“Which generation?”
“How about starting with Trey Delaney’s father?”
She shook her head and sighed so deeply her bosom rose and lowered like a drawbridge. “Sad story. I wouldn’t have expected the rest of them to stand up for him, but Adelina Norwood should have. She’d been through the same thing.”
“Adelina Norwood?” This was a new name.
“Miss Addy. You bought the house from her estate.”
“Oh. I didn’t know her name.”
“There were three sisters. Maribelle, the oldest, was wild as a March hare from the time she hit this earth. Addy was the quiet one, but she fought hard for herself. Pity she lost. She had the talent to become a concert pianist, I do believe.”
“I’ve heard. I have her piano.”
“Oh, good.” Wilda Mae slapped her hand against the velvet. Paul saw that the fingers were twisted with arthritis. He wondered how she managed to write her column.
She noticed his glance. He decided there wasn’t much she didn’t notice. “I’ve got a big computer on the dining-room table. I write from here, then modem my copy to the paper.”
“I see.”
“Got to go with the times, I say. Now, where were we? Oh, Addy was the middle daughter. Sarah was the youngest and the only one still living. She had the good sense to marry Harris Pulliam and get away from her sisters. You met Ann yet?”
“She’s helping to restore my house.” He realized that at some point the Delaney mansion had become “my house.” He couldn’t remember exactly when he’d begun to call it that, but it surprised him.
“Darling girl, that Ann. Talented, too. Should never have married that Corrigan boy. He bled her dry and ran around on her all the time, is what I heard. She deserves a decent man who loves her and will give her a big family.” She peered at him with the unspoken question—Are you that man?
Suddenly he didn’t know the answer. Could he be that man? The prospect was becoming more and more appealing every time he looked at Ann.
He said nothing.
“Conrad—David’s father and Trey’s grandfather—had a coronary and was never right in the head afterward. His death nearly killed Maribelle. She did love the man, God knows why. You seen Burl Ives do ‘Big Daddy’? Well, that was Conrad. Thought his word was law. It wasn’t, of course, Maribelle’s was, but Conrad never saw that. He decided it was time for David to come home, take over the business and marry the girl he’d been engaged to for three years. Between them, he and Maribelle and Karen’s momma drove that poor boy until he didn’t have any choice but to do what they wanted.” She shook her head. “Killed him in the end.”
“Killed him? I thought he died in a hunting accident.”
“Oh, he did. But he’d never have been riding that crazy horse with a fifth of bourbon in him if he hadn’t been the unhappiest man ever walked this earth. I got one of his caricatures. Want to see?” She started to heave her bulk up, but he stopped her.
“Later, before I go.”
“It’s a real killer. I look like a blimp with an attitude.” She roared with laughter, then turned sober instantly. “There was some legal shenanigans went on about then, but I never found out what.”
Paul’s ears pricked up. “What sort?”
“Conrad called in his lawyer and Judge Dalkins, his pal on the bench. They had a couple of secret confabs. I suspect they were working a deal about Mrs. Bingham’s land. I heard tell it was something about the marriage.” She shook her head. “I hate not knowing.”
Paul just bet she did. Something about the marriage. Had his father gotten a quiet divorce from his mother, or even an annulment? He’d have to check the county records.
Wilda Mae’s next words, however, startled him even more. “Whatever they were up to, they never got it done. Judge Dalkins hit a deer driving home from court two days later and was killed. I kept an eye on court records for a time, but nothing came up with the Delaney name on it. Then Conrad had that stroke a week before the wedding. He couldn’t even go to the ceremony. I doubt if he remembered what he’d been trying to do.”
Had David told his father about his French marriage? “What about the lawyer?”
“Long dead. If it was something illegal, and knowing Conrad it could well have been, he’d never have put anything down on paper, anyway.”
“Tell me about the wedding.”
“Not much to tell.” Wilda Mae shrugged. “Little Episcopal church looked pretty enough as I recall, and I imagine Karen looked radiant—all brides do. It was a real small affair. I had to pull strings to get invited myself. The one thing I do remember is that the bridegroom looked like he was about to throw up. Maribelle said he had a touch of food poisoning.” She snorted. “Food poisoning, my foot.”
“He looked scared?”
“Miserable is more like it. Everybody assumed Karen was already pregnant, but she didn’t have Trey for a full eleven months.” She grinned that malicious grin. “You have no idea how many ten-pound, seven-month babies we have around here.” Wilda downed the remains of her tea. “Young man, this has been delightful, but I got a deadline at six o’clock and I haven’t written the first word. You come back and I’ll dish some more dirt for you. For instance, about Addy and Conrad.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“They were lovers for Lord knows how many years right under Maribelle’s eye in Maribelle’s house. Everybody knew but Maribelle.” She heaved herself ponderously to her feet. “Whetted your appetite, haven’t I?”
“Yes, ma’am, you have.”
“Good. Then you’ll have to come back. Not often I get a gentleman caller as handsome as you.”
On the front porch, she said, “Never showed you that caricature. Next time I’ll have it out.” She stood under the dripping eaves of her antebellum cottage and watched him drive away. He could see her in his rearview mirror until he turned the corner onto the paved road.
The more he learned, the more he didn’t know. There was no one left alive who could tell him whether David had told his father about his marriage to Michelle. No one who could tell him whether or not Conrad tried to get a quiet annulment. Maybe that was why David was so miserable on his wedding day.
As he said “I do,” David must have known he was committing bigamy. He must have spent the rest of his life looking over his shoulder. No wonder he lost his grip when Michelle finally showed up on his doorstep. The killing was looking more and more like manslaughter and less and less like murder one.
CHAPTER TEN
PAUL PICKED UP a pizza and a six-pack of beer on his way home from Wilda Mae’s. He ate his solitary dinner on his upstairs porch in the twilight.
He loved this porch. He almost expected to see a tiger creep through the jungle beneath. After he ate he called Giselle and reported his meeting with Wilda Mae word for word.
“When Michelle appeared, your father must have really lost it,” Giselle said.
“If he hadn’t hidden her body, he probably would have gotten off with a couple of years for manslaughter. Down here he might even have received just probation.”
“Probation? Are you serious?”
“In those days and with that family, dead serious.”
“Come home, Paul. I feel like you’re in the middle of some weird Southern-gothic epic down there.”
“Sometimes I do, too. But I like it. I like the people. I’ve even developed a grudging kind of affection for my half brother, although his mother makes the hackles rise at the back of my neck. I’d always heard Southern women were formidable. That doesn’t begin to describe them. Next to Karen Lowrance, Tante Helaine was a marshmallow.”
Giselle laughed. “I don’t believe it.”
“Trust me.”
After he hung up, he realized he hadn’t gotten that list of estate buyers from Trey. He was about to pick up the telephone to call him when it rang.
“Hey.”
Ann’s voice. His heart sped up. “Hey, yourself.”
“Stay where you are. I’ll be there in five minutes.” He hung up before she could protest.
He remembered to take a flashlight with him. He splashed through puddles like a kid. Two kisses and he, Mr. Sophisticated, was acting like a teenager. He ran up her steps and banged on her door.
“It’s open.”
He was met by Dante, the dog’s entire body wiggling in delight at seeing him, although his face still looked like Buster Keaton on a bad day. Paul ruffled the dog’s ears. “Hey, Dante, old man.”
“I’m in the workroom,” Ann called. “This is delicate. I can’t stop.”
He stood behind her table and watched her work. She had on heavy gloves and was pouring a viscous gray liquid into a six-foot-length of plaster mold. She didn’t look up. “Don’t speak until I’m through.”
He liked the way the lights over her table turned her brown hair into the shining red-brown of an otter’s pelt. He liked the way she concentrated.
After five minutes, she put down the pot she’d been holding, shoved the safety glasses to the top of her head, pulled off her gloves and said, “Okay. Now you can talk.”
“What are you doing?”
“Casting new crown molding to replace the areas that are split and broken in your dining room. The pour has to be just right or it doesn’t fill in all the cracks.”
“Where did you learn to do things like that?”
“I had six years in Washington and New York working with people who make me look stupid and clumsy.”
“I’ll never believe that.”
“They taught me a lot. I still work freelance for both the studios I had full-time jobs with.”
“Is that why you were in Buffalo?”
“Right. I am really good at golf leaf, although I hate doing it—one sneeze can cost your client a thousand bucks.” She came around the table. “Sorry I forgot to bring you Trey’s printout. He brought it over this morning, but you’d already left, so I brought it home in case the boys decided to use it for cleaning brushes or something.”
“I’m glad you forgot it. Gives me an excuse to come over here.”
“Where did you disappear to? Surely you weren’t flying in this weather.”
“I went to the library. Some more research.”
“Someday you’ll have to tell me what you’re researching so diligently.”
“Someday maybe I will.” She hadn’t invited him to sit down, so he stood awkwardly with the printout in his arms threatening to disgorge itself onto the floor.
“So, uh, would you like a drink?” The offer was grudging, but Paul wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“Some of that white wine would be nice.”
She poured them each a glass and brought his to him. He sat on the couch. She sat in the chair. He sipped. She sipped. Silence.
“So, you’re going to try to buy back the chandelier?” she asked.
“Depends on how much they paid for it in the first place.”
“I guess.” More sips. He was certainly a sparkling conversationalist. He wanted to tell her the truth, tell her about his quest, explain to her that he didn’t want to hurt her or her family, but that he might. Tell her not to trust him. Only to love him.
Suddenly they both began to speak.
“You first,” he said.
“My mother wants to know if you’d like to come to dinner this Sunday at my grandmother’s.”
“I’d like that if I wouldn’t be intruding.”
“Of course not. I thought maybe you and I could go visit Miss Esther after dinner.”
“Miss Esther? Refresh my memory. I’ve met so many people.”
“She worked for the Delaneys most of her life. She wound up looking after Miss Addy full-time until she died.”
“I remember. Yes, I’d like that.”
“She’s retired and living on a very nice pension from Aunt Addy, but both her sons live in Cincinnati or Cleveland or one of those cities. I don’t know how much company she gets. She knows everything there is to know about the Delaneys.”
“Wonderful. You will come with me, won’t you?”
“I don’t think she’d let you into her house if I didn’t.”
“Thanks for both invitations. What time is dinner?”
“About one.”
“Where does your grandmother live?”
“You’d never find it alone. It’s in the country. You can drive us both. I’ll direct you.”
He hadn’t yet gotten used to eating dinner in the middle of the day and supper in the evening. “I have an invitation for you, too.”
“Not another dress-up-and-go-to-town dinner. Paul, I just don’t have time.”
“Trey invited me and his ‘kissin’ cousin’ to dinner Wednesday night.”
“He didn’t mention it today.”
“I guess he wanted me to ask you. So what do I tell him?”
He could see her hesitation. “Sure, I guess so. Why not?” More hesitation. “Paul, you do realize that my mother is going to put you under a microscope when you come to dinner, don’t you?”
“I hadn’t.”
“She will.”
“Why?”
“If a man is…eligible, my mother is going to check him out as future son-in-law material. I’m sorry. I had to warn you.”
He started to laugh. “My tante Helaine used to put every pimply-faced adolescent who wanted to take out one of my sisters through hell. I know the drill.”
“I didn’t know you had sisters.”
“Two. They’re actually my cousins, but Tante Helaine raised all three of us, so I consider them sisters. Giselle is four years older than me, and Gabrielle is two years older.”
“Are you close?”
“With Giselle, as close as we can be, considering we don’t see one another often enough. We talk on the phone almost every day. With Gabrielle…” He shrugged. “She always resented me. She had to move into Giselle’s bedroom when my…when I moved in.”
“Why do you say Tante Helaine? A holdover from your French heritage?”
“Tante Helaine was born and raised in France. I spoke French before I spoke English. It’s the French word for aunt.”
“I know. What happened to your parents?”
“My mother…died. My father…” He left it dangling. She would assume he’d divorced them.
“Were you happy? Did they treat you well?”
“They were wonderful. Uncle Charlie taught me to play baseball and basketball, although I’m not tall enough to be any good. Tante Helaine taught me to cook. She said men make the best chefs.”
“She wanted you to become a chef?”
“Possibly. But I always knew I wanted to fly.”
“But didn’t you say you grew up in Queens?”
“Queens and barely middle-class. Somehow I managed to wangle an appointment to the Air Force Academy. I’ve been flying ever since.”
“But you stopped.”
“Not flying, just flying big transports. Uncle Charlie would be upset if he knew how screwed up my right arm is. He wanted me to be a major-league pitcher.”
“Do you mind talking about it?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. It’s over with. I made out better than the other two guys. I can still fly. They can’t.”
“Was it a crash?”
“It was a crash that didn’t happen, thank God. Look, let’s drop it.”
“Sure. Sorry.” She stood. “More wine?”
He wasn’t about to leave any sooner than he had to. “Thanks.”
When she handed him her glass, he asked, “What about you? Tell me the story of your life.”
“Bor-ring. I got a master’s in art history—heaven only knows why except that I’ve loved art all my life. I eloped with a guy who had big dreams and no discipline. I stuck with him through six years and so many infidelities
I lost count, and when I couldn’t take it any longer, I quit and came home to my family to lick my wounds.”
“How could any man in his right mind be unfaithful to you?”
“Travis would have been unfaithful to Cleopatra. She would have chopped off his head, which is what I should have done.”
“You say you came home. Where from?”
“New York. A job I loved, friends I adored, a city that thrilled me.”
“So why’d you leave? I mean, a divorce doesn’t necessarily mean you uproot your whole life, does it?”
“I’m basically a country girl. Besides, I like things clean. I still get the excitement when I do a job in a big city, but when I do I’m living on an expense account. That’s a bunch better than a cold-water walk-up. Where did you live before?”
“A high-rise in New Jersey.” He put his glass on the coffee table and took a deep breath. “Look,” he said, “I don’t know what I’ve done to upset you, but I wish to God you’d tell me so I can fix it. Here we sit talking like total strangers with a four-foot coffee table between us when what I want to do is haul you out of that chair and into my arms. Maybe I should just do it and stop asking permission.”
She jumped up and set her glass on the kitchen bar. “You haven’t done anything. It’s me. I look at you and I think what could you possibly see in a country girl like me, anyway?”
He had her in his arms before she could turn around. He swung her to face him and wrapped her so tightly that her hands came up against his chest. “What did that bastard you married do to you? How could you not know that you’re the most beautiful, the most desirable—”
“Stop.”
He kissed her. Fiercely at first to capture her lips. Then he tasted her gently, sweetly, savoring the white wine that still lingered on her tongue, gently nibbling that sensuous lower lip, kissing her eyes, then drawing his lips along her cheekbone to her throat.
After a moment’s resistance she came to him. She felt so soft. Women had no idea how exciting that softness was to a man. He fought with his conscience for all of thirty seconds. His conscience lost.
ANN KNEW she shouldn’t be kissing Paul. She’d made herself promise to keep him at arm’s length. But it had been so long since a man had held her in his arms, kissed her.
House of Strangers (Harlequin Super Romance) Page 14