The Third heiress

by Brenda Joyce

  And the front door swung open behind them. Cass heard it just as she felt a gust of cold, wet air, but she was looking at his hands now, which were hanging by his sides. He was wearing a very bold ring with a blood-red stone on his right hand, but the slender wedding band she had seen seven years ago was gone. Well. He had not remarried. And that explained everything, she thought grimly. His involvement with Tracey had nothing to do with the sixteenth-century necklace. Cass knew it the way she knew she would have an awful time that evening.

  "Hello, everyone!" Tracey cried from behind Cass.

  A huge weight settled on Cass's shoulders, and she turned.

  Tracey stood in the doorway in a pair of beautifully tailored white pants, an exquisitely cut short grayish white jacket with Chanel buttons, and a pair of high-heeled white boots. Her long, pale blond hair was loose, the dampness causing it to curl about her face and shoulders. She looked as if she had just stepped off a catwalk, or out of the pages of Vogue. Which, considering Alyssa's earlier comments, apparendy she had.

  Tracey was classically attractive. Her features were perfectly even, her eyes blue, her skin unblemished. She was one of those women who looked as good without makeup as they did with it And while there might be more beautiful women in the same room with her, Tracey was always the most striking. She was the one who turned heads. Because she was model-thin and close to six feet tall. She also lived in drop-dead designer clothes. No one made an entrance like her sister did, Cass thought sourly. She realized she was hugging herself.

  "Cass, how are you?" Tracey smiled, apparently not having noticed Alyssa, who stood on the lowest level of the stairs, clinging to the banister. She hugged Cass hard, but Cass hardly noticed. How the hell had her sister and de la Barca met? How?

  Tracey's gaze became questioning. "Cass?"

  "Hiya, sis." Cass managed a smile.

  Tracey beamed at her, then turned to face Antonio de la Barca. The smile she sent him told Cass all she needed to know. They were lovers. This was nothing new—so why was she surprised? Dismayed?

  "I see that the two of you have met," she said happily. "Don't tell me you're akeady dressed for supper?" she teased.

  "Ha ha," Cass said, watching Tracey kiss Antonio on the cheek. At least she was spared the real thing. How had they met? When had they become lovers? And why, God damn it, did she care? Tracey changed men the way she changed her wardrobe—which was seasonally, at least Cass was used to it—she expected no less.

  Although if she were brutally honest with herself, she could admit how nice it would be to have an endless stream of boyfriends.

  But she wasn't Tracey. She just couldn't settle for good looks and good times.

  Tracey pulled on her ponytail. "Why are you so grumpy? I was only kidding, sis. In fact"—her smile widened—"I brought everyone presents!"

  Cass stepped back a bit. '*How have you been? You look great. Trace. I guess Sotheby's agrees with you."

  Tracey beamed, which only made her lovelier. "A lot of things are agreeing with me lately," she said, her gaze locking on de la Barca. She stopped, spotting Alyssa with her nose between the bars of the iron banister. "Darling, come here!" Tracey cried.

  Alyssa slowly stood, her face as r^d as a beet. "Hello, Mother," she said, her brown eyes wide and riveted upon Tracey*s snow white figure.

  Tracey pounced on her, embracing her once, hard. Cass watched. She watched Alyssa's body remain straight and hard and tight, and she watched Tracey's sniile fade and finally vanish as she straightened, a look of hurt in her blue eyes. Alyssa climbed the stairs one step, a similar look of hurt in her near-black gaze. In the next instant Tracey recovered, the cover-girl smile firmly in place as she turned and rushed to Antonio, looping her arms in his. "I see you've met everyone," she said too brightly.

  It was hardly noticeable, but he disengaged their arms. "I have met your sister, but I have not met your daughter," he said somewhat quietly. His smile was brief.

  Cass's antenna went up. Trouble in paradise? Something was up, and she had to know what.

  "Alyssa, come meet my boyfriend, Antonio de la Barca. Tonio, this is my beautiful daughter, who is seven, I might add."

  Alyssa finally came down the stairs. "I saw your picture in Vogue. With my mother."

  Antonio stooped so that he was not towering over her. And he smiled and it was wide and genuine, marking him as a man who liked children. "Your mother is the kind of woman that photographers wish to photograph. I have no doubt that one day you will be the very same kind of woman."

  Cass fell in love with him in that moment. The sudden, shocking depth and intensity of feeling inmiobilized her. It was the kind of feeling she'd had once before—a sensation of absolute free-falling, a headlong plunge, into the abyss of emotional space.

  Cass had gone there once before and barely survived. She

  stared at her sister, her niece, and the stranger in their midst, paralyzed,

  Antonio continued to smile at Alyssa. Very slowly, very slighdy, Alyssa smiled back.

  And Cass could not move. She could not even think, she could only feel. She was stunned. Terrified.

  He was so gorgeous and so Old World, so masculine, so intelligent... Jesus.

  And he was her sister's.

  Which was just fine.

  This could not be happening, she thought.

  *T have a son," Antonio continued, "only three years older than you. Maybe one day you will meet him."

  Alyssa's eyes brightened. And when she spoke, it was clear to Cass that she was doing all that she could to sound detached—^but her tone was breathless. "What is his name?"

  "His name is Eduardo, and he lives with me in Madrid, just a few blocks from the Plaza de la Lealtad. We live near a beautiful park. El Retiro, where many children play soccer and RoUerblade in the afternoons." Antonio straightened. Tracey was wearing four-inch heels. At that moment they were the exact same height.

  "I would love to go to Madrid," Alyssa breathed.

  It suddenly clicked in Cass's very befuddled and stunned mind why Tracey had sent Alyssa several postcards from Madrid. Now she knew why Tracey had been channel-hopping. And she had a very unladylike but very New York City thought. Shit.

  Cass tried to get a grip. She tried to recover her composure. She did not know de la Barca, not at all, and it was insanity to tiiink that she had just discovered some kind of profound feeling for him.

  She was not falling in love.

  No way. Not now, not ever, not today.

  "Well, one day I am sure you will," Tracey said, moving into the center of the tableau. "Look at what I have brought you, darling," she said, digging four packages out of her Vuitton duffel bag and handing them all at once to Alyssa.

  Alyssa clasped her hands in front of her, staring down at the gift-wrapped boxes. "Thank you, Mother."

  "You have to open them!" Tracey cried. Then, "Aunt Catherine! There you are, and just in time. I have something for you, too!"

  Catherine was coming down the stairs. She was smiling, and Tracey flew into her arms. They embraced warmly, and then Tracey handed her a small box that could only be from a jeweler.

  Cass went to Alyssa, trying to avoid looking at de la Barca. "Do you want to take the gifts upstairs to your room and open them privately?" she asked softly, for Alyssa's. ears only.

  Alyssa nodded. Tears had formed on the tips of her lashes.

  Cass wanted to hug her, hard. Suddenly she wanted to turn and shout at Tracey that all the gifts in the world could not make up for her absentee style of motherhood, that gifts could not buy love. She wanted to shout. Wake up! 1 know you love her, but show it. Goddamn it! Spend some time here, with your family! But she said none of those things. Alyssa's control was fragile, at best. And now, so was her own.

  Wouldn't de la Barca want an intellectual woman?

  "Oh, you have to open the pink package, you'll just love it!" Tracey cried, rushing forward and handing it to her daughter. It was one of the smallest packages pre
sent In the same breath Tracey delved into her duffel and produced a long flat box for Cass. She smiled. "And don't you dare say no.

  Cass knew it was clothing. Her sister had incredible taste in clothes, was the chicest person Cass knew, but Cass wasn't Tracey. She didn't wear miniskirts and.she didn't wear stiletto heels. Of course, she was only five foot three. She wouldn't even be able to walk in the kind of shoes Tracey wore. "Thanks," she said. . "Are you all right?" Tracey asked with concern.

  "Absolutely," Cass said, imagining that her smile was stretched wide and thin.

  Catherine suddenly said, "Oh, Tracey, dear, how lovely."

  Her tone was odd. Cass looked up to find Catherine hold-

  ing a stunning Elizabeth Locke pin, a large peridot stone engraved with the figure of a woman, set in a matte gold bar with a diamond chain. But she wasn't admiring the pin. Her brow was furrowed, and she was staring at their visitor. Cass realized she had forgotten to introduce him to her aunt.

  But before she could do so, Tracey was speaking in a gay rush. "I was walking down the street when I saw it in the window and I just knew it was perfect for you," she said, smiling happily at her aunt.

  "I wish you hadn't," Catherine said very softly, for the hundredth time, her gaze now on her niece. But then it veered back to de la Barca, and her aunt's expression made Cass concerned.

  Alyssa had opened her pink parcel, and now she sat down on the second step of the stairs, clutching something to her chest.

  Tracey turned eagerly. "It's a collector's item, darling. Her name is Sparkee. Isn't she just the cutest?"

  Alyssa bit her lip, nodding. "Thank you, Mother."

  Cass realized she was holding a Beanie Baby. Alyssa adored the small stuffed animals and had been brokenhearted when they had all been retired last year. Tracey had probably found the little toy in an auction, or even on the Net. She had gone to great lengths, clearly. But Cass could not focus on mother and daughter now. "Aunt Catherine? Are you aU right?" Her aunt seemed oddly stiff with tension.

  "We haven't met," Aunt Catherine said quietly.

  "Forgive me, but I am intruding—and that is the last thing I wish to do," Antonio de la Barca said as quietly.

  But Tracey was swooping down on her aunt, having looped her arm in Antonio's again. "How could you intrude, darling? Aunt Catherine, this is Antonio de la Barca, from Madrid. Tonio, my aunt. Lady Catherine Belford."

  Cass started forward. Her aunt was immobile, as if afraid to move, the color having drained from her face. "Aunt Catherine? Are you ill?" she asked with alarm.

  If Catherine heard her, she gave no sign. She stared at de la Barca, her expression strained. She could not seem to take her eyes off him. "You resemble your father," she said thickly.

  He had been reaching for her hand, and now he froze. "You knew my father, Lady Belford?"

  Slowly Catherine nodded, and something terribly sad flitted through her eyes.

  "Many years ago," Catherine said. And suddenly her face crumpled with the onset of tears. ♦

  "Seiiora?" Antonio asked, alarmed.

  "Oh! I just remembered—I need to ask the caterer something." Catherine turned, almost running, and quite shoving past Tracey.

  "Aunt Catherine!" Cass had never seen her aunt act in such a manner before.

  Tracey was also wide-eyed.

  "Why don't you show our guest to his room?" Cass said. She didn't wait for a reply. She hurried down the hall after Catherine, pushing open the door to the kitchen.

  Inside it was a flurry of activity, as the caterer and her staff were busy making the last-minute preparations for a cocktail hour and a supper that would serve forty. Catherine stood by the end of the center aisle, hunched over it, leaning upon it, her back to Cass. She was shaking.

  Cass did not understand. She rushed to her aunt, slipping her arm around her. "What's wrong? What has happened?" Cass cried.

  At first Catherine couldn't speak. She could only shake her head wordlessly, continuing to tremble.

  "Aunt Catherine, talk to me, please," Cass begged. One of the staff handed her a tissue and her aunt accepted it, dabbing at her eyes.

  "I never expected this," she whispered. "After all these years. Cassandra, we must get that man out of this house— and out of Tracey's life."

  Cass was incredulous. "Why?"

  "Why?" Catherine turned on her, and Cass was shocked to see both pain and fear in her aunt's wide eyes. Catherine was shaking. "I will tell you why, Cassandra. I killed his father."

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