House of Strangers (Harlequin Super Romance)

by McSparren, Carolyn

  She smiled at Paul as though they’d been talking about the weather. “You’ve heard of the unhappy artist? Well, my husband must certainly have been an artist because he was definitely unhappy.” She looked down at the portrait of her son. “And he made everyone around him miserable, as well.” She looked up and laughed. “Not what you expected to hear, is it? If you want to keep any illusions about my husband’s talent, I suggest you stop poking into his life.”

  “Ann says he studied in Paris.”

  Karen sighed. “Yes. His father couldn’t keep him from being drafted into the army the minute he got out of college, but Conrad had sufficient political clout to keep him out of Vietnam. He was assigned to a small post outside Paris. He refused to come home after he finished his service. He took his pay and moved to Paris to become an artist.” Karen rolled her eyes. “An artist. He knew he had responsibilities at home. Conrad was furious. Refused to send him a dime, but of course Maribelle sent him money every chance she got. He was her precious boy, after all.”

  “If he planned to stay in France, why did he get discouraged and come home?”

  Karen laughed. “Get discouraged? Not David. He’d already had a couple of portrait commissions. He wasn’t part of the Paris avant-garde movement that made paintings out of garbage and sculpture out of empty soup cans. He liked painting people who were recognizable.”

  “I saw that in the sketch of Ann’s father. It was funny, but I never had any doubt who it was. Why did he come home, then?”

  “When his daddy had his heart attack and we all thought he was going to die, Maribelle sent David a first-class ticket. So of course he came. Once he was here, he was trapped. He couldn’t just walk out while his father was sick. There’s only one Delaney heir per generation and he was it.”

  “He didn’t try to go back?”

  “Of course he did. He fought like a tiger, but he knew from the start it was a losing battle. So he gave up, married me and settled down to the job he was bred for.”

  “Maybe you should have let him go,” Ann said quietly.

  Karen took a deep breath. “Maybe we should have. He’d have come home on his own after a while, I’m certain of it. He really wore his life here like a comfortable shoe, even if he tried to pretend he didn’t. I think when Conrad finally persuaded him to stay, David was actually grateful to have the decision taken out of his hands. Ann, you go back and forth to Europe all the time. You know how exhausting living in a foreign country and speaking a foreign language gets to be.” She shrugged. “Or maybe you don’t, but David was never any good at languages in school. Barely passed his two years of Spanish in high school.” She turned to Paul and laughed. “Maribelle couldn’t get him to eat anything except cheeseburgers and chocolate milk shakes at the café for a whole week after he came home.”

  “But Conrad Delaney didn’t die until later, did he?”

  “No, he didn’t. But he was never right afterward. His mind started to fail quickly. They doctors said it was from lack of oxygen during his attack. He lost his short-term memory. He could remember what happened in 1939, but not five minutes ago. Between them, Maribelle and my David ran the business. And, of course, I got pregnant with Trey almost at once. That really nailed David’s traveling foot to the floor.”

  The conversation became more general. Karen expressed a desire to come look at Paul’s house when it was finished. “I never wanted to live there,” Karen said. “The house isn’t that large, and I hated being under my mother-in-law’s watchful eye.”

  Eventually they said their goodbyes and drove away while Karen stood on the porch of her elegant mansion and waved.

  THE MOMENT Paul Bouvet’s car disappeared up the street, Karen Lowrance ran to the library and phoned her son. “Sue-sue, I need to speak to Trey.”

  “Trey’s out on the terrace with the kids,” Sue-sue said. “He’s trying to get the cover off the pool. Can I give him a message?”

  “Now, Sue-sue. Right now.”

  “Well, all right. Just a minute.”

  A moment later Trey drawled, “Hey, Mama, what’s up? How come you snapped at Sue-sue?”

  “The hell with Sue-sue. Get your tail over here this minute.”

  “Are you all right? You haven’t fallen or anything?”

  “For heaven’s sake, Trey, I am not a decrepit old crone. Now do as I say. We’ll talk when you get there. And not a word to Sue-sue.” She hung up before he could refuse.

  By the time her son skidded into the library, Karen was on her third bourbon-and-bourbon, but she was cold sober.

  “Mama?” Trey said, and started to kiss her. She shoved him away.

  “Sit down.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She couldn’t sit. She prowled the room with her drink in her hand. “What do you know about that Bouvet person?”

  Trey shrugged. “Not a whole lot. He paid cash for the house. No need to check up on him. And he’s spending money like water fixing it up.”

  “Why?”

  “I guess he likes it.”

  “Guesses won’t do. Who is he?”

  “Some sort of pilot, from what Bernice at the café said. Had an accident and can’t fly big planes any longer, so he’s looking for a project to keep himself busy. What’s all this about?”

  “Don’t ask questions. Do as I say. I mean that. I want you to find out everything you can about this Paul Bouvet. Who he is, who his people are—his whole family history. Then I want you to bring me his iced-tea glass from the café.”

  “Mama, have you gone crazy?”

  “He may be dangerous.”

  “Some sort of serial killer?”

  “Dangerous to this family, Trey. I don’t give a damn about the rest of the world. Let the serial killers have them, for all I care. But nothing is going to happen to this family. Not to me, not to you and certainly not to Paul Frederick and little Maribelle.”

  “How could this guy possibly be dangerous to us?”

  “I said don’t ask questions. If I’m right, and God knows I pray I’m not, then we will have to do something to make certain Mr. Paul Bouvet leaves Rossiter with his tail between his legs. And soon.”

  “Bernice’ll kill me if I walk out with a mason jar from the café.”

  The whine in Trey’s voice infuriated his mother. “Cultivate the man. Let him ask his damn questions. Take him to lunch somewhere other than the café.”

  “Mama, I’m starting to think you may have had a teensy little stroke or something.”

  “My brain is functioning perfectly, thank you.” She sat up and grabbed at Trey’s hand. “It would be natural for you to want to see the progress on the restoration. Stands to reason you’d be interested in your grandmother’s house.” She set her glass down on the side table so hard it splashed. “Go through his things if you can. His toothbrush! Steal his toothbrush. And some hairs from his comb. That’ll be perfect.”

  “How many of those glasses of bourbon you had this afternoon?”

  “That’s none of your business. Unlike your father, I am not an alcoholic. I can quit any time I choose. In this case, however, a little alcohol is good to clear the brain.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Oh, get out.”

  “I can’t go through this guy’s stuff, Mama. What if I get caught?”

  Karen gave an exasperated sigh. “Then hire a private detective. A good one.”

  “Great. I’ll ask Marshall who he uses.”

  “No!” Karen shouted, then continued more quietly, “Someone with no connections to us. Someone good who keeps his clients’ secrets.”

  “How do I find him?”

  She shoved him toward the door. “For God’s sake, Trey, look in the Yellow Pages.” As he started down the hall, she said, “And bring that detective’s report straight to me without opening it. You hear?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Trey walked out, shaking his head.

  After Trey left in his fancy pickup truck, Karen went back into the librar
y. Marshall probably wouldn’t be home for a couple of hours yet. Suddenly every bit of adrenaline that had kept the liquor in her system at bay drained out. She sank onto the sofa, leaned back and closed her eyes against the throb in her temples. She loved Trey dearly, but knew that her son was no genius. He’d always need supervision and guidance. She only hoped that Sue-sue would be up to the task when Karen was no longer around.

  WHEN DAVID had stopped writing her from France, when he’d stopped asking about her in his calls to his mother, Karen Bingham knew he’d found someone else. She came close to saying the hell with it and marrying one of her other suitors. There were plenty of them. Marshall Lowrance had been among them.

  But there had never been anyone for her but Paul David Delaney. Not since he’d knocked her down and broken her elbow in the first grade. He’d been so sorry and so sweet. They’d grown up together, learned to ride together, hunted their first ponies together, taken their first communion together, played their first game of Doctor, Doctor together, gone to the movies and the dances and the junior and senior prom together. Attended Ole Miss together, pledged sister and brother sorority and fraternity. Lost their virginity together.

  At college they broke up a time or two, dated other people, but they always made up. How could they not? They were different halves of the same soul.

  Or at least Karen had always thought they were.

  David asked her to wait for him the two years he’d be away with the army, and he gave her an engagement ring that same night.

  Both the Delaneys and Karen’s mother wanted them to go ahead and get married when David came home on his first leave after basic training and before he went off to Europe. Unfortunately they’d agreed to wait.

  She and David had talked about moving to Europe so he could become an artist. For Karen it had been one of those dreams she’d never considered a real possibility.

  He must have fallen for the woman after he’d left the army, because Karen had visited him in France six months before he was due to be let out, or whatever it was they did to drafted soldiers. They’d had a marvelous time making love in little inns hanging off the sides of mountains in Alsace and picnicking beside chateaux in the Loire Valley. They’d even spent a weekend seeing the museums in Paris. David was his old self. Then he told her that when he got out of the service, he was staying in France.

  That gave her some worry, but she figured he’d work it out of his system and come home in six months.

  When he begged her to leave Rossiter, come to France and marry him, she should have jumped at the chance. Instead, she let her mother and Maribelle Delaney talk her into a big wedding at home.

  So he must have met the woman in Paris. He didn’t have money enough to leave the city. Karen had never known who the woman was, but the moment David stepped off the airplane in Memphis on his way to see his sick father, the moment she threw her arms around him and felt his shoulders stiffen, she knew he’d fallen in love with someone else.

  Maribelle had known, too. Karen would never forget that interminable drive with Maribelle from Rossiter to pick up David at the airport. She remembered every word, every nuance, every gesture of Maribelle’s.

  “Do you still want to marry him?” Maribelle had asked.

  “Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “He’s in love with somebody else. Somebody he met in Paris.”

  Karen flinched. The words, so baldly stated, had a chilling effect.

  “I read between the lines of his letters and I heard it in his voice. I know the signs. I’ve recognized them often enough in the men in my life.”

  That startled Karen even more. The only man she was aware of in Maribelle’s life was her husband, Conrad. She’d never seen any evidence that he strayed. Maribelle would have flayed him alive if she’d caught him with another woman. Yet apparently he had been unfaithful and lived to tell the tale.

  “So do you still want to marry him?” Maribelle asked.

  “I want him to be happy.”

  “He will be, once he gets this infatuation out of his system. He’s always loved you. The two of you belong together.”

  “David may not agree.”

  “I doubt he does, at least at the moment. It’s up to you to convince him he wants you more than some little French trollop who probably only got her hooks into him because he’s a ticket to a cushy life in America.”

  Karen felt that Maribelle was probably right. She doubted that nice French girls were allowed to run around with ex-GIs who’d turned into starving artists.

  “How am I supposed to convince him to stay?” Karen asked.

  “He’s going to stay here if I have to chain him to the wall. But I want him to embrace his chains. Like you, I want him to be happy.”

  Karen thought, but only the way you want him to be happy. Screw what he wants.

  “So you have to make him happy. What does he like to do in bed?”

  If Karen had been driving, she’d have crashed the car. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You won’t shock me, dear. Adam and Eve invented most of the sexual permutations known to man. The rest of us have merely been embellishing their basic construct. So what does he like?”

  “Maribelle, I can’t talk about this to you.”

  “Whatever it is, do it. Quickly and often. A man sated by a woman is much more likely to think he’s in love with that woman than one who is keeping a friendly arm’s length away.”

  “What if he doesn’t want to…you know?”

  “David is twenty-five years old. Trust me. Get him in the right setting, he’ll want to. The rest is up to you.”

  So she had. She’d gone carefully to work seducing him, though he obviously hadn’t wanted to make love to her. Maribelle and Karen’s mother threw them together in ways he could not avoid, and finally, after a romantic movie, she’d persuaded him to park in their old lovers’ lane “just to talk.”

  She went home with her underpants in her purse and a pleasurable ache between her legs that she hadn’t experienced in far too long.

  Their marriage hadn’t all been her doing, of course. She had no idea what his father had said to David in those long talks on the sleeping porch of the Delaney house, nor what layers of guilt Maribelle had covered him with when she was with him. He’d fought his parents—and Karen—for almost a month.

  At one point she’d even offered to grab her passport and go back to France with him.

  He’d simply shaken his head.

  As the weeks dragged by, he took over more and more of the family business.

  He was good with the men. Better than his father ever had been. He obviously enjoyed the life of Southern planter into which he’d been born. The mantle of power settled on his shoulders easily. He might have shrugged a few times, but as the days passed, he talked less and less about Paris and his art, and more and more about the extra cattle they could run once the Delaney ranch merged with the acreage Karen’s mother had inherited from her husband.

  Maribelle and Karen’s mother had covertly resurrected the wedding plans, but had scaled them down. Just a small wedding. Even Maribelle didn’t think David would hold still for a twelve-bridesmaid affair. And her husband’s health couldn’t tolerate the strain of a big wedding.

  The day David and Karen bought their marriage license in Somerville, he’d practically shoved her out of his convertible at her front door and laid rubber getting away from her. She didn’t see him for two days.

  She found out later that he’d spent most of those two days closeted with his father and riding his hunter across the fields like a madman.

  Not quite the reaction she’d hoped for.

  Maribelle said it was only premarital jitters.

  Karen wasn’t sure he’d be able to go through with the wedding, but when the morning dawned, he was there waiting for her at the altar of the small Episcopal church. He looked green, and when he kissed her she smelled alcohol on his breath. But he was there. She was now Karen Bingham D
elaney. She had her dream.

  She couldn’t have guessed how quickly it would turn into a nightmare….

  It wasn’t until after his death that she’d climbed out of that nightmare and found peace with an indulgent new husband and a couple of children who would probably do well in the world.

  Then Paul Bouvet got out of his car and walked into her house.

  One look was all it took.

  For years she’d dreaded that the woman David had had an affair with in France would show up. Worse, that they had produced a child.

  But as the years passed her fears had seemed more and more groundless. She began to relax. When no one appeared to claim a portion of David’s estate after his death, she felt certain she and Trey had escaped, that the woman had been childless. The woman had probably married someone in France and might have grandchildren of her own by now.

  Now Paul Bouvet was here and her world collapsed.

  David’s eyes had been blue like Trey’s, but much darker. This man had dark eyes, but they were set like David’s. David’s hair had been much darker than Trey’s. Actually, this man looked much more like David than Trey did. He had David’s fine bone structure. He moved with the same athletic ease. He even had the tiny hitch in his walk. Despite his Yankee accent, he spoke to her in David’s voice, used his hands like David.

  She could barely look at those long, fine hands—so like her husband’s. Hands that had caressed and wounded her.

  Maybe someone who hadn’t known David so intimately wouldn’t have seen the resemblance, but she knew. She would have guessed this man was Paul David Delaney’s son if she’d met him walking down Fifth Avenue. Even the name Paul was no coincidence. She wondered if he, too, had a middle name.

  She prayed she was wrong about his background. She’d have to find out from her doctor how to get a DNA test done secretly. She must not frighten Trey until she was certain.

  If the DNA results proved Paul Bouvet was a Delaney, she’d have to sit down with Marshall and Trey to decide how best to proceed to save both the family honor and the family fortune.