She swallowed hard. He was reminding her of a pastime that had kept them occupied on many a rainy afternoon . . . and he was doing it in a resonant baritone that was somewhere between her grandfather’s and Damon Frye’s. Celesta blinked and set the refreshments on the table beside her aunt, who was chatting with Eula. “That was years ago,” she mumbled.
“We go back a long way.”
Knowing where this conversation would lead, she looked him straight in the eye. “Which means I also recall how obnoxious you could be, repeating the villains’ lines outside my door at night,” she said in a low voice. “This is not the place to discuss—”
“Then, we’ll go to another room. This house must have dozens of places we can be alone, honey.”
His grip on her hand told her there was no escaping him. “I—I was going to pour the—”
“Katherine and Mother were serving tea before you were born,” he whispered, his blue eyes delving into hers. “Take me where we can talk, Celesta. I have something for you.”
Her pulse pounded weakly, and as she started toward the library she felt Eula and her aunt’s curious gazes. Patrick followed, still holding her hand, and the insistent caress of his thumb made her stomach churn. Surely he hadn’t bought an engagement ring, after the way she’d walked off last time—after he’d caught Damon kissing her! The striped settee in the library looked dangerously intimate, even with Grandfather’s portrait looking on, so she opened the outside door.
“Ah, the porch,” he murmured with a chuckle. “You have a penchant for porches, don’t you, honey?”
Celesta whirled around, scowling. “This is ridiculous,” she hissed. “I told you I couldn’t possibly—your mother will never go along with—”
“It was Mother’s idea for me to come, remember?” Patrick asked with a sly grin. “And now that you’re apparently staying here instead of returning to work for us, my love for you will seem more suitable. Much better for me to court the Ransom niece than the maid. Though I’d be thrilled to call you my own either way.”
It would never do to have Eula or Katherine overhear any of this, so she hurried past the porch furniture and down the steps. His love for her—suitable! Couldn’t he hear his own duplicity?
“Celesta, please, I—I apologize,” he pleaded behind her. “I’ve kept my feelings to myself for so long, dreaming of the day you’d be my wife. I must sound terribly presumptuous to you, spouting off this way.”
She stopped beneath the nearest trees. They were within sight of the house but wouldn’t be heard, far safer than if she walked into the orchard. The garden and honeysuckle hedges were between them and the gazebo, yet she could run that direction if she needed Damon’s protection. Depending upon him was like Little Red Riding Hood trusting the wolf, but his presence calmed her now. Celesta breathed deeply, allowing the shade’s coolness and the sweet smell of honeysuckle to soothe her.
She turned to him, determined to end this outlandish game. “And why on earth would you want to marry me, Patrick Perkins?’’
He blinked. “Why wouldn’t I? You’re witty and caring and terribly—it’s not like you to fish for compliments, Celesta.”
“I need answers, so I’m asking questions,” she stated. “Most girls don’t learn someone’s in love with them while standing in another man’s arms. Most girls are taken to dances or treated to picnics or—do you realize I’ve known you all my life, and you’ve never once sent me a Valentine or passed a note under my door?”
The evidence was damning, and as he watched her closely, Patrick sensed his plan was as mindless as it appeared to Celesta. She was gazing calmly at him, her head high and her proud shoulders back ... ebony hair that would spill to her waist if he removed the pins, lips that would surely surrender if he could only get close enough to claim her.
He reached into his blazer pocket and pulled out a present he’d chosen with great care. “I’m trying to make up for my past oversights,” he said in a husky voice. “Even if you keep refusing me, even if you ridicule me and say you can never love me, I want you to have this, honey. I want you to wear it with the same pride I’ll feel when I take you all those places we haven’t yet been together.”
As he pressed the gift into her palm she felt warm, smooth metal and softest velvet. Celesta’s eyes widened. It was a choker, a heart-shaped locket fashioned from gold that shone with burnished elegance on a crimson ribbon. Patrick was known for sparing no expense to impress his lady friends—of which he had several, she reminded herself—and this trinket was by far the most exquisite piece of jewelry she’d ever owned. And yet. . . .
“Perhaps this makes up for a few paper Valentines?” he asked quietly. “Let me put it on you. I thought the red would flatter your coloring and your lovely neck.”
She held her breath as he fastened the choker with agile, warm fingers. Patrick’s hands lingered on her shoulders; his breath teased at her cheeks when he slowly leaned down to kiss her. His lips were sweet and gentle this time, undemanding now that she wasn’t fighting his advances. “I love you, Celesta,” he murmured, running his tongue along the edge of her ear. “Please give me a chance to show you how much. Please don’t shut me out because I’ve been blind to you all these years.”
It was the whistling that brought her back to her senses, a melody accented by rhythmic hammering from the other side of the honeysuckle. Celesta pulled away, desperately trying to think of a graceful way out of this. “I—I’m just not ready,” she stammered. “Aunt Katherine needs me to—”
“She was too much in love with her husband to expect you to forfeit your own happiness for her,” Patrick pointed out. He slipped his arm around her and held her chin, gently forcing her to look up at him. “Why do you insist on moving into a house that’s never welcomed you? A house that’s faded and cold as a tomb.”
She understood his comparison, because he’d never been to Ransom Manor when it rang with her grandfather’s laughter or sparkled with light from the fine chandeliers. Yet something about his words made her shudder, which jarred another thought loose. “Perhaps I’m a little afraid to return because Mama ... it was so sudden, and we don’t know why.”
He pulled her close, blotting her tears against his shoulder. “Honey, I can understand that. She was a mother to me, too—a rational, kind woman when my parents were too concerned about their own affairs to bother about mine.”
This much was true, and her mother had returned Patrick’s affection. Celesta forced herself to listen with all her senses, though. To observe Patrick carefully through her tears.
“Since it was apparent that something she ate disagreed with her,” he continued tenderly, “I took all the precautions I could think of the next day. I had the cistern and the pipes checked for contamination, I threw away all the open food in the house, and I boiled the dishes you used, for fear you’d fall victim to whatever took your mother.”
He went on, but Celesta’s heart had already sunk: she’d gathered her sugar sample too late. And as Patrick repeated his earnest plea for her return, Celesta suddenly wondered if she was standing in a murderer’s embrace. His precautions were practical and decent—Eula had been too overcome to think of them—but they were also the perfect way to dispose of the poison she was so sure her mother had ingested.
Why would he kill the woman he’d poured his wounded heart out to as a child, the housekeeper who’d kept some of his pranks a secret from his stern father and his excitable mother? It made as much sense to condemn Katherine for poisoning the sister-in-law she’d adored for thirty years.
Somebody did it, though. And as fresh tears welled up, Celesta only wanted to remove herself from all reminders of the horrible crime that had ended Mama’s life. “I’m sorry,” she rasped. “The pain’s still very fresh, and I won’t be good company—”
“I understand, honey, truly I do,” he murmured, silently chiding himself. Why had he upset her with morbid details, breaking her heart anew instead of winning it? “I’ll wal
k you back—”
“I’ll go through the pantry,” she said between sniffles. “I hate to spoil your mother and Katherine’s visit. Please reassure them I’ll be fine. And tell your mother I’ll come for my clothes on Monday.”
He heard the finality in her voice and knew not to press her. Celesta would be her beautiful, resolute self when he saw her again, and it would give him time to choose another gift or arrange an outing . . . and as he’d mentioned before, her moving back to Ransom Manor actually made his plans more socially acceptable anyway.
Patrick smiled, placing his arm loosely around her shoulders as they passed between the fragrant honeysuckle hedge and the house. Celesta had softened visibly when he placed the choker around her neck. She would turn it over in her hands this weekend and admire its beauty in the mirror, thinking of him. If it was love notes she craved, he’d send them, along with other frivolous luxuries she’d been denied all her life. He sincerely admired her and wanted her, so it wasn’t as though he were courting her under false pretenses.
She stiffened, and then he saw why: Damon Frye was stretching up from his ladder, hanging one side of the white swing from the gazebo ceiling. Even with the latticework in front of him, he looked as tawny and powerful as a tiger—and every bit as dangerous.
“I think you should go in, before things get unpleasant. He has a nasty tongue in his head.”
Celesta nodded and quickly ducked through the pantry door—but not before Damon saw her. From his perch atop the gazebo he’d watched the choker change hands and knew Perkins had again failed to impress Celesta, had instead made her cry. After he looped the heavy swing chain onto its hook in the beam, he moved his ladder as though unaware that Patrick was approaching the gazebo, hands stuffed in his trouser pockets.
He was stretched toward the ceiling, balanced precariously on the ladder’s top step and lifting the full, shifting weight of the swing, when Perkins accosted him. “What the hell’re you doing here, Frye?” he demanded. “When I tell Katherine and Justine what sort of clinch you had their niece in, they’ll kick your deceitful ass right into the river. You must’ve sweet-talked Celesta—”
“Nope,” he grunted as he slipped the chain onto its hook. He descended the ladder slowly, making Perkins wait. “Katherine wanted these repairs, and Katherine invited me to board here while I renovate the inside of the house. And considering the attention my other job will require, I could be here a lo-o-ong time.”
Patrick scowled, fully aware of the effect Frye’s well-proportioned body and virile voice would have on three lone women. “You’re full of—”
“Am I?” Damon challenged. He clapped the sides of his ladder together, making his opponent jump. “Ask Katherine yourself. Or better yet, ask Justine. And then think of me eating my meals with your beloved, flirting with her while we hang paper . . . waiting every night for two half-deaf old ladies to start snoring so I can—well, you can imagine the rest. It’s great work when you can get it, Perkins,” he said with a big grin. “Great work, old buddy.”
Chapter 8
As Damon sat beside Celesta in church the next morning, he delighted in her fragile, sweet soprano and felt her brave pain when she prayed, her coal-black lashes trembling against pale cheeks. As he watched her serving ham and creamed peas with new potatoes, he witnessed her quiet efficiency and a true affection for her aunts. And as he sat in the summer parlor with the three of them that afternoon, to show them samples of the latest wallpapers, he suddenly realized how much he’d missed the company of good women.
Justine sat to his left, stick straight yet perched eagerly on the edge of her chair. Katherine was beside him on the sofa, fidgety as a girl at her first dance. Demure and distanced, Celesta sat on an ottoman across the table from them, making his stomach flutter with her shy smiles. There was so much more to admire about her than he’d ever liked in Lucy, which posed a problem: he couldn’t live with himself if he continued to use Celesta to avenge Lucy’s death. Moving into Ransom Manor had seemed the perfect way to gain control over her, yet as he looked at her now, Frye realized he was the one who’d been taken captive.
“I can’t presume to tell you which patterns to choose or how much to spend on these materials,” he began, “so I’ll let you look and ask questions, and I promise not to give advice unless you ask for it.”
“Thank you,” Justine said crisply, peering toward the multicolored sheets. “We’re a frugal lot, yet we detest poor quality. After all, Mother’s papers are still intact forty years after she chose them.”
“A wise attitude,” he replied with a nod.
“Which of these are the Cruikshanks using?” Katherine piped up. She ran an eager finger over a green piece with gold speckles, and then looked at him, her eyes shining.
Damon chuckled. “I brought some swatches from their first floor because I knew you’d be interested,” he said as he picked them up. “They’re both imported—this gold gilt one’s from France, and this leathery-looking paper for the dining room’s running them about a hundred thirty dollars a roll, I hear. How much can I order for you?” he teased.
“My stars!” she gasped.
“That’s preposterous,” Justine muttered. Then she settled herself again, smiling primly. “It’s good you have a sense of humor, Mr. Frye. Dealing with such extravagance must test it at times.”
“It’s part of my job,” he replied with a shrug. “What do you like, Celesta? You’re being awfully quiet.”
She, too, knew better than to presume anything about Justine’s budget, yet the chance to redecorate came so seldom she wanted to at least express an opinion. “This speckled piece Aunt Katherine likes would look elegant in the dining room . . . and perhaps these stripes for the library . . . and what about this Jacobean floral for in here? The pastels would be very soothing, I think.”
Damon gave her an encouraging smile. “You have excellent taste, Miss Montgomery—and very reasonable, too,” he added for her spinster aunt’s benefit. “And what about the vestibule?”
“A home’s entryway makes a statement about its owner,” she ventured with a glance at her aunts. “To me, this scarlet with the gilt flocking is the essence of Ransom pride. Grandfather would’ve loved it.”
“Yes, he would’ve,” Katherine murmured.
“But we so seldom use the entryway,” the other aunt protested. “It seems foolish to spend money on walls that no one but us will see.”
“Which is the perfect excuse for entertaining again!” Katherine countered. She stood up suddenly, quivering with her excitement. “I really must look at our rooms more closely—and I’ll make us some lemonade. It’s so hard to decide!”
Celesta smiled at her younger aunt, and then held her breath when she saw the way Damon was studying her. “I—it’s good to see Katherine so happy and involved in a project,” she stammered. “I’ll help her with our refreshments so she doesn’t wander through the house all afternoon, daydreaming.”
“Excellent idea,” Justine commented. And as Celesta walked through the library, she heard her maiden aunt say, “And now you and I can talk money, Mr. Frye. Just how much will I be set back if I go along with their choices?”
Celesta chuckled and continued to the kitchen, where she found Katherine squeezing lemons with a vengeance. She got a glass pitcher out of the cabinet and then arranged fresh oatmeal cookies on a plate. “Do you think she’ll really agree to all this? She’s never made—or paid for—such a decision.”
Her younger aunt laughed quietly. “Which is the very reason I left the room. She’s too polite to throw a fit in front of Damon, and he’s diplomatic enough to suggest other papers that are less expensive, if need be. The more time we give them alone, the more he’ll persuade her that she can afford our choices.”
“You certainly know your way around her.”
“She has her pride, and her weak spots. And if she substitutes patterns we don’t like, at least we don’t have to look at them for another forty years,” Kat
herine said lightly. “Justine can’t live forever, you know.”
An odd sentiment, but it was obviously a joke. Celesta got out a large tray, pleased that her aunt was humming as she grated some rind into the lemonade . . . pleased that Damon Frye’s presence would have a positive effect on her aunts, even if she herself had to be on constant guard. He was alluring in his tweed trousers, with his shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows. He did indeed have a pleasant singing voice—seemed quite comfortable with the hymns, though his occasional smiles in church had been anything but pious. He was an enigma—
“. . . and where could I have put that sugar?” her aunt was mumbling. “Surely we can’t be out.”
Celesta glanced up from her woolgathering to see Katherine removing the lid from a jar half-full of white crystals. She was tipping it toward the pitcher of lemon juice when Celesta grabbed for it, nearly knocking it from her hand. “NO! That’s not—”
“What on earth’s the matter, child?” the little woman cried. “Without sugar this lemonade won’t be fit to drink!”
“It’s not—” Celesta stopped, wondering how to voice the suspicions that sprang to life when the almondlike odor from the jar reached her nose. When she was brewing tea for the Perkinses yesterday, it hadn’t occurred to her to identify that distinctive odor. But now, in light of Katherine’s allusion that Justine wouldn’t live forever . . . that death came in threes . . . that Mama had complained of bitter tea. . . .
“Take a whiff of that,” she said in a tight voice.
Katherine frowned, inhaled, and then shrugged. “Smells fresh to me. Do you think it’s gotten wormy?”
She seemed sincerely puzzled—and Celesta knew from her Sally Sharpe research that not everyone could detect cyanide’s peculiar aroma—but Katherine was a practiced enough actress . . . could she feign innocence while on the brink of murder?
Celesta exhaled slowly, thinking how the Girl Detective would word this. “Do you . . . keep a supply of ... powder to kill mice with?”
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