Cate Campbell (33 page)

Pain blazed from the damaged nerves. Frank’s vision blurred under its onslaught, and a gasp of agony escaped him. He stumbled, and had to fight to keep his balance. Through a haze of pain, he heard Margot’s voice.

“Back off, Preston,” she snapped. Frank felt her hand on his arm and another on his back, steadying him, supporting him as he had meant to support her.

“Better keep your voice down, doc,” Preston said. “You’ll upset the mater.”

Frank blinked to clear his vision. Fury burned in him, hotter even than the fire in his arm. “What the hell do you want, Benedict?” he demanded. He sensed the eyes turned to them, and he realized the music had stopped some moments before, but the agony in his arm and the humiliation of having to lean on Margot inflamed his temper. “You’ve cost me my job, cost Margot her hospital privileges. Isn’t that enough? What’s left?”

Preston grinned, his teeth shining white in the reflected lamplight. He said, almost gaily, “Just trying to preserve the dignity of the Benedict name, old man.”

“By causing a scene at a party?”

“I don’t like seeing my sister keep company with a cripple,” Preston answered. He made a negligent gesture with one hand, a flick of the fingers as if he were brushing away cobwebs, as if the cruelty of his words was hardly worth noticing. “It’s bad enough she puts her hands all over whores and drunks and God-knows-who-else, but you . . .”

Frank said, “You’re a head case, Benedict.”

The insult struck home. Preston made a guttural sound, as if he were a dog that had been kicked. He raised his hand, hissing, “I want you to stay away from my family!”

A flood of light suddenly glared on them, light from a single unshaded bulb hanging from the garage ceiling. Dickson Benedict was there, his hand on the light switch, his thick eyebrows raised in question. The light caught Frank with his fist cocked, ready to defend himself.

Preston cast a sidelong glance at his father, and he pressed the flat of his palm against his shirtfront, beneath his dinner jacket and his striped silk tie.

Dickson said, “Preston, what—”

Frank exclaimed, “I’ll be damned! You’re still wearing that stone—the one you murdered for.”

Preston balanced on the balls of his feet, like a boxer. Two spots of color flamed high on his cheekbones, and he hissed, “Back away from me, Parrish, or you’ll regret it.”

Frank’s belly tightened, and his nostrils flared at the scent of rage surrounding Preston. It was sour and strong, like the scorch of a flatiron on wet linen. Frank grated, “Let’s have it out now, then, Benedict. Get it out in the open. I know about you. I know you’re a murderer and you’re a liar.”

“You don’t know anything,” Preston said.

Dickson demanded, “What’s going on?”

Margot said something to him in an urgent tone. Frank was barely aware of them, or of the faces turned toward them from the garden. Everything in him focused on Preston, on his fingers spread wide on his shirtfront, on the glitter in his eyes, the cruelty in his handsome face. “I know enough, Benedict. I know what you are.”

Dickson said, “Just a moment, Major—Preston—”

Preston leaned toward Frank, whispering, “What? What am I, Cowboy?”

“You’re not right. Not normal. There’s something rotten inside you.”

Dickson tried to take his son’s arm, to step in between the two men. Preston shook him off, never loosening his grasp on what he held.

Frank said, “You think it’s a magic amulet, Benedict?
Arabian Nights?
That’s insane!”

Preston’s eyelids flickered, a brief look of doubt that vanished a heartbeat later. He began to pant, for all the world like a maddened dog. His eyes glittered with the sort of craziness Frank had seen all too often in the East, when bloodlust seized a man and drove all reason away.

Frank straightened his shoulders, wresting control of his own temper. He stepped back, out of Preston’s reach. “Look, Benedict. You and I can talk this out at a better time—”

But Preston lunged at him. He caught Frank’s amputated arm with both his hands, and with a vicious, deliberate movement, he twisted it. He seemed to know precisely where his fingers would hurt the most. His manicured nails dug into the sensitive nerves until Frank felt, sickeningly, as if his arm had been severed a second time.

His world tilted. North became south. East and west reversed. A cloud of blackness swallowed him. From a distance, he heard Margot say, “Preston, stop it!” and Dickson cry some wordless protest. Frank tried to grapple with Preston, to free his arm from that relentless grip, but he groped into darkness. Something struck his shoulder and the side of his head. He wanted to call out to Margot, to apologize, but he had no breath. He rolled onto his back, away from the pain, but it rolled with him, a searing agony that turned his muscles to water. He lay uselessly on the grass, the harsh light of the exposed bulb shining full on his face, illuminating his weakness.

His humiliation was complete.

 

Margot took a long step forward and snatched at Preston’s hand, pulling it away from Frank. She thrust him backward with all her strength. “Bastard!” He stumbled slightly, but he was grinning now as if it were all a great joke, holding both palms up in mock surrender.

“Don’t get excited, doc!” he said. “It was just a little pinch!”

Dickson growled, “Preston, for shame! Get control of yourself!”

“Keep him away, Father!” Margot fell to her knees in the grass beside Frank. She reached across him for his right hand, and chafed the wrist in both of her palms. His eyes were closed, his lips pulled back from gritted teeth. His breathing was shallow, and beads of perspiration dotted his forehead. “Hold on, Frank,” she said. “It should be better in a moment. I’ll try to find you some—”

She broke off. A hand extended in front of her face, holding a silver hip flask with a cork stopper. Margot, startled, looked up to find her father bending over her.

He pulled the cork out of the neck of the flask. “Give him a jolt of this,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “That must hurt like the devil.”

“Help me lift him first, Father,” she said. “Careful—careful of that side.”

Cautiously, Dickson Benedict got an arm under Frank’s shoulders and lifted him out of the dirt. Margot cupped his jaw with her left hand, and held the flask to his lips. “Can you swallow, Frank? This will help.”

His eyelids fluttered open, but his eyes were unfocused, and she doubted he could see her. She touched the cool metal to his mouth, and tipped up the flask.

Frank swallowed one mouthful, then another. He took a shaky breath, and swallowed again. His cheeks pinked up almost immediately, and his breathing slowed and deepened. He blinked, hard, and his eyes focused on her face. “Goddamn it,” he muttered.

“Just take a moment,” she said.

Dickson steadied Frank with his arm. Frank struggled to sit up, to take control of himself. He said, “Sir, I’m—sorry about the scene. Christ, I’m—sorry.”

Margot’s eyes were on her father at that moment, and she saw steel in his gaze, and anger in the flush on his neck. He rumbled, “Not your fault, Major.”

Dickson released Frank, who had steadied enough to sit on his own. Grunting, Dickson came to his feet, and glowered over his shoulder at Preston, who had faded back into the crowd of people. “I apologize for my son. I don’t know what your disagreement was, but that was a damn lousy thing to do.”

Margot said, “Frank, surely now you’ll let me have a look at your arm. It doesn’t need to be like—”

The desperate plea in his eyes made her stop speaking.

 

Frank refused more whisky, though his arm still blazed with pain. Margot, her face pale and her jaw set, helped him to his feet, then slipped the hip flask into his left pocket, beneath his folded sleeve.

“Come into the house,” she said quietly. “We can have our supper in the kitchen with Hattie.”

“I couldn’t eat anything, Margot. The whole evening is—Lord, what a mess.”

“It was hardly your fault.”

“I shouldn’t have come.”

Her hand suddenly trembled beneath his arm. Her shoulders slumped, hunching so that the pretty silk scarf slipped down to her elbows. She said bleakly, “Are we going to let Preston rule our lives, then?”

“He’ll write another column about me,” Frank said.

“He wouldn’t dare. Father won’t allow it.”

“Well.” Frank tried to laugh, but succeeded only in a gulp of misery. “It’s not as if I have anything left to lose.”

Margot dropped her hand from his arm. She didn’t know, of course, that he had no choice but to leave Seattle. That he was about to lose her in any case. He cast about for some way to explain to her, to say that he hadn’t meant—

She said abruptly, as they walked side by side toward the porch, “I’m going to move out of Benedict Hall.”

“What? But—where will you go?”

“I have the clinic. I’ll fix up the storeroom as a bedroom.”

“No,” Frank said, without thinking.

“That sounds like an order.”

He shook his head, powerless to explain his feelings about the idea. “Not an order, Margot, of course. Not—just—just not there.”

“It’s the best place for me.”

“It’s not! It’s not safe for you, Margot! A woman living alone . . .”

“Frank.” She fixed him with her dark, unwavering gaze. Her voice roughened, and she sounded very much like her father. “Without Blake, I’m not safe here, in Benedict Hall. Tonight was a warning.”

They reached the porch, ignoring the curious gazes of the partygoers. Supper was laid out on long covered tables, and the hired butler and the two redheaded maids were slicing a roast, dishing out salad, offering baskets of rolls and butter, pouring coffee into tiny china cups. Conversation and laughter filled the garden, and the ladies’ dresses spread over chairs and benches like pressed flowers over the pages of a book. Frank’s temper subsided under a wave of sadness. Preston was right, he supposed. He didn’t belong here. He didn’t fit into Margot’s life.

She started toward the front door, but he stopped. “I’d better go,” he said.

“Come in, Frank. Let’s talk.”

“I don’t think I should.”

“Because of Preston?”

“Because of everything. Your family—”

“The family doesn’t matter.”

“It does. It always will.” Frank gazed into her face, her clear dark eyes, her determined mouth. Dickson’s flask felt like lead in his pocket, a reminder of his weakness, but a promise of relief. He wanted another drink, badly. He wanted, even more, to explain to Margot, but the words wouldn’t come.

She watched him for a long moment, her eyes full of hurt, her shoulders hunched in that defensive way, ruining the drape of her frock. She said bitterly, “So Preston wins.”

Helplessly, uselessly, he stared at her. He wanted to blurt it all out to her, tell her how bad it really was, but he had so little pride left. None, really. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t find the way to bridge the gap between them.

And she wasn’t going to do it, either, he could see. Not this time. A spark flared in her eyes, and her shoulders straightened, stiffened. “So, you don’t think I should live alone, but you won’t come in and discuss it with me. What do you suggest I do?”

Mute with misery, he could only shake his head once more.

Her eyes were bright now with anger, and her chin thrust out. “I don’t know what you want, Frank.”

The words were in his mouth, on his lips. In his heart. But how could he speak them? It wouldn’t be right. He had nothing to offer her. “If things were different—” he began.

“They are what they are, Frank. I have to deal with it, and so do you.” She turned in a glittering whirl of beaded silk, and stalked in through the front door.

They weren’t speaking of the same thing at all, but Frank, silent and stunned, couldn’t think how to set it right. He stood alone, watching her disappear inside the fortress that was Benedict Hall.

 

Preston’s hand shook with rage, making the curtain rings rattle against the rod. He stood just out of sight in the window of his bedroom as Parrish, healthy and more or less intact, strode away down the hill. Starlight gleamed on his dark hair, making it look polished. His lean shoulders were back, his head high, his steps quick and determined. He should have been dead. At the very least, he should still have been writhing in pain.

Preston dropped the curtain, and spun to gaze at the sapphire, gleaming dully from the coverlet of his bed. He had flung it there in exasperation, and now he glared at it, as if he could vent his anger on it, as if he could wrest an explanation from its depths. He had stood there with the stone in his hand, in front of everyone, risking exposure. He had concentrated, had poured his desire into it, with Parrish no more than an arm’s length away. It was just what he had done with Blake, and that had been a triumph. But now, tonight—his heart pounded with fresh fury as he thought of it—there had been
nothing!

The bloody stone had rested in his hand as if it were no more than a piece of jewelry, some effeminate gem meant for a vain old woman. It wasn’t a deep, rich blue anymore. It had faded, its glow dimming to a pinkish hue he didn’t recognize. It was as if its fire had gone out. It didn’t even call to him now, lying on his bed in the little pool of its silver chain. It was useless.

Humiliation built in his belly, threatened to explode in his chest. Parrish had called him insane. The looks his father—and his insufferable
sister
—had bent on him made him feel like a spider they would as soon crush beneath a shoe as tolerate in the same house with them. His mother and his sister-in-law—oh, God, was he reduced to counting on brainless Ramona?—had fussed over him, tried to defend him to Dickson. But what did they count? Women! God, he hated women! It was too bad the world couldn’t sustain itself without them.