Читать книгу Trial By Seduction - Kathleen O'Brien - Страница 9

CHAPTER THREE

AN HOUR later, Amy was finally asleep.

Glenna saw right away that Amy had wanted an extra bedtime companion primarily to help delay the dreaded moment when she actually had to get in bed. First she’d insisted on touring Glenna through her entire collection of stuffed animats. Then she’d made a fuss worthy of a prima donna out of choosing a nightgown, soliciting Glenna’s female judgment on every detail.

Even after they’d tucked her in, she’d fought hard to stay awake. Mark had to improvise his way through The Snow Queen, The Snow Queen’s Revenge and Son of Snow Queen before the little girl finally gave in to the exhaustion she clearly felt.

As they tiptoed out, Glenna glanced around the room, aware that she had badly misjudged at least this one element of Amy’s life. Edgerton hadn’t selfishly transplanted his family to the Moonbird for the duration of the campaign simply to facilitate entertaining. They lived here, in a charming suite of rooms on the fifth floor of the hotel. The top floor, the one with the most commanding view of the Gulf. Of course.

“Oh, Mark, it’s you.” A quiet, thin voice came from the far side of the living room. “I didn’t know you were here.”

Glenna followed Mark’s gaze to the spot where a door had cracked open to reveal a pale, dark-haired woman standing hesitantly, holding the edge of the door with both hands as if unsure whether she should shut it or not.

“Hi, Dee,” Mark answered cheerfully, obviously not at all surprised to see her. “We just put Amy to bed.”

The woman sighed. “Thank you,” she said softly. “I was sleeping.” She fumbled briefly with the lace at her wrists, adjusting it, and then, holding her robe closed around her throat, finally ventured out into the room. “I just came out to get a glass of water. To take some pills.”

Mark introduced them, and Glenna had to swallow a murmur of amazement. This was Deanna Connelly, Edgerton’s wife? She searched her memory, trying to dredge up a picture of Deanna in the old days—but she realized she had never actually seen her.

Edgerton had only just become engaged to socialite Deanna Fitzwilliam that summer ten years ago. Moon-bird Key was abuzz with the news. What a catch she was, even for a Connelly!

Whenever Glenna saw Edgerton nuzzling the neck of a bikinied blonde, she would ask Cindy if that was the fiancée. But Cindy had always said no, of course not, Mouse. Dee the Debutante wouldn’t risk getting sand in her tiara.

The bowed head of the woman standing here now didn’t look as if it could support the weight of a crown. After the introductions, Deanna seemed to summon up a little energy, but the effort to make small talk clearly wearied her.

Glenna once again revised her assessment of Amy’s family. Deanna wasn’t just a princess complaining over a pea. She was truly frail, apparently quite sick.

After exchanging stilted pleasantries with Glenna, she looked toward Mark. “I thought you might be Edgerton,” she told him, her voice low. “But that was foolish. Of course he’s busy. So many people to talk to, so much to do.”

Mark put his arm around her shoulder. “Oh, you know Edge,” he said lightly. “He’s got to be host, chef, gardener and chief dishwasher all in one. Perfectionists are like that. He’s probably down there right now telling the guy with the piccolo how to hit high C.”

Deanna nodded, fidgeting with the lace around her wrist. She tried to smile, but when she looked up, her eyes were red. “I know he thinks I should be there,” she said, her gaze locked on Mark, “but honestly, I’m really not well enough yet. And there are so many people....”

“Edgerton understands that, Dee.” Mark’s voice was even more gentle than it had been as he kissed Amy good-night. “He wouldn’t have wanted you to try. He just wants you to rest and get better.”

“Yes,” she said, obviously clutching his reassurances like a security blanket. She patted his shirtfront gratefully. “And I think I will. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’d better just go back to bed now and rest.”

And then, with a slight smile that hauntingly hinted at the beautiful, vibrant woman she ought to be, she was gone.

Mark stood watching the door she had shut behind her, his face expressionless. Glenna couldn’t quite imagine what he was thinking. She didn’t even know what she thought herself.

“She didn’t get her pills,” she said tentatively, just in case it was important.

“She doesn’t need them.” Mark’s voice sounded slightly harsh.

The silence stretched on. “Perhaps I’d better go,” Glenna ventured finally, when it became uncomfortable. “I’ll just say good-night to Purcell and—”

“No. Wait.”

It was an order from a man accustomed to giving orders. Surprised, Glenna obeyed without thinking and watched as he picked up the phone and waited for the concierge to answer.

“Easton, it’s Mark,” he said succinctly. “Send someone up to the suite ASAP.” He glanced at the door again. “No, I don’t think we need an RN, but do make sure it’s a woman. I want her here until Edgerton comes up.”

No argument ensued from the other end apparently, because in two seconds Mark had hung up the phone and turned to Glenna.

“Now,” he said, a hint of a smile returning to his lips, “you were saying?”

Glenna hardly remembered what she had been going to say. She felt a little as if she had just stepped into a very strange dream where nothing looked or sounded as she expected it to. She knew ten years was a long time but...

Things certainly had changed around here. Philip’s manner downstairs had stunned her. He had seemed rather sweet and simple ten years ago, perhaps the most “normal” of the three Connelly boys. When had he changed from boyish charmer to sloppy drunk?

Now this. When had Deanna Fitzwilliam faded from trophy bride to shadow wife? And even more amazingly, how had Mark Connelly made the transformation from poor relation to power broker?

He was waiting. Desperately she found her train of thought and grabbed it. “I said I probably ought to go now. You have things to do—”

“You can’t leave yet,” he said, but the authoritative bite was gone from his voice. In its place was the old playful tone, the teasing note of cat and mouse. “You still owe me a dance.”

“I do?” He just smiled. She looked around. “Well, even if I do, I don’t see how we can—”

A soft rap interrupted her, and she closed her mouth, frustrated. Mark must think she was an airhead. She felt as if she hadn’t finished a single sentence in his presence tonight.

Without comment, he answered the door, ushered in a no-nonsense woman in a white uniform, exchanged a few inaudible sentences with her and then held out his hand to Glenna. “Come with me,” he said, his grin back in full force. “And I’ll show you how.”

She resisted, but only a little, dragging ever so slightly on his hand as he strode toward the elevator, plunged them down three stories and then swept her out onto the wide second-floor veranda.

He took her acquiescence for granted. And with good reason, she had to admit, wondering at herself. Her resistance was purely token. As his pace accelerated, her feet hurried after him as if her evening slippers had come equipped with wings.

But why? What was happening to her? She had felt slightly on edge, different somehow, ever since her fit of weeping on the beach this morning. Was it possible that letting go of some of her bottled-up grief had been therapeutic—inching aside an emotional boulder that had been blocking her for years? Or was it just the primitive animal appeal of Mark himself? His personality was so vibrant, his nature so recklessly vital, that she was drawn to it and afraid of it in equal measures.

But when she had seen him standing next to that tragic, washed-out Deanna Connelly—well, somehow in that moment the balance had shifted, and Glenna had felt a sudden piercing craving for...for the life force he represented.

Across the veranda then and around the western corner of the hotel, to where a small minaret jutted out, an architectural whimsy that had clearly been included primarily to offer an appropriate nook for clandestine assignations. Open to the night air, it overhung the first-floor ballroom, and the music floated up easily, filling the tiny tower with haunting, half-heard melodies.

Glenna looked around, suddenly disconcerted. This might have been a mistake. The orchestra was playing the “Moonlight Sonata”. Of course. What else?

She tried to make a joke, something lame about Mark’s impeccable timing and how much he must have paid the pianist to play that song on cue, but she couldn’t quite find the right words. When she reached for a sentenceful of bracing cynicism, she came up mute. So instead, buying time, she went to the edge of the tower, looked out—and felt herself tumble over the last razor edge of resistance.

“Oh, look,” she said, as breathless as a debutante herself. “How beautiful it is!”

No, not even sensible Glenna McBride could resist such a night. The sky was like a dowager wearing all her jewels at once—a thousand diamond-chip stars glittering across her dark blue velvet breast.

As Glenna watched, the round moon smiled, then retreated behind a drifting veil of silver lace. And below, more beautiful than all the rest, lay the black satin Gulf, dancing a silent, erotic waltz with the wind.

“Yes, it is.” Mark was right behind her. Her pulse sped slightly as he put his hands on her shoulders. “Very, very beautiful,” he murmured, and turned her toward him.

Did they dance? Perhaps. But her body was registering so many rhythms at once it was difficult to know which one to follow. The heavy rolling sweep as the tide stroked the shore; the soundless, measured throb of Mark’s heart against her hand; the languorous trickle of moonlight through the piano keys.

No dance she’d ever learned could encompass all of that. They moved slowly. Sometimes not at all.

“Relax.” His voice was low, insistent, very near her ear. “Remember—it’s only a dance.”

But how could she? It was so strange to hold him like this—sweet and dangerous at the same time. Without taking a single physical liberty, he made it an act of amazing intimacy.

She stiffened her spine, which seemed to want to melt into itself. No. She might have surrendered to the beauty of the night, but she hadn’t relinquished her soul to him. Yes, that was right, hold something back. She was determined to keep one part of herself untouched, one corner of her mind that the music and his scent couldn’t infiltrate. Outside is...safer.

But it was so difficult. Her fingers trembled against his back from the effort. She felt as if she’d never really heard the sonata before—had there always been such a deep, insistent counterpoint below the softer, rippling treble notes? Where once she had heard lovely sadness, lovers parting beneath the moon, she now heard something different. They were not parting—they were coming together, and the experience was both glory and despair, death and redemption....

It’s only a dance.

But now his firm, long fingers were tracing the contours of her spine—the muscles contracted in his wake, arcing her toward him. Her eyes drifted shut; her skin warmed where it met the ridged wall of his chest.

She felt his power slipping inside her defenses; the safe corner of her mind buckled dangerously under the pressure. He wasn’t a man who tolerated locked places. He wanted it all, expected it all, whether it was for the length of a sonata or for a lifetime.

It’s only a dance.

Somehow, by sheer will, she held on, and when the music stopped, she pulled back slowly. She looked at him, bewildered by how depleted she felt. She touched two fingers to her temple as if she could corral her thoughts. But it was like trying to force rain back into the clouds, tears back into your heart.

“That was...lovely.” She tried to smile lightly. “Your orchestra is very good.” She pushed a few stray hairs back into her French knot. “You know, though, I really do think I should go back downstairs now.”

“Let me guess.” His tone was softly mocking. “Purcell needs you?”

She laughed awkwardly. “Well, yes. Surely by now the senator has come to claim his wife—”

“I hope not. The senator died ten years ago.” Mark leaned against the balustrade. The full moon rimmed his dark hair in silver. “We call Maggie the senator’s wife out of habit. No, actually I suspect she probably has Purcell lounging on a chaise on the beach right now, watching the moon and drinking sangria.”