Relative Strangers Part 15

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Corrie expected some sign from Adrienne.

After her father left her in her room on his way to take Joyce up on her invitation, made as they were leaving the dining room, to introduce him to Lucas's father, Corrie stood still and waited.

Nothing happened.

She frowned, realizing she hadn't actually seen Adrienne since the ghost led her to that room in the closed portion of the hotel. But surely it had been Adrienne who'd taken the daisy pin off her lapel and left it out where Corrie would see it. Why hadn't she materialized again?

Pacing in her room, Corrie tried to put together all she knew. What Adrienne had said about Jonathan came back to her. What if he was literally a b.a.s.t.a.r.d? Then Marguerite would have been the legitimate Mead heir.

That meant the Phoenix Inn should have descended to Corrie and her brothers instead of to Stanley Kelvin.

There were too many cloudy areas, where she had only guesswork to guide her. It was obvious Marguerite had not died at eighteen. It looked as if she'd run away from home instead, and somehow ended up in New York State. She'd probably eloped. With Mr. Skinner, whoever he had been.

But why had anyone thought Marguerite was dead?

Adrienne must have known where her niece was. Had she meant to tell Horatio and died before she could? Or was there more to it? More to do with Jonathan?

Even if she never learned the remaining details, at least one thing made sense to Corrie. Her psychic link with Adrienne was the result of a blood relations.h.i.+p. Through her mother, Corrie, like Adrienne, was a descendant of Micah Mead.

Was that what Adrienne had been trying to get across to her all this time? Had Adrienne been condemned to haunt the hotel until she could reveal the truth about Jonathan and Marguerite?

But what was the truth? This was mostly supposition on Corrie's part. The possibility that she might never have an explanation for being haunted bothered her a great deal.

On impulse, she positioned herself on the bed, flat on her back, and stared up at the high ceiling. In the past, Adrienne had been able to influence her dreams. Maybe that was the key. Deliberately, she emptied her mind of everything except an image of the Sinclair House's resident ghost.

Focus, she told herself. Be open to anything.

She felt very heavy at first, and then as if she were floating.

She slept.

"Horatio will not thank you for interfering," a male voice said. "He may not even let you through the door of the Phoenix Inn. It's been six years since you married me against his wishes and he has 't spoken to either of us since."

"I know that." Adrienne hated the feud, but there seemed no way to end it, especially not now.

"Miss Cordelia La Fleur may just make him a very good wife," Lucas said.

"She's an actress."

Lucas chuckled. "You say that in the same tone of voice you'd use to say she was a wh.o.r.e. They aren't the same thing, you know."

Adrienne tried another tack. "Would the child's real father wed her if he were free to?"

"The point is moot. He can't marry her and that's enough said. Let it be, Adrienne."

"The child will be a b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"You can still regard it as your niece or nephew. I do not see why this should bother you so much. Your brother made his own bed. Now let him lie in it. You owe him nothing."

"That's right. Blame it all on my brother. You Sinclairs have been just as bad as any Mead when it comes to this rivalry between the two families. You talk as though you think Horatio deserves to he deceived."

Lucas didn't trouble to deny it. "It will make matters worse if you interfere at this juncture. The wedding is tomorrow. If nothing else, then think of that child. What will happen to it, and to Cordelia, if Horatio doesn't marry her? How will she care for a baby alone? And don't say we can help, because to do so would only create more scandal."

"I do not like keeping secrets."

"It will be all right." Lucas nuzzled her ear. She inhaled the scent of bay rum. "Trust me, Adrienne. I know what is best to do."

Distracted by his kisses, by the desire he sparked in her so effortlessly, Adrienne said no more, but she was not easy in her mind.

Corrie stirred restlessly in the old-fas.h.i.+oned bed as vestiges of long-ago pa.s.sion tickled her subconscious.

Both Lucas Sinclairs were marvelous lovers.

Both were stubborn and opinionated and sure their view was the only right way to look at things.

The dream faded, but in a little while it was replaced by another.

This time Adrienne lay in the bed in the room that was now Corrie's. She was alone, obviously older, and plainly in ill health. Coughs racked her. She was running a high fever. And she missed Lucas horribly.

He'd gone to Boston on business the very day the influenza struck. Nearly all the hotel staff were sick with it. By the time he returned in another week, some would have recovered and others would most likely be dead. In the last epidemic, four Waycross Springs citizens had expired.

The young man came in without knocking and stood near the footboard, glaring down at Adrienne with ill-concealed dislike. "I intercepted your letter to my father," he said. "He will not he coming here to listen to your ranting. There is no reason he need ever know the truth."

"You lied to him." Adrienne had to whisper her hoa.r.s.e accusation. "You told him Marguerite was dead." Another bout of coughing left her struggling for breath.

"The s.l.u.t eloped. Left the family. She's as good as dead to us now."

Adrienne tried to gather the strength to argue with him, but she grew weaker by the minute. She was dying. She knew that now. Dying without ever having told Horatio the truth.

"What's the matter, old woman?" Jonathan taunted b.a.s.t.a.r.d, she thought, but she could not give voice to the word. The room was growing dark. There was no more light, no more air.

Jonathan's triumphant laughter was the last thing she heard.

Corrie woke in a cold sweat.

Wow!

That had been more than she bargained for.

She couldn't stop shaking.

Swinging her trembling legs over the side of the bed, she tried to stand and ended up falling back onto the mattress. Slowly her breathing steadied and her mind began to work again.

Now what?

She'd had her theories confirmed, but what would be the point of revealing what she knew? To discredit Jonathan? Why bother after all this time? The only person who would be hurt was Stanley Kelvin. It didn't seem right that the sins of the great-grandfather should be visited upon the great-grandson.

What did Adrienne want her to do?

Tell the true story, obviously. It seemed important to the ghost that people know Marguerite had survived and was the legitimate heiress of the Meads.

But challenging inheritance rights at this late date seemed awfully petty. She supposed such things had been considered more important in the old days, but it didn't make much difference to her who owned the Phoenix Inn. She certainly didn't want it.

Perhaps Adrienne, confined as she was to the Sinclair House, didn't know the Phoenix Inn was in disrepair, that the Mead inheritance had dwindled to almost nothing.

Revealing the truth to the remaining members of each family would have to be enough for Adrienne, Corrie decided. She would tell the Sinclairs what she'd deduced. But first she must inform Stanley Kelvin.

Before she could change her mind, she reached for the phone and put through a call to the Phoenix Inn. She introduced herself to Kelvin, then said, "I'd like to discuss the feud between your family and the Sinclairs."

To her surprise, he didn't ask why. "Be at the Phoenix in an hour," he told her, then abruptly broke the connection.

Corrie wondered if she was making a mistake. Still, it seemed only fair to tell Kelvin what she'd figured out about Jonathan and Marguerite. She'd a.s.sure him that she had no intention of making the information public and then leave. Once all the Mead and Sinclair descendants knew the truth, Adrienne would be free.

Filled with a new sense of purpose, Corrie headed for Lucas's office. Before she left, she'd have just enough time to bring him up to date.

One look at Corrie made Lucas realize how impossible it would be to let her go without a fight. He simply could not imagine a future without her in it.

Standing in a sunbeam, she hesitated in his doorway. She brought light into the room with her. Literally and figuratively.

He wanted to wake up each day looking into that perfectly sculpted face, those gloriously blue eyes, touching those feather-soft tresses.

Her delicate perfume wafted across the office toward him, as light and free-spirited as she was.

Then he noticed the wariness in her stance. And the fact that she was carrying her coat. Was she going somewhere for a few hours? Or leaving for good?

His heart in his throat, he looked for luggage in the lobby behind her before she closed the door. He saw none, but he was not entirely rea.s.sured.

Hiding his joy and his torment at seeing her again before he'd decided how to handle the tricky situation between them, he asked after her father.

"You're stuck with both of us for a few days longer," she said.

"Good."

"Maybe."

She'd managed a faint smile, but the expression faded as she hesitated just inside the door. For a moment he thought she might turn around and leave again without speaking, but then she crossed the office and seated herself in the chair that faced him. Lucas fought the urge to go down on his knees in front of her and beg her forgiveness for doubting anything she'd ever told him.

While he was there he could ask her to marry him.

Unfortunately, he had to be honest. He still didn't believe in ghosts. Which brought him around to the problem of a future with Corrie. Was it impossible? Could he spend the rest of his life with a woman who was convinced she'd had supernatural experiences?

"Any sign of Adrienne since you've been back?" he asked. Might as well get it out in the open.

"Yes, as a matter of fact."

In succinct sentences, she told him what the Hanover family Bible had contained, then recounted the events she'd watched unfold in her subsequent dreams. Her conclusions were logical enough . . . if one believed in the paranormal.

"You can't deny the birth and marriage entries in the Bible," she said.

"You're right." Food for thought there. "That means you're already family," he murmured.

"Already?"

"Never mind that now. What you say makes sense. Some sense, anyway." She'd thrown a lot at him.

It was a h.e.l.luva coincidence that she'd come to Waycross Springs, where her ancestor had lived. Still, it might be accounted for by some childhood memory of her mother talking about a similar visit.

But a ghost?

He didn't think so.

Corrie faced him from the other side of the desk, defiance in the set of her shoulders. "I've arranged to meet Stanley Kelvin in a little while. I mean to tell him what I've learned of the family history."

He shot out of his chair, barely able to stop himself from shouting at her. "What the h.e.l.l do you want to go and do that for?"

"Because that's what Adrienne wants of me, Lucas. I have to tell him the same things I've just told you."

"There's no need to talk to Kelvin. Let him go on believing he owns the Phoenix." He strode around the desk and tugged her to her feet. This was a bad idea, but how could he convince Corrie of that?

She glanced at her watch. "I'm going to be late if I don't go now. I'll be back before you know it, Lucas, and then it will all be over. Adrienne will be gone."

"Don't go."

"I have to."

"Dammit, Corrie." He couldn't seem to find the words to explain. With no other resort left, he gathered her close and kissed her, putting everything he felt for her into that one desperate act.

She responded instantly, sweetly, but after a moment she began to ease out of the embrace.

"I love you, Corrie."

"I love you, too, but I have to do this."

"I don't want you near him. He's dangerous, Corrie. Unstable. And if you tell him the Sinclair House has a ghost, he'll-"