Every Breath You Take Read online

  “I’m sorry, madam.”

  Gripping her cane with her right hand and clutching his coat sleeve with her left, Olivia let him guide her slowly toward the house, where Cecil’s butler was already waiting in the lighted doorway. “Do try to eat more, Granger. I used to buy a new car for what clothing costs these days.”

  “Yes, madam.” As he helped her up the three flagstone steps that led to the front door, he said, “How will you let me know when you wish me to come for you?”

  Olivia halted, stiffened, and glowered ferociously at him. “Do not even consider leaving this driveway!” she warned. “We, at least, shall not accede to the whims of a petty tyrant. Park over there under the porte cochere.”

  Cecil’s butler heard that and coolly countermanded the order as he reached out to help her remove her coat. “Your car is to wait outside the gates, not under the porte cochere,” he informed her imperiously as Granger turned and began making his slow way back to the flagstone steps. “Please instruct your driver—”

  “I’ll do nothing of the sort!” she interrupted scathingly, thrusting her cane at him and struggling out of her coat herself. “Granger,” she called after him.

  Granger turned on the second step and looked at her, his silver brows raised inquiringly.

  “While you are parked under the porte cochere, if anyone approaches you, you are to run over them with my car!” Satisfied, she gave the butler a frosty stare. “There’s a black foreign sports car parked under the porte cochere,” she said. “To whom does it belong?”

  “Mr. Mitchell Wyatt,” the butler replied.

  “I knew it would be his!” Olivia exclaimed gleefully, shoving her coat at the butler and snatching her cane out of his grasp. “He is not subject to the whims of a petty tyrant, either,” she proudly informed him. Leaning heavily on her cane, she began making her awkward way across the foyer’s uneven slate floor, toward the sound of voices in the living room. Behind her, the butler said, “Mr. Cecil said you are to await him in his study.”

  Despite her brief show of bravado, Olivia was uneasy about confronting her formidable brother in private. He had an uncanny way of anticipating defiance, even before an outward act took place. Rather than go directly to his study, she angled toward the living room on the left. Stopping beneath the arched entry, she craned her head, hoping to catch sight of an ally—an exceptionally tall, dark-haired man who’d also defied Cecil’s order and parked his own car under the porte cochere.

  The living room was crowded with guests, but there was no sign of Mitchell, nor in the dining room, where more guests were partaking of a lavish buffet. She was retracing her steps back through the living room when Cecil glanced up from the people talking to him and saw her. He stared at her with the cool, speculating expression of a long-standing opponent; then with a curt jerk of his head in the direction of his study, he ordered her to get herself there at once. Olivia put her chin up, but she complied.

  Cecil’s study was on the opposite side of the slate hallway from the living room, beyond the main staircase and toward the rear of the house. Normally, the heavy paneled study doors were closed during large parties to discourage guests from congregating in Cecil’s private domain, but tonight a thin strip of mellow light glowed from between them. With one hand on the door handle, Olivia paused to give her legs and lungs a brief rest; then she straightened her back, lifted her head—and froze in surprise at the scene revealed to her in that narrow shaft of light.

  Mitchell had his arms around William’s wife, and Caroline’s cheek was pressed against his chest, a handkerchief clutched in her hand. “I don’t know how much longer I can go on like this,” she said brokenly, lifting her face to his.

  “We have no choice,” he said flatly, but not unkindly.

  Olivia’s momentary shock gave way to sympathetic understanding. Poor Caroline looked as thin and pale as a waif. Naturally, she’d seek comfort and support from a male family member, but her profligate father was honeymooning somewhere in Europe with his fifth wife, and Cecil would offer her only more of his terse lectures on the need to show strength in times of travail. Caroline’s fourteen-year-old son needed all the comfort his mother could give him, and Caroline put on a brave face for him, but she had no one to lean on herself—no one except Mitchell.

  Olivia felt a rush of gratitude that Mitchell had come into the Wyatt family fold at exactly the right time to help Caroline and Cecil through their grief. Unfortunately, Olivia had the feeling Mitchell wouldn’t “help” Cecil out of a burning house if he had a choice. He obviously had no desire to further a relationship with his family or meet any of their friends, and—worst of all—Olivia was quite certain he intended to leave Chicago very soon and without a word of warning to anyone except Caroline.

  Olivia understood exactly why he felt as he did. The Wyatts had disposed of Mitchell as an infant as if he had been nothing but an offensive piece of litter cluttering up their perfect, tidy lives. She’d known a little about the fate of Edward’s unwanted baby long ago, and Olivia had done nothing to change it; therefore, she accepted Mitchell’s contempt for her as her just deserts. What she could not accept was the thought of his leaving Chicago too soon. She wanted him to get to know her first and realize he could trust her. She wanted him to call her “Aunt Olivia” before he went away. Just one “Aunt Olivia” before he left, and she’d be satisfied. But there was something else Olivia wanted much more, something she had to have from him before it was too late: forgiveness.

  At the moment, however, her most pressing concern was that Cecil might stalk up behind her, yank open the doors to his study, and put an entirely wrong interpretation on the scene inside. Rather than barging in on the couple and, in so doing, make Caroline feel guilty and force Mitchell to give unnecessary explanations, Olivia decided to alert them to her impending arrival. Accordingly, she banged her cane on the heavy door as she fumbled with the latch, and then for good measure, she held her cane out in front of her like a blind person’s walking stick and entered the study, tapping and poking at the oak floor, her gaze fixed upon the old planks as if they weren’t to be trusted with her weight.

  “Do you need more light?” Mitchell asked.

  Olivia raised her head as if surprised by his presence, but it was the irony in Mitchell’s voice that startled her. He stood in front of the fireplace, exactly where he’d been before, but Caroline had dropped into a nearby chair. Olivia’s heart ached at the sight of the dark smudges beneath her hazel eyes. “My poor child,” she said, laying her hand on Caroline’s golden hair.

  Caroline tilted her head back and pressed Olivia’s hand to her cheek instead. “Aunt Olivia,” she said in a forlorn voice.

  Olivia would have stayed at Caroline’s side, but she realized Mitchell had stepped back from the fireplace and was idly surveying the study’s many portraits. The large room was a veritable shrine to the Wyatts, with framed portraits of every size and description crowding the walls and covering the mantel. This was the first overt indication she’d seen him give that he had any interest whatsoever in any of the Wyatts—or at least Olivia wanted to think this was an indication of interest. “That is your great-grandfather,” she told him, moving to his side and gesturing to the portrait above the fireplace. “Do you see the resemblance?”

  “To what?” he said, deliberately mocking the notion.

  “To you,” Olivia persevered stubbornly, but he shot her a cold warning glance—one that looked exactly like those warning glances of his great-grandfather’s; then he slid one hand into his pants pocket and strolled a few paces away. Olivia heeded his warning, but she watched him from the corner of her eye, hoping for another opportunity to chip away at his glacial defenses if he showed interest in a different portrait.

  Cecil always kept people waiting; it proved his superiority over them. Normally it annoyed Olivia when he did it to her, but now she hoped he’d keep them waiting here for an hour. A few moments later, Mitchell paused to study another portrait, an