A Lamentation of Swans

by Valerie Bronwen

  And now he sat there, smiling at me, like we were old friends and he’d never done anything.

  What must it be like to not have a conscience, I wondered. Bast had probably convinced himself in the meantime he’d done nothing, that I’d thrown myself at him the way other women always had.

  I’d been such a fool to think him a friend.

  I wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  I wanted to slap him right across that smug face.

  “What brings you back to Sea Oats after all this time?” he asked casually. “I thought you were done with us once and for all.”

  I gave him a sour smile. “Peggy emailed me, told me I was needed.” I gestured with my right hand. “And now I can’t leave, because of the police investigation. I’d be gone already if I had any say in it.”

  “Angus.” He made a face, and I remembered Angus hadn’t been a fan of Bast, unlike everyone else at Sea Oats. There had been something—Bast had done something to the maze when he was a teenager, played some prank, which had infuriated Angus, and Angus never forgot or forgave him for it. Angus was the one person Bast couldn’t charm. “Who’d want to kill that old fool? He should have retired years ago, anyway.”

  “And the fire, don’t forget the fire.” I watched him as I spoke, to see how he reacted.

  I wouldn’t put it past him to have had something to do with all of it.

  He shook his head, but I could see the hand holding his glass was shaking slightly. A sign of guilt? Did Bast know more than he was letting on?

  It was convenient, after all, that he didn’t show up at Sea Oats until after everything happened.

  I wouldn’t have thought Bast capable of murder two years ago, but now I wasn’t sure if there was anything he wasn’t capable of.

  “Who are these people you owe money to, Sebastian?” He’d always hated it when I called him by his full name. “Are they dangerous?”

  He paled. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I stood up. “I don’t put anything past you, Bast.”

  “That’s no way to talk to a friend—”

  “We aren’t friends, Bast. That ship sailed.” It was a great exit line, so I took advantage of it to walk out of the drawing room. I was halfway up the stairs to the second floor when I had to stop because I’d started shaking. I grabbed onto the railing and closed my eyes, willing myself to get a grip.

  It was closure of a sort, I supposed. Maybe not the way I would have wanted it—I would have much preferred him on his knees, tears streaming down his face, confessing to everything he’d done and begging my forgiveness, but I’d known that wasn’t ever going to happen other than in my fantasies. But I knew now I could be in the same room with him without slapping him or wanting to kill him, which was progress.

  When I reached the second floor I decided to stop into the library to get something to read. The fireplace was going, and it was starting to rain again outside. Dustin Rockwell was seated at one of the tables, reading an enormous old volume with papers spread all around the table. He looked up when I opened the door and smiled. “Ariel! Come in, have a seat.”

  “I don’t want to disturb you,” I replied, but walked over to his table anyway. “What are you reading?”

  He held up the book so I could read the spine. The History of Penobscot by Scott Chandler.

  “I’ve never heard of that book,” I said, slipping into a chair on the other side of the table from him.

  He laughed. “It’s not like it was a runaway best seller. The Historical Society published it last year. It’s little more than a glorified fairy tale about the town and the Swanns.” He placed a bookmark in it and closed it. “It’s what it doesn’t say that interests me, of course.” He winked. “Arabella Swann was hardly a saint, no matter what people around here want to think. Maybe I shouldn’t mention this to you, as a member of the family—”

  “Not for long.” I corrected him. “Charlotte and I are going to be divorced eventually.”

  “Ah, yes, the divorce.” He smile got even wider. “We’ll get around to that. Did you know that one of Arabella’s sons knocked up one of the maids?”

  He’d succeeded in surprising me. “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “I can’t imagine it was one of those stories that the family sat around at dinner discussing.” He laughed. “But yes, it did happen. I’ve been trying to find what happened to the maid and her child. But Arabella paid them off and sent them away—no son of hers was going to marry a maid. So there’s a collateral branch of Swanns out there somewhere.”

  “I would imagine there’s more than one,” I said. “There have been lots of Swann males over the years, and where there are spoiled heirs, there are usually mistresses and children somewhere.”

  “So cynical for one so young.” He winked at me. “I gather Sebastian has arrived?”

  I nodded. “Yes. What did you mean about my divorce?”

  “Did you, by any chance, sign a prenuptial agreement when you married Charlotte? Or is that too personal a question?”

  “No, it’s not too personal, and no, I didn’t. We got married quickly.” I closed my eyes. “I did have to sign some papers regarding the Swann trusts after we got married, but no, I never signed a prenup.”

  “That makes things even more interesting, then.” He narrowed his eyes. “You know Sebastian Swann owes a lot of money, and that he put up his shares in Swann’s to guarantee the loans, right?”

  “Yes, and I don’t understand,” I replied. “I was always under the impression that the trust was created in order to keep control of the company within the family, even after Charlotte took the company public. It’s too complicated for me to understand, but I don’t get how he was able to do that.”

  “What you don’t understand,” he replied softly, “is that the trust controlling the corporate stock officially was dissolved when Charlotte wanted to take the company public, several years before you married her. The family trusts still exist—that was why Sebastian had to put up his stock. Charlotte is trustee and wouldn’t let him have the money.”

  “So why doesn’t she just pay off the loans with money from the trust?”

  “Because it’s too much money.” He shook his head again. “And you know, as Charlotte’s wife, you have a claim to her shares of the company.”

  “I don’t want anything to do with that.”

  But as I said the words, it clicked in my head.

  Someone was trying to take over Swann’s. If Sebastian’s stock wasn’t forfeited…as Charlotte’s wife I might make a legal claim on her shares.

  And I might cooperate with whoever was behind the hostile takeover.

  That was why Peggy had sent for me.

  Chapter Eight

  At any time over the past two years, had someone told me that I would have dinner with Lindsay Moore, I would have laughed them out of the room. If they would have added that the dinner was at her home and she’d invited me, I would have laughed even harder. There was no love lost between the two of us. When I’d first met her, I knew all about her—Bast had happily filled me in on the woman who’d been involved, off and on, with my wife for most of their lives. But I’d been determined to be gracious, to be friends, to offer an olive branch and make what was bound to be an uncomfortable situation as easy on her as possible.

  God, I’d been young and naïve.

  The first thing she’d said to me, after Peggy introduced us at a fundraiser for the Penobscot Library, was, after giving me a good looking over, “Well, this isn’t going to last.” She’d smirked at me. “Enjoy Sea Oats while you can. You’ll be gone soon enough.”

  Even remembering it now made my cheeks grow hot. I’d avoided her and her acid tongue as much as I could that year at Sea Oats, but what was the most galling about remembering it was that she’d been right.

  She knew Charlotte better than I ever would.

  Well, I thought as I looked out the window as the town car pulled into the dri
veway of her house, you’re welcome to Charlotte, Lindsay, and I hope you two make each other miserable.

  My tension must have been obvious, because Kayla took my hand and squeezed it gently. “Don’t be nervous, Ariel, she’s nobody to Charlotte,” she whispered with a sidelong glance at Bast, sitting on her other side in the backseat of the big town car. “And no one can hurt you unless you let them have that power over you.”

  Bast snorted. “Lindsay’s no ordinary woman, Kayla, and the sooner you realize that, the better off you’ll be.”

  Kayla stuck her tongue out at him and smiled back at me. I smothered a laugh. I liked her, and hoped she didn’t wind up as just another notch on his worn-out belt.

  I squeezed her hand back. “Thanks, Kayla, I appreciate the moral support, but I’ll be fine. And no matter what Bast says, Lindsay is very ordinary.”

  He scowled back at me.

  Lindsay had called Sea Oats during lunch. Maeve had served us homemade potato-leek soup and a fresh garden salad. Peggy didn’t join us—she was having lunch at the Historical Society in town—and so it was just Kayla, Bast, and me in the dining room. It could have been awkward, but nothing could be awkward with Kayla around. She filled the pregnant pauses and heavy silences with endless prattle about modeling gigs she’d had and gossip about famous people—some I’d heard of, others I hadn’t—and some of the stories were quite funny. Kayla was a gifted storyteller, and she could do voices and mimic accents like a professional. It was hard to be tense when someone was being so funny.

  Maeve came in to tell me there was a call for me, which was a surprise. I got up from the table, confused, and she handed me the cordless phone in the hallway. Not many people knew I was at Sea Oats, and those that did—Hollis, a client, or someone else from the office—would have called my cell phone. “Hello?” I said. “This is Ariel.”

  “Ariel, it’s Lindsay Moore.” I would have recognized the low, throaty voice even if she hadn’t said her name. Her voice was distinctive, and sexy. She could have made a killing doing the voice of cartoon femme fatales. “I’d heard you were back at Sea Oats”—I just bet you heard—“and would love to catch up with you. Would you be open to coming over for dinner tonight? Around eight?”

  “Um, sure.” I was so surprised I just blurted it out.

  “I understand Bast and his latest are there, as well. Can you invite them?”

  “Just a moment, and I’ll ask,” I replied, walking back into the dining room. As I asked them if they were interested, I realized what she was after with this invitation. If she was trying to get back together with Charlotte, she wanted to see how much of a threat I was. It probably shook her up a little to hear I was back at Sea Oats. I should have gotten back on the phone and told her no, but if this trip was about closure, I was going to get it from anyone I could.

  If that meant giving Lindsay the green light to go after Charlotte again was part of getting there, so be it. More power to you, Lindsay, and I wish you both all the happiness the two of you deserve, may you both live happily ever after.

  But it was much easier to think than believe.

  Understandably, I’d never been to Lindsay’s home before. I only ran into her at fundraisers or parties when I’d been living here before, and we made the effort to stay out of each other’s way as much as possible. It wasn’t until I was gone that I realized seeing me was probably even harder for her than seeing her was for me, but it didn’t make me like her any more. She’d always, on those rare occasions when we had run into each other, been cutting and borderline insulting to me. Whenever I’d complained about her to Charlotte, Charlotte would always take her side—well, maybe not take her side, but that was how it seemed to me at the time. Charlotte expected me to be more sympathetic, understanding, to Lindsay, and I saw that as her being on Lindsay’s side.

  We’d had more than one argument because of Lindsay.

  She lived on the other side of Penobscot from Sea Oats. The house was inland, didn’t have a beach or even a view of the ocean. The Moores had long since lost their family businesses, and Lindsay’s father had been upper-level management for Swann’s, and a close friend of Charlotte and Bast’s father. Lindsay had grown up with both Char and Bast, had grown up thinking of Sea Oats as her second home.

  It was no wonder she felt she had a right to the house.

  Charlotte had never told me about her romantic involvement with Lindsay, simply dismissing it as “nothing serious, something in the past you don’t need to worry about.”

  Bast, on the other hand, had been more than happy to fill me in on the decades-long soap opera starring the two of them. “It broke Charlotte’s heart when Lindsay got married,” he’d told me in the hushed voice of confidences and secrets, “and I’m not sure she ever got over it.” Already feeling like I didn’t belong at Sea Oats, worried that Charlotte already regretted marrying me, finding out about her past with Lindsay had been yet another crack in the foundation of our marriage.

  When I confronted Charlotte about it, she’d lost her patience with me for the first time. “I never told you about her because it doesn’t matter!” she’d shouted at me. “She doesn’t matter! She’s my past! You’re my present! I married you!” I had burst into tears and she’d hugged me, kissing me and apologizing for making me cry, but I still believed Lindsay was a threat. No matter how many times she reassured me, promised me, told me that Lindsay didn’t matter to her, that it was me she loved, I was too insecure and too young to believe her.

  It never occurred to me until later, of course, that playing up their history was part of Bast’s game, driving yet another wedge between Char and me, playing on my all-too-obvious insecurities. And he never relented, either, constantly whispering in my ear about how much Charlotte had loved her, how everyone thought they were destined to be together, it wouldn’t be fair of him to not let me know, of course, and I was his friend, he cared about me so much and he didn’t want to see me hurt.

  No, Bast had never been my friend. Bast had wanted me gone, and had done everything he could to make sure it happened. I didn’t understand why, probably never would. It was just part of the weird game he and Charlotte always played.

  I’m sure a psychiatrist could have a field day with it. But it wasn’t my problem anymore. Once I was free to go back into the city, I would get my divorce and wash my hands of the Swanns and their problems. And as for the stock in Swann’s, Charlotte could have it. I didn’t want anything from her except my freedom.

  Lindsay’s house was nice, the kind of place someone upper middle class would have built forty years ago, kind of a Tudor-style two-story manor house, long with lots of rooms and a three-car garage. It reminded me of the houses the rich people back in Kansas built for themselves, out near the country club, the houses my mother longed to live in someday. I’d always thought there was something tacky and phony about them, and that was how Lindsay’s house struck me at first glance: pretentious, phony, wanting desperately to be something that it wasn’t.

  I could see why Lindsay would have wanted to be mistress of Sea Oats, and then chided myself for the bitchiness of the thought.

  The driveway ended in a circle, around a stone fountain with dancing cherubs and maidens pouring water out of urns, surrounded by a small, low cut hedge. The driveway itself wasn’t paved, but was white gravel and oyster shells crunching under the tires. The white gravel sparkled in the moonlight, when the moon came out from behind the dark clouds crowding the night sky. The house didn’t have a porch, just a flagstone path from the driveway through empty flower beds to the front door. A large hedge outlined the edge of the property, and it was tall enough to block out the views of the neighboring houses.

  It’s a nice house, I said to myself, pushing down the bitchy thoughts before they could even form. And I’m sure it’s warm and cozy inside.

  It embarrassed me to remember the way I’d seethed with jealousy of Lindsay, certain that Charlotte often looked at me and found me lacking in compariso
n.

  What a child I’d been. It was a wonder Charlotte hadn’t shown me the door months before I left.

  Joseph let us out at the front door. Kayla, shivering in a too short dress that barely covered her ass, bounded up the walk quickly to knock on the door, which opened immediately, as if Lindsay had been waiting right there for us to arrive. They exchanged air kisses, she got a hug from Bast, and then it was the two of us, facing each other like gladiators in the arena.

  I mentally gritted my teeth and kissed her warm cheek. “Lovely to see you, Lindsay. Thanks again for having us.”

  “My pleasure, Ariel. You look beautiful, as always.” Her tone was cool, cordial, and civil. Maybe this wouldn’t be as awkward and awful as I’d feared. Then again, she was playing from a position of strength. I was out of Charlotte’s life, after all.

  She led us into her cozy living room.

  One thing I couldn’t fault Lindsay for was taste. Her living room was large, and of course she had a fire going in the obligatory fireplace. The room was tastefully decorated in muted shades of blue with yellow highlights. The artwork, hung at discreet distances, blended in perfectly with the colors of the walls—so often people make the amateur mistake of choosing art that either clashes with the room or is so powerful that it overpowers the rest of the room. Instead, Lindsay had chosen gorgeous black-and-white images of old New York from the thirties and the forties, mounted simply on white backgrounds with black metal frames. The carpet was thick and soft, dark blue with yellow highlights, and I resisted the urge to ask where she’d gotten it—it would be perfect for a job I was bidding on. The room looked comfortable and cozy, despite its size. An open bottle of red wine with four stemmed glasses sat on a silver serving tray on the coffee table. Kayla and Bast sat on the couch, so I took one of the chairs. It was like sitting on a pillow, and as I sank into it, Kayla passed me a glass of wine. I smiled my thanks.

  “Dinner’s almost ready,” Lindsay said, sitting down in the chair that matched mine. “We should have time for some wine and conversation before the first course.”