Tainted Love Read online

  The brick garden path was narrow, and Doyle was a large man. Clearly, he wasn't budging, and stubbornly, she refused to ask him to step aside. He was an immovable wall she needed to tread carefully around.

  Some things don't change.

  Locking her lips together in an obstinate line, she cold-shouldered her way past. "Pardon me?"

  "I wish I could," he said softly. "Unfortunately, I am not that noble."

  She froze. Nothing quite like a cold confrontation with the truth for raising goose bumps despite the heat of the day. "It happened long ago..."

  "Ten years this summer to be exact."

  "Is that hostility I hear in your voice? And here I thought you were immune to me," she said sweetly, coyly ... disingenuously.

  "You think me hostile? That lukewarm emotion doesn't come close to what I feel. Would you like to know what is really running through my mind?"

  "Not particularly. I fear it's still far too early in the day for me. I never do sentimental until late afternoon tea."

  Her small breasts lifted and fell. Rapidly. Boston was invariably steamy during the summer, and the day she left town was no exception. Still, she had not given up even one of her horsehair petticoats. The hired carriage had been as hot as Hades, and though she had wished to undo the top button on her gown, she did nothing of the kind. She made no concession to the rising temperatures whatsoever--until she had removed her summer cloak within the privacy of the cottage gates. Now, without a covering, there was no way for her to hide the two conspicuously raised spots on her bodice where her tingling had increased by a few hundred volts of sexual awareness.

  Her nipples jutted beyond the bounds of good taste as she attempted to circumnavigate his hard body, her breasts achy within the confines of her linen chemise. The corset she wore, laced far too tight for her small bosom, only served to accentuate her unchaste response to the man whose gaze even now raked her figure.

  There was nothing coy, sweet, or disingenuous in Doyle's look. He eyed her bosom openly, keenly observing her elongated nipples, as no gentleman ever would.

  Then again, and by his own admission, Doyle had never professed to be a gentleman. And, for her own part, she had never behaved as a lady ought to behave, when with him.

  "Do your nipples still redden with carnal excitement?" he asked. "Does your honey still flow sweet and pearled between your thighs?"

  Ignoring his cruel taunt, Lily worked on putting one foot in front of the other. Five more steps and she would gain the cottage's front door. She was a survivor. Surely, she could survive a few more paltry feet--before she fainted.

  "Go ahead," he called after her. "You were always good at running away."

  Pride kept her from doing just that.

  Forcing herself to take a shallow breath, she schooled herself to keep moving. Slowly.

  "Miss Hill..."

  "Yes?" she replied over her shoulder, still moving.

  "Now that you are home, best take care."

  Regardless of his proper address, regardless of the heat of the day, the warning sent a chill down her spine.

  CHAPTER THREE

  "Is that you, dear?"

  "Yes, Grandmama." Lillian closed her eyes tight to prevent the betraying moisture from escaping. "I ... caught my heel in the carpet."

  "Well, get yourself uncaught! Mary baked your favorites--cinnamon rolls. And we are holding tea."

  "Lovely! Just give me a moment," Lillian called gaily, as though she didn't have a care in the world. Her feelings, ambivalent or otherwise, hardly mattered in the scheme of things. For the first time ever, a proud gentleman, a portrait painter she and her grandmother both loved, had requested a special favor of her and she was not about to disappoint him. She had disappointed far too many people in her life.

  Not this time. Not this man.

  She had returned home to enable the failing artist to complete what might possibly be his last work. She had given her word to do so; it was a promise she was determined to honor...

  ...if it were the last thing she ever did.

  Anthony Camaro loved life. He had certainly lived it to the fullest, even now when his health wasn't the best. And because the artist would bristle if glum faces and sickbed whispers surrounded him, her grandmother and she had made a secret pact--one of the many secrets they shared--to shield their concern from him. During her visit, there would be no sorrowful expressions, no coddling, no hovering ... and absolutely no moping. Tony just hated moping. They would go on much as they always had done, keeping their true feelings hidden away.

  Squaring her shoulders, Lillian quit her stalling and pushed off against the white woodwork, smiling as she passed Mary in the hall. The village girl came daily to help out with the heavier household chores. For the most part, though, Victoria Hill lived informally. At her advanced age, she still did much of her own domestic work, having always considered a live-in servant an intrusion on her privacy.

  Lillian turned the corner down the narrow hallway, papered in the same cabbage-rose design from her girlhood, and entered the dining room.

  A gasp escaped the tightly controlled line of her mouth. For one heartbeat, it felt like only ten minutes, not ten years, since she had been gone.

  Her grandmother stood beside the sideboard, the same place she had stood all those years ago when they said their goodbyes. Henri, Victoria Hill's spoiled black cat was, as usual, at her feet. The timelessness of the scene almost crushed her. And when her grandmother opened her arms wide, and said, "Welcome home. You have been gone entirely too long, my girl," the clock was pushed back further still.

  Helpless not to, Lillian slipped back into the role of much loved grandchild even as she slipped into her nana's embrace.

  "I missed you so much. I missed everything so much!" Lillian sobbed; this time, no amount of lip biting or eye rubbing could hold back the tears. "So sorry. This is not at all what I wished to do."

  "Child, crying is exactly what you need to do."

  "It's just that--it was never the same when you and Tony visited me in Boston. We all knew it, and we all pretended otherwise." Lillian sniffed. "I must have thought about this one room a thousand times a day. I thought I would never see the cottage again."

  "Children are like birds--let them fly from the nest and they find their way back eventually. I knew you would come home. It took courage, girl, but here you stand."

  "Courage? Me? You must have me confused with another granddaughter."

  "Considering you are the one and only, that would seem highly improbable."

  Lillian looked away. "Bravery has never been my strong suit..."

  "Oh, but you are brave. Strong too. Mark my words, someday you will come to realize it too, and then you will be quite the formidable woman. A woman, I daresay, to be reckoned with."

  "If you say so."

  "I just did," Victoria reiterated, then firmly set her granddaughter aside.

  "For a woman close to eighty, you haven't mellowed."

  Victoria looked down her longish nose. "Certainly not! You will find I am just as domineering and opinionated as ever. I have lived life on my terms, without apology, and I am not about to change at this juncture."

  "And I wouldn't wish you to."

  Smiling through the tears, Lillian remembered her stained hands. "Look at me! Home five minutes and already my fingernails are dirty. The urge to weed in your herb garden was just too irresistible to refuse."

  "Go wash up in the kitchen. Mary already filled the pitcher with warm water; it's by the basin. Tea will be here waiting when your hands are clean."

  "Tea!" Lillian grumbled, making her way to the back room. "The cure for everything."

  "That's right! Make fun of an old woman!" Victoria harrumphed, following at Lillian's heels. "But I say there is nothing like a pot of good brew for what ails you. Besides, when one has led an unconventional life, it is imperative to conduct oneself conventionally whenever possible. Tea serves that purpose. Now, no more dawdling!" Blue-
veined hands were clapped. "To the dry sink with you. Never keep a woman of my robust appetite waiting too long for her afternoon crumpets."

  Reverting to childhood obedience, Lillian scurried to the basin and soaped up while her grandmother stood behind her, chatting on about everyday happenings. The elderly lady's words flowed together in a lyrical stream, her calming narrative washing over Lillian like the steady flow of water over smooth stones. Her grandmother rarely raised her voice, but Victoria Hill's softly modulated tones didn't fool Lillian; iron lurked behind the velvet. At seventeen, Lillian had discovered that it was never what Victoria Hill said that mattered; it was what she didn't say.

  "...and what with his book expounding the Modern Movement, Doyle's private architect business has taken off these last few years."

  Lillian stopped her hand lathering. "Excuse me?"

  Victoria repeated herself. "I was only relating how successful Doyle has become since the publication of his book."

  Lillian reached for the drying cloth always kept on a brass nail next to the sink. "I knew publication was Doyle's dream. But then his parents died, and he gave up the luxury of writing to pursue his architectural career. Are you saying he has authored a book?"

  "If you were listening, dear, you would know that is precisely what I just related--along with the information that the book is enormously popular amongst a certain set. He has the time to write now that he need no longer worry over those rascal brothers of his. John has his own business. Young Theodore is affianced."

  Lillian followed Victoria back out to the dining room, taking a seat directly across from her grandmother at the polished table and diagonal to a large glass vase of flowers.

  "Theodore, betrothed?" Lillian asked, intently watching moisture slide down the sides of the silver teapot her grandmother poured. "Why, when I left he was only a lad."

  Victoria sighed. "When you left, you were no more than a girl yourself. And you know what they say--children grow up so quickly. Doyle did a marvelous job raising his younger brothers. No easy feat, that."

  Lillian took a quick sip from her bone china cup. "This is wonderful. I missed your Earl Grey."

  "Hmm. I sense a cool breeze and a change of subject in the offing. Have I said too much?"

  "No! Of course not. Tell me everything. All the gossip. I missed Bar Harbor, especially the cottage, so much."

  "Your father was the same way. Reginald was never happy unless the creaking of these old walls lulled him to sleep at night."

  "I always loved the idea that I was born right here."

  Victoria's eyes took on a faraway cast. "It was wonderful having a newborn in the house. Your parents took over the whole east wing. They were so in love. A fairy tale kind of love, really."

  Lillian twirled her tealeaves at the bottom of her cup. "And then Mother became ill."

  "And in less than a year's time she was gone. Reggie was never the same after Mary's death. His heart had always been weak, and after she died, he just didn't care anymore. You, his painting, nothing could keep him here on this earth after your mother's passing. He just never recovered from the sadness."

  Lillian's smile was wistful. "If I close my eyes, I can still see Father outside painting, the cottage at his back. I was ... let's see ... four or five years old at the time, I would guess, as he died shortly thereafter. He was splashing big blobs of pink paint upon the canvas--the wild beach roses on the sea walk. To this day, that is how I remember him, like an image from a storybook."

  "This property will all be yours someday, child."

  Lillian shook her head. "Somehow Grandmama ... I mean after all that has happened ... it seems wrong that I should inherit."

  "Nonsense! My dear, all this belongs to you. The estate. The land. It is your inheritance." Victoria stirred more sugar into her tea. "More importantly, it is what your grandfather wished."

  "But..."

  "No buts about it! I informed my attorney you were coming home, and he rechecked my will. It is ironclad; only one other person might possibly inherit, and we both know the horrible plans William has for the cottage."

  Lillian crumbled her cinnamon muffin. "Grandfather would have disliked that eventuality."

  "That, my dear, is an understatement! Your grandfather would roll over in his grave if your cousin got his greedy hands on this property. William would turn the cottage into a hotel for vacationers! Imagine this cottage renting out rooms like a common boarding house!"

  Lillian laughed. No one played snob like Victoria Hill and no one but a snob would call a twenty-room mansion with a barn and outbuildings, a cottage.

  Notwithstanding her grandmother's pretentiousness, there was no real money in the Hill family. Not any more. There hadn't been true wealth for years, although her grandmother held onto the illusion. The only thing left to the Hill estate was the deteriorating cottage and the overgrown land, both of which needed a tremendous amount of work. Unfortunately, renovation required an expenditure of capital that just wasn't there.

  No help for it, Lillian brought up the thorny issue. "What if Charles and I don't live in Maine after our marriage?"

  "We must cross that bridge when we come to it. Naturally, I had hoped that you would live here in Bar Harbor but..."

  "Yes?" Lillian prompted.

  "How is Charles, dear? What a shame he couldn't get away with you!"

  "Please don't feel slighted. Bankers are always so busy."

  "As long as he makes time for you!"

  "He does what he can. The situation is sure to improve in a few years."

  "I realize you have only recently become affianced, but I do so wish to meet your young man! Soon. As in, before the wedding. Speaking of which, have you set a date?"

  Forgetting herself, Lillian said, "No!" a little too vehemently.

  At her grandmother's raised brows, she covered her gaffe. "I ... that is to say ... we have a few details to work through before we can make definite plans."

  Victoria crooked her jaw above the lacy collars she was so fond of wearing. Her sharp eyes went soft and dreamy. "Ah Lillian, I can picture you walking down the center aisle at St. Sebastian's now. Such a quaint setting for a wedding."

  Her grandmother's uncharacteristic naiveté left Lillian stunned. Have her wedding in Bar Harbor? How dreadful. Why, a fancy wedding here in town would be little better than a three-ring circus! And, my God, what of Charles? The thought of him learning the grizzly truth about her notorious past through gossip stopped Lillian's heart.

  She had tried to tell her fiancé about her past so many times. About Doyle. About Frank Johnson. He always refused to listen...

  And perhaps she hadn't tried hard enough. Charles made no bones about demanding a perfect, unblemished bride--what would he say upon learning she was hardly that?

  When Lillian gulped from her raised cup, the hot tea burnt the tip of her tongue.

  Maybe she was being too hard on Charles; maybe he would understand. Maybe he would forgive her.

  But, deep down, she knew he would not.

  How could she possibly expect a conservative and self-righteous man like Charles to wed her after finding out that a decade ago she had been involved in a love triangle that resulted in a man's suspicious death?

  Lillian cleared her throat. "There are quaint churches in Boston too."

  Her grandmother returned her teacup to its saucer. "This is about Frank Johnson, isn't it? That young man's death was ruled accidental, young lady!"

  "Everyone in town believes he was murdered."

  "What do you expect people to believe? Everyone in town is owned lock, stock and barrel by Frank's father. Not only is he a wealthy attorney, the Johnson family paper business is the largest employer in Maine. Between land and timber and factories and the law, the Johnson's have this state all sewn up. Frank's father needs someone to blame for his only child's death."

  Lillian fiddled with her engagement ring, and then looked up into her grandmother's eyes for understanding. "Charles i
s from an illustrious Boston society family. His parents think it's scandalous enough that I am a member of the Arts and Crafts movement! If my past also becomes known, he will break off our engagement, toss me out like a ...like a..." She held up the drooping red head of a spent blossom "...like a wilted rose."

  Her grandmother tried to hide her appalled expression behind her napkin. Lillian saw it anyway. "Don't feel sorry for me Nana," she said, using the childhood appellation for her grandmother. "Haven't you always said that in the end, people get what they deserve?"

  "I was talking about criminals, not my own granddaughter!"

  "I am gratified you have made the distinction. I wonder if Charles will?"

  "Howbeit public opinion, if your young man loves you, truly loves you, he will stand by you, no matter what."

  Lillian said nothing.

  Victoria's posture went ram rod straight. "Then Charles is not the man for you!"

  So much for their light and pleasant homecoming!

  Back-pedaling fast before their first day together was ruined, Lillian said, "Husband material like grandfather is a rarity."

  Victoria Hill shot her grandchild a knowing look. "Ah ... I feel another cool breeze drifting my way. Fine, dear. We shall change the subject." She smiled. "Your grandfather was indeed a wonderful husband. Actually, I have been lucky in love twice in my life."

  "How is Tony doing?"

  "Tony is ... well ... improving. The doctors say a warmer clime might be beneficial ... we shall have to wait and see," the older woman explained, rising from the table.

  "I am so looking forward to talking with hi..."

  When her shoulder was tapped, Lillian turned 'round, sentence left dangling, and saw an envelope in her grandmother's hand.

  "This letter came for you first thing this morning, dear. I best give it to you now before I forget. Curious, someone knowing of your arrival."

  Lillian's fingers trembled before ever touching the expensive linen stationary, the same brand of stationary she had received at random intervals for the past ten years.