Winter's Edge

by Anne Stuart

  She needed to see if she could find something to jog her memory. A hint, a clue, some tiny something to jar her stubborn mind. The longer it remained blank the more frustrated she grew.

  She wasn't sure she really was in any kind of danger. Even though she'd been involved in a murder, no one had seemed interested in harming her now. So far, no one had seemed particularly interested in getting within touching distance of her.

  But Patrick had touched. Unwillingly, almost as if he couldn't help himself. And she knew he wanted to touch her again. Almost as much as she wanted him to touch her.

  Aunt Ermy's room was a jumble of clutter. Little ornaments jostled each other for space on her mantelpiece, her cherry wood dressers, her Queen Anne secretary. Every spare inch in the room was filled with an artifact of some sort, from exquisite pieces to the merely shoddy. Dresden ballerinas danced with plastic penguins, there were plump, overstuffed pillows everywhere, and the room felt claustrophobic. She shut the door behind her, unable to rid herself of the notion that she didn't have very much in common with Aunt Ermy.

  Uncle Willy's room was exactly the opposite—practically devoid of personal clutter. That was an empty vodka bottle in his wastepaper basket, and the clothes he wore yesterday were neatly folded and placed on a Windsor chair. The atmosphere of the room was stale and tired, rather like Uncle Willy himself, and she left just as quickly.

  The attics lay beyond the little turn in the hallway, down two steps and past the linen closet and the guest bathroom. She turned the doorknob, not without a small shiver of apprehension. Since this morning she distrusted being alone. It seemed to her as if there were eyes everywhere, watching her, threatening her.

  "This is ridiculous," she muttered out loud, stepping into the room and switching on the light.

  Mrs. Morse hadn't exaggerated when she said the attics were filled with junk. Trunks upon trunks upon trunks, ancient newspapers and magazines tied in neat little bundles, old pieces of riding tack, skis, tennis rackets needing restringing, boxes and boxes and boxes. And her furniture.

  She recognized it with a swift feeling of relief and love, rather like seeing an old friend, and she moved toward it in a daze, running her hand over the warm glow of the cherry bedstead, the delicate dressing table, the blanket chest that somehow seemed to fit with the various periods of the other pieces. She was going to have it back, she promised herself. As soon as she could have that hideous modern stuff removed and carted off to the dump, she'd have her own beloved pieces back in there.

  She went over to the most readily available boxes, hoping that something else might jog her memory. But nothing else tripped that frustrating, mysterious little mechanism in her brain. The prom dress that hung forlornly must have been hers, yet she remembered no magic, breathless moments, no starry-eyed excitement connected with it. It was simply a pretty dress, worn by a girl she didn't know, and she wondered vaguely where her wedding dress was. And whether it would bring her any greater recognition.

  She lost track of time, poking and prying and trying to force some shred of memory. Hours might have passed. She made a mental note of all the furniture she knew belonged in her room, and lost herself in schemes on how best to arrange it. When she finally left the room and switched the light off behind her, the hallway was dark. She could hear a car driving away from the house, and she hurried to look out her bedroom window.

  It was the fairly new Mercedes that she knew belonged to Patrick, and she breathed a sigh of relief. She would have time now to snoop through his room. There was no other word for it—she needed to discover the secrets he kept from his unwanted wife. Any clue to the impasse they were currently in was worth prying for, even if her methods were less than honorable. She had to find out more about him if she was ever going to remember all she had lost And why she had married him in the first place.

  And whether she had any reason to fear him.

  She still wasn't quite sure why she was afraid of him. He certainly didn't seem the sort of man to be abusive. There was anger, deep inside him, and a lot of that anger was directed at her. But she still couldn't believe he'd deliberately want to injure her.

  Or could she believe it? Was she a fool to trust her instincts when she had no memory to back them up? Why couldn't Patrick have bashed old Ben on the head and set the barn fire? Insurance money could be a very strong motive.

  Maybe he'd paid George Andrews to lure her away and kill her. Maybe he'd tried to kill her himself.

  Maybe, maybe, maybe. There were times when she thought she'd go crazy if she didn't start to find some answers to the questions that plagued her.

  Including the most basic. Was her husband a dangerous enemy or a disinterested bystander? Or someone who cared more than he wanted to?

  She pulled the thick cotton sweater she'd bought him out of her drawer and tucked it under her arm before attempting her final excursion. If she happened to run into Mrs. Morse or Uncle Willy at least she would have an excuse. Though why she should need an excuse to enter her husband's bedroom was beyond her comprehension. She simply knew it to be the truth.

  She moved silently down the hall and opened Patrick's door with all the stealth of a master criminal. Not a sound emanated from the upstairs hall. For all anyone would know she was sound asleep in the elegant nightmare called her room. She slipped inside and shut the door.

  She hadn't looked very carefully when she had explored the first day, simply noticing the air of unfrilly masculinity before she'd shut the door again. But now it had taken on an entirely new dimension. It belonged to Patrick, the enigma, and as such was endlessly fascinating.

  His bed was high and wide, at least three and a half feet off the floor, the kind of bed where babies are born and old people die. The kind of bed to found a dynasty in, if one was so inclined. She ran a hand over the beautiful quilt, and wondered whether she had shared any unforgettable moments in this enticing bed. If so, she had obviously forgotten them.

  She could imagine Patrick's long, lean body, tossing and turning in so large a bed, and she felt a queer little twinge in her stomach. Of longing? Or nervousness? Or both? She couldn't truthfully answer.

  She placed the sweater on the bed with great care, then moved to the dresser, noting the silver-backed combs with his initials engraved on them, the loose change lying around. The photograph of a young girl standing in a field, her head thrown back, laughing from sheer joy.

  Molly's hand was trembling as she reached out and took the picture. She knew that face, that moment. It was a picture of her, not that old, and she could almost remember, almost grasp…

  "What the hell are you doing in here?" His voice was rough, shocking, sending whatever she was about to remember flying into a million pieces. She stared at him numbly.

  He shut the door behind him and moved closer. He'd unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it free from his jeans, obviously on the way to a shower, and it was all she could do to keep her eyes away from his chest.

  She had to have seen men's chests before. She had to have seen this particular one before, and she was being an utter fool to stand there, speechless. So he was tanned, even at the end of winter. So he was lean, and strong, with a triangle of hair that arrowed down toward his jeans. So it was a very nice chest indeed. There was still no need for her to suddenly find herself unable to breathe.

  He moved closer, and there was just the hint of a threat in his movements, and a sinuous grace that made her look around helplessly for means to escape.

  "What are you doing with a picture of me on your dresser?" she countered, trying to divert him from whatever he had in mind.

  "It's not you," he said flatly. "It's a girl I once knew, but she's been gone for years. Leaving you in her place." His voice was contemptuous as he surveyed her, and then he shrugged, never slowing his determined progress toward her as she stood guiltily in the corner of his bedroom. "Call it an old weakness," he added slowly. He stopped, directly in front of her, so close she could feel his body heat, so cl
ose she could see the tiny fan of lines around his stormy blue eyes.

  Her reaction made no sense to her. She wanted to run away, and she wanted to touch him. She wanted to reach out and run her hand down that lean, muscled chest, but something, some innate wisdom, stopped her. Despite the fact that she must have done that, and much more, in the past, she knew she shouldn't do it now. No matter how much she wanted to feel the warmth of his skin beneath her hand.

  "You know, Molly," he said in a low, sinuous voice, "you should have told me you wanted to visit my bedroom. I would have invited you long ago."

  Quite casually he reached out and took her by the shoulders, drawing her unresisting body towards him. "It's amazing that you still have some effect on me." His voice was rough, and his mouth covered hers with a sudden force that left her shocked, stunned, paralyzed. He held her in an unbreakable grip as he caught her chin in his hand and continued to kiss her, with slow, contemptuous deliberation, refusing to allow her to escape, until she was a shaking, trembling mass of confused reactions, reactions she was powerless to control. And then his mouth softened, and it was no longer punishment but a reward, and she kissed him back, sliding her arms around his waist, pressing up against him with helpless longing she hadn't quite understood.

  She needed to be here. Locked tight against him, his mouth on hers, demanding nothing but complete surrender. She made a quiet little sound in the back of her throat, and surrender it was.

  He pulled away, suddenly, moving back from her as if she'd suddenly become contagious. "Damn you," he said in a low, furious voice. "Get out of here."

  She stared at him through the twilight room for a moment, shaken, shocked to the very core of her being. And then she ran from the room without a backward glance. Ran from him as she had run before, five weeks earlier, in the same blind panic.

  When she reached her room she slammed the door shut behind her and locked it with a loud, satisfying click. Leaning against the door, she trembled in the aftermath of his touch. She had surely never been kissed like that before. She couldn't have forgotten such a torrent of emotions. As a matter of fact, she could have sworn that she'd never been kissed at all—the feel of a hot, wet mouth against hers had been a startling revelation.

  But that was absurd. She was twenty-three years old, and married. Her mind must be playing even more sadistic tricks on her.

  She moved through her darkened room and threw herself onto the bed. She wouldn't go down to dinner, she promised herself. She couldn't face him after…that…that

  She would lie there and starve.

  "Molly? Molly, dear, open up. Open up right now!" An imperative voice broke through Molly's sleep-numbed mind, and she sat up dazedly. It took her a moment to remember where she was, and what had happened. Patrick's mouth on hers, the too-brief moment that had burned into her brain.

  Unfortunately nothing else had disrupted her blank memory. She probed, looking for answers, ignoring the incessant pounding at her door. Still nothing.

  "Who is it?" she finally called out groggily, switching on the light

  "Your Aunt Ermintrude, of course. Now open the door immediately."

  What a tyrant, she thought. "What can I do for you?" she called out with deliberate calm.

  "What do you mean, what can you do for me? Do as I say immediately, Molly, or I shan't answer for the consequences." Her deep contralto voice rose to a tiny squeak of rage.

  "Then don't" Molly answered mildly enough, glad to have an instinct confirmed. She couldn't stand dear Aunt Ermy. "I'll open the door when I'm ready to, and not before. Go away and leave me alone."

  There was an outraged silence beyond the oak door, and she could picture a rather Wagnerian lady bristling with indignation. After a moment or two she heard angry, stomping footsteps walk away and she chuckled, inordinately pleased that she had managed to rout some member of her hostile family at last.

  "Molly." Mrs. Morse's soft voice broke through her pleased reverie, and she sprang up. The woman darted into the room as soon as Molly unlocked it, with a furtive glance over her shoulder to make sure she was unobserved.

  "My, my, you have put your aunt in a taking," she said with satisfaction. "Sent me up here to find out what in hell was going on with you."

  Molly threw herself back down on the bed, wondering absently whether she looked any different. Could Mrs. Morse see that Patrick had kissed her? Probably not—people were kissed all the time. Everyone had made it clear she'd done a lot more than kissing, and with a number of men besides her husband. It was hardly the soul-shattering event it seemed to her overwrought imagination. "I don't care much for Aunt Ermy," Molly said in a meditative voice.

  "Well, now that's a new thing, I must say. You and the old battle-ax used to be inseparable buddies, always tearing poor Patrick apart each chance you got." She sniffed. "I'm glad you've seen the error of your ways."

  "We don't seem to have much in common," Molly said. "Are you sure?"

  "I'm sure," she said flatly. "I'm just glad that's over and done with. I came to find out if you'd be coming down to dinner. There'll only be the three of you—Willy, Ermy, and you. Patrick took off about an hour ago in a towering rage. Said he wouldn't be in for dinner. I wondered if you would know anything about that?" Her curiosity was unabashed, but Molly wasn't in the mood to satisfy it.

  "Can't imagine." She scrambled off the bed. "And of course I'll be down to dinner. Can I give you a hand?"

  "It's all done. Everything to her highness's liking, you can be sure." She pursed her thin lips in disgust. "You can come down and keep her off my back, though. She and Willy are having a high old time in the living room, drinking Patrick's liquor and heaping insults on him in his absence."

  "I'll see what I can do," Molly promised, running a brush thought her hair and following Mrs. Morse's upright figure through the halls.

  She paused at the entrance of the living room, just long enough to take stock of its inhabitants. Aunt Ermy was Wagnerian, all right, with a high-swept pompadour of silver hair and three determined chins, each one more determined than the last. Tiny, piglike eyes, a retroussé snout with a fierce mustache bristling beneath completed the picture, and of her massive body the less said the better: a mountainous bulk on tiny trotters. She looked as unpleasant as Molly had imagined her to be, and she was mortally glad the relationship was, at best, a distant one.

  "Good evening, everyone," she greeted them airily as she sailed into the room. Aunt Ermy's tiny eyes took in the jeans, the T-shirt, the lack of makeup, and her face screwed up into a look of pouting disapproval.

  "Well," she said at length, "I'm pleased to see you finally decided to come down and greet your poor aunt after your long and mysterious absence. Going off like that without a word!"

  Molly smiled at her, not a bit disturbed. "Sorry," she said briefly, helping herself to a large glass of cranberry juice and slipping into the hard-backed chair left—the two relatives having commandeered the most comfortable ones in the room. "Did you enjoy your visit?"

  "I might well ask the same of you," Aunt Ermy said frostily. Molly eyed her with cold-blooded calm, and she immediately changed her domineering attitude. "Molly, dear, couldn't you have told us where you were going? We were worried about you!"

  Molly shrugged, and Aunt Ermy leaned closer, the air heavy with the expensive but unsuitably girlish scent she had splashed all over her. "And Willy here tells me you've lost your memory. Surely you can't have forgotten your Aunt Ermy? And all the fun things we used to do together?"

  "I'm afraid I have," she said in a brisk voice. "I'm starving. Mrs. Morse should have dinner ready by now—shall we go in?" Molly rose gracefully, and Aunt Ermy stared up at her with increasing annoyance.

  "Well, really, Molly, we've hardly started on our second drink," she began, but Molly interrupted her.

  "Oh, that's perfectly all right, you can bring it in with you," she said, nipping her protests in the bud. Uncle Willy looked up from his chair, a gleam of amusement and somet
hing else fighting through the sodden expression on his face. He wandered after them into the dining room, bringing not only his glass but the crystal decanter of whiskey with him.

  Molly watched Aunt Ermy bear down on the seat at the head of the table like a steamship. As soon as she pulled out the heavy chair Molly darted into the seat, smiling at her with all the charm she had at her beck and call. "Thank you, Aunt Ermy," she said sweetly, pulling out the heavy linen napkin and placing it on her lap.

  Ermintrude stood there for a moment in a floundering rage, immovable and furious. She seated herself with awful majesty at Molly's right, her mountainous form quivering with indignation.

  "You used to dress for dinner, my dear," was all she said in an aggrieved tone, and Molly considered she'd gotten off lightly.

  "I prefer to be comfortable, Aunt Ermy," she replied calmly.

  "And where has he gone tonight?" she questioned halfway through the meal.

  "Do you mean my husband?" Molly asked her politely. Whatever her differences were with the man, she wasn't about to let this awful old woman insult him. "He had some business to attend to, I believe."

  "Business like la belle dame Canning, if I'm not mistaken," Willy snorted from the foot of the table.

  "Perhaps," Molly said, undisturbed. "But I don't think that's any of your concern." Her calm statement put a damper on the dinner conversation, but by the time they were back in the living room and well fortified with additional alcohol Uncle Willy and Aunt Ermy grew quite loquacious once more.

  "I'm glad to see you're drinking your cranberry juice," Aunt Ermy observed heavily as she accepted another tall glass from Willy's drink-fumbled hands. "At least you're following my precepts in that matter."

  Molly immediately tried to refuse the drink, but Willy took no notice, trying to add a shot of vodka to the glass she held firmly out of reach.

  "Come on, my girl," he pouted. "Don't go all prudish on us. You used to put away quite a bit of this stuff before your transformation into Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Patrick's not here to see you—live a bit," he bantered clumsily.