Deceit (17 page)

Still, he had shown concern for her safety last night. And today he had been
jealous.
Good heavens! Why hadn’t she seen it before? He was wildly jealous of Jean-Paul, even after all these years. He
had
to care!

Hope once more sprang to life within her, but she tried to remain cautious. She had gone through so many highs and lows since she had been here at SwanSea, she wasn’t sure how much more she could take.

But Richard had shown tenderness and concern for her. And time and again, he had made love to her as If starving for her.
And
he had displayed unreasonable jealousy. If those weren’t the signs of a man in love, what were? Even if he didn’t know it.

She had to go to him. Somehow she had to get through his hurt and pride and reach his heart. She would go to him now.

Something sharp struck the back of her head. Leonora’s name blurred in front of her eyes, and her knees buckled. She fell to the ground and heard an odd creaking sound of rusty hinges. Fighting against the darkness that threatened to suck her down into it, she tried to make sense of what was happening. But steel-muscled arms gripped her around the waist and dragged her across wet grass, up steps, into a building, finally leaning her against a concrete wall.

Even as she heard the creaking sound again, she struggled to get up. But dizziness overcame her, and she lost her footing. Once more she was falling, and she couldn’t stop. She tumbled down a short series of steps, halting only when she struck the side of her head against the hard floor.

Unconsciousness claimed her.

And she didn’t hear the scraping of the heavy concrete urn as it was rolled in front of the crypt’s doors, sealing her in.

Ten

Clay smiled, feeling a huge sense of relief as he turned away from the crypt and started back to the hotel. At last, something he had done had worked. And in the end, it had been luck rather than elaborate planning that had helped him achieve the goal of putting Liana out of commission long enough to have Sara replace her as the model on this shoot.

Knowing that his time was running out, he’d been racking his brain, trying to decide what he could do next. Jean-Paul's arrival had had him convinced he should abandon his plans. Then two things happened. During his quick visit with Savion this morning, he had seen that the great man wasn’t as well as he would like everyone to believe. Then Liana and Zagan had had that argument. Afterwards, Liana had been so upset, she hadn’t even noticed him following her. And luck had again been with him when she had gone to the cemetery, and he had happened to notice that with very little effort he could break the crypt’s rusty lock.

He hadn’t really hurt her, of course. She was only stunned. She would spend an uncomfortable night, but that couldn’t be helped. By morning, if she hadn’t been found, he would “discover” her. She would be fine, just fine.

Naturally it would have been better if one of the other little accidents he had planned for her had been successful. If she had broken an arm when she had fallen down the stairs, for instance, or if she had used the face powder and developed a rash, he would have had more of an opportunity to photograph Sara.

Yet the ball was the culmination of SwanSea’s grand opening and that would work to his advantage. Once the shots he planned to take tonight were seen, he would be able to persuade the publications involved to use a greater number of them than those previously taken. He could even help matters along by exposing several rolls of film, thereby losing quite a few of Liana’s shots.

Yes, that’s what he would do.

Richard pulled the phone away from his ear and glared at it. Liana still wasn’t answering in her room. Either she hadn’t returned, or she was ignoring the messages he was leaving with the hotel operator. He slammed the phone back into its cradle.

He supposed he couldn’t blame her if she was ignoring his messages. He had hurt her and made her angry, then stormed out of the conservatory.

But that had been a little after six, and it was now nine-thirty.
Where was she?

He shouldn’t have argued with her, he reflected grimly, but just the thought of her and Savion made him deaf, dumb, and blind.

He raked his fingers through his hair, disgusted with himself. A new idea had been steadily growing in him, the idea that he was dead wrong— about Liana and Savion being lovers, about allowing the bitterness of the past eleven years to interfere with the present and the future, and most importantly, about there not being any such thing as love.

Dammit, he'd give her ten more minutes, then he was going to go looking for her.

The pain . . . Liana moaned, her head throbbed; why didn’t it stop? Slowly and with great difficulty, she lifted her hand to her forehead and touched something sticky.

She was tying on concrete, she realized, then shivered. Lord, she was cold. She needed to get off the floor. If only her head didn’t hurt so much.

Time seemed to pass—she had no idea how much. But she was still on the floor, she noticed. She rolled over and bumped against something concrete ... a wall? No, because she could feel a comer biting into her shoulder. She levered herself into a sitting position and skimmed her hand upward, over concrete, then to wood. Wood? Her fingers found the upper edge of what seemed to be a large wooden box and curled over the top. Taking a grip, she tried to pull herself up. But the wood broke off and fell to the floor with a crash. She flinched at the loud noise and slumped back down, the dizziness and pain almost overwhelming.

Where was she?

Then she remembered. The sharp pain at the back of her head, Leonora’s name blurring in front of her eyes, someone dragging her into a building.
She was in Leonora’s crypt!
And she was leaning against the concrete slab on which Leonora’s coffin rested!

A sob escaped her, but she quickly clamped her hand over her mouth to stifle it. Was the person who did this to her In here with her? Her heart slammed against her ribs at the thought, and a new kind of chill gripped her—the chill of terror.

But she refused to give into the fear. She searched the darkness of the small burial house until she was assured that she was alone. Good. What now? Think, Liana. Think.

It wasn’t pitch black, she realized. In fact, she could see a pale sliver of moonlight. The mist must have cleared. The doors! They must be ajar!

It took her several tries before she was able to stand. She stumbled on the stairs, but finally made it to the source of the light.

She pushed against the doors; they didn’t budge. Frantically, she pushed harder. Nothing. Something was blocking the doors.

Tears filled her eyes and she slid down the door to the floor. She was entombed with Leonora Deverell.

Propped against a pile of pillows, Jean-Paul glanced at his watch. Dammit, it was after ten. Why hadn't Liana called him? He had left message after message for her, yet he hadn’t heard from her. He knew for a fact the work had been over for hours.

There was only one answer: she had to be with Zagan.

With a muffled curse, he reached for a cheroot and lit it.

He had never known what had happened eleven years ago between the two of them. He only knew, no matter what she said, that she hadn’t healed from their love affair. Sometimes when she thought he wasn’t looking, he would catch a brief glimpse of pain in her eyes. The bastard had better not hurt her again!

Dammit, but this infection made him feel so powerless! He had come here to help her, and look at him! He had been reduced to leaving messages in between his naps. But
what if something had happened to her?

A knock sounded at the door, and hopeful that it was Liana, he sat up. “Come in.”

“Thank you,” Richard said, walking in, his tone anything but polite.

Jean-Paul’s black eyebrows drew together in a scowl. “What the hell do you want?”

Richard’s gaze scanned the room, then came back to rest on Jean-Paul. “I want to know where Liana is.”

With an insouciance he hoped would madden Zagan, Jean-Paul settled himself comfortably against the pillows and took a long draw on his cheroot. “Assuming I knew, do you think I would tell you?”

 Richard’s first impulse was to drag the man from the bed and beat the information out of him. But the other man’s obviously weakened condition made that choice impossible; there would be no triumph in winning such a one-sided struggle. Besides, instinct told him winning the mental battle would be the greater victory.

He chose a chair and sat down. “You and Liana are very close, aren’t you?”

Jean-Paul bared his teeth in a mockery of a smile. “Very.”

“Frankly, I expected to find her here.”

“And if you had found her here, what meaning would you have applied to it?”

Richard crossed his legs, resting the ankle of one leg over the knee of the other leg. “That is none of your business.”

“Probably not, but I know the answer all the same. Tell me, Zagan, what has Liana told you about us?”

“That you and she have never been lovers.”

“Yet I would be willing to wager that you believe we have been and probably still are.”

Richard stared impassively at Jean-Paul. He had . viewed this man as an adversary for so long that he couldn’t bring himself to admit what he was saying had been true up until a short time ago.

Jean-Paul exhaled a long stream of smoke. “I find your attitude truly remarkable. I’ve known Liana slightly longer than you have, and I’ve always found that, though she sometimes keeps things to herself, she never lies. ”

Richard’s anger grew—not at Savion, but at the circumstances that had made it possible for this man to know more about Liana than he did. He stood and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Are you going to tell me where she is?”

“Whatever happened between the two of you,” Jean-Paul went on in a calm voice as if Richard hadn’t spoken, “hurt her badly. When she came to me, she was in pieces. I did the only thing I could do. I gave her work. Night and day, using any excuse I could think of, I photographed her. I wore her out so that she could sleep at night. And when she was awake, I worked her so hard, she sometimes forgot to think of you for minutes at a time. The side benefit was that the haunting, mysterious sadness I captured with those pictures intensified her beauty and catapulted both of us to fame.”

“How lucky for you,” Richard said woodenly.

“Yes, it was. And for Liana, too. She didn’t have you anymore, but she had success. Ironic, isn’t it? In some strange way, I might actually owe you a debt of gratitude, which is one of the reasons, Zagan, if I knew where she was, I would tell you. Another reason why I would tell you is that I fear she is in some sort of danger and I don’t like the idea of her being out somewhere by herself. It might not be safe, and I’m too damned weak to go looking for her.”

A confirmation of his own fears didn’t improve Richard’s mood. “There’s no need for you to look. Now that I know she's not here, I’ll find her.” Jean-Paul waited until Richard had almost reached the door before he spoke again. “I put her back together once, Zagan. I don’t want to have to do it again.”

Richard quietly shut the door after himself.

The orchestra swung into the upbeat Gershwin tune, “I’ve Got Rhythm,” and some of the richest, most influential people in America began to dance.

Clay viewed Sara through the lens of his camera and felt a special thrill of satisfaction. Sara had never understood why he loved to photograph her. But he had seen something in her no one else had. An intriguing woman lay beneath the shy child, and in his camera lens, her fresh loveliness would be illuminated for all the world to see.

The magnificent gold and silver ballroom was beginning to fill. At his instructions, Sara was posed against a pillar, wearing a black velvet gown that might have been fitted on Liana, but looked as if it had been made for Sara. She didn't seem happy, he noted, but once they got started, he would be able to cajole her into the right mood.

He planned to capture her in her stillness and black gown and frame her with the ball’s color and movement.

She was going to do for his career what Liana had done for Jean-Paul’s.

“Clay, do you know where Liana is?”

Richard Zagan’s voice held a dangerous edge, cutting in on Clay’s euphoric mood. A wary glance over his shoulder told him the man was in a black mood. “As it happens, I don’t. Now if you would excuse us, we’ve got work to do."

Richard took Clay by the shoulders and forcibly turned him around. “I’ll excuse you after I’ve gotten the answers I want. Isn’t Liana supposed to be modeling tonight?”

“Yes, but as you can see, she didn’t show up, so we’re having to start without her.”

Richard glanced at Sara. She looked pretty, he thought, but not as lovely as Liana would in the same dress. He returned his gaze to Clay. “Have you tried to find Liana?”

Clay felt one comer of his mouth twitch and tried to relax. Nothing could go wrong now. Not when he was so close to achieving his goal. “I don’t understand why you’re upset. It’s obvious what’s happened. After your argument with her in the conservatory earlier, she packed up and left.”

“She wouldn’t have left, knowing how important these last shots were, at least not without telling someone,” Sara said, speaking up unexpectedly. “She’s too professional.”

“I agree,” Richard said, “and I repeat my question.” Clay could feel his control slipping and drew a deep breath. “The answer is yes. Steve and Rosalyn insisted on going to look for her. I told them there was nothing to worry about and that I needed them, but—oh, good, there they are now. Steve, I need you to adjust that light—”

“Did you find her?” Richard asked Steve.

The younger man shook his head. “We even had a bellhop let us into her room.”

“Her clothes are still there,” Rosalyn said, “but there was no sign of her.”

Clay wanted to scream.
Why didn’t these people just let It go, for God's sake!
Didn’t they understand the importance of what he was doing? “Liana will show up when she’s ready to.” Richard turned on him. “You just said she’d packed up and left.”