by Kay Hooper
“Not yet,” he murmured.
She felt one of his hands moving slightly on her shoulder, his long fingers almost kneading, very gently, and wondered why that odd, probing touch made her feel as bonelessly contented as a cat in the sunlight. She kept her voice as low as his had been when she said, “The door isn’t even closed, is it?”
“No one ever comes up here.”
“You did.”
“I was following you.”
“I didn’t even know you were in the house.”
“I came back just after Amelia and Mother left.” He was silent for a moment, then said, “When I came upstairs, I heard you going toward the attic. So I followed.”
Laura didn’t want to disturb this peaceful aftermath, especially since she was all too sure it would be brief, but she couldn’t stop herself from raising her head from his shoulder and asking dryly, “Afraid I might find something up here?”
His harsh features were set once more in their unreadable mold, the pale eyes shuttered, and his voice was matter-of-fact when he said, “How could there be anything up here I would want to hide from you?”
Laura didn’t know the answer to that, but it bothered her that he had replied to her question with one of his own. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “Why did you follow me?”
He answered that without hesitation. “Because I knew this would happen.”
“How did you know?” It was you in the mirror. All these years, it was you I looked for. Did you know that?
He lifted a hand and touched her face, one finger tracing the line of her brow, the shape of her cheekbone. His thumb brushed across her bottom lip in a slow, gliding caress. “I wanted it to happen,” he replied at last.
“And Daniel Kilbourne always gets what he wants?”
His mouth twisted slightly. “Don’t. Don’t turn this into a question of power. So much of my life is a question of power. But not this. You wanted it too, Laura. We both wanted it.”
She couldn’t deny it, didn’t even try. And when his hand slipped to the nape of her neck and pressed gently, she didn’t try to deny that want either. His lips played on hers, gentle at first and then hardening, demanding, and Laura didn’t care why he had followed her up here. She didn’t care about anything except feeling.
LAURA BUTTONED HER blouse slowly, trying to fix all her attention on the task even though she was intensely aware of him getting dressed just a couple of feet away. It vaguely surprised her that she was still so hypersensitive to his nearness, and it was more than a little disconcerting. A couple of hours of dynamic sex had only fed her appetite for him rather than satisfying it, and she didn’t know if she’d be able to bear it if this was all he wanted from her.
“So, what now?” she heard herself ask, unnaturally calm.
He came to her immediately, completely dressed but with the tail of his shirt untucked, and framed her face with his hands to make her look at him. He was smiling slightly, but his voice was matter-of-fact. “Now we go on. I want more than an afternoon, Laura. Stay with me tonight.”
She tried to think, tried not to let the determination she felt in him make the decision for her. “What about Amelia?” she murmured.
“What about her? This is just between you and me.”
But it isn’t. You know it isn’t. His thumbs were rubbing back and forth across her cheekbones, and Laura wanted to tell him to stop because it wasn’t helping her to think straight.
“Laura?”
She shook her head finally, hoping he’d just accept that. But when his eyes narrowed, she knew it wouldn’t be so easy. Reluctant, she said, “I’m not trying to be coy or anything like that. It’s just … I wouldn’t feel comfortable spending the night with you here in this house.”
“Because of Amelia?”
“Her—and the others. This is your family home.” She shrugged, helpless to explain her feelings any clearer than that.
Daniel looked down at her for a moment, then nodded slowly. “All right. I’ll respect your feelings—for now. But we both know that this between us can’t be denied, don’t we, Laura? We both know it’s just beginning.”
“Yes,” she said, and wondered if he knew that she found the promise of that as terrifying as it was exhilarating.
Chapter 10
Amelia didn’t expect you to come back to the house this afternoon, did she?” Laura asked as they walked down the main stairs to the ground floor. From the music room came the quiet and soothing notes of some sonata she recognized vaguely but couldn’t name, and she thought absently that Kerry did indeed spend a great deal of time at her piano.
Daniel stopped at the bottom of the stairs, looking at Laura as she paused on the first tread, and said, “No, probably not. I had a meeting canceled; otherwise I would have been in the city until late. Why?” His eyes were unreadable.
“Just wondering.” Her indifference wasn’t convincing, even to her.
But if Daniel wasn’t convinced, he clearly wasn’t curious enough to ask. Instead he took her hand and asked casually, “What were you doing before you went upstairs to explore? Painting?”
“Yes. In the conservatory.”
“Amelia’s portrait?”
“No. I thought I could use a little practice before I started on the portrait.”
“You don’t mind if I see it, do you?”
Since he was already heading for the hallway that led to the conservatory, and bringing her along with him, Laura’s voice was a bit dry when she answered, “No, of course not.”
He glanced at her as they walked down the hall, a genuine smile of amusement warming his face unexpectedly. “Am I being presumptuous? Taking too much for granted?”
Laura didn’t quite know how to answer that. “I don’t know. What are you taking for granted? That you can see my work? It isn’t exactly secret, parked in the conservatory for anybody to see. Josie looked at the painting earlier. Besides, you’ve already seen some of my sketches.”
“And that disturbed you,” he said perceptively.
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “I’m used to having my work seen and criticized; any artist is.”
“Your commercial work, certainly. But you’re very unsure of yourself with this kind of work, aren’t you, Laura?”
“You know I am.” He’d been standing right behind her when she had revealed as much the first day she’d come here. “But if I’m going to be successful outside the field of commercial art …”
He stopped in the doorway of the conservatory and looked down at her. “You’ll have to get used to even more criticism?”
“And probably have to grow a thicker skin.” She smiled. “Art critics aren’t exactly known for their compassion.”
“If a vote of confidence helps, you’ve got mine. I saw real talent in those sketches.” Without giving her time to respond, he kissed her, briefly but not at all casually. When he raised his head, he was smiling. “May I see your painting?”
Laura nodded, wondering if she’d ever be able to refuse him anything. It was a scary question, because she thought she knew the answer. She walked beside Daniel, her hand still in his, and stood beside him when they reached the painting of a place she couldn’t name. The silence seemed to go on too long as he intently looked at it, his thoughts as usual unreadable, and Laura was just about to comment that she didn’t know why she had painted this particular scene, when he spoke.
“Beautiful. You’ve captured the peace and grandeur. But you’ve forgotten the house.”
She looked at him blankly. “The house?”
Daniel nodded and, with his free hand, indicated a lower corner of the painting, an area near the lake. “Here. The house was here.”
“You … know this place? I mean, it’s real?”
“Did you think it wasn’t?” He smiled slightly as he gazed down at her.
“Well, since I thought I painted it from my imagination …” She looked at the painting, frowning.
“You probably saw a pi
cture somewhere,” Daniel said after a moment. “In a magazine, maybe. Things like that stick in our minds sometimes. Does it matter?”
Laura wasn’t sure, but she thought it did. “This place—where is it?”
“Scotland.”
That surprised her. “Have you been there?”
“Yes. As I said, you’ve captured it beautifully. One of my favorite places on earth.” He turned and pulled her gently against him, releasing her hand so that he could put both arms around her. “Definite talent, just as I thought.”
Easily distracted from the painting by the response of her body to his touch, Laura felt her arms slip around his waist and looked up at him a bit helplessly. “Daniel, we shouldn’t—”
He kissed her, his mouth moving on hers with a lazy certainty that swiftly became something more urgent. As quickly as that, as easily as that, he ignited once more the overwhelming emotions and sensations she had felt in the attic. Her longing for him was intense and absolute, pushing everything else out of her consciousness, and if he had pulled her down to the tile floor there at the base of her puzzling painting amidst the flourishing greenery of the conservatory, she would not have uttered a word of protest.
But Daniel lifted his head finally, gazing down at her with eyes that were hot and a taut look in his face. “Christ,” he muttered, and it sounded more like an invocation than a curse. His hands slid down over her bottom, and he held her harder against him.
Laura heard a sensual little sound escape her, but shook her head as she tried to fight the urgency of what she felt—and what she felt in him. “Daniel … we can’t do this. Not here. Not now. Josie’s probably back from her walk and somewhere in the house. Kerry’s still in the music room. Amelia and your mother will be home anytime now. We can’t …”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, his hands still moving slowly on her, caressingly, in the intimate and unmistakable touch of a lover. Then he said, “Just how discreet do you think we can be?”
Laura thought of how rarely she was going to be without Amelia’s company until the portrait was finished, and how even more rarely the house would be empty save her and Daniel, and realized only then how difficult it was going to be for them to spend any time alone together—especially given her reluctance to sleep in his bed. Before she could think of anything to say, Daniel went on in a deliberate tone.
“An occasional night at your apartment? Stolen minutes in the attic from time to time? Meeting out in the gardens somewhere, time and weather permitting? Do you really think that’s going to be enough, Laura? For either of us?”
She drew a breath. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but if Amelia finds out about us, she won’t like it. Will she?”
“Why wouldn’t she?”
“She warned me against you, Daniel. Twice. It seems pretty clear to me that she wanted me to stay away from you, whatever her motives. And don’t pretend you don’t know that she never would have left me here in the house today if she had expected you to come home early.”
“No, I suppose she wouldn’t have.”
“Well, then? It’s obvious she won’t be happy.”
He was still gazing at her, but his eyes took on a distant look for an instant, and when he answered, his voice was thoughtful. “I don’t know. Perhaps she will. The warning to you might have been intended to … draw out the chase, so to speak. To keep us apart as long as possible in order to drive the level of tension high. Higher. She might have thought I’d be more distracted if you were kept away from me, at least for a while.”
Laura felt a little jolt. “Distracted from what?”
Daniel smiled slightly. “From the games we play. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”
“Are they games? Just games?”
“What else could they be?”
“A power struggle,” Laura heard herself say. “A real one.”
Daniel eased back away from her a bit, his hands moving to the less intimate area of her shoulders, as if he had been distracted from passion—or wanted to be. Laura dropped her own hands and linked her fingers together as she studied his face. There was something almost speculative in his expression for an instant, and then he was impassive.
“Is that so surprising? There’s a great deal at stake in the finances of this family, including the future of everyone who lives here.”
“And you feel Amelia would jeopardize that future?”
He seemed to hesitate, then said bluntly, “When I came of age eleven years ago, it was to find that Amelia had very nearly bankrupted the family. Oh, we looked good on paper, but in reality we were a few short years away from selling off property in order to keep up with loans and taxes. She had spent a fortune since my father died, and had little to show for it. Some incredibly expensive jewelry she keeps locked in her safe, mementos from a couple of world cruises she’d taken, ownership of several racehorses that had never won and never would. She’d neglected business or made bad decisions, invested in ridiculous schemes and absurd inventions, and spent money as if it meant nothing. I had no choice but to confront her with the facts.”
Laura had no trouble imagining how tense that little showdown must have been, given Amelia’s pride and obsessive need to control the people and events around her, and she couldn’t help wincing inwardly. “I heard—that is, I read somewhere that Amelia technically controls the family business and finances as long as she lives. How could you get her to give up any control at all to you?”
“David’s will was very specific; he established a kind of everlasting trust to be administered by various family members rather than an outright inheritance that would pass on to a descendant after his death—and out of his control. He wanted Amelia to run things while she lived, with control of the trust passing after her through the male line first: to my father, then myself or Peter, then my son if I should have one. So Amelia was left in control of everything—providing none of David’s descendants could prove during her lifetime that she was a bad custodian, a condition that applies equally to anyone in charge.
“My father wasn’t interested in the family business and didn’t care how she ran things. Until about a month before he died, when something—I don’t know what—made him uneasy enough to begin looking into the family finances. I imagine he found, or would have, the seeds of disaster I found ten years later. I’ll never know. He was killed. Quite a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”
“Or just a tragic accident,” Laura replied steadily.
Daniel nodded. “Or an accident. In any case, I confronted Amelia with plenty of proof she’d been a lousy custodian, and told her she had a choice. Either I took her to court to sue for control, or she’d give me control while remaining at least publicly and tacitly in charge of things.”
“You had to know it’d be a fight from that day on,” Laura said. “She wouldn’t want the public humiliation of a competency hearing, but it must have been equally galling for her to know you were actually in control of the family business and finances.”
“Which brings us back to the games Amelia and I play,” he said. “She still has the legal authority to make decisions, since I haven’t challenged that publicly, and for eleven years she’s been testing the boundaries, pushing and pushing to see how far I’ll let her go. Little things, mostly, small battles of authority. Relatively unimportant decisions overruled by her. Posturing at board meetings. Deliberately acting against my wishes in minor matters. And running things here in the house with an iron hand, of course, imposing her will and her tastes and preferences on the entire family.”
“What about the rest of the family? Do they know how things really stand?”
“Alex does. Josie’s probably guessed. As for the others, no. They assume I’m actively in charge because Amelia’s getting older, but that I’m more or less following her wishes, not that I hold the actual power. It’s a pretense Amelia very carefully keeps alive, though more outside this house than in. Mother and Kerry aren’t interested, and Anne never
sees beyond her own problems, so Amelia doesn’t fight me much here. Or I don’t fight her.”
“Did Peter know?”
With detachment, Daniel said, “He found out when he tried to wheedle a European sports car out of Amelia when he turned twenty.”
“Did he … try to get the car out of you after that?”
“No. He knew better. I expected him to live within his very generous allowance, something I made clear to him.”
Trying to sort through all this, Laura said slowly, “Since you suspect Amelia had something to do with her husband’s death, and your father’s, aren’t you concerned that she might try to get you out of the way?”
“I told you I didn’t really believe she killed David,” Daniel reminded her.
“Yes. And I didn’t believe you.”
Surprising her, he smiled.
“All right. Then let’s just say that I believe in being cautious, at least up to a point. Amelia knows very well that I have a large envelope kept safely by the lawyers, to be opened in the event of my death—natural or otherwise. Nothing in David’s trust says a descendant has to be alive when proving Amelia a bad custodian, and she knows it.”
Laura felt a cold hand slide up her spine at even the possibility of Daniel’s death, and the strength of the feeling shook her. Trying to push that aside, she asked distractedly, “What would happen in that case?”
“You mean, if I died childless, who would take over? Anne would be David’s only living descendant. Control of the trust would change over to the female line. If Anne didn’t want the job of managing things—and she wouldn’t—then business decisions and family finances would be handled by a team of financial advisors and the family lawyers for the duration. That would continue unless and until Anne had a child to come of age and take over authority. If she dies childless, the trust is broken and Alex inherits everything outright.”
