A Tradition of Pride (9 page)

"They actually go through your private rooms, too?" he mocked.

"No, only the two guest rooms and daddy's sitting room," she answered stiffly, glancing through the window to see the visitors begin filing toward the door leading into the entrance hall. "They're coming back into the house now."

"Is the gate locked?"

"Yes, it is." Lara was angry with herself for forgetting that. "Excuse me, I'll get the key."

She slipped quickly into the hallway. The tour group was slowly congregating inside the rear area of the hall, waiting for the stragglers still gazing around the garden. In the buzz of conversation, Lara's quiet trip to the closet and back to the study, went unnoticed.

Rans was leaning a hip against the side of the desk, his arms folded in front of him when she returned. He straightened with lazy nonchalance as she closed the door and walked swiftly toward the glass-paned doors.

"I should apologize for keeping you from the tour," he offered.

"It's quite all right. Daddy usually takes over, anyway." Lara shrugged the polite gesture aside.

The door latch turned silently in her hand. She started to walk through the opening when she heard a woman's voice in the courtyard. She hesitated for a fraction of a second, not wanting to encounter the tour group, then decided it matter whether she did or not. A step later, she froze at the sound of Trevor's voice.

"Darling, you took such a chance coming here like this," he whispered. "What were you thinking about?"

The voice was close to the study, but wherever Trevor was, he and the girl must have been concealed in the shadows, because Lara strained her eyes and could see nothing.

"I had to see you. It's been so long," the girl murmured with an aching throb in her voice. "I couldn't help it. I had to come."

"I know," Trevor responded. "I've been wanting to see you, too, but someone from the tour is going to notice you aren't with them and come looking for you."

Lara's stomach lurched as she realized the girl had to be the attractive brunette she had noticed earlier. Her hand spread its fingers across her stomach to check its sickening turn.

"Not for a few minutes," the brunette protested. "Oh, Trevor, darling, you never told me your wife was so very beautiful. I wanted to die when I saw the two of you together. I wanted to tear the ring from her finger and tell the world that you belonged to me, but she's so much more beautiful than I am." The torture of jealousy and envy vibrated her words.

"Lara is beautiful, yes," Trevor agreed, "but so is an ice carving. To me, she will never be as beautiful as you are. I swear it's the truth, Melinda, love. All evening, until I saw you walk through that door, I kept trying to find some way, some excuse, not to take part in this tour so that I could slip away and be with you tonight."

Remembering his ardent pleas to spend a romantic evening with her, Lara sunk her teeth into her lip to choke the gasp that rose in her throat at his audacious lie. Trevor had certainly found another gullible fool.

"It must have been knowing how much you wanted to be with me that brought me here tonight," the girl murmured. "Darling, hold me. Hold me for just a little while."

A silence followed, faintly broken by the rustle of clothing. Lara knew they were embracing. A nauseous chill raced over her skin. Her husband was in the courtyard of their home, kissing and caressing another woman. Lara pivoted back into the study, not wanting to hear any more sounds or words of the disgusting scene.

She spun into the hard wall of Rans MacQuade's chest. In her shock at finding Trevor in the garden with another woman, she had completely forgotten that anyone else had overheard what she had. The discovery paralyzed her for a humiliating second, long enough for Rans to reach around her and close the study door to the courtyard.

"You look pale, Mrs. Cochran," he observed sardonically. "Surely you weren't surprised by what you heard. You've known all along about your husband's other women."

The pallor disappeared immediately in a flood of warmth. The words formed on her tongue to deny his statement, but it seemed pointless to deny the truth. "I foolishly believed he would be considerate enough not to meet them in my home," Lara retorted, lifting her chin in regal scorn.

His mouth quirked into a crooked, cyncial line. "Perhaps if you were as passionate and loving as the young woman in the courtyard, Trevor would not be having these affairs. A man doesn't enjoy making love to an unfeeling marble statue, however aesthetically beautiful it is."

There was an itch in the palm of her hand to feel the stinging contact with his strong jaw, it was checked by the impulse to hurl the bitter facts of her marriage in his mocking face. There was no point in insisting that she was once passionate. Trevor's male ego would never allow him to be faithful. He constantly had to prove his manhood. He couldn't ignore the challenge of a pretty face, regardless of his love life at home. Lara obeyed neither impulse.

"I don't recall requesting any personal advice from you, Mr. MacQuade," she said icily. "Would you please leave through the front door?"

The corners of his mouth twitched in dry amusement, carving brief grooves in his lean cheeks to signify the presence of his dimples.

"I'll see myself out." His brown eyes glinted wickedly. "Good night, Mrs. Cochran."

Chapter Five

THE BRUNETTE HAD BEEN with the tour group when Lara had rejoined it. The girl had looked flushed and radiant and faintly triumphant as she met Lara's glance. Trevor had evidently reinforced his ardent words with affectionate deeds.

Almost a week had passed since the pilgrimage night. Lara might have been able to push from her mind the events of that night if it wasn't for the knowledge that Rans MacQuade had witnessed her humiliation. She knew it would be there in his eyes the next time she met him, mocking her, questioning her womanhood.

The knowledge was an irritant to her pride. Thus far, circumstances had not created a meeting. When they did, she wondered if she could contain her temper and treat him with the arrogant disdain he deserved.

Her finger turned the page of the book in her hand, impatiently Lara flipped it back. Her eyes had skimmed the printed page, but none of the contents had registered. What was the use? Lara closed the book with a snap, rising restlessly to her feet and walking to the front window in the living room.

"Don't you like the book?" Trevor inquired, glancing up from his own. "I read it last week and found it very absorbing."

Lara stared out the window at the blackened landscape. This was one of Trevor's duty evenings that he spent at home with her to maintain his image of a devoted spouse—for her father's benefit, she supposed. She doubted if her father guessed how totally empty their marriage had become.

"When do you find time for so much reading, Trevor?" she remarked cynically.

He either didn't hear or ignored the cutting barb in her question. "It's the speed-reading course I took. Novels that used to take me days to read now take only hours, sometimes, minutes depending on their length. You should sign up for the course."

"No, thank you." Lara sighed, choosing to reply directly to his suggestion and not pursue a course of condemning results. I don t care to read that fast. In a well-written book you would miss the passages where an author weaves the words together to create a spell. You might absorb the gist of it, but you would lose the magic. And when a book is good, I like to prolong reaching the end as long as possible."

"Is that why you've stopped reading—to prolong the end?" Trevor teased.

A wry grimace flashed across her face. She should have known he wouldn't understand what she meant. Lara wondered if he read because it was the expected thing for an educated man to do as opposed to reading for the enjoyment of it.

Glancing over her shoulder, Lara indifferently noted the way the blue shade of Trevor's short sleeved pullover accented the blue black highlights in his hair.

"I couldn't concentrate," Lara replied with a restless shrug. "I'm not in the mood to read, I guess."

A speculative gleam entered his dark eyes as he watched her. Thoughtfully Trevor closed his book. "Was there something you would rather do?" he asked with studied casualness.

Lara shook her head. "No."

Nonchalantly Trevor rolled to his feet, and strolled toward the window where she stood. "It's a beautiful evening for a drive through the country."

Impatiently she walked away from him. "I'm not in the mood."

"Poor Lara." He followed her, a smile of amusement flashing across his mouth. "You really don't know what's bothering you, do you?"

Folding her arms in front of her, she jerkily rubbed her elbows and the bareness of her upper arms. "Nothing's bothering me. I'm simply not in the mood to read."

"Something's causing your agitation," Trevor murmured huskily. "And I think I know what it is."

"I don't know what you are talking about," Lara declared sharply, not liking his sly innuendoes.

"You are as susceptible as the rest of us to the physical urge to be caressed and loved, no matter how hard you try to suppress it. It's surfacing now with your restlessness. Inwardly you are reaching out for something to satisfy you, although consciously you won't admit it."

Involuntarily Lara listened to his softly spoken words. The stirrings of dissatisfaction she felt within, the vague feelings that she was incomplete, indicated that Trevor might possibly be right about their cause. Lara firmly told herself that even if it was true, she could control them. She ruled her flesh, not the other way around.

"Is that what you think?" Lara laughed hollowly. "How disillusioning it will be to you when you find out that a cigarette will cure my unrest."

As she reached, for the cigarette case sitting on the table, Trevor's hand shot out to stop her, turning Lara to face him and taking hold of her shoulders.

"I'm right. I know I am," he said.

His gaze moved suggestively over her feminine figure while, his hands began to languidly caress her shoulder blades. Lara didn't move as he came close, his hands moving down her spine. He aroused only indifference, but his male ego was confident of his ability to make her respond.

"Lara," he whispered, and let his lips trail along the cord of her neck to her earlobe. "You are more beautiful than any woman I know. Darling, I want to be with you tonight."

The hypocrisy of his words produced a reaction that his caress had not. Violently she twisted away from his exploring mouth. Her expression was a cold mask of utter rejection. His words too closely paralleled the things he had said to the brunette.

"Don't touch me!" Lara hissed. "I can't stand to have your hands on me!"

Trevor stared at her in disbelief, an angry frown gathering together his dark brows. He couldn't believe she honestly found his caress repulsive.

As Lara's cold green eyes started to move their attention away from Trevor's face, they saw the tall figure standing in the entry hall outside the living-room doors. It was Rans MacQuade. How long had he been there? And how much had he overheard? All of it, Lara decided bitterly, judging from the sardonic expression in the brown eyes that held her gaze.

What was he doing in the house? How did he get in without being heard? He appeared to be coming from her father's study. Perhaps he had arrived shortly after dinner when she had been in the kitchen helping Sara with the evening dishes.

If that was true, then Rans had been on his way out of the house when he had seen Lara with Trevor in the living room. Her lips tightened. He had probably heard the nature of their conversation and paused to see if Lara was gong to follow his unwarranted advice and passionately welcome Trevor's advances.

He had seen her reaction. He didn't even have the grace to look sorry or guilty that he had been eavesdropping. Angrily Lara spun away from his glittering eyes, turning away from Trevor at the same time.

"What is wrong with you. Lara?" Trevor said finally, exhaling a heavy sigh of anger and confusion.

She glanced over her shoulder, her gaze first seeking the figure in the hall. There was no one there. In the next second she heard the front door softly closing.

Her gaze flicked to Trevor. "Nothing is wrong with me. I've simply stopped believing lies, that's all. Excuse me, I'm going to my room," Lara concluded, and Trevor didn't question her answer or her decision to leave the room. It was as if he sensed that she had seen through him and didn't want to be confronted with it.

In the days that followed, Trevor didn't press his attentions on her, virtually ignoring her when they were alone. Lara decided he was trying a new ploy, hoping to gain her interest by showing none in her. He could play all the games he wanted to play, but he played them alone.

Rans MacQuade was at the house several times, conferring with her father. Outside of a few courteous exchanges, usually in the company of her father, Lara hadn't had to suffer any of his personal remarks about her life and herself.

His visits had produced a surge of writing by her father, filling Lara's time with typing his copious notes. A stranger to his methods would have found his notes impossible to follow since there were constant arrows, asterisks and amendments that had to be deciphered and inserted in the right places.