"Everywhere we go the blue album goes with her in one of her locked trunks." His dark eyes narrowed dangerously. "You described that blue and gold album exactly, though it's old and worn shabby now. While my wife looks in a picture album, my mother-in-law reads her Bible to rags. Sometimes I catch my wife crying over the photographs that blue album holds, which I presume are pictures of her first husband."
I sighed heavily and closed my eyes. I didn't want to know she cried!
"Answer me, Cathy. Who are you?" I felt he would grip my chin and hold me there throughout eternity if I didn't speak up and say something, and for some stupid reason I lied. "Henrietta Beech was your wife's half- sister. You see, Malcolm Foxworth had an extramarital affair, and three children were the result. I am one. Your wife is my half-aunt "
"Ahhh," he sighed, releasing my chin and leaning back in his chair, as if satisfied I was telling the truth. "Malcolm had an affair with Henrietta Beech who gave him three illegitimate children. What extraordinary information." He laughed mockingly. "I never thought the old devil had it in him, especially after that heart attack soon after my wife married the first time. Gives a man inspiration to know that." He sobered then to give me a long and searching look. "Where is your mother now? I'd like to see and talk to her."
"Dead," I said, hiding my hands under the table and keeping my fingers crossed like a superstitious, silly child. "She's been dead a long, long time."
"Okay. I get the picture. Three young, illegitimate Foxworth children hoping to cash in on their bloodline by blackmailing my wife--right?"
"Wrong! It was only me. Not my brother or my sister. I only want what is due us! At the time I wrote those letters I was in a desperate situation, and even now I'm not much better off. The hundred thousand the insurance paid didn't go very far. My husband had run up huge bills and we were behind in our rent and car payments; plus I owed hospital bills for him, the money for his funeral, and then the costs of having my baby. I could go on all night telling you my dance school's problems and how I was tricked into believing it was a profitable, going concern."
"And it's not?"
"Not when it consists of so many little rich girls who take off and go on vacations two or three times a year and aren't really serious about dancing anyway. All they want to do is look pretty and feel graceful. If I had one really good student it would be worth all my efforts. But I don't have one, not one."
He drummed his strong fingertips on the tablecloth, looking deeply reflective. Next he had a cigarette lit again, not as if he truly enjoyed smoking, but more as if he had to have something to keep his restless fingers busy. He inhaled deeply, then looked me straight in the eyes. "I'm going to speak very frankly to you, Catherine Dahl. First, I don't know if you are lying or telling the truth, but you do look like a member of the Foxworth clan. Second, I don't like you trying to blackmail my wife. Third, I don't like to see her unhappy, so much so that she cries. Fourth, I happen to be very much in love with her, though there are times, I admit, I'd like to choke the past from her throat. She never speaks of it; she is full of secrets my ears will never hear. And one great big secret I've never heard before is that Malcolm Neal Foxworth, the good, pious, saintly gentleman, had a love affair after he had heart trouble. Now before his heart trouble, I happen to know he had at least one, possibly, but no more."
Oh! He knew more than I. I had shot an arrow into the sky, not knowing it would hit a bulls-eye!
Bart Winslow glanced about the cafe Families were coming in to dine early, and I suppose he feared someone might recognize him and report back to his wife, my mother.
"C'mon, Cathy, let's get out of here," he urged, getting to his feet and reaching to pull me on mine. "You can invite me to have a drink in your home, then we can sit and talk and you can tell me everything in more detail."
Twilight came like a quickly dropped shade to the mountains--suddenly it was evening--and we'd been hours in that cafe. We were on the sidewalk when he held my cardigan sweater for my arms to fill the sleeves, though the air was so brisk I needed a jacket or coat.
"Your home, where is it?"
I told him and he looked disconcerted. "We'd better not go there . . . too many people might see me go inside." (He didn't know then, of course, I had chosen that cottage mainly because it backed up to a wooded area, and there was plenty of privacy for a man to come and go on the sly.) "My face is in the newspapers so often," he continued, "I'm sure your neighbors would see me. Could you call your babysitter and have her stay on awhile longer?"
I did just that, speaking first to Emma Lindstrom, and then to Jory, telling him to be a good boy until Mommy was home again.
Bart's car was sleek and black, a Mercedes. It purred along like one of Julian's sleek luxury cars, so heavy it didn't rattle or clank, and firmly it gripped the curved mountain roads. "Where are you taking me, Mr. Winslow?"
"To a place where we can talk and no one will see us or hear us." He looked my way and grinned. "You've been studying my profile. How do I rate?"
A hot rush of blood heated my face. Knowing I was blushing made me blush again, so then I felt damp. My life was full of handsome men, but this man was far different from any I had known. A rakish, bandit type of man who was filling me with alarm signals--go slow with this one! My intuitiveness warned as I studied his face and took note. Everything, his expensive, beautifully fitted suit, shouted that he should be as determined as I was in getting what he wanted, when he wanted.
"Well-ll," I drawled to make a mockery of thi
s, "your looks tell me to run fast and lock the door behind me!"
Wickedly he grinned again, seemingly satisfied. "So, you find me exciting and a bit dangerous. Nice. To be handsome but boring would be worse than being ugly and charming, wouldn't it?"
"I wouldn't know. If a man is charming and intelligent enough, I often forget how he actually looks and think he's handsome regardless."
"Then you must be easily pleased."
I shifted my eyes and sat up primly. "Truthfully, Mr. Winslow--"
"Bart."
"Truthfully, Bart, I am very difficult to please. I'm inclined to put men up on a pedestal and think of them as perfect. As soon as I find out they have feet of clay, I fall out of love, become indifferent."
"Not many women know themselves so well," he mused. "Most go around never knowing what they are beneath their facade. At least I know where I stand--a sex symbol not on a pedestal."
N000! I'd never put him on a pedestal. I knew him for what he was, a womanizer, a skirt-chaser, wind and fire, enough to drive a jealous wife crazy! Certainly my mother had never bought that sex manual to instruct him how to or when to and where to! He'd know everything. Abruptly he pulled his car to a stop, then turned to meet my gaze. Even in the darkness the whites of his dark eyes shone. Too virile, too vibrant for a man who should be showing signs of aging. He was eight years younger than my mother. That made him forty years old, a man's most attractive time, his most vulnerable time, his time to think youth would soon be over. He'd have to make his new conquests now, before the sweet and fleeting bird of youth had flown away and taken with it all the young and pretty girls that could have been his. And he must be tired of the wife he knew so well, though he professed to love her. Why then were his eyes gleaming, challenging me? Oh, Momma, wherever you are, you should be down on your knees praying! For I'm not going to show you mercy, no more than you showed us!