My Heart's Desire (46 page)

"You know, Rennie," he said evenly, "right now I don't give a good damn." He smiled without humor. "That's as honest as I can get."

The words were hurled back at her. Rennie sat on the edge of the window seat, her hands folded on her lap. She pressed on. "I didn't come with Ethan because of his broken leg. He directed me to you. I wasn't certain Duffy Cedar and I would ever find you, and I wasn't certain I wanted to... until I saw you again. You made it very clear you didn't want to see me, though. When you finally introduced me to Jolene you made a snide remark, asking if I were Mrs. Banks now. I decided right then I wasn't going to tell you and have you respect me any less than you already did. I cared too much about finding Jay Mac to let that get in the way, and I had no desire to explain my reasons for marrying Hollis. I certainly didn't feel then that I owed you an explanation. I still don't."

Jarret's brows raised a fraction, and he gave her a contemptuous look. "You'll understand if I disagree."

"No," she said. "No, I won't. What I owe is an explanation for why I didn't tell you about the marriage, not why I married in the first place. You were no part of my life then, Jarret. You had been long gone from New York, and if you're being really honest, you know you had no intention of ever seeing me again. Are you suggesting I was supposed to wait for you? Wait for someone who was never coming? We didn't part on those kinds of terms. You were so careful never to state anything of what you felt, so careful never to promise, and I admit I wasn't any more forthcoming than you."

Rennie scooted back onto the seat and drew her knees up to her chest. Her bare feet were visible beneath the lace-edged hem of her shift. "Still," she said softly, "I found myself wishing things had been different. For a while I allowed myself to hope that you'd write or simply show up one day. When Michael and Ethan moved back to Denver I thought I'd learn something about you then." She stared straight ahead, shaking her head sadly. "It never happened. It was as if you had disappeared."

Rennie smoothed her shift over her knees and hugged herself more tightly. "So no," she said, "I don't think I have to explain why I married Hollis Banks."

Jarret set his mug on the table and pushed it aside. "I'm not trying to fool myself that it had something to do with me not being around," he said. "It wasn't any secret that you wanted Hollis so you could have more influence at Northeast. I don't know why you thought you had to marry him."

Rennie shot to her feet. "Bastard!" She ran to the ladder and started to climb, intent on getting her clothes and leaving. Jarret caught her by the waist and stopped her. "Let me go!" she said through clenched teeth. She struggled, hanging on to the ladder while he tried to pull her away. "You don't know anything about it!"

"Then tell me!"

She kept her lips closed in a mutinous line and kicked back at him. "Go to hell!"

Jarret got his left arm completely around her waist and yanked. She had to let go of the ladder or let it fall on top of her. She let it go. He turned her around, pressing her back against the slats and blocking her escape with his body. "Now tell me why you were so eager to marry Hollis Banks if it wasn't because of Northeast," he said, his words clipped.

She pushed at his chest. He didn't move. "I wasn't eager."

"Then why, dammit!"

She shouted at him. "Because I was
lonely!"

Stunned, Jarret let himself be pushed aside as Rennie put some distance between them.

Trembling with the strength of her pain, she escaped as far as the fireplace and picked up the poker.

"Are you going to hit me with that?" he asked, turning toward her.

Her eyes dropped to the poker. Its end was tapping against the floor, an extension of her shaking hand. "I want to," she said, looking back at him. She let it drop. Tears hovered on the rim of her eyes. "You don't know anything about my life in New York. I was never part of the social circles that gave fabulous balls and afternoon teas or drove carriages through Central Park for show. I didn't have friends who invited me to be part of their skating party in the winter or asked me to tour a museum with them in the spring. My
sisters
were my friends."

Rennie swiped at a tear that dripped over her cheek. She took a shallow breath and let it out slowly, fighting for composure. "As for men... there were none. Did you think they lined up on Broadway and 50th to call on the bastard Dennehy sisters?" She laughed scornfully. "Jay Mac sent us all to boarding school so we could be insulated from the jibes of the outside world, though I can tell you that no one's crueler than a schoolgirl who thinks your place is beneath her dainty feet. Michael and I were fortunate. We had each other for friendship. When it was time to leave there was no coming out party for us. We weren't part of any debutante balls. We quietly slipped into college and fought every prejudice that was in place to defeat us.

"Michael went to a woman's college, but I took a different course. To study engineering I needed to study with men. To learn the science I had to compete as an equal. My classes were filled with colleagues who resented me at every turn."

Jarret made no attempt to approach her. Almost against his will he said her name softly, feeling her pain.

"No," she said, swiping at her eyes again. "You wanted to hear this." She swallowed the pressure that was building at the back of her throat and gave Jarret her frankest stare. "Men who showed me any attention generally fell into very specific categories. There were those few who simply wanted to pick my brain and score their success on my hard work. There were those who came from families with good social connections, who didn't realize at first that I was one of Jay Mac's bastards. As soon as they found out, they either disappeared—which was much more honorable—or they stepped up the pursuit in order to get me into their bed. After all, what prospects did I really have? Their attitude was that I should have been
grateful
for their attention.

"Other men, whose prospects were perhaps more than my own but with pockets to let, came courting my money. Jay Mac's wealth has always made the issue of my illegitimacy very complicated for New York's middle crust. They want entry into the exclusive homes but lack the finances, but getting the finances means taking me."

She smiled now without rancor. "Do you see, Jarret? They can't decide if I'm a stepping stone to a finer life or a millstone around their neck."

Jarret leaned one hip on the edge of the table, stretching out a leg in front of him. He returned her level stare, his eyes implacable.

"Michael and I kept going our own way after college. She wouldn't allow Jay Mac to buy her a position at the
Herald,
and she took the job at the
Chronicle.
She had a hard time of it before she was finally accepted, and she was very fortunate to work for someone like Logan Marshall. I didn't have the same harassment at Northeast. No one would have
dared.
All the same, I was never taken very seriously by my colleagues, and mostly I was just plain ignored."

"Except for Hollis," said Jarret.

"No, not really. He was just a little more careful about how he did it. He placated me on the one hand and then did as he damn well pleased on the other." Her angry emerald eyes narrowed. "Don't look at me that way. I didn't always know that about him. Certainly I realized that he was interested in my money and in furthering his connection with my father and his authority at Northeast. I had no illusions about being loved by him, but I thought he genuinely cared about me. In my mind at least, I believed we would work comfortably together."

Rennie leaned against the warm, smooth stones of the hearth. She pushed back the dark red fall of hair that had spilled over one shoulder and crossed her arms under her breasts. "Still, I didn't know if I wanted to marry him. Then Michael returned to New York. She was pregnant. She was miserable. God knows, I wasn't sympathetic. I was horrible to her at first. I didn't understand how she could have allowed herself to become pregnant." Rennie blinked hard, reining in the tears. "Just what the world needed, I thought. Another Dennehy bastard."

Looking not at Jarret now, but at a point beyond his shoulder, Rennie said, "I decided to marry Hollis for a lot of reasons, but the foremost among them that first time was my promise that I would
never
end up like my mother and my sister." Her smile rose faintly now, full of brittle self-mockery. She said, "The second time I planned a wedding with Hollis it was because I had given up hope that I would
ever
end up like my mother or my sister."

When Jarret looked as if he might approach her, Rennie shrank against the stones and kept him back. "You see, I had finally realized what they had, and I was willing to settle for even a pale imitation of it. So I married Hollis. It was a small wedding this time. We did it in St. Gregory's in front of a few witnesses. Jay Mac wasn't there. Neither was Michael or Ethan. Mama cried through the whole service. Mary Francis fiddled with her rosary. Maggie and Skye were wretched. They all knew that what I was doing had much less to do with Northeast than it did with just not being alone anymore." Tears spilled over her cheeks, and now she made no attempt to wipe them away. She pressed her lips together, stuffing back a sob. "It wasn't that I married Hollis for all the wrong reasons, but that I married him for none of the right ones."

She raised the hem of her shift to dry her eyes. When her vision cleared Jarret was standing in front of her with a handkerchief in his hand. "Here," he said. "You never seem to have one of these."

She nodded, hiccupping. "I know. Hollis hates it."

Jarret's mouth flattened. "What else does Hollis hate?"

Startled, Rennie raised her tear-stained face. "What do you mean?"

"I mean what happened between you and Hollis after the wedding? You were a
virgin,
Rennie, when you came to me. Does Hollis hate all women, or is it you in particular?"

"Oh, I see," she said after a moment. She took a shaky breath, composing herself. "You think he's one of those men who likes other men."

"Well?"

She shook her head. "No, it's nothing like that. Hollis has someone. A woman. He's had her for a long time, long before the first time I planned to marry. He told me about her on our wedding night, as he was getting ready to join me in bed. He said he wanted me to know that I shouldn't expect him to be faithful, not when I had already..."

"What? What did he say?"

Rennie sighed, looking away. "Not when I had already whored for you."

Jarret swore softly.

"It's no good being outraged," she said, her eyes accusing. "It's less than what you've said to me yourself."

It was Jarret who had the grace to look away now. "You're right." He crossed to the window and stood staring. The vision that filled his mind wasn't the one in front of him. He didn't see the eddies of powdered snow swirling on top of the crust. He didn't see the pine boughs trembling in the wake of some playful squirrels. What he saw was Hollis Banks standing over his bride and informing her he had a mistress... and demanding his own rights in the next breath. He was so certain that Hollis had acted in just that way that his words came out as a statement, not a question. "He tried to press you for his marital rights then."

"Yes."

Jarret turned back to Rennie. She was holding the handkerchief balled in one hand. Her arms were still crossed protectively in front of her. "You refused him. What happened?"

"He beat me."

She said it so matter-of-factly that it took a moment for the words to register. When they did Jarret recoiled as if struck himself. He picked up the mug Rennie had left on the windowsill and pitched it at the fireplace. The pottery shattered, flames hissed as coffee splashed over them, and Rennie flinched, then froze against the stones, afraid of the searing, angry heat in Jarret's eyes. When he took a step toward her she couldn't move.

He saw the still caution in her face, knew that he had put it there with his unthinking, violent act. "Oh, God, Rennie," he said, stopping in his tracks. "I'm sorry. I just..." His hands fell helplessly to his sides. "I think I want to kill him." The admission caught him off guard. He had never once considered revenge on Hollis for the incident at the train station, but the thought that he had hurt Rennie made it difficult for him to breathe let alone think. "No," he said, shaking his head, "that's wrong. I
know
I want to kill him."

Rennie came away from the wall. She raised one hand as if she could deflect his horrible anger and simultaneously prevent him from carrying out his threat. "Don't make me sorry I told you," she said quietly. "I healed. He never had the opportunity to do it again."

Jarret thrust his hands into his back pockets. He let out a breath slowly, searching her face. "I don't know what to say, Rennie."

"It's all right," she said, becoming the comforter. "You don't have to say or do anything. Just hear me out, Jarret. It's the hardest thing I've ever asked of you, and it's the only thing I want."

He nodded. "Go on."

"I didn't just let him beat me," she said. "I gave it back as well as I could. We were spending our first night together at one of the suites at the St. Mark, and I think he was afraid someone might hear me screaming. When he couldn't knock me unconscious he stormed out of the suite." Rennie's short laughter was rife with disbelief. "The most amazing thing was that he really expected me to allow him back in the suite the next morning. He stood on the other side of the door, begging, swearing that he would never touch me again, even promising to give up his mistress.