Dark Garden

by Jennifer Fulton

  “There was a man hanging about the stables yesterday, by the way,” Mason said. “I have no idea how he found his way into the grounds, but he’s not to be let in again.”

  “Ah, the ruffian in the brothel creepers?”

  “I didn’t notice his shoes. Pantano is the name.”

  With a disdainful sniff, Mrs. Danville recorded this information in her notebook. “I can’t image the fellow is acquainted with an honest day’s work,” she tonelessly observed, “yet it appears he is employed by our neighbor.”

  Shocked, Mason said, “By Vienna? Are you sure?”

  “According to Mrs. Hardy he consumed half a beef Wellington last night, virtually single handed. And without a green vegetable.”

  Mason stilled her hands by clasping them behind her back. “In what capacity is Mr. Pantano employed, do you know?”

  “One can only speculate. He has some business here on behalf of a family friend in New Jersey, or that’s the story, for what it’s worth.”

  Mrs. Danville was always miserly with information acquired from her contacts in the village, or directly from Bridget Hardy. The two housekeepers always gossiped after church and Mason knew exactly what must have changed hands that morning, apart from mutual dismay over Pantano’s gluttony. If the Cavenders had venison, it would also be served at the Blake household this week, along with some vague explanation of its origins. Everyone knew the widowed Mr. Pettibone was enamored of Mrs. Danville and brought offerings of pheasant and venison whenever he and his son went hunting, and that Mrs. Danville shared this largesse. But the Blakes always acted as if dressed game fell from the sky. God forbid anyone acknowledge that the staff pooled resources between the two households.

  Mason thanked Mrs. Danville and returned to her post at the window. She didn’t buy the “family friend” bullshit for a minute. That bitch. She’d hired a Mafia thug to do her bidding. The veiled threat to Dúlcifal now made sense, as did the lowball offer. Well, if Vienna thought she could trick Mason into selling Laudes Absalom for peanuts, she had another thing coming. Was that why she’d arrived on the doorstep earlier—Plan B: weaken the enemy’s defenses by seducing her?

  Aggravated, Mason put Ulysses in his aviary, dropped the stopper in her inkwell, and strode out of the library. Once she was upstairs in her room, she stripped off her clothes and turned the shower on. How she could have fallen for that blushing damsel act she had no idea. Those nervous looks, that quivering mouth. Disgusted with herself, she stood under the hot jets and scrubbed all trace of Vienna off her body. But she couldn’t erase the memory of her. The soft cries of pleasure. The irresistible wetness and writhing pleas for more. Those eyes, as beguiling as the ocean, and just as treacherous. Mason should have known better than to believe what she saw in them, the craving that matched her own.

  When would this enchantment end?

  She sagged against the tile wall, every nerve end quivering. She never felt like this, she never pined and mooned over any woman. Only Vienna. Wanting her was like a sickness. At times she thought she was cured. Months would pass. A year. Life would draw her in. The symptoms would fade. But then she would wake from another of those dreams, fully aroused, desperate for release and capable only of seeing her. That face, that throat, that walk. And she would have to deal with the throbbing pressure between her legs, seeking release just as she was now.

  Delaying the moment, Mason let herself drift into a favorite fantasy. Soft focus. A field of wildflowers. Vienna in a long clinging dress like a medieval virgin, her red hair rippling past her waist. Mason would kneel in front of her and pledge her loyalty. Vienna would bestow a token, her girdle. Mason would wear it off to war, all the while imagining her beloved sitting at a window, chastely awaiting her return. Finally they would marry and on their wedding night, Mason would be afraid to touch her bride in case she was rejected—that in seeing who she really was, stripped of her armor and sword, Vienna would not love her.

  In her fantasies, Vienna always took over then, and Mason would find herself on the edge of exploding, afraid to move an inch. Vienna would barely touch her. Their lips would meet and Mason would know everything, see it all with such clarity. They were meant to be joined like this. She knew no other way to feel complete.

  Gasping, she closed her eyes tightly against the hot spray of the shower and drove her fingers down hard, calling up the image that always pushed her over the brink. Vienna with her legs spread and her hands on Mason’s shoulders, drawing her deeper, demanding, “Come. Come now.”

  And Mason did.

  *

  The face was handsome, the hair and eyes dark, as far as Vienna could tell from the degraded sepia image. She tucked the photograph back inside Colette’s letter, disturbed that everywhere she looked she saw Mason Cavender. She’d just spent the past two hours trying to shake herself free of Mason’s touch, but her body refused to be soothed into denial. She had bruises along the inside of one thigh where Mason’s belt had dug in. Her throat wore the purple evidence of teeth. And the flesh Mason had invaded was exquisitely tender.

  Vienna wasn’t used to roughness. Her lovers, not exactly a legion, were too considerate to leave her sore. She never felt their impression inside her body afterward. Her stomach hollowed at the thought and she was instantly, infuriatingly wet again. Her nipples hurt. She couldn’t swallow properly. Her thoughts were chaotic. She even entertained the idea of going back to Laudes Absalom and dragging Mason upstairs. Maybe, if they spent all night getting their fill of each other, they could get this inconvenient physical attraction out of their systems.

  The thought was tempting, but not because she could convince herself that a night of limitless sex would end her infatuation. The real reason was less palatable by far. She felt cheated. That frantic coupling in the great hall hadn’t been nearly enough. Vienna wanted more. She yearned to explore every smooth, firm contour and hidden recess of Mason’s body, to feel every quiver of arousal. Mason was so responsive. So passionate. Vienna was both unnerved and fascinated by the dormant self Mason had awakened in her, a sexual being unfettered by common sense or duty, driven only by desire. Even now it strained restlessly within, like a wild thing wanting to return to its mate.

  She’d seen the same compulsion blazing darkly from Mason’s eyes and it had thrilled her. She recognized that need, she’d glimpsed it in veiled flashes since the first time they’d met. But this time was different. This time Mason didn’t hide it, or couldn’t fight it. Vienna loved that she had the power to inflame her, to make her betray her better judgment and ignore her reservations. And she had plenty of those; after all, she still blamed Vienna for her brother’s death. Part of Vienna found that hard to endure and wanted to prove Mason wrong in her assessment. But the Blake in her cold-bloodedly assessed this new turn of events. She now had an extra weapon in her arsenal; the question was whether to use it. Imagine how completely she could defeat the last of the Cavenders if she also struck a blow to her heart.

  Vienna cradled her head in her hands, repelled by the thought. A realization struck her then, a certainty she could not escape. If she did such a thing, if she seduced Mason into an affair and then discarded her, the heart more deeply wounded would be her own. Vienna stopped breathing. For several seconds she thought she was about to faint. Disbelief crowded her reasoning. No, it wasn’t possible. She could accept that she was physically drawn to Mason. There’d always been a heightened awareness between them. But she refused to believe that the attraction was also emotional.

  She decided she must be experiencing some kind of post-orgasmic elation. Brain chemistry was notoriously susceptible to hormones. Given the way hers were raging, she couldn’t trust a single impulse she had, let alone an epiphany about her feelings for her enemy. Next thing she would be seeing the image of Christ in a can of beans.

  Besides, Vienna didn’t have to sink so low as to take her fight to the bedroom. Everything she’d worked for was coming to fruition. She could beat Mason cleanly, and that wa
s the way she wanted to end this nightmare. The feud between the Blakes and the Cavenders had been personal for decades, but Vienna had never felt personally attached to their destruction. For her, the task was a business matter. She had a huge, complex corporation to run and couldn’t afford to waste time on the family obsession. The Cavender issue was a distraction, one other family members were not above using as a lever. She was sick of hearing about the Cavenders, and in the end her father had been fed up, too. In his final days he’d offered her a piece of advice. Finish it and move on. Don’t let it eat you alive.

  The words weighed on her, for all they said about the choices he’d made and the regrets he seemed to have. Since childhood he’d been single-minded in his determination to live up to his father’s expectations. Vienna knew how much it had pained him to “fail.” He never stopped talking about Blake senior’s deathbed wishes. Even dying of pneumonia in his eighties, the old man had the Cavenders in his sights. He blamed them for his illness. Cavender dogs kept coming over to Penwraithe, chasing the Blake cats. He was chasing an offender one day and had gone after it with his rifle. That was when he fell and broke his hip. He’d caught pneumonia in the hospital.

  Vienna had only vague memories of that stressful period. She was six years old and sometimes sat at her grandfather’s bedside holding his hand. She remembered the funeral because it was the only time she’d ever seen her father cry. Looking back, she realized that the wedding incident, when Mason disrupted the celebrations on her horse, must have rubbed salt in her father’s fresh wounds. The episode had occurred less than a year after his father’s death. Norris was still grieving and had shouldered the entire responsibility for running the family business. Vienna knew now how alone he must have felt.

  His two sisters, in the Blake tradition, had received cash settlements from the family trust and shareholdings that would revert back to the company when they died. In exchange, the company would pay cash to their beneficiaries. For six generations, the Blakes had used this system to avoid boardroom battles. Ownership was not diluted across numerous descendents. Instead, eldest sons made out like bandits and everyone else had to content themselves with adequate wealth and very little influence. That was her father’s other failure, Vienna reflected. No son. He never mentioned his disappointment to her or to Marjorie, but he didn’t have to.

  Henry Cavender had never missed a chance to rub his face in it. For that reason, as much as the wrongs of the past, Norris had been consumed with hatred for their neighbor. Desperate to ensure that there was nothing for his rival’s son to inherit, he’d all but wiped the Cavenders out. There was little left for Vienna to do to complete his life’s work but nail the lid on the coffin. She owed him that, and the day couldn’t come soon enough. She wanted the deal done and was willing to pay a premium just to get the Cavenders out of her hair.

  Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have gone after the company at all; it was worthless. And the house was an even worse proposition, given the repairs it would need if she didn’t demolish it. But Laudes Absalom symbolized victory even more than the Cavender Corporation. Once the Blakes owned the property, her ancestors could sleep easy in their graves, knowing justice was finally done.

  Vienna wasn’t planning to rip Mason off. She didn’t care if she had to pay twice what the place was worth, so long as she could present a fait accompli at the next family gathering. Her two aunts, whose lifetime shareholdings gave them votes on the Blake board of directors, would hold her feet to the fire until she delivered, and her cousin Andy saw his VP position as nothing less than president-in-waiting. He constantly overreached and ran his own loyal clique of staff, who did their best to make Vienna feel irrelevant in her own company.

  Vienna hadn’t expected to find herself fighting battles on two fronts the day she took over Blake Industries, but her aunts thought Norris had made a huge mistake vesting his ownership entirely in her. They didn’t want their shares repurchased by Blake Industries, and instead had plans afoot to transfer the holdings to their sons. Vienna knew an internal power struggle was inevitable, and to win it she needed to be free of the Cavender problem. Only Mason stood in her way.

  Hence Pantano.

  The move was clumsy, but it was a means to an end. Mason needed cash, and five million for that property was a good offer. Vienna had wanted to make it easy for her to accept by starting the bidding high. Unfortunately Pantano had taken it upon himself to try for a better deal. That was the trouble with enforcers of his ilk, it never crossed their minds that some people wouldn’t just grab the money and run. One lousy million—Vienna was surprised that Mason hadn’t set her dog on him. She only hoped he’d been convincing about buying the place for a boss back in Jersey who needed to lie low for a while. If Mason thought Vienna was the real buyer, she’d never sell.

  She got up and made herself another espresso. Having a machine in the study meant she could work without interruption when she needed to. As she sipped the coffee she pondered her options once more. She had just instructed Pantano to go back tomorrow and put the real offer on the table. She was willing to go to eight million if Mason continued to hold out.

  But what if Mason sent Pantano packing again? Vienna would be a fool not to use all means at her disposal to get what she wanted. She had no doubt that Mason desired her. Hopefully she hadn’t blown her chances of closing the deal by running out on her after their encounter. She smothered the memory of Mason’s words: Do you ever wonder how things might have been? Her drawn face and hurt stare still stabbed at Vienna. Mason hadn’t even tried to hide her emotions. She’d exposed herself, just as she had that day in Vienna’s office, only this time Vienna had taken a shot.

  She knew her callous remark about the promise rings had hit home. That was her intention. She’d set out to trivialize the intimacy they’d just shared and had expected retaliation in kind, not that pained stare of betrayal. Not the jarring accusation of cowardice. And certainly not a message delivered by a raven. When the Gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.

  Her prayer, for as long as she could remember, was to ruin Mason Cavender. She’d always known there would be a price to pay. But she never realized that money would be the least of it.

  Chapter Nine

  “Would you like to ride him?”

  The low voice behind Vienna made her start. Heat flooded her cheeks. Willing herself not to sound unnerved, she said, “I’d love to, if a stranger won’t bother him.”

  “Dúlcifal is beautifully mannered. Treat him with respect and he’ll refrain from throwing you.”

  Vienna summoned the strength to turn around. Her power of speech deserted her at the sight of Mason in a black riding coat and breeches, looking as darkly etched and muscular as the stallion in the barn next door. She was carrying a saddle. Her expression was so impassive that Vienna had trouble reconciling her with the fiery, sweating lover whose mark she still bore. Memory immediately pummeled her senses. Her lungs seemed to collapse inward, ejecting the breath she was holding in an audible gasp, as if the wind had just been knocked out of her.

  “English okay for you?” Mason asked, holding up the all-purpose saddle.

  “Yes, fine,” Vienna answered, and fifteen pounds of leather was dropped into her arms.

  “If you want breeches, you’ll find spares in the tack room. Help yourself.”

  Vienna glanced down at her jeans. They would suffice for a short turn on horseback. Besides, she was already self-conscious enough without wearing skintight pants. “It’s okay. I’m fine, thanks.”

  Mason slipped a halter over the Lipizzan’s head, crooning, “Hello, handsome. Want to earn some carrots?”

  The pale stallion pricked his ears and arched his neck. He stared deeply into Mason’s eyes, then laid his cheek against hers and they seemed to be whispering together. Mason looked up after a moment, as if she’d suddenly remembered Vienna was present. Awkwardly, she checked the fastening at her throat, then let her hand slide down to rest
over her heart, pressing inward as though to still it. For the briefest second, Vienna glimpsed the passionate Mason then, staring mutely through the haze of all they couldn’t say to each other. Their eyes met, and she tried to remember the scheme that had brought her here, the bargain she’d made with herself to do whatever it took. But her concentration had lapsed. She had come here to see the Lipizzan, then she planned to knock on Mason’s door, apologize, and soften her up for Pantano’s next move. Yet at the first sight of Mason, her resolve was breaking down.

  Torn between emotions she could not quite fathom, she couldn’t marshal her thoughts around her goal. Instead her mind wandered through a mishmash of fragments, trying to assemble an orderly whole that could explain her confusion. This moment. That impression. Bright, clear memories. Muddled recollections. In the center, eluding definition, was a dream she’d once had.

  At the time, immediately after waking, she’d rushed for a pen and paper, wanting to record the details because the dream seemed important. But as soon as she started writing, her memory blanked. The only sentence that made it to the page was: I’m in Mason’s bedroom. Vienna could add nothing more, probably because she’d never been in that room and couldn’t draw on real experience to embellish a fast-fading figment of her imagination.

  “Go ahead.” Mason indicated a saddling area. Then she folded the stall guard back and led Dúlcifal out, murmuring to him and caressing his cheeks.

  Excluded from their private world, Vienna felt the same writhing envy she’d experienced at that party long ago. Mason loved that horse. Their effortless accord was fascinating, but almost unbearable to watch. Vienna moved a few yards toward the entrance and directed her attention deeper into the barn. Hanging over every stall, a head was angled their way. Like teens with a crush, Mason’s horses were transfixed by her every move. Irrationally, Vienna wished she could stare just as insatiably without being caught. She wasn’t at high school anymore, but one look at Mason made her feel like that smitten kid.