Velvet Lightning (11 page)

And Catherine, listening with a hunger she hoped didn’t show on her face, realized that for the first time he was giving of himself. Not passion or desire or gentleness, but himself. He was allowing her to see and understand the life that had shaped the man he had become. She almost held her breath for fear that he would realize what he was doing, and stop.

But then it hit her with the force of a blow. He knew. He was sharing himself quite deliberately.

When his voice died finally into silence, she opened her eyes slowly and looked up at him. His face was grave, eyes direct and steady. He had opened himself up for her, and it hurt her unbearably that she couldn’t do the same. Huskily she said, “I have to leave now.”

Tyrone’s face tightened, and his eyes went bleak. “You’re a stubborn woman, Catherine.”

“I have to leave,” she repeated.

He rolled away from her abruptly, and she felt cold. Alone. She watched him dress, wondering in pain if she would ever see him like this again. Wondering if he would end it now after the slap she had dealt him. Her hands were folded tightly over her stomach, pressing hard as if to hold in feelings that were wild to escape.

Then he stepped to the side of the bed and bent to kiss her with a possession she could feel branding her. Hands braced on either side of her, he said, “My name, Catherine.”

Through a tight, aching throat, she murmured, “Tyrone.”

He half nodded, expecting it. His face was expressionless. “One of these days you’re going to call me Marc. And then I’m going to ask you to marry me—again.”

She felt a jolt that was pleasure and pain combined, hot and sweet and tormenting. He wasn’t going to end it; he wasn’t going to leave her.

“One of these days. And soon, Catherine,” he said flatly, then straightened, turned, and left the cottage.

Long minutes passed before Catherine could force herself to leave the bed. She picked up the sheets from the floor but left them on the bed, ready for next time. Slowly she began dressing. The shift first, and the memory of how he had gazed at her. The dress, remembering how he had slowly unbuttoned it. Stockings and shoes, and the ghostly touch of his hands on her legs.

She collected the pins from the floor, then got the hairbrush and sat on the bed restoring order to her hair. She braided it, pinned it in place. She just sat there for a while, one hand gripping the brass footrail, staring at the bed they shared.

How much longer could she risk this? It had seemed so simple at first. He was seldom on the island and willing to be careful, to keep these meetings secret. But now . . . Her common sense told her to end it quickly, to regain control of her life, but she needed him so badly, needed
this
so much.

If only he would keep to his usual habit and leave in a few days! Everything would be all right. She would be alone again, and able to cope. But he wouldn’t. He would stay this time, and every day he remained would be an added strain, a wearing combination of worry, pleasure, and fear.

Catherine could feel the tension inside herself and knew it had never been so great. Between his changed attitude and her own realization of being in love with him, she had seen how desperately important her time with him was. And how agonized she was at the threat of losing it.

But it’s no threat. It will happen. The only question is .. . when.

She got to her feet slowly and paused in the room long enough to straighten the quilt on the bed. She would be willing to make a bed for Tyrone anywhere, she realized. On his ship, in New York, at the big, silent house here on the island that the townspeople had been politely but firmly discouraged from visiting. And she wouldn’t have asked for marriage even if she could have. Just him. Just him, for as long as possible.

Not long.

Catherine left the cottage, conscious suddenly of a great weariness. It was the tension, she knew. She had held herself guardedly for so long now, fought her own nature to project a cold, forbidding surface, and she was very tired.

She walked through the woods, emerging at the road around the bend from her father’s house. She paused there, looking and listening, then slipped quickly across the road. She angled across Dr. Scott’s drive and onto her father’s property, approaching the house through the overgrown garden. Flowers were scarce this time of year, but Catherine picked a few, breaking the stems because she didn’t have her shears.

She gathered the threads of her emotional control carefully and held them tight, composed her features, willed the weariness away. Then, carrying the flowers, she strolled around toward the front of the house. Her father was standing near the door, frowning down the walkway at the opened gate of their white picket fence.

“Hello, Father.”

He turned and stared at her. “That Tommy Jenkins has been swinging on the gate,” he said irritably, “and now he’s bent the hinge.”

Concentrating, trying to keep her mind calm and to avoid painful thoughts, Catherine only half heard him. “Boys are like that,” she said.

“Where have you been?” Lucas asked, still irritable.

“Just walking.”

“You’re doing a lot of that these days.”

Catherine looked at him. “Did you want me for something?” she asked calmly.

He shrugged. “No, no. But you might take better care of me, you know. I’ve caught a chill somewhere.”

As far as she could see, he looked fine. But she said, “Then you should be in bed, Father. Why don’t you go now, and—”

“I want my dinner,” he said petulantly.

“All right. I’ll bring it to you in bed.” She took his arm gently and turned him toward the house.

“You’ll put the bell by my bed? In case I need you?”

“Yes, Father.”

“And hot bricks for my feet? I’m getting dreadfully cold, Catherine.”

“I’ll see to it, Father. You'll be fine.”

But he wasn’t. By midnight he was feverish, restless, complaining of being too hot, too cold, or being thirsty. His pulse was rapid, and he was querulous. The little crystal bell on his nightstand rang often as he summoned her to replace the warmed bricks, straighten his bedclothes, fetch him more cool water, bathe his hot brow.

In the lonely hours of darkness, Catherine went up and down the stairs, fetching and carrying patiently. She remained calm when he swore at her in irritation, when he threw the water glass across the room, when he wept at his own weakness.

Just after dawn, strained and exhausted, she slipped from the house and made her way through the garden to Dr. Scott’s front door.

Sometime later, as he walked beside her downstairs after leaving her father’s room, the doctor said reassuringly, “It’s a bad cold, Miss Catherine. Has he been out in the night air? You know how it affects him.”

“I don’t think so. The other night after Mrs. Symington’s party, of course, but it was a warm, dry night.

“Mmm. Well, he caught a chill somewhere. At any rate, his fever's down a bit now; the worst should be over.” He eyed her in concern. “He isn’t a good patient. You must have had a bad night with him.”

“Bad enough,” she said briefly.

“You're worn out. I can ask one of the women in town—”

“No.” She managed a smile. “No, thank you. I’ll take care of him.”

“See that you get some rest,” he told her sternly. “Don’t run up and down these stairs just because he wants his pillow turned. I don’t want you as my next patient. Understood?”

“Yes. All right.”

“And eat something,” Dr. Scott ordered.

She smiled again. “I will. Thank you for coming.”

“I’ll stop by later in the day.”

When he had gone, Catherine closed the door and leaned back against it. God, she was tired. She pushed herself away from the door and went slowly upstairs, holding on the railing with one hand. At her father’s bedroom door she stood and listened for a moment, watching the solid shape under the covers that was blessedly still, hearing a faint snore.

With luck he would sleep a few hours. Catherine knew from experience that her father was indeed a bad patient, concerned only with his own discomforts and swelling those all out of proportion. She would get very little rest until he was back on his feet.

She hesitated, feeling her stomach complain of hunger, then went along to her own bedroom. Food could wait; she didn’t know when she would get another chance to sleep. She loosened her dress and pulled off her shoes, then lay down on her bed. Muscles that had been taut with strain eased; her aching head was soothed by the softness of the pillow. She felt herself grow limp, felt everything slip away from her.

The bell woke her an hour later.

That day and the next became a test of Catherine’s endurance. She fetched and carried, sat with her father when he demanded it, prepared soup and hot tea, carried trays up and down the stairs. She read to him, listened to him talk ramblingly about years gone by.

She slept when she could, an hour here, an hour there snatched when her father was napping. She tried not to let herself think of Tyrone, but was conscious of a desire to be held in strong arms, to go limp and content—even if the contentment was brief. She couldn’t help but wonder if he had gone to the cottage and waited for her, if he knew that her father was ill, knew that she wouldn’t be able to meet him. She didn't dare try to send him a message.

She needed him, and it frightened her.

“Catherine . .

“Yes, Father?” She was sitting by his bed on the second day, watching his hands pull fretfully at the covers.

“I love your mother.”

“I know.”

“But did she know?”

“I’m sure she did.”

His eyes filled with tears and his voice dropped to a low, pathetic mutter. “I loved her. I did, really. But I was a fool. There was a time, when you were just a child . . . She’d gotten angry at me, and she took you and went back to her family.”

“Yes. You told me, Father.” And he had, months ago, when a similar illness had made him feel guilty and maudlin. He had confessed his unfaithfulness to her mother with a whore he had picked up on the street, had punished both himself and her with the sordid details. Sickened, she had listened with outward composure, then tried to forget what he had told her, although his confession had finally explained the violent arguments she remembered overhearing when she was no more than ten.

“Did I?” he asked vaguely, then sniffed miserably. “I told her too. Begged her forgiveness. Then I got sick and she seemed to forgive me.’’

“She did, Father,” Catherine said in a quiet voice.

“She was going to have another baby after that, but it died before it could be born. And then there was another, dead even before she knew it was inside her.”

Catherine half closed her eyes. “Father—”

“We just stopped trying then.”

Catherine remembered. She remembered her mother’s weakness after the miscarriage. Remembered her mother's tears. Remembered her parents occupying separate bedrooms after that.

“I killed her,” Lucas said starkly.

“She got sick, Father. You couldn’t have stopped it.”

He laughed, a curious sound that held a thread of horror. “No, no, you don’t understand.
I killed her
. She knew. She knew I killed her. She haunts me, Catherine.”

“Father, please. You have to rest. Close your eyes and try to sleep.”

“She haunts me,” he whispered, but obediently closed his eyes.

Catherine watched him silently. It was a good hour before she was certain he was asleep. When she was sure, she silently left his bedside and went away to snatch sleep for herself, too tired even to think.

Dr. Scott came to visit the following day, and Catherine left him upstairs alone with her father. He had told her that he’d earlier spread the word in town that Lucas was mildly infectious, discouraging visitors; she was grateful for that. She stood downstairs now, looking around, thinking vaguely of furniture that needed dusting, or other things needing to be done.

When someone knocked at the front door, she went to answer the summons without thought. But she went first hot and then cold when she saw who was standing on the doorstep.

Tyrone.

His eyes narrowed quickly, but his voice was calm and polite when he spoke. “Mr. Abernathy had some groceries ready to send you, so I offered to deliver them.” He held a large box, and lifted it slightly to emphasize this sensible reason for his forbidden visit. “Just tell me where to put them.”

Catherine hesitated, then stepped back to allow him inside. “Kind of you to trouble yourself,” she said in a voice she tried hard to keep steady and without emotion. “If you’d take them into the kitchen, please?”

“Certainly.” He had been there before, and knew the way.

She followed, stopping to wait for him outside her father’s study door. Her throat felt tight, her body stiff and sore. She had left the front door partly open.

He returned to stand before her. And he reached out suddenly to touch her cheek, his voice dropping to a low, husky note.

“You look so tired, Catherine.”

6

C
atherine felt herself quiver, and tried to keep the reaction from showing on her face. “Father’s better. He should be up and about by tomorrow.” She could see the stairs from here, and kept a wary eye out for Dr. Scott’s return.