Chapter 8
Kate surfaced, pushed back her mask and snorkel and laughed up at Jeff Taylor, who stood in the water beside her. “This is great,” she said. “I could get used to doing this every morning before going to work.”
“If you think this is good, you should try the diving.” He indicated his gear on the beach. “Fantastic. I’m going out in a while. Going to do a little underwater photography.”
Kate nodded as she started toward shore. “It sounds fascinating.” She wondered if she could write off the expense of diving lessons if she used the information in a book.
That thought unfortunately only served to remind her that soon she would be returning to Seattle. She tried to push the unwelcome realization aside as she walked up onto the beach. She halted beside Jeff’s diving gear, eyeing the yellow-and-black wet suit.
“Do you need a suit for diving in these warm waters?”
Jeff nodded, picking up a towel. “You do when you’re going to be in the water for a long time. Any water, no matter how warm, saps your body heat after a while.”
“Who will you be diving with today?”
“No one. I go by myself.”
“Aren’t you supposed to always dive with a buddy?” Kate dried her hair with the towel.
“Technically. But I know what I’m doing in the water and I prefer to go down by myself. I don’t take stupid chances. Do me a favor, though, and don’t tell the resort management I dive alone, okay? Someone is almost bound to feel obligated to give me a lecture on the subject of diving safety, and I hate lectures.”
Kate smiled. “I won’t mention it. Be careful, though.”
“I’m always careful.”
“Have a good dive and thanks for joining me this morning.” She draped her towel around her neck, turned and waved as she started up the beach.
“Maybe I’ll catch up with you later in the bar,” Jeff called.
“Maybe.”
A few minutes later Kate halted at the top of the path and looked back. Jeff was busy adjusting his wet suit. She waited awhile longer and watched as he strapped on the rest of his gear and finally slipped into the water. He disappeared at once. The whole business looked like a lot of fun, Kate decided. If she lived here on Amethyst, she would definitely learn how to dive.
But she did not live here on the island, and somehow she couldn’t work up a lot of interest in diving back home in the cold, dark waters of Puget Sound. She had gotten accustomed to warm, clear, turquoise seas.
You can’t have everything, Kate reminded herself. The affair with Jared would eventually end and she would be left with real-life memories to match her dreams. There were a lot of women who never even got that much.
She was contemplating the dismal prospect of returning home alone when she rounded a corner into the hotel gardens and nearly collided with Max Butterfield.
“I beg your pardon,” Kate apologized quickly and hurriedly stepped back. She looked with chagrin at the damp spots she had left on Max’s pristine white shirt.
“Please don’t concern yourself.” Max fastidiously brushed his shirt and then the white pants. He was obviously not pleased with the wet patches she had left behind, but he managed a gracious smile. “Should have been watching where I was going. Been swimming, I see?”
“Yes. Great morning for it. But then, I guess all the mornings around here are pretty terrific, aren’t they?”
“Endless paradise,” Max said, glancing over her shoulder and out to sea. “Hard to believe one could ever actually tire of it, isn’t it? Would you care to join me for a cup of coffee on the pool terrace, Ms Inskip? We can talk shop. It’s been a long time since I conversed with a fellow writer. One tends to lose touch.”
Kate hesitated and then nodded, unable to think of a suitable excuse. “All right. That sounds nice. Thank you.”
They made their way through the open lobby to the tiled terrace that surrounded the pool. A waiter in sunglasses took their order and returned with a silver pot of coffee, two croissants and a Bloody Mary for Max.
“When did you first come out here to the islands, Max?” Kate buttered a croissant and popped a flaky bite into her mouth.
“So long ago that I can no longer remember the exact date, but I do remember the marvelous sense of adventure I felt at the time. Quite extraordinary. Everything seemed so exotic, you know. I was certain I was destined to be famous and in the little biographical notes at the end of my books it would be mentioned quite casually that I lived and worked on a tropical island.”
“That sort of thing always makes a nice touch in an author’s biography,” Kate conceded, “Gives the writer a larger-than-life image, doesn’t it?”
“It does, indeed, and when I first arrived here I fully intended to live a larger-than-life sort of life. But somehow time has gone by so much more quickly than I had planned. My novel is still waiting to be written, but in the meantime I have had to support myself with small jobs on the side and here and there a travel piece.” Max shrugged massively and polished off the rest of his croissant. “Life seldom turns out as one had thought it would, does it? But one learns to adapt. Tell me about yourself, Ms Inskip.”
“Not much to tell. I live and work in Seattle. I’ve managed to make a living doing something I love, so I consider myself lucky.” You can’t have everything.
“You are. I consider people like you and Jared Hawthorne extremely fortunate, and I must confess I envy you. I cannot tell you how much I envy you. You are both making a living doing what you love.”
And we both worked hard to earn our luck, Kate thought, glancing around at the beautiful resort and thinking of what it must have cost Jared in terms of time, work and money. Then she reflected on the frustrations she had endured in her writing career and recalled the number of rejections she had received over the years.
It was odd to think that she and Jared actually had something in common in terms of their success. Neither of them had been handed anything on a silver platter. They had both paid their dues.
“I still have a few faint hopes,” Max went on, sipping his Bloody Mary. “One never gives up entirely, I suppose.
Once in a while we are fortunate enough to be given a golden opportunity to reshape our private destinies. I’m keeping an eye out for such a chance.”
“I wish you the best of luck, Max.” Kate smiled at him, willing herself to be a little more understanding. She knew how she would have felt by now if she had never gotten published.
“Thank you, my dear. You are very kind.”
“I saw you on the terrace having coffee with Kate this morning,” Jared said as he sat down across from Max in the bar. “Why?”
“So blunt. Are you jealous of me, by any chance? I am truly flattered. When one reaches my age, jealousy from a younger man is always welcomed, even if there is no cause.”
“You know damned well this isn’t a question of jealousy.” Jared leaned back in the fan chair and studied Max through narrowed eyes. “What did you talk about?”
“Nothing that need concern you, my boy. We merely chatted about our shared interests.”
“What shared interests?”
“Writing.”
“Don’t give me that. You haven’t written a thing except one or two obscure travel articles in all the years I’ve known you, Max.”
Max’s eyes went cold. “That does not mean I have no intention of writing again. I was a good writer once, Jared. Editors said I had potential. A great deal of it.”
“Well, you’re in another business now, aren’t you?” Jared was feeling annoyed and when he got annoyed, he got a little ruthless. “And you’ve dragged me into it, too. The sooner this whole thing is over, the better. I don’t like it.”
“You’ve made your feelings on the subject quite clear right from the start.” Max smiled benignly. “My supervisors are aware of your attitude. They understand that you are doing us a very big favor and they have asked me to convey their appreciation.”
“Screw their appreciation. I want this thing brought to a quick end and then I don’t want to hear from you or your supervisors again. When you write up your final report, Max, I want you to make it clear that there will be no more favors from me. We’re even.”
Max lifted his glass of rum in a short, mocking toast. “Understood. No more favors.”
“When is it going to be over, Max? I’m tired of being kept on the line. This is my island and I don’t like you and your friends playing games on it. I want a day and a time.”
“Calm yourself, my friend. Everything is scheduled for the regular cruise ship day at the end of the month. Our little fish will swallow the hook at that time, as planned.”
Jared stood up. “The sooner the better.”
“I could not agree with you more,” Max said. His gaze was on the sea as he sipped his drink.
Jared started to walk away, paused and turned back. He leaned down, one hand planted on the table and spoke softly. “No more cozy little chats with Kate, Max. I don’t want her to be touched by any of this, not even indirectly.”
Max was both amused and offended. “You think I am so unprofessional as to let something slip to a pretty lady?”
“I think,” Jared said, spacing his words for emphasis, “that the pretty lady is also pretty smart and it wouldn’t take much to make her curious. Stay away from her.”
This time Jared did not pause as he walked away from the table. He nodded briefly at the colonel on the way out of the bar and then headed for the lobby.
He spotted Kate and David as soon as he crossed the small lagoon bridge. They were standing together looking up at one of the watercolors on the wall. They didn’t notice him right away and he stopped to watch them for a moment.
David was talking very seriously about the painting, and Kate had her head tilted in the familiar way that meant she was paying close attention. Jared studied the graceful line of her throat and shoulder and something deep within him tightened as memories of the previous night trickled back. She had only to be in the same room with him to arouse him, he realized. The intensity of his feelings amazed him. She stirred a part of his nature that he had never fully explored and the knowledge that he could feel such an aching need at this stage of his life was unsettling.
She was so different from Gabriella in every way. His wife had been like the watercolor on the wall, a soft, gentle creation of pastels and light. Kate was vibrant and strong, full of color that was so hot and bright that it could, on occasion, singe a man’s fingers.
But what was life without a few burned fingers, Jared asked himself with an inner smile as he went toward Kate and his son.
“What are you two up to this morning?” he asked as he came to a halt beside them.
“Hi, Dad. I was just telling Kate that it was my mother who painted this picture.”
Kate smiled gently at Jared, her eyes searching his face. “Your wife was a very talented woman.”
Jared glanced at the soft seascape and nodded briefly. “Yes, she was. She did all the lobby paintings.”
“That’s what Dave was just telling me.”
“Yeah, I was explaining it to her, Dad. But I got to go now. Carl’s expecting me. See you guys later.” David dashed out of the lobby and across the small bridge.
Jared watched his son until the boy was out of sight and then he turned back to find Kate studying him. “I told you once, Dave doesn’t really remember his mother, but he takes a lot of pride in knowing she did these paintings. It gives him a way of feeling his connection to her.”
Kate nodded. “I understand. She must have been a very lovely woman to have created such lovely art.”
“She was.” Jared glanced at his watch. “What do you say we go get some lunch in the restaurant? It’s almost noon.”
“All right.”
A few minutes later Kate put down her menu and looked across the table at Jared. “I’m very different from her, aren’t I?”
Jared, who had just been wondering why Kate had been so abnormally silent for so long, suddenly understood. “Night and day,” he said casually. He plucked the menu out of Kate’s fingers and turned to the waitress who had bustled up to take their orders. “Bring us the fresh tuna, Nancy. I know Marty got a delivery this morning.”
“You bet, boss. Be right back.”
“I didn’t come all this way to have tuna fish,” Kate complained.
Jared grinned. “The difference between fresh tuna and canned tuna fish is also night and day. Relax, you’re going to love it, especially the way Marty does it.”
“Is that why you’re sleeping with me, Jared? Because I don’t remind you of Gabriella?”
Jared drummed his fingers on the table and wondered why it was women asked such ridiculous questions. “Are you sleeping with me because I don’t resemble your ex-husband?”
She turned faintly pink, which surprised him.
“Never mind,” Kate said, moving a few inches back from the table in a small action that said more than words she was pulling back from the entire conversation. “I shouldn’t have asked you such a personal question.” She smiled brightly. “I understand there’s a cruise boat coming in next week.”
“We get a ship through every few weeks. And the answer is no, I’m not sleeping with you because you are so different from Gabriella. I’m sleeping with you because you’re you and you have a way of making me get as hard as an eighteen-year-old kid every time you’re in the vicinity.”
“Last night you said there was more to our relationship than just sex.”
Jared realized he had not phrased his reassurance in the best possible way. “Kate, don’t twist my words. I meant what I said last night and I mean what I’m saying now. I like going to bed with you and I like being with you when we’re not in bed, even when you snap at me. Look, I’m not good at this kind of conversation. Could we change the subject?”
She propped her elbows on the table, laced her fingers and rested her chin on the back of her hands. Her eyes were very clear and green as she looked at him. “Of course, Mr. Hawthorne. Whatever you say, Mr. Hawthorne. Far be it from me to try to dictate our conversation. What would you like to discuss, Mr. Hawthorne?”
Jared swore softly. “You’re mad at me again, aren’t you? I was right the first time I met you. You are one prickly broad.”
“Yes,” Kate said. “I am a bit prickly. But that doesn’t seem to keep you from wanting to climb into bed with me. An insightful observer could conclude that my prickliness might be one of the things that attracts you to me and you just don’t want to admit it to yourself because you decided long ago you liked sweet, biddable, mild-mannered women.”
“I don’t think I followed the logic there, but don’t bother running it by me again. I’m sure I’d get just as lost a second time. What are you going to do this afternoon?”
“Read some more of Amelia Cavendish’s diary.”
“Working your way through it, hmm?”
“It’s fascinating.”
“Only to a woman. I told you I couldn’t get through it, even if she was the wife of a distant ancestor of mine. All that nonsense about her social life in England in the beginning and later that endless litany of complaints about the way Roger Hawthorne treated her. I never bothered to finish.”
“Then you missed a lot of the good parts. She had legitimate grounds for all those complaints about your ancestor. He treated her abominably. First he woos her and then abandons her without so much as a goodbye note and then he returns three years later and expects her to marry him. When she doesn’t instantly leap into his arms, he kidnaps her, brings her out here and forces her to marry him. Yes, I’d say she had a reason to gripe.”
Jared laughed. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. Roger’s journal contains a couple of references to what he called his sharp-tongued little shrew. I gather she made life hell for him on board ship after he kidnapped her. He said at one point in the journal that he was probably the only man alive who could claim to have been nagged halfway around the world. Amelia complained about everything from the food on board ship to the way Hawthorne made a living.”
“Amelia did not approve of his chosen profession,” Kate said austerely.
“I gather she made that real clear. You know, you’re beginning to remind me of her in more ways than one. I’m starting to appreciate just what poor Roger had to go through.” Jared broke off as the tuna arrived. When the waitress disappeared again he looked up from his plate to find Kate studying him with her intelligent eyes. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Then eat your fish.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do us both a favor and don’t start baiting me today, okay?”
She shrugged. “Okay. Why did Roger Hawthorne leave England so suddenly the first time?”
“A little trouble resulting from a duel. He killed his opponent and had to get out of the country in a hurry. Dueling was illegal. There would have been a hell of a scandal for his family if he’d been caught.”
“Why didn’t he take the time to explain that to Amelia?”
“He left her a note explaining everything and asking her to wait for him, according to the journal. But apparently she never got the message or if she did, she didn’t pay any attention.”
“Really?” Kate’s eyes were riveted on his face. “He left her a note? She knew nothing about any note.”
“And didn’t believe him three years later when he tried to explain. So he gave up explaining and kidnapped her instead.”
“Very interesting,” Kate mused. “There’s no mention of a missed message in Amelia’s journal.”
“Like I said, she didn’t believe Roger’s story.” Jared looked up, seeing a golden opportunity to make a point. “She didn’t trust him.”
“How could she? The man was a pirate.”
“Depends on your point of view. He didn’t attack English ships. Just those of England’s enemies. Enjoy your swim this morning?”
“Yes.”
“You went snorkeling with Taylor, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” She forked up her tuna and sampled it tentatively, then nodded in approval.
Jared sighed and put down his fork. “Did you do it just to show me that you could get away with seeing Taylor after I told you I didn’t want you hanging around with him?”
“No. I went swimming with him because I had already made the arrangement last night. You probably heard me make it, since you were lying on my bed eavesdropping at the time.”
“You’re not really interested in him, are you?” Jared was sure of that, which was the main reason he hadn’t gone down to the cove this morning and interrupted the snorkeling activity.
“No, I’m not seriously interested in him. He’s a nice guy who asked me to swim with him, and I’m supposed to be enjoying myself on vacation, so I went.”
“Meaning you don’t enjoy yourself with me?”
“I wouldn’t say that. I like being with you when you’re not grilling me or giving me orders or telling me to mind my own business. Unfortunately, that leaves a very small amount of time in which I can actually enjoy myself.”
“Now I know how Roger Hawthorne felt when he realized he’d kidnapped a professional shrew.”
“But the good time we do have together makes it all worth it,” Kate concluded, her eyes flashing with feminine mischief.
Jared felt himself slipping under the spell of her provocative smile. He took a firm grip on himself and picked up his fork. This was neither the time nor the place to take her into his arms. He had work to do this afternoon. “All right, I’m ready to change the subject again.”
“What would you like to discuss now? Ready to tell me what’s going on up at the castle?”
“No, dammit.” His temper erupted in a flash. The woman did not know when to quit. “And furthermore, I don’t want to hear one more word about it. Clear?”
“Clear.” She went back to eating and made no effort to introduce another subject.
Jared gave her five minutes of silence. Then he could no longer resist asking the question that had been at the back of his mind for several days. “I’m not like him at all, am I?” She did not pretend to misunderstand. “My ex-husband? No, you’re not like him at all. As you said, night and day.”
He heard himself ask the next question before he had the good sense to think about what he was saying. “If you were ever to get married again, would you want someone like him? I mean someone like the man you thought he was when you married him? A sensitive, literary type? A guy with the soul of a poet or whatever it was you thought he had going for him?”
“Nope.” Kate worked steadily on her tuna, apparently relishing every bite.
“I see.” Jared found himself stewing in unaccustomed frustration. He hadn’t wanted to ask the question in the first place, but having asked it, he had certainly expected a more complete answer than the one he had gotten. Kate was normally chatty as hell. “Do you, uh, know what you’d want the second time around?”
“No, but I expect I’ll know it when I see it. Think you’ll ever find someone who will fill Gabriella’s shoes?”
That startled him. “I don’t know.” He frowned down at his tuna, trying to sort through his jumbled thoughts. “I’m not sure if that’s really what I want, anyway. I used to think it was. But maybe it’s not such a good idea. Lately, I’ve started wondering. I loved her. If she were still alive, I would still love her. But she’s gone and I’ve done some changing and nothing stays the same, does it?”
“No.” Kate smiled with a curious understanding. “That’s the one sure thing in life. Nothing stays the same.”
Jared nodded and then found himself saying aloud something he had never admitted to a living soul. “I had to be so careful with Gabby. She was very fragile. So gentle. You could crush her with just a look. I treated her like rare crystal most of the time, but once in a while I didn’t and then I’d feel guilty for days.”
“I know what that kind of guilt is like. I wasn’t always gentle enough with my husband,” Kate said. “I would get impatient with him. His ego was so fragile and he used to get so depressed so easily. I don’t think I was as understanding and compassionate as I should have been. It must have been hard on him watching me get successfully published while he kept accumulating rejections. Especially when he was convinced that what he was writing was infinitely more important than what I wrote.”
Jared let the silence that followed her comment hang for a while. He realized he felt at peace with Kate for the first time that day. He replayed his own words in his head and saw the truth in them. Somewhere along the line he had stopped looking for a replacement for Gabriella. He wanted a wife, but he wanted someone who was a unique individual, a person in her own right, not a clone of Gabby.
“You really don’t know what you want in a second husband?” Jared asked again.
“Like I said, I’m sure I’ll know it when I see it.”
That comment shattered his feeling of being at peace with her. He scowled across the table, annoyed. “What are you expecting to happen? You think some guy will walk into your life and you’ll take one look and know he’s the right man?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“You know what your problem is? You’ve written one too many romance novels,” Jared muttered.
“Well?” Letty demanded a few days later when she happened across Kate curled in a shaded lounger. “Fill me in on the latest. How’s Amelia doing with her pirate?”
Kate glanced up from the diary in her lap. “Whipping him into shape, I’m happy to say. She locked him out of her bedroom on her wedding night because he showed up drunk after too much carousing with his crew. She made it stick, too. Mostly because Roger was too drunk to find the key, which she had wisely hidden.”
“I love it. What happened next?” Letty sat down nearby and poured herself a glass of iced tea from a pitcher Kate had ordered earlier.
“Roger was too embarrassed the next day to admit he hadn’t made it into his wife’s bedroom. So he tried acting as if everything was normal between himself and Amelia. Pretended there wasn’t a thing in the world wrong. Unfortunately Amelia fell for the act. She went for a walk with him down to a secluded little cove.” Kate wondered privately if it was the same cove where Jared had first made love to her.
“I’ll bet Amelia soon found herself flat on her back in the sand.”
“Eventually. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds, though. Here’s how she puts it:
“Roger apologized very prettily for his uncouth behavior of the previous night and began a very learned discussion concerning the marital obligations of husbands and wives. I informed him that I was very well aware of those obligations, and having found myself wedded, however unwillingly, I intended to do my duty. He then explained in a rather awkward fashion that he would prefer it if I did not act entirely out of a sense of womanly duty. I knew then that he loved me and I was content.”
“That’s sweet,” Letty said.
“Maybe. Maybe not. I can’t help wondering if Roger had finally figured out that charm would work better than a lot of loud, blustering machismo.”
“I prefer to think he had learned his lesson and wanted to please Amelia.”
“More likely he just didn’t want to spend another night locked out of his bedroom.” Kate closed the book, wondering if she would have believed Jared loved her if he had tried the same line on her.
Probably. He was, after all, the man of her dreams. He just didn’t know it. She remembered their discussion over lunch a few days earlier and knew she had not been exactly truthful with him. But she was not about to confess to Jared that he was exactly what she wanted in a second husband. Not yet, at any rate.
Before this relationship could go any further she had to find a way to save him from his own piratical tendencies. She had to discover what was going on at Hawthorne Castle.
The next day she got her first real clue. It was late in the afternoon, shortly before she was due to meet Jared for dinner in the hotel restaurant, when Kate came across the most interesting portion of the diary that she had yet encountered.
Amelia Cavendish, inquisitive lady that she was, had discovered the mechanism that unlocked the hidden door at the bottom of the stone staircase.
Amelia, Kate decided as she carefully memorized the instructions, was definitely turning out to be a kindred spirit. She had been unable to resist finding out what was behind the locked wall and Kate was filled with the same gnawing curiosity.
According to the diary, Roger Hawthorne had built the hidden room as an emergency escape route to the sea. There was, according to Amelia, a wharf inside a natural cave adjoining the castle. Hawthorne had widened the entrance so that a small boat could get through to the sea and then concealed the enlarged opening with a movable section of stone that blended with the lava.
It is a very large opening, quite large enough to permit a boat to enter and dock at the small wharf inside the hidden chamber. I fear the room is not merely to be used as an emergency escape route. I believe Roger uses this secret place to unload his most valuable cargoes. I also fear these cargoes are not such as result from the honest shipping business in which he is supposedly engaged. I shall have to put a halt to such practices immediately. Roger Hawthorne is the son of an earl and I am a daughter of a respectable family. We do not indulge in this sort of thing. I will make that quite clear to him.
“Attagirl, Amelia,” Kate whispered. She closed the diary and wondered more than ever if Jared was following in his ancestor’s footsteps. If so, she must be as firm as Amelia had been.