Shannon's Daughter (18 page)

“You’ll
never cut your hair.
 
I’ve never seen
anything so beautiful as you with your hair flowing around your shoulders.”
 
He nuzzled her neck, pressing his cheek to
the soft, slightly damp skin.
 
“Peg
Shannon, you’re making a fool of me, you know?”

“Are
you sorry?”

“Not
at all.
 
At least, not tonight.”

Chapter Sixteen

Mass at
St. Patrick’s Cathedral and lunch at Tavern on the Green, an afternoon of
sightseeing by car and an evening of chamber music at Carnegie Hall, and by the
time the party returned to the brownstone for a late supper, Kendall was ready
to explode.
 
All day Peg had shown him
first one side and then another of her intriguing self.
 
Devout Catholic, devoted daughter,
knowledgeable New Yorker and engaged music lover, all wrapped in a package of
fashionable and utterly engaging femininity, not once available for more than a
brief word and a few discreet moments of flirtatious hand holding.
 
There had been that one instant, in the
darkness of the concert hall, when she slinked her hand beneath his where it
rested on his knee.
 
She’d flashed a
smile that seemed to say she was reading his thoughts, which at that point turned
to searching out the first available cupboard and dragging her inside where he
would commit the unspeakable without a fig for what anyone thought.
 
If she were truly as innocent as she seemed
at times, there were other times when he could have sworn she was toying with
him, skillfully tempting and teasing until he dropped to his knees begging for
just one of those incomparable kisses.
 

When
Michael announced at eleven o’clock that his day was done, the rest of them
could do what they liked, but he was going to bed, the party dispersed, leaving
Kendall at last alone with Peg—and his mother—in the dining room.
 

“Well,
dear, we certainly enjoyed our day.
 
Didn’t
we, Kendall?”
 
Patting Peg’s hand fondly,
Eloise seemed to be settling in for a rehashing of the past twelve hours.
 
“I was so impressed with your knowledge of
this city’s history, you know.
 
I suppose
just out of school, it must all be fresh in your mind.
 
And now you’ll be going to college here,
too.”

“Yes,
ma’am.
 
I wanted to stay close to home.
 
I love New York.”

“That’s
obvious.
 
Kendall feels much the same
about
London,
I’m sure, having lived most of his life
there, other than his time in Oxford, of course.”
 

What was
she doing, trying to point up the difference in their ages, of all things?
 
Afraid to be the first to suggest they call
it a night and risk being dismissed, he sat silently gnashing his teeth.
 
All day Eloise had seemed to pop up at his
elbow, interrupting his attempts at conversation and insisting on sitting next
to him wherever they went.
 
She made him
feel like a schoolboy who bore watching, her gaze following him if he dared
leave her side.
 
That she had chosen
today to wrestle him back beneath her maternal wing was not a coincidence, he
felt sure.
 
The sight of Peg sitting
right across the table, and completely out of reach, only heightened his
annoyance with his mother.

“I’m
sorry, Aunt Eloise, but before I fall asleep right here, I need to check with
Mrs. Leary about something.
 
Will you
excuse me?”
 
Peg got to her feet,
graciously discharging his mother with a glowing smile and a nod toward the
door.
 
“Kendall, would you mind giving me
a hand with the lights?
 
I’m sure Adamson
has already gone to bed.”

He blinked
stupidly, having observed Adamson lurking beyond the doorway in the butler’s
pantry not ten minutes earlier.
 
But
Eloise, with her back to the door, wouldn’t know that.
 
“Lights?
 
Of course, I’d be happy to.”
 
On his feet in an instant, he dropped a kiss
on his mother’s cheek as he passed her chair.
 
“Good night, Mum.
 
Pleasant dreams.”
 

Peg,
already on her way to the kitchen, glanced over her shoulder with a polite smile.
 
“I really appreciate the help.
 
I know you must be exhausted.
 
It’s been a very busy day, hasn’t it?”
 

“Very.”
 
He peered back to see Eloise beginning her
climb up the stairs.
 
Lengthening his
stride, he caught up to Peg and said under his breath.
 
“Very smooth, young lady.
 
Do you really have business with Mrs. Leary?”

“Of
course not.
 
She went to bed an hour ago.
 
I wouldn’t dare bother her now.
 
I thought your mother was never going
upstairs!”
 
She grabbed his hand, pulling
him toward the door to the garden.
 
“Out
here!
 
I know a place.”

“A
place?”

“Where
we can be alone for a few minutes.
 
Have you always been such a mama’s boy?”

Following
her across the dark garden, he took a moment to get his bearings.
 
Wouldn’t do to trip and send them both
tumbling to the ground.
 
The obvious flaw
in that caution made him chuckle, as he envisioned rolling on the grass with
Peg in his arms.
 
“I resent that label.
 
I’m an outwardly devoted son, not a mama’s
boy,
which
implies that I cling to my mother, when it
should be obvious, it’s very much the other way round.”
 
They had reached a door in the garden wall and
Peg released his hand to raise the latch.
 

“Whatever
you call it, she doesn’t like me, I can tell.”
 
The door opened onto a dark cavern smelling of motor oil and gasoline.
 
Peg left him
briefly,
making her way toward what he hoped was a light switch.
 

“What
if someone saw us come in here, or sees the lights?
 
Won’t they suspect something?”
 
The garage flooded with yellow light.
 
He watched Peg go directly to the car and
open the rear door.
 

“No,
because I only came out here to see if I’d left this in the car.”
 
Ducking inside, she reappeared a moment
later, raising her handbag in the air.
 
“Oh, look, here it is!”
 
Grinning
slyly, she closed the door and came toward him.
 
“Right where I hid it.”

“You
planned this?
 
What a cunning little girl
you are!”
 

“I was
determined to get you away from your mother sometime tonight.
 
My other plan was to say my cat had gone
missing and I needed you to help me search for it.”

“I
didn’t know you had a cat.”

She
slid her arms around his waist, the grin still on her lips.
 
“I don’t.
 
But your mother doesn’t know that.
 
Now kiss me please, and then I have something to tell you.”

He
seized her mouth much like a man dying of thirst, drinking long and deep.
 
Whatever she had to say could wait until he
was quenched.
 
But for once, Peg seemed
satisfied with one trip to the well.
 
“I
need to tell you this where no one else will hear.”
 
She pushed away from him, although her hands
remained on his lapels, an encouraging sign that she wasn’t done with him
completely.

“Why so
secretive?”

“Just
listen.
 
I overheard Uncle Sean telling
Dad he’s planning to go up to the Maine cabin this week.
 
He wanted us all to go, but Dad is too
busy.
 
But I think the four of them,
Uncle Sean and Aunt Maureen, Uncle Patrick and your mother are definitely
going.
 
But when your mother asks you,
you have to tell her you can’t go.”
 
She
divulged this information with lightning speed, leaving him a little
breathless.

“Hold on,
there.
 
What is a main cabin and why can’t
I go?”

“Maine,
the state.
 
Dad owns a summer house on the coast up
there.
 
And you can’t go because they’ll
be gone until next week and this Friday night we’re giving a dinner party.
 
That’s when Dad is going to introduce you to
Bernie Silverman, assuming I can get him to come on such short notice, which
I’m sure I can.”
 
She paused to catch her
breath.
 

“Ah.
 
I see, I think.”
 
Taking advantage of her momentary silence, he
drew her closer, dropping kisses along her hairline.
 
“So you expect that tomorrow Mother will spring
this change of plans in hopes of tricking me into leaving for a week, but now
that you’ve warned me, I’m to respond that I can’t possibly miss my opportunity
to meet Silverman, who may or may not be coming to dinner on Friday
night?”
 

“That’s
right!
 
Oh, Kendall, we’ll have so much
fun!
 
I want to take you to a play.
 
And take you to the museums.
 
And take a carriage ride through the
park.
 
And take the ferry around the harbor.”
 
Ignoring his persistent assault on her upturned
face, she went on excitedly, “A whole week!
 
Won’t it be wonderful?”

Pinning
her with the sternest gaze he could muster, he groaned.
 
“Yes, if you’ll stop telling me all these
plans you’ve made and just kiss me.
 
Otherwise, I’ll be forced to
take
you
into the back of that car and do appallingly wonderful things to you right now that
we’ll both regret tomorrow morning.
 
You
are without question the most exasperating brat I’ve ever tried
not
to make love to!”

Her
laughter was muffled beneath his kiss.
 
He
was lost.
 
There was no denying it.
 
Giddy as a schoolboy on holiday.
 
Peg in his arms, the prospect of days alone
with her, or as alone as they could be beneath the watchful gaze of Adamson,
Mrs. Leary and Simon, set his imagination soaring.
 
That most of what he imagined would likely
remain fantasy was beside the point.
 
He
would seize the moment, enjoy all of Peg he could have, and deal with the
consequences later.

Chapter
Seventeen

Standing
dutifully on the front stoop watching the car pull away on Tuesday morning, Kendall
actually felt sorry for his mother.
 
Eloise was not remotely outdoorsy and while Peg had assured her the
cabin had all the modern amenities, he’d seen the disappointment in her eyes as
she’d taken one final look around her luxurious bedroom in the brownstone.
 

“I do
wish you were free to come with us, Kendall.
 
But of course, meeting a man like Maestro Silverman is something I
wouldn’t want you to pass up.
 
Still, I’m
afraid you’ll be bored to tears on your own here.”
 

He’d
refrained from pointing out the unlikelihood of that.
 
“I’ll manage just fine, Mum, I’m sure.
 
I could do with a few quiet days.
 
You just try to enjoy yourself and don’t
worry about me.”
 

He
turned inside, intent on putting in an hour of practice.
 
Peg had been nowhere in sight this morning,
and before she could distract
him,
he was determined
to hide himself in the ballroom.
 
No
sooner had the door closed behind him than he was confronted by a prim vision
in navy blue and white coming down the stairs.

“What
on
earth.
. .are you going to a funeral?”

“No,
silly, a meeting.”
 
She patted the little veiled hat perched on
the side of her head and smoothed the jacket of her tailored suit.
 
“Business.
 
Then pleasure.
 
I thought we’d go to the Metropolitan this
afternoon.
 
But first we’ll have lunch
here.
 
Mrs. Leary is making her wonderful
shrimp salad for us.”

“Prawn.”

She
grinned.
 
“Not in New York.
 
Shrimp.”
 
Pushing him through the open study door, she
came at him with eyes gleaming.
 
“Kiss
me,” she hissed.

“No!
 
Adamson could be lurking behind the draperies!”

“Kiss
me!
 
I have to go in five minutes!”

The
full five minutes was put to excellent use.
 
“Now go to your meeting before you get us in trouble.
 
It won’t do for Adamson to report our
activities to your father.”
 
He carefully
straightened her hat and smoothed her collar.
 

“I
don’t think he’d object.
 
Last night he
told me he’s happy to see me having such a good time with you, and then he
winked at me.
 
He’ll be fine with us
going out together, and if he should happen to walk in on us taking advantage
of one another, as you so properly put it, I doubt he’ll be at all surprised.
 
He likes you.”

“More
to the point, you like me, right?”
 
He
couldn’t resist cupping her chin and dropping one last kiss on her smiling
lips.

“Right.
 
Very right.
 
Now I have to go!”

Mounting
the stairs, he mused on Peg’s gift for creative secrecy, which she attributed
to growing up in a huge, under-populated mansion like this one.
 
The house seemed to provide endless
possibilities, and Peg took advantage of all of them, making a game of popping
out of doorways and dragging him in for a few stolen moments.
 
Depending on her mood, those moments ranged from
playful, as this morning’s had been, to oddly intense, as had been the case
just the previous afternoon, when she’d led him to a deserted third floor
corridor.
 

“I used
to hide in here for hours, pretending I’d run away to some exotic place where
no one knew who I was,” she explained as he’d peered around the gloomy room filled
with canvas-draped furnishings.
 

“So
where are you now?
 
Timbuktu,
or perhaps Outer Mongolia?”
 
He resisted
moving immediately to the obvious reason for this excursion.
 

“No,
silly.
 
I’m in paradise, in the arms of my lover,
sailing on a glassy lake surrounded by flowering jungle at twilight.”
 
Her arms, tightening around his waist, and
her head nestled trustingly on his chest, suggested she was in need of
something other than kisses just now.

“Hmm.
 
And here I thought you wanted to be with me.
 
Who is this varlet who takes you sailing to
paradise?
 
And is there any way I can win
you back from his clutches?”

Her
laughter was worth the effort.
 
Peg, he
had learned, was rarely completely carefree.
 
This particular mood seemed to have been prompted by the fact that
Michael had come home from his office for lunch and instead of returning to
work, gone to his room to “rest.”
 
Kendall had made note of the concerned look that passed between Peg and
Adamson.
 
Since then, Peg had been
quieter than usual and made frequent trips upstairs, presumably to check on her
father.

“His
name is Kendall Gregg.
 
He’s a famous
violinist and a notorious Casanova and no one can take me away from him while
he’s here with me.”
 

“I
see.
 
And when he’s gone?”

“I’ll
just have to wait until we’re together again.”

He
hesitated to break the spell. “What’s wrong, brat?”

She
sighed, her arms tightening further.
 
“Dad.
 
He’s been overdoing.
 
And he’s so stubborn he won’t listen to me or
anyone else.”

“Is he
ill?
 
Should he see a doctor?”

“He
won’t.
 
Not until he can’t put it off any
longer.”
 
She raised her head, giving it
a little toss.
 
“Let’s not talk about it
now.
 
I brought you in here to share my
hiding place with you.
 
Come over
here.
 
I want to show you something.”

She led
him by the hand to a large, low object draped in canvas.
 
“Help me, please.”
 
Together, they lifted the dust cover to
reveal a red velvet chaise, which he recognized as the one in Peg’s
portrait.
 
“This was my mother’s.
 
In fact, this was my mother’s sitting
room.
 
Her bedroom was just through that
door.
 
Nothing’s been changed since she
died.”

He
watched as she laid aside the cover and sat on the deeply tufted cushion.
 
Patting the spot beside her, she looked up
without a smile.
 
“Mrs. Leary told me my
mother would sit here with me in her arms and sing to me.
 
I used to imagine I could hear her.”
 
There was an absence of emotion in her voice
again.
 
He was reminded of the night in
Ireland when she’d said you couldn’t miss someone you’d never known.
 
She’d cried in his arms that night, but now
there was no sign of tears.

“It
seems a bit morbid, all this just left here to molder.
 
I wouldn’t have thought your father the sort
to hold on to the past.”

“When
it comes to my mother, he’ll never let go.
 
I know he comes in here sometimes, just sits for hours.
 
I’ve even heard him talking to her.”

“May I
ask how she died?
 
I’ve never heard
anyone say precisely.”

Peg
stared at her hands, firmly folded in her lap.
 
Her voice was low, still devoid of emotion.
 
“She was coming back from a benefit concert
in Boston.
 
That’s where she was from
originally.
 
She’d just started singing
again after having me and she insisted Dad stay home with me.
 
Mrs. Leary told me she felt guilty about leaving
me so soon.
 
It was snowing.
 
The car skidded off a bridge and she and the
chauffeur were both drowned.”
 
  

He
tried to picture Michael receiving news of the tragedy.
 
“I can understand how it might be impossible
to recover from such a loss.”

“I
don’t know how Dad would have managed without Adamson and Mrs. Leary.
 
They’ve stayed by him through everything, you
know.”

“They
were both here then?”

“Yes.
 
Adamson was working for the bank, in the mailroom,
when my parents married and Dad brought him here because my mother said she’d
always wanted an English butler.
 
And Mrs.
Leary had been in the theater with her, before she even met my father.
 
They were best friends and Mrs. Leary came
here as soon as Dad bought this house.
 
She helped pick the furniture and set them up in their new home.
 
This is the only real home she’s ever known,
she says.”

“What
happened to Mr. Leary?”

“There
never was a Mr. Leary.
 
I guess my mother
wanted a proper housekeeper too, and apparently all housekeepers are called
Mrs. Something.”

“So
Adamson and Mrs. Leary have been here all your life.
 
No wonder they act more like protective parents than servants.”

“They’re
not servants, not to me.
 
They
are
like family in many ways.
 
It’s a funny arrangement we have here, but
that’s the way things worked out.”
 
She
stroked the smooth velvet idly for a minute.
 
“Do you believe in ghosts?”

He took
a moment to gauge her mood before answering.
 
“No.
 
I don’t think I do.
 
I’m sure I’ve never seen one, at any rate.”

“I
would know if my mother was here, I’m sure.
 
You would think she’d have come back to see how Dad and I were doing,
wouldn’t you?”

“If
such a thing were possible, I’m sure she would have.”
 
He draped an arm around her shoulders,
nestling her against his side.
 
“Sweetheart, if there’s one thing I’ve learned through losing my father
it’s that it doesn’t pay to think about it too often.
 
The thoughts are always the same, always sad
and never easier to understand.”

“I
suppose.
 
Have you ever been angry with
your father for dying?”

“Oh,
yes.
 
Even when I know how hard he tried
to hang on.
 
It’s only natural to feel
abandoned, especially when you’re young.”

She
turned to look into his eyes.
 
“I’m glad
you lost your father.
 
Not that I’m glad
he died, but I’m glad you understand what it feels like.
 
It’s nice to have someone to talk to about
things like this.”
 

There
was nothing to do but hold her closer, accept the kiss she offered and hope to
comfort her in the process.
 
When, without
a word, she lay back on the chaise and held out her arms, he joined her,
sensing she wanted simply to be held.
 
He
was rapidly realizing that no matter how much he learned about Peg, there would
never be an end to the layers and depths of this complicated girl.
 
He had also begun to suspect that given the
opportunity, he would like nothing better than to spend a lifetime exploring
them.
 
That the opportunity would never
be his only seemed to sweeten the time he had with her now.
 

“How
was your meeting?”
 
Seated at the table
in the bay window awaiting their lunch, he took note of the fact that she had
changed into linen trousers and a gauzy blouse on her return.
 
Her cheeks were still flushed from the noon
heat.
 

“Fine.
 
But it’s too warm a day to spend cooped up in a stuffy old board
room.
 
I thought I was going to
melt.”
 
Raising her glass of iced tea,
she drank deeply.
 
“I think we should go
to the museum this afternoon.
 
It’s air
conditioned, at least.
 
And tonight,
maybe we can get tickets to the theater.
 
What would you like, a drama, a comedy or a musical?”