The Spiral Path (39 page)

He frowned at the canopy overhead.
"Why not put yourself back into the most secure time in your life, and
work from there?"

"There
were
no secure
times."

He laid a gentle hand on her bare
midriff. "That's a drawback. You'll have to build her out of pure
craftsmanship."

"A lot of help you are!"

He grinned. "Time for a return to
Drama 101. What's Sarah's secret?"

A profound secret that the character
would never reveal to anyone was often a key to the character's personality,
and added depth and a sense of mystery. "You know, I've never thought of a
secret for Sarah. A sign of my distance from her."

"Find one," he suggested.
"Maybe then you'll connect with her."

What shameful secret might honest, naive
Sarah Masterson be concealing?

The answer struck like a thunderbolt:
Under that innocence, Sarah was deeply, physically passionate in a time and
place where women were supposed to be demure, sexless "ladies." Sarah
knew that about herself, and the realization shamed her.

She didn't love Randall just for his
noble profile and heroic exploits, but for his virility and beautiful body.
She'd instinctively recognized that he was a man who might match her in
passion. That call of the blood gave an intensity to her love. Even though
their marriage hadn't yet been consummated, she believed to her marrow that
they belonged together--and she didn't dare let anyone, even Randall, know about
her wanton nature for fear they'd despise her.

Her pulse accelerated. "By George,
I think I've got it. Sarah's secret."

"And it is...?"

"If I told you, it wouldn't be a
secret."

"Maybe I can persuade you." He
pounced, kissing and caressing and murmuring against her breast in a menacing
growl, "Tell me her dark secret, or I'll drive you mad."

"I'll show you madness!"
Laughing, she rolled him onto his back and pinned him to the bed with her hands
and knees before nibbling her way down his body. The laughter bound them
together as surely as passion, until levity vanished in hot urgency.

After total meltdown, she lay panting in
his arms.
Don't think that soon this will be over--think about the two whole
weeks that are left.

After a luscious, lazy interval, Kenzie
kissed her temple, then climbed from the bed and started to dress. "Time I
crept back across the hallway."

Reluctantly she also rose and drew on
her bathrobe. "I did some rewriting on a couple of your later scenes. I'll
print out the pages and get them to you today." After he nodded, she
asked, "With your dyslexia, is it hard to learn new dialogue?"

His hands froze on his belt buckle.
"I beg your pardon?"

"You're dyslexic, aren't you? I've
always assumed so."

He fastened the belt, the leather
snapping like a weapon. "Why do you say that?"

"You have trouble with right and
left, you reverse things, you don't read easily, and your spelling can be
pretty creative." She regarded him uneasily. "Was I wrong to assume
dyslexia, or is this one of those topics you really, really don't want to talk
about?"

His expression became fractionally less
taut. "Both. I thought I'd done rather a good job of concealing my
difficulties. Does everyone know?"

"I doubt it. You compensate
beautifully. I was just in a position to notice more." She'd noticed
everything about him for more than three years.

He drifted to the window and stared out,
shoving his hands into his back pockets. "I was quite hopeless as a child.
Probably retarded. Certainly worthless."

The flat words chilled her. Though she'd
figured out that he was dyslexic fairly early, she hadn't realized how
profoundly the condition had affected his life. "England is a civilized
country, and dyslexia has been well understood for years. Why weren't you
diagnosed when you started school?"

He shrugged. "Britons aren't quite
as keen on slapping labels on children. Plus, there were ... other
circumstances."

Such as having a very traditional family
that didn't believe some children's brains were wired a little differently than
others? No wonder he was surprisingly lacking in arrogance. He wasn't reserved
and unassuming because he was "an English gentleman," but because it
was difficult to develop arrogance after years of being treated as stupid.
"I assume that eventually a good teacher figured out what was wrong."

"Yes. Luckily, intensive work can
do a great deal to compensate for learning disabilities. But it doesn't cure
them, of course."

Nor did it eliminate the years of shame
he'd suffered. Looking for a silver lining, she said, "It's probably
helped your acting. You have a phenomenal memory, not to mention perfect pitch
for accents. And your discipline. You're about the best prepared actor I've
ever met, and I suspect that was another way of compensating."

He nodded, still staring out the window.
"It's amazing how clever one can become at hiding one's flaws."

"Dyslexia isn't that big a deal,
Kenzie. I've had several friends with varying degrees of dyslexia. I sometimes
scramble things myself. It seems to go with creativity, which you certainly
have in spades."

"I'm glad it's not a big deal to
you," he said quietly.

But it obviously was to him. "Okay,
subject closed. I won't mention it again."

"I'd appreciate that." He
turned from the window. "I'd also prefer this didn't become common
knowledge."

She tried to make a joke of it.
"Telling the tabloids that Kenzie Scott went to bed with three women and
an Angora goat would be news, but a learning disability wouldn't interest
anyone."

"If you're telling tales to
tabloids, go with the orgy. It would be less uncomfortable." He left the
room, closing the door behind him with unnerving care.

She tightened her robe around her, feeling
depressed. Whoever had convinced Kenzie he was a worthless child deserved to be
shot--and despite her pacifist leanings, she'd be happy to load the gun.

Kenzie's
call wasn't until after lunch, so he showered and ate--the night with Rainey had
done wonders for his appetite--then drove to Morchard House and walked through
the gardens to the labyrinth. It had helped him before, maybe it would today.

Discovering that Rainey had recognized
his dyslexia made him feel like a turtle whose shell had been ripped off.
Intellectually, he knew his reaction was foolish. Learning disabilities were
not uncommon. Many well-known people had gone public with their own struggles.

But he'd never wanted to be a spokesman
for a cause, nor could he be detached about a condition that had shaped his
childhood with the harsh finality of an ax. Even with Rainey, he'd felt
gut-level fear when his weakness was casually mentioned.

If he'd had a normally designed brain,
his childhood would almost certainly not have been the Dickensian horror that
he'd barely survived. But his brain wasn't normal, and as a child he hadn't
known how to conceal that. Thoroughly convinced of his worthlessness, he'd
never looked for a way out, because it hadn't occurred to him that escape was
possible. Mutely he'd done what he was told, and been dragged into an abyss
that left him irrevocably scarred.

Movies and radio had saved him. Though
he didn't master the written word until years later, as a boy he'd loved
listening to beautiful language. He'd been nine when he first heard a
Shakespearean play performed on the radio. The rich, seductive power of
The
Tempest
had taken him away from what he was doing, and what was being done
to him.

While language was wonderful, the
combination of word and image in the movies had been pure magic. Film had taken
him to new worlds, created sanctuaries in his mind where he could withdraw from
the sordid reality of his life.

He'd been very lucky to receive patient,
intensive instruction while he was still young enough to benefit by it, but
reading was still too much work to do for pleasure. He envied Rainey's ability
to become totally lost in a good book. His undeserved reputation for being
literate and well-read was a result of the countless audio books he'd listened
to during the boring intervals of filming or while he was exercising.

He'd plunged into acting without fully
realizing how much reading would be required. Hundreds of screenplays were sent
to his office every year. More than most actors, he had to rely on other people
to screen potential scripts for him. Once or twice, his manager and assistants
had passed on a role that he later wished he'd taken, but overall the system
worked well, except when he had to make a decision quickly.

That had happened with
The Centurion.
He certainly should have read it before agreeing to take the role, but he'd
been busy, Rainey had explained the story, and he'd come to rely on her judgment
about screenplays while they were married. So he'd agreed when he shouldn't
have, and had only himself to blame.

He still wasn't sure whether or not he
regretted being part of this movie. The night with Rainey had improved his
mood.
The Centurion
meant time with her while having the safety net of a
definite cutoff point. Of course he could endure two more weeks as John
Randall.

But then he remembered how crazed he'd
felt on Randall's wedding night, and wondered.

He reached the end of the labyrinth.
Pivoting, he started through it again in the opposite direction. Maybe he
should have one of these built at Cibola, since the effect was definitely
calming.

It appealed to his sense of irony to
know that he and his wife would be having an affair. The situation was pure
drawing-room comedy, as long as he didn't think of how soon she would cease to
be his wife. Neither of them had pushed to make the divorce go through quickly.
In fact, he hadn't pushed at all, merely told his lawyer not to oppose the
suit, and to respond to Rainey's lawyer as needed. But divorce wasn't difficult
in California, and in another few weeks, this one would be final.

Rainey would be free, and he'd be alone.

CHAPTER 22