For The Love Of Lilah tcw-3

by Nora Roberts

  "It's...sad." He'd meant to say beautiful or breathtaking, and frowned.

  "Yes. But sometimes it's comforting, too. I always feel close to Bianca in here."

  Bianca. The name was like an insistent buzz in his head.

  "Has Aunt Coco told you the story yet?"

  "No. Is there a story?"

  "Of course." She gave him a curious look. "I just wondered if she'd given you the Calhoun version rather than what's in the press."

  A faint throbbing began in his temple where the wound was healing. "I don't know either version."

  After a moment, she continued. "Bianca threw herself through this window on one of the last nights of summer in 1913. But her spirit stayed behind."

  "Why did she kill herself?"

  "Well, it's a long story." Lilah settled on the window seat, her chin comfortably propped on her knees, and told him.

  Max listened to the tale of an unhappy wife, trapped in a loveless marriage during the heady years before the Great War. Bianca had married Fergus Calhoun, a wealthy financier, and had borne him three children. While summering on Mount Desert Island, she had met a young artist. From an old date book the Calhouns had unearthed, they knew his name had been Christian, but nothing more. The rest was legend, that had been passed down to the children from their nanny who had been Bianca's confidante.

  The young artist and the unhappy wife had fallen in love, deeply. Torn between duty and her heart, Bianca had agonized over her choice and had ultimately decided to leave her husband. She had taken a few personal items, known now as Bianca's treasure, and had hidden them away in preparation. Among them had been an emerald necklace, given to her on the birth of her first son and second child, Lilah's grandfather. But rather than going to her lover, Bianca had thrown herself through the tower window. The emeralds have never been found.

  "We didn't know the story until a few months ago," Lilah added. "Though I'd seen the emeralds."

  His mind was whirling. Nagged by the pain, he pressed his fingers to his temple. "You've seen them?"

  She smiled. "I dreamed about them. Then during a séance–"

  "A séance," he said weakly, and sat.

  "That's right." She laughed and patted his hand. "We were having a séance, and C.C. had a vision." He made a strangled sound in his throat that had her laughing again. "You had to be there. Max. Anyway, C.C. saw the necklace, and that's when Aunt Coco decided it was time to pass on the Calhoun legend. To get where we are today, Trent fell in love with C.C. and decided not to buy The Towers. We were in pretty bad shape and were on the point of being forced to sell. He came up with the idea of turning the west wing into a hotel, with the St. James's name. You know the St. James hotels?"

  Trenton St. James, Max thought. Lilah's brother–in–law owned one of the biggest hotel corporations in the country. "By reputation."

  "Well, Trent hired Sloan to handle the renovations–and Sloan fell for Amanda. All in all, it couldn't have worked out better. We were able to keep the house, combine it with business, and culled two romances out of the bargain."

  Annoyance nickered into her eyes, darkening them. "The downside has been that the story about the necklace leaked, and we've been plagued with hopeful treasure hunters and out–and–out thieves. Just a few weeks ago, some creep nearly killed Amanda and stole stacks of the papers we'd been sorting through to try to find a clue to the necklace."

  "Papers," he repeated as a sickness welled in his stomach. It was coming back now and with such force he felt as though he were being battered on the rocks again. Calhoun, emeralds, Bianca.

  "What's wrong, Max?" Concerned, Lilah leaned over to lay a hand on his brow. "You're white as a sheet. You've been up too long," she decided. "Let me take you down so you can rest."

  "No, I'm fine. It's nothing." He jerked away to rise and pace the room. How was he going to tell her? How could he tell her, after she had saved his life, taken care of him? After he'd kissed her? The Calhouns had opened their home to him, without hesitation, without question. They had trusted him. How could he tell Lilah that he had, however inadvertently, been working with men who were planning to steal from her?

  Yet he had to. Marrow–deep honesty wouldn't permit anything else.

  "Lilah..." He turned back to see her watching him, a combination of concern and wariness in her eyes. "The boat. I remember the boat."

  Relief had her smiling. "That's good. I thought it would come back to you if you stopped worrying. Why don't you sit down, Max? It's easier on the brain."

  "No." The refusal was sharp as he concentrated on her face. "The boat–the man who hired me. His name was Caufield. EHis Caufield."

  She spread her hands. "And?"

  "The name doesn't mean anything?"

  "No, should it?"

  Maybe he was wrong, Max thought. Maybe he was letting her family story meld in his mind with his own experience. "He's about six foot, very trim. About forty. Dark–blond hair graying at the temples."

  "Okay."

  Max let out a frustrated breath. "He contacted me at Cornell about a month ago and offered me a job. He wanted me to sort through, catalogue and research some family papers. I'd get a generous salary, and several weeks on a yacht–plus all my expenses and time to work on my book."

  "So, seeing as you're not brain damaged, you took the job."

  "Yes, but damn it, Lilah, the papers–the receipts, the letters the ledgers. They had your name on them."

  "Mine?"

  "Calhoun." He jammed his useless hands into his pockets. "Don't you understand? I was hired, and worked on that boat for a week, researching your family history from the papers that were stolen from you."

  She only stared. It seemed a long time to Max before she unfolded herself from the window seat and stood. "You're telling me that you've been working for the man who tried to kill my sister?"

  "Yes."

  She never took her eyes from his. He could almost feel her trying to get into his thoughts, but when she spoke, her voice was very cool. "Why are you telling me this now?"

  Frazzled, he dragged a hand through his hair. "I didn't remember it all until now, until you told me about the emeralds."

  "That's odd, isn't it?"

  He watched the shutter come down over her eyes and nodded. "I don't expect you to believe me, but I didn't remember. And when I took the job, I didn't know."

  She continued to watch him carefully, measuring every word, every gesture, every expression. "You know, it seemed strange to me that you hadn't heard about the necklace, or the robbery. It's been in the press for weeks. You'd have to be living in a cave not to have heard."

  "Or a classroom," he murmured. Caufield's mocking words about having more intelligence than wit came back to him and made him wince. "Look, I'll tell you whatever I can before I leave."

  "Leave?"

  "I can't imagine any of you will want me to stay after th."

  She considered him, instinct warring against common sense. With a long sigh, she lifted a hand. "I think you'd better tell the whole story to the whole family, all at once. Then we'll decide what to do about it."

  It was Max's first family meeting. He hadn't grown up in a democracy, but under his father's uncompromising dictatorship. The Calhouns did things different. They gathered around the big mahogany dining room table, so completely united that Max felt like an intruder for the first time since he'd awakened upstairs. They listened, occasionally asking questions as he repeated what he had told Lilah in the tower.

  "You didn't check his references?" Trent asked. "You just contracted to do a job with a man you'd never met, and knew nothing about?"

  "There didn't seem to be any reason to. I'm not a businessman," he said wearily. "I'm a teacher."

  "Then you won't object if we check yours." This from Sloan.

  Max met the suspicious eyes levelly. "No."

  "I already have," Amanda put in. Her fingers were tapping against the wood of the table as all eyes turned to her. "It seemed the
logical step, so I made a couple of calls."

  "Leave it to Mandy," Lilah muttered. "I guess it never occurred to you to discuss it with the rest of us."

  "No."

  "Girls," Coco said from the head of the table. "Don't start."

  "I think Amanda should have talked about this." The Calhoun temper edged Lilah's voice. "It concerns all of us. Besides, what business does she have poking into Max's life?"

  They began to argue heatedly, all four sisters tossing in opinions and objections. Sloan kicked back to let it run its course. Trent closed his eyes. Max merely stared. They were discussing him. Didn't they realize they were arguing about him, tossing him back and forth across the table like a Ping–Pong ball?

  "Excuse me," he began, and was totally ignored.

  He tried again and earned his first smile from Sloan. "Damn it, knock it off!" It was his annoyed professor's voice and did the trick. All of the women stopped to turn on him with irritated eyes.

  "Look, buster," C.C. began, but he cut her off.

  "You look. In the first place, why would I be telling you everything if I had some ulterior motive? And since you want to corroborate who I am and what I do, why don't you stop pecking at each other long enough to find out?"

  "Because we like to peck at each other," Lilah told him grandly. "And we don't like anyone getting in the way while we're at it."

  "That'll do." Coco took advantage of the lull. "Since Amanda's already checked on Max–though it was a bit impolite–"

  "Sensible," Amanda objected.

  "Rude," Lilah corrected.

  They might have been off and running again, but Suzanna held up a hand. "Whatever it was, it's done. I think we should hear what Amanda found out."

  "As I was saying." Amanda flicked a glance over Lilah. "I made a couple of calls. The dean of Cornell speaks very highly of Max. As I recall the terms were 'brilliant' and 'dedicated.' He's considered one of the foremost experts on American history in the country. He graduated magna cum laude at twenty, and had his doctorate by twenty–five."

  "Egghead," Lilah said with a comforting smile when Max shifted in his seat.

  "Our Dr. Quartermain," Amanda continued, "comes from Indiana, is single and has no criminal record. He's been on the staff at Cornell for over eight years, and has published several well–received articles. His most recent was an overview of the social–political atmosphere in America prior to World War I. In academic circles, he's considered a wunderkind, serious minded, unflaggingly responsible, with unlimited potential." Sensing his embarrassment, Amanda softened her tone. "I'm sorry for intruding, Max, but I didn't want to take any chances, not with my family."

  "We're all sorry." Suzanna smiled at him. "We've had an unsettling couple of months."

  "I understand that." And they certainly couldn't know how much he detested the term wunderkind. "If my academic profile eases your minds, that's fine."

  "There's one more thing," Suzanna continued. "None of this explains what you were doing in the water the night Lilah found you."

  Max gathered his thoughts while they waited. It was easy to take himself back now, as easy as it was for him to put himself into the Battle of Bull Run or Woodrow Wilson's White House.

  "I'd been working on the papers. A storm was coming in so the sea was rough. I guess I'm not much of a sailor. I was trying to crawl out on deck, for some air, when I heard Caufield talking to Captain Hawkins."

  As concisely as he could, he told them what he had heard, how he had realized what he'd gotten into.

  "I don't know what I was going to do. I had some wild idea about getting the papers and getting off the boat so I could take them to the police. Not very brilliant considering the circumstances. In any case, they caught me. Caufield had a gun, but this time the storm was on my side. I got up on deck, and took my chances in the water."

  "You jumped overboard, in the middle of a storm?" Lilah asked.

  "It wasn't very smart."

  "It was very brave," she corrected.

  "Not when you consider he was shooting at me." Frowning, Max rubbed a hand over the bandage on his temple.

  "The way you describe this Ellis Caufield doesn't fit." Amanda tapped her fingers again as she thought it through. "Livingston, the man who stole the papers was dark haired, only about thirty."

  "So, he dyed his hair." Lilah lifted her hands. "He couldn't come back using the same name and the same appearance. The police have his description."

  "I hope you're right." A slow, humorless smile spread over Sloan's face. "I hope the sonofabitch is back so I can have another go at him."

  "So we all can have another go at him," C.C. corrected. "The question is, what do we do now?"

  They began to argue about that, with Trent telling his wife she wasn't going to do anything–Amanda reminding him it was a Calhoun problem–Sloan suggesting hotly that she keep out of it. Coco decided it was time for brandy and was ignored.

  "He thinks I'm dead," Max murmured, almost to himself. "So he feels safe. He's probably still close by, on the same boat. The Windrider."

  "You remember the boat?" Lilah held up a hand, signaling for silence. "You can describe it?"

  "In detail," Max told her with a small smile. "It was my first yacht."

  "So we take that information to the police." Trent glanced around the table, then nodded. "And we do a little checking ourselves. The ladies know the island as well as they know this house. If he's on it, or around it, we'll find him."

  "I'm looking forward to it." Sloan glanced over at Max and went with his instincts. "You in, Quartermain?"

  Surprised, Max blinked, then found himself smiling. "Yeah, I'm in."

  I went to Christian's cottage. Perhaps it was risky as I might have been seen by some acquaintance, but I wanted so badly to see where he lived, how he lived, what small things he kept around him.

  It's a small place near the water, a square wooden cottage with its rooms crowded with his paintings and smelling of turpentine. Above the kitchen is a sundrenched loft for his studio. It seemed to me like a doll's house with its pretty windows and low ceilings–old leafy trees shading the front and a narrow porch dancing along the back where we could sit and watch the water.

  Christian says that at low tide the water level drops so that you can walk across the smooth rocks to the little glade of trees beyond. And at night, the air is full of sound. Musical crickets, the hoot of owls, the lap of temperate water.

  I felt at home there, as quietly content as I have been in my life. It seemed to me that we had lived there together for years. When I told Christian, he gathered me close, just to hold me.

  “I love you. Bianca,'' he said. “I wanted you to come here. I needed to see you in my house, watch you stand among my things." When he drew me away, he was smiling. "Now, I'll always see you here, and I'll never be without you."

  I anted to swear to him I would stay. God, the words leaped into my throat only to be blocked there by duty. Wretched duty. He must have sensed it for he kissed me then, as if to seal the words inside.

  I had only an hour with him. We both knew I would have to go back to my husband, to my children, to the life I had chosen before I met him. I felt his arms around me, tasted his lips, sensed the straining need inside him that was such a vibrant echo of my own.

  “I want you.'' I heard my own whisper and felt no shame. "Touch me, Christian. Let me belong to you." My heart was racing as I pressed wantonly against him. "Make love to me. Take me to your bed."

  How tightly his arms gripped me, so tightly I couldn't get my breath. Then his hands were on my face, and I felt the tremor in his fingertips. His eyes were nearly black. So much could be read there. Passion, love, desperation, regret.

  "Do you know how often I've dreamed of it? How many nights I've lain awake aching for you?" Then he released me to stride across the room to where my portrait hung on his wall. ' I want you, Bianca, every time I take a breath. And I love you too much to take what can't be mine.''

&n
bsp; "Christian–"

  “Do you think I could let you go if I'd ever touched you?" There was anger now, ripe and violent as he whirled back. ' I hate knowing that we sneak like sinners just to spend an hour together, as innocent as children. If I don't have the strength to turn away from you completely, then I will have enough to keep you from taking a step you 'd only regret.''

  "How could I regret belonging to you?"

  “Because you already belong to someone else. And every time you go back to him, I dream of killing him with my bare hands if only because he can look at you when I can't. If we took this last step, I'd leave you no choice. There would be no going back to him, Bianca. No going back to your home, or your life."

  And I knew it was true, as he stood between me and the image of me he'd created.

  So I left him to come home, to tie a ribbon in Colleen 's hair, to chase a ball with Ethan, to dry Sean's tears when he scraped his knee. To dine in miserable politeness with a husband who is more and more of a stranger to me.

  Christian's words were true, and it is a truth I must face. The time is coming when I will no longer be able to live in both worlds, but must choose one, only one.

  Chapter Four

  “I have the most marvelous idea," Coco announced. Like a ship in full sail, she streamed into the kitchen where Lilah, Max, Suzanna and her family were having breakfast.

  "Good for you," Lilah said over a bowl of chocolate–chip ice cream. "Anyone who can think at this hour deserves a medal, or should be committed."

  Like a mother hen, Coco checked the herbs she had potted on the window. She clucked over the basil before she turned back. "I have no idea why I didn't think of it before. It's really so–"

  "Alex is kicking me under the table."

  "Alex, don't kick your sister," Suzanna said mildly. "Jenny, don't interrupt."

  "I wasn't kicking her." Milk dribbled down Alex's chin. "She got her knee in the way of my foot."

  "Did not."

  "Did too."

  "Turkey face."

  "Booger head."