Ain't She Sweet?

  Gigi lifted her head, and Sugar Beth’s skin prickled. For an instant, she felt as if she were looking into her own eyes.

  “That’s why I came here. So you could tell me.”

  “Honey, I’m the last person anybody should turn to for advice.”

  “But you’re the only one who knows what it’s like. I mean, we’re sort of the same, aren’t we?” Once again her words rushed out. “You were the richest girl in town, too, and I bet everybody thought you were stuck-up and egotistical. All the other kids’ parents worked for your dad, just like they work for mine, and they must have said things you didn’t like behind your back. But nobody ever messed with you like they do with me. And I want to be like that. I don’t want people to mess with me. I want to be, you know…powerful.”

  So that was it. Sugar Beth bought some time by taking a sip of Coke. Gigi thought they were alike, but they weren’t. This child didn’t have Diddie telling her that she was better than everyone else, or letting her believe that unkindness was acceptable. Unlike Sugar Beth, Gigi had a decent shot at growing up without having to learn everything the hard way.

  Her niece. Sugar Beth had gotten used to thinking of Delilah as her only family, but she and this child shared blood. She turned the idea over in her mind. “So you want me to tell you how I did it, is that right? How I manipulated people so they’d do what I wanted?”

  Gigi nodded, and one part of Sugar Beth felt like applauding. Good for you, baby girl. You’re after your share of power in the world. And even if you’re not going about it the right way…good for you. She tucked an ankle under her hip. “You’re sure about this?”

  “Oh, yes,” Gigi replied earnestly. “All the Seawillows say you were the most popular girl in school.”

  So Gigi knew about the Seawillows.

  “They were my very best friends, but I don’t see them anymore.” Sugar Beth let that sink in for a moment. “I miss them.”

  “But you’ve got a lot of other friends. Important friends you made when you lived in California and Houston. It’s not like you need the Seawillows anymore. I mean they’re not important or anything.”

  A traitorous tightness gripped her throat. Her emotional rope felt frailer every day. “Real friends are always important.”

  It wasn’t the answer Gigi wanted to hear, and Sugar Beth could see her quick brain getting ready to launch another battery of arguments. Before she had the chance, Sugar Beth said, “It’s late, and I’m tired. I’ll bet you are, too.”

  Gigi looked crushed. Sugar Beth reminded herself that she already had more trouble than she could handle. But she understood this child a lot better than she wanted to, and as she rose from the table, she heard herself say, “I have some time off on Sunday. Maybe we could talk then.”

  Gigi perked up. “I could get away in the afternoon. My parents have a concert.”

  Sugar Beth remembered the posters she’d seen in town. The Ryan and Winnie Galantine Concert Series…

  “I don’t think sneaking around’s a good idea.”

  “My dad’s pretty strict. It’s the only way I can see you.”

  Sugar Beth could understand Winnie forbidding Gigi to see her, but Ryan? Exactly what did he think Sugar Beth would do to her? “All right.” She rose from the table. “Sunday afternoon it is.”

  Gigi’s face broke open in a smile. “Thanks!”

  Sugar Beth couldn’t send her home alone this late, so she got her jacket. “I’ll walk with you.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “Yes, I do.” She opened the door and followed Gigi outside. Gordon dashed ahead, naturally choosing to trot beside Gigi instead of his rightful owner. There were no sidewalks on Mockingbird Lane, so they walked in the street.

  “My dad was your boyfriend, wasn’t he?”

  “A long time ago.”

  “And you and my mom didn’t get along, right? Because of her being illegitimate and everything.”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “I guess.” She tilted her head and gazed up at the sky. “When I leave Parrish, I’m not ever coming back.”

  That’s what we all say, honey.

  Lights shone through the windows of the old brick French Colonial that would have looked at home on the Vieux Carré. Gigi stopped before they got too close. “You don’t have to come any farther. My bedroom is over the back porch, and the railing’s pretty easy to climb. It’s real safe.”

  “I’ll bet.” She should make her go in the door and take her punishment, except she wasn’t Gigi’s parent, and she didn’t have to do the right thing. “I’ll watch just to make sure.”

  “Okay, but don’t get too close. We have landscaping lights. Win-i-fred’s idea.”

  Sugar Beth heard the scorn in Gigi’s voice and issued a strict warning to herself. No piling on, no matter how tempting. She pushed away the image of Diddie’s pearls encircling Winnie’s neck. “I won’t.”

  Moments later, she watched Gigi climb the wrought-iron post on the small back porch. It offered easy footholds, and before long she’d swung her leg onto the narrow roof. Just before she’d slipped open the window at the back, she turned and waved.

  Sugar Beth stood too far in the shadows to be visible, but she waved back all the same.

  I’ve brought your daughter home, Ryan. Safe and sound.

  She sighed and gazed down at Gordon. “Come on, pal. Time for us to head for bed. We have a big day tomorrow.”

  The Duke was always magnificent, but tonight he had surpassed himself.

  GEORGETTE HEYER, These Old Shades

  CHAPTER NINE

  Colin finished shaving and made his way to his closet. Gordon usually accompanied him when he was getting dressed, but he’d been banished to the carriage house for the evening. The best thing about Sugar Beth was her dog.

  A crash echoed from the vicinity of the kitchen. The caterer again. Or maybe Sugar Beth had dropped something. She’d been flying around the house all day: answering the door, rearranging flowers, arguing with the caterer. Throwing herself heart and soul into her own comeuppance.

  He cursed as he stubbed his toe on the closet bench. He had no reason to feel guilty. There was a brutal simplicity about what would happen tonight, and since revenge wasn’t anything he cared to devote his life to, this would be the end of it. A clean break. He pulled a shirt from a cedar hanger. Once the evening was over, he’d write her a big severance check and never think about her again. Which, admittedly, wouldn’t be easy.

  He’d just flipped the toggles on a pair of Bulgari cuff links when he heard a knock. “Go away.”

  She stormed in, just as he’d known she would. She was conservatively dressed—for her at least—in black slacks and a white blouse with a V neck. If the angle was just right, as it was now, he could catch a glimpse of a lacy white bra. He missed those towering stilettos she’d shown up in, even though he was the one who’d made her change. He’d pointed out that she’d be on her feet all evening, but they both knew the truth. Guests wore dressy stilettos, not the staff. The staff also didn’t pile its hair up and let long, unruly locks fall every which way—over the curve of a flushed cheek, along the nape of a slim neck, in front of small ears where a tiny pair of gold hearts swung—but he’d let that go.

  “I’m fixin’ to come to blows with that caterer,” she exclaimed, the gold hearts bobbing. “The minute he said he was from California, I should have told you to find somebody else. He’s usin’ tofu in an hors d’oeuvre. And he didn’t even deep-fry it!”

  She was in full good ol’ girl mode, something he was beginning to suspect she did when she was on the defensive, which seemed to be most of the time. The flush in her cheeks made her look healthier than when she’d arrived in Parrish, but her wrist bones were still frail, and the tracery of blue veins in the back of the hand she planted on her hip might have been a road map of all the disappointments life handed out to aging beauty queens.

  “He just broke that new pitcher I bought you. And
did you know he was plannin’ to use disposable aluminum pans on the buffet table? I had to remind him this was a dinner party, not a fish fry.”

  As she ranted on, he wanted to order her to stop putting so much energy into a party that wasn’t hers. Right from the beginning, he’d told her she’d be waiting on his guests, but she hadn’t blinked. He’d even driven the point home by instructing her to dress appropriately. Surprising how easy it was to play the bastard once you set your mind to it. If only she’d bow those proud shoulders just once and concede defeat, he could let this go. But she wouldn’t. So here they were. And, now, he simply wanted the whole thing done with.

  “…make sure you take the cost of that pitcher out of his check when you pay him tonight.”

  “I’ll do that.” The caterer had probably broken the pitcher because he was staring down her blouse.

  “No, you won’t. Except for me, you’re Mr. Big Spender. Even with that incompetent West Coast weasel of a caterer.”

  “Such prejudice from someone who once lived in California herself.”

  “Well, sure, but I was drunk most of the time.”

  He caught his smile just in time. He wouldn’t give in to that seductive charm. Her self-deprecating sense of humor was another manipulation, her way of making sure no one else threw the first punch.

  “Is that all?”

  She eyed his dark trousers and long-sleeved grape-colored shirt. “If only I hadn’t sent your dueling pistols to the cleaners.”

  He’d promised himself he’d stop sparring with her, but the words came out anyway. “At least I still have my riding crop. Just the thing, I’ve heard, for disciplining an unruly servant.”

  She liked that, and she flashed him a wide smile on her way out the door. “You can be funny for a stiff.”

  The word stiff hung in the air behind her like the scent of sex-rumpled bedsheets. If only she knew…

  So far, so good, Sugar Beth thought to herself. The house looked beautiful with flowers everywhere and candles glowing. In the foyer, the flames of a dozen white tapers reflected off the shiny black finish of the baby grand. The young woman Colin had hired to play looked up from the keyboard and smiled. Sugar Beth smiled back, then took a last glance at the living room. Creamy pillar candles nested in the magnolia leaves she’d arranged across the fireplace mantel, and clusters of cut-glass votives flickered on the smaller tables she’d positioned here and in the sunroom.

  Keep moving. Don’t think.

  Not all the changes Colin had made to the house were bad. Without the fussy wallpaper, the downstairs had a more spacious feel, and the efficient new kitchen was a definite improvement over the old cramped one. She also liked the way the sunroom kept the back of the house from being too gloomy. But she still missed the sight of her father’s keys tossed on a table and the scent of Diddie’s perfume permeating every room.

  In a few hours, it’ll be over.

  She headed to the dining room to make certain the caterer hadn’t moved anything. The pepperberry sprays she’d wound through the arms of the chandelier made the room homier, and the centerpiece of pale orange Sari roses and deep gold Peruvian lilies glowed against the mocha linen tablecloth just as she’d known they would. She’d already dimmed the hallway chandelier, and now she did the same in the dining room. The old walls embraced her. You should have been mine, she thought. I don’t deserve you—I didn’t even want you—but you should have been mine all the same.

  She wanted to believe she’d worked so hard on this party to prove to Colin that she wasn’t a screwup, but it was more than that. She’d needed to see this house shine again. And she’d needed to keep herself so busy she wouldn’t brood over the part she’d play tonight.

  For a moment she let herself pretend she was still the daughter of Frenchman’s Bride, that tonight’s guests were the ones she would have invited if she hadn’t worked so hard at ruining her life: the Seawillows; Ryan; batty old Mrs. Carmichael, who’d died ten years ago but used to tell everyone that Sugar Beth was just as sweet as her name; Bobby Jarrow and Woody Newhouse; Pastor Ferrelle and his wife; Aunt Tallulah, even though she’d disapprove of Sugar Beth’s arrangements.

  Where are your grandmother’s cheese straws? Bless your heart, Sugar Beth, even you know you can’t have a party at Frenchman’s Bride without Martha Carey’s cheese straws.

  The imaginary guest list evaporated. The last thing she wanted to see tonight was a familiar face. Glassware tinkled as Renaldo, the college boy who’d be serving drinks, headed toward the bar in the living room with a tray of empty champagne glasses. “Ernie says he needs you in the kitchen.”

  “All right. Thanks.” Don’t think about what’s coming. Just do your job.

  Ernie, the hapless caterer, looked like a demonic Porky Pig with his pink face, bald head, and bushy eyebrows. He’d forgotten toothpicks for the hors d’oeuvre trays, so Sugar Beth dug some out. She’d just handed them over when the doorbell rang. Her stomach pitched.

  Oh, no you don’t. You’re not wimping out now. She straightened her shoulders and made her way to the front door.

  Colin had gotten there first. He stood in the entrance hall with two men and a woman whose chic black outfit had New York City written all over it. One of the men was fiftyish and swarthy, the other a trim Ivy Leaguer. This could only be Colin’s agent, his agent’s wife, and Neil Kirkpatrick, his editor. Colin had met them for lunch at the Parrish Inn, where they were spending the night, but this was the first Sugar Beth had seen of them.

  The woman’s eyes widened as she took in the sweeping staircase and candlelit foyer. “Colin, I wasn’t prepared. This is incredible.”

  Sugar Beth absorbed the compliment as if it had been given to her. Frenchman’s Bride wasn’t the last whistle-stop on anybody’s nowhere line.

  The soft ballad coming from the piano, the marble floor glowing in the velvety light from the chandelier, the candles shimmering…Everything so beautiful. The house swept her up in its spell, and she imagined she caught a whiff of Diddie’s perfume. It made her smile. She walked toward the guests. Extended her hand. “Welcome to Frenchman’s Bride.”

  The woman cocked her head. The men looked confused. Sugar Beth realized what she’d done, and her fingers convulsed as she snatched back her hand. Colin stepped forward, his voice quiet. “Take Mrs. Lucato’s coat, Sugar Beth.”

  Her face burned with embarrassment as she forced herself to reach out again. “Of course.”

  She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t bear knowing he was watching her. In the space of a few seconds, she’d undone ten days of wisecracks and pigheadedness, ten days of never once letting him see how much it hurt to be a servant in the house that should have been hers.

  Somehow she made her way to the laundry room where she’d set up a rack for coats. She’d been ready to introduce herself to them all, just as if she had the right. Her skin felt hot. She wanted to run away, but she was trapped. Trapped in this house, this town. Trapped with a man who wished her nothing but harm.

  The doorbell rang again, faint but audible. She thought of Delilah, put steel to her spine, and went to answer it.

  This time Colin’s guests were an elderly couple. She managed to admit them with nothing more than a polite nod. After that, the arrivals came more quickly until Mayor Aaron Leary and his wife arrived.

  “Why, Sugar Beth…It’s been a long time,” he said.

  “Yes, it has.”

  “This is my wife, Charise.”

  The model-slim woman at his side hadn’t come from Parrish, and she looked confused about why her husband was presenting her to the maid.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Leary.” She wouldn’t make the mistake of overstepping the bounds of familiarity again, not when Colin stood close by waiting for her to do just that.

  Several couples arrived from Oxford, professors, she gathered. Everyone greeted Colin as if he were one of them, which he’d never be, not in a thousand years. She felt him watching her every move. H
e wanted this to be horrible. It was his payback. She knew that, made herself accept it.

  Jewel Myers showed up, along with the curly-haired blonde who’d worked for her at the bookstore. Sugar Beth remembered how Ellie used to send Jewel out to the veranda with a pitcher to serve Sugar Beth and her friends.

  “This lemonade isn’t pink, Jewel. Take it back and tell Ellie we want pink.”

  Jewel studied Sugar Beth’s black slacks and white blouse. “Well, well…The world gets more interesting all the time.”

  Only last week, Sugar Beth had been hoping for a friendship with Jewel. Now she realized how impossible that was. “Would you like me to take your shawl?”

  “I’ll keep it for now.”

  Voices from the past echoed in her head. “I don’t want ham, Jewel. Tell Ellie to make me peanut butter and honey.”

  “Yez’m, Miz Scarlett.”

  Jewel had actually said that to Sugar Beth, and Sugar Beth wanted to believe she’d laughed, but that was probably only wishful thinking.

  In the living room, Colin stood with his head tilted toward one of the professors, but she knew it was merely a pose. Every bit of him was focused on her. Payback time.

  “I don’t think Meredith wants to keep her coat,” Jewel said, amusement dancing in her eyes.

  Sugar Beth welcomed the chance to escape, and as she hung up the coat, she sent out a little prayer. Okay, God, it’s time to ease up, all right? I get the fact that I was horrible. But I’ve tried to mend my ways. Some of them, anyway…So could you back off now?

  God, however, had better things to do than listen to the prayers of a tarnished Southern belle, because the next time she opened the door, the Seawillows were standing on the other side.

  Not all of them. Only Leeann and Merylinn. But they were enough. Sugar Beth stared into their faces, so familiar, yet changed, and she remembered how Colin had danced around the truth. She should have known they’d be here. Part of her must have known.

  Leeann and Merylinn stared back, not surprised, because they’d been expecting exactly this. Leeann’s eyes sparkled with malicious delight. “Why, Sugar Beth. We heard you were back in town.”