She looked again.
Mira Wickham put her hand on Syrah’s arm and said something that made Syrah laugh.
Chapter 12
“That’s just amazing,” Mira said, her gaze resting on Missy and Jane. “You Americans are so demonstrative.”
“I’m so happy.” Syrah wanted to go somewhere and cry. They made it look so easy, as if being in love was all that was necessary for happiness. Maybe, for them, it was. “Jane and I have been friends for a very long time, and trying to get over Missy was killing her.”
“They weren’t together until now?” Mira easily juggled her fresh glass of wine and dainty plate of hors d’oeuvres as she sat down on the cement bench that ringed the dark oak tree.
“Well, they were—I mean they’d dated a little. But people convinced Missy that Jane wasn’t serious, and I think Missy had to go away and think about it.”
“I hope she’s not easily convinced again.”
“Me, too. I don’t think Jane would survive it. She’s an artist but not a dark one, you know? Her canvases are all about light and texture.” She smiled at Mira. “Like wine but with paint.”
Mira’s laugh was throaty and full. “Everyone goes on about the Queen’s English but I love the way Americans talk. I think, perhaps, Missy needs new friends.”
Syrah seized on the opportunity to bring up Toni. That little clapping thing Toni had done stung, as if Jane had pulled off some grand performance. “Maybe she does. Toni Blanchard had a hand in turning her against Jane.”
“I’m not surprised. She’s an opinionated woman and not afraid to share her views, even when they’re not wanted.” Mira sighed. “I have a confession to make. I hate being deceptive and it seems that fate threw us together tonight. You sent my uncle a note about the wine being auctioned and he was adamant that I should be here to secure it.”
Puzzled, Syrah sat down next to her. “I don’t understand.”
“It was no accident I stopped in at the winery the other day. I feel the most curious affinity for you, that’s all. You see, I’m the one who sent you those e-mails about Toni.”
“What?” She’d envisioned a woman from a small town, like herself, but Mira was hardly the small-town type. She’d heard someone call her “Lady Wickham” and the amethyst jewelry she wore did not speak of financial need.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Mira said quickly. “Believe me, I am quite dependent on the generosity of family, and I have only these few pieces of my mother’s to carry on the charade of wealth. Toni knew that when we met and she made it very easy for me to think I loved her and she loved me. That is, until I didn’t do what she wanted and she threatened to take away her support.”
Syrah made herself focus on Mira’s words. She had nearly decided that the author of the e-mails had been telling lies, but here was a flesh-and-blood woman, no longer anonymous, telling her story. Through lips that didn’t want to move, she asked, “How long were you together?”
“Two years and then some. I finally had to leave. I borrowed money from a business associate and Toni—as she so often does— Toni paid off my debt and now holds it over me, trying to control me forever.” Mira was focused on the amethyst bracelet, turning and turning it on her wrist.
“So why are you telling me this?” Why are you making me hate her again when tonight I wanted to run across the room, just like that, to be in her arms?
“Because I try to figure out where she’ll be so I won’t be there, and I knew she had an assignment to oversee the sale of your winery. Your picture is on the Web site, and she…is predictable in her…predilections. I thought I would be able to warn you, and Toni could never trace it back to me.” Mira’s beautiful face was streaked with tears. “Please—you can’t tell her. She’ll ruin me. She’s threatened to put her barristers on me.”
Syrah leaned back against the tree, trying to breathe. She put her hand on her stomach, trying to find a way to speak.
“Oh, no.” Mira was gazing at Syrah in sympathy. “She…got to you. You’re so beautiful. Exactly what she likes.”
Too bludgeoned to move, Syrah didn’t even nod.
“I know how persuasive she can be. Strong, powerful.”
Syrah shook her head. She felt Mira studying her intently and wanted to hide.
“And then she’s vulnerable and soft. She makes you think you’ve knocked her for a loop and no one has ever made her feel the way that you do.”
I’ve been such a fool, Syrah thought. Toni was here to sell the winery, and anything she arranged must have just been a prelude. The owner’s daughter was part of the deal. Messing me up, making me want her even though I hated everything she was doing, was just part of the fun.
“I’ve upset you, and I’m so sorry.” Mira finally looked away. “Believe me, you’re better off hating her. The wounds heal that much more quickly.”
Fighting back tears that felt so hot her eyes burned, Syrah could only turn her head away.
“I’m so sorry. Shall I leave you alone for a bit?” Syrah felt Mira press a handkerchief into her hand. “I’m so sorry.”
Conflicting impulses were at war inside her. Part of her wanted to find Toni and wipe that superior, haughty look off her face permanently. Part wanted to slink away someplace dark and die. Another part, to her disgust, clung to an absurd hope that none of it was true.
She still had no idea who Toni Blanchard was, and trying to find out left her in this horrible state, caught between revulsion and desire.
“Syrah.”
I can’t, Syrah thought. I can’t face her. She always does this, makes me talk before I’m ready. She got unsteadily to her feet and walked toward the house.
“Syrah, please. I can only imagine what Mira told you—”
“So you do know her.” Syrah paused but would not look at Toni.
“Yes, I don’t deny that.”
“You were lovers?”
“Yes, I don’t deny that either.”
“Busy girl, aren’t you? Mira, Caroline, me.”
“I’m not particularly proud of some of the things I’ve done, no.”
How could her voice sound so calm, almost tender? “No doubt you think I shouldn’t listen to Mira.”
“No, I don’t think you should. I don’t think you could begin to comprehend someone like her.”
“Am I that naïve? That unsophisticated?”
“You’re that innocent, Syrah. I never meant to bring Mira down on you or anybody.”
Where she found the strength, Syrah didn’t know. She turned, aware that her eyes were full of tears, but at the moment her voice was steady. “Answer me this, just this. Does she owe you money and are you using that fact to make her do what you want?”
Toni stared at her for a long minute, jaw working and her eyes slowly going to concrete. Finally, with a little gesture that might have been defeat, she said, “Yes.”
Syrah walked away. Surely, part of her wailed, there were extenuating circumstances. And so what if there were? Blackmail was blackmail and she could not, would not want someone who could do that.
She paused at the door to the kitchen, looking for Jane. The caterer was fussing over trays of food as if such a thing could possibly be important. She found Jane, finally, dancing with Missy to a rhythm the string quartet wasn’t playing. It hurt to look at them, to see eyes that shone with emotion and bodies merged as if they had been made that way by a most benevolent deity.
The enormity of Jane’s happiness washed over her. Syrah loved her too much to ruin the moment with her own tears. She needed Jane but they were, now, forever divided. Jane’s heart was whole and she had all she wanted in life right there.
Please, she thought, don’t let me be bitter because Jane is happy. It was a shock to think she could be so petty. Was this what knowing Toni Blanchard had done to her?
She quit the house for the cool, shadowed front porch and tried not to feel anything at all. Even if Jane was free to talk Syrah did not know what she
would say. She hadn’t been in love with Toni, that wasn’t possible. This was just crushed expectations, dashed dreams.
She could not tell her father that Toni Blanchard had never been his friend and had never planned to help them. He would find that out soon enough—let Toni herself break his heart. She was oh so good at it.
Her skin told her that Toni was behind her, suddenly, and she didn’t want to react that way. In a low voice, she said, “Blackmail is blackmail, though I’m sure you can explain everything. I’m sure you think you’ve behaved in the only way possible. But you can’t save our vines, can you? We’re going to have to gut our holdings, aren’t we?”
Toni’s voice was hoarse. “I can’t see a way around it, no.”
Syrah wouldn’t turn around. She didn’t want to see those eyes or fall, helpless, into those arms again. There was nothing but pain for her there. “Do you really want to know what I did in Europe?”
“Only if you want to tell me,” Toni said quietly.
She searched the night sky for something more than cold starlight. “I watched the vines die. It wasn’t what I went there for at all. I can’t even talk to Dad about it. Record drought, record heat.”
Somehow, finding happiness as simple as a dancing embrace had eluded her.
“The fruit went brown and shriveled in the matter of a week. Then the leaves dried but they didn’t drop like they do in fall. They crumbled, still attached, then hot winds beat them to ash.”
Toni made a sound, but Syrah was lost in what had been, until now, the most painful days of her adult life.
“The vines…died. At first, some of the growers brought in rototillers, turning them under as if they’d be able to start again next season with the survivors. But when it became clear that entire fields were going to die, kilometers of first-growth vines, nobody had the heart to till it all. So they twisted tight. And then they died.”
“Syrah…”
“The thing is, that while I was watching those vines die, while I made myself take in the enormity of that kind of loss and I cried with people whose wine lineage goes back centuries, the vines were dying at home. My father just didn’t know it. But you knew. You knew when you got here they would soon be dead to us. And I don’t know how you could just watch it happen without a single tear.”
“What you must think of me.” Toni sounded as if tears threatened, but Syrah steeled herself not to look. “I hardly know what to think of myself.”
The string quartet’s energetic launch into a new piece startled Syrah. She realized she was shaking. But she would not look at Toni and did not look when she heard, finally, Toni’s footsteps fading away.
* * *
“What is it, pumpkin? You’ve been morose for days and I don’t think my old heart can take it anymore. Jane seems so happy and you are so sad.”
“Jane is over the moon.” Syrah kept her gaze on the hills where the sun was still dusting them with light. “It’s a good thing Missy grows on a person, otherwise I’d be very upset.”
“As would we all. So why are you watching the fields like you expect marauders?” Her father joined her at the porch railing as Syrah watched the shadows lengthen on the nearest fields.
“I think I do, Dad.” For nearly a week she had tried to keep her knowledge of their inevitable losses to herself, but her desire to have it be Toni who told him the news now seemed petty. “I talked to Toni Blanchard last week. She flew up from some business in Los Angeles for Missy’s party.”
His smile was still affable, though a small crinkle of concern flickered across his brow. “Oh? How was she?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. But I know for a fact that she’s understood all along that we’re going to have to sell off whole pieces of our land. If we don’t the lenders will foreclose and we’ll get not even a fraction of their worth.”
“No, I think you’ve misunderstood, pumpkin. Besides, Toni is going to be back in a couple of weeks, and we’ll see what more magic she can work.”
“The only magic she’s going to work is getting the lenders paid. She’s not on our side, Dad.” Syrah gazed at him, marveling that he could be so wonderfully obtuse and loyal. “She’s always been on their side. We’re going to have to sell. She told me, when she was here, that based on the latest appraisals, we’d have to sell half, eventually.”
“I should call her.”
“Don’t! Dad, you have to understand, she’s not our friend. She doesn’t want to help. We’re in a totally screwed-up position here, and we can’t trust her, any more than you should have trusted investors offering free money.”
Her father abruptly sat down in the porch rocker and Syrah wanted to bite her tongue out. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“I know. I didn’t mean it.” Syrah felt her tight clamp on her despair loosen and she quickly dashed away the tears that had threatened all week. “You’ve done nearly everything perfectly, all these years.”
“I shouldn’t have bought the Tarpay fields.”
“We’ll sell them.”
“Who would buy them, pumpkin? The fruit isn’t even ours for two years and the people I bid against have gone on to other purchases.”
Syrah perched on the rocker’s arm and took his hand. “We can always ask around, can’t we?”
“Find another investor who’ll promptly want their money back, too?”
Syrah really did not know what they were going to do. “I’d at least like to feel as if we have some choices here.”
“I wonder…” He said nothing more, but stiffly got up from the rocker looking a decade older than when he’d joined her on the porch. Syrah watched him take the long way to the kitchen, then turned her gaze out to the vines again. What were they but another small company in trouble and no way out?
Every sunset, just like this one, seemed like the last.
* * *
Toni knocked a second time, briefcase in one hand. She knew Mira was there. She was expected, even. It was like Mira to keep her waiting, though.
Finally, the door of the Central Park apartment Mira was “borrowing” from a friend opened and Toni was invited in with an arch smile. Mira was clad in white silk pajamas, and Toni’s amethyst bracelet and earrings were the only color on her besides her lipstick.
She was so bloodless, Toni thought irrelevantly. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“How could I refuse?”
“With a simple no.”
Mira laughed mirthlessly and gestured at the living room sofa. “Do sit down.”
“This won’t take long.”
Mira lowered her gaze to the coffee table as she gracefully sat down at the far end of the sofa from Toni. “I can’t imagine why you needed to see me so urgently.”
“It wasn’t urgent, but it needs resolution.”
“Really?” Mira raised her gaze to Toni’s. “Not urgent? Have you come to scold me for my California trip? I had no idea you’d be there and my uncle insisted I go to that pastoral soiree. Getting to tell the little winery girl all about you was a bonus, though.”
“My visit is not about that.” Toni could feel the muscle in her jaw jumping, but they would get to Syrah after business was done. She opened her briefcase and got out a single piece of paper. “This is what I should have given you when you were leaving town.”
Mira refused to take it. “Another demand for me to be a good little girl?”
“No. A bill to your trust, due when you get control of your funds for the money you owe me. That’s it.”
Mira’s eyes narrowed. “What’s the catch?”
“There is no catch. You owe me thirty thousand dollars and I will wait until you can pay me from your trust.”
“What about Crystal?”
“Please stay away from her. But the money and Crystal have nothing to do with each other.” Toni closed her briefcase. “I was wrong to try to make you do anything just because you owed me money.”
Mira’s expression clouded. “I know t
here’s a catch here. This isn’t you. You’re not in love with that Italian tart, are you? How droll.”
“Just because I won’t blackmail you doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten what you did to Crystal. I can guess what lies you told Syrah, too.”
“I told her no lies. I just told her a fraction of the truth and she was absolutely horrified.”
More than horrified, Toni wanted to say. Syrah had accused Toni of killing the Ardani grapes, and there was no more serious charge Syrah could level. “Listen to me very carefully, Mira. The bracelet and earrings you can keep. The matter of the money is no longer between us.”
“Why, thank you. This is all very pleasing.”
Toni went on as if Mira hadn’t spoken. “I will not be silent about your character any longer. I was afraid if I told people what you were really like they would think badly of me for loving and supporting someone like you. But I can’t afford pride, as you so ably demonstrated. You have lied, cheated, used people and shown no remorse. Anyone who asks will hear that from me from now on. Say what you like about me in return, but I will be honest.”
“Am I supposed to believe you?” Mira coiled into the couch. Abruptly she laughed. “I rather liked crossing swords with you. I can’t believe you have gone so soft. Talk all you want. Nobody cares.”
Toni allowed herself a little smile. There were people who would care and those who didn’t could make their own fortunes with Mira’s tender mercies. Syrah had been right—blackmail was blackmail. She hadn’t realized she had fallen to Mira’s level, and there was no way she could expect Syrah to respect or believe her until she rose above it again.
“I’ve sent a copy of the billing to your trustees for their record-keeping. I know you could protest it wasn’t owed, but the money trail from Crystal to you to me to Crystal is clear.”
“I won’t protest it, Toni darling. You’re finally behaving reasonably, after all.”
“Not for your benefit, Mira.” She had taken money out of the equation, and Mira no longer had any reason to interfere in Toni’s life.
“Oh, that hardly matters.” She rose as Toni did. “I don’t care why you do anything. All that matters is how it affects me.”
Just Like That Page 17
