Forever My Love(92)

"You can tell Mother I'll come to the country and visit her this weekend."

"She'll be overjoyed," Carr said, and grinned cheek­ily, his green eyes glowing.

"Anything else?" Alec asked, picking up a clean quill and tracing an invisible design on his thumb with it.

Carr's smile changed, became guarded and more than a little defensive. "Yes. I wanted to ask you a question. I was talking to Jules Wyatt the other day— you know, the tall one who always followed Holt around and tried to imitate—"

"I remember.""I've been asking questions here and there. Nothing specific, I'm just curious about a few things. I was talking to Wyatt about Holt… you know, remem­bering the old days… and Wyatt mentioned some­thing that I never knew about Holt before."

Alec's silver gaze sharpened. "What did he say?"

"That before he died Holt had been seeing a young woman, a girl named Leila, who was very important to him. Wyatt said that Holt was wild about her. Holt never mentioned her to me, and usually he never failed to brag about his romantic conquests. But it sounded as if this girl had cast some sort of spell over him—Wyatt implied that Holt had even talked about marrying her."

"Yes," Alec said, shrugging carelessly. "But who gives a damn now?"

"I do. What, was, her last name? Do you know it? Did he ever tell you?"

"I don't remember. What is so important about her?"

"According to Wyatt, Leila disappeared a week be­fore Holt died. I mean disappeared, as if she had been wiped off the face of the earth. As if she had never been born." Carr frowned, visibly perturbed by his train of thought. "If I could just find out what hap­pened to her, I know it would explain why Holt was murdered. I feel it in the marrow of my bones!"

Alec stared at him transfixed. For once he found that he could not disregard his young cousin's words; he sensed that there was something important about Leila's supposed disappearance in connection with what had happened to Holt. "Leila Holburn," he said softly.

"Holburn. Are you… are you certain?" Carr asked, stuttering in excitement.

"Yes, I'm certain. I never saw or met her. But he talked about her to me incessantly."

"I've got to find her family… talk to them—maybe she's been found now, or perhaps they could tell me—""No." Alec settled back in his chair, propping his boots up on the desk and studying his feet thought­fully. "I will." His authority had been established so firmly and for such a long time that no male in the Falkner family, not even Alec's own uncles, dared to question his decisions. But unexpectedly he raised his gray eyes to Carr's face and continued slowly, "…if you have no objections."

Carr blinked, obviously startled. Alec was inviting comment, disagreement, questions. Previously it had been a privilege granted only to Holt, and Carr was well aware of it. "No, I don't mind," he said, but was unable to resist adding, "… if you'll let me join you."

To Carr's relief, the other man laughed shortly. "Why not?" Alec found that he didn't mind his cou­sin's company as much as he once had. Carr was very different from Holt, but he had a kind of foolhardy courage that Alec was beginning to find quite likable.

"I had begun to wonder," Juliana said frostily, "what had become of you."

Alec smiled and bent to kiss her cheek. She turned her face away regally so that his lips merely brushed the air, but her coolness did not disturb him—it had been expected. There were some things about his mother that would never change. Although her metal­lic blue eyes had dimmed with age, they were still razor-sharp with intelligence and will. Juliana was the only person Alec had ever known who never worried about whether or not she was right: she knew she was right and that anyone who failed to agree with her was distinctly in the wrong. Juliana had admitted only once in her life that she had been wrong, and the admission had been dragged out of her by John Falkner when he convinced her to marry him instead of Edward Penrhyn. But even then she considered that she had been rightto admit her mistake, which surely canceled out the original faux pas.

The greatest praise that she had ever given Alec was to admit that he favored her more than he did his father. Her younger son Douglas was much more like John Falkner had been—sweet-natured, friendly, per­haps even complacent… content and at times self-deprecatory. Although she had sincerely loved her husband, Juliana held none of these qualities in high esteem, for none of them had helped her to become one of the most powerful and influential women of her time. She forced people to compete for her approval, to work for her affection, to earn her regard. In her opinion, the most valuable weapon anyone could pos­sess was the ability to make others want him or her. There was no one like bristly, vigorous Juliana, who could manufacture and engineer everything except moth­erly tenderness.