Finding Laura (35 page)

Laura didn’t say anything for a minute, just searched his hard face intently. Then, finally, she said, “But it’s all coming to a head now, isn’t it? The struggle, the tension between you two. It’s almost visible in the air sometimes. You’ll have to stop it.”

“I’ll have to stop it,” he agreed quietly. “Soon.”

“She’ll hit back. You know she will.”

He nodded. “I know she’ll try. But there’s nothing I can do about that right now. I have other things that concern me more at the moment.”

“Such as … what Peter was up to before he was killed?”

Daniel’s hand fell away from her face. “Guessing?”

“Putting the pieces together. He
was
up to something, wasn’t he? Trying somehow to raise money to finance his ambition? Is that what got him killed? Did he try to get that money from the wrong place, the wrong people?”

“I don’t know.” Daniel turned and continued down the path through the maze, still holding her hand.

“And you don’t want to talk about it.” Laura wasn’t surprised, but tried to hide the pang of hurt she felt.

His fingers tightened around hers. “No, not now. You said you could accept that, Laura.”

“I need to have my head examined,” she muttered.

They reached the exit of the maze just then, and as they walked out onto the path that would take them back through the garden, Daniel said, “Why? Because you’re willing to give me the time I need?”

“I just wish I understood,” she replied with a sigh. “I still don’t know what you want from me, Daniel.”

He stopped, looking down at her. “Don’t you?”

Laura had no trouble at all in interpreting the shimmer of heat in his eyes and had to clear her throat before she could say, “Besides that.”

Daniel smiled. “I want to know all about Laura Sutherland.”

She blinked. “You do?”

“Yes. Where you were born and grew up, about the family you aren’t close to and the other people you have been. Likes and dislikes. Politics and philosophies. Which side of the bed you prefer. Things like that.”

“That’s … a tall order.”

“We have time. Hours yet until we have to dress for dinner, and I doubt anyone will disturb us out here. Walk with me, Laura. Talk to me.”

She glanced down at their clasped hands and said slowly, “If we spend the entire afternoon out here together …”

“Everyone will know we’re lovers?” His voice was calm. “Someone knows you weren’t in your room last night, Amelia probably. I doubt the others will be much interested. I know I promised to give you time, and I’ll try not to … overwhelm you. But I find I’m liking secrets less and less these days. I’m not ashamed of being your lover, Laura, and I don’t really give a damn who knows.”

“I didn’t say I was ashamed. But we’ve known each other barely more than a week—”

“And so we might offend someone’s delicate sensibilities? If it doesn’t trouble us, then why should we care what other people think? Laura, if it
really
bothers you that everyone will know we’re lovers, then I’ll go back to the house and leave you out here. No one’s seen us yet; the maze is only clearly visible from my window. We’ll pretend we barely know each other when there are other people around, that we’re indifferent. We’ll keep the truth a secret as long as we can, if that’s what you want. Maybe you can slip into my room tonight after everyone’s asleep, or I can come to you. For a few hours. And then tomorrow we go back to pretending once again. Is that what you really want?”

Laura gave in, to him and to her own yearnings. “No. It isn’t what I want. But, Amelia—”

“I doubt Amelia will say much. But if she does, I’ll handle her.” He lifted her hand and kissed it, an oddly graceful and intimate gesture for a man with such a powerful, rugged appearance. “Now, walk with me, please. And tell me all about Laura Sutherland.”

She decided later that it was the kiss that did it, snapping the last wispy threads of her resistance and making her throw caution to the winds. In any case, she walked with him, and they talked.

The gardens were very quiet and peaceful, and they weren’t interrupted as they strolled the paths, pausing from time to time to sit on the scattered benches, and pausing more than once to take advantage of a particularly secluded spot.

Daniel asked questions and Laura answered them, telling him more about herself than she had ever told anyone. He talked as well, filling in some of the details of his life when she asked, being more open than she had expected.

Laura thought she was probably behaving too much
like a woman in love, but there was nothing she could do about it. Just as he seduced her so easily with his touch, he now seduced her with his attention, his absorption in all the details of her life. He made her forget everything but him, made her world tunnel until it contained only the two of them and these lovely gardens.

It wasn’t until they went back to the house to dress for dinner hours later that she remembered what he’d said about David getting the idea for the maze from a stranger in a bar, and by then the opportunity to ask him about it was lost, at least for the moment.

W
HEN
L
AURA ENTERED
the front parlor just before six that evening, she hardly knew what to expect. Not from the others—and not from Daniel. Since she and Daniel had encountered no one during the afternoon, even while coming back through the house to go to their rooms, there was no way of knowing if they had been seen, their intimacy noted. So Laura was braced for any reaction from the others. As for Daniel, what she was uncertain of was how he would behave toward her in the presence of his family.

It was one thing to protest a secret relationship, but quite another to romance a lover before the curious eyes of others, she thought. And he was, besides, a reserved man, controlled and not given to emotional displays. At least, so she would have said before he had walked through the gardens holding her hand, pulling her behind practically every tree in order to kiss her until her knees buckled.

They were still a bit shaky, dammit, and it appeared to be obvious to anyone who cared to study her.

“You,” Alex said lightly as soon as she walked into the parlor, “look like a woman in need of a drink. What can I get you, Laura?”

“I don’t drink,” she said. “Usually. Sherry?”

From his habitual place behind the wet bar, Alex smiled at her and fixed the drink she had requested. He and Josie were the only ones in the parlor, and when Laura took her drink and retreated to her usual place behind the sofa nearest the window, the other woman offered her a smile of sympathetic understanding.

“Ignore him. You look fine. Gorgeous, in fact.”

Laura looked at Josie’s long dress, which was a stunning silvery sheath, then glanced down at her own elegant black dress and couldn’t help but laugh at the color reversal. “Thanks, so do you.”

“Transformations,” Alex noted lazily as he leaned on the bar, “are fascinating, don’t you think?”

“Not if you’re the one transforming,” Laura told him ruefully.

“Amen,” Josie said.

“Uncomfortable,” Laura said with a nod.

Josie sighed. “To say the least. And unnerving to not know yourself anymore.”

“To not be able to control yourself,” Laura murmured, she thought under her breath, and sipped her drink.

Alex began to laugh.

“Bastard,” Josie said affably.

“Sorry, sweet, but if you two could see your faces!”

Josie glanced up at Laura from her position on the couch. “His biggest character defect is misplaced levity. You may have noticed.” She didn’t react at all to the endearment, other than with a slight rise in color.

“The ties gave him away,” Laura said.

Alex looked down at the one he was wearing currently, a violent multicolored vision of characters from a popular comic strip which clashed beautifully with his sober dark suit, and said, “I resent that.”

“Resent what?” Daniel asked as he came into the room.

“They’re casting aspersions,” Alex told him, automatically
fixing a Scotch and handing it over as Daniel passed. “Attacking my tie.”

“I wouldn’t worry. That tie can probably defend itself.”

Josie and Laura both burst out laughing, and since Laura was still laughing when Daniel came around the sofa to her side, she didn’t have time to stiffen up when he put an arm around her waist and kissed her.

“You look beautiful tonight,” he said huskily.

Laura looked somewhat dazedly up at a usually hard face altered amazingly by tenderness, and decided that she’d let the rest of this family or anybody else think anything they liked about her if her reward was having him look at her like this. “Thank you,” she murmured.

Without an ounce of self-consciousness, Daniel kept his arm around her, his fingers moving slightly at her side as though he couldn’t touch her without also caressing her. As for Laura, she discovered without much surprise that her body had a mind of its own, leaning against his with a sensual familiarity about as subtle as neon. She only just managed to stop herself from opening up his suit jacket and burrowing in to get even closer to him.

Either he saw or sensed her feelings, because there was a pleased glint in his eyes. But Daniel didn’t say anything about that. Instead he looked across the room at Alex and asked, “Have you seen Anne?”

“Nope.” Alex apparently felt no need to comment further on transformations, though he was smiling faintly. “But given what Josie told me about what happened at lunch today, I wouldn’t expect her to show her face for a while. Did you read her the riot act?”

“More or less. Then she stormed out of here, and I haven’t seen her since.”

Josie sighed. “You know her, Daniel. She’ll come home when she’s thought of some way of blaming her tantrum on someone else.”

“It was worse than a tantrum this time,” Daniel said somewhat grimly.

Whatever else he might have added to that was lost as Kerry came into the room, drawing their attention with her innate grace—and the fact that tonight she was wearing a dress even Amelia wouldn’t be able to find fault with. It was a long, high-necked dress that left her arms and shoulders bare, and the simple style made her look fragile rather than thin. It was a shade of deep burgundy, and the color lent warmth to her pale skin and glints of light to her hair.

As she normally did around the family, she wore only minimal makeup rather than the heavy stuff designed to hide her scars, yet even so they seemed less obvious than usual. Her expression was as serene as it always was, but there was a spark of something in her eyes, life that hadn’t been there—or had been hidden—before.

She’s stopped playing Amelia’s game
, Laura realized, wondering if the scene at lunch today had produced a different result than the one Anne had intended.

“The usual, Kerry?” Receiving a smiling nod, Alex fixed her drink and handed it over, and she went to join Josie on the sofa near the window. She smiled at the others, accepting Daniel and Laura’s closeness without a blink.

“You look great,” Josie told her. “Why haven’t I seen you wear that color before?”

“Probably for the same reason I haven’t seen you wear
that
color,” Kerry replied, her soft voice faintly amused. “I think we’ve both been … taking the path of least resistance.”

Curious, Josie said, “I know what knocked
me
off the path; how about you?”

“A realization,” Kerry answered without answering. “Slow in coming, but here at last.” She lifted her glass in a
little toast, sipped, then said with a tiny smile, “Amelia won’t be happy tonight.”

Laura had just been thinking the same thing. To all appearances, today Amelia had lost at least some of her domination over Josie and Kerry, to say nothing of Anne’s attack at lunch. And there was still no way of knowing what her reaction would be to Laura’s very public defection into Daniel’s arms.

Before anyone could comment aloud, Madeline came in, dressed and made up flawlessly as usual—and vague as usual. If she even noticed a couple of the more obvious changes in the group she joined, it wasn’t apparent. She accepted her usual drink from Alex and went to her usual place on the other sofa, murmuring greetings to the room at large.

Laura glanced up at Daniel, remembering his comment about his mother’s distant attitude toward him. He was looking at her, detached as always, but Laura had some idea now of the hurt he must have felt as a boy, and what it had probably cost him to earn that priceless detachment. For the first time, she felt angry at Madeline. Two sons, and it had been the worthless one with the shallow charm and easy smiles she had preferred rather than the more complex and definitely superior Daniel.

How could any mother choose like that?

Then Laura met Madeline’s gaze fleetingly across the room, and the pale eyes so superficially like Daniel’s were utterly vacant. They didn’t really see Laura. They didn’t see her son, or her son’s arm around Laura. They didn’t see anything. They didn’t care about anything.

Laura put her hand over Daniel’s at her waist and smiled at him when he turned his head to look down at her in an instant response. His face softened, his eyes flickered with sudden heat, and he pulled her a bit closer.

That was what Amelia saw when she came into the room. The two of them looking at each other as if no one
else existed. And she saw Josie wearing a pale dress and looking nothing like a widow, saw Kerry wearing a dress that suited her beautifully. Perhaps she saw her grip on her family loosening.

Laura tore her gaze from Daniel’s with an effort when she heard Amelia’s cane tapping, and she saw the old lady as she paused in the doorway. She thought she saw that face of aged beauty quiver a bit, but if she did it was a fleeting reaction. Dark eyes unreadable, Amelia came into the room and took her accustomed chair and her accustomed drink from Alex.

“You all look very nice tonight,” she said, and there was in her voice the faintest suggestion of effort, as if the accustomed words no longer fit.

I can almost feel sorry for her
, Laura thought. And then, in surprise, I
can paint her now. I know I can
.