by Anne Stuart
“What’s going on?” I demanded. Maxine was prancing around in a feathery peignoir, her beautiful face flushed with excitement.
“The hotel’s on fire,” she announced, unable to hide her glee in such a notable occurrence.
“What?” I was too startled to take in what she’d said. It couldn’t be. Adam was down there. Other people like the Carters . . .
“The hotel’s on fire,” she repeated patiently, as if to an idiot child. “Father’s down there trying to help them put it out.”
I pushed her out of the way and ran downstairs. Cousin Elinor was pacing around the living room, wringing her hands. Her face brightened momentarily when she saw me.
“Oh, Miranda, dearest, I’m so glad you’re up. Well need your help getting the spare bedrooms in order. We’re going to take in all the guests—”
I ran past her to the window and looked out at the scene below. The flames were licking their way around the old wooden building, devouring everything from the cupola on the roof to the gilt-lettered sign over the front porch. Crowds of people were milling around the front, watching, secure in the knowledge that the fire had gotten beyond the stage when buckets of water would do any good, and all they had to do was enjoy themselves by watching the drama unfold. I searched the crowd, looking for a familiar, tall figure. I couldn’t see him. An insane panic filled me.
“Miranda, where are you going?” Elinor demanded as I hurried past her. I grabbed a cloak from the hall and flung open the door.
“There’s nothing you can do down there,” she called after me. But I was already running through the icy northern night air.
As I ran down the hill I had to fight to keep from crying. My chest hurt from the chill of the air and the strain, and I kept saying over and over to myself, “I hate him, I hate him, I hope he’s dead.” It seemed to take forever and yet no time at all for me to get to Karlew. I was panting and hysterical, unable to comprehend anything beyond the pleased expression on Karlew’s face.
“It’s the Lord’s judgment that he’s dead,” he was pontificating. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” He caught sight of me and cleared his throat loudly. “Miranda, my dear, you shouldn’t be down here. There’s nothing you can do.”
Seeing the agonized expression on my face, he detached himself from the crowd and came over to me, saying in a godly hush, “It never would have worked out for you and him. Don’t look so stricken, my dear! This is all for the best—you never really wanted him.”
I stared at him wildly, unable to say anything. I let out a muffled cry and tore myself away from him, from the villagers with their bland, curious faces. I ran back up the icy hill, sobbing openly now, my eyes blinded with tears. I didn’t see the man coming towards me until he was almost upon me. I tried to rush past him, but he grabbed my arm so that I lost my balance on the slippery road and fell against him. I tried to hit out at him, but he imprisoned my body with his, and then I was crying even harder because it was Adam.
I don’t know how long he held me, gently, comfortingly, while I wept against him. I kept telling myself I had to stop, but it would only make the tears come faster. Finally I forced myself to control the sobs that were wracking my body. After a moment he held me a little away from him and looked at me searchingly.
“Well, my dear girl,” he said wryly, “what’s all this?”
I stared at him, totally at a loss for words. How could I tell him I thought he was dead? It would have betrayed everything. I couldn’t give him the satisfaction of having won. I opened and shut my mouth a few times, trying to think of some plausible excuse. Fortunately Karlew, huffing and puffing up the hill behind us, saved me that problem.
“Ah, Adam, I see you found my poor cousin. She was quite overwrought, weren’t you, my dear?” He smiled benevolently. “You know, Adam, she came tearing down the hill just in time to hear us discussing the death of that wicked Billy Cunningham who started the fire. He might have been a beau of Miranda’s, if only she’d been a little pleasanter. Oh, well, I suppose now it was all for the best.” He sighed. “Well, she let out a shriek and went running off into the night, which I thought was rather overdoing normal Christian sympathy until I realized that she probably thought it was you who were dead.” He chuckled, amused at a sign of stupidity in his self-assured ward.
Adam had relaxed his guard for a moment, and I yanked myself away from him, running the rest of the way up the hill. I almost expected to hear his laugh following me as I sped through the night, but some last vestige of decency kept him from displaying his no doubt considerable amusement at my folly.
I stopped for a moment outside our front door to catch my breath. When I entered I hoped I looked calmer than I felt. Apparently I did, for Cousin Elinor made no comment other than I looked a trifle flushed.
“Do you suppose you could possibly help Emma and Nanny get the rest of the rooms ready? They’ve been working steadily for the past hour, and it is after three in the morning.” Elinor’s voice was peevish.
“Of course,” I agreed absently, feeling shaken. “What would you like me to do?”
“They’ve finished everything on the second floor. If you could just put clean sheets on the other third floor bedroom and dust it a bit if it needs it. We’re putting Adam up there.” She waited for my reaction to this little piece of news.
I took a deep breath to calm myself anew. “Why are you putting him up there? I’m the only other person who sleeps on that floor. Don’t you think I need to be chaperoned?”
“My dear,” tittered Elinor nervously, “it’s not you that’s untrustworthy, it’s Adam. And we decided that you were a lot better able to protect yourself from immoral advances than dear Maxine.”
I snorted. “That’s certainly true.” I started towards the door. “I’ll make up the bed and then retire. Good night, Cousin Elinor.” I stopped beside her wispy figure and kissed her faded cheek lightly.
“Good night, dear child,” she said faintly. For a moment I thought I saw an almost speculative expression on her face. But when I looked more carefully she merely looked tired. My overwrought imagination, I told myself.
I passed the third-floor storage rooms with their tightly shut, blind oak doors making the hall lonely and forbidding. A dim light seeped out of my back bedroom; as I looked in I could see my hastily tumbled bed. I entered the unused room across from mine.
It was simply furnished. A duplicate of my little room with its solid mahogany bedstead, its simple china washbowl and pitcher on the spartan commode. The muted colors of the patchwork quilt gave the room an aura of hard-earned peace and puritan contentment. It was hard for me to imagine Adam’s reprobate soul asleep under that chaste coverlet. Hard for me to think of his long, lean body . . . I quickly shut that thought out of my mind.
The only differences in our two rooms were the people they shielded and the view they commanded beyond their narrow window seats. While Adam could look down on the town, and had a perfect view of anyone who chose to climb Barrett’s Hill for one reason or another, I had the morosely beautiful hill itself with the dark pines hiding God knows what.
When I lit the miserly little kerosene lamp, all the dust of months of skimpy cleaning became apparent. I sighed and dusted off the tables half-heartedly, feeling too worn, both emotionally and physically, to concentrate on anything but the rudiments of cleaning. I was straightening the bottom sheet on the bed when I suddenly thought of Adam’s return. The last thing I wanted was to face him after my hysterical behavior on the hill. Going to the window, I looked out at the small group of people making their way slowly to the house. The other tenants, I assumed. Downstairs I heard the door shut and men’s voices drifting upwards. I couldn’t tell if they included Adam’s, but rather than be caught unawares, I flew back to the bed and pulled it together in a frenzy. I had just turned down the covers when the door opened and Adam strolled in.
He stopped short when he saw me and smiled slowly through the flickering lamplight.
“Why, Miss Miranda, you hardly look glad to see me,” he chided lightly, closing the door behind him. “And how cruel after your warm welcome earlier this evening.”
His tall, lean body was between me and the door. I controlled a strong impulse to scream. I couldn’t stand another minute of this everlasting cat-and-mouse game he played with me. My defenses had been effectively destroyed, and I needed time to rebuild them.
“Please,” I said weakly, “leave me alone. There’s nothing you really want from me. Why can’t you just let me be?”
“But that’s where you’re wrong. There are a great many things I want from you.” As he came closer his shadow moved up the wall and across the ceiling, seeming to dwarf the tiny room. “Not the least of which is this.” He put his hands on my shoulders and moved me closer and closer to him. I felt mesmerized. He had me locked in a spell that I couldn’t break, couldn’t escape from. Suddenly I knew that I wouldn’t be able to withstand him if he kissed me again.
“No!” I felt as if I screamed it, when it had actually been little more than a whisper.
“No?” he repeated. “All right.” He let go of me so suddenly I nearly fell. He moved towards the door. “Let me know when you change your mind,” he said cheerfully as he opened it for me.
All my other emotions were replaced by a blazing anger. “I never will,” I said coldly.
He smiled sweetly. “In that case I’ll just have to change it for you.”
I slammed the door shut behind me as loud as I could and ran across the hall to my own room, once again cursing Karlew for the lack of a door key. I shoved my dresser across the entrance.
“Isn’t it rather late to be moving furniture?” I heard Karlew’s irascible voice float up from the room beneath me. What’s he doing in Maxine’s bedroom, I wondered.
“Sorry,” I called back, and tiptoed over to my bed. My curiosity at that point was at low ebb, and I dismissed all thought of Karlew’s circumspect behavior, preferring to concentrate instead on my self-induced anguish. Before I had time to wallow properly in my misery, I sank into a heavy sleep.
Chapter 14
THE NEXT FEW days were so crowded and busy I was easily able to keep out of Adam’s way. Starting with the first breakfast shift at 7:00 a.m., our entire day was regulated by our visitors. Karlew was in his element, inundating us with long, involved prayers anytime he caught more than two people seated at the breakfast table, foisting religious counseling on any pour soul he encountered in the hallways.
By rising early to help Cook and Nanny in the kitchen, and retiring at the ungodly hour of 9:00 p.m., I managed to avoid Adam. When I saw him coming down a hall I would, with as much nonchalance as I could manage, suddenly remember an important task in the opposite direction. I knew Adam was perfectly aware of this and highly amused by my games, but I couldn’t stop myself. And it wasn’t my fault that I lay awake till long after I heard him stride down the corridor and into his room. My head was filled with ridiculous fantasies. Any moment I expected my door to open and Adam to claim the rights he doubtless felt he had over my body. I no longer pulled the bureau in front of my door. I don’t know if it was because I wanted him to come in, or if I was trying to prove the folly of my fears to myself. But I wouldn’t fall asleep until long after the house was silent.
By some amazing stroke of good fortune Fathimore was staying at the Lansdown farm, about two miles out of town. I don’t think I could have survived having him in the same house. As it was, he still took all his meals with us, but newcomer Roxie Shenille claimed the bulk of his attentions.
The main thing that troubled me through those first days of the occupation was Fathimore’s new love. I found out from the garrulous old ladies that had inhabited Carter’s second floor that Miss Roxie Shenille was a “chanteuse.” What this actually meant was that she was a second-rate singer in second-rate bars around Boston and Cambridge, and maybe she augmented her income in other, shameful ways. Or so Nanny and Cook thought.
I met her coming out of Maxine’s bedroom the next morning, and one look at her told me I was in trouble. Whatever she wanted she was determined to get. And what she wanted was Adam.
She was an attractive-enough woman, in a sort of jaded sort of way, quite a few years older than I was—a fact she hid very well with her scarlet hair, obviously tinted, and her voluptuous form bursting out of a tight blue dress made of some cheap, shiny stuff. She looked me up and down carefully, with a knowing, self-satisfied smile on her sensuous face. I hated her immediately.
“You must be Melinda,” she greeted me nonchalantly, having summed me up and dismissed me as no real threat. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
There was no look of friendliness about her. She recognized me for the enemy and had declared as such. I think she realized that even if she dismissed my charms as negligible, Adam might not be so astute. I smirked in return.
“Miranda,” I corrected politely. “Could I show you to the dining room, Miss . . . ?” I waited for her to supply the name.
“Roxie,” she said sweetly. “Roxie Shenille. And I would appreciate your showing me the dining room. Adam pointed it out last night when he brought me up here but, I declare, I was just too overwrought to take in much of anything.” She had a flat, husky voice that set my teeth on edge.
“I’ll bet you were,” I muttered and returned her insincere smile to mitigate my rudeness. If she underestimated me I was wise enough not to want to correct her impression. “It must have been a terrible experience,” I offered sympathetically as we started down the stairs.
“Oh, it was, it was.” She batted her painted eyelids affectingly. “But Adam, I mean Mr. Traywick, was so brave and concerned. He took such good care of me.” She sighed soulfully, watching me out of the corner of her eye to gauge my reactions. Why did she think any of this mattered to me? It did, of course, but what had Adam told her about me to bring on this distrust?
“I’m sure he did,” I said in my nicest tone, seething with rage. I knew only too well what good care he could take of indisposed females. We followed the faded maroon carpet down the stairs in silence.
“Are you a good friend of Adam’s?” I asked her in what I hoped was a casual voice. I knew perfectly well she was here at his request; that letter I found in his room was not likely to slip my mind.
“Oh, yes. We’ve known each other for ever so long. Why, we were nearly married once. Before I changed my mind.”
I doubted that.
“If I’m not being too curious,” I asked as we entered the dining room, “could I ask what made you change your mind?”
“Change her mind about what?” Adam was lounging in Karlew’s baronial chair at the head of the table. The room was deserted except for his presence. I looked from Roxie back to him.
“Why she changed her mind about marrying you. You know I’m very curious about everything,” I said calmly, hoping to read something in his face. I should have known he wouldn’t give anything away.
“I know you’re too curious for your own good,” he said coolly. “And I’m sure you can’t really be interested in my checkered past.”
“Oh, but I am,” I protested ingenuously. “I’d be most interested to learn all your secrets.” I met his eyes and then wished I hadn’t. The warmth of his gaze was more than my hardened little heart could gracefully accept.
He rose abruptly. “How very gratifying, my dear child. But I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a bit.” His smile was for me alone, taking the sting out of his words. He strode out of the room, leaving me alone with Roxie, who was doing her best to hide her annoyance and frustration and not succeeding.
“Well,” I said after a bit, “your presence certainly seems to have upset him, Miss Shenille.” I was glowing with that dangerous delight
any sign of affection from him could kindle in me, even something as simple as a smile.
“Do call me Roxie,” she said, in totally false friendship. “And I would say he was more annoyed by you than me.”
“Really? Well, I’m glad to know that I affect him more strongly than you do, even if it is adversely. Now, if you’ll be seated I’ll check with Cook about your breakfast.” I left her then and went to gloat in the kitchen.
“And just what are you looking so pleased about, Missy?” Cook directed one of her accusing glares at me. She distrusted any form of spontaneous cheerfulness, and in this house she was wise to do so.
I quickly composed my face into a gloomy look of rare depression. “Pleased?” My dour voice ruled out that emotion. “What would I have to be pleased about?”
“What, indeed, Miss Miranda?” Nanny grumbled. “What with that floozy flaunting herself all over the place and you not anywhere around to defend your interests. It makes a body wonder, it surely does.” She sniffed into her crisp linen handkerchief.
“And what exactly are my interests?” I demanded. “It’s of no concern to me how Miss Shenille spends her time.”
“Well, it should be! Sometimes I think you’ll only get what you deserve. Adam Traywick will get tired of waiting around and go off with that fallen woman—”
“Adam’s not waiting for anything,” I burst in, taxed beyond bearing with their clumsy if well-meaning advice. “And I wish you’d stop giving me advice! It has nothing to do with either of you.” I included Cook in my anger.
Nanny pursed her lips in an expression designed to disguise her hurt feelings. Remorse flooded me, but I fought it off. The sooner they realized the folly of their matchmaking daydreams the easier it would be for all of us. Giving them one last coldly determined glare, I stalked out of the room.
I was very much aware of Adam’s presence in the house that week. Although I saw him less than the other guests he seemed to control the atmosphere. Roxie and Maxine developed an instantaneous rapport, a situation I viewed with cynicism. Obviously they both felt they were using each other to get closer to Adam. As for me, I had long ago decided that any man would have to chase after me, not vice versa. It was not at all comforting to note that Adam wasn’t making much of an effort.