Housebound (10 page)

“Noah! Are you up there?” Holly's voice was damnably close. With lightning speed Noah was off the bed and at the door, guarding it with a surprising ferocity as Holly's slender fists beat against the other side. “What are you doing, Noah? I thought you wanted to leave by four. It's four-thirty already.” She rattled the doorknob, but Noah's full weight was pressed against the door, and she couldn't budge it. “Can't I come in?” Her light voice held just a trace of a whine, and Noah winced.

“No, you can't come in. I'll be right down—I'm just about ready to go.”

“I'm staying right here until you come out.” Holly's voice through the thick door was petulant. “I don't want to go back downstairs without you. I think Anne's mad at me, and I don't want to have to face her without you to protect me.”

Noah's eyes met Anne's enigmatically across the room. “I don't know what protection I'll be,” he murmured, half to himself.

“I'll wait for you out here.” Anne knew that tone of voice far too well, and with a silent moan she buried her face in the pillow.

Gentle hands wrapped the bathrobe around her curled-up body, gentle hands stroked the damp hair away from her flushed face.

“Annie love?” he whispered, but she shut her eyes tight, refusing to look at him. She heard him sigh, a deep, worried sound, and felt the almost imperceptible brush of his lips against her tightly closed eyelids. And then he was gone, shutting the door and the room's lonely occupant firmly away from Holly's prying eyes.

 

N
OAH WAS DRIVING FAST
, too fast, the New Jersey Turnpike disappearing beneath the radial tires of his aging VW Beetle.
Holly sat next to him, her mindless chatter finally dying away in the face of his preoccupied monosyllables. Her head was averted, her eyes trained on the countryside with its rapidly melting snow, the advancing sunset gilding the gray-white landscape with a golden-orange glow. Noah allowed himself a brief, cursory glance in Holly's direction, and for a moment he thought he could see the elusive resemblance between the two sisters. It was subtle—the line of her jaw, the curve of her cheek, a certain set expression to her dreamy mouth. In the darkened interior of the small car he could pretend it was Annie Kirkland sitting next to him, and for a moment he let himself go with it, imagining those wonderful green eyes turning to him, that curious melting expression as she tried to fight him off. But she hadn't been fighting him when he last saw her. She was lying curled in on herself in that narrow bed, and he didn't know whether to hate or congratulate himself. He lifted his hand off the steering wheel, moving to take the hand that lay limply in her lap.

Before he could touch her she turned, and the illusion was shattered. Bright blue eyes looked up into his, startled, instead of those limpid green ones he'd hoped to see. The blond curls seemed brassy and artificial in place of the black silky mane, and her face looked young and petulant and discontented.

Noah dropped his hand back on the wheel and pressed down harder on the gas. “What went on this weekend?” Holly questioned in a blandly curious voice.

“You showed me around the house,” he answered flatly. “I talked with your father about a tentative schedule, we argued a bit about money and I made my decision. You know all that.”

“I was talking about what happened between you and my sister.”

Noah kept his eyes glued to the highway. “What in the world makes you think something happened?” he countered.

Holly laughed. “I've known Anne all my life, Noah. I'm not obtuse. Self-centered, yes; obtuse, no. There was something going on between you and Anne or I know nothing about men and women. And I assure you, I know a very great deal. What was it—love at first sight?”

Noah counted to ten, tapping his long fingers against the steering wheel. “You'd like that, wouldn't you, Holly?”

“Not particularly.” She slid down farther in the bucket seat, eyeing him with a mischievous glance. “I don't like being turned down in my sister's favor. And you did turn me down, didn't you, Noah? No matter how tactful you tried to be.”

“I didn't sleep with your sister, Holly.” He carefully avoided answering her question.

“Of course you didn't. I told you, I know my sister very well. She's always so good, so pure, so strong.” The bitterness in her voice sounded like that of a spoiled child. “I don't think she'd recognize a less than noble impulse, even if she was decadent enough to have one. Saint Anne of Lambertville.”

Noah sent her a curious glance. “Why are you jealous of your sister? On the face of it, you have everything and she has nothing.”

Holly laughed, an unhappy little sound. “All that's true. Do you think I'm going to deny it? But things are never as they appear. Anne never makes foolish mistakes. Anne can do anything. And Anne…” Her voice broke, and she turned her profile back out toward the countryside.

“And Anne has Wilson,” Noah completed gently. This time he did move his hand from the steering wheel, reaching out to take her unresisting one in a comforting grip.

“Yes,” Holly said. “Anne has Wilson. Stupid, isn't it? I can have any man I want.” She shot an apologetic glance at him. “Well, almost any man. And for the last ten years I've been desperately in love with a stodgy banker who disapproves of me and is unimaginative enough to think he's in love with my sister.”

“And you don't think he is?”

“Of course not. Anyone with eyes could see that it's me he loves, not Anne. Anne's more like a sister to him. I never thought he'd be foolish enough to ask her to marry him. I thought I had enough time. I thought he'd wait.” She gave herself a tiny shake, flashing her brilliant smile at Noah. “My mistake, I suppose.”

There was a long silence. “You know that if you take her house away all she'll have left is Wilson,” he said finally.

“I know.”

“And from what I've seen of Wilson he's a perfect little gentleman. Even if he discovered he was in love with you after all, he won't abandon her when she loses the house.”

“I know,” Holly said again. “But I have to take the chance. Anne can't hold out against the ravages of time much longer. In another few years the house will collapse about her ears.”

Noah managed a forced grin. “Maybe the foundation should offer less.”

“We won't take less,” Holly said firmly. She turned back to face him. “So what did happen between you and my sister?”

Once more he avoided a direct answer. “Do you think I'll take her off your hands and assuage your conscience? You picked the wrong man, lady. I won't be seeing her again.”

“You finished your work?”

“I found out what I came to find out,” he said.

“And what will your recommendation be?” she asked in her breathless voice.

“I'm going to recommend that the foundation offer your asking price,” he said flatly, trying to ignore the feeling of betrayal that swamped over him.

“And will they?”

“They wouldn't have sent me down if they didn't trust my opinions,” Noah drawled. “They'll buy your house.”

Holly nodded, leaning back against the leather seat, averting her profile once more. He stared at her in the gathering dusk, once more giving in to the dangerous fantasy. That gold hair looked dark in the shadows; the slightly voluptuous breasts were smaller and prettier. He could imagine her voice, husky, without that breathless little giggle that Holly affected most of the time.

But that mass of curls could be dark-brown, couldn't it, he thought suddenly, unwillingly. Those averted eyes could be warm and brown and reproachful, and the full mouth could tell him how he'd failed her. It could be, should be, Nialla there beside him. What was he doing there, driving with one woman, dreaming of another, with no place for his guilt-ridden memories of Nialla? Once again he'd failed her.

“Are you really not going to see her again?” Holly's voice broke through his sudden, tortured thoughts.

“Who?”

“My sister,” Holy said impatiently. “You said you'd finished your work and wouldn't be seeing Anne again. Did you mean it?”

He could imagine Nialla still, watching him out of those lost eyes of hers. “I meant it,” he said.

“In that case,” Holly said lightly, “why don't you spend the night with me?”

He pulled himself out of his abstraction with a shot of laughter. “Forget it, Holly.”

“Why?” She was undeterred. “We've both had a celibate weekend. How about a nice bit of recreational sex to take the edge off?”

And suddenly the feel, the sound, the scent of Anne came back to him as she lay curled up in his arms, and a surge of frustrated wanting swept over him, a wanting so strong that he was almost tempted. In the dark it would be easy enough to pretend she was her older sister. The long drive back had taught him there was at least a minor resemblance. He could ignore the fact that she doused herself with some heavy, musky fragrance instead of the sly, delicate scent of roses that clung to Anne's skin. And he knew from bitter experience that it was only when he was in bed with another woman that the memory of Nialla left him alone.

But he couldn't do it, tempted though he was. “I think,” he said, “that you're going to have to cut back on your recreational sex if you want to win Wilson.”

“I was going to pretend you were him,” Holly said, unabashed.

“I'm sure you were,” he said with a resigned grin. “And I would have pretended you were…someone else. But that's not a healthy way to enjoy recreational sex, Holly. At least, not as far as I'm concerned.”

“But you don't want me?” she pursued, and he could hear the thread of anxiety in her voice.

He responded like a gentleman. “Of course I want you,” he lied, then wondered if it was a lie. Those few minutes on Anne's narrow bed had left him in a damnably frustrated state. Holly would be more than adept at relieving that situation. “But it would be a mistake for both of us,” he continued doggedly.

“I suppose so.” She leaned back, subsiding, her momentary insecurity assuaged. “And you're not going to see Anne again?”

“I'm not going to see Anne again,” he agreed. And this time he knew he lied.

 

I
T WAS A QUIET NIGHT
in the old house. Proffy had fed himself, amid much grumbling, and gone to bed early. There was an echoing, peaceful stillness as Anne wandered through the empty rooms. She could hear the steady drip of the snow melting off the roof, and knew she should go up to the attic to check the leak above the bathroom. And she knew for the first time in her life she was going to let her responsibility to the house lapse. She was too tired and too disturbed after the upheaval of the weekend—she needed a small bit of time to herself. The roof would have to wait.

For the thousandth time she thanked heaven that she'd had her mother's spinet moved to the tiny room off the kitchen. The Bechstein grand in the library was a better instrument, but it sat directly below Proffy's bedroom, and the wood-paneled walls served as sounding boards to carry the rich sound throughout the house. The small antique spinet suited Anne perfectly, and if the rough plaster walls bounced the sound around, she didn't mind. She had every intention of playing for hours that night, with none of her perfectionist relatives to suggest or criticize, to point out a fumbled note or a blurry passage. She was going to pound and thump and soar, she was going to play Chopin with all the sentimental flourish her mediocre talent could command, and as she played she had every intention of indulging herself in a good, hearty fit of tears as she thought about the loss of Noah Grant.

And tomorrow morning she was going to return to work,
putting all distracting thought of a Celtic Gypsy face out of her mind, and play only cheerful, mathematical Bach in the small hours of the morning. But for now she was going to cry.

“Damnation!” The plate slipped out of her grasp and went sailing onto the stone floor in a tangled mass of broken china, scrambled eggs, toast, butter and jam. Bits of food spattered Anne's bare ankles, and it was all she could do to control the uncharacteristic urge to burst into tears.

“Was that the good china?” Proffy inquired grumpily from the doorway, his full plate of breakfast in his hand. He preferred to have it delivered to him in the dining room, not to have to fetch it like some damned maid, but Anne had been increasingly demanding the last few weeks. If things kept on this way, she'd have him washing his own dishes and making his bed.

“It was.” Her tone of voice encouraged no further discussion, but Proffy had always been obtuse with his middle child.

“Let's see, that would give us approximately four plates left out of a service of twenty,” he announced, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “That was my mother's Wedgwood, Anne.”

“It gives us three plates out of twenty-four, and I know perfectly well where it came from,” she said, her voice a combination of weariness and temper. It was a tone she'd found herself using far too often in the past two weeks, but she couldn't seem to help herself.

Proffy's bushy white eyebrows rose in surprised dismay. “You've been in the foulest mood lately,” he complained. “I don't know what's gotten into you these past few weeks. You never used to be so touchy.”

Anne surveyed her father with jaundiced eyes, then relented. “Sorry, Proffy. I think it must be cabin fever.”

“I thought people only got that when they're snowbound,” he argued.

“Or housebound.” Anne sighed, squatting down to pick up the larger pieces of plate mashed in with the food. “It feels like I've been here forever. I think I need a vacation—it's just too bad I can't afford it.”

With her head bent she couldn't see the hopeful light that leaped into Proffy's bespectacled eyes. “You should get out more,” he said gruffly. “You've spent far too much of your time devoted to this old pile of stones. It's not healthy, Anne. You should be out enjoying yourself, not slaving away trying to keep a roof over our heads.”

“Speaking of roof, the south side is getting worse,” Anne said shortly. “I may have to reapply for a loan if it gets much worse. You'll have to cosign, of course, and so will either Holly or Ashley.”

“You may run into some trouble there.”

Anne looked up from her position on the floor. “What do you mean? The roof is leaking, it needs fixing, and I haven't saved enough money. No bank will give me a loan unless the legal owners of the house sign for it. You know as well as I do that any three of us constitute legal ownership.”

Proffy put his plate down on the oak table, and his voice was unusually kind. Dangerously so, Anne thought. “You can't keep pouring money into the place, Anne. It's a losing
battle—you'll have to face it sooner or later, and the sooner you do, the happier a life you're going to lead. Holly and Ashley have accepted it, and I learned long ago that we wouldn't have the old place forever. You can't stop the ravages of time, Anne.”

“Are you quite finished, Proffy?” Her voice was cool, studiously polite and quite furious.

Her father shrugged. “You won't listen, of course. You are as stubborn as your mother was. Heaven protect me from such difficult women. I'm going out for breakfast.” He fixed a disapproving glare at her blank face. “And if you want to know where I'll be today, you can find me at a place that offers peace, quiet and convivial companionship.”

A reluctant grin broke through Anne's worried expression. “Oh, the Merry Widow. Give Mrs. Morgan my love. Will you be back in time for dinner?”

“I've told you children I don't like that nickname,” he fretted. “And no, I won't be back for dinner. I may not even be back till tomorrow morning.” He said it with a little boy's defiance, and Anne's amusement temporarily banished the last of her worries.

“Heavens, she is living up to her nickname!” She laughed. “You'd better be careful with such a wanton, Proffy.”

“You wouldn't know a wanton if you saw one,” he said stiffly, his dignity much affronted. “You've been a sore disappointment to me as a daughter, Carrie.”

All of her amusement fled. “Why? Because I haven't been properly wanton?”

“Now is neither the time nor place to go into it,” he said ominously. “But you're going to have to change your attitude, young lady. You can't always have it your way. Your comfort
able little life is going to have to go through some upheavals, and it's the best thing that could happen to you.”

Anne eyed him steadily. “So you're not about to enumerate my failings as a daughter?” Her voice was deceptively cool.

“Look at the talent in this family!” he burst out unwisely. “Look at Holly, look at your brother! Wonderful artists, with international reputations! Your mother was a concert pianist. Even I was the foremost expert on Baroque quartets in my day. You come from a line of such talent, such accomplishments, and what do you do with your life? Devote it to a rotting old house.”

Anne had heard all this many times before. For the first time she felt like fighting back, trying to explain some bit of her choices to him. “Did it ever occur to you that I might not have inherited the amount of talent the others did?”

“Nonsense! Of course you did.”

“Everyone can't be brilliant, Proffy,” she persevered. “There always has to be at least one loser in the litter.”

“You didn't even try! You refused to continue studying the flute when you were twelve, gave up the piano by fifteen, and threw away your paints. You had promise, Anne, and you refused to follow through. You tossed it all away.”

Anne stared at him blankly. Her studio was off limits to her family—none of them knew of the delicate, hopelessly romantic watercolors that lay neatly under the daybed. No one heard her playing the piano late at night—strange, haunting melodies of her own creation amid the thundering classics she had committed to memory during her years of study. And if she had her way, they would never see or hear them, the children of her creativity that she knew could never compare with her siblings' magnificence.

“Promise wasn't good enough, Proffy. I simply refused to
be mediocre in a family of greatness.” She shrugged, managing a rueful smile as she dumped the broken plate and the food into the trash. “I've made my life and I'm happy with it. Why can't you accept that my way is different from the others?”

“Because I wanted to be proud of you, just as I am of the others. I didn't expect you to reach your brother's and sister's heights, I just expected you to make use of your talents. But you refused. You're so strong, Anne. And yet you're a coward and a quitter. And I'm ashamed of you.” Turning on his heel, he stalked out of the kitchen.

Anne stood there, listening to his footsteps die away, a curious numbness settling in around her heart. Picking up his full plate, one of the last three Wedgwoods, she started automatically for the trash bin. She looked down at the plate, then out into the rainy spring morning. Whirling around, she flung the plate against the kitchen wall, the crash of the china and the wet slap of the eggs easing a small part of the knot in her stomach.

“Damn you, Proffy,” she said aloud, calmly enough. “Damn you to hell for being right.” And ignoring the mess all around her, she stepped carefully around the broken china and went into her studio, slamming the door behind her.

 

H
ER HANDS WERE SHAKING
, Anne realized wearily as she propped herself up on the sofa and surveyed the mess her studio was in. It had been a rough two weeks, and that final confrontation with her father had been the last straw. A quitter and a coward, he'd said, judging her as he'd always judged her and found her wanting. Well, he was right, as usual. Except that she wasn't nearly as strong as everyone supposed.

Her room was littered with half-finished projects, a sign of her preoccupation since that damnable house party. Not a
single project had she finished in all that time, with the lone exception of the cursed Chinese manuscript. For the past ten days she had been trying to plow through an incredibly technical treatise on tropical diseases, and the words flew at her fast and furious, with the unlikely names of schistosomiasis, trypanosomiasis and yaws. She could only manage a few pages at a time without her head aching, yet she'd promised Edmund it would be done by Tuesday. And never had she felt less like working.

Well, she wasn't going to spend her weekend worrying about Proffy, worrying about her own failings, and most of all, worrying about Noah Grant, who had vanished from her life with what ought to be reassuring dispatch. She had her work cut out for her. First, the damned manuscript. Add to that the absolute necessity of doing something about the huge hole in the south side of the roof, and she could look forward to falling into an exhausted sleep. Which was something she hadn't enjoyed in quite a while. No sooner would her head touch the pillow than thoughts of what she could have done, should have done, filled her brain, keeping her wide awake into the early hours of the morning.

Catching up the manuscript in unwilling hands, she tried to avoid the reproach of her studio. No less than three unfinished watercolors littered the table, the small spinet was pulled apart, half tuned, the instruments lying forgotten on the bench. Yards and yards of brightly colored Italian silks lay tossed in a pile by her sewing machine, with one vivid swath tied loosely around the dressmaker's dummy. Holly needed a complete new wardrobe for her next tour, starting with Ashley's opening next weekend. Anne's duties were clear; her inspiration, however, was at a low ebb. With painful determi
nation she slogged through another ten pages, then tossed the manuscript aside to stare out into the gloomy late morning.

It didn't look as if the rain was going to let up in the slightest. It came as a heavy drizzle, soaking into the already drenched ground, dripping through the hole in the roof and widening the stain, rotting the already weakened timbers, probably overflowing the bucket she'd put underneath it. The weather report hadn't even held out the faintest promise of clearing—the rain was supposed to continue all weekend long and into Monday. Whether she liked it or not, she was going to have to face the roof in the pouring rain, and the wonders of schistosomiasis couldn't keep her from it.

Well, the longer she put it off the worse it would be. Better to get it out of the way before the whole roof fell in. It was an easy enough spot to reach—all she had to do was climb out the dormer window in the back bedroom and edge along the roof no more than a couple of yards. Whether or not the slate would prove slippery in the rain was a complication; not to mention the fact that she had already proven singularly inept when it came to patching the slate roof. More slates usually broke beneath her too enthusiastic hammering than she needed to mend in the first place.

It was early afternoon when she accepted her fate. The slates were damnably slippery beneath her sneakered feet, and they proved even more brittle than usual with her admittedly nervous patching job. Her wet fingers were numbed with the cold as she worked on the split slates, her black hair was soaked about her head, the rain running in icy rivulets down her back to settle at the base of her spine. She could only be thankful that that particular area of the roof had a fairly mild pitch—every time she tried to shake the rain from her line of vision
she felt her tenuous hold on the tile slide a tiny, terrifying few inches. She had almost finished patching the final tile when an all too familiar crack signified that she'd managed to shatter still another. She was too cold, wet, weary and frightened even to curse as she pulled another slate from her workbelt. The slate spun out of her numb fingers, dancing down the angle of the roof and over the edge. Anne watched it go with a sick feeling, then reached for the final slate. If she blew it this time she'd have to crawl back into the house and then once more onto this rain-slick roof. And this time she was going to live up to Proffy's harsh words. Physically as well as spiritually she was going to be a coward and a quitter. For all her usual bravado, she didn't think her nerves could stand much more.

She forced herself to work with painfully slow deliberation, prying up the broken tile and letting it follow its mate over the edge into the boxwood hedge below. To make matters worse, the wind began to pick up, icing her fingers, the constant
whoosh-whoosh
of the giant oaks above her head pushing her inexorably toward a panicked haste.

She was almost finished, the slate still intact beneath her delicate tapping, when she thought she heard the sound of a car through the heavy beat of the wind and the rain. She tried to peer out through the rain-swept afternoon, leaning a bit too far toward the edge of the roof. With a sudden sickening ease she felt her feet slip beneath her, felt her weight propelling her down toward the edge of the roof. She had strong doubts that the two-hundred-year-old boxwood would break her fall from three stories up. It would be a shame to crush those ancient boxwood, she thought dazedly, clawing for a foothold as she did. And then, amazingly enough, she found it—her foot caught in the aging but sturdy copper gutters that lined
the edge of the roof. She lay there, facedown on the wet slate, unmoving as she tried to regain some semblance of control. Her heart was pounding loudly in her ears, so loudly she almost didn't hear the voice call out from overhead through the increasingly violent storm.