Page 43 of For the Love of Lilah
“I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“That’s all right. It’s time to get back to the real world anyway. Amanda took the kids into town so I was taking advantage of the lull.”
“I was just looking for Lilah.”
“Oh, she’s gone.”
“Gone?”
Suzanna was pushing back from the piano when Max barked the word and had her rising slowly. “Yes, she went out.”
“Where? When?”
“Just a little while ago.” Suzanna studied him as she crossed the room. “I think she had a date.”
“A—a date?” He felt as though someone had just swung a sledgehammer into his solar plexus.
“I’m sorry, Max.” Concerned, she laid a comforting hand on his. She didn’t think she’d ever seen a man more miserably in love. “I didn’t realize. She may have just gone out to meet friends, or to be by herself.”
No, he thought, shaking his head. That would be worse. If she was alone, and Caufield was anywhere close... He shook off the panic. It wasn’t Lilah the man was after, but the emeralds.
“It’s all right, I only wanted to talk to her about something.”
“Does she know how you feel?”
“No—yes. I don’t know,” he said lamely. He saw his romantic dreams about moonlight and courtship go up in smoke. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It would to her. Lilah doesn’t take people or their feelings lightly, Max.”
No strings, he thought. No trapdoors. Well, he’d already fallen through the trapdoor, and his feelings were the noose around his neck. But that wasn’t the point. “I’m just concerned about her going out alone. The police haven’t caught Hawkins or Caufield yet.”
“She went out to dinner. I can’t see anyone popping up in a restaurant and demanding emeralds she doesn’t have.” Suzanna gave his hand a friendly squeeze. “Come on, you’ll feel better when you’ve eaten. Aunt Coco’s lemon chicken should be about ready.”
He sat through dinner, struggling to pretend that he had an appetite, that the empty place at the table didn’t bother him. He discussed the progress of the servants list with Amanda, dodged Coco’s request to read his cards and felt generally miserable. Fred, sitting on his left foot, benefited from his mood by gobbling up the morsels of chicken Max slipped to him.
He considered driving into town, casually cruising, stopping at a few clubs and restaurants. But decided that would make him look like as big a jerk as he felt. In the end he retreated to his room and lost himself in his book.
The story didn’t come as easily as it had the night before. Now it was mostly fits and starts with a lot of long pauses. Still he found even the pauses constructive as an hour passed into two, and two into three. It wasn’t until he glanced at his watch and saw it was after midnight that he realized he hadn’t heard Lilah come home. He’d deliberately left his door ajar so that he would know when she passed down the hall.
There was a good chance he’d been engrossed in his work and hadn’t noticed when she’d walked by to her room. If she’d gone out to dinner, surely she’d be home by now. No one could eat for five hours. But he had to know.
He went quietly. There was a light in Suzanna’s room, but the others were dark. At Lilah’s door, he hesitated, then knocked softly. Feeling awkward, he put his hand on the knob. He’d spent the night with her, he reminded himself. She could hardly be offended if he looked in to see if she was asleep.
She wasn’t. She wasn’t even there. The bed was made; the old iron head- and footboards that had probably belonged to a servant had been painted a gleaming white. The rest was color, so much it dazzled the eyes.
The spread was a patchwork quilt, expertly made from scraps of fabrics. Polka dots, checks, stripes, faded reds and blues. It was piled high with pillows of varied shapes and sizes. The kind of bed, Max thought, a person could sink into and sleep the day away. It suited her.
The room was huge, as most were in The Towers, but she’d cluttered it and made it cozy. On the walls that were painted a dramatic teal were sketches of wildflowers. The bold signature in the corners told him she’d done them herself. He hadn’t even known she could draw. It made him realize there was quite a bit he didn’t know about the woman he was in love with.
After closing the door behind him, he wandered the room, looking for pieces of her.
A baker’s rack was packed with books. Keats and Byron jumbled with grisly murder mysteries and contemporary romances. A little sitting area was grouped in front of one of her windows, a blouse tossed carelessly over the back of a Queen Anne chair, earrings and glittering bracelets scattered over a Hepplewhite table. There was a bowl of smooth gemstones beside a china penguin. When he picked the bird up, it played a jazzy rendition of “That’s Entertainment.”
She had candles everywhere, in everything from elegant Meissen to a tacky reproduction of a unicorn. Dozens of pictures of her family were scattered throughout. He picked up one framed snapshot of a couple, arms around each other’s waists as they laughed into the camera. Her parents, he thought. Lilah’s resemblance to the man, Suzanna’s to the woman were strong enough to make him certain of it.
When the cuckoo in the clock on the wall jumped out, he jolted and realized it was twelve-thirty. Where the hell was she?
Now he paced, from the window where she’d hung faceted crystals to the brass urn filled with dried flowers, from bookcase to bureau. Nerves humming, he picked up an ornate cobalt bottle to sniff. And smelled her. He set it down hastily when the door opened.
