She was not wearing panties.
Samuel Theodore Lodge was coming to the dinner.
As she stepped out into the hall, she looked to the door opposite hers. Sixteen years ago to the day, she had given birth to the young girl who lived in there. And that had been about it for her involvement with Amelia. A baby nurse, followed by two full-time nannies, coupled with a sufficient passage of time, and they were now in prep-school territory.
So she didn’t even catch a glimpse of her daughter anymore.
Indeed, Amelia had not come home for spring break, and that had been good. But the summer was looming, and the girl’s return from Hotchkiss was not something anyone, even Amelia most likely, looked forward to.
Could you even send a sixteen-year-old off to summer camp?
Maybe they could just ship her over to Europe for a two-month tour. Victorians had done that a hundred years ago, before even airplanes and cars with air bags.
They could pay someone to be her chaperone.
And actually, the urge to keep the girl away from Easterly wasn’t because Gin didn’t love her daughter. It was just that the girl’s presence was too stark a condemnation of choices and actions and lies that were Gin’s own and no one else’s—and sometimes it was best not to look too closely at those things.
Besides, Europe was grand. Especially if one did it right.
Gin walked on, heading for the straight-out-of-Tara staircase that bifurcated on a middle landing before bottoming out on both sides of Easterly’s tremendous marble foyer. The dress spoke up with each of her strides, the fall of silk rustling against the tulle underskirting in a way that made her imagine the hushed conversation of the Frenchwomen who had put the stitches in the gown.
As she came to the landing and chose the right side, as it was closer to the parlor cocktails were always served in, she could hear the patter of voices. There would be thirty-two for dinner tonight, and she would be seated in the chair her mother should be in, opposite and down the long table from her father at the head.
She had done this a million times and would do it a million times hence, this acting as the lady of the house—and usually it was a duty she carried out with pride.
Tonight, however, there was a mourning behind her heart for some reason.
Probably because it was Amelia’s birthday.
Best to get drinking.
Especially given that when she had called her daughter, Amelia had refused to come down and get on her dorm’s house phone.
It was the kind of thing Gin would have done.
See? She was a good parent. She understood her child.
L
ane refused to dress in black tie for dinner. He just kept his slacks on, and traded his shirt for a button-down that he’d left behind when he’d gone to live with Jeff up north.
He was willing to be on time and that was it.
As soon as he hit the first floor, he started avoiding people’s stares and looking for a drink—and he ran into an old friend before he got to the Family Reserve.
“Well, well, well, the New Yorker has returned to his roots finally,” Samuel Theodore Lodge III said as he came over.
Lane had to smile. “How’s my favorite southern-fried attorney?”
While they embraced and clapped each other’s backs, the blond woman who was with Samuel T. hung off to the side, her eyes missing nothing—which was more than you could say about her dress. Anything shorter up top or on the bottom and she’d be in her underwear.
So she was right down Samuel T.’s alley.
“Allow me to introduce Miss Savannah Locke.” Samuel T. nodded to the woman as if giving her permission to come forward, and she was right on it, leaning in and offering her pale, slender hand. “Go get us a drink, darling, would you? He’ll have the Family Reserve.”
As the woman hightailed it for the bar, Lane shook his head. “I can serve myself.”
“She’s a stewardess. She likes to wait on people.”
“Aren’t they called flight attendants now?”
“So what made you decide to come back? It can’t be the Derby. That’s Edward’s thing.”
Lane shrugged off the question, not about to go into the situation with Miss Aurora. Too raw. “I need your help with something. In a professional capacity, that is.”
Samuel T.’s eyes narrowed and then moved down to Lane’s wedding ring-free hand. “Cleaning house, are you.”
“How fast can you make it happen? I want things kept quiet and over with quick.”
The man nodded once. “Call me tomorrow morning. I’ll take care of everything.”
“Thank you—”
Up on the grand staircase, his sister, Gin, made the corner at the landing and paused, as if she knew people were going to want to examine what she was wearing—and the red gown and all those jewels were
in fact worth the check-out. With acres of crimson silk falling to the floor and that set of Princess Di diamonds, she was the Oscars,
Town & Country
, and the Court of St. James all at once.
The hush that quieted through the foyer was both from awe and condemnation.
Gin’s reputation preceded her.
Didn’t that run in the family.
When she caught sight of him and Samuel T., her eyebrows arched, and for a split second, she smiled honestly, that old light returning to her eyes, the years peeling away until the three of them were who they had been before so much had happened.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Samuel T. said. “I’ll go see about our drinks. I think my date got lost on the trip back.”
“The house isn’t that big.”
“Maybe to you and me.”
As Samuel T. turned away, Gin lifted the skirting of her red gown and finished her descent. When she hit the black and white marble, she came right across to Lane, her stilettos clipping over the floor that had been laid a hundred years before. He expected to do a gentleman’s hold on her as they embraced, in deference to her pinned-up hair and her jewels—but she was the one who squeezed until he felt her tremble.
“I am so glad you’re here,” she said in a rough voice. “You should have let me know.”
And that was when he did the math and realized it was Amelia’s birthday.
He was about to say something when she pulled back and put her mask in place, her Katharine Hepburn features falling into a perfectly vacant arrangement that made his chest ache.
“I need a drink,” she announced. “And where did Samuel T. go?”
“He’s not alone tonight, Gin.”
“As if that matters?”
When she walked off with her head high and her shoulders back, he felt sorry for that poor blond stewardess. Lane didn’t know who Samuel
T’s escort was, but she had certainly gotten the right read on her date: Over at the bar, she’d set herself at his hip like a holstered revolver—as if she were fully aware that she was going to have to protect her turf.
At least he’d have something to watch over dinner.
“Your Family Reserve, sir? Mr. Lodge sends it with his highest regard.”
Lane turned and smiled. Reginald Tressel had been the bartender at Easterly forever, and the African-American gentleman in his black dress coat and shined shoes was more distinguished than many of the guests, as usual.
“Thank you, Reg.” Lane took a squat cut-crystal glass from the silver tray. “Hey, thanks for calling me about Miss Aurora. Did you get my voice mail?”
“I did. And I knew you’d want to come down.”
“She looks better than I thought she would.”
“She puts up a front. You’re not leaving anytime soon, are you?”
“Hey, how’s Hazel doing?” Lane deflected.
“She’s much better, thank you. And I know that you won’t go back up north until things are finished here.”
Reginald gave him a smile that didn’t change the grim light in those dark eyes, and then the man returned to his duties, walking through the crowd like a statesman, people greeting him as an equal.
Lane could remember when he was young people saying that Mr. Tressel was the unofficial mayor of Charlemont, and that certainly hadn’t changed.
God, he wasn’t ready to lose Miss Aurora. That would be like having to sell Easterly—something he couldn’t fathom in a universe that was functioning properly—
The scent of cigarette smoke made him stiffen.
There was only one person allowed to smoke in the house.
On that note, Lane went in the opposite direction.
His father had always been a smoker in the Southern tradition, which
was to say that even though the man had asthma, he viewed it as a patriotic right to give yourself lung cancer—not that he was sick, or would get sick. He believed that a real man never let a lady pull in her own chair at a table, never mistreated his hunting dogs, and never, ever got sick.
Good code of conduct. The problem was, that was it. Nothing about your kids. The people who worked for you. Your role as a husband. And the Ten Commandments? Just an old list used to govern the lives of other people so that you weren’t inconvenienced by them shooting one another up.
It was funny. Courtesy of his father, Lane had never smoked—and not as some kind of rebellion. Growing up, he and his brothers and sister had known whenever the man was coming by the smell of tobacco, and it had never been good news. Consequently, he pulled a tensed-up Pavlov whenever anybody lit up.
Probably the only thing his father had contributed to his life in a positive way. And even so, it was a backhanded benefit.
The ice in his glass sounded like chimes as he walked through the house, and he didn’t know where he was going … until he came up to the double doors that opened into the conservatory. Even though they were shut, he caught the scent of the flowers, and he stood for a time staring through the panes of glass into the verdant, now-colorful enclave on the other side.
Lizzie was no doubt in there, arranging the bouquets as she did every year the Thursday before Derby.
Moth to a flame and all that, he thought as he watched his hand reach out and turn the brass handle.
The sound of Greta von Schlieber speaking in that German-tinted voice almost made him turn back around. Courtesy of everything that had gone down, the woman hated him—and she was not one to hide her opinions. She was also likely to have a set of garden shears in her hands.
But the pull to Lizzie was stronger than any urge for self-preservation.
And there she was.
Even though it was past eight at night, she was sitting on a rolling stool in front of a table set with twenty-five silver bowls the size of basketballs.
Half of them were filled with pale pink and white and cream flowers, and the others were ready to get their due, wet floral sponges waiting to anchor countless blooms.
She glanced over her shoulder, took one look at him … and kept on speaking without missing a beat. “—tables and chairs under the tent. Also, can you get some more preservative spray?”
Greta was not so phlegmatic. Even though she was obviously on her way out, with a big, bright green Prada bag up on her shoulder, a smaller orange one in her hand, and her car keys dangling from her grip, that glare, coupled with her abrupt silence, suggested she wasn’t heading off anywhere until he went back to his family’s party.
“It’s all right,” Lizzie said quietly. “You can go.”
Greta muttered something in German. Then went out the door into the garden, speaking under her breath.
“What was she saying?” he asked when they were alone.
“I don’t know. Probably something about a piano falling on your head.”
He took a draw off the rim of his glass, sucking the cold bourbon in through his teeth. “That it? I would have expected something more bloody.”
“I think a Steinway dropped from even a short height could do some damage.”
There were half a dozen five-gallon plastic buckets around her, each stuffed with a different kind of flower, and she chose from them as if she were playing notes on a musical instrument: this one, then that one, back to the first, then the third, fourth, fifth. The result, in a short order of time, was a glorious head of petals sprouting above the highly polished silver container.
“Can I help?” he said.
“Yes, by leaving.”
“You’re almost out of those.” He looked around. “Here, I’ll bring you another bucketful—”
“Will you just go back to your dinner,” she snapped. “You’re not helping—”
“And you’re nearly done with these, too.”
He put his glass down on a table full of empty bowls and started hauling the heavy loads over.
“Thank you,” she muttered as he removed the empties, taking them over to the ceramic sink. “You can head off now—”
“I’m getting a divorce.”
Her face showed no reaction, but her hands, those sure, strong hands, nearly dropped the rose she was drawing out of the bucket he’d brought her.
“Not on my account I hope,” she said.
He tipped over one of the empties and sat down on its bottom, holding his bourbon between his knees. “Lizzie—”
“What do you want me to say—congratulations?” She glanced at him. “Or are you in the mood for more of a two-hankie, throw-myself-at-you-in-tearful-relief reaction? Because I’ll tell you right now, that’s the last thing you’re going to get from me—”
“I never loved Chantal.”
“As if that matters?” Lizzie rolled her eyes. “The woman was having your child. So maybe you didn’t love her, but you were clearly doing something
with
her.”
“Lizzie—”
“You know, that exasperated, be-reasonable tone of yours is really flipping annoying. It’s like you think I’m doing something wrong by not giving you a platform to talk about alllllll the ways you were a victim. Here’s what I know to be true: You came after me long and hard, and I gave in because I felt sorry about what was going on with your brother. At the same time, you were lining up the perfect, socially acceptable beard to hide the fact that you were banging the help. Your problem came when I refused to be your shameful little secret.”
“Goddamn it, Lizzie—it wasn’t like that—”
“Maybe on your side—”
“I have never treated you as an inferior!”
“You’ve got to be kidding. How did you think I was going to feel when you told me you were in love with me and then I read about your
engagement in the society pages the next morning?” She threw up her hands. “Do you have any idea what that was like for me? I am a smart woman. I have my own farm that I’m paying for with my own money. I’ve got a master’s from Cornell.” She pounded on her chest. “I take care of myself. And still …” Her eyes shot away from his. “You still got me.”