Deceptions (33 page)

She was laughing.' But if you heat molasses it gets thin and moves quickly.*

'Exactly. So we lit a small fire under the vice president. Uoyd Strauss. You've met him.'

* And is he moving more quickly?*

•Like a tidal wave. In one week he has discovered that half the human race is female and has asked William Webster, whose paunch makes a formidable roadblock, to explain why our ivory tower resembles a club for men only.*

Tou'd like to get rid of Webster.'

'Is it that obvious? I hope no one else sees that. It could look asif I wanthisjob.'

*But you don't.'

'Lord, no. I want more time in the lab, not behind a desk.'

•Would Foster Labs give you what you want?'

'I've been wondering when you'd bring that up again.'

•I wasn't starting a debate; I only asked if it would satisfy you.*

He gave her a long, thoughtful look. Tm not sure.'

•How will you find out?'

•I suppose I'll have to go there and look around.'

She nodded.

•No comment?'

•What would you like me to say?*

•Damned if I know. You never lacked for something to say in the past. If 1 go for a look, will you come with me?*

•I don't think so. You should have a chance to think about it by yourself.'

That's new. Until now—'

She stood and shook out the folds of her robe. 'I think I'll go up. I want to call my sister before I go to sleep.'

'Since when is she awake at five-thirty in the morning?'

'It's not morning; it's late in the—No, how silly of me, you're right, I got it backwards. Of course she won't be up. I'll call tomorrow. I'll just go to sleep now.'

•Without any more talk of Foster Labs?*

•I'd rather not. Not tonight.*

He waited. 'All right. I'll be up soon.'

'Good night.'

She climbed the stairs slowly, wondering how she could confuse the times in Chicago and London after she'd been

here almost three weeks. She'd been uncomfortable with Garth - that was the reason. The easy intimacy of their talk troubled her. How did she know him so well that she knew what he was thinking? I don't want that, she thought.

But what did she want?

She wanted to keep distance between them - but she wanted his smile and praise.

She tried to think of him as her sister's dull husband - but they laughed together and his work made him fascinating and powerful.

She reminded herself that Stephanie called him withdrawn and neglectful -but she warmed to the feeling he gave her of being protected and cherished.

Lying in bed, thinking about him, she heard him come upstairs. He was in the bedroom doorway when Permy began to cough.

Sabrina threw back the covers.

' I '11 go,' said Garth. He found Penny sitting up in bed, small and white-faced in the light from the hall. He poured a spoonful of cough medicine and she made a face as she swallowed it.

'Why is it so awful?'

'The worse it tastes, the faster you get well so you don't have to take any more. Snuggle down, now, and I'll tuckyou in.'

'Daddy, could you stay a few minutes?'

He put his hand on her forehead. No fever. 'What, sweetheart?'

'I asked Mommy about art lessons. She said I could take them if it was all right with you.'

'Did she? Well, I think we can manage it. When do they begin?'

'Right after Christmas. But—'

•But?'

'I need paints and brushes and charcoal and canvas. And they cost lots of money.'

'Well, I don't know. I thought you could draw with sticks and mud on paper napkins. But if you insist on the same equipment Michelangelo used, we could make it an early Christmas present and get you everything you need.'

'Oh, Daddy!* She struggled out of the blankets to throw her arms around him.

He held her close. 'Now to sleep, don't you think? It's hard to paint a masterpiece if you're hacking away with a cough.'

'Daddy?'

'Something else?*

'Why is Mommy so different lately?*

Garth sat down again. 'How is she different?'

'Oh, you know. Different. Like she hugs us more than she used to, but she hardly ever scolds us. Sometimes it's like she doesn't even notice what we're doing. And sometimes she smiles at you and other times it's hke she doesn't want to be close to you. And lots of times she looks far away and just ... thinks. Like ... like she's here and someplace else at the same time.'

Garth smoothed back her hair. There was no sense in pretending. Children were oblivious to much that their parents did, but what they did see they saw with uncanny clarity and insight. 'I think she's got a lot of things on her mind that she's trying to sort out. When you get to a certain age, usually in your thirties, you begin to wonder if you're doing what you really want to do, in the way you want to do it. So sometimes you stand back a little bit—'

'Like taking a vacation from everybody and thinking about yourself separately?'

He was surprised. 'Yes. What made you think of that?'

'That's what Monmiy said when I asked her.'

'Did she. And what else did she say?'

'That you weren't going to get a divorce.'

'That we weren't—'

'But I think maybe she's still thinking about it.'

Garth sat very still, staring unseeingly at the light from the hall. Stupid ass. You stupid ass not to see it, to have to wait for your eleven-year-old daughter to tell you the obvious. His hand clenched an imaginary termis racket; his muscles tensed to smash a ball across the room. Goddanmed blind, stupid ass not to know that she's wanted to divorce you for - how long? Since her trip? Since before the trip? How long?

Penny knew. Permy had known for a long time, had even

Ulked to her mother about it. 'She's still thinking about it.' Of course she was thinking about it. And who else knew, besides Penny? Who else saw his wife more clearly than he did? How many were not afraid, as he was, to see her clearly?

Because of course he'd known, in some part of him that he pushed out of sight whenever it poked its obscene head out, that she wanted to leave. Everything pointed to it, from running off to China to ignoring the laundry. Even when he tried to tell her that he'd talked to Cliff, as she'd nagged him to, about the loot stashed in his closet, she'd seemed indifferent. Worse; as if she didn't even know what he was talking about. As if she didn't care what he did. Everything point€»d to it: she wanted to leave.

Except that she was still here. And wanted to stay. He had to believe that, too; how else could he explain the effort she was making to change, to be more lively and curious, more interested in all of them, more exciting? It wasn't just a shared glass of wine before dinner, or aclmitting she felt ill and letting him take care of her; it wasn't even a dinner table conversation about his work. She was trying to act differently in every way, forcing him to do the same. So they could begin again.

Sometimes. She acted like that sometimes. Other times she withdrew. As if her thoughts were pulling her to and away from him. hour by hour, day by day. She was thinking about divorce. But she hadn't decided.

He felt tenderness and admiration for her. He had not realized she was so strong, forcing him to court her again, forcing herself to court him, even while she wasn't sure what lay ahead, whether she would still have to leave him, to be - whatever she wanted to be. Whatever she thought she couldn't be as his wife.

He had to show her he understood, that he knew now he'd almost let her slip away from him in his absorption in his work, and that, with her, he would begin again if she would suy and give them a chance.

That was all he had to do.

'Daddy?'

'It's all right, sweetheart. Your mother and I are not going

to get a divorce. Lots of married people think about divorce, and sometimes, when they have very serious problems, they have to separate. But not always. And do you know something?'

'What?* Her voice was warm and sleepy.

*I love your mother and you and Cliff more than anybody in the world. Do you think I'd be silly enough to let us all break apart, with so much love?'

'I love you. Daddy,' Penny sighed, and slept.

Garth leaned down and kissed her forehead. Sometimes all the love in the world isn't enough, he said silently. But I'll do my best.

Lying beside his wife in the dark, he said quietly, *I don't want to go to this conference..The past week has been so good; I've felt we were learning to know each other after being a long way apart. I know that was my fault far more than yours, and I've wanted to talk about it, but then it seemed that, lately, we were, in a real way, beginning again. Have you felt that? Stephanie? I know you're not asleep. Has it been a good week?'

Hidden by the dark, she gripped her hands. 'Yes,' she said reluctantly. The quiet evenings, his praise for things she did, the closeness of their talk and laughter, the way their eyes met when Cliff or Penny said something amusing, sharing the work of the house, her sense of being connected to him, to a family.... 'Yes.'

He slid his arm along the pillow, beneath her neck, and pulled her to him. 'I want to know you again; begin again.* His lips brushed her cheek and closed eyes. 'Hold fast our good times and build on them. My love,' he said, and his mouth covered hers.

She lay, taut and frantic, her mind in a turmoil, swept by the waves of happiness and depression that had battered her for days. As his hands slid the nightgown from her shoulders, her thoughts shouted at her, echoing and contradicting each other.

Stop him ... tell him ... what? Get out of bed, ?ush him away. Tell him ... what? That he can't do this?

He is a husband in his own bed.

His hands and mouth moved on her body; his lips

whispered on her breasts in slow kisses that shuddered through her. With her fingers she felt the bone and muscle of his shoulders, the smooth skin of his back, and realized she was embracing him. She tore her arms away. His body stilled, as if caught in flight, then bent to her again; he held her breasts and kissed the hollow of her throat.

Sabrina heard the small moan that tore from her and struggled against it. We can't, we can't — But his body moved against hers, demanding and already familiar, and beneath his insistent hands she felt herself letting go into dark languor and the desire that swept in heavy waves through the hunger of her body.

You must not do this. The cold voice slashed through the soft darkness and she winced. Thinking he had hurt her. Garth pulled back, but her body, quite separate from the tumult in her mind, helped him move onto her and when he entered her, she was open to him, wet and smooth. In a sudden rush of joy that burst like a flame before she could smother it, she rose to meet him with such a passionate force that he, so long abstinent, could not hold back. With a low cry he came, deep inside her, and then lay still, pressing her beneath him into the bed.

She stretched the moment out, the feel of his strength upon her, then put her hands on his arms to push him away.

He lifted his head. 'I'm sorry, my love.' He slid his hand down. 'Let me—'

'No,' she whispered, torn by the pain of loss and guilt. She longed for him and was ashamed, and she turned her head away.

He lifted himself and lay beside her. Sabrina shivered, feehng bereft.

'I'll stay home this week,* he said.

'No. I want you to go.'

'Then I'll try to cut it short. We have so much to talk about, so much time to make up.'

She heard a new note in his voice and tried to make it out. Not triumph; not satisfaction.

Anticipation.

*Good night, my love,' he said.

*Good night.' Her voice was barely audible. 'Sleep well.'

He reached out and took her hand, holding it tightly. And that was how they fell asleep.

Chapter 14

Stephanie and Max Stuyvesant walked together into the enormous white tent in the grounds of Chilton House. Holding her arm, he guided her through the crowd and they found seats near Nicholas Blackford and Alexandra just as the auctioneer mounted the rostrum. The chairs were closely packed, and Stephanie felt the pressure of his arm against hers as forcefully as she felt his commanding presence and his eyes on her face. She looked away as the auctioneer began a graceful speech of welcome.

The Chilton auction. The first highlight of the new social season. Three hundred bidders from Britain and the continent: wealthy, polite, dressed in country tweeds, seated in the carpeted tent and standing four deep along the sides. Outside, a hundred more watched through a raised flap of the tent, sitting on the smooth lawn or perched on walking sticks that opened at one end into a small seat. Sunlight filtered through high, thin clouds; the mild air smelled of cut grass and trimmed hedges.

The Chilton auction. The kind of high-flying, distant social event Stephanie always read about in newspapers.

And Max Stuyvesant. Whom she had met unexpectedly in the park outside the tent, and whose arm now pressed against hers, a constant reminder, even as she began to concentrate on the auction.

The auctioneer finished his history of Chilton house, built in the reign of Queen Anne, and a brief biography of its late owner, a renowned painter who had died without heirs. The executors were selling the house and its contents, as well as a separate studio, greenhouse, four garages, and ten acres of park. 'I shall open the bidding on the house,' said the auctioneer genially, 'at two hundred thousand pounds.'

A flurry of whispers rose from a group at the side of the

tent. *The townspeople/ said Max. 'Worried about being saddled^with an unacceptable neighbor. A momentous problem in a village of two hundred.'

'Done,' said the auctioneer, and a surprised murmur went through the crowd. In less than two minutes, the bidding had ended at two hundred and fifteen thousand pounds. Stephanie heard Alexandra say disgustedly, 'If I'd known it would go for nothing I would have grabbed it.'

'The Earl of Wexon,' someone whispered.' Bought it for his mother.' A sigh of relief came from the townspeople, and many of them left as the real estate auctioneer stepped down and an auctioneer from Christie's of London took his place.