Until You (46 page)

Pieces of her past, she meant. And he realized he ought to encourage her to share them. For all he knew, they'd shed light on why someone had targeted her.

For all he knew, de Lasserre, that pompous son of a bitch, had been the love of her life. And if that was true, he didn't want to hear it.

"I married him because I was lonely."

Conor looked across the table at her. "Did you love him?"

"I thought I did. You have to remember, I was seventeen years old. I had no real friends—I never stayed in one school long enough to make any. My mother and I didn't—we didn't get along. And suddenly this man came into my life. He was kind to me. He was handsome, too, and sophisticated—a teenaged girl's dream, you know? And he told me all the things a lonely kid dreams of hearing, that I was beautiful and desirable and that he'd take care of me forever."

"And you believed him."

"Sure. Why wouldn't I? Edouard was very polished and I was this dumb kid." She drew a deep breath. "I met him through my roommate, Amalie. Did I ever tell you about her?"

Conor cleared his throat. "No. No, you didn't."

"Amalie hated me on sight. I tried everything I could think of to make friends with her. I let her copy my homework, I coached her in the subjects she was failing. God, I must have seemed so pathetic! But it didn't matter. For some reason, she flat-out disliked me from the start and when Edouard—he was her cousin—when Edouard started paying her visits, taking her out to lunch and inviting me along..."

Conor reached for her hand across the table. "Amalie was pissed," he said, with a little smile.

Miranda laughed. "Exactly. I knew it upset her and honestly, I didn't want that but I was so flattered by Edouard's attention, so—what's the word?—so infatuated..." She let out a long sigh. "Anyway, he proposed. He loved me, he said, and by then I was convinced I loved him, too. I told him my mother would never give permission, she'd say I was too young, and he said we didn't need her permission, that we'd elope." Her eyes met Conor's. "He thought I was eighteen. I let him think it. I'd been afraid that if he knew the truth, he wouldn't bother with me."

"Miranda." Conor's hand tightened almost painfully on hers. "You don't have to say any more. Look, we all make mistakes. Hell, I was married, once, too, but it didn't work out. And I didn't have the excuse of being a lonely, mixed-up seventeen-year-old kid."

"I'm not apologizing for what I did, Conor, I'm just trying to explain why—why I never..." She swallowed dryly. "By the time we reached Paris, I knew I'd made a terrible mistake. I tried to tell that to Edouard. I said I wanted to go home. And he laughed." Her voice dipped; Conor had to lean forward to hear her. "He said nothing would part us, after he'd—after he'd..."

"Baby, don't. It isn't important, not anymore."

"He raped me," she said, with sudden, awful ferocity. Her head came up, all the pain of so long ago blazing in her eyes. "When it was over, he said I was pathetic, that I'd have to learn to make believe I was a real woman if I didn't want him to teach me a lesson I'd never forget. Then he locked the door and left."

Conor felt the rage twisting inside him like a snake.

"Eva turned up the next morning. Oh, I was so happy to see her! I was sure she'd come to take me home." Her eyes went flat. "But it wasn't like that. She said I was no better than a whore."

"Jesus Christ, your own mother?"

"She said she'd take care of Edouard and that when she and I got back to the States, I'd be going to a special school for girls who were bad, like me." Her voice quavered. "I knew the place—we used to joke about it, at Miss Cooper's, we'd say, well, this place isn't the end of the line anymore, now there's the Newton Academy, where they lock you in your room and pump you full of dope if you don't behave." She took a deep breath. "I begged Eva not to do it. I said I'd rather stay in Paris than be locked away like that and she said, then stay. The next thing I knew, I was standing in the street, watching her taxi drive away."

He was almost afraid to speak because of the rage he felt.

"Let me get this straight," he said carefully. "Eva drove off and left you?"

"Yes."

"Just left you?"

"We didn't see each other again, or even speak to each other, for years," Miranda said in a shaky voice.

Conor's eyes narrowed. "Surely, she sent you money to live on," he said, remembering what Eva had told him.

"No. But that was okay," she added with a touch of defiance. "I wouldn't have accepted it if she had. Anyway, I was lucky. Jean-Phillipe found me standing on the street corner where Eva had left me. It had started to rain and he took pity on me." She gave a little laugh. "It's not a very pretty story, is it?"

"Dammit, how could Eva have done such a thing? Kids get into trouble, it happens all the time, but to turn her back on her own daughter, to abandon her for an elopement and a few indiscretions—"

"There were no indiscretions!" Miranda hunched forward. "I'd done some dumb things. Drinking beer. Breaking curfew. Smoking a joint one time."

"And inhaling," Conor said, trying to bring a smile to her face, telling himself that he was a civilized man and that there were laws that said he couldn't rip out Eva Winthrop's throat or fly back to France and beat Edouard de Lasserre to a bloody pulp.

"And inhaling," Miranda said, with a little smile, "and then getting sick enough to never want to do it again." She hesitated, and he knew that whatever she was about to say was the thing that she'd been heading for from the start of her unexpected confession. "But when it came to boys—to sex..." Her hand suddenly trembled within his. "Edouard had always been so gentle, until that night. He hardly touched me and when he kissed me, it was like being brushed by a butterfly's wing. I wouldn't let him do more than that. Something had happened, you see, years before... What I'm trying to tell you is that I was a virgin when I married Edouard, and terrified of sex."

The restaurant was a quiet one; it was one of the reasons Conor had chosen it. Hardly any sounds penetrated to this dimly lit corner. Now, suddenly, a vertiginous roaring filled Conor's ears.

"Are you telling me that son of a bitch took your virginity by raping you?"

She nodded.

"And that was it? That one ugly experience was all you had, until—"

"Until you."

She was trying to smile, but tears rose in her eyes. She began weeping silently, as if her heart were going to break.

Conor got to his feet, dug out his wallet and tossed a handful of bills on the table. Then he drew her from her seat, put his arm around her, and took her home.

* * *

He awoke abruptly in the middle of the night. Something had awakened him, but what? Miranda lay in the curve of his arm, her head pillowed on his shoulder.

Conor's muscles tensed.

She'd been telling him about de Lasserre, who had raped her. She'd been a virgin, she'd said, and terrified of sex.

Something had happened
. That was what she'd said.
Something had happened, years before.

Miranda stirred beside him. "Conor?"

He shifted to his side and drew her closer, so they were lying breath to breath.

"Yes, baby. I'm sorry if I woke you."

"No, that's okay. I wasn't sleeping anyway." Her hand cupped his face. "I'm sorry about what happened in the restaurant." She kissed him, and he felt her lips curve in a smile. "Such terrific shrimp and because of me, we didn't get to finish it."

Conor laughed softly, though his nerve ends were humming.

"I don't know how you stay so skinny, Beckman."

"I'm not skinny at all. Manuel says I've put on weight."

"Manuel?"

"The guy who's doing the Chrysalis ads."

"Yeah, well, what does he know? He's probably got a boyfriend." Conor hesitated. "Miranda? When you were telling me about de Lasserre—you said something had happened, years before."

"Did I?"

Conor felt her sudden tension. He had the feeling she was on the verge of shoving him away and fleeing.

"What happened, Miranda?"

"Nothing."

"Sweetheart, if somebody hurt you..."

She pushed free of his arms, just as he'd expected, and rolled onto her back.

"It isn't worth talking about, Conor. It was so long ago."

He felt the coldness growing inside him. He sat up and switched on the light.

"Who was it?" he said. "What did he do?"

Miranda turned away from him and dragged the blanket almost over her head.

"I don't want to talk about it," she whispered. "Please, it doesn't matter anymore."

In that instant, he knew.

"Hoyt," he said softly, and the sound that burst from Miranda's throat gave him all the confirmation he needed.

Conor closed his eyes. He could see Hoyt's patrician face, hear that oh-so-cultured voice explaining how close he and Miranda had once been, how he'd painted the portrait of her, the one with that sad, haunted smile...

"Son of a bitch!"

"Conor, don't."

"That goddamn son of a—" Conor roared with pain and rage. He flung back the covers, shot to his feet, and smashed his fist into the wall. "That fucking piece of shit! I'll kill him. I'll beat the crap out of him first and then I'll put my hands around his throat and—"

"No!" Miranda flung herself at him and wrapped her arms around his waist. "I beg you, don't do anything."

"Goddammit, Miranda!"

"Listen to me. Please. Sit down and just listen."

He felt like a coiled spring, tightened to the breaking point, needing to release all the energy stored inside him before it exploded. But this had been her pain long before it had been his, so he sucked in a couple of lungfuls of air, let her take his hand and tug him down to the edge of the mattress beside her.

"He never really—really did anything to me. He looked at me. Touched me, but he didn't actually..." She licked her lips. "I was too young to understand what was happening but I knew it wasn't right. I told him that, and he said that he was my daddy now and that he loved me."

"Miranda, dammit, I know you want me to be calm and hear you out, but don't you see? I
have
to kill him. He deserves killing."

"I was going to tell Eva. But I didn't have to, because Eva—because my mother—"

"Because she what?" Miranda bowed her head, and Conor felt as if he were going crazy. "Are you telling me she knew?"

She nodded, and then she looked at him and her chin took on that defiant tilt that struck him now as the saddest thing he'd ever seen.

"I told Eva I didn't want Hoyt to tuck me in at night anymore. She said that was nonsense. She said I was an ungrateful brat, that every little girl in the world wanted a stepfather as kind and generous as Hoyt."

"Damn her," Conor whispered.

"She said she'd punish me if I didn't behave. I tried. God, I tried... but then one night, when he came to my room, he started to—to touch me differently, and I screamed."

Conor looked at the woman he loved. She wasn't weeping; she wasn't trembling. He had the strange feeling she wasn't even in the room with him. Her thoughts and memories had gone back to a night he knew had changed her life forever.

"Eva came bursting into the room," she said softly. "And she saw what he was doing. There was this one awful minute where everybody froze and then she pointed to the door and Hoyt skulked off like a dog that's been caught doing something it shouldn't. Then she closed the door, yanked me out of the bed, and told me that I was no good. She said I was evil, that I was just what she'd expected I'd be, and that she was going to send me away."

Conor nodded. He'd retreated into a detached coolness so he could listen without interrupting because he understood that what Miranda needed now was his love and support, not his rage, but God must have made women from different stuff than men because he knew he'd never be able to set aside what had happened to her until he destroyed Hoyt Winthrop, utterly and completely.

For now, though, he could only take Miranda in his arms and feel her tears hot against his face. He held her, and rocked her, and whispered that he loved her until, at last, the first rosy glow of dawn streaked the sky.

Chapter 17