Legacy (8 page)

The older man looked surprised, as if his mind had been wandering. 'What say? Another purpose?'

'Evidently the folk in the county clerk's office don't keep you as well informed as they do me. It hasn't been a week that's gone by since Brad registered surveys of the bottom third of that mountain of his - all subdivided into nice, neat lots. Folks who go up there are going to be treated to a real estate sales pitch along with that New York orchestra.'

'Oh, I can't believe he'd sell Legacy, can you?' asked Mrs. Anderson. 'He could never bring himself to part with an inch of it. Everyone knows that the Graybars are both half crazy about that mountain of theirs.'

'The Graybars are going broke,' said Father, without even flicking an eyelash. 'I happen to know he's in debt quite heavily for that new mill of his and for that famous stone castle everyone seems so fascinated with. And some other notes are coming due not long from now. He needs to raise the cash, and quickly.'

Amanda Scott spoke up. 'But what good would it do anyone to buy a lot up there? There's no gas line, no road to speak of.'

'That's right,' said Father. Father had control of the gas company. 'And there won't be any, either, as long as Brad owns that mountain.'

Eyebrows went up. Ah, so this was the message Father wanted to send out! People could go up to Legacy and drink Brad's champagne if they wanted to, but if they bought any of his mountain lots and expected to build on them, they'd be wasting their money.

'Well, I wasn't interested in any land up there, anyway,' said Mrs. Anderson. 'But I thought we might just go up and see the party for a while. I always did like a ball.'

'You won't see me there,' Father said abruptly, 'or any of my family. Isn't that right, Claire?'

I waited to see if Mother would go along with this commanded display of obedience, though I really had not much doubt that she would. What I worried about was my own response. I had vowed to stand up to Father, but I did owe it to Mother not to make a scene.

'Oh, I see enough New York orchestras when I go to New York,' said Mother. 'I can't say that finding one in Brad's ballroom would be any great attraction.'

'Catherine?' I could feel the tension in Father's voice.

I spoke to the others at the table instead of to him. 'I'm sure you all can see that we make up our own minds in our family,' I said briskly. 'I just haven't made mine up yet.'

'Well, you'd better. No one in my family is going to that affair - no one.' His color had deepened, and he was staring directly down the table at me, as if the others in the room did not exist. For a long moment we faced one another. I could feel my own temper rising. My mind raced. I wanted to hurt, to humiliate, him. How dare he bait me publicly like this! I wanted to smash that determined glare from his face, to hurl my glass of wine full in his eyes!

But, no, I thought. Imagine the way tongues would wag about Catherine Rawlings and her passionate outburst at the table! Poor Catherine, she must be head over heels in love with that Steven Graybar! She just lost her head completely as soon as her father wouldn't let her see him at Brad's ball!

I could just hear Amanda Scott spreading the word now, a satisfied tone of pity in her voice. Poor Catherine! Poor Sam, with a daughter who's just out of control like that!

Well, I was not going to give them the satisfaction of seeing me lose my temper. Certain now that I could contain my fury, I raised my glass and addressed the guests again. 'Why don't we all drink to that, then? Father's wish is his family's command!'

'Hear, hear,' said the judge, and some of the people raised their wineglasses and drank, not sure of what else to do. Father, of course, did not touch his wine. He sat silent, and for a moment he looked as if he could have broken me in half.

But then he began to talk to the lady on his right as if nothing had happened.

Chapter Three

I still felt the glow of triumph late that night as I slowly opened the door of my bedroom and looked out into the hallway. The whole house was silent. It had been two hours since the last guest had departed and only a few minutes less than that since Father had given me another curt warning to tell me that he meant what he said. I had checked my temper then, too, and felt proud of myself for doing so. Then I had come up to my room, but instead of getting undressed for bed, I had changed into another riding costume, this one with a hooded jacket, leaving my hair pinned up.

Now the thick red wool of the hall carpet deadened the sound of my boots as I stepped outside my room and locked the door behind me. I came down the carpeted stairs, with their glistening walnut newel posts casting shadows in the gaslight of the hall, past the second floor, where my parents slept and where Father had his library, and down through the dining room and quietly out the French doors and into the night sounds and cool air of the garden.

I had done it! My heart racing with excitement, I walked through the garden and then looked back at our house. No lights appeared, and there was no movement at the windows. There was not a sound, except for the chirp of a cricket and the solitary cooing of a pigeon. There was a crescent moon tonight, but the stars shone clear overhead and I could see fairly well by the glow of the streetlamp that burned out in front of our house, for some of the light filtered through the trees and came back to where I stood on the lawn behind our home's rear entrance.

I pulled my hood up over my head and turned towards the rose arbor, where Steven was to meet me. The night air smelled wonderfully clean, and I felt splendidly alive and confident.

Then from behind me I heard the click of our back door being opened.

Panic seized me as I stood there in the centre of the open lawn, ten yards at least from the nearest tree. I did not stop to think. I took to my heels and ran for the shadows of the tree, and then, without turning around to see what was behind me, I raced on for the next one, which lay just a short distance from the rose arbor. Then I stopped and leaned against the tree, trying to catch my breath without making any noise. I was afraid to look. Perhaps, I told myself, it was only one of the servants out for a midnight stroll.

But it was not. Standing now at the back of the house, a few feet from the door that led down the stairs to the kitchen, was my father. He had a dark lantern with him, partially open at the top, and I could see his face clearly. He was wearing a rough woolen shirt over his evening trousers, which he had tucked into a pair of hunting boots.

And he was carrying a pistol in his hand.

Had he seen me? I could not be sure, for the expression on his face told me nothing. Was he going somewhere? I thought not. He was standing quite calmly, motionless, as if he were waiting for someone to arrive.

I tried to think clearly. If I had made some noise, done anything to alert him as I was coming down the stairs, then he would have come out like this, and probably with a gun. But it would have taken him longer to dress than the few moments that had elapsed from my leaving the house until I first heard him opening the back door latch.

Well, then, he was waiting for someone. And even if he had seen me, running quickly for the shadows with my hood up, it was unlikely that he had recognized me. Otherwise, he would be out here at the back of the lawn, looking to drag me in. As long as I stayed quiet here, I was safe . . . unless whoever Father was waiting for had seen me.

At that moment I felt a hand at my elbow, and I gasped, but then I quickly realized that it was Steven. He had come up behind me quietly in the darkness. 'Be still,' he said in a low undertone I could barely understand, even with his lips nearly touching my ear. 'I saw you come out. There's a way through the back to my place. We can be there in a minute or two. Or do you want to wait here?'

I gave a quick glance back to where Father was still standing. No, I could not stay. I did not want to know what Father was doing, and neither did I want Steven to know. 'Lead the way,' I said softly.

Within a short space of time we had dashed quietly through the shadows to an open spot in the fence at the back of our arbor and were in the yard of the house behind ours. From there it was only a short walk to the front porch of Steven's mansion, a huge, rambling, gabled affair that I always found dark and foreboding. Even after Brad had moved out to Legacy with his mistress and left Steven as the only occupant here, I still did not care for that house.

But the spring air was sweet and cool. We stopped on the porch to catch our breath, watching the lights and the silent trees. He took my hand. We heard the church tower clock - Father's gift, too - strike twelve. The deep brass notes echoed slowly in the soft air.

'Chimes at midnight,' said Steven, drawing me closer to him.

Then as the lantern glow of a night policeman approached us from the direction of the church, Steven's house offered shelter. Inside we went, and in the large, dark entrance hallway I let my hood fall back with a sigh of relief.

'Very attractive, I must say.' He was looking at me after having lit the lamp beside the sofa in the parlor. From where I stood, his face appeared softer now than it had seemed that afternoon. Oddly enough, he looked older, too. Still his eyes had that same faintly mocking glint, and there was still that little half-smile when he spoke.

'You weren't meant to see me this well,' I said. 'I don't know how you managed to get me here. I only agreed to a few moments of talk in the garden.'

I tried to sound firm. I had missed his lovemaking. We had not been together that way since February. But I did not want to let myself go, especially when we had been quarreling about marriage. Somehow what had seemed so beautiful and innocent before had taken on serious, even threatening, overtones. I could not afford to lose control, or I might find myself making promises I could not keep . . .

'Ah, well, then,' he was saying, 'shall I turn down the light? You can pretend that we're still outdoors.'

'I think not,' I said, coming into the parlor, 'definitely not.' I stood beside the sofa and looked around. This was the first time I had been inside Steven's mansion. The room was enormous. Our shadows from the light were gigantic on the high ceiling. Yet the room, apart from the long sofa and two upholstered chairs over here by the unlit fireplace, was totally bare of furniture or decoration. The enormous, thick Oriental rug stretched out along the floor in all directions, empty until it disappeared into the shadows along the empty walls.

'Most people find it odd at first,' Steven said as though he had read my thoughts. 'But I have no need for more furniture. Actually, I like it better this way.' He was wearing a loose-fitting shirt of dark blue silk that was tucked into the wide waistband of his tight-fitting grey trousers.

He crossed over to the mantel, where there were some bottles and glasses. 'Some wine? As long as I brought you here, I can at least play the generous host.'

'I don't think I'll stay that long,' I said.

'Suit yourself.' He came back with two filled goblets, anyway, sipping from one of them. 'More for me, that's all. You're welcome to stay, or you can go when you like. No one's going to know when you leave. The cook's away for a week and I have no other servants.'

He sat down on the sofa and stretched out his legs. His black boots glistened in the lamplight.

'You know, Brad was a bit distressed tonight. When I told him Sam Rawlings's daughter had seen what he was doing this afternoon, he ... ah ... he took it badly, you might say. Seemed to think that you'd take the story straight to your father.'

He waited, looking at me quietly.

'Well, I didn't,' I said. 'Even when Father found out that I'd seen you today, I didn't. Even when he said he would kill you if he saw us together, I didn't.'

Steven raised one eyebrow and sat up a bit straighter. 'In that case, I'm just as happy he didn't notice us in his garden tonight. That pistol of his might have been all too convenient.'