Blue Waltz (29 page)

"That's different," he stated firmly.

"Why?" she challenged.

"We aren't talking about other women," he said, avoiding her question. "We are talking about you. And I find it hard to believe that the people around here are basing their opinions solely on you having opinions."

She tilted her head and looked at him through lowered lashes. "Really?" she said, her tone challenging. "Then do you think I'm crazy?" She stepped even closer and ran her fingers down his chest.

He grabbed her wrist. His grip was tight and painful. "Stop it. Stop this game. Yes, damn it, I have wondered if you were crazy, too many times to count."

She sucked in her breath and her eyes suddenly glistened. She tried to pull free.

"Belle." He spoke her name like a tired caress, the anger magically gone. "Why? Why do you do things to make me think the worst of you?"

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"You'll believe what you want, regardless of what I do."

"What do you expect me to think when you run your fingers down my chest in the middle of a public park, or you traipse into dining establishments unescorted?"

"It's archaic that women aren't allowed to go out to dine alone. You were there alone."

"I'm a man."

"My point exactly. We wouldn't be having this discussion if I were a man."

Stephen grumbled under his breath but persevered. "You have parties and invite gentlemen and servants alike."

Belle eyed him closely. "Who are you calling the gentlemen? Wendell and Hastings, or you?"

"You know what I mean."

"Are you telling me it's wrong to be kind to the staff?"

Stephen hung his head at this. Even in his own ears his words were beginning to sound absurd. "Right or wrong, it's just not done."

"Maybe in your house, or in any other house in Boston, but in my house I'll have whoever I want at my parties, Wendell and Hastings included! What else have I done that's crazy?"

Frustration was mounting. "You show up at dinners in outdated gowns."

He didn't notice the color that streaked through her cheeks.

"You say whatever is on your mind, whether it is appropriate or not. The humming game, for Christ's sake!"

Belle turned away so that Stephen couldn't see her face. "What would you have me do?" she asked. "Sip tea

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with Louisa Abbot, or crochet altar cloths with the Widow Hathaway?"

"For starters."

She pressed her eyes closed. "I might as well be locked away in a wooden house in the country."

"You don't mean that!"

She turned back to him, slowly, and looked him in the eye. "I'm not certain that it would be any worse."

"What are you talking about, Belle?" His heart suddenly pounded. "You've been talking in riddles for so long that I have more questions about you than answers. Tell me about the past. Please. You sound as if you've already been locked away in a house in the country."

She stood for an eternity, staring. When he thought she would finally speak, she only reached up and pressed her hand against his chest. He tensed against his body's unbridled response. His mind demanded answers, but his body remembered only the jagged shards of passion they had already shared, and wanted more.

"Belle," he said, his tone a warning.

But his warnings went unheeded when she whispered, "Hold me, Stephen," and he was lost.

He pulled her close, almost frantically. He opened his mouth on her neck, feeling her warmth. Belle cried out. Her head fell back, revealing more of the creamy skin, which hid beneath the layers of velvet and wool. His hands slid down her back to cup her hips, pressing himself closer to the heat that burned between her thighs, only to let up then press again harder, a demand.

Her hands trailed across the hard planes of his back, setting him on fire, urging him on. And that was just it.

The groan that rumbled in his chest was feral when he set her at arm's length. "No," he ground out painfully. "I will not do this. I have no interest in being little more

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than an usher along your path to carnal oblivion, or a navigator for your flight from whatever it is you're trying to escape."

He watched as she sucked in her breath.

"What? Did you think I didn't know that whenever things start making you crazy, you turn to me? Whenever the questions get too pointed, or perhaps too close to the truth, I find you in my arms. For reasons I don't understand, I help you forget the darkness that I see so frequently racing through your eyes. Well, no longer, Belle. No longer. I want to help you remember. I want you to face whatever it is that haunts you."

She tried to pull free from his grasp, but he held her firmly. He wanted to possess her, mind and soul, to love her, and for her to return his sentiments. But that would never happen if they couldn't get beyond her past.

"I've been looking into this husband of yours," he said.

He felt her shoulders tense.

"And I've been looking into this supposedly world-famous father of yours, too. Admit it, Belle. They don't exist." She tried to jerk away, but his grip was like a shackle. "Accept that your life is here, now . . . with me.

The look in her eye was wild and frantic. But yet again he had come too far to turn back. "You must face reality, Belle. There is no father who is coming for you."

She wheeled free, anger streaking her features. "You're lying!" she hissed.

"I'm sorry, but—"

"I hate you, Stephen St. James. I hate you with every fiber of my being." Her immense eyes flashed vehement, overwhelming contempt for him as she took a deep, forti-

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fying breath. "My father does exist. He does. And he is coming for me, just as I said."

He caught ahold of her arm when she tried to flee. "Belle," he said softly.

The anger in her eyes flickered as if trying to burn out. Tears surfaced. But then she visibly shored herself up. "Let go of me, Stephen."

"Belle, please listen—"

Furious, she jerked free of his hold. "My father will come for me, and then you'll see. But until that time, do not touch or talk to me ever again!"

Her hands trembled with rage, as she turned and hurried along the path toward her home.

The cold, bitter breeze ruffled Stephen's hair. But he didn't feel the cold; it felt no different from the state he was already in. Frozen. A block of ice forming around his heart.

How had his life gone so awry? he wondered. First Adam, now Belle. His life was unraveling. And as he stood there, watching the place in the gardens through which Belle had disappeared, his anger began to grow once again. Anger he understood and could manage. Hollow despair he could not.

Stephen returned to the house, and with every step he took, his anger mounted. He only wanted to help Belle, to provide her with the safety of his name and security of his home. A voice in his head, which he did his best to mute, whispered that he wanted to cast her into a mold society deemed acceptable—which he deemed acceptable. But he pushed the words aside. He only wanted what was best for Belle; it had nothing to do with what he wanted, he told himself firmly, his angry steps pounding against the pavement.

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When he reached his house, Wendell was just coming out.

"Good afternoon, sir," Wendell said.

Stephen didn't respond, simply stalked through the open door and headed for his study.

His mind was filled with Belle and Adam, and more importantly, his mind was filled with anger as he pushed through the double doors to his study. Then he saw them.

The world grew quiet. Time lost all meaning as Stephen tried to make sense of the sight before him.

Adam and Tom jerked apart, leaping up from the sofa to stand, staring wide-eyed at Stephen. Stephen's mind worked as if swimming through dark murky waters. Adam, embracing another man—a man who looked familiar. Then he remembered.

The man who had shot him.

Stephen's mind reeled at the double, soul-shattering shock.

"Stephen," Adam breathed, but said nothing else.

"I seem to have a way of arriving when you least expect me." Stephen's voice was calm, too calm.

"It's not how it looks," Adam blurted out.

"Really?" Stephen replied, his face a mask of stone. "And what is it supposed to look like?"

Adam cringed. "Well, uh—"

The unnatural calm evaporated, and Stephen lashed out in fury, his fist catching a lamp that stood on a table next to him. The shade crumpled and the porcelain base crashed to the hardwood floor, shattering into pieces. "Did your friend have something in his eye and you were trying to get it out? Was your friend ill, and you were trying to soothe him?" His voice boomed through the study. He took a step forward. "Were you ill, Adam? Was your friend, your gunman friend, soothing you?"

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Adam blanched, as did Tom.

Slowly, Stephen's mind began to work, to fathom what was happening. He grabbed Adam by the lapels, virtually lifting him off the ground, leaning him back against the desk like a bow without an arrow. "What the hell is going on here?"

"Surely you can figure that on your own," Tom said sarcastically from behind him.

Stephen turned on him in a feral rage. The bravado slipped from Tom's face, replaced by panic. But he had no time to move. Stephen was on him in a second, shoving him backward. The crash of table and glass on the floor when Tom stumbled into them gave Stephen no thought. He only pushed him again, harder, toppling him over a small table which held a brass and glass dome clock. The timepiece tolled crazily when it hit the floor.

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Belle stood in the foyer of her home. Hastings stood with her, as did a man who said he was there to see the ballroom. He needed to measure for flowers.

"Flowers?" Belle inquired, confused. "I don't understand."

The man glanced down at his work instructions. After rereading them, he shrugged his shoulders. "That's all it says. I'm supposed to measure a ballroom for flowers."

"The ballroom? On whose orders?"

"Well, let's see." He read once again. "James, maybe. S. James."

"St. James. Stephen," Belle determined, her jaw set. "What could Stephen be doing that he is having my ballroom measured for flowers?"

Neither man answered. Her blood began to boil. What was he up to now? Everytime she turned around, he was trying to run her life, and that made her furious. Though in truth, the fury was born more of fear that she would give in to his demanding ways, as she longed to do, than pure anger at the man. But of course she wouldn't give in! She was an independent woman. She had painstakingly recreated the very house her father had dreamed of. Now all her hard work was about to pay off. St. Valentine's Day was only two weeks away.

Stephen's admonitions that her father wasn't coming commandeered her mind. She looked around at the surroundings that were supposed to provide her with hope. Cold seeped, into her, cold that had nothing to do with the winter breeze just beyond the door. Instead of the hope she had traveled here to resurrect, she felt surrounded by nothing more than despair.

Who was she fooling? her mind screamed. Stephen was right. How in the world could she possibly believe that her father would truly come for her?

She closed her eyes against cold, biting reality, unmindful of the two men who stood in the foyer, watching her, concern creasing their faces. The foundation of her life began to crumble. All that she believed in, all that had kept her together for so many years, began to disintegrate, leaving her adrift in a raging sea.

"Madam?" Hastings said.

Her eyes flashed opened.

"The flowers?" the flower man inquired.

The flowers that Stephen wanted in her house for reasons unknown—Stephen, who would dash her dreams against unyielding rocks, then move in and take over her life.

The fury returned, and she welcomed it.

It was all Stephen's fault, she thought unreasonably. He had stripped her clean of hope, and she hated him.

Without a word, she turned and slammed out the

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door and stalked over to Stephen's. She didn't bother with the bell, didn't think of the bell. Throwing the door wide, her raging thoughts were checked by the crash that echoed through the hall. The next crash and the sound of Adam's desperate pleadings pierced her own despair, and she hurried into Stephen's study.

The sight that met her eyes stunned her. She had always thought that Stephen was feral, moved like a panther. But now it was more than a simple thought. He stood before her, a tower of animal rage, tossing a man she had never seen before around the room like a rag doll. Adam was trying to pry Stephen away unsuccessfully.

"What is going on here?" she demanded.

Like the tide rushing back to sea, the raging fury seemed to be sucked from the room. Stephen froze. Like nothing else could have, Belle's voice pierced the cloud in his mind.

With something close to shock replacing everything else he had felt, Stephen glanced down at his bloodied hands. He took in the sight of Tom on the floor, his head and shoulders propped up against the wall. Stephen didn't know if the blood was Tom's or his own, and he didn't care. Slowly, he turned around to face Belle.

"What are you doing?" she demanded, stepping forward.

Her words broke the spell, and Adam raced over to Tom and pulled him up to a sofa.

Stephen and Belle stared at each other, seemingly oblivious to the activity taking place only a few feet away.

"What were you doing?" she demanded.

His jaw tightened as he remembered. In his mind's eye, he saw his brother, the brother he had been responsi-

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ble for so many years, wrapped in the embrace of another man. He wasn't sure which he felt more, revulsion or rage —or maybe it was fear.

His nostrils flared. He had raised his brother. He was responsible for how he turned out. And it had been brought home to him more fiercely than he could have imagined how deeply he had failed. Guilt pushed into his mind. But he wouldn't have it. It wasn't his fault, or so he told himself as the anger, thankfully, began to rebuild.