Tender Deception: A Novel of Romance (22 page)

Lilly stared at the painting. Emotions boiled through her, ranging from anger to heartbreak. This was just one more piece of evidence of how much Kirk had passionately loved the opera singer—and how much he still loved her. If she no longer meant anything to him, he wouldn’t keep this painting, would he?

Theirs must have been an intimate relationship for her to have posed nude for the painting. Lilly tortured herself with fantasies about the circumstances of the painting. Had they taken a break from her posing to make love? Had passion shaken his hand as he drank in the sight of the gorgeous woman as he transferred her flawless beauty to the canvass? Hot images burned through Lilly’s imagination, sending waves of bitter emotion churning through her.

She sat there for several minutes, engulfed in bitterness and aching jealousy. Then she spent the rest of the afternoon hanging all of the paintings in her bedroom. Angrily, she was planning a surprise for Kirk.

During their evening meal, she forced herself to act in a normal manner toward Kirk. She could tell by the way he was looking at her that he was in a mood for making love that evening.

After dinner, he swept her up in his arms and carried her into her bedroom. He crossed the threshold and suddenly froze. He stared about the room, seeing his canvasses on every wall. Lilly had deliberately highlighted the painting of Marie Algretto with a lamp.

“Where did you get these?” he demanded.

“I found them in the attic by accident.”

His expression was dark, angry. “I should have thrown them away long ago.”

“I wonder why you didn’t?” Lilly murmured, looking pointedly at the nude painting of the opera singer. “Perhaps you couldn’t bear to part with them for sentimental reasons.”

He crossed the room in quick strides and ripped the paintings from the walls. “They’re silly, childish dabblings.”

“I’d hardly call them childish. A child wouldn’t do a figure study of a nude woman!”

He shot her a dangerous glare.

“When did you paint them?”

“A long time ago. It was a silly whim. As you can plainly see, I have no talent whatsoever as a painter.”

“You seemed to have no difficulty getting a model.”

The look he gave her was cutting. “I was spending a year in Paris. Marie encouraged me to take painting lessons. After a year, I saw it was a waste of time.” Suddenly his voice was bleak with bitterness. “I am simply devoid of talent.”

She gave him a narrowed look. “You feel that keenly, don’t you, not being able to express yourself creatively through music or painting....”

“Of course. It’s like having something vital locked up inside, clamoring for release, but damned forever to be imprisoned. I even tried to write a novel once and failed dismally. So I took my frustrations out on my business enterprises. At least there I am successful.”

“It does make some things clear to me,” Lilly mused thoughtfully. “I have not been able to understand why you went to such lengths to marry a nobody like me when you could have your pick of beautiful women, and why you have worked so energetically to push my musical career. By possessing me, you came as close as you could to possessing my talent. You want to own me so you can own my music. Through me you realize your frustrated creative desire. Perhaps your money can’t buy you talent, but it bought you me, the next best thing!”

“That’s ridiculous!” Kirk exclaimed angrily.

“I don’t think it’s ridiculous at all. By marrying me, trying to possess me body and soul, you are trying to reach through me the thing you crave most in life and are denied. You have everything else a man could want—power, money, position. But deep down under that cold, defensive armor of yours, Kirk Remington, is a frustrated artist. You’re like a blind person wanting to use me as your eyes. You’ve never gotten over the childhood trauma of your stepfather refusing to give you music lessons, then smashing your father’s guitar. Now through my fingers you play the piano. Through my voice you sing. Physical desire is a way of making me more a part of you. But love certainly does not enter into it.”

Tears were blinding her. She said, “But what a comedown it must be to have me after your relationship with someone like Marie Algretto! She’s a world renowned artist, not only more beautiful than I’ll ever be, but far above me in the music world. She’s a great opera star, a genius, and I’m merely an entertainer, a jazz pianist and a blues singer. You must compare us every time you make love to me!”

Lilly was trembling. Kirk’s face was black with anger. The battle of emotions he was trying to contain exploded in his eyes. He quivered with a superhuman effort to gain control of himself. Then, as if not trusting himself to speak, he simply turned and stalked from the room.

Lilly had the ominous premonition that the conflict between them was moving to a climax. Finding this nude painting of Marie Algretto among his possessions was a warning of what was to come.

It was two weeks later that she glanced through a newspaper and saw an item that seized her attention. A dark cloud of despondency settled over her as she read that a traveling opera company was coming to San Francisco to perform
La Traviata.
The tragic role of Violetta Valery would be sung by Marie Algretto.

CHAPTER TWELVE

As the date drew closer for Marie Algretto’s performance in San Francisco, Lilly’s feeling of nervous apprehension increased. Surely Kirk and the opera singer would meet while she was in this city. Kirk would find her as irresistible as always.

Lilly couldn’t shake the sad conclusion that her marriage to Kirk was approaching an end.

These past weeks, she had felt more hopelessly in love with Kirk than ever. In spite of their quarrels and Kirk’s jealousy over Jimmy, Lilly had found a vitality and excitement in sharing life with Kirk that she had never known before. Their lovemaking became more thrilling each time he took her in his arms. His touch never failed to set off a volley of sparks through her nerve endings. One of his dark-eyed looks could reach to the depths of her being and bring a quiver to her entire body.

How she wished he had let her leave him after that first week when she fled to the hotel. It would have been so much easier then!

She watched Kirk for signs of restlessness and anticipation as the date for Miss Algretto’s performance drew near. But he kept his feelings so well under wraps that she couldn’t detect anything. Then there was a development that confused and surprised Lilly. A few days before the Algretto performance, Kirk announced that a business trip was going to take him to Chicago for a week. He wouldn’t be in town for the performance of
La Traviata
!

What did it mean? Lilly’s thoughts were scrambled. Was he going out of town because he couldn’t trust himself to be in the same city with Marie Algretto? Was he actually going to try that hard to preserve his marriage to Lilly? It awakened a glimmer of hope in her.

That week, Lilly was concluding a dinner club performance in Las Vegas. She slept late the morning following her final performance, spent the day doing some shopping, and late that afternoon flew her little plane back to San Francisco. It was nighttime when she arrived in the city. With Kirk out of town, the house would be empty. She decided to stop off at The Landing to visit Jimmy and the band for a while.

She sat at a small table near the stage, thrilled at how good the band was sounding these days. Every time she heard them they were better. While her own career was doing well, she remembered how exciting it had been to play with Jimmy’s jazz band. A part of her wished she could still be a part of the group.

The lights on the band dimmed. The spotlight faded to a single beam focused on Jimmy’s golden trumpet. Everything else was in darkness. And then Jimmy played the blues, soft and mellow, summing up in an expression of wry emotion all the misery life could deal to an individual. Lilly forgot everything except the shimmering beauty of Jimmy’s music. The real world faded away. The universe became centered on the golden horn in the spot of light surrounded by darkness.

Suddenly, Lilly found herself being drawn magnetically to the stage. She moved beside Jimmy. The spotlight left Jimmy’s horn and touched her and she sang one of Bessie Smith’s unforgettable blues songs. It welled up mellow and husky, throbbing with emotion from deep in her throat.

When the number ended, there was a moment of hushed silence. Then the audience exploded into wild applause. Lilly heard the band applauding her. She was gazing at Jimmy and he was looking at her with a peculiar expression. Her eyes filled with tears. They were both overwhelmed by the emotion they had generated with the spontaneous performance. It was one of those rare moments that come to artists when they have tapped some deep wellspring of inspiration that puts them close to the source of all creation.

Lilly’s feelings became too intense to bear. She fled from the stage and left the club. She took a taxi home, glad that Kirk was out of town. She wanted to spend the rest of the night alone, savoring the afterglow of the evening’s musical experience. No matter how much she loved Kirk, tonight’s artistic event could only have been shared with Jimmy.

She was lost in reverie as the cab drew near their home. Then she looked up with surprise when she saw a black Mercedes pulling out of their driveway.

It was Kirk’s automobile. But he was in Chicago!

Lilly stared with wide-eyed disbelief as the black car sped by the cab.

She caught sight of the driver. There was no mistaking his identity. It was Kirk! He was so engrossed in conversation with his passenger that he didn’t even notice Lilly’s cab.

Then Lilly’s startled gaze swung to Kirk’s passenger. She recognized the beautiful woman at once. Lilly had seen her often enough in the tabloid photograph with Kirk, in the painting he had done of her, on television and once in person at a performance in her college town. It was Marie Algretto.

When the cab stopped at her door, Lilly sat frozen, her mind in a turmoil. Obviously, Kirk had either made up the story about going to Chicago or had rushed back several days early. In either case, he had lied to her! He knew she would be performing in Las Vegas this week and didn’t expect her back so soon. He had brought the opera star to their home for a secret rendezvous!

Lilly couldn’t remember paying the cab driver and stumbling into the house. Through scalding tears, she saw the evidence of Kirk’s
tête-à-tête
with his mistress. Two wine glasses were on the coffee table, one bearing lipstick stains.

Kirk hadn’t even bothered to hide the evidence of his infidelity. It was a brutal emotional slap across Lilly’s face!

The fragrance of the opera singer’s expensive perfume still lingered in the air. It was strongest in the bedroom. Lilly stared at the rumpled bed, the lipstick smears on the pillow case. They had made love in this room, in the bed Lilly had shared with Kirk!

A broken sob tore from her throat. Something ended forever in Lilly’s heart. A curtain closed for the final time.

Blindly, she threw some belongings in a small suitcase. This time she was leaving Kirk for good.

She returned to the airport, had her little plane refueled. She filed a flight plan for Las Vegas. At the moment she was too distraught to know what she was going to do.

Without thinking, she had automatically started back to Las Vegas. But once in the air, her mind cleared. Las Vegas would be the first place Kirk would go to look for her. She did not want him to find her, to pressure her into going back to him the way he had the first time she’d left him.

The pattern of Kirk’s continuing involvement with Marie Algretto was now agonizingly clear to Lilly. The singer probably had no desire to commit herself to Kirk in any conventional arrangement like marriage. She wanted the freedom to pursue her career wherever it took her. Still, she remained attracted to Kirk. Perhaps he was one of several lovers she had. Whatever the situation, Kirk couldn’t get her out of his system. From time to time, they renewed their affair. Between the times they met in various cities of the world, Kirk wanted to keep Lilly on his string to fill the lonely weeks.

She knew she was facing a crossroads in her life. She had done a whole lot to help Jimmy. But she’d reached the end of her rope. It was simply no longer possible to keep up this farce of a marriage. For everyone’s sake, and the sake of her own sanity, she wished she could simply disappear.

Suddenly, she faced the fact that she was a fugitive. She was running away from Kirk, from an impossible situation, from her own life. She had no destination in mind. She wished she could stay here in the endless blue sky forever.

She flew over Las Vegas and kept going. The engine hummed smoothly. The tanks were full. The little plane was eager to keep flying.

It was foolhardy to take off blindly across the country, ignoring the flight plan she had filed. But she was controlled by a reckless impulse just to keep running. She had a vague notion of flying back to Louisiana where her life had begun, an instinctive desire to flee to the safety of her childhood. She wanted to go where she could hide forever from Jimmy LaCross, Kirk Remington, and the general mess she had made of her young life.

She was over a wild and desolate stretch of desert near the Arizona-New Mexico border when disaster struck. She found herself lost in the dark clouds of an unexpected thunderstorm. Her radio went out. The light plane was tossed around by violent wind gusts. Blinding streaks of lightning flashed around her and played along the wings. Frightened out of her wits, she fought to regain control of the plane. The engine whined. The craft vibrated and shuddered. Suddenly, she was in a deadly stall. Then the nose dropped and the airplane plummeted toward the desert. Panic clamped its icy chill around her heart.