Passion's Promise (15 page)

She shook her head. "Neither. Just stunned, I guess. A few hours ago we had dinner in Washington, said goodbye at the airport, and now here you are. It's a bit of a shock." But a pleasant one.

"Too much of a shock, Kate?" Maybe he had gone too far, but at least she didn't look angry.

"No." She was careful with the word. "What do you want to do now?"

"How about taking a walk?"

"That's funny, I thought of that on the plane. I wanted to go for a walk along the East River. I do that once in a while, late at night. It's a nice way to think."

"And get killed. Is that what you're trying to do?" The idea of her walking along the river unprotected unnerved him.

"Don't be so silly, Lucas. You shouldn't believe all the myths you hear about this town. It's as safe as any other." He glowered and finished his beer.

They began to walk slowly up Third Avenue, past restaurants and bars, and the clatter of occasional late-night traffic on Fifty-seventh Street. New York was not in any way like any other town. Not like any American city. Like a giant Rome maybe, with its thirst for life after dark. But this was bigger, more, wilder, crueler, and far less romantic. New York had its own romance, its own fire. Like a bridled volcano, waiting for its chance to erupt. They both felt the vibes of the town as they wandered its streets, out of step with its mood, refusing to feel pushed or shoved; they felt oddly at peace. They passed little groups of people, and male streetwalkers carrying pug dogs and French poodles, and wearing tight sweaters and crotch-clutching jeans. Women walked lap dogs, and men lurched drunk-enly toward cabs. It was a city that stayed alive round-the-clock.

They cut east on Fifty-eighth Street, and walked through the slumbering elegance of Sutton Place, sitting like a dowager next to the river. Kezia wondered for a moment if they would meet Whit, leaving his lover's apartment—if he still left it.

"What are you thinking about, Kate? You look all dreamy."

She looked up at him and smiled. "I guess I am. I was just letting my mind wander . . . thinking about some people I know . . . you . . . nothing much really." He took her hand and they walked quietly next to the river, making their way slowly north, until a question interrupted her thoughts. "I just thought of something. Where are you going to sleep tonight?"

"I'll work it out. Don't worry about it. I'm used to arriving in cities in the middle of the night." He looked unconcerned.

"You could sleep on my couch. You're a bit tall for it, but it's comfortable. Fve slept there myself."

"That sounds fine to me." Better than fine, but he couldn't let her see how happy he was, or how surprised. It was all so much easier than even his wildest dreams.

They exchanged another smile and kept walking. She felt comfortable with him, and hadn't felt this peaceful in years. It didn't matter if she let him sleep on her couch. So what if he knew where she lived?

In the end, what did it really matter? How long could she hide—from him, from herself, from strangers and friends? The precautions were becoming an unbearable burden. At least for one night, she wanted to set the burden aside. Luke was her friend; he wouldn't harm her, even if he knew her address.

"Do you want to go home now?" They were at Seventy-second and York.

"Do you live near here?" The neighborhood surprised him. It was middle-class ugly.

"Not too far from here. A few blocks over and a couple more blocks up." They headed west on Seventy-second Street, and the neighborhood began to improve.

"Tired, Kate?"

"I must be, but I don't feel it."

"You're probably still numb from the drunk you tied on last night." He grinned.

"What a rotten thing to bring up! Just because I get drunk once a year . . ."

"Is that all?"

"It certainly is!"

He pulled one of the pigtails and they crossed the deserted street. Downtown, traffic would still be blaring, but here there was no one in sight. They had reached Park Avenue now, divided by neat flower beds and hedges.

"I wouldn't say you live in the slums, Katie Miller." For a while, as they had strolled along York, he wondered if she'd take him to a different apartment to keep secret the place where she lived. Thank God, she wasn't as frightened as that. "You must do well with your articles." A look of open teasing passed between them, and they both started to laugh.

"I can't really complain."

She was playing it right till the end. She wasn't going to cop to a thing. It amazed him. So secretive, and what in hell for? He pitied her for the agonies of her double life. Or maybe she didn't spend enough time on his side of the tracks to make it a strain. But there was SoHo, the place she went to "get away." From what? Herself? Her friends? He knew her parents were dead. What could she have to get away from?

Surely not the guy he'd seen with her in the paper.

They turned a corner onto a tree-lined street, and she paused with a smile at the first door. An awning, a doorman, an impressive address.

"This is it." She pressed the bell, and the doorman fought with the lock. He looked sleepy and his hat was tilted back on his head. It was a relief man, she observed, and all he ventured was a vague, "Good evening." Providentially, he couldn't remember her name.

Luke smiled to himself in the elevator. She turned the key to her apartment and pushed open the door.

There was mail neatly stacked on the hall table, the cleaning woman had been there, and the place looked impeccably neat and smelled of fresh wax.

"Can I offer you some wine?" "Champagne, I presume."

She turned to look at him, and he was smiling gently at her, mischief in his eyes. "It's quite a pad, baby. Class, by the barrel." But he didn't say it cruelly; it was more like a question.

"I could tell you it's the home of my parents . . . but I wouldn't want to do that." "Is it ... or was it?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Nope, it's mine. I'm old enough to put together something like this for myself now." "As I said, you must do well with your work." She shrugged and smiled. She wanted to make no excuse. "What about that wine? It's pretty lousy actually. Would you rather have a beer?"

"Yes. Or a cup of coffee. I think I'd rather have that." She left him to put on the kettle, and he ambled after her, his voice reaching her from the doorway as she clattered cups in the kitchen. "Hey, do you have a roomie?"

"A what?" She wasn't paying attention; she would have grown pale if she had.

"A roommate. Do you have one?"

"No. Why? Do you take cream and sugar?"

"No, thanks. Black. No roommate?"

"Nope. What makes you ask?"

"Your mail." She paused with the kettle in her hand, and looked around at him.

"What about my mail?" She hadn't thought of that

"It's addressed to a Miss Kezia Saint Martin." Time seemed to stand still between them. Neither moved.

"Yes. I know."

"Anyone you know?"

"Yeah." The weight of the world seemed to fall from her shoulders with one word. "Me."

"Huh?"

"I'm Kezia Saint Martin." She attempted a smile but looked almost stricken, and he tried to feign shock.

Had she known him a little bit better she'd have laughed at the look in his eyes.

"You mean you're not Kate S. Miller?"

"Yeah, I'm K. S. Miller too. When I write."

"Your pen name. I see."

"One of many. Martin Hallam is another."

"You collect aliases, my love?" He walked slowly toward her.

She put the kettle down on the stove, and turned deliberately away. All he could see was the dark hair and her narrow shoulders bent over.

"Yes, aliases. And lives. There are three of me, Luke. Four actually. No, five now, counting 'Kate.' K. S. Miller never needed a first name before. It's all more than a little schizophrenic."

"Is it?" He was right behind her now, but he did not reach out to touch her. "Why don't we go sit down and talk for a while?"

His voice was low and she turned to face him with a barely perceptible nod. She needed to talk, and he'd be a good man to talk to. She had to talk to someone before she  went mad. But now he knew she was a liar ... or maybe that didn't matter with Luke. Maybe he'd understand.

"Okay." She followed him into the living room, sat primly on one of her mother's blue velvet chairs, and watched him lean back on the couch.

"Cigarette?"

"Thanks." He lit it for her and she took a long, deep pull at the unfiltered cigarette, collecting her thoughts.

"It sounds sort of crazy when you tell someone about it. And I've never tried to tell anyone before."

"Then how do you know it sounds crazy?" His eyes were unwavering.

"Because it is crazy. It's an impossible way to live. I know, I've tried. 'My Secret Life,' by Kezia Saint Martin." She tried to laugh, but it was a hollow sound in the silence.

"Sounds like it's time you got it off your chest, and I'm handy. I'm sitting here and I've got nowhere to go and no time to be there. And all I know is that it's an insane life you seem to lead, Kezia. You deserve better than that." Her name sounded unfamiliar on his lips, and she looked at him through the smoke.

"Worse than crazy, this must be a mighty lonely way to live."

"It is." She felt tears well up at the back of her throat. She wanted to tell Luke all of it now. K. S. Miller, Martin Hallam, Kezia Saint Martin. About the loneliness and the hurt and the ugliness of her world draped in gold brocade, as though they could hide it by making it pretty outside, or make their souls smell better by drenching them in perfume . . . and the intolerable obligations and responsibilities, and the stupid parties, and the boring men. And the victory of her own byline on her first serious article, and no one to share it with except a middle-aged lawyer and a still older agent. She had a lifetime to show him, a lifetime she had hidden deep in her heart, until now.

"I don't even know where to begin."

"You said there are five of you. Pick one, and take it from there."

Two lone tears slid down her face and he stretched out a hand to her. She took it, and they sat that way, their hands reaching across the table, the tears running slowly down her face.

"Well, the first me is Kezia Saint Martin. The name you saw on the letters. Heiress, orphan . . . isn't that a romantic vision?" She smiled lopsidedly through her tears. "Anyway, my parents both died when I was a child, and left me a great deal of money and an enormous house, which my trustee sold and turned into a large co-op on Eighty-first Street and Park, which I eventually sold to buy this. I have an aunt who's married to an Italian count, and I was brought up by my trustee and my governess, Totie. And of course, the other thing my parents left me was a name. Not just a name. But a
Name.
And it was carefully impressed on me before they died, and after they died, that I wasn't just 'anybody.' I was Kezia Saint Martin. . . . Hell, Luke, don't you read the papers?" She brushed the tears away and pulled back her hand to blow her nose on a mauve linen handkerchief, edged in gray lace.

"What in God's name is that?"

"What?"

"That thing you're blowing your nose in?" She looked at the bit of pale purple in her hand and laughed.

"A handkerchief. What do you think it is?"

"Looks like a vestment for a pint-sized priest for chris-sake. Talk about fancy. Now I know you're an heiress!"

She laughed and felt a little bit better.

"And yes, I do read the papers, by the way. But I'd rather hear this story from you. I don't like to just read about people I care about."

Kezia was momentarily confused. People he cared about? But he didn't even know her . . . but he had flown up from Washington to see her. He was there. And he looked as though what she had to say mattered to him.

"Well, every time I set foot anywhere, I get my photograph taken."

"It didn't happen tonight." He was trying to show her something, that she was freer than she knew.

"No, but it could have. That was just luck. That's why I was watching the doors—that, and the fact that I was afraid I'd see someone I knew, and they'd call me Kezia instead of Kate."

"Would that have mattered so much, Kezia? If someone had blown your cover? So what?"

"So ... I would have felt like a fool. I would have felt . . ."

"Frightened?" He finished for her, and she looked away.

"Maybe." Hers was a small voice now.

"Why, love? Why would it frighten you if I knew who you really were?" He wanted to hear it from her.

"Were you afraid that I'd hurt you then? Pursue you for your money? Your name? What?"

"No . . . it's . . . well, possibly. Other people might want me for those things, Lucas, but I'm not worried about that with you." Her eyes sought his squarely and she made sure he understood her. She trusted him, and she wanted him to know that. "But the worst of it is something else, Kezia Saint Martin isn't just me. She's 'someone.' She has something to live up to. When I was twenty, I was considered the most eligible girl on the market. You know, sort of like Xerox stock. If you bought me, your investment was bound to go up." He watched her eyes as she spoke and there were years of hurt embedded in them.

Lucas was silent, his hand gently holding hers. "And there was more to it than just being noticed. There was history . . . good history, bad history, grandparents, my mother. . . ." She paused and seemed to forget to go on. Lucas' voice finally stirred her.

"Your mother? What about your mother?"

"Oh . . . just . . . things. . . ." Her voice was trembling and her eyes avoided his. She seemed to be having trouble continuing.

"What kind of things, Kezia? How old were you when she died?"

"I was eight. And she . . . she drank herself to death."

"I take it 'things' got to her too?" He sat back for a moment and watched Kezia, whose eyes now rose slowly to his with a look of unfathomable sorrow and fear.

"Yeah. Things got to her too. She was The Lady Liane Holmes-Aubrey before she married my father. And then she was Mrs. Keenan Saint Martin. I'm not sure which must have been worse for her. Probably being Daddy's wife. At least in England she knew how it all worked. Here, things were different for her. Quicker, sharper, brasher. She talked about it sometimes. She felt more 'public' here than she had at home as a girl. They didn't jump all over her the way they do me. But then, she didn't have Daddy's fortune either."