by Julie Kenner
Something cold and shadowy had settled in the kitchen.
Into the depths of it the front-door buzzer drilled with the shock of a bullet.
“I’d better go let my boss in,” said Lewis. He was his old breezy self again. “Remember, I didn’t tell you any of this.”
Vivien’s impulse was to vacate the kitchen and find something “urgent she must do elsewhere.” There was also, of course, the opposite impulse.
Resist, she thought. Connor Sinclair is the worst kind of man, and he has fallen deeply in dislike of you—which is mutual. Admire his looks if you must. That’s all.
A double dose of coffee had cleared her head—perhaps too much. She felt hyped up and a little dizzy.
The other question remained. How had a shattered red rose gotten into the conservatory through a locked and bolted door?
Almost irresistibly, she walked into the conservatory. She stood there looking at the rose. Who could she have asked about this? In the day’s heat, already the petals and the stalk were withering.
She was standing over the dead rose when Lewis—and Connor—came into the kitchen. She had left flight too late. She must turn now, and confront him.
“I like these tiles, Conn,” Lewis was saying—trying, Vivien supposed, to behave as if they were all normal people.
Connor said, “They’re all right.”
His voice seemed to pull Vivien’s eyes towards him, like some kind of science fiction power-beam.
He wore black jeans today and a sky-blue shirt tucked into them. His body, which all his clothes seemed carefully made to describe, filled Vivien with a deep, thrilling, deadly vertigo. She wished she could step out of her body and shake herself.
Somehow, she spoke levelly. “Good morning, Mr. Sinclair.”
“Good morning, Ms. Gray.” His eyes flicked over her, and were gone. “Do we have your gracious permission to go into the garden?”
Vivien saw Lewis raise his eyes to heaven.
She refused to be fazed.
“Both doors are unlocked. You know where everything is. I’ll leave you to it.”
As she left the room, she heard Lewis give a low, half mocking, half appreciative whistle. “Well, that’s you sorted, Conn.”
Connor said nothing.
Reaching the bedroom, Vivien shut her eyes. She found Connor’s face was as clear in her mind as if some artist, far more clever than she, had painted it on the inside of her lids. The fiery dark of his eyes, the straight black bars of his eyebrows, the nose that wasn’t quite straight, the long slim line of his mouth—what would it be like to kiss that mouth…to taste that mouth…to—
Vivien growled. No. He is nothing. And stop skulking here like some kid with a crush.
She marched out and along to the octagonal room. She flung open the French doors. She set up her easel and laid out her sketchpad and brushes. She would not hide. Life would go on.
She got no further than that.
She saw him suddenly. Connor was striding back up the path from the garden like the incarnation of a storm. Straight into the room by the doors she had opened. His face now was a mask of granite.
“What the hell have you been doing?”
Vivien put down the pad.
“What?”
“I said, what have you been doing? No, don’t bother. It is very obvious, Ms. Gray, what you’ve been trying to do.”
“I don’t know, Mr. Sinclair, what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you?” He glowered at her. She had never, she thought, known before the full meaning of that expression. “Then, you’d better come and see, hadn’t you.”
“Don’t talk to me as if I’m some ignorant child.”
“Then, don’t act like one.”
Lewis appeared behind Connor. “Er, Conn, maybe—”
“Maybe what?” Connor’s steely rage was now turned on Lewis, who backed off, holding up placatory hands.
“Er, Ms. Gray, it’s like this—”
“Someone—” Connor cut through “—and who ever could that be? Someone has been attempting to remove the statue. Now, perhaps this was a neighbor, clambering over the wall for a merry bit of vandalism. Or maybe it was a little crook called Vivien Gray, who got some mates in to try to lift the statue, now that she knows it might be valuable—”
He stopped in midsentence. Vivien, white as any marble, flared back at him. “I think what you just said could be slanderous. Do you really think, if I were to do such a thing, I’d still be hanging around here?”
“Yes. Because you didn’t manage the job.”
Lewis said, uneasily, “It has shifted. But, Conn—”
Vivien ceased to hear either of them. Through the drumming in her ears, the implication of all this—now far beyond any petty accusation—hit home.
The statue had moved—
When she darted past both of them and down the garden, on legs that were made of water, Vivien dimly realized this might well look like proof to him of her guilt. Did it matter? Not if a man formed from marble could move….
She was standing in front of the statue, staring at it, trembling, when Lewis came out to join her.
“Oh boy—Vivien, may I? Vivien, look, I’m really sorry. I mean, there was rain yesterday, and see, the plinth is all over ivy. Things like that can tilt—dry weather, sudden rain—I’ve said all that to him. But when Connor’s in a temper…Nevins cut the figure off the plinth anyway, when he had the lettering cut in,” Lewis added. Vivien wished he would be quiet. “Old Patrick’s pinned to the base now, and his feet were resculpted—so if the base tilts, well, that could do it—”
Vivien went on staring at the statue, angled there on its plinth, one strong, arched foot—half off the base—like that of a man about to step free, step down, walk towards her. As she in turn backs away….
I am packing up and going back to Camden.
Vivien had made her choice. She would call Addie tomorrow, apologize and explain that some fictitious emergency required her to rush elsewhere.
Addie would be miffed. She might make sure Vivien got no further work with Addie’s pet publishers. It couldn’t be helped.
Vivien hadn’t thought she would feel homesick for her closet-size flat. Now she longed to be there.
Of course, she had been foolish about the statue. Once Lewis Blake had shut up and gone, having patted her arm consolingly, she began to see the ordinary truth of what he had said.
Obviously the ground had become waterlogged; the statue had shifted, dislodged one foot. Maybe all this had even happened before. Statues did not, of themselves, move. Or, only in dreams.
Nevertheless, this place was unnerving her, stopping her working. And, too, he would be coming back again, for Patrick Aspen Sinclair. Lewis Blake had explained as much, contritely, before he went away. Connor had already gone, it seemed.
Lewis looked very embarrassed. Vivien had tried to be civil. It wasn’t Lewis’s fault.
Vivien cleaned up in the flat, stripped the bed she had used and put the sheets in the washing machine. She cleaned the bathroom she had used and the kitchen. She didn’t want to make more trouble for herself with Addie than was unavoidable.
At about 6:00 p.m., the telephone rang in the hall.
Leave it? It wasn’t her problem now.
But the phone kept on. It rang for five minutes, stopped, and immediately began again. Perhaps it was Addie?
“Hi, Lewis Blake here. Look, have you got a couple of minutes?”
“No, really, Mr. Blake. Sorry.”
“Hang on. Please, Vivien. I’ve been wrestling with this all afternoon. I didn’t know whether to tell you or not. I mean, I shouldn’t. But then, after the way Connor was with you…Heck, Vivien. I think you’ve got a right to know why he was such a bastard.”
“Just his natural talent, I thought,” said Vivien acidly.
“That’s not completely fair on him. And yes, he was stinkingly unfair to you. I’d better spill the beans.”
&
nbsp; “I don’t want to hear any more of your unpleasant friend’s secrets.”
“Oh, look—”
“If I thought I could do it, I’d sue him and call you as star witness.”
“You’re really angry,” said Lewis glumly.
“You’re surprised? Excuse me, I am really busy. It was good to meet you, Lewis. Thanks for trying to help. But I’m not interested in his reasons. Goodbye.”
As she put the receiver down she heard Lewis say, “Two of a kind.”
Who—? She and Connor?
That riled her worse.
She hauled the sheets from the machine and beat them into folded submission for the airing cupboard.
Then she took from the cabinet the bottle of Merlot that she had bought herself for the weekend and hadn’t opened.
Tearing out the cork, she told herself it was sacrilege to drink this delicious velvety wine as a tranquilizer, but really, right now, nothing else was going to work.
After three or four sips, and one gulp, she put the glass down half-full.
The evening was still brilliant. A drop of westering sunlight somehow evaded the surrounding houses and burned like a ruby in her glass. Red for passion. For a broken rose—and a man mad with jealousy, who shed the blood of his wife, and next his own, and left her lover alive to bear the red, shameful guilt of it.
Now, too late, she asked herself just what Lewis had been going to tell her about Connor Sinclair. Should she have heard him out? The secret of the statue was dire enough. What other event was worse—so bad Lewis had had to “wrestle” with it—all afternoon?
She had found the card of a cab firm under Addie’s phone. An odd name, Cwick Cabs. So much for Addie’s insistence that she drove herself always.
Vivien had packed her things and was in the first hall waiting for the cab, when the doorbell went. Good, they were early. Vivien opened the front door at once.
And Connor Sinclair was outside, standing there in silence and the last rays of the sun.
Chapter 4
In the rich golden light, his skin, too, seemed made of gold, and with the black hair, the blue of his shirt and the scarlet flowers he carried, he had become almost heraldic. There was a great difference to him. His face was no longer frozen, or angry, but set and grave.
“Before you slam the door in my face,” he said, “though you have every right to, may I ask you to allow me to apologize?”
What had she anticipated? Anything but this.
She said nothing. But neither did she slam the door.
“I’m not at my best when I’m freaked out, Vivien Gray, and as you may realize from my behavior, I was very freaked out, both yesterday and today. However, that is no excuse. Please believe me, I don’t expect you to forgive me. But I appreciate your allowing me to say I’m sorry for behaving like scum. I brought you these. Maybe you’ll just throw them on the floor and tread them into pieces. Why do I think you won’t? It’s not their faults—the roses—and I suspect you’re a very just woman.”
There were two dozen of them, each exactly the scarlet of the roses by the statue. She stared at them. But when he held them out, she took them.
She said, “There are roses in the garden, Mr. Sinclair.”
“I know. But if you pick any, they don’t last. I thought these might brighten up the rooms full of dust sheets and shut boxes, or even that soulless toilet-white Adelaide uses for her kitchen.”
Vivien stood there, holding the roses.
He stood there, looking at her, his eyes searching her face with a slow, waiting stillness.
It was a moment out of time, captured like some glowing seed in the resinous amber of the setting sun.
She said, “I’ll put them in water. Thank you.”
She wanted to be dignified and cold. She couldn’t turn either mood on, it seemed, not with this man standing here in front of her, near enough his scent reached her—his warm clean skin and hair, the hint of some masculine cologne, unidentifiable, unique.
Something about him now made Vivien want to cry.
Which was more stupid than anything.
He had behaved, as he said, like scum. A few roses he could obviously well afford, and a glib apology, shouldn’t suffice to take away the sting.
But no, the apology hadn’t been glib.
Vivien could see something there, lingering behind his eyes, the something that his former discourtesy and knifelike words had cunningly kept concealed.
“Well,” he said. “Thanks for accepting the token. I’ll leave you in peace.” He turned and went back towards the road.
Vivien didn’t move.
In another instant he had swung round and returned to her. Her heart bolted into breakneck speed.
“Look, I meant to say, I’ll send Lewis over with the gang for the statue. Obviously, I’m the last person you’ll want to see. Vivien, please believe I am really sorry for the bloody rubbish I said to you.”
“You’re afraid that I will sue.”
He smiled, seeming glad she had come back at him with her own touch of wryness.
“Feel free. I won’t contest the case. What damages would you settle for?”
Everything was happening too fast. As well as the pain and dark behind his eyes there was now the appearance of this playfulness, an elegant and winning charm—which after a second he shut away again, as if to play like that now was to insult her further.
How could someone so aware of a woman’s feelings ever have been so obtuse?
To conceal. To hide. To disguise the shadow behind his eyes.
“The roses are fine,” Vivien said. “I’ll settle for the roses.”
“You are, as I said, very just. And far too kind.”
Now he didn’t move away. Yet in another second he must do so. Then, of course, she would never see him again. He would take care she didn’t, sparing her the nasty event.
He said, “Look, Vivien, can you allow me five minutes more of your time?”
It was almost precisely what Lewis had said to her on the phone.
Cautious now, Vivien said, “I have a taxi coming any minute.”
“Just until it arrives, then. I really don’t expect you to invite me in. We can talk out here.”
It seemed to Vivien that Connor, like Lewis, wanted to tell her the truth that lay beneath Connor’s actions. Did she want to know? Would she be a fool not to accept the chance of finding out? Some mystery, crouching and sinister, hung, both across the flat Addie had so insensitively inhabited, and on the man who, with such unusual humbleness, now offered himself up for her judgment or her censure.
“I need to put the flowers in water,” Vivien said. “Why don’t you come in?”
He glanced at her bags in the hall, but made no comment. The flat by now was shadowy, until Vivien switched on some side lights.
She knew she wouldn’t be leaving until Connor had told her whatever it was he meant to say.
In the kitchen, he stood against one of the despised white walls, watching Vivien as she put his flowers into a vase.
She had never felt, she thought, so self-conscious doing anything. When one of the roses dropped onto the floor, Connor, like an Elizabethan courtier, picked it up and gave it back to her.
Oddly, their hands did not touch. They hadn’t ever touched, even by accident, even outside, when first he offered her the flowers.
It seemed, she thought, that he was trying not to make physical contact with her. But was she doing the same with him?
All this time, ever since coming into the flat, they had said little to each other, just a trivial word or two. Their double silence lay in darkening swaths across the kitchen.
When Vivien went back into the octagonal room, he walked behind her.
There was something both disturbing and exciting about this that Vivien refused to acknowledge.
When she had put down the vase, the spray of roses vivid as fire, she saw, too, the opened bottle of Merlot, still almost full, which she had carele
ssly forgotten.
Connor sat down only when she suggested he do so.
These rooms had been his. He knew them, but was uneasy here. So much was now evident. Why? And why had he sold the apartment to Addie? Gone away and left behind the “collectible” statue of Patrick Aspen Sinclair?
“Do you drink wine?” Vivien asked.
“Sometimes.”
“May I offer you a glass of this?”
How formal she sounded—how formal and constrained both of them were now. It had been easier to communicate in rage.
They sat facing each other across Addie’s Persian carpet, drinking wine in the lamplight, as the sky beyond the French doors faded and the garden changed from bronze to ebony.
“I like the wine, Vivien—You don’t mind my calling you by your first name?”
“Just not Viv, Mr. Sinclair.”
“No. Vivien, always. Try Connor, would you?”
Vivien smiled. She spoke his name obediently, and felt a flush, seeming as vivid as the roses, flare in her cheeks. She ignored it. She said, primly, “Then, what was it you wanted to say to me…Connor?”
“I think Lewis told you about my ancestor, Patrick, the guy the statue was modeled on? Am I right? You won’t be breaking Lewis’s confidences, he’s a gossip and I know it. I concentrate on his good qualities.”
“He did say something.”
“Did he tell you what happened with the sculptor, Nevins?”
“Yes.”
“He told you about Emily, and—” Connor paused. He drained his glass of wine, then began to turn the empty vessel in his hand. “Patrick shot her and himself. And left Nevins alive. An interesting move. Not what Othello meant to do.”
“I really do know the play.”
“Of course you do. So do I. I’ve acted in it—oh, not Othello himself. A black actor took that part. I had the pleasure of acting the lying villain Iago. It’s strange, isn’t it, that Nevins had the Othello quote cut in the statue’s base. Ironic. He died in 1906 in Paris, from alcohol and laudanum. A waste, like Patrick and Emily.”
Another long silence came.
Vivien thought, The story is horrible, and sad, but how can it be only this that haunts him?