'Somehow I have difficulty picturing a one-year-old child reaching the doorknob and forcing his way in here, Rachel.'
'Are you suggesting that I did? And that's not the point, anyway. I...'
'And the hawk didn't bite you. She didn't do anything to you, as a matter of fact.' He turned towards the goshawk and ran his hand lightly along her pale grey breast. 'Isn't that right, girl?' he asked softly. The hawk shook herself and her feathers rose in a silvery froth. 'Easy, Isis, don't be upset. You're fine.'
The man was insane, Rachel thought, watching him as he stroked the goshawk. Either that, or she was. But one thing was certain: David Griffin might have all the money and power in the world, but he would never have Jamie. There wasn't a way in the world she would let the baby stay in this house, not for another minute. She ran her hands along her sweater, shuddering as she brushed away a drift of soft grey feathers, then she took a deep breath.
'All right, Mr Griffin,' she said softly, 'this game is over. You took me by surprise this morning—of course, you must have planned on that. It was a good ploy, I must admit. Showing up without warning, at that hour... but I've come to my senses now.' He turned and looked at her, and the expression of uninterest on his face enraged her. It was the way she sometimes looked at Jamie at the end of a long day, when his infantile babbling was amusing but not really very important. 'I know you think you hold all the cards,' she said, fighting to control her temper, 'and I admit you almost had me believing it too. But there are child welfare laws in this state, and not even someone like you can ignore them. Keeping a wild animal in the house isn't legal...'
His smile was cold. 'Ah, that's good to know, Rachel. You're not just a barmaid, you're also a lawyer. That's reassuring. I must tell my attorneys to consult with you in future.'
Her hands trembled with the desire to strike him. Stay calm, she told herself. Just stay calm...
'I am leaving,' she said softly. 'And l'm taking Jamie with me. You'll have to get a court order if you want him. And when we get to court, I'll tell the judge about your...your hawk and... Dammit,' she hissed, 'this isn't funny! What are you smiling at?'
David shook his head. 'I was just picturing you trying to explain yourself out of being arrested for kidnapping, that's all.'
Her face flushed with indignation. 'Kidnapping? That's impossible.'
His face darkened. 'Of course it is. You'd have to get past me first.' He took a step forward and, instinctively, she shrank back.
'It... it isn't kidnapping to try and protect a child,' she said quickly. 'That hawk...'
'It's quite legal to keep and fly a goshawk in this state. Falconry is an ancient and honourable sport. I wouldn't expect you to know that, of course—I'm sure it's not one of the things people talk about at the Golden Rooster.'
Rage flooded her mouth with the taste of copper. She had never despised anyone as she despised this man. And she was powerless before him. How in heaven's name could Cassie have fallen under his spell? It made more sense to think of Jack the Ripper as a charmer. Rachel stared at him in silence, the only sound in the room the raggedness of her own breathing and the papery rustle of the bird's feathers as it settled itself on the perch. Finally she nodded her head.
'You win,' she said in a harsh whisper. 'But the hawk goes. She doesn't belong in the house when there's a child in it.' David started to speak, and she raised her hand to silence him. 'I don't care if you're King Midas himself,' she said quietly, her eyes boring into his, 'I'll bring the law down on you for endangering the welfare of a minor, if I have to.'
She held her breath. It was a bluff—she couldn't picture herself or anyone else doing anything David Griffin didn't want done. For a second she thought she'd pushed him too far. Something flashed in his eyes, and then it was gone. He nodded.
'Fine,' he said mildly. 'Isis was only here temporarily, anyway. She was hurt last week and I've been keeping her indoors so I could watch her. But she's much better now. I'll take her outside.' He glanced at his watch and then his fingers closed around Rachel's arm. 'It's getting late. Emma will show you to your room so you can wash and then I want you to join me for breakfast. You won't have any trouble finding the library this time, I hope.'
'No trouble at all,' she said stiffly, deliberately refusing to acknowledge the sarcastic barb. Pulling free of his hand, she moved quickly towards the door. Her hand was on the knob when she felt a strange sensation between her shoulders. She turned her head and saw that the goshawk's great eyes were on her, burning and fierce. 'The hawk,' she said slowly, 'Isis... You said she'd been hurt. What happened to her?'
His answer was brief and taut. 'Someone shot her.'
'You mean that's how you got her? She'd been wounded and you found her on your property?'
He shook his head. 'Isis was mine to begin with. In a way, it's my fault she was hurt. I was the one who taught her to trust people.'
Rachel stared at him, waiting for him to say something more, but he simply opened the door and waited for her to step into the corridor. 'And?' she asked finally. 'What happened?'
'I was flying her near the edge of my property, and a fool with a gun shot her, wounded her. She barely managed to get back.'
Her eyes met his. 'And? What happened to him? The man who shot your hawk, I mean?'
His eyes turned to ice. 'What do you think happened to him, Rachel? He'll never shoot another hawk, that's for sure. I take care of my own in my own way.'
A shudder ran through her and she looked back at the goshawk. She had seen eyes like those before. They were in David Griffin's face.
CHAPTER THREE
RACHEL awoke abruptly, sitting upright in bed with the covers clutched to her breast, her heart pulsing in her throat. She had been dreaming about Jamie, about coming home from a long night at the Golden Rooster and finding his crib empty, the apartment empty...
She lay back against the pillows and took a deep breath. Nights at the Rooster were behind her now. So was the apartment. She was here, in this house high on a mountain overlooking the Hudson River, but she would be here only so long as David Griffin permitted it. She ran her hand across her forehead, pushing her hair back from her face. The dark hours of the endless night had finally given way and daylight streamed through french doors, illuminating her room. It was handsomely furnished, but it lacked the only thing that mattered. Jamie wasn't sharing the room with her; he was next door, in a room adjoining hers, by order of David Griffin.
Rachel tossed the silk quilt aside and swung her feet to the floor. Everything in this gilded prison was by order of David Griffin, she thought, looking about her. There might as well have been bars separating her from Jamie.
'I want him to start getting used to this house,' David had said the day before. 'And I want him to become used to other people.'
'But he's never spent the night alone,' Rachel had said quickly. 'He's always had Mrs Gould or me...'
'He won't be alone. I've had an intercom installed in the nursery. Emma will be able to hear every sound he makes.'
'Emma? Emma doesn't know, anything about him.'
'She'll learn,' he'd said in tones rough with impatience.
'He wakes for a bottle at six in the morning. How will she learn that? He can't tell her. He...'
David had risen from the table, tossing his linen napkin aside with abrupt finality. 'You'll tell her, Rachel. That's why you're here.'
'But...'
'That's the end of it,' he'd said, his eyes flashing a warning. 'There's nothing further to discuss.'
Rachel sighed as she padded barefoot across the room. That was how all her protests had ended. 'There's nothing further to discuss,' David Griffin said whenever she objected to something. And always, implicit in the statement, was a reminder of her transiency in this house. And so she had swallowed her protests and nodded in agreement, all too aware of how readily he could eliminate her from his plans.
She opened the connecting door and looked into the gaily decorated nursery.
Empty, she thought without much surprise. Jamie must be downstairs, eating the oatmeal and banana she'd told Emma he liked. So far, the baby had liked everything, she thought grimly, including the roomful of stuffed animals and the wooden mobile over his crib and...
'Stop the self-pity, Rachel,' she said aloud, marching back into her bedroom. 'It won't change things.'
She pulled yesterday's baggy corduroys and shapeless sweater from the chair where she'd dropped them. The million-dollar question, of course, was what would change things? Sighing, she slipped the sweater over her head. She'd spent most of the night trying to come up with an answer, but there didn't seem to be any. All that kept dancing through her head was another of Grandma's old sayings: 'Be grateful for small favours'.
'I am grateful,' Rachel whispered, as if her dead grandmother could hear her. After all, she was here, in the Griffin house, and that in itself was surprising when you came right down to it, Rachel thought, zipping up her cords. Hadn't the man been ready to snatch Jamie up and carry him off without any thought for her? Why, it hadn't even occurred to him that Jamie might have trouble adjusting to a new life until she'd suggested it...
Rachel pulled on her socks and her sneakers. Time to be grateful again, she thought, remembering how readily he had agreed to her suggestion that he take her along. Amazing, considering how much he obviously disliked her. Her fingers slowed as she tied the sneaker laces. 'Don't look a gift horse in the mouth,' Grandma probably would have said, but the Trojans hadn't, and look what had happened to them.
She sighed and got to her feet. 'Never mind all that, Rachel,' she muttered aloud. 'Just get down there and show that... that chunk of ice that you're indispensable. Convince him that Jamie can't do without you... Good God,' she moaned, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, 'is that me?'
She touched the skin under her eyes, running her fingers lightly along the dark circles. Her hair was stiff with the remnants of the spray that kept it in place during the long hours at the Rooster. The shapeless pants and sweater were the final touch.
'Would you let this person take care of your child?' she asked her reflection.
The answer, of course, was 'no'. You wouldn't let this woman walk your dog. There was an old-fashioned sterling silver hairbrush on the dresser, heavily inlaid with mother-of-pearl. She snatched it up and brushed it through her hair. Better, she thought, but not by much. Appearances counted in this world—all you had to do was ask any of the waitresses at the Rooster whether their tips didn't go up as their necklines went down— and so far David Griffin had seen her dressed for the Golden Rooster and in this scruffy outfit that made her look like a homeless derelict. Neither image inspired confidence, and she was sure image was what counted with someone like him.
The car had told her that, and the house confirmed it. Each room that she'd seen—and she hadn't seen them all—was furnished for maximum effect. None of them felt lived in, except for that terrible one with the hawk and the musty tapestries, and no sane person would call that 'lived in'. The house was a beautiful facade, designed, no doubt, to tell the world that David Griffin was a man of wealth and power. His clothes were like that, too. She'd have bet his closets were filled with rows of custom-made three-piece suits, each the same except for colour. Yesterday, he had substituted a navy pinstripe for the grey pinstripe before he left for the city.
'There's a problem at my office,' he had said just after they'd sat down to breakfast. 'I may be late. I probably won't see you until tomorrow.'
And that was the last she'd seen of him, thank goodness. If her luck held, maybe he'd be gone for the day. Maybe...
A peal of laughter rose from outside the french doors. It was an infectious sound, especially in a place as humourless as this. The house was like a museum; you had the feeling people whispered all the time. The laughter came again, and Rachel's lips twitched in an answering smile. She put down the comb and crossed the room, pulling the doors open and stepping out on the balcony.
The lawn behind the house, as yet untouched by autumn frost, was a green carpet that extended to the river glistening like a silver ribbon far in the distance. Immediately below the balcony, the gardener had raked together a pile of dry leaves, and in the centre of that pile, Jamie sat astride a man whose face she could not see. All that were visible to her were his long, dungaree-clad legs and dusty boots. The laughter she had heard was the child's and the man's, mingling together as he bounced the baby on his knees. Jamie was hanging on to the man's hands, although every now and then he pulled one chubby hand free, seized a handful of leaves and flung them into the man's face. Rachel's smile broadened. Turning the baby over to the gardener for a morning's romp was a strange way for Emma to care for her charge, and it was a factor Rachel would use to her advantage when she made a case for letting her be responsible for Jamie, but she had to admit the man and the boy were having a good time.
She turned back towards the doors just as the child squealed with joy. Automatically, she looked down again, her lips curving upward in a smile. She'd have to introduce herself to the gardener and thank the man for...
No, she thought, the smile freezing on her mouth. The man was getting to his feet, swinging Jamie into the air and on to his shoulder—and it was David, not the gardener, David, dressed in clothes scruffier than hers, his face alive with laughter and happiness. A cold fist clamped around her heart as she watched him draw the child's head down to his. Jamie planted a kiss on David's cheek and then his fat little arms wrapped around his neck.
She slammed the french doors behind her and leaned against them. Panic engulfed her and turned to anger.
'How dare he?' she said aloud, her voice trembling. 'How dare he come from out of nowhere and think he can take over?'
She yanked open the bedroom door and stormed down the stairs, hurrying past an astonished maid in the foyer.
Emma looked up in surprise as she strode into the kitchen.
'Good morning, Miss Cooper. Would you like..
Rachel ignored her and hurried out of the back door. There was another way out to the rear lawn—there were probably ten other ways, she thought grimly—but you needed a map to find them and she was in too much of a hurry to wander from room to room searching for exits. David Griffin couldn't just shove her aside. She wouldn't permit it...
'Miss? Is something wrong?'
The housekeeper's cry floated after her, a faint counterpoint to the dry leaves crunching loudly beneath her feet. Jamie smiled when he saw her but she ignored him, directing all her attention to David Griffin instead.
'Just what do you think you're doing?' she demanded.
David looked at her and one dark eyebrow rose. 'Is that really a question you need answered, Rachel? I think it's fairly obvious.'
'Yes,' she said grimly, 'it certainly is. How dare you?'
'I seem to have missed something here. How dare I what? Wake you so early in the day? I apologise for that, Rachel. I should have realised...'
'You know that's not what I meant,' she snapped. 'You were playing with Jamie—laughing with him...'
'Mr Griffin? Is everything all right?'
David nodded at the housekeeper who had come up behind Rachel. 'Yes, fine, Emma. Take the boy inside, will you?' He smiled as he handed the child to her. 'I think it's time for a nappy change. Now,' he added, his smile fading as he turned to Rachel, 'what is it I'm being accused of?'
'I know what you're doing, Mr Griffin.'
'Perhaps you'll let me in on it, Rachel.'
Her hands itched with the desire to slap the mocking smile from his face. 'You're trying to buy Jamie's love,' she said. 'But it won't work.'
His eyebrows rose again. 'Buy his love?'
Rachel nodded. 'All those toys in his bedroom... that crib that must have cost ten times what his old one did... and now this—this display this morning...'
'What display?' he asked mildly.
'You know what display!' she snapped furiously. 'Playing with him, laughing with
him...'
Something was wrong with the way that sounded, she thought, and her words broke off suddenly. David Griffin nodded his head as he brushed bits of leaf from his wool shirt.
'Don't stop now,' he said. 'It was just getting interesting. I never thought of it that way before, Rachel. Are you suggesting it would be better for Jamie if I hadn't given him any toys? Well, it's a thought,' he mused, his voice thoughtful and serious. 'No toys, and what to sleep in? A box, perhaps, or a basket—although he's a bit large for a basket. Of course, I could have picked something up at the Salvation Army...'
How had he managed to turn her hurt into something laughable? Rachel shook her head and held up her hand.
'You know I didn't mean it that way...'
'And you're right about playing with him. What a hell of a thing to do with my owfl son. And laughing— God! Maybe you'd better report me to the authorities, after all.'
'I'm glad you find all this amusing,' she said angrily, 'but I don't see anything funny about it. You said I'd be taking care of Jamie. You said you understood that he needed me. You said you wanted me to help him adjust to all this...'
Suddenly the amused smile was gone. 'The truth, at last! You're afraid I've changed my mind. Is that it?'
You bastard, she thought. She took a deep breath and then another, swallowing her anger. 'No,' she lied, 'that's not it. I have to assume you're too astute a businessman to make an investment for no good reason.'
His eyebrows rose. 'Meaning what?'
She shrugged her shoulders, trying to keep her voice casual, afraid to let him see the depth of her fear.
'Meaning you know I can help you, even if you and Jamie are getting along well. He's at a difficult age—he can't make himself understood clearly yet. He says lots of things only I understand and it would take Emma quite a while to know what he means. And he prefers certain toys and foods...'
'Don't beg, Rachel,' said David. 'It doesn't become you. It isn't necessary. I've already agreed to let you stay. And I always keep my word. I told you that.'
Heart of the Hawk Page 4