He was staring at the amount of paperwork still to be dealt with when he heard a sound and turned toward the window. A figure in a dark coat with an upturned collar shifted and then disappeared from view. Rex frowned. Someone had been looking in at him. He stepped over to the window but there was no sign of anyone nearby. It struck him as odd, because if it had been one of the groundsmen he’d have expected them to acknowledge him, not just run off. Presumably they were as surprised to see him in there as he was to be there.
Shrugging it off, he returned to the desk. A box file lay open and papers were arranged in neat stacks as if they were being sifted.
A single page of handwritten, unlined paper had been set aside on the blotter. A brass paperweight held it in place. Rex sat down in the carved wooden office chair while he picked up the page. The letter was unfinished, but it was addressed to him. The humor he’d felt a moment before dissipated quickly as he began to read.
Rex,
I never took the time to explain things to you, which I do regret.
Unease ran over Rex. A confessional? He wasn’t sure he wanted to give it the time of day. His curiosity was baited, though.
I messed things up with your mother, and I was lonely.
Rex lowered the page. Lonely? What a joke. The irony hit him hard. The truth of the matter was that Charles Carruthers had only ever been lonely right at the end. What about the mistress you kept on the side when I was a child? The woman, whoever she was, obviously hadn’t meant that much to Charles Carruthers. And yet she was the real reason that his parents’ marriage fell apart. That made Rex despise his father’s attitude even more.
Sylvia restored my life; she lit all of our lives. She made Burlington Manor a proper home again. It was as if the house was alive, after several years of being a desperate place, after your mother had gone.
As he read, Rex’s terse attitude to this after-death confession morphed from irritation to frustration.
Carmen was part of that. She was the daughter I never had and it felt more like a family home than before. But I was wrong when I expected you and Carmen to become brother and sister.
Initially I thought you were coping with the new adjustments better than I could have wished. Once I knew you had true feelings for her, it felt as if everything was going to be spoiled, that I was doomed to be unhappy. I couldn’t let that happen. But now I see it was my fault, not yours, because my expectations were unrealistic. I see that, after all this time I’ve had to reflect on it alone. It pains me that I’ve left it this late, and I don’t know if I even have the courage to send this letter to you, and ask you to forgive me, and come home.
I wish things had been different. Perhaps I can make amends. I know it won’t be easy to
The letter ended abruptly and midsentence. It wasn’t signed.
On first reading it made Rex angry. His dad hadn’t even had the guts to send it. Rex despised that.
“It’s all well and good being sorry now,” he muttered, throwing the letter down on the desk, “or whenever the hell it was you had a moment to regret what you’d done.”
When was it written? He dug through the accompanying accounts for clues. The papers seemed to be from around a year earlier.
Rex picked it up and read it again.
It seemed that the old man really had realized that he’d got it wrong. What did he mean about making amends? Rex stared at the letter, turned it over and put it down. He sifted through all the other papers in that box, but there was no continuation and no other indication that he’d given it any more thought after that night.
The old man had probably been sozzled on whisky and feeling sorry for himself, trying to think of a way to gather his pitifully small tribe back together again. But it never would have worked, would it? Perhaps that’s why he never finished the letter. In life, there was nothing he could do to make it right. If he’d tried, it would have been a vast humiliation for him, and Charles Carruthers would never have accepted that.
Rex’s anger flared and he screwed the letter into a ball, spun the office chair around and hurled it at the portrait of his father. The paper bounced off the painting and dropped to the floor at Rex’s feet.
Rex stared at the portrait again, transfixed, because a strange notion was evolving in his mind. Had Charles Carruthers found a way, in death, to make amends? Had he attempted to do so via the very structure of his will?
Originally Rex thought he left them a share each simply as a gesture toward Sylvia Shelby’s memory and Carmen’s relationship to the house. It was what the will had stated, but was there more to it than that? Had Charles Carruthers put the two of them together to deal with this problem because he knew that if they were meant to be together the way Rex had been convinced that they were—all those years ago—then it would happen? At least he’d given them the chance to reunite here, to try.
“Why the hell did you wait so bloody long?” Rex picked up the balled letter and returned to the desk, where he slumped into the chair.
Could it be true? The weird part was, that was exactly what was occurring whether Charles Carruthers had planned for it or not. They were testing a pathway that had been laid for them many years before. How differently his father could have handled it, though. Nevertheless, they might never have seen each other, apart from that brief sighting at the graveyard, if he hadn’t structured his will that way.
The very thought of it made Rex long for Carmen.
When the circumstances of the will had been read out Rex had been delighted—exactly for that reason, because it meant he and Carmen would have to spend time together. He’d been so elated, in fact, that he’d barely stopped to think of the whys and wherefores. The fact that his share of the estate represented exciting new investment possibilities for his business was nothing to him compared to being with Carmen.
That fact, in itself, hadn’t entered his consciousness until now.
Rex pushed the chair back against the desk, his hands going loose on the armrests as he contemplated it. He stared around the office with unseeing eyes and tried to imagine what he would do if he were in the same position as his dad had been, alone with his regrets. Had the need to right a wrong haunted the old man all those years?
If it was indeed intentional, how clever it was.
If they’d both moved on and weren’t interested in each other, it wouldn’t happen. No harm done. If it did, then the injustices of the past would be dealt with through the natural course of events—passion reignited while they looked at the future of the manor together.
It angered Rex that his father still held power over them, even from the grave. The old bastard, playing with people’s lives like they were pawns. I don’t want to be like him. It had always been Rex’s fear, to be self-centered and to hurt people close to him. Yet sometimes recently he wondered if it was inevitable. Several women had screamed their grievances at him when he’d decided he wanted to be alone. That was because he didn’t want to string anyone along, though. He’d never felt committed to a relationship; he always tried to make that clear when he slept with a woman. He just figured he wasn’t cut out for it, because of his background, the broken home and all.
Since his reunion with Carmen he knew the real reason why.
Subconsciously he’d always known. There was no hiding from the truth now. Carmen was the reason why—because his hankering need for her had never gone away.
Rex looked at the portrait again with different eyes, saw again the likeness between them, but more than that, he noticed the thoughtful, inquisitive look in his father’s eyes. Charles Carruthers had enjoyed a good mystery, and puzzles. Had he set one up in his very will?
Rex gazed into his father’s eyes, wanting to know.
Why the hell did you wait so long?
It hit him then—a sense of loss. Totally unexpected and without warning g
rief barreled up inside him. He leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees and buried his head in his hands, his emotions churning.
His father had wanted to make amends, after all. It tore him apart.
Because it’s about Carmen, and we should have been together long before now.
Somewhere in there, though, there was plain old sadness and regret.
I’m sorry, old man.
For a few moments he closed his eyes and imagined his father saying the words in the letter, aloud, to his face, and offering his hand.
Raw emotion buckled him, and he wept.
Darkness fell, but Rex remained there at the foot of his father’s portrait, deep in thought.
Sometime later a light was switched on in the corridor outside and he heard Mrs. Amery’s voice in the distance.
He swiped his hands across his eyes, pushed his fingers through his hair, then rose to his feet. Once he’d smoothed the letter out he folded it neatly and stored it away in his wallet.
The following weekend, he’d show it to Carmen.
That meant they’d be forced to consider their relationship anew. Rex was ready for that. Was Carmen? He wasn’t sure. Her fiercely guarded independence might force her to deny that it was anything more than a sexual trade-off. That’s what he figured she was doing, after these past two days together. They’d swapped places, in that respect. As a teenager, she’d wanted romance. Now, she wanted the house. And he wanted her more than ever.
The letter would force the issue. He’d find the right moment, and they could calmly consider it. Some groundwork would help. They’d already broken down one barrier—Carmen knew why he’d left all those years ago. Now they had to consider why they were back together.
Did it really matter? He just wanted to be with her, always had. Probably always will.
Rex contemplated the question.
It did matter. It mattered because, if his suspicions were true, it was an apology of sorts—an apology to them both.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BY TUESDAY EVENING, Carmen was already planning what she would take with her to wear the following weekend. So far she’d dressed conservatively, her initial reservations about Rex’s sexual agenda not allowing her to be overtly provocative. Since she’d accepted his argument about burning out the old flame, she’d begun to relax somewhat. She’d also thought about her appearance differently. At the back of it all, her newfound knowledge about Rex’s history with his father made her thoughts more tender, and that led to her acceptance of his terms.
There was no reason why she shouldn’t enjoy it. So long as she guarded her emotions and kept the relationship within certain bounds, then she’d always have it—the affair she’d craved as a younger woman. And it was even more hot and wild and fulfilling than she’d ever dreamed it might be.
When it came to sex, Rex was persuasive, demanding and predatory. That was no surprise. What was surprising was the extent of his sexual prowess and his sensitivity to her needs. She hadn’t expected him to be so responsive and attuned, and the edgy side to their sexual encounters was one hell of a bonus. She liked the way he pushed her for honesty and made her exhibit her needs. No matter how unusual, it was wildly empowering.
Rex hadn’t been far from her thoughts since they’d said goodbye on Sunday afternoon. In the shower after work it was his hands she was imagining on her skin as she lathered herself, and her entire body pulsed with energy, responding. When she got out and wrapped herself in a towel, she closed her eyes a moment, and thought of his arms around her. As she slipped a flimsy nightdress on, she imagined it was his mouth she felt moving against her skin.
Nevertheless, when her phone rang and it was his voice at the other end, her pulse stalled, then raced on. “Rex? How the hell did you get my number?”
“I asked Mrs. Amery for it.”
That easy. Of course. Mrs. Amery wouldn’t think there was anything odd about it. “I should hang up on you.”
“But you won’t.”
The sensible thing would have been to follow through on her threat, to keep the arrangement on simple terms. The fact that hearing his voice thrilled her to the core made that impossible. Carmen sat down on her bed, then lay down, picturing him while he spoke to her. Two days it’d been since they’d parted, but they parted with hungry kisses, both of them openly eager for the next weekend. And now he’d called, and the sound of his voice was too good. So she didn’t hang up. Instead, she cradled the phone to her ear. “I suppose I could humor you for a short while.”
“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”
Was that wariness she heard in his voice? Did he think there was someone else? “Luckily for you, no. I just got out of the shower.”
“Shame I’m not there to towel you off.”
Carmen refused to acknowledge how much she’d have enjoyed that, too. “A girl needs a break from these full-on weekends you’re subjecting us to.”
Rex laughed. “So you’re enjoying our time together at the manor?”
She’d walked into that trap. “After the past two weekends, you need to ask?”
“I can’t ever be sure with you. You’re a hard woman to please. That’s why I’d like to hear you say it.”
His voice was teasing but it was full of warmth and it seemed to move over her like sunshine, making her stretch out on the bed to enjoy the heat. “You’re very demanding.”
“But you like that about me.”
There was something different about him, she noticed. She supposed it was because she wasn’t used to hearing his voice over the phone, but he sounded as if it meant a lot to speak to her.
“You know I’m enjoying it,” she replied.
“So let’s do it more often. Why stop at a month?”
Her heart missed a beat. Was it a trick?
There was no way she could do this for more than a month. If she did, she wouldn’t survive the hit when he got bored and walked away from her. She’d tutored herself to cope with a month. No more. “What do you mean?”
“Meet me for lunch tomorrow.”
She should have been relieved he meant a midweek meeting and not an extension, but she wasn’t sure how it left her feeling. “You promised. A few days without contact so I can concentrate on my work and stay sane.”
“I know, but I clearly can’t be trusted.”
She couldn’t help herself. She laughed. “I’ve always known that.”
“I can’t help wanting you.”
Oh, that sounded good, and there was tender intimacy there; she wasn’t imagining it. “You admit it, then.”
“I thought it was obvious.”
“You just have to have every woman who takes your fancy.”
“Maybe, but some women are more elusive than others...and there’s this one in particular who makes me want her even more every time I’m around her.”
His tone had changed. There was an implied power struggle there and it focused her, as if he’d flicked a switch and they were back trading sexual kinks at the manor.
“In fact, I want her so much that I’d record my conversation with her so I could listen to her voice over and over again, if I didn’t think it was creepy and she might accuse me of being a stalker if she found out.”
Again she chuckled. “You should be ashamed.”
“I can’t help it. This woman is turning me into a crazy man.”
“I find that hard to imagine.”
“Seriously, we’re talking stalker territory. I could watch this woman all day. I want to watch her dress, undress...get naked and crawl across the floor on her hands and knees.”
Carmen’s breath caught. She forced herself to respond as levelly as possible. “It’s hard to imagine a man with such presence being able to stalk someone without being noticed.”
The silence hung between them, heavily weighted with implication.
Rex was the one who broke it. “Would it surprise you to know that I watched you swimming once, without you knowing?”
“When?”
“That first summer, at the lake.”
He actually seemed to relish confessing. She countered it carefully. “I never went in the lake without a swimsuit, and you’ve often seen me in my swimsuit. So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying I watched you without you knowing. Doesn’t that freak you out?”
“No.”
“Well, maybe it should. It sure as hell disturbs me that you caused me to do stupid things like that.”
Carmen chuckled. “And you caused me to do stupid things, as well.”
“Like what?”
She’d said too much. “Oh, I can’t say.”
“You’re going to have to tell me or I’ll come over there and spank it out of you.”
The thought of his hands on her that way affected her wildly. Carmen tried to stifle her moan of longing, but couldn’t.
“Well, well, well. I can tell that’s something I ought to consider adding to our repertoire.” He let that hang in the void between them before continuing. “But you’re not distracting me that easily, madam. What is it that I made you do?”
The pulse in her groin beat hard and demandingly. She was so turned on by the prospect of him spanking her that she wanted to tell him—wanted to provoke him the way he was provoking her.
“Playing hard to get?” He sounded casual, as if he was lounging back in his chair with a wineglass in one hand while he discussed their strange relationship. “And here I was thinking we were getting somewhere after last weekend. Carmen, this conversation is almost comfortable.”
The Burlington Manor Affair Page 17