Tainted Love

by Louisa Trent

  Doyle's features had set in unforgiving lines. The soft edges of youth were long since gone; uncompromising hardness replaced the ready smile. The brown eyes, that used to be so gentle whenever they gazed at her, were gentle no longer. Now, the tanned skin around those ungentle eyes was deeply scored at the corners. His black hair, still as unruly as ever, was prematurely blended with silver.

  He seemed to sense her thoughts. "A woman's duplicity changes a man. As does being thought a murderer."

  Though she richly deserved the unspoken accusation, she took the coward's way out and tried to look away, to look anywhere but at the contempt she saw reflected in those glinting dark pupils.

  He wouldn't let her; he cupped her chin, holding her in place. "One would think a woman capable of doing what you did would have the ugliness of her soul reflected on her face. Not you. Not your face. Your kind of evil corrupts others while you grow more lovely with each passing year."

  His derision sliced through her control. Her emotional damn burst and tears ran silently down her cheeks. She had been on the verge of a breakdown for the past ten years, and she let it happen, confident that she was safe in his arms.

  Even after all that had happened between them. Even after she suspected him of murder, of following her, of sending her threatening notes--even after he had said terrible things to her, looked at her with contempt--she knew it was safe to let go in his arms. No one else's arms. His arms.

  How was it possible to think those heinous acts of him and still trust him to keep her safe?

  For that matter, how was it that he believed what he believed of her, and still come to her rescue?

  Their relationship had always been rife with such contradictions. And the horror of it all was: she still carried within her a terrible obsession for this one man, and if the hard bulge against her belly was any indication, he obviously still lusted after her as well.

  He fingered a drop on her cheek. "No need for these, Lily. No one will hurt you. They will have to kill me first to get to you."

  His selfless words made her cry all the harder, for she wasn't crying for herself; she was crying for them. She was weeping over what they had become, over what they had lost, over that bright promise of love they had once shared and which was now irreparably tarnished.

  An anguish sob tore away inside her. The pain and grief ... the sense of loss ... was unbearable. She had come home to let Doyle go, to move on, and here she was clinging to him, hiding her face and sobbing into his neck. Her tears weren't pretty or contrived. They were ugly. And self-pitying. And everything she hated. And they wracked her body.

  "It's all right," he soothed. "Make no mistake, I will get you out of here."

  He danced her towards a grimy service door at the rear of the tavern. Even under several petticoats she felt his hardness, his length, the thick jut of his sex. Her woman's body had not forgotten him. She had always responded when he held her in his arms; he always had the ability to make her shake. When he touched her body, she just about exploded in sensuality. When he kissed her lips--every time he kissed her lips--she turned to malleable clay in his hands.

  "The crowd is getting antsy," he advised her. "Like wild dogs, they can smell fear. Chin up. Smile. Act like you are my woman and I am your man."

  Lillian did as he asked. She smiled through her tears. She acted like she belonged to him. And somehow, the show she put on didn't feel like a lie.

  Doyle performed his part too. He held her as close as clothing would allow. Mouthing her throat, he acted as though he owned her.

  The man holding her had suffered; she had suffered too. She had lived in exile, had never come home. 'Leaving you broke my heart!' she wanted to shout. But, of course, she shouted nothing of the kind. Instead, changing the context of the truth, she whispered up into the stern set of his features, "Leaving the cottage broke my heart."

  "No one drove you away," he countered.

  The sharp point of irony stabbed her chest. Someone had done just that! She had been driven away!

  How was it that a love so pure, so right, had gone so utterly wrong?

  When he dragged his mouth, open and seeking, against her lips, she offered no resistance. Not when her breathing went choppy. Not when she tasted his growing anger. He had a right to his rage. A right to his revenge.

  He was the one who broke off the kiss to say: "If ever I was good at anything in my life, it was knowing how to wait. I waited for you to grow up. Then I waited for you to come back to Bar Harbor. Damned to my own personal purgatory, I have literally wasted years waiting for you. You are in my blood." He grimaced. "Not in my heart, though. That organ was ripped out of my chest when you left the way you did, when you slandered my reputation, when you made what we had into something tainted. So, now that you have rendered me heartless, the only organ left to want you with is my cock. Beautiful lady, you keep teasing me and I will fuck you well and truly."

  No longer was there any pretense of dancing. They stood in place and rocked back and forth like a ball and chain, bound by a past they could neither change nor forget.

  "This is it." He let her go. "The service entrance to the alley. Make your escape."

  Hysteria bubbled up inside her. An alley for an alley cat. How very appropriate!

  "What of you?" she cried.

  "A little late to worry about me, is it not?"

  "Oh, Doyle..."

  He pushed open the door. "Before you run away--tell me the truth. How did Frank really die?"

  She didn't pause before answering him. Didn't question why she should answer him. "I killed him," she screamed. "Yes, yes, yes! I pushed Frank over the cliff walk."

  And then she rushed past him, escaping into the dark, dirty alley where feral cats, and refuse, and women like her belonged.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  "How was your night out?" Victoria Hill asked her granddaughter the next morning over the breakfast table.

  How to explain?

  For the past ten years, Lillian had felt very little in the way of emotion; for all intents and purposes she had been numb.

  No longer.

  Now she was one giant, throbbing, nerve ending. And she was in pain. It hurt to feel so much after feeling nothing at all for so long.

  The reason she had returned home was twofold: One, to fulfill the request of two people she loved; and two, to put to rest the question of Frank's death. The latter resolved, she thought then, perhaps, she might finally let go of the past and move on in her life with Charles. But last night at Kelley's, the fear and worry and guilt ... and ten years of repressed emotions ... had finally caught up with her, and she had clung to Doyle as tears steamed down her face and tremors had wracked her body. Her terrible need for Doyle hadn't diminished with time, even though mistrust, like a cancer, ran deep and insidious between them. And yet, when he had held her in his arms in that travesty of a dance, there had been magic as well.

  There had always been magic between them.

  Naturally, Lillian revealed none of this to her grandmother!

  Lillian gave the stock reply: "It was lovely seeing Meg again."

  "Anything new with your friend?"

  Lillian took a tiny bite of dry toast, chewed, swallowed, returned the slice to her plate; she was no longer hungry. "She would like to conduct a discreet affair."

  "I see. Does she have a particular candidate in mind for the endeavor?"

  "No. Any functioning male will do."

  "Hmm. It certainly is nice to hear young women these days hold themselves to such high standards."

  A sip of tea squelched Lillian's urge to laugh. Her grandmother never failed to take the wind right out of her sails. Even during her youthful rebellious stage, she had never succeeded in turning so much as a hair on Victoria Hill's beautifully coifed head. It was blatantly unfair!

  "By the way, I saw Doyle last night. I told him it was I who killed Frank."

  Her grandmother's raised fork crashed to the lace-covered tabletop. "'Pon m
y word!"

  "Well, that reaction is certainly a surprise. I was only just now thinking how unflappable you are."

  "What did you expect? I am literally discombobulated."

  "Stay calm. The authorities won't be coming to take me away just yet."

  "How can you joke about something like this, child? Whatever possessed you to tell Doyle such a dreadful thing?"

  "He asked."

  "Oh, he asked. That explains everything."

  Lillian squirmed. "You did ask."

  "I asked. Doyle asked. Amazing, is it not, the answers one gets when one simply asks the right questions?"

  Her grandmother appeared to shrink behind her spectacles. "Shall I have my attorney summoned?"

  "Considering that Frank Johnson Senior is your attorney I think you should wait on that. Unless, you would like my walk to the gallows to begin immediately?"

  "Your sense of humor did not come from my side of the family," her grandmother said with a wobble of her head. "Why-oh-why did you tell Doyle that you killed Frank Johnson?"

  "Shock value." She twittered.

  Mrs. Hill pointed her gnarled finger at her granddaughter's nose. "You are playing with fire."

  "Extraordinary how you two think alike!" Lillian said drolly. "That is exactly what Doyle intimated."

  "And well he should!"

  "You know, after all these years," Lillian said softly, "Doyle finally came right out and asked me a direct question about what happened that night. He never did before. I think that was a breakthrough for us. Painful, yet necessary."

  Victoria said peevishly, "This conversation is leaving me behind..."

  "Nana, that night shamed me. I felt so soiled, that afterwards, I was unable to look Doyle in the eye. We walked on eggshells around each other, skirting the issue. I knew Doyle must hate me. After all, I announced to everyone that I had entertained Frank in my bedchamber directly after having received him there."

  Lillian raised her teary eyes to her grandmother. "Perhaps if Doyle had asked me about Frank, instead of simply accepting..."

  She shook her head. "Anyway, had we talked, we might have worked things out. But he never did ask. His stoical silence accused me of deeds I was never given the opportunity to respond to nor defend myself against."

  Pushing out of her chair, Lillian wandered to the window. She stood there, listlessly looking out onto the serenity of the gardens.

  Just like her grandmother, she loved flowers. During the summers in Boston, she kept pots of annuals on the windowsill of the brownstone she shared with several female artists. But because the buildings were built close together in the Back Bay, there was never enough sun for the poor things. It made no difference which plants she picked or how much care she gave them; they grew long and leggy, their leaves small and unhealthy. Stunted, their potential never realized, they produced very few flowers. She grew sickly plants now, and she no longer had the energy to paint them.

  Her grandmother interrupted her musings. "Child, what was Doyle's reaction to your confession?"

  Lillian stared straight ahead, the height of her grandmother's plume poppies holding her enthralled. "I didn't plan it very well, I am afraid. When he asked if I knew how Frank really died, I blurted out that I had pushed him, and then I ran..."

  "The very idea is absurd," Victoria scoffed. "Doyle knows you didn't push Frank."

  "I am not as convinced. He might very well believe I did the deed. In any event, I certainly called his bluff, did I not? Oh, I know it was reckless to blurt it out that way, but for my own peace of mind, I needed to read Doyle's face, to know at last what he really thought of me. I also needed to determine if he knew anything about that night..."

  "Did he admit to doing it?"

  Lillian whirled around. "Nana! Surely you don't think Doyle killed Frank?" Her mouth opened. "You do! You believe Doyle killed a man in cold blood!"

  "Cold blood?" Victoria Hill tssked. "I think not! If murder was done that night, it was done in the heat of the moment. A crime of passion."

  And Doyle was a passionate man. The heat of his embrace had practically scorched her, and his kiss ... his kiss, though done for the benefit of their audience, had quite literally taken her breath away.

  "Doyle loved you." Victoria played with the fringed scarf around her neck. "And there was your affair with Frank Johnson to consider. I didn't know Frank very well. It came as a complete surprise to me that you two were ... involved. Frank's father has been this family's attorney for years, and I did meet his son on several occasions when he was helping out in his father's law office. He seemed personable enough, always so helpful and solicitous. That said, you and he did not seem like the same type at all."

  "We weren't. Frank and I had absolutely nothing in common."

  "Then why...?"

  "Frank liked the way I looked. And I liked the fact that he was wealthy. I was very stupid and gullible and easy to impress in those days."

  "That doesn't sound at all like you, my dear," Mrs. Hill said with a frown. "You were never so shallow. You and Frank were intimate, and yet it sounds like you didn't care for him at all!"

  "Sorry if that seems cold. I do feel for Frank's family."

  "His son's death devastated Frank senior. The blow of losing one's only child never quite goes away." Victoria Hill tapped her fingers against her chin. "I cannot help but think that if I had been home that night, none of this would have happened..."

  "Ssshh," Lillian soothed, bending to drop a kiss on her grandmother's wrinkle-free cheek. "None of this can be construed as your fault. About the rest ... about the affair ... you could not have prevented it. I was headstrong back then."

  "Nevertheless, had I not gone on that trip..."

  "Or, if I had behaved differently."

  "You were young. Experimentation is part of growing up."

  Lillian let that go without response.

  A thoughtful frown marred Victoria's smooth forehead. "Let us return to your confession of guilt for a moment. Did anyone overhear it?"

  "I don't believe so..."

  "Do you think Doyle will go to the authorities with it?"

  "Never!"

  "That sure of him, are you?"

  "Yes!" Her answer was adamant and unequivocal. She had no doubt that Doyle would protect her from others. But would he protect her from himself?

  "Nana, how bad was it for Doyle after I left town?"

  Victoria Hill paused to weigh her words before speaking. "The scandal was terrible. People gossiped about you too, but there was an element of sympathy for you, as well. For Doyle there was no sympathy. People were merciless in their treatment of both Doyle and his brothers. It was Doyle's loyalty to you that swayed public opinion against him, I believe. He never once, not in ten years, spoke of that night. Not to anyone. If he mentioned your name at all, it was always done with the utmost respect. Perhaps if he had slandered you, he might have garnished some support for himself. When he refused to speak ill of you, the rumors started."

  "Rumors?"

  "That he arrived back at the cottage earlier than he said he had that night, witnessed you in bed with Frank, and in a jealous rage, threw Frank over the edge of the Widow's Walk. Most people believe that he committed murder. I am one of those people."

  "Nana!"

  "Listen to me, child! You said you didn't see what happened. It was foggy that night, raining. You heard a man shout as he went over the edge. You cannot say that Frank wasn't pushed. I like Doyle, I really do. I also admire his many fine qualities--I told you he comes to visit me here at the cottage all the time--but I am a realist. The man had motive! It was common knowledge in Bar Harbor that Doyle despised Frank. It is my understanding that Doyle tussled with Frank on more than one occasion before that night. He broke Frank's nose during a brawl. In the Johnson law offices, in front of witnesses, Doyle had some heated words with Frank. Those words came back to haunt him after Frank's death. They were clearly a threat..."

  "If Doyle killed Fran
k, he would have admitted it! He is no coward, Nana. He would take the blame and accept his punishment. Apart from that, he had an iron-clad alibi; he can account for almost every minute of that night..."

  Victoria smoothed her blue-veined hands over the tabletop. "It has been my sad experience that people believe what they wish to believe, above and beyond the facts. It is the illusion of guilt or innocence that matters. Doyle looks guilty."

  Mrs. Hill gave her granddaughter a probing look. "His asking you about Frank's death at this late date seems odd."

  "At least he didn't ask if it were you, Grandmama, who pushed Frank to his death that night!"

  "Please! Not even in jest should you say such a preposterous thing!" The elderly lady's expression shifted. "Besides, I was out of town."

  "Nice story."

  "Lillian, really! Do stop."

  "Sorry. That evil sense of humor of mine strikes again."

  "This is no laughing matter, young lady!"

  "Nerves. I don't mean to be flippant."

  Victoria continued with her account. "Financially, Doyle was almost ruined. His architectural business suffered with his reputation. He has only just recently rebounded, only since the publication of his book."

  "I must ask him about his book when I see him today."

  Mrs. Hill's jaw went slack. "You actually intend to see him again today...after last night's confession?"

  "How else will I find out the truth? Also, I owe him my thanks."

  "Whatever for, dear?"

  "Oh ... nothing." Lillian locked an errant strand of hair behind her ear, and tried to appear nonchalant. "Nana, did you send Doyle after me last night?"

  "Send him after you? Certainly not! No one sends Doyle anywhere. Why do you ask?"

  So rescuing her had been his idea.

  Unless her grandmother was stretching the truth; she had been known to do so, once or twice ... or a thousand times before, whenever it was expedient, whenever she felt her granddaughter didn't know what was best for her own welfare. There was no use pressuring her to 'fess up, either: Victoria Hill would only dig her heels in deeper if she were backed into a corner.