Marley nodded. "I can tell." She glanced back at the painting hung so prominently on the white wall. It was hauntingly beautiful, two women suspended in nothing, a cold barren landscape behind them. It seemed to echo the ache she was feeling, the worry she felt over Lizzie. "I actually like the painting."
"Thank you." Damien moved in next to her and studied it alongside her. "It's called The Punishment of Lust. Do you understand punishment, Marley?"
The question was too obscure for her to answer. But it suddenly saddened her to hear the pain in his voice, to feel the way he stood next to her, stiff and isolated. She wondered about him, about how he lived his life, why he seemed to be alone despite his notorious parties. While she couldn't answer the question, it seemed Damien knew punishment—she suspected he was castigating himself for something.
"I understand that punishment is necessary. And that the punishment should fit the crime. Is that what you mean?" Maybe Lizzie should be punished for running off and worrying her family. But Marley knew Lizzie punished herself enough on her own with her violent mood swings, her highs and her extreme lows. Marley would always forgive Lizzie for her flaws, and she would never abandon her.
"It seems to me that most often the one who pays for the crime is not the criminal." He moved his finger in a slow half circle, tracing the women. "This painting is from a series on bad mothers. They've abandoned their children because of their lust… they placed carnal desire, their own pleasures, above the needs of their children."
A chill went through Marley. That sounded too personal, directed at Lizzie. But it was just a coincidence. He wasn't trying to make a statement to her—it was just a painting.
He was much closer to her now, and when he turned and spoke, she could feel his breath on her cheek, hot and inexplicably arousing. A shiver rippled over her skin.
"Do you understand lust, Marley?"
It was meant to rattle her, clearly, but it had the opposite effect. His probing yet somehow casual flirtation irritated her and made her bolder than she normally would be. Jerking her head to the side, she met his gaze head on. "No, I don't. I'm not a lustful person."
His finger came out and traced her lip, the same way he had outlined the painting. The touch was warm, erotic, invasive. Appealing. "I think you are wrong, very wrong. I can feel the lust in you, Marley Turner."
For a second, one small tiny blip, Marley forgot who she was. In that brief splash in time, she almost believed Damien's words, and followed her instinctive urge to shift into his touch, spread her legs around his. Give in to the desire to live like Lizzie did, for a short shallow moment.
But she didn't. Moving her head away, she said, "That's heat stroke, not lust."
Damien burst out laughing. "You're very amusing."
"I aim to please."
His finger tapped the end of her nose. "I shouldn't have asked you here, to the plantation. This was a mistake. Let's drive into town and get some lunch and talk there. You can follow me in your own car and go back to the hotel from there."
Separate cars, a public restaurant. That worked for her. "Show me the way."
Chapter Four
"Where are the letters?" Rosa didn't bother to waste time with a greeting. She hated the nasty little house, with its old-person smell and suffocating heat, and she didn't want to hang around, even if they were only out on the porch.
"Why?" Anna stared at her from her habitual spot in a white plastic chair next to the front door, her tired brown eyes still sharp and alert.
Rosa tried to quell the discomfort that seeing Anna always brought, the reminder that if Rosa wasn't who she was, she too would grow old like that, her body shrinking and sagging and wrinkling until she was nothing more than vein-peppered skin and brittle bones.
"A woman showed up today. He was talking to her in the pigeonnier."
"So?" Anna rolled her rheumy eyes and gave a snort that irritated Rosa. "Lots of women show up here, and have for as long as I've been alive."
"This one's different. He wants her."
That got Anna's attention even as she scoffed. "That's your wishful thinking," she said, arms crossing over her chest in skepticism, though she sat up straighten "You've always been a dreamer."
"And you've always been to quick to assume the worst." Rosa watched a fly buzzing in front of Anna's face. With speed that belied her age, Anna reached for a fly swatter, arched, and swung, bringing the fly down in mid-flight.
Rosa lost patience. She had never liked being forced to deal with Anna, and liked it even less now, when she was feeling more desperate than she'd like. "Just give me the letters."
"What? You're just going to hand them to her? That doesn't make any sense."
"What do you suggest I do? I can't leave them for her to find. She's not staying in the house like others have in the past." It was a little dig, a reminder.
Anna wasn't offended. She laughed. "True, true. But what makes you think she'll care about any of this?"
"She's oozing compassion. I can see it, feel it. It's all around her, like an aura. The martyr who takes care of everyone, that's who this is. And he likes that in her." That baffled Rosa, but there it was. Damien had gotten strange over the centuries, preoccupied with redemption; inflated with pity, and this one appealed to him.
Slowly nodding, Anna said, "I can see that. You might be on to something."
"So give them to me. I'm going to make friends with this girl."
But Anna shook her head. "Just send her to me. She'll trust me more, the sweet old lady."
"Good point."
Not that there was anything sweet about Anna. Or herself.
"You're as devious as ever, Anna. It just warms the cockles of my heart to know that."
"What did your sister say about my plantation?" Damien asked, gazing at Marley curiously over a cracked laminate tabletop in a worn diner.
Marley wanted to be truthful, wanted to mention anything that could help Damien find Lizzie, but at the same time she wanted to protect her sister, wanted to keep to herself just how childish and delusional Lizzie could be. It was embarrassing to Marley that Lizzie had declared herself in love with Damien when he didn't even remember her. Not that Lizzie would ever be embarrassed by that herself—but Marley had enough embarrassment, guilt, shame, and repression for both of them.
"She said that she was staying there. That there were really cool parties and hot guys… she said it was like being in a hunk calendar. She mentioned you as the owner, said you were, uh, totally amazing."