Chapter Six #2
“Great. Would you put that damn thing down a minute?”
“Almost done.”
“You won’t be done until you keel over. Who’s going to see a few posies wilting all the way up here?”
“The Snyders will see them, their guests will see them.” She shook her head to clear a haze brought on by the heat.
“The photographer from New England Gardens will see them.” Lord, the bees were loud, she thought as the buzzing filled her head.
“And nothing’s going to wilt. I’m putting in pinks and campanula and some coreopsis, some lavender for scent and monarda for the hummingbirds.
” She pressed a hand to her head, ran it over her eyes.
“In September we’ll plant some bulbs. Dwarf irises and windflowers.
Some tuberoses and...” She staggered under a hot wave of dizziness.
Holt made the dash from shade to sun as the pick slid out of her hands.
When he grabbed her, she seemed to melt into his arms.
Cursing her helped relieve the fright as he carried her over and laid her down under the tree.
Her body was like hot wax he could all but pour onto the cool grass.
“That’s it.” He plunged his hand into the cooler then rubbed icy water over her face.
“You’re finished, do you understand? If I see a pick in your hands again, I’ll murder you. ”
“I’m all right.” Her voice was weak, but the irritation was clear enough. “Just a little too much sun.” The water on her face felt heavenly, even if his hands were a bit rough. She took the ginger ale from him and drank carefully.
“Too much sun,” he was ranting, “too much work. And not enough food or sleep from the look of you. You’re a mess, Suzanna, and I’m tired of it.”
“Thank you very much.” She pushed his hands away and leaned back against the tree. She needed a minute, she’d admit. But she didn’t need a lecture. “I should have taken a break,” she said in disgust. “I know better, but I’ve got things on my mind.”
“I don’t care what you’ve got on your mind.” God, she was white as a sheet. He wanted to hold her until the color came back into her cheeks, to stroke her hair until she was strong and rested again. But the concern came out in fury. “I’m taking you home and you’re going to bed.”
Steadier, she set the bottle aside. “I think you’re forgetting who works for whom.”
“When you pass out on me, I take over.”
“I didn’t pass out,” she said irritably. “I got dizzy. And nobody takes over for me, not now, not ever again. Stop splashing water in my face, you’re going to drown me.”
She was recovering fast enough, he thought, but it didn’t cool his temper. “You’re stubborn, hardheaded and just plain stupid.”
“Fine. If you’ve finished yelling at me, I’m going to take my lunch break.” She knew she had to eat. She didn’t mind being stubborn or hardheaded, but she did mind being stupid. Which, she thought as she snatched a sandwich out of the cooler, was exactly what she had been to skip breakfast.
“Maybe I haven’t finished yelling.”
She shrugged as she unwrapped the sandwich. “Then you can yell while I eat. Or you can stop wasting time and have some lunch.”
He considered dragging her to the truck. He liked the idea, but the benefits would only be short-term. Short of tying her up and locking her in a room, he couldn’t stop her from working herself into the ground.
At least she was eating, he reflected. And the color had seeped back into her cheeks. Maybe there was another tack to getting his way. Casually he took out a sandwich.
“I’ve been thinking about the emeralds.”
The change in topic and attitude surprised her. “Oh?”
“I read the transcript Max put together from the interview with Mrs. Tobias, the maid. And I listened to the tape.”
“What do you think?”
“I think she’s got a good memory and that she was impressed by Bianca.
From her viewpoint, the setup was that Bianca was unhappy in her marriage, devoted to her children and in love with my grandfather.
She and Fergus were already on shaky ground when they had the blowout over the dog.
We’ll figure that was the straw that broke it.
She decided to leave him, but she didn’t go that night. Why?”
“Even if she’d finally made the decision,” Suzanna said slowly, “there would have been arrangements to make. She’d have had to consider the children.
” This she understood all too well. “Where could she take them? How could she be certain she could provide for them? Even if the marriage was a disaster, she would have to plan carefully how to tell them she was taking them away from their father.”
“So when Fergus left for Boston after they fought, she started to work it out. We have to figure she went to my grandfather, because he ended up with the dog.”
“She loved him,” Suzanna murmured. “She would have gone to him first. And he loved her, so he would have wanted to go away with her and the children.”
“If we go with that, we take it to the next step. She went back to The Towers to pack, to get the kids together. But instead of meeting my grandfather and riding off into the sunset, she takes a jump out of the tower window. Why?”
“She was in turmoil.” With her eyes half closed, Suzanna stared into the sunlight.
“She was about to take a step that would end her marriage, separate her children from their father. Break her vows. It’s so difficult, so frightening.
Like dying. Maybe she thought she was a failure, and when her husband came home and she had to face him and herself, she couldn’t. ”
Holt ran a hand over her hair. “Is that what it was like for you?”
Her shoulders stiffened. “We’re talking about Bianca. And I don’t see what her reasons for killing herself have to do with the emeralds.”
Holt took his hand away. “First we decide why she hid them, then we go for where.”
Slowly she relaxed again. “Fergus gave them to her when their first son was born. Not their first child. A girl didn’t rate.
” She took another sip of her ginger ale and washed away some of her own bitterness.
“She would have resented that, I think. To be rewarded—like a prize mare—for producing an heir. But they were hers because the child was hers.”
Because her eyes were heavy, she let them drift closed. “Bax gave me diamonds when Alex was born. I didn’t feel guilty about selling them to start the business. Because they were mine. She might have felt the same way. The emeralds would have bought a new life for her, for the children.”
“Why did she hide them?”
“To make certain he didn’t find them if he stopped her from leaving. So that she knew she’d have something of her own.”
“Did you hide your diamonds, Suzanna?”
“I put them in Jenny’s diaper bag. The last place Baxter would look.” With a half laugh, she plucked at the grass. “That sounds so melodramatic.”
But he wasn’t smiling or sneering, she noted. He was frowning out at the dianthiums where the bees hovered and hummed. “It sounds damn smart to me. She spent a lot of time in the tower, right?”
“We’ve looked there.”
“We’ll look again and take her bedroom apart.”
“Lilah will love that.” Suzanna closed her eyes again. The food and the shade were making her sleepy. “It’s her bedroom now. And we’ve looked there, too.”
“I haven’t.”
“No.” She decided it wouldn’t hurt to stretch out while they finished talking it through. The grass was blissfully cool and soft. “If we found her journal, we’d know the answers. Mandy went through every book in the library, just in case it got mixed in like the purloined letter.”
He began to stroke her hair again. “We’ll take another look.”
“Mandy wouldn’t have missed anything. She’s too organized.”
“I’d rather check over old ground than depend on a séance.”
She made a sound that was half laugh and half sigh. “Aunt Coco’ll talk you into it.” Her voice grew heavy with fatigue. “We need to plant the pinks first.”
“Okay.” He’d moved his hands down and was gently massaging her shoulders.
“It’ll trail right over the rocks and down the bank. It doesn’t give up,” she murmured, and was asleep.
“You’re telling me.”
He left her there in the shade and walked back into the sunlight.
The grass was tickling her cheek when she woke. She’d rolled over onto her stomach and had slept like a stone. Groggy, she opened her eyes. She saw Holt sitting back against the tree, his legs crossed at the ankles. He was watching her as he brought a cigarette to his lips.
“I must have dozed off.”
“You could say that.”
“Sorry.” She pushed herself up on her elbow. “We were talking about the emeralds.”
He flicked the cigarette away. “We’ve talked enough for now.” In one swift move, he hooked his hands under her arms and pulled her against him. Before she was fully awake, she was in his lap and his mouth was on hers.
He’d watched her sleep. And as he had watched her sleep, the need to touch her had boiled inside him until his blood was like lava. She’d looked so perfect, the sleeping princess, creamy skin dappled by hazy shade, her cheek resting on her hand, her hand on the grass.
He’d wanted those soft, warm lips under his, to feel that long, fragile body molded to him, to hear that quick little catch in her breathing. So he took, feverishly.
Disarmed, disoriented, she struggled back.
Her blood had gone from slow and cool to rapid and hot.
Her body, relaxed by sleep, was now taut as a bow.
She dragged in a single ragged breath. All she could see was his face, his eyes dark and dangerous, his mouth hard and hungry.
Then all was a blur as his lips brushed down on hers again.
She let him take what he seemed to need to take so desperately. Under the shade of the beech she pressed against him, answering each demand. When the dizziness came again, she reveled in it. This was not a weakness she had to fight. It was one she had wanted to feel as long as she could remember.