know what to do

  For something in life is changing, and I know it’s to do with you

  All of which makes it difficult, as we’ve never really met

  And yet ... there are things about you

  So many things about you

  Things I must know about you, and they’re starting to make me fret

  It is more that I need to know, not less, but so far I can do nought

  Unless you reply in words that I know, then I'll stay overwrought

  So let’s get with it, lady; I’m waiting on you now

  If you don’t know how to do it

  Aren’t brave enough to do it

  Then we’ll just have to get together, and I’ll try to show you how.

  No title; no signature. And none needed; there it was on Geoffrey Barrett’s website, after all. Bess Carson Bradley felt her cheeks bake. Underneath the poem was one of her book covers. ELIZABETH CARSON, it said in gold foil. Then, in red foil, SWEET PRIMITIVE PASSION. Depicted above the title, a cowboy was about to ravage a beautiful woman. True, Bess had written the “ravage scene.” True, the artist had vividly transformed her words into flesh – lots of flesh – and blood. True, Passion had been her best-selling book, her readers titillated by the cover art.

  But despite the ooohs and ahhhs the cover had prompted, Bess hated it. Always had. And now ... well ...

  The cowboy's bare chest rivaled Conan the Barbarian's, and his rugged features were shadowed by a Stetson. Swooning in his arms, the heroine's white riding shirt molded her breasts. Anyone with the imagination of a pre-pubescent teenager could see the heroine's nipples, even though the artist hadn't depicted nipples. On the book's cover, the heroine's face had conveyed one-third apprehension, one-third terror, one-third anticipation. Now, on the website, it conveyed ... herself!

  Geoffrey Barrett – well who else? It was his website, after all – had somehow substituted a head-shot of Bess, her neck melding into the vee of the heroine's shirt, her forehead merging into the lush russet hair that fanned out and, eventually, spilled over the heroine's shoulders.

  It would have been clever, even funny, if it hadn't been so... No! Bess wouldn't go there; had sworn never to go there.

  “Oh, Geoffrey,” she said with a sigh. “What in the name of all that’s holy are you trying to do? Why that awful 'bodice-ripper' book cover, and what do you mean by 'headed for trouble'?”

  Of course, he couldn't know how insensitive he'd been. No one knew about the opera-inspired climax to her marriage; tragic and deadly. No one knew what had gone down, and wasn't that a horrible pun?

  Her eyes were drawn once more to the poem, scanning the lines yet again before she turned to stare blankly out her window at the bright Colorado autumn day, at the cacophony of dying leaf colors. Seeing them, but not seeing them, half her mind in the small Australian island of Tasmania where Geoffrey – her friend Geoffrey – seemed to have lost his marbles.

  Or had he? Maybe he'd meant the poem for someone else. Although... was it logical to think that Geoffrey Barrett had an entire harem of girls named Bess, all of whom he'd met via the Internet?

  And why include her book cover? Why substitute the author-photo that had once graced an article in Romantic Times magazine?

  Geoffrey's verse maintained the cadence of The Highwayman, and Bess was the only one with whom he shared a straight-from-childhood fascination with the famous Alfred Noyes poem. His mother had read it to him in the cradle, as hers had done for her, and each of them had always found the rather morbid poem comforting, perhaps because of its evocative inner music. Bess had, in fact, written a romance novel based on the poem, but Geoffrey was the only other person she’d ever run across who’d actually memorized every stanza.

  Her gaze returned to the computer screen. She stared hard, as if she could mentally move his Highwayman parody – and the damn book cover – from this all-too-public website to her own private email address. Where, if anywhere, it surely belonged. Then she keystroked back to his home page, graced by a color photo of a seemingly tall, dark-haired man with pale green eyes and the look of a pirate or brigand on a lean, tanned face.

  The first time she’d seen the picture it had been difficult to imagine that face on the man who'd sent her an email some two years back when her marriage was destroyed, her unborn baby lost, and her life blasted apart in a million tiny, tortuous shreds. She had, impulsively, made mention of her problems on Novelists Inc., an authors’ email loop she used, filled mostly with romance authors whose compassion had helped others through a host of personal problems. Her NincLink friends had responded, and their help had assisted her through the post-miscarriage depression and the trauma of seeing madness take the man who had turned out to be anything but the person she thought she had married.

  But Geoffrey Barrett went one step further, given that neither had ever so much as spoken to the other, even by email. His message had been so gentle, so warm, filled with genuine compassion and yet a determined attitude that she should take steps now, immediately, if she was to deal with it all successfully.

  She had sent him a brief, polite reply and thank you, and only then had begun to notice – really notice – his contributions to the link. His descriptions of his “child bride” and the problems she caused him were so filled with love that Bess envied the girl, and through comments from friends knew she wasn’t alone. Yet his posts were also alive with a risqué humor that suggested Geoffrey was really using the list to rid himself of annoying angst, on occasion. He adored the child bride, but she was slowly driving him crazy, Bess had thought. And knew she was right when the loving, gentle, humorous contributions gradually and slowly dried up.

  Then he came back with a comment that really didn’t say much at all, yet somehow told her that his wonderful marriage was over. How she knew, she never quite figured out. But she did know. So after a suitable interval, she'd sent him an email of her own, trying to emulate the favor he’d done for her, something to ease the pain.

  It was two months before he responded, but his reply held the same warm friendliness his first email had contained. Which – almost a year ago, now – had been when it all really began. Gradually their communication became more regular, if a tad ... formal. Polite. When she finally got her own website set up, he wrote to congratulate her but made no comment about the carefully-selected photo she had used, one that complimented her wild mane of auburn hair and as much of her figure as it was allowed to reveal. Which wasn’t much. Of course, she had never so much as mentioned his own photo, much less the fact that she now realized she’d been about half in love with him from the time of his very first email.

  What sense to that? Her home, her life, was here in Colorado Springs, while his was half the world away and in, she knew full well, a place he loved at least as much as she did her own. Of course, they had a lot in common. She wrote steamy western romances that gave no hint of her own personal barrenness. Her romances were filled with heroes that often – she had realized one day – strongly resembled Geoffrey. And, when he wasn’t busy playing with his business interests and training his gundogs, he wrote rawboned Australian historical novels filled with rich, vivid description in words that often were to be found in no American dictionary, but
always managed to convey their meaning clearly enough.

  Yet neither had ever so much as hinted at any sort of relationship, or the need for one, beyond what they had. Never! Not in any way! She was quite certain of that, because she had found they could almost read each other’s minds. Or so it seemed. She had frequently drawn nuances from his emails and replied with answers to what he’d meant, rather what he’d actually written. And he – all too frequently – did the same. Only never about anything truly personal.

  “And never, damn it, on your website,” she muttered, scowling again out the window into the fading light of evening.

  Other website visitors might consider Geoffrey's poem and doctored book cover a harmless prank, or even worse, “cute.” But to Bess, his glib innuendoes seemed as explicit and well-marked as the hot crimson patches that undoubtedly stained her cheekbones. And how long had she been sitting here, she wondered, realizing she’d used up about two hours of net time and accomplished absolutely nothing.

  A sudden chill permeated the room, and she shivered as she keyed back to what had already become in her mind “that damned poem and book cover.” The cover's half-naked, swooning heroine seemed to mock her, and the poem hadn’t changed by a single word. It still mimicked the structure and cadence of The Highwayman, but it was aimed at Bess herself, not the landlord’s black-eyed daughter of the poem. That much was all too obvious.

  What to do about it, however, was not. Nor did it become any more obvious after a nervous, restless night’s sleep in which she kept hearing the tlot-tlot of horses’ hooves on some ancient pavement.

  Staring into the mirror the next morning, she saw raccoon-eyes beneath a haystack of auburn hair that looked as if it had been combed with a pitchfork.

  Cranky, as much with herself as with Geoffrey, she thumbed on her computer and was about to call for her email messages when her finger halted as if striking an invisible wall.

  What if he'd put some similar nonsense on NincLink? She couldn’t fathom why he would, unless he assumed she hadn't seen his webpage yet. Yesterday he'd written an enigmatic message, directing people there. She'd gone like some lemming, but she hadn't reacted yesterday, at least not to him. So maybe...

  “No,” she said. And then said it again, more firmly this time. Surely he wouldn’t dare. It was simply ludicrous. None of which explained why after she finally clicked on her emails, she slowly and carefully read through each and every message, then sat and stared at the NincLink icon. Usually it was her first check-in of the day, a splendid collection of comments, questions and replies from authors spanning the globe with their interests and shared concerns for their chosen profession.

  The icon stared back, a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, and Bess reared back as the Highwayman refrain bounced through her brain. Her half-filled coffee cup lifted as her knee struck the keyboard shelf and only a frantic swipe of her right hand saved her by flicking the cup, contents spraying everywhere, off the corner of her desk.

  Stumbling to the kitchen for paper towels and cleaning spray, she was only too aware of the way her knees were shaking below the oversized Goofy T-shirt she wore for sleep.

  “You’re a romance writer; you should sleep in a negligee,” someone had once commented. Had that been Geoffrey? she wondered, then scowled at even having thought it. And yet, her Goofy tee was just the sort of thing she might have joked about after a day of spectacular creative energy.

  She remembered her exact reply, if not the questioner. “A negligee is for sleeping with someone, or getting ready to. I sleep alone,” she had written. And imagined she had exhibited a smug expression like Kipling’s cat that walked by itself.

  The thought turned her generous lips into a half-smile that revealed a slightly crooked front tooth. Straightening her entire five-foot-two frame, she faced the computer once more.

  “If you've posted an innuendo on NincLink,” she mumbled at the distant Geoffrey, “I'll kill you off in my next book. I will ... I swear I will...”

  Drawing a deep breath, she scanned through her digest, only to find her apprehensions unwarranted.

  Maybe, lacking an immediate response, he'd deleted the cover and poem from his webpage. Hope flickering, her fingers flashed, the computer hummed and whistled at her like a demented teapot, and up came Geoffrey’s website.

  The cover was still there, as well as the damned poem. Only now he'd added another verse! Even as she admired his skill, angry tears filled her eyes and the parody blurred. Yet she managed to brand her brain with the last four lines. “No good to hide in distance,” he'd typed. “You can't hide behind your words. So plait your dark red love knot. Know my interest you have caught. And give me a sign, Bess darling, to let me know you've heard.” The two stanzas practically screamed at her. Bess shook her head in silent fury. How could a poem scream?

  Maybe she was overreacting. The book cover could be nothing more than a practical joke, and Geoffrey's poem didn't shout cyber-sex, so what had made her nerves so raw?

  “If you don't know how to do it, aren't brave enough to do it,” she whispered, “you're the lousiest wife in the world.”

  She was busy pouring her second coffee when the computer, still on line, burbled to announce an incoming email. And it was only by the grace of some fate or another that she left the cup on the kitchen counter when she strolled back into the office to confront the screen.

  The first message on her authors' digest was only one word: WAITING!

  Waiting for what? Leaning down closer, she read the email address. Geoffrey!

  A surge of temper flared her turquoise eyes into fire. It was a temper she sometimes hated, but its one saving grace was its impermanence. Usually.

  “I’ll give you waiting,” she snapped, and reached out to punch the off-button, almost doing so without bothering to go through the brief but oh-so-important procedure that allowed the computer to be safely shut down without risking damage.

  The sigh that followed was part anger, part relief. Half her current book was in there, she had realized at the last instant. In there, unsaved, vulnerable. But not as vulnerable as Bess felt. Nor were the tortures about to be unleashed upon her heroine by ravening Apaches – an Elizabeth Carson trademark – anything compared to what her fertile mind was imagining for Geoffrey.

  Trembling fingers picked up the new coffee when she returned to the kitchen, and she found herself turning to look back toward the computer as if it were suddenly animate, suddenly alien to her modest home in Colorado Springs.

  The image of the altered book cover filled her mind. She tried to blot it out. Might as well try and stop an avalanche by thinking: STOP, SNOW!

  And then it was all too familiar, that empty, gasping feeling in her tummy, the same feeling she’d experienced the first time Paul had suddenly, without warning or reason, punched her in the stomach, then driven her to the floor with a smashing, open-handed slap across the face.

  “I control things here, bitch,” he’d cursed in a voice she had never before heard, hadn’t recognized, couldn’t comprehend. It had sliced through the ringing in her ears like a razor, only to be followed by the slam of the front door as her husband – surely that wasn’t her loving husband Paul Bradley! – surged through the open doorway and into the night.

  She had lain there, half-fainting, for what seemed hours before daring to clamber to her feet, to make her way to the bathroom where a livid cheek proved the assault, even if the pain in her middle had dared to deny it. Paul's assault made no sense, had no logic, but it was real.

  Something’s happened to him, had been her first thought. He’s been drugged or suddenly developed a brain tumor. Some ... something!

  Why else would a formerly loving and caring man punch his pregnant wife in the stomach just for informing him with pride that their first-born would be a girl?

  Paul had never struck her; never so much as raised his pleasant, exceedingly light voice to her. He had, in fact, treated her like royalty, which considering he w
as an employee of her father’s huge international conglomerate, she was, in a way. But a very small way, in her own mind.

  Even her position as her father’s confidential secretary had been, in her view, small. It wasn’t as if she'd been his personal assistant or anything, not that she had the drive or the passion for power such a job required.

  Still, she had at first wondered about Paul’s attentiveness, his almost shy demeanor whenever they crossed paths in the multi-story New York complex where the conglomerate was based. The attentiveness had been easy enough to accept, but the shyness from someone of Paul’s status had seemed unusual.

  It was as she stared at her reddened cheek in the mirror, still clenching her tummy against the pain, that Bess suddenly found herself realizing she hadn’t actually seen that vulnerable shyness for quite some time. Not since their highly-publicized wedding, in fact. And with that realization, the turquoise eyes in the mirror narrowed as repressed synapses began to click into synchronization.

  Perceptions blurred by the sheer delight of the courtship, once Paul had shrugged off sufficient shyness to actually court her, and then the majesty of the wedding, sharpened in that instant to a reality that smacked Bess at least as hard as her husband just had. Paul’s promotion, announced with their engagement, stood out as it never had before. As did his reaction to it, which now seemed a totally different color.

  “Just enough to keep him hungry,” her father had said in the privacy of his huge penthouse office. “Enough to warrant his commitment to you, and to us. But not too much; let’s keep him a bit lean and mean.”

  Dover Warren Cornwall, known throughout the multi-faceted industrial kingdom he controlled as “War” Cornwall, had seemed only a tiny bit discomfited by finding one of his employees pursuing Bess. Certainly he hadn’t opposed it, but even then Bess had realized he must have been disappointed. Cornwall had often theorized about the splendid potential his daughter offered as part of what he liked to term a “merger marriage,” but had stopped doing so out loud when he noticed the disgust on her face at hearing the term once too often.