by Anne Stuart
It was already dusk when I started back through the woods, and a full, silvery moon was rising over the dark and threatening trees. As I made my way at a leisurely pace my eyes wandered, and I noticed a deer standing in the clearing, her eyes shining in the twilight. I had always thought of deer as magic creatures, and her calm, passionless gaze seemed to speak to me, offering sympathy and reassurance. After a moment she turned and moved slowly away, trusting that I wouldn't harm her.
It was a good ending for not a bad sort of day, all told, and I returned to the house feeling curiously serene.
When I came down to breakfast the next morning Con was gone, leaving a sullen Daniel behind, his shining blue eyes dull with hurt and disappointment and what I almost thought I recognized as fear. But that was impossible, I told myself sternly. What could Daniel have to fear from his mother and me?
Maeve promptly took Connell's departure as a sign that she no longer need have anything to do with either her son or me. As far as I could see her days followed a slothful pattern. She would rise about eleven, eat a leisurely breakfast, and then be off visiting or riding with the ever-faithful Robinson. The latter's expression of smugness increased daily, and so disgusted was I with the blatant situation that I forbade Daniel the use of the stables. Not that my charge cared one way or the other—he was content to trot along behind me when I went for long angry walks through the ever-deepening snow.
In the first few days after Maeve's return Peter would accompany us, much to Daniel's dismay and my own pleasure. But as the days passed we saw less and less of his charming and gentle smiles, and only I knew or even guessed the torment he was going through over Maeve. For my lovely cousin was holding nothing back in her campaign to win her onetime lover back to her side. She would make a special effort to rise early on the mornings when she knew he was coming, and she would appear sleepy-eyed and flushed, her lavender eyes shining with sweet, innocent admiration, all her attentions riveted to Peter's suddenly stammering conversation. The full force of Maeve's feminine wiles was an awesome thing, and I didn't hold out much hope for Peter's powers of resistance. He was forever one to take the easiest course open to him.
I knew I could save him if I really wanted to, by as simple an act as lifting a finger, and yet I hesitated. With him loomed a full, peaceful life with an adoring husband and far more money than I would ever need, and yet still I was haunted by the specter of Connell Fitzgerald and his sad, mocking eyes. So poor Peter fought his battle silently and alone, until one morning we saw him riding across the fields with a laughing, wind-blown Maeve at his side, and I knew he was lost again.
As the new year began the air turned even colder, and the heavy snows, more a threat than an actuality so far, began in earnest. By mid-month another two feet had piled up around us, making my irregular visits to the old farmhouse lengthier and more difficult. But not even a howling blizzard could have kept me from going. Demonwood was surely not the most peaceful place in the world, with Maeve flaunting her various illicit relationships with mocking assurance and Daniel alternately frightened and defiant, all the time shutting me out, refusing to confide in me. And each time I came face to face with Peter in the rambling hallways of Demonwood the bemused expression on his face and the look of mild, guilty surprise wounded me in a way I knew was irrational but still painful.
Of course I had constant letters from my family. Scarcely a week went by without hearing from brothers and sisters-in-law, and I was sorely tempted to pour out my doubts and fears to them. Instead I wrote them bright and witty little letters, assuring them that I loved my job and that Maeve was charming. Which was not exactly a lie. Maeve was being charming, but not toward me. Father McShane had even told me it was reasoning like this that got me into trouble. And I knew he was right.
I was on my way home late one afternoon from the farmhouse when I noticed a difference about the huge new house as it stood like an eyesore amid the freshly fallen snow. The windows were blazing with light, and there was a vitality that seemed to flow out to me that told me Con must have returned. I quickened my pace along the snow-packed pathway.
"And where are you running to?" Maeve's mocking voice broke through my excited thoughts, and I turned to her in surprise, her dark-clothed figure framed against the twilit sky.
"Maeve!" A small, nervous laugh escaped me. "I didn't see you standing there. Are you on your way back to the house? I'll walk with you," I offered, having no desire for her company but determined still to keep up a friendly outward appearance.
"No, I'm not going back to the house," she snapped with sudden waspishness. "My beloved husband has appeared from out of the blue with an absolute horde of business friends, and I refuse to stay and play hostess to the bunch of them. Pompous old feores! It was bad enough being dragged all over Europe to serve as his hostess—at least his European associates were men of breeding and culture. I draw the line at his American merchant friends," she sniffed, and I couldn't help but wonder at her swift rise to snobbery. "I'll be back when they've gone, and you can tell my husband that during your next cozy little tête-à-tête. At least I know you'll be properly chaperoned." She started off through the woods.
"But where are you going?" I asked helplessly. "Does Connell know . . ."
She turned back to me, her lavender eyes blazing. "I, my dear, am going to spend the next few days with my maiden aunt in New Hampshire. Tell Con that, if you wish."
"You know as well as I that you have no maiden aunt in New Hampshire," I said sternly.
"Tell him any damned thing you please, Mary. Use your imagination." And without a backward glance she was off into the rapidly deepening twilight. My one consolation was that she headed in the opposite direction of Stonewalls.
I moved back to the house slowly, my heart thumping loudly beneath my tightly corseted chest. As I drew off my wrap in the back hall it was with a curious sense of fatality that I watched Mrs. Carpenter approach me, her deceptively jolly face wreathed in a smile, her prim little mouth curving upward in an expression of extreme malice.
"You're wanted in the library, miss," she announced. "Mr. Fitzgerald wants you to pour for his gentlemen friends."
"I . . . I . . ." I hesitated, some instinctive part of me knowing I was heading for trouble. "Where's Daniel?"
"In the library, miss, waiting for his tea. I told Mr. Fitzgerald I'd bring it as soon as you returned."
"But where is Mrs. Fitzgerald?" I questioned innocently, wondering what tale she had told them.
"You know as well as I she's gone, miss. No telling when she'll return."
"Does Mr. Fitzgerald know this?"
"I believe I heard Mrs. Fitzgerald mention it to him when they were upstairs," the old snoop admitted, her beady little eyes boring up into mine. "Tea will be ready in five minutes, Miss Gallager."
There was nothing I could do but head toward the library, taking only a moment to stop before a mirror and smooth down my crumpled dress of deep blue wool and try to untangle my unruly black curls. My green eyes shone back at me, and I knew the reason why.
My first impression of the library was that it seemed filled with about twenty loud, large men, all talking and laughing and smoking cigarettes and pipes and cigars, the blue smoke rising to the high ceiling and casting a haze over the room. I coughed reproachfully as I entered, and there was a mad dash to the fireplace as each gentleman doused his infernal smoking apparatus. All but Con, who stood off to one side, pulling gently on a pipe, an amused look in those fathomless, blue eyes as he made the most casual of introductions. So casual that he omitted identifying me to the various middle-aged and elderly gentlemen who had accompanied him to his secluded house in the Vermont woods.
Smiling graciously to cover my nervousness, I seated myself on the horsehair loveseat and proceeded to pour out the strong China tea into the delicate, wafer- thin teacups that had come from Ireland with Con's grandmother, the legendary Countess of Carradine, or so Daniel had proudly informed me. My young charge passed
the cups for me, his eyes unclouded for the first time in weeks, his body straight and strong in the gathering twilight. The look he flashed me was impish, and I wished with all my heart that his wretched mother would disappear off the face of the earth, leaving him with his father and Aunt Lillian. And, to be honest, with me.
One of the older gentlemen took the seat beside me, the springs protesting against his noble bulk, and proceeded to engage me in exquisitely and meaningless conversation. I gave all the required responses, my eyes focusing on Con's strong back halfway across the room, when suddenly my attention was riveted back to my companion.
"I must say, Mrs. Fitzgerald, that you're as lovely a creature as you've been reputed to be. I'm only sorry we've never met before—though of course I can understand your reluctance to accompany Con on his business trips. These semiannual meetings can be a great bore to an outsider, I'm sure, but I thought you should know what a treat it is for us that you consented to have us gruff businessmen invade your lovely home."
"Yes, indeed, Mrs. Fitzgerald," another, younger man piped up loudly in the sudden stillness as everyone watched and listened with polite attention. "It's an honor indeed to be here, especially after Con told us so much about you. And he didn't exaggerate, no sirree bob, not one bit."
I stared up at them in dumbfounded horror, my eyes traveling in mute desperation from one affable, welcoming face to another, all of them equally gullible and friendly, with the sole exception of Con, who was watching my predicament out of narrowed eyes, making no effort to come to my assistance.
"But . . . but I'm not . . ." I stammered, and then Daniel flew to my side, a devilish grin on his pixie face.
Flinging his thin arms around my neck in a veritable stranglehold, he looked at me ingenuously, and said with great seriousness, "Isn't it lovely to have Father here with all his friends, Mummy? It's so much nicer than having him go away and leave us all the time. Mummy and I have been soooo lonely," he announced plaintively, and I could have murdered the little monster.
And then Con moved away from the wall, a wicked glint in his eyes. "We're all delighted to be here, young Daniel, your father especially." He lay one strong brown hand on my neck with the lightest, most casual of possessive gestures, and it was all I could do to control the little shiver that ran through me. "And we're so glad you decided you were up to acting as hostess, Mary dear." He smiled down at me, and in spite of myself I smiled back, knowing it was wrong but powerless to stop.
And in the background as we all trooped upstairs to change for dinner, I overheard one of Con's friends say to the other, "But I thought Con's wife's name was Maeve."
"Mary, Maeve, what's the difference?" his companion replied. "You know Con's always been devilishly secretive about her. After meeting her I can't say I blame him. A woman with a face like that should be kept away from marauding gentlemen like you and nie. All she'd have to do is snap her fingers and I'd be at her feet."
With great restraint I kept myself from turning around to identify the speaker. I had always been passably pretty, if a trifle on the robust side, but never before had I elicited such a response. And I knew the reason for my sudden irresistible beauty before I asked myself . . . it was Con, and my wicked reaction to him, that brightened my eyes and curved my lips into a soft smile when no one was looking. And it was for Con that I dressed and primped and laughed and half- danced down the hallways that lovely evening.
It passed in a flurry, far too quickly for my peace of mind. For the first time since I had been in this great, cold, gaudy house, I felt at home, and I received the mild flirtatiousness and accolades of Con's friends with cheerful grace. I was used to being surrounded by six brothers, and the sight of a long table filled with elderly and no doubt very rich and powerful men fazed me not one bit. I treated them all with impartial friendliness, all the time aware of Con's still, amused gaze from the opposite end of the table, a curious smile playing around his expressive mouth.
When I rose from the table to leave the men to their port and cigars, they all rose en masse to accompany me, and we trailed into the music room (Maeve had a room for every possible use) like a mother hen and her chicks. There we drank Irish whiskey and Irish coffee and I played the piano and sang all the old ballads and we were all very gay. And throughout it all I could feel Con watching me, those dark, unreadable eyes staring through me, and it was all I could do to remember the words of the songs.
Daniel kissed me with as much filial devotion as he had ever shown his beloved father, his eyes twinkling with more mischief than they had held during the three months I had known him. "Good night, Mummy dear," he murmured sweetly, planting a large, wet kiss on my preferred cheek.
As he moved to go upstairs, I couldn't resist giving him a small, loving hug. It was a dangerous fantasy I had been flung into by the Fitzgerald men, and, though I knew better, I couldn't resist enjoying it for the short time it lasted. But it was with a sharp twinge of recognition that I met Connell's suddenly longing eyes above Daniel's smooth brown head.
From then on I could no longer avoid the full implications of my masquerade. I smiled blankly at the outrageous compliments and subtle flirting of Con's friends, and as soon as I could manage it I rose.
"I'll be wishing you all a good evening, gentlemen," I murmured. "It's been a long day for me."
"Well, Mrs. Fitzgerald, it's been a long day for the rest of us too, and we'll be leaving first thing in the morning. Once you've retired I doubt we'll have much reason to stay up, will we?" the urbane gentleman on my left inquired of his companions. "We'll accompany you upstairs."
Silently I cursed him with all the profanities available to my limited experience. There was no way on God's earth that I could go up to my attic room with the twenty of them following behind me. As we mounted the elegant curving staircase my eyes met Con's imploringly. His response was a quiet smile.
One by one the gentlemen kissed my proffered hand, one by one they bid me good night outside Maeve's bedroom door, until Con and I were left alone there, a curious string of tension between us, while his guests wandered back to their rooms.
"What will Maeve say when she hears about this?" I whispered.
His cool blue eyes were unreadable in the candlelit hall. "She won't necessarily find out," he replied. "But I wonder why you went along with it."
My eyes flew open in outrage. There had been just the trace of an accusation in his lovely voice. "What did you expect me to do?" I gasped. "Tell all your friends that you were a liar? Especially with Daniel part and parcel of the whole scheme?"
He didn't reply, an enigmatic smile flitting over his dark face. One strong, gentle hand reached up and touched my tumbled hair. "You look very pretty tonight, Mary," he said softly. And then without another word he turned on his heel and left me, practically running downstairs.
I opened Maeve's door and went in. It would be the better part of valor to wait there an hour or two until I was sure all of Con's friends were asleep before sneaking up to my attic bedroom. Thank heavens they were all leaving tomorrow for another meeting up in Maine —I didn't think I could cope with another night like this, so close to everything I dreamed of, so dangerously close to my forbidden desires. Shutting the door behind me, I moved across the deserted room toward the oil lamp, my only source of light the dull gleam that came through Con's connecting door. The door that I suspected was kept firmly closed and perhaps even locked when Maeve was in residence, and was now welcoming me.
A wave of longing swept over me, primeval and so intense I could have wept. To hell with the guests, I thought suddenly, knowing that a moment's hesitation and I would be lost. I ran from the room, up the stairs and into my chilly, cavernous bedroom. There was only so much temptation I could resist.
Chapter Twelve
I played the coward the next morning, staying strictly cloistered in my attic bedroom until I saw carriage after carriage pull out along Demonwood's long, snow- packed drive. The last carriage held Connell, and before
climbing in his tanned face squinted upward against the fitful sunshine, and I knew his gaze was on my windows. I only wished I could read the thoughts behind that unreadable face—whether the longing I had surprised on it last night had been a figment of my imagination, whether he felt regret or relief that I wasn't in Maeve's room that night, whether he was right now planning a polite letter saying that my services were no longer needed and I could return to Cambridge. But after a few moments he merely nodded, as if confirming something in his own mind, and climbed into the carriage. I watched them till they were out of sight.
There was no sign of Maeve that day or the next. Both Daniel and I were ill at ease, knowing instinctively a storm of some sort was due, dreading its coming but hating the long wait as well.
I was sitting up in bed well after ten o'clock the next night with my quilt tucked around me comfortably when my door opened and Maeve stood there, her thin, lithe body draped in a flowing cerise night- robe, her golden hair a curtain down her back, a cheerfully malevolent expression in her violet eyes. I had seen that look before, and I could feel my stomach contract in dread. I pulled the quilt closer around me, shielding my opulent figure from her prying, scornful eyes.
The cords in her slender, swanlike neck stood out, and for the first time I noticed flaws in her perfect skin. In a few years she could easily look like a plucked chicken. Such observations cheered me, and I sat upright with a little more confidence. Even great beauties had defects—perhaps my strong, lush body had hitherto unforeseen merits.
"What can I do for you, Maeve?" I asked bravely, expecting an excoriating tirade on my manners and morals. Indeed, I had felt so guilty over my shameless masquerade that screaming tirades would have made me feel better.
Instead she smiled blandly, almost sweetly, and all my suspicions were raised. "I merely wanted to tell you I've returned, Mary dear. And request your help in a small matter. After all, we are cousins. We practically grew up together—we're much of an age," she preened herself.