He said briefly, “No, I haven’t, but it doesn’t change anything.”
She stepped in front of him, blocking his way out.
“Your marriage is dead, Richard!” She put all her strength into the words, hating his shock as he heard his own words echoed back to him. As if her voice made it real…. “Di is gone. You haven’t let her go, you’ve spent all these years in limbo waiting for her to straighten up and come back to you, and those years are gone too, she’ll never give them back!”
“I can’t get them back through you, Laura.”
“But you can have all the years ahead!” She thrust her hands towards him, pleading. “For God’s sake, don’t throw me away! I’m not Francie, Di won’t care about me, but I love you, I love you—”
“Oh, my God!” He ripped across her voice in his own shock; his hands grasped her shoulders. He didn’t realize his own strength, but, oh, God, she didn’t care. She’d take the pain as long as he cared to give it. “Laura, look at me! Is that what you think, that I want you for revenge?”
She whispered, “I don’t care.”
“Well, I do!” His anger bewildered her, still lost as she was in the pleasure of his tight fingers upon her. “Do you want that – to be taken on a kitchen floor as if you don’t matter, all for a misguided infatuation from twenty years ago? You’re worth more than that, you’re worth a man who can come to you honestly and offer you his heart and home.”
He stopped, and he took a deep breath.
“All right,” he said, “you want the words, I will give them to you. I want you. I want you most damnably. I think of you at night, your hair spread out across a pillow, those great eyes of yours looking up at me – I wonder what it feels like to lose myself in you—” His hand came up, with a will of its own, and touched her hair shining under the light.
“But I am not going to let you do this,” he said then, and hope flickered out in her heart. “Laura, you came back because you wanted something, and no matter what you say, I don’t believe it was me. You came back for your sisters. You need them as much as they need you. I came between Diana and her sisters once. I won’t do it again.”
She said numbly, hopelessly, “You wouldn’t.”
“Yes, I would.” He walked away from her, back into the center of the room. “Sex changes things. A man and a woman change once they sleep together, the way they act, the way they look at each other, the way they don’t look at each other. They give themselves dead away. Even an outsider can tell.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets and turned back to her. “Listen,” he said, and his voice dropped, “if I did what I’d like to do – and right now, I’d trade my soul to take you upstairs – we’d never keep it a secret. We could try, but I promise you, Lucy would figure it out in nothing flat. Diana’s no slouch herself, if it comes to that. You’d lose everything you came back for, and I – dear God, I have worked hard to put together a decent life for myself and Julie. I won’t wreck it for a one-night stand.”
But once he had not been so cautious. Once he had nearly destroyed the world for her, but, of course, that had not been the same. Eleven years divided that moment and this, a vast abyss she could no longer lure him across.
And if he knew, he would never cross it for her.
He reached out to her then, and she started to lift her arms to him, but instead he straightened the shoulder of her nightgown and pulled her bathrobe back around her. She stood stock-still under his hands, the part of her mind that still worked noting the impersonal touch of his fingers, the quick movements as he tied her sash.
“I’m going home now,” he said gently. “Don’t walk me to the door.”
He walked through the house then, and he must have known that she trailed behind him. She had gone numb, her heart anesthetized against the coming pain. She knew only that he was leaving her, that she had gambled supremely and lost him for good.
Diana, damn her, always Diana, Diana had won.
At the front door, he hesitated, aware of her shadow behind him, and maybe kindness drove him to it, or some desire still cindered within him. Softly, through the dusk, he said, “Good night, Laurie. And – don’t blame yourself. It was a splendid moment.”
She stared back at him.
“But the next time I see you,” he managed a smile, “we need to be in the middle of a very large crowd.”
He hesitated once more, and then, before she knew to react, he enfolded her in his arms; she felt his lips against her hair. She lifted her hand to his face, and he let her touch him for a moment, a light brush across his cheek, a brief moment against the warmth of his mouth. She tried to speak, say his name, and could not manage a word.
“Goodbye, Laurie,” he said, and was gone.
She made herself stand by the open door and watch him leave her. He walked away, a man set on his path, not a second thought, not the slightest concession to what he had left behind. This was it, then, Laura Abbott’s one great roll of the dice, and she had lost all in the depths of conscience and loyalty.
Not her conscience either, not her loyalty. She’d remember that later, when she could bear to think, one more crime to add to her mounting account.
He reached his car, a dark shadow among many shadows in the dying day, and she watched him stop, reaching into his pocket for his keys.
And then she forgot to breathe, she forgot that every moment of this night would carry him away from her, spinning forever on their separate wheels. For he did not get into his car, start the engine, drive away from her. He merely stood there, staring down at his hand, that hand that had lain moments before on her breast.
She waited in the darkness.
What demons of a relinquished past accosted him, what visions of a hidden future enticed him, what titanic struggle engulfed him, she could not guess.
She knew only that he won, and she lost.
She sank to the floor, and watched as he left her.
Chapter 17: Here Be Dragons
RICHARD ASHMORE DID NOT ALLOW himself to think. He concentrated on the four-mile trip along the country roads that he had known since childhood, staring hard at each stop sign, pausing at each crossroad like new and mysterious terrain.
He avoided looking at his hands.
Ashmore Park loomed up all too soon. If not for Julie, he might have driven all night. Not with any particular destination in mind, not for any reason except to drive. Driving dulled the mind, exhausted the body, stripped away any real capacity to think.
The night Diana had confessed her great crime, he had gotten into his car and headed off blindly. The hours passing had scarcely registered on his consciousness. He had been stunned the next morning to find himself in Ohio, at the gray shore of Lake Erie. How he had gotten himself there, what part of his mind had sorted out freeways toll roads and interstates and watched the speed limit, remained forever a mystery to him. He had no memory of stopping to gas up his car, although the gas gauge told him that he had done so, and more than once.
But he had been young then, filled with a pain and rage he could scarcely contain. Now… he locked his car for the night, still carefully not looking at his hand, that hand that had lain across Laura’s breast, that had made of her hair a coronation ring.
With that hand, he had reached for and thrust away a woman rare and precious, a woman not likely to offer herself ever again.
And all for Diana, he thought, and watched himself strike the keys on the security pad, Diana, and her mockery of a slashed wrist.
Damnable Diana.
Diana, he discovered as he switched on the light on his desk, who was not quite finished with him that night.
~•~
DAD! Julie had left a large message taped to his computer monitor. CALL TOM! SAYS IT’S IMPORTANT! NO MATTER HOW LATE! As an afterthought, Page him on his cell. Lucy’s asleep.
He glanced at the darkened second story and saw that Julie had closed her door for the night. Not even eleven yet, according to his watch�
�� he had lived a lifetime during the evening.
Tom returned the page immediately. “Julie there?” he asked without preamble.
“She’s gone to bed.” His alarm rose. “What’s up?”
“I’m faxing you something. Diana’s latest.” In the background, he heard Tom punching the number on the fax machine. “We may have a problem.”
Oh, God, what now? He sat down at his desk as his fax rang and engaged. Tom said nothing as the lines of letters began slowly to materialize on his own end of the line. He took the first page off as the second began to appear, and one quick, appalled glance told him that Tom had not been exaggerating.
“Richard? Got it?”
“Got it,” he said, and read through it again.
NOTICE OF INTENT TO TAKE DEPOSITION AND SUBPOENA DUCES TECUM, after the pleading heading, directed to… oh, damn, damn, damn… Laura Rose Abbott St. Bride. “Can they do this?” he asked. Subpoena duces tecum. Every architect knew those words; producing documents under subpoena was part and parcel of the profession. “Can she do this? This isn’t even relevant anymore.”
Deponent is hereby ordered to produce any and all of the following in her possession, custody, or control… any and all papers and documents, recordings, and photographs… any and all materials which may prove the existence of a sexual relationship between Francesca Mariah Abbott and Richard Patrick Ashmore between the time period of 1987 to 1988…. Deponent is required to render an affidavit as to her knowledge of the alleged extramarital relationship….
Tom had shifted into lawyer mode; his normally casual voice was crisp and decisive. “We’ll fight this, of course,” he said, and Richard heard papers rustling in the background. “It is irrelevant, it’s old news, and it has nothing to do with the issues Diana has raised so far. This is intended to apply pressure to you through Laura. If Laura even knew anything,” and he paused, “well, of course, she did, she’s had Meg St. Bride all these years. She probably knows—”
“She knows everything,” Richard said wearily, and stared down at the subpoena again. “I doubt Francie kept anything from her.”
She told me everything, every detail, you wouldn’t believe what she told me.
“Fine. Doesn’t matter. It’s hearsay. Did Laura actually witness anything?” Thank God for Tom’s ability to shift into the mechanics, away from the sheer immorality of it all. The great thing about having your friend for your lawyer, he thought with the part of his mind that wasn’t vivisecting Diana with relish, was that you could confess practically anything to him, and he would start thinking of ways to diminish the impact of even your worst deeds. Adultery with your sister-in-law? Did anyone see? Well, then, it never happened.
“No. No one did. Just Diana that last day, and she only saw us talking.”
“Good.” The clicking of Tom’s keyboard as he made notes came through the phone line. “Then Laura has no direct knowledge, and any affidavit she gives is worthless. We’ll contest its introduction. Frankly, I’ll be surprised if Laura doesn’t challenge this subpoena. She won’t want to give this deposition any more than we want her to.”
That observation struck him forcibly, and he read the document yet again. Any and all documents…. “Oh, my God,” he said, and this time he understood the real danger that Laura faced. “That birth certificate—”
“Forget that,” said Tom. “I stand by my theory that Francie didn’t name you. I researched the adoption laws in California, and she’d have had a hard time relinquishing the child for adoption if she’d named you. Fathers’ rights were in legal force for at least fifteen years before that. I’ll tell you what I think: even if there is such a birth certificate, Laura doesn’t have it. I think Cameron St. Bride retained it and it’s still among the papers in his estate. Since she’s not his executor, she doesn’t have control of it. If you look at their divorce agreement—” a second of silence, and then, “look at page 5. Look at all the restrictions on her use of the stock he’d given her during the marriage. Page 7 – same thing, and this is apparently some foundation she helped set up. He kept her voting proxy on a charitable board, for God’s sake! And then page 8 – I can’t believe her lawyers didn’t stop the inroads on her managing conservatorship of Meg. She must have used his lawyers. I’d never let a client allow a husband to get away with this nonsense. This guy was a control freak. If anyone had that birth certificate, if it even existed, St. Bride had it.”
He had followed along in his copy of the pleading with Tom’s logic, and relief washed through him at the solidity of the argument. “That makes sense,” he said. “I have all the paperwork for Julie. And you’re right. From everything Laura has said, he was a control freak.”
A control freak who had prevented Laura from seeing him and Julie in London. I am all the family she needs. St. Bride had shown a hell of a nerve, keeping Laura’s own family from her.
Yet, less than two months later, they had started divorce proceedings. For the first time, the strange timing of that struck Richard. And he saw too, on the first page of the pleading, what he had not noticed before. Laura had not been the one to file; she had been filed against. Cameron St. Bride’s desire to control the divorce that his wife wanted? Or had he actually been the one to want out?
“Good,” said Tom. “Now let’s get down to the rest of this. Please tell me, just so I can file a motion to quash in good conscience, that no docs, photos, etc., exist that show anything between you and Francie. Please tell me that you did not see fit to write her any letters.”
Well, that, at least, he could answer without hesitation. “Of course not. I was a fool, but I wasn’t that big a fool. The only problem is,” and he heard Tom groan, “I haven’t a clue as to what Francie wrote. She never wrote me any letters – just some cards and tapes, and I destroyed those. But those girls wrote everything down. Dominic trained them to keep journals for their music from the time they were little. Diana stopped once she went to college, but I remember seeing Laura writing in hers. And she and Francie took those journals with them. That’s how we knew right away that they hadn’t been abducted.”
Tom swore. “Damn that man! No wonder Lucy makes lists of everything. All we can hope is Laura doesn’t have any of Francie’s stuff left, or maybe Francie had the journal with her when the plane crashed—”
Richard stopped making notes on the fax.
“Plane crash? What are you talking about?”
Silence. He could almost hear Tom’s mind racing.
“Laura told Lucy that Francie died in a plane crash.” Tom sounded tentative, as though he searched for something. “Lucy didn’t want to press Laura for details, so she asked me how we could get more information. Sorry, I thought you knew. Where did I put… oh, here it is.” His voice resumed its authority. “I have a coded file on Francie. Private plane crash, en route from Angelfire to Texas. Laura didn’t say when.”
The air conditioning must be on high, or else shock was chilling his skin. “That’s not what she told me,” Richard said, and heard again Laura’s words, full of pain and a desire to hurt. She bled to death. Right here in Virginia. “Check WESTLAW or LEXIS. The NTSB investigates every private plane crash in this country, and they publish their reports. And – look after August 1991.”
His attorney paused for a telling moment. Then Tom said dryly, “Tell me how you know that.”
“Because—” What he would have done not to admit this! “— I saw Francie then, and she was far from dead.”
At that moment, he benefited from Lucy being asleep in the Maitland house. “God damn it,” and Tom’s voice did rise, “how many years have I represented you, and you are just now telling me that salient fact? You said that you ended things in June 1988—”
“And I did.”
“And now I find out that you had contact with Francie, what, three years later? Where the hell was this, anyway?” He didn’t like the sharpness of Tom’s voice, but knew he had earned it. “And who got in touch with whom?”
&n
bsp; “Francie called me. I saw her on Ash Marine. And,” he cut in before Tom could say anything, “there was nothing even remotely sexual about it. I saw her. She saw me. We exchanged a few words.”
Don’t ask about Laura. Don’t ask.
“Hell,” said Tom. “Okay, and I need a straight answer on this. Was Laura there? Could she possibly know about this meeting?”
Had Laura been there… he had a vision of bright, passionate eyes, of a body that melted and responded… as, dear God, she had melted and responded beneath him on the floor of her kitchen an hour before, no longer a child, but a woman offering herself heart and soul. I came back for you. I’ve loved you my entire life…. And he had thrust her away.
Come upstairs with me.
For Diana. Diana, who sought to strip away the secrets Laura had fought so hard to conceal. Diana who had slashed her wrist, put her sister through a terrifying afternoon, and now was attempting to divide her from the rest of the family by resurrecting old wounds, old feelings, old moments that no longer meant anything.
He had, he thought, truly meant to preserve her relationship with Diana. He had not taken her upstairs, as she had begged him to take her, because he had wanted her still to have her sister. And for what! Diana had already broken her relationship with her younger sister for good, with this damnable piece of paper, threatening the core of Laura’s life.
Because he knew how Laura would react to the subpoena. She had to avoid it. To give that deposition, she had to perjure herself, lie through her teeth, anything to keep them from knowing that Meg was not her natural child. Laura deserved Meg. She had married for her, taken her as her own, endured twelve years of Cameron St. Bride for her. He and Francie had accidentally created Meg, but by accident or design, she had ended up with exactly the right mother.
And no one, especially not Diana, was going to interfere with that.
It struck him then that, in the space of a heartbeat, his priorities had shifted, that Diana was no longer his axis.
All Who Are Lost (Ashmore's Folly Book 1) Page 40
