“Dad!” Scotty said.
“Really, Brad,” Mrs. Hughes said. “I think you should keep such opinions to yourself.”
“That’s right,” Claire said. “Because if I am what you said, then I’ll do anything I can to get money out of you. And if I’m not, then you’re just going to make me angry, and I might seek revenge by getting money out of you.” She smiled just to see his reaction. He didn’t smile back, but there was a greater look of respect in his eyes.
“You’re tougher than I thought,” he said.
Claire nodded. “I’m tough,” she said. “But I’m not cheap and whorish.”
“Please apologize to her, Brad,” Mrs. Hughes said. “This is a terrible situation, and we don’t want to make things worse by alienating her. Scotty’s future depends on what we do.”
Scotty looked miserable. Claire remembered how he’d been the night before in New York and tried to decide whether marriage or being back home was the problem. Probably both. She was in no mood to take all the blame.
“I spoke in haste,” Mr. Hughes said. “I’m sorry if I offended you.”
Claire laughed. “You called me a whore,” she pointed out. “Of course you offended me.”
“Then I am indeed sorry,” Mr. Hughes said. “My wife is right. This is no occasion for name-calling. I lost my temper. It’s natural that I would be worried about Scotty. He’s only nineteen, and his future lies ahead of him. You can destroy that future, and that alarms me.”
It was a pretty speech, the sort Claire might make under similar circumstances. “I never meant to hurt Scotty,” Claire replied. She felt as though she were speaking in a foreign language, one whose words she knew but wasn’t comfortable with. “I love him, and I thought he loved me. I guess I was wrong. I guess it doesn’t matter. Even if he does still love me, we wouldn’t stand a chance. Not without your blessing.”
“I cannot possibly offer you my blessing,” Mr. Hughes declared. “When Scotty is older, and picks a bride more, shall we say, more conventional, then I’ll bestow my blessing.”
“I hope he’ll be very happy then,” Claire said. “I do want that for Scotty, that he should be happy. You believe me, don’t you, Mrs. Hughes?”
Scotty’s mother nodded. Claire realized that she didn’t even know her own aunt’s name. This was hardly the time to ask. Evvie might know.
“I’m sure you’re a very nice girl,” Mrs. Hughes said. “Young and impetuous, but respectable. Not any of those things Brad said about you. And I know you appreciate how worried we are about Scotty. Someday you’ll have a son, and then you’ll truly understand.”
If Claire had had any fantasies about mothering, she’d lost all interest in the past ten minutes. “I only hope I’ll be as good a mother as you are,” she said. “Scotty loves you so much. He told me about the time you share together, how he doesn’t get to see nearly enough of you, but when he does, how much he cherishes that time. That’s one of the things I love about Scotty. How much he loves you, even though you almost never had enough time for him. I mean, with him.” She smiled and poured herself another cup of tea.
“There will be legal arrangements to be made,” Mr. Hughes said. “Can we count on your cooperation?”
Claire nodded. She lifted the teacup to her mouth, and as she looked up, she saw a young man dazzling in his good looks. He had to be Schyler, she realized, her heart pounding. He was perfect. It should have been the two of them together. They would have made a couple so glorious that the world would have stopped to worship them.
Schyler stared straight at her, and smiled a smile of pure recognition. It wasn’t so much that they looked alike, although there was a resemblance. It was the shared soul of two great beauties. Claire yearned to make love with him. It would be like making love with a mirror.
“It’s Grandfather,” he said. “He wants to speak with Scotty.”
“No,” Scotty said.
“I’ll speak with him,” Claire said. She wished Schyler weren’t there to confuse her. “If he’s going to be angry, he might as well be angry with me.” She stood up, realized she was still holding the teacup, then bent down to put it on its saucer. As she rose, she again made eye contact with him. Their shared gaze was so powerful it hurt.
“I’ll take you,” Schyler said.
“No,” Claire said. “Just tell me how to find him. I’ll go myself.”
“Upstairs,” Schyler replied. “Second door on the right.”
“Thank you,” Claire said. She was astounded she could still walk. She brushed past Schyler as she left the room, and wondered if everyone else could feel the electricity. Schyler could, she knew. He wanted her as much as she wanted him, and now, thanks to this ridiculous marriage, it might be years before they could ever get together.
Claire forced herself to concentrate on her mission. She was about to meet Sebastian Prescott, Nicky’s father, Sybil’s only hope. Nothing else mattered. Everything she’d gone through, she’d done for this moment. Everything she still had to face would be justified by the outcome of this meeting.
She knocked on the door, and waited for him to say, “Come in.” The voice was imperious and angry.
Claire took a deep breath and turned the knob until the door opened. There he was, sitting behind a desk in a room lined with first editions and paintings of setters and spaniels. There he was, Nicky’s father, the only person in the world Nicky truly resembled, except for his daughter Claire.
Claire entered the room and walked straight toward the man. She’d managed to grab her overnight bag when she’d left the living room, and she held on to it tightly. When she reached the desk, she put the bag down first, then swung herself up on the desk until she was sitting two feet away from Sebastian Prescott. She witnessed his shocked response to her nerve, her closeness, her face, her very being.
“Hiya, Gramps,” she said. “It’s about time we met, don’t you think?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sebastian Prescott turned bright red.
Claire inched herself closer to him, while continuing to swing her legs off the side of the desk. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “You must think I’m awfully presumptuous calling you Gramps just because I married your grandson a couple of hours ago.”
“Get off this desk immediately,” Mr. Prescott said. Claire was grateful that he could still speak. She should have found out if he had a blood pressure problem. It was too late now.
“Calm down,” she said, making no effort to move. “Relax. This won’t be too painful, I promise.”
“If you’re after money from me, the answer is no,” Mr. Prescott declared. “So you can forget your foolish schemes and leave at once.”
“Hear me out, Gramps,” Claire said. “Or do you prefer something more formal? Grandfather, maybe, or Grand-père? You’re not French, though, are you. I’d love it if you were French.”
“You are a stupid young woman,” Mr. Prescott declared.
“No,” Claire replied. “You’re wrong. You have no idea how wrong you are.”
“Why did you come in here in the first place?” he asked. “I wanted to see my grandson, not you.”
“Grandson, granddaughter, what difference does it make?” Claire replied. “Or haven’t you seen the family resemblance?”
“You are delusional,” Mr. Prescott said. “Get out at once.”
“Not until I give you my father’s regards,” Claire said. “Nicholas Sebastian is my father.”
“I’ve never heard of him,” Mr. Prescott declared.
“Oh, that’s right, you wouldn’t have,” Claire said. “The one time you met, he was still George Keefer.” She laughed. “I don’t know anyone who looks less like a George Keefer than Nicky,” she declared. “It was right after he came to visit you that he changed his name. Nick Sebastian suits him so much better. The Sebastian, he borrowed from you, but I don’t know why he picked Nicholas.” She paused for a moment to watch Sebastian Prescott’s reaction, and she wasn’t disappo
inted. He ceased being flushed with anger, and after a moment’s puzzlement, turned pale. He clutched the desk with his hands, and stared straight at her.
“Surprise!” Claire said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mr. Prescott said. “Who’s this George Keefer you keep mentioning?”
“You have a good memory, Gramps,” Claire said. “I only mentioned him once. You don’t mind if I call you Gramps, do you? There’s been a real shortage of grandparents in my life, and I always thought it would be great to have a Gramps of my own. And now I do.”
“I’ve never heard of a George Keefer,” Mr. Prescott said. “I don’t know why you keep persisting in this fairy tale.”
“It’s no fairy tale,” Claire replied. “A long time ago you had an affair with your secretary. I guess that was what businessmen were supposed to do in those days. She got pregnant, which wasn’t in her job description, and you paid her off. No big deal, at least not to you. Only, eighteen years later, into your office walks George Keefer, calling you Dad and making like he wants a family reunion. You know and I know all he’s after is some money, so you pay him off, too. You’re good with the checkbook, Gramps. I’ll give you that. Another twenty-five years or so pass, and in walks George’s daughter Claire. Your granddaughter, Mr. Prescott. Your very own flesh and blood.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said.
“How can you not?” Claire asked. “You look exactly like Nicky, or at least the way he’s going to look in about thirty years. I can’t wait to tell him he won’t be bald. That’ll be such a relief for him. Nicky’s very vain about his appearance. I am, too. I suppose you are, also. Vanity runs in a family, like dark hair and high cheekbones.”
“If Keefer, or Nicky, or whatever he calls himself, sent you here, he’s going to be very disappointed,” Mr. Prescott declared. “He’s gotten all the money from me he’s ever going to see.”
“Nicky doesn’t know I’m here,” Claire said. “Nicky doesn’t know you’re alive. He probably doesn’t care, either. He made up a much better daddy than you ever were. Some noble hero who died during World War Two. He doesn’t even give you credit for his college education. He claims his high-school English teacher paid for that. Poor Gramps. You give a boy a headstart in life, and he never even thanks you.”
“How do you know all this?” Mr. Prescott asked. “What you’re claiming, I mean, about Keefer.”
Claire smiled. “That’s where the story gets interesting,” she said. “Not that I don’t love all the sleazy parts about the affair and the payoffs. You see, after George Keefer became Nick Sebastian, he met my mother. Her name was Margaret Winslow. Your son-in-law Brad knows her. Anyway, Megs’s guardian, Grace Winslow, hired a detective to find out about Nicky. She didn’t trust him, and rightly so. I’m sure she’d be delighted to tell you everything that’s in the report. She told me, after all, and my older sister Evvie.”
“Evvie?” Mr. Prescott said. He’d gotten some color back in his cheeks, but he still seemed to be shocked by what was going on. Claire couldn’t blame him.
“There’s a bunch of us,” Claire said. “Nicky and Megs have four daughters. I’m number three, but I’m the only one who looks like you. I brought a picture. Hold on, and I’ll dig it out.” She opened her overnight bag, and located the snapshot, which she handed to Mr. Prescott. “There’s Nicky, see how much he looks like you, and Megs, she’s squinting, and then there’s Evvie and Thea and my younger sister, Sybil, and me. It’s an old picture, but it should serve as an introduction.”
Mr. Prescott stared at the picture. Claire decided not to rush him. It was his first glimpse of his son in twenty-five years. Once he’d had his fill, he flung the picture across the room.
“I know,” Claire said. “It’s a little overexposed.”
“I want you out of here,” Mr. Prescott said. “Right away.”
“Believe me, I sympathize,” Claire replied. “You probably want some time to yourself, to compose yourself, think about the appropriate way of welcoming me to your family. You have a choice, after all. Granddaughter, or granddaughter-in-law. Birthday cake, or wedding cake, that sort of thing. I don’t care which way you go, so pick what’s most comfortable for you.”
Mr. Prescott swung his arm across the desk and slapped Claire hard.
“Hey, that hurt!” Claire said, trying not to rub, not to cry.
“That’s nothing compared to what I can do to you, if you don’t leave immediately,” Mr. Prescott said. “Get out at once.”
Claire jumped off the desk and walked over to where the picture lay. She bent down and picked it up, then walked back to the desk and pushed the snapshot at Mr. Prescott. “This is your family,” she said. “As much as Schyler and Prescott are. Look at them.”
Mr. Prescott’s eyes lowered toward the photograph.
Claire waited until he was through looking, and then she pulled the picture back. “You gave my father nothing,” she declared. “Just a few thousand, not even enough to put him through college. I bet you were more generous to your other children. I bet they got everything you had to give them, trips, and college, and cars, and savings bonds, and memberships in all the right country clubs. All Nicky got were your looks.”
“My children were born in wedlock,” Mr. Prescott said. “Naturally, they were entitled to all I had to give them.”
“Including your moral standards, no doubt,” Claire said. “Let me tell you, there’ve been lots of times I haven’t liked Nicky, but I know he would never cheat on Megs. And if somehow he found out he had an extra kid lying around, that kid would be as much my sister or brother as Evvie or Sybil or Thea. You knew all those years that there was a child. The birth certificate might have said ‘father unknown,’ but you knew. And you let him grow up without once seeing how he was, seeing if there was something you could do for him. Nicky’s stepfather was a drunk and he used to beat him, and his mother got sick and died when he was a kid, when he was my age, and you weren’t there to help. He could have starved, and you wouldn’t have cared.”
“I had a family to care about,” Mr. Prescott said. “I had a family to protect.”
“You had yourself to protect,” Claire said. “You and your lousy reputation.”
“I do not have to justify myself to you,” Mr. Prescott said. “I have no legal or moral responsibities to your father or you.”
“I used to picture having a grandfather,” Claire said. “My mother’s an orphan, too, a real one, so I never had grandparents. I never dreamed that I did have a grandfather somewhere, and that he was slime.”
“I hit you once, young lady,” Mr. Prescott said. “And I would be perfectly willing to hit you again.”
“It’s going to be real hard to explain if I come out of here with a black eye,” Claire replied. “And you’re going to have enough explaining to do, anyway, so I wouldn’t aggravate the situation if I were you.”
Mr. Prescott stared at Claire with such loathing that it took all her strength not to turn away. She’d come too far to let him bully her out of there. There were too many unsettled debts.
“I think,” she said, “that I’m a lot like you.”
“Get out,” he said. “Before I call the police.”
Claire laughed. “That’s the silliest thing you’ve said yet,” she declared. “First of all, I haven’t committed any crimes. I’m here with your grandson, who happens to be my husband. And even if that constitutes trespassing, you’re not going to bring the police into this. You don’t want to bring anyone into it. This is just between you and me. That’s the way you really want it. We both know that.”
“What is it that you want?” he asked.
“A lot of money,” Claire replied. “As much as you’re willing to give.”
It was Mr. Prescott’s turn to laugh. “I’ll give you nothing,” he declared. “You’ll go out of here as penniless as when you entered.”
“I have nothing to lose, then,” Claire said. “That??
?s the great thing about being poor. You, on the other hand, could stand to lose a whole lot.”
“Your father has no legal claim on my wealth,” Mr. Prescott said.
“I don’t know,” Claire replied. “I’m not a lawyer. But I would think that if Nicky brought—what is it called—a nuisance suit against you, it might net him a few dollars. After all, if he could prove your paternity, he’d have a claim on your estate.” She had no idea if she was right, but she thought that was how it worked on television.
“What’s to prevent him from doing that, even if I do give you the money?” Mr. Prescott asked.
Claire tried to keep the relief she felt from showing. One slipup, and she could lose it all. But she could see he was weakening, and she needed to know that. “Nicky doesn’t want to have anything more to do with you than you want to have with him,” she replied. “Hell, if I could find you, he could find you. Obviously, he hasn’t been looking.”
“Then what makes you think he’d take my money?” Mr. Prescott asked. “If he’s as proud as you claim he is.”
“Because it wouldn’t be for him,” Claire said. “It would be for my sister Sybil. That’s your youngest granddaughter, at least on Nicky’s side. Sybil’s fourteen now. Two years ago, she was hit by a hit-and-run driver. She’s been crippled ever since. You’d like Sybil, if you ever got to know her. She drives a hard bargain, too.”
“So I’m supposed to contribute to some fund for her behalf,” Mr. Prescott said. “Just offer you a little charity?”
“I prefer to think of it as blackmail,” Claire said. “Charity’s such an ugly word.” She smiled broadly.
Mr. Prescott sat back in his chair and laughed. “I don’t frighten you, do I?” he said.
“Sybil’s future frightens me,” Claire replied. “You’re nothing compared to that.”
“Very well,” Mr. Prescott said. “Since it’s for such a worthy cause, I’ll contribute to your fund. How does five thousand dollars sound to you?”
“It sounds like garbage,” Claire said.
“Don’t push me, girl,” Mr. Prescott said. “Or else you’ll walk out of here empty-handed.”