Danielle Steel - Passion's Promise

She put the kettle down on the stove, and turned deliberately away. All he could see was the dark hair and her narrow shoulders bent over.

“Yes, aliases. And lives. There are three of me, Luke. Four actually. No, five now, counting ‘Kate.’ K. S. Miller never needed a first name before. It’s all more than a little schizophrenic.”

“Is it?” He was right behind her now, but he did not reach out to touch her. “Why don’t we go sit down and talk for a while?”

His voice was low and she turned to face him with a barely perceptible nod. She needed to talk, and he’d be a good man to talk to. She had to talk to someone before she went mad. But now he knew she was a liar … or maybe that didn’t matter with Luke. Maybe he’d understand.

“Okay.” She followed him into the living room, sat primly on one of her mother’s blue velvet chairs, and watched him lean back on the couch.

“Cigarette?”

“Thanks.” He lit it for her and she took a long, deep pull at the unfiltered cigarette, collecting her thoughts.

“It sounds sort of crazy when you tell someone about it. And I’ve never tried to tell anyone before.”

“Then how do you know it sounds crazy?” His eyes were unwavering.

“Because it is crazy. It’s an impossible way to live. I know, I’ve tried. ‘My Secret Life,’ by Kezia Saint Martin.” She tried to laugh, but it was a hollow sound in the silence.

“Sounds like it’s time you got it off your chest, and I’m handy. I’m sitting here and I’ve got nowhere to go and no time to be there. And all I know is that it’s an insane life you seem to lead, Kezia. You deserve better than that.” Her name sounded unfamiliar on his lips, and she looked at him through the smoke. “Worse than crazy, this must be a mighty lonely way to live.”

“It is.” She felt tears well up at the back of her throat. She wanted to tell Luke all of it now. K. S. Miller, Martin Hallam, Kezia Saint Martin. About the loneliness and the hurt and the ugliness of her world draped in gold brocade, as though they could hide it by making it pretty outside, or make their souls smell better by drenching them in perfume … and the intolerable obligations and responsibilities, and the stupid parties, and the boring men. And the victory of her own byline on her first serious article, and no one to share it with except a middle-aged lawyer and a still older agent. She had a lifetime to show him, a lifetime she had hidden deep in her heart, until now.

“I don’t even know where to begin.”

“You said there are five of you. Pick one, and take it from there.”

Two lone tears slid down her face and he stretched out a hand to her. She took it, and they sat that way, their hands reaching across the table, the tears running slowly down her face.

“Well, the first me is Kezia Saint Martin. The name you saw on the letters. Heiress, orphan … isn’t that a romantic vision?” She smiled lopsidedly through her tears. “Anyway, my parents both died when I was a child, and left me a great deal of money and an enormous house, which my trustee sold and turned into a large co-op on Eighty-first Street and Park, which I eventually sold to buy this. I have an aunt who’s married to an Italian count, and I was brought up by my trustee and my governess, Totie. And of course, the other thing my parents left me was a name. Not just a name. But a Name. And it was carefully impressed on me before they died, and after they died, that I wasn’t just ‘anybody.’ I was Kezia Saint Martin…. Hell, Luke, don’t you read the papers?” She brushed the tears away and pulled back her hand to blow her nose on a mauve linen handkerchief, edged in gray lace.

“What in God’s name is that?”

“What?”

“That thing you’re blowing your nose in?” She looked at the bit of pale purple in her hand and laughed.

“A handkerchief. What do you think it is?”

“Looks like a vestment for a pint-sized priest for chris-sake. Talk about fancy. Now I know you’re an heiress!”

She laughed and felt a little bit better.

“And yes, I do read the papers, by the way. But I’d rather hear this story from you. I don’t like to just read about people I care about.”

Kezia was momentarily confused. People he cared about? But he didn’t even know her … but he had flown up from Washington to see her. He was there. And he looked as though what she had to say mattered to him.

“Well, every time I set foot anywhere, I get my photograph taken.”

“It didn’t happen tonight.” He was trying to show her something, that she was freer than she knew.

“No, but it could have. That was just luck. That’s why I was watching the doors—that, and the fact that I was afraid I’d see someone I knew, and they’d call me Kezia instead of Slate.”

“Would that have mattered so much, Kezia? If someone had blown your cover? So what?”

“So … I would have felt like a fool. I would have felt …”

“Frightened?” He finished for her, and she looked away.

“Maybe.” Hers was a small voice now.

“Why, love? Why would it frighten you if I knew who you really were?” He wanted to hear it from her. “Were you afraid that I’d hurt you then? Pursue you for your money? Your name? What?”

“No … it’s well, possibly. Other people might want me for those things, Lucas, but I’m not worried about that with you.” Her eyes sought his squarely and she made sure he understood her. She trusted him, and she wanted him to know that. “But the worst of it is something else. Kezia Saint Martin isn’t just me. She’s ‘someone.’ She has something to live up to. When I was twenty, I was considered the most eligible girl on the market. You know, sort of like Xerox stock. If you bought me, your investment was bound to go up.” He watched her eyes as she spoke and there were years of hurt embedded in them. Lucas was silent, his hand gently holding hers. “And there was more to it than just being noticed. There was history … good history, bad history, grandparents, my mother….” She paused and seemed to forget to go on. Lucas’ voice finally stirred her.

“Your mother? What about your mother?”

“Oh … just … things….” Her voice was trembling and her eyes avoided his. She seemed to be having trouble continuing.

“What kind of things, Kezia? How old were you when she died?”

“I was eight. And she … she drank herself to death.”

“I take it ‘things’ got to her too?” He sat back for a moment and watched Kezia, whose eyes now rose slowly to his with a look of unfathomable sorrow and fear.

“Yeah. Things got to her too. She was The Lady Liane Holmes-Aubrey before she married my father. And then she was Mrs. Keenan Saint Martin. I’m not sure which must have been worse for her. Probably being Daddy’s wife. At least in England she knew how it all worked. Here, things were different for her. Quicker, sharper, brasher. She talked about it sometimes. She felt more ‘public’ here than she had at home as a girl. They didn’t jump all over her the way they do me. But then, she didn’t have Daddy’s fortune either.”

“Was she rich too?”

“Very. Not as rich as my father, but directly related to the Queen. Fun, isn’t it?” Kezia looked away bitterly for a moment.

“I don’t know, is it fun? It doesn’t sound like it yet.”

“Oh, it gets better. My father was very rich and very powerful and very envied and very hated, and occasionally very loved. He did crazy things, he traveled a lot, he … he did whatever he did. And Mummy was lonely, I think. She was constantly spied on, written about, talked about, followed around. When she went to parties, they reported what she wore. When Daddy was away, and she danced with an old friend at a charity ball, they made a thing of it in the papers. She got to feeling hunted. Americans can be brutal that way.” Her voice trailed off for a moment.