by Moriah Jovan
He turned toward the mansion and walked around the grounds a bit. Cottages, smaller versions of the stores across the highway, sat scattered behind the mansion, spread out in an asymmetrical fan shape amongst a park-like lawn with flowers and trees, benches and a playground just north of the garage. Various narrow cobblestone pathways led to the cottages.
Two outbuildings to the northwest sat at the edge of an apple orchard and were much bigger than the rest, but so far away they almost faded into the lawn and trees.
All of the cottages, the valet garage, and the two outbuildings were clad in the same brick as the mansion and shops, and all of them had that strange roof pattern. Each cottage had some unique feature, with no more than two of the little buildings alike. Some were two-story and some one. Each had unique eave detailing, as a proper gothic revival should, and none of the cottage eaves were as barren as the mansion’s eaves. Each cottage had a large railed porch with rocking chairs or a porch swing, and each cottage’s foundation was swathed in flowers.
He climbed the side stairs of the mansion and wandered around the veranda, looking for wherever the kitchen might be. He saw quite a few guests strolling, rocking in chairs and drinking various concoctions, the most frequent of which seemed to be mint julep, iced sweet tea, and lemonade. The guests read, knitted, dozed, wrote, sewed, and the like.
It seemed there were at least two casually dressed waiters on staff at this time of day catering to the needs of those who wished to while away their time without the distraction of cell phones, laptops, PDAs, and other gadgetry.
One very familiar sight—two Mormon missionaries clad in cheap suits and driving a generic car—whizzed down the driveway and turned out onto the highway, headed toward Ava.
Through the floor-to-ceiling French doors spaced equally along this wall of the mansion, he could see an immense dining room that seemed as cozy as a small parlor, with a grand staircase blocking the view to the other half of the mansion. Intrigued, he decided to forego the kitchen for the time being and go around to the front entrance. The grand front door was made of heavy walnut casements surrounding elaborate beveled glass windows.
Ah, Vanessa. Impeccable taste, brought to you by the same man who taught me what a handkerchief was for.
He walked in onto wide-planked walnut floors, a shallow alcove on his left (it took him a minute to realize it was an elevator), and a welcome desk to his right.
Deep into the main floor in front of him was that massive walnut staircase—bigger and more ornate than the one in the Chouteau County courthouse—twelve feet wide, rising twenty feet to the next level, bisected by a landing. To the left of the staircase was a dining room. To the right of the staircase was an enormous room littered with comfortable couches, club chairs, coffee tables, end tables, and plenty of lamps. Its far wall was lined with shelves and shelves of books to the ceiling, halved horizontally by a relatively shallow wrought-iron balcony from the front wall to the back, to enable people to access the ceiling-high library via a compact switchback wrought-iron staircase.
And on the back wall of the large sitting room, there it hung.
Wild, Wild West, eight feet wide and five feet high.
Eric sucked up a sharp breath at its magnificence and wondered if he would have the privilege of touching that magnificently curved body this week and become her third lover.
There was something very strange about a twenty-eight-year-old woman with such a sparse sexual history that was, at the same time, so remarkable.
I go for high-profile quality and not low-class quantity.
So she did. Eric wasn’t high-profile—yet—but he sure as hell hoped he could live up to the quality part.
He was so taken with the enormity and beauty of the painting—this place—that he started when a simply but elegantly clad blonde approached him.
“Hello,” she murmured. “I’m Shelly Geier, the concierge. Welcome to Whittaker House.” Eric had to adjust his grip to accommodate the flaccid handshake she offered.
“Eric Cipriani.”
“Are you a guest with us this weekend? I don’t recall your name on our arrivals list.”
He looked at her a moment, his attention caught by something subtle that he’d seen before. She had almost the same look on her face that his eager unattached female students got—but there was something different about it. More elusive, more . . . calculating.
“Yes,” he replied, watching her face change nearly imperceptibly to satisfaction.
“Really,” she purred, keeping his hand a few seconds too long, curling her fingers into his. He decided to follow this path to see if his instincts were correct, so he didn’t bother to retrieve his hand. “Perhaps I can give you a tour?”
Eric cocked an eyebrow, tilting his head just a tad, and quirked his lips. “A tour of . . . what?”
“The . . . property,” she returned smoothly, her expression betraying only the most miniscule amount of satisfaction.
All his years managing people, teaching them, watching them while they testified, picking up on subtle, almost indistinguishable tidbits of body language, had given him an almost sixth sense about people’s motives and what they might be hiding. It was a skill Knox had never really learned and it gave Eric strengths in the courtroom Knox didn’t have, although Knox’s memory more than balanced out any deficit.
The concierge didn’t think she’d given away a single thing even though he’d read most of her game plan in just the few seconds they’d conversed. Still, he was missing something, some important detail.
“Ah, well. Actually, I’m looking for Vanessa.”
Her smile of studied, benign amusement was well practiced, as if she hadn’t just propositioned him. “I assure you, Mr. Cipriani, as your concierge, I’m more than capable of taking care of your . . . needs. Miss Whittaker is most likely flitting around.”
Miss Whittaker. Flitting around. Meow.
He flashed her a smile that wouldn’t betray his suspicions, slowly withdrew his hand, and said, “Then if you could tell me where she might be, ah, flitting, I’d appreciate it.”
“Hmmm.” She looked at her watch. “That would be difficult to determine at this time of day and she won’t be around until six this evening to begin seating guests.”
His eyelids drooped a bit in response, and a corner of her mouth turned up. “No problem. I’ll just wander around until I find her.”
Leaving her there to stew in that, he turned and walked out the front door, across the veranda and around a corner, nearly colliding with a man only a little shorter than Eric, with long black hair, similar complexion, and a thick but tidy beard and mustache covering most of his face.
“’Scuse me, buddy,” he muttered absently as he passed, then actually looked at Eric. He stopped, his eyes narrowed a bit, and then he burst out laughing. That was strange enough, but the man didn’t bother to explain himself as he shook his head and continued past him into the mansion, still chuckling.
“Piper.”
The man stopped. Turned.
Eric stared at him, his jaw clenched, and Piper returned it with a smirk.
“I’m leavin’, Cipriani,” Piper said in a thick country accent chock full of amusement. “You got no threat from me.”
“Why are you still here?”
“Not for her tryin’ to kick me out since she got back from Kansas City. I wanted to see what’s had her in a snit for the last two years.”
Eric stared at him, but Piper continued on his way into the mansion, the words, “Now I see. Now I go,” floating back after him.
A snit.
Over Eric.
Two years.
Justice wanted her to be one of her bridesmaids and I wanted you to be one of my groomsmen . . . she declined.
I had a crush on you . . . I never got over it . . . you were always larger than life . . . unattainable.
Sebastian Taight. Nash Piper. About Eric’s height. About Eric’s build. Both with black hair.
&nbs
p; Eric wouldn’t pass for either of them, but all cats were gray in the dark.
“Oh,” Eric breathed as all the pieces of the puzzle fell in place, filling in spots he didn’t know needed filling. The significance of it humbled him. His jealousy, unwarranted. His hesitance in trying again to approach her, unnecessary.
If he’d sought her out any time in the last ten years like he should’ve . . .
“I really am a fucking idiot,” Eric muttered.
He took a deep breath, now more eager than ever to see Vanessa and put it all to rights. He set off around the other side of the veranda, following the cobblestone driveway that led to the northwest corner of the park until he was at the rear of the mansion. Once there, he saw Piper walking toward him, still chuckling, still shaking his head. He gave Eric a wide grin and threw his thumb over his shoulder. “She’s back there—first big outbuildin’ on the left,” he offered. As he passed, he clapped Eric on the shoulder heartily and said, “Good luck, Cipriani.”
Without bothering to respond, Eric headed in the direction Piper had indicated. Once he got to the “first big outbuildin’ on the left” and rounded the corner, he stopped short and gaped.
Wide-open carriage doors comprised the entire front wall. Vanessa stood behind a stainless steel table up to her elbows in rabbit carcasses, her hair in a pony tail, her body swimming in a bloody paper coverall, and blood all over her face. She stopped, a fillet knife in her hand, to wipe her forehead with the back of her arm.
Eric blinked. He wasn’t going anywhere near that mess, not even for a kiss.
“Welcome to my world,” Vanessa muttered as she skinned and filleted another rabbit. “I hate to introduce you to my butcher shop this way but Vachel showed up with this haul about an hour ago, so I had to deal with it right away.”
“Yeah, I’m not crying.”
“Most people do. They don’t mind eating it as long as they can pretend it wasn’t cute and cuddly at one time or had a face. Damn things eat my gardens when they could be eating out of my compost. They deserve what they get.”
Eric laughed. “Is that for tonight’s menu?”
“No. Tonight is—” She looked up at him then. “Do you really want to know?”
“This is what you’re famous for, right?”
“One of them. So, tonight’s dish is ’possum and squirrel medallions over thyme-and-rosemary couscous with the coveted Vanessa Whittaker creamed collard greens.”
He grimaced. “Where’s the nearest Taco Bell?”
Vanessa laughed then and went back to butchering rabbits. “I warned you. But. I do serve other things for the less, ah, epicurious.”
Eric snorted. “I’ll take a hunk of cow, thanks. You learned how to butcher ’possum in New York?”
“Not specifically, but I learned how to treat different meats, depending on their toughness and maturity. And just so you know, I didn’t intend to make a career out of cooking like Granny Clampett. It was a little side interest that kind of evolved. I get ideas from the Foxfire books and then mix it up with oddball dishes I create. If it’s a hit, I keep it. If it’s not, out it goes.”
“Foxfire books?”
Her mouth twitched in thought. “I don’t know how to explain them. Kind of an . . . encyclopedia of Appalachian life. Customs, folklore, recipes. Instructions. Like dowsing. How to make moonshine.”
“Would you make moonshine?”
She grinned. “I would if I thought I could get away with it. That would do well on my bar.”
“This place,” Eric murmured, gesturing vaguely toward the mansion. “It knocked me over. It’s about as perfect as any place could be.”
“My father,” she said softly, “hoped heaven was at least as pretty. He was looking forward to dying.”
Eric shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at the floor.
She cleared her throat. “Anyway,” she said, her husky voice a bit hoarse. “The holiday season is booked up three years out, working on year four, because of the masquerades. The Hilliards’ suite—in the top of the middle gable—is never rented out and it’s inaccessible except by elevator key and secret passageway. January through March, and September through November are relatively slow, but I use those months to sort and clean, create dishes, plan for the next year. It’s really not as slow as I’d like because Laura Ingalls Wilder’s house is just down the road a bit. That’s why people come to Mansfield and they do it year-round. And as of—” She checked her watch. “—five minutes ago, I have two permanent residents.”
“I met your third.”
She bit her lip. Refused to look up at him.
“It’s all good, Vanessa. Don’t sweat it. I— Got it. Finally.”
She sighed, then said wryly, “Well, so did I. Nash told me he came here because I look like his ex-wife, so when I saw you at my father’s wake . . . ”
He smirked. “Oh yeah . . . ?”
“Let’s just say I realized that if Nash had shown up in his natural hair color, nothing would have happened.”
Eric burst out laughing.
“You know that makes me certifiable.”
“If you are, I am, too,” he said, chuckling. “I’ve been crazy jealous about you since I saw you at the school exhibition— And I’ve never been jealous in my life.”
She grinned.
“So now that we know we’re both crazy . . . why did you come to Mansfield?”
“Laura Ingalls Wilder, same as everybody else. I adore her. She gave me courage.” She looked up at him. “She was the reason I went to Knox with Simone’s diary in the first place.”
“I don’t know who she is,” he said, as she went back to cutting.
“Little House on the Prairie?”
“Oh, the TV show.”
“No, no. The books.”
Eric shook his head. “I didn’t know how to read until I got to college and then I just dove headfirst into Kierkegaard.”
Vanessa laughed outright at that.
“How big is your staff?”
“Right now, eleven full-time employees, twenty part-time. Housekeepers. Gardeners. Servers, bellhops, and valets. Chefs and line cooks. I usually grab a few teenagers for seasonal work, like now, and I always have an apprentice chef or two.
“I’m the chief executive chef, so the time I spend cooking is to create the dishes. My executive chef runs the kitchen. I create the food, do all the butchering myself, tape the TV show.”
“You tape your show in your kitchen?” he asked, surprised.
“No. The set is in the basement. I have to keep the technology out of sight. Kind of ruins the mirage if the guests see how not rustic we are. Everything’s hidden, like internet and cable outlets in the suites and guest cottages. That’s not to say they’re not there. You just can’t see them. Vachel has a TV and a computer in his room, video games, iPhone, the works. My office is totally high-tech. I had to put in a few things for the disabled and to meet fire codes, but people understand that stuff. Nobody would find the lack of an elevator in a four-story building acceptable.”
“And your employees?”
“The few who live here can do what they want, but no employee is to let the guests see their technology.”
Eric watched Vanessa work: The intense expression on her face, the speed and precision with which she wielded her scalpel-sharp knife, the way she held and considered each carcass before she began to cut.
“Where is Vachel, by the way?” he finally asked.
She glanced at her watch again. “Sleeping in a tree or a meadow somewhere, this time of day. He has to have his siesta.”
“His PTSD.”
“Yes. He doesn’t sleep much when it’s dark. Winter was . . . difficult.”
Eric’s lips pressed together, wondering what that kid could have lived through to make him so afraid of the dark he wouldn’t sleep in it, and regretting that he hadn’t called Social Services years ago.
“He usually spends his nights hunting. During the school
year he studies. One reason he doesn’t like school is because he’s so tired. His work is fine, he tests well, but he gets in trouble for nodding off . . . ” She shrugged. “He’s really too—I don’t know, adult?—for school, but he needs the education to go with his maturity. He doesn’t . . . fit.”
“Does he have friends?”
“Friends, no, but he does have a fan club. His kilts and buckskins. His aloofness. He very rarely speaks.”
“Mysterious. Tough.”
Vanessa nodded. “I had tween girls calling here constantly because he won’t give his cell number to anybody. I finally had to call their mothers and have a chat.”
Eric laughed, then noticed a pile of fur off to one side of the table. “What do you do with the pelts?”
“Send them to a tannery,” she said as she sliced and diced. “Have them made into throws and blankets for the beds. Adds an unexpected touch. You don’t expect to see furs all over a gothic Victorian, but then they get sold as fast as I have them made.”
Interesting. “Just so you know, your concierge—” Eric stopped abruptly when Vanessa’s head snapped up, her hands still.
“Shelly?” she prompted.
So. There were issues there, and he still wasn’t quite sure his suspicions were correct. Yet. “Uh . . . Well—” He stopped, unwilling to say anything more.
Vanessa sighed and went back to cutting. “Never mind. She’s a flirt; I get that.”
“She wouldn’t tell me where you were.”
“Oh.” She paused a moment, then muttered, “I’m sorry. I should’ve known she’d do that.”
“You don’t like her, do you?”
Vanessa said nothing for a beat, but her cutting pace never slowed. “No,” she finally said. “I don’t. But she’s good with unhappy people, she does her job well, and she’s discreet, which is paramount here.”
“Why’d you hire her?”
“Besides her references? She looked straight at Nash and didn’t recognize him.”
That made sense.
“Will she respect your space?”
“I don’t know.” Vanessa stilled, then she looked back up at him slowly. “Is that something I might have to worry about?”