Finding Laura Page 22

It took him less than ten minutes to shower and dress, and he took the time to shave because he had a fairly heavy beard and he didn’t want Amelia noticing that he had not, as was his custom, gotten rid of his five o’clock shadow. But he was still quick enough that when he went downstairs and strolled into the front parlor, the old grandfather clock out in the foyer was just striking the hour.

  He was the last to enter the room aside from Anne, who in all likelihood wouldn’t show up at all.

  “Drink, Daniel?” Alex was playing bartender.

  “Scotch.” He took the glass and nodded his thanks, his gaze sweeping the room without—though it required a tremendous effort—lingering obviously on Laura. The glance was enough, at least, to tell him she was standing behind the couch nearest the window, facing the room warily as she had before. That she was wearing, improbably for a redhead but with stunning effect, a flame-red dress that was vaguely Oriental in design, a high-necked sheath that left her arms bare. It was made of silk, judging by the shimmer when she moved, and the way it clung to her body turned an exotic but otherwise sedate design into something starkly sensual. She wore her hair up, and pearl studs in her lobes were her only ornaments.

  She didn’t need anything else.

  Daniel went to his usual place by the hearth, speaking casually to his mother and Amelia and greeting the rest generally, and thought how remarkable it was that he was able to string two words together that made sense, let alone behave normally enough that no one seemed to notice anything different about him.

  “The others have been telling me about their day, Daniel,” Amelia said. “How was yours?”

  He had no idea whether she had found out that he’d returned to the house much earlier than expected, and merely said, “Busy, as usual. In fact, I have to go into the city tomorrow morning for a while.”

  “You work too hard, dear,” Madeline said automatically.

  “I’m fine, Mother.” Daniel looked at her, wondering as he always did how she could be so conventional in some ways and so inexplicable in others. She played the mother very well, saying all the right things at the right moments, and grieving violently at the death of her son. Yet she hadn’t grieved noticeably for her husband, and she would not, Daniel thought in detachment, grieve for him if he went before her. As far as he could tell, Madeline had never cared deeply for anyone in her life—except for Peter.

  He had known that from childhood and might well have been scarred for life by the overt rejection, but Daniel had realized very young that it was not something lacking in him, but in Madeline. For whatever reason, there was room in her to love only one other besides herself, and for whatever reason, her youngest son had been the chosen one. Her husband and oldest son had heard all the right words and seen all the right smiles—and neither had made the mistake of taking them at face value.

  “I’m sure you should at least take weekends off,” she said now, looking up at him from the couch with an anxious smile and eyes that mirrored his own except for the slight vagueness of sedatives.

  “I won’t work after noon,” he promised. That satisfied her, as he had known it would, and she lapsed back into silence and the numbing peace of drugs.

  Daniel glanced toward the other sofa, where Kerry and Josie sat, and even the furtive glimpse of the still flame that was Laura was enough to make him feel a building heat of his own. Goddamn useless cold showers …

  Laura spoke then, her voice huskier than usual—or maybe that was just his fevered imagination.

  “Kerry, what was the music you were working on all afternoon? I recognized it, but couldn’t remember the name of it.”

  “It was Beethoven,” she replied. “The Moonlight Sonata mostly.”

  “It was beautiful,” Laura told her. “The house was so quiet and the music seemed to fill it. Very peaceful.”

  “Did it help you with your painting?” Josie asked, looking back over her shoulder with a smile.

  “I don’t know if anything could do that,” Laura replied with a faint laugh. “But it made my … frustration a bit less painful.”

  “Kerry, you can play for us after dinner,” Amelia announced.

  “Of course, Amelia.” If Kerry disliked being chosen as the evening’s entertainment, there was no sign of it in her sweetly inexpressive smile or her meek voice.

  From his place as he leaned against the back of the couch near Madeline, Alex asked, “Has anybody heard from Anne lately?”

  Amelia’s face seemed to set in stone, but she didn’t reprove Alex.

  “I saw her come in and then leave again this afternoon,” Kerry ventured. “She’s very unhappy, poor thing.”

  Amelia looked at her and said a bit dryly, “You’re very generous, Kerry, I’ll say that for you.”

  “Why? Because I don’t blame Anne?” Kerry’s smile remained unchanged, gentle and composed. “Whatever happened between Peter and Anne, it wasn’t her fault.”

  Daniel looked at her in some surprise, since it was the first time in his memory that she had said anything against Peter. Criticism of Peter was seldom heard in the house, in fact, and Daniel fully expected Amelia to pounce on the remark. She did.

  “Do you think Peter seduced her?” she snapped.

  Kerry’s voice remained perfectly gentle. “Of course he did, Amelia.”

  “And why do you think that?”

  “Because he always did. He was a hunter, you know. He liked collecting trophies. He never used a gun, but I imagine he drew blood more than once. Anne was just another trophy to him. So was the woman who killed him.” She paused, then added, “If it was a woman, of course.”

  There was hardly a thing anyone in the room could say after that softly devastating summation, and not even Amelia ventured to try. As for Madeline, she simply didn’t hear it, whether because of the sedatives or merely because she chose not to listen.

  Daniel wondered at Kerry’s use of the word trophy, but didn’t have time to reflect on it. They all heard a thud as the front door was slammed, hasty footsteps, and then Anne appeared in the doorway. She moved instantly into the room until she stood near Daniel, where she could see everyone and they could see her.

  She looked around with a defiant lift to her chin and announced, “I just saw Brent Landry, and he says there’s no evidence against me. Do all of you hear that? The cab driver did see Peter alive and well when I left, and Brent says I couldn’t possibly have got back to the motel later in the right time frame. So I’m in the clear. I didn’t kill Peter.”

  Daniel had never honestly thought Anne capable of killing—at least not the way Peter had been killed—and he was relieved to hear she had been eliminated as a suspect. But he was a logical man, and he couldn’t help reflecting that with the cab driver’s testimony, the window of opportunity for Peter’s killer had now grown exceedingly small. So who had appeared after Anne had left the motel and stabbed a fully dressed Peter to death?

  “So you can all stop talking about me behind my back,” Anne told them fiercely.

  Daniel waited to see if Amelia would point out that being innocent of murder eliminated only one of the sins of which Anne was presumed guilty, but it seemed that Amelia was in no mood for a scene tonight. When she spoke, it was mildly.

  “We haven’t been discussing you, Anne. But I am glad to know you’re no longer under suspicion. Now perhaps you’ll stop avoiding the rest of us. You do mean to sit down to dinner with us, I hope?”

  “I’m not dressed,” Anne said, uncomfortable now.

  Daniel thought she looked as she always did, right down to her clunky boots, so he wasn’t surprised when Amelia waved off the halfhearted protest.

  “You look fine.” She rose to her feet. “Shall we?”

  As easily as that, Anne’s return to the bosom of her family was accomplished. No one objected. No one even commented.

  The others followed Amelia’s lead in rising and leaving the room, including a subdued Anne, and since Laura walked out with Josie and Kerry, Daniel didn
’t get a chance to speak to her privately.

  Not that he knew what he would have said. Something idiotic, no doubt, like asking her if she was all right when there was no reason she wouldn’t be.

  All through dinner he was overwhelmingly conscious of her sitting two chairs away. He hardly noticed Anne’s hesitant attempts to talk to a smiling but distant Kerry. Barely heard Alex or Josie or Madeline when they spoke. But when Laura replied to some question Amelia had asked her, he heard every word, every inflection.

  And when everyone afterward moved to the music room to hear Kerry play, he couldn’t help finding a corner out of Amelia’s sight and the attention of the others where he could look at Laura. He knew she felt his gaze, even though she didn’t look at him once. While the slow throb of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata filled the room, he stared at her and remembered once again the interlude in the attic.

  She felt it, his gaze. Perhaps even his thoughts. Or maybe she was remembering too. He saw the silk over her breasts shimmer as her breathing quickened, saw color rise in her face. He watched her lips part and her fingers twine together in her lap. He was too far away to see it, but knew that a pulse beat quickly under the pale skin of her throat.

  It had been nearly impossible for him to keep his hands off her before today; how, now, could he be expected to deny or ignore the hunger he felt for her? Today had given him a taste only, and there was no way on earth he could be satisfied with that.

  Discreet? Christ, how long will I be able to hide it?

  Not long.

  He wondered if she had any idea at all how difficult it had been for him not to reach out every time he saw her, not to touch her hand or her face or her bright hair. How difficult it was to be in one room when he knew she was in another somewhere in the house. He wanted her with him, wanted to look at her and touch her. Had to. It was why he had allowed Amelia to maneuver her into the house when every rational thought warned him of the price he might be called upon to pay for his reckless need to have her near.

  He pulled his gaze from her with an effort and looked at Amelia, upright and composed as always, untouched by the riot of emotions he felt.

  And what about you, Amelia? Are you just trying to distract me? To keep me from finding out the truth? Is that why you brought her here? Or are you up to something else? What do you really know about the mirror, Amelia? All of it—or only some? And if you know it all, how do you intend to use that knowledge against me?

  How do you mean to destroy me without risking the power you love so much?

  Daniel drew a silent breath and looked toward the piano without seeing it. He was doing all that he could, he reminded himself. Moving as quickly as he could. What other choice did he have?

  He pushed the useless questions out of his mind and tried to concentrate on the music. But that was useless too. His gaze was drawn, again and again, to Laura, and by the end of Kerry’s performance, Daniel was afraid that anyone looking at him would know, instantly and without question, just how out of control he felt.

  No one seemed to, however, and as everyone moved—at Amelia’s “suggestion”—across the hall to the den, where they would be expected to play cards or watch television or talk in order to while away her evening, he excused himself by saying that he had a few calls to make in the library.

  Amelia nodded regally and began saying something to Kerry, who was walking beside her, while Anne moved ahead. Madeline was behind them, and Alex and Josie had lingered a moment in the music room, talking quietly. So when Laura passed him just outside the doorway, Daniel grabbed the opportunity. His hand caught hers for a fleeting instant, and he said, so low it would be inaudible to anyone else, “Come to me tonight. Please.”

  He saw the flash of green as she glanced up at him, but he didn’t pause to try to read her expression. He turned away from her and went toward the library, knowing that if he was close to her a moment longer, no one in the family would be in any doubt of his feelings.

  Chapter 11

  Laura rubbed her left arm absently as she leaned against the window casing and looked out on the Kilbourne gardens. Not that she could see much. It was ten o’clock, and the scattered lights in the gardens were only faint pools of illumination dimmed and textured by the shadows of restless trees. The wind could be heard from time to time, moaning softly, and the coming storm had quite effectively blotted out the moonlight.

  Not a pleasant night.

  She had left the others downstairs a quarter of an hour before, telling Amelia that she wanted to come up here to her sitting room and “tinker” with some of her sketches before turning in for the night. And since Anne had, rather inexplicably, chosen to walk up with her on the way to her own room, Laura hadn’t been given the chance to look for Daniel in the library even if she had wanted to.

  She didn’t want to think about how much she had wanted to.

  Trying to distract herself and definitely not in the mood to tinker with her sketches, she found Dena’s number in her purse and sat down on the comfortable sofa to call the college student She expected to get an answering machine, assuming the younger woman was out on a Friday night, but Dena was in.

  “Hi, Laura. I tried to call you earlier, but—”

  “Yes, I’m away from home for the weekend. So I thought I’d check in and see if you had more information for me.”

  “You bet. Hold on a sec while I get my notes.…” Dena was gone for a couple of minutes, then returned and began speaking briskly. “Okay, we got lucky again—in fact, I can’t believe how lucky we’ve been. But I’ve told you that, I guess.”

  “You’ve mentioned it Go on.”

  “Umm … where is—oh, yeah, here it is. Well, as I told you, Faith Kenley’s sister, who was a prominent society widow and who inherited the mirror from Faith, died in 1897 and her estate was sold at auction, in New York City, in 1898. Attending that auction was a thirty-year-old married woman by the name of Shelby Hadden, who, you’ll be interested to hear, collected mirrors.”

  “How do you know she collected them?” Laura asked.

  “She’s listed in the auctioneer’s notes as a collector, and it’s mentioned in quite a few contemporary letters. Seems she was pretty well known for it, at least during the period of her life up to this point; no mention of it afterward. But she must have been fairly fanatical about it then, because in one of his letters a year or so earlier, her husband seemed a little upset about what he obviously saw as an unreasonable obsession”

  Laura frowned as she gazed at nothing, then said, “You got access to their letters?”

  “Through a friend in New York who has access to the relevant archives. Got a stack of faxes for you to see. Some of Shelby’s letters, her husband’s—and letters from somebody else I’m about to tell you about—plus a few newspaper stories. What happened was a big scandal, Laura.”

  “She met a man at the auction?” Laura ventured.

  Dena was surprised. “How’d you guess that? As a matter of fact, she met a man a year or so older than her named Brett Galvin. Dunno how they managed to connect, since Shelby’s husband was with her, but there’s a letter from her to him dated a couple of days later, and it’s obvious they’ve met on the sly since the auction.”

  “I see.” Laura drew a breath. “Who bought the mirror? Shelby?”

  “Yep. She mentions in that first letter to Brett something about how it must have been fate, both of them looking for a mirror that day, but she’s the one who bought it. Anyway, they began an affair that, I gather from the few surviving letters from the period, was just about too hot to handle. None of Brett’s letters from this period survived, probably because Shelby’s husband destroyed them.”

  “He found out?”

  “Oh, yeah. Not right away, though. In Shelby’s letters to Brett, it’s obvious that he’s pushing her to divorce her husband and marry him, and she desperately wants to, no doubt about that. But she also has a little girl she obviously adored, and knew damned well she’d lose
the kid if her husband had anything to say about it. She says she’d be willing to take the girl and run away with Brett without formally divorcing her husband, but she knows he’d hunt them down. And it’s pretty obvious that although Brett’s willing to raise Shelby’s daughter, he most definitely wants Shelby to live with him as his wife, so that’s what he’s arguing for.”

  “Poor thing,” Laura murmured. “It must have nearly torn her apart.”

  Dena sighed. “That comes across in her letters. If there had been no child, she wouldn’t have hesitated, but she couldn’t bear the thought of losing her daughter. In the end, of course, the choice was taken out of her hands. Her husband found out about the affair—nobody says how—and literally threw her out of his house with no more than her clothing and a few personal possessions—including the mirror, which, by the way, he shattered when he slammed it down on the sidewalk outside their house.”

  So that’s how it was broken. “She went to Brett?”

  “Nowhere else she could go. She had no family within hundreds of miles, and no friends that would have taken her in. This was before the turn of the century, remember; outsiders didn’t interfere between a husband and wife. Brett tried to protect her as much as he was able, moving her into his house but bringing in a sister as chaperon. Nobody bought it, I’m afraid. If they weren’t sharing a bed every night, they might as well have been as far as the gossip was concerned. According to public opinion, Shelby was definitely in the wrong—and they made her pay for her sins. So did her husband. He won custody of the child, smeared Shelby’s reputation to hell and back, and as soon as the divorce was final, he left New York, refusing to tell her where he was taking her daughter. Shelby never saw the girl again.”

  “Jeez. Which one of us said this mirror seemed to be cursed?” Laura wondered, her gaze going to the mirror lying facedown on the coffee table beside her sketchpad.

  “I don’t remember, but it seems to have been prophetic. Want to hear the rest?”

  “Just tell me there’s a happy ending, dammit.”