Dante's Heat

Chapter Two-2

***

At lunch, Penny came to get her, chatting aimlessly about the house, most of her babble going in one of Gabrielle’s ears and out the other. They ate chicken sandwiches in a pleasant alcove off the kitchen, and then Penny sent her off to see Robert in the library.

“He wants to explain a few things to you, Gabrielle,” the blonde woman told her. “Though if you have any questions at all, you can always ask me. I’m a wealth of information.”

“Yeah, sure, I can tell,” Gabrielle droned, though she tried to be less sullen. Penny was perfect: kind and beautiful, with a sunny disposition that made one think of Pollyanna. She hardly seemed real, reeking of such unabashed cheerfulness; and yet moved by her, Gabrielle didn’t want to appear an irritable witch.

“Does anyone ever call you Gabby, perhaps?” Penny asked.

“Yes, sometimes.”

“Would you mind if I did?”

Gabrielle shrugged. “I guess not.”

Leading her to the library, Penny knocked, then opened the door without hearing an answer and motioned for Gabrielle to enter. Once beyond the door, the woman closed it behind her, leaving her in yet another dreary-hued room. Her eyes sweeping the space before her for the author of this dark atmosphere, she was surprised to find that Robert was not at his desk, but sitting casually in a high-backed reading chair browsing through the newspaper. Dressed in jeans, a crisply ironed denim shirt and loafers, his feet were crossed before him resting on a polished mahogany coffee table. At her appearance, he sat up with his feet initially going to the floor; then he crossed one leg with the other, resting an ankle on his knee. Sitting back, his expression was as handsomely cool as Gabrielle remembered from her childhood, lighted only by the flame in his eyes, and that burned ominously.

“Do you have some reason to be here?” he asked.

“Penny said you wanted to see me,” she replied.

“Did she now? Thinks she can read my mind, I’m sure. She assumes a lot, but as long you’re here, have a seat.” He motioned her to the leather settee in front of him.

Gabrielle hesitated, though despite the less than gracious welcome, she followed his command.

“You find your accommodations adequate?”

“They’re fine,” she answered.

“Good.” He nodded, looking more absent than present for this conversation. “Penny will see to what you need. Ask anything, and she’ll let you know if it’s allowed.”

“I kind of gathered that.”

“You can write to your heart’s content, though Penny’s sending for the correspondence materials Sasha’s requested. Your sister thinks it would be a good idea for you to make up the classes you failed the last two semesters. Penny’s a licensed teacher and I’m sure adequate to direct you.”

“I see.”

“As long as you behave yourself, I think we’ll get along okay.”

“Listen, you don’t want me here anymore than I want to be here,” Gabrielle retorted bluntly.

“I’m doing this as a favor to your sister. What happens to you is of only scant consequence to me. But since your latest scandals have Sasha tied up in knots, I told her I’d be the solution you need right now.”

Gabrielle didn’t know what to say. For all her attempts to ignore it, Robert Dante’s cool set her off-kilter. Snappy retorts that were usually so easy for her seemed to lie limply on her tongue, unspoken. “I’ll try to stay out of your way,” she finally managed a curt reply and then rose to her feet anxious to leave the room.

“I haven’t excused you,” Robert immediately retorted.

“I thought I’d excuse myself,” she replied.

“Not in my house,” he answered her. “Sit down. I expect you to respect the natural order here … I’m in charge and you’d be wise to remember that.”

“Yeah, I bet you call the shots.” She took her seat, glad to hear a bit of the old bite back in her voice. “But if you think you’re gonna use that strap hanging in my room on my ass, you’d better think twice.”

Robert was amazed at the girl’s effrontery though it was almost amusing.

“It’s only there if you give me trouble,” he replied.

“And I don’t plan on that,” she answered.

“Then using a strap on your behind won’t be necessary, will it?”

“No, it won’t,” she assured him.

He nodded watching the young woman squirm uncomfortably before him. “You can be excused,” he finally said.

“Thanks.” Rising again, she made her way to the door too disconcerted by the man to say another word.

***

Gabrielle’s Diary—September 15th continued

More ramblings on my first day in this prison …

Dante’s as bad as I’d thought he’d be. The bastard thinks he’s got something on me. Maybe he’s trying to scare me … so I’m a little scared. I’ll bide my time, stay out of everyone’s way and let this legal hassle blow over. I’m sure Sasha is doing what she can to get those charges dropped. Once that happens, I’m out of here. Dante is impossible and Penny, for all her sweetness, is an i***t to live under the thumb of such an ass. I’ll be out of here in a month. I’ll call Sasha tonight, remind her to light a fire under my lawyer. Oh, but I’m too damned sleepy to keep my head up, and I guess that’s good. I don’t want to think about this place more than I have to. g.

Gabrielle didn’t see Robert Dante again for two days. In that time, she wrote in her room and occasionally in the downstairs parlor that functioned as the main living room. The library was Robert’s private sitting room and she wasn’t allowed to enter there without his permission. With Penny often joining her in the parlor, she was forced to listen to her cheerful chatter. Though there were times when the woman looked at her oddly, like she was inspecting her with an air of criticism. To her probing questions, Gabrielle offered her little information, just enough to keep her placated.

The afternoon of her third day on the island, she was alone in the parlor writing. Penny was nowhere to be found and had been gone for hours. Deep into a story about a madman haunting the streets of a tiny New England fishing village, she wrote nearly the entire afternoon, until she was abruptly halted by Penny’s sudden appearance.

“Dinner’s going to be a little late, Gabby, but it should be ready in twenty minutes.”

The woman looked flushed and hurried. Gabrielle gave her an “it’s okay with me” shrug and went back to her notebook, trying to get her last thoughts together before she was called to dinner.

The first two nights, Penny and Gabrielle ate in the kitchen because Robert was off the island. His reappearance changed the whole mood of the house. He required his dinner in the formal dining room even though there were only three places set at the ten-foot table. Robert sat at one end with Penny and Gabrielle on either side. To the newcomer’s tastes this was all much ado about nothing—a silly waste of time, smacking of formality that went out of date with the horse and buggy. Remaining in her sullen and uncommunicative mood, she ate the meat pie and vegetables, glad the food was bearable, hoping that Robert would end the ordeal quickly so she could get back to her story. Her only question of Dante regarded hiking the island. It seemed damned silly to remain cooped up all day inside the insufferable house when there was decent weather and plenty of places to walk.

Just as she was about to broach the subject, however, Robert looked toward Penny, who had just taken a bite of salad.

“I have a few questions for you,” he said, his eyes judgmentally cold.

“Sir?” she answered as soon as she cleared her mouth.

“Stand up.”

Surprised by the demand, she hesitated, but then rose with the same graceful poise that she did everything. Regardless, Gabrielle could see her shaking nervously. The movement was almost imperceptible but it did not go unnoticed by a woman who trained herself to notice small things like that. It made useful descriptions when she was writing her prose. Gabrielle imagined turning this angelic creature of light-heartedness into a diabolical fiend—a story that began churning inside her mind the moment she first laid eyes on this goddess of pleasantness.

“You want to explain to me why dinner was late?” Robert addressed Penny sharply.

“I was unable to speak with cook until late this afternoon,” she replied.

“And why’s that?”

Penny hesitated. “I took Hunter’s boat into town.”

“Was that authorized?”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Then why did you go?”

“I had some shopping I needed to do.”

“And what was that?”

Penny hesitated more.

“Can’t you tell it’s personal,” Gabrielle chimed in.

Penny turned to her immediately, “Please, Gabby, it’s okay.”

Robert’s gaze met Gabrielle’s with a swift look so charged she was instantly silenced. Turning back to Penny, he addressed her in the same dictatorial manner, “Am I going to see this disobedience become a habit?”

“No, Robert, though I thought ….”

“Perhaps you thought I wouldn’t know you left without permission.”

She looked chagrined.

“Yes, sir.”

“Seems to me you’d have all your recklessness out of your system, or does our newcomer inspire you to disregard our agreements?”

“No, Robert, Gabrielle has nothing to do with this. It was all my doing, and I’m sorry.”

“You weren’t planning to tell me?”

“No.” She bit her lip with that confession.

“That’s interesting.” He appraised her coolly for some seconds before making his decision. “Find Hunter and have him come here.”

“Robert, no, please.” She looked unusually distressed.

“Find him now, Miss Buckingham,” he snapped, and she immediately left the room.

Robert and Gabrielle returned to their meal, eating in the icy silence that remained, both brooding in their own thoughts until they heard the door creak as it opened.

Penny returned, followed by a formidable looking Hunter McDonough. He carried a four-inch wide leather lash in one hand—the item looped in a circle to hide its actual length. The stocky six foot tall, grim-faced man was not as classically handsome as Robert Dante, but nonetheless his austere bearing caused a reckless shiver to race up Gabrielle’s spine in a split-second. Having pieced together a few stray kitchen conversations, she knew the man was a personal friend of Dante’s, occasionally the island’s caretaker, and while often private and very rude—if she was reading the signals correctly, he was of special interest to Penny.

“Miss Buckingham lied to me about her whereabouts this afternoon. Seems she’s forgetting her place in this household. I’d like her strapped.”

Hunter nodded. “Bare-assed?” his only question.

“Please. This seems so … so hasty,” Penny pleaded for mercy.

Robert turned his gaze to the offending woman. “Hasty? No. You have a good deal to be ashamed of and this afternoon is only a beginning. Am I right?”

She stared at her accuser with eyes widening.

“You think I don’t know about the other trips? You think there’s anything that I’m not aware of on this island?” He looked at her accusingly. “That I don’t know everything about what transpires here? That you’ve met a man in the village, been attended by a doctor, been seen smoking in the town pub and lied to me twice about your whereabouts concerning these events?”

Penny was stunned by the volley of unexpected shots.

“Do you think I’m so utterly stupid that you could pull all this in front of me without my noticing?” His eyes narrowed contemptibly, shooting venom. “I feel like we’re moving backwards here. It seems nothing about your past crimes has made any impression on you. Your word means nothing to me the way you’ve violated my trust. Is it your intention to continue living with our arrangement?”

“Oh, my yes!” she gasped anxiously as though he just asked if she still planned to live at all. “I do apologize, Robert. I …”

“Apologies don’t hack it with behavior like this and you know it. I think by now you’d be smart enough not to bother with something so weak as a few plaintively spoken words. Do you have any explanation worthy of all this?”

Penny looked as though she was fishing her mind for something to say, words on the tip of her tongue, but nothing came out, and then she seemed to swallow them out of fear and gave up.

“No, I don’t.”

Gabrielle was mesmerized by the bizarre battle, if you could call it that. Certainly it was a strain on her mind enough to call it a verbal sparring of wills—though there was no doubt who’d be the victor. Robert assumed the role as inquisitor and judge, and Penny was perfectly willing to let her crimes go undefended, even though Gabrielle suspected there might be some reasonable excuse for her behavior. Not that she felt there was anything wrong in what the woman had done. But obviously everyone else had a different conclusion, including the odd miscreant, Penny Buckingham.

“Bare her ass and lay on forty,” Robert declared as Penny whimpered hearing the number. “The buffet should suffice, she’s been there before.” Though seeing her hesitate, he added, “there are other choices, Miss Buckingham.”