"What can I do for you, Vienna?"

Mason wasn't used to hesitance in her adversary, but Vienna seemed to be fighting emotions she did not want witnessed. An uncertain smile fed her face and she stood with her hands clasped before her. A sunbeam burnished the fine, loose hairs that floated out around her head. She looked frail and easily bruised, hemmed in by the tortured trees and shrubs, their long predatory fingers plucking at her thin skirt.

"Mrs. Danville let me in," she said, moving farther along the path toward Mason. Her steps were gingerly taken, avoiding broken bricks, encroaching plants, and a finely wrought bird's nest still that still held the fragments of a blue egg. "Could we talk?"

Another step and Mason would be able to touch her. The thought made her hands tingle. "Please, go ahead."

As if she knew she was about to ask a strange question, Vienna covered her mouth for a split second before letting the words rush out. "Do you know why Hugo shot Benedict?"

Mason raised her eyebrows. She'd expected a different line of attack. A conversation about DNA samples from the night of the ball and what they would reveal. "You want us to compare notes a hundred and forty years after the fact."

Vienna's dreamy blue-green eyes met hers. "It's long overdue."

"Okay, so...why did he shoot him?"

"I can't say for sure, but Benedict was Estelle's father and I have the correspondence to prove it." Vienna seemed to be waiting for an explosive reaction, swaying forward a little on the b.a.l.l.s of her feet.

Mason said calmly, "Strange, isn't it, how that changes things."

Vienna held her gaze. "You knew?"

"I've been doing my own research, and I had an expert in the house all morning. We went through my father's papers."

"What do you think happened back then?" Vienna asked.

"I think Estelle didn't know whose baby she was carrying." Mason heard a swift intake of breath.

"The baby...are you sure?"

Mason decided not to embark on the psychic angle immediately. She was still trying to absorb all she'd heard from Phoebe Temple and the discoveries she'd made in her father's office.

"Estelle drowned herself after her son was born because she couldn't live with her guilt," Mason said. "I found her suicide note."

Vienna cupped her hands to her face in horror. "She was having an affair with Truman? Even after they found out they were half-siblings?"

"No. Truman was her first love, but Hugo was her husband and it seems as though they were happy."

Vienna frowned. "Then what went wrong? What did her note say?"

"It was a letter to Hugo. She said that after their marriage she was raped by Benedict. He was in a rage over the diamonds. Truman had bought them without his permission, then they were sold at a loss when the engagement couldn't proceed. The old man thought he was ent.i.tled to recompense in kind and extracted it from Estelle."

"His own daughter?" Vienna gasped in disgust. "Oh, my G.o.d."

The story was hard to tell. Mason kept herself in check by pausing to take slow breaths. "When Estelle found she was pregnant she was terrified that she might be carrying Benedict's child. She was very depressed after he was born."

"And she took her own life," Vienna whispered.

"She blamed herself for the rape," Mason said. "In the letter she told Hugo what Benedict had done. A few days later Hugo went to Beacon Hill and shot him."

"What else could he do?" Vienna murmured. Her face was very pale. "Did Hugo tell Truman why he did it?"

"He must have, and I guess Truman didn't believe him."

Vienna seemed to be taking Mason's measure. Strange that for all her scheming, she could keep her regard so steady, drawing her close, exactly the way Mason drew a nervous horse. Holding open a door, but making no demand.

With quiet resignation, she said, "I wish I knew the truth about the night of the ball." She hugged herself and rocked slightly on her heels. "I'm not an idiot. They think they're protecting me by not talking about it."

"You've also been protecting them," Mason said with an edge of cynicism.

Vienna lowered her arms and turned her head away. Her tone hardened. "I'm not the only one. Mrs. Danville's been lying to protect the Cavender name all these years. Can you look me in the face and deny it?"

When Mason was silent, Vienna closed the few paces between them. Anger seemed to jolt her hands up to Mason's face, setting off a defensive tremor that made her muscles knot. Every nerve quickened. Mason heard a dry swallow and thought it was her own until she saw Vienna part her lips.

"Well?"

Somehow, despite the paralysis of throat and body, Mason's heart continued to beat and her lungs to inflate. "No, I can't deny it."

They stood very still. Vienna slid her hands from Mason's face to her shoulders, using her for balance. Her full, beautiful mouth was trembling. With every short, shallow breath, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s rose and fell sharply. She didn't shrink back when Mason put a steadying arm around her waist.

"Tell me, Mason." The plea was raw.

There was no going back. Mason had the sense that she was balanced on the edge of a precipice between two worlds. The leap from past to future was impossibly far and she was filled with dread at the risk she would have to take, yet she was weary of her lonely exile. Even that banishment she could have endured indefinitely, if it meant sparing Vienna sorrow. But she could see her silence had produced the opposite effect.

"It's not my father she's been protecting," she said finally. "It's me."

"You?"

She heard the wounded sigh a split second before she felt the air leave Vienna's body. Her red hair swung forward and she seemed to fold at the waist. Mason caught her as her legs gave way, and then held her tightly, outlasting her ineffectual struggles. Vienna threw her head back and the wild green of the garden seemed to wash into her eyes, enlarging them before coursing into her lashes and down her cheeks. One of her fists few free, landing a glancing blow to Mason's jaw.

Mason caught the wrist and locked it behind Vienna, forcing her in, trapping her. Their bodies were crushed so tightly, she could feel Vienna's heart slamming against her own.

"Stop fighting me and listen," she said next to Vienna's ear. "It's not what you think."

Vienna turned her head away and twisted helplessly. "Let me go."

"Not a chance. We should have had this conversation a long time ago."

Vienna kept up her struggles for a few more seconds, then drooped against her. "I don't believe it." She almost seemed to be talking to herself. "You would never do that."

Mason let her lips brush the gossamer skin where Vienna's cheekbone protruded. "No. You're right. I would never hurt you."

"I was raped." Vienna's voice caught on a sob. "Everyone thinks they can hide it from me, but I know."

Mason shook her head. "Do you really think I'd allow that to happen?"

Vienna's eyes narrowed. "What are you saying?"

"I was too late to stop him from knocking you unconscious, but I stopped him before he could do anything else."

"You were there?" Vienna's mouth trembled. "You saw him?"

"I dragged him off you and we slugged it out."

Why didn't you say so?" Vienna halted, a hand at her throat. "Oh, no...no. You were protecting your father."

"No," Mason said starkly, breaking the promise she'd made to hold up the Cavender end of the bargain. "Your family was protecting Andy Rossiter." She paused, trying to fight off her self-disgust. "I should have turned that disgusting creep over to the cops the night it happened."

"Andy?" Vienna whispered, her eyes wide and dark with disbelief.

Mason tightened her embrace. "I beat him up pretty badly. Your family could have had me charged with attempted murder."

From the dawning realization on Vienna's face, it was clear that she could see where this was going. "The meeting..."

"Yes, your father and mine came up with a deal. My silence in exchange for theirs."

Tears rolled down Vienna's cheeks. "My parents let him get away with attacking me...they blackmailed you to be silent. They blamed your father..."

"There was something else, too." Mason took a small pouch from her pocket and emptied the contents into Vienna's hand.

"Le Fantome?" Vienna asked in bewilderment.

"It must have come off your necklace during the struggle. Your father gave it to mine. His payment for allowing himself to be blamed. I found it in Dad's desk with the agreement they signed."

"And my father made up that story about the replica stone having to be replaced. G.o.d, I've been so...gullible."

Mason lowered her head. "Vienna, please forgive me. Letting your aunt drive off with Andy was the worst mistake of my life."

"No." Vienna shrugged helplessly. "You're not the criminal. He is. I can't believe they covered this up."

The garden seemed to ebb, leaving them stranded alone on an island. The air was so heavy they could almost swim in it. Mason eased her grip and they floated out, each still anch.o.r.ed by the other.

"I love you," she said. "I've always loved you, Vienna."

She heard Vienna whisper her name, then say it again more slowly, as if its syllables dripped a mysterious favor on her tongue. Her fingers fluttered in Mason's hand. She moved closer until their faces met, then begged, "Kiss me."

Mason's body leapt. Blood rushed like b.u.t.terfly wings in her ears. Her nipples were so painful she held back a gasp as her shirt sc.r.a.ped across them. She let her cheek rest against Vienna's while she subdued the part of her that hungered and craved. She kissed Vienna carefully, her body burning for more. A hand caressed her neck. Vienna drew her deeper. Buried in the moist bliss of her mouth, Mason closed her eyes and let herself fall.

Vienna's voice summoned her back. "I love you."

Unsure if she'd really heard the words or just wished them into being, Mason gazed at the face upturned to hers. Was this really happening? Or had she conjured this moment, as she often did? She'd kept her heart intact for this day, for those three words, and she wanted to hear them again. As if Vienna knew, she lifted Mason's hand to her lips, tenderly kissing the fingers. Then she cradled it to her cheek. "I love you, Mason. Please let me stay."

Chapter nineteen.

The door slammed shut behind Vienna and they were in a s.p.a.cious bedroom with high windows and a Doberman standing guard at the end of a huge bed. He inspected them in bemus.e.m.e.nt.

"Don't worry about him," Mason said, dropping her boots next to an old armoire. "I've never brought anyone up here before."

Antic.i.p.ation stirred in the pit of Vienna's stomach. She wasn't sure when her childhood crush became love, but she knew now that even if she hadn't read Sally Gibson's letter, she would still be here. Sometime during the past several days, she'd stopped fighting the feelings Mason aroused. And now, standing in front of her, she wanted to hold nothing back.

Blushing, she looked down at herself. Her skin was pink and her nipples were tightly bunched against her flimsy lace bra. She touched herself between her legs. Her thighs were wet and her panties clung to her fingers. She wanted Mason so much she couldn't think.

"I have something to tell you," she said shyly.

"It's okay." Mason unbuckled her belt and unzipped her jeans. Her eyes glinted with intent. Her nipples showed beneath her tight khaki T-shirt. "I know you didn't save yourself for me."

"Actually, in a way I did." Feeling light-headed, Vienna unfastened her dress and let it slide to the floor. "I've never been in love with anyone else I've slept with. You're a first."

Tenderness softened Mason's predatory smile, but only briefly. "And I'll be the last."

She discarded her jeans and briefs and advanced on Vienna, backing her toward the bed. She took complete control of her, cradling her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and sliding her tongue sensuously past Vienna's, wreaking havoc with her breathing. With exquisite pressure, she fattened both hands over the nipples, working them against her palms. At the same time, she kissed a downward path from Vienna's lips to her throat, and then sank her teeth into the muscle of her shoulder, sending a shock of antic.i.p.ation from her neck to the small of her back. Her limbs felt heavy with arousal. Her hands shook as she explored the hard, unfamiliar contours of Mason's body. The flesh beneath her fingertips flinched and goose-b.u.mped with each relentless caress.

Mason yelped softly when Vienna found her nipples and slowly squeezed them. Urgently, she murmured, "Touch me."

Wanting to see the body she was pleasuring, Vienna drew Mason's T-shirt up over her head and dropped it on the floor. There was no bra. Smiling, she dragged a single fingertip from Mason's bottom lip to the bony channel between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She could sense a boiling urgency in Mason, something deep down and dangerous. A knee pushed roughly between her thighs and applied pressure until Vienna responded in kind, bearing down hard. Wetness spread where Mason's thigh crushed the swollen flesh. Vienna could hardly stay upright. She could feel herself opening, her c.l.i.t throbbing in appeal.

Their eyes met. Mason's were black with desire, the pupils huge within a ring of slate gray. There was a subtle alteration in her expression, a darkening. With a groan, she hooked her thumb into the thin silk of Vienna's panties and pulled them down, then pushed her back onto the bed. Caressing the inside of her thighs, she nudged them apart, exposing the pale copper swirl of hair.

She stared down, resting on her heels. "Oh. G.o.d. You're perfect."

Instinctively, Vienna brought her knees together. A rush of awe stifled her breathing as Mason slid her hands between them and lifted the knees, then spread her wide again.

"I want to look at you."

She lifted Vienna a little higher on the bed, so she was propped against the pillows, compelled to watch as Mason's fingers gently parted her. She dragged them back and forth with avid concentration, gathering then tasting Vienna's fluids. Needing more, Vienna lifted her hips toward the hand that kept skimming past her wet, craving flesh. A thumb worked her c.l.i.t. Mason circled and teased.

"Please," Vienna whispered. The impression Mason left in her flesh had faded after their first lovemaking and she'd felt unbearably hollow ever since.

Just when she thought she couldn't stand another tantalizing caress, Mason moved over her, gazing down at her with fierce hunger. Then she was inside, so fast and so hard, Vienna cried out in shock and pleasure. A hand pushed one of her knees up and back, and Mason drove deeper, awaiting no cue and barely pausing with each delving thrust.

"You're mine," she choked out and Vienna hardly recognized the face inches from hers. The expression was glazed, the jaw taut. "Say it."

"I'm yours." Vienna gripped Mason's shoulders, needing something to hold on to. Her skin was hot and damp. The muscles surged beneath her fingers.

A spiraling tension compressed Vienna's core and she clamped down, almost expelling the fingers buried inside. Mason's response was visceral and immediate. She shifted her weight, pushing Vienna's legs wider, filling her, kissing her, pounding into her.

"Is that good?" Her voice was low and rough in Vienna's ear. "Is that what you need?"

"Yes." Holding her gaze, Vienna met each stroke with a whimper of pleasure. "I love you," she gasped, only seconds from letting go.

"Then give yourself to me," Mason said.

And Vienna had the strangest sensation of her flesh caving in. She was flooding, suddenly empty, aware only of an unraveling within as her body clamored to be filled again.