All That Lies Broken (Ashmore's Folly Book 2) (26 page)

She walked up the terrace, pulling her phone from the clip on her belt to pretend to talk. She passed by Richard’s group, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was watching Julie and Mike in the shadow of the trees. She glanced over, just in time to see the two disappear around the side of the house. She heard Richard excuse himself to his companions, and then – oh, brother – he walked across the terrace after them.

Well, it was none of her business. Julie seemed to be a past master at getting around her father.

She pulled open the French doors and went into the house.

A few people were wandering around, looking for the powder rooms. One approached her to ask, and Laura said, “Hold on,” into her phone and pointed to the room off the kitchen. She waited until no one was looking, then shoved her phone back into the clip and headed into the conservatory.

The room was cool and shadowed, thankfully empty of everything but Julie’s baby grand and harp. The early evening outside had been warm and humid, the air heavy with the storm predicted to hit by midnight; the air conditioning brushed against her cheek and cooled her tension. She sank onto the piano bench and folded back the cover.

Here was her world, the world of ivory keys and crescendos and life in 3/4 time. Here she need not guard against wearing her heart on her sleeve. Here she need not accept sympathy, over and over, from strangers who could not let her loss go unspoken.

Here she need not be a living symbol of 9/11.

Laura let her hands sweep across the keys. She didn’t know why she chose “Un Bel Dì” from
Madama Butterfly
; it was generally out of her
tessitura
, her comfortable singing range. She had to pitch her volume low – the last thing she wanted was to attract an audience – and the softness of her volume made a couple of the notes even harder to reach. But who cared? She was playing for herself, to carve out time and distance.

Un bel dì, vedremo

levarsi un fil di fumo sull’estremo

confin del mare

E poi la nave appare.

One fine, clear day, we shall see

a thin trail of smoke arising,

on the distant horizon, far out to sea.

She was playing to be herself for these few minutes, before she had to go back out there and be anyone except the woman who loved Richard Ashmore, who did not love her.

The woman who might or might not have a future with him, but who was certainly allowing her imagination to run riot.

Vedi? È venuto!

Io non gli scendo incontro. Io no. Mi metto

là sul ciglio del colle e aspetto, e aspetto

gran tempo e non mi pesa,

la lunga attesa.

See? He has come!

I'll not go down to meet him. Not I.

I shall stay on the hillside and wait,

and wait for a long time,

and I'll not grow weary of the long wait.

She shouldn’t have listened to Julie for an instant this morning; she should have quashed her niece’s questioning as soon as it started. She shouldn’t have let herself imagine, as they bought Dad-approvable clothes, that she could become a permanent part of the Ashmore household. She shouldn’t have let herself dream that she could stand with him, greeting their guests, the heart and soul of Ashmore Park, that she could sit with the Queen Bees and hold her own against Mel McIntire and decline a margarita for the same reason Lucy did.

If she didn’t stop this daydreaming, if she didn’t stop reaching for the future he had so firmly told her not to, she might reveal more than either of them wanted. She might, in the end, make his life more difficult than either of them had ever thought.

Chi sarà? chi sarà?

E come sarà giunto

che dirà? che dirà?

Who is he? Who?

And when he arrives,

What will he say? What will he say?

But it ate at her, having to pretend. What had she ever done except pretend? Dominic’s dutiful daughter, secretly planning to run away; Richard’s young sister-in-law, chafing at his blindness below the surface of her devotion; Cam’s submissive wife, hiding Cat Courtney beneath the resentment and gratitude until she suddenly burst forth and rewrote the rules of their marriage. And now, calm, demure Laura St. Bride, who had to take her happiness in stolen hours of the night, who could not stand openly at the side of the man she loved.

She felt a tear trickle down her face.

Un bel dì, vedremo

levarsi un fil di fumo sull'estremo

confin del mare

E poi la nave appare.

Laura was halfway through the verse when, behind her, another voice joined hers, a voice she hadn’t heard for many years. She went rigid with shock. Her disciplined fingers took over, playing automatically, even as her mind disconnected from the keyboard. A once-beautiful voice, with clear, high bell tones, now short of breath and muddy around the edges from too many years of abuse and lack of practice. A coloratura soprano who had once had the power to bring her audience to tears.

Her finger slipped; she played C natural where she should have played C sharp, and Diana, standing behind her now, so close that she felt the heat from her sister’s body, followed the melody and flatted.

Diana. No one had warned her. What was Diana doing here?

Then,
Richard can’t have invited her.

She ended with a bouquet of discordant notes; she couldn’t have continued playing if her life had depended on it. In the silence, the echoes of the notes jarred her already stretched nerves.

“Hey,” said Diana.

Laura felt her heart pounding sickly, a hideous wave of adrenaline flooding through her. She sat still, a forest animal alert to a threatened attack.

“Hey yourself.” Was that her voice?

“I didn’t know you still sang opera,” Diana said, and dropped down beside her. “Not bad, Laurie – you still have problems with that range, though, don’t you?” As if she herself could sing that range anymore. Diana nodded towards the keyboard. “Thinking of trying opera again? Cat Courtney not enough for you?”

Cat to the rescue. She’d spent a week trying not to call on her alter ego for help, but she needed Cat now; she couldn’t let Diana rattle her. “I – I don’t know. I just felt like singing it. I might do a couple of pieces on my next album.” Where was Lucy? Where was Richard? Did anyone else know Diana was here? She took a deep breath. “How are you doing, Di? Are you feeling better?”

She’d last seen her sister in her bluebell bed, succumbed to the sedative, her wrist bandaged and her face pale from loss of blood. A beautiful princess oblivious to the presence of the prince she had spurned. Laura sneaked a look at Diana’s wrist; her sister was wearing a long-sleeved shirt that fortuitously hid the remnants of her cuts. She’d had six days to heal.

Six days… a lifetime ago, before this woman’s husband had become her lover.

“Just fine,” said Diana. “I’m just doing
swimmingly
. Heard the news?”

Could Diana hear how fast her heart was beating? “What news?”

Diana let her fingers splay across the keys. “I’m – well, let’s just say I’m being
dumped
by my dear husband.” She didn’t attempt to hide the sarcasm. “Richard’s filed for divorce.”

Where was Lucy?

Diana had every right to expect her sympathy. They were sisters, and sisters sided with each other against the men in their lives. She swallowed. “I heard. I’m so sorry, Di.”

“Yeah, well, me too.” Diana played something that sounded like minor Mozart. “You’re sorry, Lucy’s sorry – and not half as sorry as Richard is going to be by the time I get done with him.”

She said again, “I’m so sorry.”

“Could be worse.” Diana leaned her elbow on the piano and propped her head against her hand. For someone trespassing in her estranged husband’s home, she seemed relaxed and confident. “I could be facing him with no ammo. Thanks to you, I’m fully armed.”

If she had been Max, her ears would have flattened.
Danger
. “You mean the deposition? I’m not very happy about that.”

“Oh, I know,” Diana said cheerfully. “I heard you got a lawyer and got it put off – Kevin was frothing at the mouth. I told him not to sweat it.”

Laura said clearly, “I don’t care if Kevin Stone sweats or not. You had no business doing that. I won’t be dragged into this.”

Diana waved an airy hand. “Don’t worry, I won’t actually make you do anything. That’s the beauty of all this. I don’t have to do anything. I just have to threaten it. There’s no way in hell Richard will run the risk of Julie finding out about Francie. He’ll be so eager to avoid you talking that he’ll—” she snapped her fingers— “do exactly what I want.”

Laura felt an odd stillness sweep through her limbs. “What’s that?”

What did Diana want? Money? She could give her money; she could give her millions of dollars. Her financial resources dwarfed Richard’s. She could buy and sell him a hundred times over. Buying Diana out of the marriage might break him; she’d never notice the money gone—

No
. No wonder Jay Spencer had told her not to give anyone money. He’d seen this moment coming, when she might want to pay Diana off to bring peace to the family.

“What do you want, Di?” Would her sister tell her?

Diana cocked her head. “Hmmm – that’s complicated. But he’s not skating out of this marriage so easily. I don’t care what little floozy he’s got tucked away – the latest in a long line, I’m sure. I can’t stop him forever, but,” she said reflectively, “I can sure make life miserable for him.”

What a bitch her sister was. Laura stopped herself, stunned. She couldn’t take sides; she had to remember that Diana hurt, was lashing out in pain.
Yes, but she hurt him first. She threw Julie in his face. He’s had to live with that every day of Julie’s life.

The idea of herself as a floozy, she dismissed. She was many things, but surely a floozy wasn’t one of them. Still – she felt an unwelcome prick of conscience. She, not Francie, was now the dagger aimed at Diana’s heart.

She thrust the thought away uneasily.

“You don’t want to be married to him, do you?” That she still didn’t understand, why Richard and Diana had so fiercely clung to a marriage that neither of them wanted any longer.

“Heavens, no.” Diana sounded startled. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

She couldn’t bring herself to look her sister in the eye. “Then why are you hanging on if you don’t want him?”

Diana said nothing.

“Did you know Cam asked for a divorce? He filed just a few weeks before he died.”

“Really.” Diana straightened and let her fingers drift to the keyboard. “I didn’t know that. So what happened? What did he say? Didn’t you want to smash his face in?”

“No.” Diana started playing; Laura watched her for a few seconds, then picked up the melody and echoed it, two octaves higher. “He flew over after one of my concerts, took me out to dinner, said we couldn’t go on. I wasn’t surprised. We’d been separated for months. I felt – oh, I guess
relieved
. Sometimes, you know it’s coming, and you dread it so much, and then it happens, and it’s nowhere near as bad as you thought it would be.”

“Well, I didn’t know this was coming, and it was a lot worse than I thought, and I’m not relieved. I’m mad.”

Laura took a breath and tried to ignore the stab of guilt. “I didn’t see any point in hanging on, if we didn’t want to be married to each other. And, no, I didn’t want to smash his face in. In fact,” she played an impromptu arpeggio, “I kissed him good night and told him I wanted him to be happy.”

And Cam had suggested, not in jest, and not for the last time, that they make love. But she wasn’t going to tell Diana that. She’d wished for ten months that she’d said yes.

“I would have smashed his face in.”

That phrase again. And the hinted-at violence in the pleadings... “You want to smash his face in?”

What had happened between them?
An appalling scene… I don’t think either of us ever behaved so badly in our lives.