Mack helped himself to another slice of pizza. “I live to embarrass my daughter.”
“There are better hobbies,” Cady murmured.
He gave her a disturbingly intimate look. “Yes, indeed there are.”
Talk about E.S.P., she thought. She could certainly read his mind. But she decided to ignore the sexy message in his eyes. It was clear that, like Leandra, Mack was still juggling some difficult emotions. Gabriella had been in great danger that afternoon. A father would not soon forget that. He would not forget the reason why his daughter had been put at risk very quickly, either.
A sense of despondency settled over Cady. It was her fault that Gabriella had nearly gotten killed.
Sylvia looked at Mack. “Cady told us that she put two and two together when she saw the photo of Aunt Vesta on a beach and suddenly remembered that Parker and Leandra had gone to Hawaii and that diving is one of the big things to do there. But what was your cue?”
“I talked to Jonathan Arden and confirmed that there was a third person involved in the scam,” Mack said. “Someone who knew old furniture and had contacts in Europe. That shortened the list somewhat. At about the same time, Gardner gave me a rundown on how the stock would have been distributed if the merger had been completed.”
Gardner picked up a slice of pizza. “I mentioned that under the terms spelled out in the proposal, Randall and Stanford could sell or distribute their shares of stock in whatever manner they wished so long as the recipient was a member of one of the stock-holding families. The definition of a family member included anyone related by blood or—”
“Or marriage,” Sylvia concluded grimly.
“As part of the price for putting the fraud scam together, Parker planned to blackmail Stanford into turning over some of his voting shares in the new Chatelaine-Post.”
“In addition, he intended to marry me,” Leandra muttered. “Parker figured there would be no problem controlling my shares, too.”
“Between the two blocks, he would have wielded a controlling interest in Chatelaine-Post,” Mack said.
“Things were going according to schedule,” Cady said, “until Aunt Vesta uncovered the first of the frauds. When she realized the scam involved someone inside Austrey-Post, she postponed the vote on the merger.”
“Parker knew everything was about to fall apart. He panicked and killed her,” Mack added.
Tears leaked from beneath Leandra’s eyelashes. “So much for Mr. Nice Guy.”
“You’re missing the point here,” Cady said gently. “Parker wasn’t a nice guy.”
Early the next morning she sat on the bottom tread of the spiral staircase, the stack of letters in her lap.
Mack came to stand in the doorway.
“Who wrote the letters?” he asked.
“Randall’s grandfather. Randall Austrey.” She used the sleeve of her robe to wipe her tears. “Aunt Vesta loved him and the sonofabitch used her.”
“How?”
“When she met him, she was a curator at a small museum. He was just about to open Austrey-Post. He needed her eye and her insider’s knowledge of the art and antiques business to help him build a reputation. She fell head over heels for him. They had an affair.” Cady touched the stack of letters. “I think it must have gone on for some time.”
“Your aunt gave Austrey start-up advice?”
“Yes, but even more important, she introduced him to all the right people in the business. One of them was a woman named Meredith Small. She was from a very wealthy, very well-connected family. When Austrey had established himself and no longer needed Vesta, he decided that he wanted to marry Meredith instead.”
“Did Randall Austrey and Vesta continue seeing each other?”
“Yes. But not in the way you mean. They moved in a lot of the same circles, so they ran into each other at openings and auctions and such. It must have been very painful for her.” She smoothed the letter in her hand and recalled the advice that Vesta had given her in her last phone call. It’s all well and good for a client to find you useful. But don’t let yourself be used. “That bastard had the nerve to try to restart the affair at one point even though he was married. Aunt Vesta refused.”
She set aside the letter, got to her feet and went to the gleaming jewelry chest that stood open on the table. She reached inside.
“I found this beneath the bundle of letters,” she said.
She opened her palm and showed him the Nun’s Chatelaine. It gleamed with the unmistakable patina of old gold and antique gems. Five intricately fashioned gold chains dangled from the medallion, spilling through her fingers. Small gem-studded keys were attached to four of the chains. There was no key hooked to the fifth.
He walked forward to stand on the opposite side of the table. “Impressive. What are you going to do with it?”
“I’m going to give it to Sylvia. She’s the one who will have the task of guiding the gallery into the future. She’s the true chatelaine of Chatelaine’s.”
He looked thoughtful. “Well, then.”
“Well, what?”
“Now you can go back to your art consulting.”
For some reason that observation annoyed her. “Yes.”
“I believe you mentioned something about becoming my competition.”
Pain lanced through her. She tightened her hand abruptly around the Chatelaine. Her future in the art consulting business was the last thing she wanted to talk about this morning.
“There’s room for both of us in the field,” she said gruffly.
“Sure. But it occurs to me that if we combined forces we could move into the big time.”
She wondered if she’d heard him correctly. “Are you suggesting a merger?”
“I think so, yes.”
Anger replaced the pain. She stared at him. “Is this your way of getting rid of the competition?”
“No, it’s my way of asking you to marry me.”
“Oh.” Joy washed away the anger. “Oh, Mack.”
“I love you, Cady.”
“Oh, Mack.” She hurled herself toward him.
He opened his arms to catch her. “Is this a yes?” he whispered into her hair.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, yes, yes. I love you, Mack.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“I mean, I really do love you.” She heard the wonder in her own voice and almost laughed out loud. Then she noticed the figure standing in the opening.
Gabriella wore her bathrobe and the slightly bewildered expression that went with having been awakened from a sound sleep. She blinked a few times at the sight of Cady in Mack’s arms.
“What’s going on in here?” she asked.
Mack smiled at her. “I just asked Cady to marry me. She said yes.”
“Cool.”
Cady searched Gabriella’s face for signs of anger or resentment. But there were none.
“I sort of figured that would happen sooner or later,” Gabriella added. “Congratulations.”
Cady grinned at her. “Just think, your father won’t be alone in his declining years after all.”
Gabriella laughed.
“Yeah,” she said, “and I won’t have to worry about him falling down and not being able to get up, either.”
“Am I missing something here?” Mack asked.
“Nothing important,” Cady assured him.
Twenty-nine
One year later…
Midway through the party, Mack found Gardner alone near the buffet table.
“I hear Spooner’s show was a big success,” Mack said.
“So I’m told.” Gardner took a large bite of a cracker topped with cream cheese and caviar. “Sold every picture. Looks like he’s on his way. Guess the guy just needed some time to get his act together.”
“Lot of people getting their acts together lately.”
They both looked across the crowded living room to where Dillon Spooner and Leandra stood with Brooke and Randall. There was an aura of quiet ha
ppiness around the small group. Gold wedding rings gleamed on the left hands of all four people.
Mack glanced at the light-and-color-drenched canvas hanging on the wall above the buffet. It was a glowing abstract vision of the view from the gardens of the hillside villa on Via Palatine, the same view that Mack saw every morning when he walked out onto the terrace. Dillon had offered to paint the picture as a combination wedding and house-warming gift shortly after Mack and Cady had moved into their new home.
“Glad I got one of Spooner’s paintings while I could still afford to invest in him,” Mack said.
“Hey, after the way you got that jerk Turner out of Leandra’s life, something tells me Dillon would be willing to paint free pictures for you forever.”
“It was Cady who brought me into it,” Mack reminded him. “If she hadn’t been suspicious about the way in which Vesta died, Turner would be a member of the family by now.”
“A member of the family with a controlling interest in my wife’s company.” Gardner’s expression hardened. “Every time I think about how close that s.o.b. came to getting his hands on Chatelaine’s, I start sweating.”
“I know how you feel.” Mack helped himself to a slice of cheese. “Still sorry that good old Uncle Randall wasn’t the villain?”
Gardner chuckled. “Randall’s okay. Between the marriage to Brooke and the job of salvaging Austrey-Post, he doesn’t have time to hang around Sylvia and Cady making a pest of himself the way he did in the old days.”
“Cady was right about Brooke. She didn’t give a damn about Austrey-Post. She was only concerned about Randall.”
Gardner used his plastic fork to motion toward Ambrose Vandyke, who stood with Gabriella near the open terrace door. They were deep in conversation with Dewey, Notch and a sparkling Hattie Woods.
“Speaking of marriage,” Gardner said, “looks like things might be getting serious between your computer genius friend and your daughter. Does that worry you? They’re a little young.”
“I know. But falling in love at first sight seems to be an Easton family tradition. What worries me is the fact that I might be getting a son-in-law who can buy and sell me and my entire company several times over.”
“And he’d only have to dip into his petty cash account to do it. Still, I can think of worse things than being related to a multizillionaire.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Look on the bright side. He works for you.”
Sylvia walked toward them, smiling. The Nun’s Chatelaine glittered richly on the belt of her silk trousers. “A lovely party, Mack. Too bad the guest of honor slept through it.”
“Yeah, he does that a lot. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go check on him.”
Mack picked up one of the cheese-and-caviar-smothered crackers and went into the hall. He walked past the new offices of Lost and Found, with its rooms full of high-tech office equipment and its matching partners’ desks. He climbed the stairs to the second floor, walked down the short corridor to the nursery and came to a halt in the doorway.
The cradle was a fanciful Regency piece in the so-called archeological style. It was covered with carved griffins, sphinxes and other mythical creatures. A gift from Hattie Woods.
A colorful, giant-sized plastic replica of the Nun’s Chatelaine hung above the cradle. A gift from good old Uncle Randall.
In the corner, a full-size reproduction of a suit of sixteenth-century armor stood guard. A gift from Dewey and Notch.
Cady glided gently in the rocker. She held their infant son to her breast. The happiness in her eyes stole his breath.
“Thought I’d find you up here,” he said.
“Did you leave our guests on their own?”
“They can take care of themselves for a while.” He could not take his eyes off her and the baby. The wonder of it all never failed to amaze him.
“What is it?” Cady asked.
He propped one shoulder against the doorframe and folded his arms. “Just realized I was looking at our future.”
“How does it look?”
“Pretty terrific,” he said.
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