“Figured it might be interesting, and damned if I wasn’t right. Just like a picture show, it was, seeing you make up to Benedict. But I did wonder about it for a second there. Seems to me somebody needs to watch out that you don’t go over to the enemy.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“Berry might not think so.”
“He knows me, knows I would never do anything against him. Besides—” She stopped abruptly, unwilling to give this revolting little man anything else to use against her.
“There’s the boy to keep you in line, isn’t there?”
She said nothing, only lifted her chin.
“Surprised, huh? I make it my business to find out whatever there is to know.”
There was another car coming. She turned her back on it. “My son,” she said distinctly, “has nothing to do with this.”
“Maybe, maybe not. I think I’ll keep my eye on you anyway, for the charge if nothing else.”
Disgust curled her lips. “I can imagine.”
“You got me all wrong,” he protested. “Watching’s okay, but I got me a yen for some of what you were passing out. You want to work together on this, it’ll be fine by me.”
The look in his eyes made her feel as if she needed a bath. Her answer was instinctive and instant. “Never.”
“Fine,” he growled. “Then don’t mess with me again. I’m after the dirt, the shit that’s gonna help that bastard Berry get what he wants, because that’s how I’ll wind up with what I need. Get in my way and I’ll stomp you flat.”
“Will you now?” she said, holding his gaze.
“You better believe it.” His features were animalistic as he stared at her from the car’s cavelike interior.
Regina swung away, putting her back to him as she checked out the traffic, then started across the road. She could feel his gaze burrowing into her. It was a relief when she reached her room and let herself inside. She put the chain on and turned the dead bolt, then slumped against the door and closed her eyes. She breathed in and out in deep gasps, as if she had been running for miles.
It had been a mistake, perhaps, to throw his suggestion back in his face with so little tact. Injured pride could make him a dangerous enemy. She couldn’t help it; even pretending to cooperate with him was beyond her.
Something had to be done, but what? What?
She could call Gervis, but to what purpose? He’d said before that he had no control over Slater. Assuming, of course, that he wanted to control him.
The next best thing might be to call Kane and throw herself on his mercy. She well might, except there was no guarantee he would be merciful, much less willing to understand her involvement.
Going to Roan Benedict was no better option. If she did that, it would all come out. There was no possible way to explain what she knew or make anyone believe it without implicating Gervis. If that happened, her cousin would go crazy. There was no telling what he might do.
And Stephan would be there alone with him.
Stephan, her son.
No, bringing the sheriff or authority of any kind into this was clearly impossible. That left only one thing. She had to find something Gervis could use against Mr. Lewis in court. She had to find it fast, before Slater took matters into his own hands again. If she managed that feat, then there would be no reason for any more threats, any more danger.
Kane was the key after all, though it had nothing to do with mercy. She was going to have to go through him to get what she needed.
She put her hand to her pendant, holding it in a death grip. Squeezing her eyes shut so tight that she could feel her lashes pricking the skin around them, she listened to the hard, frantic pounding of her heart.
Could she do it? Did she have the nerve, not to mention the sex appeal or the pure, unmitigated gall? Could she manage it while Kane was so concerned for his grandfather? She didn’t know, but she was going to have to find out.
She had to follow Gervis’s orders. She had to do it as soon as she was able, tomorrow, the next day, whenever she could find the glimmer of an excuse.
There were so many ugly phrases for what she needed to do, so many crass, contemptuous, vulgar words to describe an act that was both simple and profound, a joining of the flesh that could not be accomplished without some degree of mental bonding. There were also a few with gentle, even resplendent, meanings.
She needed to make love to Kane in order to get close to him, to become intimate with him so she could discover what he knew.
The last was far preferable. It was what she would choose, if she must.
Or if she dared.
10
It was Betsy who first mentioned the welcome-home reception for Mr. Lewis two days later. To call Luke on the pretext of discovering the progress of the patient, then work the reception into the conversation, required more nerve than it did guile. She hated deceiving Kane’s cousin, but the resulting invitation to go with him was important. It represented the first step in her plan of attack.
Not that the gathering was a formal occasion in any way. It was just a few friends and neighbors showing up when Mr. Lewis was brought home from the hospital. According to Luke, no one wanted to tire Kane’s grandfather or make him feel he had to entertain them when he might not feel up to it. They would stick around long enough to show how glad they were that he was okay and have a little cake and coffee, then they would go.
The gathering would be out at Kane’s house, The Haven. Mr. Lewis was to stay there a few days under his grandson’s eye and Vivian Benedict’s care. They were afraid he would try to get out of bed too soon or do too much otherwise.
Regina and Luke reached The Haven before Kane arrived from the hospital with Mr. Lewis. They joined the others clustered in the shade of the long, column-lined front gallery. The rumble of voices was steady, punctuated now and then by a ripple of laughter, but spirits were subdued. The general feeling seemed to be that they had come close to losing Mr. Lewis, and that was not something to be taken lightly.
A great deal of attention was paid to Miss Elise, who sat pale and composed in a rattan peacock chair someone had brought out from the sunroom. She seemed to be enjoying herself in a quiet way, though she tried more than once to get up to help with the refreshments. All such efforts were kindly but firmly refused by Kane’s aunt, who seemed in her element as hostess. Bustling here and there, talking ninety-to-nothing, Aunt Vivian supervised the arrangement of the cakes and pies brought in by different women to be added to the bounty she had baked herself. The only person she allowed to do anything was Dora from Hallowed Ground, and then only because the housekeeper came armed with a silver cake knife and pie server and ignored all efforts to prevent her from wielding them.
April Halstead was also on hand, looking graceful and put-together in a simple dress of sunny yellow cotton knit worn with citrine earrings. Betsy arrived a few minutes after Regina and was fairly muted, for her, both in the shirt and pants she wore and the volume of her comments.
Regina recognized one or two others from the open house at Chemin-a-Haut, though she couldn’t recall their names. She did know Roan Benedict, however, and would have even if he hadn’t been wearing his badge. Thankfully, there was no time to do more than smile and nod a nervous greeting before someone announced that Kane was arriving with Mr. Lewis.
Everyone crowded toward the wide front steps, congregating there and on the brick walkway below. Regina hung back. She had no real place among the group and was reluctant to claim any. Added to that was her uncertainty over how Kane might feel about seeing her there.
He homed in on her presence with laser-beam accuracy, singling her out among the other well-wishers. Even while helping his grandfather negotiate the brick steps up to the gallery, his dark blue gaze meshed with her hazel one. For long seconds, there was nothing except trenchant speculation in his expression. Then his firm mouth relaxed into a smile.
That lack of hostility felt like a benediction. She caught her breath
in soundless pleasure. As she felt the glow of it, she realized how tense she had been, how fearful that she had lost all chance of gaining his attention. Her heart lifted with hope that she knew was reflected in the tentative curving of her lips in return.
Mr. Lewis was hugged and had his uninjured left hand clasped a dozen times over on his way up the steps. He nodded, smiled, exchanged quips and jokes about his driving, the hospital nurses, and how anxious he was to get to Miss Elise. She met him with a kiss at the wide front door, and they made their way into the house together.
Wine and coffee were served along with the various desserts. When the glasses and cups and plates had been passed around, Luke proposed a toast, and all drank to the honoree’s health and good fortune in avoiding more serious injury.
Mr. Lewis raised both his cast-encased right arm and his glass to indicate that he wanted to reply. “To my good friends, my great neighbors, and all my favorite relatives by blood and by marriage, I thank you. This is certainly something worth living for, I promise you.” His eyes crinkled at the corners in whimsical amusement. “I wouldn’t have missed it for anything, particularly a longer rest in that wooden box I keep in my parlor.”
There was a general laugh, for which he waited before he went on. “Since you’re all here, this seems as good a time as any to make a little announcement, one some of you have been expecting for quite a while. Miss Elise was more shook-up than she let on by what happened the other night because she’s not letting me drive her home anymore. She’s put her foot down, decided she’s going to live at my house.”
“Now, Lewis…” the white-haired lady protested, blushing.
“That’s not the way it is?” he asked, his eyes twinkling as he put his arm around her, cast and all.
“You know very well it’s not,” she scolded, though her gaze was more than a little flirtatious.
“Oh, yes,” he said, pretending sudden understanding before he looked up, beaming, at the rest of the gathering. “The two of us are going to get married first.”
The round of chuckles and chorus of congratulations lightened the atmosphere. Conversation became a general buzz. The food and drink disappeared at an astonishing rate. Then, before Mr. Lewis began noticeably to flag, people started to find excuses for going. There were more hugs and handshakes, then a general exodus.
Miss Elise was among the last to depart. She gave her new fiancé a gentle kiss, then accepted the arm that Roan extended in support, since he had offered to see her home. Because she looked a little teary, the sheriff teased and flirted with her, exerting such outrageous charm and gallantry that he had her smiling again by the time they reached the front steps.
Soon there was no one left with Mr. Lewis, Kane and his aunt except Regina and Luke, who had been asked to help get the patient up the stairs to his bedroom. As the others eased the older man from his chair and helped him toward the upstairs bedroom, Regina busied herself picking up cups, glasses and dessert plates.
“Don’t bother with that, dear,” Aunt Vivian said over her shoulder. “I’ll do it later.”
Kane, three steps up the staircase with his grandfather, paused to glance back down at Regina. “But don’t go just yet, will you?”
“I can’t,” she said, awkwardly balancing fragile cups and saucers, “not until Luke is ready.”
“I brought her,” Luke put in from where he stood lending his arm to support the invalid.
Kane met his cousin’s dark gaze for a flicker of time far too short to guess what he was thinking beyond the fact that he was not pleased. Then to Regina, he said, “I’ll be back in a second.”
It sounded vaguely like a threat, but she refused to let it get to her. Her resolve was bolstered by Mr. Lewis, who gave her a jaunty wave and a wink before continuing slowly upward with his escort.
It was Aunt Vivian who returned first. With a warm smile that erased years from her face, she said, “I thought I’d leave Mr. Lewis to the boys. He’ll be more comfortable that way, I imagine. Would you care for more coffee?”
Regina declined the offer. “You think he’s really going to be all right?”
“Oh, yes. A few more days of bed rest and he’ll be his old self—except for the arm, of course, which will take a while to heal. It was a lucky escape.”
“Yes.” Regina was glad Kane’s aunt had no idea how lucky.
“He’s a tough old buzzard, tougher than us all, I sometimes think.” The other woman gave a low laugh as she waved Regina toward a seat on the couch, then dropped down beside her with a sigh. “He draws strength from the good he does for others and his pleasure in helping them through trying times. His greatest problem with the accident is that Miss Elise might have been harmed.”
“He seems a remarkable man.” The words were spoken with all sincerity.
“I certainly think so. You wouldn’t believe some of the things he’s done. He likes to talk about how wild Kane used to be, but I can tell you the tendency didn’t all come from the Benedict side of the family.”
Regina felt uncomfortable taking advantage of the other woman’s natural gregariousness, heightened as it seemed to be by the excitement of the homecoming. At the same time, she didn’t dare pass up the opportunity. “I find that hard to believe,” she said encouragingly. “He looks like such a perfect gentleman.”
“I’ll admit it’s hard to picture him doing anything the least bit out of line. Regardless, he was quite a ladies’ man in the days of slouch hats and hair tonic, before he married Mary Sue. There’s even a tale that he and his father helped cover up a killing back in the early thirties.”
“It’s common knowledge?” Regina asked, startled.
“No, no, I only heard about it because my husband’s family was involved.”
“The Benedicts.” Regina supplied the name to be certain she got the story straight.
“Exactly. I don’t know all the details, but it seems there was a lowlife pestering one of the Benedict women. She’d have nothing to do with the man, which drove him wild. One night, this creep caught her alone. When they found her, she was bruised and covered with blood, scarcely half-alive. The Benedict men went after the attacker—it was the kind of thing they did back then. He opened fire when he saw them coming. Shots were exchanged, and the lowlife wound up dead. Next day, so the story goes, Crompton’s Funeral Home buried two caskets in the same plot at old Granny Murphy’s funeral, one on top of the other. If the Murphys should ever exhume the dear soul, they’ll be shocked to discover who Granny has been sleeping with all these years.”
Regina couldn’t help smiling at the droll expression on the other woman’s face. As tragic as the incident might have been, it had taken place long ago, so had the feel of some distant legend. If the story she’d just heard had been about Mr. Lewis instead of his father, it might have been useful for Gervis’s purpose. Unfortunately, it wasn’t.
“I suppose,” she said carefully, “that there are…certain advantages to the funeral business. You often know, literally, where the body is buried.”
“There are responsibilities, too,” Aunt Vivian commented. “People ask for the strangest things.”
“Oh?”
“Some want to be buried with their jewelry or photographs. One widow wanted to be buried with a plaster cast of her husband’s face. Then there was the man with the pharaoh complex who asked to take his pet cat with him into the afterworld. Of course, someone would have had to destroy it, and Mr. Lewis wasn’t about to be the executioner, being fond of cats himself. That was one request he sort of let slide until it was too late.”
“I would imagine so.”
“But he did honor a last request that touched his heart. A woman from Turn-Coupe quarreled with her sweetheart, then flounced off and married the wrong man. She spent her whole life being a good wife, then discovered she had cancer. When she knew she was dying, she asked Mr. Lewis to bury her next to the man she had never stopped loving, her sweetheart who had died the year before. When the time cam
e, Mr. Lewis swore she had requested a closed-casket ceremony, then buried an empty coffin in the designated place and laid the woman to rest for eternity beside her soul mate.”
“And the family never discovered it?” Regina asked with close interest. The story was intriguing, even if it wasn’t damaging enough to be useful to her. Or was it? Might there not be a twist Gervis could put on it to make a case for some kind of fraud?
“Not to my knowledge, and I feel sure there would have been repercussions if it had come out. But you see what kind of man we’re dealing with, don’t you?” Vivian tilted her head to give Regina a glance from the corner of her eye.
Regina did indeed. Mr. Lewis was far too kindhearted and accommodating for his own good. She hated, really hated, that she was being forced to inform against him. She hated still more that his grandson, who was too much like him, was going to be caught in the fallout. Supposing, of course, that this secret she’d just discovered would be sufficient for her cousin’s purposes. She wouldn’t bet on it.
Kane came quietly down the stairs behind them. To his aunt, he said, “Luke is going to sit with Pops until he falls asleep, which shouldn’t be long. I know you’re worn out, too. Why don’t you lie down while Regina and I take a little walk down to the lake?”
Vivian Benedict searched her nephew’s face. Apparently, she saw something there that Regina couldn’t detect, for she didn’t argue. With her easy, natural grace, she thanked Regina for coming and said she would see her on her next visit. As she left them, Kane indicated the hallway that led toward the double French doors at the back of the house, then fell into step beside Regina as she moved in that direction.
Her arm brushed against his shirtfront when he held the back door for her. She was so tense that her nerves leaped, tingling at the touch, and it was all she could do not to pull away. Under the circumstances, it was impossible for her to refuse his request to speak to her alone. She was even grateful that she needn’t find some way of arranging it herself. Still, she was distinctly edgy about discovering what he wanted.
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