an angry swirl of her pongee skirt, she spun out of the door and was gone.
Rafe groaned. “Hey!” he called after her. “I’m sorry! Come on back!” But the silence, like the wet sand that glittered on the carpet where she’d stood, mocked him. Minutes passed, and she didn’t return.
There was nothing to do but get up and investigate the situation himself, Rafe decided. Gritting his teeth, he rolled over onto his right side. Slow and easy, that was the way. Once he was on his feet, maybe he’d be able to get to the bottom of this mess.
And a fine mess it was! He remembered crashing the aeroplane, but he knew nothing about his rescuers. The girl had said the groundskeepers were on the beach, digging the aeroplane free, but what did that mean? What did these people plan to do with it, and with him? He had to find out fast.
Beads of sweat stood out on Rafe’s forehead as he pushed himself to a sitting position. The pain in his ribs was nauseating. Cautiously he inspected his own body. Someone had dressed him in a pair of gray silk pajamas that were finer than anything he’d ever worn. One of the legs had been ripped open to accommodate the bulk of the splint. Under the jacket, his ribs were bound with strips of muslin. A patch of gauze dressing covered a gash on his forehead.
Well, so much for damage assessment. He could only hope the aeroplane was in better shape than he was. Bracing himself against the pain, he seized the splint with both hands and swung his legs to the floor. That was more like it. Except for his rear still being on the bed, he was almost standing. All he had to do now was get his body over his feet. Then, broken leg or no broken leg, he would walk out of here and find out what was going on.
Gingerly Rafe put his weight on his good leg and stood up. The room shimmered in front of his eyes. He forced himself to focus on the face of the mounted tiger, on the dead-cold yellow glass eyes and leathery black nose. Why would anybody hang up a dead animal anyway? Even the well-mounted ones were ghastly.
Staring into the tiger’s open jaws, he gathered his resolve. The leg was well braced. There was no reason he couldn’t walk on it if he was careful. Nothing was impossible. When he’d started on his aeroplane, nobody had believed he could do it. But he’d shown them all.
The tiger’s face had begun to blur, its stripes curving into a moiré before Rafe’s eyes. He willed the leg to move, willed himself to put weight on it. Pain was a state of mind…to hell with pain…He leaned forward, trusting the strength of the splint. Slowly his weight came down on the broken leg…
Then pain exploded in him, shattering balance and will. The tiger’s face vanished in a swirl of darkness as Rafe pitched helplessly forward. He lay still on the Turkish carpet, at the foot of the brass vase, no longer wondering or caring where he was.
Alex came out through the kitchen onto the back porch, letting the screen door slam behind her. “He’s awake,” she said. “I just saw him.”
Maude Bromley glanced up from her needlepoint. “Oh? Is he hungry? Do you think he’d like some soup? I can send one of the kitchen girls up with a meal.”
“I didn’t ask him.” Alex draped herself sideways across the arms of a wicker chair and fanned herself with a magazine.
“Alex, your manners—”
“He was rude, Mama. More than rude. He was awful! First he grabbed my arms. Then he told me to stop babbling. He didn’t even thank me for saving his life!”
“Well, give him time, dear. He’s had quite a shock. And that sedative Dr. Fleury gave him yesterday afternoon was supposed to make him sleep round the clock. You can hardly blame the young man if he’s not quite himself.”
“Oh, you’re always making excuses for people!” Alex stormed. “For Papa, for everybody, even total strangers!”
“And for you, Alexandra. Something tells me it wasn’t just Mr. Garrick who was rude. If the truth be told, young lady, you’ve a sharp tongue in that pretty head. If you’re ever to find a good husband, you might do well to bridle it.”
Maude had spoken in the gentlest of tones, her thin fingers never missing a stitch of the rose pattern she was outlining in fine, mauve wool. Alex studied her mother, trying to imagine what she had been like as a girl, long before Buck Bromley came into her life. She seemed so controlled now, as if her emotions were encased in glass. Had she ever laughed loud and openly? Had she ever cried into her pillow at night?
Maude had not married young. At twenty-eight she had been an old maid by the terms of the day, a quiet, bookish young woman who’d kept house for her widowed father and worked half days at a nearby public library. Buck had been younger than Maude, uneducated and uncouth. She had taught him how to speak properly and how to eat a six-course dinner without using the wrong fork. Aside from that, what had they ever seen in each other? Alex wondered.
“If I marry, it will be to a man who loves me as I am,” she said, swinging a bare leg over the side of the chair. “Otherwise, I’ll stay single, thank you.”
Maude measured a strand of wool and clipped it with her tiny silver scissors. “Why should love be so important? I was in love with your father, and in the end, what difference did it make?”
The revelation caught Alex off guard. Her lips parted but she did not speak.
Maude smiled her quiet smile and resumed her needlepoint. “Some of the best marriages I know are based on suitability, not love,” she said. “It’s best that way, you know. When a woman is not quite in love with a man, she has…balance, let’s say. She’s able to keep a bit of the power for herself and look at life with her eyes open. When he hurts her—which every man does sooner or later—”
“I would never marry the sort of man who’d hurt me!”
“Time will tell, dear.” Maude’s needle slowed. “But a woman who’s not quite in love can bear the hurt. She can tend to her own affairs and wait for the pain to pass. She can be sensible. On the other hand, a woman who lets herself fall in love with a man gives up everything. He gains total power over her—power to dominate, power to hurt…And he’ll use it. No man can resist using it.” She paused to unravel a tangle in the yarn. Her fingers trembled slightly.
“Mama—” Alex reached out, hesitated, then put her hand back in her lap.
“Never give a man all your love, Alexandra. Always hold back a little for yourself, for your own survival. I know that sounds like cynical advice, but as you grow older, you’ll find it to be quite sound.”
She lowered her bespectacled eyes as if she’d just realized she had said too much. Feeling awkward, Alex gazed at the clouds. Her eyes followed the flight of a storm petrel. Briefly she thought of the aeroplane. How fragile it had looked against the vastness of the sky. How free.
“You’re wrong, Mama,” she said softly. “If I ever get married it will be for love, and nothing else.”
“That’s your choice, dear.” Maude spoke without looking up, as if she had just closed a window in her mind. “I hope you’ll be very happy.”
Alex shaded her eyes and gazed toward the dunes. On the beach, half a dozen men who worked for her father had spent the morning trying to free the wrecked aeroplane from the wet sand before the tide came in. Now she could see them coming up over the rise. They were bringing the flying machine with them, half dragging, half carrying the twisted wreckage onto the lawn.
