by Kay Hooper
“You can leave your sketchpad on the sideboard, Laura,” he told her, and it was only then that she realized she was still holding the thing like a shield. She put it where he suggested, then saw Amelia make a slight gesture indicating where she was to sit, on the old lady’s right hand. Daniel immediately pulled out the chair for her, and Laura was so rattled by then that she took her place with awkward stiffness.
“That’s normally Alex’s place, Laura,” Amelia said, waiting regally for her grandson to hold her own chair, “but I believe I’ll move him across the table to Peter’s chair.”
Kerry was quietly taking a chair on the other side of the table and one place down from Amelia’s left hand, not waiting for Daniel to seat her and apparently unmoved by Amelia’s words. It was Daniel who spoke, as he seated his grandmother, his tone indifferent despite the hint of sarcasm in his words.
“This house is full of rituals, Laura, most of them Amelia’s.”
“There’s nothing wrong with a routine,” Amelia retorted. “I like for things to be in their proper places.”
“And people as well,” Daniel noted, but not as if he cared one way or the other.
It seemed everyone had his or her assigned place at the dining table, at any rate, Laura thought. There was a place set beside Kerry on Amelia’s left hand, empty at present; the other three chairs on that side of the table bore no place settings. On Laura’s side, there was a place setting at the chair next to her, then a chair without a place setting, and then one last place setting.
Daniel went to his place, leaving two empty chairs between him and Laura. She turned her head slightly to glance at him as he sat down, and she was afraid her disappointment showed because she could have sworn she caught a hint of amused understanding in his pale eyes.
“He’s a very dangerous man.”
The truth? Or merely another chess piece moved in the subtle game between Amelia and Daniel? Was the old lady genuinely concerned about Laura’s safety and well-being, or was she bent on making certain that Laura was her pawn rather than Daniel’s?
Laura had no way of knowing. But after Amelia’s seemingly panicked “warning,” she felt more than ever that she had let herself get involved in something far beyond her understanding. Something dangerous.
“Where’s Josie?” Amelia asked.
“Coming,” Daniel replied. “The phone caught her as I left the library.”
“And Madeline?”
“Sleeping. The doctor left some pills with me, and I thought she needed sleep worse than lunch.”
Daniel’s voice was matter-of-fact and certainly without provocation, yet Amelia stiffened and stared down the table at him as if he had quite deliberately offended her. “I wanted her to meet Laura.”
Daniel smiled pleasantly as he unfolded his napkin. “You didn’t want a scene, did you, Amelia? Mother isn’t far from a breakdown, I think we both know that. Sleeping today will help. She can meet Laura tomorrow.”
Before Amelia could respond to that, Josie hurried into the room, apologetic and somewhat harassed. “I’m sorry, Amelia—it was that dratted plumber again, making excuses for not being here today when he promised he would be. Tomorrow, and this time he swears. Hello, Laura.”
“Hello, Josie.” Even more than before, Laura felt that insidious sense of being drawn into this household, this family. It was unsettling. The matter-of-fact acceptance of both Kerry and Josie made her more wary than at ease, and she couldn’t help being thankful that at least one person in this house—the missing Madeline—seemed to be behaving normally regarding Peter’s death. The poor lady was also no doubt upset by Laura’s presence here in the house, something Laura completely understood.
In fact, Laura would have felt better if one or two of the people seated at this table looked at her in open suspicion or even haughty dislike. That at least would have seemed more normal. More expected. And Laura would know, then, how to attempt to defend herself; she would know why she felt so uneasy and threatened. As it was, all she knew was that she felt very much out of place despite the calm acceptance of those around her.
Only Daniel had expressed any suspicion of her, any reservations about her explanation of her relationship with Peter, and even he now seemed casually accepting of her presence. Seemed being the operative word; Laura was well aware that he remained unconvinced of her complete innocence.
As soon as Josie slid into her chair and unfolded her napkin, the swinging door to the butler’s pantry opened and a sedately uniformed maid began serving lunch. The food was good, if a bit unimaginative, and conversation around the table was generally sporadic and fairly innocuous, but Laura found it difficult to relax.
On the one hand, she was overwhelmingly conscious of Daniel, which resulted in an upsetting but hardly unpleasant jumble of emotions and a heightened sensitivity to every sound and movement around her; on the other hand, she was ill at ease in this house and wary of undercurrents she didn’t understand. Which meant that her emotional state could best be described as confused and apprehensive.
Not exactly at her best.
“How’s the sketching going?” Josie asked Laura halfway through the soup course.
“As well as can be expected, I suppose.” Laura smiled a little.
“Feeling tentative?” Josie guessed, her own smile understanding.
“Very much so.”
“I imagine it must be tough to push yourself artistically. Still, I envy anybody who’s creative. I can’t draw a straight line that looks like a straight line, and even the pictures I take with a camera never resemble whatever it was I pointed at.”
“I always wanted to write music,” Kerry said in her soft voice. “But I’ve enjoyed playing other people’s compositions so much that I just never tried writing my own. Afraid I couldn’t measure up, I guess.”
“What instrument do you play?” Laura asked.
“Piano.”
“She’s very good,” Amelia said.
“When you spend enough time doing it, you can be good at almost anything,” Kerry said.
“Only if you have talent in the first place,” Josie told her with a smile.
Laura agreed silently with Josie, but Kerry’s statement made her wonder if Peter’s widow had turned herself into a recluse because of her scars. Was this house and its secluded and protected grounds her prison? She had gone to Peter’s funeral, Laura recalled from the news coverage on TV—but heavily veiled. And Laura couldn’t remember any mention of Kerry being scarred in all the newsprint following the murder, or in Cassidy’s reports of tabloid stories. Was it not publicly known, or were even the tabloids being uncharacteristically kind in simply not mentioning it?
“Kerry plays for us sometimes in the evenings,” Amelia told Laura. “Perhaps you’ll decide to stay overnight once or twice while you’re working on the portrait, and she can give us a recital.”
“I’d be delighted,” Kerry said in that tone of one with manners drummed into her, giving away nothing of her true feelings on the subject.
Laura smiled quickly at her, but said only, “Perhaps I will, Amelia. But my plan, as we discussed, is to leave each day by late afternoon. I don’t want to intrude on the family any more than necessary.”
“And I told you it wouldn’t be an intrusion,” Amelia reminded her gently. “You’re more than welcome in this house, Laura. And I meant what I said about you spending time here even when you aren’t working on the painting.”
Daniel spoke then, his tone dispassionate. “Surely you don’t mean Laura to spend all her time here, Amelia. This commission, like any job, demands a certain number of hours, but I imagine she also has a personal life outside her work. Family of her own. Friends. You can’t ask her to give up all the rest only to paint your portrait.”
Instead of bridling at her grandson’s implied criticism, Amelia turned it into a handy opening, smiling at Laura and asking, “Do you have family in Atlanta, child?”
Laura shook her head. “Not in
the city, no.”
Amelia wasn’t deterred by the brief answer. “Oh? But in Georgia?”
“My parents live in a small town on the coast, fairly close to Savannah. A younger sister still lives there as well.” Laura shrugged. “We aren’t very close.”
“That’s a shame,” Amelia said seriously. “Family is very important, Laura. Blood ties matter.”
Yet you seem unmoved by the death of your grandson. Why didn’t that tie matter, Amelia? “I have a different philosophy,” Laura offered with a faint smile. “Some families shouldn’t try to be close. Because the members are too alike—or too different. Or because they never should have been a family in the first place.” She regretted the words the instant they left her mouth, and could only hope she hadn’t sounded as biting as she thought she had.
“We pick our enemies and our friends,” Daniel said. “Our families, sometimes unfortunately, are chosen for us.”
Laura glanced at him, wondering if he was offering sympathy or referring obliquely to his own family. It was impossible to tell. But before she could comment or he could add anything, Amelia spoke again.
“Surely you aren’t completely alone in the city, Laura?”
“I have friends. Co-workers. I’m not alone, Amelia. I’m just … without family. Which suits me just fine.”
“Is there a man in your life?” It was Josie who asked, and almost immediately looked as though she wished she hadn’t.
But Laura answered steadily, completely ignoring the notion of the police and the press that she had been involved with Peter. “No one special. I date occasionally, but I’m more likely to go out with friends or groups. To be honest, my social life is incredibly boring.”
Josie grinned at her, obviously relieved that her unthinking question had been handled gracefully. “Have you ever hit rock bottom and caught yourself actually looking forward to your high school reunion? That happened to me a couple of years ago.”
“No, but when a childhood acquaintance from my hometown came into Atlanta a few months ago, I seriously considered going out with him. And he was completely unbearable as a little boy.”
“Maybe he improved with age?” Josie suggested.
“No such luck. He’s a minor politician and had just given a speech at some garden club a friend of mine attended. She said if he ever made it into the larger political scene, it’d set the South back a good twenty years.”
“Set us back in what way? Economy? Industry or business? Race relations? The respect of the rest of the country?”
“All of the above.”
Josie chuckled. “Ouch. A definite loser.”
“Yes. But I did pass on my ten-year high school reunion, so maybe there’s hope for me yet.”
“Well, I’ve always thought that things happen in their own time, for their own reasons,” Josie offered. “So I keep telling myself fate has a plan for me.”
“The only problem with that,” Laura said, “is that you might not recognize the beginning of the plan. I mean, with all the decisions we make in our lives, how do we know we haven’t turned left when fate meant us to turn right?”
“That is a point,” Josie conceded ruefully.
Daniel spoke then, his gaze on Laura and his voice thoughtful. “You believe you’re the captain of your fate? That your decisions alone determine the course of your life?”
She looked at him, unsettled by how sharply his voice affected her and by the tug of attraction she felt in merely gazing at him. As for his question, it wasn’t something Laura had thought about much, so she was a little surprised to find that she had very definite ideas on the subject. “No, not my decisions alone. If someone else makes a decision that affects me, then clearly it would influence the course of my life in one way or another. None of us can truly be the captain of our own fate.”
“Do you believe in destiny?”
Again, Laura surprised herself. “Yes … I guess I do. Like Josie, I believe that some things are meant to happen, in their own time and way.” She made an effort to lighten her tone, to sound offhand about it. “Especially in the short term. Any catalyst sets a series of events in motion, and sometimes those events seem inevitable. That’s a kind of destiny, isn’t it?”
“I’d call it that,” Josie offered. “I must admit, I have a hard time swallowing the idea that my life was planned for me before I was born.”
Laura nodded. “Me too. But I think some things are planned, in a sense, because they’re stamped into our genes. Take my being an artist. I always wanted to be one, from the time I was very small. Yet I was never exposed to art as a child. There was no rhyme or reason to it, and as far as I know, there isn’t an artist on the entire family tree. So I can only assume that in me the mix of genes and chromosomes combined unexpectedly; I was genetically predisposed to be artistic. Being an artist, in effect, became my destiny.”
“I never looked at it that way,” Josie said musingly. “But you know, it makes sense.”
Amelia, who had listened silently to the discussion, now said, “But suppose you had been unable to get any training at all in art, that you were forced to do something entirely different in order to simply survive and had no time at all to devote to exploring your artistic nature.”
Laura nodded. “Then that circumstance would have changed my destiny. Or delayed it.”
Amelia nodded in turn, her dark eyes thoughtful. “Interesting. So you have a … qualified belief in destiny. Some things are meant to be, but our environment and our decisions may alter those things.”
Laura couldn’t help but laugh a little. “That’s me—on the fence as usual.”
Amelia smiled at her. “If I’ve learned anything in my life, child, it’s that there are very few things about which we may be absolute—or absolutely certain.”
After that, the conversation around the table became inconsequential once again, which rather relieved Laura. She had enjoyed the discussion of destiny, but couldn’t get rid of the disturbing notion that either Amelia or Daniel had during the course of it moved another chess piece.
Josie, she thought, wasn’t involved in the power play, and it seemed doubtful that Kerry was either. No, that concerned only Amelia and Daniel, and it was so subtle, so much under the surface of politeness and family ease, that Laura doubted the other two women were even aware of it. She wondered if anyone else in the family was.
She wondered if her own imagination was working overtime.
When everyone had finished eating, Amelia signaled the end of the meal by rising, and Laura found herself rising automatically as well, just as the others did. Then a little scene unfolded that Laura was absolutely sure had been planned beforehand.
“Laura,” Amelia said, “I always rest a couple of hours after lunch. When I come back downstairs, we can continue working on the portrait. In the meantime, why don’t you explore the house and grounds?”
“I’d be happy to show Laura around, Amelia,” Josie said promptly. “My desk is cleared for the day, so I’m free.”
Laura glanced at Daniel just in time to see his lips tighten slightly, and couldn’t help wondering if he had meant to take advantage of Amelia’s usual naptime, when Laura would be alone to … to what? To further his own agenda?
Smiling at Laura, Amelia said, “You’ll be in good hands with Josie, child. She knows this place and this family quite well. I’ll see you in a couple of hours, all right?”
“Of course, Amelia.” What else could she say? That she would much rather have been alone—just in case Daniel wanted to further his agenda? If he really is dangerous, she thought, I’m in big trouble.
Daniel didn’t stick around. Instead, with a pleasant “Ladies,” he nodded to Josie, Kerry, and Laura and strolled from the dining room.
Kerry didn’t linger either, smiling at the other two and leaving only seconds after Daniel and Amelia.
“I could use a walk in the garden,” Josie told Laura. “How about you? It’s a good place to start.”
They went back through the east wing of the house and through the main section to get to the conservatory. Laura was beginning to get a sense of the place, helped by the fact that there were numerous large rooms and logical hallways rather than the rabbit warren of small rooms and odd halls that seemed so common to huge houses.
It was an impressive house. The money and attention poured into it over the years was easily visible in the woodwork, the rugs and draperies, the furnishings. Yet it was oddly melancholy even in its beauty, or so Laura thought. The dark colors chosen made the large rooms seem smaller and certainly less airy and bright than they would otherwise have been, and the heavy textures of all the draperies as well as the dense patterns of the wallpaper lent the place a somber, closed-in feeling.
That was it, Laura thought. This house made her feel oddly cut off from the world outside it, isolated in a place different from any other place she’d ever known. No wonder she felt uneasy, trapped.
“It’s a bit gloomy,” Josie said over her shoulder with a faint smile as they moved through the main house toward the conservatory. Then she laughed. “No, I didn’t read your mind; it’s just that everyone feels that way at first. Amelia likes dark colors, and of course that has an effect—not a positive one, I’m afraid.”
“It’s a lovely house,” Laura said, then added honestly, “but oppressive too.”
“I’ve heard that word used more than once. I suppose I’ve grown used to it—although I walk in the garden every day, so maybe my subconscious feels it more than my conscious mind does.”
Laura drew a slightly relieved breath when they passed through the bright colors and verdant atmosphere of the conservatory, then a deeper, happier breath when they reached the veranda. Today was cool for the end of September, and the air had that crisp, clear bite that signaled the arrival of fall. Some of the trees scattered over the vast gardens were beginning to turn, lending hints of red and gold to the lush green of their lingering summer foliage, and here and there was a splash of blue and purple and bright yellow as the last of the summer flowers bloomed in a desperate race with the approach of autumn’s first frost.