Baroness (12 page)

Maybe she'd never be Presley, brash and smart, looking beautiful in men's clothes and a jaunty beret. But perhaps she didn't have to. She had Rennie, after all, and he'd made this clear when he'd taken her hand in his while they walked through the streets.

Back at the hotel, she found her room freshly cleaned, the linen curtains blowing in the smell of rain from the darkening clouds. Hopefully Rennie would return before it began to deluge the bullfights. She looked forward to sitting with him under the stars, maybe talking about where they'd go next. Perhaps Madrid.

She ordered gazpacho and ate it on the Juliet balcony outside her window and wished for writing paper to recount the day's events for Rosie.

If only Rosie had come with her. Lilly feared for her, at home with Jinx and the news of Lilly's escape, but Rosie had assured her that she could manage without betraying her.

Rosie had been so distraught over slapping her that Lilly believed her. And, perhaps, after this week, Aunt Jinx would realize that Lilly was her own person, that she didn't need the supervision of her elders. Perhaps they would allow her to stay behind in Paris after the summer season.

Maybe she would marry Rennie. Yes,
of course
she would marry Rennie.

A knock came at her door just as the sun dripped into the black mountains. Rennie stood at the door, a sunburn on his nose, a smile curling up one side of his mouth. One whiff of him suggested he'd stopped at a cantina on the way back to the hotel to finish off a carafe or two of beer. “Hello, peach.”

“Rennie. Are you okay?”

He came into the room, took off his derby, and flung it onto the bed. “Never better.” Then he sat down on the edge. “Have you put yourself back together?”

“Yes. I'm sorry. Perhaps tomorrow I will be a better sport. It's just so…maudlin.”

“It is,” he said softly. “C'mere.”

She slid into the comfort of his embrace, expecting words of sympathy, even understanding. He said nothing, however, and pulled her down to him. He tasted of beer and garlic, and she didn't relish it. But this was Rennie, and she could forgive him of his vices. Especially in Pamplona.

Besides, hadn't he come up to inquire after her?

He curled one hand around her back, the other behind her neck, and in a moment had pulled her down beside him on the creamy eyelet bedspread.

“Ren—”

“You're so beautiful,” he said, lifting his head, his eyes dragging over her. “Young and beautiful.”

She didn't know what to think when he leaned over her, kissed her again. This kiss she didn't recognize. It lacked the gentle ardor of before, it was reckless, and sloppy, his breath hot and dark against her mouth, then her neck. But perhaps this was what happened to a man when he drank.

Then his hand traveled down, and she stiffened. “Rennie, please. Stop.” She caught his grope, but he pulled out of her grip.

His eyes had a storm in them as they raked down her, back to her face, and she froze, a spark of warning now touching her core. “I thought you wanted an adventure.” Before she could respond, he leaned down, close to her ear, pleading. “Please, Lilly. I'm in love with you.”

She swallowed, her throat burning. When he leaned over and kissed her again, his touch had gentled, but panic had already reached up to suffocate her.

“No…I…Please, Rennie—I can't.” She pushed on his chest, but he again covered her mouth, as if desperate.

She twisted beneath him, fear spearing through her limbs. She didn't even think as she reached back and, with everything inside her, slammed the palm of her hand against his face.

He reeled back and stared at her, his hand to his cheek. She pulled together her mussed clothes and scooted back from him, breathing hard.

He moved away from her and she expected an apology—something—but he just shook his head and got up, off the bed.

“Rennie, please, understand. I…I'm not ready. Shouldn't we be married first?”

He held up his hand, as if to silence her, then he opened the door. He stood in the frame, the hallway dark beyond her room, his back to her, his shoulders rising and falling.

“I should have listened to Presley. She told me you weren't ready for Spain. This was all a terrible mistake,” he said finally, and shut the door.

The sound of it shook her through.

Rennie.
She drew up her legs on the bed, feeling sick, and touched her fingers to her stinging lips.

This was all a terrible mistake.

His words turned to acid inside her.
You weren't ready for Spain.
What had Presley told him?

She had the sick feeling that Presley had once been in Rennie's arms, maybe even here. In fact, maybe that's where Presley—not Lilly—still belonged.

Maybe Rennie knew it. Maybe he was still in love with Presley. Then why had he invited her? Why had he made her feel as if she belonged here, with him?

Maybe she did. He'd made her feel bold and alive, and with him she became someone who traveled to Spain, who watched the bullfights, and who went flying.

Lilly stood up, stared at herself in the mirror. She'd braided her hair today, but it was mussed and tangled, and she looked like a schoolgirl in her plain shirtwaist and skirt. She worked her braids free then retrieved a brush and ran it over her hair, turning it shiny and full.

She already felt older. More daring.
Men are children. A woman has to know how to handle them.

She opened the valise of Presley's clothes and found a black-fringed dress, sleeveless and low. She slid into it, and although it bagged on her, it showed more of her than she ever had before.

Spain can turn a girl into a woman, if she has the courage.

She went without stockings, slid into a pair of heels, and stared at herself in the mirror. Rosie would most likely approve of this outfit, would probably suggest adding a string of pearls to her neck. Oliver had presented her with pearls on her eighteenth birthday. They still sat in the velvet box in her trunks back in Paris.

She put her hand to her bare neck. If she had them, she'd wear them now, swing them in her hand for courage as she sauntered downstairs to where the men played bridge at one of the white wicker tables on the stone terrace.

The sun had set, and electric lights and torches trickled dark shadows upon Hem and Rennie's faces as they held up their cards.

Presley sat on one of the chairs also, hunkered in tight between Hem and Rennie, reading both their hands. She glanced at Lilly as she got closer, a frown darting across her face—quickly replaced by an expression of sadness. She nudged Rennie. “Look who showed up.”

Rennie set down his cards. She expected a smile, something of apology, even appreciation, but she couldn't read his expression as he scanned her, head to toe, then back to her eyes. “Looky here. Who is this?”

“Rennie…” Lilly said softly.

His mouth tightened into a knot, his eyes hard.

She advanced another step. “I'm sorry, Rennie.”

He laid his cards down, glanced at Presley, who raised a thin eyebrow. Then back to Lilly.

She smiled, but the edges of her lips quivered.

Then, his eyes softened, a smile barely edging—

“Lilly!”

The sound of her name behind her shook her through. No.

Her breath came fast and sharp. She turned, and a whimper escaped.

Oliver.

He looked wrung out, his dark brown eyes red-rimmed, his black hair mussed, wearing a suit he must have slept in, but the disarray only made him appear ferocious. He stared at her, the entirety of what she'd become, and she had the urge to cover herself.

Then he advanced toward them, setting down a case on the terrace. “I've been to every hotel in Pamplona.”

She swallowed.

Behind her, she heard a chair rake against the stonework. Rennie. Oh, sweet Rennie. He'd stand up to her stepfather, would tell him that no, she wasn't returning with him, that Rennie loved her. That she belonged with him now.

“Who are you?” Rennie asked.

Oliver cut him a look.

She almost wept with relief at the way Rennie came to stand beside her. She wanted to take his hand, but she couldn't move.

“I'm her father,” Oliver said, and could melt a lesser man with the heat in his eyes. “Who are
you
?”

She glanced at Rennie and offered a little smile, even a nod for encouragement.

Rennie stared at him, and she wanted to answer for him. Heard the words in the beating of her heart, felt it in the heat of her held breath.

“I'm no one.”

His words fell upon her like a blade.

Then, as if to remind her just how foolish she'd become, Rennie turned to her, his eyes hard and cold. “Go home, Lilly. Your adventure is over.” He returned to the table, sat, and picked up his cards.

She stood there, and the tremble started deep inside, found its way out. She wanted to slap him, to—

“Lilly.” The voice was too gentle for her against all the rage boiling inside.

She turned to Oliver, and words churned a long moment before she could latch onto the right ones. But they were exactly right, and came from a place she hadn't had the courage to speak from. Until now. “I hate you. You stole my life from me. Again.”

She brushed past him and fled back to her room to weep.

Chapter 6

“Will you never forgive me?” Rosie tried to keep the anger from her voice.

Lilly stood at the rail of the steamer, staring into the ocean breeze, the shadows of the night pocketed into the wells of her face, sallow from tears. Her long braids twisted in the wind as she knotted the front of her steamer blanket hanging over her shoulders with a fist. She didn't acknowledge Rosie's question.

Behind them, in the grand ballroom, the orchestra played as first-class passengers danced and lounged. Bennett and Uncle Oliver had retired for an after-dinner cigar while her mother went to oversee Finley's bedtime. Ten days on the ship had lost its allure to her, especially since most of the first-class passengers were businessmen traveling home from Europe. None of her set would come home until the end of August, when the season in Paris ended.

Rosie pulled her own steamer blanket up over her shoulders, shivering as the ocean winds scuttled across her arms. She'd forgotten the chill of the open sea—that, and the briny feel of the salt layered upon her skin, woven into her hair. She felt grimy and old, weary and torn through with the chop of the sea, the brisk wind, and the unrelenting cold front from her cousin.

“Oliver gave me no choice,” Rosie said, grasping the rail.

Lilly's face hardened.

“You should have seen him, Lils. He looked undone and tired, as if he'd swum across the Atlantic to get to you. I tried to hold out, I even went to my room and locked the door, but he stood outside it and knocked and knocked—he kept pleading with me. He told me how much he loved you. It was horrible. I know I said I wouldn't tell him, but…I didn't realize how much he cared for you.”

A muscle pulled in Lilly's jaw, her dark eyes tracing something in the mysterious darkness beyond the bow where they stood. Early stars hung over the darkness, and a half moon had risen to cast an eerie glow upon the silver waves.

“I finally opened the door. He'd pulled up a chair and sat there, holding his head in his hands. I thought he was crying, but then he just looked up at me, and I think, had I not been a woman, he might have taken me by the throat and throttled the information right out of me. But he just stared, something so desperate in his expression…I had to tell him, Lils.”

Okay, so yes, she'd planned on betraying Lilly, but once she'd returned home, her own heart in pieces, it felt so wicked, for a moment, she debated holding onto her secret.

Rosie wished she had someone who might break a door down for her.

Lilly swallowed. Drew in a breath. “Rennie loved me, Rosie.” Her voice emerged sharp and brittle. “And if Oliver hadn't shown up, I'd be with him in Madrid, right now. Oliver destroyed everything.”

“You don't know that. Rennie might have tired of you—”

Lilly rounded on her. “He wasn't Dash! Rennie wasn't playing games with me!”

“Of
course
he was playing games. That's what men do! They play games. They only want a woman who will fit into their world, who will give them what they ask for, become the thing they want. Our job is to beat them at their own game and get what we need in return. None of it is real, Lilly, and the sooner you figure that out, the sooner you'll realize that Oliver did you a favor.”

“No. He didn't. I don't know why, but Oliver is set on destroying my life.”

“Oliver loves you.”

“If he did, he would have left me alone to be happy instead of dragging me back to a city I hate, a life I loathe.” Lilly turned back again to the dark pane of night. “I'll never forgive him.”

Rosie looked down, at the way the steamer lights skimmed the ocean, leaking out like puddles upon the oily surface. The dull thud of the waves against the hull sounded like a heartbeat. “And me?”

Lilly drew in a breath. From the ballroom inside, the orchestra played Mozart and the music drifted out to season the night. “Being out here helps me forget. The stars dripping on the ocean, like fire. Look—there's a falling star.”

Lilly pointed to the sky, but Rosie couldn't find it, lost among the glitter of the Milky Way.

“It's not really a star, you know,” Lilly said. “It's a meteoroid. A big rock that passes through the earth's atmosphere. We're seeing the earth burn it up.”

“Did Rennie tell you that?”

Lilly shook her head. “I read it in the
Chronicle
. Some German astronomer wrote a paper on it. He also wrote an article on black holes. He said that when a star dies, it leaves a black hole so large the magnetic force pulls everything around it into the darkness.”