I shall stay on the hillside and wait,
and wait for a long time,
and I'll not grow weary of the long wait.
She shouldn’t have listened to Julie for an instant this morning; she should have quashed her niece’s questioning as soon as it started. She shouldn’t have let herself imagine, as they bought Dad-approvable clothes, that she could become a permanent part of the Ashmore household. She shouldn’t have let herself dream that she could stand with him, greeting their guests, the heart and soul of Ashmore Park, that she could sit with the Queen Bees and hold her own against Mel McIntire and decline a margarita for the same reason Lucy did.
If she didn’t stop this daydreaming, if she didn’t stop reaching for the future he had so firmly told her not to, she might reveal more than either of them wanted. She might, in the end, make his life more difficult than either of them had ever thought.
Chi sarà? chi sarà?
E come sarà giunto
che dirà? che dirà?
Who is he? Who?
And when he arrives,
What will he say? What will he say?
But it ate at her, having to pretend. What had she ever done except pretend? Dominic’s dutiful daughter, secretly planning to run away; Richard’s young sister-in-law, chafing at his blindness below the surface of her devotion; Cam’s submissive wife, hiding Cat Courtney beneath the resentment and gratitude until she suddenly burst forth and rewrote the rules of their marriage. And now, calm, demure Laura St. Bride, who had to take her happiness in stolen hours of the night, who could not stand openly at the side of the man she loved.
She felt a tear trickle down her face.
Un bel dì, vedremo
levarsi un fil di fumo sull'estremo
confin del mare
E poi la nave appare.
Laura was halfway through the verse when, behind her, another voice joined hers, a voice she hadn’t heard for many years. She went rigid with shock. Her disciplined fingers took over, playing automatically, even as her mind disconnected from the keyboard. A once-beautiful voice, with clear, high bell tones, now short of breath and muddy around the edges from too many years of abuse and lack of practice. A coloratura soprano who had once had the power to bring her audience to tears.
Her finger slipped; she played C natural where she should have played C sharp, and Diana, standing behind her now, so close that she felt the heat from her sister’s body, followed the melody and flatted.
Diana. No one had warned her. What was Diana doing here?
Then, Richard can’t have invited her.
She ended with a bouquet of discordant notes; she couldn’t have continued playing if her life had depended on it. In the silence, the echoes of the notes jarred her already stretched nerves.
“Hey,” said Diana.
Laura felt her heart pounding sickly, a hideous wave of adrenaline flooding through her. She sat still, a forest animal alert to a threatened attack.
“Hey yourself.” Was that her voice?
“I didn’t know you still sang opera,” Diana said, and dropped down beside her. “Not bad, Laurie – you still have problems with that range, though, don’t you?” As if she herself could sing that range anymore. Diana nodded towards the keyboard. “Thinking of trying opera again? Cat Courtney not enough for you?”
Cat to the rescue. She’d spent a week trying not to call on her alter ego for help, but she needed Cat now; she couldn’t let Diana rattle her. “I – I don’t know. I just felt like singing it. I might do a couple of pieces on my next album.” Where was Lucy? Where was Richard? Did anyone else know Diana was here? She took a deep breath. “How are you doing, Di? Are you feeling better?”
She’d last seen her sister in her bluebell bed, succumbed to the sedative, her wrist bandaged and her face pale from loss of blood. A beautiful princess oblivious to the presence of the prince she had spurned. Laura sneaked a look at Diana’s wrist; her sister was wearing a long-sleeved shirt that fortuitously hid the remnants of her cuts. She’d had six days to heal.
Six days… a lifetime ago, before this woman’s husband had become her lover.
“Just fine,” said Diana. “I’m just doing swimmingly. Heard the news?”
Could Diana hear how fast her heart was beating? “What news?”
Diana let her fingers splay across the keys. “I’m – well, let’s just say I’m being dumped by my dear husband.” She didn’t attempt to hide the sarcasm. “Richard’s filed for divorce.”
Where was Lucy?
Diana had every right to expect her sympathy. They were sisters, and sisters sided with each other against the men in their lives. She swallowed. “I heard. I’m so sorry, Di.”
“Yeah, well, me too.” Diana played something that sounded like minor Mozart. “You’re sorry, Lucy’s sorry – and not half as sorry as Richard is going to be by the time I get done with him.”
She said again, “I’m so sorry.”
“Could be worse.” Diana leaned her elbow on the piano and propped her head against her hand. For someone trespassing in her estranged husband’s home, she seemed relaxed and confident. “I could be facing him with no ammo. Thanks to you, I’m fully armed.”
If she had been Max, her ears would have flattened. Danger. “You mean the deposition? I’m not very happy about that.”
“Oh, I know,” Diana said cheerfully. “I heard you got a lawyer and got it put off – Kevin was frothing at the mouth. I told him not to sweat it.”
Laura said clearly, “I don’t care if Kevin Stone sweats or not. You had no business doing that. I won’t be dragged into this.”
Diana waved an airy hand. “Don’t worry, I won’t actually make you do anything. That’s the beauty of all this. I don’t have to do anything. I just have to threaten it. There’s no way in hell Richard will run the risk of Julie finding out about Francie. He’ll be so eager to avoid you talking that he’ll—” she snapped her fingers— “do exactly what I want.”
Laura felt an odd stillness sweep through her limbs. “What’s that?”
What did Diana want? Money? She could give her money; she could give her millions of dollars. Her financial resources dwarfed Richard’s. She could buy and sell him a hundred times over. Buying Diana out of the marriage might break him; she’d never notice the money gone—
No. No wonder Jay Spencer had told her not to give anyone money. He’d seen this moment coming, when she might want to pay Diana off to bring peace to the family.
“What do you want, Di?” Would her sister tell her?
Diana cocked her head. “Hmmm – that’s complicated. But he’s not skating out of this marriage so easily. I don’t care what little floozy he’s got tucked away – the latest in a long line, I’m sure. I can’t stop him forever, but,” she said reflectively, “I can sure make life miserable for him.”
What a bitch her sister was. Laura stopped herself, stunned. She couldn’t take sides; she had to remember that Diana hurt, was lashing out in pain. Yes, but she hurt him first. She threw Julie in his face. He’s had to live with that every day of Julie’s life.
The idea of herself as a floozy, she dismissed. She was many things, but surely a floozy wasn’t one of them. Still – she felt an unwelcome prick of conscience. She, not Francie, was now the dagger aimed at Diana’s heart.
She thrust the thought away uneasily.
“You don’t want to be married to him, do you?” That she still didn’t understand, why Richard and Diana had so fiercely clung to a marriage that neither of them wanted any longer.
“Heavens, no.” Diana sounded startled. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
She couldn’t bring herself to look her sister in the eye. “Then why are you hanging on if you don’t want him?”
Diana said nothing.
“Did you know Cam asked for a divorce? He filed just a few weeks before he died.”
“Really.” Diana straightened and let her fingers drift to the keyboard. “
I didn’t know that. So what happened? What did he say? Didn’t you want to smash his face in?”
“No.” Diana started playing; Laura watched her for a few seconds, then picked up the melody and echoed it, two octaves higher. “He flew over after one of my concerts, took me out to dinner, said we couldn’t go on. I wasn’t surprised. We’d been separated for months. I felt – oh, I guess relieved. Sometimes, you know it’s coming, and you dread it so much, and then it happens, and it’s nowhere near as bad as you thought it would be.”
“Well, I didn’t know this was coming, and it was a lot worse than I thought, and I’m not relieved. I’m mad.”
Laura took a breath and tried to ignore the stab of guilt. “I didn’t see any point in hanging on, if we didn’t want to be married to each other. And, no, I didn’t want to smash his face in. In fact,” she played an impromptu arpeggio, “I kissed him good night and told him I wanted him to be happy.”
And Cam had suggested, not in jest, and not for the last time, that they make love. But she wasn’t going to tell Diana that. She’d wished for ten months that she’d said yes.
“I would have smashed his face in.”
That phrase again. And the hinted-at violence in the pleadings... “You want to smash his face in?”
What had happened between them? An appalling scene… I don’t think either of us ever behaved so badly in our lives.
“I’ve already done that,” said Diana, with some satisfaction. “Hell, that was letting him off easy. No, I’m going to get Richard right where it hurts.”
Forget Jay Spencer, she couldn’t let this go. She didn’t care what it cost. She opened her mouth to offer Diana whatever she wanted, but her sister spoke first. “Not money, although he thinks that’s all I care about. I mean, I do, a girl’s got to live, but he’s not going to toss me away like I don’t matter—”
In the background, Laura heard a door slam on the side of the house – the kitchen? – and then a faint pounding of footsteps going upstairs. She glanced over her shoulder, but the flying staircase was empty. Where – oh, but there were stairs in the kitchen too.
“—I had dreams, I wanted to go to Paris and play jazz piano – but, oh no, that didn’t matter, Mr. Perfect wanted a wife and kids and his precious career and this blasted house—”
Julie’s bedroom door slammed.
“—and to hell with me. I know he’s got some little twit on the side who wants to play lady of the manor and restart this damn dynasty for him, but he’ll just have to wait—”
The door opening again off the kitchen, another set of footsteps, heavier, treading up the stairs.
“And, speaking of the devil, where is my darling husband?”
Julie’s door opened and closed, quietly.
She had to head Diana off. No matter what was going on between Julie and her father, Diana showing up would only add fuel to the fire. Any other time, she’d cheer Julie for standing up for what she wanted, not hiding behind the mask of the perfect daughter; Richard had carried the Victorian father stance too far. “He was out back last I looked.”
“Hmmm.” Diana rose. “Fine. Come back there with me.”
“What?” She didn’t have to feign calmness now. “No. Bad idea, Di—”
“Why not? It’s an Ashmore & McIntire party, isn’t it? I’m Mrs. Ashmore, aren’t I? I’m not going to let Mel McIntire steal all the glory.” Diana put a finger to her lips. “So – what do you think of dear Mel? Ready to run screaming yet?”
That was so exactly the truth that Laura had to squelch an unwilling laugh. “Why do you think I’m in here?”
Don’t ask what Mel said to make me come inside… Another kind of celebration… But Diana was saying, “Preserve me from these women who organize everything like it’s the Army. Listen, I can’t go out there by myself. Richard will kill me. Come on.”
So much for smashing his face in. Richard wasn’t there, but Lucy was, and she didn’t need to deal with this. “No, Di.”
“Listen.” Diana’s hand clamped down on her arm. “You owe me. You swiped my stuff from me, and I’ll have you know, that cost me a bundle. I don’t need your meddling. If I want to smoke dope, I’ll smoke it. So, you come back out there with me, or I swear, I’m going to make a scene like nothing you’ve ever seen.”
She heard, faintly, raised voices from the upper story.
“Come on,” Diana dragged her up. “I want a margarita before Mel drinks them all.”
If they went back through the great room, Diana couldn’t miss the argument raging above their heads. Julie must be giving Richard the fight she had clearly been spoiling for earlier. Laura glanced around for the atrium doors she’d seen the night she had watched them; she’d heard the piano clearly because Julie had opened the doors—
“Let’s go this way,” she said, and led the way before Diana could say no.
If her sister thought that going out the front to get to the back terrace was strange, she said nothing. Diana came along without a word, and Laura mentally breathed a sigh of relief once they stepped outside. The air was heavier now, the storm clouds growing and darkening in the east. Her head was aching again, pain and pressure gathering tightly behind her eyes.
She felt Diana’s tension. For all that bravado, it must have taken considerable nerve to show up here today; she didn’t think she could ever have mustered the courage to come to the house of a husband who did not want her there.
“Richard’s done some planting this spring.” Diana followed her around the side of the house. “I don’t remember these roses.”
The sounds of the party reached their ears, the guests of Ashmore & McIntire having a good time with no premonition of the storm clouds gathering. They did not feel, as Laura did, the electric tension in the host’s estranged wife as she entered hostile territory. They did not know that the Widow had sat there quietly, minutes before, dreaming of taking Diana’s place, forced now to bring her rival into their midst.
The Queen Bee table was down on one of the lower levels of the terrace, and Lucy was sitting so that she faced the back of the house. She saw Diana and Laura the second they came into view; her head jerked up and her eyes widened. She must have said something to the other Queen Bees, because instantly all heads at the table swiveled to watch.
Lucy jumped up and made a beeline for Diana.
If Richard was upstairs with Julie…. Laura looked around for Tom. He was Richard’s lawyer too; surely he could deal with Diana. But he had vanished. Scott McIntire was over near the grill, talking to the caterers, his back to the crowd. She didn’t know if Richard would want him involved or not.
A sharp pain hit hard above her eyes.
“Di?” Lucy’s voice cut through the air. “What are you doing here?”
And then, once again, Diana changed, in the stroke of a second. She had been strung tight the second before; now, all the tension dropped from her face, and she was all smiles. But the smile still didn’t touch her eyes, and her fingers on Laura’s arm dug in deep.
Lucy wasn’t buying it; she looked furious as she mounted the last two steps. “Are you crazy? You’re not supposed to be—”
“Now, Lucy.” Diana put her arm around her shoulders. “I know what a pain these things always are. I couldn’t let you do all this work yourself, you being pregnant and all – I’m so sorry I’m late – hey, is that Mel down there?” She waved her free hand. “Hi, Mel! Save me a margarita!”
Lucy wrenched away from Diana. “You are not supposed to be here. You know that.”
“But I am here,” said Diana reasonably. “And I might as well help. Look at all these people, and where’s our dear host?” She walked down a couple of steps and held out her hand to the power couple. “Kim Leventhal! It’s been so long – how are you? Sorry I wasn’t here to greet you, I got held up—”
And, before anyone could stop her, Diana turned into the hostess.
She moved easily around the terrace. She sparkled, she laughed, she made
small talk with Richard’s guests. She accepted a compliment about the flowers on the edge of the terrace, spun a convincing story about planting the roses on the western side of the house, and thanked a couple for their kind words about how beautiful Julie was turning out to be. “I know – she’s growing up so fast. I can hardly believe I have a daughter old enough to drive.” She told one man that her husband was inside tending to some matters but would rejoin them shortly. She beckoned to Laura, put her arm around her younger sister’s waist, and then exclaimed to two guests, “Richard and I are so happy to have her back home with us. It’s a dream come true. Our family’s complete again.”
It was the performance of the decade.
It was a nightmare.
Laura tasted ash in her mouth; Diana’s arm around her waist felt like an imprisoning chain. She disentangled herself as quickly as she could and stepped back. Lucy never left her side. They stood silently, watching as Diana made her way through the crowd, talking, shaking hands, asserting her right to be here, doing all the things that anyone would expect of the mistress of Ashmore Park. Mrs. Richard Ashmore, stepping back into her starring role.
Anyone surprised to see her covered it well. People seemed genuinely glad to see her.
And why not? Diana was their contemporary. She’d gone to school with many of them. Some of these people had attended her wedding. One of the women had hosted a bridal shower for her, where Peggy had given her the quilt that now covered Richard’s bed.
“Laurie.”
She’d dreamed of standing here beside him, but this wasn’t her world. She was an intruder. She had no right to any of this.
“Laurie.”
Lucy’s whisper cut through her misery.
“I need your help.” Lucy’s flat voice belied the compassion in her eyes. “Do you know where Richard is?”
She stared at Lucy blankly.
“Look, you have to snap out of this.” Lucy pulled her around so her back was to the rest of the guests. “I know you’re hurt, I’m sorry, but that’s not important right now. Where’s Richard?”
She found her voice. “Upstairs. He and Julie are having words.”
All That Lies Broken (Ashmore's Folly Book 2) Page 18
