Beyond Midnight (33 page)

Her mortification was now complete. She said the first thing she could think of.

"
I need a drink.
"

"
Really?
"

"
Please.
"
Isn
'
t that what people always asked for when they were scared to death? A drink?

"
I think you
'
d be better off with a cup of tea.
"

She didn
'
t argue. Still supporting her by one elbow, he waited as she slipped into her shoes. Then he led her out of his bedroom and down the stairs. Helen reached deliberately for the stair rail; he took it as his cue to let her go.

Still unwilling to acknowledge what she
'
d seen in the mirror, she murmured,
"
I thought I heard Katie cry out.
"

She could not make herself say the word
mommy.

"
You did hear Katie. She came running into the bedroom—God knows why; maybe she heard my cry and saw me carrying you in my arms. My back was to her. I expect she got confused,
"
he explained vaguely.

"
I see. Where was Peaches?
"

"
I wasn
'
t paying attention. Somewhere close, I guess, because she hustled Katie out of the bedroom pretty fast.
"

They were at the entrance to the music room. He said,
"
Find yourself a cozy corner. I
'
ll be right back with the tea.
"

"
This is so embarrassing,
"
she blurted again.

He smiled and said,
"
I heard you the first time, darlin
'
.
"
He went on to the kitchen and Helen was left to wonder what he meant by
"
darlin
'"
as she sought out the pale shabby-chic sofa at the far end of the room and collapsed into its softness. She pulled the barrette from her half- pinned hair and slipped it into the pocket of her dress.

Darlin
'
.
The word on his lips was almost as shocking as the face in the mirror. Helen could chalk up the ghastliness of her vision to pain and nausea, a kind of projection of her own misery. But
darlin
'
?
Was it a figure of speech? A comforting endearment? A first, easy foray into friendship? Whatever it was, she hadn
'
t imagined it. The face, yes. The word, no.

Overwhelmed in every way, she picked up one of the down-filled throws and hugged it to her chest for comfort. She let her head drop back on the cushy sofa and closed her eyes. The minutes ticked by. Eventually her thoughts, like ripples on a pond, flattened into serenity. She was slipping into sleep.

Ba
m
.
The face appeared, with its silent scream of agony.

"
Oh,
"
gasped Helen, hurtled from her stillness.

Nat walked through the door at exactly that moment, carrying two steaming stoneware mugs.
"
What?
"
he demanded to know.
"
It
'
s back?
"

"
Oh God, yes,
"
Helen said, before she had time to consider the question. Then:
"
You mean, the headache. No
... no, not really,
"
she mumbled, sitting up wearily.

He placed the mugs in front of her on the low table where Katie liked to color, then retraced half a dozen steps, picked up a square white pillow from the floor, and returned it to the sofa alongside Helen.

"
I guess that
'
s why they call
'
em throw pillows,
"
he quipped.

While Helen sat aghast at the thought that she must have flung it across the room to ward off the vision, Nat went over to the glassed-in cabinet and took out a decanter of brandy. He poured a big dollop of it into his mug and, when Helen nodded, a smaller one into hers. Then he sat back and said,
"
All in all, an interesting day.
"

Helen laughed weakly.
"
Oh, yes, we must do this more often,
"
she said, totally ironic.

"
I
'
d like that.
"

She looked at him for signs that he too was being droll, but he seemed perfectly sincere. Coming hard on the heels of the
"
darlin
'
,
"
his remar
k left Helen once again second-
guessing his intentions.

For God
'
s sakes,
she warned herself.
He's in mourning. Get a grip.

Aloud she said,
"
This hits the spot.
"

He was polite and presumed she meant the tea.
"
Earl Grey,
"
he said.
"
Peaches told me you looked like the Earl Grey type.
"

"
Did she?
"
It was annoying, being categorized according to tea preference, but Helen simply smiled and said,
"
What an extraordinary young woman she is.
"

He missed Helen
'
s coolness completely.
"
She graduated from a nanny
'
s college in
London
,
"
he told her.
"
Half her class is bottle-feeding royalty as we speak. Those girls— women—can write their own tickets, you know. They get paid fabulous salaries over there.
"

"
I
'
m surprised Peaches didn
'
t stay there, in that case,
"
Helen said, sipping her tea and letting the hot brandy race through her blood. It was the perfect restorative.

"
Well, for one thing, there
'
s her accent. Her stepfather was British, but so what? She
'
s American. No Brit wants his children
'
s speech corrupted by one of
them.
"

"
True enough,
"
Helen said, laughing. The brandy was wonderful. It was giving her perspective. Had she really thought she
'
d seen a ghost?

She said,
"
So Peaches came back to the States with her hard-won credentials. But how did you happen to realize how good they were? I didn
'
t know
London
nannies were so special. And I
'
m in the business.
"

"
We didn
'
t have a clue, either,
"
he admitted.
"
Peaches came to us in an entirely different way. She was one of the students in an art class Linda was teaching. Linda—four or five months pregnant with Katie at the time—was having coffee with Peaches and some of the other students after class once, and Peaches happened to describe the training she
'
d got in nanny college.
"

He added,
"
She hadn
'
t even had a chance to use it yet; as it turned out, after graduation she
'
d taken a pretty good job as a British woman
'
s companion. But then the woman died, and Peaches came back to the States, and took the art
history course, and there you go. The rest is history.
"

"
Serendipity.
"
Helen smiled and knocked back some more of her tea.
"
So Katie was Peaches
'
s first real responsibility?
"

"
Unless you count the elderly woman. Which you should.
"

There was an edge in his voice that made Helen back away from seeming to question Peaches. And, really, she was not. After all, Peaches was obviously competent. If anything, she seemed too competent. She should
'
ve been chairman of someone
'
s board, not baby-sitter of someone
'
s kid.

Helen tried to erase the
impression that she was second-
guessing.
"
Caring for anyone is an enriching experience,
"
she said. It was the best she could do.

"
In any case, it made no difference whether Peaches had experience with kids or not,
"
Nat said flatly.
"
Linda still would
'
ve hired her. They were incredibly in tune—like sisters,
"
he mused.

He got up and went over to the glass-front cabinet to restock his teacup.
"
Sometimes I think about that; about how deeply Linda trusted her,
"
he said.
"
Peaches knows where everything is around here—the money, the jewelry, the art. And yet neither Linda nor I ever thinks—thought— thinks twice about it,
"
he said in some confusion.

He shrugged off what were obviously painful memories of his wife and sat back down with a smile.
"
You
'
re looking better. The tea helped. Or maybe it was the pain reliever?
"

It was an opening and Helen took it. Without admitting that she hadn
'
t actually swallowed anything, she said innocently,
"
I noticed a prescription for ergotamine in the cabinet. Is it effective?
"

It was an intrusive question. Miss Manners would
'
ve said she had no business noticing any prescription in the master bedroom
'
s medicine chest. But Helen and Linda and ergotamine were tangled up together, and Helen wanted to— had to—sort out the mess. Now.

She was surprised by his response. A red flush of emotion darkened his cheeks as he said with deliberate calm,
"
Is that still there? I thought I
'
d tossed it.
"

Clearly she
'
d hit some kind of hot button. She forced herself to sound nonchalant about being a snoop.
"
The reason I ask is, my doctor suggested I take it, but, I don
'
t know, I guess I worry about side effects. You know how scary the fine print can be.
"

Helen didn
'
t have a clue what the side effects were. It was just the first thing, and an obvious thing, to pop into her brain.

Nat gave her a withering stare that reduced her to ashes. Then he stood up. It was tantamount to a dismissal. If Helen had any doubts, his next words dispelled them.

"
I
'
ve kept you here too long already,
"
he said in a voice that was utterly stripped of feeling.

"
Oh! Yes. I
...
I really should be going,
"
she answered, stung to the quick by his sudden hard tone. Feeling like
Alice
at the Mad Hatter
'
s tea party, she jumped up and glanced around her.
"
I
'
m not sure where I left my—
"

"
Peaches will know,
"
he said automatically.

This
time
he didn
'
t even have to call the woman. She appeared, almost magically, at the door.
"
Ah—you want your things,
"
she said without being asked, and retreated to fetch Helen
'
s purse and jacket.

She's made herself indispensable,
Helen realized. From out of nowhere came the question:
Why?
She turned to Nat with a conciliatory smile and said,
"
I can see why you value her.
"