by Ginna Gray
At that moment Martha returned to the parlor carrying a fresh tray of coffee and tea.
She placed the tray on the coffee table and nodded to the newcomers. "Ms. Lawrence. Mr. Moseby. Nice to see you again."
"It's Ms. Moseby now, Martha."
"Oh. Pardon me, miss. I didn't know."
She started to leave, but Camille stopped her. "Oh, Martha, have Truman or one of the farmhands get our luggage out of the car. Tell him to put mine in the blue room. Mine is the purple-and-gray set."
"I'm afraid that room is occupied," Elizabeth said. "It's Iona's room now."
"But … I always stay in the blue room," Camille said with a huff. "Can't she move to another room?"
"If it's going to be a problem—"
"It's not a problem, Iona," Elizabeth assured her mother-in-law. "Camille, you don't seem to understand. Iona is not a guest. She lives here now. The blue room is hers. Permanently. And at the Houston house, she has the yellow-and-blue room."
"But … but I'm family."
"So is Iona. There are four other unoccupied guest rooms from which you may choose. I'm sure you'll find one to your liking."
"Oh, very well. The green room will do."
"Sorry, it's taken, as well," Mimi said with malicious glee. "Of course, it does have twin beds, if you want to bunk with me."
"Oh, please." Camille gave an exaggerated shudder. "I'd sooner throw a mattress down on the sunporch. Oh, just put my things anywhere," she snapped.
From the back of the house came the sound of male voices, and a moment later Max and Troy entered the parlor. Max walked straight to Elizabeth and tipped her face up for his inspection. "Feeling better?" he asked, his gaze roaming over her pale face.
"Yes, thank you," she whispered back. His breath smelled of toothpaste and coffee. His cheeks were ruddy from the wind, and he'd brought with him the cold, sharp freshness of the outdoors. Combined with his own scent it was a heady combination.
Elizabeth introduced Max and Troy to her cousins, and as the men shook hands she could see Camille sizing Max up. Elizabeth bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing out loud. She saw the look of interest in her cousin's pale blue eyes and knew that if Max were free she'd go after him like a dog after a raccoon.
They had been talking for only a short while when Martha appeared in the arched doorway into the foyer and announced, "Lunch is ready, Miss Elizabeth."
Throughout the meal, as always, Camille made certain that she was the center of attention. She aimed most of her conversation toward Max and Troy. Most of her chatter was vapid gossip about the goings-on of the social set in New York and Europe. Every now and then she managed to sneak in nasty little barbs aimed at Elizabeth.
Elizabeth ignored her. She had long ago learned to let her cousin's envious remarks and veiled accusations roll off her like water off a duck's back.
"Tell me, Troy," Camille said in her best coquette voice. "Are you related to the Boston Ellerbees?"
Troy nodded and carefully spooned up a bit of Martha's delicious green chili chicken soup.
"Oh, I knew it. I just knew it," she crowed. "You look like your father. I've met your parents several times at social functions. Martin and Joan are their names, right?"
"Yes."
Camille's brow furrowed with puzzlement. "You know, I don't believe I've seen either of them in years. Did they move out of the country?"
"No. My father died several years ago. My mother remarried and she and her husband don't get out much these days."
"Oh. I see."
Troy did not reply, and when it became obvious to Camille that she wasn't going to drag any more conversation out of him, she fell back on her favorite pastime: taking digs at Elizabeth.
Casting a disapproving glance around the dining room, she gave a dramatic sigh. "Elizabeth, dear, I don't mean to criticize. You know that. But don't you think it's time to change the decor in here? In the rest of the house, too, for that matter. Tear down all this wallpaper and fancy woodwork. Modernize the place a bit."
"No, I don't. The kitchen and bathrooms have all the modern conveniences. They're just disguised to fit the Victorian era of the house. This place is a historic treasure. The house and everything in it is original, and that's how it's going to stay."
"Huh. Well, if it were up to me, I'd gut the place and make it ultramodern."
"Then isn't it lucky that the house didn't end up in your care."
"Now, see here—"
"Camille, hush up. Don't go picking at Elizabeth. She's in a delicate state as it is."
"What? Are you ill?" She cast Elizabeth a wary look and scooted her chair back a bit. "If it's something contagious I do wish you would have told me sooner."
Aunt Talitha laughed. "Camille, love, you're the spit out of your mama's mouth. She was the most self-absorbed person God ever put on this planet, and you're just like her. Elizabeth isn't ill. Not in the way you think, anyway. She's in a family way."
"A fam—" Camille sucked in a sharp breath, her gaze darting to Elizabeth. "Oh, my God, you're pregnant? At your age?"
It was Elizabeth's turn to laugh. "I'll be thirty the second of February, Camille. I'm not in my dotage yet."
"Well, better you than me. I, for one, wouldn't dream of ruining my figure that way."
"Ignore her, cuz. I think it's great," Quinton chimed in. "Congratulations. I'm happy for you. You'll make one terrific mother."
"Oh, shut up, Quinton," his sister snapped. "Don't you realize what this means to you and me?"
A look of puzzlement came over her brother's handsome face. "That we'll have a second cousin, once removed?"
"Not that. It means that our chances of ever inheriting from Elizabeth will be almost nil when this baby is born."
Quinton winced. "Camille, please."
"What is everyone getting so bent out of shape about? It's true. Aunt Talitha is old, and if Elizabeth never has a family of her own, we're next in line."
"Provided you outlive her," Max said in a low tone that Elizabeth had begun to recognize as a prelude to anger, like embers being stirred to life. "One could almost take that as a threat on my wife's life."
"Oh, don't be ridiculous! I didn't mean it that way," Camille quickly assured him. "We're blood kin. We spat and spar, but I would never do anything to cause Elizabeth harm."
Max narrowed his eyes. "How long are you going to be here?"
Another smile tugged at Elizabeth's mouth. As little as a month ago Max's bluntness would have made her cringe, but at that particular moment she was grateful for his hard-charger attitude. Here she'd been trying to think of a polite way to maneuver the conversation around to that very subject. Not Max. He wanted to know, so he asked.
Camille looked taken aback. For an instant, Quinton did as well, but he recovered quickly. "Actually, we haven't made any hard fast plans. Usually when we visit we stay a month or so."
"I see," Max said.
"If we're imposing—"
"No. I was just curious. Besides, this is Elizabeth's home. It's up to her to say who stays and who goes. Although, as her husband and the father of her child, I must insist that no one do anything to upset her. The next one who does will be out on his or her ear in a New York minute."
The statement did not agree with Camille at all. Her mouth tightened but she remained silent.
"I agree with Max," Aunt Talitha said, giving Camille a stern look. "And he's a man of his word, so you'd better toe the line, missy. Understood?"
"Oh, all right," her great-niece said, sulking.
"Good. Now that we're agreed on that, Elizabeth, Max and I would be happy to have you stay through the holidays." Talitha looked at Elizabeth, waiting for her agreement.
"Isn't that right, my dear?"
"What?" Elizabeth looked at her aunt and blinked. "Sorry. I'm afraid I was wool-gathering. What was the question?" Actually, she was marveling over Max's quick defense of her. Even though she knew that his concern was probably because of
the baby, it nevertheless gave her a warm feeling.
"I said I insist that Camille and Quinton stay through the holidays. Don't you agree? It'll be so nice, having all the family here at once. Last year there was just Elizabeth and Mimi and me. And Martha, of course."
"Oh … why, uh … yes. Yes, of course. Please do stay."
* * *
Seventeen
« ^ »
"Do you want to tell me what's going on between you and your cousin?" Max asked later that night as they were getting ready for bed.
Turning from hanging up the long black skirt that she'd changed into for dinner, Elizabeth gave a weak chuckle. "Is it that obvious?"
"Hey, I'm not the most sensitive guy around, but even I felt the daggers flying tonight. What's her problem?"
"It's a long story. Are you sure you want to hear it?"
"Shoot."
"Okay. But remember, you asked. If you'll recall, I told you about Mariah, Camille and Quinton's grandmother?"
On the other side of the closet, Max worked open the buttons on his shirt while watching her trade her lacy black bra for a jade-colored silk nightgown. Elizabeth felt his gaze on her. A few weeks ago she would have been self-conscious, but she was becoming accustomed to his nightly perusal. Max was so earthy and uninhibited that living with him was the equivalent of taking a crash course in human sexuality.
"Yeah, I remember. She was Talitha's twin, right?"
"Right." Elizabeth walked back into the bedroom. Max followed, turning off lights as they went, and climbed into the turned-down bed.
Elizabeth paused beside her dressing table to give her hair a vigorous brushing. "What I didn't tell you was that, according to Aunt Talitha and others, Mariah had been headstrong and willful. She was barely eighteen when she ran off with Owen Moseby, much to her father's disapproval.
"Don't misunderstand me. The Mosebys are a good family, but Owen had always been wild and shiftless. He was what in those days they called a 'rounder'.
"And back then eloping was something that young ladies of good breeding simply did not do."
"Judging from the way you reacted when I suggested we get married in Las Vegas, they still don't," Max drawled.
Elizabeth shot him an arch look. "Do you want to hear this or not?"
"Sorry. Go ahead," he replied, suppressing a grin.
"Despite his gruff exterior, Great-Grampa Charles still loved his daughter and missed her terribly. After about a year he could not bear the estrangement any longer, and as an olive branch he offered to give Owen a job—a very well-paying job—if they would just return home."
"So did they?"
Max watched Elizabeth walk barefoot toward him, massaging lotion over her hands and arms, that glorious mane of glossy brown hair tumbled around her face and shoulders. The voluminous nightgown hung on her body from two spaghetti straps over her shoulders and billowed out from there to swirl around her ankles, a cloud of soft jade silk that was in no way see-through or even clingy. Yet it was one of the sexiest nightgowns he'd ever seen on a woman—and he'd seen his share.
He enjoyed watching her, he realized. Every move she made, no matter how small, was poetry. The sway of her hips, her graceful walk, the subtle bob of her breasts with each step.
Elizabeth climbed into bed, adjusted her frothy nightgown, and lay down on her back next to him. Max drew in a deep breath, relishing the soft scent of jasmine and lily that surrounded her. Damn. Was there anything in the world better than the smell of a sweet, clean woman? he wondered. If so, he sure as hell hadn't found it.
Elizabeth's wistful gaze remained fixed on the ceiling. "Unfortunately, working for a living had never been on Owen Moseby's agenda. He declined the offer.
"That, it seemed, was the final straw. Aunt Talitha says that after that the breach between her father and sister grew wider. To this day she swears that he died of a broken heart. Whether or not that's the case, his health certainly started on a downward spiral about that time.
"Seven years later when his only son, my grampa Pierce, died of a sudden heart attack, all the fight just seemed to go out of Great-Grampa Charles. He passed away just nine days later."
"Hmm." Max lay on his side, his head propped up on one hand, admiring his wife's delicate profile. "I don't mean to disparage any of your family, but I'll bet Mariah hightailed it home then."
"Oh, yes. She and Owen were on the first jet out of Paris to Houston. They were certain that her father had cut her out of the will. They brought their attorney with them to the funeral, ready for another court battle. You can imagine how surprised she was when the will was read to learn that she, Talitha and my father, Ransom Patrick Stanton, were to receive equal shares in everything."
"Even a third of your families' fortune would have still been a whopping amount. By now it should be triple or more than it was back then. So what's Camille's gripe?"
Turning onto her side, Elizabeth bunched up her down pillow and lay back down to face Max. She smiled at him in that comfortable, confidential way that married couples do. He wondered if she was aware of doing so.
"I'm sure you could have done that, but Mariah and Owen demanded to receive her share of the estate in cash."
"Are you serious? That's the worse thing they could have done."
"I know. My father tried his best to make them see that, but he was only twenty-two at the time and fresh out of college, and they wouldn't listen. To them my dad was just a green kid who didn't know anything about money and finance."
"So what did your father do?"
"There wasn't much he could do. He liquidated a third of everything we owned, with one exception. Mimosa Landing. To pay Mariah for her share of the farm my father had to take out an enormous loan. It took him years to pay it off."
"Let me guess," Max said. "Mariah and Owen lived high and spent all her money."
"They were doing their best. They were both killed by an avalanche while skiing in Switzerland just a few years later. Colin Moseby, their only child, inherited what was left of his mother's money. He was Camille and Quinton's dad. Unfortunately for them, he was no better at managing money than his parents had been.
"I'll give him credit for one thing, though. Colin recognized that weakness in himself and was concerned enough about his children's future that, shortly before he passed away, he had everything, including the brownstone, put into a trust for them.
"They each receive a large sum every month. Most people would consider themselves wealthy if they had that much income. However, it's not enough to support the jet-set lifestyle that Camille had grown accustom to as a child and still demands."
"Okay, I can understand—sort of—why she might be ticked off at her grandparents, and maybe even her dad. But why does she take potshots at you?"
"She seems to think that she and Quinton were cheated because the amount their grandmother received all those years ago was so much less than it would be worth today."
"So? Everything is. Which just proves my point. If they'd invested Mariah's inheritance instead of spending it, they would still have their principal and much more."
"I know that and you know that, and so does everyone else on the planet except Camille. At one time or another we've all tried to explain it to her, even Quinton, but she's got it in her head that she and her brother got a raw deal, and she thinks that I should make it up to them by handing over the difference between what Mariah received and today's fair-market value."
"You're kidding me?" Elizabeth shook her head and Max rolled his eyes. "Damn. She may not know much about business, but I'll give her an A for nerve. That's crazy. With that kind of convoluted logic anyone who's ever made a deal runs the risk of the seller coming back years down the road demanding more money. Good grief. I've heard some cockamamy reasoning in my time, but that wins the prize."
"I agree. But she's stubborn. She thinks if she keeps on badgering, someday I might actually give in just to shut her up. In the meantime, her solution to the problem
has been to marry money, divorce, then bleed her ex for alimony. Poor Leon, who is about to get the old heave-ho, is her fourth husband."
"Only an idiot would marry a woman with that track record."
"What can I say? Camille can have men panting in moments."
"How about Quinton? How does he feel about all this?"
"Quinton is a sweetheart. Underneath all that debonair charm, he's level-headed and intelligent, bless him. He knows that he and his sister have no claim on the Stanton fortune.
"Actually, he enjoys his life very much just as it is. He's in great demand among society matrons, being an unattached, handsome, heterosexual male from an old family. Bless him, he never gets upset, not even on those occasions between husbands when Camille moves back into the brownstone with him."
"Poor guy."
Elizabeth chuckled. "I guess he's used to her."
Max smoothed a tendril of hair off Elizabeth's cheek. "Will Camille succeed in wearing you down eventually?"
Her eyes narrowed. "Not a chance."
The determined glint in her eyes fascinated Max. Elizabeth was such a soft, elegant woman, it was easy to forget that she had a backbone of steel.
He smiled and leaned forward. "Good girl," he whispered against her lips as his mouth touched hers.
Angelo Delvechio had been in Houston less than two hours and already he hated the place. Texas was supposed to be hot and dry, like in all of those old John Wayne movies. Hot, hell. He was freezing his ass off. He glanced up at the temperature display above the car's rearview mirror. Crap. No wonder. It was twenty-three friggin' degrees. And a hundred percent humidity. And wouldn't you know it, the heater on this rental was on the fritz.
And what the hell was it with this friggin' rain? It was coming down so hard he could barely see the road ahead with the windshield wipers going full bore.
Another vehicle blew by him as if he was sitting still. "Bunch of damned cowboys," Angelo snarled. Since he'd left the airport, every third vehicle on the road was some sort of extended-cab, rocket-powered monster pickup truck with huge tires. Even men wearing suits and ties drove them for crissake. In New York the dark sedan he usually drove blended in with the rest of the vehicles on the street. Not here. Here in kicker country this black Caddy stood out like a hooker at a revival meeting.