Matthew stayed out on the beach. It was dusk when he finally made his way back to the house where he presented Cook with two wooden buckets of steamers that sent her into rhapsodies.
Energy still coiled inside him like a mainspring and he decided to walk along the beach, in an attempt to think his way around the hopeless tangle his life had become.
The girl was falling in love with him. Even he, blinded by desire, could see the signs. Her swift changes of mood, the way those golden eyes watched him last night, the soft touch of her hand as she straightened his cuff. She was so young—too young to understand how it was with him. How could she, when he often found it difficult to understand himself?
Married yet not married.
A father in his heart but not in fact.
A rich man living as a beggar in another man's home, drinking himself to the death he so richly deserved.
He snatched a piece of driftwood then sent it sailing into the ocean. What could he offer her but a life spent in the shadows, neither honored wife nor pampered mistress, condemned to wait until the day came when he could give her more.
He thought of Madolyn, of her greed, of her excesses, of the sorrow he had brought to her. Alexandra deserved better than the lowlife drunkard he'd become. One day a man like Stephen Lowell would come along, all polished and poised in his white flannel pants and navy blue blazer and her untried heart would tumble to his feet. There wouldn't be a damned thing Matthew could do except dance at her wedding and pretend it didn't matter.
But he knew it would.
He would regret it every day of his life.
#
In Westhampton Beach that night, Stephen was about to have dinner.
"If there is anything more I can do for you, Mr. Lowell, please let me know." The young chamber maid with the big green eyes smiled up at him, her dimples deepening.
He chucked her quickly under her chin and pressed a half-dollar into her warm palm. "You are a veritable haven in a troubled world," he said, sitting down to table. "Rest assured I'll ring for you if need be."
Blushing to the roots of her light brown hair, the maid closed the door behind her and, at last, he was alone.
At times it was too easy. Women like the little chambermaid were ripe fruit hanging on a low branch. :They tumbled to the ground in the slightest wind. It was the ones you had to reach for that had the sweetest taste.
And he'd believed Marisa's little girl would have tasted sweeter than honey.
It was a shame that now he'd never had the opportunity to find out.
For a while he'd entertained elaborate notions about the way he'd seduce her from under McKenna's nose. He'd fantasized about the way she'd feel beneath him, the way her rounded hips would arch to meet his...
No matter. That time was past. He'd learned that last night as he hid behind the azalea bushes and watched his future unfold in the dusky hands of Andrew's whore.
It was now or never.
He plunged his knife into the slab of blood-red steak on his plate and cut off a piece.
He had no choice.
His ship left tomorrow.
The murders would be tonight.
#
Without the sleep draughts he had been squirreling away, Andrew's pain was more intense, but the keenness of mind that resulted made the suffering almost bearable. Fooling Stephen had been difficult; fooling Alexandra that morning had been easy. Oddly enough, he had felt not the slightest whit of guilt over tricking Stephen while a vague feeling of remorse had settled upon him when he saw the trusting look in Alexandra's eyes.
Daylight was gone but still he worked on her portrait by the yellow glow of the gas lamp on his nightstand. How was it he seemed to recall each nuance of expression, each angle and plane of her face, in almost excruciating detail?
None of it made any sense.
In three weeks he had not seen overmuch of her, save for those sessions in his studio. She spent most of her hours up in the carriage house attic while he was a prisoner in his suite of rooms.
Yet, there it was. Without her to model for him, he had somehow captured her.
His palette was heavy with color. Rich mounds of silver white and raw sienna and a Veronese green so lustrous it seemed to breathe. He dipped his brush into a swirling mixture of sunlit flesh tones and began to bring light to her face. His hand, gnarled though it was, flowed effortlessly across the canvas in a way that startled him. The face of the young girl came to life as if the Almighty had touched her shoulder and breathed life into her lovely body.
But, wait. Lovely as she was, something was not quite right. The angle of the cheekbone was a shade too rounded. The breasts, too full. The look in her eyes held a slyness he had never before observed in Alexandra.
Was the eye of the artist seeing something that he could not?
He glanced down at the oil painting Dayla had handed him that morning. Annoyed, he had propped it up against his easel at his feet, not caring to fathom what deep secrets his woman thought it possessed.
Of course.
Somehow his mind had played tricks upon him, substituting features of one girl for features of the other in an artistic give-and-take. Except for their coloring which was, indeed, vastly different, the two models actually had a great deal in common: the same proud carriage; the same intelligence blazing in their eyes. The same pronounced cheekbones and dimpled chin and—
Ridiculous.
What connection could there possibly be between a little chambermaid from the old Van Voorhies estate and a penniless art student from Provence?
The woman in the picture was young—no more than a score of years. Her long coppery-blonde hair spilled over shoulders unbowed by worry while her cornflower blue eyes held the hint of a smile, as if she held a secret deep within her soul. She wore a silk kimono of the palest goldenrod with delicate embroidery tracing an exotic pattern along the sleeves and across the front. The robe had slipped down low enough to expose the rounded tops of her full young breasts and his body jerked with the sudden violent memory of their ripeness against his mouth.
"Ridiculous," he mumbled. What in hell was he thinking? He'd had a thousand models in his day. Why was he remembering the texture of this one's skin, the smell of her hair so clearly across the years? Much as it chagrined him, perhaps Stephen was right after all. Perhaps pain did dull one's judgment and hinder one's perceptions. As if on cue, a stabbing pain radiated up his spine, and he could do naught but hold his breath until it released him. Beads of sweat trickled down his back and sides yet he felt gripped by ice, and it took a quarter hour for his body to recover from the onslaught.
Daunted, he opened his nightstand drawer and retrieved one of the pills he had stashed away.
Perhaps a good night's sleep was what he needed after all.
#
"Too hot," muttered Cook as she put away the last of the dinner dishes and untied her white apron. "'Tisn't natural to be so hot in May."
The house shimmered with a heat that not even the coming of darkness had lessened. The back door was open wide, the better to catch the breezes rising off the ocean, and the window curtains were pulled back with strips of yellow ribbon.
And still it wasn't enough.
Janine, her red hair coiled in a knot atop her head, fanned herself with her apron as the two women stepped from the airless pantry into the spacious kitchen. Cook was looking peaked, her long narrow face pale and bathed in perspiration.
She placed her hands upon the older woman's shoulders and pushed her toward the door.
"Off with you," she said, over the woman's protests. "I'll finish up here. Your man is waiting for you at the cottage." Cook sighed and murmured something about not even heat being enough to cool Johnny's ardor but she heeded Janine's advice. Janine stood in the doorway and watched as Cook made her way slowly across the wide expanse of backyard and headed toward the caretaker's cottage at the western edge of the property.
"Quiet as a morgue tonight," she said to the empty kitchen then shivered as a feeling of dread settled across her, real as the banshee's cry.
"Nonsense," she said, hanging her apron up on the hook behind the door and extinguishing the gas lamp on the table. It was the heat playing tricks with her, sure as she was standing there.
The whole house had been topsy-turvy today, a thick tangle of misunderstandings and temper that had her jumping at the sight of her own shadow. Mr. Andrew had snarled at her when she carried in his breakfast tray. Cook and Johnny hurled barbs as well as frying pans at one another in the kitchen while Arthur spilled a bottle of milk on the freshly washed floor then fell going for the mop. Even Miss Alexandra didn't take her usual breakfast then stayed in her room through dinner. And Mr. Matthew—he had come barreling into the kitchen like a house afire only to grab himself a chunk of fresh bread and head out to saddle a horse. He was a gentleman, Mr. Matthew was, and he wouldn't say a thing but Janine knew deep in her soul that Miss Alexandra was at the heart of his temper. "The heat," Cook had said.
The heat could make a body crazy.
She walked through the quiet house and out the front door to sit on the porch and look up at the stars.
A refreshing breeze wafted over her Janine's spirits rose. If her luck would be holding, spring would return with the morning sun.
All they had to do was get through the night.
#
Patience.
Stephen crouched deeper in the shadows alongside the house. Patience was the key.
Lights still burned in the caretaker's cottage adjacent to the carriage house and he could see Johnny dozing by the open window.
All the doors and windows to the main house were flung wide and he could barely contain the thrill of excitement barreling through him.
Once again, it seemed almost too easy. This sudden heat wave was a gift from the gods, as if Fate had recognized the inequity of Stephen's situation and sought to rectify it in her own way. No need for jimmying locks or forcing windows. No shattered glass or splintered wood.
He would climb the latticework to the second floor, hoist himself onto Andrew's balcony, then stroll through the French doors as though it were his birthright.
And it was his birthright, damn it. Didn't the Lowell blood flow through his veins same as through the mighty Andrew's? Was it his fault he'd been born to a sniveling fool of a father who had put a higher store in good faith than he had in good sense and ended up with nothing.
He'd fry in hell before he let Marisa's bastard daughter take away everything he'd earned.
The azalea bush next to him rustled in the warm breeze and the redhaired maid glanced in his direction. He flattened himself against the weathered shingles and held his breath until her attention returned to the stars overhead.
Patience.
For over thirty years he had waited for this opportunity, planned for it, dreamed over it, until he doubted it would ever become a reality. It could all be destroyed by recklessness.
The plan was flawless. There would be no gunshot breaking the silence. No knife wound to spread a crimson stain on the white sheets. Just a chloroform-soaked rag followed swiftly by pressure applied skillfully to a windpipe and it would be over.
This was his one chance—his only chance to grab the brass ring and he had to wait until the maid retired to her third floor room and McKenna vacated the library and the house finally went dark.
The reward would be great if he could just bide his time a little bit longer.
#
Gabrielle's voice rushed toward Alexandra from blackness deeper than the night.
"You cannot leave me," her friend said, eyes bright with tears. "Luc... Mireille... the baby on its way... how can we do without you?"
The cooling breezes of Provence lifted Alexandra's hair from her forehead, drying the tiny beads of sweat trickling backward from her temples.
Home.
She was finally home.
This is a dream, a voice whispered in her ear. Do not believe what you hear.
She tossed restlessly in the wide feather bed, her thin nightdress tangling around her legs and hips.
Of course she was home. Where else could she possibly be but in her room in Gabrielle and Luc's tiny cottage? Soon dawn would break over the meadows and it would be time to rise and tend to the milking and gather the eggs and—
Andrew Lowell, his white hair rising up around his face like a corona, stood before her. "Help me!" he cried, golden eyes alight with fear. "Help me!"
Abruptly she sat up in bed, heart thundering inside her chest. The massive armoire loomed dark and dangerous in the greyness of the room and it took her a moment to remember where she was.
This wasn't Provence.
This was East Hampton and she was in Andrew Lowell's house. Once again the image of him pleading, "Help me!" sprang to mind and it seemed as if he stood before her, his golden eyes blazing a path in the darkness.
"A nightmare," she whispered. "That's all it is." But she was awake and the vision persisted until she sprang from bed and slipped into the kimono Dayla given her for the modeling sessions.
The vision of Andrew Lowell was ridiculous and she knew it. The man was probably sleeping peacefully in his room at the other end of the hall, yet the sound of his voice pleading for help lingered in her ears.
There was no hope for it. She eased open her door and tiptoed down the hall. The Persian carpet was tufted silk beneath her bare feet and the only noise in the quiet house was the sound of her breathing.
The door to Andrew's suite was open and she silently stepped into the drawing room only to discover the door to this bedroom closed tight. All seemed as it should. She pressed her ear against the heavy oak, expecting to hear nothing save a gentle snore from within.
But it wasn't a snore she heard: it was a grunt. Soft, but unmistakable, followed by the squeaking of bedsprings and the crack of a hand against tender flesh.
Her face flamed. She had heard intimate sounds from Gabrielle and Luc's bedroom during her months at the cottage, sounds that made her blood rush hot through her veins, and she was about to slip back to her room when she remembered this was not the room of young lovers. This room was Andrew Lowell's.
Andrew Lowell, whose hands could barely hold the finest brush, whose legs could not carry him across the room. The sounds coming from the bedroom could not possibly be the sounds of passion.
They were the sounds of struggle.
Flinging open the door, she faced her nightmare head-on: A man dressed in black leaned over Andrew's great cherrywood bed, his soft pale hands wrapped around the artist's throat. Andrew's magnificent eyes were wide with horror yet he offered no struggle. In an instant she saw the life ebbing from his body and the scream that rose from her gut echoed throughout the house.
"Let him go!" She raced toward the bed, barely registering the pain as a splinter pierced her instep, and grabbed a carafe of water from the nightstand.
The man's voice was a horrifying rasp, "Shut up, bitch!" His hand swung out, barely missing the side of her head.
"Help!" she screamed, throwing the carafe at him. "Somebody, please help!"
The pitcher bounced off the man's shoulder and shattered into a thousand pieces. Andrew was quick losing the battle; he drooped helplessly over the man's right arm and she knew it was only a question of moments before he stopped breathing entirely.
She heard the sound of footsteps racing down the hallway. "Hurry!" she screamed, her words tearing from her throat.
The man leaned over Andrew. His hands gleamed white in the moonlight spilling through the open French doors. His long aristocratic fingers wrapped themselves once again around Andrew's throat and she sprang forward, enraged, and pummeled the man's head with her fists.
Now! I need help now! What happened to the footsteps? Why was no one there?
Her fingers curved into talons and she reached for the assailant's face in a last-ditch attempt to divert him. Elation welled inside her as her nails dug deep into his flesh.
His eyes! If she could just reached his eyes, she could—
The man roared with pain and, dropping Andrew like a sack of grain, he reared back and dealt a devastating blow to her jaw.
Pain exploded inside her head, and through her haze, she saw Andrew sprawled across his bed, motionless, and she struggled to move toward him.
"Oh, no, you don't." The man's voice was low with rage as he tackled her around the waist and flung her across the room as if she were no more than a worn-out blanket.
She fell gracelessly, too dazed from the initial blow to do anything to protect herself. Her left shoulder slammed into the bottom of a huge chifferobe and before the pain could reach her nerve endings, she saw the man's face.
The yellow-haired man.
The last thing Alexandra saw before she passed out was Stephen Lowell's smile.