Sex Between, The (4 page)

She sat down on the end of the couch, close to the old lady and leaned back, watching Kate carefully from behind lowered lids. There was something much too complacent about the calm on Kate's face. She liked it better when the old dame was raging about something. Like this, she was dangerous.

"Well, Andrew," Kate said, "how much have you told the children?"

"Nothing," Andrew said. "I though you'd want—"

"Good," Kate cut him off. "You wouldn't get it straight anyhow." She turned to Lee and there was a smile in the blue eyes. "We'll start with you, Lesley."

Uncomfortably, Lee shifted her weight onto the other thigh and glanced across at Maggie. It was a trick of Kate's to save the worst for last. Whatever it was she had in mind for the girl, Miss Maggie wasn't going to like it a bit.

"Andrew and I are sailing for the Netherlands on the last day of this month," Kate said without prelude. "You have a week in which to be angry with me. And then you will start working for a living."

Lee sighed. "Which means what?"

"You've been given a promotion," Kate said.

"What makes you think I want it?"

"No one asked you," Kate said sharply.

Lee knew it was no point to argue. She had grown up on the story of how Kate had made the Van Tassel fortune. Kate had arrived at Ravensway at twenty, still in pigtails, to marry a man she had never seen. She found the house, the grounds, the family fortune and the man she was to marry in a state of ruin and despair. Jonas had lived just long enough to make her pregnant, then gone to join his ancestors in the plot down by the river. Kate had not shed a tear. She hadn't had time.

The first Old Dutch Miniature Chocolates came out of Kate's kitchen, a product of Kate's industrious hands. That batch and the ones that followed she had peddled herself through the streets of Tarrytown, pushing her swollen belly ahead of her like a badge of honor. After her son was born, Miss Ida Winkle had come into the household to help out. Within five years, Kate had retired from the kitchen and moved into the executive office. And within ten, she had made Van Tassel a name she could be proud of.

Lee knew that Kate expected the same spirit from her. It was the bond they had between them. For Kate, who had been completely repelled by her spineless husband and by her weak-kneed son, liked to think that Lee was like her side of the family.

"But I don't know a damned thing about the business," Lee protested. "You never would let me do any real work. How am I supposed to walk in there and...

The old lady held up her hand to stop the flood of protest. "You'll learn," she said. "We have good people working for us, many of whom have been there for years." Then she smiled. "And if you don't learn, you'll have some fifty relatives to support out of your own pocket."

Lee bit back the grumble of complaint and burrowed deeper into the couch. She knew she could sit there and gripe till she turned purple and in the end she would do as Kate wanted. She had always done as Kate wanted.

She glanced at Maggie and saw that the girl was grinning triumphantly. It relieved her a little to know that, in a moment, Maggie would get her share of the crap.

Miss Ida Winkle, who was never referred to by any other name, pattered quietly into the room and set a tray on the round table at Kate's elbow.

"What's that?" Kate demanded.

Miss Ida Winkle darted a glance at Lee. "It's for Miss Lesley," she said timidly. "She asked..."

Kate turned a sour eye in Lee's direction. "You don't like our cocoa, Lesley?"

"I haven't tasted it." Lee admitted.

"Bring Lesley a cup of cocoa," Kate said. "It's about time she became acquainted with our product."

Lee leaned back and watched her glass of dandelion wine disappear with Miss Ida Winkle. She could almost hear Maggie giggling.

Uncle Andrew cleared his throat and leaned forward take a cup from Kate. "It's good," he said to Lee. “It's beginning to sell, now that..."

“Yes, yes, yes, Andrew," Kate said irritably. "I heard you delivering that speech as you came in the front door." She turned once again to Lee. "Have you thought about it?"

"I didn't know I was supposed to." Lee said nastily. Then she shook her head and leaned forward to press her palm against the old lady's hand. "I didn't mean that, Kate. I'll do the best I can."

"That's all I ask of anyone," Kate said self-righteously. "I ask no less of myself."

Lee knew she had been properly squelched. When Miss Ida Winkle returned to hand her a steaming cup of cocoa, she took it and sipped at it almost gratefully.

Kate set her cup back onto the tray. "We haven't discussed the matter of Ravensway as yet," she said, talking again to Lee. "It will, of course, belong to you—along with everything else now in my name. By the end of the week, everything will have been signed over to you." She closed her eyes slowly, then opened them again. But she was looking away to the window now and down the long green run to the river. "I don't suppose you'd want to live here?"

It was a matter they'd settled between them many years ago. Kate had vowed that she would never force Lee to move back to the big, dark house. And Kate would not go back on a promise. She was simply trying, hopefully.

As much as she loved the old woman, Lee did not even pause to give it a second thought. "No," she said flatly. "You know..."

"Yes, I know," Kate sighed. "But I had hoped..."

They were both silent for a moment. Then Kate said, "And there is still no chance that you will ever marry?"

That was another thing they had settled. Kate had known since the first time Lee got expelled from boarding school exactly why Lee would never marry. She had refused to discuss the matter, beyond telling Lee that she must never do such things to nice girls. She had made a special concession for Lee—that she would not arrange a marriage for her, as marriages were arranged for all the family's girls.

"No," Lee said. "There's no chance."

"Well, then," Kate said, her voice crisp and sharp again, "I suppose that takes care of you. Now," and she turned her complacent glance to Maggie, "Margaret.”

Now it was Lee's turn to gloat. She sat back and stretched her legs out in front of her, prepared to enjoy the scene of Mag the Nag versus Grandmother Kate.

But Kate did not direct her words about Maggie to the girl herself. She looked directly at Lee as she said. "We have found Margaret a husband."

It took a second for Kate's words to register on her brain. And yet, she should have expected exactly that from Kate. Maggie was the logical choice to be moved onto the estate. Maggie... with a husband. It didn't occur to her to tell Kate that Maggie might like to find a husband of her own. Kate had not had that privilege. None of the family's women had. As for love, it was a subject that simply never came up. It was not a thing that nice people discussed.

She was afraid to glance at Maggie. "Who?"

"Pieter Ten Broeck," Kate said evenly.

"My God," Lee breathed.

Maggie let out a squeak not meant to reach Kate's ears and Lee peered at her sharply. The girl looked absolutely ill, paler than Lee had ever seen her.

"But he's almost forty," Lee said desperately, using the nicest thing she could think to say about him. "He's twice Maggie's age."

Kate lowered her head slightly and looked at Lee levelly. "Pieter may have his limitations, Lesley. But he happens to be the only one available."

Lee laughed harshly, but there was no humor in her. She knew she dare not criticize Pieter—who came from Kate's side of the family—too severely. Yet the thought of marrying off Maggie to Pieter Ten Broeck was like gall in her throat.

"There are probably a couple of million men in this country who would be glad to marry Maggie. Why in hell—"

"That's enough, Lesley," Kate said quietly. "Everything has been arranged. Pieter will call tomorrow evening. I expect you to extend him the courtesy of your family and your home."

Everything has been arranged. How often had she listened to those words from Kate's mouth? And how often she had swallowed them and crept away with her tail between her legs, knowing there was no room for dispute when Kate had made up her mind. Desperately, she glanced at Maggie, searching the girl's face—not knowing what she wanted to find there, but needing to know that Maggie was all right, that she had not died as Kate made her pronouncement.

But if she expected Maggie to be stretched out on the floor, she had not counted on the spunk she had seen flare up in the girl so often before. Maggie waited until Kate and Lee had finished their private argument. Then she said, "It's all right, Lee. Daddy and I discussed it this morning before you came home. It's best for everyone this way."

Lee opened her mouth and gulped air like a fish. But she could not form the air into sounds. There was absolutely nothing to say. Just nothing.

"Well, Lesley?" Kate said.

Lee had the uncomfortable feeling that Kate wanted something from her. She could not tell if it were agreement or a fight. But she simply looked at the old woman and shook her head.

Uncle Andrew rubbed his hands dryly together and bounced up onto his stumpy legs. "Good," he said. "Good. Kate, I've got some papers for you to sign, if you'd like..."

Lee turned away, unable to bear the sight of any of them. She heaved herself up from the couch, crossed to the terrace door and went outside.

It was quiet on the terrace. She stepped to the stone wall and peered down toward the river, to the acre of tombstones nearly at the water's edge. When she was a kid and had the blues, she used to go down there and curl up on her mother's grave and lean her head against the stone and wait to die. She felt like that now, like there wasn't much use any more.

She balled her hands into fists and jammed them into her jacket pockets, but it did not quiet the rage of frustration inside her. She took one of Kate's flowerpots and turned it upside clown on top of the wall, then picked up a handful of stone from the path leading around the house. One by one, she pegged the stones at the pot, smashing it, smashing each piece of it, smashing each piece of the pieces.

Damn Andrew... Damn Kate... Damn Andrew...

With each phrase, another stone. And still she raged.

"That won't help a bit," Maggie said behind her. "Why don't you try throwing them at me?"

Lee whirled to face her. "You, you dumb bitch," she roared from the depths of her despair. "You're worse than the rest of them. What the hell'd you lie to me for? You know damned well you didn't know about Pieter before we came out here."

"No," Maggie admitted. "But Daddy... "

"Daddy what, for chrissake?"

"Well, he… he let me know not to argue. I'm not sure just why, but I heard him talking to Kate and I guess it has something to do with money. You know he's in debt and if Kate's dragging him off to Holland..."

"I'd have lent him the money," Lee barked. "Given it to him, damn it. What the hell right does he think he has to sell you like a stupid cow?"

"Why are you blaming Daddy?" Maggie said angrily. "It's Kate's fault that..."

Lee felt the fight fizzle out of her. She had forgotten about Kate. Deliberately. She didn't want to think about Kate at all.

"Well, you don't want to marry that... that lump, do you?" she said, knowing the futility of arguing, but unable to stop.

Maggie looked at her steadily for a long moment. Then she glanced away. "I don't suppose it makes much difference."

Lee raised her hands in impotent fury. "I could shake you."

"It would be just like you," Maggie said. When she looked up, she was smiling.

CHAPTER FOUR

All the way back to the city, Andrew blessed her with a steady stream of advice from the back seat. About her driving sometimes. Sometimes about her new job, her new responsibilities. Once, about finding herself a new secretary on the sprawling family tree. Lee let him babble, too engrossed with her own rage, with Maggie's quiet misery beside her, to interrupt the nervous jabbering. The smell of Andrew's guilty conscience reeked hotly through the perfumed words.

Yet Lee knew that she could not look to Andrew for help. He had never in his life done anything against Kate's will. And it was Kate's will that Maggie marry the family's one available male and that she bear him a son.

Nor would Maggie fight on her own behalf. Not out of fear of Kate so much, but out of a blind, stupid loyalty to Andrew. As she glanced at the girl, Lee knew without asking the unhappiness in Maggie's soul. The discontent. She wanted to reach out and touch her, to tell her that somehow, some way...

In her frustration, Lee gripped the wheel till her knuckles ached. It was not so and she knew that it was not. For she was as impotent as Maggie, as afraid as Andrew. She could not go to Kate and look her in the eye and tell her to go to hell. She could not... and would not... do anything. Except lose Maggie.

She turned off the East River Drive at Seventy-third Street and into the clog of crosstown traffic. The tail end of a warm sun painted the streets with shadows and the promise of more sun tomorrow. Tonight it really felt like spring—like a time for being outside, for walking in the early darkness, for holding hands. It was not a night for being morbid, for slumping down into one's misery and telling the world to just go away.

Yet somehow, Lee could not shake off the doldrums and she leaned against the car door, staring sourly at a fat woman crossing against the light.

"Are you going out tonight?" Maggie said in a tiny voice.

Maggie's last words had been a good-bye to Miss Ida Winkle, and her voice sounded cracked now and dry, as though her throat had gone rusty. Lee peered at her for a moment, hearing more the tone than the words. She knew that Maggie was not feeling sorry for herself... it wouldn't be like Maggie. But the girl was damned sorry about something.

"Why?" Lee said at last. "Did you have something in mind?"

Maggie shook her head.

"Well, I have a sort of date," Lee said reluctantly. "But I could forget it, if you want company."

"No, you go," Maggie said too quickly. "I'll make Daddy take me to a movie."