False Pretenses (28 page)

“Something earth-shattering?”

“I think so.” He took her wineglass and set it beside his on the coffee table.

He turned to face her and grasped her hands in his. “I love you and I want you to marry me. I didn't want to make love with you until I got that out. I'm talking for the rest of our lives, Elizabeth.”

She looked down at his hands—large, capable hands, warm.

“I was going to ask you,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Were you, now?” He laughed and pulled her onto his lap.

“But I was afraid to. Tell you how I felt about you, that is. In fact I was afraid of how I felt in the first place. Everything's been in such a mess and I just didn't know.”

She tucked her head into the spot between his neck and shoulder. “I thought you'd tell me to get lost, with relish.”

“Nope. You already told me you loved me. It was up to me to finish it off.”

That brought her head up.

“If you find a woman huddled on your doorstep, I think it's safe for a man to assume that she's either a vagrant or a woman who loves him more than anything.”

“I was a vagrant.”

“Will you still marry me?”

“Yes.”

“There are problems, but we'll work them out.”

She shivered.

“No, I wasn't thinking of Hunter. He's been out of my head for at least two hours now. I was thinking about all the damned money, and the power, and the responsibility that goes along with it.”

“You wouldn't marry me for all that, would you?”

“No,” he said, not at all angry. “I already did that. Well, not really, but that's how it turned out. I was kind of hoping that I'd fall for a nice poor girl who would love me for my mental and athletic abilities rather than my money. Since neither of us is poor, I think it's safe to assume that it's old-fashioned heart-throbbing, don't you?”

“Yes,” she said, “yes, I do.” She cupped his face between her hands and kissed him. “You're a wonderful man, Jonathan.”

“Yes, ma'am, and don't you forget it. And,
Elizabeth, there will be problems, don't kid yourself, but we'll handle all of them.”

“Yes, I think we really can,” she said, a kind of wonder in her voice.

“Can I assume that you're not wearing a bra under that outrageous shirt of yours?”

She gave him a look that made him shake. “Why don't you find out for yourself?”

Jeans were hard to get off and they were both laughing at their contortions. Until they came together. Elizabeth heard the raucous squawk of a sea gull, felt the warmth of the fire on her bare skin. Then she felt his hands and his mouth, touching her, learning her body. When his mouth was at her breast, she arched her back to draw him closer.

“So nice,” he said, and his breath was hot against her skin.

She felt his hand stroke over her ribs, lower to her abdomen. He rested his hand on her belly and came up onto his elbow. “You're beautiful, Elizabeth. And a natural blond.”

“What did you expect?” Her voice sounded unnatural to her, high and thin, and she squirmed beneath his hand.

“I expect,” he said, his voice warm and deep, “that you will be my last lover and that you'll love what I plan to do to you every night for the next forty years or so.”

“And what about me?” Her hand found him and began stroking. “What about what I plan to do to you?”

“Just don't do it with such enthusiasm,” he managed, “or you're going to wonder what happened to me.”

It wasn't too much longer before she felt him deep inside her, covering her, watching her face closely as he moved. She felt his fingers find her between their sweating bodies.

“Jonathan,” she whispered, then felt her body explode. And through those seconds she knew that he was watching her face, encouraging her with soft words.

“I'm so lucky,” she said before she fell asleep in his bed.

“You're not the only one,” Jonathan said, his eyes on her face. “I'll keep you safe, love.”

He didn't fall asleep as quickly as Elizabeth. Christian Hunter was back, in full regalia. What to do about the bastard? Jonathan knew the man was smart as hell. He made plans until he fell asleep, wrapped around Elizabeth.

The next morning, they went into Damariscotta.

“I have to call Adrian and Milly.” And Catherine, she added silently.

“All right. Then we go to Newcastle, to a jeweler's. We're talking engagement ring here, kiddo.”

The kids were lolling about in front of Jake's, as usual. Jonathan recognized one of them, and waved.

One teenager waved back. Then, to show off for the beautiful lady, he revved his cycle and took off in a cloud of dirt. Jonathan waited until Elizabeth disappeared into the phone booth, then went inside to buy some bullets for his .22 automatic.

 

“Catherine?”

“My God, Elizabeth! I've been frantic. Where are you?”

“Safe. With Jonathan Harley. What's going on?”

Catherine drew a deep breath. “I went down to see Lieutenant Draper yesterday, furious about their behavior. You want to know what I found out? That woman who called you? The one Christian Hunter was keeping?”

“What about her?” Elizabeth felt the cold creeping through her body. She knew . . . oh, yes, she knew.

“She's dead. Run down in the street.”

Elizabeth closed her eyes. Christian had killed her because he was afraid she'd talk. But she'd said so little. She hadn't deserved to die. “He's crazy, isn't he?”

“That's what I said to Draper, and that jackass laughed. He said there was no evidence, says no one saw who did it, just some kind of dark sedan. And supposedly Hunter has an alibi. His nurse says he was in his office doing correspondence at the time she was killed. Draper said he spoke to Christian Hunter, who told him that she had left him for another man. They're now looking for this unknown character.”

“Her first name was Susan. I remembered. I don't even know her last name.”

“It was Linski.”

“Poor, poor woman. She didn't do anything.”

“You want to know what I did, Elizabeth? I called the governor and the mayor. I told them what was going on. I told them that my grandmother was very disturbed that the police were treating this all as a joke. After all, two people have been killed, Drake and Susan Linski. We'll see what happens now.”

“Thank you, Catherine. How is your grandmother?”

“Holding her own. She already yelled at me about calling the bigwigs, and I told her to can it. Elizabeth, where are you in case I need you?”

“Christmas Cove, Maine, of all places. Jonathan has a cabin here.”

Catherine smiled into the phone. “I thought there was someone. Someone special. Who is he, Elizabeth?”

“Actually, he's a man I started out trying to destroy. Now he's the man I'm going to marry.”

“Marry!”

“Yes, it sounds crazy, doesn't it? Be happy for me, Catherine. I'm very sure, you know. For the first time in my life, I'm sure about another person.”

“I guess I'm in shock. You're not the only one who . . . Well, I'll tell you later. Funny, isn't it, how things can happen so quickly and yet be right, and you know they're right. You be careful, Elizabeth. I assume your Jonathan knows everything?”

“Yes. You'll like him, Catherine. He's a very fine man.”

“If you trust him, then he must be.”

They spoke for a few more minutes, then Elizabeth rang off. She spoke to Adrian and to Milly, but didn't tell them where she was.

“You ready for Newcastle?” Jonathan asked her when she hung up the phone. He saw her pale face, and hugged her. “It'll be all right. Come along now, you can tell me everything on the way to Newcastle.”

All he said when she'd finished was, “Can you trust Catherine Carleton?”

“If I can't, I might as well hang it up.”

“That's good enough for me. Let's go get that ring. You can consider it your first Christmas present. Then I want to make love to you until the sea gulls stop squawking.”

“That's impossible.”

“Exactly.”

 

H
e loved to touch her, to feel her smooth flesh beneath his fingers, to feel her muscles contract when his fingers splayed across her abdomen. He raised his hand just above her and said, “I want to fill you out, to about here.”

Elizabeth laughed even though his voice was serious. “The fat lady in the circus, sailor?”

“Nope, the pregnant lady in my backyard.”

She dropped her head, feeling stupid. “I'm not using birth control.”

Jonathan lowered his hand, resting it on her hip. “Then let's get married, here, in Newcastle.”

“I like the way you problem-solve,” she said. She looked at the diamond-and-sapphire ring on her left hand.

“It's either that or birth control. It's up to you.”

“Jonathan, about kids and things . . .”

“Hmmm?”

His teeth nibbled around her stomach, his tongue going toward her navel.

“That's why I married Timothy.”

His head jerked up, and his voice was incredulous: “He got you pregnant?”

Elizabeth had buried it deep, so very deep. It all came back now, the pain and the humiliation, the hopelessness balanced by the gratitude. “I know people were divided into two camps. The majority feeling was of course that I'd married Timothy for his money. The minority opinion was that I married him because I wanted a father, a loving one this time. That was a very minor minority opinion, I might add. Actually, it was neither.”

“What happened, Elizabeth?” He drew himself up on his side, balancing on his elbow. He gently pushed the hair behind her ear.

“I was going out with this man who was a visiting pianist at Juilliard. He was Italian, from Milan. He was very intense, very talented. One night he raped me. It's as simple as that. He loved it because I was a virgin, you see. I told him I was going to the police, and he just laughed. He said that everyone knew I was hot for him and I'd be ridiculed and my career ruined. Evidently he'd been bragging that he'd finally gotten icy Elizabeth Xavier to bed and that I loved it. I raged and all that, but I saw he was right, so eventually I tucked my tail between my legs and told him I never wanted to see him again.

“I had met Timothy by that time. In all honesty, I was very fond of him. He was like a benign father, I suppose, but he was also very sophisticated, charming, and knew exactly what he wanted all of the time. I'd never met anyone like that before. He came to my apartment. I was crying my eyes out, wanting to die, because I'd found out I was pregnant and didn't know what to do. I was raised to revere life, so I couldn't get an abortion. I told him what the man had done.”

He saw the pain in her eyes and shook her shoulders. “And that's why you married him?”

“Yes, but first Timothy had the man beaten to a
pulp. He returned to Italy the moment he was out of the hospital. Then Timothy asked me to marry him. I did. And I lost the baby two months later. Everyone believed it was Timothy's, of course. Before I lost the baby, Timothy would just grin when we talked about it, and say he wanted it. He said he could beat any viciousness out of the child if need be, but just think of the talent the child would have. He was in his music-appreciation and musical-philanthropy phase at that time.”

Jonathan drew her into his arms. “I'm so sorry, Elizabeth. So sorry.” That damned bastard. He'd have had him castrated. He'd have done it himself. And he'd have married her, just as Timothy Carleton had done. It was hard to hate a man, an old man, who'd behaved honorably, who'd done just what he, Jonathan, would have done.

“It's been over a long time. Such a long time. Timothy literally saved me. Although I didn't love him, I did care a great deal for him. I felt safe and like I finally belonged. I would have done anything he wished.”

He held her, saying nothing. He was afraid that his own rage would burst out if he did speak, and she didn't need that.

She said after a moment, “Life goes on, you know. And I went on until Timothy decided I was too confining. He didn't want me to perform anymore, but the reason he'd been drawn to me in the first place was because of my talent. There were other women, even younger women who had talent, just as I had, but not musical talent. He'd gone on to another phase. The last woman, one that Rod Samuels managed to keep out of the trial, was an artist, about the same age I had been when Timothy first became interested in me.

“Timothy wasn't a bad man, Jonathan, truly. He was a man who didn't want to admit he was getting
old, that he was mortal. It got to the point that I just wanted out. I didn't want any of his money. I didn't need it, after all. I could earn my own way. All I was going to do was leave him, and that's why I didn't have an alibi the night he was murdered. I was out wandering around instead of going to that benefit. Somehow Christian must have known about the party and that I was going to be there, safe with five hundred people who could swear I was nowhere near the house when Timothy was murdered. Then he stuck that exquisite silver ice pick into Timothy's chest.”

“For you,” Jonathan said slowly. “He murdered Timothy for you.”

“Not really for me,” Elizabeth said, her brow wrinkling. “For someone he'd created in his mind. But she wasn't me.”

“No, how could she be? He didn't know you and you didn't know him. Why, I wonder, didn't he just manage to meet you, get to know you? If you divorced your husband, he could have asked you out. Why murder, for God's sake? Certainly not to marry a wealthy widow. He's got loads of money.”

“His mind . . . I don't understand it either. If he cares for me—or cared, I should say now—his feelings weren't normal.”

“No, more an obsession, I'd say. And now you're a threat to him.”

She wrapped her arms around his back and burrowed against him. “You're the first man who's wanted me for me, and not someone you believe I am—some kind of fantasy woman different from other women.”

“You're different, all right,” he said, grinning at her. “You think I'd fall in love with some ordinary woman? I love your talent, Lizzie. Perhaps someday I'll let you out of bed and have you play the piano for me.”

She tried to smile, but it was a failed attempt. “When will it be over, Jonathan?”

He didn't have an answer to that, so he loved her instead, making her forget, for a time. And himself.

He even forgot about the twenty-two automatic in the desk drawer, and the bullets he'd slipped into it.

 

Catherine faced Brad from across her grandmother's desk. Odd how comfortable, how right, it felt sitting here. She felt strong. She felt in control. “When are you going to cancel it out with Jenny?”

“It's already been started, by her father. The senator called me. I told him. I would come down to Washington this afternoon. He wants Jenny on a plane to England by tonight. He's already got her plane tickets.”

“Thank God. Then what, Brad?”

“California. A new start. I'm going to try to talk Trent into coming back here, just like you suggested.”

“It sounds like the children are plotting behind the adults' backs.”

Michael Carleton stood in the doorway. He looked like an old man with saggy jowls, Catherine thought, staring at him, not the high-powered man who was always at her grandmother's right hand. He even looked like he was wearing another man's clothes, at least one size too big for him. He had shrunk.

“No, Uncle Michael,” Catherine said slowly, amazed at her control and calm, “we're not plotting, we're simply taking over our own lives. People should live their own lives, you know, make their own decisions.”

“That will last only until your grandmother is on her feet again.” He sounded querulous. Another surprise, another shock.

“Maybe your life, Uncle,” Catherine said. “Not ours.” She rose, noticing for the first time how the light from the huge windows was at her back, and in
Brad and Michael's faces. The power position. Wherever had she heard that?

“Brad will marry Jennifer Henkle, just as your grandmother wants,” Michael said, his eyes narrowed.

“No way.”

“The photos—”

“No more, Uncle Michael,” Brad said. “I'll be leaving for Washington, as I guess you overheard, then I'm off to California.”

“Your grandmother will bring you back in short order.”

“I found the negatives of the photos, Uncle Michael,” Catherine said. “Brad and I destroyed the lot of them, as well as the photos Grandmother had locked in this desk.”

Michael looked from one to the other. Ungrateful little bastards. He would speak to Laurette. She would know what to do about this mess. “You'll see, both of you,” he said, and stomped out of the room.

“What are you going to do, Cathy?”

Her eyes lit up. “I'm going to Boston, then . . . well, we'll see.” She came around the desk, looked up at her brother, then hugged him. “Good luck, Brad. And call me when things get sorted out.”

“You got it, kid.”

“I love you, Brad, and don't forget, we do have control now. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.”

He watched her walk from the room, and found himself shaking his head. He remembered some old photos of Laurette he'd seen years ago in a long-for-gotten album. If his mind wasn't playing tricks on him, Cathy had the look of her. The future, he thought, was going to prove interesting.

 

“Where is Elizabeth Carleton?”

Lieutenant Draper looked up to see Moretti standing in his office doorway. “You got me. Took off, and I can't say I blame her. Why? Who cares?”

“I can't get that damned watch out of my mind, that's why.”

“It was all a lie, you know that, she—”

“You haven't broken Hunter's alibi?” Moretti interrupted. He was beginning to think Draper was an ass.

“No, that nurse of his backs him up to the hilt. I mean, we haven't really questioned her all that much, she's credible—”

“Yeah, just like Dr. Christian Hunter was credible.”

“Look, it was probably a hit-and-run. A guy hit her, realized he was in deep shit, and got the hell out.”

“You know something, Draper?” Moretti said, turning to look out the dirty window. “It's a bummer when you think you might be wrong about someone, particularly when you staked everything on being right. Put out some feelers for Elizabeth Carleton. I want to talk to her.”

Draper watched Moretti, the pompous idiot, walk out of his office. He was getting soft.

 

“Are you sure you want to do this, Jonathan?”

She sounded nervous, and he hugged her to his side.

“Yep. What about you, Lizzie?”

She poked him in the stomach. “That's an awful nickname.”

“I don't know about that. We can go from Lizzie to lizard to laziness to lippy broad.”

“We don't know each other all that well.”

“I know how to make you come in an average of five minutes. That ain't so bad.”

“You won't be serious about this, will you? This is for life, Jonathan.”

“You'd better believe it.” He struck the palm of his hand against his forehead. “My God, you're right. Where are we going to live, anyway?”

“Judge Columbus is ready for you now.”

Elizabeth thought her eyes would cross with apprehension. Married. And everything was such a mess.
And she knew, knew all the way to her innards, that Christian Hunter wouldn't just disappear. Oh, no, he was out there. Waiting.

“You ready, sweetheart?”

She looked up at him, saw the understanding and tenderness in his eyes, and slowly nodded.

Mrs. Everett led them into the judge's chambers. He'd put on his robe and looked as dignified as a bishop.

Suddenly Elizabeth grabbed Jonathan's hand and jerked it. “Listen to me,” she said as quietly as she could. “If we marry, you'll be a target, just as I am. I can't allow it. It's too dangerous. Christian Hunter won't forget, I know it.”

He let her run herself out.

Her hand was sweaty and her fingernails dug into his palm.

“You done?”

“You're not thinking clearly, Jonathan.”

“You're not done.” He sighed and waited.

“Mr. Harley?” Mrs. Everett didn't like the looks of this. Judge Columbus was a busy man, and here these two were dithering. It wasn't as if they were children, for heaven's sake.

“Just a moment,” Jonathan said smoothly. “My fiancée is concerned about the disposition of her assets.”

“I'm going to beat your socks off. Stop patronizing me. I'm not being a silly woman and you aren't Superman.”

“Let's get married, Elizabeth. Now.” He rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “Listen to me. I'm already a target. If Hunter is after you, he'll know about me already. The man's crazy. Don't you see, it doesn't matter. We cannot,” Jonathan said, looking her square in the eyes, “I repeat, we cannot let him control our lives.”