Brenda Joyce - [Francesca Cahill 06]

by Deadly Promise

  He looked up at her, agonized. “When I think of how I have treated her . . . “ He could not continue.

  “Don’t,” she said thickly. “Don’t go back to that dark, ugly place. The present is what matters. She needs you and you are here.”

  “She was here for over twenty-four hours, hurt and alone,” he whispered roughly. “I thought she had left me, Francesca. I thought she had left me and the girls.”

  She pulled him close again. “But she didn’t. She didn’t leave you because she loves you. Let go of the past, it’s over now, Rick. Please.” And realizing the many layers of meaning in her words, she felt tears rise in her own eyes as their gazes met again. He also understood, she realized. Maybe she had to let him go, too. Maybe he had to let her go. But could she, really? Could he? He might love Leigh Anne, but nothing would ever sever the odd bond that remained between them.

  He reached out and tucked hair behind her ear, his hand unsteady. “I need you so, Francesca. I really do. Maybe I always will.” He held her gently now.

  “And I’m here.” She hesitated, swallowed. “That’s what friends are for.” Her smile felt tenuous then. “Leigh Anne will be there for you, too, if you let her.”

  She saw his nose redden and he glanced at his wife, in real despair. She stroked his shoulders, his back, studying his perfect profile. Endings were here, but so were beginnings, if they both had the courage to go forward without looking back.

  “Francesca.” He turned to her and took her shoulders in his hands. And somehow, they moved into each other’s embrace, cheek to cheek, breast to chest. And briefly, he held her hard.

  Then he stepped back, but he cupped her face in his hands. “You are an amazing woman, the most selfless, kind, and compassionate human being I have ever met.” Their gazes locked.

  Fear rose. What if nothing had changed after all? “I am hardly as you make me out to be,” she whispered, her heart beating hard.

  He just stared at her, and murmured, “What am I to do?” And his gaze moved to his wife.

  The question could have meant many things, but Francesca knew it meant one thing and one thing only: how to navigate a journey of the heart, with Francesca one berth, his wife another.

  He pulled Francesca close, stroked her hair, and stepped away from her then. He returned to his wife’s side, taking up her hand, holding it tightly, his knuckles white.

  Then she had an inkling, a bad one, and Francesca turned to look at the door.

  Hart stared coolly back at her.

  How long had he been standing there? Francesca felt quite sure, from his dark expression, that it had been for some time. She tried to smile at him, about to ask him to come in, but he turned and left abruptly, without a word, his strides hard and angry.

  He had misunderstood. He was angry and jealous; of that she had little doubt. Francesca could not cope with him now. She could not run after him and beg him to calm down as she always seemed to do. Leigh Anne was seriously hurt, and Bragg was a wreck—Bragg needed her. She would have to explain to Hart later.

  “Alfred, dismiss everyone,” Hart said, striding through the huge front hall of his home.

  Alfred had greeted him at the door. Now the slim bald butler carefully closed it. “Shall I have Cook prepare and leave you supper, sir?” Worry was reflected in the flickering light in his gray eyes.

  Hart was striding past the life-size nude sculpture of the lovely Lady Brianna. “No. I want everyone out, immediately.”

  Alfred stared after him.

  Hart felt the stare as he bounded up the sweeping gold-carpeted stairs two at a time, ripping off his tie. He did not like Alfred’s obvious concern; once upon a time, his butler hadn’t given a damn, and he preferred it that way. But those times had changed, hadn’t they? And he knew damn well who had changed them. His clever and pretty little fiancee.

  Francesca affected everyone whose life she entered, clearly, even his butler. Well, he didn’t like seeing worry in Alfred’s eyes. He wanted to see nothing in his eyes. He did not want a reaction when he gave an order. He wanted to be obeyed, instantly—he expected that and nothing more.

  Images of Francesca and Bragg in each other’s arms danced in his mind.

  The wing of rooms that comprised the master suite was on the second floor. He strode violently down the hall, finally giving in to his blackest rage. His jealousy was blinding then. It was as if he could not stand it; the memory haunting him was beneath his skin, in his blood, boiling it, him. If he could peel off his own skin and the memory with it, he gladly would. But he could not, now could he?

  There had been so much love in her eyes.

  He didn’t care.

  “Fuck it.” It was hard to breathe. He slammed into a salon with dark green walls and high ceilings trimmed in gold, through another private salon, his private den, and finally the master suite itself. The room was triple the size of every other bedroom in the house. The walls were upholstered in dark red paisley flecked with amber, brown, and gold, and two fireplaces were on its opposite sides, the marble mantels orange flecked with gold. Three lavish seating areas invited one to recline and relax, one by the bar, one by the wall of books, one in front of the far hearth. A massive bed that had once been in a duke’s state bedroom was in the bedroom’s center on a raised dais. This room had been intended to be the master of the house’s ultimate sanctuary by the house’s architect. In fact, Hart never used it except to sleep and dress. Until recently, that is.

  Now he poured himself a stiff drink and walked over to the first fireplace, a new habit of his.

  Above it, he had hung a portrait of a lady who looked terribly like Francesca. He had found the portrait several weeks ago in a small barely reputable gallery downtown when Francesca was out of town. The artist was Russian, the model French; it had been painted twenty years ago in Paris. He knew it wasn’t Francesca, but he had fallen in love with the painting the moment he had seen it, and even as angry as he had been at her disappearance, he had purchased it on the spot, with no negotiation, and had hung it there on the wall, facing his royal bed.

  He stared up at it now, simply furious.

  Instead of the Frenchwoman in her corset and petticoats, he saw Francesca in Rick Bragg’s arms, her face soft with caring, compassion, love.

  He cried out, throwing the glass of scotch at the mantel, where it shattered.

  Hart paced. He had to face it, didn’t he? Francesca remained in love with Rick. She would always love him, because she was as stubborn as a woman could be—it was one of the things he found so endearing about her. She simply never gave up.

  But when it came to his half brother it wasn’t endearing; it was provoking, annoying, infuriating . . . enraging.

  He reminded himself that for a woman in love with another man, she was terribly hot and passionate in his, Hart’s, arms.

  He was a man of the world. In this one way, she was no different from most men and women. Choosing the socially appropriate spouse—while choosing the sexually appropriate lover. She might have once wished to marry Bragg, but it was he, Hart, whom she wished to bed.

  He slumped down on a ruby-red sofa. His head pounded now, the force terrible, painful, and the illicit images remained, of his worst rival and the woman he planned to wed.

  He wrenched around to stare up at his new portrait. New images of Francesca danced in his head, replacing the seductive model, in that stunning red dress, her hair coming down, her eyes dewy and soft from his kisses. She was everything that was fine and good in this ugly, sordid theater called life. She was like the sun, warming everything she gazed upon—warming him. He had smiled more in the past two months since first meeting her than he had in his entire life. He knew they would be good for each other; he’d never doubted that their marriage would be an interesting one in every possible way.

  He had been looking forward to it. He, Calder Hart, the most heartless of sworn bachelors, had been anticipating his marriage to Francesca Cahill, crime-solver extraordinaire
.

  Another image intruded, Francesca and Bragg in each other’s arms, but instead of there being anguish, there were warm smiles. How many times had he seen them share an exclusive look? How many times had he watched them, instantly becoming the intruder, an outsider? But goddamn it, he was her fiancé it was Bragg who was the outsider now! And he closed his eyes, hard.

  He was an extremely smart man. He was not a man who made excuses, who conveniently fooled himself. He was the outsider, not Bragg, and it would always be that way, even after their marriage, because it had been that way his entire life. He had never once measured up to his older brother, and he never would be accepted by anyone, not even Francesca, in Bragg’s place.

  He opened his eyes, stared at the portrait, and cursed himself for being a fool.

  He had to face the terrible truth. Leigh Anne was at death’s door.

  If everyone else wanted to be optimistic, let them be. He had spoken to Rourke and then Barnes before stopping by her room, and he knew the truth. She was by no means out of the woods, and they were sugar-coating just how seriously ill she was. She had suffered major surgery on her leg, had lost a tremendous amount of blood, and was now fighting an infection. She was currently stable; at any time she might go into shock, a coma; tomorrow she could even take such a turn for the worse that she would die.

  He stood, inhaling sharply, temples throbbing. Leigh Anne might die. Dr. Barnes had refused to give him odds. Rourke had thought it about fifty-fifty. Who was he fooling? Francesca might want to be in his bed, between his legs, but the moment Leigh Anne was dead, she would be back in Rick’s arms, and it would be his bed that she was warming.

  If Leigh Anne died, Francesca and Rick would be free to marry after all.

  And instead of a familiar and welcome rage, there came the first stirrings of panic. Hart did not know the feeling— and he did not want to know it. Firmly he told himself that he didn’t care—and it was a monstrous lie. He did care, very much; he could not bear Francesca leaving him for his goddamned half brother. He could not bear losing her, not now. She had become as important to him as the air he breathed, as the sunlight on his face.

  Hart looked up at his intricate ceiling. Not very long ago he had laughed at men who were smitten with a woman, who wanted to marry, who cared. Caring had changed him, and sometimes he liked the changes; now he hated them. The vulnerable, frightened, and needy orphan he had been as a child had been deeply buried a long time ago. A powerful, indifferent, and selfish man had replaced that boy. Now the boy felt perilously close, perilously near. Hart despised the boy.

  He reminded himself that she was far too good for him. That she deserved his noble, civic-minded half brother. She deserved a white picket fence and dinners of state. She deserved the finest things life could offer; she deserved to have all of her dreams come true, every single damned one of them; she deserved true love.

  In that instant, his future paraded itself before his very eyes, a future without the clever and ingenious Francesca Cahill. There would be more women than he cared to have, women whose faces would be forgotten before they had even left his bed; there would be business to conclude, deals and negotiations, new companies to form, build, steal, acquire. When he was sixty, he’d have a twenty-year-old mistress and more money than any man had a right to. He’d have a dozen fine homes scattered about the globe and a collection of art worthy of a European museum. And dear God, he’d have his portrait of Francesca, too, wouldn’t he? Her good-bye gift to him.

  He walked over to the mirror above the bar and smiled grimly at himself. And his blackest self reared up, taunting and insistent. He closed his eyes, bracing himself against the devil.

  You don’t have to give her up. But you already know that, don’t you?

  Hart fought against the ugly voice inside of his head.

  So what if Leigh Anne dies? Take what Francesca has been offering, seduce her—ruin her—and she will have to marry you.

  He opened his eyes and stared at himself in the mirror. And he saw the man who didn’t just move mountains; he saw the man who commanded a mountain to come, and it came. It was the reason he had built a fortune from pennies; he simply did not know how to lose or give up.

  But Francesca had the kindest and most selfless heart of anyone he knew. She deserved more than passion and friendship; she deserved love. And that he could not give to her.

  She deserved Rick Bragg. And to make matters worse, he truly knew it.

  Seduce her. Seduce her tonight. Make sure you are caught in the act—or close to it. You won’t have to wait a year, my friend, and once her father knows you have compromised her, nothing will prevent your getting what you want. Nothing will come between you and Francesca, not even that bastard brother of yours, not even Rick.

  He stared at himself in the mirror.

  Then he thought he heard a knock on the bedroom door. But that was impossible, wasn’t it? He walked across the huge bedroom and opened it.

  Alfred smiled grimly. “Sir, Miss Cahill is downstairs. She has asked to see you. What shall I tell her?”

  He stiffened. Seduce her. Here is your chance. He wet his lips and heard himself say, “Send her away. Tell her anything that you wish.”

  Alfred hesitated.

  Hart was livid. “Do it, Alfred, do it now.”

  “Yes, sir. And before I go, is there anything I can—”

  “No.” Hart shut the door rudely in his face, then leaned against it, sweating.

  Fool. You had the perfect chance.

  Hart quickly recrossed the room, as if he could really and truly outdistance the evil voice in his head. He poured another scotch and downed it in a single gulp.

  He poured another scotch, calming now, this time sipping it. The liquor was doing what he wanted it to do; it was silencing the worst side of him.

  “Calder?”

  He whirled—and gazed at Francesca Cahill, smiling tentatively at him, standing on the threshold of his bedroom.

  And here is golden opportunity, knocking at your door. He laughed.

  Hart trembled. “Francesca, you should not be here. Not now, not tonight.”

  She smiled at him. “I’m not leaving,” she said.

  CHAPTER

  SIXTEEN

  SUNDAY, MARCH 30, 1902—7:00 P.M.

  “YOU ARE VERY BOLD.”

  Francesca smiled firmly. “Yes, I am.” She couldn’t help glancing around, trying not to appear awestruck by his palatial bedroom. She refused to stare at the bed—not that she hadn’t seen it the moment she’d stepped into the room or, rather, the moment after she’d seen Hart. As she had imagined, it was huge.

  “I’m giving you one more chance to leave,” Hart murmured.

  Francesca started—his tone was soft and sexy, seductive. She had come to explain about that afternoon at the hospital, and she had been expecting jealousy and anger, not this. She took a breath. “We need to speak.”

  His brows lifted, his expression sardonic. “In my private rooms?”

  “One day these will be my rooms, too, won’t they?” she said, her heart racing at the notion. She gave up. She turned to stare at the bed. “I’m afraid to ask. Have kings slept there?”

  “And princes and dukes—and undoubtedly their lovers, too.”

  Her gaze flew to his. He wasn’t smiling. He was staring. “Calder. Are you all right?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be all right?” he returned smoothly.

  A vast space separated them—the distance of two or three bedrooms. His behavior seemed—and felt—odd. It was almost as if he were playing a game—carefully, deliberately. Francesca approached, thinking about being at the hospital, about comforting Rick—and Hart having seen. “You’re not angry with me?” she asked, realizing that her tone was unsteady. It was impossible, in spite of the room’s dimensions, not to be acutely aware of being alone with Calder Hart in his bedroom. Now, as she came closer, she saw how disheveled he was. His dress shirt was unbuttoned well past his chest, reveali
ng an interesting slab of muscle and some equally interesting black chest hair. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbows. His forearms were also dusted with hair, and sculpted with tendon, bone, and muscle. But then, she knew exactly how strong he was.

  “Why would I be angry with you?” Hart drawled softly.

  She halted, meeting his gaze. It was impossible to look away. She wet her lips. “I wanted to explain—but I see I don’t have to.”

  He turned and walked away. Francesca watched him go to a bar built into the wall. As he poured two drinks, she saw his carefully neutral expression in the mirror above the countertop. His being so mild of manner and temperament was very odd. It wasn’t right. She was vaguely alarmed.

  But it was delicious, being alone with him in his bedroom. She smiled a little then, turning to really look around. She gazed upon a dozen museum-quality rugs, antique tables, exquisitely upholstered chairs, tufted ottomans, exotic mirrors. There were four sofas in the three different seating areas. She saw a large cast-iron box that appeared distinctly Spanish on one small table. A round red lacquer Chinese box was beside a different table. As she studied the room’s contents, she knew exactly which items Hart had chosen and which had been purchased by his decorator. She smiled, pleased with herself.

  When he spoke, she felt his breath teasing her nape. “I think you could use a drink.”

  She turned and he stood so close, staring at her with such watchful eyes, that her skirts brushed his thighs. She stepped back, accepting the drink. Why was he regarding her that way? As if she were a mouse in a laboratory experiment? “Thank you, Calder. Not for the drink. For not being in a jealous rage. I must admit, I am terribly surprised—and very relieved.”

  He said nothing, saluting her with his glass.

  She had an idea that he was also thinking about their being alone in his bedroom, so she sipped quickly. As the incredibly smooth scotch floated over her tongue, she smiled. “My, this is good.”