by Louisa Trent
And she still said nothing in her own defense.
Finally, he let go of her.
She slid down the wall, her gold gown ringing her waist, her continued silence condemning her.
He stood over her, staring down upon her obscene positioning. She didn't bother to right her gown, didn't try to cover her exposed genitals.
"When you are ready to leave, Lily, I will return you to the cottage."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Too keyed-up to sleep, Lillian paced her bedchamber floor, thinking to escape the memories.
A few minutes later she doubled over. No longer able to outpace her recollections, she relived the assault all over again...
*
Doyle had stormed out, angry, and she was alone in her bedchamber. After replacing her still rain-dampened nightgown, she stared dazed at her disheveled reflection in her mirror. The two white candles, burning low beside her bed, flickered in the glass. At first, she blamed the near hurricane force winds for the dancing flames: The cottage was old and drafty; naturally, candles would flicker. But, when the twin flames wavered again, and then were simultaneously extinguished, she knew, God, she knew, she was no longer alone in the room.
"Doyle?" she asked with a tremulous smile playing across her lips. "Are you still angry with me? So sorry for those hateful things I said..."
No answer.
"Doyle!" she cried. Then, "Doyle?"
She was grabbed from behind and thrown facedown onto the bed.
It was a moonless, stormy night, black as pitch inside the bedchamber without the candlelight. Assuming it was Doyle's large, heavy body covering hers, that he was the one pulling her nightgown up to the waist and mounting her from the rear, she didn't struggle. But when a hand went to her throat, pressed her windpipe, she did struggle then. Too little, too late. Her face was pressed into the pillow, suffocated in the goose feathers. Then, a horrible, chemical smell compounded her inability to draw air into her lungs...
*
Lillian remembered gasping, nearly fainting, and knowing only a miracle would save her.
Yet, she was saved. She wasn't raped. Someone entered her room and pulled her attacker off of her, allowing her to run blindly from the bedchamber outside into the rain. She hid in the garden shed at the foot of the Widow's Walk, crouched there, trembling on the dirt floor, in her wet nightgown, choking for air. She stayed there for ... seconds ... minutes ... a half an hour? She honestly didn't know how long. Everything--the passage of time especially--was a blur. She might have blacked-out. The next thing she remembered was a blood-chilling scream.
She didn't know who cried out, only that it was a man, a fellow human being, and she must do something to help.
She stumbled down the slope to the rocky beach, waded into the surf, retrieved the inert body.
Frank.
Was he her attacker or her rescuer?
And where was the billfold containing her grandmother's love letters?
Frank was to bring the incriminating evidence with him that night. Where were those letters?
She searched Frank's corpse and found nothing. Then, Doyle appeared, left again. When Mr. Johnson's henchmen arrived, the real horror of that night began.
When the first letter was delivered to the cottage, saying that those she loved would be destroyed if she remained in town, Lillian told her grandmother she thought it best if she left for Boston to begin her art education earlier than she intended, as in the following day.
The second letter came that first wretched week in Boston. Driven to despair with homesickness, she opened the envelope and found another unsigned threat.
And so it had continued at intermittent intervals for the last ten years.
Anyone might have sent them. Anyone might have Frank's billfold, the one containing the incriminating love letters her grandmother had written her lover all those years before. And so she had said nothing about the threats...
The walls to her bedchamber were closing in on her.
Racing out the door, Lillian flew down the hall to her grandmother's room. She must have the truth!
Victoria Hill's bedchamber hadn't changed much over the years. The fireplace, blackened by a century of winter fires, as always monopolized the room. The same timepiece ticked on the oak mantle. Above that, on the pumpkin-tone wall, still hung the portrait of her grandmother.
The oil painting drew Lillian's eyes. The woman pictured within the ornate gilded frame was a keeper of secrets. Tonight, those secrets must be expunged.
Lillian touched the canvas, tracing a finger down the strong jaw line, so very much like her own. Next, she hunted for the artist's signature, finding it in his trademark spot, scribbled like an afterthought on the petal of the flower Victoria Hill held in her hand: Anthony Camaro.
Her grandmother was obviously with child; a rounded bulge showed clearly under the shawl she wore over her shoulders. Under that shawl's fringe, her father grew safe and warm in the womb.
Smiling, Lily stoked the outline of that small hillock.
"My dear, are you waiting up for me?"
Lillian half-turned to face the woman who had raised her, and whom Lillian had loved her entire life. "I think it's time we talked, Grandmama."
"Of course, dear. I always enjoy our talks."
Victoria Hill never entered a room; she made a grand entrance. This occasion was no different. She swept across the mellow pine floor, her posture erect, her piled high white hair accentuating her regal stature. Enormous blue enamel combs, in the shape of strutting peacocks, held her coiffure in place so that nary a tendril escaped. Her matching turquoise gown contained enough of the gypsy to suit the elderly lady's flair for the dramatic.
Her grandmother was a commanding figure despite her advanced age, and Lillian knew in her heart that she would do anything for her ... save go on living a lie.
"You know, Lily," Victoria began, "you would wander these old halls like a little lost soul when you were a small child. I remember those days well. It always seemed to me that you were searching for your parents."
Lillian nodded. "I missed them so. Dad's death must have almost killed you, considering that he was your only child."
Victoria sank onto the bed. "Reginald was so special. I never thought I would be blessed with a child and so I treasured every moment that he was with us. He was an unexpected completion of my life. A cherished, cherished, gift." She smiled. "As are you, my precious, precious granddaughter."
Lillian frowned. "And you and Grandfather had been married for what ... twenty years before my father was conceived?"
"Correct. I had just turned forty when Reggie was born. Would you like to hear the whole story, Lily? Is that why you waited for me here tonight? Are you ready to understand the truth?"
"I already know part of it, but I think it's time I heard the rest."
Her grandmother folded her hands in her lap. "It's ironic that Reg never once questioned his birthright. Somehow, though, it seems fitting that you should."
The elderly lady squared her shoulders, just like her granddaughter. "The portrait hanging above my bed was done of me when I was expecting your father. I believe I was five months along at the time. The painting was to be a surprise birthday gift for my husband. Tony Camaro was the artist.
"Tony's renown as an artist had just started to spread. But I managed to persuade him to paint me in the late afternoons while my husband was busy at work.
"Please bear in mind that I was unconventional, even in those days. And Tony was the same. He was everything my husband was not: a social renegade, unmarried, a little wild with the ladies, a free spirit, and we ... well ... we fell in love."
"While you were married?"
"You don't seem surprised, dear."
"I am not."
"I won't ask why that is but, yes, I was not only married, I was happily married. Make no mistake about it, my husband and I were very happy and were so until the day he died."
"You never consi
dered divorce?"
"Never. What on earth for? As I say, we were content. The only thing missing was children."
"Grandfather didn't want children?"
"On the contrary! My husband was as desperate for a child as I. We worked diligently at it for years, but alas, I never conceived."
Victoria sighed. "Oh, who knows why there was no baby! The end result was: I couldn't give my husband a male child to carry on the Hill name, a boy to inherit.
"But I had a plan: Why not conduct a discreet affair to see if I might conceive a child with another man? Who would know? And who would be hurt?"
"You mean," Lillian said uncomfortably, "you entered into the affair trying to conceive? Your pregnancy was not accidental?"
"Far from it! I counted on becoming pregnant. What I did not count on was falling in love. Here was I, a practical woman, besotted over an artist! Quite absurd, really! But there it is. And our affair has lasted almost forty years. Longer than many marriages, I daresay."
"You affair was with Tony Camaro."
"But of course," she chortled. "Who else? Tony understood that I would never leave my husband, and after my husband died, he understood I had no wish to remarry, as I understood his need for complete freedom to work. Our relationship has worked out very well for all concerned."
"But Grandfather...?"
"My husband never knew of the affair. He died shortly after Reginald was born, and he died happy, knowing he had left a legal heir. My husband was an honorable man. Strictly moralistic, not at all like Tony. Had my husband known that Reg was not his child, this house would have been willed to that wretched cousin of his!" Victoria related with a grimace of disgust. "What purpose would that have served? None, I say!"
"Tony is my natural grandfather," Lillian said in wonder, trying to absorb the meaning of that at last.
"Yes. Tony is your biological grandfather. He has tried to be close to you, Lily. He certainly was very close to your father. Reggie only became an artist because of Tony's influence on his early life. I believe you both felt a special connection with him through your love of art."
"I have always felt a bond, yes."
"I am gladdened to hear it!"
"Did anyone else know about my father's true paternity?"
"Tony naturally. He knows about the condition of the will and all the rest. No one else. It would be disastrous if anyone learned the truth. I hope you will never breathe a word of it, either. The future of the cottage is at stake. This land must remain undeveloped! To ensure that, the estate must stay in the immediate Hill family."
"But I am not part of the Hill bloodline, Grandmama."
"Fiddlesticks! You love this place. Your heart is here, child. Someday you will have the opportunity to do something wonderful with this land. Why--the possibilities are endless, limited only to your own imagination. And not only with this estate, but with Tony's land as well. You will inherit his property too someday."
"I didn't know! There is just so much to think about."
"It doesn't need to be all thought through tonight, dear."
Her grandmother touched her earlobes. "These earrings were a gift from my husband when Reginald was born." She smiled. "It is possible for a woman to love two men in a lifetime. I hope you understand, I did love them both."
Lillian walked to the door, only to pause at the threshold. "I am not like you. I am very much like my father in that respect. My mother was his heart's only passion."
"I am taking a small trip, planned months ago, before I knew you would be coming home. You will have this entire house to yourself to think. Life is not always what we wish it to be. You are disillusioned now, but please keep in mind that what Tony and I did, we did out of love."
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Her grandmother had already departed for her trip and the cottage was quiet. Restless, Lillian wandered through the old house's rooms, finally ending up gazing out a window overlooking the gardens, joining her grandmother's spoiled feline who sunned himself on the window seat.
"Henri, I envy your pampered existence. You never worry about the meaning of life, do you?"
In answer, Henri purred and plopped his substantial weight in Lillian's lap.
"What do I do now?" she asked, while stroking the cat between the ears. "Stay here and risk taking a flying leap over the Widow's Walk, or return to Boston and resume my nice, safe, boring life?"
The feline lifted his head, not to offer any sage advice, but to sound the alarm: crunching gravel on the drive meant they had company.
Snuggling Henri into her arms, Lillian went to the door, lifted the starched corner of the lace curtain, and peeked out.
Doyle waited on the front porch.
Fear. Excitement. Both juggled for priority as she opened the door.
"Is your grandmother at home?" he asked curtly.
"No."
"When will Victoria return?"
"In a few days."
"You cannot stay here alone," he decided, and shouldered his way into the vestibule.
"You are not my master!" she said, walking in the direction of the kitchen.
"Oh, but I am."
Her steps faltered. A dark thrill of sexual pleasure rushed over her.
"Go make a companion of a mouse, Henry." Doyle took her grandmother's cat from her arms and dropped his paws on the floor.
"Henri! Not Henry. He is French, you know."
Doyle angled his jaw. His lips were now dangerously close to her cheek. One little move and he would taste her blush. "An architect associate of mine from New York City has extended me a weekend invitation to a mansion he just had built up the coast. You will come with me."
She nodded, proving his mastery over her.
Doyle would demand his pound of flesh and she would pay her debt. Her nipples hardened at the prospect.
"The estate is gaudy, but it does come with wonderful views of Frenchman's Bay. You will bring your sketchpad. We leave immediately."
"I have nothing suitable to wear for a weekend house party, nothing packed."
"I have taken the liberty of buying you a few things. They are outside in my carriage."
"Who else will be there?"
"Five or six couples from New York."
"Married couples?"
"Such naiveté, darling. The men are married, but not to the ladies they will bring to this party."
"I see..."
"I expect you to participate in the festivities. Nothing too terribly shocking. And nothing a lady of your sophistication hasn't done before." He ran a hand along her jaw. "My friend loves beautiful and uninhibited ladies. You will be a smashing hit with the New York crowd."
"Even as a girl, you would get me to do whatever you wished with the turn of a pretty word."
"Not everything."
She turned sorrowful eyes to him. "But surely you knew how much your opinion mattered to me?"
"Yes--I knew. It was a responsibility I never sought."
"I would follow you around like a love-starved puppy. I must have annoyed you then, and you must certainly hate me now."
His tone was terse. "I could never hate you."
"But you must! What man wouldn't hate a woman who betrayed him with another man within hours of a declaration of love?"
Her heart cried out to him: Please give me the benefit of the doubt! Don't assume I went to bed with Frank. Ask me! Please just ask me if it's true!
"I could never hate you," he repeated. "Now, shall we go?"
* * * *
Doyle placed a hand under her elbow to steady her climb up the mansion's steeply terraced slope.
"My! The views of Frenchman's Bay really are spectacular from here," Lily exclaimed, her loose hair blowing across her cheek as she surveyed the lush rolls and swells of green lawn. "The way the land undulates reminds me of a belly dancer, all hillocks and valleys and secret places. It's positively erotic. I must get this on paper."
"Go ahead." Removing his jacket, Doyle spread it o
n the grass for her to sit upon.
While she sketched, he stretched out beside her, his head propped on one muscled arm. "Take your time. I enjoy watching you draw."
She selected a lusty palette of fertile earth tones for the composition and started to rough in a sketch.
After a bit, Doyle craned his neck at the drawing pad. "That one is a keeper."
"You mean it?"
"I never say things I don't mean."
She folded her legs up under her, the heavy pad of drawing paper resting on her knees. "Have any other ladies accompanied you to these weekend soirees? Not that your sexual escapades are any of my affair. I was merely curious because Tony told me that you see his models..."
"Tony is misinformed."
"You don't--uh--socialize with his models anymore?"
"Not since that day you walked in on me with one."
Why was Doyle lying?
"Forgive my intrusiveness," she murmured.
"Nothing to forgive. Now, if you are ready, I have an estate to show you. Then, later on this evening, I will present you to our host."
* * * *
"So sorry," Lillian murmured, covering her giggle with two gloved fingers. "My lapse into merriment is quite unintentional, I assure you."
"I did warn you."
"You said the mansion was gaudy, not hilarious."
Doyle quirked a dark brow. "The lady doesn't care for steep gables and pointed windows and gingerbread shingles?"
"Ordinarily, I don't mind Gothic Style, but combined with Roman pillars and naked statuary it does get to be a bit much." She twittered. "Oh, dear. The interior goes quite beyond the pale. Why is that the nouveau riche must flaunt dripping crystal and gold leaf in every room?"
"Careful, my dear. Your snobbery is showing."
"I suppose, to be fair," she amended, a finger posed to her chin, "this bedchamber suite is not without its lurid charms."