Annie's Song (23 page)

“Tomorrow or the next day, I’m going to send a whole crew up. If you’re going to spend time here, I want every inch of this place cleaned. As it is, it can’t be safe.”

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Her sudden tenseness drew his gaze back to her.

“Don’t worry, Annie. They’ll leave everything the same. Just no more dust and cobwebs.”

Nothing would ever be the same again. Annie tried to tug her arm from his grasp. He not only wanted her to go downstairs dressed as she was, but he intended to send a whole bunch of people up here? All of them would see her secret place. All of them!

“Come on, Annie.”

Refusing to take no for an answer, he drew her resolutely along behind him. As the light from the dormers began to fade and the gloom around them grew more dense, so did Annie’s dread. She couldn’t go downstairs like this. And somehow, she had to stop him from sending people up here as well. The games she played in the attic were a secret. Her mama said they had to stay a secret. If people found out, she’d be sent away.

By the time they reached the attic door, Annie’s fear had escalated to full-blown panic. She was shaking so badly, she felt sure Alex could feel it. Nonetheless, he drew open the door and pulled her out into the narrow stairway.

Alex slammed his fist against the Trimbles’ front door with such force that the wood shook in its frame.

He heard footsteps scurrying to answer his summons, and the instant the portal swung wide, he shouldered his way into the house, nearly knocking the startled butler off his feet.

“Where is James?” he barked.

Clutching his lapels, the servant gave his shoulders a shrug to straighten his jacket. “I beg your pardon, sir, but—”

“Never mind. I’ll find him myself.”

Following a hunch, Alex strode directly to the parlor, thinking that, given the hour, Annie’s parents might be there. He found the room empty. From there, he strode purposely along the corridor and began throwing open doors. He found James’s study, the day room, sitting room, and library unoccupied as well. At the end of the hallway, he came upon a set of mahogany panels. Butting them open with his shoulder, he burst through into the dining room and surprised his in-laws at their supper table.

One cheek bulging with food, James looked up, fork and knife suspended above his plate. Recognizing Alex, he struggled to swallow and said, “My God, what’s the matter? Is Annie all right?”

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Edie, who was sitting at the opposite end of the long table with her back to the doors, sprang up from her chair, bumping her plate in the process and spilling her wine. Crimson splashed across the pristine white tablecloth and pooled around the base of a pretentiously ornate candlestick. “What on earth has happened?” she demanded. “Has she done something awful? What?”

Ignoring Edie, Alex stepped past her to advance on James. When he reached the end of the table, he grabbed the smaller man by the shoulder seams of his dinner jacket and hauled him unceremoniously to his feet. “You selfish, heartless little bastard!” Alex bit out. “How could you do something so monstrous to your own daughter?”

James’s blue eyes went wide with fear, and his face drained of all color. “What in God’s name are you talking about?” He clutched at Alex’s wrists. “You’re about to rip my suit, young man.”

“Your suit?” Alex released the man so suddenly that he staggered, tripped backward over his chair, and sprawled on the floor. “If I rip anything, you miserable little worm, it’ll be your head from your shoulders.”

Struggling up on one knee, James grasped the chair arm to steady himself. “Explain yourself! You can’t come barging in here like this, making threats and raising a ruckus! There are laws to—”

“Laws?” Alex brought his fist down on the table. The serving bowls and candlesticks leaped at the force of the blow, all landing simultaneously with a loud crash. “There are common laws of decency, my friend, that were never written in any of your precious law books. Did you ever once observe any of them? Not with your daughter, that’s for damned sure.” Alex leveled a finger at the other man’s nose. “Understand this, you pitiful son of a bitch. Annie will never return to this house. Not as long as I draw breath.

Consider my word on that part of our agreement broken, and you’d better give thanks to Almighty God that’s all I’ve decided to break.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” James said tremulously. “I’ve never mistreated our daughter.”

“Never mistreated her?” Alex gave a harsh laugh. “Aside from beating on her every time she stepped out of line, you’ve neglected to educate her. There are schools for the deaf! And all manner of things that can be done to help them! In all these years, you’ve never even so much as bought her an ear trumpet! But worse than that, you’ve let everyone in this town believe she’s a moron! How do you sleep at night? Can you tell me that? I sure as hell couldn’t.”

In the wake of that accusation, a stunned silence settled over the room. Through the haze of his anger, Alex brought James’s face into clearer focus. What he saw in the other man’s expression helped to douse his fury. Not guilt, as he expected, but incredulity mixed with profound relief. It struck Alex then that Annie’s parents didn’t know. As impossible as it seemed, they honestly didn’t know.

Shaking with the last vestiges of rage, he jerked out a chair and dropped onto it as though someone had dealt a blow to the backs of his knees. “She’s deaf,” he said hoarsely. “Not mad, not stupid. Deaf.”

Edie sank back onto her seat, one shaking hand clamped over her mouth, the other pressed to her waist.

She stared at Alex over the tops of her white-knuckled fingers. After a moment, she dropped her hand.

“Annie is not deaf! The girl can hear as well as you or I!”

Alex felt the anger building within him again. “That’s an out-and-out lie, and you know it. The girl is deaf.

I saw proof of it myself just this afternoon. And don’t tell me you haven’t. She didn’t invent that fantasy world I found in my attic overnight. She’s been playing those games for years. You had to have known
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about them! At one time or another, you must have come upon her when she was playing make-believe.”

The guilt that flashed in Edie’s eyes spoke for itself. Never had Alex slapped a woman, but his palm itched to do so now. Just once, he wished she could see how it felt. She had certainly treated Annie to the experience often enough. “How could you ignore the needs of your own daughter?” he asked in a raw voice. “If helped, deaf people can live nearly normal lives.”

“She isn’t deaf!” Edie shot to her feet. “Do you think I wouldn’t know if such a thing were true? That I haven’t wished as much? Even prayed for it? She isn’t deaf, I tell you. If she’s turned once when I call her name, she’s done so a thousand times. How dare you come bursting into our home, yelling obscenities and accusing us of mistreating her!” She ground a fist against her mouth to stifle a sob. “How dare you?”

His anger completely spent, disgust welling in its place, Alex stood up and pushed his chair back under the table. “And I thought I was blind? My wife is deaf. Stone-deaf.” He shot a glance at James, who stood behind his chair, gripping its back as though he couldn’t stand without the support. “Notice I said wife. I don’t use the term lightly. From this moment on, Annie is a Montgomery and as such is no longer affiliated with this household or anyone in it.”

Edie spun to watch as Alex left the room. When he reached the doors, she cried out, the sound more moan than word. He paused to look back at her, seeing her pain, yet separated from it. There was no room within him for sympathy, not for anyone but Annie.

“You can’t take our little girl completely away from us,” she whispered raggedly. “You can’t do such a thing! No one could be that heartless.”

Alex regarded her with stony distaste. “Call it heartless if you wish, but that is exactly what I intend to do. I don’t want either of you anywhere near my wife. Your love, if anyone in his right mind can call it that, has caused her nothing but injury.” Looking directly at Edie, he said, “You, madam, are a pitiful excuse for a mother.” Turning his gaze toward James, he added, “And you, sir, have made a mockery of the word father.”

With that, Alex slammed out of the house, silently vowing that he would never again darken the Trimbles’ doorstep.

During the ride home, however, something kept digging at his memory. An elusive something. Something Maddy had once said. He had nearly reached Montgomery Hall when he finally recalled what it was. He and Maddy had been in his study, discussing Annie, and during the course of their conversation, Maddy had ruled out the possibility that Annie might be deaf. She turns when I call her name, she’d said.

As Alex rubbed down his horse and put him away in his stall, those words kept coming back to him.

Edie Trimble had said basically the same thing. If she has turned once when I call her name, she has done so a thousand times.

Alex couldn’t find it in his heart to regret a single word he had said to the Trimbles. In his estimation, they had deserved all of that, and more. But he was filled with hope by what Edie had told him.

Could it be that Annie wasn’t completely deaf? Was it possible that she could hear certain sounds? Alex hurried up to the house, so excited he could scarcely wait to discuss the possibility with Maddy.

* * *

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At precisely ten o’clock the next morning, Alex hovered outside the nursery, watching Maddy and Annie through the partially open door. The girl, once again dressed in a childish frock, sat at the table, her unfinished breakfast shoved aside, her chin propped on the heel of her hand. Gazing out the barred window, she ignored Maddy, who was making a great show of straightening the bureau drawers.

As Alex had instructed her earlier, the housekeeper suddenly looked up from her task and loudly called,

“Annie!”

Alex nearly whooped with excitement when Annie turned and fastened questioning eyes on the other woman. Pretending nothing was amiss, Maddy opened another drawer and began refolding the clothes that lay on top. She waited several minutes, allowing Annie plenty of time to direct her attention back outdoors. Then she called the girl’s name again. As before, Annie glanced over her shoulder.

She could hear! Alex was so pleased he could scarcely contain himself. Maddy glanced toward the door, met his gaze through the crack, and winked conspiratorially. Alex grinned at her and nodded. After waiting a few minutes, he called Annie’s name himself. At the sound of his voice, which was lower in pitch, she never so much as blinked. He called a little louder. Still nothing. After the third try, Maddy yelled her name again, and as before, Annie immediately turned.

“She hears you!” Alex proclaimed as he shoved the door open and strode into the room. “It’s because you speak louder and your voice goes shrill when you call her, I think. Do you know what this means, Maddy?” Completely forgetting himself in his excitement, Alex snatched Maddy into his arms and swept her around the room in a two-step. “With the aid of ear trumpets, she may be able to hear us speaking to her. We’ll be able to teach her her letters! And to read! Maybe even to talk! Maddy, this is wonderful.”

Huffing from the unaccustomed exercise, Maddy cried, “Do stop, Master Alex. Me old heart cannot take all this dancing about!”

Releasing the older woman, Alex turned to Annie. She was watching him with her usual wariness, her blue eyes guarded. Flashing her a grin, Alex swept one arm across his waist and executed a courtly bow.

After he straightened, he said, “May I have the honor of this dance?’’

She stared up at him, clearly startled and more than a little suspicious. Then she slid a glance at Maddy.

Dancing, Alex determined, was obviously a secret activity, one that could not be indulged in outside the attic.

To hell with that. ..

Determined, he closed the distance between them, grasped her hand, and drew her to her feet. Against her wishes, which she made quite apparent by going rigid and stumbling awkwardly within his arm, he swept her into a waltz step. Deciding his toes could take that punishment and more, Alex stubbornly drew her around the room, his gaze fixed on her averted face.

“I don’t think she wants to dance,” Maddy needlessly pointed out.

Alex only smiled more broadly. “She loves to dance. She simply doesn’t want to dance with me.” As he spoke, Annie glanced up. Alex looked into her frightened eyes, wishing with all his heart that she could tell him what was going through her head. Memories of Douglas? Fear of him? Acutely aware of the stiffness of her body and her diminutive stature, he felt his conscience begin to smote him. Slowly he drew to a stop, his gaze still holding hers.

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“All right, Annie love, you win this battle. I won’t force you to dance with me.”

The relief that swept across her face was so unmistakable that Alex chuckled. She could give him that stupid look until hell was besieged by snowstorms, and he’d never again fall for it. As long as he looked right at her and spoke distinctly, she understood him perfectly.

“Before I turn you loose, however, you have to pay a price,” he added softly.

At that, her blue eyes darkened, and he felt her body grow even more rigid. Oh, yes, she understood.

“If you don’t want to dance with me,” he pressed, “then tell me so.”

Maddy drew in a sharp breath. “Master Alex! Fer shame. Ye know the poor wee lass can’t speak.”

“Oh, but she can,” he said, never taking his gaze from Annie’s. “And she will, or I’m going to hold her in my arms like this all day.”

Annie’s eyes widened. Alex grinned. “Well, Annie love? Turn me down, or dance with me. It’s a very simple thing.”