Dark Angel (Casteel Series #2) Read online

  Minutes must have passed before I heard Troy's voice saying: "Come, wake up and sip the brandy."

  Obediently, even as my eyes stayed closed, my lips parted and the stinging, warm liquid burned its way to my stomach, and then I was coughing, bolting upright, startled by the taste of liquor I'd never tried before. "Now, that's enough," he said, withdrawing the small snifter. He smiled as if amused by my reaction to just one swallow. "It can't compare with mountain dew, is that what you're telling me?"

  "I've never tasted mountain dew," I whispered hoarsely, "and I never want to." Pa's strong, brutal, and handsome face flashed before my eyes. Someday, someday, he and I would meet again, someday when I could be as cruel as he knew how to be.

  "You just sit there and doze and let me make you dinner. Then you can tell me what brought you here with tears in your eyes."

  My lips parted, but he hushed what I would say with the signal of his forefinger over his own lips.

  "Later."

  I watched him slice the fresh bread and put the sandwiches together with the quick dexterity that made all his chores seem effortless and enjoyable.

  Over my lap he placed a tray, and then his silver, napkin-covered tray of sandwiches and tea. On the floor before the fire he sat cross-legged to eat his meal. We had fallen into silence by this time, comfortable with each other as from time to time his eyes met with mine, ever watchful to see that I ate, and drank, and didn't lapse into the sleepy stupor that struggled to invade my body again.

  Snow slashed at the windows so they iced over.

  The whistling wind competed with the music. Still, compared to the wind in the Willies screaming through the cracks of that mountain cabin this was tame and muffled. This cottage, six times larger, was snug and well built, with sturdy walls and insulation.

  Through the walls of our cabin we had been able to see the sky.

  I began to nibble on his sandwich and before I knew it I'd consumed it all and polished off his steaming cup of tea. And he was smiling at me in a pleased way, having eaten three sandwiches to my one. "Another?" he asked, preparing to get up and enter the kitchen again.

  I leaned back, shaking my head. "Enough. I never knew sandwiches could be so satisfying until I tasted yours."

  "An art form when you care enough. How about dessert, say a slice of homemade fudge cake."

  "Yours?"

  "No, I don't ever bake cakes or pies, but Rye Whiskey always sends me a huge chunk of cake when he bakes. There's plenty for both of us.

  But I was full. I shook my head, rejecting the cake, though he polished off a slice that made me sort of regret my decision. Already I'd learned that Troy never offered anything twice. He gave you one chance to accept, or forget it.

  "I'm sorry to burst in on you as I did," I murmured, gone sleepy again. "I should hurry back to Farthy before Tony gets angry with me."

  "He won't expect you to travel in a blizzard like this. He'll figure that you've holed up in some hotel lobby, and will come home the first chance you have.

  But you could give him a call and put his worries to rest."

  But the dial tone was gone when I lifted the receiver. Lines were down.

  "It's all right, Heaven. My brother is not a fool.

  He'll understand."

  Slowly he scanned my face, perhaps seeing the emotional weariness. "Do you want to talk about it?"

  No, I didn't want to talk about Logan's

  rejection, it hurt too much. Still, despite my will and my need to keep my pain from him, my tongue babbled out the entire story of how once I'd failed Logan in an important way, and now he couldn't forgive me. . . and what's just as bad, he's angry that now I'm not poor and pitiful!"

  He got up to put the dishes we'd used into his washer. Then, falling again on the floor, which obviously he preferred to his comfortable sofa and chairs, he spread his long length on the thick comfort of his carpet to lie on his back with his hands tucked beneath his head, before he said thoughtfully: "I'm sure one day very soon Logan will regret what he said today, and you'll hear from him again. You are both very young."

  "I never want to hear from him again." I choked and tried to keep from crying. "I've finished with Logan Stonewall, now and forever!"

  Again a small smile played about his

  beautifully shaped lips. Only when that smile faded did he turn his face away from me. "It's nice that you dropped in to share the blizzard with me, whatever the reason. I won't tell Tony."

  "Why doesn't he want me to come here?" I asked, not for the first time.

  For a flashing second shadows seemed to

  darken his expression. "In the beginning when first I met you, I didn't want to become involved with your life. Now that I know you better I feel obligated to help. When I lie down to sleep at night your eyes come to haunt me. How can a sixteen-year-old girl have such depth in her eyes?"

  "I'm not sixteen!" I cried out in a hoarse choked voice. "I am already seventeen years old—but don't you dare tell Tony that." The moment the words were out of my mouth I regretted them. He owed Tony loyalty, not me.

  "Why in the world would you lie about something so inconsequential as one year? Sixteen, seventeen, what's the difference?"

  "I will be eighteen this February twenty-second," I said with some defensiveness. "In the hills girls of eighteen are usually married and have children."

  That made his face turn my way. "I am very glad you no longer live in the hills. Now tell me why you told Tony you were sixteen instead of seventeen?"

  "I don't know why I did it. I wanted to protect my mother from appearing foolish and impulsive when she married my father, whom she knew only a few hours before she said yes to his marriage proposal. Granny always said it was love at first sight.

  I didn't understand what she meant, and I still can't understand how she, a girl from a rich and prominent family, with such a cultured background, could have fallen for a man like my father."

  His dark eyes had the kind of deep forest pools have; in them I could drown.

  His grandfather clock began to strike the hour of eight o'clock, and still the blizzard raged on. A music box that must have also been a clock began to play a sweet and haunting melody, while tiny figures emerged from a small door one by one. "I never saw a clock like that," I said irrelevantly.

  "I have a collection of antique clocks," Troy murmured absently, rolling on his side to study me with soft understanding. "When you are as rich as a Tatterton, you don't know how to spend your money .

  . . and to think, all the time you were in the Willies, needing what I could have given so easily. It seems an obscenity now to know I have so much while others have so little. It shocks me too to know I never gave poverty a thought before, perhaps because I've always lived in my own world, and the people I knew had as much as I did."

  I bowed my head even lower, realizing now how different Troy's life had been from mine. And even as I continued to sit, Troy gazed at me until I grew uneasy from his long survey, squirming before I stood and stretched. "I've taken too much of your time already. Now I have to go home so Tony won't ask too many questions."

  Truthfully, I expected him to object, to tell me again leaving was impossible, but this time he rose to his feet and smiled at me. "All right. There is a way that I didn't want you to know about. It's a cold climate here, and when Farthy went up, with the surrounding barns and stables, my practical ancestors anticipated the deep snows. They had tunnels dug to the barns and stables, so the horses and other animals could be taken care of and fed. A long time ago where this cottage stands now, there was a barn with a deep cellar. And that, of course, makes this cottage very accessible to the main house during the worst of weather. I could have told you this before, but I wanted you to stay and keep me company." His eyes moved from my face and turned slightly glassy. "It's very strange how comfortable I feel with you, a mere child." Again his penetrating eyes fixed on me. "If you enter the cellar of Farthy and use the west door that is painted green, the
tunnel will bring you to the cellar beneath this cottage. The other doors of blue, red, and yellow will take you nowhere, for Tony had those tunnels sealed. He thought too many passages, no matter how secret, made Farthy vulnerable to thieves."

  He brought my coat and boots from his guest closet and held the coat while I slipped my arms in, and when he had the fur coat snugly on my shoulders, his hands lingered. He was behind me, so I couldn't see his expression. When I turned around, he smiled before he reached for my hand and led me to a door in his kitchen that took us both down steep, wooden stairs into his cellar, which was damp and cold and very large. And then Troy was showing me the green door with its arched top. "I'll go with you to the house," he said, leading the way and still holding my hand. "When I was a boy these underground tunnels always scared me. Every time the tunnel made a bend, I expected monsters to appear, or ghosts, something I didn't want to see."

  Even with him leading the way, and giving me security with the warmth of his hand covering mine, I knew exactly what he meant. I was reminded of a coal mine tunnel that Tom and I had entered once despite signs that had read "Danger! Keep Out!"

  Troy released my hand only when we'd reached the end of the freezing tunnel, having arrived at the bottom of steps that were steep and narrow and going up. "You will come out in the back kitchen hall," he whispered. "Listen carefully before you open the door you see at the top. Rye Whiskey often works late." He touched my cheek then and asked, "How are you going to explain to Tony?"

  "Never mind. I'm a good liar, remember?" And with those words I threw my arms about his neck, but I didn't kiss him. I only pressed my cold cheek against his. "Without you I don't know what I'd do."

  He held me fast against him for a brief, exciting moment. "You just remember all the time that it is Logan you love and need, not me."

  I ran up the stairs, hurting all the way because he thought it so necessary to warn me to keep my distance. What was wrong with me? I needed someone like Troy. Desperately needed his sensitivity and understanding. There were times when I looked at Tony, then quickly I'd make myself forget his charm and good looks. He was too dominating, like Pa.

  Beginning to sniffle now, I entered the narrow hallway in back of Farthinggale Manor's huge kitchen.

  Even at this hour of the night, Rye Whiskey was in there, preparing the food to be served the next day. He was singing to keep rhythm with each roll of his pastry pin, and beyond him the young black boy he was teaching used spoons to keep the beat. On tiptoes I slipped past the kitchen door, and only then did I quicken my steps.

  An hour later I lay on my bed, staring out the windows, hearing the wind and thumping of my heart.

  I had great difficulty falling asleep, though I was deep in dreams when my bedroom door was thrown open, and Tony's voice roared loud enough to bolt me wide awake.

  "When did you slip into the house without my seeing you?"

  Disoriented and frightened by his voice, I bolted upright, clutching the topsheet and blankets to my bosom. Untruths, which could sometimes come readily to my tongue, failed me this time, so I could only tremble. And I suspected even Troy could not protect me from Tony's anger once I'd earned it.

  Tony strode into my bedroom and lit the lamp beside my bed. Towering above me he stared long and hard at my face. "Where were you, and how did you manage to return from Boston? There hasn't been a road open north of the city since three o'clock!"

  As I floundered, trying not to let him see how terrified I was of his anger and disapproval, thoughts of what was likely to happen choked in my throat.

  Falling back on my pillows, I gazed at Tony with wide eyes of terror. How intimidating and how cold he seemed as he glared down at me.

  His voice came low and hard. "Don't you lie to me, girl, and expect to get away with it. We have made a bargain, you and I, and I expect you to live up to your side of it."

  "I . . . I . . I never left," I faltered, feeling for the lying words. "When the taxi passed under the gates I suddenly lost my nerve. I felt ashamed to let you know I don't really like those Winterhaven girls, and I was too insecure to pretend I do. So I slipped in the side door and stole back to my bedroom, and then . . ."

  "Then what?" he asked coldly, his blue eyes narrowing suspiciously.

  "I was afraid you'd check my room, so I hid myself away in one of the unused rooms."

  "You lost your nerve?" he asked scornfully.

  "You hid? Now that is interesting. In which room did you hide?"

  Oh, God! How easily he could trap me! "It was the second room in that northern wing, you know, the room Jillian wants to redecorate. The room full of pale peach. The room she considers passé."

  His frown deepened. "And at what time did you decide to leave that room and return to this one?"

  Now he was baiting his trap. All through the evening he could have checked this bedroom . . . two hours ago he could have seen the bed empty. "I don't remember, Tony, really I don't. I fell asleep in the peach room, and when I stumbled back here, I didn't look at the time. I just undressed and went to bed."

  "And not a thought of me, and how worried I might be?"

  "I'm sorry," I whispered, "but I'd trapped myself, and I didn't know how to tell you the truth without losing face."

  "You have already lost face," he said harshly, glaring down at me. "I don't know whether or not to believe your story. Jillian and I had a terrible argument this afternoon. She is terrified that her friends will suspect you are her granddaughter, and they will ask questions about Leigh."

  Nervously I fingered the narrow ribbon beading the neckline of my pink nightgown.

  At the open doorway his figure almost blocked out the light in the hall. "Heaven," he said with his back turned. "I don't admire cowards. I hope you will never again do what you did today."

  He closed the door.

  Eleven

  Holidays, Lonely Days

  .

  WONDERFUL PREPARATIONS FOR

  THANKSGIVING DAY began a week ahead of time.

  From Friday to Monday I had a whole week's vacation. Upstairs where Jillian and Tony reigned supreme all seemed as usual, but downstairs in the kitchen such an array of produce began to arrive that my breath caught in my throat and seemed to stay.

  Fresh pumpkins, three of them, and only six guests had been invited to dinner. But with Jillian and Tony, and Troy and me, that made ten. Oh, at last, at last, Troy was going to be included as a genuine member of this family!

  "Tell me about the others who are coming," I eagerly asked Rye, perched beside him on a high stool, and busily chopping vegetables and anything else he thought I could handle. And he was a hard master to please. Just from his smiling or frowning expression I knew when I wasn't putting enough

  "slant" on my vegetable chopping, or I knew when I was doing it right.

  "Friends," he said, "of the mistress and her husband. Important friends who fly in just to eat in Farthinggale Manor. I flatter myself that I help draw them here with all the fine dishes I'll prepare. But that's not the only reason they come. Mr. Tatterton has a winning way with people, they all adore him. And they also come to see Mrs. Tatterton, so they can see how much she has aged since they saw her last. And now they also come to see Mr. Troy, who only shows up at very important functions. He is a mystery to them, just as he is to the rest of us. Don't expect to see anyone younger than twenty. Mrs. Tatterton hates children at her parties."

  Thanksgiving Day dawned bright and sunny and very cold. I was so thrilled that Troy was coming, every once in a while I caught myself singing. I was wearing a very special wine-red velvet dress that Tony had chosen, and it was so flattering I was glancing in a mirror to admire myself every few minutes.

  Troy was the first guest to arrive, and because I'd been watching the maze, it was I who ran to open the door instead of Curtis. "Good afternoon, Mr.

  Tatter-ton. What a pleasure and delight to have you favor our dining table, at long, long last."

  He was staring at m
e as if he'd never seen me before. Did a dress do that much? "I have never seen you look so lovely as you do this very minute," he said, as I reached to help him off with his topcoat.

  And Curtis, way back in the broad hall, stared our way with a certain kind of sarcasm. But what did I care, he was just a presence, very seldom a voice.

  I hung his coat carefully in a closet, making sure his shoulder seams were right, and then I spun around to catch both of his hands in mine. "I'm so glad you're here I'm nearly bursting. Now I won't have to sit at a table with six guests I've never met."

  "They won't all be strangers. Some you have met before at other parties . . . and there is one special guest who flew all the way from Texas just to meet you."

  "Who?" I asked, my eyes growing huge.

  "Jillian's mother, who is eighty-six years old. It seems Jillian wanted to cover the tales she'd told about you, and your great-grandmother became so intrigued she telephoned to say she was coming, despite the fact that she has a hip fracture."

  He smiled and pulled me to a sofa in the grandest salon of all. "Don't look so concerned. She's a tough old bird, and she's the only one who doesn't tell lies one after the other."

  She overwhelmed me right from the beginning when she came through the front door with two men supporting her weight on both sides. She was hardly five feet tall, a thin wisp of an old woman whose hair still held most of that silvery gold. On her scrawny fingers she wore four huge rings, ruby, emerald, sapphire, and diamond. Her colored jewels were all ringed with diamonds. Her bright blue dress hung loosely from her shoulders, and a heavy choker of sapphires decorated her neckline. "I hate tight clothes," she said as she glanced at me, and cringed a little closer to Troy.

  She also hated crutches, which couldn't be trusted. Wheelchairs were an abomination. Pillows, shawls, and afghans were brought in from the car outside. In thirty minutes she was made comfortable, and only then did she turn those sharp, small eyes on me.