by Jane Peart
His voice interrupted her thoughts.
“Well, Countess"—again he used her title with an almost imperceptible sneer—"what do you say? Would you be interested in taking on such a project?”
Evalee drew herself up. It wouldn’t do to let MacGowan think she was awed by his presence or at the prospect of such a huge and possibly lucrative assignment.
“I’d certainly consider it, Mr. MacGowan.” She paused, realizing it would be wise to play her cards right with this obviously bold entrepreneur. “I’ll have to check my schedule to see what jobs I have already scheduled. The due dates for completion on some of them might conflict with yours.” She paused again. “How soon do you expect to move in?”
“Not for about nine months. I have an apartment in New York, and I go to my London office frequently. That’s why I need to have a commitment—as soon as possible. I want to know that my place is in good hands while I’m away and out of the country. I want to be sure that it will be ready when I come back here to live.”
Evalee flipped through her notebook to her appointment calendar. “I think we should discuss this after I’ve had a chance to look through my files and consider what’s involved, if that is all right with you, Mr. MacGowan. Shall we say a week from today? At my office?” She felt it was important to see MacGowan on her own turf. Also, it would give him a chance to see Gatehouse Interiors, get an idea of her taste, the ambiance she created.
“Very well, a week from today. Tuesday, the twentieth,” he said. “Time?”
“Two?”
“Two it is.” With that he turned and walked to his car, which she recognized. It was parked near the house he had just bought. It seemed strangely out of place in front of the gracious old mansion, just as Trent MacGowan seemed out of place in Mayfield.
Later, back at Gatehouse Interiors, Evalee faced the hard task she had been avoiding for the past few weeks—taking inventory of where her business stood. Before long it became obvious that her unpaid bills and accounts due far outweighed her projected income. Numerous people who had talked to her about remodeling or decorating hadn’t called back. Her operating expenses mounted each month. She was embarrassingly late paying Scott this month’s rent.
Of course, he would never pressure her for the money, but how long could she take advantage of her relative’s generosity? The business should be starting to take off by now.
For a few minutes she felt the same sick sensation she’d lived with constantly in Paris. The panic of being terrified that her paycheck wouldn’t last to the end of the week. The fear of being evicted, broke—or worse, destitute. Although she knew that would never happen here, the fear of it was still very real.
The scope of a job like Wemberly was huge. She did not have the confidence she had shown Trent MacGowan. She had neither the experience nor the professional training for the project. Of course, he didn’t know that. The facade she had used so often had evidently worked with him. But what if she failed?
Quickly Evalee stuffed the pile of bills into one of the desk drawers. She had to accept the challenge. This could be her big break. Done successfully, it could bring her everything. She had to believe she could do it. With God’s help, she thought.
The next week on the appointed day, promptly at two, Trent MacGowan arrived at Gatehouse Interiors. At the sound of his car engine, Evalee, in a last minute of nervousness at the coming interview, adjusted the scarf at the neck of her simply styled plum wool dress, touched the amethyst cameo brooch. She had chosen her outfit to make the best possible statement. To a man like Trent MacGowan, image was everything.
He didn’t see her at first. But sitting behind the graceful Sheraton table she used as a desk, which was angled in a corner at the back of the room, she was able to observe him.
He walked in and glanced around, making a sweeping inventory, taking stock of the merchandise on display, the framed paintings, the mahogany breakfront with its glass doors and its blue-and-white Meissen collection.
Knowing he didn’t see her and might be offended if she didn’t make her presence known, Evalee moved the paperweight on her desk, rustled some papers, and stood up, saying, “Good afternoon, Mr. MacGowan.”
If he was startled by her presence, he covered it well. However, there was a slight flush under his deep tan, as if he realized he might have been observed, and didn’t like it.
He took a few quick strides toward her and looked her up and down as if evaluating a fine piece of furniture, then asked brusquely, “Well, Countess, have you decided whether you’ll undertake the renovation of my house?”
“I’ve done some research on the original floor plan and read descriptions of the rooms, decorations, other details, and I—”
He interrupted. “Can you do it or not?”
Refusing to let his manner rattle her, Evalee continued. “As I was going to say, Mr. MacGowan, if I could also have a copy of the blueprints—”
“Whatever you need,” he said shortly. “Just contact Doris, my secretary. I’ll set up an account at the local bank, with your name as cosigner of any checks written in obtaining antiques, rugs, wallpaper, whatever. Doris will countersign and keep dual records. Is it settled, then?”
“Just a minute, Mr. MacGowan. I haven’t submitted my proposal yet or—”
“My lawyers will handle all that and draw up the contracts.”
“You haven’t heard my fee.”
“I know this sort of job doesn’t come cheap. Let’s say I’ll put an additional amount in this account as a reasonable advance. You can negotiate the total amount of your fee with my attorneys. Whatever it takes, I want Wemberly restored to its former glory. Fair?”
Momentarily speechless, Evalee stared at him. She usually had to approach the subject of money cautiously, tactfully, always ready to come down on her fee if a client seemed at all reluctant. She saw no such reluctance in Trent MacGowan.
He looked at her almost defiantly. “I think you’ll find it difficult to reach the end of my resources, Countess. When I want something, the price is no object.”
“I can see that,” she murmured, feeling a stir of resentment. This man was flagrantly arrogant. But she controlled herself, knowing that this job could make her reputation. She studied MacGowan, realizing that she knew very little about him. She had no idea what drove the man’s ambition, except her suspicion that he was a self-made millionaire who had the outsider’s typical hunger to belong.
Beginning to lose patience, MacGowan suddenly lashed out. “Am I to assume that your hesitation to take this job is due to some inborn prejudice against newcomers in this valley? Let me put your mind to ease on that subject. I am far from being a Yankee carpetbagger, as I have been mistakenly called. I was born and raised in the South—albeit in Milltown, on the other side of the tracks from your sainted ancestors. I understand it galls you that someone with no FFV background now owns the Wemberly estate.”
Before Evalee could gather herself enough to respond, MacGowan said with a smile that was more a sneer, “I’m just a country boy at heart, one who grew up with the knack of making money.”
“Money isn’t everything,” Evalee snapped. But she thought, Unless you don’t have it.
He showed no emotion. There was only a slight tightening of his mouth, a deepening of the lines that ran on either side of it. “Money is power. Power to get you what you want in life. I had a mama who drank and a stepfather who beat me. I ran away when I was fifteen and joined the merchant marine. So nostalgia for Mayfield’s glory days doesn’t move me. I happen to have money, quite a lot of it, and now that I have it, I intend to use it to renovate that house—and the fact is, I need someone to help me do it.” He smiled, his eyes cold as steel. “Someone like you, Countess. Want the job?”
Holding back the sharp retort she might have made, Evalee managed to say evenly, “Yes, I do, Mr. MacGowan.”
Their transaction had taken place with incredible swiftness. Her mind was already calculating what payment for this
project would mean to her—and to Natasha. In spite of Evalee’s dislike for this man, the job would get her out of the red, put her business on its feet, provide handsomely for her and her daughter. This job was a gift. Evalee breathed a prayer of thankfulness.
chapter
16
New York
KITTY TORE A page out of the typewriter, crumpled it, and tossed it into the wastebasket. All week she had been revising, rewriting, and still it wasn’t right.
She had spent most of the summer shut up in this stuffy place, the windows closed against the city noises, the whir of her electric fan going constantly. The pressure of the approaching deadline was making her tension almost unbearable.
She got up from the desk, went to the window, and looked down on the milling traffic in the street below her apartment. She felt confined, trapped.
Should she call Craig Cavanaugh, tell him she was finding it impossible to complete her book? What she had first written in her rush to tell the story seemed amateurish now. She had rewritten parts of it, and it still didn’t seem to say what she hoped to say.
What was she to do? Maybe she was too close to it all and therefore unable to be objective. She longed to have someone else’s opinion of the book. Yet she knew it was not ready to be read. Craig Cavanaugh’s enthusiasm for the first hundred pages had made her almost too self-conscious.
At last, knowing her deadline was nearing, she was driven to make the call to Cavanaugh’s office. They arranged to meet for lunch.
As soon as they ordered, she explained her inability to move ahead on her manuscript. Then she added, “I’m sorry to bother you with this…problem.”
He smiled. “That’s what editors are for, to help authors with their problems. What you’re going through is not unusual,” he said reassuringly. “Lots of authors experience writer’s block.”
The waiter came and took their order. After he went away, Cavanaugh leaned his elbows on the table and said, “I’m going abroad next week on a trip combining business and pleasure. I’ll be meeting with some authors, agents, booksellers, in England, Ireland, and Sweden. I need to make some publishing arrangements with some of our writers, in case—well, things are looking increasingly bad over there, although England is trying not to see it.” He halted. “Anyway, I expect to be gone for a few months. So I have a suggestion. Why not use my beach house? You could work out there undisturbed. A change in atmosphere might be just the thing to loose whatever block you have.”
“Oh, I couldn’t!” Kitty exclaimed. “That’s much too much an imposition—”
“Not at all. I assure you, it’s comfortable, quiet but not totally isolated, and there’s a phone, a small grocery store near-by, and the train to New York runs every few hours.” He chuckled. “There are neighbors who live out there year round, but they will respect your privacy. What do you say?”
“I don’t know. It’s terribly kind of you, but—”
“Not at all.” His eyes twinkled. “I want that book for our fall list. Editors will use all sorts of tactics to get their writers writing.”
Kitty regarded him thoughtfully. She was so new at all this. Maybe it wasn’t unusual for writers to get bogged down mid-book or have the psychological block she seemed to have. Perhaps it would be all right to accept his generous offer. What she did not know was that although Craig Cavanaugh was a fine, conscientious editor, he had never before offered his beach house to one of his authors.
“Well, if you really—” she began slowly.
“I do. Really, Katherine Traherne,” Cavanaugh declared. “And it’s settled. I’ll be leaving Thursday, and you can move in over the weekend.”
Their food came, and they spent the rest of the time discussing Kitty’s questions, and Cavanaugh’s ideas, about the book. By the time they finished, she felt: somewhat better, perhaps ready to work again.
Standing outside the restaurant after lunch, Cavanaugh looked down at Kitty. Her eyes still seemed slightly troubled, her expression a little uncertain. She seemed so fragile, so vulnerable. He knew from her manuscript that she was courageous, a woman of faith and unimaginable endurance—still, he felt the urge to take her into his arms, protect her from anything and everything. The feeling was so sudden, so strong, that he was momentarily shaken.
Quickly he hailed a passing taxi for Kitty and put her in it, saying, “When I come back we can go over the book together. We can debate what to take out and what to leave in.”
“Thank you,” Kitty said. “For everything.”
“I’ll leave the key to the house, instructions about where things are, with my secretary,” he told her before shutting the cab door.
The little resort town was quiet now. The summer people were gone and the beach was empty.
Cavanaugh’s cottage was charming, with weathered paneling, a Franklin stove in one corner, comfortable wicker furniture cushioned in blue-and-white striped ticking. The wide porch had a spectacular view of the beach and ocean. Everything was spotless. He had left the name of his cleaning woman, telephone numbers Kitty might need, and a note on the shiny kitchen counter.
Welcome. Make yourself at home. I’ve stocked the kitchen with some basic food items, hut you may want to get other groceries. The store is only a few streets away. Or you can order by phone and they’ll deliver, if you prefer. I hope the weather holds. Good writing! PU be in touch when I get back.
Craig
Kitty walked around the small house, thinking how perfect it was. A place that held no disturbing memories for her, a place where she could work. How good of Mr. Cavanaugh to let her come here. What confidence it gave her. He must really believe in her book, what she had to say.
She wouldn’t disappoint him, she promised herself.
Mayfield
Before eight o’clock one morning, two weeks after she signed the contracts for the work at Wemberly, Evalee received a call from MacGowan’s secretary.
“Countess Oblenskov, Doris Miller here. Mr. MacGowan would like to see you before he leaves for New York later today. Could you come to Wemberly at ten?”
Evalee, still in her bathrobe, drinking her first cup of coffee, shot an anxious look at the kitchen clock. Natasha, in her nightie, sat at the table, spooning cereal into her rosy mouth, eyes brightly interested, wondering who would be phoning her mother this early.
“Is it Nana?” she whispered, hoping it would be Dru, whom she adored.
Evalee shook her head while looking around at the clutter of breakfast makings, mentally calculating how long it would take her to help Natasha dress, get her lunch packed, send her off to catch the school bus at the end of the road, then shower and change into her career-woman outfit and drive out to Wemberly. At what MacGowan was paying her, she did not want him to have any reason to complain. He was paying her what an upscale New York decorator would get. Quickly she replied, “Of course. I’ll be there.”
“Good,” Doris said crisply. “He wants to walk through the house with you, hear some of your ideas.”
The click and the buzzing sound that followed signified that the phone at the other end had been put down.
“We’re going to have to hurry, baby,” Evalee said to Natasha, taking a gulp of coffee before setting the mug down on the counter. “Peanut butter and jelly OK for your sandwich?”
Natasha slipped down from her place at the table, a ring of milk around her sweetly shaped mouth. “OK! And some Oreos too, please. They’re good for trading.”
Evalee smiled. What would Marushka say if she heard her granddaughter so easily saying OK and liking something as plebeian as peanut butter? What did Russian children eat for lunch? Borscht and caviar? They’d come a long way from Paris and all the Russian aunties. Natasha was becoming a typical little American schoolchild.
Smartly dressed in a black jacket and a pencil-slim red skirt, a red scarf tied around her throat, Evalee was on her way to Wemberly. She was feeling strangely excited, as well as apprehensive. Her encounters with MacGowan seemed
to stir her up. He was abrasive, and she was out of practice at being a submissive employee. However, she knew that was what she now was—Trent MacGowan’s employee. In spite of that, she was determined not to ever let him see that she was the least bit in awe of him, even though his money did sometimes daunt her.
At Wemberly she braked in front of the columned porch. She looked up at the wonderful transformation that had taken place since the day of the auction. Painters were still at work on scaffolding at either side of the house, but the front seemed to be finished. The Corinthian columns were gleaming white, the front door dark green and polished to a shiny background for the eagle-shaped brass knocker.
The house looked ready to receive the guests who must have flocked here in the olden days, when Wemberly was known for its fabulous parties. However, the minute Evalee stepped inside, that illusion was shattered. The center hall, instead of appearing welcoming, looked like the backstage of a theater just getting ready to begin scenery construction. Ladders were everywhere, torn ribbons of wallpaper hung from the walls, paint had been stripped from all the door frames and wainscoting, and paper strips crisscrossed the once beautiful parquet floors, which were now scarred and scuffed. Buckets, crates, and card-board cartons were stacked all around, as though everything had been started and then given up in hopeless abandonment.
The only room that was furnished, he had told her, was an office he had set up there so he could be on the scene while the grounds and exterior of the house were being restored.
Doris, seated at a makeshift desk in a cubbyhole to the left of the entrance, rose and came toward Evalee, greeting her. “Good morning, Countess. You can see we’re in quite a mess here, except for Mr. MacGowan. He’s expecting you.”
When Doris showed her into the office, Evalee looked around admiringly, wondering who had designed it. Had MacGowan hired a decorator to do it, then fired the person? And if so, why? It seemed tasteful and perfectly suited to the architecture of the house.