The Matchmaker (4 page)

Drummond had quite likely been as heavy-handed
with her as he was with his horses; on horseback he had the necessary mechanics, but obviously no skill. It was probably the same in the bedroom. No doubt he had
treated Julia like fragile china until the wedding night
and then shocked her with the coarse realities of panting, sweating male needs. She hadn't felt passion in her
husband's bed, Cyrus knew that. There was something
in her eyes that he'd seen only in the eyes of unawakened young women, a kind of unaware innocence that
had nothing to do with physical virginity; it was another
barrier that some men were too inept or insensitive to
find their way past, and it was still intact in Julia.

Cyrus was confident about his own abilities. He'd be patient for a while at least, let her protest to salve pride or convention or whatever was her particular nemesis. Give her a little time to get used to the idea. But she'd come to him eventually, and she'd be willing. He would make certain it was an enjoyable
interlude, that
he made her happy.

In any case, Cyrus was prepared to do whatever it
took to get Julia Drummond into his bed.

It was late by the time Julia said good night to Lissa at the top of the stairs. She was exhausted as she made her way past Adrian's study, a parlor, a few spare bedrooms, toward the master suite. Bedroom, bathroom, and dressing room, the suite was distant from Lissa's room and
from the servants' quarters.

There was a light under the door, and Julia hesitated
for an instant. She'd hoped her husband would be
asleep. Her mouth was a little dry, but she opened the
door quietly and went in, her mask firmly in place.

He turned immediately away from the window, where
he'd apparently been watching the street outside, and
looked at her with narrowed eyes. He was still fully dressed.
A bad sign.

"Where the hell have you been?" he demanded softly.

Julia closed the door and leaned back against it, hardly
noticing the protesting twinge of tender flesh over her
shoulder blades. "I couldn't close down the refreshment table until after midnight," she said in a low, reasonable
voice.

"I told you." His voice was harsh now. "I told you not to go to the party without me."

Julia would have protested that he'd told her at dinner
he didn't want to accompany her, but she knew it
wouldn't make any difference. Nothing would make any difference now. After two years, she was all too familiar with the irrational way his rage fed on itself. Something
had made him angry since she and Lissa had gone to the dance, some small thing he probably didn't even remember now.

He came toward her slowly, like a predator, smiling.
He had the strap. Julia stared at him, and as the cold
dread formed in the pit of her stomach, what she saw became unfocused, then darkened slowly until she didn't
see anything. Or hear anything. Or feel anything.

Until he was finished.

Cyrus Fortune wasn't one of the nine-member city
council of Richmond and he wasn't particularly inter
ested in politics, but he attended a meeting of the
council a few days after the charity dance. He didn't contribute, just watched and listened with a slight smile,
his black eyes flicking from one man to another unread
ably.

"
Cy
, what are you doing here?" Noel Stanton slid into
the seat beside Cyrus, his bushy brows lifted in an expression of exaggerated surprise.

Since another heated discussion was going on at the
front of the room, Cyrus didn't bother to lower his voice.
"Making certain the city isn't run by thieves and scoun
drels, of course. Is it, by the way?"

"Well, of course it is," Stanton told him severely. "You don't think any honest man would want a councilman job, do you?"

Cyrus smiled briefly, but said, "I'm surprised they chose Drummond as mayor; he's a bit young for it."

"Your age."
Stanton, who was eyeing forty as his next
milestone and not happy about it, shrugged tolerantly.

"He sure as hell got the most votes in the election.
Very smooth and charming."

Cyrus turned his head, studying the man he'd known
for most of his life and one of the very few he trusted implicitly. "You don't like him.'

"I don't like him. He's pleasant enough, I suppose. The ladies seem to think he walks on water. When he
married Julia Brand, I expected to see black crepe on
half the doors in town."

"And did you?"

"No." Stan ton smiled in amusement, the mustache
that was as bristly as his eyebrows twitching like something alive. "But you should have seen all the wistful faces at the first dance the Drummonds attended after their honeymoon."

Cyrus returned his gaze to the front of the room and
singled out Drummond. Tall, athletic, handsome; a
blond man with a boyish face the ladies would certainly
find
attractive,
and muddy brown eyes set under unusu
ally straight brows. He didn't like the eyes, Cyrus
decided thoughtfully; there was a queer shine to them
when Drummond turned his head a certain way. After a
moment, he said, "Do you trust him, Noel?"

Stanton leaned back and crossed one leg over the
other.
"Depends.
In business, yes, if he's risking as
much as I am.
Politics—-maybe, but he's ambitious and I
have a feeling he doesn't care who he steps on. I'd lend
him money on his word, but I don't want him on any of
my horses. An automobile is more suited to him, I'd say;
he couldn't jab at its mouth if he was annoyed."

"Yes, I've seen him on a horse," Cyrus murmured.

Stanton looked at him inquiringly. "Why the sudden
interest in Drummond, Cy?"

"Idle curiosity."

In a dry tone his friend said, "You're never idle despite
your lazy air, and your curiosity always means something. Going into business with Drummond?"

"No."

"I see. She's very beautiful."

Cyrus looked at him. "She is," he agreed.

Stanton wasn't smiling. "And very young,
Cy
."

"If she isn't too young for Drummond, she certainly
isn't too young for me."

"He married her."

"The only wife I want," Cyrus drawled softly, "is someone else's."

After a long moment Stanton said, "When you say
something like that—and mean it, what's more—I could really dislike you."

With no change in his faintly sardonic expression,
Cyrus said, "Do you mean you don't want to take my
money tonight at the game?"

Stanton snorted and looked away half angrily. "No,
dammit, I don't mean that. But I'll tell you honestly—if
I didn't believe you drew the line at going after the wives
of your friends, I wouldn't let you into my house."

"I would never bed a man's wife in his own house, Noel," Cyrus said gently. "Even my manners aren't completely hopeless."

"Cy, for God's sake—"

Chuckling, Cyrus said, "Relax. Felice is quite happy in your marriage—and I do draw the line there." He gave his friend a somewhat dry look, but offered no
further remarks on the touchy subject.

Stanton wanted to remain angry. In all truth, he was often dismayed by his friend's unscrupulous pursuit of the women he wanted. It was a facet of Cyrus's personality that had always struck him as wrong somehow, not
morally, though it was that, of course, but simply
because it didn't quite seem to belong to the man he'd known for more than twenty years.

And he was so—peculiar about it. Almost philan
thropic, in fact, though he'd never used such reasoning as an excuse. Cyrus didn't offer either explanations or excuses, and tended to become mocking or blandly uncommunicative if one of his friends pressed him for either. But Stanton had watched, and his friend puzzled
him. On the face of it, most would say—and did—that
Cyrus was a strongly sensual man who preferred a
fleeting involvement with a succession of married
women simply to avoid the entanglements of drawn-out
affairs or the possibility of marriage for himself. There
was more to it, though, Stanton thought—if that was even a part of it.

Cyrus became involved only with unhappy married women, and Stanton was almost positive he'd never been wrong in his assessment. Whether through in
stinct, perception, or just observation, he consistently
chose women who seemed, afterward, to settle down in
their marriages with perfect contentment.

It was strange, to say the least.

"You're frowning, Noel."

He looked at his friend and wished he could remain angry. But he couldn't. "
Cy
, one of these days God or the devil's going to teach you a lesson, and I hope I'm around to see it."

"A lesson?"
Cyrus was smiling faintly.

"Yes. Either you'll pick the wrong lady, the wrong
husband, or the wrong time, and find yourself up to your
arrogant nose in trouble."

Cyrus laughed. "Consider me duly warned. Now, if
you'll excuse me, I think I'll leave." He nodded toward
the front of the room, where a discussion about property taxes was turning into a shouting match. "They're going
to be at it for quite some time, and I have an appoint
ment in the park."

"What's in the park?" Stanton asked blankly.

"Julia Drummond," Cyrus murmured, getting to his feet.

"Don't tell me you've persuaded her to meet you—
and in such a public place—already?"

"Unhappily, no.
I haven't seen her since the charity dance the other night. But she's in the park now, and I
want to see her while Drummond is otherwise occupied."

"You know she's in the park?
How?"

Cyrus looked down at him for a moment,
then
smiled
mockingly.
"How else?
The devil whispered in my ear, Noel. See you tonight." He strolled out of the room as
lazily as he'd entered, leaving his friend to sputter
wordlessly.

Once outside the building, Cyrus quickened his pace,
though it wasn't obvious since he merely took longer
strides. He knew Julia was in the park, knew it without question, and if he did in fact owe his thanks for the knowledge to the devil, then so be it. It certainly wasn't
the first time he'd known something with no rational way
to explain it, and he'd gotten used to the odd sensation.

Today, at least, he was too eager to see Julia to care how he knew where she was. He'd made up his mind at the dance to be patient, but hadn't expected to not even see her in the days since. It had proved to be a novel frustration he didn't like at all. As far as he knew, she hadn't ventured outside the Drummond house. He had
seen her sister the following evening at a large party, and had overheard her telling an older woman Julia was a bit
under the weather.

The older woman, obviously an acquaintance, had asked in a very discreet way if the "illness" was of the nine-month variety, and Lissa had replied with refresh
ing bluntness that, no, Julia wasn't pregnant.

Cyrus had been glad to hear it, though he was ruefully
aware even her pregnancy wouldn't have stopped him. He felt a curious urgency when he thought of Julia, and the sensation had been growing steadily. He'd become
aware of it the night of the dance, later when he was
home, an edgy feeling of restless disquiet that was
unfamiliar to him and not a little unnerving because he
didn't understand the cause of it. And if the disturbing sensation wasn't enough, another puzzling thing had
begun that night. Even though he tended to sleep
soundly, that night he had awakened often from troubled
dreams he couldn't remember; each time, in the first
fleeting moments after waking, he'd felt a ghostly sense
of pain, terrible pain, that vanished when his eyes
opened.

For the next two nights the same thing had happened, though the sensation of pain had gradually faded. He'd always been prone to odd whims and
notions,
most of
which turned out to be accurate and positive no matter how absurd they'd seemed at first, but this was some
thing else, something new. It disturbed him. Once
again, however, he pushed the uneasy thoughts away as
he reached the park and saw Julia.

She was sitting on a bench just off the sidewalk, smiling a little as she watched her sister and several other young people attempt to get a kite airborne. Cyrus slowed his pace as he approached her, taking the
opportunity to look at her without her awareness. Today, she was dressed in the Gibson-girl style just coming into
fashion: a dark, tailored skirt belted tightly at her tiny waist, a long-sleeved, high-necked white blouse with a scarf tied at the throat, and a small, neat hat.

Cyrus frowned slightly as he studied her very erect posture. He was no stranger to ladies' lingerie, and disliked the current version of the corset, which was
very long with steel or whalebone strips and had to be,
he thought, one of the worst instruments of torture
fashion had ever imposed upon women. The style
pushed the bosom forward and the hips backward in exaggerated curves, making walking, standing, or sitting
hideously uncomfortable, and cinched at the waist so
tightly that normal breathing was impossible. "Ladylike" swooning was a publicly accepted result of the unnatural
constriction, but Cyrus agreed with the opinions of
doctors who stated forcefully and with considerable heat that it was physically dangerous and ought to be banned.