Chapter 8
Eight
Molly couldn’t rid herself of the feeling that she was Alice in Wonderland, or Dorothy in Oz.
The house had grown increasingly familiar over the last two days—the beautifully comfortable living room, the formal dining room, the kitchen, the neat and uninspiring little office under the stairs where Patrick did his accounts and hid from his wife.
But upstairs was a different matter. Patrick’s closed door was an enticing Pandora’s box, but even Molly’s courage had limits. She could explore it later, when she was sure he was nowhere around. Perhaps even tonight, while he was out picking up the mysterious Aunt Ermy from the train station.
She needed to see if she could find something to jog her memory. A hint, a clue, some tiny something to jar her stubborn mind. The longer it remained blank the more frustrated she grew.
She wasn’t sure she really was in any kind of danger. Even though she’d been involved in a murder, no one had seemed interested in harming her now. So far, no one had seemed particularly interested in getting within touching distance of her.
But Patrick had touched. Unwillingly, almost as if he couldn’t help himself. And she knew he wanted to touch her again. Almost as much as she wanted him to touch her.
Aunt Ermy’s room was a jumble of clutter.
Little ornaments jostled each other for space on her mantelpiece, her cherry wood dressers, her Queen Anne secretary.
Every spare inch in the room was filled with an artifact of some sort, from exquisite pieces to the merely shoddy.
Dresden ballerinas danced with plastic penguins, there were plump, overstuffed pillows everywhere, and the room felt claustrophobic.
She shut the door behind her, unable to rid herself of the notion that she didn’t have very much in common with Aunt Ermy.
Uncle Willy’s room was exactly the opposite—practically devoid of personal clutter.
That was an empty vodka bottle in his wastepaper basket, and the clothes he wore yesterday were neatly folded and placed on a Windsor chair.
The atmosphere of the room was stale and tired, rather like Uncle Willy himself, and she left just as quickly.
The attics lay beyond the little turn in the hallway, down two steps and past the linen closet and the guest bathroom.
She turned the doorknob, not without a small shiver of apprehension.
Since this morning she distrusted being alone.
It seemed to her as if there were eyes everywhere, watching her, threatening her.
“This is ridiculous,” she muttered out loud, stepping into the room and switching on the light.
Mrs. Morse hadn’t exaggerated when she said the attics were filled with junk. Trunks upon trunks upon trunks, ancient newspapers and magazines tied in neat little bundles, old pieces of riding tack, skis, tennis rackets needing restringing, boxes and boxes and boxes. And her furniture.
She recognized it with a swift feeling of relief and love, rather like seeing an old friend, and she moved toward it in a daze, running her hand over the warm glow of the cherry bedstead, the delicate dressing table, the blanket chest that somehow seemed to fit with the various periods of the other pieces.
She was going to have it back, she promised herself.
As soon as she could have that hideous modern stuff removed and carted off to the dump, she’d have her own beloved pieces back in there.
She went over to the most readily available boxes, hoping that something else might jog her memory.
But nothing else tripped that frustrating, mysterious little mechanism in her brain.
The prom dress that hung forlornly must have been hers, yet she remembered no magic, breathless moments, no starry-eyed excitement connected with it.
It was simply a pretty dress, worn by a girl she didn’t know, and she wondered vaguely where her wedding dress was.
And whether it would bring her any greater recognition.
She lost track of time, poking and prying and trying to force some shred of memory.
Hours might have passed. She made a mental note of all the furniture she knew belonged in her room, and lost herself in schemes on how best to arrange it.
When she finally left the room and switched the light off behind her, the hallway was dark.
She could hear a car driving away from the house, and she hurried to look out her bedroom window.
It was the fairly new Mercedes that she knew belonged to Patrick, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
She would have time now to snoop through his room.
There was no other word for it—she needed to discover the secrets he kept from his unwanted wife.
Any clue to the impasse they were currently in was worth prying for, even if her methods were less than honorable.
She had to find out more about him if she was ever going to remember all she had lost. And why she had married him in the first place?
And whether she had any reason to fear him.
She still wasn’t quite sure why she was afraid of him. He certainly didn’t seem the sort of man to be abusive. There was anger, deep inside him, and a lot of that anger was directed at her. But she still couldn’t believe he’d deliberately want to injure her.
Or could she believe it? Was she a fool to trust her instincts when she had no memory to back them up? Why couldn’t Patrick have bashed old Ben on the head and set the barn fire? Insurance money could be a very strong motive.
Maybe he’d paid George Andrews to lure her away and kill her. Maybe he’d tried to kill her himself.
Maybe, maybe, maybe. There were times when she thought she’d go crazy if she didn’t start to find some answers to the questions that plagued her.
Including the most basic. Was her husband a dangerous enemy or a disinterested bystander? Or someone who cared more than he wanted to?
She pulled the thick cotton sweater she’d bought him out of her drawer and tucked it under her arm before attempting her final excursion.
If she happened to run into Mrs. Morse or Uncle Willy at least she would have an excuse.
Though why she should need an excuse to enter her husband’s bedroom was beyond her comprehension. She simply knew it to be the truth.
She moved silently down the hall and opened Patrick’s door with all the stealth of a master criminal. Not a sound emanated from the upstairs hall. For all anyone would know she was sound asleep in the elegant nightmare called her room. She slipped inside and shut the door.
She hadn’t looked very carefully when she had explored the first day, simply noticing the air of unfrilly masculinity before she’d shut the door again. But now it had taken on an entirely new dimension. It belonged to Patrick, the enigma, and as such was endlessly fascinating.
His bed was high and wide, at least three and a half feet off the floor, the kind of bed where babies are born and old people die.
The kind of bed to found a dynasty in, if one was so inclined.
She ran a hand over the beautiful quilt, and wondered whether she had shared any unforgettable moments in this enticing bed.
If so, she had obviously forgotten them.
She could imagine Patrick’s long, lean body, tossing and turning in so large a bed, and she felt a queer little twinge in her stomach. Of longing? Or nervousness? Or both? She couldn’t truthfully answer.
She placed the sweater on the bed with great care, then moved to the dresser, noting the silver-backed combs with his initials engraved on them, the loose change lying around. The photograph of a young girl standing in a field, her head thrown back, laughing from sheer joy.
Molly’s hand was trembling as she reached out and took the picture. She knew that face, that moment. It was a picture of her, not that old, and she could almost remember, almost grasp...
“What the hell are you doing in here?” His voice was rough, shocking, sending whatever she was about to remember flying into a million pieces. She stared at him numbly.
He shut the door behind him and moved closer. He’d unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it free from his jeans, obviously on the way to a shower, and it was all she could do to keep her eyes away from his chest.
She had to have seen men’s chests before.
She had to have seen this particular one before, and she was being an utter fool to stand there, speechless.
So he was tanned, even at the end of winter.
So he was lean, and strong, with a triangle of hair that arrowed down toward his jeans.
So it was a very nice chest indeed. There was still no need for her to suddenly find herself unable to breathe.
He moved closer, and there was just the hint of a threat in his movements, and a sinuous grace that made her look around helplessly for means to escape.
“What are you doing with a picture of me on your dresser?” she countered, trying to divert him from whatever he had in mind.
“It’s not you,” he said flatly. “It’s a girl I once knew, but she’s been gone for years.
Leaving you in her place.” His voice was contemptuous as he surveyed her, and then he shrugged, never slowing his determined progress toward her as she stood guiltily in the corner of his bedroom.
“Call it an old weakness,” he added slowly.
He stopped, directly in front of her, so close she could feel his body heat, so close she could see the tiny fan of lines around his stormy blue eyes.
Her reaction made no sense to her. She wanted to run away, and she wanted to touch him.
She wanted to reach out and run her hand down that lean, muscled chest, but something, some innate wisdom, stopped her.
Despite the fact that she must have done that, and much more, in the past, she knew she shouldn’t do it now.
No matter how much she wanted to feel the warmth of his skin beneath her hand.