By The Sea, Book Two: Amanda (18 page)

Except, perhaps, Amanda. As Geoff made his
left turn at the only landmark for miles around—a four-foot-high
wooden chicken advertising a local egg farm—he became more and more
convinced that Amanda was somewhere near. This kind of terrain was
right up her alley: undisciplined; untamable; even a little on the
frightening side. There must be wolves and bears at night, and
mountain lions. What would she do without a gun? Worse still, what
would she do up here
with
one?

What if she wasn't here at all?

He wasn't sure whether he'd ever know the
answer to the last question; frost heaves had taken their toll on
the dirt lane that allegedly led to Fain's Folly, and the road was
barely passable. The Buick bounced and lumbered, and the wildly
overgrown brush dragged across its rolled up windows. Possibly this
was not a road at all but an elaborate trap set out by the locals
to catch Buicks.

Then: a sudden clearing, a Swiss-style log
cabin, and a sleek and dusty Daniels with a crumpled fender. A wide
grin, his first in half a week, planted itself on Geoff's face and
stayed there as he made a mad dash for the open veranda and pounded
on the door. The grin began to fade when no one answered after a
while, then disappeared altogether when Geoff gave the door a nudge
and it swung open. Inside he could see nothing; the ground level
was shuttered tight. The air was stale with the smell of cigars and
kerosene and something not quite rank. His heart dragged along
behind him, unwilling, as he made his way to a window and groped
with the shutter bolts.

He swung open the heavy louvred panels and a
tunnel of light cut across the room. It was a cavernous room,
something like an English great hall, with a vaulted ceiling and
bannistered walkaround on three of its sides. Bagged trophies hung
from every wall: the heads of moose and elk; a bobcat; a Canadian
lynx. A fat owl, a majestic eagle, the obligatory pheasant, a bear
rug in front of the huge fieldstone fireplace—all the trappings of
proper Victoriana were here. It was a man's retreat, far too rugged
for one's wife and children.

Amanda, why did you come here?

With infinite dread he began to ascend the
wide main staircase. The Oriental runner was dusty, moth-eaten, but
it absorbed his footfall completely, adding to his sense that he
was acting out a dream. Was he still asleep in his Buick on the
side of a road somewhere? He bit his lip, felt the pain. Not
asleep, then. The doors of the upper rooms were closed, all except
one, from which a thin shaft of sunshine sliced the runner on the
landing. Amanda. Breathing. He heard nothing, but he somehow sensed
her pulse beating calmly, probably once to every three of his, and
it infuriated him. He was the one who should have been calm.

He gave the door a gentle push. There she
was, huddled like a wet cat on the window seat, staring out the big
multi-paned window at a green and blue paradise. He resisted the
urge to sweep her up in his arms, then turn her over his knee.
"Hey, lady," he said softly. "Don't you lock your door? I could
have been a highwayman."

The emptiness in her voice was crushing to
hear. "We don't have highwaymen in the States," she said dully. "We
have robbers."

But he would not be denied his rebuke.
"You're being technical. What if I were a robber?"

"What would you rob me of?" she asked
quietly, still staring out at the breathtaking vista. "My
self-respect? Visiting privileges to Perry? My father's good
opinion of me? There's nothing you can take away any more." She
closed her eyes and lowered her head onto her knees.

He had not seen such devastation since the
war.

Rather casually—he did not want to frighten
her—he crossed the room and took a place beside her on the window
seat. He was shocked by what he saw. In the full sunlight she
looked diminished, both physically and spiritually. She'd lost
weight, and something more intangible. She was like a firefly that
had been swatted down by some thoughtless child, and now her glow
was fading. He reached out and touched her hair.

She lifted her head then, and said,
"Geoffrey?" in a voice of soft, sweet surprise. "When did you get
here?"

It frightened him. "Just now," he whispered.
"Believe it or not, I have a friend in the area," he lied. "A
family friend. He's staying at a sanatorium not far from here."
Geoff remembered a road sign, but not the name of the institution.
He hoped she wouldn't ask.

She didn't. "Oh, how sad," she said. It was
dreadful to see the pallor in her face. "Tuberculosis? Is he young?
Oh, I hope he isn't young."

Mistake. He tried frantically to close the
subject. "No, no. Not young. Actually, it isn't tuberculosis. It's
more a kind of malaise. They don't really know what it is. It may
be nothing. You don't look terribly robust yourself," he added,
skimming his fingers across her high, hollow cheekbone.

She tried to smile. "Maybe I have the same
malaise."

"I don't think so. Do you know what I
think?"

Amanda shook her head.

"I think you're hungry. When's the last time
you ate?"

She pondered his question the way a
seven-year-old struggles with her multiplication tables, then gave
it up. "I don't remember," she answered, drawing her dark brows
together. "Not since I've been here, I don't think."

"Because you couldn't find any food?"

"Because I couldn't find a can opener," she
answered with a tired smile. "It seemed like such an effort. It
seemed so pointless."

"We'll see about pointless," he said a
little gruffly. "Is there water?"

"There's a pump in the kitchen." Her voice
had become empty again. He was losing her.

"Why don't you come down with me? While I
put together something for us to eat, you can wash up." She looked
so tattered, so fragile, like a war urchin left alone in the
streets of London. Her hair hung limp; her face was smudged and
streaked; the soft cotton frock she wore was ready to be retired
once and for all. "Come. Can you stand up?" he asked her gently,
taking her hands in his.

"It was nice of you to stop by, Geoff," she
said in a suddenly gracious voice. "Really. We must do this again
sometime. When I'm less tired." Her face was filled with tender
affection. It was a look altogether new to him, and it terrified
him.

He tried applying guilt. It was low, but he
was desperate. "What? You're going to send me off on that hideous
drive with an empty stomach? I call that bloody inconsiderate," he
said, holding her hands. He was afraid that she might teeter and
fall.

"Oh, you're driving? I thought you'd come by
boat. Lotsy says the food was terrific and you were great fun."

Sweet lord. Along with everything
else—Lotsy?
"That was another lifetime ago, Amanda," he said
softly. If he was certain of nothing else, he was certain that
there would never be another Lotsy in his life. "Right now all I
want to do is share a can of peas with you."

"All right," she replied bravely, as if he'd
asked her to walk over hot coals with him.

As it turned out, she was too wobbly to
manage the stairs. Geoff should have left her where she was,
perhaps, but the thought was unbearable to him. Ignoring her polite
murmur of protest, he scooped her up—she was so light; surely she'd
been losing weight for more than two or three days—and began to
carry her down the stairs.

Her arms were around his neck; her cheek lay
tucked under his chin. "Do you know that this is the first time
you've ever held me?" she asked with touching naïveté. "Lotsy says
you dance divinely," she added. "I was so jealous about that, after
I knew you for a while. Isn't that funny, that I cared so much
about dancing?"

Whatever dancing Geoff had done with Lotsy,
it was not on a floor. At least the woman had had the decency to
speak euphemistically. "There's nothing to be jealous about,
Amanda. I plan to have the next dance with you," he whispered,
carrying her down slowly, lovingly, step by step.

"Wouldn't that be nice?" she asked with
heart-melting innocence.

Even unwashed, she smelled irresistible. He
was reminded of the day he'd visited her studio after the Cup race.
At the time he was confusing his attraction for her with animal
lust. At the time he was a jerk. What he was responding to—what he
didn't understand until this moment—was Amanda's take-me-as-I-am
quality. She was completely without pretension. She might be
difficult; she might be maddening; but she was not affected.

He drank in the scent of her, reveled in the
closeness of her. It seemed the most logical thing in the world to
tell her he loved her—except that Amanda Fain was not logical just
now. He nudged open the heavy door to the kitchen and carried her
inside. The room was dusty, stale, but neatly laid up for the
off-season. Geoff eased Amanda into one of the sturdy oak chairs
gently, as if she'd been wounded. When he saw the embarrassed blush
in her cheeks his heart lifted; any emotion was better than none at
all.

He turned to the business of coaxing Amanda
back from the brink of the small, terrifying little hell she'd
wandered into. The lodge, he was only just discovering, was cold,
despite the lovely Indian summer weather. An enormous pile of dried
cordwood lay neatly stacked outside the kitchen, under a shingled
lean-to. He brought in enough wood to make a fire in the old but
functional wood-burning stove and before long had water heating in
the cast iron kettle for washing. The fact was, he was as grimy and
dusty as Amanda, and he didn't smell nearly as tantalizing. He
found some linens, laid neatly away in a cedar cabinet. He found
clothes. He found food. And best of all, he found tinned tea
(Lipton's, no less) and a Rockingham teapot.

When the water was warm he poured some off
into a large white porcelain washbowl. Amanda had been sitting
close to the stove, and as the room heated up she began to thaw. A
series of shivers passed over her, and after each wave she wilted a
little more in her chair.

"The grub'll be ready in another minute,"
Geoff said lightly. "Would madame like to wash up before
luncheon?"

Amanda looked at him with unfocused eyes. "I
don't think so. It's such a lot of work."

"Here, then. Let me do it." He dipped a
washcloth into the warm water, then wiped her cheeks as gently as
if they were made of rose petals. It seemed impossible to treat her
with too much tenderness. He loved every freckle that was stamped
on her nose, every lash that ringed her gypsy eyes. He wanted her
to have his children; he wanted to wash their daughters' and sons'
brown-eyed faces.

He wanted Amanda to love him back, but he
wasn't certain she even knew who he was.

They ate their meal in near silence, mostly
because Geoff was wolfing down his crackers (tinned), cheese
(tinned), and beans (tinned).
His
will to live was obviously
strong enough. But Amanda's? He watched her pick at her food, then
said, "I must say, Amanda, you really know how to cut a fellow
down. Granted, the cuisine is not on a par with Henri's, but surely
you can eat more than that."

She smiled a little and pushed down another
forkful of beans.

And so the meal went, with Geoff coaxing,
Amanda complying, and both of them looking increasingly unhappy.
Tea went better. Geoff had brewed it extra strong and laced it with
sugar. Amanda seemed to revive a little. She pointed to Geoff's
face and said, "You look like a raccoon." Which was true. He'd been
wearing driving goggles; since his arrival he'd neither washed his
face nor looked in a mirror. He washed up hurriedly, then returned
to his tea.

Unfortunately, he committed a stupid error
in judgment by mentioning the brand name of the tea. Immediately a
veil seemed to fall over Amanda's face. Who could picture Sir Tom
and not think of Perry's adoring gaze? A
complete ass, that's
who,
Geoff thought as he piled dishes into the long-legged
porcelain sink. Still, he refused to have it out with her about
Perry, not before they'd both had a chance to sleep off some of
their exhaustion.

"Amanda, look. We've got to get some rest. I
can't keep my eyes open and you ... need to sleep, too." Actually,
her eyes were wide open. Too wide open. She looked as if she was
afraid of closing them, afraid of what she might see.

He led her up the stairs to the room he'd
found her in, then made up the bare mattress with the sheets he'd
discovered. The sun was on the wane, and so was his energy. Amanda
had retreated to her window seat.

"How do you know so much about keeping
house?" she asked out of the blue.

"The Army has turned out some of the best
domestics in England," he said with a grin. Actually, he'd had his
own man to take care of everyday business, but he wasn't blind. He
went up to her with a spare flannel nightshirt he'd found with the
linens.

"Here. I want you to put this on," he said,
more sternly than he'd intended.

Like a child, she did as she was told. Right
then. Right there. The sight of her bare breasts as she pulled off
her dress jolted him into wakefulness; before he had the manners to
look away, he stared. Her skin was very smooth, very white, very
alluring. Her breasts were firm; not large, but well-formed, the
nipples dark and small. Exhausted or not, he was thrown into an
instant arousal. More to hide that fact than to conceal his obvious
voyeurism, he turned away and made a grand business of tucking the
sheets in tight.

When he turned back to her she was dressed
in the baggy nightshirt, looking more forlorn than ever. He began
to take his leave, but she said, "Please don't leave me alone."

"Well, no, I won't if you don't want me to.
Let's tuck you in, and then I'll sit here for a while," he said
gently.