Presumed Guilty

“Oh.”

Quickly she turned away, before he could confirm her statement. Not that he hadn’t had the chance to look. He had eyes, didn’t he?

And he sees too damn much, she thought. She turned toward the window and stood with her back to Chase, all the while struggling to regain her composure. Outside, the fading light of day slanted across the treetops. A long summer dusk. In the field below there would be fireflies and the hum of insects in the grass. And the chill. Even on these August evenings there was always the chill that rose from the sea. She hugged herself and shivered.

His approach was gentle, silent. She couldn’t hear him, but she knew, without looking, that he was right behind her.

Chase was standing so close, in fact, that he could smell the scent of her hair — clean and sweet and intoxicating. The fading daylight from the window brought out its glorious chestnut hues. He wanted to reach out and run his fingers through those shimmering strands, to bury his face in the tangled silk. A mistake, a mistake. He knew it before it happened, and yet he couldn’t help himself.

She shivered at his touch. Just the tiniest tremble, the softest sigh. He ran his hands down her shoulders, down the cool smoothness of her bare arms. She didn’t pull away. No, she leaned back, as though melting against him. He wrapped his arms around her, enfolding her in their warmth.

“When I was a boy,” he whispered, “I used to think there were magical creatures in that field down there. Elves and fairies hiding among the toadstools. I’d see their lights flitting about at night. It was only fireflies, of course. But to a kid, they might have been anything. Elvish lanterns, Dragon lights. I wish…”

“What do you wish, Chase?”

He sighed. “That I still had some of that child inside me. That we could have known each other then. Before all this happened. Before…”

“Richard.”

Chase fell silent. His brother would always be there, his life and his death like a darkness hovering over them. What could possibly thrive in such shadow? Not friendship; certainly not love. Love? No, what Chase felt, standing there behind her, hugging her slim, warm body to his, had far more to do with lust. Well, what the hell. Maybe it runs in my family, he thought, in my tainted bloodline. This propensity for reckless, hopeless affairs. Richard had it. My mother had it. Is it my turn to succumb?

Miranda shifted in his embrace, turned to face him. One look at that soft, upturned mouth and he was lost.

She tasted of summer and warmth and sweet amber honey. At the first touch of their lips he wanted more, more. He felt like a man who has fallen drunk at his first sip of nectar and now craves nothing else. His hands found their way into that silken mass of hair, were buried in it, lost in it. He heard her murmur, “please,” and was too fevered to think it anything but a request for more. Only when she said it again, and then, “Chase, no,” did he finally pull away.

They stared at each other. The confusion he felt was mirrored in her eyes. She retreated a step, nervously shoving back her hair.

“I shouldn’t have let you do that,” she said. “It was a mistake.”

“Why?”

“Because you — you’ll say I led you on. That’s what you’ll tell Evelyn, isn’t it? You think it’s how I got hold of Richard. Temptation. Seduction. It’s what everyone else believes.”

“But is it true?”

“You’ve just proved it. Get me alone in a room and look what happens! Another Tremain male bites the dust.” Her voice took on a cold edge. “What I want to know is, who’s really seducing whom?”

She’s all motion, all skittishness, he thought. In another moment she would shatter and fly into pieces.

“Neither of us did any seducing, any tempting. It just happened, Miranda. The way it usually happens. Nature tugs on our strings and we can’t always resist.”

“This time I will. This time I know better. Your brother taught me a few things. The most important thing is not to be so damn gullible when it comes to men.”

That last word was still hanging in the air between them when they heard footsteps thump onto the porch below. Someone rapped on the front door.

Chase turned and left the room.

Miranda, suddenly weak, leaned against the windowsill. She clutched it tightly, as though drawing strength from the wood. Too close, she thought. I let down my guard, let him slip right past my defenses.

She would have to be more careful. She would have to remind herself that Chase and Richard were variations on a theme, a theme that had already wreaked havoc on her life. She took a deep breath and slowly let it out, willing the turmoil, the confusion, to flow out of her body. Back in control, she thought. She released the sill. She stood straight. Then, with a new semblance of calmness, she followed Chase down the stairs.

He was in the front room with the visitor. Miranda recognized her old acquaintance from the garden club, Miss Lila St. John, local expert on flowering perennials. Miss St. John was dressed in her signature black dress. Summer or winter, she always wore black, set off with a touch of white lace here and there. Today it was a black walking dress of crinkled linen. It did not quite match her brown boots or her straw hat, but on Miss St. John it all seemed to look just right.

She turned at the sound of Miranda’s footsteps. If she was surprised to see Miranda she didn’t show it. She simply nodded, then turned her sharp gray eyes back to the ransacked desk. On the front porch a dog whined. Through the screen door Miranda saw what looked like a large black fur ball with a red tongue.

“It’s all my fault, you know,” said Miss St. John. “I can’t believe I was such an imbecile.”

“How is it your fault?” asked Chase.

“I sensed something was wrong last week. We were taking our walk, you see, Ozzie and I. We walk every evening around dusk. That’s when the deer come out, the pests, though I do love to see them. Anyway, I saw a light through the trees, somewhere in this direction. I came up to the cottage and knocked on the door. No one answered, so I left.” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have, you know. I should have looked into it. I knew it didn’t feel right.”

“Did you see a car?”

“If you were coming to loot the joint, would you park your car out front? Of course not. I know I’d park down the road a bit, in the trees. Then I’d sneak up here on foot.”

It was hard to imagine Miss St. John doing any such thing.

“It’s a good thing you didn’t get involved,” said Chase. “You could have gotten yourself killed.”

“At my age, Chase, getting killed is not a major concern.” She used her walking stick, a knobby affair with a duck’s head handle, to prod among the papers on the floor. “Any idea what he was after?”

“Not a clue.”

“Not valuables, obviously. That’s a Limoges on that shelf over there, isn’t it?”

Chase glanced sheepishly at the hand-painted vase. “If you say so.”

Miss St. John turned to Miranda. “Have you any thoughts on the matter?”

Miranda found herself under the gaze of two very intense gray eyes. Miss St. John might be dismissed by many as little more than a charming eccentric, but Miranda could see the intelligence in that gaze. While their previous conversations had tended more toward delphiniums and daffodils, even then, Miss St. John had made her feel like some sort of new plant species under a magnifying glass. “I’m not sure I know what to think, Miss St. John,” she said.

“Take a look at the mess. What does it tell you?”

Miranda glanced at the papers, the scattered books. Then her gaze shifted to the bookcases. Only a top shelf had been emptied. Two full bookcases were undisturbed.

“He didn’t look through all the books. So whoever broke in here must have been interrupted. By you, maybe.”