Читать книгу Who Is Deborah? - Elise Title, Elise Title - Страница 9

A sound of chirping birds broke through my sleep. I fought waking up, rolling onto my stomach and pulling the covers over my head to block out the light. It was far too bright. How could that be? I always slept with my shades drawn. Always in the hospital, that was. Before that…Well, there was no before that.

Sleep was my refuge, my escape from tension, anxiety, tedium. Early to bed, late to rise. That was my pattern. I knew, just as the doctors did, that it wasn’t a real solution to my problem: but then, there didn’t seem to be a solution.

Or did there? The question jabbed at me, and, in a minute, I was completely awake. And disoriented. Where was I? Last I remembered, I was standing in the vast white-marble-floored hallway of Raven’s Cove, staring into those mesmerizing blue-black eyes of Nicholas Steele. And then I had gotten so dizzy….

My eyes shot open, my head still beneath the cover. I saw that I was now in a big, roomy bed made up with exquisitely soft linens. I also saw that I was no longer in the dress I’d had on. I was wearing a delicate cotton nightgown. Who had carried me to bed? Undressed me?

Slowly, warily, I drew the covers down from my eyes, blinking in the brightness of the room. A spacious, sunny room it was, with floral paper on the walls, a large bay window offering a spectacular vista of sky and mountains, an hand-painted antique armoire, a lovely chintz chaise longue coordinated to match the wallpaper…

My gaze stopped dead at the chaise, and I drew in a gasp. Sitting there, silent, his dark eyes giving me a measured, unflinching look, was none other than Nicholas Steele himself. Shaken though I was to find him there, somehow I wasn’t surprised.

“What…happened?” I managed to say after I saw that he was not about to be the one to break the silence.

“You fainted.” His voice had a deep resonance about it. A commanding voice. It suited him, I thought. As did its faintly mocking tone.

Bristling, I found myself replying in a tone that matched his. “Yes, I know that. I mean, after I fainted.”

Something changed in his features. It was very subtle, but I noticed it. I could not, however, interpret its meaning.

He rose from the chaise. Standing, he seemed even more compelling. It wasn’t merely his physique, but rather a presence about him, a strength and sureness of will that that radiated.

I was about to give up on getting an answer, when he replied matter-of-factly, “I carried you upstairs. Then you were tucked into bed where you slept a rather drugged sleep through the night. You missed one of Lillian’s excellent roasts.”

I was stunned to learn that it was the next day. How long had he been sitting there watching me? I felt a cold chill. “I’m not on any drugs, if you’re concerned—”

“I’m not.”

There was a prolonged silence. To my surprise, this time he broke it. “I imagine you’re hungry.”

I shook my head. Food was the furthest thing from my mind. “Did you…?” I glanced down at my nightgown.

“Did I what?”

I silently cursed the warmth I knew was rising in my cheeks. And him, as well, for forcing me to spell it out. Did he deliberately want to embarrass and humiliate me? Because he was still angry about our fight? About my walking out on him? Had he suffered and now wanted to make me suffer in turn? Although, to look at him now, there was no sign of suffering.

I drew in a breath. “I am hungry.”

Was that actually a hint of a smile I detected on those otherwise grim lips?

“I’ll have Lillian bring you up a tray.” He started for the door, not even bothering to ask what I wanted to eat. But, of course, he had to know what his wife ate for breakfast.

My mind, however, wasn’t on the menu. I was remembering my previous intimidating encounter with Lillian. I didn’t want to begin my first and, for all I knew, last morning in Raven’s Cove having to confront dour cousin Lillian if I could avoid it.

“Nick?” I called out to him as he opened the door.

He turned, his expression suddenly dark. I was taken aback.

I saw that he had no intention of volunteering the cause of his glaring disapproval. He simply waited for whatever else I intended to say.

“What’s wrong?” I asked finally.

“Is there something wrong?” A sardonic expression replaced the dark look.

I felt a flash of fury. He was deliberately baiting me. “You didn’t appear to approve of my calling you by your given name,” I said rather stiffly, having no idea if that was the reason for his dark look. As I discovered, it was.

“My given name is Nicholas.”

“Greg calls you Nick.”

“Only to annoy me.”

“I see,” I answered quietly.

“You did occasionally call me Nick,” he said with a slightly upward curve of the corners of his mouth that wasn’t quite a smile. “But only in the throes of passion.”

I flushed, looking away.

After a brief silence, he went on. “What was it you wanted to say?”

I was surprised to hear a softer tone in his baritone voice. Nicholas Steele was, I thought, one of those disturbingly mercurial people capable of constantly throwing you off your guard. Just when you thought you knew what to expect of him, he would toss you a curveball.

“I was going to say that I’d prefer to have breakfast downstairs.” Hopefully, I prayed, not under the watchful eye of cousin Lillian.

He nodded disinterestedly. Again he started to leave the room. At the door, though, he abruptly turned back to me.

“You’ve changed a great deal.”

There was such portent in his voice that I gasped audibly. “You’re not sure, are you? At first I thought your rude behavior had to do with your being angry at me still. Greg told me that we’d argued and that I’d walked out.”

“Did he?”

“The moment I first saw you, I sensed that you weren’t at all sure whether you wanted me here. But it isn’t because you’re still angry. You aren’t sure I’m…her. You think I might not be…Deborah.”

“Do you always tell people what they’re thinking?”

“Did Deborah?” I shot back, having no idea where my courage was coming from.

He gave me a long, appraising look. “Yes, as a matter of fact.”

“You seem to be in almost as much of a predicament as I find myself in,” I said.

“It looks that way, doesn’t it?” He paused. “While you and Greg were driving up here, I phoned the New York General and had a chat with your psychiatrist, Dr. Royce. He’s apparently quite solicitous about your welfare. Did you know he was particularly fond of you?”

I didn’t miss the cutting edge in his voice. “He’s particularly fond of all his patients,” I replied archly, foolish enough to think I’d have the last word. Needless to say, I hadn’t.

“And are all of his patients particularly fond of him?” he asked dryly, his dark gaze fixed on me. Oh, how I willed myself not to flush, but it was beyond my control. He seemed to get some perverse pleasure out of seeing me embarrassed, and I thought to myself, this certainly wasn’t the captivating man Greg described to me—a man whom women supposedly found witty and charming. I was decidedly not charmed. As for his reported sex appeal, I dismissed even the possibility of that entirely. He was rude, insinuating and cruel. I may have once been the girl of his dreams, but I couldn’t imagine that Nicholas Steele had ever been the man of my dreams. Of my nightmares, was more like it.

“It’s Dr. Royce’s opinion that however you might once have been, both in terms of your appearance and personality, he believes it’s quite conceivable, even probable, that you could appear and act quite differently now.”

“Am I so different than I—than Deborah—was?” There was a little catch in my voice. Greg had so convinced me I was Deborah, I’d begun to fully believe it myself. Nicholas’s doubts took me completely unaware.

Since I didn’t expect a smile, that was just what he threw me. It was like a break in dark clouds. “Not completely different. You share a low tolerance for frustration.”

“You mean she found you frustrating?” I tossed back cheekily.

His smile faded. I saw that I had clearly overstepped my bounds. As if I had even the vaguest idea what my bounds were, under such strange, not to mention strained, circumstances.

“You look remarkably like Deborah, though a little paler, a little thinner,” he said, his tone formal and analytical now. “Your hair’s a bit darker, but then perhaps you haven’t spent much time out in the sun during your hospitalization.” There was a long pause. “Deborah was a real sun-worshiper. She was always taking herself off to sunny shores.”

“Alone?”

He gave me a curious look. “Not always.”

“You went with her sometimes, then?”

“That isn’t what I said.” His tone was wry and insinuating.

I flinched visibly. “Maybe if you weren’t always so busy writing and revising your horror novels, your relationship with your wife would have been…closer.”

He laughed harshly. “Deborah never minded my working. It left her free to pursue her own pleasures, unencumbered.”

This was certainly not the picture of Deborah that Greg had painted for me. Nicholas was describing a spoiled, willful, and possibly unfaithful vixen. A sharp contrast to the loyal but lonely young wife whose only crime was that she craved a bit of attention from her workaholic husband. So, which picture of “Deborah” was the accurate one? Which of the two men was I to trust?

As I was suffering this torment of doubt, Nicholas was giving me another of his long, assessing looks. “In the end, maybe it’s not so important whether I’m certain you’re Deborah as that you are.”

“Still, this is your home,” I said. “Either way, you can always ask me to leave.”

“You never needed my permission in the past.”

And, I realized with relief, I didn’t need it now. I could leave of my own free will. And very likely not be missed at all. But then I glanced at Nicholas, catching him unaware, for once. There was a hint of sadness there in those dark, uncompromising eyes. It was there for only an instant, but it made me think back to Greg’s remark that Nicholas was really quite vulnerable behind that mask of arrogance he wore so well.

He gripped the doorknob. “I think you’ll find the atmosphere and amenities of Raven’s Cove at least as pleasant as the hospital,” he commented offhandedly, the mask again solidly in place. “And I can assure you that as long as you’re here, you won’t be required to engage in any activities that displease you,” he added.

Though his expression was bland, I felt sure I understood the meaning behind this comment. But could I believe him? Right now he had some doubts about my identity. I told myself it was understandable. I was certainly not a carbon copy of the Deborah I’d seen in that photograph. Not by a long shot. But, if he came to be convinced I was Deborah—whether or not my memory ultimately confirmed it for me—wouldn’t he expect me, as his wife, to sleep with him? Would it even matter to him that in my eyes he would still be a stranger?

Despite feeling the heat spread again over my cheeks, I eyed him with a touch of defiance. “Who undressed me? And put me in this nightgown?”

He laughed dryly, giving me a rueful, condescending look. “Lillian. Who did you think?”

Without waiting for an answer, he exited the room. Only after he’d gone did I realize that I was shaking. Admittedly short as my memory was, I couldn’t recall another instance of a person making me feel the way Nicholas Steele did. I felt that he was the most exceedingly dangerous man I had ever encountered. And the most compelling.

As I showered in the spacious and lavish private bathroom adjoining the bedroom, I considered packing my few belongings and taking the first train back to the hospital. A few minutes later, returning to the bedroom, I was even further convinced that I should leave. There on my bed was a hardcover book. Night Cries. Nicholas’s latest horror novel. The cover alone—a woman, faceless save for a wide, screaming mouth, her arms outstretched, superimposed on a midnight-black background—terrified me.

I stared at the book with revulsion. Had Nicholas dropped this off for me? A token of his…Of his what? There was a tremor in my hands as I finally lifted the book from the bed. At first I meant only to stick it away in a drawer, unable to bear the hideously pained image on the cover. But as I took hold of the book, I found myself compelled to open it. I selected one page at random—just to see what made this master of the macabre so renowned.

A harsh cawing broke the stillness of the night. Then silence. The silence of death. Creeping behind the trunk of a large elm, he lay in wait for her. He knew he would not have to wait long. A few minutes later, he heard the crunch of leaves underfoot. He smiled. Not a very pleasant smile. He had sometimes wished he had one of those ordinary faces with their ordinary smiles. The kind of face people trusted. A face women trusted…

She let out a sharp cry when he stepped out from his hiding place. But then she laughed softly, wantonly.

“Silly man. You nearly scared the living daylights out of me.”

He knew, in the darkness, she could not yet make out who it really was she had come to meet for this little rendezvous. But she would. In time, she would. The anticipation filled him with delight. Oh, how he longed to hear her crooning voice turn into a whimper. What pleasure he would take as the wantonness bled from her face and gave way to terror, her gut tightening like a fist. Please, please, don’t hurt me, she would cry.

He would hurt her. But he would take his sweet time. He would toy with her. He would show her who was in charge; who had been in charge right from the start.

Forgive me, she would cry. He would laugh at her. Didn’t she know, that forgiveness wasn’t in his nature…?

I let out an audible gasp, slamming the book shut. And then, as if the closed book were some kind of lethal viper, I flung it across the room. It slammed against the wall, then landed front cover facing up on the royal blue carpet—that horrible faceless woman, her mouth opened in a scream, arms outstretched. Now I understood. The woman was crying out in the agony of mental and physical torment, pleading for forgiveness, begging for her life. I rushed over, grabbed up the book and stuck it in the top drawer of a bureau.

How vile and gruesome! What kind of mind…? I realized I was echoing the sentiment of one of the female customers I’d overheard yesterday at Gus’s. And then another of the women’s remarks replayed in my head. He has to be a little mad himself…

Ignoring the armoire with its large assortment of expensive, fine looking designer clothing, I hurriedly pulled a creased sundress from my suitcase, shaking out the wrinkles as best I could. I closed the case, leaning on it for support. This situation was impossible. The man who might possibly be my husband frightened and mystified me. His cousin, who clearly bore me no good feelings whatsoever, only added to the impossibility of my remaining. To stay, surrounded by suspicion, not even knowing if I belonged, was madness itself. And even if I were to discover that I was Deborah, maybe I had left Raven’s Cove and my husband for good reason. Maybe I’d never meant to return as Greg had implied. However I examined my dilemma, the solution was the same: Get dressed and leave at once.

But I couldn’t just leave. Raven’s Cove was perched on the top of a mountain. It had to be a good five miles of winding roads to its base, and another five, at least, to town. I couldn’t very well hike it, heavy suitcase in hand. Nor did I feel at all comfortable about asking Nicholas to drive me. I wanted no further confrontations with the intolerable Nicholas Steele. And no others with Lillian. I supposed I could telephone to Greg and ask him…But he seemed so bent on my giving my new—or to his mind, old—surroundings a fighting chance. He would very likely try to dissuade me from my impulsive decision. And I didn’t know if I had the strength to argue. My only other option was to call for a cab. Surely there was a taxi service in Sinclair.

There was a phone by the side of my bed, but no phone book in sight. I dialed Information. To my relief, there was one cab company in town. I received a busy signal on my first three attempts, but finally got through on my fourth try.

“Sinclair Cab,” a nasal voice snapped.

“Yes, I’d like a cab to the train station,” I replied in a hushed whisper, as if someone might be listening. My gaze strayed involuntarily to the bureau where I’d put Nicholas’s frightful book. “Right away.”

“Address?”

I hesitated. “Raven’s Cove.”

There was a drawn-out silence.

“Is…Is there something…wrong?” I asked finally. The response took me aback.

“You must be her.”

I rubbed a sweaty palm on my dress. “Excuse…me?” I was getting my first taste of what small-town life was about. It was clear that word had already spread through Sinclair about my arrival at Raven’s Cove. Or, as at least a couple of the townsfolk and Greg believed, my return. For all I knew, Nicholas shared their belief and was just getting some perverse amusement out of voicing doubts as to my identity. Again, I wondered if it was payback for my having walked out on him. Maybe he held other misdeeds against me, as well. He’d certainly implied some indiscretions on my part.

“You say the railroad station?” the dispatcher asked.

“Yes.”

“You planning to catch a train?”

“Yes.”

“Where to?”

I thought it was none of the dispatcher’s business.

After a pause, he said, “Next train out’s at eleven. Goes to New York City. Express.”

“Fine.”

“Not even nine. You don’t need a cab for a while yet.”

I was about to tell him I was in a hurry, but stopped myself, realizing how odd that would sound since I’d be stuck waiting at the train for close to two hours. Besides, I didn’t want this nosy dispatcher spreading rumors. I could just hear the townsfolk buzzing away. Wanted to get out of there in a real hurry, she did. Sounded scared out of her wits. Guess it’s true about that Steele fellow being mad…

In as level a voice as I could manage, I said, “I do have a few errands to do in town first. Do you think you could get a cab up here by ten?”

“I got one driver out sick and my other guy’s got a pickup in town in ten minutes. A gal who’s going over to Carlisle. Better make it ten-fifteen. Just to be on the safe side.”

The safe side.

There was no safe side about it, I thought as I hung up, frowning.

After I was dressed, I searched in my purse for my hairbrush. It wasn’t there. I realized that I must have left it back at the hospital. Crossing to a mirrored dressing table, I searched there for a brush. The surface of the dressing table had a pristine tidiness about it. Save for a small collection of ornate and very beautiful blown-glass perfume bottles that sat on a mirrored silver tray, there were no other personal effects to be seen.

Still shaky and weak, I sat down at the table. I opened the top drawer. Inside was not only the brush that I needed, but a framed eight-by-ten photograph, half hidden by some blank embossed stationery. For all my trepidation, my curiosity got the best of me. Nervously, I removed the photo from the drawer, waiting a moment for my breath to steady before actually looking at it.

There was certainly nothing gruesome about the photo. Far from it. It showed a couple embracing on a white sandy beach under a palm tree. Deborah and Nicholas. The shade fell across Deborah’s face, clouding her image. But Nicholas’s face was in full sunlight, as was his tanned, athletic body clad only in a pair of black swimming trunks.

I almost didn’t recognize him. Could the grim, patronizing, disdainful man who inspired such anxiety and worse in me, and the smiling figure in the photo, truly be one and the same? Oh, I had caught a quick glimpse of Nicholas’s smile, and it had most definitely softened his features. But the smile he wore in this photo utterly transformed his face. Up until now, I had thought Nicholas imposing, striking, but not really good-looking. Not in any traditional sense. His features were too strong, too harsh. But in the photo he looked heart-stoppingly handsome. Perhaps because the smile he was bestowing on Deborah was so adoring, so filled with love. No. More than love. Adulation.

I wiped tears from my eyes. Instead of placing the photo back in the drawer, I set it on top of the dressing table. It held such fascination for me. And something else. A sense of loss. So that was what my tears were about. If I was Deborah, then I questioned whether I would ever again see such love in Nicholas’s face. And if my memory returned and I proved not to be Deborah, then I’d never know what it must have felt like to have been so cherished and adored. All I would know was envy.

I lifted out the sterling-silver-handled hairbrush from the drawer. A beautiful object. Why had it been left behind? Had I been so angry when I walked out, that I took almost nothing with me? I realized, despite Nicholas’s doubts, I was already incorporating Deborah into my identity. After all, I had no other. And somehow, for all the discrepancies between Greg’s vision of Deborah and Nicholas’s, I felt like her. And, much to my consternation, I even felt I could have fallen wildly, deeply in love with the man in the photograph on the dressing table.

As I brushed my hair, I noticed the perfume bottles beside the photo. Finishing with my hair, I gingerly lifted one of the bottles up and carefully removed the sculptured-glass top. I sniffed it cautiously, as if it might be tainted.

The scent was strongly floral and cloying. My nose crinkled as I hurriedly closed the bottle. It wasn’t something I would wear at all. Was that a clue? Did it mean I mustn’t be Deborah? And again the question, did it even matter now? Now that I was resigned to leaving Raven’s Cove?

I put the bottle back on the tray. Of course, I might have received the perfume as a gift and not cared for it. I tested the other scents. Unlike the first one, these were more pleasant. One in particular—a perfume with a slightly pungent fruity aroma—was especially pleasing. I felt tempted to put a few dabs behind my ears.

“He doesn’t care for Intoxication.”

The remark was so strange that for a moment I didn’t even connect it to an actual voice. The information had been supplied by Lillian, who was standing at the open door. She’d had the gall to step in without even bothering to knock. Had it been Lillian, not Nicholas, who’d put his book in my room while I’d been in the shower? In any case, both cousins certainly seemed too comfortable about walking into my room unannounced and uninvited.

Unnerved by Lillian’s sudden appearance, I accidentally let the exquisite glass perfume bottle drop from my hand. It hit the corner of the dressing table, shattering on contact. The scent, far stronger now as it spilled out on the table and carpeting, permeated the air, making me feel queasy. I stared down at the shattered glass with dismay, then bent to pick up the shards.

A scornful smile colored Lillian’s expression, not improving it, as she crossed the room in long, gliding steps and brushed me aside with a dismissive wave of her hand. Silently and thoroughly, the gaunt woman set to the task I’d begun. If the heavy scent bothered her, she gave no sign of it.

“I’m…so sorry about the vial. It’s just…You startled me.” No sooner had the words come out than I instantly regretted them. It certainly wouldn’t help matters to blame Lillian for my own clumsiness.

“Nicholas sent me up to ask what you wanted for your breakfast.” Lillian spoke without affect, but I felt duly chastised nonetheless.

“Oh…It doesn’t…matter,” I replied meekly, glancing at my closed suitcase. I had meant to skip breakfast at Raven’s Cove and remain in my room until just after ten. Then my plan was to steal out of the house and meet the cab at the wrought-iron gates to the property.

“Bacon and eggs?” Lillian was dropping the last of the larger shards into the wicker wastebasket beside the dressing table.

“No, thanks. I don’t really care for—Just some…toast and coffee will be fine.”

Lillian glanced up from her task, giving me a curious look. I had the clear impression she’d been testing me; that she knew Deborah didn’t care for bacon and eggs and wanted to see what I’d say. Did Lillian, like her cousin, have doubts about my identity? Not that it mattered what either one of them believed at this point, I told myself firmly. Or what I believed, for that matter. Either way, I was leaving.

But then my gaze fell once more on the photo. Was I again acting impulsively? In leaving so precipitously, was I really running away from…myself? As I looked at the image of the handsome, adoring man with his arms around the “girl of his dreams,” I couldn’t help wondering if it would truly be so awful for Nicholas to come to accept me as Deborah; to welcome me back to Raven’s Cove? Could this be a chance at a new beginning, not just for me, but for him, as well? For the two of us together? What if he were to once again look at me with that same heartfelt love…?