Once More With Feeling (10 page)

“How far do you think I'll push?” he demanded. His voice was harsh and deep with the hint of Ireland more pronounced. Her breathing was short and shallow with fear. Lying completely still, she made no answer. “Don't throw your imaginary string of lovers in my face, or, by God, you'll have a real one quickly enough whether you want me or not.” His fingers tightened slightly around her throat. “When the time comes, I won't need to get you drunk on champagne or on exhaustion to have you lie with me. I could have you now, this minute, and after five minutes of struggle you'd be more than willing.” His voice lowered, trembling along her skin. “I know how to play you, Raven, and don't you forget it.”

His face was very close to hers. Their breathing mixed, both swift and strained, the only sound coming from the hum of the plane's engines. The fear in her eyes leaped out, finally penetrating his fury. Swearing, Brand pushed himself from her and rose. Her eyes stayed on his as she waited for what he would do next. He stared at her, then turned sharply away, moving over to a porthole.

Raven lay where she was, not realizing she was massaging the wrist that throbbed from his fingers. She watched him drag a hand through his hair.

“I slept with you last night because I wanted to be close to you.” He took another long, cleansing breath. “It was nothing more than that. I never touched you. It was an innocent and rather sweet way to spend the night.” He curled his fingers into a fist, remembering the frantic flutter of her pulse under his hand when he had circled it around her throat. It gave him no pleasure to know he had frightened her. “It never occurred to me that it would offend you like this. I apologize.”

Raven covered her eyes with her hand as the tears began. She swallowed sobs, not wanting to give way to them. Guilt and shame washed over her as fear drained. Her reaction to Brand's simple, affectionate gesture had been to slap his face. It had been embarrassment, she knew, but more, her own suppressed longing for him that had pushed her to react with anger and spiteful words. She'd tried to provoke him and had succeeded. But more, she knew now she had hurt him. Rising from the sofa, she attempted to make amends.

Though she walked over to stand behind him, Raven didn't touch him. She couldn't bear the thought that he might stiffen away from her.

“Brandon, I'm so sorry.” She dug her teeth into her bottom lip to keep her voice steady. “That was stupid of me, and worse, unkind. I'm terribly ashamed of the way I acted. I wanted to make you angry; I was embarrassed, I suppose, and . . .” The words trailed off as she searched for some way to describe the way she had felt. Even now something inside her warmed and stirred at the knowledge that she had lain beside him, sharing the intimacy of sleep.

Raven heard him swear softly, then he rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “I baited you.”

“You're awfully good at it,” she said, trying to make light of what had passed between them. “Much better than I am. I can't think about what I'm saying when I'm angry.”

“Obviously, neither can I. Look, Raven,” Brand began and turned. Her eyes were huge, swimming with restrained tears. He broke off what he had been about to say and moved to the table for his cigarettes. After lighting one, he turned back to her. “I'm sorry I lost my temper. It's something I don't do often because it's a nasty one. And you've got a good aim with a punch, Raven, and it reminded me of the last time we were together five years ago.”

She felt her stomach tighten in defense. “I don't think either of us should dwell on that.”

“No.” He nodded slowly. His eyes were calm again and considering. Raven knew he was poking into her brain. “Not at the moment, in any case. We should get on with today.” He smiled, and she felt each individual muscle in her body relax. “It seems we couldn't wait until we settled in before having a fight.”

“No.” She answered his smile. “But then I've always been impatient.” Moving to him, Raven rose on her toes and pressed her lips tightly to his. “I'm really sorry, Brandon.”

“You've already apologized.”

“Yes, well, just remember the next time, it'll be your turn to grovel.”

Brand tugged on her hair. “I'll make some more coffee. We should have time for one more cup before we have to strap in.”

When he had gone into the galley, Raven stood where she was a moment. The last time, she thought, five years ago.

She remembered it perfectly: each word, each hurt. And she remembered that the balance of the fault then had also been hers. They'd been alone; he'd wanted her. She had wanted him. Then everything had gone wrong. Raven remembered how she had shouted at him, near hysteria. He'd been patient, then his patience had snapped, though not in the way it had today. Then, she remembered, he'd been cold, horribly, horribly cold. Comparing the two reactions, Raven realized she preferred the heat and violence to the icy disdain.

Raven could bring the scene back with ease. They'd been close, and the desire had risen to warm her. Then it was furnace hot and she was smothering, then shouting at him not to touch her. She'd told him she couldn't bear for him to touch her. Brand had taken her at her word and left her. Raven could easily remember the despair, the regret and confusion—and the love for him outweighing all else.

But when she had gone to find him the next morning, he had already checked out of his hotel. He had left California, left her, without a word. And there'd been no word from him in five years. No word, she mused, but for the stories in every magazine, in every newspaper. No word but for the whispered comments at parties and in restaurants whenever she would walk in. No word but for the constant questions, the endless speculation in print as to why they were no longer an item—why Brand Carstairs had begun to collect women like trophies.

So she had forced him out of her mind. Her work, her talent and her music had been used to fill the holes he had left in her life. She'd steadied herself and built a life with herself in control again. That was for the best, she had decided. Sharing the reins was dangerous. And, she mused, glancing toward the galley, it would still be dangerous.
He
would still be dangerous.

Quickly Raven shook her head. Brandon was right, she told herself. It was time to concentrate on today. They had work to do, a score to write. Taking a deep breath, she walked to the galley to help him with the coffee.

Chapter 9

R
aven fell instantly in love with the primitive countryside of Cornwall. She could accept this as the setting for Arthur's Camelot. It was easy to imagine the clash of swords and the glint of armor, the thundering gallop of swift horses.

Spring was beginning to touch the moors, the green blooms just now emerging. Here and there was the faintest touch of pink from wild blossoms. A fine, constant drizzling mist added to the romance. There were houses, cottages really, with gardens beginning to thrive. Lawns were a tender, thin green, and she spotted the sassy yellow of daffodils and the sleepy blue of wood hyacinths. Brand drove south toward the coast and cliffs and Land's End.

They had eaten a country breakfast of brown eggs, thick bacon and oat cakes and had set off again in the little car Brand had arranged to have waiting for them at the airport.

“What's your house like, Brandon?” Raven asked as she rummaged through her purse in search of something to use to secure her hair. “You've never told me anything about it.”

He glanced at her bent head. “I'll let you decide for yourself when you see it. It won't be long now.”

Raven found two rubber bands of differing sizes and colors. “Are you being mysterious, or is this your way of avoiding telling me the roof leaks?”

“It might,” Brand considered. “Though I don't recall being dripped on. The Pengalleys would see to it; they're quite efficient about that sort of thing.”

“Pengalleys?” Raven began to braid her hair.

“Caretakers,” he told her. “They've a cottage a mile or so off from the house. They kept an eye on the place, and she does a bit of housekeeping when I'm in residence. He does the repairs.”

“Pengalley,” she murmured, rolling the name over on her tongue.

“Cornishmen, tried and true,” Brand remarked absently.

“I know!” Raven turned to him with a sudden smile. “She's short and a bit stout, not fat, just solidly built, with dark hair pulled back and a staunch, rather disapproving face. He's thinner and going gray, and he tipples a bit from a flask when he thinks she's not looking.”

Brand quirked a brow and shot her another brief glance. “Very clever. Just how did you manage it?”

“It had to be,” Raven shrugged as she secured one braid and started on the next, “if any gothic novel I've ever read had a dab of truth in it. Are there any neighbors?”

“No one close by. That's one of the reasons I bought it.”

“Antisocial?” she asked, smiling at him.

“Survival instinct,” Brand corrected. “Sometimes I have to get away from it or go mad. Then I can go back and slip into harness again and enjoy it. It's like recharging.” He felt her considering look and grinned. “I told you I'd mellowed.”

“Yes,” she said slowly, “you did.” Still watching him, Raven twisted the rubber band around the tip of the second braid. “Yet you've still managed to put out quite a bit. All the albums, the double one last year; all but five of the songs were yours exclusively. And the songs you wrote for Cal Ripley—they were the best cuts on his album.”

“Did you think so?” he asked.

“You know they were,” she said, letting the rubber band snap into place.

“Praise is good for the ego, love.”

“You've had your share now.” She tossed both braids behind her back. “What I was getting at was that for someone who's so mellow, you're astonishingly productive.”

“I do a lot of my writing here,” Brand explained. “Or at my place in Ireland. More here, actually, because I've family across the channel, so there's visiting to be done if I'm there.”

Raven gave him a curious look. “I thought you still lived in London.”

“Primarily, but if I've serious work or simply need to be alone, I come here. I've family in London as well.”

“Yes.” Raven looked away again out into the misty landscape. “I suppose large families have disadvantages.”

Something in her tone made him glance over again, but her face was averted. He said nothing, knowing from experience that any discussion of Raven's family was taboo. Occasionally in the past, he had probed, but she had always evaded him. He knew that she had been an only child and had left home at seventeen. Out of curiosity, Brand had questioned Julie. Julie knew all there was to know about Raven, he was certain, but she had told him nothing. It was yet another mystery about Raven which alternately frustrated and attracted Brand. Now he put the questions in the back of his mind and continued smoothly.

“Well, we won't be troubled by family or neighbors. Mrs. Pengalley righteously disapproves of show people, and will keep a healthy distance.”

“Show people?” Raven repeated and turning back to him, grinned. “Have you been having orgies again, Brand?”

“Not for at least three months,” he assured her and swung onto a back road. “I told you I'd mellowed. But she knows about actors and actresses, you see, because as Mr. Pengalley tells me, she makes it her business to read everything she can get her hands on about them. And as for musicians,
rock
musicians, well . . .” He let the sentence trail off meaningfully, and Raven giggled.

“She'll think the worst, I imagine,” she said cheerfully.

“The worst?” Brand cocked a brow at her.

“That you and I are carrying on a hot, illicit love affair.”

“Is that the worst? It sounds rather appealing to me.”

Raven colored and looked down at her hands. “You know what I meant.”

Brand took her hand, kissing it lightly. “I know what you meant.” The laugh in his voice eased her embarrassment. “Will it trouble you to be labeled a fallen woman?”

“I've been labeled a fallen woman for years,” she returned with a smile, “every time I pick up a magazine. Do you know how many affairs I've had with people I've never even spoken to?”

“Celebrities are required to have overactive libidos,” he murmured. “It's part of the job.”

“Your press does yours credit,” she observed dryly.

Brand nodded gravely. “I've always thought so. I heard about a pool going around London last year. They were betting on how many women I'd have in a three-month period. The British,” he explained, “will bet on anything.”

Raven allowed the silence to hang for a moment. “What number did you take?”

“Twenty-seven,” he told her, then grinned. “I thought it best to be conservative.”

She laughed, enjoying him. He would have done it, too, she reflected. There was enough of the cocky street kid left in him. “I don't think I'd better ask you if you won.”

“I wish you wouldn't,” he said as the car began to climb up a macadam drive.

Raven saw the house. It was three stories high, formed of sober, Cornish stone with shutters of deep, weathered green and a series of stout chimneys on the roof. She could just make out thin puffs of smoke before they merged with the lead-colored sky.

“Oh, Brandon, how like you,” she cried, enchanted. “How like you to find something like this.”

She was out of the car before he could answer. It was then that she discovered the house had its back to the sea. There were no rear doors, she learned as she dashed quickly to the retaining wall on the left side. The cliff sheared off too close to the back of the house to make one practical. Instead, there were doors on the sides, set deep in Cornish stone.

Raven could look down from the safety of a waist-high wall and watch the water foam and lash out at jagged clumps of rock far below. The view sent a thrill of terror and delight through her. The sea roared below, a smashing fury of sound. Raven stood, heedless of the chill drizzle, and tried to take it all in.

“It's fabulous. Fabulous!” Turning, she lifted her face, studying the house again. Against the stone, in a great tangle of vines, grew wild roses and honeysuckles. They were greening, not yet ready to bloom, but she could already imagine their fragrance. A rock garden had been added, and among the tender green shoots was an occasional flash of color.

“You might find the inside fabulous, too,” Brand ventured, laughing when she turned her wet face to him. “And dry.”

“Oh, Brandon, don't be so unromantic.” She turned a slow circle until she faced the house again. “It's like something out of
Wuthering Heights.”

He took her hand. “Unromantic or not, mate, I want a bath, a hot one, and my tea.”

“That does have a nice sound to it,” she admitted but hung back as he pulled her to the door. She thought the cliffs wonderfully jagged and fierce. “Will we have scones? I developed a taste for them when I toured England a couple years ago. Scones and clotted cream—why does that have to sound so dreadful?”

“You'll have to take that up with Mrs. Pengalley,” Brand began as he placed his hand on the knob. It opened before he could apply any pressure.

Mrs. Pengalley looked much as Raven had jokingly described her. She was indeed a sturdily built woman with dark hair sternly disciplined into a sensible bun. She had dark, sober eyes that passed briefly over Raven, took in the braids and damp clothing, then rested on Brandon without a flicker of expression.

“Good morning, Mr. Carstairs, you made good time,” she said in a soft, Cornish burr.

“Hullo, Mrs. Pengalley, it's good to see you again. This is Ms. Williams, who'll be staying with me.”

“Her room's ready, sir. Good morning, Miss Williams.”

“Good morning, Mrs. Pengalley,” said Raven, a trifle daunted. This, she was sure, was what was meant by “a formidable woman.” “I hope I haven't put you to too much trouble.”

“There's been little to do.” Mrs. Pengalley's dark eyes shifted to Brand again. “There be fires laid, and the pantry's stocked, as you instructed. I've done you a casserole for tonight. You've only to heat it when you've a mind to eat. Mr. Pengalley laid in a good supply of wood; the nights're cool, and it's been damp. He'll be bringing your bags in now We heard you drive up.”

“Thanks.” Brand glanced over, seeing that Raven was already wandering around the room. “We're both in need of a hot bath and some tea, then we should do well enough. Is there anything you want in particular, Raven?”

She glanced back over at the sound of her name but hadn't been attentive to the conversation. “I'm sorry. What?”

He smiled at her. “Is there anything you'd like before Mrs. Pengalley sees to tea?”

“No.” Raven smiled at the housekeeper. “I'm sure everything's lovely.”

Mrs. Pengalley inclined her head, her body bending not an inch. “I'll make your tea, then.” As she swept from the room, Raven shot Brand a telling glance. He grinned and stretched his back.

“You continually amaze me, Brandon,” she murmured, then went back to her study of the room.

It was, Raven knew, the room in which they would be doing most of their work over the next weeks. A grand piano, an old one which, she discovered on a quick testing run, had magnificent tone, was set near a pair of narrow windows. Occasional rag rugs dotted the oak-planked floor. The drapes were cream-colored lace and obviously handworked. Two comfortable sofas, both biscuit-colored, and a few Chippendale tables completed the furniture.

A fire crackled in the large stone fireplace. Raven moved closer to examine the pictures on the mantel.

At a glance, she could tell she was looking at Brand's family. There was a teenage boy in a black leather jacket whose features were the same as Brand's though his dark hair was a bit longer and was as straight as Raven's. He wore the same cocky grin as his brother. A woman was next; Raven thought her about twenty-five and astonishingly pretty with fair hair and slanted green eyes and a true English rose complexion. For all the difference in coloring, however, the resemblance to Brand was strong enough for Raven to recognize his sister. She was in another picture along with a blond man and two boys. Both boys had dark hair and the Carstairs mischief gleaming in their eyes. Raven decided Brand's sister had her hands full.

Raven studied the picture of Brand's parents for some time. The tall, thin frame had been passed down from his father, but it seemed only one of the children had inherited his fair, English looks. Raven judged it to be an old snapshot—twenty, perhaps twenty-five, years old. It had been painstaking staged, with the man and woman dead center, standing straight in their Sunday best. The woman was dark and lovely. The man looked a bit self-conscious and ill at ease having to pose, but the woman beamed into the camera. Her eyes bespoke mischief and her mouth a hint of the cockiness so easily recognized in her children.

There were more pictures: family groups and candid shots, with Brand in several of them. The Carstairses were very much a family. Raven felt a small stir of envy. Shaking it off, she turned back to Brand and smiled.

“This is quite a group.” She flicked her fingers behind her toward the mantel. “You're the oldest, aren't you? I think I read that somewhere. The resemblance is remarkable.”

“Sweeney genes from my mother's side,” Brand told her, looking beyond her shoulder at the crowded grouping of frames. “The only one they slipped up on a bit was Alison.” He ran a hand through his damp hair and came to stand beside her. “Let me take you upstairs, love, and get you settled in. The grand tour can wait until we're dry.” He slipped an arm around her. “I'm glad you're here, Raven. I've never seen you with things that are mine before. And hotel rooms, no matter how luxurious, are never home.”

Later, lounging in a steaming tub, Raven thought over Brand's statement. It was part of the business of being an entertainer to spend a great many nights in hotel rooms, albeit luxury suites, in their positions, but they were hotel rooms nonetheless. Home was a place for between concerts and guest appearances, and to her, it had become increasingly important over the years. It seemed the higher she rose, the more she needed a solid base. She realized it was the same with Brand.