Casteel 05 Web of Dreams (19 page)

"Did you have a good time on your
honeymoon?" I asked, sensing a sour note. "Momma went right to bed so I didn't have a chance to ask her anything." His blue eyes narrowed, suspiciously.
"I know I did," he replied, a wry smile on his face. I waited breathlessly for him to say more. "Your mother told me she liked skiing and ice skating. She said she loved winter sports, but when we arrived in St. Moritz, she decided it was too cold to go skiing. Can you imagine?" He laughed. "Too cold to go skiing. Anyway, I spent the days on the slopes and she spent the days shopping or by the fireplace in the hotel.
"I finally got her on the slopes one day, but she complained so much and fell down so much, I let her go back to the hotel. As for ice skating at night on their beautifully lit lake . . ." He waved his hand and shook his head. "That took less than ten minutes to reject.
"She kept complaining about the effect the cold air was having on her skin, and I discovered she hates getting sweaty. So much for a winter sport
honeymoon. Or any sports for that matter," he added with wide eyes.
"But you must have gone to wonderful European restaurants," I said. I knew Momma was looking forward to that.
"Oh, we did, but your mother eats like a bird. It's a waste to order her a full meal, even a children's portion. I ended up eating her meal and my own every night. Lucky I was getting a lot of exercise, huh?" he said sitting back and patting his tummy.
"No, you look . . . you look good," I said. I had almost said "wonderful."
"Thank you. Anyway, that's the story of our winter holiday and honeymoon," he added with disappointment.
The waiter brought us the bread and the salads. It didn't strike me how hungry I was until I began to eat. The cozy restaurant, Tony's casual conversation about Momma and the honeymoon, and the delicious food put me at ease. I relaxed for the first time since I had discovered Troy was so sick.
We talked some more about Europe and I told him about our trips to London. Then I described every little thing I had done while he and Momma were away. I wasn't aware of how much arid how long I was talking because he listened so attentively, his eyes fixed on me.
"Oh, I'm sorry I'm talking so much. I don't know what's come over me."
"That's all right. I'm enjoying it. It's the most you've said to me since . . . since we met."
A little embarrassed, I swung my eyes away to look at some people coming into the restaurant.
"You look very good," he told me. "Like you have been spending time outdoors."
"Thank you." I couldn't help blushing. I hadn't learned how to take compliments as nonchalantly as Momma could. She always expected them, however. For me, they were still something unanticipated and something very special, especially when a man as handsome as Tony Tatterton spoke them. He had a way of sounding so sincere. It made me warm and tingly. Then I felt guilty for feeling so good while little Troy lay so sick in the hospital.
"Shouldn't we get back?" I asked. He was still gazing at me intensely, his eyes so piercing and direct.
"What? Oh, yes. Immediately." He signaled for the waiter.
When we arrived at the hospital, he went straight to Troy's room while I waited in the corridor. Soon, he emerged with the doctor and Tony signaled for me to join them.
"His fever has broken," he announced happily. "And he's having much less difficulty breathing. He is going to be all right."
I was so relieved, I started to cry. He and the doctor looked at each other and laughed, and then Tony embraced me.
"Thank you, Leigh," he whispered, "for caring about him so much." He kissed me on the forehead and I looked up and into his warm blue eyes, my mind reeling in confusion. I had inherited an entirely new family so quickly. It was difficult to sort out my emotions. Whenever I felt good, especially about Tony, I felt I was betraying Daddy, and yet, Tony seemed loving, concerned and caring. He and I had been thrown together by Momma's whim and maybe he, as much as I, was trying to adjust and sort out his feelings. I relaxed in his embrace and lay my head against his shoulder. I can't hate him, I thought. Forgive me, Daddy, but I can't hate him.
"Do you want to look in on him, Leigh?" Tony asked. "He's not awake, but you can stand in the doorway for a few moments."
"Yes. Thank you."
Tony opened the door and I gazed in at little Troy, who looked even smaller than he had looked this morning. The hospital bed, the oxygen and the I.V. tube made him look so tiny, so fragile. My heart cried out for him. I couldn't hold back the tears that had gathered again in the corners of ray eyes. Tony took out his handkerchief and wiped them away.
"He's going to be all right," he said reassuringly and held me again. I nodded. "Let's go home," he said. This time when we passed through Farthy's great gate, Tony's words rang true: "Let's go home."
I was home, for home was not just a building or a house or a place on some street; it was where you had love and warmth awaiting and where people you loved lived. I loved Daddy, but he was on a ship on the ocean and no one lived in our home in Boston now. I loved Momma despite all her lies and selfish ways, and I knew I loved little Troy, and they lived here at Farthy.
I wondered if I would ever come to love Tony Tatterton. The way he held my hand as we walked up the steps to the front door made me think he was more than positive I would.
Momma had finally woken. Tony and I found her sitting at her vanity table brushing her hair. She had just gotten out of bed and was dressed only in a long, evergreen silk robe, one of the things she had bought in Europe.
"Leigh, I called for you at least an hour ago. Where have you been?" she asked. Tony stopped behind me in the doorway and we exchanged a look of disappointment.
"I've been to the hospital with Tony, Momma, to see about Troy."
"I asked you not to expose yourself to the illness. You can see how it will be bringing up a teenage girl, Tony," she snapped. "They're just like wild horses, stubborn and unpredictable."
"She wasn't exposed, Jillian," Tony said. "She was kept a proper distance away, and I thought it was wonderful of her to want to come."
"You could have called. How could you two leave me here not knowing what was happening . . . where everyone was . . ."
"I did call," Tony protested, "but the servants told me you left word not to be disturbed."
"Well, you of all people should have known how exhausted I was. Anyway, you're here now, so tell me, how is he?" she asked turning back to the mirror to straighten a strand of hair.
"His fever has broken. He's on the mend."
"There, you see," she said pointedly to me. "There wasn't anything we could do once he was in the hospital. Once he's there, it's up to good doctors and nurses and the miracles of medicine," she sang as if this had all been a little bedtime story.
"He's still a very sick little boy," Tony said, "but the crisis has ended."
"Well, thank goodness. Are we having dinner now? I've woken up famished."
Tony and I looked quickly at each other again. Momma caught our glance.
"What?"
"I took Leigh to Leone's while we waited for news about Troy," Tony confessed.
"You two ate? And without me?" she cried.
"Well, you were home and . ."
"That's fine," she said suddenly, her look of disappointment disappearing. "Just have the servants bring up something light," she sang, her mood changing so fast it made my head spin. "I'm not really up to going down and sitting at the table anyway. It will take me at least another day to get back to myself," she said, sounding as if she had been the one in the hospital, instead of someone who had just returned from a wonderful honeymoon in Europe.
"Fine," Tony said. He stepped forward and leaned over to kiss her, but she leaned away as if he were going to mess up her hair. It was something she often did when Daddy tried to kiss her. Tony looked embarrassed.
"I'm still very tired," she offered as an excuse. He nodded and left quickly.
The moment he was out the door, Momma beckoned me closer, her eyes wide with emphasis.
"Oh Leigh, you just can't imagine how difficult it has been."
"What?" I had no idea what she meant.
"Spending these last several days with a man as young and strong as Tony. He never needs to nap and he dresses in a flash," she said with irritation and envy. "Somebody up there must like him." Her delicate eyebrows rose as if in exasperation.
"Then you didn't have a good time on your honeymoon?" I asked to confirm what Tony had told me.
"I did and I didn't. He's so athletic, up at the crack of dawn and expecting me to be dressed and ready for breakfast; and when I complained, he became upset. Can you imagine the lack of consideration? How did he expect me to go down to that dining room without being properly made up and dressed? I sent him down without me, actually glad to get rid of him so I could prepare myself without him watching. He was always finished and ready to go out before I had spent half the time I needed. That annoyed him, but I told him he didn't have to wait for me. I told him to just go right ahead and do his sliding up and down those cold hills.
"You would think that a day of that laborious activity would leave him exhausted. But no . . . he would return every afternoon actually invigorated and you can just guess what a man of Tony's youth and vitality is like when he is invigorated."
She saw the look of confusion on my face and smirked.
"He makes love like it's going to be for the last time, practically raping me," she explained. The blood rushed into my face to hear her make reference to something so intimate. "And once it's over and you expect to have a chance to catch your breath, he's at it again. I felt like some strumpet.
"Why, even in the middle of the night, he would nudge me awake, shock me out of a restful slumber, and want to be amorous. It didn't matter that I was not fully awake. He was angry because I didn't respond the way he hoped I would.
"Well, I couldn't. I wouldn't. I'm not going to sacrifice my health and beauty to satisfy a young man's animal appetite," she added determinedly.
I didn't know what to say. Momma made it sound as if lovemaking was an ordeal, but that wasn't the way it was described in books I had read.
"Oh Leigh," she cried turning to me and taking my hands into hers, "you've got to be my best friend, my ally more than ever now. Will you? Will you?"
"Of course I will," I replied, even though again I had no idea what she meant.
"Good, because Tony likes you and doesn't mind spending time with you. I can see that. It was good that you went to dinner with him in Boston. I'm going to need you to help keep him amused and happy. He requires so much attention and demands so much affection. It's absolutely life draining!" she cried.
"Not that I don't love him. I do. I adore him. I just never expected he would be so . . so virile . so hungry for sex. If I don't had ways to keep him at bay, he'll deplete me, rob me of my vibrancy.
"Yes," she said before I could react, "I've seen that happen to other women. Their husbands are so demanding that they become old before their time and then their husbands go looking elsewhere for satisfaction. A woman has to guard her beauty like a precious jewel, keep it encased, protected, permit men to look upon her, gaze at her longingly, but rarely touch because every touch absorbs, takes away, diminishes.
"Tony wants me by his side constantly. He wants me there whenever he has the urge to kiss me, to take my hand, to embrace me, and then, to take me."
I thought that sounded wonderful----to have a man need and want you that much. And after all, wasn't her big complaint about Daddy that he didn't spend enough time with her, that he didn't want her as much as he wanted his business? Now she found a man who was devoted to her, who worshipped her, and she felt threatened by it. How confusing.
She was quiet for a moment as she
contemplated a line under her eyes. Then she sighed and dipped her finger into a skin cream.
"Oh Leigh," she said as she worked on herself and looked in the mirror, "I'm afraid you'll have to come home weekends from Winterhaven more often than I had anticipated. Tony wants to go on skiing weekends and take little honeymoons frequently. He expects me to fly off with him for three days here and three days there. Such a vigorous pace will age me."
She turned to me again and took my hands again.
"You'll help me, won't you? You'll spend time with him, too, and keep him distracted. A young girl has so much more energy. Maybe you'll be able to tire him out so that he won't come at me like some kind of Casanova at night. Oh please, Leigh, say you will."
I didn't know what to say. What was I agreeing to do? But I saw how much she wanted me to say yes.
"I will, Momma. I'll come home often."
"Thank you, Leigh. Thank you. I knew you were old enough to understand." She hugged me quickly. "It's so wonderful having a daughter old enough to be more like a sister to me.
"Now let me show you all the things I bought in Europe. I bought you some pretty sweaters, too. Did you like your Christmas presents?" she asked without taking a breath.
"I saw that your father sent you something. What was it?" she demanded, her eyes narrowing and filled with suspicion.
"This locket," I said and held it out. She glanced at it quickly. She didn't ask me to open it.
"Very nice," she said and turned to all the things she had brought back from Europe.
Troy continued to improve and was a great deal better the following day. I accompanied Tony one more time to visit him before I began my schooling at Winterhaven. Momma was true to all her vows. Beauty had become her religion; she worshipped her own image in the mirror and she proceeded with a new frenzy to win back the vitality she claimed she had lost on her honeymoon. Not only did she refuse to go to the hospital, but she began to rise later and later every morning, and then she spent hours at her vanity table before descending the stairs to have breakfast and meet people.
I saw that Tony grew more and more upset about her, charging up the stairs in the morning to get her to come down and join us for breakfast, and then returning, his face long, his eyes drooping with defeat. Then, the night before I was to begin my session at Winterhaven, I heard them have their first spat. I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but I was on my way to speak to Momma about the wardrobe I was to take to school. It was a little after nine o'clock in the evening, but Momma had already gone up to her suite to rest and read one of her romance novels, something she was doing more and more of lately. I had just entered the sitting room when I heard Tony say, "We might as well not be married." I froze in my steps. He wasn't yelling so much as he was pleading.