Lady Love (17 page)

“I’m going to check into a hotel,” she announced as she went upstairs to bed. “I am not going to stay here and become a target. Maybe if I leave, he’ll go back to Charleston and marry that Delle person!”

“Not a chance,” her father replied, laughing.

“Care to bet?” she threw back.

“I’ll bet you a Mercedes convertible for a wedding present,” he said obligingly.

She turned on her heel and stalked upstairs. This is getting out of hand! she thought. And she felt queasy. The sight of the candy in the tub had unsettled her stomach.

With a sigh, she donned her blue silk nightgown and matching robe and sat down to comb her short hair. That was when she heard the noise. It sounded like an orchestra tuning up.

Frowning, she opened the door to the hall and listened. Yes, there it was again. She smiled. Probably her father was listening to a concert on the education television channel. She closed the door and went back to the vanity. She’d just lifted the brush again when the opening bars of the
Capriccio espagnol
by Rimsky-Korsakov shattered the night in orchestral splendor.

She cried out. The brush went flying. The orchestra sounded as if it was in the room with her, and she realized suddenly that the music wasn’t coming from the hall at all. It was coming from the lawn!

She dashed to the window, opened it, and stepped out onto the balcony. Cameron was standing below, just in front of the conductor, and Merlyn realized with wide-eyed fascination that the entire Atlanta Symphony Orchestra was playing magnificently in her backyard on the neatly clipped lawn!

Cameron bowed, grinned, and blew her a kiss. He was wearing a black tuxedo himself and carrying a violin. As she watched, he raised it to his neck and nodded toward the conductor. As the background music softened, he began to play.

He was terrible. Absolutely terrible. Merlyn gritted her teeth. Several members of the orchestra, especially in the string section, looked as if they were trying to find earplugs.

“Oh, stop!” she wailed.

“Marry me, and I will!” he yelled up.

“Never!”

“It gets worse!” he threatened. “You haven’t heard what I can do to a French horn!”

Chapter Twelve

H
e continued playing. Lights were beginning to go on all around the neighborhood. The people next door poked their heads out of an upstairs window.

“What’s that horrible noise?” somebody yelled.

Cameron paused, violin and bow in hand, and glared in the direction of the voice. “I’ll have you know I studied violin for two years!” he yelled back.

“Yes,” the voice answered, “right up until your teacher committed suicide!”

Cameron drew the bow across the helpless violin strings with a vengeance.

“Please stop!” the voice yelled. “If you’re the enemy, I surrender!”

“I don’t take prisoners!” Cameron shouted.

“In that case, buy some armor!” the voice threatened.

Merlyn was laughing almost hysterically at the exchange. She could hardly believe the evidence of her own eyes and ears. If only Delle could see him now, she thought wickedly. Cameron Thorpe, staid bank executive. She giggled even more.

“Well, are you going to marry me or not?” he yelled up at her.

“I’ll keep an open mind!” she called down, clutching the thin robe around her. “Cameron, I have to go in. I’m cold!”

“Go ahead!” he called up. “We wouldn’t want the baby to get sick!”

She glared at him, then went in and closed the balcony doors. Minutes later, when she was tucked in bed, the exquisite strains of the famous Brahms lullaby filled the house. And the yard. And the neighborhood. And then there was the ominous sound of a police siren.…

***

Sunlight streamed in the window and awakened Merlyn. She stretched and sat up with a sigh. With the end of sleep came memory, and she laughed. Only a madman would hire an entire symphony orchestra to accompany his pathetic serenade, she decided. But a lovely madman.

She got out of bed, feeling faintly queasy, and went to get a drink of water. Then she dressed in jeans and a blouse and went downstairs.

Cameron was sitting at the breakfast table with her father, looking half-asleep. He was wearing tan slacks and a striped, open-throated shirt, and he looked as rakish as a particularly sexy pirate. The open neck of the shirt displayed tanned skin and the beginnings of a thick pelt of hair. She remembered the feel of that hair against her bare skin and went weak-kneed with memory. Her eyes met his dark ones, and he lifted an eyebrow at her smile.

“Feeling good, are we?” he taunted.

“My, someone’s sour this morning,” she returned, bending to kiss her father’s forehead as she passed him.

“You’d be sour, too, if you’d spent the night in a police station,” Cameron sighed, sipping his coffee. “Don’t I get a kiss, too? After all, I’m the father of your child.”

“I am not pregnant!” she ground out.

“Have some bacon,” her father interrupted with a wicked grin, and offered her the platter.

She swallowed and averted her eyes.

“As I was saying,” Cameron continued, chuckling, “how about my kiss?”

“You can’t refuse him,” her father observed. “After all, he was arrested on your behalf.”

She stared at her father, aghast. “I didn’t ask him to stand outside my window and make those horrible noises!”

“They were not horrible,” Cameron defended himself.

“Of course not, to the tone-deaf,” she agreed. She smiled impishly. “It was kind of sweet, though.”

He cocked a heavy eyebrow. “Does that mean you’re going to marry me?”

Her father cleared his throat, stood, and put down his napkin. “I have just remembered a pressing appointment somewhere,” he announced. “I should be back around dark, if anyone calls.”

“You’re going to be a super father-in-law,” Cameron observed.

“You bet I am.” Her father grinned and winked at them. “By the way, just in case there’s anything to celebrate, I’ve made a reservation at Chez Moi for tonight. See you!”

Chez Moi was a very elegant, wildly expensive French restaurant on Peachtree Street. Merlyn stared at Cameron with narrowed eyes.

“Confident, isn’t he?” she asked deliberately.

“Yes, he is,” he agreed. He searched her eyes. “Sadly, a hell of a lot more confident than I am.” He sipped his black coffee and put the dainty china cup back in its saucer. “Don’t you think it’s time we sat down together to discuss things?”

She started to make light of it, but his eyes were dark and quiet, and she thought better of it. The way she was beginning to feel was no joke.

“All right,” she said after a minute.

He took her hand and led her out through the patio door, into the morning sun. It was warm outside, and the tall oak trees provided abundant shade. Interspersed around the yard were beautiful pink and white dogwood trees, in full bloom. A birdbath with three tiers and a fountain splashed noisily in the midst of blooming shrubs.

Cameron’s fingers fit themselves between hers in an intimate, possessive gesture. His hand was big, a little callused, and very strong. She liked its strength.

Her eyes darted up to his broad, hard face and searched it quietly.

“Are you going to marry me?” he asked.

“Because I might be pregnant?”

His fingers contracted and he smiled ruefully. “That,” he said, “is probably a pipe dream. I was grasping at straws. But we could make it real, Merlyn. We could get married and build a life together.”

He drew her closer and pressed her open palms to his chest. “I know you think it’s only because of your money,” he said. “But if you’ll ask your father about our business deal, you might discover that I’m slowly and surely erasing my father’s debt. I won’t lie to you, I’m not a wealthy man. I’m well-to-do and not much more. But,” he added with a grin, “I’m ambitious and stubborn and I’ve got prospects. I’ll make it. We’ll make it.”

She stared up at him, hesitant.

He sighed and framed her face with his hands. “Merlyn, if I were poor, with no money and no prospect of having any, would you love me less?” he asked pointedly.

That shocked her. Her eyes scanned his face—his black eyes, his jutting brow. “Oh, no,” she confessed softly. She reached up a hand to trace the line of his lips. “No, I wouldn’t care what you had. I never have.”

“Then why can’t you believe that I want you for yourself?” he asked. “I wouldn’t care if you were poor, either. It wouldn’t matter. If it will convince you,” he added, “have your father disinherit you. Then we’ll get married and raise children and see if we can build our bank into the biggest in the state.”

“You’re serious!” she burst out.

“Of course I’m serious,” he said with failing patience. His eyes grew, if possible, even blacker and his arms went around her suddenly, crushing her body into his. “My God, can’t you see it? For an intelligent woman…Merlyn, for God’s sake, I love you!”

Her eyes dilated until they looked like saucers. “Me?”

“You, you crazy, outlandish, flamboyant little seductress,” he growled. “You teased me and tempted me until I couldn’t even add a column of figures without seeing you, and I’ve chased you and done everything but beg, and I still can’t make you see!” His eyes closed. “Merlyn, I’ll do anything short of murder to get you. Didn’t the orchestra recital tell you anything? Damn it, I’ve stopped wearing musk cologne—haven’t you had a sniff of me yet? I doused myself with British Sterling before I came over here. I’ve traded in my black car for a red one. I’ve got new shirts—stripes and colors, and new ties…!”

Her fingers against his mouth stopped the passionate tirade. She smiled slowly, lovingly, as it all began to make sense. “If I agree to marry you,” she said, “will you let me seduce you once in a while?”

His chest rose and fell heavily. “Any time you like,” he agreed.

“And you won’t make fun of me if I wear outlandish clothes once in a while?”

He shook his head.

Her hands spread out over his chest in a lazy, caressing motion. “And is Delle out of the picture forever?”

“Delle was out of the picture the night I met you,” he breathed. He bent and passed his lips lazily over her closed eyelids. “I wanted you on sight. And it got steadily worse. At that party, when we were dancing, I thought I’d go mad if I couldn’t kiss you. Did you think I made a habit of dragging women into closets?”

“No,” she admitted. She looked up at him. “Cam, you don’t have to go overboard with it. I don’t want to change you. I just want you to let me be myself. If you love me, that’s all that matters. That’s everything.”

“I love you, all right,” he murmured huskily. His arms tightened. “Oh, God, I do love you so! And that night after you’d been so wild in my arms, you walked out the door with that damned drummer and wouldn’t even look at me!”

“And there you were, kissing Delle!” she grumbled.

“Trying to forget you,” he admitted, watching her. “And it didn’t work. She was afraid I’d muss her hair or smudge her lipstick. It was your mouth I was kissing, anyway. Delle hasn’t half the passion you have, my darling.”

“I was so afraid that night,” she whispered fervently, meeting his gaze. “I wanted you, you see. I ran out with Dick because I was so vulnerable, and I was sure I couldn’t say no to you. He’s just a friend; that’s all there’s ever been between us.”

He smiled slowly. “I’m glad to know that.” He traced her nose with his finger. “That night…were you trying to compete with Delle, when you led me into the bedroom and had your way with me?”

She nodded. “Yes, I think I was,” she murmured. She laughed shyly. “I never believed I could do that with a man.” Her eyes lowered to his chest. “But I thought you were going to marry Delle, as you’d said you were, and that one night with you was all I could ever expect. I wanted it to be a night to remember.”

“Which it damned well was. I’ve been living on it for the past few weeks. If you knew,” he murmured huskily, “how I felt when I called home the next day to apologize, to see if I could make you understand what I felt, and Mother said you were gone…God! And then I couldn’t find you. No one seemed to know where Miss Forrest had gone.” His hands caught her and crushed her into the hard lines of his body. “I was out of my mind by the time your father called and told me the truth. I could have gone on my knees.”

“I felt like that when you walked through my front door,” she confessed. Her arms slid around him, and she savored the hard muscles of his back. “You really changed your mind about marrying Delle after the first night I spent at the lake?”

“Yes,” he replied. He chuckled. “And especially after I kissed you in the closet,” he said. “After that, I couldn’t work up the least bit of enthusiasm for her. I realized I couldn’t really marry for money. It didn’t help that both my mother and my daughter kept harping on your assets all the time. They’re still at it, by the way,” he added with a laugh. “They’re wild to come and see you.”

She nuzzled her face against his chest. “You could have brought them with you.”

“Yes, I could have. But I thought we needed time to ourselves to get this settled.”

She nipped at his chest with her teeth.

He caught his breath sharply. “Merlyn!”