Holt chuckled dourly, but Marguerite persisted. “And there’s nothing you can tie to the curse, no artifact or event or anything of that sort? There wasn’t a person who called down this on you and your family?”
“Nothing I’ve ever found, and believe me, in my later years, I looked. My wife passed about ten years ago—she and the kids always hated the place, and I can’t say I blamed them. But after she died, I had a lot more time on my hands and I looked into the old stories. There are plenty of those—it’s the south, after all—but nothing I can get a fix on. And I can’t even bear to go inside the place anymore, myself. Haven’t for years, like everyone before me.”
Win interjected. “Everyone before you?” He hadn’t realized the house had sat empty for so long.
Holt nodded. “No one wanted to live there right away, but there was always the possibility that the gardens would start to grow again. When they didn’t, more and more rooms were closed and covered up over time, and now a caretaker’s quarterly once-over is all the old girl gets. And I’m not the idiot everyone thinks I am. I know I have to decide what to do with it—the land is worth something, they tell me, but it…” he sighed. “It just breaks my heart to let it come to that.”
Mentally, Win was calculating exactly what the value would be of the Holt House land—minus the house. Premium acreage in close proximity to Charleston, filled with majestic old oaks, an entire series of ponds and a dock right on the Ashley River. The answer was ticking into the millions when Marguerite’s voice recalled him.
“You don’t need to worry about doing anything with your family home, Mr. Holt, until you’re ready to do so,” she said firmly. “If there’s a curse that’s at the root of this, I’ll find it. It’s what I do.”
Chapter Three
“You can’t possibly be thinking of helping that old man.”
“And what if I was?”
Marguerite couldn’t believe it. They were walking away from Dawson Holt as he gleefully tucked into his third piece of torte—the chef would be beside himself—and Win Masters had plastered himself to her side so closely she couldn’t draw breath without taking in the heady scent of him—not cologne, she thought, but heat and sunshine and expensively tailored cotton, crisp and flat against his—
Stop it. She needed to focus, because Win was also apparently furious with her, and she had no idea why. She glanced at him as he strode beside her, and realized vaguely they were heading toward the ocean side of the complex, where a winding path trailed between effusively blooming gardens before breaking into the dunes.
Win remained silent, his jaw working, and she tried again. “Truly, Mr. Masters, I fail to see—”
“Don’t call me that,” Win snapped, shooting her a hard glance. “My name is Win.”
“Well, technically, your name is Wyndham, but Win does suit you.”
That caught him off guard, and he huffed a short laugh, but he didn’t look at her again right away. Instead his gaze was on the ocean, visible now through the breaks in the dunes. “Dawson Holt’s mind is not what it once was. There’s no reason for you to go haring off to help him when the man likely won’t remember what he told you an hour from now.”
Marguerite blinked. “Really? He seemed very much in his right mind to me.”
“That’s because you kept feeding him. Besides, he’s a southern gentleman. He’s not going to go feeble in the presence of a beautiful woman.”
She almost missed a step, then steadied herself. Win thought she was beautiful? The sun seemed suddenly very hot in the gardens, where this particular section of walkway was sheltered from the breeze that normally danced up off the water. Why was he telling her she was beautiful? Was he simply trying to distract her, or did he really think that?
And what did it matter? The man was engaged to the Ice Pick. The point was, Dawson Holt wasn’t his concern.
“Well, Win, in truth—it’s none of your business,” she said crisply, at least secure that she could express that last thought without worry. “I’m certainly capable of carrying on my own conversations without your intercession.”
“I realize that,” Win retorted. They made another turn and the flowers here were growing yet more wildly, left to ramble until finally giving way to the beach grass and sand. The spot wasn’t secluded, exactly, but it did offer them a measure of privacy. A series of short gazebos stood off to their right, and Win angled toward them. “It’s not about you carrying on a conversation, it’s about whatever you might do after that. You all but promised the old man that you’d take a curse off his head. That seems quite definitely outside the realms of your role as social hostess.”
Marguerite colored. Beyond Win’s completely baseless censure, why had she done that? She couldn’t lay claim to any curse-breaking abilities. Edeena had done the heavy lifting with the Saleri curse, and middle sister Caroline had cleaned up the rest of the details. Marguerite hadn’t done anything—like always.
Irritation sparked anew. “Well, so what if I did? He’s an old man with an old house that’s no doubt steeped in tradition. Most curses come out of tales from previous generations getting twisted and warped through the centuries. I suspect I’ll find out the truth of Mr. Holt’s with a little digging in the history books. I’ll explain to him how the whole thing started, we’ll have a nice cleansing ceremony or something, and done.”
Win snorted. “Is that how you solved the Saleri curse? A cleansing ceremony? Seems to me it took a bit more work than that.”
She stared at him. “How can you know anything about my family?” she demanded, though of course she knew she shouldn’t be surprised. The European Royals Watch cable shows had had a field day when the queen had announced her older sister’s wedding, taking a deep dive into the Saleri family history. It wouldn’t have taken Win long to ferret out that information, if he’d wanted it.
But why had he wanted it?
Win didn’t give her a chance to consider the question. He pivoted toward her and stared, hard. “Going after this curse is dangerous.”
“Dangerous.” Marguerite couldn’t make any sense of Win’s reactions, and finally her restraint on her tongue gave way. “You haven’t said three words to me in all the time I’ve been at the Cypress Resort and today—today of all days—you take some sort of personal interest in my safety? How is that possible?”
“I haven’t said three words to you because I’ve been engaged.” Win snapped back. He was standing very close to her now, and Marguerite could feel the heat flaring between him. She’d never had a man look at her so intently. There was anger there, yes, and desperation as well. Win Masters was definitely worried, either for her or because of her.
But there was something else there, too. There was a hunger in Win’s gaze as he raked it across her face, as if he was trying to memorize her every feature. There was a softness to his eyes that his anger couldn’t quite cover up, a need that seemed as tangible between them as the subtly shifting breeze. The breeze—that had to be why Marguerite suddenly shivered, her breath catching in her throat.
“I know you’re engaged,” she replied, her words far quieter than she intended them to be. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t have a conversation with me, does it?”
“Yes, it does,” Win looked away, his mouth tightening as if he was struggling with what to say next. Then he turned back to her, and the moment seemed lost to her—lost, before it had ever really materialized.
“Ms. Saleri—Countess Saleri—I do apologize,” he said stiffly. “You have every right to be confused. The Masters family roots run deep in Summerland County. Not as deep as Holt’s, but deep. There is a lot of history between our families that you of course would have no idea about. That is what is driving my concern.”
“Your family history.” How far back did the Masters line go in Charleston? He was right, she really didn’t know anything about him—or about the intertwined generations of gentry that made up the high society of the Lowcountry. Garronia’s royal soc
ial structure was nothing short of Byzantine in its complexity. Why would South Carolina’s upper crust be any different? She could be treading on sacred ground here without even realizing it.
And yet, Holt was the one who opened up to her.
Stubbornness stiffened her spine. ”So you’re telling me that you know something about Holt that, what, discredits his story? Something steeped in this family history you’re referring to?” At Win’s nod, she pushed on. “Fine. Explain it to me.”
Win shook his head emphatically. “What can it matter? The old man is clearly lonely and in want of conversation. You gave that to him, along with about a thousand calories of cake. I’m simply saying there’s nothing more to follow up on with the story.”
“That’s not at all what you’re saying,” she countered. “You’re saying that there’s something that happened between your family and his family, or at least something you know about, that leads to you believe that his tale should be discounted. I simply want to know what it is.”
“Ms. Saleri—”
Irritation sharpened her response. “My name is Marguerite.”
To her surprise, her reply seemed to jolt Win, as if the uttering of her name was something he hadn’t been prepared for. The anger faded from his face, and all that left was the gentle, rueful touch of his gaze that seemed to rivet her to the spot. This man was taken, spoken for, engaged—as far away from her as any man could be—and yet…
And yet.
“Marguerite,” Win said, and there was a heavy, important weight to the word the way he said it. Another shivery wave rolled down her arms. “Marguerite Therese Iona Saleri.” Again, the words seemed less a recitation of her long and laborious name, and more of a benediction, with the sense of being a mantra whispered over and over again, long into the night. “It’s a beautiful name, and it suits you.”
Again with the beautiful. And again with proof that he’d done his research on her, research that made no real sense and yet…given how long Marguerite had been crushing on the man, was oddly, absurdly flattering.
Marguerite suddenly couldn’t remember what they’d been arguing about. Standing in that garden, next to Win, all she could think about was the sense of him, the physical presence of his body so close to hers that all she had to do was reach out, and her hand would connect with his. What would that be like, to touch him? What would it be like to feel him skin against skin, sigh against sigh, mouth against—
No!
Marguerite blinked hard, then stepped away sharply, flailing at long last toward safe ground.
“You have nothing to worry about over me,” she told him firmly. “I know what I’m doing.”
Win drew himself up straight, struggling to get a handle on his reactions. Was he insane? He had obligations, promises he’d made in good faith. If he backed out on those now without any good reason he’d be no better than all those generations before him, particularly the one so buried in history that there was nothing left of it but the ruin it’d left behind.
More importantly, he’d already irreparably harmed one young woman with his thoughtless acts and rash behavior. He’d be well and truly damned if he harmed another one.
“Forgive me, of course you know,” he said smoothly. “I was out of line.” He prayed Marguerite wouldn’t mention his use of her full name. Then again, she was a woman of consummate manners, hammered into her from birth. Of course she wouldn’t—
“How do you know my full name?” she asked.
Win cringed inwardly, but he’d had the ability to manage difficult conversations hammered into him since birth. He could manage this one, too.
Here, honesty seemed the best policy—the most efficient as well. Marguerite should know that she wasn’t as anonymous as she clearly thought she was. “I have a percentage holding in the Cypress Resort, through a shell company set up by the family years ago—useful for transactions like these, where we wish to be a part of an investment without drawing any attention away from the principal players.”
Her brows lifted. Whatever she’d thought he would say, that wasn’t it. “A shell company.”
“There are several attached to the Cypress Resort, and to many of the other major resorts up and down the east coast. At Masters Real Estate Holdings, we’ve seen an influx of foreign interest in these properties, with many of them being owned by international financiers based in such far-flung locales as China and Dubai. It’s good business for them, and good for tourism for the states—in general—as these foreign investors have the capital to build and build quickly.” He gestured to the building and grounds around them, perfectly manicured and custom built for Sea Haven’s distinctive island setting. It hadn’t existed a year ago. “As a shareholder, though, I’m privy to all personnel decisions. Including those involving unpaid interns.”
As he’d expected, that made her stiffen her spine. Marguerite Saleri had a chip on her shoulder, but he wasn’t sure who put it there. It made her, if possible, even more irresistible.
“You had a hand in my hiring?” she demanded.
“Not at all.” He wondered at her reaction. That was what bothered her? She’d been afraid of special treatment from him? “You were already well established before I bothered to get caught up on the recent activities of the resort. But your general personal data was there, and I can read.” He studied her. “You’re interested in a career in hospitality?”
“I’m not sure.” Her words were suddenly brittle, and Win knew—knew—that she was worried he’d offer her a job. Worried why, though? It’s not like he was in the habit of giving handouts. If he’d hire her, and he might have, in other circumstances, it would be simply because she was good at what she did: competent with the guests, gracious with her coworkers, and always working quickly and efficiently without appearing to be harried. She’d be an asset to any property, and God knew that Masters Real Estate Holdings had dozens of them.
Why didn’t he hire her, in fact?
For the moment, that offer would definitely fall on a closed mind. He’d made Marguerite uncomfortable, and that hadn’t been his intention. He turned, allowing them to continue their walk. “You’ve enjoyed your time here at the resort?”
“What, they didn’t put that in the file you read?”
Her flaring temper made him smile. “Unfortunately, no. And you haven’t appeared anything less than flawless in the several times I’ve had the opportunity to dine at the Cypress. But flawless doesn’t necessarily mean happy.”
Marguerite abruptly changed the conversation. “Was it you who decided to split the resort into two sections? The traditional resort and singles area?”
He went along with the shift. The first time he’d seen Marguerite he’d been in the far more adult-themed section of the resort. A collection of nightclubs surrounding several over-the-top swimming pools, its intent was to bring the younger, single crowd to the resort. And it had worked. There was no hotel on the property—all longer-term rental villas—but that had merely served to encourage said singles to stay for a few days versus crash and run.
“It wasn’t my idea, no. But when it was brought to me I heartily approved. Not all the other investors did.”
She nodded. “And are both revenue streams of the property bringing in their expected revenues?”
“The traditional area is performing to expectation, yes. The adults-only section is exceeding its goals in terms of liquor purchased and funneling our guests to villas, but not it’s not capturing the day-crowd. More work to be done.”
“Perhaps you should try—”
Win found himself most eager to hear what Marguerite’s thoughts were, since she’d been working on the ground at the Cypress for the past several weeks. But a sudden shout cut across their conversation, causing Marguerite’s head to snap up.
“Ms. Saleri! Marguerite.” The voice was strong, almost powerful, and the woman coming toward them fit it well. Tall and athletically built, her dark skin and hair gleaming in the bright sun, the wo
man looked like she kick-boxed for fun and ran 5-ks every morning to better digest her breakfast. Now she was striding toward Marguerite with clear purpose.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Marguerite muttered.
Win knew who the woman was—knew everything he could about the Saleri family, in fact. The bodyguard was part of the husband-and-wife team of Rob and Cindy Marks, employed by Rallis Security, a firm hired by Edeena Saleri when she’d landed on the shores of South Carolina earlier that summer. With Edeena back in Garronia and the second sister spending most of her time on a remote barrier island off Sea Haven, the bodyguards couldn’t have much to do. But they were clearly still keeping tabs on Marguerite.
The youngest Saleri sister squared her shoulders as the woman approached. “Win Masters, Cindy Marks. I suspect you already know all about her.”
Cindy didn’t seem surprised, but she held out a hand to him. “Sir,” she said.
He shook it, admiring the grip that was sturdy, but not trying to prove anything. “Is everything all right?”
To his surprise, Cindy rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t on duty this morning, Rob was. He caught wind of your conversation with some old man.”
“Caught wind…” Marguerite’s eyes flared wide. “That’s not part of his job.”
“It is since Caroline got wrapped up in her professor. Edeena handed down the edict a few days ago, and we’ve been working out the kinks with Rallis. If it makes you feel better, Vince thinks she’s overreacting as well, but everyone is mostly concerned that you don’t have the network of protection around you that you had before.”
Win could sense the anger building in Marguerite. “I don’t need a network,” she said, her words clipped.
“In this case, I agree with you. But I wanted you to understand what was coming down. Rob will be here in a few minutes to pick you up.”
Chosen: Gowns & Crowns, Book 7 Page 3
