Blue Willow (59 page)

They held each other fiercely at the last, exquisite moment, shivering, merged so completely that sight and sound faded into a soft blur of elation. When he drew his head up from her damp shoulder and met her eyes, she saw the satisfaction of old promises brought to fulfillment and the quiet knowledge that they would willingly share a future neither he nor she could predict.

The mansion had a life of its own, and even in the deep stillness of the night she woke with a vague, disturbing sense that restless forces were at work. Lily raised herself to one elbow in the jumbled landscape of Artemas’s large bed and looked at his empty place. The moon shone high through the tall windows and the row of glass doors to the stone balcony, making a silver sheen on the bedsheets and black coverlet.

The two kittens she’d given him, which were now
lanky adolescents, made soft weights on the bed coverings just beyond her feet. Lupa was snoring on black cushions on the floor by the bedroom fireplace.

Everything was asleep and content, except her and Artemas. She listened to the benign ghosts of water running somewhere in the mansion’s labyrinth of pipes, the faint sigh of a floor creaking, or a thick, beautifully carved door shutting with whispering precision. As her mind cleared, she realized she’d woken to the click of Artemas shutting a door behind him.

She climbed from bed, drew one of his long silk robes around herself, and padded to the balcony doors. Pulling back one edge of the sheer white curtains that covered them, she saw him standing at the balcony’s stone balustrade, his back to her, his bare feet braced apart, his arms immobile by his sides. He wore only his thin black robe in the freezing night air.

His solitude tore at her. She knew he must be brooding over his brothers and sisters—how to soften the information about Julia. He led his life like the great, proud Colebrook clock at the crossroads, keeping his family’s time, and now hers. He’d told her about Cass’s startling announcement, and that Alise had left James.

Lily stepped onto the balcony. At the click of the door he turned, a dark, broad-shouldered form against an overcast night sky. She went to him and wound his robe’s lapels in her fists. “Santa Claus won’t show up for weeks,” she said with feigned amusement. “It’s too early to wait up for him.”

“I want to direct him to the right chimney.” His voice was gruff. He put his arms around her waist and pulled her to him with a vehemence that was both loving and rough. Stroking a hand down her hair, he whispered, “You need your rest. God knows, we’ve gotten very little sleep the past two nights.”

“Sleeping’s for people who’ve got nothing better to do.” She kissed the grim line of his mouth, then realized that there was no scent or taste of cigarettes, and there hadn’t been yesterday, either. “There are so many small things I
don’t know about you yet,” she said. “Have you quit smoking?”

He was silent for a moment, nuzzling her upturned face. “I was trying, without great success. Suddenly it’s become easy to stop. I’ve developed a strong desire to live to be a hundred.”

“Good,” she whispered.

“Don’t worry about my phantom-of-the-night wandering. This is when I do my thinking.”

“Looks to me more like worrying than thinking. If you’re going to run your engine overtime, I’ll stay out here with you and make sure you don’t blow a gasket. And keep you from freezing your piston.”

He brushed a kiss on her forehead, then dropped a deeper one on her mouth. “You’re shivering.” He moved his hands inside the robe.

“Keep your hands where they are and I’ll be warm enough.” Lily pulled his robe open a little and laid her face against his bare shoulder. “I keep asking myself if there’s really a good reason to tell your brothers and sisters about the tape.”

“If I don’t, they’ll never know the truth about Julia. They’ll always believe you were searching for an excuse to blame someone other than Richard.”

“In time we could come to some kind of mutual truce on that subject. Elizabeth and Michael want to make peace with me, and even Cass—”

“You’d let them go on thinking the worst about Richard? You don’t owe that kind of sacrifice to my family.” He paused, then added sadly, “And certainly not to Julia. As much as I loved my sister, I won’t make excuses for her. If I had known what kind of impossible pressures she was putting on Richard and the others, I would have stopped her.”

Lily thought about Julia’s childhood, and the terrible secret Elizabeth had confessed about their father. Certainly the abuse had colored Julia’s reactions to men, but to what extent? Elizabeth’s desperation to keep it from Artemas and
the others was a decision Lily still didn’t have the right to violate.

She slid her hand down his chest, placing it over the slow, steady throb of his heart. This was a man who’d fought to defend and nurture his siblings since he himself was little more than a child. A man who had salvaged their lives from a legacy few people could have overcome. He took such pride in that accomplishment. He didn’t deserve to torment himself over horrors he’d never suspected.

Lily finally realized, through a light-headed haze of distress, that Artemas was speaking her name, his tone filled with concern. “You’re shivering harder,” he said. “Let’s go inside.”

Her low moan of confusion and grief brought his arms around her. He bent his head to hers. “What is it? Is it Stephen?”

“Richard stood on that bridge with our son in his arms. If only—”

“He made a mistake, Lily. He died for it.”

“But my child died too. And so many others.”

At his urging, she lifted her head. He wound a hand through her hair and held her very still. She could feel his gaze piercing her. “We can’t bring Stephen back. God, I wish we could. I’d love to have your son with us.”

Tears slipped down her cheeks. “And I know you’d treat him as if he were your own. I
know
that without asking, and I love you for it.”

“I know Stephen can’t be replaced.” His voice was low and careful, gruff with emotion. “But there can be a very happy place for other children in your life. Our children. Do you want that for us as much as I do?”

“Yes.”

Holding each other close, they went back inside. He guided her to a chair near the fireplace, tempered the darkness with the light of a small Tiffany lamp on his dresser, then stood in front of her, stroking his fingertips over her upturned face. “Wait here,” he whispered. “I’m going to bring you something from the safe in my study.”

He left through a hall that snaked through the cluster
of rooms that made up his private wing. When he returned and she saw what he was carrying, she looked at him with wonder. He knelt and set the old Colebrook teapot on her lap. “I’ve been waiting for the right moment to give it back to you.” He watched her expression intently, as if worried that she’d find his gesture maudlin. “There are great advantages to having expert china artisans at my beck and call.”

She feathered her fingers over the delicate blue-and-white pattern. “I can hardly feel the broken places.”

“I had faith that it could be restored.”

Moving with exquisite care, Lily set it on a small table beside her chair, then slid to her knees and put her arms around him. “It has been,” she said.

Por Dios
, Maria thought desperately, closing the door to her workshop deep in the maze of service areas beneath the mansion’s main floor.

She was sorry for what she had seen in the palm court this morning, as she was removing a basket of flowers from the breakfast table set near the fountain. The chef had cleared the dishes himself—how mysterious. No one had been allowed there but him. But so much time had passed—Maria had thought she should take the table flowers away before they wilted.

The sound of laughter had startled her, coming from somewhere inside the vast, sun-dappled room filled with tall shrubs and plants, as if happy spirits had somehow made a home there. She had jumped with alarm when Mr. Colebrook and Mrs. Porter had suddenly emerged on one of the narrow pathways, not aware that she was watching, their arms around each other. He was pulling leaves from Mrs. Porter’s red hair, and she closed the fastening of his trousers, smiling at him, letting her hands do more down there than just fix his clothes.

Maria had wanted to hurry away without them noticing, but they had turned her way too quickly, catching her. “I’m sorry,” Maria had gasped. “I did not mean to interrupt—”

“No, it’s all right,” Mr. Colebrook had assured her, though he was frowning. Mrs. Porter looked as startled as Maria, but then Mr. Colebrook recovered his authority and took her hands. “It’s all right,” he repeated to Mrs. Porter, and after a moment she had given him a little nod of agreement.

Maria had rushed out of the palm court.

Now, locking the door to the shop, she rummaged among vases of fresh lilies—lilies of all kinds, exotic ones, ordinary ones, filling her coolers and spilling onto tables everywhere, because Mr. Colebrook had told her he wanted his private rooms filled with them. She pushed aside a jumble of florist accessories on one of her work tables and finally found the phone.

She did not want to be part of this awful spying on Mr. Colebrook, who had been so kind to her and her little girl. But the other one, the devil, James, he had learned of her cousins who were living with her and her husband at their house in Victoria. He knew her cousins were illegals. He had said they would receive green cards if she helped him. He had not said what would happen if she did not, but Maria was certain she knew.

She crossed herself and promised to speak of this in confession. But then she called him, the devil, and told him what she’d seen.

Twenty-nine

James slung the contents of his glass into the fireplace. The brandy burst into a blue flame. “You can dislike my methods, but not my results,” he said grimly “Yes, I had someone at the estate report to me. Yes, it was an ugly thing to do to Artemas. But now you see why it was necessary.”

Elizabeth and Michael turned in their chairs, tense and frowning as they watched him. Cass leaned back on a sofa, studying him through slitted eyes, her hands molded to the slight bulge of her abdomen. “I see why Alise left you,” she said. “You’re despicable.”

James stiffened. Tamberlaine rose quickly from a chair near the window, took the glass from James, and carried it to the bar in one corner. “I suggest that you neither consume more nor throw more into the fire,” he told James. “And as for your reasoning, there is no excuse for spying on your brother.”

James leaned against the mantel, as somber and elegant as this room in his vast, empty, brooding home, deceptive in his stillness, like a wounded panther, Tamberlaine thought. Wounded to the point of blind desperation. “The question is,” James said, “am I the only one who won’t passively tolerate this situation?”

“I think you are,” Michael said. He stepped to the center
of the room. Cass watched with mingled pride and surprise. A different brand of confidence had emerged from Michael’s mellow, contemplative self during the past months. It was as if he’d come to terms with his wife’s death. He had always been their peacemaker, but with an almost saintly distraction that brooked no conflict. Now, he seemed ready and willing to do battle with anyone who opposed him. He surveyed everyone with grim regard. “If Artemas loves Lily, and he asks us to accept that, I’ll do so with open arms.”

James said with soft vehemence, “And you’ll accept the fact that she’ll always throw her accusations about Julia in our face?”

“She has a right to her beliefs,” Elizabeth interjected, studying James sadly. “She could hate us for defending Julia, but she doesn’t. She never has.”

James shot a hard look from Michael and Elizabeth to Cass, who stirred, stroking her stomach and eyeing him unhappily. He had apologized for his ugly outburst toward John Lee, but she’d been uncertain of him since. “You have to admit that she’s been kinder to us than we’ve been to her,” Cass said. “It was a damned strange way to retaliate. Lily’s willingness to put up with us has never really made sense unless you consider the possibility that she loves Artemas.”

James replied, “Have any of you considered the possibility that there was a helluva lot more than friendship going on between them
before
her husband died?”

Cass grimaced. Elizabeth shook her head adamantly, and Michael whipped toward his older brother with an expression of sheer disgust. “I can’t believe you’ve reached the point where you’d accuse Artemas and Lily of that.”

James flinched but held Michael’s furious gaze. “I’ve always found the story about their quaint childhood friendship more than a little hard to swallow.”

Tamberlaine straightened ominously. “
Enough.
” Everyone turned toward him. His eyes glittered. “
Enough
. I
cannot
let this kind of filthy suspicion take hold.”

Cass sat forward, personifying the hushed astonishment
with her wide, alert eyes. “You know much more about Artemas and Lily’s past than you’ve ever admitted, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Tamberlaine paused, sorting through all the years, finding the right words, the right starting point. Finally he knew exactly what it was. He sat down in a chair near the hearth, weary and troubled. He began, “She was nearly nineteen and Artemas just twenty-six, when she came to New York to see him.…”

The sofa was covered in blinking Christmas lights. Hopewell took the last string from the jumble in a cardboard box, plugged them into an extension cord, and grunted with satisfaction as they flashed. He hadn’t expected any of the old lights to work after years of disuse, but they did. Like him, they still had the know-how. He couldn’t wait to decorate for Christmas.

By God, he’d cover the whole house with lights. He’d put up a tree, and set out Ducie’s little crinoline angels on the mantel, and hang mistletoe from every doorway Not that he and Little Sis needed excuses to get romantic. The woman nearly wore him out sometimes.

Chuckling, he moved around the old house, taking pride in how clean and orderly it was now, fluffing the pillows in the bedroom and fiddling with the silly sticks of incense she kept in a little pottery jar on the nightstand.