For a long moment, she didn’t answer. Her chest hurt so badly, she wondered if tonight was the night she would die. The clock on the wall ticked loudly. “I suppose it was too much to hope that the secret was forever safe.”
“I told you at the time we should report it. The three of us are accessories for our part in it.”
“I know, I know.” She took a sip of sherry. “All I could think of at the time was the scandal and protecting the Carstairs name. And you, Pierce, you helped me, knowing it would ruin your career if your part in it was ever discovered.”
“I’m not sorry about that, my dear,” he said gently and filled his pipe. “For you, I would do anything.”
She stared into the fire. “What do you think he’s after?”
“The truth maybe, but money more likely. I don’t think you want to know where he got the money he used to buy that plantation between yours and the Erikson’s.”
“Tell me anyway.”
He paused to light his pipe. “It seems Shelby, like his older brother-in-law, preys on wealthy society ladies. He charms or blackmails vulnerable rich women out of their funds. As a matter of fact, he was wounded escaping from a Memphis lady’s bedroom when her husband came home unexpectedly.”
She groaned aloud. “Worse than I thought. Where do you suppose he got the medals?”
“Great Caesar’s ghost, who knows? One thing for certain, he didn’t serve in the war. In fact, he’s spent five years in jail.”
“I don’t suppose Lenore knows about him?”
He took a puff of his pipe. “Of course not. She’s too snooty to bother with poor white trash. She’s as foolish and immoral as her mother. She’s probably being used.”
“So now he hopes for a permanent income by marrying the Erikson girl. Yet he’s dallying on the side with Lenore.”
“Why not?” The judge shrugged and drank his brandy. “He’s probably trying to figure out how he can end up with both fortunes.”
“Over my very dead body!” Elizabeth put her glass down abruptly. “The Carstairs holdings are going to a Carstairs!”
Lenore had heard the judge’s buggy arrive outside as she primped. Was this the time to confront the two old people about that derringer to see if they did indeed know something incriminating? She tiptoed out into the hall. There was no one about, although a light shown from under Kimi’s door. Her bastard sister was still getting ready for the ball. Kimi had tried to be sisterly, but Lenore would have none of it. She could hardly wait to see Kimi’s face when she told her the scandal.
At least she would be the most beautiful one at the ball. Lenore had had the dressmaker secretly copy that elegant emerald silk dress with the big sleeves from Camelia’s portrait. She didn’t intend to be upstaged by this newly found sister.
The green silk rustled along the hall as Lenore minced her way quietly down the stairs, looking around for the butler. Nero didn’t seem to be anywhere around. Her feet were already hurting, and the evening hadn’t even started. She put her eye to the keyhole in the music room door. The two old people sat before the fire.
“Does anyone but the two of us know this?” Grandmother asked.
“I doubt it.” The judge puffed his pipe. “The question is, what do we do about it?”
Elizabeth Carstairs looked at him. “How do you suppose he knew?”
Judge Hamilton shrugged. “I suppose there’s just the slightest chance that it’s mere coincidence.”
“I doubt that. How much do you suppose he knows?”
“Probably not enough or he’d already be either calling the law or blackmailing you.”
Grandmother looked grim. “I thought the secret was safe, but it obviously isn’t. I must protect the Carstairs name from scandal at any cost.”
“That’s why I told you you needed to rewrite your will, Elizabeth, and let me take care of it immediately. Otherwise, there will be questions and rumors.”
Outside the door, Lenore bit her lip to keep from throwing the doors open and storming in with an angry tirade. She had no intention of sharing the Carstairs fortune with that Kimi.
The elderly lady sipped her sherry, sighed. “Questions and rumors; yes, you’re right, Pierce, I’ll have to divide the money and property down the middle, treat both girls as beloved grandchildren, even though it galls me to give anything to a bastard child fathered by that tinhorn gambler. It must never get out that one of them is no blood kin of the Carstairs at all.”
Outside the door, Lenore took a deep breath. Now she had the knowledge and the power to get what she wanted. Throwing the door open, she strode into the music room. “For pity’s sake, I don’t know why you always tell me not to listen at keyholes, Grandmother. One learns so many interesting things that way.”
Both of them turned pale. Judge Hamilton reacted first. “How long have you been listening?”
“Long enough.” Actually she hadn’t heard much at all, but they didn’t know that. “So Camelia had begun sneaking around with a lover? Now that I think back, I remember a handsome man turning up sometimes when Daddy was gone on business.”
Grandmother looked as if she might have a heart attack. “You were so little,” she murmured, “I didn’t think you were aware of what was going on.” She looked at the dress, then at the portrait.
“Yes, I look like her, don’t I?” Lenore smiled with satisfaction. “And you never liked her.”
“There was a reason,” Grandmother said. “She was just like you are. In fact, if I believed in reincarnation, when I saw you walk in just now–”
“Oh, stop it!” She confronted the old lady. “You would do anything, anything to protect your precious husband’s family name. Well, maybe you went too far!”
“Young lady,” the judge bristled, “don’t talk to Elizabeth that way!”
“I’ll talk any way I want because I seem to have the winning hand,” Lenore gloated. “One thing I won’t do is stand by while you change your will. I demand that you leave it alone. Your real granddaughter, not the bastard, should get every last cent! Do you hear me?”
“But Lenore,” Grandmother said, “if I do that, as the judge says, people will wonder—”
“I don’t care! Leave the will alone, you hear?”
Elizabeth Carstairs opened her mouth as if to protest, but the old man waved her into silence. “You heard what she said, Elizabeth.” He looked at Lenore, nodded defeat. “All right, as her lawyer, she’ll leave the will exactly as it was written many years ago. We’ll just have to worry about the gossip later.”
Lenore glowed with triumph. “I don’t know why you’re both so worried. If you’re dead, what do you care what anyone thinks about the family?”
Her grandmother looked up at her with grave dignity. “I know this is hard for you to understand, but I loved James Carstairs enough to do anything to protect the name he gave me and his son.”
Lenore snorted with derision. “I’ll just bet you would! I remember the thunder that night, only after all these years, I’m not sure it was thunder at all.”
She saw them exchange glances.
The judge took the pipe from between his teeth. “Explain yourself, young lady!”
“No, it’s you two who need to explain. It occurs to me now the thunder might have been gunshots. Did that damned gambler shoot my father, and run away with my whore of a mother and his bastard brat?”
Elizabeth Carstairs looked as if she were on the verge of a heart attack. “What–whatever made you say such a thing?”
“Because I know you would do anything, even hide the death of your own son to protect the Carstairs name. And by the way, I found a certain ivory-handled derringer.”
Grandmother’s sherry crashed to the floor with a tinkle of glass. She gasped and tried to get her breath. Immediately, the judge was by her side. “Are you all right, Elizabeth?” He held his brandy to her lips.
Lenore watched without emotion as the color gradually came back to Grandmother’s face. If Elizabeth C
arstairs dropped dead at this moment, she would be the heir, that was the thought that crossed her mind. That and the satisfying thought that they were both guilty of something terrible. Their faces when she had mentioned the gun told her that.
The color gradually returned to Grandmother’s face. “Lenore, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you?” she asked smugly. “Couldn’t tell it by the expressions on both your faces.”
“Young lady,” the judge thundered, “you’re making all this up to upset Elizabeth. I don’t know where or why you think this supposed weapon has anything to do with Elizabeth, but—”
“It was buried in the conservatory.” Lenore nodded to the puppy snoozing in the corner. “Your damned mutt dug it up under the camelia bush. Now tell me the truth. Did Kimi’s father shoot and kill my father?”
“It was all an accident,” Elizabeth blurted. “Jim came home unexpectedly and found them in an embrace in the shadows on the east lawn—”
“Elizabeth!” the judge thundered. “Say no more! You owe her no explanation!”
“And you’re in on it, too, aren’t you? You supposed paragon of virtue!” Lenore sneered, “and I’ll bet even Nero is part of it. He’s big enough to carry the body.”
Neither spoke, but she saw the truth of what she had said in their stressed faces. “They killed my father and ran away, taking their bastard brat with them. And you, my dear grandmother, what kind of a woman would do anything to protect the family name, even hide a murder?”
The judge glared at her. “The kind you’ll never be. You haven’t got the guts or the class Elizabeth has.”
Lenore backed toward the door, shaking her head. “Don’t you talk about principles and class to me, you pompous old windbag! I don’t know much about the law, but I’ll wager it’s a crime to cover up a murder—”
“It wasn’t a murder,” Elizabeth blurted, “it was an accident—”
“Elizabeth,” the judge snapped, “say nothing more.”
Lenore smiled. “Ah, so there was a death! When I find out what Nero did with the body, I could humiliate you, ruin your career.”
“And disgrace an elderly lady?” Pierce Hamilton looked toward Grandmother.
Lenore laughed. “The family name doesn’t mean that much to me as long as I get what I want! Now I’m in the catbird seat. I’ll call the shots and do whatever I please. You two won’t interfere. If so, I’ll keep mine shut about the gun.”
“You keep talking about a gun, but we haven’t seen it,” the judge said.
“I’m not that stupid. Could I describe it if I hadn’t seen it, or tell you where I dug it up? I’ve hidden it. Now if you two behave yourselves, I won’t tell the sheriff. In the meantime,” she glared at the judge, “you will not change the will; understand?”
The judge nodded, held up his hand. “You have my word I will not change your grandmother’s will. Don’t you agree, Elizabeth?”
She smiled ever so slightly. “If that’s the way Lenore wants it.”
“Where does it go in case the heir doesn’t get it?” Lenore demanded.
“To fund charities and a hospital for the poor,” Elizabeth said, “and the house will become a school.”
Lenore snickered. “For pity’s sake, what a waste. When we have time, judge, we’ll make some changes, all right and I’ll dictate them. Damned if I’ll give a penny to niggers and white trash!”
The clock on the wall chimed the hour.
“Eight o’clock,” Lenore said, “Time to leave for the ball.”
Her grandmother looked startled. “After all this, you’re going on as if nothing had happened?”
“Why not? Didn’t you sixteen years ago? If I don’t show up, there’ll be gossip and we do need to protect the family name. That’s important to you, isn’t it?”
Neither answered; only looked at each other.
Lenore said, “Judge, I don’t think I want to ride with you and my bastard half-sister. I’ll take your buggy and drive myself. You two can come later in Grandmother’s carriage.”
He looked alarmed. “What are you going to do?”
She felt confident, almost cocky with the power of the knowledge she possessed. “I’m not intending to announce the scandal at the party, if that’s what you’re worried about. If the secret’s out, I don’t have any power over you two anymore. No, I’ll keep quiet, and from now on I run things around here.”
Elizabeth looked into Lenore’s golden eyes that seemed as hard as metal. Just like her mother–always was. There was no point in further discussion. Elizabeth would have to do a lot of thinking.
“No answer? Good. Then we’re agreed.” Lenore smiled with satisfaction, whirled with a rustle of green silk and left the room. Elizabeth leaned back in her chair with a sigh, and in silence they listened to the buggy drive away. “Pull the bell cord for Nero, Pierce. It looks like you’ll have to do as she says.”
He reached over, took her hand, patted it. “Are you all right, my dear?”
“Yes,” she lied. Her chest was hurting again. All the stressful years of hiding the secret had taken its toll worse than anything the law might have done to her. Pierce’s drawn face said the same. They had both paid for their part in it. In a strange way, maybe justice had been done all around. Elizabeth had made her choices and she didn’t regret them.
The puppy raised its head and yawned, making her think of immediate problems. “Pierce, when you go home after the ball, I think you’d better take Tally Ho with you before he does any more digging.”
At the sound of his name, the dog’s tail thumped lazily.
“Elizabeth, why didn’t you tell Lenore the whole truth?”
She shrugged. “To what purpose? It would be even a bigger mess than if she doesn’t know. Do as she ordered, Pierce, don’t change the will.”
He sighed, and put his face in his hand for a long moment. “It’s ironic, isn’t it?”
“Maybe. But it’s what she demanded.” There was another long pause and the puppy scratched a flea. “If only she didn’t have the gun, she wouldn’t have any proof.”
His face wrinkled a long moment. “While we’re gone, put Nero to looking. She’s not that smart. It’s bound to be someplace in the house.”
Another pause. “Do you suppose the Eriksons will announce the double engagement tonight?”
“Great Caesar’s ghost. What do you want me to do? This is a Pandora’s box I’ve been trying to keep the lid closed on for sixteen years now.”
“You did it for me, Pierce, I know that. It could cost you everything, including your professional reputation.”
He went to the fireplace and knocked the ashes from his pipe against the andiron. “I have always loved you, you know that. I’d do it again.”
“Thank you for that. I loved my son and his child more than anything else in this world. I don’t regret my part in it. I did what I had to do to protect them and my dear husband’s family name.”
“Somehow I have a feeling Shelby doesn’t know about the gun. He would have handled everything a little smarter than this. If you find it, hide it again.”
“The sheriff is bound to be one of those invited tonight. Suppose Lenore or Shelby hunts him up, tells him—”
“Tells what, my dear? If Shelby tells who he is, he’ll be arrested for past crimes. If Lenore talks, she has no secret left to blackmail us with.”
“What on earth are we going to do, Pierce? I don’t want to hurt Laurel by all this.”
He took her hands in his. “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. Maybe we can keep it that way.”
More than anything, she must protect her granddaughter against pain. “I feel so sorry for her, Pierce. She’s madly in love with young Rand.”
The judge shrugged and sat down. “That’s something that’s out of our hands; his decision and hers. Maybe he’ll decide on his own not to marry Lenore. Maybe he’ll turn out to be more of a man than we think, defy his mother and mar
ry Kimi, I mean Laurel.”
“And be cut out of her will?” Elizabeth frowned. “I wish I could believe he was that much of a real man. I’m afraid he’ll be more like his father.”
“You know about Jon Erikson then?” The judge turned toward her.
Elizabeth nodded. “In a choice between love and money, Jon wasn’t willing to give up everything for love. I’m afraid his son is too much like him.”
Elizabeth stared into the fire, remembering her own love. She wanted Laurel to find that kind of happiness. “Laurel isn’t fitting in, Pierce, and she seems miserable.”
He stuck his thumbs in his vest. “Give her time. She’s a fighter; she’ll make this county eat crow. One day, when she’s learned all the proper manners, she’ll be the reigning queen of local society just as you have always been.”
She leaned back in her chair, troubled. “I don’t doubt that. What worries me is that I’m not sure she’ll be happy doing it. Our civilization seems petty, cruel and confining to her. I suspect she misses the unfettered life among the Indians. Then there’s hateful Lenore to contend with.”
“Don’t worry, Elizabeth, I’ll figure out something.”
They heard footsteps in the hall.
“Grandmother? Where is everyone?”
The judge went to the door, opened it. “Come in, Laurel, dear. Lenore went on early. Ask Nero to get the carriage ready and we’ll go together.”
She stepped through the door. She was so beautiful, Elizabeth thought, dressed in a pale peach dress that complemented her ebony hair and emerald eyes. “Nana, are you feeling well? Why don’t you go with us? We’ll wait for you to dress.”
Elizabeth managed a smile, shook her head. “No, you two run along. Tell me about it when you get back.”
Laurel nodded, looking troubled.
Elizabeth wondered suddenly if Rand would have the guts to marry this one instead. Tonight at the ball it would all come to a showdown and no one could make those choices for the two of them. Some of it depended on what Lenore knew; or thought she knew. Anyway, Elizabeth was a tired old lady, it was all out of her hands.
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