The softness of her cotton frock brushed his arms as she took his face in her hands. Her fingers quivered against his hair. Crickets sang and a freshening breeze rustled the trees along the country lane while dark clouds raced across the heavens, intermittently obscuring the stars and shading the envious moon.
“You’re a Kyle—I’m nothing. The question should be, can the handsome prince love the poor but honest cinder maid?” Her voice was amused as she traced his lips with a gentle finger.
In response, he crushed her in his arms. Her body was yielding and soft as he kissed her and he felt a rush of masculine pride that she was here, cradled against his chest.
Memories of a loft freshened with straw and the headiness of creation on canvas were banished by contact with the living flesh of his model. Rosemary’s mouth moved along his cheek, her tongue flickering against his skin. Groaning, he tried to recapture her lips, but she pulled free.
Eyes shining, liquid with moonlight mystery, she whispered, “Our love is doomed as long as your family can touch us.”
“Family?” His voice was hoarse with suppressed passion as he fumbled with the buttons of her dress. What had Father and Julia to do with this magical moment? He leaned closer, inhaling the musky perfume of her skin.
Rosemary allowed him to peel the bodice of her dress down far enough to display rosy peaks, and a tremor of nervous anticipation shot through his body.
“You’re tense, Austin. I can feel how tight you are.” Supple fingers kneaded the tingling muscles of his back through the material of his shirt. A delicate pulse beat in her throat, but her eyelids dropped to shield her expression. The sensuous fullness of her lips so close to his mouth challenged his self-control—such a mouth begged to be ravaged.
“My little seductress.” He leaned forward to drink of the nectar once more. His trembling hands cupped her breasts.
Rosemary arched her back and half closed her eyes. “I love the way you touch me, darling.”
He moaned with excitement as her voice poured over him like warm syrup but her hands grasped his wrists, holding him at bay. “Your father, Austin—he wants to separate us.” Tears added the sparkle of stars to her blue eyes and he could see twin reflections of the full moon in her enlarged pupils.
He sought to soothe her fears. “Julia has some influence over Father and she’ll help us get away. And Father won’t find us in Paris. We’ll share a garret—I’ll paint nothing but you, darling, all day long,” Austin promised as his hands grasped her waist, pulling her closer. “And the nights, dear one, under the stars of Paris, those nights will be so wonderful.”
Rosemary reached for the top button of his shirt, her head tilted at a provocative angle. “Julia hates me, Austin.”
“But she loves me—she’ll accept you.” His arms were an unbreachable prison; she would never escape him.
“You have to break free of them, darling. It’s our only chance. I love you, Austin, and you’ve said you love me…”
Her plea for reassurance sparked a memory of the velvet-lined box in his jacket pocket. Plucking it out, he laid the offering in her hands and bestowed a gentle kiss on her brow. “This is how much I love you.”
“Austin!” She held up a pearl necklace, its creamy orbs opalescent in the moonlight. “How exquisite!”
“They were my mother’s.” Austin nestled the pearls into the seductive hollow of her throat and fastened the gold clasp with fingers made clumsy by excitement. “Marry me, darling?”
“I’m yours, Austin. And I promise to make our wedding night very special.” The heat of her fingertips against his bare chest burned like coals of fire. “Can the wonders of Paris compare to our love?”
Her voice was teasingly erotic as she shrugged, her dress slipping to her waist to reveal that she wore nothing underneath. The trill of laughter from her lips was muffled by the hard demands of his mouth, the wind whispering through the long grass filling his ears with a roar as he pinned her beneath him, his hands kneading willing flesh…
The shredding of the page in his hand recalled Austin to the present; his body throbbed with the burning desire that only Rosemary could generate within him. Each month he stopped at the newsstand and paged through the magazines in a futile search for a model with Rosemary’s sun-kissed hair and voluptuous figure. He still loved and wanted her—some part of him refused to give up, unable to accept that his vibrant enchantress had been forever imprisoned beneath the cold crust of the earth.
The words blurred on the crumpled pages before him as Austin Kyle contemplated the eternity of a wasted life.
Chapter 19
“A carnival went bankrupt forty years ago and abandoned Black Beauty here to rot in a cornfield. He’s been with me ever since.” The owner of Stewart’s Realty rose from behind a metal desk and came forward as she spoke.
Abigail stroked the nose of a coal-black carousel steed carved and gilded with loving attention to detail and suspended from the ceiling on a pole. She wondered if Rosemary had ridden this prancing creature the night Matt had kissed her at the top of the Ferris wheel. The rest of the office decor was equally eccentric: a beach ball perched atop the wastebasket, a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey poster was taped to the wall with its tail pinned to a hoof, and a beer keg loomed in one corner.
According to Ross, Terrell Stewart was over seventy but she could have passed for a much younger woman. Blond hair worn in a page boy was slashed with streaks of hot pink and electric blue. As she rounded the desk, the realtor plucked a jade cigarette holder from the paws of an enormous stuffed bear that apparently saw service as a paperweight.
She greeted her great-nephew in a voice that rasped from too many cigarettes. “You handsome devil! You’ve been neglecting me.” She aimed the holder at Abigail like a weapon. “Is this sweet thing your fiancée?”
Abigail had shed her jeans in favor of a pale blue sheath with a matching jacket and sapphire earrings. Picturing Terrell as a fluffy little woman clutching a tea tray, she had also subdued her hair into a chignon. She realized now that changing had been a mistake—her hostess would have enjoyed the T-shirt.
She surveyed Abigail with the air of a movie critic forced to sit through an expensive Hollywood bomb. “Too pale and uninteresting, Ross. You need someone splashy, with a little pizzazz.”
Ross grinned. “Like you? The lightning zigzags in your hair are very chic.”
“Don’t you love this mousse my hairdresser recommended? I can’t afford to stop splashing—at my age I could sink!” Switching a laser blue gaze, her voice rapped out. “Are you a career woman? Divorced? Any children? Are you sleeping with my nephew? Views on women’s liberation? Answer me, girl! Are you deaf?”
Unruffled by this display of rudeness, Abigail kept her voice level. “I’m a career woman. No children. You might consider me liberated. Any other questions, just shout them out. I’m aware that persons of advanced age believe their years serve as an excuse for bad manners.”
Terrell’s laugh was like the croak of a bullfrog. “The ice princess is a fire eater. I’m glad you stood up to me—can’t abide a mealymouthed creature. Advanced age! What a zinger! Ross, I like this girl.”
Removing a purple yo-yo from the chair, Abigail seated herself. “Shall we get down to business?”
Terrell chuckled. “Take a load off your legs, children. I’ll rustle up some coffee.”
Their hostess reappeared moments later and distributed mugs that displayed the towers of the Magic Kingdom. Rummaging in the desk for a package of sweetener, she cursed when the phone rang and bent to unplug it from the jack. The instrument choked in midcry.
“Shouldn’t frighten away the clients on our account,” Ross murmured, taking a cautious sip and gagging. “Up to your old trick of recycling week-old coffee? Don’t drink it, Red, unless you want your stomach pumped.”
Terrell fetched herself a cup decorated with dancing, hippos in tutus. “If you’re looking for a discussion of the cracks in the foundation of Lincol
n City, you’ve come to the right place.”
“So even in the good old days Lincoln City knew scandal?” Ross took Abigail’s cup and put it on a corner of the desk.
“No Big Apple, but we had our share of worms.” Terrell reached for the cigarette holder. “Folks are the same, whether livin’ in a small pond or in Lake Michigan. The only difference is the cost and size of the lily pad.”
Listening to Ross’s affectionate banter with his relative made Abigail’s skin crawl. After being shut up in the car with him for over an hour and tormenting herself with unanswerable questions and suspicions, her only desire was to get through the interview without blurting out any accusations about the flowers.
She directed her gaze toward Terrell. “Do you know why we’re here?”
“About Rosemary Dickison?” Terrell wrinkled her nose in her nephew’s direction. “Run out of criminals, Ross? Scraping the bottom of the barrel for fifty-year-old crimes?”
“The coroner called it ‘death by misadventure.’”
“If you buy that, you’ll believe Isadora Duncan was my identical twin.” The bullfrog croaked again as she stood up and pirouetted, her shape echoing one of the ballerina hippos on her cup. “Givens, the coroner, was a man born too late. Looking at a man shot full of arrows and dangling by a rope necktie, he’d have called it death by heart failure, without blinking an eye.”
“Do you think he was bought off?” The prospect of corruption seemed to have sparked an interest in Ross.
“This is a big cruel world, nevvy. Givens had seven children growing out of their shoes—he’d have sold his grandmother for thirty pieces of silver.” She pursed her lips. “Not too many folk swallowed the accident hogwash. What was the girl doing walking down a deserted road at midnight? Why wasn’t her handbag ever found? She had one, you know. One of those little beaded silk bits no bigger than the palm of your hand.”
“Do you want us to beg, Aunt Terrell? Please, tell us about the dance.” Ross used the tone of a parent coaxing a toddler to divulge where she had hidden the car keys.
Terrell placed a cigarette into the jade holder, lit it and puffed, her eyes slitted against the smoke. “I was a pretty young thing the year Rosemary died,” she began. “Never mind how young—Ross has no business knowing my age. That summer was a scorcher—the newspapers were full of stories about the heat, grass fires, and suicides. I remember ones about a man who hung himself in a Chicago icehouse and the mother who smothered her three kids and shot herself, leaving a note for the milkman, ‘No milk today.’
“Heat madness, they called it. No place to escape the burning eye of the sun. Food rotted in pantries and flies were everywhere. The day of the dance it was hot enough to pop the corn in the fields.”
Terrell sneezed. “Rosemary dressed to beat the heat in skimpy sunsuits and slit skirts. She had the shape for those clothes and believe me, the men sure got an eyeful. That gal got checked out more often than a Jackie Collins book at the library.”
“Who were the men in her life?” Abigail opened a notebook.
Terrell counted on her fingers. “She had something heavy going with Matt Boyington for a couple years—he brooded around like Heathcliff after they broke up. Spider Webb—face like a pig and manners to match. I figured she dated him on a dare. And Austin Kyle. A sensitive, polite lad who was farmed out to Harvard Law School. His sister, Julia, inherited her father’s brains but Lawrence sent her to a girls’ finishing school, the kind where you learn how to letter place cards for fancy dinner parties.”
Their hostess smiled wickedly through the smoke rings. “Never got over the handicap of her sex and has been taking her disappointment out on Austin ever since. Neither of them ever married—Julia was too strong-willed and Austin too weak-kneed.”
“The dance, Aunt Terrell,” Ross prompted.
“You gotta have the background to appreciate the drama.” Abigail saw a striking resemblance to her great-nephew in the older woman’s blue eyes that gleamed with mischief. “The decorations committee had done the expected job for not having enough taste to spruce up an outhouse. Balloons and streamers on the ceiling, crepe-paper daisies everywhere. Not one original thought among the lot.
“The band called themselves The Down Beats and wore red jackets with silver braid on the lapels. My escort was Jay West, a lawyer who’d rather tinker with cars than spend time in an office. Never had cash in his pocket and his idea of a date was a drive in the country, but that boy had the most wonderful hands…” The shark smile again. “Jay and I were slow dancing to ‘Moonlight and Shadows’ when Rosemary made her entrance…”
Chapter 20
“Keep your hands in the correct position for dancing, not cannoodling,” Terrell warned, curls bobbing in rhythm with each step.
“You’re enticing when you’re putting me in my place.”
They pivoted to avoid another couple. Electric fans positioned in the corners and the flare of the women’s skirts provided the only air moving in the room. The west windows were open to catch the first hint of a night breeze and those seated on the wooden chairs along the wall fanned themselves with paper fans donated by the local funeral parlor.
The “Nearness of You” boomed from the bandstand and the perspiring dancers followed the beat like sheep behind a quickstepping leader. The tempo increased and Terrell’s short legs churned to keep up with Jay’s longer strides.
“You dance like you’re killing potato beetles,” she complained. “No wonder I turned down your marriage proposal.”
He caressed her bare shoulder. “I’d be faithful, Terrell. Just let me stroke a few motors on the weekends and I’ll devote the rest of my time to you.”
“You’re a confirmed bachelor. It’ll take more than a pretty face to turn your head, Jay.” She shrugged her shoulder and his hand dropped back down to the waist of her white lace gown.
The number ended with a trumpet blare and the room spattered with applause. The lights dimmed and candle flames swayed with the dancers as “Moonlight and Shadows” cast its seductive net over the couples on the floor. Jay pulled her close and she savored the pressure of his chin on the top of her head, their bodies flowing in unison to the wail of the clarinet.
The melody spiraling deep inside her, Terrell stumbled when Jay loosened his grasp without warning. She felt, rather than heard, a ripple run throughout the room, as though someone had chucked a rock into a still pool.
Jay sucked in his breath. “Look what the cat dragged in!”
A woman stood just inside the double doors, a demure smile playing about her lips. The rounded bodice of her dress cradled her breasts and the skirt exploded in frothy tulle, only to dart in at shapely knees.
“Not just a pretty face—it’s that body!” Jay’s words dropped into the echoing stillness as the band tootled into awed silence. A Hollywood goddess had just stepped off the silver screen and onto the dance floor. The vision moved forward as the candlelight stroked honey-brown skin with luminous fingers and played with the strand of pearls at the woman’s throat.
“Jay!” Terrell tugged at his jacket sleeve and he blinked like a newly awakened sleepwalker. “It’s just Rosemary Dickison.”
“She’s lovely. A dream walking,” Jay murmured. “A star fallen from the heavens—”
“Shut up and dance,” Terrell snapped.
The bandleader captured the attention of his spellbound mates with a sharp command and the music began again. Women cajoled their reluctant partners into motion, but those sitting out this dance craned their necks to keep the newcomer in view.
Moving with unself-conscious grace, Rosemary passed the stag line with a low-voiced remark that brought them to attention. She studied the preening men for a moment before extending her hand to Claude Sanders. As the chosen one led her onto the floor, Austin Kyle brushed by Terrell, his eyes fixed on Rosemary and her dance partner.
Terrell shivered with delicious excitement. Austin was going to declare his interest in Rosemary before
the whole town by cutting in! But Julia appeared, almost running on high heels, and intercepted her brother’s arm as he raised his hand to tap Claude on the shoulder. For an electric moment they locked glances while Julia spoke, her voice inaudible to everyone except Rosemary, Claude, and Austin.
Rosemary smiled and veiled her eyes with long lashes. With a nod at Claude, she slipped into his arms once more and the pair moved off in harmony with the music. Austin turned, his spine under the beautifully tailored jacket ramrod stiff, and walked back to his dancing partner, Celeste Borden, who was waiting patiently on the sidelines.
Terrell set her unresisting companion on a tangent to collide with Julia and her partner, Nathan Reed. Nathan’s gaze was focused on the figure molded in peach silk and floating like thistledown across the polished floor.
Julia’s eyes were also fixed on Rosemary. “She’s wearing the pearls!”
Julia was a snob; Terrell was glad to see her taken down a peg and assumed an expression of mild wonder. “Who’s Rosemary’s admirer with the gift of gems? That necklace looks gorgeous enough to be a family heirloom.”
Julia turned on Terrell, her eyes flashing such anger that the smaller woman recoiled and Jay stepped forward, putting a protective arm around his date. The music stopped to tremendous applause and a flurry of activity in the stag line, but when the strains of “Harbor Lights” began, Austin Kyle was found to be the victor in the race to claim a dance.
“You shouldn’t have taken your eyes off him, Julia,” Terrell chided sweetly before Jay yanked her back into his arms.
But somehow she didn’t feel like gloating over Julia’s chagrin. While they danced, she became aware that Jay’s attention was also divided between her and Rosemary. It’s just pure lust, she told herself.
Julia floated past again, her feet tracing the pattern of the dance without effort and displaying the grace supplied by a top-notch finishing school. Her eyes, however, followed her brother’s progress around the room and must have noted his lips so close to Rosemary’s ear, the possessive arm encircling her waist.
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