Cottage by the Sea (53 page)

   "Thanks for coming all the way down here to deliver the message."

   Luke gazed at her quizzically. "I'll drive you to the house to ring her back, if you like."

   "Thanks," Blythe repeated, "but I don't want to call her just now."

   "But your dinner with your—with Christopher Stowe?" Luke amended carefully. "Didn't you promise him this morning you'd give him your answer about the Scottish property?"

   "As you said yourself," she reminded him with a faint smile, "it's my decision to make, not my lawyer's."

   "And?" Luke demanded.

   "And I'm afraid I'll be late if I don't move my tail and start getting dressed. Chris is due here any minute," she added pointedly.

   "You're going to sign over the forest property to him, aren't you?" Luke stated.

   "I haven't decided."

   "Oh, Christ, Blythe! Can't you see he still has the ability to manipulate you? He flashes his so-called artistic genius to get you to do what is good for him, regardless of what's in your interest."

   "That's probably true," she agreed calmly.

   "Then why do you allow him to do it?" Luke demanded. "Why are you going to give him what he wants?"

   "I haven't done that yet," she gently pointed out.

   Luke searched her face for some sign of exactly what she meant by her enigmatic statement. She walked over to the electric kettle and started water boiling for a cup of tea. It was close to dusk, and she needed a pick-me-up, considering her lack of sleep the last twenty-four hours. And besides, tea and saltine crackers seemed to help in staving off her persistent twenty-four-hour brand of morning sickness.

   "I'd like to talk to you about Chloe," Luke said in a low voice, abruptly changing the tenor of their conversation.

   Blythe turned around to look him squarely in the eye. She held up both hands as if to ward off his words and replied, "Whatever all that was… or is… there's no need for explanation."

   "But it wasn't and isn't
anything
!" Luke protested. "I told you… there's been no other serious relationship in my life since Lindsay! Chloe has always wanted things to get more serious, but—"

   "There's no need to justify what went on before we met, Luke," Blythe tried to reassure him.

   "But that's the point!" he exclaimed with frustration. "Nothing… significant… had gone on! Chloe's always… she just pops down and—"

   "So I've noticed," Blythe said wryly.

   Luke continued, oblivious to her attempt to make his explanation easier for him. "Before you arrived last spring, I was thinking that perhaps… that is, well… Chloe is, after all, Richard's godmother, and I thought—for a time—that perhaps we might try… but then you—"

   Luke suddenly halted, mid-sentence, as if he were becoming increasingly unable to choose his words properly.

   "Luke! I
understand.
But I've got to get ready!"

   "Oh, bloody hell! I can't talk to you anymore!"

   "Yes, you can," she said more quietly. "And I can talk to you—and I want to—but
not now,
Luke! I need to get out of these clothes and—"

   "Of course," he interrupted, rising as if to depart. "The Great One has snapped his fingers—"

   Blythe suddenly burst out laughing.

   "What's so blooming funny?" he demanded.

   "That's what I always called Chris behind his back. 'The Great One.'" She was convulsed in giggles. "He'd rant and rave about something that wasn't getting done to his impossibly high standard, and then he'd literally snap his fingers at his underlings and walk off, satisfied that he'd made everyone cower."

   "You couldn't have been pleased to be put in such a difficult position. There you were, his wife and his employee."

   "It could be very tough," Blythe agreed soberly. "That's why I called him 'The Great One' to the film crew… so they'd see I understood their plight."

   "But you were at his mercy, as well," he countered. "And it would appear that you still are."

   "Oh, Luke…" she began gently, reaching for his hand. "Remember that first day when we made love… and you said that both our hearts were sore? It's still true. I think we both have a certain amount of personal baggage left from the time before we met. I know I do."

   "I suppose you mean to say that everything that has happened between us was just an interlude?" he demanded. "That now you're going to return to your real life?"

   "No… that's not it at all," she protested. "What I'm saying is that your relationship with Chloe and with your son, and the tidying up I still need to do with Chris… these are
sepa
rate
issues. And I know, as far as I'm concerned—however it turns out between you and me—I can't go forward until I've cleaned up the debris left over from before."

   "And I'm supposed to do the same?"

"That's up to you."

   "Well, there's nothing to 'clean up,' as you put it, between Chloe and me," he replied curtly, "regardless of the fact she barged in on us this morning. And I don't exactly see how my losing my wife to cancer and your divorcing Christopher Stowe equate. As for Richard—"

   Blythe held both hands up once again.

   "Okay! Okay! I'm the one with the baggage."

   
And oh, brother… is it ever heavy,
she thought with a sinking heart.

   Surprisingly, Luke suddenly reached out and drew her to him in a fierce embrace.

   "Oh, Blythe… I don't want to lose you to him."

   "Luke," she sighed. "It's not a contest."

   "It feels like one," he said, resting his chin on the top of her head.

   "That's such a guy thing," she laughed unsteadily.

   "Don't go tonight," he said in a low, urgent voice. "I'll tell him when he comes here that he has to leave… that you don't want anything to do with him or his demands any longer."

   She closed her eyes and luxuriated in the feeling of his body pressed against her. It would be so easy to let this strong, protective man tell Christopher Stowe to go to hell.

   
Nothin's for free in this life, m'girl.

   Blythe suddenly felt as if she were in dire danger of bartering away yet another piece of her soul in exchange for Luke's affection.

   "Luke," she said softly against his chest, "I'm the one who has to talk to Chris." She leaned back in his arms to study his lean face and troubled blue eyes. "But you are dear to offer to fight my battles for me."

   "It appears you rather enjoy fighting them yourself," he replied, letting go of her abruptly. "As my dear cousin Valerie would probably say… perhaps you're addicted to his kind of treatment."

   "That's a cheap shot," Blythe retorted.

   "Or perhaps you realize, seeing him again in that ridiculously gaudy car, that you miss the glamour of your former life?" he said, his eyes suddenly glinting with anger.

   "We're divorced!" she snapped, her ration of patience reaching its limit. "He's married to my sister now, for God's sake. They have a child!"

   "I expect that Cornwall's isolation and our simple life are no longer quaint novelties for your racy Hollywood soul," he continued with veiled sarcasm. "Perhaps you don't even intend to see the nursery project through?"

   Blythe suddenly recalled the Barton Family Graduated System of meting out punishment to misbehaving children.

   
Strike one!
she warned Luke silently.

   "Is that what's at the bottom of these insults?" Blythe asked, her temper beginning to flare. "You're not as concerned about my well-being as whether you can save your precious estate—is
that
the problem?"

   "Well, are you going to see it through?" Luke demanded. "Or are you going to leave at the crucial moment?"

   Blythe felt tears of anger and frustration clog her throat. It was almost as if Luke
expected
her to leave him… as if he had been accustomed to the women in his life abandoning him "at the crucial moment," as he put it.

   He had never talked intimately about the period leading up to Lindsay's death… nor what it was like for him in the aftermath. She suddenly thought of Luke's ancestor, Garrett Teague. Had he felt the same way about the Blythe Barton he had loved? As far as Garrett had known, Blythe had taken her own life without a word of farewell to the one person who had remained unfailingly loyal. Was Luke's attitude the result of some sort of lingering byte of genetic memory, as Valerie had postulated? Or was it simply a matter of a man who had shut down his emotions following the death of his wife?

   Blythe silently despaired as she gazed at the immobile mask that was now Luke's face. If the man made a practice of steadfastly denying the facts of his emotional life, she realized sadly, she certainly couldn't do his feeling for him. In these cases, as Grandma Barton used to say, it was best to "stick to her own knitting."

   "I, of course, will support Barton Hall Nurseries, as I have agreed to do in our contract," Blythe assured him with as much calm as she could muster.

   "Just with money?" he asked in a clipped tone.

   "Read the contract," she retorted.

   It was the old, brittle Blythe speaking, and she hated the bitchiness in her own voice.

   Just then they both became aware of the purr of a car pulling up to the stone wall bordering the road on the upper side of the field that passed by the cottage. Chris's Rolls appeared starkly out of place compared to Luke's battlescarred Land Rover.

   "Well… I'll just be off," Luke said brusquely, adding, "I find myself with a dinner date tonight as well."

   "You do? Where?" Blythe demanded, thinking of Richard, who was probably still recovering from the previous night's trauma and needed his father's reassuring company.

   "At Barton Hall, funnily enough," he disclosed with studied nonchalance. "Chloe's apparently asked Mrs. Q to whip up a cozy supper in front of the fire."

   "That's
two
!" Blythe shot back, waggling her fingers at him. "Where I come from, three strikes and you're out!" Chloe had returned, just as Mrs. Q predicted. "Do give my love to Richard—
if
you see him," she added with mannered sweetness.

   "I've locked him in one of the towers for the night," Luke snapped. She stared at him open-mouthed. "For Christ's sake, Blythe," Luke said, really angry now, "I'm not Bluebeard where my son is concerned, I assure you! I'll give Richard your regards. Good night."

   And with that he stalked out of the cottage and practically collided with Blythe's incoming visitor.

   "Not interrupting anything, I trust?" Chris inquired in a solicitous tone of voice.

   "Just business," Luke muttered darkly, striding across the grass toward his car. He climbed in, slammed shut the driver's-side door, and started the engine. Then he thrust the vehicle in gear and sped noisily across the field. Midway to the gate he laid a heavy hand on the horn to warn away any hapless sheep in his path.

   "I came round a bit early," Chris announced, waving a bottle of Cuvée Dom Pérignon champagne at Blythe, who stood at the door, silently watching Luke's car disappear around the curve in the road.

   She glanced overhead at a flock of herring gulls who cawed raucously above the cliff in the golden light of sunset. How, she wondered, could life have suddenly become so complicated in such a remote and pastoral setting?

   "The weather's turned so fine," Chris continued, "I thought we could enjoy your view with a bit of the bubbly in hand." He paused, taking in the sight of her jeans and sweater. "Darling Minnie Rag Bag… I fear that a bit more formal attire is in order at Boscundle Manor in the evenings."

   "Open the champagne," she directed testily, "and I'll just get dressed."

During their evening meal in the candlelit dining room at the charming country hotel set in the outskirts of the town of St. Austell, Blythe felt as if she were in two places at once.

   In her mind's eye she pictured Luke and Chloe sitting at a small linen-draped table in front of a crackling fire in the library. No doubt Richard had been exiled to the kitchen, eating his supper with the Quillers, while Derek and Beryl were curled up in their posh wicker dog baskets near the hearth.

   She vowed that if Mrs. Quiller served them her chocolate cake during their romantic little tête-à-tête, Blythe might actually slip poison in Chloe's morning coffee.

   Meanwhile Christopher had arranged for a sumptuous repast at Boscundle Manor. There was a flurry of bowing and scraping on the part of staff members as Blythe and the celebrated director were relieved of their coats and ushered into the dining room. As promised, Mrs. Stowe the Younger was nowhere in evidence.

   "Even if you'd agreed to dine with us both, Ellie was forced to remain at the Smugglers' Hotel in Gorran Haven tonight," Chris said, pouring himself another glass of champagne as soon as they'd taken their seats. "Her Nibs has contracted a cold, and so has Baby Nibs."

   Blythe glanced over at her former husband, wondering what sort of description her sister had given Chris of their confrontation at Painter's Cottage the previous day.

   "Is the baby all right?" Blythe inquired carefully. "There's a GP just down the street from you in Rattle Alley. A Dr. Vickery."

   Chris waited to reply while their waiter snatched Blythe's snowy linen napkin from beside her plate and snapped it out of its exotic folds in an exceedingly startling fashion. Then he placed it in her lap with exaggerated flourish.