Dreaming (35 page)

She choked slightly, then said, “I’ll pay for the damage. I mean, my papa will. I . . . he . . . ” She paused, searching for the words that would make things right. There never had been any, and she couldn’t find them now, either. “I’m sorry. I have . . . ” She took a deep breath and spit it out as best she could. “I’m afraid I’m rather a disaster.”

“But it was just an accident,” the girl said.

“I have a reputation for a great number of those accidents,”
Letty
admitted, staring at her lap.

“Truly?”

Letty
nodded. “
London
society and I don’t mix. I was sent home after only half my season.”

The girl said quietly, “I never had one.” She turned her face so
Letty
could see the long scar. “This doesn’t make people very comfortable.”

“No, I don’t suppose it does,”
Letty
said with candor. “How did it happen?” The question was out of her mouth before she realized what she’d asked.

“I was taking a fence when I was ten,” the girl answered with the same forthrightness. “My mount missed, and I fell before he had cleared the jump.”

“It must have hurt terribly.”

“The scar it left behind has hurt me far more than the accident.” She began to pick up the clothing she had dropped. “People look at it and either feel awkward and hurry away, or they stand there gaping in horror and thinking they are glad they don’t have it.”

Suddenly
Letty’s
problems didn’t seem so grim.

“But what’s worse yet is when they try to say something to make it better. They don’t understand that there is nothing they can say.”

“Do you still ride?”

She nodded.

“My papa won’t allow me near the horses,”
Letty
said wistfully.

“
Whyever
not?”

“Well, not the horses . . . the stable, actually.”

“Why?”

“I flooded it.”

“You did what?”

“I flooded the stables. I was trying to build a replica of the Roman aqueduct. My papa’s most interested in Roman antiquities. For as long as I can remember he’s been off on digs or speaking somewhere. He has always been gone more than he’s been home.” She sighed. “I think I realize now that at the time all I really wanted was his attention.” She chewed her lip. “I got it too. Draining the entire lake into the stables would tend to make one sit up and take notice.

“I didn’t do so on purpose, of course. And none of the horses were harmed, although they were skittish for weeks. His stallion would never again take a water jump, and all the tack and feed was ruined. Papa wasn’t pleased with me.”

“I understand. The first year after my fall I kept my head down so often that I broke almost every valuable vase and bric-a-brac in the house. I kept running into everything.”

“You did?”

The girl nodded. “By the time I stopped running around like a mole there were quite a few less Chinese vases and rare porcelains. There still aren’t many in the house.”

Letty
glanced around the bedchamber. It was a beautiful blue room with imported wallpaper and rosewood furniture. But there was no bric-a-brac, no vases, only a few paintings on the wall. And even more telling, she remembered that the only mirror in the room was behind a Chinese screen. She turned back and they stared at each other in silence, as if neither could believe the other truly existed.

“Of course, now that I think about it,”
Letty
finally said in a philosophical tone, “perhaps the stable incident wasn’t so horrible after all.”

“How is that?”

“I might not be allowed near the horses, but I suppose the end result was a success.”

“It was?”

“Papa did stay home for over two months after that.
I
had what I’d wanted: his attention.” She shrugged and gave a small smile.

The girl smiled back. “I have the opposite problem. My papa was been here too much. He has no life of his own because he spends his time with me. After the accident he tried too hard to make me happy, to make our life the same as it had been before. It took him awhile, but he finally realized he couldn’t make things the same as before, that people would always make it difficult for us no matter what he did.

“It was then that he bought the island and we moved here. Since then it has been only the two of us.” The girl paused, then added as an afterthought, “My mother died when I was three.”

Letty
looked at her and knew in that flash of an instant that she had found a friend. “I was seven when we lost Mama.”

It was very quiet as each girl became aware of how very much they shared.

“I’m
Giana
.”

“I’m
Letty
. Well, actually, my name is
Letitia
.” She paused, then added, “
Letitia
Olive Hornsby.”

Giana
made a face. “Olive? How horrid!” Then her eyes widened when she realized what she’d just said. She covered her mouth with her hand. “I’m sorry.”

Letty
burst out laughing.

Giana
blushed.

“Don’t feel badly. I’m sorry too. Sorry because it’s my name and it
is
horrid!”

And they both laughed.

Two hours later the sun slowly awakened, turning the eastern horizon a brilliant red-orange, and while Gus slept at their feet, both young women sat on the bed, laughing and talking, two lonely people who had been starved for friendship.

“Look!”
Letty
said, pointing to the sunrise. “Isn’t that incredibly beautiful?”

Giana
nodded. “I have roses that same color.”

“You do?”

“Yes. They’re called Titian.”

“Titian,”
Letty
said with a sigh.

They looked at each other and in unison said, “I’ve always wanted titian hair.”

Chapter 21

Some fourteen hours later in Sir
Vere
Hunt’s elegant dining room,
Letty
sat in the worst possible place— across from Richard. She had looked at him only once, and that had been after their host had let her into the dining room.

She had been just about to sit down when she caught his eye. She had seen no emotion, only Richard looking through her as if she didn’t exist.

She picked at the food on her plate. She wasn’t hungry and she was glad, because every time she thought about that look her stomach tightened.

There was nothing but cold rigidity in his manner. And other than his discussion with the men regarding the swift disappearance of the pirates and the ransom, he said little and drank much. She watched a footman refill his wine goblet for the seventh time. It was only the second remove.

Only the second remove, she thought, knowing the meal would be one of the longest she’d ever endured.

Seymour
’s laughter rose over the table, and
Letty
turned. Every time the viscount looked at
Giana
, his face almost glowed. For her friend she could sit here and smile and pretend. For her friend she could watch Richard drink himself into the man he tried so hard to be. The drunkard. The rake. The man with no heart.

She glanced at her friend.
Giana
and the viscount exchanged a covert look that communicated something personal and made
Giana
blush slightly. He smiled at her then, and she could see the love in her friend’s eyes. Yes, it was a love match.

There before
Letty
was a dream come true: a man who looked at a woman as if she were his world. For some reason she chose that moment to look back at Richard. Perhaps she foolishly hoped that some miracle would strike him and he’d be looking at her that same way.

He too was looking at his friend over the rim of his wineglass. He watched
Giana
as if he were measuring her merit. Then he looked back at her, and she couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

He watched her for a long time.

She would have given anything to see a promise in his eyes.

He took another drink, and she wanted to go and take it from his hand. Whatever he thought or was feeling had been sufficiently dulled by the wine he drank so freely.

She had thought he drank because he was a rake, and rakehells drank. A simple reason. A wrong reason.

He had claimed he drank to destroy himself.

She looked at him squarely and realized he had lied. He didn’t drink for destruction. He drank so he wouldn’t care about anything. He drank to hide who and what he really was: a man with too much of a heart.

Perhaps it was because she’d slept most of that day, perhaps because it was because she was finally going home tomorrow, but whatever the reason, sleep escaped
Letty
. She tossed and turned, punched one down pillow until it was puffy. She hugged another. But nothing worked.

She tried counting sheep, counting the shadowed outlines of leaves on the wallpaper, counting images of Richard’s face. She tried everything, even dreaming, and she was still awake.

Her dreams had left her. She couldn’t find one that would give her respite, a perfect fantasy in which to hide from an imperfect world. It was an odd, empty feeling.

She closed her eyes, then opened them, looked around the dark room, then closed them again. Finally she gave up and rose from the bed, slipping into
Giana’s
wrapper. She stepped around Gus and crossed the room to stand by the French doors that led to a balcony running along the east side of the house.

Crossing her arms, she leaned against the doorjamb and stared out at the dark night sky. She could hear the waves crashing in the distance but little else.

There was something still and a little sad about the night, as if perhaps all the lonely people of the world were doing as she did, looking out at nothing but a vast black sky.

She wondered if there was even one star out. Or was the night sky as empty as her girlish dreams had been?

She started to turn away, but some distant memory made her stop. There was a little game she played as a child, a game in which fate became her playmate.

If there is one star shining, then don’t give up on Richard. If the sky is dark and empty, well, then so was her future.

A little wistful, she opened the door, stepping out onto the balcony. It was cold, and she hugged herself as she crossed the few feet to the carved balustrade.

Despite the cold and damp, the air was filled with the rich full scent of
Giana’s
roses. So she leaned back and craned her head, searching for even one elusive star. An empty black sky stared back at her.

Please . . . just one star.

An instant later she heard music and turned, cocking her head to listen. Yes, it was music. Lovely music.

Using the dew-moistened handrail for support, she leaned over the edge, trying to pinpoint the source. Off at the very end of the lower floor, dim honey-colored light poured from windows that wrapped around the corner of the mansion.