by Treva Harte
Wouldn't she?
She hadn't moved yet. Where were her tears or outrage? She stood absolutely still, her face blank.
Her reaction to him was as odd as his had been to her. Could she feel as off balance as he did? He ought to be grateful that, for whatever reason, she hadn't slapped his face when he'd blurted out his proposition.
Her eyelids fluttered as she absorbed what he said. That pretty pale skin of hers grew even whiter. For a moment he thought she might faint.
He should have known better. Fool. Dolt.
Oh, God. Had he wanted to put her off? He wanted her so badly he was terrified. Terrified enough to drive her away? He didn't enjoy wanting women desperately. The last time he'd been fool enough to do so, he'd been under twenty and he'd married the woman. That escapade should have cured him for the rest of his life.
Lilli put her hand to her mouth.
Maybe she wouldn't slap him. Maybe she'd immediately agree to his terms, no matter how badly he'd phrased them. He'd had both happen to him when he propositioned women before—admittedly more often the second than the first. Women usually wanted him. He didn't care if it was for his money or his cock, so long as he got what he wanted. Except for Lilli. He wanted her to burn for him the way he did for her. He wanted—he didn't know what he wanted. Yes, he did. He wanted everything.
Slowly, life came back into her face. Her shock must be over. He braced himself.
Lilli Dayton looked him over, from head to toe, her lip caught hard between her teeth. He loved her thoughtful stare, as if she were deciding just whether or not he was up to her standards. His cock actually throbbed with anticipation. How long had it been since any woman had been able to do that with just a look?
Oh, Mrs. Dayton, I'm up to anything you can imagine.
“Yes.”
“Yes?” He clutched the back of his chair even tighter, not sure if he was ready to laugh with triumph or run in terror.
He saw her in his mind, spread out on his desk, her legs curling tightly around his hips, urging him in. He visualized the flush rising up on her face as she came closer to satisfaction. She'd want to scream, try to swallow it. He wouldn't let her stifle her cries. He'd—
“Yes, I'll accept the job you advertised for.” Lilli looked at him again, her gaze assessing his face, his body—ending with a look at the desk that was concealing his erection. “I'll consider the other and let you know what I decide. In due course.”
She turned, picked up her valise, and left without any more ceremony.
He laughed, a little more breathlessly than he'd like. Then he adjusted his pants. For those words alone he'd be willing to wait, to let her take the next step. Whatever she decided would fascinate him.
How long was “in due course”? She'd best make his wait worthwhile.
Lilli stumbled over the carpet on the stairs going down and clutched the railing tightly. What had she done? She had to get out. With a huge effort, she pushed the door open.
The dimness and quiet of the man's office made a sharp contrast to the bright sunlight outside and the clamor of the street. Lilli leaned back against the outer wall of the building, trying not to gasp. The trolley noisily clattered down the street with people jammed inside.
This wasn't the New York she remembered, though it was still noisy and crowded and much too hot in the summer. But the skyscrapers were gone. The people were dressed oddly, even for the City. She blinked, trying to orient herself, trying to understand.
“Hey, lady! You OK?” A young newspaper boy stopped a safe distance from her, looking as if he might help—if she paid for a newspaper.
“Yes. I just had a bit too much heat.” The boy shrugged and walked away, hawking his news. Lilli giggled, a little hysterically. Too much heat indeed. Much too much.
Her fantasy man had just offered to fuck her.
He'd put it a bit more politely than that, but no one could mistake his intentions. From the moment she'd found herself in his office, confused and shaken, he'd looked her over like she was a particularly yummy dessert he could hardly wait to devour.
She'd been dazed. Just like all the times in the mirror, she had no clear picture of his appearance. She couldn't recall his face, dizzy and confused as she felt. All she could remember was the sense of power that came from him.
She'd been fantasizing about him for a month now, half-ashamed of what she'd conjured up. In her mirror he'd been…loving. When Mason was absorbed in his work, when he'd snapped at her efforts to make conversation, she'd retreated to the bedroom to dream about someone and something different. She hadn't seen him clearly but from the mirror he smiled into her eyes as if they shared a joke together. She'd seen them walk down the street, her arm tucked into his, her head brushing against one of his broad shoulders. She even half-remembered the interview he'd talked about—their first interview—where he'd stared hotly at her but remained at a distance. She'd felt protected with her mirrored dream man.
But in person, he wanted to fuck her. He was willing to pay top dollar to do it, too. That's what he thought of her.
Additional duties, my ass!
“I'm out of my mind.”
How had she gotten here? She'd fallen asleep in the inn's bed. Lilli had no idea what had happened afterwards. Waves had lapped peacefully at first outside her window and then a huge, crashing surf seemed to catch her up and toss her about. She retained dim memories of whirling through space and shrieks ripping from her throat.
Her first clear memory afterwards was standing in front of Harry Nelson with his eyes focused intently on her.
Everything else might be blurry, but his intensity was clear and strong.
“What do I mean in person? He's not real. He's not real and I'm not really here at all,” Lilli whispered out loud. “That's the only possible explanation.”
First she'd imagined Mason, then Harry. Soon this dream would be over and she'd come to her senses again.
* * * * *
“I told you not to go play tennis with David Bradshawe unless I came along to supervise. Your father doesn't trust him.”
“Father isn't here to say anything. He never comes to our summer house. He never will. If you write and tell him, you'll just look weak and unable to manage me. Father has already sacked two of my companions this year for that very reason, so I'm not terribly concerned.” Anabelle pulled her straw hat off and skimmed it lightly across the room to land on the ornate credenza against the wall.
Lilli counted to ten. In French. Backwards. Anabelle had her doing that a lot lately and she'd only recently started with her sixteen-year-old charge.
Very recently. Where was she? How did she know this peculiarly dressed teenager's name? Come to think of it, how did she know French? She hadn't studied that since her first years in college!
“I'll discuss this with you later.” Lilli spat the words out through her teeth. Even as she spoke, Lilli knew she sounded like a governess from a bad Victorian novel but…well, she was starting to feel like one.
For a moment the girl in front of her looked faintly uneasy. Then Anabelle laughed. “When I have time. For heaven's sake, it's well past the turn of the century. Stop being so old-fashioned and stuffy, Lilli! I have a right to make some decisions for myself.”
She is supposed to call me Mrs. Dayton.
Lilli stalked up the curved staircase to her own smallish bedroom by the children's rooms. She pulled open the door.
Their introduction had gone less than perfectly. They'd talked for less than a half hour and already the girl was ready to openly defy her.
“No one talks to me like that! Mason would have had the kids' heads if they'd said anything disrespectful to me…” Her words trailed off.
Mason wasn't here. This wasn't their house. She was Anabelle's paid companion and this was her room. The room she'd seen in the mirror. The one where a man who wasn't Mason came to her…
Not thinking about what was going on hadn't worked. The dream hadn't ended. God, what w
as happening to her?
She stared at her new living quarters. A washbasin and pitcher of water stood neatly on the tiny pedestal. She would wash with them every morning. She certainly wouldn't have her own private bath. She was a servant, after all. A well-paid servant, but a servant nonetheless.
The room was tiny, without any pictures or ornaments. She looked down at her bureau. An ornate, handheld mirror sat, gleaming, next to its matching comb and brush. It was a very familiar mirror, though its silvery presence was as out of place on a servant's bureau as it had been in Lilli's own home.
“This is too weird,” Lilli whispered as she stared down.
The faces of her stepchildren filled the mirror. She leaned over, blinking.
“She's disappeared?” Kerry asked. “What does Dad mean, disappeared?”
“Maybe he killed her and hid the body.” Zack shrugged. “You know Dad was getting ready to dump her anyhow. Divorce is so expensive. Especially the third time.”
“Shut up, idiot. There was an accident. She drove into one of those tropical storms that got really bad. They haven't found her.”
“She'll turn up.”
“You sound like you don't care. I mean I always hated her, but I hate all Dad's new wives. I hated your mother, too.”
“Why should I care? I don't hate her or anything, but it's not like she ever cared about me or what I wanted. Whatever Dad wanted, Dad got. She didn't even know I existed when I came to visit. That's all it was—a visit. I never lived with them. I wasn't welcome.”
The two of them were silent.
Then Zack said, “I bet the new girlfriend is even prettier. Younger, too.”
“Of course. Didn't you know? It's Betsy. Not even one of my bridesmaids—she's my bridesmaid's baby sister.” Kerry shrugged, too. “Daddy gets more ridiculous with each one. His wives stay the same age, he just gets older. Now I have to hate someone I used to like. Plus, I'm stuck with her sister in my wedding party.”
Mason? Oh, my God. Lilli's hand moved from the mirror to her mouth. The images disappeared, showing her own reflection looking sickly back at her. She was alone in the room. Alone in her life.
“I won't throw up. I have to think. Think.”
Mason's children had always been polite, if somewhat disinterested around her. She had sensed something behind Kerry's polite façade now and then, but the girl had already been twelve when she married Mason and had rarely visited. Zack had always been busy on the phone or watching TV when he was around. Lilli had no idea…
Yes, you did. You knew. You just didn't want to know. You let Mason handle everything so you didn't have to know.
She looked at her hand again. She wore no jewelry. There wasn't even a tan line from the wedding ring she'd worn for almost two decades. Everything about her real life was gone.
Then again, everything about her real life might have been an illusion anyhow. Or was Mason's betrayal and his family's indifference some bizarre hallucination in her own mind? Lilli took a deep breath. Nothing made sense. Somehow she had to sort things out.
To start, she needed to think carefully about what she knew and didn't know about her present life.
Anabelle had said they were in the turn of the century. Lilli knew what she meant. The twentieth century, not the twenty-first. A part of her was stunned by the knowledge. The other part was at home. She knew this world just as well as she did the other.
How had she gotten here and how long had she been in this place? Perhaps she'd hit her head during the storm. That made sense. Or she was dreaming. That could be it. She certainly hadn't disappeared. Her own family had sounded like they thought she was—well, she was very much alive. So what they had been saying must have been wrong. None of what was happening right now could be true.
Then what was? Lilli held her head.
Anabelle's laugh came clearly from outside. Lilli stared out the half-opened window. The girl was talking to a young man on a bicycle. David Bradshawe. Anabelle looked up at the window, saw her new hired companion, and laughed again.
Dream or not, Lilli's emotions were all real. She was ready to go downstairs and kill Anabelle and David Bradshawe both. At any rate, she wanted to kill someone. If Mason wasn't around to atone for what he had or hadn't done, she had no qualms about others paying for his misdeeds.
“Little bitch. She's sure I won't do anything.”
Lilli knew she was angrier than she should be over a girl who had more defiance than sense. It didn't matter. Anabelle was going to regret her attitude. Maybe she had no control over Mason, wherever he was, but she knew how to deal with saucy chits who thought Lilli was too weak to do her job.
“We'll see about that. She doesn't know her father. Or me. Little Miss Anabelle has no idea what she has started.”
She'd show Anabelle she could win the war before the little brat had begun to battle. Anabelle had no idea how close an ally her father could become to her new companion.
She was going to do something, by God. Nineteen fucking years of worrying whether she looked right for the man, if she was smart enough, sexy enough… Wherever she was, whatever she was, she was in charge now. Things were going to change.
Even more than they already had.
* * * * *
Harry Nelson looked down at the telegram in his hand. Lord God, was his hand shaking over her summons?
“Bad news, sir?” Thomas, his secretary, asked.
“No. Not particularly. It's from my daughter's governess.” Calm. He needed to stay calm.
“Governess? But your daughter must be seventeen or so.”
“Chaperone then. Someone I hired to watch over the girl at any rate.” He frowned down at the paper. Her answer had been so—right. Nonsense. She wasn't perfect. Something must be wrong with her. “Her name is Lilli Dayton. Frivolous name.”
“Sounds like an actress. I never heard you having any objections to actresses, er—sir.” Thomas almost audibly gulped when his employer looked up at him. “Sorry.”
“This isn't one of my mistresses. She's my daughter's chaperone.” Harry was sure he'd kept his voice neutral, but Thomas hastily turned to the letters he was getting ready to dispatch.
“Absolutely, sir.”
“Get me a ticket for the train this afternoon. I'm going to Westwood.”
“Sir? I thought you said you didn't have bad news. Why do you need to leave the City and see your daughter?”
He ought not to rush. She'd think he'd run to her whenever she whistled. He'd set a bad precedent. He'd—oh, to hell with how he'd look.
Come to think of it, she hadn't said yes.
“I don't have bad news. I'm not going to see my daughter, either. Not particularly. Get me a ticket with a return after you've finished with the mail.” Harry left the office abruptly.
Thomas stared after his employer. Cautiously he stood up and went to the desk. The telegram lay, face up, on the flat surface. After looking over his shoulder and making sure no one was near, Thomas peered at the message.
PLEASE COME. LD
* * * * *
The girls sounded like birds in the parlor, chirping high and shrill. Lilli pinched her nose, fighting a yawn. She'd been sixteen once, laughing with friends. But had she ever sounded so inane? How did girls manage to live to seventeen?
“Did you see the color she wore to the lawn party? Hideous!”
“I suppose because Susannah wore something pink she thought she could, too.”
The titters began again. Lilli caught David Bradshawe's eye. She'd sat next to the young man deliberately, cutting him off from his covey of females. Perhaps she'd done him a favor. He grinned at her—a real smile, not the flirtatious ones he usually gave the girls around him. For a moment she almost grinned back. What must it be like to be the lone male surrounded by white linen dresses and soft organdy ruffles? She almost felt sorry for him.
Lilli reminded herself he was a wolf among innocent little sheep and she was paid to guard the flock.
“When you aren't summering here, what do you do with yourself, David?” She addressed him by his first name deliberately, emphasizing his youth and lack of social status. She'd heard he was a second or third son—good for nothing but giving tennis and flirtation lessons to girls who knew no better.
He looked uncertain. She was sure his hesitancy was an act for her benefit or for anyone else who might be listening, especially when he gave her a quick, too-practiced response.
“Very little, Mrs. Dayton. I've left Princeton. I'm afraid university life was not meant for me. I suppose I'll have to seek my fortune.”
A fortune-seeker, indeed.
“Mrs. Dayton? Mrs. Dayton?” The butler walked toward her. “Please come. You're wanted in the study.”
* * * * *
“Good afternoon, ma'am. You wanted me?” He was a big man. Tall, broad-shouldered, deep-voiced…someone you noticed when he arrived. Lilli couldn't help the way her breath caught when she first saw him. Need pooled directly to her pussy. The man just had that effect. Energy of all kinds leaped around him when he walked. He looked like someone who should be a tycoon, someone who ordered the world to his liking. Then again, he was.
Right now Harry Nelson sounded faintly amused.
“I didn't say I wanted you. I considered your offer, just as I said I would, and I accept. I thought you'd want to hear the news in person.” Lilli tilted her head back to look into his face.
He wasn't handsome. His face was too rugged. Powerful, yes. Perhaps even charismatic. No, he wasn't handsome, but he was compelling. She suspected his gray eyes could mesmerize you if he wanted. Right now his eyelids drooped lazily, almost concealing his sharp gaze. She wasn't fooled.
She might have met him only once in person, but she'd seen him often enough in her mirror. She knew what he wanted. She knew what lengths he would go to get what he wanted.
If the mirror didn't lie, she knew he would get what he wanted from her. Fortunately, it was what they both desired. She touched the tip of her tongue to the roof of her mouth. The fantasies she'd tried to suppress before were very clear in her mind.
