Partners

by Nora Roberts

  “I see.” Briefly, her eyes clouded with pain. “I’m afraid I don’t remember too much of that day clearly. Please sit down, Binney is seeing to some refreshments. Louis will be along in a moment.” She chose a Hepplewhite for herself, straight-backed and dully gleaming. “He’s tied up on the phone. Actually, I’m glad to have a moment with you before he comes.” Marion folded her hands on her lap. “Laurel, you haven’t seen Louis in a very long time.”

  “Ten years.”

  “Yes, ten years.” Marion gazed out of the window a moment, then sighed. “One loses track of time here. I had to stop having you over after Charles and Elise . . . went away. Louis wasn’t in a proper state for an impressionable young girl.”

  Ten years, Laurel thought, and it still hurts her. What has it done to him? “I understand that, Marion. I’m not a girl anymore.”

  “No, you’re not.” Her gaze shifted back, away from the trim lawn and oaks. “Laurel, you saw only the beginnings of a change in him, but as the months passed, as the years passed, he became bitter,” she said briskly. “Given to flashes of temper, of absentmindedness. There were times he wouldn’t remember—” She stopped herself again, unlacing her hands. “He didn’t forget,” she corrected with a wistful smile. “He simply chose not to remember. He and Charles were—well, that’s done.”

  “Marion, I know how difficult it must’ve been for him.” Laurel reached out to lay a hand on hers. “I always knew. The truth is, I didn’t stay away because you didn’t ask me to come, but because I knew Louis wouldn’t want me here.”

  “You always understood a great deal,” Marion murmured. With a sigh, she tried to shake off the mood. “When he brought Anne home, no one was more surprised, more pleased than I. She’d taken that hard edge away.”

  “I felt that, too.” She smiled when Marion sent her a questioning look. “I phoned him a few weeks after he was married.”

  Nodding, Marion laced her hands again. Her nails were oval, unpainted and buffed. “Perhaps he was overprotective, possessive, but Anne was so young, and he’d been hurt so badly. I’m telling you this now because I want you—” her gaze shifted to Matt “—both of you to understand the state Louis is in now. There’s been so much pain in his life. If he seems cold and remote, it’s only his way of dealing with grief.” She turned her head as Binney wheeled in a tea tray. “Ah, iced tea. Do you still take too many sugars, Laurel?”

  She smiled. “Yes. Oh.” She glimpsed the tiny pink cakes arranged on the tray. “How sweet of you, Binney.”

  “I only told the cook Miss Laurel was coming for tea.” She gave Laurel a quick wink. “Don’t eat more than three, or your grandmother will scold me.”

  Laughing, Laurel bit into one as the housekeeper left the room. The light, sweet taste brought back a new flood of memories. She heard ice tinkle in the glasses as Marion poured. “Binney hasn’t changed. The house, either,” she added with a smile for Marion. “I’m so glad.”

  “The house never changes,” Marion told her as she offered Laurel fresh, cold tea in a Waterford glass. “Only the people in it.”

  Laurel didn’t hear him, but sensed him. Carefully, she set down the glass she held. Turning her head, she looked into Louis’s eyes.

  Chapter 6

  Can ten years be so long? she thought with a jolt. She’d thought she was prepared. She’d hoped she was. There was gray in his hair now, near the temples. That she would have accepted. There were lines in his face going deep around his mouth and eyes. She could have accepted them, too. But the eyes had none of the warmth, none of the humor she’d loved so much.

  He was thin, too thin. It made him look older than thirty-six. She rose, and with a mixture of pain and pity, went to him. “Louis.”

  He took her hand and the ghost of a smile touched his mouth. “Grown up, Laurel? Why did I expect to find a child?” Very lightly, he touched a fingertip to the underside of her chin. She wanted to weep for him. “You always promised to be a beauty.”

  Laurel smiled, willing the warmth to come to his eyes. “I’ve missed seeing you.” But the warmth didn’t come, and his hand dropped away. She felt his tension even before she felt her own. “Louis, this is my associate, Matthew Bates.”

  Louis’s eyes flicked over Matt and grew colder. “I believe we’ve met.”

  “Some tea, Louis?” Marion reached for the pitcher.

  “No.” His voice was curt, but Marion made no sign other than a quick compression of lips. Neither man noticed, as their eyes were on Laurel. “We’re not here for tea and cakes this time, are we, Laurel?” Louis murmured before he crossed the room to stand in front of the empty hearth. Over it was an oil of his mother. Laurel remembered it well. It had been there for years, except for a brief period when Elise Trulane’s portrait had replaced it. “Why don’t we get on with this?” Louis suggested. “I agreed to see you and Mr. Bates to put an end to this rumor Susan started.” He gave Laurel a long look. “Ask your questions. I used to have all the answers for you.”

  “Louis . . .” She wanted to go to him, soothe him somehow, but the look in Matt’s eyes stopped her. “I’m sorry to intrude this way. Very sorry.”

  “It isn’t necessary to be sorry.” Louis drew out a thin cigar, eyeing it for a moment before lighting it. “Nothing ever remains as it was. Do what you came to do.”

  She felt her stomach tighten. The power in him was still there, a power she’d recognized even as a child. It had driven him to take up the reins of a multimillion-dollar firm before he’d finished college. It had enabled him to enchant a young girl so that the woman could never forget him. But it was so cold now. Laurel stood where she was in the center of the parlor while the gap between memory and today grew wider.

  “Susan is certain that Anne would never have gone out into the swamp alone,” she began, knowing she began badly. “Susan claims that Anne had a terror of dark places, and that the letters she’d written expressed a specific fear of the place.”

  “And she believes Anne was forced to go in there,” Louis finished. “I know all of that already, Laurel.”

  She was a journalist, she had an assignment. She had to remember it. “Was Anne afraid of the swamp, Louis?”

  He drew on his cigar and watched her through the cloud of smoke. “Yes. But she went in,” he added, “because she died there.”

  “Why would she have gone in?”

  “Perhaps to please me.” Carelessly he flicked cigar ash into the scrubbed hearth. “She’d begun to feel foolish about this fear she’d dragged along since childhood. When I was with her,” he murmured, “she wouldn’t need a light on in the hallway at night.” Abruptly, his head lifted again, to the arrogant angle Laurel remembered in a young man. “The story about the ghosts in the swamp had her imagining all sorts of things. I was impatient.” He drew on the cigar again, harder. “She had a . . . need for my approval.”

  “You think she might have gotten up in the middle of the night and gone out there to please you?” Laurel asked him, taking a step closer.

  “It makes more sense than believing someone broke in, dragged her out and left her without myself or any of the servants hearing a sound.” He gave her another cool, uncompromising look. “You read the police report, I imagine.”

  “Yes.” She moistened her lips as she remembered the photograph. “Yes, I did.”

  “Then there’s no need for me to go over that.”

  “Did your wife often have trouble sleeping?” Matt put in, watching as a very small muscle worked in Louis’s jaw.

  “Occasionally. Particularly when I was working.” He glanced over Matt’s head, out the long windows. “She thought she’d seen lights in the swamp.”

  “Did anyone else see them?”

  Louis’s mouth twisted into something like a smile. “Over the years, dozens of people have claimed to—usually when they’ve kept company with a bottle of bourbon.”

  “Mr. Bates,” Marion broke in. “Anne was afraid of the swamp, but she was also fasc
inated with it. It’s not unusual for someone to be fascinated by something they fear. She’d become obsessed by the legend. The problem . . . the blame,” she amended slowly, “comes from none of us taking her seriously enough. She was so young. Perhaps if we’d insisted she go in during the daylight, she wouldn’t have felt compelled to go in at night.”

  “Do you think she was capable of going in there alone, at night?” Laurel asked her.

  “It’s the only explanation. Laurel, we all loved her.” She sent Louis a quick, misty look. “She was sweet and soft, but she was also highly strung. I thought her nerves came from the plans we were making for the party.”

  “What difference does it make now?” Louis demanded and tossed his cigar into the hearth. It bounced, then lay, smoldering. “Anne’s gone, and neither Susan nor her letters can change it.”

  “The letters were stolen from Susan’s room,” Laurel said quietly.

  “That’s ridiculous. Who would steal letters? She misplaced them.” Louis dismissed them with an angry shrug.

  “You were married for nearly a year,” Matt said casually. “Yet none of your closest neighbors had met your wife. Why?”

  “That’s my business.”

  “Louis, please.” Laurel took another step toward him. “If we could just understand.”

  “Understand?” he repeated, and stopped her with a look. “How can you? She was hardly more than a child, the child you were when I last saw you. But she didn’t have your confidence, your boldness. I kept her to myself because I wanted to. I had to. There was a generation between us.”

  “You didn’t trust her,” Laurel murmured.

  “Trust is for fools.”

  “Isn’t it odd,” Matt commented, drawing Louis’s fury from Laurel to himself, “how much Anne resembled your first wife?”

  The only sound was Marion’s sharp intake of breath. Though his hands clenched into fists, Louis stood very still. Without another word, another look, he strode out.

  “Please, Louis just isn’t himself.” Marion fiddled nervously with the glasses. “He’s very sensitive about comparisons between Anne and Elise.”

  “People are bound to make them,” Matt returned, “when the physical resemblance is so striking.”

  “More than physical,” Marion murmured, then went on in a rush. “It was a natural observation, Mr. Bates, but Louis won’t discuss Elise and Charles. If there’s nothing else . . . ?”

  “Do you know Nathan Brewster?” Laurel asked abruptly.

  Marion’s eyes widened before her lashes swept down. “Yes, of course, he’s one of Louis’s accountants.”

  Matt’s brow lifted before he exchanged a look with Laurel. “His was one of the few names Anne mentioned in her letters.”

  “Oh, that’s natural, I suppose. He came to the house a few times on business. It’s true Anne didn’t meet many people. Well.” She rose, sending them both an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help, but perhaps you can put Susan’s doubts to rest now.” She held out her hands to Laurel again. “Come back soon, please, just to talk like we used to.”

  “I will. Tell Louis . . .” Laurel sighed as she released Marion’s hands. “Tell him I’m sorry.”

  They walked out of the house in silence, drove away in silence. As the frustration, the anger built, Matt swore to himself he’d say nothing. Whatever Laurel was feeling was her own business. If she let her emotions get in the way, let herself grieve, there was nothing he could do about it.

  On an oath, he yanked the wheel, skidded to the side of the road and stopped.

  “Damn it, Laurel, stop.”

  She kept her hands very still in her lap and stared straight ahead. “Stop what?”

  “Mourning.”

  She turned her head then, and though her eyes were dry, they were eloquent. “Oh, Matthew,” she whispered, “he looked so lost.”

  “Laurel—”

  “No, you don’t have to say it. He’s changed. I expected it, but I wasn’t ready for it.” She drew a deep breath that came out trembling. “I wasn’t ready to see him hurting so much.”

  Cursing Louis Trulane and all he stood for, Matt gathered Laurel close. She didn’t protest when he cradled her against him, but held on. The sun streamed into the car. She could hear birds calling and chattering in the trees beyond the car. As he stroked her hair, she closed her eyes, letting herself draw from the comfort he offered.

  “I am mourning,” she murmured. “I don’t know if you can understand just how important Louis was to my childhood, my adolescence. Seeing him like this today . . .” With a sigh, she kept her head on his shoulder and watched the patterns sun and shade made on the road.

  “You’re thinking of him as a victim, Laurel. We’re all victims of what life deals out. It’s how we handle it that’s important.”

  “When you love someone, and you lose them, it kills something in you, too.”

  “No.” He let himself breathe in the scent of her hair. “Damages. We all have to deal with being damaged one way or the other.”

  He was right, of course he was right. But it still hurt. She said nothing, but sat quietly with her cheek on his shoulder while his hand trailed through her hair. His body was so firm, his heartbeat so steady. She could lose herself here, Laurel realized, in the front seat of his car with the sun pouring through and the sound of birds calling lazily from tree to tree.

  “I keep telling you not to be nice to me,” she murmured.

  He tilted his head back to look at her. His eyes were intense again, seeing too much. His fingers spread to cup her face. When her mouth opened, he tightened them. “Shut up,” he told her before he pressed his lips to hers.

  Not so light this time, not so gentle. She tasted frustration and didn’t understand it. But she also tasted desire, simmering, waiting, and couldn’t resist it. Her body went fluid, every bone, every muscle, as she surrendered to whatever it was they needed from each other. The need was there, she knew. Had always been there. The more she had resisted it, fought it, ignored it, the stronger it had become, until it threatened to overpower every other. Food, air, warmth, those were insignificant needs compared to this. If she was seduced, it wasn’t by soft words or skilled kisses, but by the emotions that had escaped before she’d been able to confine them.

  “Matthew.” She dropped her head on his shoulder and tried to steady her breathing. “This isn’t—I’m not ready for this.”

  Smoldering with impatience and desire, he forced her head back. “You will be.”

  “I don’t know.” She pressed her hands to his chest, wishing he could understand—wishing she could. “I told you that you confuse me. You do. I’ve never wanted a man before, and I never expected it to be you.”

  “It is me.” He drew her closer. “You’ll just have to get used to it.” His expression changed slowly from barely restrained temper to intentness. “Never wanted a man,” he repeated. “Any man? You haven’t—been with any man?”

  Her chin came up. “I said I never wanted one. I don’t do anything I don’t want to.”

  Innocent? Dear God, he thought, shouldn’t he have seen it? Sensed it? Gradually, he loosened his grip until he’d released her. “Changes the rules, doesn’t it?” he said softly. Matt took out a cigarette while she sat frowning at him. “Changes the rules,” he repeated in a whisper. “I’m going to be your lover, Laurellie. Take some time to think about it.”

  “Of all the arrogant—”

  “Yeah, we’ll get into that in depth later.” He blew out a stream of smoke. She was steadier now, he thought ruefully. He was wired. He’d better give them both some time to think about it. “Let me throw a couple of theories at you on Anne Trulane.”

  He started the car again while Laurel struggled to control her temper and to remember priorities. The story, she told herself, and forced her jaw to unclench. They’d deal with this . . . personal business later. “Go ahead.”

  He drove smoothly, ignoring the knot of need in
his stomach. “Louis married Anne Fisher because she looked like his first wife.”

  “Oh, really, Matthew.”

  “Let me finish. Whether he cared for her or not isn’t the issue. Once they were married he brought her back to Heritage Oak and kept her there, away from outsiders. Men. He didn’t trust her.”

  “He’d been hurt before, in the cruelest possible way.”

  “Exactly.” Matt pitched his cigarette out the window. “He was obsessed with the idea that she might find a younger man. He was possessive, jealous. What if Anne rebelled? What if she gave him a reason to doubt her loyalty?”

  “You’re suggesting that Louis killed her because he thought she’d violated his trust.” She didn’t like the chill that brought to her skin, and turned on him. “That’s ridiculous. He isn’t capable of killing anyone.”

  “How do you know what he’s capable of?” he tossed back. “You didn’t know that man in the parlor today.”

  No, she didn’t, and the truth stung. “Your theory’s weak,” she retorted. “Look at the timetable. Anne died between 12:00 and 4:00 a.m. Louis woke the household sometime between two and three.”

  “He could’ve taken her in before two,” Matt said mildly. “Maybe he never intended for her to die. He might’ve wanted to frighten her, taken her in and left her there.”

  “Then why would he call out a search party?”

  Matt turned his head, letting his gaze skim over her face before he shifted it back to the road. “He could’ve forgotten he’d