The morning stood still. She didn’t breathe.
“I was in love once,” he said, “you know that. I’ve been in love with one woman in my life, and what a disaster that turned out to be. I don’t trust being in love. I don’t trust feeling that the world is well lost for love, because I nearly lost the world for it, and it wasn’t worth it. Still—”
He lifted a hand and touched her hair. She lifted her free hand and held it to his, and she felt the lifeblood in his wrist against her face.
“It felt very right waking up beside you this morning.” And now the distance had dropped away from his eyes. “The world has felt very right for the last couple of weeks, ever since you came home. Dear God, Laurie, I never realized how much I missed you, what a hole you left in my life. Maybe I’ll never be in love with you, maybe I’ll never be able to give you all that you want and deserve, but I do love you, you’re part of me and part of my life, the best part too. When I think back to the best moments of my life, you were always a part of those, you’re as interwoven into my life as the air and the sun here in Virginia, and that’s worth a lot to me, and we can build from there – if you want to.”
So it was up to her, as he had said. She thought, a wisp of a thought to tuck away and take out later to ponder, that he had laid his heart in her hands, no matter that he thought he hadn’t a heart to lay.
She didn’t trust her voice. She nodded vigorously, and held on hard to his hands.
“Then,” and she heard him controlling his voice, “we certainly owe ourselves a chance.”
Joy sparkled in her blood.
She wasn’t aware of her movement, that she stood up or that he pulled her towards him, but somehow she ended up in a rush in his arms, on his lap, her arms around his neck, her cheek against his hair, his head resting warmly against her breast. And for all that he could never love her – he held her tightly against him, as if he could never let her go.
~•~
“All right,” Richard said presently, when they came back to themselves and reality, and she was warmly tucked in at his side, “let’s get busy. What are your plans for today?”
He sounded so businesslike that Laura decided to have some fun. She had precious little experience in flirting with him, anyway. “To see if you can repeat your performance a third time in twenty-four hours.”
He had been pulling out his Blackberry, so her words caught him off guard. She watched with interest as a dull color hit his cheekbones. “I said today, not tonight,” but his mouth was twitching in laughter. “Any plans?”
She helped herself to the remains of his bagel. “Nothing that can’t wait. Why?”
“I thought we might get out of here for the weekend.” He was consulting his Blackberry. Oh, heavens, so he was as gadget-happy as Cam… she had much to learn about this man. “Julie said you like antiques. There’s an antique fair up near Gettysburg and another at Charlottesville. We could go up to Pennsylvania first and then come back down this afternoon and stop in at the other one.”
She didn’t need time to think. “I’d love to. Are you going to fly us?”
“Yes. We can stay in Charlottesville tonight – I know a great B&B, and then—” he gave her a smile, “I made you a promise years ago that I didn’t keep, that I would show you Monticello. I’d like to take you there. Next to Ashmore Park, it’s my favorite place in the world.”
A romantic weekend away… and more of his heart. “Give me ten minutes.”
~•~
It took thirty minutes, though, to pack, set out food and water for Max, and leave word that she would be gone. Laura pondered the wording of her email to Meg and Mark – how much truth to include? – but then wrote tersely that she was going for a long drive in the mountains and not to call her unless there was an emergency. She’d hear from one or the other soon enough.
Oh, and wasn’t that going to be a pleasant conversation… I’m going away with my lover, no one you’ve met, but he has been the defining arc over my life…
She spared a moment for a practical matter. A quick glance at a private calendar on her computer confirmed that last night was safe; she had nothing to consider for another few days, long enough certainly to get through the weekend. But by the end of the week she was going to need that diaphragm tucked in the upper right drawer of her dresser in the London flat. She wrote a quick email to Terry, who had an extra key.
Laura clicked Send and had a sudden mental image of Terry’s face when he received the message. No doubt he and Roger would fire back emails demanding details after they sent her package on the next plane. She powered down her computer and looked across the room at Richard, pacing around while he called for a reservation for the night.
All this technology, she thought. Two hundred years ago, she might have written a quick letter and run off with her lover on horseback, turning their backs on a world that would have roundly condemned their liaison. Now… cell phones and call forwarding to shield their location from discovery, and emails to summon birth control on the next transatlantic flight – all the trappings of a modern couple, and yet here they were in this old-fashioned room, engaging in a timeless lovers’ gamble. Will I win your heart? Will you love me?
Richard finished his call. “We’re in luck. One of my professors and his wife run a B&B in Charlottesville, and they’ve got their best room open.”
She wondered if the professor had ever met Diana, and immediately shut away the thought. He’s mine now. She doesn’t count anymore. Not after what she did to him.
“Just one more call,” he said. “I need to send Julie over to Lucy’s for the weekend. She wasn’t awake when I went home this morning.”
~•~
For most of the night, Julie Ashmore had sat waiting, arms wrapped around her knees, listening for her father’s return.
Something terrible was happening. She could feel it.
It had happened at her grandfather’s house earlier that day. The sight of Laura’s car outside the house had surprised her, at first, as she drove past, and only when she slowed down did she notice the front door standing open.
And, when she’d parked next to the Jaguar, she’d seen the splashes of red on the veranda.
She’d stood outside, screaming for Laura, for ages. Her throat still hurt. But no one had been in the house, no one alive at least, and all the time she screamed with answer only from the birds, she had remembered the last time blood had stained this house.
Finally, because she had to know, she’d taken the only weapon in the trunk, a lug wrench. Heart beating so hard that it hurt, that she could scarcely breathe, she had entered the house. Eyes darting constantly, making sure that her back was covered – she hadn’t watched hours of television drama for nothing – she’d searched through the house.
Her mother’s tote bag lying carelessly in the music room had brought fear high into her throat. And the room itself – she’d seen right away that things were slightly out of place, sheet music in disarray, the piano bench pulled out, the metronome no longer front and center. She’d dropped the lug wrench in favor of the metronome, because those ugly spikes could inflict far more deadly damage, and she’d crept upstairs in search of Diana and Laura.
Diana and Laura. Two sisters. One not quite right in the head – she knew that, no matter how it hurt to think that about the woman who had given her birth – and the other still a stranger, subtly mysterious, subtly dangerous in her secrets. What had happened between them that blood stained the house and her mother’s car was missing?
Then, in Diana’s room, she’d found a horror beyond imagination. Even a body, she thought now, rocking herself in the heart of the night, would have been less terrifying. At least she would have known. But no fallen sister had haunted the room. Only a shattered mirror, shards of glass lying on the floor, and a gold silk ball gown damaged forever by bloodshed.
Had Diana turned on Laura, or Laura on Diana? And why?
She’d torn downstairs and called her fat
her in Charleston. He’d been mildly irritated at first at being called out of his meeting; his irritation had turned to alarm as soon as she’d stammered out what she had found. “Get out of there!” he’d snapped. “Now!” And she’d dropped the phone and run to the car, conscious now of her stupidity in entering a deserted house where horror hung in the air.
And then – silence. She’d driven home as fast as she could, car doors locked, and run into the house as if all the furies pursued her. And there, protected by the fortress of land and security gates and passworded keypads, she’d waited in silence for word.
Surely her father would return soon.
Tom’s phone call mid-evening had broken the silence, but despite the urgency in his voice, he told her nothing. “Tell him to page me. Doesn’t matter how late. I have to talk to him ASAP.” And she’d dutifully written the note for her father, and worried what was keeping him.
The house was still. She didn’t mind being alone. Now that she had her license, Richard no longer obsessed about leaving her by herself if he had to work late. Normally, she welcomed the solitude; she could play her CDs as loud as she wanted, dance around the living room, and watch junk movies on the satellite TV. She could play the piano in the conservatory and shake the rafters. She could call anyone she wanted for as long as she wanted. She could chat on the Internet without her father asking her what she was doing.
She found solace this evening at her piano. She hadn’t practiced in a couple of days – not since Laura had ripped off good-Julie’s mask – and she had a lesson the next day. Out came Tchaikovsky, and for two hours she immersed herself in notes and arpeggios and pathos. When the bulb in the lamp burned out and thrust her into the twilight of a darkened room, she ignored it and kept on playing.
She kept part of her mind disengaged, listening for the faint hum of Richard’s car.
Then – late, later than she would have ever thought – she heard him pull up in front of the house. She traced his footsteps up the steps to the door; she heard the front door open. And, in the light filtering in from the great room, she saw him toss his suit jacket down on the back of the sofa.
Any thought she had of coming out into the light, asking what had happened, vanished. She had never seen her father look that way before. He looked exhausted; he looked, beneath the grimness, strangely vulnerable, and she thought that, maybe, something terrible had happened to him too.
He looked – he looked as if he had lost something precious.
Diana? Was she dead? Oh, God, no….
He crossed the floor to his office area. He always checked his messages when he came in; he’d log in and read his email, and of course he’d see the sign taped on his monitor. Trapped in the darkness, she huddled as he called Tom, and gradually she realized that, whatever had happened earlier, that wasn’t the urgent matter that had so alarmed Tom.
And what she heard, she tucked away.
That birth certificate… Plane crash? What plane crash? That’s not what she told me… I saw Francie then… She’ll lie if she has to testify…. Richard hanging up, covering his face in his hands, and after a while, pulling a notepad towards him. The second phone call. File for divorce… she drops any threat of custody… I’ll waive any claims of adultery against her, if she’ll do the same for me… will not have Laura harassed… Have her served. It will scare the hell out of her… No fake suicide attempts.
Fake suicide attempt. Julie, sitting at her piano, felt sick.
And divorce. He was actually doing it. He was divorcing Diana.
Whatever had happened today, Diana had finally pushed him too far.
Had she tried to kill herself? Had she tried to kill Laura?
Was she all right? Was she dead? Well, of course, she isn’t. He wouldn’t be filing for divorce if she’d killed herself.
When he rose from his desk and went upstairs, she seized the moment. The moment his door closed, she sprinted into the kitchen and ran up the kitchen stairs to the landing. Ten short steps, and she was in her bedroom, breathless, heart pounding, tears streaming down her face.
She flung herself down on her bed and cried.
~•~
During the firestorm – grief at the end of the whole sorry saga of her parents’ marriage, heartbreak at the death of any hope for a fairy-tale resolution – she had barely registered the sounds in the house. She heard the shower running, heard her father moving around in his room. Later, as her sobs faded and she buried her hot face in the cool pillows, she heard him going back down the stairs.
And then – shock – the front door closed, and the Lexus purred as it left the driveway.
Julie kept vigil, but her father did not return all night.
~•~
She fell asleep finally, so his early morning return caught her off guard. She scarcely had time to dive under the covers before he knocked lightly and opened her door. She pretended to sleep through his low “Julie?” and held her breath until he closed the door again, gently.
Dawn was filtering in through the blinds. Julie squinted at the clock. 7:05. Where had he been all night?
An unpleasant thought intruded, and she shoved it away.
It came back again.
He’d spent the night somewhere else, and now a divorce – oh, no.
Another woman?
Richard Ashmore hadn’t had a relationship with a woman in over three years. For a few years before that – Julie thought maybe since she was about ten – he’d dated that rare book dealer who kept sending home Judy Bolton and Nancy Drew volumes, so that Julie ended up with an impressive set of out-of-print girl sleuth books. Judging from the number of times he whistled that annoying song “Jennifer Juniper,” her name was Jennifer; judging from the rare times that Julie answered her phone calls, Jennifer had a sweet disposition and a great deal of patience. Judging from the conversations she’d overheard as the relationship wore on, Jennifer had eventually run out of patience and presented her lover with an ultimatum.
Julie thought he’d taken the breakup hard. For several months, he’d seemed at loose ends. If he’d liked Jennifer that much, why hadn’t he divorced Diana and married her?
“Because like isn’t love,” Lucy had said. “I’m not sure he’ll ever divorce your mother. If he does, then someone important has happened to him.”
I have to tell Lucy about this.
No problem with calling Lucy in private, though. Within half an hour, Richard left again. This time, his daughter observed from a window, with an overnight bag in his hand.
~•~
The summery hills of Virginia stretched out below them like a verdant tapestry. Woods guarded the ribbons of highway running through the Peninsula; small neighborhoods broke up the landscape; an occasional great house stretched before an expanse of land running down to the James. From the air, it looked like a grassy quilt laid on the earth.
Air space over much of the Peninsula was restricted, Richard had explained. They’d fly a zigzag course along the Peninsula to avoid the military bases until they drew closer to Richmond, and then they would turn north. “You’re going to think we’re flying too low,” he’d added, “unless you’re used to flying in private aircraft. Don’t worry.”
Laura nodded; she’d flown with Cam numerous times back in their early marriage. Even so, she discovered once they were airborne and climbing in the Bonanza, she’d forgotten how truly close to the ground they seemed, compared to the distance seen outside an airliner window. They swooped first over Edwards Lake and then Ashmore Park. From the air, the Folly seemed like a model; Ashmore Minor looked like a dollhouse in the morning sunlight. She saw the gardens and the steps leading up to Ashmore Magna, the enormous stable block, the back gardens stretching out for acres, the family graveyard next to the old slave chapel with the oddly slanting roof.
Richard spoke into the headset. “We’ve got an hour of flying time ahead of us. Try to get some rest before we get there.”
Her throat still ached and her hand
still stung from the day before, so she nodded. Richard gave her a slow smile before turning his attention back to the instrument panel. Laura donned her sunglasses to block out the glare and settled back in her seat.
But she couldn’t sleep. She’d never been able to sleep on an airliner or a private jet; her manager had learned never to book her on a flight the day before a show. The Bonanza was smaller, noisier. She was closer to the vibrations of the engines now than she ever was in first class. Still, the warm sun spilling in through the windshield lulled her into a quiet dreaming wakefulness.
Her body felt more alive than it had in years. The warmth of the sunlight touched her lightly, as he had touched her. She felt the light cotton of her dress lying on her body, across the breasts he had kissed, across the thighs he had explored.
She wondered if he felt the same acute awareness this morning. His hands, now competently guiding their plane through the skies, had known her skin as the sun now knew it. His lips, now set in concentration on his flying, had drawn down her spine. His body, now decorously hidden in the weekend wear of the suburban professional, had pressed her into the featherbed.
She let her fingers trail towards her locket, in remembrance of his fingers trailing across her, and felt a moment of pure joy, in remembrance of his head against her breast that morning.
Tentatively, exploring her new rights, she touched his sleeve. His quizzical glance softened and warmed as she stroked him through the sleeve and then leaned over to kiss the spot she had stroked.
She felt his lips against her hair, and then he returned to flying, and she settled back.
But sleep was still an impossibility, so she turned her face towards him and watched him through her lashes. Unexpectedly, she felt the dissonance she had felt earlier, that a stranger had stepped from behind the familiar mask. She had accused him of never seeing her, Laura thought, was she herself guilty of never truly seeing him? Had she always seen him through the prism of Diana and Francie?
All Who Are Lost (Ashmore's Folly Book 1) Page 44
