Fire's Lady Page 13

  His mask had slipped and she saw the vulnerable man behind it and her fear vanished. Without a word she handed the brush to him then resumed her pose at the window. A long silence filled the room as he looked at her with those remarkable lion's eyes.

  "Thank you," he said gruffly.

  "You're welcome," she said.

  He began to paint.

  #

  "I will give him an hour," said Dayla as Matthew walked with her through the garden of wild daisies and lilies of the valley. "No more."

  Matthew, who was carrying a glass of whiskey, took her arm to guide her around a rabbit hole. "I am surprised you would leave them alone for that long."

  Dayla turned her dark eyes upon him. "She is a good woman," she said softly. "Do you think so?"

  The memory of Alexandra crying in his arms the night before was still strong within him. "I don't know."

  "Her eyes," said Dayla. "It is all in her eyes... sadness... aloneness. Do you not see it?"

  Oh, he saw it. He saw all of that and so much more when he looked at Alexandra Glenn that it terrified him. Doors he'd believed forever locked behind him were suddenly forced open and a part of him longed to slam them shut and keep the darkness inside his heart.

  "There is still Stephen," he managed after a moment. "He is somehow involved in this."

  Dayla shot him a sidelong glance. "They are not lovers."

  "How in hell would you know that?"

  "I watch," she said, "and I listen. The man-woman magic is not there for them."

  So Alexandra had been telling the truth, after all. He took another sip of whiskey to hide the smile on his face.

  "She is for you."

  He nearly choked on his whiskey. "You've lost your mind."

  "No," she said, stopping near the azalea bushes and taking his hand, "but you are losing your heart."

  "I can't," he said quietly. "That's the one thing I cannot do."

  "Too late," said Dayla, giving him a hug. "It is already a long time too late."

  #

  From the window in Andrew's studio, Alexandra saw the whole exchange. Her breath caught when the woman took McKenna's hand and her heart ached when he drew Dayla close to him in a hug. Alexandra knew that hug; she had felt it just last night. She had known the solid warmth of his chest and the strength of his arms as they wrapped themselves around her. The faint scent of whiskey and soap lingered in her senses.

  In the garden below, the two lovers drew apart then went their separate ways. Could Stephen be right, she wondered. Was there a collaboration of some sort going on beneath the roof at Sea View? Were Dayla and Matthew somehow conspiring against the Lowells?

  "Straighten up, girl," snapped Andrew. "I can't sketch you if you slouch like a scullery maid."

  "No more," she said, breaking the pose. "Dayla is on her way upstairs."

  "The hour is over?" he asked.

  "Yes," she said. "The hour is over."

  As Dayla glided into the room, all diaphanous white dress and sweet smile, Alexandra excused herself and fled from the studio. Never again, she swore as she ran across the yard toward the carriage house. Never again would she let Matthew McKenna get the better of her.

  Whatever she felt for him, it would stay her secret.

  #

  "Poor little chit," said Andrew as he and Dayla watched Alexandra disappear into the carriage house. "She saw you and Matthew in the garden."

  Dayla's head tilted to the left as it always did when she was interested in something. "We were talking," she said, "nothing more. He speaks of her."

  Andrew smiled and patted her cheek. "I know, Dayla. I saw you too. But to her young eyes it was a betrayal."

  "It is the same for him," she said, stroking his hair with her gentle, miraculous fingers. "The guilt he carries destroys him a little more each day."

  "Would it help if I had Janine pour all the whiskey and vodka and rum in the house into the ocean?"

  "He would buy more and hide it better. The solution must come from Matthew or there is no solution at all."

  Suddenly exhaustion found Andrew and took him captive. "I am tired," he managed. "Can you—"

  "I'll see you back into bed," said his woman. "Lean on me."

  He did.

  Just as he had done every day of his life since she found him.

  #

  Stephen returned home in the late afternoon, acting spry and cocky, and Alexandra couldn't help laughing at his outrageous stories about Riverhead's country lawyers and their bumbling ways.

  Janine must be wrong, she thought after he left her in the attic and headed toward the main house. Stephen seemed as upright and moral as the day was long. She simply couldn't imagine him cuckolding another man.

  An image of Matthew came to mind and she struggled to push it aside. With McKenna anything was possible.

  She'd spent her time following the modeling session separating the different art works into groups according to medium. Legend had it Andrew Lowell was as prolific a painter as he was profligate a man, and looking at the hundreds of paintings arranged before her, she shuddered at the implication.

  What must it be like for him now, a man who prided himself on delights of the flesh, to be houseridden, struggling to garner enough energy to do a simple sketch?

  From the garden below came the roar of male voices; McKenna's furious bass overwhelmed Stephen's angry tenor. She stood near the window, shielded by a yellowed lace curtain, trying to understand their words yet almost afraid of what she might hear.

  Andrew's name floated up to her quite clearly as did talk of medicine and paintings. Once she thought she heard Stephen mention her own name but McKenna's bellow drowned out everything else.

  Dayla floated out from the main house, a dark vision in white, and soon after Alexandra saw the woman return inside with McKenna in tow.

  She turned from the window and it was a long while before she continued with her work.

  #

  Stephen was ebullient and entertaining at dinner, but there was an almost indefinable edge to his stories that made Alexandra uncomfortable. As for Matthew, he had started the meal with them but soon spent most of his time pacing between the dining room and the library in search of the perfect glass of whiskey.

  Only when talk turned to the shots fired the previous night on the beach did the two men actually engage in conversation and then it seemed to Alexandra that gunfire was infinitely preferable to the verbal poison darts they hurled at one another.

  "Are you insane, man?" Stephen said over after-dinner coffee. "How could you let Alexandra walk the beach with that damn gypsy camp so close by?"

  Matthew glared at Stephen, his blue-green eyes glittering dangerously. "Miss Glenn is a grown woman. It's not up to me to tell her where she can and can't walk."

  Alexandra looked down at her dessert pastry recalling the violent way McKenna had railed at her about safety.

  "Common courtesy." Stephen shot him a look. "Or is that something you have yet to learn?"

  Sit down, Matthew, she thought as he sprang to his feet. Don't let Stephen provoke you this way.

  "We can settle this outside," he said, his words clipped and deadly. "Or aren't you man enough to fight, Lowell?"

  Involuntarily Alexandra reached out and touched McKenna's sleeve. His head swiveled in her direction and she forced herself to meet his eyes.

  "Don't," she said quietly, withdrawing her hand and placing it on her lap. "You've been drinking. You're exaggerating its importance."

  "Listen to your new advocate," Stephen said, his voice mocking, "for it will not be long before she knows you for what you are."

  Matthew leaned across the huge dining room table and grabbed Stephen by his perfectly tailored lapels. "Shut up," he growled, "before I shove your teeth down your throat."

  "Matthew!" Alexandra leaped to her feet and grabbed his arm. "This is insane! Stop this instant."

  "I can fight my own battles, Alexandra," said Stephen. "This Neand
erthal will tire of his games soon enough."

  Matthew dropped Stephen into his seat as if he were a sack of rags. "I tired of you months ago," he said through gritted teeth. "The wonder is that you're still around."

  "The wonder, my dear boy, is that you're still around," Stephen countered. "Perhaps it is a sign of the extent of my uncle's infirmity that he tolerates the presence of a drunken murderer in his house."

  Alexandra's blood chilled and she began to tremble. Neither man noticed as she stood up and made for the door.

  "You'll die by those words," Matthew swore. "By God, I'll see to it myself."

  "Such a temper," taunted Stephen. "One can only imagine how easy it was for you to lose control."

  Alexandra fled from the room and hurried through the hallway to the front door. Quickly she let herself out and, cursing her slim-fitting skirts, headed around the house toward the stairs that led down to the beach.

  Sunset was still some time away; the sky was bathed in shades of orange and red and yellow. The smooth surface of the normally turbulent Atlantic picked up those colors and threw them back at the heavens, multiplied tenfold. At any other time she would long to capture this beauty with her paints but not now. Now she burned with anger and trembled with fear and churned with a thousand emotions in between. Murderer! What on earth had Stephen meant by that? She'd seen McKenna's temper firsthand but never had she imagined that that he could be capable of that ultimate crime.

  In her mind's eyes she saw him moving silently from dining room to library, downing whiskey after whiskey yet growing sharper still. The lines of his long, lean torso, the way the lamplight gleamed off his sun-bleached hair, the simplicity of the black trousers and white cambric shirt he wore most often—it was all burned into her memory indelibly as a tattoo.

  You don't know anything about him. All you know is what you see. How many times growing up had she waded into a clear and placid lake only to discover the bottom dropping away beneath her feet?

  That was how it seemed with Matthew McKenna. In just a few days he had revealed himself as alternately being gruff then kind, rude then considerate, violent yet capable of tenderness that made her heart melt when she looked at him.

  Would Andrew Lowell suffer a fool? She thought not. Stephen must be exaggerating for she could not imagine a man as brilliant and demanding as the great artist allowing a murderer domicile under his own roof. Servants knew everything and Janine had made it clear that Matthew McKenna was the salt of the earth and it was Stephen Lowell who was something decidedly less.

  It was all so terribly confusing. Alexandra continued to walk along the shore, picking up shells here and there, and then tossing them back into the surf. Sand crabs scattered to avoid her bootheels as she passed and she carefully eluded an unpleasant looking creature she assumed was a Portuguese man-of-war.

  As she continued walking the beach narrowed and the houses on the dunes grew further apart. Once she stopped and turned around to find Sea View fading in the distance. Good, she thought. The last thing she wanted was to be embroiled in the internecine war going on back at the house.

  It was difficult enough to be so far from home. To become ensnared in an ugly conflict would make it unbearable.

  How complicated her life had become since leaving Provence. Even the primal pleasure she had once received from her drawing was tangled up in new expectations, new goals. Her sketches now seemed amateurish and clumsy compared to the examples of Andrew's earlier works. One of his simple pencil sketches contained more power and passion than her finest oil painting.

  Back at Sea View Stephen showered her with attention and flattery and yet she found it impossible to summon up even the slightest spark of romantic interest.

  Yet, Matthew, whose very presence caused her blood to run quick and hot, treated her as if she were the enemy in a very private conflict.

  The sun began its descent into the sea. The gathering darkness was streaked with magenta and indigo and a deep rose-pink. A few hundred feet ahead, flickering atop a dune, orange flames from a campfire caught her attention and drew her across the beach toward its fiery glow.

  A rush of nostalgia flooded over her as she recognized the distinctive tents of a gypsy caravan and the smell of chicken roasting over the fire. Back in France Esme had taught her many things: how to use herbs and flowers, roots and berries to cure all manner of ills or keep an unwanted babe from being conceived. Even a concept as basic as privacy took on a different aspect when seen through the eyes of one born to the Rom as Esme had been. The gypsies she'd known believed privacy to be a gift one person gave to another and it extended from the boundaries of one's tent to the way one lived one's life.

  Watching these gypsies from her hiding spot behind an outgrowth of dune grass was a violation of all her foster mother had taught her. Two dark-haired children played in front of the brightly painted wagon and Alexandra was about to walk over and introduce herself when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  She wasn't surprised to see it was Matthew McKenna.

  "They don't welcome outsiders, Alexandra," he said, "no matter how beautiful the outsider might be."

  "I'm not an outsider," she said, trying to mask the rush of pleasure his compliment—no matter how indirect—gave her. "My mother was a gypsy."

  "You don't belong here," he persisted. "Come back to the house."

  "You're wrong," she said, moving away from here toward the gypsy camp. "I belong here more than I belong back at Sea View. This, at least, I understand."

  The faint sound of violins mingled with the crackling of the camp fire brought quick tears to her eyes.

  "Is this all I do for you?" Matthew asked, touching her cheek. "Make you cry?"

  "You flatter yourself. It's the music and nothing more."

  But that wasn't true, not entirely. The music was but a catalyst calling forth homesickness so deep she found it difficult to draw breath.

  "Tell me what you're thinking, Alex. It may help to speak of it."

  She thought of the fleet-footed girls who could dance on moonbeams and the men who leaped like unbroken colts. McKenna was of this earth, with both feet planted firmly in the soil. How could she explain to him how it felt to sway with the fire and never get burned?

  "The countryside was magic," she said, thinking back to those golden meadows and those golden days safe and secure in the care of Esme and Paul Charbonne. "Each summer the gypsies returned to Provence and Esme would take me with her to live with her family."

  McKenna looked shocked. "You lived with gypsies?"

  "You needn't seem so surprised," Alexandra said. "I found greater love and acceptance there than I have found any place else." She could still remember the warm and fragrant chunks of fresh bread each morning and the aroma of coffee brewed in a bright red enamel pot. More than anything else, however, she remembered the joy she'd felt in a world that throbbed with the rhythm of life, unfettered by walls and boundaries created by man to keep other men away.

  McKenna watched her intently, his expression betraying nothing at all. "I was taught that gypsies were thieves and witches," he said. "Mothers kept their children close to the breast when a caravan came into town."

  "Their ways are different, not evil."

  He took her hand in his and traced an outline in her palm. "What do you see, gypsy girl?" he murmured softly. "Will you go home one day?"

  Alexandra pulled away for his touch burned hotter than the gypsy campfire. "My fortune seems to not be my own."

  He extended his right hand toward her. "Tell me mine then."

  "I have not the gift."

  "You do," he said. "You can see what is happening, can you not?" He stepped forward, looming large and threatening in the half-light of dusk.

  She took a step backward but bumped into a tall blade of dune grass. "Perhaps we should go back to the house after all."

  "I don't think so." He advanced closer.

  "Mr. McKenna—"

  "Matthew."

&nbs
p; "Mr. McKenna, please don't do this."

  He was so close she could feel the warmth of his breath against her cheek. "I haven't done anything yet, Alexandra, but I am sure you need not be a fortune teller to predict the inevitable."

  Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment as she tried to gather her wits about her. "You've been drinking. You don't know what you're doing."

  "I've been drinking," he admitted, "but I damn well know exactly what I'm doing."

  She gasped as he plunged his hands into her black mass of curls and tilted her head back until her eyes met his.

  "I'm going to kiss you, Alexandra," he said, moving his mouth closer to hers. "Do you understand that?"

  "Yes," she whispered. "Yes, I do."

  Chapter Ten

  Matthew's mouth found hers and in that instant her arms wound around his neck as he pulled her into an embrace. His lips were insistent, moving against hers in a deliberate rocking motion that sent waves of sensation careening through her body.

  He held her by the waist, his large hands nearly spanning the circumference, and she couldn't remember a time when she felt more delicate, more feminine.

  How had such pleasure escaped her all these years, she wondered as his tongue lightly traced the outline of her mouth. How could feelings so magnificent have slipped by unnoticed? She felt as if she'd been but half-alive, awakened as in a fairy tale by the kiss of the handsome prince.

  Only this wasn't a fairy tale and Matthew McKenna was far more dangerous than a storybook hero would dare to be.

  "Open your mouth for me." His breath was hot and moist against her skin and she shivered with voluptuous pleasure at his words.

  Timidly she parted her lips, gasping as his silken tongue plunged into the cavern of her mouth. The invasion was startling. She had never imagined the sweetness of a man's mouth nor the power inherent in a kiss.