She’d already figured that out. Now if she could just get him to stop touching her like that, she might actually be able to keep the conversation focused where she wanted it. “So . . . you’re an engineer? Of sorts?” She smiled, but no longer bothered with the hair swing over the shoulder or the Washington-ingénue eyelash flutter. She’d sucked at that, anyway. “I suppose it must be difficult determining where to dig.” She glanced at him, irked to find that amused gleam still in his eyes.
“There’s a science to it, but it also takes a bit of luck.”
“And money, I’d imagine.”
His gaze shuttered briefly and she felt a tiny surge of triumph. “Nothing in life is for free,” he said finally, but his smooth smile and easy charm were no longer so apparent. “Nothing worth having, anyway.”
“Money can’t buy everything,” she said, thinking about Shane, the joy he found in life just by living it. You couldn’t put a price tag on that kind of fulfillment or happiness.
They’d come to the rear of the buffet line. A server handed each of them a chilled salad plate.
“I didn’t say it could,” Stefan said next to her ear. “What I said was that nothing worth having comes without a price. In order to get, you have to give.” He drew a light finger along the back of her arm. “Payment, however, comes in many forms.”
She shivered and knew damn well it wasn’t because of the cold china clutched in her hand. He knew it, too. Jerking her arm forward and not caring what message she sent, she grabbed the salad tongs and tossed what looked like a pile of garden weeds onto her plate. When did regular lettuce go out of fashion, anyway?
She moved down the buffet line, filling her plate without much thought to what she was piling on it, more concerned with figuring out how in the hell she was going to deal with Stefan for the rest of the evening. Not to mention all day tomorrow. Jesus. While the carver at the end of the line sliced a piece of roast for her, she gazed around the room, which had been set with large round tables for group gatherings, as well as more intimate tables around the fringes. No sign of Shane, dammit. He was probably in the other ballroom, overseeing casino night.
“Shall we?” Stefan said right next to her ear.
She stiffened as he motioned to one of the smaller tables set up by the row of French doors that composed the entire wall, and which led to a long expanse of balcony. She really wasn’t up for playing games any longer tonight. She seriously needed time to regroup.
“Why, darling, there you are. Over here!”
There is a God, Darby thought. Or godmothers, as the case might be. With her first genuine smile in hours, she turned to find Aurora waving at them to come and sit at their table.
She only hoped she didn’t look too overly appreciative as she wound her way through the tables. It was all she could do not to fling her arms around each one of them.
Vivian patted the empty chair between her and Aurora. “Why, Stefan, darling, you look like you could use another glass of champagne.” She motioned a waiter over immediately, before Stefan could demur.
To his credit, he gallantly accepted the champagne, and the offer of the seat. Darby moved quite thankfully to the other side of the table and sat near Mercedes. Vivian and Aurora immediately dominated every moment of Stefan’s attention, for which Darby owed them a tremendous debt of gratitude. Until she realized that she was left alone in Mercedes’ clutches.
“My dear. You’ve worked up quite an appetite.” She didn’t sound impressed.
Darby looked down at her plate. It was rather . . . moundlike. “It all looked so wonderful. I guess I didn’t want to make an extra trip.”
The look on Mercedes’ face made it clear that a second trip to the buffet line was an etiquette faux pas on par with, well, apparently piling one of everything on a plate the first go-around. She sighed, but didn’t otherwise comment. “So, how has the day progressed for you?”
Darby thought about the day she’d had and could find no suitable words to describe it. “I’m managing. Thanks to you and your staff,” she added quickly.
Mercedes nodded, then leaned a bit closer. “May I make a suggestion, and please don’t take it unkindly, dear.”
Darby bravely kept her shoulders from drooping. “Certainly.”
“It’s expected that women will change for dinner. Men, too, although the rules are somewhat more relaxed for them.” A small smile curved her tightly pressed lips as she cut her gaze to Stefan, who still managed to look crisp in his white linen shirt and pleated trousers, despite having worn them all day. “Unfair, but there you have it. I’ve always thought of the men as the fixtures and the women as the centerpieces.”
“I’m really—”
Mercedes waved her silent. “Not to bother, dear. Today is more casual, as the guests are still arriving. However, traditionally, on a weekend gathering such as this one, tomorrow evening will be formal, so you will want to make certain you slip upstairs to your room, preferably between four and five, to make your change to evening wear.”
Darby could only nod and mumble, “Yes, of course.”
“One last item. While your makeup-free look is quite . . . refreshing during daylight hours, evening light isn’t so flattering, especially given your exposure to the sun.”
Darby frowned.
“Oh, darling, and please, please, never frown like that. Smooth, relaxed.” She smiled encouragingly and Darby did her best to get that Stepford-Wife look. “Much improved, dear.” She snagged the artfully folded linen napkin Darby had shifted aside, flipped it open, and handed it to her. “Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of things. And we’re always just a phone call away, you know.”
Darby took the napkin and spent a moment being tempted to tuck it into the collar of her shirt, just for grins, but decided it wasn’t worth the lecture. She spread it over her lap, and Mercedes nodded in approval before turning her attention back to her salad and involving herself in the conversation Aurora and Vivian were having with Stefan.
Darby poked at her garden weeds . . . and planned her escape.
Shane closed the heavy, leather-bound book and set it back on the small stack he’d made for himself on the floor next to the wing chair. He glanced at his watch and was startled to realize how much time slipped by. The buffet had already begun serving and casino night was probably gearing up. Which meant that while he’d been sitting here playing This Is Your Life, Darby was downstairs, still dealing with Stefan.
He got up and paged Chambers, the staff manager, on the house phone. He asked to speak with Trasker, who came on the line moments later and assured him that Miss Landon was eating dinner with her guest, Ms. dePalma, Ms. Favreaux, and Ms. Browning.
Shane sighed in relief. “And they’ve been together the whole time?”
“Since we last spoke, sir. In fact, they’ve been quite popular with your other guests.”
And he bet Darby was just loving that. He promised himself he’d find a way to make it up to her. “Thanks. And listen, I really appreciate your help today. Could you do me one more favor and inform Ms. Landon she has a phone call, then send her to Alexandra’s—I mean, my private office, please?”
“I’d be happy to, sir.”
He’d wanted to send for her sooner, but he hadn’t wanted to leave Stefan to his own devices until he had a chance to dig deeper into Alexandra’s private files. Dinner would keep him stationary, at least for a little while. And he knew he could count on Vivian and company to keep him occupied well into the evening, if necessary.
For all the good it would likely do. There had been nothing more from We Dig It, and for all his digging on the home front, he still had nothing more substantial to show for it than he had before. Just a gut instinct and circumstantial evidence that Stefan had been in cahoots with his grandmother on some secret deal before she died. A deal he appeared still to be involved in. Somehow.
That phone call made it clear he was on a tight deadline with someone. Probably for money, which was the r
eason he was here in the first place. To meet with Paul Landon, his prospective investor. Nothing nefarious there. But the tone of that phone call hadn’t been a business-as-usual deal. No, Stefan was in some kind of trouble. Shane would bank on it. And Pepper had mentioned that his proposed deal with Landon had to do with gemstones. Bringing him back to the possible connection to Alexandra’s little side deal. But as far as he could tell, Alexandra had only funded the invention of an adaptation to the already existing Celentrex equipment. Even if Stefan was somehow in possession of the adaptation, it would be useless without the main piece of technology, the Celentrex-developed prototype.
Shane shook his head. His brain ached from playing and replaying that damned phone call. He wished like hell he knew who Stefan had called when he’d come back into the study. Shit, he wished like hell he didn’t care. And frankly, if it weren’t for the possible involvement of Darby’s father, maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe. A week ago he’d been a perfectly happy camper, digging life in the sunny South Pacific, had never heard of Celentrex, couldn’t care less about corporate buyouts or industrial espionage. Amazing the difference a week could make.
Which brought his thoughts directly to Darby. He hadn’t seen her, touched her, tasted her, in hours. And it made him ache. But more than that, he wanted—needed—to talk to her. Not just about what he’d overheard, or his suspicions, but about . . . well, everything. Shane Morgan, who never turned to anyone, had somehow found himself wanting to turn to her. For all kinds of things.
He pushed those thoughts away, too. Too much. Jesus, this was all too much. And he was mortally sick of dwelling on it. Stefan wasn’t going anywhere. Darby was under his roof for the night. And tomorrow was another day.
He headed back over to the fireplace and sank down in the chair, wondering how long it would take for Darby to come to him. And what he was going to tell her when she did. Yes, he wanted to dump the whole thing on her and get her take on it. But this event already wasn’t easy on her, and the mystery surrounding Stefan certainly wasn’t helping matters any. He didn’t want to waste the one night he knew he’d have with her dwelling on that crap. He knew how much she’d dreaded facing the speculation and open curiosity about her return to Washington. And the party today had only confirmed that she’d had good reason to. He’d overheard numerous guests buzzing about her, theorizing on why she’d come back and who that man was she was with and so on and so on. He’d wanted to march over, tell the busybodies to get a goddamn life, and drag her away from the whole mess. Had come quite close to doing exactly that, in fact. But he needed to put this other thing to rest, first.
Not that he’d abandoned her entirely. He’d tracked down Vivian and asked her to keep an eye on the two of them. She’d assumed Shane was just being a possessive, jealous male, which might have been partially true. But she’d gladly accepted her assignment. Then he’d tracked down Trasker and made it clear he wanted to know if Stefan received any more calls—before Stefan was told—or if he wandered off alone for any reason.
He’d headed straight to Alexandra’s private office, thinking if she had secret files at work, then she probably had them at home. Unfortunately, unless she had some kind of secret panel behind one of the bookcases or something, he’d come up empty. He used the pass code Hal had provided to get into her computer, but nothing popped up there, either, except the startling discovery that his grandmother had apparently enjoyed playing the occasional blistering game of computer mah-jongg. He couldn’t picture Alexandra spending time on anything so mindless. It shouldn’t have mattered, but the image of her, sitting behind her desk, entertaining herself by clicking on little patterned tiles . . . well, it humanized her in a way that was a little disconcerting.
His snooping hadn’t uncovered any other little secrets, espionage-related or not—but it had uncovered a treasure trove of an entirely different sort. He’d been poking through the glass-enclosed bookcases behind her desk when he’d stumbled across the family albums.
He’d looked through the most recent ones, covering Alexandra’s tenure in the family, all professionally published with thick glossy pages and written by a carefully chosen family biographer. The last one ended shortly after his parents’ death, so his existence was barely a footnote in Morgan history as yet. He’d been amused by that, thinking not much had changed since. The next volume must be in progress somewhere, and he wondered if he’d been included. He couldn’t imagine what had been said about him—and was surprised to discover he might care.
He lifted the next volume and carefully opened the cracked leather binding. The family had already dwindled rather alarmingly by the time Alexandra had married into it. Her husband, Grayson, had been one of two sons borne to Edith and Charles Morgan. Grayson’s brother, George, whom Shane had never even known existed, had died, fighting in the war. Her mother-in-law had also died young. Her father-in-law, however, had lived to the ripe old age of eighty-three and, as Hal had mentioned, been the man who’d groomed Alexandra to take on the mantle of the entire Morgan ancestry when his remaining son had died so suddenly.
Not much mention, however, was made of Alexandra’s family. Probably because she and Grayson had eloped. It had been quite the scandal. Charles hadn’t approved, seeing as Big Al’s family, while moderately well-to-do, had made the fatal faux pas of only being able to trace their heritage back three generations before leaving American soil. Of course, once she’d married into the Morgan enclave and given Charles a grandchild, her family tree had likely become of lesser importance.
“Or, apparently, no importance,” he thought, as he began to flip carefully through the yellowed pages. His father’s family, the New England Lovelles, had been well-represented in the glossy printed pages of the newest albums. Their lineage dated back to the Mayflower.
He wondered if life would have been any different as a Lovelle, rather than a Morgan. They hadn’t been as wrapped up in family heritage as the Morgans. In fact, Alexandra had dropped the hyphenated Lovelle from his name before he was old enough to write it down. He remembered vaguely his father’s parents doting on him at holidays, but once he’d been shipped off to boarding school, that connection had dwindled to letters, which he’d dreaded receiving, as it meant writing letters back. Not exactly a favorite activity for any of the boys he’d boarded with. And writing those lengthy letters to Alexandra, with all the details that she demanded he include, had been painful enough.
His Lovelle grandparents had passed on when he was in his teens. If he had any Lovelle aunts, uncles, or cousins, he’d never met them, nor had he ever thought to ask after them. That sounded cold, but that was the truth of it. He’d felt closer to his boarding-school chums and some of the household staff at Four Stones than he had his own family. So it had seemed perfectly normal to be detached. Shit, maybe he was more like his ancestors than he realized. That was depressing.
He flipped through the current album, which detailed Charles’s youth and rise to power, following in the footsteps of his parents—both of whom had lived to a ripe age and who had continued to build on the shipping interests begun by Charles’s grandparents before them. Charles had had two sisters, both of whom had married late and been widowed during the war, neither of whom had married again or had children. That burden had fallen to Charles, who’d come through with two sons, but whose family legacy had ended up being continued by his daughter-in-law.
Shane thought about that, about the pressure that had likely been brought to bear on Alexandra, the enormous pressure given how proud the Morgan family was of their achievements, their place in history. He’d never really thought of it that way. Had seen her as a strong-willed woman who’d eagerly stepped in to fill her husband’s shoes, enjoying the power her wealth and position in society afforded her. He still thought of her that way. But this definitely added another element to that picture.
He put the album aside and picked up the next one, which was decidedly more fragile. The pages were badly yellowed, and the book itself was m
ore of an actual scrapbook, with real news clippings and photos adhered to the pages, along with carefully penned details and stories. He understood now why these volumes were stored in an airtight, unlit case.
He began turning the pages, slowly becoming absorbed in the stories being told, the pictures so carefully included. Shane was well lost in the past when he heard the door crack open. “Whatever it is, just take care of it,” he said, not taking his gaze from the page.
“I believe I was summoned.”
Shane’s head shot up, a smile instantly lighting his face at the sight of Darby standing in the doorway.
Funny how he’d spent the past several hours completely absorbed in reading about people he was related to by blood, sitting in the home they’d built with their own capable hands, and held on to with their nimble minds. And yet it wasn’t until he’d lifted his gaze to hers, felt that instant punch of connection, that he felt even a remote sense of belonging.
Cinderella Rule #17
The heart is a fickle thing. It doesn’t always require extensive time or deep analysis to make up its mind on what it wants. It can happen in a blink. Be prepared. And don’t be afraid to follow its dictates. It’s only when you try to dissect its decisions that you get yourself into trouble. In other words, when it feels right, don’t question it. Just go for it.
—VIVIAN
Chapter 17
Darby didn’t move from the doorway. She was too struck by the picture he presented. He sat in front of a stone fireplace framed on both sides by floor-to-ceiling bookcases, a rich Aubusson carpet covering most of the inlaid wood flooring. He was ensconced in a deep leather chair, feet propped carelessly on an antique table, a portrait of casual wealth. His hair was a shade too long, his face too tanned, his smile too bold. The rakish lord of the manor.
“What?” he asked, as she continued her perusal.
She entered the room, smiling. “Nothing. You just have to-the-manor-born stamped all over you.” His immediate frown made her laugh. “Don’t worry, it’s not fatal.”
The Cinderella Rules Page 23
