Plunking her hands on her hips, she backed out of his reach. “That’s enough for me,” she laughed, trying to diffuse the tension. “You play too rough.”
“We’re not finished,” he said, dusting grass off his shorts.
“Yes, we are. I’m worn out.”
To Sloan’s surprise, it was Noah Maitland who came to her rescue. “Carter, it’s impolite to assault your guests on the second day of their visit.”
“That’s right,” Sloan joked. “You’re supposed to wait until the third day.” She turned to reach for the tennis racquet lying at Noah Maitland’s feet, but he picked it up instead and held it out to her.
“My father sends you his regards,” he said, and the glamour of his lazy white smile was so unnerving that Sloan had difficulty concentrating on his words as she reached for the racquet.
“Pardon me?”
“My father told me he had a fascinating discussion with you this morning. He was very impressed.”
“I had no idea that was your father,” Sloan uttered, horrified.
“So I gathered.” He looked over at Carter, and Sloan seized that as an opportunity to flee. “Carter,” he said, “if you want to sit in on your Tuesday night poker game at the club, I’d like to take Sloan and Paul and Paris to dinner.”
Sloan was already starting to the house with Paul, but she heard her father say, “That’s a great idea! Sloan —” he called, “is that all right with you and Paul?”
It was not a “great idea” and it was not “all right.” Sloan turned but kept walking backward in a silly compulsion to keep a maximum distance from Noah Maitland. “Sounds nice,” she called. To Paul she said softly, “I wish we could find a way to get out of that.”
He slanted her a sideways look. “I wish I knew about those documents Maitland needs to have signed.”
“Is Noah Maitland a suspect in some way?”
“Everyone is a suspect, except you and I. And,” he joked, “I’m not completely sure about you.” Sobering, he said, “I wonder what sort of documents would require Edith Reynolds’s signature. If we knew, it might point us in a direction we haven’t thought to look.”
Sloan had a feeling he wasn’t telling her the whole truth, but she knew it was pointless to question him further.
“How did you happen to meet Maitland’s father this morning?”
“On my way back from running this morning, I saw a man digging in a garden and when he stood up, he was obviously in pain. I stopped to help and stayed there to talk to him for a few minutes. I thought he was the gardener at first.”
“You didn’t tell him anything, did you?”
“Nothing that would harm us and no more than was necessary. In fact, I only told him my first name, but I couldn’t avoid telling him where I was staying. Have I created some sort of problem?”
He considered that for a moment. “Absolutely not,” he said with an inexplicable smile. “Maitland’s father isn’t the only one you’ve impressed today. I think you’ve impressed the son as well. I think he’s a little intrigued.”
“By me? No way!”
“I saw the way he was looking at you. You noticed it, too. It made you jumpy.”
Sloan chuckled at the absurdity of his conclusion. “Men like Noah Maitland generate enough sexual electricity to light up New York City, and they know it. It’s a power they have and they use it on whoever happens to be nearby. I happened to be nearby. I felt a little shock, and it made me ‘jumpy.’ ”
“Is that how it works? How many ‘men like Noah Maitland’ have you known?”
“I have an inherited understanding of his ‘type,’ ” Sloan said firmly, “and therefore a genetic immunity to it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My mother. Based on what she’s told me and on what I can see with my own eyes, my father must have been just like Noah Maitland. Did you know Paris is in love with him? They’re practically engaged.”
They were near the patio steps, and he lowered his voice. “Paris isn’t in love with him. Your father is pushing her to marry Maitland. She doesn’t want to do it. Unfortunately,” he added philosophically, “that doesn’t necessarily mean she won’t cave in and do it anyway. Both men completely dominate and intimidate her.”
“How do you know all this?”
“She confided the first part to me at breakfast this morning. I figured the second part out myself.”
“She told you that?” Sloan repeated in shock. “It’s hard to imagine her opening up that much with anyone. And why you?”
“Because I don’t dominate her. On the other hand, I’m male, and she’s intimidated by males, so when I gently asked her a blunt question, she felt compelled to answer.”
“That is so sad,” Sloan said softly as they stopped near the back door to the house. “I didn’t expect to like her. I don’t want to like her.”
He chuckled at that. “But you do, and you will. And you will also try to shield her from both men while you’re here.”
There were times when Paul Richardson’s all-knowing attitude got under her skin. “What makes you so sure of yourself? What makes you think I’ll do anything of the kind?”
Her ire didn’t faze him in the least. “You won’t be able to help it,” he stated implacably, but not unkindly, “because you have a compulsion to help people who need you.”
“You are not a psychiatrist.”
“True,” he said with a grin as he reached out to open the back door for her, “but I recognize a soft heart, and yours is as soft as a freshly toasted marshmallow.”
“That sounds disgusting.”
“Actually, it was a compliment,” he replied blandly. “I’m crazy about toasted marshmallows. Just don’t let your soft heart interfere with your judgment or your job here.”
Gary Dishler intercepted them in the kitchen, so Sloan was deprived of the opportunity to reply to that last gibe. “It’s been a fun morning,” she lied. “I’m going upstairs to take a shower—”
“Excuse me, Miss Reynolds,” Dishler said. “Mrs. Reynolds wants to see you in the solarium.”
“Oh.” Sloan looked down at her grass-stained shorts and smudged arms. “I have to take a shower and change clothes first. Would you tell her I’ll be there as soon as I can?”
“Mrs. Reynolds said she wants to see you immediately,” he informed her.
The summons sounded dire, and Paul noticed it, too. “I’ll go with you,” he said.
Gary shook his head and very firmly informed Sloan, “Mrs. Reynolds said she wants to see you alone.”
• • •
The solarium overlooked the back lawn, and when Sloan saw the sour expression on Edith Reynolds’s face, she assumed the elderly woman had seen the brief self-defense contest and had not approved. “That was quite an exhibition you put on out there!” She paused to pass a condemning look over Sloan’s mussed hair and stained shorts. “Well-bred young women do not roll around in the grass, and they do not parade around in soiled clothes.”
Sloan bridled at the injustice of the attack. “I did not want to give that exhibition. In fact, I did everything I could to avoid it, but your grandson insisted on it. Furthermore, I would have changed clothes before I came here, but Mister Dishler insisted you wanted to see me immediately.”
Her face froze at Sloan’s rebellion. “Are you finished?”
Sloan nodded.
“That is quite a temper you have.”
“I’ve had quite a morning.”
“So I have observed. In the last few hours, you’ve run on the beach and attempted to rescue Douglas Maitland, I understand from Noah. You returned in time to play tennis—but not well—and then you completed your busy morning by throwing your own father on his back, not once but twice. If you have any more excess energy after lunch, kindly devote it to your backhand.”
“What?”
“There is room for much improvement in your tennis game.”
“Mrs. Reynolds, I
am not a member of the idle rich. I work for a living, my time is valuable, I like to spend it doing what I like to do, and I do not like tennis!”
“I held trophies in my day. The Reynolds family has always excelled at tennis. Branches of our family hold tennis championships at the finest country clubs all over the country. Your game is a disgrace to the family name at present; however, with serious practice, I believe you could live up to our standards.”
“I have neither the intention nor the desire to do anything of the sort,’ Sloan scornfully informed her. “I am not a member of the Reynolds family.”
“Foolish girl! You don’t look like us, but you are more Reynolds under the skin than Paris is. Where do you think you got that proud defiance you’re demonstrating to me at this very moment? Why do you think you refused to let Carter humiliate you out there? Look at you right now—unbending, sure of yourself even though you’re dirty and appallingly dressed, confident as a king that you have every right to stare me right down in my own home because you think you’re right and I am wrong. If that isn’t Reynolds superiority, I don’t know what you’d call it.”
“If you think I should be flattered, I have to tell you I’m not.”
“Hah!” she said, and slapped the arm of her chair in gleeful triumph. “Spoken like a true Reynolds! You think you’re better than we are even though we could buy and sell the city you live in. How I wish Carter’s mother were still alive to see this. When she went to Florida to bring him home, she intended to bring back the child who would be most like us. Despite all her scheming, that evil, foolish woman took the wrong girl!”
“Which was certainly lucky for me.”
“Enough pleasantries. I think we understand each other very well and can now arrive at a deeper understanding very quickly. Sit down, please.”
Caught between ire and amusement at her use of the word “pleasantries” to describe what they’d been doing thus far, Sloan sank into the wicker chair next to hers.
“I’m going to stop pussyfooting around,” she announced, causing Sloan a fresh surge of amused dread. “I insisted you be invited to join us here, and I did so for several very good reasons—Why do you look so surprised?”
“I was under the impression this was my father’s idea. He said he’d had a heart attack and wanted to get to know me while there was still time.”
She hesitated, fiddling with the ever-present strands of pearls at her throat, then she said reluctantly, “You have it wrong. In the beginning, he objected even more strenuously than Paris.”
“Paris objected?”
“Of course. She was extremely distressed when she discovered you’d decided to accept the invitation.”
Sloan averted her gaze to the pink azaleas blooming beside her chair while she tried to assimilate all this without feeling any emotion. “I see.”
“I don’t think you do. When Paris was still a small child, Carter’s mother completely convinced her that your mother was unfit to be around little children, and that a judge made a special law to keep your mother away from her. Later, she was led to believe you would naturally turn out to be just like your mother.”
She paused a moment to let that sink in; then she said, “As for Carter, he had several reasons for not wanting to bring you into the family at this late date. For one thing, he didn’t think it would be kind to introduce you to a life you’ve never had. Moreover, I suspect he felt guilty for leaving you behind. In which case, it’s understandable that he would not relish coming face-to-face now with the person he wronged. I would have forced this little reunion long ago, but I could not do it until Carter’s mother, my daughter-in-law, did me the surprising favor of preceding me in death.”
“Why not?”
“Because she would have driven you off in ten minutes. You would never have tolerated the treatment she would have subjected you to, and I did not want to subject you to it. I could have come to see you, I suppose, but that wouldn’t have mended the breach between Paris and Carter and you. And that is my goal.”
Sloan was staggered to discover that her goal was evidently to mend, when all she’d done so far was humiliate, criticize, and anger Sloan.
“Once Carter’s mother died, I realized I could bring you to us, and I forced Carter to go along with the plan. He had no choice.”
“He didn’t?”
“Of course not,” she announced with a gruff laugh. “Because I hold the purse strings.”
Sloan blinked and cleared her throat. “You do what?”
“I control the Hanover Trust, which owns a major portion of the Reynolds fortune,” she declared, as if that single piece of information should clarify everything to Sloan.
“I don’t understand,” Sloan said.
“It’s quite simple. My father, James Hunsley, was a handsome, penniless rogue from a fine family, but he’d gambled away his own inheritance by the time he was twenty-five. To support his lifestyle, he had to marry an heiress, and he selected my mother, who was heiress to the Hanover fortune. My grandfather saw right through him and refused to consent to the marriage, but my mother loved him, and she was a spoiled, headstrong girl. She threatened to elope, and my grandfather gave in, but not until he’d arranged things so my father could never get full control of my mother’s fortune. Grandfather Hanover set up a trust and gave her control after his death, but only with the advice and consent of the other trustees he’d appointed. Under the terms of that trust, control remains in the hands of the oldest surviving Hanover descendant, not the spouse of a Hanover. At present, I am that descendant.”
Sloan decided not to reply to that revelation. “Your father must have been disappointed when he found out about the trust.”
“He was furious, but once he realized that his life was not going to improve unless he made money of his own, he did just that. His was a modest fortune, nothing like the Hanover fortune, and of course half of it belonged to my mother and ended up in the trust. Carter inherited my family’s business acumen, and he’s increased the Reynolds fortune many times over,” she stated with pride. “However, I didn’t send for you to discuss Carter. It’s Paris I want to talk about. You see, despite everything she was led to believe about your mother and you, she told me last night, she thought you seemed quite nice.”
Until then, everything she’d said had been so negative that Sloan was completely unprepared for the praise that followed.
“It is clear to me that you have spunk and spirit, and I’d like Paris to have a little more of that. Perhaps you could keep that in mind when you’re with her?”
She broke off at the sound of Paris’s footsteps and waited in silence until Paris had pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Your game was off this morning,” she said sternly. “You were playing too close to the net. What got into you?”
“I was having an off day, I guess.”
“Nonsense. You were trying not to hurt Sloan’s feelings because her game is deplorable. Enough about that,” she interrupted when Paris started to reply. “I believe you and Sloan are playing golf this afternoon?”
“Yes, we have a tee time later today.”
“Good, I want the two of you to spend plenty of time together. What are you planning tonight?”
“Noah wants to take Paul and Sloan and me out to dinner.”
“Excellent,” she said with an emphatic nod. “Your father has his heart set on a Christmas wedding for the two of you. You need to spend more time with Noah, too.”
Sloan didn’t want to play golf, and she knew Paris didn’t want to marry Noah. Carter and Edith Reynolds apparently had no interest in what those under their control wanted. Sloan wasn’t certain what she wanted; she was still reeling with shock from the things Edith had said, and she was anxious to repeat the pertinent parts to Paul. Beyond that, the only thing she was certain of was that she did want to get to know Paris better.
“I need to take a shower,” Sloan said to both of them; and then she deliberately smiled at Paris as she stood up. “I,
for one, would like to thank you for taking it easy on Paul and me on the tennis court. It was very kind.”
“Nonsense!” Edith interrupted. “She should have used the time to hone her skills not let them rust!”
Sloan realized that this old woman was not going to respect anyone she or her son could walk on, even though she took it as her right and privilege to do the walking. “Paris is aware that Paul and I are your guests, and so her first priority would naturally be to make us feel comfortable. I think I read in an etiquette column in the newspaper that this is the first and most important duty of a hostess. Isn’t it?” Sloan finished, trying to look innocent.
Edith Reynolds wasn’t fooled. “Young woman, are you presuming to lecture me on manners?”
There was something indefinable about her tone; although it was indignant, it was not quite angry.
Sloan bit her lip to hide a smile. “Yes, ma’am, I think I was. Just a little.”
“Outrageous girl,” she pronounced in a gruff voice that lacked genuine anger. “I can’t stand to see you wearing all that dirt another moment. Run along and take your shower.”
Dismissed, Sloan started away.
“And don’t waste water,” Edith called out irritably.
When Sloan was gone, Edith focused her pale blue eyes on Paris. “She is an impertinent young woman. No respect for authority. Little enough for money. What do you think of her?”
Long ago when she was a child, Paris Reynolds had accepted that it was useless and unwise for anyone, including her, to oppose a member of her family. They were indomitable and unforgiving, while she was a coward and a weakling. And yet, in the last hour, she had seen her younger sister stand up for herself and then for Paris. In view of that, it seemed imperative for Paris to now do the same. Nervousness made her palms damp, and she rubbed them on her shorts. “I—I’m sorry, Great-grandmother,” Paris said, her voice shaking from unfamiliarity with taking an opposing stand, “but s-s-she—”
“Stop stammering, child! You overcame that speech impediment years ago.”
Shaken but still determined, Paris lifted her chin, looked her great-grandmother in the eye as Sloan had done, and announced, “I think she is great!”
Night Whispers Page 14