Box Set: The ArringtonTrilogy (90 page)

The expression on Richard’s face revealed
nothing to me. I didn’t see anger, despair, or frustration.
Nothing. He ascended the front steps and came in without looking at
me. Butterflies stirred up in my constantly unsettled stomach, and
I just knew something was going to change, and not for the
better.

“How was your trip?” I asked when he finally
came and sat down. I handed him a drink, then sat beside him,
waiting. He took long, slow breaths while keeping his eyes locked
straight ahead. With every minute that passed my heartbeat
quickened, until finally I couldn’t stand it. “Tell me, Richard,
what did Judith say? Did you convince her to continue to provide
your income? Is she still angry? Tell me you fixed everything back
to the way it was before that baby was born,” I pleaded.

Richard began to shake his head and then
reached for my hand. It was then that he finally looked at me.

“Richard?”

“Yes, I fixed the problem, as you call it.”
He sighed weakly.

A big smile came to my face and I exhaled
with relief. “So why are you acting so strange?” I nervously
laughed.

Richard leaned in and held me while stroking
my hair. Then he placed his lips next to my ear and whispered
something I couldn’t understand. What was he saying?

“It is not without consequences,” he
repeated.

“What kind of consequences?”
Why did there
always have to be consequences?

“Judith gave me an ultimatum.”

“What does that mean?”

“I get my money, live the way I have become
accustomed to.”

“Then what is the problem?” I cried.

“The problem is that she demanded you go!” he
shouted and shot up.

“What did you tell her?” I uttered through
the heavy lump that had formed in my tight throat. “You didn’t
agree to it, did you?”

He didn’t reply. I sat stunned, staring at
him as he again stared off blankly into the vast expanse of the
room.

“But I told you I wanted to stay,” I choked
out. “And you said all of these things - the priceless antiques,
the mansion, mean nothing to you. All you care for is your art. Was
it all a lie, Richard?”

“No,” he said flatly.

“Then why agree to such a thing?”

“It’s not that simple. You don’t understand
how complicated life can be!”

“I DON’T UNDERSTAND?” I screamed. My sudden
anger took him by surprise. “How dare you say that to me? Have your
wife’s money, Richard Parker, and all the happiness it brings you.
I want nothing to do with you or her anymore. I have an offer to
work for Ned Griffin, and I believe I will take him up on it,” I
flared and stormed up to my room where I feverishly pulled out my
suitcase and began to pack my belongings.

“What offer?” he asked after urgently
following me, standing in the middle of the room.

“Never you mind. It has nothing to do with
you.”

“You can’t work for him! Don’t you remember
all the things I’ve told you, the horror stories?”

I ignored him as I continued to pack. I
couldn’t fear the unknown any longer. I had to make of life what I
could. Here I was, unwanted
again
. I needed to go to the
next best thing, and that was with Ned’s show.

“Stop!” Richard grabbed me. “Give me a few
hours. I can make something work. Promise me you won’t go.”

I hesitated with tear-blurred vision. Oh, how
I wanted to stay, needed him to need me, and not the money.

Richard swept me into his embrace and held me
so close, so tight, I could barely breathe, and made me promise to
stay put. When he let go, I collapsed onto the bed and bawled.
Could I ever find someone who would want me forever?

Sometime very late into the night Richard
came in to wake me. I had fallen asleep in my clothes, curled up on
my bed, clinging to my pillow.

“Lillian, I have good news,” he said
softly.

I sat up sleepily and waited for the
good
news
.

“I found you a place to stay, your own
apartment.”

“What are you talking about?”

“An apartment in the city. Then we can still
be together, and Judith won’t find out,” he said cheerfully.

“Together? What’s together? And besides,” I
said, as the tears began to fall again, “what are we?”

“You are my pride and joy. Your beauty keeps
me alive; don’t you know that?” he cried.

“Like Vivienne?” I asked with pain in my
heart.

“Yes,” Richard confessed. “Isn’t that all
right? What’s so wrong about thinking of her when I see you?”

His words left me feeling empty and
heartbroken. No one would love me for who I was, only for the image
of another they saw in me. To Warren, I was my mother; to Richard,
I was Vivienne. There was not one man who loved me for me!

“I don’t want to be a part of your scheme. I
will go with Ned, or maybe just go away to who knows where. It
really doesn’t matter,” I sobbed onto his shoulder.

“Please don’t say such things,” he murmured
while softly caressing my cheek. “I just want to take care of you.
Is that too much to ask?”

“I don’t know.”

“I am here to protect you, look over you and
. . .” He stopped talking and tilted my chin up, and slowly lowered
his lips onto mine. I gasped and pulled back, but in a moment he
did it again, and this time I didn’t resist.

As much as my head told me to not to have him
touch me in places where I’d sworn no man ever would be allowed
again, my body betrayed my intuition. Womanly urges I overheard the
showgirls snickering and giggling about came flooding over me with
each caress Richard placed on my body. His kisses were gentle and
warm, and as I lay down and allowed him to undress me, I thought of
myself as Vivienne. She must have loved him and longed for his
kisses and intimate touches. It was nothing like what Warren did to
my mother, nothing like that at all.

Richard needed me in a wholesome way. We had
a relationship. We were friends. When he entered me, it wasn’t
forced and violent as I had remembered, but loving and tender, just
as I had fantasized it would be when it came time for a man to love
me, as it was when Daddy took Momma on clear starlit nights. My
legs reacted by hugging his waist as our bodies became one, when
his pleasure came and he moaned out my name and no other. Richard
held me all night and whispered how happy I made him, and implored
me to stay in the city and be his secret lover. He didn’t see that
he was doing the same thing all over again that got him in trouble
with Judith in the first place. Richard was reliving his affair
with Vivienne with me. As much as it pained me to become a secret,
a part of another betrayal, I loved the way Richard needed me,
longed for my body, and cared for me in such an unconditional
manner. I knew he would always think of
her
when he came to
me, but did it really matter? I wondered. As long as I had someone
to love me and in a wholesome union, shouldn’t that make me
happy?

“You are wonderful . . . amazing. You excite
me so!” he told me as we began to drift off into a much needed
sleep.

“You do love me, don’t you Richard?” I asked,
just before I allowed sleep to win me over.

“More than you’ll ever know.”

Finally, I woke to a new day, singing with
the birds and looking forward to what life had to offer. For so
long, I had waited for the right man to take me into his bed and
love me with desire and passion to warm my lonely nights. It felt
wonderful to be wanted and desired; I was elated to feel Richard’s
body react to my soft touch and supple kisses. I felt whole for the
first time ever.

I practically floated all the way to the
theater, thinking and day dreaming of our passionate night together
and longing for many more. I couldn’t remember how I got through
the show; my mind was elsewhere. Richard didn’t sit in the front
row that evening; he was busy with some other business, but I felt
his presence with every breath I took.

When I made it home, exhilarated and excited
to see Richard, he surprised me with a candlelight dinner and a
present. He held my chair, and I sat down as he placed a warm kiss
on the back of my exposed neck, then said, “I have missed you.”

“I missed you terribly today,” I replied,
gazing through the soft glow of the flickering candle at him - the
man of my dreams. Richard was more handsome than I had realized
when I first laid eyes on him over a year ago. He was every bit as
attractive as Heath, and I felt lucky. Richard behaved nothing like
Heath. He was charming and self-assured, not self-righteous and
priggish like Heath. I was grateful I didn’t pursue Heath and try
to make him see me and want me. I didn’t need him after all. Not
when I had Richard to love me.

“Go on, open the present,” Richard
encouraged. Inside the small box was a key. “To your new
apartment,” he said with a big smile. But it didn’t bring a smile
to my face. Instead, I frowned.

I sat sulking, my balloon popped with the
thought of being taken and kept away from him.

“My dear Lillian, put away your forlorn face.
I will be with you so much so that you will become sick to death of
me. I will be there to hold you every night, to love you, and then
we shall fall asleep to a new day.” He came to me on bended knee
and stared into my glistening eyes. “I promise.”

“I will never have to sleep alone?”

“Never, never, never,” he mumbled through the
dozens of kisses he showered upon me.

And with every kiss, I gave in to his plan
that would allow him to have both his money and me, to keep Judith
appeased and me contented. I wrapped my arms around him and
returned his affection until passion once again ignited. Richard
took me to his room and loved me with such fervor that I swore to
myself he had to love me just as much as his beloved Vivienne, if
not more. He had to.

* * *

The next morning, Richard took me to the
place that was my very own, our
“
love nest” as he called it.
What I walked into, however, was no home, and certainly no place I
had ever imagined having secret romantic dinners and nights of
rapture with my married lover.

Foreign voices filled the dark, dingy hallway
of the apartment building, and strange smells of a mixture of
ethnic dishes filled my nostrils as I gazed around the one tiny,
seedy room Richard had found for me to live in. Questions flooded
my mind; disbelief stabbed me in my gut. The sight was almost as
bad as my prison in Sutton Hall, and no longer could I fight the
urge to run outside and refuse to live in such hell. “I won’t stay
here, Richard!”

The streets were bustling with activity.
Children were running about, hundreds of street vendors lined the
crowded sidewalks, and the smells of waste and poverty lingered
about. “How could you pick such an awful place for me?” I
demanded.

“Come inside; it’s not so bad. Let me
explain.”

I reluctantly allowed him to lead me back up
to the hideous apartment, all the while believing he would change
his mind, see how the thought of me living in such squalor was
absurd.

“You need to understand our situation. We
will be spotted if I find you a place near to me, or in even
midtown by the theater. You are well known there, people will talk,
and it will get back to Judith. Here . . .” He stopped and looked
around, then turned to me and held me protectively close, “no one
knows who you are. Fame comes with a price, my darling
Lillian.”

“I can’t stay here! Please don’t make me. The
conditions are deplorable; I will be so unhappy,” I cried.

“Even if I am here with you, sleeping in your
bed, holding and kissing you?” he murmured. His hot breath drifted
down my neck, giving me tingles. Oh, how I wanted to be his alone,
wanted his time, his love. Did I have to give up everything for it,
though? Would I agree to share a common bathroom, have no window
drapes on the only window, with a view of the bricks of the
adjacent building? Could I stand the unfamiliar voices and the
stench that flowed through the paper-thin walls and filled every
inch of the apartment, all for the sake of love? I had sacrificed
so much before, lost my freedom because I was too naïve. Now I was
losing it all over again.

Richard’s eyes pleaded with me to agree, his
kisses and caresses implored me to betray my better judgment and
allow myself to be a locked-away damsel, whom he could love and
protect without risk of exposure. And before I could refuse his
wishes, he lifted me and laid me on the small bed that pressed up
against the filthy wall and came to me with love, promises, and
whispers of a life together. Then he added, before he fell asleep
next to me, “And if you love me as much as I think you do, you will
stay here.”

For the sake of love, I made a new life for
myself in this nightmarish place. Every day, until the time came to
walk ten blocks uptown for the carriage Richard sent every day to
take me to the theater, I slept. When I couldn’t sleep, I took more
and more of the white medicine I inhaled up my nose to help me
through the day. Richard supplied me with the magic that made it
possible for me to function and forget about my miserable
surroundings.

Richard came with me every night to the
apartment as promised. He loved me, rocked me, held me all night
long. I felt secure when he was there and didn’t jump when I heard
loud bangs, slams, and arguments right outside my door. The love I
had for him numbed out the real world and helped me forget my
fears.

Richard never mentioned Judith, the mansion,
or the estate, of which I was glad. Nonetheless, I would have liked
to hear a little something about Heath and Sarah, though whenever I
asked, Richard insisted we were starting a new life and shouldn’t
bring up anything or anyone from the past. The subject of his wife,
her cousin, or her sisters, and the man whom long ago I would have
given the world for were no longer up for discussion. And as much
as I was curious about Heath Dalton, I couldn’t help but feel anger
and resentment every time I thought of him. I could never forgive
him for not remembering me, or if in fact he did, for pretending
not to know who I was and what we had meant to one another long
ago.