[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
just as she had then, she d left herself at his unkind mercy.
By the time she reached her room and lowered the shades over the
windows, her head really was throbbing. How had a perfectly simple visit
to her grandmother s so quickly turned into such a convoluted mess?
She stayed upstairs for the rest of the afternoon and even managed to sleep
a little. Just before six, she took a shower then changed into one of the
outfits she d brought over from Belvoir, a plain cotton skirt and an
embroidered white blouse. When she came downstairs, she found that
Bruce had already arrived and everyone was gathered at the back of the
house, in the sun room that overlooked the river. The old ladies were
bickering in a bid to secure Bruce's attention, but amiably for a change,
probably because they d both been at the sherry. Lucas stood apart from
them, gazing moodily out at the view and nursing a glass half-full of
something dark and evil-looking.
Monique interrupted her discourse on the finer points of juvenile crime
prevention to ask, Are you feeling a little better, Emily Jane? Lucas Flynn
told us you claimed to have a headache--a fact which, given the
circumstances, hardly struck me as surprising but which he seemed to find
quite preposterous.
Thank you, yes, I m feeling much better. Emily smiled a greeting at
Bruce and bent to kiss her grandmother s cheek. How about you, Grand-
mere? Is the knee very painful?
Not as long as I keep off it, which this contraption allows me to do. It s
fortunate, also, that Mrs. Flynn happens to have a bedroom on the main
floor which enables me to rest whenever I feel the need.
And there s nothing like a nap in the afternoon to restore a body-even one
as old as yours, Monique, Beatrice observed with tipsy relish. Lucas,
you re not being a very good host. Will you pour a drink for Emily Jane?
What would you like? He wasn t so much truculent as indifferent.
Bestirring himself from the scowling perusal of his own libation, he tossed
the question at Emily with such a marked lack of interest in her reply that
she felt sure if she d asked for belladonna extract on the rocks it wouldn t
have caused him a moment s disquiet.
Sheer mischief prompted her to indicate the glass Bruce held and say, I ll
have one of those.
Beer? Lucas snorted, successfully shaken out of his black reverie.
Only he could have bathed so harmless a word with such sarcasm. Is there
something wrong with beer? she inquired sweetly.
I d have thought champagne cocktails were more your style.
You don t know enough about me to leap to any such conclusion, Lucas,
she said, at which her grandmother let out an unladylike cackle of approval
and took another snort of sherry.
He glowered impressively and muttered, I know a hell of a lot more than I
did yesterday at this time.
It wasn t so much what he said as the unspoken implication that, before
he d done, he d put her entire life for the last eleven years under a
microscope and examine it in minute detail. It was a prospect which, to her
disgust, Emily found strangely exhilarating, and which left the atmosphere
humming with danger.
Was she really still so foolish as to believe that any sort of notice from him
was better than none?
Rattled, she swung away from him and turned her attention to Bruce. He
was the ideal guest--urbane, witty, congenial--everything, indeed, that
Lucas was not. But not even his presence was quite enough to diffuse her
morbid sense of expectation every time Lucas cast an ominous glance in
her direction.
When Bruce suggested a stroll by the river after dinner, she leapt at the
chance to postpone the confrontation that she knew was brewing.
When she returned, shortly before eleven, the house was in darkness and
she breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, sooner or later she and Lucas
would have things out, but far better that it be later. Hopefully, by then
she d have overcome the insane urge to forget all the reasons she had for
disliking him.
She took off her sandals and stole up the stairs, her bare feet making not a
sound on the thick carpet. Apart from a night lamp burning on the landing,
not a crack of light showed anywhere.
Noiselessly she traversed the upper hall, and let the door to her room snick
closed behind her. And knew at once that she d gained no advantage at all.
The beat of his heart pulled her like a magnet. The force of his personality
coiled across the room, tugging her forward in the darkness until he could,
had he chosen, have reached out and touched her.
Far from eluding him, she had walked blithely into a trap the irony of
which only he and she could possibly have appreciated. He had come
sneaking into her room while her back was turned and was stretched out on
her bed, waiting for her.
It was déja vu with a difference. Because this time he was the one to
invade her privacy, and, from the look on his face when he flicked on the
bedside light, she had the distinct feeling she wasn t going to find the
action quite as pleasurable as she had when she d been the one to initiate
things.
CHAPTER FIVE
"WELL, well, he drawled, here you are at last, all flushed and breathless.
Do I take that to mean he got more than just a goodnight kiss?
Had it been anyone--anyone--but Lucas, she d have reacted like the
morally outraged woman she was and pinned his ears so far back that they
met behind his head. But it wasn t someone else; it was the man who d
hurt her more than any other person she d ever known by dismissing her
love as adolescent delusion, and who d then added insult to injury by
making her feel cheap and foolish into the bargain.
The fact that he was still doing it, without provocation this time, and with
that affectation of nonchalant contempt that seemed to be his stock-in-trade
these days, inspired her to respond in kind. So instead of freezing him with
icy disdain she swept her hair away from her face in a deliberately sultry
gesture and replied, Don t worry, Lucas. I ve grown smart enough over
the years not to run the risk of getting pregnant.
He spiraled off the bed so fast, he was nothing but a blur of movement.
How do you stand yourself? he snarled, looming over her. How do you
look at yourself in the mirror every morning and not throw up?"
I manage, she said, standing her ground even though every instinct of
self-preservation told her to back down.
For several charged seconds he was transformed. His eyes glowed with
angry blue fire, his chest heaved, his hands curled into fists. He became
again that man she used to know, passionate about life and death and all
the bits, good or bad, in between. The miracle of it washed over her and
cleansed away all the grime that was part and parcel of the adult world, and
for a very little while she remembered why, a long time ago, she had fallen
in love with him.
And then he seemed to remember who she was and that he didn t care what
she did or with whom as long as it didn t involve him. She saw the emotion
seep out of him and the familiar shroud of indifference drape his features.
The flame in his eyes died leaving them flat and opaque. His mouth, which
once had kissed her with such hunger, narrowed in censure. His face
became that of an avenging angel confronted by the most reprehensible
sinner to crawl the earth, and she couldn t stand it.
Don t look at me as if I m nothing, she cried.
You re less than nothing, he said coldly. I don t know how your
husband abides you.
She gave a croak of laughter. He doesn t. He left me nearly two years ago
because--
So that s why you still call yourself Lamartine--not that I m interested in
hearing the sordid details.
I couldn t give him a child, so he turned to a woman who could.
Why hadn t she heeded his admonition? What demon of perversity had
driven her to prick his bubble of containment and try to squeeze another
drop of human emotion out of him when his every word and gesture told
her that he had none to spare? An urge to revive the life that had gone out
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]