Relative Strangers Part 9

"Stress does do funny things to a person," he said, "but I'd like to think what we feel for each other when we're together isn't the result of anything more mysterious than a strong mutual attraction. I like you, Corrie. In fact, I'd like to-"

He broke off, perplexed, when he realized her gaze was fixed on the hotel ahead.

As he looked into her stricken face, he saw her close her eyes, then open them again. At once she drew in a sharp breath. Then she jerked away from him and began to run toward the hotel.

He caught up with her just as she was climbing the wide stairs to the veranda. "Corrie?" He grabbed her by the forearms, turning her to face him and giving her a little shake to get her attention.

When her expression remained as blank as a clean slate, Lucas didn't hesitate. Heedless of curious stares, he picked Corrie up and carried her into the hotel.

As soon as the warm air in the lobby hit her, she snapped out of her trance. Docility vanished as she started to struggle. "What are you doing? Put me down."

He ignored her rancorous words and strode toward the bank of elevators. "Did you know," he said, maintaining a conversational tone and pausing to smile politely at pa.s.sing hotel guests, "that this elevator operates in the same shaft used by the first one ever installed in the hotel, way back in Adrienne's day?"

"Do tell." Nettled, Corrie fixed her gaze on the panel, watching the slow-moving floor indicator drift toward the L.

"It was considered quite innovative back in 1883. Advertised as very safe, being hydraulic. A cable opened a valve that allowed water to enter the shaft and that forced the elevator to ascend. To descend, the water was slowly released to lower the elevator. The only problem came when they wanted to hold it steady at one floor. It tended to drift."

The elevator stopped on the second floor.

"It could do with a little drift right now." Corrie sounded miffed. "And you can put me down anytime."

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He'd been babbling like some fool tour guide in an absurd attempt to make it seem that carrying a woman through the lobby was a normal, everyday thing to do.

For the first time in his life, Lucas Sinclair of the Sinclair House wished all the hotel's paying guests would simply disappear. He wanted to be alone with Corrie. He wanted to tell her he cared about her, that he was worried about her.

And he wanted to find out what on earth, or off it, had caused her to behave as she had just now. But he had the feeling he already knew the answer to that question.

Maybe babbling wasn't such a bad way to go.

"Electric communicators were installed at about the same time," he said brightly as another couple pa.s.sed by and gave them a curious look. "Those were the first intercoms. We also had an electric light plant in use by 1881. Electric lights were installed in all the public rooms and in the bathrooms."

"I've read the literature," Corrie informed him, and paraphrased Adrienne's text to prove it: "Standard furnishings included sitz baths, showers, pink marble washbasins, and vases of peac.o.c.k feathers. The baths were vented with electric exhaust fans guaranteed to eliminate 'noxious fumes.'"

At last the elevator door opened. Lucas stepped inside, still carrying Corrie. Only when they were safely enclosed by the cage did he let her go. As her legs slid languidly down his body, he shifted the arm that had been supporting her lower back and curved it around her shoulders. He wasn't about to let go of her completely, not until they were safe in her room.

Corrie continued to look a trifle dazed, and she offered no word of protest when he ushered her out of the elevator on the third floor and steered her down the hall toward her door. Rachel came out of her room across the hail as he was using his master key to unlock Corrie's door. One look at her friend's pale face had her rushing to join them.

Inside, Corrie discarded her coat, revealing a pale blue sweater that matched her eyes, and drifted to the window. Lucas knew she was staring down at the roof of the veranda.

"Have you seen Adrienne again?" Rachel demanded.

Lucas started to say yes, but Corrie spoke before he could get the word out. "It wasn't even the same century."

"What the h.e.l.l?" He'd been prepared, more or less, to cope with another Adrienne sighting. This unexpected announcement threw him a curve.

"There was a peculiar smell in the air," Corrie said. "Smoke, I think. In fact, I'm pretty sure it must have been, and the year had to be 1947." Her voice started to shake. "During the wildfires."

Lucas almost lost his temper then. What kind of credulous fool did she take him for?

"Start at the beginning," Rachel cut in. "What exactly did you see?"

Corrie shook her head, as if to clear her thoughts, and set a cloud of soft brown hair swirling. Lucas swallowed hard. He didn't like this one bit, but he might as well let her talk. He braced himself for more unwelcome revelations.

"Lucas and I were taking a walk and I had just glanced toward the hotel," Corrie said, "when suddenly the daylight seemed to dim. Then the snow-covered ground and the bare branches faded away. In their place was a rolling lawn just beginning to turn brown. Trees still had the last colorful leaves of autumn clinging to their branches. I was standing on a gravel path, not flagstones." She frowned, trying to recall details. "It was bordered by a low-growing plant. Hyssop, I think."

Startled, Lucas almost spoke. How could she possibly know that? He only knew because the alterations had been made when he was a teenager and he remembered the gardener complaining. Old Ernest hadn't liked change.

Corrie continued to stare out the window. Lucas couldn't make out her expression, but the timbre of her voice told him she believed every word she said. "I saw three people posed on the veranda, waiting while a photographer took their picture."

Of course, Lucas thought. That explained it. She'd seen a picture of the old path to the pond. That's how she knew about the hyssop and the gravel.

"They were on vacation," Corrie continued, "but they were going to cut their stay short because of the increasing fire danger in the area."

"Who were these people?" Lucas asked.

"A girl and her parents."

"Girl? The girl who supposedly saw Adrienne's ghost?"

"I think so." Corrie finally turned and met his eyes. Her face was ashen, her expression fearful. "Lucas, I recognized her. I've seen the photograph they had taken that day."

He knew in advance he wouldn't like her reply, but he asked anyway. "Who was she?"

Corrie drew in a deep, strengthening breath before blurting out her answer. "That girl was my mother."

CHAPTER SEVEN.

Lucas didn't believe her.

Corrie could see it in his eyes the moment she made her startling announcement.

To his credit, he didn't immediately turn his back and stalk out of her room, though she thought he might secretly want to. He seemed too concerned about her emotional state to follow through on the impulse. The realization that he cared warmed her heart even as it complicated her feelings.

"Don't humor me," she warned as he started to speak. "I know it sounds preposterous. I wouldn't believe me if I told myself such a story."

"Corrie, I . . ." His voice trailed off, and he raked his fingers through his hair. "I don't know what to say. Or what to believe."

"Just don't suggest a shrink. This time I know what I saw."

Rachel cleared her throat. "Y'know, you're overlooking something here. Remember when I first suggested we come to the Sinclair House? You got an odd look on your face and then you agreed without a bit of argument. Why?"

"I don't know. Maybe the name had a familiar ring to it." A positive one, she remembered. She'd jumped at the invitation because it felt right. She'd thought at the time that she was simply glad of any excuse to be hundreds of miles away from her father and brothers at Christmas, but what if it had been more than that?

"Could your mother have stayed here and talked about the place?" Rachel went on. "Maybe even mentioned the portrait of Adrienne? Kids tuck the most amazing things away in their subconscious, and you always did have a wild imagination."

"You're saying I dreamed all this up from stories I heard about my mother's visit to the Sinclair House when she was a child? But I don't remember being told any!"

Relief plain in his voice, Lucas spoke. "We have old registers. I can check for her name."

"Alice Todd. Her parents were Mary and David Todd."

Corrie worried her lower lip with her teeth. Something wasn't right about this explanation. Oh, she'd like it to be true, but it wouldn't account for everything. It didn't account for Horatio.

"I'd like to be alone now," she said abruptly. "I need to think."

As soon as Lucas and Rachel had left, Corrie headed for the phone. On Christmas Day, when she had called to tell her father where she was spending the holidays, he'd said he'd heard of the Sinclair House.

Now she needed to know where and when.

That it probably had something to do with her mother made phoning him awkward. Since her death they'd both avoided mention of Alice Ballantyne. The pain of losing her still ran deep. So did Corrie's resentment. And her sense of guilt.

With a troubled mind, she dialed the number. She nearly hung up before it rang.

Ten minutes later she was no less troubled, but she did have a few answers. Her mother had stayed at the Sinclair House when she was barely in her teens. That fit the date 1947. She hadn't spoken of the visit often, Corrie's father had said, but she had told him that it had been a "unique" experience. She'd suggested spending a vacation there once, hut they'd decided it would be too expensive.

"I'm sorry now we didn't splurge," Donald Ballantyne had said. He sounded remorseful, as if he wished he'd recognized how much such a trip would have meant to his wife. "I thought that's why you picked the place. Because she'd talked about it to you."

She never had. Not that Corrie could recall. And wouldn't she remember if her mother had mentioned seeing a ghost when she was young?

"Corrie?" Her father sounded worried.

"Sorry, Daddy. I was trying to piece a few things together. Do you ever remember seeing an old photograph of Mother and her parents? One that might have been taken here at the Sinclair House?"

"Doesn't ring a bell, but I could look through Alice's belongings if you want." He sighed deeply. "We need to go through those boxes in the attic. Get some closure."

Corrie didn't want to hear this. "Daddy, I-"

"Your sisters-in-law had a few things to say on Christmas Day about the way your brothers and I expected you to take your mother's place. Opened our eyes a bit." He hesitated, then said, "I grieve every day for my Alice, and not just because she left me behind to fend for myself, either. I loved your mother, Corrie. I'd have died in her place if I could have."

An uneasy silence ensued. Corrie didn't want to talk about her mother, except in the limited context of Alice's long-ago visit to the Sinclair House. Not now. And not over the phone.

"I have to go, Daddy. I'll be back home next weekend."

She broke the connection quickly, then felt guilty for all but hanging up on him.

Soon, she promised herself. Soon she'd gather the courage to tell her father how she felt, why she was having so much trouble forgiving him for her mother's death. Why she was having so much trouble forgiving herself.

That night Corrie tossed restlessly, unsuccessfully courting sleep until she finally abandoned the effort and scooted toward the head of the bed, plumped the pillows behind her, and turned on the lamp on the bedside table. She'd been trying for days to read the novel that lay there. Tonight she vowed she'd succeed.

Then she remembered the red file folder Joyce had sent to the room along with two cartons full of photographs and memorabilia from Adrienne's era. Corrie had gone through the boxes but found nothing to give her any hint of the ghost's purpose in returning from the dead.

The folder contained the Sinclair family tree. She had only glanced at it the previous day; now it drew her. She got out of bed, put on her robe, and curled up in the room's overstuffed chair to study it more closely.

The file contained only one sheet of paper, a hand-drawn chart that included both the Meads and the Sinclairs. Joyce had annotated it here and there to make the connections clearer.

Micah Mead, father to Adrienne and Horatio, was at the top of the page. Corrie saw that Horatio had been more than a decade older than his sister. According to Joyce's notes, Micah and Horatio had opened the Phoenix Inn in 1868. The next year Adrienne had married their chief compet.i.tor, Lucas Sinclair.

Skipping to the next generation, Corrie's gaze immediately fell on the name Jonathan Mead. She remembered that she'd dreamed about him. Afterward, the dream had faded, and so too had her curiosity about him. She'd never even thought to ask anyone who he was.

According to the family tree, he was Horatio's son, born in 1875. She glanced back at the line that showed the date of his parents' marriage. Also 1875. No months or days were written on the chart, but it didn't look to Corrie as if the boy was legally a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. That left the other sense of the word, as she'd thought when she first woke up.

What did he have to do with anything? She found no answer, so she read on, skimming the rest of the chart. Jonathan had had a younger sister named Marguerite, born in 1878. According to Joyce's dates, Marguerite had died when she was only eighteen. Corrie shook her head. So many people had lived such short lives in those days.

For a moment her attention wandered to the other side of the chart. Joyce had mentioned that the Sinclair men were known for their longevity, and Corrie saw at once that this was true. There was Justus Sinclair, Hugh's father, who'd lived to be ninety. And his father and grandfather before him had achieved similar life spans.

The women hadn't fared as well. Corrie suspected that they'd been worn out by hard work, since there didn't seem to be evidence of excessive childbearing. In each generation of Sinclairs there was just one child, a son to carry on the Sinclair name and tradition. A son to run the Sinclair House.

The Mead side of the chart wasn't much more prolific. Erastus Mead, Jonathan's son, had produced one daughter, another Marguerite, who had become Stanley Kelvin's mother. Joyce had put the nickname Rita in parentheses after Marguerite.

There were no answers on this chart, Corrie decided, though she continued to stare at it until her eyelids grew heavy. Before she realized what was happening, she fell asleep in the chair.

She woke with a start. Again.

She'd been dreaming. Again.

And again she could not remember much of the dream, except that Marguerite, Horatio's daughter, had been in it. Adrienne and her niece had been discussing the paltry wages paid to hotel workers in the 1890s.

A glimmer of a memory from her own childhood surfaced in Corrie's mind. Her mother's mother, Mary Hanover Todd, had been the one to tell Corrie and her brothers about her own mother, Daisy. As a young woman, Daisy Hanover had done what Grandma Mary called "slave labor" in the kitchen of a resort hotel in the Catskills. She'd stood, hour after hour, washing dishes until her hands were nothing but red blotches and peeling skin.

As Rachel had recently reminded her, the story had a romantic and happy ending. At least Corrie had thought so when she was young. In their free time, the hotel employees had been permitted to socialize with one another. A young man who worked at the resort had courted Daisy, spending hours with her in one of the huge hammocks strung between giant trees on the hotel grounds. Eventually, he'd married her and taken her away from the drudgery of working for strangers.

Corrie reached for the family tree that had fallen to the floor while she slept. There was Marguerite, all right, the young woman who had died at eighteen. Corrie wondered if she'd lived long enough to fall in love. How sad it was to have had such a short life, and to have that life reduced to two lines on a chart.

Sighing, Corrie stood and stretched. It was almost dawn. She might as well stay up. And today, she remembered, was Monday, when she'd planned to go digging for information about Adrienne at the local library.

Was it worth the effort? What if there wasn't any ghost? What if it had all been her imagination?

If she had any common sense, she thought, she'd abandon this fruitless quest and concentrate on finding out where her attraction to Lucas Sinclair might lead. One thing was certain. All this paranormal business was doing more to drive them apart than bring them together.

Focus on the possible, she lectured herself. Forget romance. Stop remembering how right it had felt to kiss Lucas Sinclair.

She had a connection to Adrienne in her mother's visit to the hotel. At the moment that only produced more questions, but Corrie thought she might be able to discover something at the library about events in 1947, something that would give her a clue.

Having a specific goal gave a lightness to her steps as she headed for the bathroom and a long, leisurely soak in the tub. It was a new day. She'd make a fresh start. She'd figure this out.

And she'd find a way to deal with her irrational fondness for Lucas Sinclair too.

Adrienne muttered an unladylike curse.