by Anne Stuart
She spoke first, those lovely lavender-blue eyes traveling up and down my ample figure with just the right amount of amusement and disdain. "Well, my cousin Mary. How charming it is that you could come and help us with poor little Daniel. I declare it's been years since I last saw you. You were twelve and a dreadfully dirty, unattractive little tomboy—so uncivilized. I must have been fourteen at the time." She had been twenty, but if she wished to take six years off her age I had no objections. I was too caught up in the cheerful malevolence that was emanating from her affable, beautifully smiling face. In previous years we had always been on polite, if distant terms. The waves of angry emotion billowing forth were nothing short of frightening.
"It's good to see you, Maeve," I murmured politely after a long moment. "We . . . we hadn't been expecting you."
"Apparently not," she noted with a chill smile. She turned back and addressed her companion carelessly over one delicate shoulder. "Darling, didn't you send word that we were due home for Christmas? My poor little cousin has been caught in the most awkward situation. One might almost say compromising. Trust you, Peter, darling. You never could keep your hands off the ladies." She moved into the room, her bell-like skirts swaying gracefully as she walked. Those lovely eyes took in the sleeping form of her only son, and her pretty nose wrinkled in distaste. "Shouldn't Daniel be in bed at this hour?" she questioned plaintively of the room in general. "I know I'm not the world's best mother, or so Lillian is always telling me, but I should think it would be way past his bedtime."
My already beet-red face flushed even darker. Once more I felt like a gawky, overgrown schoolgirl, and inwardly I cursed Maeve for always having the power to make me feel that way. "I decided to let him stay up, later than usual tonight. Since it's Christmas Eve."
"But don't you think he's stayed up late enough?" she inquired sweetly. "Do take him up to bed, Mary dear. There's a pet." And she turned her pretty back to me and smiled up at Peter, who was staring at her, his face a queer mixture of dislike and helpless infatuation.
With great determination I swallowed the wave of anger that welled up in me at her dismissal. I controlled my desire to curtsy mockingly and went to Daniel's sleeping form.
He was light and small-boned for his age, and I picked him up without "any great difficulty. He murmured something unintelligible and nuzzled against my shoulder, and I held him closer to me. Turning to the door, I met for the first time in many months the dark blue gaze of Connell Fitzgerald.
"Good evening, Mary," he said after a moment in his gentle, measured tones. I thought I could read anger and disapproval and disdain in that quiet, charming voice, and a feeling of desolation settled over me. "I'm sorry we interrupted anything."
I met his scornful gaze bravely. "You interrupted nothing," I replied with great calm. "Good night." And I started past him into the hallway.
"When you've finished putting the boy to bed," he said in that same voice, "come back to the library. I'm sure it's far too early on Christmas Eve to go to bed."
To my tired ears there was a faintly menacing note in that, and I longed to refuse outright. But he wasn't the sort of man one refused lightly. I allowed my wicked eyes to stray toward his mouth—that mouth that had touched mine so tantalizingly last time we met. I swallowed, then nodded.
It only took me a few short minutes to undress the sleeping child and tuck him under his heavy covers. Stirring up the fire in his small, neat room on the second floor, I left him with a light kiss on his momentarily untroubled brow.
My feet and heart were curiously light as I made my way back through the deserted hallways to the library. And I knew very well why I felt like dancing, despite the nervous pounding beneath the low-cut bodice of my green velvet evening dress.
I stopped in front of the full-length, candlelit pier glass at the top of the stairs as I caught sight of my reflection. The woman in the mirror was both familiar and yet different, and I wondered why. My hair was its usual unruly tangle of blue-black curls, my eyes green and shining with excitement, my cheeks flushed in my normally rather pale face. My elegant dress showed off my healthy figure to advantage, and yet I knew full well that next to Maeve's delicacy I would look like an over robust milkmaid. Certainly Peter's attention had vanished the moment she walked into the room.
"It won't do you any good," an unpleasant voice hissed at my right elbow, and I jumped a foot in the air.
"Good evening, Mrs. Carpenter," I greeted her with a shaken calm. "I thought you and Mr. Carpenter had gone to visit relatives."
"You think I'd be gone when my lady was coming home?" she demanded, her tiny black eyes in her disconcertingly merry little face watching me with cold contempt.
"You knew they were returning tonight?" I questioned. "Why on earth didn't you tell us?"
She smirked, a cold, thin-lipped smirk that was at such odds with her rosy-cheeked visage. "You didn't ask, did you, miss?" She started to glide away when her words came back to me.
"What did you mean—it won't do me any good?" I questioned her retreating form.
She turned back for a moment, the balefulness of her expression unleashed. "Just what I said, miss. He'll forget all about you—he won't even look at you with her around. No matter how much you primp in front of the mirror. He won't be able to take his eyes off her."
"Who won't?"
She looked disconcerted for a moment. Quickly she recovered herself. "Mr. Peter," she snapped. "Or any other man, for that matter."
I felt an odd sense of relief that she had mistaken my interest. I put on my saddest frown over my too expressive face. "It's true," I agreed woefully, and started down the stairs. "Merry Christmas, Mrs. Carpenter."
There was no answer.
Considering how volatile were the relationships among the three people in the room, I was surprised at the ambience of peace emanating from the trio. As I approached the door I had time to notice both how alike and yet how different they were, with their attractive faces and their aura of wealth and security and breeding. Only Con stood out with that reckless, bitter look in his deep, unfathomable eyes, his cold disdain for his companions brutally obvious. For a moment I had the odd fancy that he belonged more in a band of raiding Celts, not trammeled in here among the rich and the righteous.
And Maeve, for all her middle-class upbringing and her slightly drunken father, seemed far more at home in her setting than her cynical husband. She was sitting next to Peter on the horsehair loveseat and laughing into his hopelessly bedazzled eyes while Connell looked on, a familiar expression of bored impatience on his dark face. I hesitated for a moment in the doorway, wondering whether or not I should quietly slip back upstairs to my room, when he turned around, some sixth sense informing him of my presence.
He rose with leisurely grace and gestured me into the room. Peter made a futile move, trying to rise, but one of Maeve's slim, possessive hands was on his tweed jacket, holding him firmly by her side while she flirted with him under her husband's nose.
My choice of seats was distinctly limited. I could either drop into Maeve's or Peter's laps or curl up next to Connell on the matching loveseat. At that point my nerves were at such a pitch that I didn't even want to look at the man, much less cuddle with him, so with studied nonchalance I seated myself cross-legged on the faded and beautiful Oriental carpet in front of the merrily blazing fire, and accepted the glass of dark amber liquid Connell silently handed me.
"Con, darling, we must do something about these furnishings," Maeve pouted prettily, letting poor Peter come up for air. The look he shot me was filled with desperation. "The rest of the house is so elegant, this room is positively shabby in comparison."
"This is my study," he answered with cold civility. "I didn't invite you in here, and if you don't like it you may leave."
I started guiltily. "I'm afraid it's all my fault—I was the one who asked Carpenter to put the tree in here. I didn't realize it was your study, or I would never have suggested it. It was the only really
comfortable room in the house . . ." I let it trail off as I realized the tactlessness of my remark, and was rewarded with Maeve's brief glance of amused dislike. A moment later it was gone, and if I hadn't known Maeve from childhood I would have doubted its existence in the first place.
She laughed, her light, brittle laugh. "Well, I'm sure you can tell what sort of household little Mary was brought up in. Shanty Irish with no pretensions to taste or refinement," she dismissed her family. "The poor little thing can't recognize an elegant house when she sees one." She laughed again, and the sound grated on my nerves.
Before the retort that was on the tip of my tongue could spill over, however, Connell broke in smoothly, "And how are you liking Demonwood, Mary?" His voice was flat and uninterested, but it served to change the subject.
"She loves it, don't you, Mary?" Peter broke in eagerly, edging away from Maeve's possessive grasp. "It's as if . . . as if she belongs here."
"Really?" Maeve questioned with spurious sweetness. "Now isn't that remarkable? While I have never felt more than slightly comfortable way out here in the wilds. I suppose you must be a farm girl at heart, Mary."
I was becoming more and more unhappy, sitting in that room with those three preoccupied people and their hidden tensions. Maeve seemed caught up in making spiteful remarks about my manners, looks, and tastes; Peter kept throwing beseeching glances in my direction; and Connell Fitzgerald just sat there, a remote, angry look on his strong-featured face. For all he cared I could have been a thousand miles away.
I took a deep sip of the drink he'd handed me and felt the warm glow of good Irish whiskey spread through me. The fire was warm at my back, the room smelled of whiskey and evergreens, and I wished more than anything that they would all go away and leave me to curl up peacefully near the hearth.
"Where's Lillian?" I questioned suddenly, belatedly noticing her absence. I couldn't contain a feeling of strong disappointment—my only ally in the house and she had chosen to stay in Europe. I had been looking forward to her warm heart and sympathetic ear.
Maeve wrinkled her pretty nose in distaste. "She was persuaded to remain behind. I think by her retired colonel. If luck is with us we may never have to put up with her again except for short intervals. She and that prosy old bore certainly deserve each fcther."
"I may remind you that you are speaking of my sister," Con said with quiet menace.
She pouted prettily. "Well, you can't expect me to be a hypocrite and pretend that I like her. It's a well- known fact that she detests and disapproves of me. It will be so pleasant to have my house to myself for once, without her pious, preaching ways."
Her husband stared at her stonily for a moment, and I wondered how he could be immune to such enchanting loveliness. I drained the glass of whiskey and rose on slightly unsteady feet. Although my father had maintained that the ability to drink hard liquor was a necessary part of a young girl's education, I was quite unused to such a large amount after Peter's lethal punch. I longed to escape from the suddenly stuffy, tension-filled atmosphere of the room—if I stayed there any longer I would either cry or fall asleep.
"Retiring so soon, little Mary?" Maeve teased, and my temper flared. My junoesque stature had always been rather a sore point with me, and her constant harping on it had the same effect as waving a red flag before a bull. I always felt like a strapping giant around her delicate beauty—there was no need for her to remind me.
"Yes," I snapped, starting for the door. Connell was there before me, his tall frame towering over me, making me feel deliciously fragile after Maeve's carping remarks.
Without a word to his wife and guest he took my unwilling arm and accompanied me out into the hallway. I heard Peter's protest as I blindly followed him.' "Which room are you in?" he demanded abruptly, and I felt a quiver of alarm not unmixed with delight.
"Up in the attic," I replied. "In the old studio. Why?"
A suddenly amused expression crossed his face. "I thought I already assured you that I have no designs on your . . . your virtue, cousin. Everything that goes on in this house happens to be my concern."
"All right," I accepted it. I tried to free my arm, but his grip tightened painfully.
"Before I forget, Mary, I wanted to warn you."
"Warn me about what?" I demanded.
"About encouraging Peter's attentions. His affections are lightly and easily given. If I were you I wouldn't expect anything from him."
"And what the hell business is it of yours?" I raised my voice, my temper breaking.
His eyes closed in exasperation, and I noticed in the flickering lamplight that he had absurdly long lashes for a man. "You happen to be in my care—as your employer and . . . connection I happen to be responsible for you." I could tell he was mocking me, and I longed to lash out at him. "I wouldn't want to have to return you to your brothers in, shall we say, damaged condition?"
"My brothers have nothing to do with this!"
A twisted smile lit his face. "I think they'd disagree with you on that. I had a visitation from all six of them the night you left, and very definite they were about the care and treatment of Mary Gallager. And I don't think your violent fiancé would take kindly to your having an affair with another man."
"Mr. Fitzgerald," I replied with dangerous calm, all my Christmas spirit vanishing, "I think it's become necessary for me to set you straight on a few things. First of all, I have no fiancé, and never had one. It's perfectly true that Michael Flynn spent the night in my house that night, but he spent the night on the kitchen floor, stone drunk!"
I couldn't tell whether he believed me or not. "It's none of my concern anyway."
"Exactly my point. Nor is my choice of companions while I'm here your concern."
"I agree," he said stiffly. "I merely thought for your own well-being that I ought to warn you. Apparently you don't care what sort of trouble you get yourself into. I don't know why I expected any better of you."
I felt a small, clutching feeling inside at his words. I opened my mouth to speak, but he continued on in his cold, angry voice. "But one thing I will not have. I won't allow any sort of indiscretions in this house— my son has been exposed to too much of women's infidelity as it is. You'll have to conduct your no-doubt numerous love affairs at some other place and time."
"Oh, will I now?" I demanded, livid. "Well, if you say so, sir. I suppose I'll have to send around letters to the three score or so men who are simply dying to seduce me, and tell them they'll have to wait. Or would you like to pass inspection on them all? Of course, that's only the men in Vermont—it doesn't include three or four hundred from Cambridge who've enjoyed my favors in the past." I stopped for breath, glaring.
To my surprise a smile cracked Connell's stern visage. A smile, and then a reluctant laugh. "All right, Mary. Send the first twenty or so to me and if they pass muster I'll let you use your own judgment on the next hundred."
"What's so amusing?" Maeve questioned archly from the study door. "I don't think I've heard you laugh in over a year, Con, darling. My little cousin must be good for you." She smiled up at me benevolently, her pearly white teeth shining in the lamplight. "Do watch
out for him, Mary dear," she warned sweetly. "My husband has a habit of breaking hearts."
"I think," I said with great calm, "that you all should know that I am entirely capable of taking care of my own heart and morals without instructions, advice, and warnings from the three of you!" Peter had appeared in the doorway and was watching us with a dazed expression. At that moment the clock struck midnight. "And I wish you all a very happy day on the birth of our Saviour." With great dignity I turned on one heel and left them, those three handsome and unhappy people, alone in the hallway.
Chapter Ten
If I had hoped to sleep late the next morning I was disappointed. The night had been a fitful one, full of tossings and turnings, and I hadn't drifted off until the first streaks of dawn were spreading across the mountainous horizon. The dreams that followed w
ere filled with hints of danger and torment, and the memory of Connell Fitzgerald's mouth on mine had returned full force, not to be banished by common sense and guilt. My unhappy thrashings must have woken me up in the icy stillness of early morning, and I was about to pull the covers over my head when I realized I was not alone.
"I was wondering how long it would take you to wake up," came Maeve's soft voice from across the room. "You do sleep soundly, my dear."
I sat bolt upright in bed, pulling my covers around me. "What are you doing here?" I demanded ungraciously.
She was seated by the fire, a fire she had just managed to poke into life, clad (or almost clad) in a filmy, black lace negligee that could only have come from Paris. It exhibited her slender curves and silky skin in a manner that could only be called provocative, and I wondered that her husband had let her escape from his bed. Her hair hung down her back in a tawny wave, and her lavender-blue eyes glowed in the dark.
"How can you stand this room?" she questioned lazily, ignoring my query. "I would think you'd turn to ice by the morning."
"I find it bracing."
Her pretty pink lips curved into a pout. "I'm sure you do. Nevertheless, I think it would be better if you moved to one of the rooms on the second floor. Heaven knows there are enough of them. I can't imagine what Mrs. Carpenter was thinking of—to put you up here."
"I gathered it was Lillian's idea." I rose from the haven of the bed and stalked over to the fire, trailing quilts and blankets behind me. "And I intend to stay in this room—I like it. But you didn't come creeping up here to talk about my sleeping arrangements, did you, Maeve?"
Her light, silvery laugh filled the room. "Poor little Mary," she mocked. "I always could put you in a rage, couldn't I? You really are no challenge at all, you know."
Silently I counted to ten, drawing a deep breath. When I had finished I was a bit more in control of myself. "What is it you want, Maeve?"
