All Who Are Lost (Ashmore's Folly Book 1) (29 page)

He drew in a sharp breath. “Oh? The answer, just like that? I’ve ruined Diana’s life, so she’s trying to kill herself?”

Her face relaxed fractionally, and his mind seized upon that inexplicable relief.

“You’ve taken Julie from her,” she said. “You’ve taken yourself. I’ve been in her place. I know what it’s like to be alone while my husband is out chasing another woman. I was stronger, I survived. But it still hurt. It still robbed me of my confidence. And I had Meg. No matter how Cam and I fell out, he never once threatened to take Meg away. How do you think you’ve made Di feel?”

Her eyes darkened as she spoke. Her voice ran down, as though her words had only so much momentum, and he thought,
You’re scared. Good. Don’t you presume to lecture me after what you did, you little bitch.

Something in his thoughts must have shown in his face, for she started to move away. He reached out and tightened his fingers around her arm to pull her back.

“I’m sorry your husband cheated on you,” he said, “but it has nothing to do with me. To answer your question, what I
think
you were asking, no, I’m not hoping that Diana kills herself, and I resent that coming from someone who cared so little about her family that she let them swelter in guilt for fourteen years! My God, you have a hell of a nerve! Diana is my
wife
. I don’t love her anymore, and I will never live with her again, but I don’t want her to die. I don’t need my freedom. I will
never
marry again. After eighteen years of hell, I’ve had enough of marriage to last a lifetime.”

She tried to pull away, but his hand held her. “Then why all the women? Lucy made it pretty clear that you haven’t been lonely.”

Richard said flatly, “Go to hell.”

She flinched. She hadn’t been expecting that.

“You’re damn right I see other women.” Better not to explain; he owed her nothing. She had her own sins to answer for. “I’ve been separated from my wife for over a decade. In those ten years, I’ve been with a grand total of three women. I don’t feel guilty, and I won’t apologize, except that I regret that I didn’t feel more for any of them. They were all nice, affectionate women who gave me far more than I gave them in return. I’m grateful to them. I’d have gone mad without them.”

She struck back. “Then why don’t you get a divorce? Let her go?”

“Go to hell,” he said again, and to give her credit, this time she did not react. She merely stood there still and absorbed his anger in her own. “I don’t want a divorce, Laura, and neither does Diana. She has the best of both worlds. I’m a very accommodating husband, or haven’t you heard? I give her money when she needs it, I lend her a shoulder to cry on when some man dumps her, and I never say a word about her periodic disappearances or the abortions or the times she’s tried to dry out and failed.”

Her jaw dropped. She backed up a step. “I don’t believe you.”

“Fine. Don’t believe me. Ask Lucy. Ask her about the times we’ve had to drag Diana out of the most unspeakable dives. We’re near a port, remember, there are all kinds of places that you can’t begin to imagine. Do you know why she doesn’t see Julie?
And
, by the way, that’s not my choice anymore, it’s Julie’s. She doesn’t want to see her mother, and I won’t force her. Once, years ago, I made the mistake of taking her to stay with Diana for a weekend, and at two in the morning, the police called me to come get my little girl. They found her crying outside Diana’s apartment because Diana had passed out cold and Julie was afraid that her mother was dead. She was six at the time.”

She had gone completely pale, and he saw the sledgehammer effect of his words on her. He didn’t let up on her. She had asked for every bit of this, and he intended her to hear it all.

“There are a few other things you can ask Lucy. I don’t know if she’ll tell you. She still feels a certain loyalty. Ask her how many abortions Diana’s had. I’ve lost count. The first, not that it matters now, was my child, a year after we were married. Ask her about the parade through Diana’s bedroom. I went over there last week to tell her you were back, and I couldn’t find her because she had spent the night with someone.”

He walked over to the table and slung his jacket over his shoulder. Then he came back, and for a moment he felt sorry for her. She looked shell-shocked. He had grown used to Diana’s devastation; he had lived with it for the whole of his marriage. He had not thought how it would affect a sister for whom Diana was still a stranger.

“Be thankful,” he said, “that your husband was a decent man, even if he played around. You and he must have still gotten along well enough that he flew across the ocean to celebrate your birthday. I wish to God that Julie would see her mother occasionally. She needs a mother desperately. And I need relief from the burden of being a constant combination of mother and father. If I’m successful at all, it’s only because Julie is a sweet and loving girl.”

She looked down at the ground, and he caught only a glimpse of the glistening on her lashes.

He added, “Julie is hoping you’ll have time to see her. I’ve no objection, and she will be thrilled.
But
,” his voice held a warning, “that’s only if you agree to the ground rule that she doesn’t have any contact with Diana that lasts longer than the time it takes to say hello and goodbye. If I find out that you’ve gone behind my back on that, I’ll cut you off from her so fast your head will spin.”

He watched her intently until she managed to nod an agreement.

“One other thing,” he added. “Your opinion of me seems to be at rock bottom. I’m sorry about that, I’m damnably sorry, because we were the best of friends. But I warn you, Laura, when you’re with Julie, keep your opinions to yourself. My daughter loves me, and she needs to respect me. I’m all she has. You are not to interfere with that. You are not to intimate to her that I’m waiting with bated breath for Diana to kill herself off or that I sleep with every woman I meet, and, for God’s sake, do not mention Francie. Julie
never
needs to know what a fool I was.”

She forced out through bloodless lips, “Of course not. I’d never say anything.”

“I hope I can believe that,” he said, “but, frankly, Laura, I’m astounded at just what you
will
say.” He moved towards the back door. “I need to get back. Good night.”

But she followed him anyway, out onto the path to the stables. He stopped several yards down the path, impatient now with her, wanting to get away, back to the safety and warmth of his home.

“Richard—”

“What?”

But, unbelievably, she hadn’t finished.

“Please,” she said. “I just need to understand.” And then she hesitated, and he watched her coolly, his body tensing for the blow he sensed coming, while she bit her lip and rummaged for the words.

“This thing between you and Francie – it wasn’t just sex, was it?” Now that she’d started, her speed picked up; the words tumbled out over each other. “Something else was going on, I always felt it, I just couldn’t see you and Francie together. Just tell me, please. I want to stop wondering. Something went wrong between you and Di, it must have, you wouldn’t have turned to Francie otherwise—”

Her voice, her eyes pleaded with him, but the truth of her words hit him a glancing blow, not enough to wound, but enough to warn. He cut her off immediately.

“That’s none of your business.”

But, damn her, she would not stop. She was crying again, great tears welling up in her eyes, but she soldiered on. She had more gall – or more courage – than any other woman he’d ever met. “I know, I know it’s not, but I have to know.”

She’d pushed too hard. He said between his teeth, “You want to know what went wrong? Fine! I adored your sister, I loved her desperately. I married her because she meant everything in the world to me. And she took all that and ground it to dust beneath her heel. You’re right about Francie, you’re absolutely right. It wasn’t just about sex. I wanted to bring Diana down, and, by God, Francie worked.”

He walked away into the dusk.

~•~

Laura could not remember ever feeling so conscience-stricken, or so helpless to make amends.

She tried all Saturday to reach Richard. First, she reached his voice mail, but, reluctant to apologize where Julie might hear, she hung up. The second time she called, she left a message inquiring about Julie’s cold. The third time, the phone rang and rang. Served her right, she thought. She had not answered his calls before.

She spent the rest of the day baking and needlepointing, waiting for him to call. Meg called once to get her flight time; Mark took the phone and offered to send up the corporate jet. She got out of that by reminding him that she could scarcely leave Max to his own devices for three days, and he knew how allergic he was to cat fur. Did he want it all over his plane?

“Just leave him there with some food. It’s only a few days.”

“Mark!”

“All right,” he said. “See you when you get here.”

She kept her hands busy. She baked the cookie dough – if Richard didn’t want it, then Julie might – and when she finished, she made up a recipe for oat bread that Peggy had taught her. Making bread was great therapy. She could pound and knead and exorcise all her demons on the hapless dough, waiting for the phone to ring.

He wouldn’t call.

And why should he? She had been crueler to him in a week’s time than she had been to anyone else in her life. She had been unable to fire a musician months after it had become obvious that he could not function up to her standards, solely because she didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but she had savagely – twice! – attacked a man who had shown her only affection and kindness.

Not that day, he didn’t….

No, no, there be dragons….

She concentrated on remembering Francie, Francie who had indicted Richard through her own words. Francie, whose childish plans to win his hand had ended in her own blood shed. She threw more flour and began to knead it in. Francie, whom Richard had scarcely mentioned, and then in the most neutral of tones. Francie, whose revenge on Diana had backfired so terribly.

Francie, who hadn’t mattered—

She stopped as the tears blinded her contacts.

Francie, who had died while Diana and Richard lived on.

A tear splashed down onto the flour. She lifted her dusty-white hand to her mouth and bit her fingers against the onslaught of grief and rage.

Rage that he had lived. There, she’d admitted it. He’d partnered Francie in her monstrous scheme, but he had not suffered from its failure. He had gone on with his life, he’d made a home and a family with Julie, he enjoyed all that Francie had lost. He might still be tied to his unwanted wife, but he had not been lonely.

She had to agree with Lucy that there was no reason for him to have lived like a monk; she could hardly object that he’d known other women (but she did mind, terribly). But, damn it, did he have to seem so
content?
So sure in the life he had chosen?

Actually, he didn’t seem that content. His voice had echoed of remembered pain, pain so sharp that he’d vowed never to risk it again. He’d learned to tamp down his emotions; she’d had the feeling, from moment to moment, that he kept a tight rein on himself. But nothing she’d seen in his eyes compared to the darkness in Diana.

She wondered what Dominic had thought of Diana’s decline.

Had he blamed Richard? She hoped so, not out of meanness – Richard had never cared what Dominic thought – but because he could shoulder the blame so much more easily than Diana. It did not require much imagination to know the scathing criticism Dominic had heaped upon Diana’s frail psyche.

She wondered when Diana had started sliding.

Lucy would know.

In all their conversations, hours spent catching up, Lucy had not wanted to talk about Diana. She had admitted her relief at Dominic’s death (“I felt like the lowest scum on earth – but honestly, all I could think was,
I never have to talk to him again
”), her grief for Peggy and Philip (“Every good thing in my life started with them”). She had merrily dissected Laura’s marriage and gently guided her through the inevitable talk about 9/11. But Diana she had left alone.

“Not now. Maybe when I feel better,” she’d begged off, and who could blame her? For all Diana’s downward spiral, Lucy had a greater responsibility.

Lucy knew.
He threw her out… he was right to do it.
She and Richard had grown up as sister and brother; they had been good friends all their lives. Laura remembered Lucy advising Richard on his delicate teenage girlfriend –
give her some space, she’s stressed out about school
– so surely he had confided in her when his marriage disintegrated.

But Lucy did not know the truth about Francie, or she would never have accepted the story of the crash in the Panhandle.

Laura stared hard at her fingers and thought. She thought for a long time, going about her baking, playing the piano while the loaves rose, writing emails to Roger and Terry, uploading her digital recordings to the servers in Plano, petting Max on the back terrace as the shadows of the evening stretched across them. She thought of her own guilt in her twin’s death, and for a second, the pain of that thought tightened her hand on Max, until he howled in protest.

And if she suffered such guilt, what did Diana feel? Such anguish that it could only be extinguished in the seductive oblivion of wine and cocaine?

You didn’t deserve that, Di. I’m guiltier of your crimes than you ever were.

She picked up her cell phone and called Lucy.

“I’ve got to go home for a few days,” she said, and winced at her sister’s protest. “I’m coming back, really! I’ll call every day, I promise. And when I get back – how do I get in touch with Di? I’d really like to talk to her.”

I owe you that much, Richard. I owe Diana.

“Fine,” said Lucy grimly. “But I want to talk to you first. Richard called me.”

Chapter 11: Diana, Not in Love