The Trouble with Magic (Loveswept) (12 page)

He smiled. “Good. I knew you wouldn’t. But there are people who do, you know. My parents, the people I grew up with, the exclusive society I was brought up in.” He looked away. “I believed. I was Payton Augustus Dunsmore IV, and the spoon in my mouth wasn’t silver, it was gold. I grew up with all the privileges and advantages; the perfect parents, the perfect schools, never questioning, never rocking the boat. I knew all the right people and did all the right things because it was expected of me, the perfect boy.

“Only ... I wasn’t the perfect boy. I believed in perfect, and I worked hard at being perfect. I got good at convincing other people that I was perfect, and that everything around me was perfect. Sometimes I could even fool myself. But I didn’t feel perfect. Not the way I thought I should feel.” He paused, frowning. “I mean, here I had these perfect parents. They were divorced, but they both had big, fine homes I could sleep in, they both left money with the housekeepers for me. All I had to do was ask for it. My parents paid to send me to the best schools, and in the summertime I went to the best camps. They introduced me to the children of all their best friends. I had the best clothes, the best toys, the best of everything. I was heir to their perfect world, and I hated them ... for everything.”

He stood, bent to throw a few stray wood chips into the fire, then braced one arm on the mantel. “Actually, I didn’t always hate them. I don’t hate them now. I resent them and I feel sorry for them, but ... I used to think it was me. I used to think that if my parents were perfect and the world I lived in was perfect, then I was the imperfection. Because I was scared and lonely at school. I didn’t enjoy camp. I felt sick inside when no one showed up to see anything I did. I was hurt when no one came on parents’ day, and I was angry when the chauffeur picked me up on the last day of school, with packed suitcases, and took me straight to camp. If I were as perfect as I should have been, I wouldn’t have felt like that. I wouldn’t have minded the fact that the only time I saw my father was to meet a new stepmother or that I saw my mother once a day on the rare occasions I was home. If I were perfect, it wouldn’t have mattered.”

“Still,” he held up a finger and glanced at her, “knowing I was basically imperfect, flawed to the bone, it didn’t stop me from striving for perfection. I never told anyone how I felt or showed it in any way. I got good grades, played a variety of sports, made friends, went to parties, grew up. And when the time, the perfect time came for me to marry, I dutifully fell in love with a girl who everyone said was perfect for me.”

“But you didn’t really love her,” Harriet surmised, her voice soft and discerning.

He looked at her, frowning as he recalled his feelings at the time. “No. I think I really did love her,” he said, sitting in his chair, half-turned toward her. “I had feelings for her, but maybe it was only hope. I think I hoped it was love; hoped she’d be whatever was missing in me to make my life as perfect as it was supposed to be. I hoped she’d be someone I could talk to, someone I could be with, someone of my own and I wouldn’t be lonely anymore.” He half laughed. “I even hoped we’d have children together. Only I was going to raise them the way I’d heard other children were raised. They were going to come home after school every day, and they could only go to camp for a week in the summer, and then only if they wanted to. And they ... well, their perfect world was going to be different than mine was.”

“But you didn’t have children?” she asked.

“Ha. I hardly had a marriage.” He looked away. “We were married two years before I found out she was having affairs. I didn’t even ask when they’d started, it was enough to know that they existed and that she wasn’t mine alone.” He was silent for a moment. “I don’t know. She said everyone had affairs and was surprised to learn that I hadn’t. She said I was naive and possessive and completely out of touch with the rest of the world. She couldn’t figure out who I thought I was that I could ask for that kind of devotion and fidelity from her, when if it hadn’t been for my money—my family’s money really—she wouldn’t have married me in the first place. She said I was boring and coldhearted.”

Harriet waited, but apparently there was no more story to tell. She guessed the rest from what he’d already told her and felt a crushing pressure in her chest, squeezing her heart painfully. She wanted to reach out and touch him. She wanted to kiss away his pain, the way she would a child with a boo-boo, and make everything right for him.

“No comment?” he asked from a distance greater than the few feet that separated them physically.

“No,” she replied, intuitively knowing that anything she said would have been wrong, that he’d wanted her to know his history but that he didn’t want or need her opinion of it.

He looked away, and she watched the tension ease from his shoulders. Her heart smiled. Telling her had cost him. It was a gift she would treasure all her life, whether she saw him again after Sunday or not. She was touched and humbled that he’d felt safe enough in her presence to expose his secrets.

Abruptly, he stood and positioned the wire screen before the fireplace. “Do we at least get to kiss good night at this stage of our enchantment?”

“We’ve kissed before and nothing happened,” she said, anticipating the pleasure of kissing him again.

“What do you mean, nothing happened? You didn’t feel the earth shake? You didn’t hear the angels singing? I could have sworn you were experiencing something.”

“I did ... I mean, I ...,” she stammered, growing red in the face. “I mean, we kissed, and we weren’t struck by lightning or anything. I ... it seems like an okay thing for us to do. ... Kissing.”

“You think so?” he asked, a slow smile infecting his expression. She nodded, hoping she didn’t look too eager to kiss him again. He took her hand and brought her to her feet in front of him. Amused, his eyes shining, his touch warm, he took on a husbandly affect and asked, “Is the cat out and the back door locked, dear?”

“What cat?”

“It’s been a good day,” he said, wrapping an arm around her waist with an air of ownership. “But a long one. I think it’s time we ... go up ... to bed.”

“To bed?”

He grinned. “Now, don’t tell me you’re reconsidering your decision to sleep in separate bedrooms? You know, I never did approve of that idea.” He wagged his finger in her face and started up the stairs. “The choice is entirely yours, my dear. Though, you must know, you’re more than welcome in my bed.”

“Thank you, ah, dear.” Not the actor he was, she giggled. “But I feel that perhaps this time apart from each other will be good for us.”

She wasn’t any good at improvisations either. She’d have given anything to be witty enough to ad-lib a clever line that was as seductive and unsettling as his.

“Ah, yes,” he said sagely, swinging his empty arm wide. “Abstinence makes the heart grow horny. Interesting theory, that.”

“I believe it’s
absence
makes the heart grow
fonder,
dear.”

“Actually, it’s absence makes the heart grow fonder for someone
else, dear,
but let us not quibble. You’re the only woman within safe walking distance of my bed. You’re the one I want in it.”

She gasped, and he chortled gleefully, thinking he’d made a wonderful joke. In fact, she felt that he’d probably spoken the truth. She
was
the only woman around. The only one for him to tease and flirt with, the only one he could use to satisfy his sexual needs. His if-you-can’t-beat-’em-join-’em attitude was much more tolerable than his sickly complaints and his sarcastic anger, but if he thought that was all it took to join with
her,
he was very much mistaken.

“How very romantic,” she said, her voice biting as she stepped out of the circle of his arm.
“Dear.”

He stopped on the stairs to stare at her.

“Whoa, Harri,” he said, racing to catch up with her, leaning forward to see her face. “What’s this? Did I hit a nerve? Are you romantic, Harri?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, feeling strange and stupid. “I’m a scientist. Chemistry. Biology. Mental and emotional compatibility. That’s romance.”

“This from a woman who believes in magic?” He shook his head. “Won’t fly, Harri. You’re a dreamer, an idealist, a hopeless romantic.”

“I don’t believe in the magic,” she said, blurting her words. “Well, I do, but I don’t. I—”

“Want to believe,” he finished for her, “And that makes you a romantic.”

“Okay,” she said, miffed, turning on him at the top of the stairway. “All right. So I’m a little bit romantic. So what?”

“So nothing,” he said softly, slowly taking the last few steps toward her, stopping only when he could feel her breath on his lips. It was a fatuity for sure, but he was vitally glad that after all she’d experienced she was still everything he’d accused her of being. A dreamer. An idealist. A romantic. He wanted so much to kiss her that he could taste her, long before he covered her mouth with his.

It was like rushing to take the last seat on a roller-coaster ride as it pulled away from the loading dock—with no time to sit down, no time to secure the safety belt, no time to catch her breath before it began its ascent. Higher and higher she went, feeling safe and secure until the pace slowed, peaked, and sent her plunging out of control, plummeting toward the unknown, falling and frantic and deliriously delighted with the thrill of it all.

Her body raced to keep up with her senses, but in vain. And when at last the ride abruptly bottomed out, she was numb, limp, euphoric.

Payton licked the last drop of dew from her sweet, soft lips before he lifted his head and opened his eyes. He held her close until she could pry her lazy eyelids apart, then smiled at her dazed expression.

“That felt like magic to me,” he said. Nodding encouragingly, he added, “I think the powers that be are trying to tell us that they want us to ... carry on, so to speak. A little more kissing, some heavy-duty petting and who knows what they might tell us to do after that?”

His eagerness brushed against something in the back of her mind, and she laughed weakly, dropping her head to his chest for support.

“We hardly know each other,” she said. “Yesterday you hated me.”

“I didn’t hate you. I thought you were crazy,” he said, then tilting her chin upward so he could look into the dark depths of her eyes, he added, “And you can tell me everything I need to know about you by answering one question.”

She stepped away, putting several feet of railing between them. “No. I won’t sell you my island. Not willingly. Not before Sunday.”

“It doesn’t have to do with the island. It’s a hypothetical question.”

She grinned. “My favorite. What is it?”

“If I told you I was afraid—terrified—of the dark, would you leave the light in the hallway on and your bedroom door open?”

Hmm. Was it a trick question? Did he have some witty, suggestive comment to make, whichever way she answered? What kind of an answer did he want? The truth or not?

“Are you afraid of the dark?” she asked, watching him.

“No.” His answer was as candid as his gaze.

“Then why ...?”

“It’s just a question.”

Her brows rose in the manner he so enjoyed and she shrugged.

“Then, of course, I’d leave the light on and the door open. It would be cruel not to.”

“I knew you would,” he said, his voice soft and filled with emotion—something she hadn’t expected. He smiled his good night to her and took the opposite direction, heading for his bedroom.

Was that it? No more sweet talk? No more soft looks? No more seduction? She had declined his proposition, but his easy acquiescence was disappointing.

“Good night, Payton,” she said, her voice echoing in the vast space above the open foyer.

“Sleep well, Harriet,” he said from his door on the other side of the walkway. She was about to enter her room when his voice stopped her. “Will you leave your hall door open? Please?”

Perplexed, she asked him a hundred questions with her eyes and received only fragmentary replies. His request wasn’t as simple as it sounded. There was no sexual connotation, he wasn’t asking her to trust him not to use it during the night. It was more a ... a test. Yes, a test, to determine her trustworthiness. Not sexually—they both knew she wouldn’t sneak across the hidden hallway and attack him in the middle of the night. It was more than that. It was a could-he-depend-on-her-trustworthiness test. If he called out to her, would she come? If he needed to talk, would she listen? If he was lonely, would she be there to hold him? If he wanted to cry, would she let him?

He was waiting for her answer, his expression unreadable.

“Sure. No problem,” she said.

They entered different rooms, private and secluded, separated on one side by an entire house; close and intimate, conveniently connected on the other side by a shallow, soundless hallway.

F
OR THE NEXT TWO
days the doors at both ends of the hall between the master bedroom and the nursery stood open, and unused.

It was a time that tried a man’s soul—and a woman’s.

Nights were the worst. The ready gateway was the last image in Harriet’s mind when she turned out the lights to sleep. It called to her in whispers. Her eyes would open to the darkness, and she would know that the door stood open, tempting and inviting. Her ears would strain to hear him breathing. Intuition teased her with the whim that his bed was warmer, and she would shiver with cold. Dozing once more, she dreamed of floating down the corridor in a long white pristine gown, hair knotted with a satin ribbon, her cheeks flushed. She was virginal, pure and absolute in her desire to be with him.

From the other end of the passageway, in Payton’s dreams, he would see her coming to him. Dark hair, loose and flowing down her back and arms. Skimpy silk frills, cut high and low on her body, clinging precariously. Bare legs, long and graceful. Cheeks flushed, she was wild, wanton, and willful in her lust to be with him. His eyes would open to the darkness, and he would know that the door stood open, tempting and inviting. His ears would strain to hear her breathing. Experience teased him with the certainty that her bed was warmer, and he would shiver with cold.