The Reluctant Lark (6 page)

“I see,” Challon said gravely, that maddening twinkle back in his eyes. “How fortunate for me that you changed your mind.”

She threw him a dark scowl and pointedly turned her back on him, stretching her hands out to the fire.

There was still a thread of amusement in his voice as he said, “Stay here and keep warm, and I’ll see if I can rustle us up something to eat. The kitchen should be well stocked, I had a man fly out a few days ago with supplies.”

“You needn’t bother,” Sheena said coolly. “I’m not hungry.”

There was an obvious impatience in Challon’s tone. “You’ve got to be hungry. I happen to know that you never eat before a performance. That probably means that you haven’t had a bite since lunch yesterday, and it’s now almost four in the morning.”

Was there nothing that the man didn’t know about her? Well, it would give her great pleasure to see that the arrogant Mr. Challon failed in this aim, at least. She turned to face him. “Nevertheless, I’m not hungry,”
she said firmly, receiving distinct satisfaction from the scowl that clouded his face.

“I don’t give a damn if you’re hungry or not,” he growled, his frowning gaze running over her slim, fragile figure. “You’re going to eat anyway. A strong wind would blow you away, and I won’t have you getting sick.”

“I’m sure that would be very awkward for you,” Sheena bit out. “Then you might have a murder charge against you as well as one for kidnapping. Well, to hell with you, Rand Challon! You can’t force me to eat.”

Challon’s lion eyes were blazing with a matching anger. “You stubborn little idiot. You’d probably starve yourself to death just to get a little of your own back against me. Do you envy your brother his foolish martyr’s death so much that you want to imitate him?”

Sheena backed away, her eyes stricken. She felt as if he had physically struck her, so cruel was that last verbal blow.

There was a flicker of remorse in Challon’s face as he took an impulsive step toward her. “Sheena—” he started gently.

“No!” she cried. “No!”

Then she was running blindly toward the front door. She heard him call her name stridently as she tore out on the redwood sundeck and down the stairs. She didn’t even feel the frigid cold now, though she was vaguely conscious of the sharp wind hitting her tear-streaked face. In that moment she was almost totally mindless, her only motivation that of an animal in pain looking for a dark place to hide. She was scarcely aware of the sobs that were shaking her. She flew down the hill past the landing strip into the forest beyond.

She could hear Challon’s voice roaring her name as he crashed through the bushes behind her, but she continued streaking through the forest like a frightened gazelle pursued by a lion.

Suddenly she stepped off the edge of the world and was falling into space! Then she was enveloped in water
so cold that it robbed her of all body heat and precious breath. Her velvet cloak was immediately drenched, and the weight pulled her helplessly beneath the deadly surface.

She struggled desperately to fight her way back to the surface, but her sodden clothing was like a rock holding her down. She knew an instant of blinding panic as she realized incredulously that she was drowning. She was going to die. Perhaps she was already dying, for suddenly there was nothing but the icy darkness.

If the darkness had remained, it would have been bearable, but there were suddenly brilliant colors that shifted like a kaleidoscope, the hues melting and running into each other until they finally turned into that stark, sterile white that she recognized with a chilling horror. Hospital white.

“No, please!” she moaned, knowing what was to follow. For all the nightmares started like that. Then it was not a dream at all but reality once again.

It had been raining that day five years ago, that light misting Irish rain that her uncle always referred to as angels’ tears. She’d been seventeen then and still at Saint Mary’s Convent outside Ballycraigh. It was a very good school and the nuns exceptionally protective of their charges. Perhaps if they’d been less zealous in that respect, everything would have been different, she had thought later.

As it was, she’d heard nothing until her uncle had appeared at the mother superior’s office to take her to the hospital in Ballycraigh. She’d been dazed and disbelieving as she’d stared blindly out the car window at the spring rain that was bringing vibrant new life to the green, rolling fields they were passing. Life. But it was not life she was going to, but death. Rory was dying in that white, sterile bed in Ballycraigh Hospital.

The tears were running down her face in a steady
stream now. “Why, Uncle Donal?” she asked bitterly. “Why would he do it? Why would they let him do it? He’s only eighteen and has everything to live for.”

Her uncle’s hand reached over to enfold her own in a warm, comforting clasp. “I don’t know, lass,” he said huskily, his own gray eyes suspiciously bright. “I didn’t even know he’d gotten politically involved at the university until I heard that they’d barricaded themselves in a classroom and were on a hunger strike. It was all so foolish,” he continued brokenly. “Only the very young would think that in forty-five days they could change conditions that have existed for eight hundred years.”

“But you said that the rest of the students gave up after only three weeks,” Sheena said desperately. “Why didn’t Rory?”

O’Shea shrugged helplessly. “You know how stubborn the lad can be when he sets his mind to something. He wouldn’t give up. And by the time they broke in, it was too late. He’d developed pneumonia and was burning up with fever.”

“But he can’t be dying,” she said sobbing. “Not Rory.” Rory was the most joyously alive person she’d ever known. There was scarcely a moment when his dark eyes were not dancing with mischievous laughter or his lips curving in a smile from the sheer joy of living. “Why didn’t someone tell me?”

Uncle Donal’s voice was grave. “I tried to keep you out of it, lass. The reporters are making a circus of the whole tragic mess. Believe me, if Rory had a chance, I’d never have brought you into it, even now. But it’s only fitting that you should say goodbye to your brother.”

“You had no right to keep it from me,” she charged fiercely. “I could have talked to him. He would have listened to me.”

O’Shea shook his head sadly. “Do you think that I didn’t try to persuade him to give it up? He just wouldn’t listen. He’s changed from the Rory you knew. You’ve only seen him on holidays for the last year.”

“He hasn’t changed,” she denied fiercely. “You know how close we are. He’d have listened to me!”

“Perhaps you’re right,” he said wearily. “I did what I thought was best.”

She cast a glance at his miserable face and felt a twinge of shame. Of course he had done what he thought was best. He had never done anything else since he’d taken her and Rory into his home six years before. “I know you did,” she whispered, squeezing his hand. “I know.”

When they drew up before the hospital, Sheena was given evidence of the media circus that her uncle had mentioned. The two of them were instantaneously pounced on at the curbside by reporters and cameramen. She flinched involuntarily as a barrage of flashbulbs went off in her face as her uncle quickly ushered her into the sanctuary of the hospital.

Rory didn’t die until early the following morning, and she sat with him all through that long, agonizing night watching him struggle for breath behind the icily impersonal oxygen tent.

He only roused enough to speak to her once, and then she had to lean close to make out the words.

“Sheena.”

Her hand tightened on his skeletally thin one. “Yes, love, I’m here.”

His dark eyes so like her own were searching. “Proud of me?” he croaked, just a hint of his old boyish smile on his emaciated face.

She could feel the tears flood her eyes. She wanted to cry and beat her fists on his chest in frustration, to shout and rage at him that there was no cause that was worth his life. But she knew she couldn’t deprive him of the only gift that might give his sacrifice meaning.

“Yes, I’m very proud of you, love,” she said huskily, her throat aching with tears.

He sighed contentedly. “Glad. Uncle Donal’s proud of me, too.” His lids closed, and for a moment she thought
he’d fainted. Then his eyes flicked open, and there was a trace of panic in their depths. “I don’t want to die, Sheena,” he whispered desperately, bruising her hand in a sudden surge of strength. “Why?”

She was never to know what he meant by that last desperate cry, for Rory had lapsed once again into unconsciousness and died a little over an hour later.

It was two days before Sheena realized that she, too, hadn’t died but had entered a torturous inferno of feverish pain and nightmarish dreams.

During that time, she was sent rocketing into an almost hysterical dependence on the only solid figure in a constantly shifting universe. The man with the tawny sun-streaked hair and gentle golden eyes was always there when she threw off the heavy covers or cried out for water. When she woke in the night screaming as she relived over and over that nightmare in the hospital in Ballycraigh, it was the golden man who enfolded her in strong, comforting arms and wiped her streaming eyes, his expression frighteningly grim despite the tenderness of his touch.

And when her body was racked with chills and no amount of blankets could alleviate the icy cold that seemed to pervade her bones, it was the golden man who lay holding her in his arms, his warm body giving her its blessed heat, while his hands caressed and soothed her aching muscles and his voice crooned an affectionate litany in her ear.

Even when she became well enough to realize that the golden man was Rand Challon, she still could not rid herself of that curious dependence that seemed as much emotional as physical. She was still enfolded in an exhausted lassitude that caused her to feel not the slightest embarrassment or discomfort as he performed the most intimate of services for her.

Nor did he seem to view his duties with anything but the most matter-of-fact naturalness. Ignoring the silence
that she was too weary to break, he bathed her, brushed her hair, and fed her as if she were a much-loved child. While he was going about these functions, he kept up a cheerful, inconsequential chatter that demanded no answer from her. In its own way, this was as comforting as the way he lounged lazily in an easy chair by her bed when she slept so that his warm, quiet smile was the first thing she saw when she awoke.

It was almost a week after she’d arrived at the cabin before her weariness dissipated enough for her to ask the questions that had seemed oddly unimportant in the past several days. She had wakened from an afternoon nap to see Challon in his usual brown leather easy chair beside the bed. His golden eyes were fixed absently into space, and there was a frown creasing his forehead. For the first time Sheena noticed the lines of weariness about his mouth and the faint shadows beneath his eyes. He was dressed in beige cord pants and brown suede shirt, and Sheena’s lips twitched unexpectedly. Lion colors for a golden man.

As if feeling her appraisal, his gaze swooped down and met hers. Immediately his frown vanished, and his bronzed face lit with an affectionate smile. “Back with us again?” he asked cheerfully, obviously not expecting an answer. “These naps are getting shorter all the time. Pretty soon you’ll be able to do without them entirely.” He stood up and stretched lazily, and Sheena was suddenly breathlessly aware of his lean, virile strength. “I’ll just run downstairs and see what Laura’s prepared for your supper.”

He turned away only to whirl back to face her as she asked slowly, “Who’s Laura?”

The smile that illuminated his face this time was as brilliant as the sun coming up. “Thank God,” he said fervently, his body relaxing from the tension that he had kept carefully hidden from her. He sank back into the easy chair beside her bed and took her hand in both of his. “The doctor said that it would only be a
matter of time,” he continued. “But you were scaring the hell out of me, sweetheart.”

“Who is Laura?” Sheena asked again, frowning. For some reason the idea of another woman intruding on this strange intimacy that existed between them filled her with distinct displeasure.

“You’ll meet her presently,” Challon replied, with most unsatisfactory vagueness. His keen eyes were swiftly raking her face, noting the alertness of her expression and the snapping darkness of her eyes, which had previously held only languid acceptance and disinterest. “How do you feel?”

Sheena considered the question solemnly. “Hungry,” she said decisively.

The reply was met with a jubilant laugh from Challon. “Great!” Rising to his feet again, he headed for the door. “Laura was getting fed up fixing you that sickroom pap.”

Laura again. Sheena bit her lower lip vexedly. Evidently Laura’s opinion loomed large in Challon’s scheme of things. She refused to ask herself why this disturbed her so, and firmly turned her attention to examining her surroundings. She must have been vaguely aware of the decor of the room during the past days, but it had never actually sunk beyond that exhausted lethargy.

The room was surprisingly spacious for a guest room and had a cozy cheerfulness due to the blazing, crackling fire in the fireplace across the room. Though only late afternoon, the room had a twilight dimness due to the drawn red plaid drapes that covered the windows that spanned one whole wall. The spread on the bed was also a red tartan plaid, as was the throw that was tossed carelessly on the beige chaise longue before the fireplace. The carpet was a plush creamy beige and contrasted beautifully with the polished cherrywood of the contemporary furnishings. There was a painting above the fireplace by Keane, and she studied the picture curiously. It was a portrait of a small child who
possessed the enormous dark, sad eyes that were the artist’s trademark. It was oddly out of place in a room that projected such vibrant cheerfulness, Sheena thought.

“Think you can work your way through a small steak?” Challon asked briskly, as he entered the room carrying a tray. “It’s best not to overload your stomach at first.”