by Anne Stuart
Part Two—Tallulah
Chapter Six
The bed was soft, cradling her body. In fact, it was too soft, which surprised Susan. Her mother had replaced the guest room bed before the wedding, and she’d bought one of those new orthopedic mattresses that were supposed to be so good for you but actually felt like you were sleeping on bricks.
It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she was sleeping, for the first time in what seemed like weeks. She knew she was asleep, knew it wouldn’t take much to wake up, but she made the conscious decision to nestle into the bed and sink deeper and deeper into the gloriously welcome comfort of sleep.
She could feel the heavy satin of the wedding dress wrapped around her body, and she knew she should at least stagger out of bed and strip it off before it got hopelessly crushed. Mary would have a hissy fit if she saw Susan taking a nap in her aunt Tallulah’s wedding dress.
But if she got up there and took off the dress there was no guarantee she’d get back to sleep in the next few hours, or even in this lifetime. No, she’d take the sleep when she could get it and deal with creased satin later.
It was quiet in the bedroom. A soft breeze was blowing across her body, which was another surprise. She’d left the central air-conditioning on, and the windows in her bedroom were locked.
It didn’t matter, she reminded herself. Sleep. She mentally crooned the order like a hypnotist in a bad movie, and her body melted into the too-soft mattress.
And then her nose wrinkled in sudden dismay. The sheets beneath her smelled of cigarette smoke. So did the warm, fresh air around her. It smelled as if she were lying in a giant ashtray.
Sleep was gone, effectively banished, and she opened her eyes. It was dark in the room, the only light coming from the two double-hung windows that stood open against the twilight sky. She must have slept for hours—it was no wonder she felt dizzy, disoriented.
She sat up, blinking slightly, and rubbed a hand across her face. Her skin felt strange, hot and damp, and her mouth was covered in lipstick. Odd—she seldom wore lipstick, and she certainly hadn’t put any on today. And if she had, Jake Wyczynski would have kissed it off her.
She didn’t want to think about that. She didn’t want to think about anything at all. She needed to see what she had to do to salvage the wedding dress. She could hear the sound of voices in the distance, which surprised her. Her mother must have returned and brought someone with her. She could only hope and pray it wasn’t Jake—she didn’t think she could face him right now.
Whoever it was, they needed to leave. She had to ask her mother about the mysterious man who’d shown up at the front door calling himself “Bill.”
She slid her legs over the side of the bed and tried to stand up, only to go sprawling on her face in the darkness. The bed was a good five inches higher than she’d anticipated.
She scrambled to her feet immediately, slightly shaken from her encounter with the bare wood floor. And then she froze.
The double bed in her mother’s guest room was much closer to the floor than this one, and the entire house had discreet wall-to-wall carpeting. There wasn’t a bare patch of wood anywhere in her place, thanks to the previous tenants, and while Mary bemoaned the lack of wooden floors, she couldn’t bring herself to get rid of perfectly good carpeting, especially with money being tight.
She wasn’t alone in the room. Someone was sitting by the window, in the shadows, the only sign the faint glow of his cigarette.
“Who the hell are you?” she demanded. “And what are you doing in my room? And why are you smoking—my mother doesn’t allow smoking in the house....” Her voice trailed off in horror. It hadn’t sounded like her voice at all. It was lower, huskier, sexier sounding. She must have picked up a cold from those damned open windows. Or hay fever.
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Lou,” a man’s voice drifted from the corner. “I needed to talk to you in private, and I figured this might be my only chance without half your family wandering in and interrupting us. And just because your mother uses a silver cigarette holder doesn’t mean she doesn’t smoke almost a pack a day.”
The cigarette went flying out the window, the red tip arcing against the darkness. “But if it offends you so much I can do without. I’ve practically given them up, anyway.”
She took a tentative step toward him, peering in the darkness. All she could make out was a shadowy figure, definitely masculine, slightly familiar. A frisson of horror ran through her.
“That’s not you, Jake, is it?” she demanded. “You have a hell of a lot of nerve coming in here uninvited.”
“Jack, sweetheart, not Jake. You’ve only known me most of your life, why should I expect you to get my name right?” he said in a lazy drawl. “Are you going to come over here and talk to me before your sister comes barging in here?”
“I don’t have a sister.”
“That’ll come as news to her and your parents.”
“I don’t have parents, either. Just my mother,” she said stubbornly, refusing to consider the stranger who’d shown up at Mary’s door just a few short hours ago.
“Fine,” the man said. “I’m not going to argue with you about it. Are you going to listen to me or not?”
Susan didn’t move. She felt a nervous, tickling sensation at the back of her neck, and she put her hand up, under the thick mane of curls. And then froze. She didn’t have a thick mane of curls. She had short hair.
“Turn on the light,” she said in an urgent, husky voice. A voice she didn’t recognize.
The man in the corner moved, and a moment later a dim-watted bulb sent forth a pool of light into the strange room.
Be calm, she told herself. Don’t panic, don’t scream. There’s a logical explanation for all of this.
She looked down at the wedding dress she’d put on such a short time ago. It was the same dress, slightly crumpled from her nap, but still skimming her body and reaching to her toes. Except that there were breasts in the way.
She clutched her chest. “What are these?” They felt real, warm and wrapped in a formidable bra. She yanked open the neckline and looked down. They were breasts all right, entrapped in a white foundation garment that looked downright medieval.
“I think they’re boobs, Lou,” the man named Jack said lazily. “You’ve had ’em since you were twelve.”
She jerked her head up to stare at the stranger sitting in her bedroom. No, not her bedroom, a stranger’s bedroom, smelling of stale cigarettes and Chanel Number Five. “What in God’s name is going on?” she whispered. “Who the hell are you? And why are you calling me Lou?”
The man in her room gave her an inimical look. He had short, dark hair, pushed straight back from a tanned, angular face, and he was dressed in a rumpled suit, his tie unknotted and loosened around his neck. “I beg your pardon, Tallulah,” he said, not bothering to hide his mockery. “Or should I say ‘Miss Abbott’? And you know perfectly well who I am.”
She took a step closer, then halted. “Humor me,” the husky voice came from somewhere beneath those unfamiliar breasts.
“I’m Jack McGowan, Jimmy’s brother, as you damned well know.”
“Who’s Jimmy?”
“If you’re trying to tick me off you’re doing a good job of it,” he growled, reaching for his pack of cigarettes. “Jimmy’s my kid brother. The boy you were going to marry. The war hero. The dead war hero.”
“You’re out of your mind,” she said faintly.
He rose, obscuring the unfamiliar window, and he was very tall in the dim light. “You’re the one who’s acting like she’s got a screw loose. Listen, Lou, you can’t marry Ned Marsden, and you know it. The guy’s no good, and I’ve got proof....”
“What are you talking about?”
With no more than a cursory knock the bedroom door flew open, and a child streaked in, stopping short in the middle of the room. “Hey, Lou,” she said. “What’s Jack doing here?”
The cynical, disapp
roving expression faded from Jack McGowan’s face as he smiled down at the little girl, and he was suddenly, shockingly handsome. “How’s my best sweetheart?”
“I’m not your best sweetheart, Jack,” she said severely. “Lou is, though she won’t admit it.”
“What’s going on?” Susan demanded weakly, one last time.
The girl looked up at her out of strangely familiar eyes. “What’s wrong with her?” she demanded.
“Your sister seems to have developed a convenient form of temporary amnesia, probably to avoid making the worst mistake of her life.”
“Don’t be stupid, Lou,” the girl said. “If you don’t want to marry Neddie just tell him so: I don’t like him, anyway—I think Daddy’s the only one who really approves of him. You’ve got almost three days till the wedding—you can always call it off.”
“Edward,” she said dazedly. “I’m marrying Edward in three days.”
“She’s gotten very formal all of a sudden,” Jack said. “She wants to be called Tallulah rather than Lou, so I guess Edward rather than Neddie is only logical. C’mon, squirt, let’s leave the blushing bride alone, and maybe she’ll remember the mess she’s making of her life.”
“Wait!” Susan cried, as the two of them headed for the door, the tall, tall man and the child. The little girl turned around and looked at her out of Mary Abbott’s blue eyes.
“What’s wrong, Lou?” she demanded, looking worried.
She staggered back a few steps, until she came up against the high, unfamiliar bed. She sank down, dropping her head, and saw the dark curls veil her face.
“I’ll be fine,” she said in her strange voice. “Just give me a couple of minutes.”
“Do you want me to send Mummy up?”
“No!”
“I don’t blame you. Mummy’s not very motherly, is she? I’ll tell them you might not be down for dinner, and I’ll see if Hattie can sneak you something later.”
She looked up. The man stood silhouetted in the doorway, looking at her strangely. Somewhere in the distance she heard Frank Sinatra singing. She shivered in the warm air.
“Just give me a few minutes,” she begged in that unfamiliar, sultry voice. “I’ll be fine.”
She heard their voices trail off behind the closed door, but she didn’t move, standing completely still in the darkened bedroom, afraid, when she had always done her best to fight her fears. She took a deep, steadying breath and touched her hair again. The long flowing curls that didn’t belong to her.
She pushed herself away from the bed and moved to the dressing table with its triptych mirror. There were two tall lamps on either side, and she sat down on the bench and switched them on, lifting her head to stare at her reflection without flinching.
The woman in the mirror looked a little simpleminded from shock, Susan thought wryly. And who wouldn’t, facing a reflection that was completely foreign.
Well, not completely. She’d seen that face, that body in the mirror in her mother’s house in Connecticut. And she’d seen that face, that body in one of the few old photographs her mother possessed of her long-dead sister.
The woman in the mirror was Tallulah Abbott. The woman whose body was encasing Susan’s soul was Tallulah Abbott. Three days before her wedding day. Three days before her death.
Susan slammed down the panic that suddenly swelled into her throat. Maybe if she screamed she’d wake up, or maybe if she screamed all those people would come running again, and she’d have to come up with some sort of excuse. It had to be some crazy dream, brought on by the stress of the past few weeks, topped off by the appearance of Jake Wyczynski and the stranger who might possibly be her father. She was having the mother of all nightmares, and there was nothing to worry about.
She knew about dreams. How they mirrored the deeper concerns of everyday life. How they could teach you a lesson you were unwilling to learn during the day. No dream ever killed you, no matter how bizarre.
She could survive this dream in all its strangeness. She might wake up in a second, or it might take days. But panic would only make things worse.
She looked up at her reflection once more, taking a moment to enjoy it. She really did look like a cross between Ava Gardner and Rita Hayworth. The rich dark curls tumbled to her shoulders, her eyebrows were delicately plucked over huge, vibrant eyes, her nose was small and narrow, her mouth painted a lush crimson. For the first time in her life she was astonishingly beautiful, and she might as well enjoy it.
She rose and pulled off the wedding dress. It fitted more tightly than when she’d put it on, and she loosened the satin lacing in the front to get it off.
Her underwear was absurd. She had to be at least a thirty-six-C bra size, when she’d never been much more than a thirty-four A. She was more rounded, but still not in need of the thick rubber girdle that encircled her hips and held up the dark stockings.
She was about to peel off the girdle when she saw the maroon dress lying across a chair. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out she was supposed to wear that dress, but she wasn’t ready to do that. Wasn’t certain she was ready to accept this dream, or nightmare.
Instead she found a chenille bathrobe hanging inside the closet door and she pulled it around her, oddly chilled in the warm air. She went over to the window to close it and then stopped, looking out over the wide, curving driveway.
She was at the old Abbott mansion. Where else would she be—that was where Tallulah and Mary had grown up, where Tallulah had lived before she married. Her grandparents had been forced to sell it in the fifties, and a decade later it had been struck by lightning and burned to the ground. All that remained was the garage that she could see to her right. The garage where Jake Wyczynski had kissed her.
It was a warm June night, and still Susan felt goose bumps crawling on her arms. Tallulah must have been a June bride as Susan was planning to be. For some reason it seemed unutterably sad to die in June.
She heard the door open once more, and she whirled around, only to see little Mary Abbott sneak inside, shutting the door quietly behind her.
“What’s wrong with you, Lou?” she demanded. “Mummy and Daddy would have a fit if they knew you had a man in your bedroom. Particularly that man. Mummy’s already half-tight, and Daddy’s furious, demanding to know when you’re coming down. Neddie doesn’t look any too happy either.”
“Half-tight?” Susan echoed, picking up on one small thing amidst Mary’s spate of words.
“Smashed. Loaded. Bombed. She’s been drinking. You know how she gets.”
“Is it my fault?” Susan found herself asking. The question, the instinct was automatic and had nothing to do with Susan Abbott.
“Naaaah,” Mary said with a precocious shrug. “Mummy dear will use any excuse. She’ll get drunk tonight, she’ll have a hangover tomorrow, and then she’ll behave through the rest of the wedding. She probably won’t go on another bender for at least a month. By then you’ll be long gone.”
“I hope so,” Susan muttered, mainly to herself. “But what about you?”
Mary shrugged. “I keep out of her way when she gets like this. Don’t worry about me, Lou. I’m good at taking care of myself. You taught me that.”
Susan looked at the child who would one day be her mother. Mary Abbott had always seemed serene, able to weather the storms of life with surprising equanimity. She’d obviously learned it young.
“You said Ned Marsden is downstairs?”
“Do you know any other Neddie? He’s over here every night. He wouldn’t like it if he knew Jack was hanging around. He was always jealous of Jimmy, you know.”
Susan took a deep breath. “Jimmy,” she echoed. The dead war hero.
For a moment Mary looked preternaturally old, worried and maternal. “What’s wrong with you, Lou? And why haven’t you dressed for dinner? You know Neddie’s got an even worse temper than Daddy, and he’s expecting you.”
“I don’t suppose you could convince them I wasn’t feel
ing well,” Susan suggested weakly.
“Not without having all of them troop up here to check on you. Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong and I’ll see what I can do to fix it.”
“You’re nine years old. What can you do?”
“Well, at least you remember that much,” Mary said. “You had me worried for a moment. Jack told me you were acting like you’d never seen him before in your life, but I figured he was making things up. He’s a writer, after all, even if it’s supposed to be the truth, Daddy says most journalists are born liars.”
“He’s a journalist?”
Mary came up to her and placed her small hands on Susan’s larger ones. Foreign ones, with a big, gaudy diamond ring and nail polish. “What’s wrong with you, Lou?” she asked quietly.
Susan looked at the little girl who seemed to be both her sister and her mother, and she didn’t even hesitate.
“I’m not Tallulah.”
Chapter Seven
Mary Abbott blinked. “You’re not my sister?” she echoed. “Funny, you could have fooled me. How come you look like her, talk like her, dress like her and happen to be in the middle of her bedroom, wearing her dressing gown?”
Susan shook her head. It had been a crazy impulse to blurt out the truth. Not only would Mary Abbott not believe her, but she’d think she was crazy, as well.
She turned her face away from the little girl who would someday know her far too well. “Sorry, just a stupid joke on my part,” she said in a deliberately casual voice. “Tell Mom I’ll be down as soon as I change.”
Mary didn’t say a word, but Susan could feel her calm blue eyes surveying her. “You don’t call her Mom,” she said finally. “You call her Mummy, or Mother if you’re annoyed with her, or sometimes even Elda. But you don’t call her Mom.”
Susan kept her back turned. “My mistake,” she said. “Go away and let me get changed.”
“You’ve never been particularly modest, either,” Mary continued. “Unless you’ve got some new bruises you don’t want me to see.”