by Kay Hooper
“Laura, what does it matter if we sleep together all night in that room? Who does it concern except us?”
She told herself that she gave in simply because she was still weary from the night before and lacked the energy to fight him. But the truth was that she knew she wouldn’t be able to leave him that way again, slipping from his arms and his bed in the darkness before dawn as if what they had done there were wrong.
And it turned out she wasn’t nearly as weary as she had thought.…
IT WAS A little after midnight when Laura woke to the peaceful quiet of Daniel’s firelit bedroom. He was still sleeping deeply, on his stomach beside her with an arm flung across her middle and his face nuzzled in her hair. Laura couldn’t figure out why she was awake. Considering the past few hours, she was surprised she wasn’t blissfully unconscious.
She stretched a bit, cautious, and felt her muscles quiver a protest at being asked to do anything but just be. They certainly wanted her to snuggle closer to Daniel and go back to sleep. Her mind, however, was wide awake and busy sifting through the events of the day.
Sighing at her own perversity, Laura slid out from under Daniel’s arm, careful not to wake him, and slipped from the bed. She found his shirt and put it on, then wandered across the room to the window that looked out on the gardens and the maze.
It was calm out there, the scattered lights showing hardwood trees beginning to go bare-limbed after the recent storms had snatched at their fading leaves, and still shrubbery, and empty benches. The maze was alight, but softly tonight without a storm’s harsh attention. It was probably chilly but not cold, a moonless night that was motionless and calm.
So why did Laura feel so uneasy? Because there were things Daniel refused to talk to her about? Because Anne had too suddenly laid bare too many of the family secrets? Because it was becoming more and more apparent that Peter had been worse than the family black sheep, and because his young widow was a smiling enigma? Because Amelia had been different tonight, changed in some way Laura sensed and saw yet could not define?
Because she was helplessly in love with Daniel Kilbourne and knew with stark certainty that she would never survive it if he didn’t love her too …?
In the stillness below, a hint of movement caught Laura’s eye, and she turned her head a little to watch a cloaked figure leave the conservatory and slip out into the gardens. Even farther away now than she had been when she had seen the same thing from her own window, Laura frowned and tried to decide who was going out for a postmidnight walk. In the enveloping cloak, it could have been anyone.
“Laura? Sweetheart, come back to bed.”
She started to tell him about it, but decided that enough secrets had been exposed for one day; let whoever it was enjoy their nighttime ramble in peace. Turning away from the window, Laura returned to Daniel’s bed.
KERRY REACHED THE center of the maze quickly tonight. It was a brisk walk of considerable distance, but she wasn’t the least bit out of breath when she reached the gazebo. She went inside and for a moment stood looking around at the inviting interior that she had created so painstakingly here. It was her haven. The simple furniture with its soft cushions, the filmy curtains ready to veil the world outside, fresh flowers in delicate vases. Simplicity.
Everything here was simple. Uncomplicated. Just as it appeared to be. Her escape into clarity.
She absently plumped up a pillow or two, then sat down abruptly on the foot of the chaise, her cloak swirling around her, and stared at nothing.
It was barely ten minutes later when a footstep drew her attention, and she looked up as Brent Landry came through the doorway of the gazebo. He stood there, the gray eyes fixed on her face holding an expression of entreaty, his own handsome face a little pale. There was a long silence, and when he finally spoke, his voice was husky.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Kerry didn’t reply, just sat there looking at him for another long moment of silence. Then, in one movement, she rose and went into his arms.
Chapter 14
If you had called me Mrs. Kilbourne one more time,” she murmured, “I think I would have screamed.”
They were lying close together on the chaise, their clothing scattered and only her cloak protecting them from the chill of the night. But it was enough.
Brent tightened his arms around her. “I didn’t want to do that. You understand, don’t you? Why I had to?”
She was silent a moment, her breath warm against his neck, then said, “I understand that your job is to find out who killed Peter. And I understand that you had questions you needed to ask me. And I think … I even understand why you faced me with those questions the way you did. Because you knew I’d have to answer in that house, with all of them watching and waiting. You knew I couldn’t get away.”
He sighed roughly. “We’ve been lovers for nearly a year, Kerry. And in all that time, how much have you told me of your marriage? How much have you told me of anything that mattered in your life, anything that mattered to you? Nothing. You slip into my arms like a ghost, something I can hold more in my imagination than in reality. An hour maybe, and then you’re gone again, and all I have is the memory.”
“I don’t want to talk when I’m with you,” she said a little wistfully. “I just want to feel. Is that so wrong?”
“What’s wrong is that you won’t let me in, won’t let me get close to you. Won’t let me love you.”
Brent was still amazed by this, by the power of it and by the way it had all begun so suddenly. Seeing her at Amelia Kilbourne’s annual New Year’s bash, a huge and glittering affair to which only friends and VIPs were invited, he had been surprised more by her fawnlike shyness than by the scars almost hidden by excellent makeup. She had been Peter’s wife for more than two years then, but never accompanied him in public, and since Brent had missed the last few of Amelia’s New Year’s parties, it was the first time he had met her.
Even now he couldn’t explain what had happened. All he knew was that he had discovered her later, virtually hiding in the conservatory far from the rest of the party, almost numb with unhappiness. He had touched her face quite without meaning to, the scarred left side because it was his right hand that had reached out to her and because all her pain had been there and he had wanted to ease that. She had looked at him with huge eyes, her bottom lip quivering, and then she had come silently into his arms.
It had been a strange, frantic coupling, accomplished standing in a dark corner behind a bristly green plant thrusting its leaves in their way. Her skirt hiked up, his pants unzipped, both of them panting and straining and left so weak afterward that they clung together for a good ten minutes before they could let go of each other. And still no words, no plans, no promises. Her clothing put right, Kerry had slipped back into the house silently, and he had let her go because he’d had no idea how to stop her.
She had called him a week later, saying that she was going to be in the city that day, and asked hesitantly to see him. He had suggested his apartment. And it was like the first time, hurried and desperate and starving. She had been astonishingly awkward and inexperienced, especially for a woman married two years to Peter Kilbourne, but so sexually open and giving, so eager, that she almost broke his heart.
As she was dressing to leave that day, she had asked him if they could go on meeting. Tentative and vulnerable, she touched something in Brent that had never been touched before. Though his nature was to question and probe, he asked Kerry nothing at all. He just said yes.
They met weekly at his apartment for a while, but it was an ordeal for her to come into the city, and so when it was warm enough, she suggested they meet at the center of the Kilbourne maze. It was easy enough for her to get a copy of the gardener’s key so that Brent could let himself in the back gate, and she obviously felt that the security codes were safe with a police officer. As for secrecy, the maze could hardly be seen at all from the house except from a window or two; only the roof of the gazebo could
be seen. And there was virtually no chance of discovery, since they always met late at night.
As the months passed, Brent had learned some things about Kerry even without asking questions. That she was innately sensual, her skin so sensitive that the lightest touch aroused her. That she was very intelligent as well as observant, with a fine appreciation of irony. That while she was shy, she was also self-possessed, and articulate on those rare occasions he’d been able to persuade her to talk. That she was starved for affection. That she believed she was ugly.
He had, late one night after losing himself in her and realizing starkly that he never wanted to be found again, asked her to leave Peter and marry him. She had been surprised, then oddly, sadly, amused.
“Oh, Brent, I could never saddle you with an ugly woman.”
“What?”
In that same gentle tone, she said, “I know what I am. Too thin and too pale and too plain, and scarred into the bargain. One morning you’d wake up to me beside you, and you’d realize what a mistake you had made.”
“You’re wrong,” was all he could think of to say in his shock, wondering if Peter had carved those cruel words into her soul, if his rejection was the cause of Kerry’s pain.
“No, I don’t think so. I look into mirrors. I see what’s there.”
And no matter what he had said after that, no matter how honestly he had told her she was beautiful and sexy, Kerry would only smile and shake her head. She accepted that he desired her, unsurprised by his hunger because she shared it and no doubt thought it was an appetite that could be satisfied by even plain, imperfect food. But she would not believe she was anything but ugly.
Now his arms tightened around her again, and Brent said, “I’ve never asked because you made it plain you didn’t want to talk about him, but … is it because of Peter that you won’t let me love you? Did he hurt you?”
She pushed herself up on an elbow to look at him, her face still, then said, “If we have to talk about him, I want to get dressed first.”
Brent didn’t ask why, he just said, “Promise you won’t bolt back to the house as soon as you get your shoes back on.”
Kerry smiled slightly. “I promise.”
He wasn’t sure he believed her, but released her anyway, and they both dressed quickly in the chill of the night air. Kerry didn’t sit down on the chair or chaise, but wandered around the interior of the gazebo, touching this and that, avoiding his gaze as she told him, finally, about her marriage to Peter.
“I was nineteen when I first saw him. Still living at home with my father, here in Atlanta. Dad had just met the woman he’d marry a few months later, but he was single then and liked having people around him. Especially young people. Peter had met my brother—through the poker games, though I didn’t know that then—and Lorenzo had invited him to a pool party at our house. After that, he came over often to use the pool, like all Lorenzo’s friends did. Unlike the others, he spent time with me.”
She stopped wandering and looked out into the clearing around the gazebo, her expression reflective. “I suppose Peter didn’t know how not to charm a woman. Or a girl. It came as naturally to him as breathing does to other men. I had been … sheltered I guess is the word. Most of my time was spent with books and my music. I didn’t have any friends. He was the first man to pay attention to me. To flatter me. And he was so beautiful.…”
Brent waited, forcing himself to remain silent.
Kerry’s shoulders lifted in a faint shrug. “Of course, you can guess what happened. I fell in love with him. I wasn’t very good at hiding it. Everyone could see how I felt, especially Peter. And he was … kind. Still flattering me and paying attention, letting me dream. But nobody was more surprised than I was when he asked me to marry him a few weeks later.”
She turned and faced Brent, leaning back against the gazebo’s half wall. There was a little smile on her face. “He said all the right things. And did all the right things. Want to hear how he took my virginity the night before our wedding?”
“Not particularly,” Brent said.
Kerry nodded, unsurprised. “But you want to hear the rest. Okay. He married me. And brought me here to introduce me to his family.”
Surprised, Brent said, “You hadn’t met them?”
“No. It was a whirlwind courtship, remember. And we were married in the office of a justice of the peace just two days after he proposed. There wasn’t time.” She shrugged again. “I’ll say this for the Kilbournes—they tend to be courteous in the face of disaster. They all must have been appalled when Peter brought me home, yet they never showed me anything but kindness.
“I knew that Peter and I were to live here in the house. I didn’t know we’d have separate bedrooms, but in those first few weeks, it didn’t matter. Peter usually slept in my bed. Then, gradually, he slept there less and less. He didn’t offer explanations or excuses, he just went to his own room. By the time we’d been married six months, I—I had to practically beg him to come to my bed.”
Brent gritted his teeth and said nothing.
Kerry’s eyes were distant, focused on the past. “He was always … polite. When I went to him, when I begged him, he always made love to me. Then one morning, after one of those nights when I had begged him to touch me and he had slept in my bed, I woke up and saw him looking at me. He smiled quickly, but … I had seen. What was in his eyes, his face. After that, I never asked him to make love to me again. And he never did.”
“Why the hell didn’t you leave the bastard?” Brent demanded harshly.
She blinked at him, and her hand lifted to rub her left cheek in a brief, telling gesture. “Dad had married and moved to California; I knew my stepmother wouldn’t welcome me back home. My sister was married with a family, and Lorenzo had his life. I was nineteen, untrained for anything. Ugly. All I wanted was a place to hide.” She shrugged jerkily. “This place was as good as any other, and better than most. No one demanded I do anything, go anywhere. I was left in peace with my books and my music. Peter was always polite, even kind once he realized that I didn’t expect him back in my bed and wasn’t going to object to his other women. In time I think he was even grateful to me, because whenever one of his conquests got too demanding, he could always flash his wedding ring and talk about the wife who wouldn’t divorce him.”
“Kerry …”
“My life could have been a lot worse,” she said steadily. “My marriage could have been a lot worse.”
Brent shook his head helplessly. “But, Christ … is that why Peter married you? Because he wanted a wife who’d be willing to stay at home and not give him any trouble?”
She looked at him, and that odd little smile appeared again. “Oh, Brent. Haven’t you realized yet?”
“Realized what?”
“Why Peter married me.” There was a glimmer in her eyes, but the tears didn’t fall. “My father bought him for me.”
After the first moment of shock, Brent began to understand, the pieces falling into place even as Kerry went on steadily.
“Lorenzo had allowed him to run up staggering debts at the club because he was a Kilbourne. He and my father had no idea that Peter couldn’t get his hands on the family money, and Peter kept them in the dark about that as long as possible, charming them and making promises. Like all gamblers, he was convinced his luck would turn. So he kept on playing, and kept on losing.
“By the time my father finally realized there was no way Peter could pay off the debts, I was very obviously in love with him. Dad was involved with his new young girlfriend, and he saw a way to get me off his hands—and get something in return for writing off Peter’s losses. So he told Peter he had a choice. Dad would take the markers to Daniel and Amelia, exposing Peter’s gambling and his debts, or he’d tear up all the markers if Peter would marry me and be kind to me.” Her smile wavered a bit. “Probably the only bargain in his life that Peter kept.”
Brent drew a breath and released it slowly. “When did you find out about
all this?”
“While I was in California. Peter had gone to Lorenzo with some tale of how he had a windfall coming, and Lorenzo let him play at the club, promising to stand good for the money. Until then, the rules had been spelled out clearly; Peter could play only with cash on the table, and when that ran out, he was out of the game. But he somehow managed to charm Lorenzo into letting him play on credit that night. Then the game got out of hand, and Peter ended up losing more than three hundred thousand dollars, just as you discovered. Lorenzo threw him out of the club and told him not to come back until he had the money. But he never expected to see it, so he called Dad to report what had taken place. Dad was so furious that he blurted out to me what had really happened almost four years ago.”
“Which is why you called Peter.”
She nodded jerkily. “I guess I hoped he’d deny it. That he’d say he had married me because he wanted to—even if he had changed his mind later. But he didn’t. He just laughed and said I should be flattered … because my dowry had been markers worth more than half a million dollars.”
“Son of a bitch,” Brent muttered.
After a moment, Kerry said, “I hung up on him. It was the last time we spoke. I don’t know who killed him, Brent, but I know who didn’t. Dad didn’t have anything to do with it, and neither did Lorenzo. As far as they were concerned, the losses were chalked up to bitter experience. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Peter fooled them twice. But they wouldn’t have made me a widow because of it.”
Brent nodded and, absently, said, “I never liked Lorenzo for a knife anyway. A gun’s more his style.”
Kerry smiled slightly. “You had no idea of my background when we got involved, did you?”
“No, I didn’t.” He looked at her, abstraction fading.
“I was never mixed up in any of the illegal things my father and brother did.”
“You don’t have to tell me that.” He crossed to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “Kerry, do you think I don’t know you by now? Do you honestly believe that all these months I met you here just because I had an itch that needed scratching?”
