Scarlet Woman. Gwynne Forster

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Scarlet Woman

      Scarlet Woman

      Gwynne Forster

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To Brother Simba Sanna, formerly co-owner of Karivu Books, Hyatsville, Maryland, and an exemplary man of strong moral character. In my research for this book, Brother Simba shared with me his experiences as a volunteer teacher and counselor to African-American youths during their incarceration in Lorton Prison, in the Washington, D.C., area, and after their return to society. Brother Simba inaugurated a study group at Lorton (the African Development Organization), and he remains a mentor to those young men who accept his counsel. My thanks also to my husband, who supports and encourages me in everything that I undertake.

      Contents

      Prologue

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Prologue

      Melinda looked out of the only window in her tiny one-room apartment and saw nothing. Not the children jumping rope and playing hopscotch, nor the single mothers who sat on the stone bench beneath a big white oak tree escaping the late-August, Maryland sun. Over and over, her mind replayed Prescott Rodgers’s proposal. Marry and live with him in his home and brighten his life by doing for him what he couldn’t do for himself. He wanted her to read to him the classic literature of the English language. Although he was a brilliant man, dyslexia had deprived him of the pleasures of reading and writing. He had contacted the high school at which she taught English, offering to pay a student to read to him. None found the idea attractive, and she eventually volunteered to do it one or two hours weekly at no charge. But his tales of his world travels, especially his wanderings through Italy, so intrigued her that the few weekly hours soon became a daily ritual, a treat to which she looked forward each day.

      A self-made man, inventor of a film-developing process, a fluid for contact lenses, and a type of eyeglass lens, all of which yielded hefty royalties, Prescott Rodgers had amassed a fortune. He lived a reclusive life, fearing scorn because he could not learn to read.

      “We’re both lonely,” Prescott had argued, “and we have much to give each other. I know the chemicals I’ve worked with all these years are shortening my life, and I’d like to spend what’s left of it in your company. Marrying me would still the tongues of those curious about your daily visits.”

      “Well, I…I don’t know—”

      “Will you accept a marriage of convenience? That’s selfish of me, I know, because you’re young, and I’m sixty-eight years old.”

      As a married woman, she would escape much of her father’s intolerance and authoritarianism, and she would have a companion. Musing over her own life of loneliness—for which her father’s self-righteousness and his indictments of all who disagreed with him were largely responsible—she reasoned that at last she would have a niche. She would belong with someone. Melinda added up the advantages, shoved the doubts and disadvantages out of her mind, and agreed.

      She married Prescott Rodgers in a private ceremony in the office of Blake Edmund Hunter, Prescott’s lawyer, with only Hunter and her parents as witnesses.

      Prescott gave her a monthly allowance of $1,100 for her most personal needs, provided her with a housekeeper, and bore all other expenses. She read to him each morning, entertained for him, sparing though it was, and enjoyed the remaining four and a half years of his life as his wife.

      Chapter 1

      Melinda Rodgers sat in Blake Edmund Hunter’s law office on that damp, mid-May morning, dumbfounded, as he read aloud her late husband’s will. She was to set up a foundation for remedial reading and the acquiring of literacy that would meet the needs of both children and adults and have it fully operating within a year of his death. She must also marry within the year.

      If she failed to fulfill either requirement, the house in which she lived and everything else—except for one million dollars to rehabilitate homeless people—would go to a charity of Blake’s choice.

      “It doesn’t surprise me that he’d want that foundation,” Melinda said to those present—Blake, her parents, and her best friend “—but as much as he valued individual freedom, I can’t believe he’d attempt to force me to get married.”

      “You just have to carry out his wishes,” her father, the Reverend Booker Jones, said. “You wouldn’t be foolish enough to throw away all this money. The church needs some repairs.”

      “Now, dear,” Lurlane Jones said, in a voice soft and musical. “Our Melinda is in mourning. We mustn’t push her.”

      Melinda watched Blake Hunter lean back in his desk chair and survey the group, his sharp, cool gaze telling them that he judged them all and found them wanting. She tried not to look at him, lest she betray her feelings.

      “I really wouldn’t have thought it of Prescott,” she said, “but I guess you never truly know a person.”

      She glanced toward Blake, and her heart turned over at the softness of his unguarded look. She told herself not to react, that she had to be mistaken. He had shown her respect but never liked her, and she doubted he had or ever would have any feelings for her, though Lord knows he lived in her heart and had since the minute she met him.

      With his cool, impersonal gaze back in place, he immediately confirmed her thoughts. “Don’t think you can play at this, Mrs. Rodgers, and you’re not allowed to hire anyone to do it for you. You have to do it yourself and to my satisfaction.”

      His sharp words and unsympathetic attitude surprised her, for he had always appeared gracious and considerate toward her during her husband’s lifetime. “As my husband’s close friend, I expected that you might give me some advice, if not help, but I see I’m on my own. I’ll be in tomorrow morning to talk this over with you.”

      His left eyebrow shot up, and he nodded in what appeared to be grudging appreciation. “I’ll be here at nine.”

      “Let’s go, Rachel,” Melinda said to the friend she’d asked to be with her when the will was read. But she noticed that the woman got up with reluctance, almost as if she didn’t want to leave.

      “You do what that will says,” Booker Jones roared in the descending elevator. “We can’t afford to lose one brown cent of that money. We need it to do the Lord’s work.”

      “Melinda will do what’s right. So stop fussing,” Lurlane said.

      Melinda didn’t respond. Her father taught his parishioners that money was the root of all evil, but he never said no to it.

      “Is he like that all the time?” Rachel asked Melinda as they walked down one of the main streets of Ellicott City, Maryland. “My father hardly ever raises his voice.”

      “Your father isn’t a preacher,” Melinda reminded her. “If other pastors are like my father, they’re always right. He talks over everybody and across everybody, because when he opens his mouth the world is supposed to shut up and take heed.”

      “Girl, you go ’way from here,” Rachel said. “He’s a good man. Last Sunday, he preached till he was plain hoarse and couldn’t say another word.”

      “Yes,