Men of Intrgue A Trilogy (89 page)

He put his hand to her face. She jerked away, straightening.

“Don’t touch me.”

He tried again, reaching for her.

“Do not touch me,” she said, enunciating each word carefully.

He clasped his hands together. “Angela, I love you,” he said desperately.

She slapped him with all of her strength.

“Don’t lie to me,” she snapped. “No more lies. You love yourself. You love your lousy job.”

He rocked back on his heels, stunned by the force of her response.

“Is Brett Devlin your real name?” she asked almost conversationally. Then her tone became sarcastic. “Or was that charming story about being named after your grandmother another fabrication?”

“Brett Devlin is my real name,” he replied, his voice subdued.

“Really? Well, it’s nice to know that something about you is genuine.”

His fists clenched. “You’re not like this,” he said, his eyes wandering the room as if in search of aid. “I’ve made you like this.”

She folded her arms and smiled. “Satisfied with your handiwork?”

He held up both hands, palms out, calling for a cease fire.

She regarded him stonily, unyielding.

“Angela, I want you to marry me.”

She began to laugh. It was a harsh, unpleasant sound verging on hysteria.

“I can’t believe this. This I cannot believe. You’re locking up my closest relative and proposing to me at the same time?”

He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand, his lips tender where she had struck him. “This isn’t the way I’d planned it, but I wanted you to know the whole story before I asked you.”

She gazed at him, amazed.

“And you thought I’d just race off to the church with you after getting this piece of news?” She put her hands on her hips. “Tell me, why did you stick around to deliver this information yourself? Why didn’t you simply take off and leave when the job was done?”

“I just told you. I want to take you with me.”

“Go to hell.” She wiped her eyes with her fingers and coughed, tossing her hair back over her shoulders. The gesture was defiant. She was down but not out.

He watched her, the steely glint of her eyes cutting him to the bone. “I had to follow orders,” he said, trying to explain what she would not accept as an explanation. “I had to do my job.”

“Isn’t that what the Nazis said about why they gassed the people in concentration camps?” she asked sweetly. She saluted smartly. “ ‘I was only following orders.’”

“All right. All right, I deserve everything you’ve said, and more. But can’t we salvage something from this? Can’t we pick up and go on?”

“You pick up and go. Alone. But first I want you to tell me how you did it.”

He thrust both hands through his hair distractedly. “It doesn’t matter now, Angela. Let it go.”

She grabbed his shirt, her eyes blazing. “You tell me exactly what you did, and how. And don’t give me that silent crap now. Talk to me.”

He stared down at her, amazed at the strength of fury in her small hands.

“Talk!” she shouted.

He sighed. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything. Did you find the safe?”

“Yes. And the safety deposit box.”

She listened intently as he outlined his methods, glossing over as much as possible, giving details only when she pressed him. When he got to the part about taking the key impression she said, “Quite the busy little bee, weren’t you? And to think all this was going on while I was living in blissful ignorance, dreaming of a future with the man who was deceiving me.”

“We can still have that future. Come away with me.

“I wouldn’t go to the corner drugstore with you.”

“Angela, it will be bad for you once this breaks in the papers, when television gets hold of it. It would be best if you got out of town until the worst blows over.”

“Isn’t it a little late to be showing concern about the results of your master plan?”

“I don’t want you to be hurt any more than you have been.”

“How thoughtful.” She pointed down the hall to his room. “Get out. Now. Come back for your things while I’m at school. I don’t want to see you again. Josie can let you in.”

“I’m already packed,” he said quietly. “I did it while you were sleeping.”

“Ah. Uncertain about how I would receive the dramatic revelation?”

“Yes,” he responded tightly.

“I can’t imagine why.” She surveyed him clinically. “You’re always so prepared. You must have been a good Boy Scout. Or is that what they teach you in spy school?”

“Angela, please.”

“How did you get to be a spy anyway? I mean you don’t just apply like for a checker’s job at the supermarket, do you?”

He looked down, not meeting her eyes. “I was recruited on campus at college. The school was in Washington, so is the agency.”

“How convenient.”

“Eunice was recruited the same way.”

She gasped. “Eunice? The woman dressed as Scarlett O’Hara at the party?”

“Yes.”

“My God, you people are everywhere. It’s like a police state. How did she wind up at my house?”

“She ingratiated herself with Hathaway. The Bureau is keeping an eye on him. When she found out he was coming to the house for Cronin’s bash it seemed a good time to exchange information with me.”

Angela nodded. “I hope you’ve kept her number. You can give her a call when you leave.”

“I don’t want anybody but you.”

She shrugged. “That’s your misfortune.”

He forgot her hurt and her pain for a moment and became the rejected male. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. She struggled for a second and then melted into him, unable to stop the fire from igniting at his touch. He held her a little longer, and then released her. She put her hand over her eyes.

“You love me,” he said triumphantly. “That can’t change. Ever.”

“I want you to leave,” she whispered.

“I’ll go, but I’ll be back.”

“I won’t see you.”

He went to his room for the last time, picking up the gym bag he’d brought with him when he arrived. It was all he carried. He still traveled light.

Angela looked at him with the bag in his hand and remembered how he’d looked when he’d arrived, so tall and strong and capable, as if he could solve any problem with his careful attention. But this was a problem he couldn’t solve. This was a problem he’d created.

“I’m not giving up,” he said, holding her gaze.

“I don’t care what you do.”

Devlin put his hand on the doorknob and turned to look at her. Angela faced him down, willing herself not to cry again or reveal the turmoil she was feeling.

His eyes moved over her face, the lashes lowering as his gaze fell to her mouth. Was he remembering the taste of her lips, as she recalled the taste of his? Then he looked into her eyes once more and she sensed her resolve faltering. She steeled herself to resist him.

He seemed to be waiting for some word, a sign that she might change her mind in the future, give him a second chance when she calmed down. Angela would say nothing.

Devlin tried to absorb her features one by one, imprint them on his memory for the time when his memory of her would be all he had. Her face was streaked with tears, her hair tumbling over her shoulders, strands of it caught in her collar. Her lower lip trembled with the effort of maintaining control, but her eyes, still wet with recent tears, were steady. She looked a miserable and disillusioned sixteen and she was not going to ask him to stay.

“Goodbye,” he said.

“Goodbye,” she replied coolly, standing ready to shut the door as soon as he went through it.

“For now,” he added.

“Forever,” she said, and turned away, folding her arms.

Devlin left.

As soon as the door closed behind him Angela collapsed in stormy tears, leaning with her back against the wall, her hands hanging limply at her sides.

“Damn you,” she whispered, as if he were still there to hear. “Oh, damn you, Brett Devlin.” She allowed herself the luxury of a draining, cathartic bout of weeping. Then, hiccuping and gasping for breath, she made her way to the Queen Anne chair next to the fireplace and dropped into it.

What was she going to do now? The thought of the empty days and weeks ahead without him loomed like an eternity of loneliness. She began to shake uncontrollably, and in an effort to warm herself she took the box of matches from the marble mantelpiece and lit the fire that Josie had laid on the hearth before she left. In minutes the radiant heat took the chill from the room, and Angela stared moodily into the flames.
 

Her mind was a twisting mass of tortured images: Devlin when she first met him, withdrawn and watchful; then as he was the night they spent at the library, a pencil caught between his teeth, his brow furrowed as he skimmed through her books. She saw his sudden, blinding smile, the way he threw his head back in abandonment when he laughed. And finally, unbidden, rose the most painful picture, Devlin the first time they made love: fierce, ardent, his eyes closing in an excess of pleasure.

Hot tears slipped soundlessly from under her lids, coursing into her mouth. She tasted the salt of her own sorrow and knew that she could not endure this night alone. The walls were closing in on her and the time until dawn stretched ahead, seconds and minutes and hours filled with lacerating, unbearable memories. She bolted from the chair and grabbed for the phone, punching the buttons of Josie’s number automatically.

Josie’s daughter, Maria, answered.

“Maria, this is Angela Patria. Is your mother there?” Angela managed somehow to keep the emotion out of her voice.

“No, Miss Patria, she took the afternoon off to get a dress, remember? She’s gone to my cousin’s bridal shower.”

Angela’s spirits plummeted even further.

“Oh, of course, she told me. I just forgot.”

“Is anything wrong?” the girl said.

So she wasn’t as successful at disguising her misery as she’d hoped.

“Don’t bother your mother, Maria, I’ll see her tomorrow. She’ll be getting home late from the party so just tell her I called.”

“No message?”

“No, no message. Thanks, Maria. Good-bye.” She hung up the phone, thinking about the bridal shower. Well, at least somebody was happy.

Then she picked up the receiver again. Holly should be home.

“Yeah?” Holly said distractedly in greeting. This did not bode well; Holly was either deep in a constitutional case or a tuna casserole.

“It’s Angela, are you busy?”

“Just trying to figure out why this second circuit judge decided that the first amendment was a thing of the past.”

“I was wondering if you could come over for a little while.”

“Gee, I don’t know, this case is a jungle and Chris is due back any minute. He hasn’t had dinner yet.”

“Could you leave him a note? I really would appreciate it if you could come over.” Angela made it as far as the last word and then her voice broke. She held the phone away as she began to sob.

Holly heard it anyway. “Angela?” Her voice came hollowly from the receiver. “Angela, answer me!”

“I’m here,” Angela said, moving the phone back to her mouth.

“You’re crying, aren’t you? What’s wrong?”

“It’s, oh, God, I can’t go into it over the phone. Can you just please get here?”

“I’ll be there as fast as I can. Sit tight and wait.” The line went dead.

Angela replaced the receiver, thanking heaven for true friends. Holly would make it from Brooklyn in record time; she was as faithful as a Spartan on patrol.

Angela went to the first floor powder room and splashed her face with cold water, avoiding glancing in the mirror at her red and swollen eyes. She dried her face on one of the guest towels and moved slowly to the kitchen, where she downed a tall glass of cold water.

Very good, Angela, she commended herself. Washing, drinking, you’re still functioning. You’re not going to disintegrate into a heap of rubble after all. She made her way back to the chair next to the fire and waited for the doorbell to ring.

She jumped when it did, startled out of her reverie. Holly burst past Angela when she opened the door, glancing around the room.

“What is it, what happened?” she panted, turning to search Angela’s face.

“Thanks for coming,” Angela said, shutting the door.

“Where’s Brett?” Holly demanded.

“Gone.”

“Gone where? Isn’t he supposed to be staying with you all the time?”

Angela smiled bitterly. “His services are no longer required. But then they were never really required in the first place.”

Holly sighed, her shoulders dropping. “Okay, I think you’d better tell me what’s going on.”

“Come in and sit down. This is going to take a while.”

Holly unbuttoned her coat, threw it over a chair, and sank onto one of the love seats. She kicked off her loafers and tucked her feet under her. She regarded Angela expectantly.