Читать книгу The Wrong Wife - Carolyn McSparren - Страница 8

ANNABELLE SHUT THE DOOR to the backyard and leaned against it with both hands behind her back. There was no point in throwing the bolt against Ben. He’d just walk around to the front. His mother would let him in, assuming he didn’t have his own key to her house.

Annabelle’s heart raced, the pulse in her temple throbbed, and she knew she had a film of sweat on her upper lip, despite the cool early-April air outside.

The kin of my enemy is my enemy. Her grandmother had drummed that into her head since she could remember. Grandmere was already having triple conniptions because Annabelle was working for Elizabeth, Hal Jackson’s ex-wife. The idea that Annabelle might be attracted to Hal Jackson’s son would probably give her a stroke.

And she was attracted. Heck, she’d always been attracted to Ben, although she hadn’t seen him since he went off to college.

She’d known about Judy Bromfield’s death, of course; it had happened the summer after Ben graduated from high school. The whole thing had been horrible, especially when it came out that Ben’s father had been responsible for getting the man who’d raped and murdered Judy off on another charge only two months earlier.

Annabelle remembered Ben as cheerful, funny, wildly successful at everything he did. The golden boy. Now, although he sounded much the same, there was something cold at the center.

She recognized the wariness in Ben’s eyes. She saw it in the mirror every morning.

Back in high school, she’d thought he was the warmest, kindest person she’d ever known because he treated her the same way he treated everybody else.

Now he was asking her to dinner, and she longed to go, but didn’t dare. The only way to avoid becoming as big a slut as her mother had been was to avoid temptation like the plague. From the electrical connection she’d felt when she brushed off his clothes, Ben was a combination bubonic and pneumonic, with a big dash of anthrax thrown in.

Besides, he was Hal Jackson’s son. Grandmere would go crazy. Working for Elizabeth was bad enough.

But how was Annabelle expected to make enough money to support herself, not to mention avoiding the loss of her skills and reputation, when she’d come back to Memphis to look after Grandmere?

Elizabeth’s job offer had been a godsend. It would actually enhance Annabelle’s reputation. And it gave her a place to live while she was here as well.

Annabelle would not live in the mansion with her grandmother. The day Jonas had driven her to the plane for New York and design school, she’d made a solemn vow that she would never live there again.

Elizabeth had offered Annabelle the apartment over what was now a four-car garage, but what had originally been the carriage house. It was furnished—rather charmingly, as a matter of fact. Elizabeth Langley never did anything halfway. It was almost as large as her loft in SoHo. It even had a fireplace.

Now that she had shoved some of the furniture out of the way, set up a trestle table and brought in a sewing machine and serger, she had plenty of room to keep working until all hours of the night.

Better than sleep. Back where it had all happened, her dreams were even more troubled. She would not resort to pills. Reality was bad enough. Altered reality was a horror not to be contemplated.

She began to climb the steps to the workroom once more. What kind of human being marks the day she will finally be free as “when Grandmere dies?” A monster, obviously. But then, once a monster, always a monster. At least here everybody expected her to behave monstrously.

Ben had remembered her instantly; he’d gotten all embarrassed over his remark about killing his mother. In New York no one would have made the connection. In New York she was not Annabelle Langley, the bad seed.

“You all right?” Marian Wadsworth’s callused fingers stopped plying her needle for a moment and let the piece of Venice lace she held lie loose in her lap.

“Fine.” Annabelle shoved her hair out of her face for the fiftieth time since morning. “I am going to shave my head like a Buddhist nun.”

“It would grow back wilder than before.”

Annabelle picked up a foot-long piece of rayon seam binding off the floor and tied her hair into a ponytail at the back of her head. Without a rubber band, the binding would hold for an hour or so before it slid off.

She saw the glint of one of the missing paillettes in the crack between two floorboards and bent to pick it up. Then she saw another and dropped onto her hands and knees. “Funny thing. Ben Jackson nearly fell on me.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“He was up in that big old oak. I didn’t even know he was there, then suddenly, wham, he drops out of nowhere at my feet.”

Marian laughed and picked up the lace. “When he was a child he shinned up that tree whenever he wanted to get away.” She turned serious. “After Judy was killed, I think he practically lived up there all summer. It’s where he did his grieving. Is he all right?”

“Yes, Marian, your darling is all right, and incidentally, so am I.”

“I can see that, Belle, that’s why I asked about Ben.”

“I brushed him off and sent him back inside looking amazingly little the worse for wear. Ah, gotcha!” she added as she found another paillette.

“He was always one of those Teflon children who came from school looking as neat as he did when he left home.” Marian shook her head.

“I, on the other hand, looked as though I’d been through a wrestling match ten seconds after I dressed. Used to drive Grandmere frantic.” She sat back on her heels.

“How is she today?”

“Cross your fingers. I haven’t had a single call from the sitter, or nurse, or whatever they’re calling themselves these days.”

“Caregiver, I think, is the current word.”

“Damn expensive, when all they seem to do is sit around and watch soap operas.”

“Maybe this one will do a bit more.”

“Mrs. Mayhew does seem more conscientious. She keeps Grandmere’s room and bathroom clean, and sees to her own bedroom and bath, but I’ll probably have to get a cleaning team in for the rest of the house before long or the spiders will take over.”

“Well, don’t you try to do it. That place is big as a stadium.” Marian bent to her needle. “And all those knickknacks and sitarounds to dust. Why not ask Jonas to help you out?”

“His hands are already full with Grandmere’s garden. At least the neighbors can’t complain about that. He’s not getting any younger either, you know. He does the marketing and takes her back and forth to the doctor’s.”

“How long can you keep this up?” Marian asked.

Annabelle dug her fingers into the aching muscles along the tops of her shoulders. “As long as I have to. She’s always been terrified of nursing homes. I can’t do that to her.”

Marian mumbled something as she bit off the thread.

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“Don’t bite the thread that way if you expect to have any teeth left when you’re seventy, and don’t mumble,” Annabelle said. “Tell me what you said.”

Marian picked up the embroidery scissors that hung from a silk cord around her neck and ostentatiously clipped the end of the thread she’d just bitten. She sighed and looked at Annabelle. “I said it would serve the old witch right.”

Annabelle plucked the last paillette from the crack and rose easily to her feet. “I don’t want putting her in a nursing home on my conscience as well.”

“Pooh! Stop it. Get it through your head that you don’t carry any weight or any guilt for what happened to your mother. Your father admitted it and went to jail for it.”

“To save me, you mean. Everybody knows that. Grandmere—”

“Mrs. Langley is a poisonous viper who did everything in her power to destroy anyone and everyone who crossed her path. Lord knows why it gave her so much pleasure, but it did.”

“She took me in and did the best she could with me. She’s a very unhappy woman,” Annabelle answered.

“Oh, no doubt. If there were an object lesson in the Golden Rule, she is it. Not one of the nasty things she has ever done to anybody has made her one bit nicer or one bit happier. She’s like one of those poison toads—the more venom she uses, the more she has.”

“Why, Marian, I knew you didn’t like her, but I never realized you loathed her that way. What’s she done to you?”

“Watching what she’s done to you is bad enough. And laying so much guilt on you that you came home to tend to her after all these years, and your career in New York and all.” Marian sniffled and wiped her hand under her eyes. “I’m glad to have you, but the whole thing makes me sick.”

Annabelle slipped the paillettes into the pocket of her shirt and walked around the table to drop a hand on Marian’s shoulder. “She’s my only family. Besides, I screwed myself up before she got the chance.”

“No, you did not.” Marian covered Annabelle’s hand with hers. “You were a little bitty girl. But all those years in that house with that harpy—well, child, you need about ten years of therapy, is all I’m saying.”

“Oh, thank you very much.” Annabelle laughed. “I’ve had years of therapy. Otherwise I’d probably be dead. This is as good as it gets. I function extremely well in my own milieu, and people leave me alone. And it’s nice to have friends who understand.”

“Well, you just understand that whatever you have to do to make your life come out all right, you do it. I mean that, you hear?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Annabelle saluted. “Now, where did you put that piece of lace I bled all over? I’ve got to soak it in some ice water before the stain sets.”

Marian indicated the side table with a nod of her head. “Over there. Not much blood. Only a drop or two.”

“I’ll run it across to my place and put it in the kitchen sink. Then I can flatten it out when I go back after work.”

“After work is now.” Marian set down her needle and embroidery hoop. “I should have this piece mended in an hour or so tomorrow.”

Annabelle leaned over her. “You do incredible work, Maid Marian. Nobody would ever know how much damage this piece endured before Elizabeth rescued it.”

Marian laughed. “And now it will have a new life in the Countess So-and-So’s gown for the opening of the Paris Opera, or Mrs. Texas Oil for her daughter’s wedding.” She laid the piece down with satisfaction. “I am good, aren’t I? You know, nobody ever called me Maid Marian but Ben, when he was a little boy. I used to read him the stories about Robin Hood. Even then he had a drive to right all the wrongs in the world.”

“It fits you.”

“True, unfortunately.” She carefully spread the piece of ecru lace on the worktable in front of her. The table was covered in fine green felt, so the lace-work showed clearly. “There. The actual mending is finished—the tatting, I mean. Now I just have to catch the edges so nothing ravels.” She pushed herself to her feet, removed her half glasses, stowed them in a navy leather case on the table, reached into her pocket for a red case, and slipped her bifocals on in their place. “Ah, now I can see you.” She peered at Annabelle. “And you look like hell. Go home, watch television, read a book. Go to a movie. Call an old school friend. Get out and do something.”

“Nope.” Annabelle carefully folded the delicate white lace, slipped it into a piece of tissue paper and followed Marian to the door. “Don’t fuss. I’m fine. This is what I enjoy. I’ll put on some Mozart or some Stones, fix myself a quick meal, put this lace in water and run over to check on Grandmere. I don’t have time for much else.”

She clicked off the lights in the workroom and followed Marian down the back stairs. As she passed the swinging door to the front of the house, she wondered whether Ben and his current tootsie were still there with Mrs. Jackson.

He was still the best-looking, most charismatic man she’d ever met. And if anything, even farther out of her reach and her orbit than he was when he was a senior and she was a freshman. “A cat can look at a king,” she whispered, and opened the baize door a tiny crack.

What she saw was not Ben, but Brittany, now relaxed on the sofa with her long, lovely brown arms stretched along its back, her slim ankles crossed, her streaked blond hair falling as precisely to her shoulders as though her hairdresser had cut it with a laser level. Maybe he had.

Annabelle let the door close softly.

Totally out of her league. Like comparing Claudia Schiffer to Ma Kettle.

And that was just looks. Add in social grace, acceptability, education, and it was like comparing Claudia Schiffer to a female Cro-Magnon.

She walked across the backyard and opened the door to the stairs that led to the apartment that Elizabeth Jackson had turned into guest quarters.

The stairs were narrow and precipitous, but were covered with a creamy plush carpet. The walls were painted the palest yellow, and charming old French flower prints stair-stepped up the wall beside them.

Annabelle kicked off the backless clogs she wore while she was working, remembered the paillettes in the pocket of her shirt, pulled them out and carefully dropped them into a cut-crystal ashtray.

Since she didn’t smoke and wouldn’t dream of allowing smoke anywhere near the fragile fabrics she worked on, the ashtray was clean. She carefully unwrapped the white lace from its tissue and laid it on the drainboard of the sink in the galley kitchen while she filled a bowl with ice cubes.

She filled the sink, dropped in the ice cubes and swished them around before she began to inspect the lace.

The piece was good-sized—several yards. She fingered it to find the spots of smeared blood so that she could immerse only that area and as little of the rest as possible. No sense wetting the whole thing. It would weigh a ton and possibly damage the fragile stitches.

Aha. She found the first spot. Amazing that such a little thing as a pinprick could make such a mess. “Who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him?” she said idly, realizing as she said it that one of her starving-actor friends said quoting from Macbeth was bad luck.

She snapped on the light over the sink and glanced down at the lace across her hands.

She froze. A sound she couldn’t begin to recognize rose in her throat.

She hadn’t bled that much.

The lace in her hands was drenched, dripping with gore, and her hands were covered in bright fresh blood, so thick she felt as though she could dye the water scarlet.

“No!” She dropped the lace, turned, shoulders hunched, head bowed.

She felt her gorge rise and fought the urge to vomit. “No.” She nearly yelled the word. She felt the world spin, her vision blur.

After what seemed a lifetime, but was probably no more than a few seconds, she managed to force herself under control. She took a deep breath and turned back to the drainboard.

She was nearly afraid to look at her hands.

Her hands were dry and clean. She picked up the lace. Maybe eight or nine dots of brownish dried blood stained it. She stared at it, frowning, puzzled.

Then she shook her head. “Trick of the light, obviously. Sunset through the window.”

She realized she was speaking aloud. The sound of her own voice in the silent room was momentarily comforting. “Stupid. Ought to get my eyes examined.” She rubbed the bridge of her nose where her half glasses sat during the day. “It’s Ben’s fault. He’s the one that fell out of the tree, and here I am with the concussion and hallucinations.”

She slipped the bloodstained portion of the lace into the ice water, sluiced it around gently for a minute, then left it immersed. As she dried her hands, she almost expected to see blood on the towel. Ridiculous.

She walked over to the armoire in the corner that held the stereo and television. She didn’t want to listen to the news. It was always bad. She’d had enough mayhem for a lifetime.

She flipped through the meager stack of CDs. Vivaldi? Mozart? Too orderly. Too optimistic. She needed angst. She found an old version of the Kindertotenlieder. Peachy. Enough angst there for a whole hundred years’ worth of the Black Plague.

But triumphant at the end.

That didn’t happen in real life. In real life you muddled along and hoped to survive with your brain and your body intact and without causing too much damage.

In her case, it was a little late for that already.