Calhoun Women 03 - For The Love Of ...

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
  
For The Love Of Lilah, by Nora Roberts
The Calhouns # 3
Summary:
Mystery and danger still swirled around Lilah Calhoun's ancestral home. The fabled lost
emeralds continued to attract treasure hunters--and at least one dangerous criminal. And
they had brought a man unlike any Lilah had ever known.
Maxwell Quartermain was a reserved college professor, more at home in the past than in
the present. But from the moment Lilah dragged him from the Atlantic, she found he
could make her melt with merest glance--and that troubled her deeply. For Lilah wasn't
used to needing anyone as much as she needed Maxwell Quartermain...
Prologue
Bar Harbor, 1913
The cliffs call to me. High andfierce and dangerously beautiful, they stand and beckon as
seductively as a lover. In the morning, the air was as soft as the clouds that rode the sky
to the west. Gulls wheeled and called, a lonely sound, like the distant ring ofa buoy that
carried up on the wind. It brought an image ofa church bell tolling a birth. Or a death.
Like a mirage, other islands glinted and winked through the faint mist the sun had yet to
burn from the water. Fishermen piloted their sturdy boats from the bay and out to the
rolling sea.
Even knowing he would not be there, I couldn 't stay away.
I took the children. It can't be wrong to want to share with them some of the happiness
that I always feel when I walk in the wild grass that leads to the tumbled rocks. I held
Ethan's hand on one side, and Colleen's on the other. Nanny gripped little Sean's as he
toddled through the grass after a yellow butterfly thatflutteredjust beyond his
questingfingers.
The sound of their laughter—the sweetest sound a mother can hear—lifted through the
air. They have such bright and depthless curiosity, such unquestioning trust. As yet, they
are untouched by the worries of the world, of uprisings in Mexico, of unrest in Europe.
Their world does not include betrayals or guilt or passions that sting the heart. Their
needs, so simple, are immediate and have nothing to do with tomorrow. IfI could keep
them so innocent, so safe and so free, I would. Yet I know that one day they will face all
of those churning adult emotions and worries.
But today there were wildflowers to be picked, questions to be answered Andfor me,
dreams to be dreamed.
There is no doubt that Nanny understands why I walk here. She knows me too well not to
see into my heart. She loves me too well to criticize. No one would be more aware than
she that there is no love in my marriage. It is, as it has always been, a convenience to
Fergus, a duty to me. If not for the children, we would have nothing in common. Even
then, Ifear he considers them worthwhile possessions, symbols of his success, such as our
home in New York, or The Towers, the castlelike house he built for summers on the
island. Or myself, the woman he took as wife, one whom he considers attractive enough,
well-bred enough to share the Calhoun name, to grace his dinner table or adorn his arm
when we walk into the society that is so
important to him.
It sounds cold when I write it, yet I cannot pretend there has been warmth in my marriage
to Fergus.. Certainly there is no passion. I had hoped, when I followed my parents' wishes
and married him, that there would be affection, which would deepen into love. But I was
very young. There is courtesy, a hollow substitute for emotion.
A year ago perhaps, I could convince myself that I was content. I have a prosperous
husband, children I adore, an enviable place in society and a circle of elegant friends. My
wardrobe is crowded with beautiful clothes and jewelry. The emeralds Fergus gave me
when Ethan was born are Jit for a queen. My summer home is magnificent, again suited
to royalty with its towers and turrets, its lofty walls papered in silk, its floors gleaming
beneath the richest of carpets. ' What woman would not be content with all of this? What
more could a dutiful wife askfor? Unless she askedfor love.
It was love I found along these cliffs, in the artist who stood there, facing the sea, slicing
those rocks and raging water onto canvas. Christian, his dark hair blowing in the wind,
his gray eyes so dark, so intense, as they studied me. Perhaps ifI had not met him I could
have gone on pretending to be content. I could have gone on convincing myself that I did
not yearn for love or sweet words or a quiet touch in the middle of the night.
Yet I did meet him, and my life has changed. I would not go back to that false
contentment for a hundred emerald necklaces. With Christian I have found something so
much more precious than all the gold Fergus so cleverly accumulates. It is not something
I can hold in my hand or wear around my throat, but something I hold in my heart.
When I meet him on the cliffs, as I will this afternoon, I wilt not grieve for what we can't
have, what we dare not take, but treasure the hours we've been given. When Ifeel his
arms around me, taste his lips against mine, I'll know that Bianca is the luckiest woman
in the world to have been loved so well.
Chapter One
A storm was waiting to happen. From the high curving window of the tower, Lilah could
see the silver tongue of lightning licking at the black sky to the east. Thunder bellowed,
bursting through the gathering clouds to send its drumbeat along the teeth of rock. An
answering shudder coursed through her—not of fear, but of excitement.
Something was coming. She could feel it, not just in the thickening of the air but in the
primitive beating of her own blood.
When she pressed her hand to the glass, she almost expected her fingers to sizzle,
snapped with the power of the electricity building. But the glass was cool and smooth,
and as black as the sky.
She smiled a little at the distant rumble of thunder and thought of her greatgrandmother.
Had Bianca ever stood here, watching a storm build, waiting for it to crash over the house
and fill the tower with eerie light? Had she wished that her lover had stood beside her to
share the power and the unleashed passion? Of course she had, Lilah thought. What
woman wouldn't?
But Bianca had stood here alone, Lilah knew, just as she herself was standing alone now.
Perhaps it had been the loneliness, the sheer ache of it, that had driven Bianca to throw
herself out of that very window and onto the unforgiving rocks below.
Shaking her head, Lilah took her hand from the glass. She was letting herself get moody
again, and it had to stop. Depression and dark thoughts were out of character for a woman
who preferred to take life as it cameand who made it a policy to avoid its more strenuous
burdens.
Lilah wasn't ashamed of the fact that she would rather sit than stand, would certainly
rather walk than run and saw the value of long naps as opposed to exercise for keeping
the body and mind in tune.
Not that she wasn't ambitious. It was simply that her ambitions ran to the notion that
physical comfort had priority over physical accomplishments.
She didn't care for brooding and was annoyed with herself for falling into the habit over
the past few weeks. If anything she should be happy. Her life was moving along at a
steady if unhurried pace. Her home and her family, equally important as her own
comfort, were safe and whole. In fact, both were expanding along very satisfactory lines.
Her youngest sister, C.C., was back from her honeymoon and glowing like a rose.
Amanda, the most practical of the Calhoun sisters, was madly in love and planning her
own wedding.
The two men in her sisters' lives met with Lilah's complete approval. Trenton St. James,
her new brother-in-law, was a crafty businessman with a soft heart under a meticulously
tailored suit. Sloan O'Riley, with his cowboy boots and Oklahoma drawl, had her
admiration for digging beneath Amanda's prickly exterior.
Of course, having two of her beloved nieces attached to wonderful men made Aunt Coco
delirious with happiness. Lilah laughed a little, thinking how her aunt was certain she'd
all but arranged the love affairs herself. Now, naturally, the Calhoun. sisters' long-time
guardian was itching to provide the same service for Lilah and her older sister Suzanna.
Good luck, Lilah wished her aunt. After a traumatic divorce, and with two young children
to care for— not to mention a business to run—Suzanna wasn't likely to cooperate. She'd
been badly burned once, and a smart woman didn't let herself get pushed into the fire.
For herself, Lilah had been doing her best to fall in love, to hear that vibrant inner click
that came when you knew you'd found the one person in the world who was fated for
you. So far, that particular chamber of her heart had been stubbornly silent.
There was time for that, she reminded herself. She was twenty-seven, happy enough in
her work, surrounded by family. A few months before, they had nearly lost The Towers,
the Calhoun's crumbling and eccentric home that stood on the cliffs overlooking the sea.
If it hadn't been for Trent, Lilah might not have been able to stand in the tower room she
loved so much and look out at the gathering storm.
So she had her home, her family, a job that interested her and, she reminded herself, a
mystery to solve. Great-Grandmama Bianca's emeralds, she thought. Though she had
never seen them, she was able to visualize them perfectly just by closing her eyes.
Two dramatic tiers of grass-green stones accented with icy diamonds. The glint of gold in
the fancy filigree work. And dripping from the bottom strand, that rich and glowing
teardrop emerald. More than its financial or even aesthetic value, it represented to Lilah a
direct link with an ancestor who fascinated her, and the hope of eternal love.
The legend said that Bianca, determined to end a loveless marriage, had packed a few of
her treasured belongings, including the necklace, into a box. Hoping to find a way to join
her lover, she had hidden it. Before she had been able to take it out and start a life with
Christian, she had despaired and leaped from the tower window to her death.
A tragic end to a romance, Lilah thought, yet she didn't always feel sad when she thought
of it. Bianca's spirit remained in The Towers, and in that
high room where Bianca had spent so many hours longing for her lover, Lilah felt close
to her.
They would find the emeralds, she promised herself. They were meant to.
It was true enough that the necklace had already caused its problems. The press had
learned of its existence and had played endlessly on the hiddentreasure angle. So
successfully, Lilah thought now, that the annoyance had gone beyond curious tourists and
amateur treasure hunters, and had brought a ruthless thief into their home.
When she thought of how Amanda might have been killed protecting the family's papers,
the risk she had taken trying to keep any clue to the emeralds out of the wrong hands,
Lilah shuddered. Despite Amanda's heroics, the man who had called himself William
Livingston had gotten away with a sackful. Lilah sincerely hoped he found nothing but
old recipes and unpaid bills.
William Livingston, alias Peter Mitchell, alias a dozen other names wasn't going to get
his greedy hands on the emeralds. Not if the Calhoun women had anything to do about it.
As far as Lilah was concerned, that included Bianca, who was as much a part of The
Towers as the cracked plaster and creaky boards.
Restless, she moved away from the window. She couldn't say why the emeralds and the
woman who had owned them preyed so heavily on her mind tonight. But Lilah was a
woman who believed in instinct, in premonition, as naturally as she believed the sun rose
in the east.
Tonight, something was coming.
She glanced back toward the window. The storm was rolling closer, gathering force. She
felt a driving need to be outside to meet it.
Max felt his stomach lurch along with the boat. Yacht, he reminded himself. A twenty-
six-foot beauty with all the comforts of home. Certainly more than his own home, which
consisted of a cramped apartment, carelessly furnished, near the campus of Cornell
University. The trouble was, the twenty-six-foot beauty was sitting on top of a very
cranky Atlantic, and the two seasickness pills in Max's system were no match for it.
He brushed the dark lock of hair away from his brow where, as always, it fell untidily
back again. The reeling of the boat sent the brass lamp above his desk dancing. Max did
his best to ignore it. He really had to concentrate on his job. American history professors
weren't offered fascinating and
lucrative summer employment every day. And there was a very good chance he could get
a book out of it.
Being hired as researcher for an eccentric millionaire was the fodder of fiction. In this
case, it was fact.
As the ship pitched, Max pressed a hand to his queasy stomach and tried three deep
breaths. When that didn't work, he tried concentrating on his good fortune.
The letter from Ellis Caufield had come at a perfect time, just before Max had committed
himself to a summer assignment. The offer had been both irresistible and flattering.
In the day-to-day scheme of things, Max didn't consider that he had a reputation. Some
well-received articles, a few awards—-but that was all within the tight world of academia
that Max had happily buried himself in. If he was a good teacher, he felt it was because
he received such pleasure from giving both information and appreciation of the past to
students so mired in the present.
It had come as a surprise that Caufield, a layman, would have heard of him and would
respect him enough to offer him such interesting work.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]