The Inconvenient Bride Series 1-3

by Sharon Ihle

  Shylo returned his smile and lowered her lashes. "Thanks for the compliment, Mr. er, ah—?"

  Beaming over the attraction he saw between his nephew and this possible heiress, Ari pushed his way into the conversation. "Allow me—this is Dimitri Adonis."

  "Adonis? You mean like in the legend?"

  Again Ari fielded the question. "He is Adonis, yes, like the son of Cinyras, king of Cyprus."

  Shylo's knowledge of Greek mythology was scant, but to have the same name as a legend sounded awfully impressive to her. She completely forgot the good manners she'd been practicing as she blurted, "Wow. Isn't he the god of good looks or something like that?"

  Dimitri laughed, amused by her refreshing candor, but before he could explain that Adonis was simply a surname, Ari took over again.

  "The Adonis of legend was a very beautiful man. Some say that Dimitri continues the family tradition very much."

  "The family? Surely you don't mean to say that—"

  "Excuse me, please." Dimitri's voice had lost its smooth edge. "I must have a private moment with my uncle. I hope you don't mind."

  "Oh, certainly not, go on, don't worry about me."

  "I shall return shortly. May I bring you a glass of champagne?"

  Shylo had never imbibed anything stronger than cow's milk fresh from the teat, but she felt herself nodding as Dimitri inclined his head and walked away. As the two men moved back into a corner, an addendum to her plan materialized in her mind, and Shylo's heart pounded crazily at the thought of it. Her intentions had been to confront her mother in a way that would make her proud—as a polished, well-dressed, and charming enough young lady to be welcomed into her mother's treasured social circles. That way, she figured, there would be less chance of Colleen rejecting her again or, worse, refusing to see her at all.

  Wouldn't confronting her mother with this Dimitri Adonis on her arm be like sticking an extra feather in her cap? How could Colleen not claim a daughter who was enchanting enough to attract a man such as this? Any fool could see that if you added the way this Adonis fellow looked to the barrels of money she assumed he had, he probably spent most of his time beating high-bred women off with a buggy whip. She would be the envy of every woman from Kansas to New York if she could get him interested in her.

  Shylo tapped her index finger against her chin. Dimitri had clearly been at least a little taken by her, but how in God's name, she wondered, could a plain ole Kansas farm girl go about catching—at least long enough to impress her mother—that incredibly handsome Greek? She'd learned a lot about hunting and fishing during her years on the farm–enough to land the big ones with the best of them as long as she had the right rig. But with a man like this as her quarry? Shylo wasn't at all sure she possessed the proper equipment.

  Dimitri, unaware that he was anyone's quarry, spoke his native language in hushed tones as he said to his uncle, "What the devil are you trying to do to me—pass me off as a Greek god? I said I chose her. At least let me conduct my own courtship in my own way."

  Ari held out his hands. "Calm down, calm down. I do a little matchmaking, is all. I only thought to sweeten the pot with a taste of honey. Not to worry."

  "I'm not the one who's worried, Uncle, you are." Dimitri paused, studying Ari's face. It was round and cherubic by nature, but when he pouted, as he was doing now, he looked downright impish. It was impossible to stay mad at the man. "Why don't you go mingle with a few of the businessmen who might do our company some good, and leave the work of captivating the women up to me?"

  "Yes, yes, of course, but you must remember what our hostess said about Miss Folsom. She is a very special guest, someone so special, the woman could not even tell us why. Think of what that could mean."

  "The end of our financial troubles, I know." Even though such arranged marriages were commonplace in Greece, Dimitri's expression darkened at the thought of using a woman in such a manner, not to mention using himself as a lure. He forced a smile and shooed his uncle away. "Go now, meet everyone, have a good time."

  "Yes, yes, I will go do business over many drinks, and make a few discreet inquiries about Miss Folsom while I'm at it." Ari whirled around, whispering reverently, "Oh how I love this country." Then he lost himself in the crowd.

  Dimitri chuckled over his uncle's antics, but in truth he had quite the opposite opinion of the United States. He'd been distinctly uneasy since his arrival, and not because he was homesick. He hated the fact that he was here on American soil "begging," as it were, for help in restoring the once proud Adonis name. To think that he was also expected to convince one of these snobbish, painfully thin women to return with him to Greece and the far less comfortable world of musty digs, backbreaking work, and blankets tossed on the ground in place of first-class hotels was simply ludicrous. Surely there was a better way.

  As Dimitri finally worked his way to the buffet table, he thought again of Shylo. Along with those big blue eyes and honey-blond hair, he recalled that she had a more robust and healthy nature than most American women. Even her skin seemed less pampered and more earthy, as if it had been exposed to a fair amount of sun, certainly more so than any of the pasty-faced debutantes he'd met so far.

  That, if nothing else, made the lady a refreshing sight in this world of wigs and cosmetics. Even so, to think that a woman of her obvious connections and breeding would consider living the way he did was out of the question. Utterly and completely out of the question. But since he had to at least make the appearance of wooing a future bride, Miss Shylo Folsom seemed like an excellent choice.

  Two glasses of champagne in hand, Dimitri started back to where he'd left her. His uncle intercepted him midway.

  "I have great news." Ari lowered his voice. "Your choice in brides is admirable, my son. She is none other than the niece of the president of the United States." He rubbed his hands together, waiting for his nephew to absorb this information. "Imagine the contacts we can make through her."

  Dimitri was not nearly as impressed by this news as Ari. His interest in politics, unlike that of the typical Greek male, was almost nonexistent, even where his own country was concerned. Dimitri cared little whether Trikoupis and his Westernized style of government prevailed over Deliyannis and his traditional followers, or vice versa. Most of Dimitri's countrymen took sides as the two factions alternated in power, but all he really cared about, other than finding his uncle Niko and extracting some measure of revenge, was his commitment to champion the return of the Grecian art treasures that were being held captive by the British Museum in London.

  Ari jabbed a finger against his silent nephew's chest. "The shock of hearing about this strong, strong connection has your tongue tied, has it not?"

  Dimitri laughed, unable to resist the sparkle in his uncle's eyes. "Good work, Ari. Maybe next time I tell you I have an eye for 'assets,' you will believe me." He held up the champagne glasses. "I'm on my way back to her now. You can join us if you promise not to interfere with my methods to win her hand."

  "I promise. Oh, and Dimitri, there is one more thing." He leaned in close, whispering in his native language again. "Say nothing to Miss Folsom about her connection to the president. Our hostess tells me the young lady wishes to keep her relationship to him a secret for some reason."

  Across the room, Shylo had finally gotten Victoria Vanderkellen alone again and was just gathering up her courage to come right out and ask the woman why in hell Colleen McBride Broussard wasn't at her fancy reception. Unfortunately her Greek "quarry" arrived before she could even get one word out.

  "Mrs. Vanderkellen," Dimitri said, nodding in her direction as he handed Shylo one of the glasses of champagne. He offered his hostess the other. "Would you care for a drink?"

  "Oh, goodness, but no thank you. I've had quite enough already." She turned back to Shylo. "Was there anything else, dear? I really must see to the refreshment table."

  Shylo's stomach clenched up good and tight. It was now or never. She took a large swallow of champagne,
fought the sudden urge to sneeze as a thousand bubbles exploded in her nostrils, and finally regained her wits enough to say, "There is one more thing, Victoria. I was also hoping to look up the mother of my best friend while I'm in New York, but I can't seem to locate her. I'm told that she is an acquaintance of yours. Do you know where I might find..." She took a deep breath before continuing, "Colleen Broussard?"

  "Certainly. Colleen and I are very, very close."

  Shylo knew all this, of course, but to hear it confirmed made her insides go numb. The earth, her pulse, all that mattered in her world, felt as if it had slowly chugged to a halt. She'd been waiting for this moment for years, almost an entire lifetime, and now that it was here, instead of feeling triumphant, Shylo felt as if she were about to make a blubbering idiot of herself. Her euphoric heart leapt to her throat, crowding the passage and making it nearly impossible to breathe. She swallowed several times in succession, willing the huge lump there to go away, but it didn't move. She took another drink of her champagne.

  By then Victoria's perfectly made up face had fallen into the closest thing she ever allowed by way of a frown. "Did you say Colleen is your friend's mother?"

  Wrestling with a firestorm of bubbles inside her head again, Shylo just nodded. Victoria's frown deepened.

  "Odd. I've known Colleen since she was widowed two years ago, and never in all that time has she mentioned a daughter. Are you sure we're talking about the same Colleen?"

  "I'm sure." The knowledge that her mother hadn't owned up to the fact that she'd borne two children stung at the least, but Shylo was too close to her now to let anything—certainly anything as useless as hurt feelings—stop her. She smiled sweetly. "Why isn't she at your party? Is she coming later?"

  "Not likely, dear." She turned to Ari and Dimitri and gave them a knowing grin. "My husband introduced Colleen to a marvelous Greek fellow he met at his bank last month. The poor man had just moved to New York and didn't know a soul. He and Colleen fell in love immediately in what I guess you could call a whirlwind courtship. They were married just last weekend."

  Shylo gasped. While she and Cassie had arrived at the train station, their mother had been getting married for the third time? She wasn't sure whether the knowledge sickened her, angered her, or just plain shocked her. She eyed what was left of her champagne, recalling the chapter in her etiquette book that stated ladies should never drink spirits in mixed company. She downed the final sip anyway, partly in defiance, but mostly because she was shaking from her eyebrows to her toenails. Maybe one more swallow would help to calm her runaway nerves. And to hell with the book.

  "How nice for... Colleen," Shylo finally said. "But I'd still like to say hello to her. Where might I find her?"

  Victoria laughed. "She and her Niko are off on their honeymoon."

  "Niko?" Dimitri broke into the conversation, which until that moment had bored him mightily. "What is the man's surname?"

  "Pappas, but he shortened it as so many do when they come to the States. His real name is long and terribly difficult to pronounce. Something like Pap- pandup—or Doplass? I can't remember."

  The last thing of interest to Shylo was who or what her mother's new husband called himself. All she cared about was where they were. Trying to remain the center of Victoria's attention, she stepped in front of Dimitri. But before she had a chance to say anything further, he spoke over her head.

  "I think I might know this fellow." He stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets to keep from making fists. "What does he look like?"

  "Oh, he's just adorable, a little like your companion here, but taller." She chuckled lightly when Ari blushed. "Oh, and Niko has the cutest little mole right here." She pointed to a spot at the corner of her bottom lip. "It kind of peeks out from underneath his mustache when he talks and almost makes him look like his mouth is winking at you."

  It was a perfect description of Dimitri's uncle Niko. Who else could it be? In spite of his tight trousers, Dimitri's hands did indeed curl into fists, tight balls of muscle that drove his nails into his palms. The family had assumed that Niko had fled to the westernmost Greek island, Corfu, or perhaps even south to Crete; but unless the man had a twin, it looked as if he'd taken himself all the way to America.

  With his jaw taut as his mind spun with thoughts of revenge, Dimitri glanced at Ari. The older man looked stunned, certainly shocked enough to suggest that he was entertaining the very same thoughts about this Niko Pappas. Pappandopolis was a family name, one that had belonged to Dimitri's grandmother before she'd married and become an Adonis. If this was Niko, he apparently had not been ready to turn his back on his past the way he had on his family and surname and must have decided to keep this small link to his ancestry.

  Shylo, whose frustration with Dimitri and his interference had grown to monumental proportions, used his moment of introspection to regain control of the conversation. "You said Colleen is on her honeymoon, Victoria. Could you tell me where I might find her?"

  "They've taken a trip out west to chase down the partner Colleen inherited from Broussard in some land deals, one Mr. Wyatt Earp."

  Ari, an avid student of the American West, leapt into the conversation. "Are you speaking of the legendary Wyatt Earp from the O.K. corral in Tombstone?"

  Clearly annoyed to be discussing such common riffraff as a western gunfighter, Victoria turned her nose up as she answered, "The very same."

  "This is most impressive." Ari made a kind of growling sound in his throat. "How far is Tombstone from New York, and how long does it take to get there? I would like very much to meet this American hero."

  Victoria sighed. "I'm afraid Arizona is a good distance from here, sir, and the land deals Mr. Earp worked out with Charles Broussard just before he died were made not in Arizona, but in a place called San Diego. That's in California, even farther away."

  "California?" Both Dimitri and Shylo expressed their displeasure over this locale at precisely the same moment. She turned to him, and he to her, and her clear blue eyes fastened onto his dark black ones, linked by a common denominator neither of them could understand.

  Shylo's urgency to find her mother gave her the strength to break away from that mesmerizing gaze first. Slightly shaken, she turned to her hostess again. "Do you have any idea when they plan on returning to New York?"

  "Oh, not really, dear, but I don't expect them back for a long time. Charles made a few other investments in San Diego besides the deals he made with that gunman." Victoria laughed. "Of course, I can't imagine that property out there is worth anything, but Colleen plans to sell off as much of it as she can. Between taking care of those investments and the traveling the honeymooners plan to do along the Pacific coast, I'm sure they'll be gone for months and months."

  Rendered speechless and far removed from her earlier euphoria, Shylo fell silent. How could this be happening after all her months and years of careful planning? How could her mother not be here? She wanted to scream, to stomp the floor or pound her fists against the first available target—Dimitri's chest would do—but mostly she wanted to collapse and die.

  But she would do none of those things, of course. She'd survived when her mother walked out the door, and again when her father accidentally drowned at the docks three years later, and even when the Children's Aid Society finally caught up to her and Cassie a year after that and put them in the foundling hospital.

  She could survive this, too, and think of a new plan in the bargain. But why, oh, why did her mother have to be in San Diego, of all places? And how in hell would she and Cassie—who were practically broke by now—ever come up with enough money for train fare all the way to California?

  Chapter 3

  After the music began to play, a few of Victoria's guests took her up on the offer to stroll through her much touted rose garden. Dimitri and Shylo followed along but lagged behind the others, each occupied by matters far more compelling than their hostess's collection of damasks and hybrid teas. As they walked, a heavy flora
l scent wafted around them and stars twinkled in the moonless indigo sky above. Several wrought-iron lamps mounted high on the gateposts gave off a soft, ethereal glow, but neither of them noticed the heady fragrances or the romantic lighting.

  Shylo was too busy hatching and discarding scheme after scheme for making her way west, while Dimitri concentrated on finding an excuse good enough to convince Ari that they ought to spend their time and money on an unscheduled trip to California.

  There was no question in Dimitri's mind as to what his uncle would say if he just came right out with the suggestion. In fact, in anticipation of his nephew's state of mind, Ari had already complained loudly about the idea of incurring any needless expenses when all their capital had to be put toward restoring the business. Unless Dimitri could think of a way to justify the trip as a legitimate disbursement, there was no chance of using so much as one drachma of their dwindling funds in such a manner. Even in that unlikely event, Ari would probably accuse him of squandering their capital for a nothing more than a simple taste of revenge. And, of course, he would be right.

  "Oh, dear."

  Dimitri turned around to see that Shylo had come to a limping halt. He rushed to her aid and took her by the shoulders to help keep her in balance.

  "What happened? Are you all right?"

  When she glanced up at him, her bright blue eyes looked filled with pain. "I'll be fine. I just twisted my ankle a little on the pathway."

  "Are you sure you aren't seriously injured? Maybe you ought to sit down and let me take a look at it."

  Shylo recalled the way the debutantes inside the mansion seemed to flutter over every little thing and, even though she wasn't sure how Dimitri fit into her plans just yet, decided a show of frailty might be in order.