Legacy (47 page)

I had to breathe! Desperately I twisted my body to the right, stamping my heel down on to his instep. As he staggered backward, I spun around and dropped down at the same time, still in his arms but with my head below his chest and my face at last free of that hideous, stifling pad! In one last burst of strength, I hit up at him with my fist as hard as I possibly could, squarely between his legs. He gave a groan and stumbled back towards the bed.

I leaned back against the doorway, gasping for air, watching him bent over as he strained to recover. In a moment or two he would be at me again, I could see that from his eyes.

'Open the door, Mrs. Martin!' I yelled out. 'Dr. McKay needs help!'

Before he could take a single step or speak, the lock clicked and the door beside me swung open.

'Go to him,' I told the bewildered Mrs. Martin. 'He's had some trouble with the patient.'

And then I was making my way through the crowd of patients at the reception area. I mouthed greetings and explanations at the same time as I went. The doctor had had trouble, I said, and I was going to get help. Mercifully they let me pass without questions.

Outside there was the October sun and the mountains across the Susquehanna, and the autumn colors shone in the crisp, clear air. The morning out here was calm and natural. A Saturday.

I mounted my horse and set off down the street for home, automatically, simply getting away without thinking. It was not until I had ridden nearly a block from the clinic that I realized how free I felt. The tiredness that had been with me from my awakening this morning, the tiredness that had been with me for so many mornings these past months, had vanished.

You don't love him. Steven's words came suddenly into my mind, and I realized at last that they were true. I was glad to be free. I had thought of Justin as security, but he had not been what he seemed. He had played me false.

Or had he? I brought my horse to a stop, transfixed by the possibility that Justin might have been telling the truth, after all. He could have hired Campbell just to look at Eagles Mere. Perhaps he really had wanted to learn the hotel's weak points in the event Father asked him to invest. Also, perhaps he really had not known what the agent of Philadelphia First was doing . . .

But with shattering clarity, it finally struck me: right or wrong did not matter. Justin might have been a friend or enemy, and it still did not change what really mattered. I did not love him.

I had loved the ideas he had spoken. I had loved his plans, his ambitions, because I had shared them. He had said that the Rawlings family had to stop fighting the Graybars, and I had loved that thought because I had felt the same way. His ideas for different new industries, for expansion, for better schools, and for parks - they were all wonderful ideas.

But they were not the sum of Justin McKay.

What had Mother said that day when she had so annoyed me with her questions about the way I felt? It was so easy to confuse admiration with love. 'Sam Rawlings made me cry, but I was never sorry.'

Dear God, how close I had come . . .

I took a brief look back at Justin's clinic, and saw a coach stopping at the front entrance. It was the same coach Billy Joe and I had passed earlier on the road. It was Elliot's coach. I was only a little surprised to find that I felt nothing at all when I saw Elliot get out and go inside. Was he coming to report a defeat, or simply stopping by to say hello? It did not matter. My interest in that question was gone, because my love for Justin was gone . . . or had never existed.

'You don't love him.' As I said these words to myself, the calm emptiness I felt suddenly began to change to a deep, full certainty. 'I love Steven.' I whispered it once, then again. 'I really do.' And the warmth, the familiar warmth, began to race through my veins. He was proud, too proud. He wanted to own me, to possess me. I hated that; I was my own woman, and no one could own me. But I had to admit now that I felt the same urge of my own for Steven. I wanted to own him just as much as I had wanted Legacy, even more . . .

And I was proud, too, perhaps more so than he. Neither of us was perfect. We would get in each other's way; we would rage at one another. He would make me cry, and I would hurt him, just as we had both done ever since I had come back to Grampian.

But I knew I would never be sorry. And we would have our love.

Then his words from early this morning came back to me, cool and mocking:
And then you're going to see Steven Graybar as something shiny and new, something glorious and wonderful. But then it will be too late. In fact, it's too late now.

No! Wherever he was going, he wouldn't have gone yet. It had only been an hour or two. I could still catch up with him. I could ride up to Legacy, talk to him, and make him see reason, make him see love. He didn't look new to me, I thought as I turned my horse around towards Legacy. He was the same maddening, infuriating Steven.

But I was not afraid to love him anymore.

I came around the corner and turned on to Market Street, the street that led straight up to the Legacy carriage path. I looked up at the mountain as I always did, to the silhouette of Graybar's Castle at the top. But today the castle was mine . . .

I saw clouds of black smoke. The smoke was rising into the sky from the top of the mountain.

I'm going to take more than ten thousand dollars' worth of Legacy away with me. Oh, Steven! How he had hated his father, hated that castle that Brad had built!

I urged my horse to go faster up towards the mountain and to Steven.

You can't pay me. You won't be able to.

My God, I thought. In my mind's eye I saw Steven as he had been that afternoon in Brad's library, just after we had made love - the glass of bourbon in his hand, that cynical, resigned smile on his lips . . .

By the time I reached the clearing at the top of the woods, there were flames coming from every window. My horse froze there at the edge of the gravel. The intense heat came at us in waves. The horse began to neigh in terror.

'Steven!' I yelled. There was no answer, only the crackling and the roar of the great fire. 'Steven!' The horse reared up and tried to turn away from the heat, those frightful yellow tongues that glittered so. I steadied my horse, shielding its eyes until I could dismount. Then I sent the horse back down towards Grampian. Whoever was coming up would find the frightened animal and know to look for me.

To enter the front of the house was impossible. The double doors at the tower were open, but behind them was an unbroken wall of yellow fire. The library was to the back; I remembered that.

With my boots slipping awkwardly on the gravel, I dashed around to the rear entrance. 'Steven!' The fire had not yet gained a thorough foothold back here. Above the three stone steps, the doorway to the rear hall stood open. 'Steven!'

There were flames at the far end of the hall. Could I go in there? The smoke was growing thicker, hurting my throat, burning my lungs, making me choke . . .

But I knew I could not face tomorrow, or the thousands of tomorrows that would follow, if I had to ask myself: 'Why didn't I go in?'

'Steven!' I gave one last call, and amid the roar of the flames and the smoke I thought I heard his voice! 'Steven!' I went up the stone steps, feeling their heat already begin to come through the thin soles of my boots. At the open doorway I hesitated, trying to see the library, over at the right side of the hall, trying to get a last breath of clean air before plunging into the smoke. What was it I heard?

And then a sound like a hundred guns came from somewhere within the house, and something - was it the transom of the door? - broke loose and struck me behind my neck and across my shoulders, knocking me down to my knees. As the great darkness swirled around me I prayed for strength, but I only sank deeper and deeper into the clouds of smoke that were so stifling . . .

Chapter Nineteen

Above me was the blue sky. The black smoke was only one part of that wide expanse, a pillar that rose higher and became ever more diminished, disappearing in wisps and trails as it travelled skyward. The cool green grass touched the back of my neck, my cheek, my hands . . .

And when I turned, there was Steven. His eyes widened when he saw I was awake. His look of concern deepened as I sat up. The stiffness I felt in my back and shoulders made me wince, and he seemed to feel it, too.

But when he was certain that I was really unhurt, the dark eyes recovered their glitter. And when he spoke it was with his usual offhanded manner, the same bantering smile.

'So you thought I'd have stayed in the flames? Burned myself in despair? My dear, Legacy wasn't that important. Life may be hard now and again, but it'll suit me just fine until something better comes along.'

'Oh, Steven. . .'

'I heard you calling, as though I'd come out when you whistled! And I called back from here, but, I must say, your hearing isn't any better than your judgment.'

'Will you be quiet!' I nearly shouted the words, and for the first time I looked around, suddenly conscious that someone else might be nearby. But there was no one. We were out on the back lawn, behind the oak tree. A hundred yards away, the castle had dwindled to a great pile of smoking rubble. The towers were gone. The roof was gone. The shell that remained was barely two stories tall.

'How did you do that?'

He smiled easily, poised, mocking. 'Nice to see you taking an interest in what I do for a change. Or are you only wondering about your property?'

'Steven, don't!' I could have slapped him. 'I have something to tell you, and I won't be talked to this way!'

'On your own land, is that it?'

And then I did slap him, or tried to. He caught my hand and held me by the wrist.

'Now, don't get excited. You wanted to know how I did it. It wasn't difficult. I used kerosene, and then I packed black powder into the speaking tubes. It's surprising how well that shakes up the interior walls. The whole structure just topples in upon itself.'

I recalled the first explosion, and then I seemed to remember others, louder, while he had borne me up in his arms and carried me away from the house.

'So if you and your Justin decide to go into the demolition business, there's a good . . .'

'Steven!' I was growing angry now. This wasn't the way I had wanted to tell him. Why didn't he let me tell him? Why did he have to be so . . . 'Steven, look at my hand. Can you remember the ring I used to wear there? Justin's ring?' Why was I shouting?

He glanced at my left hand. The eyes flickered. The face remained mockingly impassive.

'You found out? Thought it might take longer than that till you learned our good Dr. McKay has a piece of Elliot's bank. But then you always did have a good head for business, once you got pointed in the right direction.'

'Steven, that's not it. I mean, yes, I did find out, but that doesn't matter. I realized I couldn't marry him. I don't love him. I love you.'

I'd said it! But he barely moved. A bluejay swooped down from the row of spruce trees behind him and chirped on the lawn for a moment beside Steven's leather suitcase. Then it fluttered and retreated to the forest.

His voice was quieter now. 'Not a very businesslike thing to do, is it, Catherine? You'd better think again. Think about what you've been able to do because of Justin McKay. Think about how he's going to work against you now - all those nice connections in town, all those people who're going to talk behind your back.'

'I'm used to fighting, Steven. I don't care what Justin does.'

'You will, though. When the profits start to slide, when the loans come due again, you're going to say to yourself, "I gave up what could have been ten million, twenty million, for one cantankerous bastard of a husband who had only fifty thousand dollars to his name".'