Endangered Hearts, page 7
He had a vision, then: the little peach slaying herself against the wind, rain and sleet filling what remained of her elderly boots, pieces of ice as the sun set sticking to her hair.
How pale she probably looked when cold, how terrible it must be to have her shiver and curse his name because of it. Instantly, he swore at the forethought, wanting to drown himself in medications and alcohol to rid his mind of the images.
“I see.” Kasper stepped to the window, closing his hands behind him tightly to avoid the palms that were sweating so openly now. He had only come down to the kitchen in a last effort to prevent the ladies from speaking any further about him, but now, it seemed that he had a chance to remedy some of the slight problems that burdened the little peach. He wondered if he wouldn’t be damned if he didn’t at least try.
“From now on, you will bring your vehicle to the house.”
Emilia and Mrs. Levkin startled at the same time, the older of the ladies almost spitting up the tea in her mouth. Surely he had misspoken! What were the odds that they had both misheard him?
Yet Emilia had heard the slight change in Kasper’s voice and knew it indicated something more than his words were saying.
“Excuse me?”
“Did I not enunciate enough for you, Ms. Ward?”
“No,” she began. “I’m just, uh—”
“You’re ‘uh’? Not, amazed? Astonished? Astounded? Come now, Ms. Ward, I know your vocabulary includes far more than ‘uh’ and ‘um.’”
“Grateful.” Emilia’s nearly shouted the word in between a bout of laughter. It was funny to her to see Kasper go off on tangents. The way he spouted on reminded her of a politician—still, she knew it wasn’t really who he was. Who he was, was a man who appreciated beauty, culture, and a world he thought didn’t want him. He was a man who did not want to be alone but thought he had to be.
“I know my car is fiercely ugly.” Her smile warmed him and caused the burning ache in his chest yet again, though while it was a powerful feeling, it was not entirely unpleasant. “I appreciate the gesture.” She was mocking him, wasn’t she? Trying to confuse him with her mixed meanings and kind smile? Kasper admittedly couldn’t take it. For all the hours he had spent rehearsing what he would say to her, how he would respond if she refuted him again, it was all for nothing. No amount of coaching could prepare him for the way she made him feel.
He fled the room, uncaring of the queer look Mrs. Levkin gave him, and the words he could not evacuate from his head.
Admirers. HA!
Kasper laughed long after he had taken his medications and successfully barricaded himself into his office. Foolish girls should be scolded for such naiveté.
That evening, he dreamed just that.
Somewhere in his subconscious, he had decided she would be impossible to keep still. Though this infuriated him, it also kept him excited to the point of pain. Since, with her squirming and his inability to harm her, the challenge to do what he wanted was even more difficult than he originally theorized. In spite of that, he was rewarded with each touch by a new sound from her. Sometimes a whimper, other times a hybrid of a sigh and a whine. And miraculously, she was as sensitive as he had hoped and responded despite her own words, despite the many cries of “stop,” “please,” and “don’t,” that her perfect mouth formed.
She cried freely, and he kissed the tears away.
Kasper awoke from his dream, crying himself, not unlike he did as a child, the physical need now gone, and only shame where relief should have been.
Chapter 6
Ecosystem Interruption
After cleaning the second floor, Emilia proceeded to the first. As she did so, she let her fingers trail down the banister, and hummed the same aria she was listening to on her MP3 player. She had asked Mrs. Levkin who had actually laughed at how nervous she was to ask the simple request. Still, Emilia had wanted to make sure anyway, since music was the only thing that reduced her anxiety anymore. As of late, focusing on the notes and verses was the only thing that could deter her from the feeling of eyes on her.
She sighed as she wandered into the library. It was, without question, her favorite room in the house. With crisp, cream-colored walls and a cedar fireplace, there would have been a cozy atmosphere about the library, had it not been for the glorious black and red Persian rug, and the fine leather furniture. Still, Emilia liked the smell of the pine wood oil she used to clean the bookcases, and the combined scent of ink on paper. The slight hum of the dehumidifier soothed her, as did the sights of the book backs and antiques.
Emilia also took great care in dusting a vintage record player, historic in every respect. She herself had a great love of vinyl music, though she had never possessed any of her own. Yet today, as she dusted the caddy beside the record player, the handle came undone enough for her to peer inside. Curiosity getting the best of her, Emilia looked both ways before gently opening the rest of the cabinet door. She had already slipped into that abyss of looking into her employer’s business life, so now it seemed almost perverse not to know if he at the very least had respectable taste in music.
Carefully, and even timing her breathing so as not to disturb the fragile work inside, Emilia withdrew a record. The cover art of Puccini’s La Tosca was as perfect as she imagined the record inside was, though she didn’t dare take it out to see for herself. Instead, she gently put it back, feeling the energy course through her like a fresh shot of adrenaline. She was the instigator of a treasure hunt, the head archeologist on an expedition, and she had just found the prize of all prizes.
Even the cover of Don Giovanni circa 1967 was flawless, amazingly, so were La Boheme and Madame Butterfly. Emilia admired them, but like the ones before them, she didn’t withdraw the records from their casings. What she would have given to listen to a single aria! With the acoustics of that house, she could only image how—
“Ms. Ward!”
Startled, Emilia nearly dropped the record altogether. Luckily, protectiveness inspired her instead, prompting her to clutch the cover of Der Freischütz to her chest. “Huh? What?”
“What indeed!”
“Oh.” Emilia laughed over her relief. “It’s just you,” she mumbled. “You startled me.”
Kasper could hardly believe what he was hearing. He had startled her? Now she was smiling, laughing to see him? He had done well to avoid any face-to-face interaction with the girl, remaining on the third floor prior to her arrival and staying there long after she was gone. Kasper was being tolerant, tasteful even, he thought, but this… this girl lacked any general respect towards him. Just him? What in the hell had she meant by that? And now, laughing! She was laughing at him! The behavior was unacceptable.
“I would think a thief would have to be more regularly prepared to be caught.”
She looked at the record in her hand and back at him, her eyes narrowing with confusion. “Thief?”
“You are helping yourself to my record collection, are you not?”
Kasper swiped the record from her hand, forcing Emilia to be shoved to the side inadvertently. Emilia could just faintly smell his cologne, something with sandalwood and amber, as he brushed passed her. Emilia could only identify it as intoxicating and brutal. And while it may not have been intentional, the sudden movement brought the couple closer than they had ever been, and both of them had to pause momentarily to absorb that fact.
“I wasn’t stealing.” Emilia remained seated even as Kasper hurried to return the records to their places. Kasper had already known this, of course; however, he had nothing else to confront her with, and so, he swallowed hard and turned his gaze to her as she struggled to collect the stringed thing around her ears.
“A likely thing for a thief to say.” He hissed the words, intending to frighten the little peach. When she did not recoil—as he had planned—his body betrayed him, making the mistake of inhaling much too sharply, breathing her scent into his lungs. Then, all too sudden as he looked into the softness of her eyes, he imagined the essence of Emilia Ward swarming through his body, like oxygen, invisible and everywhere. The idea overwhelmed him instantly, revving his heart and making the room swirl. He had to turn away.
“I’ve never stolen anything in my life, Mr. Zafar, and frankly, I resent the accusation. You can ask anyone I’ve ever worked for if you don’t believe me.”
She sighed, mistaking Kasper’s clenched fists for anger instead of what they really were—an attempt to keep them from shaking. With his face still turned from her, it was impossible for Emilia to see how he struggled to breathe.
“Please don’t fire me.” Less wicked now, she restrained her voice, and it made her feel smaller than she wanted to.
Her eyes widened when he offered Emilia his hand, but she took it and he lifted her up with a simple but gentle tug of his elbow, trying not to think of the fact that she had yet to take her eyes from him, that she had not yet recoiled.
“Why shouldn’t I?”
She smiled then, but his medical condition would not allow him to enjoy it while his heart continued to beat violently. He knew without question he would have died right then and there if she were to continue smiling like that.
“Because I am good at what I do. Mrs. Levkin and Mr. Shiraz like me, and I seriously doubt you’ll ever find an English speaking housekeeper who appreciates your taste in music.”
He glanced at the record player.
“Not stealing, then, just snooping?”
Her smile faded instantly and he could have whipped himself.
“It wasn’t that—”
“Well, then, Ms. Ward?” He closed his eyes against the black dots that flooded the room. “What?”
“It’s difficult to explain—”
“Try!”
“I would if you would quit interrupting me!” she snapped, her eyes growing wide the instant she realized how she had talked back. Emilia threw her hands over her mouth, mortified, yet strangely enough, Kasper’s demeanor relaxed. Even his voice sounded a touched amused.
“Go on, then.”
Emilia had to remind herself to breathe. What did he want from her, to make an idiot out of her before he fired her? Logically, she knew he didn’t really care about what she thought, that her opinion didn’t matter. Yet his air encouraged her anyway, giving her a feeling of safety that she could express herself without fear of consequences, and she knew she couldn’t pass up that opportunity.
“When people have an extensive income, they tend it spend it on frivolous, downright stupid things. But when they don’t—” She sighed. She wasn’t even close to explaining this the way she wanted to. “What a person spends their money on says a lot about them. It isn’t just about what they like, but their values. The woman who leaves all her money to her cats or the couple who buys a private plane and they’re both afraid of flying…” Kasper was most amused to see the little peach roll her eyes and immediately shrug. “People can say whatever they want about themselves, but acts really do speak louder than words.”
“Ah, you mean, ‘money talks’?”
She laughed. Oh, sweet, merciful God—he had made her laugh!
“In your case, I suppose so.”
“And what is your conclusion, Ms. Ward?”
Emilia bit her lip as her laughter lapsed. “I’d rather not say.”
She tried to walk away, but he stopped her and, before thinking the action through entirely, took her elbow in his own disfigured but gloved hand.
“No, Ms. Ward, enlighten me. What could a naive schoolgirl possibly think she knows about me, about the life I have lived?”
“Only that maybe,” she said quietly, “you have been more sad than most.”
The softness of her voice and the gravity of her words caused him to loosen his grip on her, and Emilia Ward slipped from his grip.
“You are a very foolish girl, Ms. Ward. A very foolish girl.”
***
With the same concentration required of his profession, Kasper used the pick to dig out the small tuffs of white grass and gravel from Konrad’s hoof. He was always careful not to hit the frog, and today this particular task and the focus it required, kept the face of Ms. Emilia Grace Ward from his mind’s eye. For this, he was both glad and frustrated. Glad, of course, that the horses always had something for him to do when he grew weary of his occupation, but frustrated that he had to be distracted to be begin with.
Sad? Sad? A brazen thing for such a silly little girl to say. Kasper regularly observed the conversations between her and Katherine, and he could recall Katherine having made no mention of his past or his condition. Aasif certainly knew better than to speak about the past, and yet still she had known. It was as though she were some mind reader or spell-caster, a siren tempting him to crash on the rocks. All of those theories were ridiculous, certainly, yet the question still remained: how did she know?
How did she know?
For a moment, Kasper considered that her intuition came from knowing animals. At that, he wiped Konrad’s eyes and nose with a soft cloth. Once again, he had been looking over her grades and had reached the conclusion that they were quite good for someone of her background. Without financial means or private education, she was doing rather well for herself. Perhaps, then, she was more intelligent than he had originally given her credit for.
Considering those circumstances, why would she withdraw her application for graduate school? Though Ms. Ward had already been accepted into the prominent Cornell School of Veterinary Medicine, she had declined the offer of admittance. Yet for the life of him, Kasper could not figure out why. Had she suddenly lost her ambition for learning? He doubted it, considering she still attended her classes with the vigor of any young student. Why, then? What could keep her from doing what she so clearly had a passion for—or at least had a passion for when she applied?
It was a strange correlation of facts, and yet it was only that, facts: random bits of knowledge that could offer him pieces of Emilia Ward, but no substance to fulfill the puzzle. While she, on the other hand, seemed to automatically see right through him. Though he had been watching her while she gallivanted about his house, obviously, he had learned nothing.
Damn her all to hell, but she had seduced him into watching her outside of the manor as well. On that first day, it had not been difficult to find her. He had settled the Mercedes farther from her than he wanted to, watching from afar and coming close each day with a different vehicle. Kasper hoped that this attempt at a disguise would shield him from suspicion, because if she was as bright as he suspected, then she might notice a car that so clearly did not fit the neighborhood.
Emilia Ward lived in a duplex. Kasper had quickly deduced that the larger woman he saw around that dwelling was her mother, or possibly another relative. She had hair color not unlike the little peach, only thin with streaks of orange—Kasper guessed a poor attempt to cover additional signs of aging. This woman’s chin also had a similar shape to the little peach’s, but those were the only comparable features between them. Once, Kasper had heard the man who escorted her refer to her as “Susie-Q.” Kasper still didn’t know the man’s name but did not care, as he had seen his greedy eyes peering into the bedroom window he knew to be Emilia’s more than once; titles aside, Kasper decided that if the opportunity ever arose, he would scoop those eyes out with a spoon.
The arguing had started subtly, like a bad smell. Then, it took over until it was all she could hear, though, unlike a smell, she couldn’t open any windows for ventilation. When Susan’s and George’s voices first came through the wall, she had covered her ears but quickly gave up, going instead for her MP3 player. Though she was tired, and not entirely in the mood for opera, Emilia knew from experience it was better to rely on the fictional tragedies of others instead of her own.
“You wouldn’t know sexy if it hit you in the face!”
The sound of thrashing was unmistakable, and even through the prelude of Carmen, Emilia couldn’t ignore it.
“There!” George laughed. “Maybe now you’ll know it! You can do something about yourself…”
He continued to chuckle as Emilia rushed out of bed, reaching for her phone as quickly and quietly as she could. Unfortunately, this was a practice she was too familiar with as her mother’s jealousies—fictional or otherwise—led to regular battles between the couple.
“Fine! Leave, then!”
Emilia crept out of her bedroom, slowly, trying to decide if she should leave her phone behind or go ahead and call 911. The sound of George’s truck starting up, however, convinced her that it was safe to emerge without backup. Also, the soft sound of her mother’s crying told her that medical attention probably wasn’t necessary in the sense that she was at least conscious.
Slipping on a sweater over her nightgown, Emilia wiped the sleep from her eyes. Hopefully, this episode would not be too dramatic and she could return to bed quickly. If not, it would be another long night of talking her mother from the edge, and if she was honest with herself, Emilia was not feeling patient enough for that.
“Mom?” Emilia played with the thread where her sweater missed a button. She found Susan easily, sitting on the linoleum floor while her too-tight dress obstructed a spill gathering from the countertop. “Hey, baby.” She sniffed. “When did you get in?”
Emilia took notice of her mother’s messy hair and tear-stained face. Since it was just after two in the morning, she guessed that she and George had just left a bar somewhere—willingly or otherwise. “I’ve been asleep for awhile now, Mom.”
“Oops.” Susan only pretended to look shocked. “Did I wake you, sweetie?”
Emilia smiled and reached for a towel hanging from the refrigerator handle. With it, she began cleaning the mess, breathing through her mouth to avoid the beer stench.
