She knew her position was tenuous at best. Her car was stuck, and this place was out in the middle of nowhere. And if she were honest, the last thing she wanted to do was get back in a car with a man who could upset her equilibrium with a single look. Leaving wasn’t a viable option at the moment.
“Okay,” she said. “I agree to that.”
“Excellent.”
“What is it you want me to do?”
“I want you to play the part of my daughter for the next two weeks.”
Mallory sat very still, not sure she’d heard Saxon Mills correctly. “Excuse me?”
“I thought that was pretty straightforward,” the man said, his tone laced with barely concealed irritation. “I need someone to assume the role of my daughter for the next two weeks.”
“Mr. Mills, I—”
He held up one hand. “Call me Saxon. I don’t think Father or Dad would be terribly convincing at the first.”
“Are you doing an autobiographical play or something?”
That actually brought a smile to his face, but it didn’t touch his eyes. “No. This is no play. It’s my life.” He sank back farther in the chair and his eyes narrowed. “It’s a matter of life and death for me.” The words sounded melodramatic, but his face was contained, almost cool.
A knock sounded, and as the door began to open, Saxon leaned toward Mallory and whispered, “Say nothing of this in front of Myra.”
Mallory nodded and sank back in the chair. While the housekeeper laid a tea service out on the table, Saxon Mills spoke with her. The word mad came to mind, along with crazy and demented. Play his daughter? The idea was so absurd that Mallory almost laughed.
As Myra went to the hearth to stir the fire into new life, Saxon nudged a cup of tea across the table to Mallory. “Drink it while it’s hot. You’ll be glad for any warmth you can find in this house during weather like this.”
Mallory had totally forgotten about the storm and the dampness in her slacks and her sodden shoes. Myra moved quietly for being such a large woman. She silently crossed the room, and the door clicked shut behind her. Mallory reached for the tea and cautiously took a sip, letting the hot liquid slip down her throat and settle in her middle, easing her tension just a bit. But as soon as she looked at Saxon over the rim of her cup, her nerves tightened again.
The man was staring at her, but she had the idea that he wasn’t really seeing her. His gaze was slightly unfocused, as if he were lost in a place of his own making. “It’s quite remarkable,” he murmured softly.
“Excuse me, sir?” Mallory said as she lowered her cup, cradling it in her hands on her lap.
He flinched, then took a harsh breath and reached for his cup of tea. “We need to discuss this job.”
“Yes, we do. It’s all so rushed. I was only contacted last night by Mr. Welting. If I had more time, I could do a better job for you.”
“We only located you a few days ago, and we needed to be sure you were right for this part. As for doing a good job, being spontaneous will probably only enhance your talents.”
For a moment she thought he was trying to flatter her, but one look at his blue eyes and she knew he was just giving her an answer. “How can I pass for your daughter when anyone who knows you would know your daughter and know I’m obviously not her?”
“That’s the beauty of this idea. I don’t have a daughter. Everyone knows that. So you don’t have to be anyone but yourself. They won’t have a clue what to expect, because they won’t know you exist until I introduce you to them. As far as background goes, I’ve been briefed on yours, and it fits perfectly.”
She frowned. “You said they know you don’t have a daughter. Where am I suppose to have come from?”
He stood and crossed to a night table by the bed on the marble pedestal. Despite his age, he moved easily, Mallory thought, and when he came back to the table, he held out an eight-by-ten gold picture frame. “This should explain things a bit.”
She put her cup back on the table and took the heavy frame from him. A sepia-toned studio photo was set in it, an ethereal-looking picture of a delicately beautiful woman with feathery dark hair framing a heart-shaped face, large dark eyes and pouty lips. The image startled Mallory, and she blinked. Her memory had to be playing tricks on her.
“Who is this?” she asked as Saxon took his chair again.
He sank back, watching Mallory. “My Kate,” he said with a sigh. “And you look a lot like her, Mallory. A lot.”
She looked at the picture again, hating the way the memories of a five-year-old child were overlapping with it. But when she really looked at the picture, she knew her mind had played tricks on her. This woman wasn’t really like the mother she remembered. This woman, maybe in her early twenties, looked delighted with life and was openly flirting with the camera.
Mallory had no memory of her mother smiling or being happy. What memories remained were scattered and few, of a sad, bitter woman beaten by life. A woman who had died too young.
“Kate?” she asked, looking at him instead of the picture.
“She’s a woman I knew almost thirty years ago. I was mad for her, but we were both too stubborn, too volatile, probably more in lust than in love. It just burned out after six months, and she left to get on with her life.”
His tone was unemotional, as if the memory of the incident with the woman had little lasting effect on him. Yet he’d kept her picture all these years.
“Henry Welting was astounded when he saw you. You look so much like Kate did at one time. It would be very easy for anyone who’s seen Kate’s picture to believe you could be a child from our affair, that Kate was your mother.”
Bitterness burned at the back of Mallory’s throat. She quickly put the picture down flat on the table, and Saxon sat forward to reach for it. Without a glance at it, he turned it facedown on the table in front of him.
“Did you have a child with her?” Mallory asked, her voice sounding tight in her own ears.
“I have no children. But you’re a good enough actress to make people believe it could be true.”
“What happened to…to this Kate?”
He didn’t blink. “She died years ago in Europe.”
Again no emotion. And that made Mallory feel even more edgy. It didn’t help that the storm went unabated, crashing around the stone walls and tearing at the night outside with lightning. “Who’s this charade for?”
His expression tightened. “My family, Mr. Carella, the staff. Everyone who’s in this house for the holidays.”
She wondered if this was all some horrible practical joke the man was setting up. “Why would you want to deceive these people?”
“That’s something that’s complicated and personal, but I can give you a general idea. I have little family, just a niece and nephew. My only brother’s children. Warren has been gone ten years, but he left his son, Lawrence, who’s thirty-two. He calls himself a writer, but from what I can see, all he writes is IOUs and bums around being ‘creative’ while others pay for it.
“He sees me as the way to finance his dilettante life-style. Then there’s Joyce, his sister. She’s married to Gene Something-or-other. I believe he’s husband number three. I can’t think of why he married her except he’s a patient sort who’s willing to wait until she gets her hands on my money.”
He sighed. “I’m fed up with them, but one or both of them will be