by Meryl Sawyer
“Let’s go down stairs where we can talk in private.”
Alyssa decided Gordon wanted to discuss being her father. She was angry with him for the years of neglect, but she had to admit she was curious about what he might say. She walked at his side down the sweeping staircase to the first floor. There were a few latecomers arriving at the front door and being directed up the stairs by a ghoul with a bloody spear in his hand.
A narrow hall off the entry went to the back of the house. She saw a tall man in a devil’s costume stepping into a room opening off the hall. Max Williams. What was he doing down here? She didn’t have time to speculate. Her father took her into a living room elegantly furnished in period pieces.
Gordon LeCroix closed the double doors behind them. He pulled off his mask and gestured toward a sofa. Alyssa sat down and he seated himself beside her. It was impossible to take off her mask without disturbing the nun’s whipple covering her head. She slid the mask upward to her forehead in order to look her father right in the eyes as he talked.
Gordon studied her for a moment, and it seemed he expected her to say something. She waited him out. This was his idea; she had nothing more to say to him.
“I should have told you the truth years ago.” His words were spoken in a low voice charged with more emotion than she’d ever heard when she’d been living under his roof. “After you went to Italy with Theodora, I assumed she told you then. I never heard from you—”
“You could have contacted me.”
“I wouldn’t have known what to say.”
The tightness in her chest became a cramp. Her own father wouldn’t have known what to say to her? She suddenly saw through what she’d always assumed was a veneer of coldness bordering on contempt. He was a weak, ineffectual man who didn’t know how to deal with his wife or children and sought refuge in his job and on the golf course.
“What bothers me is having everyone know the truth but me. I lived with your family all those years. I never suspected. Why didn’t you tell me? How difficult could that have been?”
His throat worked hard, his Adam’s apple sliding up and down. “You’d have to understand what happened with your mother. I met her not long after I’d gotten engaged to Hattie. I thought I loved Hattie. We’d dated for years and our families expected …” He gazed across the room at an oil painting of the River Road. “When I met Pamela, how I felt was so different. I didn’t intend to hide the truth from her, but I knew she’d refuse to see me if she knew. The longer I waited, the more I loved her until it became impossible to confess. I didn’t tell her I was engaged until we were going back to New Orleans, and I knew she’d find out.”
“What did she say when you told her?”
A shadow of a smile crossed his lips. “I expected her to pitch a fit, the way Hattie would have, but your mother merely asked if, after spending the summer with her, I still intended to marry Hattie. I said I couldn’t get out of it.”
“You must not have loved her enough—”
“Wait! You didn’t know my father. I mentioned to him I would like to postpone the wedding because I wasn’t sure. I thought in time he would gradually become accustomed to the idea that I didn’t want to marry Hattie. Dad threatened to disown me, cut me out of his will, if the wedding didn’t go on as planned.”
“Would that have been so bad—if you could have been with the woman you loved?”
He let out a long, audible breath. “No, it wouldn’t have been. Believe me, I’ve spent the rest of my life suffering for my mistake, but back then I was young. I couldn’t imagine my family disowning me and trying to survive without a penny.” He hesitated a moment, then added, “I might have mustered the courage … if your mother had told me she was pregnant.”
“You didn’t know?” Of all the scenarios she’d imagined between her parents, this wasn’t one of them.
He shook his head, saying, “No. When Pamela married so quickly, and you arrived early, I guessed. I confronted your mother, and she said she didn’t want to force me into marriage.” The corner of his mouth twisted to one side in a gesture she’d forgotten until now. “She told me Robert loved her and you. Now she knew the meaning of true love. She didn’t want to have anything to do with me. I respected her wishes.”
His words had the ring of truth to them. She saw him the way he really was—an older man, disillusioned and lonely. Still, there were things she didn’t understand. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth when you took me in?”
“Believe me, I wanted to, but, well, you know Hattie.” He ran his hand through his thinning hair. “I hadn’t told her about you until your mother died and there wasn’t anyone to take you in except Theodora, and she was living in Italy with a terminally ill husband. The only way Hattie would allow me to bring you home was if I kept it a secret.”
Alyssa could only imagine Hattie’s ballistic reaction. It wasn’t any wonder Phoebe could be so temperamental. She’d inherited it from her mother.
“I got what I deserved for knuckling under to my father. I’ve had a miserable marriage.”
Just like Clay, she thought, amazed at how her life had been so very much like her mother’s. “You could have left—anytime.”
A burst of raucous laughter from the entry hall outside the living room interrupted them. They waited in silence until the voices trailed away as the group went up the stairs.
“You may find this hard to believe, but I stayed to protect you three. Hattie is so high strung, she would have taken it out on you children if I’d left. As it was, I had to send Wyatt away to Phillips Military Academy to prevent Hattie from ruining a very normal boy.”
“It was a good move,” she admitted. “Wyatt seemed much better after he left the house.”
Her father stared up at the crown molding for a moment, then gazed into her eyes. “You realize Phoebe has serious adjustment problems, don’t you?”
“It’s pretty obvious. She’s beautiful and intelligent, yet where I’m concerned, she isn’t able to accept that I have no interest in her husband.”
Gordon rose slowly and walked across the room to the French doors opening onto the garden. He shoved his hands in his pockets, then turned to face her. “I failed Phoebe somehow. I stayed married to help her, yet Phoebe and I never connected.”
“You were never around. She didn’t have the chance to really get to know you.” Alyssa couldn’t believe she was defending Phoebe, but everything she’d said was true. This weak man thought he was helping the children when, in reality, he was a big zero.
He slowly crossed the highly buffed parquet floor, his footsteps becoming muffled when he reached the Persian carpet in the center of the room. “I did the best I could under the circumstances. You’re right, though, Phoebe suffered the lack of a father. I think that’s why she’s so … taken with older men.”
He sat beside her again, his expression conveying his concern. “I didn’t want to talk about Phoebe. I just want you to know how very proud I am of you.”
She couldn’t resist saying, “I’m proud of myself. I went from Cinderella, living with the servants to a successful jewelry designer. I—”
“Look, you were better off with the help, believe me. Had you lived upstairs with Phoebe, you’d be just as disturbed. Hattie destroys everyone around her.”
“Then why haven’t you left her?”
He shrugged. “At this point, why bother? We’ve arrived at a place in our lives where we’re comfortable.”
How tragic, she thought, trying to imagine herself staying with someone she didn’t love. She prayed her mother had meant it when she’d told Gordon that Robert’s love was the real thing. She didn’t want to think of her mother dying without having loved and been loved in the deepest sense.
“There’s something I need to say,” he told her. “I never believed you took Phoebe’s baby.”
“Aunt Thee stepped in when no one else would.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come forward to help you, but I didn�
��t know what to think. The whole situation was so strange. If there’s anything I can do now—”
“Like what?”
“You tell me.” The echo of despair in his voice punctured her defenses in a way that she could never have anticipated.
It was a long moment before she could respond. “I’ll never be free until I can clear my name. Do you have any idea what happened to Phoebe’s baby?”
His brows furrowed with regret. “I wish I could help, but I don’t know anything. Patrick is my grandchild. I just hope he’s alive somewhere. Safe and happy.”
There was no mistaking the heartfelt anguish in his voice. She realized he was telling the truth. What was there left to say? A dull silence full of lost opportunities and heartache filled the room. Alyssa wanted to run home and hug Aunt Thee and thank her for a love that couldn’t be replaced.
“Do something for me, please.” Her father’s words took her by surprise. “Phoebe is down the hall in the study. I told her I was going to talk to you. I’d like the two of you to try to patch up your relationship. You’re—”
“I tried just yesterday but Phoebe accused me of being after Clay.”
He shrugged apologetically. “You know how overwrought Phoebe gets. Try to talk to her again. Please, she’s waiting.”
She slowly rose and looked at her father. Did he know what he was asking? Phoebe was never going to accept her.
“Thanks,” he said as she opened the door to the hall. “She’s down there. The door on the left.” He appeared to be struggling for a smile. “I’ll see you later.”
No one was around except the ghoul positioned at the front door to direct the guests up to the ballroom. He waved at her. Alyssa had to force herself to place one foot in front of the other to get down the hall.
Halfway there she remembered seeing Max go inside. Was he still in there talking to Phoebe? She’d seen the two of them dancing earlier, and they seemed to be very chummy.
No telling what Max might say to Phoebe, Alyssa decided. She’d tricked him into dancing so she could tell him that she knew he’d sent the goon who’d threatened her. Of course, he’d denied it. He’d even managed to seem surprised and outraged, but she wasn’t fooled.
She put her hand up and knocked. A rustling noise came through the solid wood door. “It’s me, Alyssa.”
After a long silence, Phoebe called, “Come in.” The words sounded more welcoming than she’d expected.
Phoebe was sitting in an overstuffed chair near a desk where a small lamp provided the only light in the room. French doors opened out from the study onto the garden where a white gazebo gleamed in the moonlight. Alyssa thought she saw a flash of red in the azaleas just outside the doors and decided Max had slipped out into the yard rather than face her.
She edged into the room, a step at a time until she stood before her half-sister. “I’ve been talking with … our father. He thinks we should—”
“Settle our differences.”
“Something like that.”
Phoebe rose and walked over to the French doors. With her back to Alyssa, she said, “Daddy’s right. It’s time to forget … everything. I’m making a lot of changes in my life.”
Alyssa thought about Clay divorcing her but didn’t say a word. Just mentioning his name might set off Phoebe again. She wanted to get this over with, to know she’d done her best, then she would distance herself from the whole family.
Phoebe turned to face her, smiling the charming smile she used when she wanted something. “I’m divorcing Clay.”
Alyssa nodded, silently letting Phoebe put her own spin on the story that Clay had already told her. She leaned against the desk, half-sitting, half-standing, and waited to hear more.
“I’m still young. There’s time to start over, to have another life.”
“With your beauty and brains, you could do anything.”
“I have plans, bigger plans than living for Mardi Gras.”
Again Alyssa nodded, not knowing what to say, afraid anything she did say would upset Phoebe.
“You may not believe this, but I’m sorry about the way I treated you.” Phoebe’s voice was soft, almost lost to the sound of the band playing in the ballroom two floors up. “I knew I was prettier, but I was jealous of you. Daddy loved your mother, not mine. I thought he loved you more.”
“I didn’t even know he was my father. He never did anything to suggest he cared about me.”
“I know he’s sorry. Daddy doesn’t know how to love.”
Alyssa nodded her agreement while an inner voice cautioned her not to trust Phoebe’s apparent change of heart.
“You’re welcome to Clay. I don’t want him now.”
This was more like what Alyssa had expected. “I don’t care about Clay. I’m crazy about Jake Williams.” The minute the words were out of her mouth, she knew it was true. She had fallen for Jake. She wouldn’t call it love—exactly—but it was close.
“You’re smart. Clay’s not worth your time.” Phoebe’s words took her by surprise.
Alyssa decided to quit while she was ahead. “Jake’s waiting upstairs.” She edged toward the door. “I’m glad we had this talk. I want only the best for you. If you need me, call me.”
She walked into the hall, closing the door behind her. Wow! What had Gordon LeCroix said to change Phoebe’s mind? Or had something else happened? She thought about Max being in the room before she’d come to talk to Phoebe.
Sounds of voices at the entry interrupted her thoughts. Ravelle Renault was coming through the front door followed by her crew. Great! Just what Alyssa did not want—a confrontation with the conniving gossip.
She ducked back into the study and found Phoebe sitting in the chair again. “I think I’ll get some fresh air.” It was a lame excuse, she thought, opening the door to the garden.
“Check out the gazebo,” Phoebe told her. “It was brought here from England. They say the Prince Regent used to seduce women in it.”
“Thanks. I will.” She closed the door behind her.
Artistically placed nightscaping lit the manicured gardens. Up-lights bathed the Victorian gazebo in a pale glow. She mounted the steps to the gazebo, thinking about Phoebe’s sudden turnaround and wondering. What was going on with Phoebe?
CHAPTER 26
Alyssa dropped onto the circular bench inside the gazebo. The night air was warm and moist, a harbinger of the hot, humid summer that was fast approaching. Music blared from the third-floor ballroom, where they seemed to be performing some voodoo reenactment. A series of loud bangs from the drums were followed by a popping sound like a firecracker.
Despite the noise, Alyssa’s mind drifted back to the conversation with her father. Gordon LeCroix—her father. It still didn’t seem possible. How could she have lived all those years in the same house and not have suspected the truth?
Even more surprising, her father seemed to care about her and had always worried about her in his own way. She tried to put herself in his place, yet the image wouldn’t come. It was doubtful she would ever understand him.
Alyssa decided she was even less likely to fathom what made Phoebe tick. Her half-sister had made it sound as if the divorce was her idea, not Clay’s. It would have been easy to believe her except yesterday Phoebe had accused her of wanting Clay. Phoebe’s concept of reality and hers were very different.
“Does it matter who wants the divorce?” she whispered to herself.
It wasn’t her problem. She’d meant what she said to Phoebe. She had come to care for Jake much more than she wanted to admit. His abrupt change of attitude had upset her—a lot. She’d liked the way he’d supported her when Aunt Thee was hospitalized. She’d wanted to get closer to him, then he’d unexpectedly turned away.
She closed her eyes and smiled in the darkness. He’d been jealous because he’d believed something was going on with Clay. Once they’d straightened out the misunderstanding, Jake seemed to be … to be what? Where was their relationship going?
Where do you want it to go?
“Good question,” she muttered under her breath. What did she want from him? Foolish as it seemed now, she’d lived so many years with Clay Duvall in the back of her mind, the image of the perfect man. Now, she understood how stupid she’d been. Clay was—well, how would she describe him?—shallow, conceited, self-centered.
He wasn’t half the man Jake Williams was, but this didn’t mean Jake was the one she’d been waiting for, did it? He didn’t seem to be the type to commit. He was already dedicated to his career, and she couldn’t imagine him taking the time for a family.
She stopped herself, realizing her career meant just as much. She was on overload right now with Aunt Thee ill, and trying to reestablish her business in New Orleans. She looked into the future and decided she wanted a family, but she didn’t have the time for one.
“You could make the time,” whispered an inner voice.
The thought made her pause; she could find the time for a family. It would mean designing fewer pieces, being less ambitious, but she could still keep her business especially now that she was backed by TriTech’s large support staff.
“It’s something to consider,” cautioned her more practical self. “Your biological clock is ticking very loudly.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, resting her head against a support post in the gazebo. Aunt Thee would be an excellent grandmother, she thought with a smile. And her aunt was taken with Jake. She would be thrilled beyond belief to have her marry Jake.
Marry?
They hardly knew each other. She couldn’t believe the turn her thoughts had taken. Surely, it was from lack of sleep and worry. A clearer head never would allow her imagination to run wild. She tried to relax and told herself to give it a few more minutes before going upstairs again. With luck Ravelle would have left by then.
“Alyssa? Is that you?”
Her head jerked up and she realized she had dozed off. For how long?
“Jake?”
The shadowy figure mounted the steps into the gazebo. “Yes. What are you doing out here?”
