Good Southern manners beneath that angry defiance.

Sugar Beth headed into the kitchen where she extracted two cans of c.o.ke from the refrigerator. As an afterthought, she unwrapped a Devil Dog and dropped it on one of Tallulah's Wedgwood plates. She considered the matter of gla.s.ses but decided late-night hospitality had its limits.

Gigi followed her into the kitchen, then crouched down to rub Gordon's stomach. He splayed his legs, ears flopping on the linoleum, his expression one of ba.s.set bliss. "You have a very nice dog." She rose as Sugar Beth set the cans on the table. Gordon hopped up, too, and rubbed his head against the girl's ankles, the friendliest pet on the planet. Gigi gazed back toward the living room. "You have some very nice antiques, too."

"They were my Aunt Tallulah's."

"I know. Mom used to bring me here sometimes. She didn't like kids very much."

"Tell me about it." She gestured toward the chair across from her.

Gigi moved a little awkwardly, as if she still hadn't quite gotten used to the new growth in those long legs. "It's hard to believe she was the object of Lincoln Ash's pa.s.sion."

Sugar Beth smiled. "You know about that?"

"Everybody does." She settled at the table and began fiddling with the c.o.ke can. The Seth Thomas clock ticked away in the next room. She reached down to scratch Gordon's head.

"How old are you, Gigi?"

"Thirteen."

Sugar Beth remembered thirteen. She'd grown real b.r.e.a.s.t.s that year and made Ryan Galantine realize there was more to life than sports and Donkey Kong. She pushed the plate with the Devil Dog across the table. Gigi broke off a corner but didn't put it in her mouth.

"So how did you get suspended?"

"I never got suspended before, if that's what you're thinking."

"I wasn't thinking anything. I don't know you."

"It's sort of complicated." The Devil Dog disintegrated into a pile of crumbs as the story spilled out, slowly at first, then gathering momentum. Kelli Willman's betrayal. Gigi's friendship with Chelsea...The argument...The locker...The broken wrist...Gigi had a disconcerting way of mixing teenage slang with adult word choices. Her mother's daughter. As she wound down, she looked both miserable and defiant. She knew she'd done wrong, but she wasn't ready to cop to it.

If Sugar Beth had knocked somebody into a locker when she'd been thirteen, Diddie would have blown a smoke ring and said that well-bred young ladies didn't push people into lockers, even girls who deserved it. A lady simply walked away, threw a divine party, and neglected to invite the offending party.

Thanks a big heap, Diddie. Really useful advice.

This was as good a time as any to see what Gigi Galantine was made of. "I'll bet Chelsea's sorry she called you stuck-up."

Gigi liked that, and she nodded vigorously. "I'm not stuck-up. I mean, it's not my fault we're rich."

Sugar Beth waited. Gigi began chewing on her lip again, no longer looking quite so self-satisfied. "I wouldn't have said Chelsea was fat if she hadn't already been mean to me."

"But Chelsea is fat, right?"

"Her mom lets her eat a lot of junk."

Sugar Beth suppressed the urge to hide the Devil Dog under her napkin.

Gigi took another sip of c.o.ke and kept her eyes on the can as she set it back down. "My mom drove me over there and made me apologize, but Chelsea wouldn't even look at me. Her wrist was in this cast."

Sugar Beth shoveled a little more dirt into the grave Gigi had dug for herself. "I guess people get what they deserve."

Gigi looked less certain. "I don't think she was feeling too good that day. And she doesn't have as many, you know, advantages as I have. Like a dad and being affluent and everything." Another storm cloud formed. "But her mom's like her best friend. Her mom understands things."

Unlike Gigi's mom who apparently didn't..."So what are you going to do?"

Gigi lifted her head, and Sugar Beth's skin p.r.i.c.kled. For an instant, she felt as if she were looking into her own eyes.

"That's why I came here. So you could tell me."

"Honey, I'm the last person anybody should turn to for advice."

"But you're the only one who knows what it's like. I mean, we're sort of the same, aren't we?" Once again her words rushed out. "You were the richest girl in town, too, and I bet everybody thought you were stuck-up and egotistical. All the other kids' parents worked for your dad, just like they work for mine, and they must have said things you didn't like behind your back. But n.o.body ever messed with you like they do with me. And I want to be like that. I don't want people to mess with me. I want to be, you know...powerful."

So that was it. Sugar Beth bought some time by taking a sip of c.o.ke. Gigi thought they were alike, but they weren't. This child didn't have Diddie telling her that she was better than everyone else, or letting her believe that unkindness was acceptable. Unlike Sugar Beth, Gigi had a decent shot at growing up without having to learn everything the hard way.

Her niece. Sugar Beth had gotten used to thinking of Delilah as her only family, but she and this child shared blood. She turned the idea over in her mind. "So you want me to tell you how I did it, is that right? How I manipulated people so they'd do what I wanted?"

Gigi nodded, and one part of Sugar Beth felt like applauding. Good for you, baby girl. You're after your share of power in the world. And even if you're not going about it the right way...good for you. She tucked an ankle under her hip. "You're sure about this?"

"Oh, yes," Gigi replied earnestly. "All the Seawillows say you were the most popular girl in school."

So Gigi knew about the Seawillows.

"They were my very best friends, but I don't see them anymore." Sugar Beth let that sink in for a moment. "I miss them."

"But you've got a lot of other friends. Important friends you made when you lived in California and Houston. It's not like you need the Seawillows anymore. I mean they're not important or anything."

A traitorous tightness gripped her throat. Her emotional rope felt frailer every day. "Real friends are always important."

It wasn't the answer Gigi wanted to hear, and Sugar Beth could see her quick brain getting ready to launch another battery of arguments. Before she had the chance, Sugar Beth said, "It's late, and I'm tired. I'll bet you are, too."

Gigi looked crushed. Sugar Beth reminded herself that she already had more trouble than she could handle. But she understood this child a lot better than she wanted to, and as she rose from the table, she heard herself say, "I have some time off on Sunday. Maybe we could talk then."

Gigi perked up. "I could get away in the afternoon. My parents have a concert."

Sugar Beth remembered the posters she'd seen in town. The Ryan and Winnie Galantine Concert Series...

"I don't think sneaking around's a good idea."

"My dad's pretty strict. It's the only way I can see you."

Sugar Beth could understand Winnie forbidding Gigi to see her, but Ryan? Exactly what did he think Sugar Beth would do to her? "All right." She rose from the table. "Sunday afternoon it is."

Gigi's face broke open in a smile. "Thanks!"

Sugar Beth couldn't send her home alone this late, so she got her jacket. "I'll walk with you."

"You don't have to."

"Yes, I do." She opened the door and followed Gigi outside. Gordon dashed ahead, naturally choosing to trot beside Gigi instead of his rightful owner. There were no sidewalks on Mockingbird Lane, so they walked in the street.

"My dad was your boyfriend, wasn't he?"

"A long time ago."

"And you and my mom didn't get along, right? Because of her being illegitimate and everything."

"It's complicated."

"I guess." She tilted her head and gazed up at the sky. "When I leave Parrish, I'm not ever coming back."

That's what we all say, honey.

Lights shone through the windows of the old brick French Colonial that would have looked at home on the Vieux Carre. Gigi stopped before they got too close. "You don't have to come any farther. My bedroom is over the back porch, and the railing's pretty easy to climb. It's real safe."

"I'll bet." She should make her go in the door and take her punishment, except she wasn't Gigi's parent, and she didn't have to do the right thing. "I'll watch just to make sure."

"Okay, but don't get too close. We have landscaping lights. Win-i-fred's idea."

Sugar Beth heard the scorn in Gigi's voice and issued a strict warning to herself. No piling on, no matter how tempting. She pushed away the image of Diddie's pearls encircling Winnie's neck. "I won't."

Moments later, she watched Gigi climb the wrought-iron post on the small back porch. It offered easy footholds, and before long she'd swung her leg onto the narrow roof. Just before she'd slipped open the window at the back, she turned and waved.

Sugar Beth stood too far in the shadows to be visible, but she waved back all the same.

I've brought your daughter home, Ryan. Safe and sound.

She sighed and gazed down at Gordon. "Come on, pal. Time for us to head for bed. We have a big day tomorrow."

The Duke was always magnificent, but tonight he had surpa.s.sed himself.

GEORGETTE HEYER, These Old Shades.

CHAPTER NINE.

Colin finished shaving and made his way to his closet. Gordon usually accompanied him when he was getting dressed, but he'd been banished to the carriage house for the evening. The best thing about Sugar Beth was her dog.

A crash echoed from the vicinity of the kitchen. The caterer again. Or maybe Sugar Beth had dropped something. She'd been flying around the house all day: answering the door, rearranging flowers, arguing with the caterer. Throwing herself heart and soul into her own comeuppance.

He cursed as he stubbed his toe on the closet bench. He had no reason to feel guilty. There was a brutal simplicity about what would happen tonight, and since revenge wasn't anything he cared to devote his life to, this would be the end of it. A clean break. He pulled a shirt from a cedar hanger. Once the evening was over, he'd write her a big severance check and never think about her again. Which, admittedly, wouldn't be easy.

He'd just flipped the toggles on a pair of Bulgari cuff links when he heard a knock. "Go away."

She stormed in, just as he'd known she would. She was conservatively dressed-for her at least-in black slacks and a white blouse with a V neck. If the angle was just right, as it was now, he could catch a glimpse of a lacy white bra. He missed those towering stilettos she'd shown up in, even though he was the one who'd made her change. He'd pointed out that she'd be on her feet all evening, but they both knew the truth. Guests wore dressy stilettos, not the staff. The staff also didn't pile its hair up and let long, unruly locks fall every which way-over the curve of a flushed cheek, along the nape of a slim neck, in front of small ears where a tiny pair of gold hearts swung-but he'd let that go.

"I'm fixin' to come to blows with that caterer," she exclaimed, the gold hearts bobbing. "The minute he said he was from California, I should have told you to find somebody else. He's usin' tofu in an hors d'oeuvre. And he didn't even deep-fry it!"

She was in full good ol' girl mode, something he was beginning to suspect she did when she was on the defensive, which seemed to be most of the time. The flush in her cheeks made her look healthier than when she'd arrived in Parrish, but her wrist bones were still frail, and the tracery of blue veins in the back of the hand she planted on her hip might have been a road map of all the disappointments life handed out to aging beauty queens.

"He just broke that new pitcher I bought you. And did you know he was plannin' to use disposable aluminum pans on the buffet table? I had to remind him this was a dinner party, not a fish fry."

As she ranted on, he wanted to order her to stop putting so much energy into a party that wasn't hers. Right from the beginning, he'd told her she'd be waiting on his guests, but she hadn't blinked. He'd even driven the point home by instructing her to dress appropriately. Surprising how easy it was to play the b.a.s.t.a.r.d once you set your mind to it. If only she'd bow those proud shoulders just once and concede defeat, he could let this go. But she wouldn't. So here they were. And, now, he simply wanted the whole thing done with.

"...make sure you take the cost of that pitcher out of his check when you pay him tonight."

"I'll do that." The caterer had probably broken the pitcher because he was staring down her blouse.

"No, you won't. Except for me, you're Mr. Big Spender. Even with that incompetent West Coast weasel of a caterer."

"Such prejudice from someone who once lived in California herself."

"Well, sure, but I was drunk most of the time."

He caught his smile just in time. He wouldn't give in to that seductive charm. Her self-deprecating sense of humor was another manipulation, her way of making sure no one else threw the first punch.

"Is that all?"

She eyed his dark trousers and long-sleeved grape-colored shirt. "If only I hadn't sent your dueling pistols to the cleaners."

He'd promised himself he'd stop sparring with her, but the words came out anyway. "At least I still have my riding crop. Just the thing, I've heard, for disciplining an unruly servant."

She liked that, and she flashed him a wide smile on her way out the door. "You can be funny for a stiff."

The word stiff hung in the air behind her like the scent of s.e.x-rumpled bedsheets. If only she knew...

So far, so good, Sugar Beth thought to herself. The house looked beautiful with flowers everywhere and candles glowing. In the foyer, the flames of a dozen white tapers reflected off the shiny black finish of the baby grand. The young woman Colin had hired to play looked up from the keyboard and smiled. Sugar Beth smiled back, then took a last glance at the living room. Creamy pillar candles nested in the magnolia leaves she'd arranged across the fireplace mantel, and cl.u.s.ters of cut-gla.s.s votives flickered on the smaller tables she'd positioned here and in the sunroom.

Keep moving. Don't think.

Not all the changes Colin had made to the house were bad. Without the fussy wallpaper, the downstairs had a more s.p.a.cious feel, and the efficient new kitchen was a definite improvement over the old cramped one. She also liked the way the sunroom kept the back of the house from being too gloomy. But she still missed the sight of her father's keys tossed on a table and the scent of Diddie's perfume permeating every room.

In a few hours, it'll be over.

She headed to the dining room to make certain the caterer hadn't moved anything. The pepperberry sprays she'd wound through the arms of the chandelier made the room homier, and the centerpiece of pale orange Sari roses and deep gold Peruvian lilies glowed against the mocha linen tablecloth just as she'd known they would. She'd already dimmed the hallway chandelier, and now she did the same in the dining room. The old walls embraced her. You should have been mine, she thought. I don't deserve you-I didn't even want you-but you should have been mine all the same.

She wanted to believe she'd worked so hard on this party to prove to Colin that she wasn't a screwup, but it was more than that. She'd needed to see this house shine again. And she'd needed to keep herself so busy she wouldn't brood over the part she'd play tonight.

For a moment she let herself pretend she was still the daughter of Frenchman's Bride, that tonight's guests were the ones she would have invited if she hadn't worked so hard at ruining her life: the Seawillows; Ryan; batty old Mrs. Carmichael, who'd died ten years ago but used to tell everyone that Sugar Beth was just as sweet as her name; Bobby Jarrow and Woody Newhouse; Pastor Ferrelle and his wife; Aunt Tallulah, even though she'd disapprove of Sugar Beth's arrangements.