A Season for Love (15 page)

Pieter did not appear for dinner that night, only his note of apology upon a filigreed silver tray. And, of course, the note was addressed to Drake, not Ronnie.

She watched as Drake's dark eyes scanned Pieter's flourished script quickly as they waited in the salon, and she did not avert her gaze when his eyes rose from the paper to her.

"It seems," he said laconically, absently folding the sheet of monogrammed note paper, "that your husband wishes a few days of rest. It's his suggestion that we spend the day in Charleston tomorrow."

Ronnie's fingers curled over the arm of her chair. She was sure Pieter was not issuing a suggestion but a command.

"Surely you've seen Charleston," she murmured.

He shrugged, tapping the note against a casually crossed knee. "Not much of it, really. I came here to see Pieter. I was a few days ahead of schedule, so . . ."

His sentence trailed away, but Ronnie knew the ending. Flushing unhappily, she lowered her eyes to the upholstery of her chair, where she watched a long glazed nail trace the pattern of the brocade material.

"I think we should go into Charleston," Drake said with a firm determination that made Ronnie's heart leap unexpectedly. His tone held an underlying menace. She was sure she was in for the third degree again, which Drake wouldn't administer in the house with the possibility of others listening in.

Stiffening, she answered indifferently. "If you wish." She resented him heartily. He must realize that if she protested, Pieter might become suspicious. Why the hell couldn't he do the gentlemanly thing and disappear into the blue—or at least think of sound reasons to reject his host's "suggestions" when he threw the two of them together?

"Yes"—he looked her squarely in the eye—"I do wish."

Henri appeared to announce dinner, and Drake rose mockingly, offering her his arm. Ronnie clenched her teeth as they entered the dining room together and sat down to their lone meal. Drake's conversation became impersonal and polite—the front he extended for Henri and Gretel as they entered and exited the room.

Ronnie knew his smooth mask would not slip, but she ate and spoke in stilted misery anyway. Each time she glanced his way she caught his dark eyes upon her, pensive and calculating. And she shivered with new apprehension of the morning to come.

Dave Quimby took them into Charleston Harbor on the boat at ten o'clock. Pieter kept a Ferrari parked in a private lot, and Ronnie suggested they pick up the car and head first for the old slave market.

Drake firmly shook his head. "I think we should start with a walk along the Battery. I want to talk to you."

Ronnie sighed with sheer exasperation, her gaze upon the shimmering harbor and the multitude of boats rocking lightly in their berths.

"Drake, you can talk to me until you're blue in the face! There is nothing that I can tell you."

"There's plenty that you can tell me," he insisted grimly, taking her elbow and starting briskly down the walk by the sea. "And 1 definitely intend to get some answers."

Powerless against his hold, Ronnie had no choice but to accompany him.

"For a man who proclaimed he'd never touch me with a ten-foot pole," Ronnie complained with bitter sarcasm, "you're doing quite a job on my arm." Though long-limbed herself, she was panting to keep up with his brisk pace.

"Merely expression," he replied laconically. "I think we both know to what type of touching i was referring." He halted abruptly. "This looks as good a place as any." Bowing sardonically, he dusted sand from the seawall. "Sit, if you will, please, Mrs. von Hurst." At her hesitance he raised a mocking brow. "Or might we crease our designer jeans?"

Ronnie glared at him coldly, then pointedly drew her eyes to the label of his black jeans before returning her eyes to his and caustically replying, "I don't know, might we?"

The darkness of his eyes suffused with a flame of mirth as his mustache twitched in a way she was beginning to know very well. "My dear Mrs. von Hurst," he replied gallantly, "I do give you credit for a marvelously ticking little mind." He crouched to the wall, deftly flinging his legs over the edge while dragging her down beside him. He didn't release her hand as she joined him with little choice, her attitude less than gracious, her teeth grinding.

He smiled at her annoyance. "This is a lovely view," he commented, his mustache tilting with a full grin. "The sea, the sky, the mist, Fort Sumter rising in the distance. Nice place for a talk."

Ronnie kept her gaze on Fort Sumter, rising in the mist as he had pointed out. "Lovely," she agreed dryly. "Talk any time you like."

"How long has Pieter been ill?"

Ronnie shrugged, determined to give him nothing. "Awhile."

Drake muttered something inaudible beneath his breath and his grip on her hand jerked painfully. "Damn it, Ronnie! I already know the man is desperately ill. I'm not asking you for the sake of conversation—I think I can help."

The explosive sincerity of his voice was undeniable. Ronnie glanced at him, reading the intensity of his dark stare, then shook her head with appreciative but sad resignation. "Drake,

I told you before. There's nothing that you can do, nothing that
anyone
can do."

"Ronnie," Drake said forcefully, "you're being fatalistic. I can help. I know a man from the center at Johns Hopkins who specializes in just this type of thing, the wasting diseases—sclerosis."

"But Pieter has seen dozens of doctors!"

"So he should see a dozen more."

Ronnie mulled his words slowly through her mind. Drake was right; she and Pieter had given up, accepted the inevitable. They should have never allowed themselves to do so. Such a fight should be fought to the bitter end. "How do we get Pieter to see this man, and will he see Pieter?"

"The doctor will see Pieter," Drake said assuredly, softening his features to a grin again. "He's an art lover. Pieter—well, leave him to me."

"No!" Ronnie cried. "He'll know I've been discussing him and he'll be absolutely livid."

Drake shook his head emphatically, and Ronnie suddenly realized he was no longer gripping her hand but holding it soothingly, his fingers working tenderly over the pale lines of her veins. "I promise you, Pieter will know nothing. . . ." His voice trailed away as they both thought of the other implication of such a statement.

Drake cleared his throat and continued in a businesslike tone. "I'll talk to Pieter and convince him of what is really the truth— I can see his condition. But what I do need from you is everything that you can tell me. I want to know when he became ill, how the illness affects him, and what has been said so far by his doctors."

"That's a large order," Ronnie murmured. "Where do I begin?" She wanted to help Drake, knowing he was serious and reaching tentatively for the ray of hope he was giving her. And she would answer him as truthfully as possible, but there were certain things she simply couldn't reveal, certain things about which Pieter would rather die than have become known. . . .

"Start anywhere," Drake prompted her, "and I'll insert questions when I want you to go further."

Taking a deep breath, Ronnie began to talk, telling him that the disease had begun at a slow rate of acceleration soon after their marriage. It was a small white lie, one which she hoped would make no difference. Drake's few comments and questions were intelligent and well spaced, and before she knew it, she became immersed in her monologue, telling Drake the things that worried her most, confiding in him as she had never thought possible.

They never had to discuss a sex life at all. Drake knew Pieter and Ronnie kept separate quarters, and although Ronnie knew Drake still condemned her for her affair with him aboard the ship, he was tactful enough at the moment to make no remarks.

Ronnie stopped speaking suddenly and looked up into his eyes, which gazed intently at her. She wondered if she caught a spark of empathy, but it was gone so quickly, she assured herself that tenderness from him could only exist in her imagination. And yet, she felt good, as if talking had lifted a heavy load from her shoulders. She could easily hate Drake for his often disdainful treatment of her, but she also trusted him explicitly.

He was a hard man, a thorough man—a man she had stupidly fallen in love with—a man of fury and intensity, but one who would direct his energies tirelessly and relentlessly in pursuit of a goal. She felt a drained relief to know his goal at that moment was the life and health of Pieter von Hurst.

"It hasn't been easy for you, has it?" he asked, his tone surprisingly hard for his question.

"No, it hasn't," Ronnie replied bluntly, her voice every bit as matter-of-fact. Then the relief of having shared her burden washed through her and she impetuously grabbed his arm and stared into his dark eyes beseechingly. "Oh, Drake, do you really think there's any kind of a chance? . . ."

"Yes, Ronnie, I do. I believe there is always hope."

Hope. Ronnie dropped his arm and stared out to sea. For some things, perhaps, there was hope. Not for others.

Drake suddenly hopped to his feet with athletic agility and reached to give her a hand. "I've never seen Fort Sumter," he told her, still with a rather harsh, gravelly tone. "Can we go over? How do we get there?"

Ronnie stood beside him and answered his new line of questioning levelly, sounding something like an indifferent tour guide in relation to his manner. No matter what he said, no matter what had once gone on between them—no, not even the fact that they had become conspirators on Pieter's behalf—could change his opinion of her. For a wild moment of misery she was tempted to throw herself into his arms and explain everything, to unburden herself completely, to cry out that she wasn't a run-a-round wanton but a victim herself of desperate need . . . and love. But she could say none of those things. She simply couldn't do it to Pieter and, anyway, it wouldn't change things, she would still be Mrs. Pieter von Hurst.

Even with the slim ray of hope Drake offered, Ronnie would always be bound to Pieter by ties of her own morality. And so as her mind dwelt upon dreams unuttered she kept up a line of chatter about Charleston, talking as she led him to the Ferrari, which would be their transportation around town. She pointed out various old houses along the Battery as they drove to the ferry that would take them out to Fort Sumter, maintaining her cool, instructorlike stream of exposition.

As Drake listened to her, he struggled with an inward battle. He didn't mean to sound harsh each time he spoke; his cold brusqueness was a line of defense. It was impossible to look into the incredible blue depths of her eyes and not be touched—and painfully inflamed. He decided with a cruel twist of his lips that he was a masochist.

Every time he came near her, he was stricken with the wild desire to sweep her into his arms and take her with primitive passion—no matter where they happened to be. Remembrance of the satin softness of her skin, the perfect, harmonious fit her slender, lusciously curved form made with his body... being one with her... drove him to the brink of madness, and to a number of cold showers. And all the while he berated himself for his stupidity. She was Von Hurst's wife; a sophisticated woman who indulged in affairs for her own entertainment while married to the great, ailing artist. . . .

God, he groaned inwardly. Why the hell didn't she fit the part of the hard, calculating seductress? It would be so easy to forget her then... but no one could look into her unmasked, depthless, beguiling eyes and call her hard, or believe that she was—what she was.

A woman with needs, a part of his mind told him. One who endured a lonely, demanding life. One who sincerely cared for Pieter. But he had been deceived by her once, used by her once, because he had trusted the character and soul in those eyes, which had held him a willing prisoner of her grace and beauty.

He couldn't lower his guard to her for a second. She was Von Hurst's. But deep within himself he struggled with another thought If—an incredible if—he could ever make her his, she would probably do the same—run around. She had learned the lesson, and surely cheating could only become easier and easier. He didn't even have any idea of how many escapades she had carried on like the one they had shared.