Petals on the Pillow (19 page)

“Elizabeth,” the named hissed through Kelly’s teeth. Her fist flew to her own mouth as if she might be able to jam the name back in, as if saying it aloud might conjure something even more substantial. Her heart beat even louder. Faster.

For a moment she stayed glued to the wall, indecision paralyzing her. Should she run back to her room or follow that mysterious piece of chiffon to God only knew what?

She swallowed back fear like bile that had risen in the back of her throat. With great effort, she pushed herself away from the wall and out onto the open landing of the main staircase. She had to marshal every ounce of courage she had to force her
self to cross that landing over to the archway that led to the east wing.

The archway seemed to yawn in front of her, bigger and blacker than she remembered it ever looking before, but still she continued into its shadows.

It took only a few steps before she found what she was looking for.

A single square of silky fabric lay on the floor, yellow more from age than from any dye.

Kelly knelt to pick it up. Dust drifted off of it. It had probably been over here for ages. She must have simply had the bad fortune of coming around the corner as a draft picked it up and moved it. Relief flooded through her and she even let herself laugh a little out loud at the silly thoughts that had led her on this wild goose chase in the early morning light.

So much for ghosts. At least for this morning anyway.

With the square of silk in her hand, she headed back to her room once more. She paused for a moment at the head of the stairs, looking down at the fabric. She shook her head at the flights her imagination had taken.

As Kelly lifted her foot to take that next step, she felt a pair of very strong and very real hands at the small of her back.

One second she was standing with solid ground under her feet. The next she was flying through the air. The very next the marble steps of Hawk Manor’s grand staircase rushed up at her.

Chapter Thirteen

Kelly’s hearing returned before anything else. The first thing she heard was Mrs. Jenkins saying, “Do you suppose it was the knock on the head from the other day that did it? Maybe she just lost her balance somehow....”

Harrison’s voice, characteristically impatient, answered, “McIntyre said she’d be fine. He said there shouldn’t be any other problems besides a headache for a few days.”

“I am fine,” Kelly said without opening her eyes, although with her other senses returning she was anything but. Her head throbbed. Her shoulder ached. Her rib cage felt as if she’d been pummeled by a pack of boxing kangaroos. Other parts of her body chimed in to be heard from as well, but they were too many to inventory at the moment.

“Just decided to take a sudden nap?” Harrison’s sarcasm barely covered his obvious concern. Kelly could hear it in his voice and wondered if the others could as well. He knelt beside her. His hands gently smoothed her hair off her face.

“No.” Kelly opened her eyes and sat up. The room spun around her and her head throbbed. She lay on the cold marble floor of the rotunda, letting the full impact of how she’d gotten here rush back into her mind. She stared at the faces ringed around her. Mrs. Jenkins and her husband, Betsy, Kendra and Harrison all stood around in their nightclothes, staring at her as if she was a fascinating exhibit in a zoo.

“Would you like to enlighten us, then, as to what exactly
happened?” Harrison asked.

Kelly opened her mouth to speak, but snapped it shut almost immediately. What exactly was it she was going to say? “I thought I was following your dead wife through the house when someone pushed me down the stairs? Oh, by the way, maybe it was one of you. Anyone care to ‘fess up?”

Instead she chose to try and stand up, clinging warily to Harrison’s strong arm. “I’m fine. I’d like to have a cup of coffee and put on something a little warmer.”

She tried to take a step toward the kitchen, but Harrison’s vise-like grip on her elbow stopped her in her tracks. He turned her slowly, but in a way that begged no questions, in the direc
tion of her room. “Dora, bring some hot coffee and something to eat to Ms. Donovan’s room, please.” Then he half-carried, half-guided her back up the stairs she had just descended so ungracefully and toward her room. As they went, he hissed under his breath, “What were you doing this time? Watching Betsy sleep again?”

“Not exactly,” Kelly whispered back.

“I wish you’d give me a little warning about these nighttime wanderings so half the household doesn’t see me bolting out of your room in nothing more than my skivvies,” Harrison said, still sotto voce, as he opened the door to Kelly’s room and guided her inside. He pulled the door shut behind them with a decided click.

Kelly eyed the sweat pants that Harrison was wearing and took in for the first time that he had on no shirt. “Who saw you?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t exactly looking around for witnesses after I heard you scream.” Harrison continued guiding her until he had her seated on the bed.

“I screamed?”

“Yes. You screamed, and if you even think of telling me that you don’t scream I swear I’ll go throw you down those stairs myself. Now what the hell were you doing out there and how did you end up falling down the stairs?” Harrison folded his arms across his bare chest and waited for an answer.

“You’re not going to believe it.”

“Try me.”

“I heard a noise and went out to see what it was.”

“I can buy that,” Harrison said with a nod.

“That’s not the tricky part.”

“Fine. Go on.” He sat next to her on the edge of the bed.

Kelly slid beneath the covers, the memory of the floating drift of yellow chiffon making her shiver. “I saw something. I’m not sure what. A piece of material.” A thought dawned on her. “Was I holding anything when you found me?”

“No,” Harrison said, succinctly.

Disappointment surged through her. “Anyway, I was stand
ing at the head of the stairs looking at this piece of material when somebody pushed me.”

“Pushed you?” Harrison jerked around to stare at Kelly.

“Yes. That’s what I said. Somebody pushed me.”

“Are you implying that somebody lured you out there with a noise and some ... some material and then shoved you down the stairs?”

“No. Yes. I mean....” Kelly drooped in the bed. “I don’t know what I mean. All I know is after I went out in the hall, I saw a piece of material that looked like it could have been from one of Elizabeth’s yellow dresses. I had it in my hands. I know I did. While I was looking at it, someone very real pushed me down those damn stairs—which I wish you would consider carpeting by the way. They’re hard and damned cold.”

“They’re meant to be descended on your feet, not your backside.” Harrison rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. He looked terribly weary all of the sudden. “Oh, Kelly. What am I
going to do with you?”

“With me? What did I do?” He didn’t believe her. Kelly couldn’t believe it herself. What would make him doubt her now, after all they’d been through? He’d seen it himself, what Elizabeth was doing to her. What had changed?

“I honestly don’t know,” he replied. “But tell me this, what happened to this material you were holding?”

Kelly scrambled to her knees, her desire to make him understand nearly bringing her to her feet. “Don’t you see? That’s exactly my point. What happened to it? Whoever pushed me must have taken it.”

“Why, Kelly? Why would anyone do that?” He remained with his back turned partially to her.

“How should I know?” She sank back on her knees, want
ing desperately to touch him, to erase whatever mental space had come between them by physically eradicating it. “Maybe the material would somehow point to them.”

“All right. I’d almost be willing to accept that if you could explain to me why anyone in the house would want to push you down the stairs in the first place.”

“Because of Elizabeth.” The worlds flew from Kelly’s lips before she had time to consider them.

“What?” Harrison turned to stare at her.

“Think about it, Harrison. What if I said something to somebody that I shouldn’t know about? What if there’s more to her death than we know? What if there’s more to Elizabeth’s message to me than wanting you to hang her portrait back up in the parlor and watch Betsy sleep?”

“What if pigs had wings?” Harrison flopped back on the bed, arm flung over his eyes.

Kelly clambered over next to him. “I’m serious, Harrison. That was no other-worldly experience I had out there. Those hands on my back were very real and very determined.” She tugged his arm away from his face and stared straight into his eyes. “Please, Harrison, you’ve got to believe me.”

He sighed and reached up to pull her against his chest. He held her so close she could hear his heart beating, strong and regular. “I do believe you, Kelly,” he said softly, brushing his lips against her hair. “I also believe that because of your less than other-worldly flight down the stairs we’d better get McIntyre back out here to have a look at you.”

***

“Are you particularly accident prone, Ms. Donovan?” McIntyre asked as he scribbled on his prescription pad.

“Not until recently.” Kelly’s fingers unconsciously sought out the bruise that was still healing on the back of her head.

“Is there anything you’d like to tell me? Anything at all?” McIntyre’s eyes looked suddenly old and tired in his baby face as he waited for Kelly’s answer. “I can be very discreet.”

“What exactly are you suggesting, Doc?”

He shrugged and fiddled with his stethoscope. “In this job, you learn quickly that abuse isn’t confined to a specific tax bracket.”

Kelly’s jaw dropped. “Abuse? You think that Harrison...?”

McIntyre shrugged again. “It’s just that when anyone as wealthy and as prominent a society figure as Mrs. St. John dies in a ... well, in an unexpected manner, there are rumors.”

“Wait a minute. Are you talking about Elizabeth? Rumors?” Kelly asked, wanting to know, but also very much not wanting to know.
Oh, no. Not Harrison.
She couldn’t imagine it. “What rumors?”

“Oh, just the usual. You know, he drove her to suicide. Or worse yet, he pushed her or was in some way the agent of her being pushed. Personally, I never gave them much credence.
Mr. St. John has always been very generous with the village. I figured it was mainly a case of jealousy getting some vicious tongues wagging, but now ” The young doctor paused.

“Now what?” Kelly asked sharply.

“Now, here you are. In the manor less than a month and already taking two pretty serious falls.”

“They were accidents,” Kelly protested weakly. She didn’t usually lie and it didn’t sit well with her now. Even more unset
tling was the fact that she wasn’t entirely sure she was lying. Could her tumble down the stairs have been just that? A simple accident? Harrison clearly thought so. Mightn’t she have tripped over her own feet or gotten caught on a banister or a piece of furniture? She wished the memory of those hands on her back was less real and less definite. An accident would be so much easier to accept.

“Yes, well ” McIntyre shifted uncomfortably and cleared
his throat. “Mrs. St. John had a few accidents right before her death, too.”

“What kind of accidents?” Kelly asked, her voice again sharper than she’d intended.

McIntyre shook his head. “Nothing that didn’t have a good explanation at the time. A freak case of food poisoning that affected only her. A stumble down the back stairs from the other wing when a piece of carpet came loose.”

“Nothing that pointed at Harrison, then?”

“Of course not. At least not at the time.”

“What does that mean? ‘Not at the time.’”

McIntyre shrugged. “Just what I said before. There were rumors. After the accident.”

Kelly closed her eyes against her mounting frustration and the tremendous ache in her head. “Please, Dr. McIntyre, just say what you mean.”

He at least had the good grace to blush. “Look. I don’t like to gossip, but the fact is that some people felt that Mr. St. John might have profited in some way from Mrs. St. John’s death. There was lots of speculation at the time, if you’ll recall, in the tabloid press that fed that kind of talk. One story said that it had to do with money. Another that he simply wanted her out of the way because he was interested in someone else, and another said that she was interested in someone else and he didn’t want to go through the mess and expense of a divorce. When Mrs. St. John tripped down the stairs and had her bout with food poisoning all the explanations that were offered seemed perfectly logical. Afterwards, well, afterwards what could I do? The explanations still stood on their own ground. Any evidence that they were anything other than accidents was long gone. But now those incidents seem remarkably similar to what you’ve experienced, and coupled with the way Mr. St. John looks at you.... Well, let’s just say that I wanted to be sure you were all right.” McIntyre kept his eyes studiously on the tip of his tie.

“What do you mean, the way Mr. St. John looks at me?”

“Please, Ms. Donovan, I may look young, but I am not naive. I know quite well what it means when a man looks at a woman that way.” His gaze lifted and met hers directly. The watery blue eyes took on a shrewder look that demanded an answer.

Kelly gritted her teeth. “Mr. St. John has in no way threat
ened or abused me. Okay?”

McIntyre shrugged. “Fine, Ms. Donovan. Whatever you say, but as long as we’re getting down to the nitty gritty here, I understand that you had some upsetting news yesterday.”

“Who told you that?”

“Ms. Campbell. She said your mother had died after a pro
tracted illness. She also said that you and Betsy had become very close.”

“Is there something wrong with that?”

“No. No. Not at all. I’m glad Betsy’s found another friend. I just can’t help but see some symmetry between your own mother’s death and your fascination with Mrs. St. John’s death.”

“My fascination?” Kelly was so indignant her voice practi
cally came out in a squeak. “Who said I was fascinated with Elizabeth’s death?”

McIntyre’s brow arched at Kelly’s use of Elizabeth’s first name. “Several members of the household have mentioned you’ve been asking a lot of questions. Just as you were here.”

“Hey! You’re the one who brought her up, not me.”

“Yes, but you did push the conversation,” he said with a smug smile.

Kelly seethed but realized she couldn’t win that particular argument. “My mother has nothing to do with this situation. Nothing,” she hissed between clenched teeth.

“Fine, then.” McIntyre began packing up his bag. “By the way, I understand you had a little fainting episode the other day in the hallway as well,” he said without looking up.

Kelly didn’t even bother to ask how he knew. She felt like half the household had been taking notes on her behavior just waiting for the chance to report it to someone. “Yes,” was all she said.

“Any chance you could be pregnant? Lots of women start to have trouble with balance and coordination in the early months. That could explain your sudden penchant for tum
bling around a marble rotunda.”