Page 5 of For the Love of Lilah

  'brilliant' and 'dedicated.' He's considered one of the foremost experts on American history in the country. He graduated magna cum laude at twenty, and had his doctorate by twenty-five."

  "Egghead," Lilah said with a comforting smile when Max shifted in his seat.

  "Our Dr. Quartermain," Amanda continued, "comes from Indiana, is single and has no criminal record. He's been on the staff at Cornell for over eight years, and has published several well-received articles. His most recent was an overview of the social-political atmosphere in America prior to World War I. In academic circles, he's considered a wunderkind, serious minded, unflaggingly responsible, with unlim­ited potential." Sensing his embarrassment, Amanda softened her tone. "I'm sorry for intruding, Max, but I didn't want to take any chances, not with my family."

  "We're all sorry." Suzanna smiled at him. "We've had an unsettling couple of months."

  "I understand that." And they certainly couldn't know how much he detested the term wunderkind. "If my academic profile eases your minds, that's fine."

  "There's one more thing," Suzanna continued. "None of this explains what you were doing in the water the night Lilah found you."

  Max gathered his thoughts while they waited. It was easy to take himself back now, as easy as it was for him to put himself into the Battle of Bull Run or Woodrow Wilson's White House.

  "I'd been working on the papers. A storm was coming in so the sea was rough. I guess I'm not much of a sailor. I was trying to crawl out on deck, for some air, when I heard Caufield talking to Captain Haw­kins."

  As concisely as he could, he told them what he had heard, how he had realized what he'd gotten into.

  "I don't know what I was going to do. I had some wild idea about getting the papers and getting off the boat so I could take them to the police. Not very brilliant considering the circumstances. In any case, they caught me. Caufield had a gun, but this time the storm was on my side. I got up on deck, and took my chances in the water."

  "You jumped overboard, in the middle of a storm?" Lilah asked.

  "It wasn't very smart."

  "It was very brave," she corrected.

  "Not when you consider he was shooting at me." Frowning, Max rubbed a hand over the bandage on his temple.

  "The way you describe this Ellis Caufield doesn't fit." Amanda tapped her fingers again as she thought it through. "Livingston, the man who stole the papers was dark haired, only about thirty."

  "So, he dyed his hair." Lilah lifted her hands. "He couldn't come back using the same name and the same appearance. The police have his description."

  "I hope you're right." A slow, humorless smile spread over Sloan's face. "I hope the sonofabitch is back so I can have another go at him."

  "So we all can have another go at him," C.C. cor­rected. "The question is, what do we do now?"

  They began to argue about that, with Trent telling his wife she wasn't going to do anything—Amanda reminding him it was a Calhoun problem—Sloan sug­gesting hotly that she keep out of it. Coco decided it was time for brandy and was ignored.

  "He thinks I'm dead," Max murmured, almost to himself. "So he feels safe. He's probably still close by, on the same boat. The Windrider."

  "You remember the boat?" Lilah held up a hand, signaling for silence. "You can describe it?"

  "In detail," Max told her with a small smile. "It was my first yacht."

  "So we take that information to the police." Trent glanced around the table, then nodded. "And we do a little checking ourselves. The ladies know the island as well as they know this house. If he's on it, or around it, we'll find him."

  "I'm looking forward to it." Sloan glanced over at Max and went with his instincts. "You in, Quarter-main?"

  Surprised, Max blinked, then found himself smil­ing. "Yeah, I'm in."

  I went to Christian's cottage. Perhaps it was risky as I might have been seen by some acquaintance, but I wanted so badly to see where he lived, how he lived, what small things he kept around him.

  It's a small place near the water, a square wooden cottage with its rooms crowded with his paintings and smelling of turpentine. Above the kitchen is a sun­drenched loft for his studio. It seemed to me like a doll's house with its pretty windows and low ceil­ings—old leafy trees shading the front and a narrow porch dancing along the back where we could sit and watch the water.

  Christian says that at low tide the water level drops so that you can walk across the smooth rocks to the little glade of trees beyond. And at night, the air is full of sound. Musical crickets, the hoot of owls, the lap of temperate water.

  I felt at home there, as quietly content as I have been in my life. It seemed to me that we had lived there together for years. When I told Christian, he gathered me close, just to hold me.

  “I love you. Bianca,'' he said. “I wanted you to come here. I needed to see you in my house, watch you stand among my things." When he drew me away, he was smiling. "Now, I'll always see you here, and I'll never be without you."

  / wanted to swear to him I would stay. God, the words leaped into my throat only to be blocked there by duty. Wretched duty. He must have sensed it for he kissed me then, as if to seal the words inside.

  I had only an hour with him. We both knew I would have to go back to my husband, to my children, to the life I had chosen before I met him. I felt his arms around me, tasted his lips, sensed the straining need inside him that was such a vibrant echo of my own.

  “I want you.'' I heard my own whisper and felt no shame. "Touch me, Christian. Let me belong to you." My heart was racing as I pressed wantonly against him. "Make love to me. Take me to your bed."

  How tightly his arms gripped me, so tightly I couldn't get my breath. Then his hands were on my face, and I felt the tremor in his fingertips. His eyes were nearly black. So much could be read there. Pas­sion, love, desperation, regret.

  "Do you know how often I've dreamed of it? How many nights I've lain awake aching for you?" Then he released me to stride across the room to where my portrait hung on his wall. ' I want you, Bianca, every time I take a breath. And I love you too much to take what can't be mine.''

  "Christian—"

  “Do you think I could let you go if I'd ever touched you?" There was anger now, ripe and violent as he whirled back. ' I hate knowing that we sneak like sin­ners just to spend an hour together, as innocent as children. If I don't have the strength to turn away from you completely, then I will have enough to keep you from taking a step you 'd only regret.''

  "How could I regret belonging to you?"

  “Because you already belong to someone else. And every time you go back to him, I dream of killing him with my bare hands if only because he can look at you when I can't. If we took this last step, I'd leave you no choice. There would be no going back to him, Bianca. No going back to your home, or your life."

  And I knew it was true, as he stood between me and the image of me he'd created.

  So I left him to come home, to tie a ribbon in Col­leen 's hair, to chase a ball with Ethan, to dry Sean's tears when he scraped his knee. To dine in miserable politeness with a husband who is more and more of a stranger to me.

  Christian's words were true, and it is a truth I must face. The time is coming when I will no longer be able to live in both worlds, but must choose one, only one.

  Chapter Four

  “I have the most marvelous idea," Coco an­nounced. Like a ship in full sail, she streamed into the kitchen where Lilah, Max, Suzanna and her family were having breakfast.

  "Good for you," Lilah said over a bowl of choc­olate-chip ice cream. "Anyone who can think at this hour deserves a medal, or should be committed."

  Like a mother hen, Coco checked the herbs she had potted on the window. She clucked over the basil be­fore she turned back. "I have no idea why I didn't think of it before. It's really so—"

  "Alex is kicking me under the table."

  "Alex, don't kick your sister," Suzanna said mildly. "Jenny, don't interrupt."
>
  "I wasn't kicking her." Milk dribbled down Alex's chin. "She got her knee in the way of my foot."

  "Did not."

  "Did too."

  "Turkey face."

  "Booger head."

  "Alex." Suzanna bit down on the inside of her lip to maintain the properly severe maternal disapproval. "Do you want to eat that cereal or wear it?"

  "She started it," he muttered.

  "Did not," Jenny said under her breath.

  "Did too."

  Another glance at their mother had them subsiding to eye each other with grim dislike over their cereal bowls.

  "Now that that's settled." Amused, Lilah licked her spoon. "What's your marvelous idea, Aunt Coco?"

  "Weil." She fluffed her hair, absently checking her reflection in the toaster, approving it, then beaming. "It all has to do with Max. Really it's so obvious. But, of course, we were worried about his health, then it's so difficult to think clearly with this construction going on. Do you know one of those young men was out on the terrace this morning in nothing but a pair of jeans and a tool belt? Very distracting." She peeked out of the kitchen window, just in case.

  "I'm sorry I missed it." Lilah winked at Max. "Was it the guy with the long blond hair tied back with a leather thong?"

  "No, the one with dark curly hair and a mustache. I must say, he's extremely well built. I suppose one would keep fit swinging hammers or whatever all day. The noise is a bother, though. I hope it doesn't disturb you, Max."

  "No." He'd learned to flow with Coco's rambling thought patterns. "Would you like some coffee?"

  "Oh, that's sweet of you. I believe I will." She sat while he got up to pour her a cup. "They've literally transformed the billiard room already. Of course, we've a long way to go—thank you, dear," she added when Max set a cup of coffee in front of her. "And all those tarps and tools and lumber make things un­sightly. But it will all be worth it in the end." As she spoke, she doctored her coffee with cream and heaps of sugar. "Now, where was I?"

  "A marvelous idea," Suzanna reminded her, put­ting a restraining hand on Alex's shoulder before he could fling any soggy cereal at his sister.

  "Oh, yes." Coco set her cup down without taking a sip. "It came to me last night when I was doing the tarot cards. There were some personal matters I'd wanted to resolve, and I'd wanted to get a feel for this other business."

  "What other business?" Alex wanted to know.

  "Grown-up business." Lilah dug a knuckle into his ribs to make him laugh. "Boring."

  "You guys better go find Fred." Suzanna checked her watch. "If you want to go with me today, you've got five minutes."

  They were up and shooting out of the room like little bullets. Surreptitiously Max rubbed his shin where Alex's foot had connected.

  "The cards, Aunt Coco?" Lilah said when the ex­plosion was over.

  "Yes. I learned that there was danger, past and future. Disconcerting." She cast a worried look over both her nieces. "But we're to have help dealing with it. There seemed to be two different sources of aid. One was cerebral, the other physical—potentially vi­olent." Uneasy, she frowned a little. "I couldn't place the physical source, though it seemed I should be­cause it was from someone familiar. I thought it might be from Sloan. He's so, well, Western. But it wasn't. I'm quite sure it wasn't." Brushing that aside, she smiled again. "But naturally the cerebral source is Max."

  "Naturally." Lilah patted his hand as he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Our resident genius."

  "Don't tease him." Suzanna rose to take bowls to the sink.

  "Oh, he knows I don't just like him for his brain. Don't you, Max?"

  He was mortally afraid he would blush in a minute. "If you keep interrupting your aunt, you'll be late for work."

  "And so will I," Suzanna pointed out. "What's the idea, Aunt Coco?"

  She'd started to drink again, and again set the cof­fee down untouched. "That Max should do what he came here to do." Smiling, she spread her manicured hands. "Research the Calhouns. Find out as much as possible about Bianca, Fergus, everyone involved. Not for that awful Mr. Caufield or whatever his name is, but for us."

  Intrigued, Lilah thought the idea over. "We've al­ready been through the papers."

  "Not with Max's objective, and scholarly eye," Coco pointed out. Already fond of him, she patted his shoulder. Her interpretation of the cards also had in­dicated that he and Lilah would suit very well. "I'm sure if he put his mind to it, he could come up with all kinds of wonderful theories."

  "It's a good idea." Suzanna came back to the ta­ble. "How do you feel about it?"

  Max considered. Though he didn't put any stock in tarot cards, he didn't want to hurt Coco's feelings.

  Besides, however she had come up with the idea, it was sound. It would be a way of paying them back and a way to justify staying on in Bar Harbor a few more weeks.

  "I'd like to do something. There's a good chance that even with the information I gave them the police won't find Caufield. While everyone's looking for him, I could be concentrating on Bianca and the neck­lace."

  "There." Coco sat back. "I knew it."

  "I'd wanted to check out the library, the newspa­per, interview some of the older residents, but Cau­field shut down the idea." The more he thought about it, the more Max liked the notion of working on his own. "Claimed he wanted everything to come out of the family papers, or his own sources." He moved his cup aside. "Obviously he couldn't give me a free hand or I'd find out the truth."

  "Now you have a free hand," Lilah put in. It amused her that she could already see the wheels turning. "But I don't think you'll find the necklace in a library."

  "But I may find a photograph of it, or a descrip­tion."

  Lilah simply smiled. "I've already given you that."

  He didn't put much stock in dreams and visions, either, and shrugged. "All the same, I might find something tangible. And I'll certainly find something on Fergus and Bianca Calhoun."

  "I suppose it'll keep you busy." Unoffended by his lack of faith in her mystical beliefs, Lilah rose. "You'll need a car to get around. Why don't you drop me off at work and use mine?"

  Irked by her lack of faith in his research abilities, Max spent hours in the library. As always, he felt at home there, among stacks of books, in the center of the murmuring quiet, with a notebook at his elbow. To him, research was a quest—perhaps not as excit­ing as riding a white charger. It was a mystery to be solved, though the clues were less adventurous than a smoking gun or a trail of blood.

  But with patience, cleverness and skill, he was a knight, or a detective, carefully working his way to an answer.

  The fact that he had always been drawn to such places had disappointed his father bitterly, Max knew. Even as a boy he had preferred mental exercise over the physical. He had not picked up the torch to follow his father's blaze of glory on the high school football field. Nor had he added trophies to the shelf.

  Lack of interest and a long klutzy adolescence had made him a failure in sports. He had detested hunting, and on the last outing his father had pressured him into had come up with a vicious asthma attack rather than a buck.

  Even now, years later, he could remember his fa­ther's disgusted voice creeping into his hospital room.

  "Damn boy's a pansy. Can't understand it. He'd rather read than eat. Every time I try to make a man out of him, he ends up wheezing like an old woman."

  He'd gotten over the asthma, Max reminded him­self. He'd even made something out of himself, though his father wouldn't consider it a man. And if he never felt completely adequate, at least he could feel competent.

  Shrugging off the mood, he went back to his quest.

  He did indeed find Fergus and Bianca. There were little gems of information peppered through the re­search books. In the familiar comfort of a library, Max took reams of notes and felt the excitement build.

  He learned that Fergus Calhoun had been self-made, an Irish immigrant who through grit and shrewdness had
become a man of wealth and influ­ence. He'd landed in New York in 1888, young, poor and, like so many who had poured into Ellis Island, looking for his fortune. Within fifteen years, he had built an empire. And he had enjoyed flaunting it.

  Perhaps to bury the impoverished youth he had been, he had surrounded himself with the opulent, muscling his way into society with wealth and will. It was in polite, exclusive society that he had met Bianca Muldoon, a young debutante of an old, estab­lished family with more gentility than money. He had built The Towers, determined to outdo the other va­cationing rich, and had married Bianca the following year.

  His golden touch had continued. His empire had grown, and so had his family with the birth of three children. Even the scandal of his wife's suicide in the summer of 1913 hadn't affected his monetary fortune.

  Though he had become somewhat of a recluse after her death, he had continued to wield his power from The Towers. His daughter had never married and, es­tranged from her father, had gone to live in Paris. His youngest son had fled, after a peccadillo with a mar­ried woman, to the West Indies. Ethan, his eldest child had married and had two children of his own, Judson, Lilah's father, and Cordelia Calhoun, now Coco McPike.

  Ethan had died in a sailing accident, and Fergus had lived out the last years of his long life in an asylum, committed there by his family after several outbursts of violent and erratic behavior.

  An interesting story, Max mused, but most of the details could have been gleaned from the Calhouns themselves. He wanted something else, some small tidbit that would lead him in another direction.

  He found it in a tattered and dusty volume titled Summering in Bar Harbor.

  It was such a flighty and poorly written work that he nearly set it aside. The teacher in him had him reading on, as he would read a student's ill-prepared term paper. It deserved a C-at best, Max thought. Never in his life had he seen so many superlatives and cluttered adjectives on one page. Glamorously to gloriously, magnificent to miraculous. The author had been a wide-eyed admirer of the rich and famous, someone who saw them as royalty. Sumptuous, spec­tacular and splendiferous. The syntax made Max wince, but he plodded on.

  There were two entire pages devoted to a ball given at The Towers in 1912. Max's weary brain perked up. The author had certainly attended, for the descriptions were in painstaking detail, from fashion to cuisine. Bianca Calhoun had worn gold silk, a flowing sheath with a beaded skirt. The color had set off the high­lights in her titian hair. The scooped bodice had framed...the emeralds.

  They were described in glowing and exacting de­tail. Once the adjectives and the romantic imagery were edited, Max could see them. Scribbling notes, he turned the page. And stared.

  It was an old photograph, perhaps culled from a newspaper print. It was fuzzy and blurred, but he had no trouble recognizing Fergus. Hie man was as rigid and stern faced as the portrait the Calhouns kept over the mantel in the parlor. But it was the woman sitting in front of him that stopped Max's breath.

  Despite the flaws of the photo, she was exquisite, ethereally beautiful, timelessly lovely. And she was the image of Lilah. The porcelain skin, the slender neck left bare with a mass of hair swept up in the Gibson style. Oversize eyes he was certain would have been green. There was no smile in them, though her lips were curved.

  Was it just the romance of the face, he wondered, or did he really see some sadness there?

  She sat in an elegant lady's chair, her husband be­hind her, his hand on the back of the chair rather than on her shoulder. Still, it seemed to Max that there was a certain possessiveness in the stance. They were in formal wear—Fergus starched and pressed, Bianca draped and fragile. The stilted pose was captioned, Mr. and Mrs. Fergus Calhoun, 1912.

  Around Bianca's neck, defying time, were the Cal­houn emeralds.

  The necklace was exactly as Lilah had described to him, the two glittering tiers, the lush single teardrop that dripped like emerald water. Bianca wore it with a coolness that turned its opulence into elegance and only intensified the power.

  Max trailed a fingertip along each tier, almost cer­tain he would feel the smoothness of the gems. He understood why such stones become legends, to haunt men's imaginations and fire their greed.

  But it eluded him, a picture only. Hardly realizing what he was doing, he traced Bianca's face and thought of the woman who had inherited it. There were women who haunt and inflame.