Читать книгу On the Wings of Love - Elizabeth Lane - Страница 14

“He’s coming around.” Dr. Henry Fleury, a portly man in his sixties with small, neat hands and a mustache like William Howard Taft’s, waved a vial of ammonia under Rafe’s nose. “You needn’t have worried, Maude. It looks like he just fainted. Probably tried to get up too soon. He’s lucky he didn’t crack his skull on that armoire or do more damage to those broken ribs.”

“Thank heaven!” Maude sighed. “He was so white and so still. I really feared for a moment—”

Rafe moaned sharply and jerked his head as the ammonia vapor nipped into his senses. Alex hovered over them both, bobbing back and forth in an effort to get a closer look.

“Is he going to be all right?” she asked, truly anxious.

“Don’t worry, he’s a strong lad. He’ll mend as good as new. But I’d recommend you keep him in bed for a few more days.” Fleury glanced at Alex. He’d been the family doctor for as long as she could remember, and there was little about any of them that escaped his notice. What was he seeing now as he looked at her?

Rafe moaned again, his eyelids twitching as he inhaled the pungent spirits. Maude had found him facedown on the floor. Cummings had managed to hoist him back onto the bed, where he lay sprawled, his rangy frame filling the length and breadth of the mattress.

“That’s it,” said Fleury. “Wake up, lad. Let’s hope that fall knocked a little sense into you. You’re in no condition to be strolling about.”

“Oh!” Alex gave a little gasp as Rafe’s eyes opened, staring not at her but at the doctor.

“Who…who the bloody hell are you?” he muttered groggily.

“Mind your tongue. There are ladies here.” Fleury scowled in mock severity. “I set your leg yesterday, and I’ll thank you to stop trying to undo my good work.”

“Yesterday!” Rafe struggled to sit up. “What’s happened? Where’s my aeroplane?”

Fleury braced an arm against Rafe’s chest and used his considerable weight to keep the younger man down. “Not a word,” he said firmly. “Not until you lie back and promise not to move.”

Rafe’s breath eased out as he lay back on the pillow. “All right,” he said, grimacing with the pain in his ribs. “You’ve got me. I’m not going anywhere. Now somebody tell me what’s going on.”

“Simple enough.” The bedsprings creaked as Fleury sat down on a corner of the bed. “Your aeroplane crashed offshore yesterday afternoon. You were pulled out of the wreck, barely conscious. I set the leg and gave you a sedative to make you sleep. If I’d known you’d be rash enough to get up, I’d have strapped you to the bed.”

“My aeroplane—” He lifted his head, straining to sit up again.

“My good man, I’m a doctor, not a mechanic. I only know that you have some cracked ribs and a nasty fracture that won’t heal unless you’ve the patience to rest.”

“Damn the leg! Damn the ribs! How badly damaged is my aeroplane?”

There was a short silence. Maude glanced warningly at her daughter, but Alex spoke anyway.

“They just brought it off the beach. It looks like a kite that’s been stomped on by the town bully,” she said, her eyes watching his face.

Rafe’s breath hissed out as he sank back onto the pillow, looking weary and vulnerable. “Naturally,” he said in a bitter voice. “One doesn’t ram an aircraft down nose first and expect it to bounce back like India rubber. Damn! If only I could have leveled it out in time!”

“You ought to be grateful you got out alive,” said Fleury. “Aeroplanes can be replaced. People can’t.”

Rafe scowled. “People heal. Aeroplanes don’t. This was the only one I had. I designed and built it myself, and there’s not another like it in the world.”

“The wings look all right.” Alex’s tone had gentled. “It’s the front end that’s smashed the worst. The engine’s hanging loose, and the rear parts are out of kilter—”

“I want to see it!” Rafe began to struggle again. “Blast it, somebody help me up!”

“No, you don’t,” said Fleury, using his weight again to press him back onto the pillow. “You’re to stay right here.”

“How long?” Green fire flashed in Rafe’s eyes. He was clearly not a man who liked being given orders.

“Until I say it’s all right for you to get up.” Fleury knew how to be as implacable as his patients. “A couple of days at least, maybe longer.”

Rafe sighed with resignation, but his eyes glared like a tethered hawk’s. Alex pressed close behind the doctor. She was leaning over his shoulder when Fleury suddenly turned toward her mother.

“Maude,” he said, “you’re as pale as a ghost. Come on out of here. We can sit in the parlor, you and I, while Mamie brews some good strong tea. Alexandra here can keep an eye on the young man for a while.” He turned to Alex and hardened his rubbery face into a scowl. “Watch him,” he ordered. “See that he doesn’t move.”

With that, he offered Maude his arm and escorted her out of the room, leaving Alex and Rafe alone.

“What’s your name?”

Rafe Garrick’s bold-eyed gaze made Alex want to squirm like a bashful child, but she forced herself to remain composed. The wretch probably wanted to make her feel uncomfortable. She would not give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d succeeded.

“My name is Alexandra Bromley. This house belongs to my parents,” she answered, posting herself like a sentry at the foot of his bed.

“I’d hardly have taken you for one of the servants.” His eyes glinted sardonically as he looked her up and down, openly taking stock of her face and figure. Rafe Garrick was clearly no gentleman. “Is the rest of the house as exotic as this room?” he asked.

“This is one of the guest rooms. Since most of the guests are friends of my father’s—” Alex cleared her throat. Her gaze swept the room, coming to rest on the mounted tiger head, which had given her the horrors for years. She shrugged. “My father has his own tastes, as you see.”

“I see.” He flashed a sudden, boyish grin that was like the sun coming out. Alex steeled herself against a sudden onrush of warmth. She could not allow herself to like this man. Even the thought of liking him disturbed her.

Rafe looked at the tiger, shaking his head. “Did your father actually shoot that thing?”

“Oh, yes! From the back of an elephant, six years ago!”

“He’s a big-game hunter?”

“No. Just a rich man who uses his money to buy excitement.” In more ways than one, Alex thought, imagining for a moment how the heads of Buck’s female conquests would look in a mounted collection above the fireplace. “He makes firearms. Guns and such,” she said.

“Of course!” Rafe’s eyebrows shot upward as the realization struck him. “Bromley and Burnsides!”

“Burnsides and Bromley—though father is all of it now. Joshua Burnsides, my grandfather, died fifteen years ago, when the company was still a small one.”

Rafe didn’t reply. He was gazing straight at her, his eyes as intense as two burning coals. “Help me get up, Alexandra Bromley,” he said. “I want to see my aeroplane. I have to see it!”

The passion in his voice was so commanding that Alex stiffened where she stood, fighting the strange impulse to do as he demanded.

“No,” she protested. “The doctor ordered you to keep still, and he told me to watch you.”

“Where is it?” he persisted, stirring restlessly beneath the bedclothes. “Isn’t there a window, or maybe a balcony where I could at least get a look? If I can see how bad the damage is, and decide whether it can be fixed—”

“You heard me. Make one move to get out of that bed, and I’ll scream for the doctor!” The ridiculousness of the situation was beginning to dawn on Alex, but she could not back down now.

“Rubbish! I’m not a prisoner. Which way is the beach?”

“Don’t be a fool. It’s only a machine. It will be there tomorrow.”

They glowered at each other, separated by the length of the bed. “Only a machine!” he exclaimed in a low, rasping voice. “For your information, Alexandra Bromley, that tangled wreck out there is my life!”

When she only stared at him in silence, he sank back onto the pillow. “You don’t know what I’m talking about,” he said. “You can’t know, if you’ve never flown. The freedom of it…the wonder…”

“And the danger?” Alex curled one hand around the bedpost. Almost against her will, her gaze traveled down the length of his body under the sheet—the broad shoulders and powerful chest, the narrow hips and lean, hard belly. Her eyes lingered on the intriguing bulge at the top of his thighs, then shifted guiltily away.

“The danger’s part of it, yes. But it’s more than that.” His face was flushed, his eyes alive. “When you’re in the sky, it’s as if you’ve left the whole dirty world behind. There’s nothing up there but you, the birds and the fine, clean air. You look down and you see the earth for what it is—little houses, little fields and factories, little people with little problems. It’s like…like—”

“Like being God?” Alex’s blasphemous whisper rang loud in the room.

Rafe laughed, deep in his throat. “Maybe. In a very precarious way—though I like to think that God doesn’t have engine trouble or get caught in downdrafts.”

“Tell me,” said Alex. “When you’re in the sky, don’t you ever have the urge to just point the nose up and keep going, higher and higher? But no, that would be very dangerous, wouldn’t it?” She laughed uneasily, conscious of his eyes on her and wondering what he was seeing. His gaze seemed to burn through her clothes. No man had ever looked at her like that. Not openly, at least.

“I did that once,” he said quietly. “I climbed, and kept on climbing. It was wild, like being drunk on sunlight. I didn’t want to stop, but the air began to get cold and very thin. I started to lose control—that was when I knew I had to get down.” He fell silent for a moment, as if focusing on something inside himself. “I want to see my aeroplane,” he said. “Just a look. Then I’ll know how soon I can be flying again.”

Something broke loose in Alex—a reckless, impulsive urge that had been building since she entered the room. “There’s a balcony at the end of the hall,” she said. “You can see it from there.”

“Will you help me?” His green-flecked eyes engulfed her.

“On one condition.” Alex took a deep breath. “I noticed your aeroplane has a second seat. When you’re able to fly again, you must promise to take me up with you.”

He scowled. “It’s too risky.”

“Not for you.”

“Your father would have my hide.”

“My father wouldn’t have to know.”

“And what if something were to go wrong?”

“Then neither of us would be in a position to care, would we?” Alex shrugged with feigned disinterest. “Promise me or lie there and rot. It’s up to you.” She turned her back on him and took a step toward the door.

“Wait!”

Alex spun around to find him laughing.

“Why, you stubborn little chit!” he exclaimed. “You’d really leave me, wouldn’t you? All right. One very short flight. As soon as my aeroplane and I are mended. Now, come here and help me get up.”

Alex hesitated.

“Please,” he said.

She came to him, bending over the bed so he could slip his arm around her shoulders. His skin was warm beneath the thin gray silk of Buck’s pajamas, his muscles solid and sinewy. His clean, leathery aroma reminded Alex of the dark brown jacket he’d been wearing when she lifted him from the water.

“Easy now,” he said. “Watch the ribs.” His arm lay lightly about her as he used his own strength to sit up and slide his legs off the bed. Alex was acutely aware of his closeness, the warm weight of his arm across her back, the slow, even rise and fall of his breathing.

“Here goes!” he muttered, pulling himself to his feet. Alex braced herself to steady him. Standing, he was even taller than she’d realized. Her own head did not reach the bottom of his ear. He took one step, then another, leaning on her to ease the weight on his broken leg. “You make a fine crutch, Alexandra Bromley!” His laughter stirred her hair. “Would you care to stick around till my leg mends?”

Alex groped for a clever retort and came up empty. Most of the time she felt at ease with men. She could be flippant and bitingly funny, especially when she didn’t care what they thought of her. Why was it that now, when she so wanted the upper hand, she felt like a tongue-tied dolt?

Together they made their way through the door and down the thickly carpeted hall. Rafe was silent, concentrating on each step, wincing when a movement hurt him. Once he stumbled, and Alex’s arm went around his waist to steady him. He was, she realized, wearing nothing at all under the thin silk pajamas.

A glass door at the end of the hallway opened onto a small balcony that overlooked the back lawn. Maude had decorated it with potted palms, hanging asparagus ferns and a pair of white wicker chairs.

“There!” Alex pointed as they reached the railing. “See, there’s your aeroplane at the far end of the lawn!”

Rafe let go of her, braced himself with one arm on the railing and used his free hand to shade his eyes. “If I were only closer!” he muttered.

“Can’t you tell anything from here?”

“Not enough. You were right about the wings. They don’t look badly damaged. And the rear elevators can be fixed. But the engine and the propeller…” He shook his head. “I’d have to see them up close.”

“Why be so concerned? You built it once. You can build it again.”

“Yes. But how much time will it take? How much money?” He turned bitter eyes on Alex. “You’ve no understanding of what’s involved—people like you, with everything at their fingertips. You don’t know what it’s like to go without heat in the winter, to go without cigars and haircuts and decent meals just so you can buy an engine piece by piece and put it together, so you can afford the right kind of wood for the braces, the right kind of wire, the right kind of linen canvas.” His knuckles whitened on the railing of the balcony. “Damn it, how can anyone who’s always had whatever they wanted understand that kind of love?”

Alex had listened quietly to his outburst, but her own indignation was building. “That’s the most arrogant crock of nonsense I ever heard!” she stormed. “You think you’re better than I am because you’ve had to struggle! You think that building an aeroplane qualifies you for some kind of sainthood! Well, maybe it does! Maybe you are an expert on that kind of love! But let me tell you something, Rafe Garrick! You have no tact at all, no gratitude, no consideration for people at all! There are other kinds of love, and you don’t seem to know anything about them!”

She whirled away from him and started for the door that led back into the hallway. Let him stay there. He could crawl back to bed by himself or shout for help. She wasn’t putting up with his self-righteous arrogance another second!

She had almost reached the door when he caught her. His hand seized her shoulder with the strength of an iron vise and he whipped her back toward him. “Don’t tell me what I don’t know!” he muttered, jerking her hard against his chest.

His kiss arched her backward over his arm. Alex struggled against his strong hands and brutally seeking lips. Then suddenly, incredibly, she felt herself responding. A ripple of fevered excitement coursed through her as she softened against him and felt the hard contours of his aroused body through the thin silk. Her lips went molten beneath his. Her fingers dug into his flesh, clinging, demanding. Madness. It was running away with her and she couldn’t stop it—didn’t want to stop it.

No! Something in her was still fighting him, still struggling for control. This was insanity. He had no right!

He released her, and she spun away from him. They stood a pace apart, both of them breathing heavily. As Alex stared at him, she felt panic welling up in her body. She’d wanted a life in which there was no question of her being in control. Now, suddenly, she felt threatened. Rafe Garrick was all the things she despised in a man, all the things she had spent her life protecting herself from. And he had just violated her safe, well-ordered world.

Rage and fear exploded in her. Her hand came up and she struck him with all her strength across the face. The force of her own blow sent her staggering backward.

He did not move. He did not laugh, scowl or even wince. Only his eyes mocked her anger as he spoke. “If it’s an apology you’re wanting—”

“No!” Alex spat out the word. “I’d never accept anything of the kind! Not from you!”

He laughed then—bitter, knowing laughter—as she whirled toward the door. It was as if he saw through her anger, as if he knew how deeply he had stirred her, and how frightened she was of her own emotions. Damn him. Oh, damn him!

Slamming the door behind her, she hurtled down the hall. Her face burned. Her eyes stung. She wanted to hide. Damn Rafe Garrick! She never wanted to see him again!

At the landing she almost collided with her father.

“Alex, are you all right?” Buck gazed at her in surprise. He had spent the morning in the city and was dressed in a dark business suit, white shirt and bowler. He smelled of the expensive Havana cigars he smoked.

“I’m quite all right, Papa.” Alex smoothed her skirt in an effort to compose herself. “Your fallen angel, Mr. Garrick, is all right, too. You’ll find him on the balcony. Dr. Fleury said he should stay in bed, but I think he’s well enough to leave!”

She brushed past him to go to her room, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm. “You’re sure you’re all right? You look flushed.”

“I’m fine, Papa. A little too much sun on the beach, that’s all. I was just going to my room to freshen up.”

“Well, you might want to hurry it a bit. Your mother mentioned something about tea at the Townsend place this afternoon.”

“Oh!” Alex gasped. “Oh, drat!” She’d completely forgotten about that ridiculous tea, but she had no desire to further upset her mother. “Tell her I’ll hurry!” She flew down the long corridor to her room.

Through the glass panel in the door, Rafe saw the husky, well-dressed man staring after Alexandra for a long, thoughtful moment. Then the stranger turned, strode down the hall toward the balcony and opened the door. “So you’re on your feet already!” he boomed.

Rafe was still leaning on the rail of the balcony. “You might say that,” he replied. “Though I’m still not up to walking without a crutch. I was just trying to figure out how to get back to bed by myself. You’d be Mr. Bromley, right? Your daughter’s got your eyes.” The last was a lie. Alexandra’s eyes were unlike any he had ever seen.

“Yes, I’m Bromley. You can call me Buck.”

They shook hands. Buck Bromley’s grip was bonecrushing in its power, as if he’d exercised his hand to strengthen it. “So you’ve met Alex,” he said. “She was the first one to reach you in the water. I was the second.”

Rafe rubbed his chin, which was shadowed with whisker stubble. “I’m much obliged to you for taking me in after the crash,” he said.

“We could hardly have left you lying on the beach,” Buck laughed. “Besides, I’m a curious man, and I’m intrigued by you and that machine of yours. I wouldn’t mind keeping you around until you and the aeroplane are both mended. It would be worth it, just to see what makes the thing fly.”

Was this an invitation? Rafe wrestled with his pride. He’d been keeping his plane in a small hangar at the Hempstead aerodrome. He could make minor repairs there, but its cramped space wouldn’t do for rebuilding the craft. And there was his tiny flat in the Bronx with its shared bathroom, as well as the motorcycle he wouldn’t be able to ride to the airfield until his leg healed. Staying here would solve any number of problems. But he’d be damned if he’d ask for charity.

“I owe you a debt,” Rafe said. “I repay my debts. I don’t like being obligated to anyone.”

Bromley’s eyes narrowed appraisingly. “If you’re talking about money, forget it,” he said. “As you see, we’re not exactly paupers here.”

Rafe shook his head. “Most of what I have is tied up in that aeroplane out there. But I’m not useless. I can work.”

“With a broken leg?”

“I had two years at M.I.T. Mechanical engineering. I’m good with engines. Got fine marks in draftsmanship—”

“You’ve no family?” Buck interrupted him.

“None. I was fourteen when my parents died. I’ve been on my own since then.”

“M.I.T., you say.” Buck’s tone was cynical. “I never went to college myself. Never needed it. But why only two years?”

“Time. Money. I wanted to build my own aeroplane and fly it. I couldn’t do that, work to support myself and still go to school. I had to make a choice.”

Buck followed Rafe’s gaze out across the sunsplotched expanse of lawn to the rise of the dunes where the aeroplane had been dragged and abandoned. “Was it the right choice? Was the end worth it?”

Rafe’s jaw tightened. He didn’t answer.

“Come on,” said Buck. “I’ll help you back to your room. Tomorrow we’ll go out and look at your machine, eh? We’ll see how much of it can be salvaged.”

He took Rafe’s weight on the right side and they moved off the balcony and through the door, into the hallway. In spite of the pain and difficulty, Rafe strove to move mostly under his own power. He had never been one to lean on others.

They had almost reached Rafe’s door when Alex came out of her room at the far end of the hall. She was dressed in pale yellow organdy trimmed with ribbons that fluttered when she moved. Her hair, freshly brushed, shimmered loose over her shoulders. Rafe caught his breath as, ignoring them both, she swung around the newel post and skimmed down the stairs in her low-heeled slippers.

Bromley, he realized, was studying him again, with that slit-eyed gaze of his. “So you like her, do you, lad?” he murmured. “Of course you do. What man wouldn’t? She’s beautiful…intelligent…spirited, and heiress to everything I own. Isn’t that right?”

Rafe swallowed, taken aback by the man’s bluntness. “She’s all that, and well beyond my reach, sir,” he said carefully. “As a pilot and a man, I know where my limits lie.”

“Do you, now?” Bromley’s left eyebrow slid upward. “Judging from the way you look at her, I’m not so sure you do. My daughter isn’t to be trifled with, Garrick. I’m saving Alex for a man who can keep her in style and keep her in line—a man who’ll breed grandsons to run my company someday. And since he won’t get a penny of her fortune, he damned well better have money of his own—preferably old money and plenty of it. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly.” Rafe had no problem with anything the man had said. He’d had his share of experience with rich, spoiled, beautiful girls. They liked playing around with the bad boy from across the tracks, but in the end it came down to one thing—money. Alexandra Bromley was prettier than most, but she was no different from the others and this was no time for games.

From here on out, Rafe resolved, he would put that blistering kiss out of his mind and give the girl a very wide berth. For him, Buck Bromley’s daughter could be nothing but trouble.