Deadly Valentine

by Carolyn G. Hart

  “Coming,” Annie called happily. And so what if she had to go to Sydney’s party. She would have fun. She always had fun with Max.

  As they hurried back toward the house, Laurel asked urgently, “The last house, the other one we can’t see. Is that where we are going to the party?”

  “Yes. The Cahills.” Annie avoided mentioning Sydney’s name.

  Laurel didn’t know it was verboten. “Sydney Cahill?”

  “Yes.”

  “A beautiful young woman. But so sad.”

  Annie didn’t think Sydney was the least bit sad. To her mind that was on the order of describing a blood-lusting pit bull as playful. “Sydney’s—” Annie took a deep breath. She didn’t want to get into it. She walked faster. There was Max on the terrace, absolutely gorgeous in his tux.

  Laurel kept pace. “Sydney’s husband. I suppose he’s older?”

  “Another second marriage,” Annie said briskly. “A disastrous one, from all I hear. Howard’s first wife died and he fell for a pretty body. He’s handsome as all get-out, in a rugged way. And rich. Sydney lucked out.”

  “Party time,” yodeled that cheerful tenor.

  Annie waved a greeting.

  “Disastrous,” Laurel said cheerily.

  Annie detected a note of satisfaction, but dismissed it. After all, why should Laurel care about Howard Cahill’s marriage?

  Max acted as tour guide as they took the lagoon path to the Cahill property.

  “The name of the compound is taken from the lagoon, Ma. Scarlet King Lagoon.”

  “What a romantic name!” Laurel exclaimed.

  It wasn’t that Laurel’s romanticism irritated Annie, but she felt honor bound to be factual. “The lagoon’s named for some snakes that live there.” To be fair, she grudgingly added, “Nonpoisonous. And pretty, if you like snakes. A red nose and yellow bands set off by black.”

  The path angled away from the lagoon, passed a charming gazebo, and wound into the gardens.

  Laurel beamed. “I’m sure Saint Francis would be enchanted. He loved all creatures. And so should we.”

  For the first time, Laurel’s preoccupation with saints began to worry Annie. She had no desire to find all God’s creatures welcomed to her new house. There was no telling how far Laurel would go when in the grip of a new enthusiasm. She opened her mouth to warn Laurel about consorting with snakes, because the island hosted four poisonous species, cottonmouths, eastern diamondback rattlers, timber rattlers, and copperheads, but Laurel spoke first, her tone tinged with awe. “What a remarkable house!”

  Laurel rarely evinced amazement, but Annie understood. The Cahill mansion evoked a stunned response from even its most worldly visitors, which would certainly include Laurel. (Annie was convinced that “worldly” was quite an appropriate description of her mother-in-law, though perhaps Max might not appreciate some of the nuances involved.)

  In the moonlight, the Moorish influence was evident. Three-story, crenellation-capped stucco walls glistened with whitewash. Sharply pointed towers loomed at either end. A golden flood of light spilled from enormous arched windows onto the luxuriant gardens below. Annie made a mental note to bring Laurel back in the daytime when she could truly appreciate the scope of the gardens. The azaleas were beginning to bloom and by April would be in full flower, dazzling masses of pink, lavender, rose, and crimson. The plantings, like those at the famed Magnolia Plantation, were planned for year-round color. Camellias, canna lilies, crape myrtle, daffodils, day lilies, dogwood, forsythia, gardenias, hibiscus, honeysuckle, hyacinth, jessamine, oleanders, pittosporum, bougainvillea, rhododendron, and wisteria bloomed in season.

  “No one can say the Yankee robber barons were the only Americans to engage in unmitigated conspicuous consumption,” Max observed wryly.

  “Oh, but it’s lovely,” Laurel cried and she skipped ahead of them, holding up the long skirt of her satin gown. In the pale wash of moonlight and the glow from the windows, Laurel’s smooth hair gleamed like a golden cap. As she sped along with unselfconscious and enchanting grace, she was a figure from the heroic past, a Diana, a Helen of Troy.

  For the first time in her life, Annie was struck by a foreboding, a distinct sense of imminent disaster. (Generations of had-I-but-known heroines would have understood.) She reached out, gripped Max’s arm, and almost urged him to run after Laurel, catch her.

  Then what? Her practical mind intervened. Laurel had her heart set on going to the Valentine party. What could Annie say? And now it was too late to turn back. Laurel had reached the floodlit front steps.

  “What?” Max asked.

  Annie hesitated. The huge bronze front door swung open. More light blazoned a welcome. Laurel turned and waved for them to hurry. Other guests, the women in bright dresses, the men in tuxedos, were arriving.

  “I stumbled,” Annie said. She gave her husband’s arm a squeeze and quickened her pace.

  The moment passed.

  The Cahill mansion was no less imposing inside, with its colorful tiled floors, enormous marble columns, hanging tapestries, ornate bronze sconces with lighted candles, and enough priceless antiques from all around the world to fill a small museum. The Cahills greeted their guests at the base of the majestic marble staircase that curved to second- and third-floor balconies. A suit of knight’s armor glinted beside the staircase. Someone had taped a bright red heart on his metal chest.

  Sydney Cahill stood on the first step, her husband, Howard, on the second. Sydney was breathtakingly lovely tonight. Her raven black hair was a lustrous frame for magnolia-soft skin. She wore a long-sleeved dress of pleated ivory silk, two swaths falling from her shoulders to cross over her breasts, creating a plunging neckline. A glittering necklace, intertwined strands of rubies, emeralds, and diamonds, emphasized the delicate grace of her neck.

  Howard Cahill was darkly handsome, a smooth, oliveskinned face, eyes so brown they looked black, black hair touched with silver. His face was memorable, a broad forehead, once-broken nose, blunt chin. Annie immediately decided she would have cast him as Philip Marlowe for a movie. He greeted his guests formally, with a quick nod and observant dark eyes, but without warmth. There was an aura of power about him, a reserve that forebade familiarity. Only an insensitive clod would ever clap Howard Cahill on the shoulder.

  As the line inched forward, Annie glanced from the Cahills to the armor. Light from the glittering chandelier rippled off the visor, creating—just for an instant—an illusion of life and movement. Annie wondered sharply what it must have been like for the owner of that suit of mail. Damned hot and uncomfortable. The owner had been small to heft such a load, not more than five and a half feet. But dangerous. In one steel hand, supported from below by a stand, lay a mace, a heavy, medieval war club crowned by a spiked metal head. Annie shivered. What destruction had that weapon wrought centuries ago? How bizarre it was to view its killing weight on display during a night of gaiety in celebration of love. The faint sound of orchestra music from above mingled in her mind with the imagined grunts and clangs of mounted combat.

  She and Max and Laurel reached the foot of the stairs.

  Sydney murmured, “So very glad you could come. Everyone is gathering in the third-floor ballroom for dancing, but do feel free to wander about as you please. Howard has so many lovely works of art, and he does enjoy sharing them with our friends.” She took Laurel’s hand, but her eyes moved past Laurel and Annie to Max and fastened there with a hopeful eagerness that would have infuriated Annie, had she not been too startled by the look on her mother-in-law’s face.

  Laurel glowed. Although Annie had always accorded her mother-in-law full marks for extraordinary beauty, she hadn’t realized just how lovely Laurel could appear, her lake-blue eyes filled with warmth, her perfect mouth curved in gentle wonder, her classic profile softened by emotion.

  Oh, dear Lord. Because it was only too obvious to Annie who was the object of this adoration.

  Howard Cahill’s face, too, revealed a man Annie had never g
limpsed—or imagined. As she watched in horrified fascination, Cahill’s normal appearance of icy reserve melted, replaced with intense absorption. Annie had always appraised their new neighbor as a man to be reckoned with. A fabulously wealthy shipowner, their host had a reputation as an aggressive, combative businessman, never willing to lose once he joined a battle. But the tentative warmth in his dark eyes as he looked at Laurel revealed a man longing for intimacy.

  It was only an instant of time that the tableau held, Laurel and Howard looking at each other without pretense, as if they were alone.

  Laurel said softly, “I knew we should meet again. Fate has ordained it.”

  Over the chatter of newcomers behind them, Annie heard his gruff reply that was a dramatic beat slow in coming. “Perhaps you’re right. Though I’ve always said a man holds his fate in his own hands.”

  “We shall see, shan’t we?” and Laurel swept on up the stairs, in an alluring rustle of satin.

  Cahill turned to watch her go.

  Annie and Max followed Laurel up the stairway. Annie grabbed Max’s arm and hissed, “That’s the man!”

  Max looked at her in surprise. “Sure. You’ve met Howard. Hey, listen to that music.” Max had a passion for slow dancing, although she’d never been altogether sure it was the music that entranced him.

  “Listen, Max,” she began, but her protest was lost in Max’s whistle of surprise when they stepped into the immense ballroom. Sydney had taken her and Max on a tour of the Cahill house shortly after the Darlings had moved into their new home. But the ballroom had undergone a magical transformation from an echoing, cavernous, empty room to a brilliant mélange of color, light, movement, and life.

  The change was extraordinary. Crimson velvet curtains decorated with lace-edged satin hearts marked alcoves along the walls. Artfully placed lights illuminated brightly colored ceiling frescoes, vivid scenes of exotic ports: Zanzibar drowsing under a torrid summer sun, Marseilles abustle with shipping, San Francisco wreathed in fog, New York a hundred years ago, a fleet of Roman warships taking on stores at Alexandria. In each fresco stood a couple, not part of the central vigor and movement, but separate, absorbed in each other, lovers soon to be parted, who mirrored, despite differences in time and culture, the passion that seals a man to a woman. The effect of the whole was subtly erotic, implying the urgency of desire, the foolishness of delay, the relentless passage of time, a reckless haste to seize the moment.

  The dimly lit ballroom added dramatic intensity to the illuminated frescoes and an air of mystery to the dancers, most of whom were masked. And such marvelous masks! They were definitely not five-and-dime cardboard but creations in papier-mâché especially for the Valentine party. She spotted Mickey and Minnie Mouse, George and Martha Washington, Cleopatra and Antony, Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, Charles and Di, even Héloïse and Abélard. Guests gathered in excited knots at long tables on either side of the ballroom. Every so often a couple would break free, triumphantly waving their trophies. What fun! Who could she and Max be? But first, she had to make Max understand about Laurel, who had plunged into the milling crowd and was lost to view.

  “Howard Cahill,” she hissed. “It’s Howard Cahill.”

  “Are you all right, honey? Sure that’s Howard Cahill. You’ve met him a dozen times.”

  “Didn’t you see him and Laurel look at each other?”

  Max touched her cheek. “You aren’t feverish, are you?”

  Annie barely restrained herself from stamping her foot. Sometimes Max, even though he was as handsome and delectable as a grown-up Joe Hardy, could be utterly maddening, more obtuse than Chet Morton at his worst.

  “The man who helped Laurel get the rental car out of the ditch. It was Howard.”

  Max smiled benignly, craning his neck. “Good old Howard.” He spotted the bar. “Makes me thirsty, climbing stairs. What would you like? Spritzer?”

  If she couldn’t fasten her hands around his throat and throttle him, a spritzer would be second best. Apparently having about as much social antenna as Mike Hammer, Max had missed the interplay when Laurel and Howard met. Of course, that was the point. They hadn’t just met. Howard was the man who had evoked such lyrical excitement in Laurel that morning. An Elaine Raco Chase heroine could scarcely evince more enthusiasm. Annie’s heart sank.

  Laurel had neglected to tell Max that she was in love with one of their neighbors. Obviously, Howard would have introduced himself when he gallantly rescued Laurel from the ditch. Just as obviously, there was no need for him to say exactly where he lived. But why hadn’t Laurel made the connection when Sydney came by to urge them all to come to the party? Of course, it would be just like Sydney to introduce herself simply as Sydney with no surname. So Laurel didn’t know the name of her host and hostess until tonight on the pier when Annie obligingly spewed forth information about the residents of the Scarlet King compound.

  “Saint John de Britto, my foot! Immerse oneself in a culture, my—” She broke off as the masked figure next to her—a much too chubby Marilyn Monroe—turned toward her inquiringly.

  Annie bared her teeth in what she hoped looked like a gracious smile. “Thought I saw an old friend, John Britton,” she babbled. “But no such luck.” She turned determinedly away and glared at the bar. It couldn’t have been any more jammed if it had been the saloon aboard the SS Karnak in Death on the Nile. She waited impatiently for Max’s return. She had to make Max understand that Laurel was obviously—Oh. Wait a minute. Cool reasoning overtook impulse. How could she tell Max that his mother was flinging herself at a married man? Annie foresaw difficulties.

  The band eased from a Cole Porter love song into a Viennese waltz. Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher swept by, but Annie would recognize that blue satin dress anywhere. She wondered who Laurel’s partner was. Not Howard, because he and Sydney, sans masks, had just appeared in the ballroom. But body language shouts. Obviously, Laurel’s partner was smitten. Annie raised an eyebrow. Had true love already taken the final count? But no, as the couple clipped past, Laurel blew a kiss in the general direction of Howard.

  Sydney, once again, was oblivious to her husband. She scanned the dancers, her face alight with eagerness. Howard’s dark eyes followed Laurel.

  But not only Laurel looked toward Howard, Annie realized.

  A young man with tousled curly hair and an almost overcivilized face—too long eyelashes, a sensitive mouth, a delicate mustache—watched, too, a young man who would have been handsome if he hadn’t been scowling. He stood a few feet away from the clot around the bar, hands jammed in the pockets of his tuxedo, shoulders hunched.

  Howard’s stride slowed when his glance met that of the sour young man. Sydney moved on ahead and was lost among the throng of guests.

  Once again, the look in Howard’s eyes surprised Annie. He might be the richest shipowner in America; surely he was also one of the unhappiest. He stretched out his hand, but the young man pivoted on his heel and walked away.

  Howard’s hand slowly fell to his side. Then Laurel appeared. Rising on tiptoe, she murmured in Howard’s ear, one beautifully manicured hand resting lightly on his shoulder.

  Annie surveyed those nearby. Thank God, the music was loud, the voices louder, and nobody was paying any attention to their host.

  Where was Sydney?

  It would be pretty awful if Sydney noticed her husband’s deportment with Max’s mother. But what could Annie do? Besides, she wasn’t Laurel’s mother. Which conclusion left her more confused than ever.

  Because she felt this urge to do something. But when she turned back, Laurel and Howard had disappeared.

  Annie felt a beading of sweat on her brow. She’d better see where Sydney was. Then maybe she could find Laurel and detach her from Howard.

  She had already covered a half dozen steps when she heard Max. “Annie, hey Annie, where’re you going? I’ve got your spritzer.”

  He caught up with her. Annie accepted the glass, drank half of it in a gulp, then look
ed up into Max’s surprised face.

  She felt on the other side of an abyss from him. He had no idea about Laurel. Annie couldn’t tell him his mother was—No, she couldn’t.

  “Let’s go get some masks,” she said brightly and headed for the nearest table.

  The mask seekers were just this side of pushing and shoving in their eagerness to make a selection from the tantalizing array.

  With one distinct exception—their not-so-charming neighbor, General (retired) Colville Houghton. He leaned on his ebony cane and surveyed the masks and the guests with equal distaste. His wife, Eileen, attired in a formal gown that would have found favor at a DAR banquet—a lace-covered bosom and a skirt with sweeping folds that gave no hint of the body beneath—fingered the cameo at her throat and turned a carefully schooled face toward the dance floor.

  Annie didn’t blame Eileen for distancing herself from the old brute, in spirit if not in fact. He looked like the skull at the feast, deeply socketed eyes, prominent cheekbones, downturned mouth, clipped gray mustache.

  “Sodom and Gomorrah,” he intoned in a deep, gruff voice.

  A full-bodied redhead in a dress that started low and finished high drawled, “Lighten up, Pops,” which sounded odd issuing from the lips of Little Bo Peep.

  The general’s face took on an unhealthy hue, his sallow skin flushing purplish red.

  Eileen Houghton began to speak in a smooth, social tone. “I do believe I see the McKenzies across the room, Colville. Yes, he’s waving to us. I’ll go fetch them.”

  Annie didn’t blame her. She’d get the hell out, too.

  The general didn’t move.

  Annie and Max stepped past him. At the table, guests jostled one another, eagerly grabbing up masks, trying them on, discarding, trading, amid bursts of laughter and comments, some ribald: “Who’s this?” … “Hey, I always wanted to be a general. Who matches? Mamie or Kay Summersby?” … “You mean Columbus actually had red hair?” … “Listen, everybody, I’ve got Romeo and I’ll trade for Rhett Butler.”

  The papier-mâché masks were light enough to wear comfortably. Velvet straps, with Velero strips, extended from the temples of each mask, making it possible to adjust for size when they were fastened.