Page 48 of Daredevil Lady and the Mysterious Millionaire (The Hidden Hearts Collection #3)
Zeke would just as soon have showed Mrs. Van Hallsburg the front door, but he could tell that she would not be so easily dismissed. Nor did she intend to enact any scenes within hearing of the servants. It was she who selected the study, obliging him to follow her.
As Zeke lit the gas jets, he flinched at the sight of the room he would connect forever with what he now thought of as that fatal confrontation with Decker. If only he had known, he could have throttled the little weasel then. Maybe Addison would still be alive.
It didn’t seem fair that the room remained so unchanged, so mundanely normal.
Hell, even the Joseph Riis book with its stark images of life on the East Side remained on his desk, right where he’d left it.
The text seemed to stare up at him, a grim reminder of Addison and all his dreams, his vows to do something to change all those harsh realities.
Zeke thrust the book to one side, having no desire to linger in the study, so thick with memories that seemed to hang like the dust in the air. He wished Mrs. Van Hallsburg would say her piece and be gone. He knew it was going to be about Rory and he wasn’t going to like it.
She paced off a few steps as though seeking just the right words to convey her displeasure. “This was not exactly the reception I had hoped for, John.”
“No? Well, if I had more notice I could have arranged for the Astors to be here. Hell, madam, I have been on the run for my life.”
“Yet you still found time to be seeking your pleasure with that young female that you assured me meant nothing to you.” Her lips pinched in a taut line. “Even my brother, Stephen, never fouled his own house by taking his harlots there.”
“Rory is no harlot. I owe her my life. If not for her risking everything to get me away in one of her balloons, I would be stretched out in the morgue beside Addison.”
“The balloon? So that’s how you managed it. I had wondered.” A fleeting smile touched her lips, but it never altered the hardness in her eyes. “I suppose that gives me reason to be grateful to your little circus girl myself. So buy her something pretty, John. Then send her on her way.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. I plan to marry her.”
Zeke would have wagered that nothing was capable of shocking Mrs. Van Hallsburg, but she paled, gripping the back of his desk chair.
“You— you can’t mean that.”
“I assure you I do.”
She almost sagged into the chair, then straightened, struggling to recover herself. “Of course I understand your gratitude to the girl, but?—”
“It’s not gratitude that I feel for Miss Kavanaugh,” he interrupted.
Mrs. Van Hallsburg’s reaction was rendering him acutely uncomfortable.
He had expected scorn, perhaps a flash of her icy anger, but nothing like this.
Good lord, the woman was actually close to indulging in a display of genuine emotion.
She moistened her lips. “These passing fancies sometimes happen to a man of your age, John. My brother, Stephen, for instance. Once there was this actress he insisted he loved and wanted to marry, simply because she was carrying his child. Your circus girl—she’s not pregnant, is she?”
“No,” Zeke snapped.
She seemed to find some relief in that. “Good. That will make it easier for you to reconsider. A girl like that would only drag you down, back to the coarse life you used to know. Is that what you want, John?”
“What I want is to end this conversation before I forget all those fancy manners you taught me.”
“Yes, I have taught you, far too much to see you throw it all away on some circus girl.”
“All what?” Zeke asked, frowning. “I don’t really know what the hell you are talking about, Mrs. Van H. Sure, you polished me up a bit, opened a few doors for me, but?—”
“There’s been more than that between us and you know it!
” To his astonishment and discomfort, she flushed, her face turning a mottled red, her eyes almost feverish.
“All my life I have been surrounded by pale imitations of men. I singled you out because I saw something different in you, something hard, strong and ambitious.”
As she stalked around the desk toward him, Zeke took an involuntary step backward, too stunned to say anything.
He had never been backed into a corner by any woman before, but then he had never seen such an expression on one.
He was familiar with the look of naked desire, but there was something unsettling about the passion firing Cynthia’s eyes, something unwholesome that made his flesh crawl.
Resting her fingertips against his chest, she said, “There is a power in you, John Morrison, that matches the spirit in me. I have been watching and waiting for you a long time.”
He wanted to thrust her away, but he felt frozen, almost mesmerized. She leaned forward and brushed her lips against his.
It was like kissing cold steel. Revulsion rippled through him. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he pushed her from him.
A guttural cry escaped her. She stared, her eyes burning into his, and for a moment Zeke felt as though he’d caught a glimpse of hell, knew what it must be like to be damned.
She turned aside, walking to the window, her back to him. As she drew in steadying breaths, her shoulders trembled. God above, she couldn’t be crying, could she? Not Cynthia Van Hallsburg!
He didn’t have the damnedest notion what to do. If it had been any other female, he would have tried to offer some comfort. But the mere thought of touching her again made his gut wrench, and he scrubbed the back of his hand across his mouth.
“I am sorry, Mrs. Van Hallsburg,” he said. “If I ever led you to believe— That is I never had any notion what you were coming to feel—” Hell! Exactly what was it she did feel for him? One could hardly call it love.
She drew herself up and came slowly around. To Zeke’s intense relief, she had composed herself, her features settled into those familiar well-bred lines. One glimpse beneath that icy mask had been enough. He had no desire to ever see her lift it again.
“It is quite all right, John. You needn’t apologize. I have done acting like a fool. I only wish you would do me the courtesy of forgetting this ever happened.”
“Sure,” he agreed. But he knew he couldn’t, and from the expression in her eyes, he sensed she never would either. Drawing her cape more closely around her, she moved with dignity toward the door. Zeke was too swift in his alacrity to open it for her.
“You needn’t trouble yourself to show me out,” she said, sweeping past him. She paused in the shadows just beyond the door. “About your decision to marry that girl, I suppose I should wish you joy. All I can do is hope that you never have cause to regret it.”
Without looking back, she walked on, and soon Zeke heard his front door open and close. But her words lingered on like the disturbing scent of her perfume, like a chill in the air.
The old woman down at the fish market where Sadie had shopped was fond of wagging her head, quoting all the trite maxims. Zeke had never paid much heed, but one now stuck in his mind.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
But there had been no fury in Cynthia Van Hallsburg’s voice as she’d left, only a cold resignation.
The entire incident had been unpleasant, but it was over.
He didn’t doubt but what the next time he saw Mrs. Van H.
riding in the park, she’d snub him most royally and that would be that— the end of their acquaintance.
He blew out the lamp, trying to dismiss the whole ugly scene. But he was beset by a strong urge to seek out Rory, hold her in his arms and make passionate love to her. He suddenly needed it as badly as a man near frozen to death needed fire.
Rory had been left alone in Zeke’s bed too long, given too much time to fret and think.
She tried to examine her feelings regarding Mrs. Van Hallsburg.
Why she so loathed and feared the woman, she didn’t even know.
Maybe the fear stemmed from the fact that Cynthia Van Hallsburg served as a reminder that Zeke was part of a world that Rory couldn’t and didn’t even want to share.
Her eyes roved about the bedchamber, the expensive paintings, the costly bed hangings, the gilt trim, all the ostentatious display of wealth, and Rory felt little more at ease here than she had the first time. Being back in Zeke’s mansion only seemed to point out all the differences between them.
Perhaps at one time, they had come from a similar background, but their dreams, the things they valued were not the same.
All Rory had ever desired with her balloon company was to keep it solvent.
Never had she viewed her business as an end to riches, but rather as a challenge.
Even if someday she were to conquer the skies, she knew it would not change who she was, make her want to forget that little corner of the world she came from.
But it seemed to have been different for Zeke.
He had struggled to become rich enough to shut out that part of his life, which had given him pain.
Sadly he appeared to have also set aside the happiness he had once known as well.
It had been easier to think of marrying him when they both had been on the run, possessing scarce a dime between them, only the clothes on their backs and borrowed ones at that. All they had had to depend upon was each other.
But back in New York, it was just as she had feared.
Life again became complicated. Despite the doubts tormenting Rory, her heartbeat quickened when the door to Zeke’s room opened.
Somehow she had known he would never spend the night in the guest chamber as he had said.
He slipped inside, clad only in a satin dressing gown, belted at the waist.
“Rory,” he called in a soft voice. “Are you asleep?”
“No,” she whispered, sitting up and drawing the bedclothes around her. As he approached, his lamp cast flickering shadows up the wall. Zeke appeared unusually solemn.