Deceit

by Fayrene Preston

  “It’s over, Richard. Besides, I knew you would find me.”

  He smiled. “Did you? I don't know where your confidence came from, but somehow I felt I would find you, too. I had to find you.”

  Her face shadowed. “Clay ...”

  “I’ve already spoken with Savion this morning. Clay was taken away last night. What happens to him will depend on the courts and maybe even the doctors. But like you said, it’s over. It’s time for us to go on.”

  She searched his eyes, saw the warmth and tenderness, and remembered the hope she had felt yesterday evening before Clay had closed her In the crypt. “There are some things I’d like to say to you.."

  “No, let me go first. Looking back on that day in Paris when you left, I realize now I should have gone after you. I don’t usually let anything get in the way of what I want. But with you, I couldn’t think rationally. If I had, I would have realized that what we had together those two weeks was the real thing and you had to have had another reason. But instead of trying to find out that reason, or even trying to change your mind, I set my pride and ego above my happiness and fooled myself into believing I would be fine without you. But Lord was I wrong! I loved you then, Liana, and I love you now.” His voice broke. “With all my heart, with all my soul. ”

  She had had hope, but hearing the actualization of her dream stunned her. “You do?”

  “If you weren’t hurt, I would show you how much.”

  “I’m fine,” she whispered, sliding her arms around his neck. “Show me. ’’

  Regretfully, he shook his head. “You’ve been hurt. ”

  “Your love is the best medicine I could possibly have.”

  He groaned. For her sake, he shouldn’t let her seduce him like this, but he was helpless in the face of his love and his need for her. After the terror and uncertainty of last night, when he hadn’t known where she was or in what condition he would find her, he needed to make love to her. It would be a celebration of life and of their future. But . . .

  “I love you, Richard,” she murmured, unknowingly ending his hesitation.

  He kissed her gently, touched her softly. He gathered up all the tenderness, love, and passion of which he was capable and poured it over her. He felt her tremble and trembled with her. When her skin heated, his did too. When she moaned, he followed with one of his own.

  They were together in every possible way. Nothing was forced; everything came naturally. Each moment that passed was treated as precious, each word that was spoken was valued. Like a flower receiving its first spring rain, she soaked up everything he gave her, then blossomed and returned it to him tenfold.

  Liana was gone. Richard knew it even before he came completely awake. Panicked, he sat straight up in bed and shot a look around the room. Empty! She couldn’t have left him, not now, now when it seemed they had found happiness. He glanced at the clock. He had only been asleep an hour. What could have happened?

  He was standing, zipping up his pants, when she walked out of the bathroom, dressed. The relief he felt was so profound he almost collapsed back onto the bed.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, instantly concerned because of the odd expression on his face.

  He went to her and took her into his arms. “You’re going to have to be patient with me. I’m paranoid where you’re concerned. We’ve been through so much. ...”

  “I understand,” she said quietly. “I have the same fears. But we shouldn’t allow ourselves to worry anymore. We’re not going to lose what we have ever again.”

  For her and with effort, he grinned. “Ill work on taking you for granted.”

  With a laugh, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. “Let’s not go quite that far.”

  “It looks like you’re going somewhere. Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “I didn’t want to bother you. Besides, I wasn’t planning to be gone that long.”

  “Where are you going?” he asked, reaching for a shirt.

  Her brow knitted, not at his question, but at an inner thought. “I need to speak to Caitlin. Something’s bothering me, and I’m hoping she can help clear it up.”

  “Well, wherever you’re going, I’m going with you. From now on, that’s the rule. We’ve been apart too long. If you want to go on an out-of-town assignment, I’ll go with you. If I have to go out of town on business, you’ll go with me. We’re never going to be apart again.”

  His vehemence surprised her and her heart threatened to overflow with happiness. “I’m going to like that rule.”

  They left the room, hand in hand, and walked down the hall to the elevator. When it glided to a smooth stop on the fourth floor and the doors opened, Caitlin was waiting for them.

  She anxiously scanned Liana. “You’ve had the worst time here, and I feel just awful about it.”

  Liana laughed lightly. It felt good to laugh so easily and so often. “Don’t give it another thought. It wasn’t your fault.” She glanced at Richard. “Besides, when I look back on my stay here, I guarantee I will remember only the good things that have come out of it.”

  Caitlin’s gaze darted back and forth between Liana and Richard, noting their joined hands, and placing the obvious interpretation on the situation. She slowly smiled. “In that case, I feel better. Now, what was it you wanted to ask me?”

  "It’s about Leonora Deverell, the first mistress of SwanSea.”

  “Yes. What about her?”

  “Is there a portrait of her somewhere?”

  “As a matter of fact, I’ve only recently had her portrait brought down from the attic and cleaned. I had it hung in my suite. Would you like to see it?”

  “Very much. ”

  Liana glanced at Richard. He looked distinctly puzzled, and she squeezed his hand. “I don’t want to say anything until I’m sure.” The returning squeeze of his hand told her he accepted her wish not to explain further right now. It might have been only a small sign of trust to some, but she knew it was a forerunner of all the faith and confidence that would grow between them in the coming years.

  Caitlin led them to a set of double doors at the end of the hall to a suite decorated, like the rest of the hotel, completely in the art nouveau period.

  Over the mantel hung a portrait of a young woman with lovely, aristocratic features, wearing a blue dress that frothed around her ankles like a summer cloud. Her soft eyes held a tinge of sadness, but her smile was sweet and hopeful.

  Liana smiled back in recognition.

  Though many years had passed from the time the portrait had been painted until the time Liana had known her, the woman’s sweet smile, her soft eyes, and most of all the aristocratic bone structure of her face had remained the same. “Leonora,” she whispered.

  Misunderstanding, Caitlin nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Liana,” Richard said slowly, his eyes narrowing on the sight of the exquisite lily pinned at the young woman’s breast, “that’s your brooch.”

  “Your brooch?” Caitlin said, startled. “You mean this is where I’d seen it? But that couldn’t be. All of the jewelry has stayed in the family. We haven't sold or given any away. How would you have gotten Leonora’s brooch?”

  “She gave it to me.”

  “That’s impossible. She died in 1898.”

  “I knew her, Caitlin.”

  “You mean this Leonora is the same Leonora who was your neighbor in Paris?” Richard asked. “The old lady who gave you the brooch?”

  “That’s right. Maybe we’d better sit down while I explain.”

  She settled onto the settee and waited while Richard came down beside her and Caitlin chose a chair. Then she began.

  “Leonora Redmond was one-hundred-and-one years old when I moved in next door to her. She was bedridden, but very alert, and we grew close. She told me that at seventeen she had married an older man because it was expected of her by her family. She had done her duty and tried hard with the marriage, but love between them never grew. Only his business and the great
house he had built were important to him.

  “One summer, four years after her wedding, her husband hired a young painter to come to the house and paint her portrait. His name was Wyatt Redmond. They fell in love, but Leonora viewed their affair as hopeless and sent the young man away. He left around midsummer and went home to Paris. But once there he quickly came to understand that he would never be able to live without her and booked the first passage back. He told Edward he had returned to finish the portrait, but his real intent was to convince Leonora to leave her husband and run away with him. He had also brought with him a present for her—the lily he had bought in Paris from the workshop of Rene Lalique. It was the only piece of jewelry she took with her when she left.”

  Caitlin had been listening closely. “But I still don’t understand. If she fled to Paris with her lover, who is buried in her crypt?”

  “No one. I was there, last night, remember?” The thought made her reach over and take Richard’s hand again. Before this morning, she hadn’t known how comforting it was to hold the hand of the man you loved. “When I awoke on the floor, I tried to hold onto the coffin to help myself up— although at the time I didn’t know what it was. But the wood must have been so rotten, it gave way, and I heard it crumble to the floor. When Richard opened the doors, the moonlight streamed in, and I was able to see that the coffin is empty.” She paused. “I thought it was love that had made Edward set Leonora’s crypt apart from the others. Now I understand. It was bitterness.”

  “But why would any mail go through a mock funeral for his wife,” Richard asked, “knowing full well she was still alive?”

  “I can answer that part,” Caitlin said. “Because of pride. What I know of Edward came from listening to my grandfather, Jake, talk of him. I learned that Edward was a hard, driven man of enormous pride. I’m sure it never occurred to him that Leonora would leave him, and when she did, he would have been quite disconcerted and mortified. His number one priority would have been not to get her back, but to hide the fact from society that his wife had left him for another mam.”

  “Pride,” Richard murmured softly. It seemed he and Edward Deverell had something in common.

  “And I know for a fact,” Caitlin said, continuing, “that Edward wouldn’t have let her take John.”

  “Who was John?” Richard and Liana asked simultaneously.

  “Their only child.”

  Liana slowly nodded. “That must have been her regret. She never spoke of her child to me, but she did tell me that when her husband died in 1929, she and Wyatt married. Wyatt achieved only a modest success with his painting, but according to Leonora, they lived very happily until his death in the early nineteen-seventies.”

  “This is a remarkable story, Liana,” Caitlin said, shaking her head in amazement. “I can’t wait to tell my family. I've learned the most interesting things about my ancestors since I’ve inherited SwanSea.”

  “It seems both Edward and Leonora chose to live with deceit all their lives,” Liana said thoughtfully, still caught up in the story. Suddenly she turned to Richard and a look of understanding passed between them. They had been through their own years of deceit, but they had been lucky enough to come out on the other side of those years with love.

  “In the end, Edward died a lonely man,” Caitlin said.

  “And Leonora obviously found a peace of sorts and a happiness,” Liana said. “But poor John never really knew his mother. To leave your child has to be the hardest decision any woman has to make. Leonora must have been desperate. She must have felt as if she would shrivel up and die if she stayed here at SwanSea.”

  Caitlin nodded. “Knowing what I know of the hard man Edward was, I would agree with you. At least she would have had the comfort of knowing that Edward would give his son everything she couldn’t. It’s not a decision you or I would make, but then I don’t feel I should judge Leonora. Only she knew what her life was like.”

  Liana glanced at Richard, and they both came to their feet. “1 feel like going for a walk in the sunshine, maybe out to the gazebo. Caitlin, do you think we could have our breakfast served at the gazebo?"

  The current mistress of SwanSea smiled. “Well, I seem to recall telling you to ask for anything that you wanted. I’m sure we can manage it. Just ten me that you will come back to SwanSea one day soon.”

  “You can count on it,” Richard said.

  Halfway between the great house of SwanSea and the gazebo, Liana and Richard stopped and turned to each other. The day was clear, the light almost incandescent. The sun bathed the two of them and all of SwanSea in its warmth, making it hard for them to believe there had ever been shadows.

  Richard’s gaze was adoring and cherishing. “When I think of how easily our lives could have been destroyed by pride and deceit...”

  “I know, but it didn’t happen. We both came here, scarred and in pain, but we’ll be leaving together. We have our love back, and it’s deeper and all the stronger for what we’ve been through.”

  “Thank God.”

  A tremor shuddered through him that she felt in her own body.

  “I’ll never have to spend another lonely night,” he said. “You’ll be there—your soft voice, your incredible beauty, you.”

  She smiled, a different smile, a special smile. “There might be a baby there with us, too, one conceived here at SwanSea. Have you thought of that?”

  He chuckled. “Thought of it, hoped for It, prayed for it. But if it doesn’t happen now or in the future, my life will still be complete. If children come, I will feel that much more blessed, but you are all I'll ever want or need.”

  The timeless rhythm of the sea surged behind them. She had come to love the sound and this place. But there was also another place. “Can we fly to France? I want to show you my little house.”

  “Well spend our honeymoon there, and in the years ahead, if children come, we’ll take them there.”

  “I love you,” she whispered to him.

  “I love you,” he whispered back to her.

  At the gazebo, the wind wound in and out of the decorative ironwork, smoothing across the green and blue cushions, picking up a single feather of a tiny sea bird and sweeping it down the steps.

  Today, if there were tears heard here, they would be tears of happiness. And there would also be laughter. Most of all, though, there would be love.