Dark Homecoming (10 page)

L
iz stood at the bottom of the stairs supervising the removal of Dominique's portrait from the landing. Thad, the estate's caretaker, a big, blond, lumbering man who stood over six feet tall, was setting the aluminum ladder against the wall. He seemed uncomfortable with the task. Perhaps, Liz wondered, he'd been one of the men in the house who'd been “obsessed” with the late Mrs. Huntington.

“Is there a problem?” Liz asked.

“No, ma'am,” Thad answered.

He paused before taking the first step up the ladder and pulled on a pair of cloth gloves. Mrs. Hoffman, who stood beside him, watching with those intense eyes of hers, had instructed Thad not to damage the portrait. It was “priceless,” she insisted.

Liz stared up at Dominique's dark eyes.

Your time is over
, she thought, holding the gaze of the portrait.

Gardenias.

She smelled gardenias.

Outside the storm had settled directly over the house. The day had turned deep purple. Wind lashed the eastern exposure, rattling windows in their frames. Rain pounded the roof. Violent cracks of thunder were followed by explosive bursts of lightning.

Liz watched as Thad took the first step up the ladder.

Mrs. Hoffman watched, her hands clenched in fists at her sides.

Thad took a second step up the ladder.

The wind found some tiny space at the window and began to howl through the house. For a moment Liz turned to look, worried that the glass might shatter in over all of them.

Thad took a third step. He was now at a point where he could grasp the lower frame of the portrait.

“Be very careful now,” Mrs. Hoffman said.

“I hung this portrait of her, didn't I?” Thad asked, his voice thick. “I will take it down just as carefully as I placed it here.”

Liz studied the man on the ladder. Strong, broad, his face a canyon of crags. He must have been late forties, or maybe early fifties. His skin was burnt leather. He'd been with the Huntingtons since he was a teenager, he'd told Liz when they met. He was utterly devoted to the family, he said, a fact which David had confirmed.

Liz watched as Thad's hands gripped the frame.

When Mrs. Hoffman had given him the instructions to remove the portrait from the stairway, Thad had seemed horrified. His face had fallen. His mouth twisted. Had he loved Dominique so much he couldn't bear the idea of removing her portrait?

Liz looked up at the dark eyes of the woman in the portrait. Dominque really had been that beautiful, that charismatic. Even after death, she still held men in her power. More than ever, Liz wanted her portrait gone.

“Steady now,” Mrs. Hoffman said as Thad took hold of the bottom of the frame, ready to lift it off the wall.

Get it down!
Liz thought.

Gardenias suddenly overwhelmed her.

Just as Thad attempted to lift the portrait, the loudest thunderclap yet reverberated through the house. The caretaker jumped, startled, and tottered backward on the ladder. Liz watched the action unfold as if in slow motion. Thad swayed back and forth for what couldn't have been more than a second, but to Liz it seemed like many minutes. There was no way Thad could keep his balance on that ladder. The scream was already out of Liz's mouth as the caretaker fell backward, as if he were a great oak cut down by a lumberjack's ax. Thad hit the bannister of the staircase with his shoulder, then tumbled over and over all the way down the stairs, until his massive body lay sprawled in a heap at Liz's feet.

“Oh my God, are you all right?” Liz shouted, dropping to the fallen man's side.

Thad groaned.

Mrs. Hoffman came hurrying down the stairs.

“I'm all right,” Thad said, sitting up, rubbing his shoulder.

“Are you certain?” Liz asked. “Try to walk. Shall we call a doctor? Does your shoulder hurt?”

The caretaker attempted to get up, but collapsed in pain. “My shoulder's fine, but not my ankle,” he groaned. “I think I broke it.”

Mrs. Hoffman shot Liz an intense glance.

“We never should have tried to take it down,” Thad moaned, a big, burly man reduced to quivering on the marble floor. “I knew it wasn't wise. I knew she wouldn't let it happen!”

Liz swung her eyes up the stairs. The portrait of Dominique was slightly askew, but still it hung. Still those black eyes stared down at her.

“I'll have one of the drivers take you over to the ER,” Mrs. Hoffman told Thad. “Don't try to walk.”

She hurried off. Thad was staring up at Liz.

“Should never have tried to take it down,” he said hoarsely again.

“I'm sorry,” Liz told him. “We'll take care of everything, any costs, any time off.”

Thad just nodded.

Thunder crashed again.

Other servants were gathering around now, asking if Thad was okay. Thad repeated his belief that they should never have tried to take the portrait down, and the others nodded their heads.

“You can't all believe in ghosts,” Liz said.

But their eyes told her otherwise.

Liz moved off toward the parlor, where Mrs. Hoffman was talking with one of the drivers and pointing over in Thad's direction.

They're blaming me
, she thought.

Liz turned and hurried out into the foyer. She had to get out. Maybe she'd take a drive—whether she had a valid driver's license or not. She needed to get out of this house!

But what she saw at the front door both startled and gladdened her. The door was being opened by Rita, and in from the wind and the rain stumbled—

David!

How was that possible? David was in Amsterdam . . .

But it
was
him! The same dark hair, dark eyes, square jaw—his face partially hidden behind the upturned collar of a raincoat. And Rita was greeting him, “Hello, Mr. Huntington.”

“David!” Liz cried, running toward the door.

But as he turned to look at her, it became clear that the man at the door was not her husband. He looked a great deal like him, but he was not David.

“This must be Liz,” the man was saying. “And bless her heart, she thinks I'm David.”

Liz stopped short, confused and embarrassed.

The man approached her, dripping water all over the tiled floor of the foyer. “I'm so sorry to have gotten your hopes up, my dear,” he said. “But I'm Roger Huntington. David's brother.” He smiled, the same dazzling, dimpled smile that David possessed. “And your brother-in-law.”

“Roger,” Liz said weakly.

David had told her that he had a brother . . . but he'd said he lived far away. He wasn't involved in the family business. A bohemian sort, David had said, implying they weren't close. There had been plans for Liz to meet his parents as soon as possible, but David had never mentioned anything about meeting his brother.

“Rita, sweetheart, will you take this drenched coat for me?” Roger asked, doffing his sodden outerwear. “I'd like to be able to greet my new sister-in-law appropriately.”

“Of course,” Rita said, helping Roger out of his raincoat.

When he was free of it, he approached Liz again. “How wonderful to meet you,” he gushed, extending his arms. “May I?”

Liz didn't know what to say or do, so she simply nodded.

Roger threw his big arms around her and pressed her into his chest. He smelled musky—sweaty and vaguely sweet. He was harder, more muscled than David.

“David isn't here,” Liz managed to say when Roger let her go.

“I'm aware of that. I spoke with my father last night and he told me he'd needed David to go to Europe on business. That damn company of theirs.” Roger smiled down at her, and his chocolate brown eyes, so much like David's, seemed kind. “I'm not a big fan of the corporate sort of life that the other men in my family lead. So when I heard you were here all alone in this mausoleum, I thought I ought to come by and say hello.”

“Oh, that's nice of you, but I'm fine—”

Roger made a face. “How can you possibly be fine here?” He leaned in closer, dropping his voice to a whisper. “With that old harridan Mrs. Hoffman haunting the place like a ghoul?”

Liz struggled to keep from betraying her own thoughts about the housekeeper.

“Rita,” Roger called over his shoulder, “will you have some extremely hot coffee brought in to us in the study? I want to take the chill off and get to know my new sister-in-law. And would you tell Mrs. Hoffman there's no need to fuss over my being here?”

“She's tending to Thad at the moment, arranging to have him driven to the ER,” Rita informed him.

“What's happened to Thad?” Roger asked.

Rita looked over at Liz to provide the explanation.

“Oh,” Liz said, supremely uncomfortable. “He fell on the stairs. He may have broken his ankle.” She felt as if she might cry.

“Well, a big old buck like Thad will rebound just fine,” Roger said. “Give him my best.”

Rita nodded, then headed out of the foyer.

When they were alone, Roger turned his eyes back to Liz. “I shouldn't be so presumptuous to whisk you away from your duties and call for coffee like I'm the master of the place. Forgive me. Maybe you had plans for the day . . .”

“No, no,” Liz said. “It's fine, really.”

“Are you sure?” Roger smiled again. “You're okay with having some coffee with me in the study and talking a bit? Getting to know one another?”

She returned the smile. “Of course.”

“Because I wouldn't want to impose on your plans. I can come back another time when it's more convenient. After all, you're the mistress of Huntington House. You make the rules.”

Liz sighed wearily, trying not to fret over the irony in Roger's words. “Let's go into the study. Did you tell David you were stopping by?”

“He's maddeningly difficult to get ahold of on his business trips.”

Liz certainly knew that to be true. They took seats on sofas opposite each other. Liz tried to steady her shaking hands by folding them in her lap. Roger noticed.

“Are you all right, Liz?” he asked.

“Oh, I guess seeing Thad topple down the stairs just upset me,” she replied, withholding the unspoken fear that was gnawing away at her: that it was
Dominique
who had pushed him.

But that was absurd. It was the crack of thunder that startled him.

I smelled gardenias
, Liz reminded herself.

“I take it he's okay, though?” Roger was asking. “You said maybe his ankle . . .”

“I hope it's just a sprain. You see, he was doing a job I'd asked him to do . . .”

“On the staircase?”

Liz held Roger's gaze. “Yes. I had asked him to take down the portrait that's hanging there.”

“Dominique's portrait,” Roger said softly.

Liz nodded.

At that moment Rita entered, carrying a tray with a pot of steaming coffee, two mugs, and some cream and sugar. She placed the tray on a table between Liz and Roger. “Will there be anything else?” Rita asked.

“Would you like something to eat, Roger?” Liz inquired.

“No, thank you, just some hot coffee to take off the chill from that storm outside.”

Rita left them alone.

They each poured themselves a cup of coffee, both of them taking it black. Roger looked up at Liz over the brim of his mug.

“I would hope Thad's accident won't deter you from getting that damn thing off the wall.”

Liz was struck by his words.

“I can't believe my brother left it hanging there when he brought his new wife home to live here.” He set his mug down on the table, shaking his head. “Really. How insensitive.”

“I'm sure he would have taken it down if he'd been able to stay.”

Roger looked over at her, narrowing his eyes almost as if he were entering a conspiracy with her. “I suspect David would have taken it down soon after Dominique died. But you know who insisted they leave it hanging up there, don't you?”

“I could probably guess.”

“If you were to guess Mrs. Hoffman, you'd be right.”

Liz wanted to speak freely, wanted to say exactly what she was thinking about this house and its chief housekeeper. Roger seemed so natural, so kind, so trustworthy—but still she had to be careful. She'd just met him, and she couldn't say anything that might get back to Mrs. Hoffman and make things worse for her.

“Well,” Liz said, choosing her words, “I understand Dominique and Mrs. Hoffman were very close friends. I'm sure it's been hard for her to accept that she's gone.”

“But she's going to have to! I mean, Dominique took the big gulp more than a year ago.”

“Roger,” Liz said, taken aback by her brother-in-law's callous words.

“I'm sorry if I sound disrespectful of the dead. But Dominique and I . . . weren't always the best of friends.”

“Oh?”

He smiled. “Ancient history.” Roger reached over and reclaimed his mug for another long sip of hot brew. “I won't bore you with all the details. We've moved past all that. There's a new mistress of Huntington House, and I think I'm going to like her much better than the last.”

How much he looked liked David. It was almost uncanny—the way he moved his mouth, the little lift of his eyebrows, the dimples, the voice.