Rexanne Becnel (4 page)

In dismay, she lifted her eyes to his. “You don’t look like Frederick,” she blurted out.

“No.” His teeth showed whitely in an even smile. “But then, he and I shared only one thing in common.”

Lacie did not miss the caustic edge to his voice, and she knew at once what he implied. She’d lived near the town of Kimbell long enough to have heard most of the gossip and rumors about the town’s leading family. Everyone knew that Frederick’s father had had an eye for the ladies, and that one of his mistresses had borne him a son. But during his teens, when his mother died, the boy had left town. Since then, there had been little word of him. Only in that unfinished letter of Frederick’s had Lacie found any reference to him and his business successes. And his address in Denver.

Now it seemed she was about to pay for her softhearted gesture in writing him about Frederick’s death.

As if he saw the path of her thoughts, his expression turned sober and his eyes seemed to harden. “So you know about me. Did Frederick tell you the details of our relationship?”

Lacie colored in embarrassment to discuss such an indelicate subject. “I know—I know that you have the same father, and that you have a thriving business of your own in Colorado.”

He studied her for a long moment. “Yes, thriving. Tell me, where are your spectacles?”

She was caught off guard by his abrupt change of subject. “I—I laid them down somewhere,” she faltered. Then she drew herself up to her fullest height. He had flustered her, first with his untimely appearance, then with the revelation of his identity, and now with his unexpected observation. If he was trying to keep her off balance, he was doing a splendid job.

But he would not anymore, she vowed. Fighting down her rising irritation, she put on her primmest expression.

“May I offer you my personal condolences for the loss of your brother, Mr. Lockwood? I’m sure you miss him terribly, as do we all here at Sparrow Hill School.”

He did not reply but only stared at her thoughtfully. Then he took a step closer, and his nearness caused her to draw back in sudden confusion.

“Why don’t you just call me Dillon, since it appears we are related? Now, aren’t you going to invite me inside?”

Lacie’s stomach tightened at his casually familiar tone, and she stepped farther back from him. Was he baiting her? Was he up to something? He’d not come here for nothing. With an effort, she lifted her eyes to face his watchful gaze.

“Why did you come here?”

It was his turn to be slightly taken aback, but he was quick to recover.

“A direct woman. How convenient.” He cocked a dark brow. “I came to pay my respects, of course.”

“You never visited him while he lived. Why would you visit him now that he’s dead?” she challenged.

His eyes clouded at that, and an expression that might have been regret passed swiftly over his face.

“Let’s just say that Kimbell is not one of my favorite places.” Then he straightened up. “Do you intend to keep me standing on the porch forever?”

Flustered anew, Lacie led him inside. Once in the wide hall, she wasn’t sure what she was to do with him. Somehow she simply could not see this man sipping lemonade and eating biscuits in the parlor. It occurred to her that she had no idea what refreshments to offer a man under such circumstances, or how to maintain polite conversation.

To her dismay, he hardly gave her a chance.

“I’d like to see Frederick’s office,” he started with no introduction, “and his business files.”

“What?” Lacie drew back. She was alarmed by his bluntness, for she had not been able to go through any of Frederick’s papers yet herself. There had been too many other matters for her to handle, and she hadn’t known precisely where to begin. But if she let this sharp-eyed man go through them now, he might be able to determine that she had never been anything more to Frederick than one of his students and then a teacher. Frederick had left no will with his attorney, and she knew that she was the only thing that stood between this school and Dillon Lockwood. Only her claim of marriage could prevent him from inheriting Sparrow Hill. Even though the marriage license appeared to be perfectly legal, she didn’t want to see it tested in court.

“Is there any reason why I may
not
see his papers?” Once more he gave her that strange, searching look.

“N-no, of course not,” Lacie stammered, her mind racing to find a reason to deny him that very freedom. “It’s just that—perhaps you would like to have supper first?”

It was hard to say who was more startled by her invitation. One of his jet-black brows arched up in clear surprise. And if she’d worried about maintaining a few minutes of polite conversation with him, what in the world would she do with him for the course of an entire meal?

But the damage had been done. A slight grin lit his face, and once more his eyes turned a clear, vivid green. “How kind of you to invite me. Actually, I was hoping to stay awhile. Now that the school has emptied, there’s obviously no shortage of space. Why don’t you see to the meal? My horse is still unsettled from the train ride. I’ll take care of him, then get my things.”

After that presumptuous speech, he gave her a last look and an abbreviated bow. Then he turned on his heel and with three long strides was through the door and on his way.

Lacie was caught between anger and dismay as she peered at his broad retreating back. Never had it occurred to her that Frederick’s brother would show up at Sparrow Hill School. She’d hoped that he would ultimately abandon any suspicions he might have about the marriage due to the difficulties of distance and time. After all, why would a wealthy Denver businessman waste his time and money on a struggling girls’ school?

But it was clear that Dillon Lockwood was not like other wealthy businessmen. Neither distance nor time had discouraged him from coming. It was clear the school
did
matter to him, and that she had a terrible struggle ahead of her.

To her dismay, Dillon Lockwood was looking more and more like a very hungry wolf.

T
HINGS WERE GOING BETTER
than Dillon could have hoped. Just as he planned, he was going to be staying in the grand Allen-Kimbell mansion—the mansion that rightfully belonged to him.

He slowed his stride and looked back at the huge old house. He had never lived there, but the house had loomed over his childhood in Kimbell. It had not changed in the nineteen years he’d been gone, although back then it had been his father’s home, not a school. The oaks were bigger, and the peach and pear trees that had been skinny little saplings now made up a mature, healthy stand. One of the four pines that had marked the walkway down to the lake was gone. Probably to a bad storm, he thought as he cast his experienced lumberman’s eye on the remaining towering trees.

But these were incidentals. The house still appeared as it always had: huge and imposing. Ten fluted columns soared two stories on each side, and a wide, two-storied gallery encircled the entire building. Its whiteness gleamed even more brightly against the dark contrast of the deep purple slate roof. Five elegantly detailed dormers pierced the roof on each side, dormers he’d wondered about as a boy.

His mother had always refused to speak of his father’s house, and of the wife and son and mother-in-law who’d lived there as well. But others in town had not been so discreet. As a boy he’d learned only too well that people were always eager to tell him about the father who never acknowledged him.

Miles Dillon Kimbell had been a quick-tempered man, given to bouts of generosity as often as he was prone to acts of vengeance. Rich in his own right, he’d married Amelia Allen, the sole heiress to her family’s fortune, and thus had come to call Sparrow Hill his home. But his mother-in-law had been a hard-edged woman, swift to throw her son-in-law’s indiscretions in his face. Between her constant harping and his flagrant disregard, his pretty wife had not had a chance. Amelia’s sole comfort had been her son Frederick, and she’d kept him as much to herself as she could. Dillon wondered even now if Amelia had ever known about her husband’s bastard son.

He dragged his eyes away from the house, wishing he could blot out all the painful memories of those days. With an effort, he focused on the stable that lay ahead. Frederick had built it shortly after the war. The old barn had been torched by drunken soldiers. Dillon had argued against the expense of building such a huge stable, for what did a school need with so many horses? He thought Frederick’s money would have been far better spent investing in the railroad lines that were springing up throughout the West. But Frederick had been adamant about building the stable.

As Dillon stepped into the shadowy center aisle of the whitewashed structure, he clearly remembered the time he’d been in the old barn that had once stood there.

He’d been caught picking pecans in the orchard behind the house. His friends had fled in a panic, terrified of the repercussions if Mr. Kimbell caught them. But Dillon had stood his ground. A scrawny twelve-year-old, tall for his age but skinny and awkward, he’d shaken off his captors’ grasp, then marched boldly toward the barn, where his father waited to punish the culprit. What had he expected of that long-ago confrontation? he wondered now as he led his rangy stallion into a vacant stall. Had he been so foolish as to think his father would finally acknowledge his bastard son?

It was impossible to remember now what his motives had been. But he would never forget the agony he had endured that terrible afternoon. Miles Kimbell had been drunk and angry already. When he’d seen his bastard child he’d become even more furious. He would teach him a lesson, the older man had ranted. He would teach him a lesson about trespassing where he didn’t belong and about stealing from his betters. Then with a loop of coarse jute rope, he’d beaten Dillon until his shirt hung in bloody threads on his back.

Dillon’s shoulders twitched even now at the memory. That was the day his childish dreams of his father had died. That was the day his animosity had turned into hatred of the Kimbells and the Aliens and all they stood for. That was the day he’d vowed to get even.

But he never had gotten even, he admitted now as he removed the saddle and bridle from his horse. Frederick, the last of the Kimbell and Allen families, had never done anything to deserve his younger brother’s revenge. Despite Frederick’s one flaw—his one perverse weakness—he’d been a good man. If anything, he’d been too good, too trusting.

And too easy to take advantage of. At that, Dillon’s thoughts returned to the woman who now claimed to be Frederick’s widow.

She had certainly looked the part, he decided as he rubbed the stallion down. She’d been covered in tightly laced black bombazine from her chin to her toes. By contrast, her skin had appeared pale to the point of translucence. Her dark hair had been pulled back so tightly that her cheekbones had shown prominently. Only her eyes, dark and wide, had given life to her face.

Still, there had been something about her. For all that she had appeared the mousy schoolteacher, timid and prudish, he’d nonetheless noticed a spark of fire in her. Beneath that facade of deep mourning, he was certain she was a grasping little thief. If she’d married Frederick—
if
—she had surely done so to inherit the considerable estate he had left.

But he still doubted that Frederick had ever married. If he’d wanted a wife—even if just for appearance’s sake—he’d not have waited until such a late date in his life. No, she was a complete imposter. She wanted to get her hands on Frederick’s money and had made the entire story up. Frederick was not a man to marry. There was no doubt in Dillon’s mind about that.

As he made his way out of the cavernous stable, an old black servant drove up in a wagon. The man nodded slightly, but then he peered more closely at Dillon and pulled the team up hard. With round staring eyes he gaped at Dillon, but still he did not say a word.

“Do I know you?” Dillon asked as the man continued to stare.

“N-no, suh. You surely don’ know ol’ Leland.”

“Perhaps it’s you who knows me, then.”

Leland nodded slowly. “You’s Mr. Frederick’s—his daddy’s other boy.”

“Now, how would you know that?”

The old man shrugged, but his morose expression had begun to lift. “I don’ know. You just got that Kimbell look.”

Dillon rocked back on his heels, and his brow creased into a frown. “You’re seeing things, old man.”

“I don’ mean you looks like Mr. Frederick,” Leland hurried on, “or even your daddy, Mr. Miles. But ol’ Mr. Miles, your granddaddy. You favor him right well.” He smiled faintly, showing several long yellowed teeth as he nodded his head.

It was Dillon’s turn to stare hard at the old servant. This was something he’d never heard before, and somehow it disturbed him. “You’ve been around here that long? I don’t remember my grandfather.”

“No, suh. You wouldn’t. You was too young. He took ill about the same time you was born. He didn’t go out fo’ a long time before he died.”

That was just as well, Dillon thought sourly, for he would have been sickened unto death by his son Miles’s callousness. Then Dillon’s eyes narrowed speculatively.

“If you’ve been around that long, you must know everything that goes on around this place.”

“Yes, suh. Yes, suh, I surely do. Why, before he died, Mr. Frederick had ol’ Leland to help him with everything.” The old man’s smile slowly faded. “I surely do miss Mr. Frederick. Ain’t nothin’ ’round here been the same since he gone.”

“No, I don’t suppose it would be.” Then he gestured back into the stable. “Why don’t you show me where things are around here?”

With a sickening feeling of doom, Lacie watched Dillon Lockwood approach the house. She had seen Leland go into the barn while this man was in there. What had they spoken of in the endless minutes that had dragged by?

She jerked the heavy brocade curtains closed with a frustrated gesture, then turned abruptly from the window. But she could not shut out the image of the man who was even now bearing down on her, nor her dreadful feeling of vulnerability.