“She didn’t order floral arrangements at all,” Jessica replied with a certain zealous satisfaction. “She decided—without even running the idea by me, much less the advisory board—that the money was wasted—she actually used the word wasted—on flowers, so she cut centerpieces from the event budget.”
“I hope she didn’t cut the linen budget, too,” he said facetiously. “I can’t imagine the uproar it would cause if she wanted to do away with the tablecloths.”
“It isn’t funny, Matthew. When the advisory board discovered what she’d done and tried—very nicely, I might add—to suggest she reconsider her decision, she suggested that if the board wanted centerpieces on the tables, they should consider making some inexpensive decorations as a group project.” Jessica looked properly appalled. “She actually said group project to women who have collectively contributed millions of dollars over the years to the Danville Foundation.”
Personally, Matt thought the word inexpensive had probably been the more offensive, especially in the view of the extravagant and excessively fussy Olivia. “And that’s why Mrs. Renwick is on the warpath,” he said just to clarify the issue.
“Don’t underestimate her, Matthew. She feels she’s suffered a major insult and that her past service is unappreciated.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Peyton is your wife, Matthew. How she handles herself is now a direct reflection on you and on the Danville Foundation. You have to deal with this problem now, while it can still be salvaged. Peyton doesn’t understand how to deal with people in this stratum of society. It isn’t her fault, of course, that her background offered no experiences that could have prepared her for this type of situation. But that doesn’t alter the fact that our patrons expect a certain amount of respect and deference for their position in society and that regardless of her personal opinion, it is her responsibility as a Danville to see that these individuals receive the homage they’ve earned.”
“Inherited, you mean.”
“No, that isn’t what I mean. They’ve absolutely earned special consideration because of their generous support of the Foundation through fund-raisers like the Black-and-White Ball and through the quite significant clout they bring to our boards.”
She was right. Over the years, Matt had run smack into the wall of influence that women such as Olivia Renwick wielded with queenly disregard for practicality. To the Olivias of the world, self-importance trumped common sense, and centerpieces of exotic, expensive orchids were as integral to a successful event as identifying who was wearing last year’s fashion. However trivial he found this latest uproar, he knew it had to be handled. And he knew Olivia had to carry the day. “I’ll talk to Peyton,” he said.
“You have to do more than that, Matthew. She’s irritated everyone with her insistence that event budgets are outrageous and that past fund-raisers would have been far more successful if expenses had been slashed to the bone. This is no longer about orchids in the flower arrangements. Olivia’s threatening to skip the ball and withdraw her standing commitment to future events. If she does that, we’ll lose Natalie Bonner and the Gardner sisters, too. That’s four of our largest individual contributors and, very possibly, there will be others who’ll follow Olivia’s lead. In this economy, that could cause cuts in funding for services. I don’t believe you want that, Matthew. Especially not when there’s something you can do to prevent it.”
“Ask Peyton to order flower arrangements?” But he knew that wasn’t Jessica’s aim even before she corrected him.
“It’s too late for conciliatory gestures. Peyton needs to step down as event chair.”
“The ball is barely a week away,” he pointed out.
“I’ll step in and smooth things over. I’ll have to work day and night to do it, but this late in the game, there really isn’t any alternative.”
So she expected him to instruct Peyton to step aside and turn the event over to her. Peyton had been working on the Black-and-White Ball for nearly a year and Matt thought it was grossly unfair to force her out now. But Jessica was right. At this point, there was no other choice. “I’ll talk to her,” he said. “Is there anything else?”
Jessica looked at him as if contemplating what she wanted to say. “There’s a lot of talk about your marriage,” she stated finally. “You know I despise gossip, but considering your position with the Foundation, I think you need to know what people are saying. The rumor going around is that Peyton and that mother of hers set out to entrap you and that the baby probably isn’t even yours.”
He snapped forward in the chair and pushed to his feet. “I won’t dignify that with a response,” he replied sharply. “Now, if you have no other business to discuss with me, this meeting is over.”
She stood, slowly, smoothing the front of her skirt. One thing about Jessica, she never pushed too hard at any one time. Chinese water torture was more her style. “This has to be done today, you know. The Black-and-White Ball is Saturday evening. That’s only four days from now. I assume you’ll want me to take charge of the arrangements immediately?”
Of course, she would insist that he verbally hand over the authority even before he’d talked to Peyton. “Yes, Jessica. Do whatever you feel must be done.”
“Thank you, Matthew.” She walked to the door, paused with her hand on the knob, looked back at him with an expression of deep understanding. “I want you to know you can talk to me. About anything. Anytime. I’ll always be here for you.”
She walked out then, leaving him angry and resigned. Once again, he had to set aside his personal feelings for the good of the Foundation. But for the first time, he was going to have to explain his decision to someone else. To Peyton. And there wasn’t a doubt in his mind about her reaction. She wouldn’t take this sitting down.
He might as well prepare himself for one hell of a fight.
MATT DIDN’T KNOW when or exactly what had happened, but sometime in the month since Miranda’s wedding, he’d begun looking forward to going home. Something was different.
No, actually, a lot was different.
Peyton was redecorating Danfair, for one thing. She’d asked Charles and Linney for their permission and opinions. She’d checked and double-checked with Andrew, Ainsley and Miranda. She’d asked Matt point-blank if he wanted her to leave the house exactly as it was or if she could make a few changes. As everyone else had given an enthusiastic thumbs-up, he could hardly be the lone holdout, so he’d told her to do anything she wanted, although he’d prefer she didn’t go around knocking down walls.
That had made her laugh.
The laughter was new, too. He’d noticed her laughing a lot this past month. She was different, somehow. Her eyes sparkled, her smile came easily and often, and her skin seemed to emit a happy glow of health. He’d even heard her singing to herself in a soft, pleasant alto. No matter what her schedule during the day, she was almost always home when he returned, and she greeted him with what certainly appeared to be genuine pleasure. And in ways he couldn’t yet define, Danfair had begun to feel like a home again.
An intangible shift had occurred in her relationship with her mother, too, it seemed. The tension between them hadn’t gone away, but it no longer felt like a ticking time bomb, either. He’d arrived home several times to find the two women engaged in companionable conversations, comparing paint samples and fabrics. Scarlett had been with them on a few occasions and had actually made an effort to be pleasant while giving him her opinion—most often, a yawn—about Danfair’s new look. If it had been her house, she’d informed him, she’d have made it much more interesting, a concept that seemed to involve sculpted furniture, fluorescent lighting and a lot of black paint. Matt had told her he thought she might have a future as a decorator, which won him a few good-brother-in-law points even though it appeared to cost him a couple of points with his mother-in-law. He never ran into one of Connie’s pet decorators at the house, but he felt sure they had a finger in the planning pie somewhere behind
the scenes.
Matt battled mixed feelings about the O’Reillys paying for a major overhaul of his family home, but it seemed to make Peyton happy to be doing this and so he made peace with the gift for her sake. She went out of her way to consult with him on everything, paint, repairs, even something as minor as cleaning a set of drapes. His answer to her was consistent…whatever she wanted to do was okay with him.
So Danfair slowly evolved from a playground back into the courtly estate it had once been. The indoor croquet field disappeared and all the old wood floors were sanded and buffed to a rich, aged sheen. The dining room had been freshly painted a soft gray, the crayoned drawings of years past covered by who knew how many coats of primer. The mural on the ceiling looked newly clean, and the chandelier, cracked and out of balance for years because of a stray football, had been restored. The table, which had been brought from France as a wedding gift for his paternal great-grandmother, was polished to a mirrored shine and, although the two antique hutches and long buffet weren’t matches in period or style, they looked as if they belonged in the room. At some point, Miranda had suggested Peyton should check the attic for furniture that had been stored over the years rather than left out to bear the use and abuse of four rowdy youngsters. So newold pieces seemed to appear magically while Matt was at the office.
He hadn’t said anything to Peyton, but he liked the changes, liked walking through a house that felt as if it was growing up and into a comfortable adulthood. It was like a game to stroll from one room to another, discovering what—or if—new changes had occurred during his day’s absence. But most of all, he looked forward to wandering through the house until he found Peyton, either finishing up, or still immersed in, her latest project.
Today he discovered her alone in her bedroom, standing between the two windows, leaning slightly against the wall and observing the room with a calculating eye. Her dark hair was caught loosely at the back of her head and held by a big, toothy clip. He imagined her pushing it out of her face and up off her neck—as he’d watched her do any number of times—before finally, hastily, grabbing the clip and securing it out of her way. She was wearing one of his shirts over a pair of stretch pants, and her bare toes periodically scrunched down into the nap of the carpet. The pregnancy showed now in a slight roundness that couldn’t be concealed even beneath the oversize shirt. He smiled, glad he was home.
“What are you thinking about so hard?” he asked.
She blinked and turned toward him with a guilty grin. “Hello, Matt,” she said…and the warmth in her voice felt like music. “I was just imagining how this will look as a nursery. This room seems the obvious choice since it connects to yours.”
“And since you haven’t spent a single night in it.”
A slight blush crept into her cheeks, but she met his eyes—and his thoughts—with bold challenge, daring him to say he’d have it any other way. Which, of course, he wouldn’t. Her presence and warmth in his bed every night was an unexpected bonus, what Peyton referred to as a little Louisiana lagniappe. His bedroom had evolved into their bedroom without either one of them saying a word. But he supposed that wasn’t quite true. He’d said, “Stay,” and she’d stayed.
“I think this room must have been a nursery initially, don’t you? Imagine that, Matt. One of your ancestors, maybe several of them, could have occupied this room as a baby. And in a few months your son will sleep and dream here. Doesn’t that give you goose bumps just to think about it?”
He couldn’t say it did, but her eyes sparkled, and when she gave him that smile, he was ready to agree with anything she said. “I can see our little girl in this room,” he said, letting his gaze travel the length of the room and back again. “We should paint it pink. A nice feminine pink.”
“I’m thinking blue. A bright, little-boy blue. With, maybe, a pirate-ship mural on that wall. In tribute to old Black Dan.”
He shook his head. “We don’t want her growing up as too much of a tomboy. Let’s go with unicorns and a princess or two.”
“Don’t be silly. He’ll want pirates not princesses.”
Peyton smiled then. So did he. They’d begun to talk about the baby. She was certain it was a boy. He was adamant it was a girl. So they engaged in this friendly game of debate over their child’s gender. “Peyton,” he said impulsively. “Let’s go out for dinner. Just the two of us. Somewhere quiet.”
Her eyebrows lifted with interest. “Somewhere romantic?”
“If you like.”
She came across the room to him, smelling like new paint and cinnamon toast, which had turned out to be the one food she craved. Coming up on tiptoe, she kissed him lightly on the lips. “You’ve got yourself a date. I’ll need an hour to get ready.”
“I’ll wait.” And at that moment, he thought he must have been waiting for her all his life.
THE LITTLE RESTAURANT in Jamestown lay off the beaten track. It was quiet with soft and romantic light. The music floated unobtrusively around them, adding atmosphere but not distraction. The food was simple and superb, the service attentive and inconspicuous. Peyton loved every minute of their date, wished it wouldn’t end, longed to capture the relaxed, happy rhythms of their conversation in her memory so she could remember the ease of it whenever she liked.
Matt seemed different tonight. He looked at her differently. He was relaxed and comfortable, as if theirs was an old and treasured friendship. The ever-present spark of attraction between them felt like part of a larger whole, as if it were just the bass notes in a symphony and not the only part of the melody that was their relationship. They had done this all backward, she thought again. The sizzle had brought them together, two strangers, who were now—months after their marriage—falling in love with the lover they were just coming to know.
“Now what are you thinking about?” he asked, his gaze soft and affectionate.
“What makes you so sure I’m thinking about anything except how much I ate?”
“It’s the tilt of your lips, Peyton. It gives you away every time.”
She tried to suppress the tilt, but it was disobliging and tipped farther toward a smile. “Well, if you must know, I was thinking about doing things backward and that had I known things could turn out so well, I might have tried this technique in other areas of my life before now.”
“You think this—us—is turning out well?” He seemed a bit hesitant, almost anxious that he might have misinterpreted her remark. “Really?”
“Yes, I really think this—us—is turning out amazingly well. Don’t you?”
“I honestly hadn’t given it much thought before, but lately…” He reached for her hand, which had settled on the tabletop, and covered it with his own. “You’re different, Peyton. I don’t know what it is, but you’ve changed, and I…well, I like it.”
“Me, too.” She decided to tell him, wanted suddenly to share the change in her perspective. “You remember the night of Miranda’s wedding? Well, of course you do. I was miserable…so worried when you told everyone about the baby. I guess I thought we could keep it a secret indefinitely. But once you’d said it, I saw nothing but happiness and excitement in your parents’ and sisters’ faces. Even Andrew looked pleased at the idea of being an uncle. And suddenly I realized that I’d spent all this time worrying about what other people would think, believing that getting pregnant by accident was something shameful and sad. That’s the way I’d framed the scene in my mind, picturing disappointment behind every smile, the undertones of reproach in every voice. That’s the reason—or one of the reasons—I wanted us to be married. I didn’t want the taint of illegitimacy for the baby, but I didn’t want it for me, either. I thought marriage was the right thing, that it would protect me from the feeling I’d made a terrible mistake and embarrassed both of our families.”
Turning his hand over, she stroked the lines in his palm with a gentle fingertip. “My mother grew up dirt poor, ashamed of her family and the life she left behind. She never looked back and she�
��s never talked about it. That’s why she’s so conscious of status, so concerned about appearances and what others think of her, of Scarlett, of Dad, of me. I’d probably never have known anything about her childhood if Dad hadn’t always been so proud of her determination and grit. He thinks she’s courageous and wonderful, but even after all these years, she still doesn’t believe that. She’s more embarrassed by the past she came out of than where she is today.
“When you announced we were having a baby, it suddenly hit me like a brick that I’d grown up absorbing her sense of shame, the way she bases her worth on her perception of what someone else thinks about her. Just like her, I was concentrating on how my actions would appear to other people. I realized I expected to be criticized not congratulated. I believed I deserved disapproval, not the happy acceptance I received instead. It may not make much sense to you, Matt, coming from the background and the family you have, but children learn more from what is never said than from the most often repeatedvalues. My mother said one thing, but her actions and reactions taught me something else entirely. She believes money can buy her the acceptance she needs. I thought I could earn acceptance by never making a mistake. Somehow, in that instant at the reception, I suddenly understood it was my choice to consider this baby a blessing or a foolish, unforgivable mistake.” She met his blue, blue eyes. “So I chose the blessing.”
“And that has made you happy.” His voice sounded a little husky and his fingers closed around hers once again. “I’m glad.”
“Me, too,” she whispered. “I hope my change of attitude has made you a little happier, too.”
“A lot happier,” he said. “And, believe it or not, my life hasn’t been as perfect as you might think. The Danvilles have our share of secrets, too, you know.”
“Tell me one, Matt. Tell me something about you that no one else knows. Please?”
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