Tempest(31)
Adam felt as if he’d taken a blow to the chest. “Your... mother? Coming here?” He paused for a deep breath. “When?”
“She’s sailing on a yacht with my third cousin, Auggie Chase. She thinks they’ll be here by Christmas.”
“But that’s next week!”
Cathy managed a wan smile. “Yes.”
“Tempest Hall isn’t fit for houseguests! The whole place is torn apart!”
“We’ll just have to finish as much as we can and make due. What other choice do we have?”
“Maybe she’ll decide to stay in a hotel. The Marine Hotel is very impressive; nearly grand enough for your mother.”
With a firm shake of her head, Cathy insisted, “That’s not the reason she’s coming all the way down here. I know my mother, and she means to do a very thorough job of inspecting our home and style of living.”
“In that case, we’re doomed.” He sank into his planter’s chair and stared up at the paint peeling high on every wall, not just in that room, but in every room in the house. “This place is a disaster. God, Cathy, when I remember Beechcliff, and I compare it to Tempest Hall, I might as well shoot myself!”
“You mustn’t think that way.” Her heart went out to him, and she bent beside his chair and stroked his hair. On the back of his head, there was a wave that swept to the right, thick and glossy. “Mother knows you aren’t wealthy, Adam. You made that perfectly clear yourself, long before we were married.”
“Even I was shocked by the state of this house, though. And, in some ways it looks even worse now because the place is torn apart.”
“I thought you didn’t like my mother. Why do you care what she thinks?”
“That’s a good question.” He turned to look into her eyes. “It must have something to do with you.”
A pink flush touched her cheeks. “Then we’ll just have to lend our own two hands to those of the workmen. We have five days, I think, before Mother and Auggie arrive. Let’s set about completing as much as we possibly can, all right?”
“Are you suggesting that we paint and plaster and varnish alongside the workmen?”
“I am indeed.”
An odd lightness stole over Adam. It felt good to think that he and Cathy might be able to have some power of their own to steer clear of certain catastrophe. And the notion of throwing himself into physical labor was heartening for a different reason. It would take his mind off the throbbing problem of Gemma and Paul.
Of course, telling Cathy was out of the question for the moment. He’d send a note to Gemma, explaining, then find some old clothes and a paintbrush.
“It could be fun,” Cathy suggested with a wide, radiant smile.
Adam surprised her by returning her smile, although one brow arched a trifle sardonically. “Fun? That’s a strong word, don’t you think?”
“I like a challenge, sir!”
His smile softened. “In fact, so do I.”
Adam was awake, thinking about Paul, when the tallcase clock on the landing struck three. Moonbeams slanted through the jalousie shutters, and the sweet fragrance of jasmine rose upward from the garden and seemed to enter the bedroom on silvery shafts of light. And, from a distance, Adam heard the enticing sound of Atlantic rollers breaking on the island’s north coast.
Just then, Alice raised her head and muttered, “Woof.” She had been lying on a tapestry rug beside the bed and now got up and looked toward the dressing room door. When the door opened very slowly, she uttered a louder warning: “Woof!”
Adam rose on an elbow and looped the mosquito netting around one bedpost. He was nut-brown against the luminously white sheets. “Cathy?” he called softly.
“Yes,” she admitted. Emerging into the pale light, she wrapped her arms around her waist. She was wearing a thin batiste nightgown, tucked and pleated across the bodice, that covered her from neck to wrist to ankle. Her hair was brushed back neatly and braided from the nape of her neck to her waist.
“Is something wrong?” He wondered if he might yet have a chance to tell her about Paul. It wasn’t wise to postpone it, and God knew that the perfect moment would never arrive.
“No... well, yes— I suppose that everything is wrong!” She knelt to pet Alice. “I’ve been worrying— about Mother and the house... and the future seems awfully black.” She couldn’t mention Gemma Hart and her young son, but they were right at the top of her list of sleep-banishing thoughts.
“In that case, I’m glad you paid me a visit.” His heart seemed to stop for a moment when she came to stand next to his bed, within touching distance.
“I thought that— since I am your wife— that I might take refuge in your bed tonight. “ Her eyes were beautiful in the shadows, and her smile seemed to tremble. “The truth is, I could use a friend.”
He lifted the sheet. “Say no more.”
She found herself blinking back tears as she hiked up her nightgown and climbed onto the big bed. His sheets were so soft; fragrant with his almond soap, fine cigars, and his own scent that always made her giddy with longing. Better still, the bed was warm from his body. When she curled next to him on her side, Adam covered her with the sheet and drew her against him with one strong arm. Cathy could feel the imprint of his naked, hard-muscled body through the thin stuff of her nightgown, and her heart beat faster.
Holding her near, Adam kissed her hair where the braid began. “Is that better?”
“You’ll never know.” So many times since the last night she’d slept here, Cathy had wanted to come back, or at least discuss their sleeping arrangements, but Adam’s cool dismissal of the subject had stung her to the core. Why was he allowed to have pride but she must not? “Adam, will you be my friend and support while Mother is here? You know how difficult she can be...” The feeling of his arm tightening around her midsection was bliss.
“Your friend? Wouldn’t you rather have a husband?” His lips touched her hair again, then strayed to a tender spot behind her ear.
Rolling onto her back, Cathy searched his eyes for the truth. It wasn’t there. Something inside of her felt shy and uncertain again. “I don’t think the husband and wife part can be solved so easily, but I do know that we can be friends. We’ve done it before—”
“That’s not the only thing we’ve done before,” he whispered. His lean fingers grazed her neck, then the curve of her breast, then the batiste-draped line of her hip and thigh. Pausing for a moment, Adam heard a subtle shift in her breathing. She wanted to surrender, but something was holding her back. She seemed to hold her breath.
When she spoke there was a note of poignant whimsy in her voice. “Are all men the same?”
He knew that he could persuade her yet. But, as much as Adam wanted her and believed that she wanted him, a muted voice from deep within told him to hold back, to give Cathy what she needed tonight without demanding something for himself. Why he should follow a course that might enrich their marriage was a question he wasn’t ready to ask himself.
“All men the same?” he repeated. It was his chance to extricate himself. “I take it you are referring to that male tendency to go soft-brained while in passion’s grip. Doubtless we all have our moments, and I’ve just had one of mine. How could I not, with you in my arms, Cath?” Then, cradling her against him, he lay back against the pillows and very gently stroked the fine baby curls at her brow. “Go to sleep, and don’t worry. Together we can slay any dragon that appears— even your fire-breathing mother.”
“Let me remind you,” she warned in tones of mock severity, “that the woman you compare to a dragon is your mother-in-law.”
The sound of their laughter, mingling in the moonlight, made Alice drop her chin onto crossed paws and sigh with pleasure.
Chapter 19
“I am ravenous.”
Hearing his wife’s announcement, Adam looked down from the ladder and waited, paintbrush in midair. “Go on.”
“Well, am I the only one who doesn’t like going all day without food?” Pointing at herself for emphasis, she stared up at him.
He touched her paint-daubed nose. “You look comical.” Softening, he added, “Charmingly so.”
After four days of frantic work on the house, they had now scraped the peeling spots on his library walls and were repainting the entire room a shade Cathy called “Lime Juice.” They weren’t the only ones working. There were men on the roof, men in the sitting room replacing the damaged wood floor, and men outside repainting Tempest Hall’s exterior. Oddly enough, the chaos, hard labor, and shared apprehension over Hermione’s impending visit had brought Adam and Cathy closer. They’d learned to laugh together to lighten the mood. She wore painting clothes: an old skirt, one of his older shirts, an apron, and a white headtie to cover her hair. The shirt reached her knees, and Adam had folded back the sleeves for her. Her costume was covered with spatters of the three tropical colors of paint they’d used so far in the house.
“You shouldn’t call me comical-looking when I’m hungry and crabby,” Cathy warned. “You might have a fight on your hands.”