Demonwood

by Anne Stuart

  "We'll leave around two o'clock tomorrow afternoon, Mary," Connell spoke quietly, his voice brooking no disobedience. I hesitated, then nodded coolly before proceeding upstairs.

  "You'll have to fall and pretend to sprain your ankle," Maeve informed me that night. "I won't have you going off with him all afternoon, I simply won't have it."

  "Then why don't you go in my place?" I asked wearily.

  "I suggested it. Con refused flatly. He wants your company, and I know damned well it's not for that bitch Lillian's r '-e. If you don't say you twisted your ankle I swear I'll shove you downstairs myself," she cried wildly.

  "I'm sorry Maeve, I can't. He wouldn't believe me."

  "You mean you won't? For all your protestations of innocence you're just dying to go off with him tomorrow, aren't you?" she demanded, her eyes hardening. "We'll see about that, my dear cousin. We'll see." And she stalked from my bedroom.

  I dressed carefully for my afternoon excursion. It would be the first time in months that I had been farther afield than church, and my green eyes shone with excitement as I brushed my tangled black curls into a semblance of order. My dress, another castoff from Pauline's mother's mistress, was a soft rose that went beautifully with my pale complexion, and the bonnet I clamped down over my touseled head was the most flattering one I possessed. The thought of spending at least an hour alone with Connell Fitzgerald, without his wife's innuendos and sly amusement was enough to make me feel slightly giddy with excitement, and I ran down the attic steps two at a time, stopping long enough in the hall to take one last admiring glance in the pier glass before descending to the front hall.

  As I put my foot out to take the first step, I felt two hands reach up behind me and give me a vicious push. If my responses had been a little less quick I would have tumbled down that long flight, maiming or even killing myself. But instinctively I reached out and clawed at the bannister, just barely managing to save myself. Pulling my trembling body upright with shaking hands I met the triumphant smile of my cousin Maeve.

  "Next time you'll miss the bannister," she said, and the blackest, ugliest rage that I had ever known swept down over me. I wanted to take her slender neck and snap it in my two strong hands; I wanted to hurl her soft, seductive body from the landing. I was so furious and frightened that I couldn't trust myself to speak or to move. I just stood staring at her, shaking with rage and fright.

  "What's going on?" Connell demanded from the front hall.

  "Nothing, darling," Maeve called out. "Mary was a trifle clumsy, that's all." She turned to me, smiling seraphically. "You should be more careful, Mary. You could have been killed."

  "There are limits, Maeve," I said in a low voice. "There are very definite limits to what I'll put up with from you. Don't you ever do that again."

  "Do what?" she questioned innocently. Bravely I turned my back on her and moved down the stairs.

  Connell was curiously silent as he helped me into the closed carriage, tucking the furred lap robe around me with a distant courtesy. We drove down the winding drive, and it wasn't until we were out of sight of the house that he spoke.

  "Did Maeve push you?" he asked abruptly, his eyes boring into mine.

  "Why do you ask me such a thing?" I evaded.

  He leaned back and closed those compelling eyes wearily, his profile stern and yet touching in repose. "Because I know she's capable of it. And I know something strange was going on there at the top of the stairs. Don't lie to me," there was a sudden steely note to his voice. "That's the one thing I can't forgive."

  There was a great deal of violence in the man, barely restrained by conventions. I had grown up surrounded by violent, boisterous men, but the violence in Connell Fitzgerald was both more subtle and more frightening. And all the more attractive.

  "She pushed me," I said finally. "But I don't think she meant me to fall." This last part was a lie, but I hoped by giving him part of the truth he might believe me. "She just wanted to frighten me, I think. She didn't want me to come with you today."

  "No, she made that quite clear, didn't she?" He sighed. "Are you a good Catholic, Mary?"

  "I would hope so."

  "That doesn't answer my question. Are you a good Catholic?"

  I considered it. "I try to be. I fail a lot of the time, as Father McShane can verify."

  "And what would you and your good Catholic family think if I divorced Maeve?" The words were cool, measured, the meaning was not.

  "You'd be excommunicatedl Not to mention ostracized by your friends and acquaintances. No one would be wanting to speak with you." I was deeply distressed, and yet some hidden part of me found it hard to suppress the start of joy I had felt at his words, the hidden meaning I wanted to read into it.

  "And would you be wanting to speak with me, Mary Margaret Gallager?" He might have been asking the time of day, so unconcerned was his voice.

  "Yes," I said softly after a moment. "I'd be wanting to speak with you." And he nodded, satisfied, and said no more. But there was a curiously tantalizing quality about his silence, as if by our not saying a word we were being far more intimate than if we had chattered brightly all the way to the train. And as we rode along the rutted, snow-packed road, I felt his body next to mine, the heat seeming to burn through our clothes, and despite everything, despite fear and guilt I was happier than I had been in a long time.

  I scarcely recognized Lillian as she descended from the train. Of course, it had been months since I had last seen her, but there was more to it than absence dulling a memory. If anything, she was even more badly dressed than she had been in Boston, and her mousy brown hair was arranged in a new style that was both fussy and unflattering. The expression on her round, gentle face as she saw Connell and me waiting for her was surprise, but I don't think it was pleased surprise. But the look of irritation vanished as suddenly as it appeared, and I wondered if I had imagined it. She greeted us both with a vibrant smile, slinging her small, sturdy body upon her brother with an excess of devotion.

  I realized then that I had never seen the two of them together. Con disentangled her clinging hands gently, smiling down at her with lukewarm welcome. Her eyes devoured him hungrily, as if they couldn't take in enough, and I rated only a brief, friendly hello before she began deluging her beloved Connell with nonstop, seeming inconsequential chatter. Such sisterly devotion should have been touching, and I wondered why I felt this strange feeling of distaste for her display. And I also wondered what had happened to her distinguished British colonel.

  Apparently Connell wondered too, for the moment she stopped for breath he broke in, "You didn't explain in your letter, Lilly. Why are you back so suddenly? I thought we agreed you'd stay on in Florence until summer. And weren't you going to visit Colonel Badham's family in Madeira?"

  Her small brown face puckered suddenly, and two large tears filled her brown eyes. "Haven't you noticed I'm in mourning, Con?" She gestured to her frumpy black dress. "He died, Con! Cyril died!" And she dissolved into noisy tears.

  Immediate pity sprang up in me. That would account for her nervous excitement, her extreme clinging to her brother. I put my arms around her tiny figure. "Poor Lillian. How awful for you! Let me help you into the carriage and we'll go straight back to Demonwood and a nice warm bed. You must be exhausted after all your traveling." She leaned back against my arm gratefully, giving me a tremulous smile.

  "So kind," she murmured damply, mopping her eyes with a handkerchief trimmed with black lace.

  "How did he die, Lilly?" Con asked in a curiously harsh tone of voice.

  "Oh, Con," she wept afresh.

  "How did he die?"

  "Don't upset her now," I dared to reprove him. "What does it matter, anyway? The man is dead—can't you see she's too upset to discuss it?"

  "No," Lillian recovered bravely. "I don't mind, really. He died quite horribly, Con. He fell from the cliff outside our villa. He must have been watching the sky—you know how he loved birds." She dissolved into tears again
, then resolutely blew her nose. "It was very strange, Con. It happened the day you and Maeve left. They think he must have gone over sometime early in the morning, before the household was up. And if we'd only known I could have come back with you, instead of waiting and waiting for a suitable boat. Oh, Con, it was so awful!"

  "He died when Maeve and I were still there?" I wondered at his insistence on this point.

  Lillian nodded sadly. "Yes, dear. Just think, if you'd been out walking that morning as you usually did you might have seen him." Her eyes, so different from his shining blue ones, stared up at him with a curious fascination, as if she had just had a most interesting thought. At her artless words a distinctly nasty suspicion came over me, and try as I could I was unable to shut it out of my mind.

  In the fuss of seating ourselves in the small carriage the subject was forgotten. Con handed his sister up, then gave me his hand to help me climb in behind her. I don't know quite how it happened, but as the carriage started forward he was sitting beside me, his sister opposite with a discontented expression on her plain, tired face.

  The house was deserted when we arrived home— Maeve and Daniel were nowhere to be seen. I forced myself to stifle the onrush of fear I felt at their absence, offering to help the weary Lillian to her room. I was accepted with alacrity. As we made our way slowly up the winding stairs I couldn't shake off a feeling of oppression. I had been looking forward to Lillian's return so eagerly, and yet now that she was here I couldn't rid myself of a feeling of . . . of imminent danger. As if her return had set in motion a chain of events that would prove disastrous for us all.

  I had never been inside her bedroom at Demon- wood. Indeed, I hadn't been inside more than half the large, ornate rooms in the place. The few that I had seen were alike in their bland, opulent decor, with gilt cupids in the unlikeliest places. But Lillian's room was an exception. She had made it her own, but I couldn't wholeheartedly approve of her style. The walls were covered in a brown watered silk, the windows draped in matching silk curtains that carefully shut out any impertinent sunlight that might want to invade her room. And after five long months, the overpowering scent of violets that she used so lavishly still lingered in the still and stuffy air.

  The furniture was dark and heavy, unlike the fragile and impractical French furniture with which

  Maeve had filled the rest of the house. The only paintings on the walls were ones of Daniel when he was about five, a pretty, frivolous woman in the style of about twenty-five years ago who I rightly identified as Con's grandmother, the Countess of Carradine, and a portrait of Con that had my full, enraptured attention from the moment I laid eyes on it.

  He must have been in his early twenties when it was done. There were no lines in his broad, high forehead, no frown marks around his laughing blue eyes, and his mouth curved in that sweet, disturbing smile I had seen so seldom and loved so much. And standing by his side in the portrait was surely the loveliest creature I had ever seen.

  "That's Kathleen," Lillian said unnecessarily, coming to stand beside me while I looked up at the portrait. "She was very beautiful, wasn't she?"

  "Very," I agreed with sudden despair. Until that moment I had always thought Maeve the prettiest creature to walk God's earth, but this girl had her beat all hollow. Not in sheer physical beauty, though she had that in abundance, according to the painting. But the sweetness and grace of her character shone through the oils, and I wondered how she could have ever betrayed the man who had loved her so desperately. And how could any man, having loved a woman like that, ever look in my direction?

  Reluctantly I pulled my eyes away from the cause of my unhappiness, and turned to my companion. "Would you like some tea, Lillian? I could help you unpack . . ."

  "What I'd like most of all, dear, is for you to keep me company for a while and fill me in on everything that's been happening while I've been in Florence. I knew I would get nothing out of Con—typical close- mouthed male, when he knew I was dying for the latest gossip. How is Daniel? Is he happy?"

  "Happy enough, I should say," I replied cautiously. "I'm sure he missed you." That was a white lie, perhaps. He had seldom mentioned his doting aunt to me during our long talks, an omission that had disturbed me.

  "Did he?" she inquired mistily, stretching her tired body out on the brown silk coverlet of her four-poster bed. "Sometimes I wonder whether he cares for his poor aunt at all. He seems so distant and aloof. Just like his father."

  "He's not one given to outward displays of affection," I agreed. "Except, of course, where Con's concerned."

  "And what do you think of my brother, now that you've lived with him for a while? Have you fallen in love with him? Most impressionable young girls do." There was a troubled note beneath her gentle prying, and I was glad the dusk hid the violent blush I could feel had mounted to my face.

  "I'm not an impressionable young girl, Lillian," I replied tartly. "I don't make a habit of falling in love with married men." No, I thought, I've only done it once. "Your brother is a very attractive man, very polite and well-bred," I continued with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm, "but nothing more than that to me."

  I could see her tense shoulders relax, and I wondered why it should matter so much to her. As if she could read my mind, she leaned forward and gestured to the chair beside her bed. "Perhaps I'd better explain something to you, Mary dear. It might make the strange situation around here a little bit more understandable. I love my brother very much. That's obvious, isn't it?"

  Seating myself in the uncomfortable straight-backed chair she had offered, I nodded warily.

  "I suppose you think I'm too possessive," her voice dropped. "Always clinging to him, never having a life of my own. But, Mary, it's not I who created this intolerable situation. It was Con!"

  "Con?" I couldn't keep a slight trace of skepticism from my voice.

  "Con is insanely jealous. He always has been, ever since we were little children. I wasn't allowed to have any other friends, I must always play with my little brother, Con. I thought when we got older, once he married, that it would improve, that I could live a life of my own for once. But no, he didn't trust Kathleen, sweet, gentle Kathleen who adored him. I was to stay with them, so that I could keep watch over her when he was away on business." Her voice was high and taut with remembered strain. "You can't imagine what it's like, Mary, always walking around on tenterhooks, afraid Con will think I'm slighting him. Any beaux I might have had he frightened away—he wanted me all to himself."

  "But Lillian," I gasped. "That's . . . that's sick and evil."

  Through the twilight of the dusky room I could see her nod. "And then Kathleen died. I was never so frightened in my life. I thought I would be the next one . . ."

  "Are you trying to tell me you think Con murdered Kathleen?" I demanded harshly, and I could sense her flinching.

  "I . . . I don't know, Mary. After Con found her in her bedroom that night with . . . with another man, he took off into the woods like a man possessed. I'd never seen him in such a rage. When I saw him again Kathleen was dead, and he looked like a man who has seen the depths of hell."

  I didn't believe a word of this, I told myself fiercely. It was lies, all lies.

  "Why didn't you leave when he married Maeve?"

  She sniffed. "That slut? You'll pardon me for saying so, Mary dear, I know she's your cousin. But that was no marriage—it was a breeding contract. Con wanted an heir, so he picked the first likely female he could buy, seduced her, and then when she was safely pregnant he married her. He always made it clear she meant nothing to him."

  "Poor Maeve," I couldn't help but murmur.

  "Don't waste your pity on that onel" Lillian scoffed, her dislike hardening her usually gentle voice. "She has what she wanted. An elegant home, a rich and handsome husband who lets her commit whatever excesses she wishes and showers her with money. It's Con that breaks my heart—every year he becomes more irrational."

  "Why don't you leave?" I asked reasonably.
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  "You forget.. . there's Daniel. I couldn't leave him to his father. Con's not . . . not a well man. There's no telling what he might do if I deserted him."

  I peered at her through the gathering dusk, trying to read her expression. "Why are you telling me all this?"

  She reached out and took my hand in her plump, damp one. "If you're going to stay in this house you'd best be warned what might happen. He doesn't care for Maeve, but she might push him too far. I want you to be fully aware of the dangers inherent in living here. I blame myself for allowing you to come in the first place."

  "Are you suggesting that I leave?" My hand felt numb in her nervous, twisting grasp, but there was no way I could politely free myself.

  "It might be the best thing," she said eagerly. "I know you've said Con means nothing to you, but he has a way of insinuating himself into one's affections. You're too young and sweet to let that happen to you, Mary. I had to warn you." With that she released my hand and threw herself into a storm of weeping.

  I moved over to the bed and drew her frail, shaking body into my arms, comforting her as best I knew how. "There, there, Lillian, you're overwrought. It's been a horrid few months for you, what with your . . . your friend being killed that way, and none of your family around to comfort you. After you've rested a few days from the trip, things will seem a lot better. You'll see, darling."

  She raised her tear-streaked face, a pitifully woebegone expression in her damp brown eyes. "You don't believe me, do you, Mary?"

  I hesitated. "No, Lillian. I think you're overtired and things are distorted right now. In a few days you'll recognize these worries for the nonsense they are."

  And, patting her hand reassuringly, with a confidence I didn't feel, I left her to her misery.

  Chapter Fourteen

  But the problem was that I did believe her. Oh, my heart told me that it couldn't be—I couldn't be madly, secretly in love with a cold-blooded murderer. And my mind told me it was illogical—a man subject to such crippling jealousies couldn't have lived such a wealthy, successful life without his madness showing through. The respect and affection of his friends and business associates were obvious, surely he couldn't have fooled everyone.