Before Ally could respond, Brenda, the housekeeper, peeked into the room. Her purse was on her arm and she winked, waved, mouthed “Enjoy,” then slipped out the door.
“So, we’ll save dessert and open the presents! Happy birthday, dear.” Her grandmother held out a small box elaborately wrapped in gold with gold ribbons. “Go on. You’re only sixteen once.”
Well, in Ally’s case, twice, apparently. But still, why quibble? Granny Donny had forgotten it was the twenty-first century, but she had remembered Ally’s birthday. Tears formed in Ally’s eyes and she blinked them back. This might be as good as it gets. “Thank you, Grandma.” She held the box carefully. “Do you remember when I really turned sixteen?”
Granny Donny looked confused. “Open it, dear. Then you can make a wish and blow out the candle and we can eat!”
But Ally couldn’t stop herself from fishing for a sign that the old Granny Donny was somewhere in there, behind the confusion. “On my real sixteenth birthday, I had begged you for a sleepover with Alice Criddly, and you said yes and then you invited boys.” Ally remembered Tim Whittle and Bobby Hemly showing up like it was yesterday. The two cutest boys in the tenth grade in their low-rise jeans and Yankees T-shirts, grinning stupidly. Alice had shrieked with terror and badly hidden glee, but Ally had been too mortified to make a sound. She knew Tim and Bobby would never look at a girl like her—mousy and quiet and studious. They had probably shown up on a dare. Or worse, maybe Granny Donny had paid them.
When Ally had confronted her grandmother in the kitchen, she had said, “Well, you have to learn sometime, so why not now, when I can make sure everyone’s safe? And they are such lovely boys! Yummy!” The crowning highlight of the evening was Ally opening her gifts from her grandmother in front of everyone, including a box of birthday condoms. “Happy birthday!” Granny Donny had cried.
To Granny Donny’s dismay, they had ended up playing Scrabble and watching old movies, until chastely sleeping side by side in their respective sleeping bags. The next Monday at school was torture, until she realized that mercifully she had become invisible; Tim and Bobby never spoke to her again.
Maybe Granny Donny shouldn’t have bought the extra-small condoms.
Alice Criddly was forbidden from ever sleeping over again.
“So, open it, dear.”
Well, it couldn’t be worse than condoms. “I really wish you hadn’t,” Ally said. She opened the box.
It was worse. Ally’s heart sank.
On a green velvet cushion sat her mother’s pearl drop earrings. Ally’s heart broke in two at the sight of them.
“They’re for your wedding day. To the duke. You’ll make such a lovely bride, dear,” Granny Donny said.
“Grandma, I’m not sixteen, and I won’t be a duke’s bride. But thank you.” She closed the box and set it aside. This was it, wasn’t it? She had tried to sell, trade, and flee her past, but it was no use. Her grandmother was handing her the reins, giving her the family jewels. But Ally didn’t want even a pearl-sized piece of it. She wanted everything to go back to exactly the way it had been yesterday so she could leave for San Francisco. A clean break.
“We’re going to get you all set up, dear, with such a lovely husband. A duke! Everything is turning out so splendidly!”
Ally looked at her grandmother, really looked at her for the first time since last night. Ally had to turn away and bite her lip in self-loathing. Poor Granny. She was fading. All of her—the pale skin, the white hair, even her voice. Soon, the old woman would disappear. And all Ally could do was feel sorry for herself? She wasn’t at all the good woman—she was selfish and tired and frustrated, and she didn’t want to take care of her grandmother. Not now, when she had finally decided to look after herself.
And yet, she owed this woman everything. Without her grandmother, what would have become of Ally? She had even taken her grandmother’s last name.
A drop of wax from the weeping candle fell onto the chocolate ganache.
“Grandma, for my birthday, will you make a wish? What do you want?” Ally braced herself for the answer. I’ll find your daughter, Granny Donny. My mother. Whatever it takes.
Granny Donny closed her eyes like a child. She held her hands in a steeple of prayer. “I’ve already told you, dear. All I want is to go to my house in the country with you and the duke so you can fall in love and marry.” She opened her eyes and blew out the candle like a child.
Relief washed over Ally. Just a trip to God knew where, a love affair with an arrogant jerk who wouldn’t give her the time of day, marriage, and a couple of snotty kids. No problem. Way easier than having to find her parents. But the idea of finding them had taken hold, and Ally had to at least put it on the table. “I was thinking that maybe you might want to see Lisa again.” The words hurt to say, but Ally kept on. “Your son-in-law, too? Lisa and Ross? Remember? Do you want me to try to find them before…before…” Ally couldn’t get the words out. Her throat went tight.
“Before the marriage, dear?”
“Exactly.” Ally swallowed.
“Oh, it’s not necessary. I’ve taken care of everything. We’ll see them at the wedding!” Granny Donny said, as if she had thought the whole affair through and worked it out to her satisfaction. “I can’t wait to get to Lewiston! Ah, the fresh air!”
Lewiston. Shock waves coursed through Ally and she inhaled to hold her emotions steady. Now she understood what Granny Donny meant by “the country.” Her grandmother used to own a beach house in Lewiston, halfway out on Long Island. Could she still own the place? Ally hadn’t thought about that house in ten years. “Didn’t you sell that house?” They hadn’t been there or even spoken of it since her parents left.
“Now why would I do that, dear? I love that house. There’s nowhere better to escape the filth and heat of London. And we can embroider and play tiddlywinks and tend to our stables and inspect our tenants’ farming.”
Tiddlywinks? Tenants? Okay, fifty-fifty chance she still owned the house. But if Granny Donny did, a trip to “the country” would be easy and maybe even fun. If not, they could surely rent a house for a week or two nearby. It wasn’t like Granny Donny was asking for a trip to a foreign country. Lewiston was just a few hours’ drive from Manhattan in good traffic.
Ally felt a tug of guilt about giving up the plan of finding her parents so quickly, but if Granny Donny only wanted a trip to Lewiston, it surely was a waste of time, effort, and emotion to do more. After all, Dr. Trawlbridge had said that soon she might not even recognize Ally, so how would she ever recognize her daughter, whom she hadn’t seen in ten years?
So, a trip to Long Island, to the beach. It was doable. Why not? Maybe it would be fun.
“I got you something else, too, dear.” Her grandmother handed her another box, just as beautifully wrapped.
Ally tore off the wrapping without attention, her mind already in overdrive planning the trip ahead of them. She detested uncertainty, but planning was her comfort.
Ally’s teaching job in San Francisco started in late August. She could spend the rest of the summer, if need be, with Granny Donny (and lots of hired help) on the beach. Maybe, in that time, the damage from the stroke would repair itself or the pills would kick in, and everything would return to normal. Or maybe, Ally would discover it was possible to live with Granny Donny in this state, and they could go to San Francisco together. In either case, she could focus on her grandmother’s health with all her heart and soul.
She opened the box. Inside was a six-pack of Trojans, extra large.
“Oh, to be sixteen again!” Granny Donny giggled.
Ally hugged her grandmother, startled by her delicate bones. She’s still in there, Ally thought. Maybe the trip to the beach would be like a trip back in time, to better days. Maybe it would be the ticket to getting her grandmother back. She’d recover from her stroke, get her bearings again, pull herself back into reality, and life would once again be normal.
Everything was falling i
nto place, which meant, of course, that it was all about to fall to pieces. The princess had seen enough of life to know that.
—From The Dulcet Duke
Chapter 5
June came the next day, armed with take-out sushi and a six-pack of Diet Pepsi. They were in Granny Donny’s living room, arguing as quietly as they could while Granny Donny had her post-tea nap. “You had a whole new life planned,” June said. She was in her workout clothes, a loose sweatshirt thrown over her leotard to protect her muscles from Granny Donny’s ferocious air-conditioning. “Please tell me that you’re still going to San Francisco.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I think I will. But later. Now, it’s not about me. It’s about Granny Donny. She wants to take this trip to Long Island, so we’re going to do it.” Ally sank back on the couch.
“To a house that you don’t even know still exists?”
“I went through Granny Donny’s papers last night, and I’m pretty sure she still owns the place. A real-estate management company had been renting it out and taking care of it. But the records end two years ago, so I’m thinking the house must be empty. I didn’t find any papers that indicated a sale. I called and called the rental place, but no one answers. Anyway, no worries. If someone’s there, we can get another place nearby. It’s not about the house. It’s about me and Granny Donny. Four days of adventure on the road.”
“Four days? To Long Island? Um, more like two hours, hon,” June protested.
“Not if we go by horse and carriage.” Ally didn’t look at her friend. She hadn’t said that part of her plan out loud yet, and she didn’t like how crazy it sounded. Why did things that seemed to make sense in her head always sound wrong when she spoke them?
“No. You can’t.” June was so shocked, she popped an entire piece of tuna roll into her mouth without even sniffing at it first.
“Why not?”
June chewed like a normal person, a sight Ally realized she’d never witnessed. “Why?”
“Because it’s her wish to live in 1812 London, so I’ve decided that I’m going to grant her this one last sort-of-sane wish. She did lots of crazy stuff for me.”
“This crazy?” June asked.
“Crazier,” Ally insisted.
June looked doubtful.
“She moved out of this beautiful apartment and moved into our crappy underground lair on 113th Street because I refused to leave,” Ally pointed out.
“You were young. Fourteen. You were abandoned. Your parents had left you.”
“She lived with me in that moldy, dark cave for four years until I turned eighteen. That was an amazing thing to do, and she didn’t have to. She could have told me that I was nuts and that I had to come and live with her. She had this beautiful suite in the Plaza, and she left it to live with me on the upper, Upper West Side in a dump.”
“You were a child.”
“So is she, sort of.” Ally could just hear Granny Donny snoring soundly in the next room. “She lived in that apartment for four years, and I never let her change a single picture on the wall or carpet on the floor. And she never, ever complained. She let me keep it as a shrine to my parents, no matter how screwed up that was.” Ally’s voice lowered. “She let me wait, let me keep my fantasy that they’d come back. It might have been a stupid dream, but it kept me going.”
“Okay. So she was awesome. But still. You’re going to take a horse and carriage across Brooklyn, halfway across Long Island, to a beach house that might or might not exist, to have a house party, a ball, and end up marrying a duke?”
“Well, I’m kind of counting on her forgetting the duke part.”
“Ally, I don’t understand how you can do this. This isn’t like you. It’s totally nuts.”
Ally shrugged. “I know. I sort of like it. I think, in a way, that was really her wish. That I do something crazy with her. She always wanted that, you know? And I always denied her. I was always the good girl. The responsible one. The one who wanted to stay home and wait, to do the right thing. So this time, I’m going to forget what makes sense and do something crazy.”
June nodded, but she didn’t look happy. “Well, then, it’s official: You’ve both completely lost your minds.”
“Mateo, how would you and Paula feel about taking Granny Donny and me to Long Island?” Ally asked the coachman three days later. “A town called Lewiston. It’s about halfway out, on Fire Island. It’s a beautiful old town, founded in 1652 when Richard Lewis bought it from the Matinecock tribe…” Ally rambled, unable to stop the history lesson for fear that if she did, Mateo would get a chance to say no. She hadn’t expected to be so nervous asking him. Her throat was tight and dry. Talking to Granny Donny and June about the trip the last few days had made the plan almost seem normal. Now, with the traffic on Fifth Avenue snarled behind them and the rush of important-looking businesspeople streaming in and out of the Plaza, she felt absurd.
She willed herself to stop the lecture that was still tumbling out of her. “So, that’s where the Dutch influence of the town originated and how it got its name. Um, what do you think?”
“It would be complicated,” he said simply.
“Oh.” Disappointment washed through her. “So. That’s logical. I agree, actually. It was nuts. Crazy—”
“Complicated, but we could do it,” Mateo said.
Ally perked up. She felt like hugging the coachman, but she didn’t think he’d approve. There was something reserved, serious, and deeply sad about Mateo that she hadn’t been able to put her finger on. “How many miles a day could we go?”
“Depends on the heat. The hills. How Paula reacts to the new surroundings. Conservative, twenty miles a day. More if conditions are right. The better question might be, how much can Lady Giordano handle?”
“I don’t know.” Twenty miles for Paula was the distance Ally had concluded, too. She’d done the research on horses, but her grandmother’s endurance was harder to predict. She had cleared the trip with her grandmother’s doctors, though. They thought she shouldn’t have any problems, and if they did, they’d just be a quick cab-ride away from Manhattan. “We might have to play it day-by-day.” Ally cringed. She hated not having a written-in-stone plan. But Dr. Trawlbridge had thought the trip was a lovely idea. He’d even given Ally leads on home care agencies he recommended on the Island so she’d have help.
Ally’s plan was simple. She had arranged for June to meet them after the first day with a rental car packed with their things. Ally would take a cab back to the car every evening and drive to their new hotel. Then, once they got to the beach house and were sure they could stay, she’d have everything else sent. The only hitch was that she still hadn’t gotten in touch with the rental agency that handled the house. But that seemed a minor detail when everything else was going so well. She had even found a set of keys for the place in a drawer, 237 Beachside Drive. She was feeling confident the house would be empty. “How would Paula cope?” Ally asked Mateo. “Stables, hay, what else does a horse need?”
“You leave that all to me. I’ve got friends,” Mateo said. A sparkle began to glow behind his eyes, as if he was beginning to see the magic of the trip, too. Like maybe, if he’d let himself, he might smile. “There is one little issue.”
“What’s that?” Ally held her breath.
“Nada. Forget it. We’ll be fine. Give me a week to get everything together,” Mateo said. “Then, we’re ready whenever you are.” He patted Paula’s flank. “We’ll get you and Lady Donatella wherever you want to go. In style.”
His world was just that, his. The princess, stumbling in and out, didn’t change that one bit. At least, he was determined to think so.
—From The Dulcet Duke
Chapter 6
Such a lovely night for a ball! The air was warm and balmy, the stars practically buzzing with excitement! Lady Donatella couldn’t hear the music, but surely it would start soon. She picked up her pace as she approached the ballroom. Ah! There was one of the musicians. “De
ar sir, a waltz!” she cried. She could still turn heads, even at her age.
She adored a waltz. How odd that no one was dancing. Well, that wouldn’t stop her. A woman of a certain age could be forward with a gentleman about wanting to dance, not like those young ones, wallflowers growing dusty, waiting for a man. She picked out the most likely prospect from the gentlemen strolling about the room. Lord Vernon, if she wasn’t mistaken, judging from his swoon-worthy height and broad shoulders. It really was awfully dark for a ballroom. So hard to see. “Dear sir, would you abide an old woman the first dance?”
Lord Vernon smiled, obviously recognizing her. “Why, I’d be delighted! An honor!” And he took her by the hand and led her onto the dance floor.
Ally awoke with a start. Something was wrong; she felt it in her bones. She was in her grandmother’s spare bedroom; the clock glowed 11:04 p.m.
She threw back the covers and raced to her grandmother’s bedroom.
Her heart skittered to a stop. “Granny Donny?”
She ran into the living room. “Grandma?”
She searched the apartment. Her grandmother was gone.
She called downstairs to the lobby. No one had seen her. Ally’s skin went clammy and her stomach churned. All night at dinner, Granny Donny had gone on and on about visiting the duke. Was Granny Donny walking the streets, searching for him?
Ally threw on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and bolted to the lobby. The Fifth Avenue doormen were adamant that Granny Donny hadn’t passed that way. “We’d have stopped her for sure, Ms. Giordano,” Ernest said. But then his face dropped. “But who’s on the north side?”
They raced together to the door, Ernest a step ahead. Ally didn’t recognize the man there. “Temporary,” Ernest mumbled. “Damn staffing cuts.” He took Ally by the elbow. “Evening, Tom. Did you see a little old lady leave this way?”
How to Tame a Modern Rogue Page 4
