The Heart's Victory

  minutes. It had been almost like a play until the ring had slipped onto her finger. That made it real. That made her Mrs. Lancelot Matthews.

  Cynthia Matthews, she mused, trying out the sound in her mind. Or perhaps, she reflected, I could try for more elegance with Cynthia Fox-Matthews. She nearly laughed aloud. Elegance needs more than a hyphen. Foxy Matthews, she decided with a mental nod. That’ll just have to be good enough.

  “You’re going to wear a ridge into your finger before we get to Rhode Island.” Lance spoke quietly, but Foxy jumped in her seat as if he had shouted. “Nervous?” he asked with a laugh in his voice.

  “No.” Not wanting to confess what silliness her mind had been engaged in, she prevaricated. “I was just thinking...Kirk looked much better, didn’t he?”

  “Um-hum.” Lance switched on the wipers as a light rain began to fall. “Pam’s the best medicine he can get.”

  “Yes, she is.” Foxy shifted in her seat so that she had a clear view of his profile. My husband, she thought and nearly lost the thread of the conversation. “I’ve never known anyone else who could handle Kirk so well. Except you.”

  “Kirk needs a co-driver who can’t be intimidated into backing off,” Lance told her, glancing toward her briefly. “You’ve always handled him in your own way. Even when you were thirteen, you could do it without letting him know he was being handled.”

  The faintest frown line appeared between Foxy’s brows. “I never considered it handling exactly . . . And I didn’t realize anyone else noticed.”

  “There isn’t anything about you I haven’t noticed over the years.” Lance turned to her again with a deep, quiet look. Foxy’s pulse hammered erratically.

  Will he always be able to do this to me? she wondered. Even after the novelty of marriage wears off, will he be able just to look at me to turn me into jelly? It hasn’t changed in ten years, will it change in ten more? Lance’s voice broke into her thoughts, and she twisted her head to look at him again. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “I said it was a nice gesture for you to give Pam your bouquet. Of course, it’s rather a shame you don’t have some small remembrance.”

  Foxy started to speak, then flushed and fumbled in her bag for her brush. Buried at the bottom was the white velvet ribbon she had removed from the spray of orchids Lance had given her for a bridal bouquet. The thought that he might think her sentiment foolish held her tongue. She had the brush in her hand before she remembered her hair was pinned up. Hastily she stuffed the brush back in her bag. Rain pattered lightly on the windows and blurred the autumn landscape.

  “I suppose it was a bit cut and dried, wasn’t it?” Lance commented. “Ten minutes in front of a judge, no friends or traditional trappings, no tears or rice.” He glanced at her again, his brow lifted under his hair. “I suppose you’re feeling a bit cheated.”

  “No, of course not.” Though her mind had wandered once or twice to the complicated beauty of a traditional wedding, she didn’t feel cheated so much as curious. Would she feel married if the wedding had included veils and organ music? Would she have this awkward sense of it not being quite real if there had been a ceremony ending with old shoes and rice? “Besides,” she said with a shake of her head. “I don’t have any Great-aunt Sarah to weep softly in the back pew.” The thought of family had her worrying her wedding band again.

  “You did specify plain gold with no stones or markings?”

  “What?” Foxy followed Lance’s brief glance to her hands. “Oh, yes.” Guiltily she dropped her right hand to her side. “Yes, it’s exactly what I wanted.”

  “Does it fit?”

  “Fit? Why yes, it fits.”

  “Then why the devil do you keep twisting it on your finger?” The annoyance in his tone was sharp.

  Well aware it was justified, Foxy sighed. “I’m sorry, Lance. It all seems to be happening so fast, and going to Boston . . . ”

  She bit her lip, then confessed. “I’m nervous about meeting your family. I haven’t had a great deal of experience with families.”

  Lance lay his hand on hers a moment. “Don’t judge the way of families by mine,” he advised dryly. “They’re not the type you see on a Christmas card.”

  “Of course,” Foxy concluded with a wry grin, “that’s supposed to reassure me.”

  “Just don’t let them bother you,” Lance advised with a careless shrug. “I don’t.”

  “Easy for you to say,” she retorted, wrinkling her nose at him. “You’re one of them.”

  “So are you.” Lifting her hand, Lance ran his thumb over her wedding band. “Remember it.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  “I suppose I’ll have to sooner or later.” With this, he drew out a cigar and punched in the car lighter. “My mother is a Bardett—that’s an old Boston family. I believe they gave Paul Revere directions.”

  “How patriotic.”

  “The Bardetts are notoriously patriotic,” he returned before he touched the glowing lighter to the tip of his cigar. “In any case, my mother enjoys being both a Bardett and a Matthews, but more than anything else, she enjoys committees.”

  “Committees?” Foxy repeated. “What sorts of committees?”

  “All sorts of committees, as long as they’re suitable for a Bardett-Matthews. She loves to organize them, attend them, complain about them. She’s a snob from the top of her pure white coiffure to the tip of her Italian shoes.”

  “Lance, how dreadful of you.”

  “You said you wanted to hear about them,” he countered easily. “Mother loves doing charitable work. It reads well in the society pages. She also feels anyone poor enough to require aid should have the good taste not to ask for it until she has a chance to organize the committee. But snob or not, she does a lot of good despite her motives, so it hardly matters.”

  “You’re being very hard on her.” Foxy frowned at the tone of his voice as she remembered her own mother: a happy, disorganized, loving woman with Kirk’s penchant for ragged sneakers.

  Lance gave Foxy a curious, sidelong glance. “Perhaps. She and I have never seen things the same way. My father used to find her committees amusing and harmless. I’m not as tolerant as he was.” Foxy’s frown deepened, and he gave her his crooked smile. “Don’t worry, Fox, you won’t see any blood spilled. We don’t get along, but we’re quite civilized about it. Bardetts, you see, are always civilized.”

  “And the Matthews?” Foxy asked, becoming intrigued.

  “The Matthews have a tendency to produce a black sheep every generation or so. A couple of hundred years back, a Matthews ran off and married a serving wench from a local tavern. Spoiled the blood a bit.” He grinned as if pleased with the flaw, then drew on his cigar. “But for the most part, the Matthews are every bit as...upstanding as the Bardetts. My grandmother is all dignity. According to the stories that drop from time to time, she never batted an eye when my grandfather had his affair with the countess. As far as she was concerned, it didn’t happen. Her daughter, my aunt Phoebe, is exactly as the countess said: dull. She hasn’t had an original thought in fifty years. There’s an alarming number of aunts, uncles, cousins, and in-laws.”

  “They don’t all live in Boston, do they?”

  “No, thank heaven. They’re spread over the States and Europe, but a large clutch huddle in Boston and Martha’s Vineyard and thereabouts.”

  “I suppose your mother was surprised when you told her about our getting married.” Foxy caught herself before she twisted the ring again.

  “I haven’t told her.”

  “What?” Incredulous, she turned to stare at him. “You didn’t tell her?”

  “No.”

  Foxy started to demand why, then thought of the reason herself. He’s ashamed of me. Swallowing, she twisted back to stare at the gray autumn rain. Cynthia Fox of Indiana doesn’t measure up to the Bardetts and Matthews of Boston. “I suppose,” she said in a tight voice, “you could keep me hidden in an attic room. Or we could forge
a pedigree.”

  “Hmm?” Preoccupied, Lance glanced at her averted head, then back at the road. After passing a slow-moving truck, he tossed his cigar out the window.

  For several moments, Foxy tried to hold her tongue and temper. She failed. “We could tell them I’m a deposed princess from some Third World country. I won’t speak any English for the first six months.” She rounded on him, hurt and furious. “Or I could be the daughter of some English baron who died and left me penniless. After all, it’s the lineage that’s important, not the money.”

  Her tone captured Lance’s attention. Looking over, he caught the sheen of angry tears in her eyes. Instantly his brows drew together. “What are you babbling about?”

  “If you don’t think I’m good enough to pass as Mrs. Lancelot Matthews, then you can just . . . ” Her suggestion was lost as he whipped the car to the shoulder of the road. Before she could catch her breath, he had her arms in a punishing grip.

  “Don’t you ever let me hear you say that again, do you understand?” His face was furious, but Foxy tilted her chin and met it levelly.

  “No, no, I don’t understand. I don’t understand anything.” To her humiliation, tears began to well up in her eyes and spill out onto her cheeks. The weeping surprised both of them; her because it began so suddenly, not giving her an opportunity to control it, and him because he had never seen her cry before.

  “Don’t,” Lance ordered roughly, then gave her a brisk shake. “Don’t do that.”

  “I will if I want to.” Foxy swallowed and let the tears fall.

  Lance swore before he let her go. “All right, go ahead. We’ll swim back to Boston, but I want to know what brought on the flood.”

  Foxy fumbled in her purse for a tissue and found none. “I don’t have a tissue,” she said miserably, then wiped at the tears with the back of her hand. With another well-chosen oath, Lance pulled his handkerchief from his jacket pocket and stuffed it into her hand. “It’s silk,” she said and tried to give it back to him.

  “I’ll strangle you with it in a minute.” As if to prevent himself from doing so, Lance gripped the steering wheel. “We’re not moving,” he said in a firm voice, “until you tell me what’s gotten into you.”

  “It’s nothing, nothing at all,” she claimed as she dampened the white silk. Foxy was thoroughly disgusted with herself, but her temper forced her to continue. “Why should it bother me that you haven’t even told your family we’re married?”

  For a few moments, there was only the sound of the drizzling rain and Foxy’s sniffles. The car became still except for the monotonous back-and-forth movement of the windshield wipers. “Do you think,” Lance began in even, precise tones, “that I didn’t tell my family of our marriage because I’m ashamed of you?”

  “What else should I think?” Foxy tossed back. “I don’t suppose a Fox from Indiana is very impressive.”

  “Idiot!” The word vibrated in the small closed car. Foxy’s sob was transformed into a gasp. Fascinated, she watched Lance struggle to control what appeared to be a violent surge of temper. When he spoke, it was too soft and too controlled. “I didn’t tell my family because I wanted a couple of days of peace before they descend on us. As soon as they know we’re married, the whole social merry-go-round gets started. A honeymoon would have been the ideal answer, but I explained to you it’s impossible until I straightened out a few things. I’ve been away from the business for several months. I felt after the circuit and Kirk’s accident, we both could use a few days of quiet. It never occurred to me you’d see it as anything else.”

  With a quick gesture of his hand, Lance put the car in first gear and merged back into the traffic. The silence was complete and unbearable. Foxy crumpled Lance’s handkerchief into a tight ball and wished for a way to begin the conversation over again.

  The days since Kirk’s accident had been jumbled together into a mass of time rather than distinct minutes and hours. She knew she had slept and eaten, but could not have told how many hours her eyes had been closed or what food she had tasted. Her marriage seemed steeped in unreality. But it is real, she reminded herself. And Lance is right. I’m an idiot.

  “I’m sorry, Lance,” she murmured, lifting her eyes to his profile.

  “Forget it.” His answer was curt and unforgiving. Recognizing the dismissal in his tone, she turned back to the view of misty rain.

  Are all brides so insecure? she wondered, closing her eyes. This isn’t like me. I’m acting like a different person, I’m thinking like a different person. Weariness began to close over her, and she let her mind drift. I’ll feel better once we’re settled in. A few days of quiet is exactly what I need. She let the pattering rain lull her to sleep.

  ***

  Foxy moaned and stirred. She no longer heard the steady hum of the Porsche beneath her but felt a quiet swaying. She felt a cool spray on her face and turned her head away from it. Her cheek brushed something warm and smooth. The scent that teased her nostrils was instantly familiar. Opening her eyes, she saw Lance’s jawline. Gradually she realized she was being carried. She nuzzled her face into his shoulder as the rain continued to fall halfheartedly. A gloomy dusk was settling, bringing with it a thin fog.

  Along with Lance’s scent she could detect the fragrance of damp leaves and grass, an autumn smell she would soon begin to associate with New England. His footsteps were nearly soundless, swallowed by the mists swirling close to the ground. There was something eerie and surreal about the dimming light and silence. Disoriented, Foxy shifted in his arms.

  “Decide to join the living again?” Lance asked. He stopped, heedless of the drizzle and looked down at her.

  “Where are we?” Totally confused, Foxy twisted her head to peer around. Almost at once, she saw the house. A three-story brownstone rose in front of her. Its walls were cloaked in ivy, dark green and glistening in the rain. Wrought-iron balconies circled the second and third stories, and they, too, were tangled with clinging ivy. The windows were tall and narrow. Even in the gloom, the house had an ageless elegance and style. “Is that your house?” Foxy asked. As she spoke she let her head fall back in order to see the roof and chimney.

  “It was my grandfather’s,” Lance answered, studying her reaction. “He left it to me. My grandmother always preferred their house in Martha’s Vineyard.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Foxy murmured. The rain that washed her face and dampened her hair was forgotten. She felt an immediate affection for the aged brownstone and tenacious ivy. He had roots in this house, she thought, and fell in love. “It’s really beautiful.”

  “Yes, it is,” Lance agreed as his eyes roamed her face.

  Foxy looked up to meet his gaze. She smiled, blinking raindrops from her lashes. “It’s raining,” she pointed out.

  “So it is.” He kissed her, lingering for a moment. “Your lips are wet. I like the way the rain clings to your hair. In this light you look very pale and ethereal.” His eyes were the color of the mist that grew thicker and seemed to be spun into threads around them. “If I let you go, will you vanish?”

  “No,” she murmured, then combed her fingers through the damp hair that fell over his forehead. “I won’t vanish.” A quick surge of need for him throbbed through her, causing her to shiver.

  “I suppose you’re real enough to catch a chill from standing in the rain.” He tightened his grip on her and began to walk again.

  “You don’t have to carry me,” she began.

  Lance climbed nimbly up the front steps. “Don’t you think we should do something traditional?” he countered as he maneuvered a key into the lock of the door. Pushing it open with his shoulder, he carried Foxy over the threshold and into the darkened house. “Welcome home,” he murmured, then captured her lips in a long, quiet kiss.

  “Lance,” she whispered, incredibly moved. “I love you.”

  Slowly he set her on her feet. For a moment, they stood close, their faces silhouetted by the darkening sky. Before they closed the d
oor, Foxy decided, there should be nothing between them. “Lance, I’m sorry about making that scene in the car.”

  “You’ve already apologized.”

  “You were angry enough for two apologies.”

  He laughed and kissed her nose, changed his mind and took her mouth again. It seemed that he could draw from a kiss more than she had known she had to offer. “Anger is the handiest weapon against tears,” he told her as he ran his hands up and down her arms. “You threw me, Fox. You always do when you forget to be invincible.” He lifted his finger to run it along her jawline, and his eyes were dark as he watched the journey. “Perhaps I should have explained things to you, but I’m simply not used to explaining myself to anyone. We’re both going to have some adjustments to make.” He took both her hands in his, then lifted them to his lips. “Trust me for a while, will you?”

  “All right.” She nodded. “I’ll try.”

  After releasing her hands, Lance closed the door, shutting out the damp chill. For an instant, the house was plunged into total darkness, then abruptly the entrance hall streamed with light. Foxy stood in its center and turned around in a slow circle. To her left was a staircase, gleaming and uncarpeted. Its oak banister looked smooth as silk. To her right was a mirrored clothes stand that had once reflected the face of Lance’s great-great-grandmother. He watched as she made a study of Revere candlesticks and a gilt-framed Gainsborough. The light from the chandelier showered down on her, catching the glint of rain in her hair. She had a wraithlike quality in the simple green dress she had chosen to wear as a bride. It had long narrow sleeves and a high mandarin collar. Its skirt fell straight and unadorned from a snug waist. Her only jewelry was the plain gold band he had placed on her finger. She looked as untouched as springtime, but the sensuality of autumn was in her movements.

  “I wouldn’t have pictured you in a place like this,” Foxy said after completing her circle.

  “Oh?” Lance leaned against the wall and waited for her to elaborate.