Joan Wolf (12 page)

“I can’t!” he cried. He stood, tears running down his face, arms held out toward her. “Laurie, help me!” he screamed.

There was the sound of someone crashing through the trees, and then Evans was on the shore beside them. “Jesus Christ!” he said when he saw Robin and the sinking boat.

“Evans, thank God!” Laura grabbed his arm. “Can you swim?”

“No, my lady, I can’t.” The man’s voice was as anguished as Giles’s had been. “I’ll run for his lordship.”

“Laurie!” screamed Robin. The boat was far down in the water now.

“What’s going on here?” said a deep, familiar voice, and Mark was beside them. He took one look and sat down on the grass. “Evans, help me with these boots,” he said tersely. Evans dragged the boots off, and Mark stood up, shrugging out of his coat. He waded into the water. “I’m coming to get you, Robin,” he called reassuringly. “Just stay calm, son.” He plunged in and began to swim strongly for the boat.

The group on shore watched with hammering hearts as the powerful strokes carried Mark closer and closer to the sinking boat. “Please, dear God, please ...” Laura prayed, and for a brief second closed her eyes.

 When she opened them again, Mark was at the boat. Robin, standing waist-deep in water, grabbed at his father. There was a brief struggle in the water as it looked as if the frantic boy were going to drown both of them, and then Mark was swimming back toward the shore, Robin’s head braced firmly on his shoulder. Laura waded into the lake up to her thighs and stretched out her arms; Mark put Robin, soaking wet and crying, into them. They stood for a minute in the cold water, the three of them close together, Laura murmuring over and over, “It’s all right now, darling. You’re safe. It’s all right.”

Then Mark said, “He’s too heavy for you. Give him to me.” He picked Robin up effortlessly and carried him out of the water.

Robin clung to him, saying over and over, “I’m sorry, Papa. I’m sorry.”

“Yes, I know you are,” Mark replied matter-of-factly. “Here, now, I’m going to put my coat around you. You’re freezing.” Robin was set down on his feet, and Mark wrapped his own russet coat around his small shivering son. He looked at Laura. “He’s all right, but we’d better get him home.”

Laura nodded. Her wet dress clung to her legs and she too was beginning to shiver. “We all need dry clothes and a hot drink,” she said briskly. Mark bent, picked Robin up once more, and started back the way he had come. Laura walked close beside him, and Giles and Evans brought up the rear.

Chapter Fifteen

As soon as they arrived back at Castle Dartmouth, Mark prescribed brandy for himself, Laura, and Robin, all of whom were distinctly chilled. Then Laura put Robin in a hot tub. The combination of the shock, the spirits, and the tub was enough to make him very drowsy, and Laura suggested bed. In a very short time he was asleep and she went back to her own bedroom, where a similar tub was awaiting her.

She was sitting in front of her dressing table wearing a pale apricot-colored dressing gown and having her hair brushed when Mark came in. He had changed into dry clothes and looked reassuringly normal. “That will be all for the present,” Laura said to her maid, and when the girl had gone, turned to look at her husband.

 “Thank God you were there,” she said simply. “I thought he was going to drown in front of me.” And then she began to cry helplessly, her hands to her face, the tears dripping out between her fingers.

There was a movement from Mark, and she expected to feel his arms around her, but nothing came. After a minute she looked up, the tears still streaming down her face, and saw that he had sat down in a satin padded chair. He was watching her steadily, a white look about his mouth.

“Laura,” he said, “who is the person who always uses that boat?”

The question was quiet, but she sensed behind it some intolerable strain. “Why, I am,” she said. Then her eyes widened as she realized what he was saying. “You don’t mean ...” Her voice broke off.

There was a silence. He said, not pleasantly, “I am merely pointing out to you what I am all too certain will be shortly called to your attention by others. In the normal course of events, it would have been you in that boat.” She met his eyes. “When was the last time you had it out?” he asked.

“Two days ago,” she answered out of a dry throat.

“And it was all right then? It wasn’t taking on water?”

“No. No, it was dry.” She was very white now, and there was a look of strain over her cheekbones, as if the skin was stretched too tightly. Her eyes looked very dark. “Mark ...” she said uncertainly, “what are you saying?”

“Only what everyone else will say,” he repeated. “The boat was tampered with.”

“But who would do such a thing?” she whispered.

He rose to his feet and stood looking at her. There was utter silence in the room. Her impulse was to throw herself into his arms, to beg for reassurance, but something held her rooted to her seat. “I don’t know,” he said at last. He sounded tired. “I shall try to find out.” Without another word he turned and left the room.

Laura stayed where she was for quite some time after he had gone. Her knees and her hands were shaking. Was it true? Was someone actually trying to harm her? Perhaps to kill her? If she had taken that boat out today, as she most certainly would have done had Robin not decided to disobey orders, she would be dead by now. And Giles too, she thought with horror. He could not swim either. If Mark had not come along, Robin would have met the fate planned for her.

A strange sense of unreality swept over her as she sat there in her beautiful bedroom. Why had Mark been there? He hadn’t been out of the library all week, yet just at the time the boat would normally have been launched, he had appeared.

She felt suddenly hot and clammy, and the room began to go out of focus. Abruptly she put her head down, and then, after a minute, stumbled over to the bed and lay down. She felt too unwell to go down to dinner that evening, and Mark did not stop by to see how she was.

* * * *

They did not go to Lady Monksleigh’s ball the following evening. Laura simply could not face the ordeal of pretending that nothing had happened. She was not sure that Giles would have reached the same conclusions about the accident as Mark, but she was certain that he would have told the tale of Robin’s near-fatal prank to every one of their friends. She could not cope with the sympathy, the horror, or the suspicion.

 “I just cannot go,” she told Mark in a tense voice, and he had said he would send a message with their regrets.

The day after the ball, Lady Monksleigh called on her. Laura refused to see her. She refused to see Maria Dalton as well. Giles, taking advantage of his privileged position as Robin’s uncle, got to her through the child. It was four days after the incident at the lake, and Laura was cutting flowers in the garden when Giles tracked her down.

 I have to talk to you, Laura,” he said determinedly. “You must face up to things, you know. You cannot keep hiding from the truth.”

Laura laid down her basket and her scissors. “What truth, Giles?” she asked.

“The truth that you are in danger,” he returned brutally. “Laura, please listen to me. You must leave Castle Dartmouth.”

She stood with her head bowed, her eyes on the lovely flowers heaped in her basket. “No,” she said.

“For God’s sake, Laura”—Giles was almost shouting—”don’t you realize what is going on here? That boat was tampered with! If Robin hadn’t been naughty and taken it out, you would have. You would have drowned.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” she replied stubbornly. “Mark would have rescued me, just as he rescued Robin.”

“Would he have, Laura?” Giles’s voice was quiet now, almost ominously so. “I tend to doubt that.”

“Giles”—there was a desperate note in Laura’s voice—”don’t say that! Mark has no
reason
to
wish harm to me.”

He put his hands up to his eyes and his voice was scarcely a thread of sound. “I wonder if he needs a reason.”

“What do you mean?” she whispered in return.

There was a pause, and then he answered in a voice he was obviously striving to make normal. “Just that Mark seems to be an unlucky husband.”

 He took her hands and held them tightly—”Look, maybe I’ve got this all wrong, maybe he’s as pure as the driven snow, but
something
is wrong here. You have had three nearly fatal ‘accidents’ in less than two months. For your own safety, for my peace of mind, will you
please
go visit your parents for a few weeks?”

He was holding her hands so tightly he hurt her. Gently she pulled away from his grip. “I’ll think about it,” was all she would say.

* * * *

She did think about it. She had, unfortunately, a great deal of time to think in. She could not bring herself to go back to the lake. She would not visit any of her friends or go into town, where she might meet someone. She even stayed away from her usual visits to the orphanage. And she lay awake at night, tossing and turning, her mind filled with fears and doubts.

She saw Mark only at dinner; the rest of the time he worked. He was closeted in the library all day and returned to it immediately after dinner. They had reached the point, she imagined, he must have reached with Caroline. They inhabited the same house, and that was the extent of their relationship.

It was a situation Laura found intolerable, yet she did not know what to do about it. They spoke only in the presence of the servants. It was impossible for Laura to discuss the possibility of her going on a visit to her parents; it was impossible to discuss anything with him.

 She thought this as she sat watching him at dinner ten days after the incident at the lake. He was unaware of her gaze, occupied in looking down at his wineglass, his face remote and still. The light from the chandelier threw a dramatic shadow from his lowered lashes across the hard line of his cheek. He is so utterly shut in on himself and alone, she found herself thinking. I can’t reach him. But what had caused his steady withdrawal, she did not know. Was it really possible he wanted to hurt her?

She lay in bed that night, sleepless as usual, and listened for Mark’s step next door. It didn’t come, and at two in the morning she got up, put on a warm velvet robe, took a candle, and made her way downstairs to the library. The image of his solitary figure at dinner that evening was preying on her mind. She was, she realized with a flash of slightly hysterical amusement, worried about him.

 But though she told herself she must be insane, that if she had any sense at all she would be avoiding him, not seeking him out, her steps did not falter as she walked down the huge open staircase and through the great hall to the library.

Chapter Sixteen

The door was closed, but a light showed underneath it, and slowly Laura pushed it open. Mark was sitting slumped behind his desk, which contained, instead of the usual meticulous charts, several wine bottles, all of them empty. At first Laura thought he was asleep, but, as she stepped farther into the room, his lashes’ lifted suddenly and he looked at her. She felt her heart jolt once, and then she said with forced calm, “I came to see if you were all right. It is two in the morning.”

“You came to see if I was all right.” His voice was perhaps more precise than usual, but not slurred. “That’s funny, Laura.” He seemed to realize for the first time that he was seated and she was standing, and slowly and carefully he rose to his feet. He seemed perfectly normal.  If it hadn’t been for the empty bottles, she would never have suspected he had been drinking.

“Come up to bed, Mark,” she said softly. “It’s late.”

His teeth showed for a minute, white against his hard mouth.
“Is that an invitation?” he asked insolently.

Instinctively she put her hand behind her and felt the doorknob. “No,” she said. “It is not.”

He began to walk across the room toward her. She stood still, with her hand on the knob, her back against the door. Her retreat was only a step away, yet she couldn’t for the life of her take it, any more than she could reach up with her other hand to push
him
away.

 “Laura ...” he said. She could see, now that he was so close, that his eyes were heavy with wine.

She tried to speak, but nothing would come. Then he had her in his arms, and lowering his face to hers, began to kiss her. For a moment she was passive under the bruising power of his mouth, sensing something in his embrace that had never been there before. With a slight shock she recognized it as desperation.

 Later she was to think that if she had had any sense at all she would have pushed him away and run. She did neither. Instead, she put her arms around his neck and clung to him, answering his need with the yielding sweetness of her mouth and body.

When he finally let her go and spoke, she hardly recognized his voice. “You’re right,” he said, “it’s time for bed.” His voice might have been slurred and unsteady, but his steps were firm as he picked her up in his arms and carried her up the stairs to her bedroom.

* * * *

When Laura awoke late the following morning, she was alone. She lay still for a while, remembering the passionate abandon of the night before, and thinking. What to do? What to do?

 Her instincts told her one thing, her reason something else. Did she feel as she did about Mark only because of a physical attraction? Was she so shallow that she was ready to ignore all the evidence against him just because she adored making love with him?

 Her feelings for him on that level really counted for nothing, she told herself. He was perfectly capable of deliberately setting out to bring her under his domination; she knew that. She had seen him exercise his power before. If only there were someone she could trust to talk to; someone who would be unshocked and discreet and sensible to help her see things as they really were.

It came to her as she rang for her maid to help her dress that in fact there was someone. She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of him before. She would go talk to Dr. Norris.