Ciji Ware (50 page)

Startled by the commanding ring of his father’s voice, he rose from his seat. “Till tomorrow, then,” he said, bowing slightly. He threaded his way through the crowded sitting room, greeting well-wishers on either side, until he arrived beside his father’s wheelchair. “Yes, Father,” he said. “May I have someone bring you some refreshments?”

“Take me back to the library, please,” the senior Hopkins demanded abruptly.

“But, you’ve just come from there,” he protested mildly. “Don’t you wish to speak to—”

“I tire of all this, and besides, I wish to speak with you.
Now
.”

Simon could see that his father would brook no argument. He dutifully wheeled the chair down the hallway and back into the book-lined chamber.

“Close the door,” his father ordered. The older man settled his elbows on the arms of his chair and drew his fingers into a pyramid upon which he rested his bearded chin. “I saw you speaking with Daphne just now.”

“Yes
…
” Simon said slowly. “It was our first chance to greet each other since my return. I wished to compliment her on her playing.”

“And how did you find her spirits?” his father asked, his gaze intent.

“I found her
…
a bit frail
…
but pleasant.”

“And that creature, Aaron Clayton?” the elder Simon asked brusquely.

“He bears watching.”

“Yes,” his father agreed, “but not in the way I assume you mean.”

Simon tried to interpret his father’s expression. “I don’t like him,” he volunteered, “and I think he has pecuniary designs on Daphne.”

“His attentions might result in one fewer problem for us to be saddled with.”

“Father!” Simon said, shocked. “You are Daphne’s guardian. It is your solemn duty to have a care for her welfare and—”

“Don’t you presume to lecture me on duty, young man.” His father pounded his fist on the arm of his chair. “I’ve taken on the burden of Charles Whitaker’s will for about as long as any human could endure, given the chronic melancholy and unhealthy impulses that run rampant in that line. Tainted blood, I say,” he declared. “I’m too old and feeble to run two plantations for much longer.”

“Now that I’ve returned from abroad, I hope you realize how willing I am for you to turn over some of that burden to me, Father,” Simon ventured carefully.

His father’s eyes narrowed and gazed at him speculatively. “And would ‘turning over some of that burden’ include getting into the pantalettes of a certain blond member of that damnable family?”

“Father!” Simon exclaimed. “I have nothing but honorable intentions toward Daphne Whitaker.” He felt suddenly shy. “I hope someday to make her my bride.”

“Would that you only wished to
seduce
the jade and be done with it,” his father shot back. “She’s got tainted blood, I say,” he repeated. “Perhaps ’tis not the poor girl’s fault, but there are nothing but crackbrains in that clan. For the good of
our
family line, I implore you—before things get out of hand—to banish all notion of a marital alliance with Daphne Drake Whitaker Stimpson, my boy.”

“’Tis not just of you to tar Daphne with the brush of madness that touched poor Charles,” Simon said stoutly.

“
And
her sister, Madeline, though God knows how hard I’ve tried to keep that bit of news from the town criers around here.”

“But Fa—”

“And let us not forget the mother,” the elder Hopkins declared hotly. “Susannah’s moods are most unpredictable, and her servants say she rarely rises from bed, most days. Daphne, too, I’m told, will go weeks without dressing properly.”

“So you’ve set the Whitaker servants to spying,” Simon said contemptuously.

“Absolutely,” his father growled. “For I wish my son to know the sink pool he proposes bathing in.”

“Daphne has suffered loss after tragic loss. Compassion and the passage of time will surely aid in a complete recovery of her spirits. See how she so eagerly plays her harp.”

“So she will not have to converse. No, my son, I say this for your good and the good of our own family. You know botany. You know horse breeding. Time generally proves that within close-knit societies such as ours, the effects of tainted blood are only likely to worsen with each generation intermarrying. You must trust me when I warn you that beauty like Daphne’s tarnishes with age and familiarity. I must ask you to cease all thoughts of paying court to our neighbor’s daughter.” He lowered his chin and gazed at his only son from beneath his grizzled eyebrows. “Do I have your word?”

The air was rife with tension, and neither man spoke for several moments.

“I cannot give you my word, but
…
I will give what you have just said my deepest consideration.”

Simon’s father looked as if he would say more on the unhappy subject, but did not. Instead, he sighed heavily, nodded, and patted his son’s hand. “Good boy. At least, you make a show of listening to your weary old father. I am grateful you came home immediately when I wrote you in Scotland. I don’t think I’ll live past spring planting.”

“Father, you mustn’t say that! We cannot predict these things, nor should we.”

“I’ll predict something else then,” Simon said gruffly. “You are correct in thinking that the Harvard man is after Daphne’s purse, and I’ll wager he will succeed. Furthermore, I say good luck to him! Now, would you be so good as to pour me a brandy. To the brim of the glass, please. My joints ache and I wish to sleep.”

Simon turned toward a wheeled trolley where his father kept spirits in a variety of crystal decanters. He lifted one filled with amber liquor and reached for a snifter. His mind far from his task, he recalled the sight of Aaron Clayton murmuring into Daphne’s shell-like ear and felt an uncontrollable jolt of anger. Without warning, the crystal snifter slipped from his hand.

“Jesu!” he cursed as the glass shattered on the silver tray with a crash. “The damnable thing has broken to smithereens!”

And with it, perhaps, had Simon Hopkins’s heart.

Chapter 21

A busboy, his features contorted with alarm and dismay, stood beside the remains of an entire tray of teacups that he had unwittingly dropped on the Eola Hotel kitchen floor.

“Oh, Christ, Henry,” Eric, the maitre d’, exclaimed. “You’re supposed to look through this window before barrelin’ out of here,” he admonished, pointing at the double doors that the waiters used to enter and exit the hotel kitchen. With exasperation, Eric stared at the rubble and then at Daphne, who appeared equally dismayed. “You okay?” he asked hurriedly. “No cuts from flying crockery?”

“I-I don’t think so,” she stammered. “No,” she added more confidently. “I’m fine. I’m sorry if I got in the way.”

“No
…
no, Henry here just got an attack of butterfingers, and I was probably movin’ too fast through those doors, myself.” He turned to the busboy. “Just clean all this up,” he directed. “And look next time, okay? I will, too.”

Shaken, both by the loud crash and this latest glimpse of long deceased ancestors, Daphne peered once again through the windows of the kitchen’s double doors into the lounge. With dread, she scanned the cluster of small tables, each covered in a starched linen cloth and decorated with a bud vase containing a single rose.

“Oh, my God,” she exclaimed aloud.

I
wasn’t hallucinating
, she thought.
At
least, not about this. Jack and Francesca Hayes are still sitting right there!

“What?” Eric demanded.

Daphne bit her lip and shook her head. “Oh, nothing. It’s just not my day either.” Eric gave her a quizzical look, shrugged, and returned to his post at the restaurant reservations desk.

As for Daphne, she resolutely inhaled five even breaths to steady her nerves, lifted her chin, and crossed the carpeted lounge where afternoon tea was well under way. How long had she been “gone,” she wondered, glancing at her watch. It was just a few minutes after four. The chill she felt had little to do with the sight of her ex-fiancé and Sim’s ex-wife sitting together at a cozy table ten feet from her harp.

Why were these distressing vignettes happening with increasing frequency? she wondered worriedly. She thought of the ominous predictions the senior Simon Hopkins had made about “tainted blood.” Had the modern Whitaker line—and thus, the Duvallons, too—been saddled with some questionable DNA?

Disturbed, she swept past Jack and Francesca without a glance, reminding herself that the inbreeding endemic among old Southern families like hers might have been mitigated by the injection of new Yankee blood. That is, if the opportunistic Aaron Clayton turned out to be Maddy’s direct ancestor—and in a roundabout way, Daphne Whitaker Duvallon’s as well!

Saved? Or a case of double jeopardy? she wondered grimly.

Well, as they say in N’awlins, ’round here, everybody’s related to everybody, sugar! And in my case, that’s probably twice as true.

Daphne focused her attention on the first musical selection. Despite her best efforts, however, she was acutely aware of the oddly matched pair sitting to her right, and she willed them to finish their pot of Darjeeling and be on their way.

No such luck. Forty minutes later, Jack and Francesca ordered a second pot and another round of tea sandwiches and appeared to be settling in for the new millennium. Just about the time Daphne was scheduled to take her break, Francesca leaned down and drew out some legal-looking briefs from a heavy, black leather briefcase. Daphne seized this chance and made a dash for the ladies’ room. Within minutes, she realized she’d miscalculated.

She was standing at the sink washing her hands when Francesca Hayes walked in.

“You play wonderfully,” Sim’s former wife volunteered with a warm smile. Her voice had a rich timbre that probably carried well in a courtroom.

“Thanks,” Daphne said stiffly, reaching for a paper towel.

Francesca was even more attractive in person than her picture in the newspaper. She was a tall woman, slender, and elegantly attired in camel slacks and a tailored silk shirt the color of cappuccino. Her straight, shiny brunette hair was tucked behind ears adorned with gold jewelry that Daphne knew must be eighteen karat. The woman had the unmistakable look of a thoroughbred.

“You don’t know me,” the attorney said, waiting for Daphne to toss her towel into the wastebasket so she could shake her proffered hand.

Oh, yes I do!

“I’m Francesca Hayes. I’m working with your
…
with Jack,” she said, as if no further explanations were required.

“Yes,” Daphne replied, barely masking her annoyance. “I read the paper.”

“He told me I’d love your playing, and he was right. I’m a member of the San Francisco Symphony Guild and—can you believe it—I always put my chair backstage during Saturday morning rehearsals in a spot where I have a clear view of the harpist.” She chuckled as if the joke were on her. “It’s always been a secret desire of mine to learn to play but, of course, I’ve never found the time.”

“Really?” Daphne replied coolly.

“And it’s also pretty strange, isn’t it,” Francesca said with a laugh, “that Jack met my ex-husband in Natchez and then, through him, discovered that my legal specialties dovetail perfectly with the mission of Able Petroleum—and
voilà
—here I am!”

“So all these happy coincidences are due to Jack’s skill as an Internet sleuth?” Daphne remarked tersely.

“Look,” Francesca said, shrugging, “there’s no need for us to create
The
Clash
of
the
Titans
here. Jack has already told me that you and Sim are… friends.”

“Oh, I’m sure he has.”

“Sim and I have been divorced for nearly ten years,” she said. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re friends now, and I wish him all the best.” She smiled at Daphne. “You, too,” she added encouragingly. “I adore classical music, and I really loved your playing just now. I hope that while I’m working in Mississippi, we might get to know each other better. Jack says—”

“Speaking of Jack,” Daphne interrupted, “you and he are working together to finesse a toxic dump next to an established bird sanctuary. I’m totally
opposed
to that,” she added flatly, “so even if you took Simon Hopkins out of the equation, I don’t think we have much common ground for friendship, Ms. Hayes.”

Ten years as a single woman in a big city was a long time, Daphne reflected, sizing up the woman’s chic persona. Maybe Sim’s perceived sins didn’t seem so bad, now that his former wife had had a decade to think about them. Why would a hotshot trial lawyer from the West Coast accept a run-of-the-mill consulting assignment in a small potatoes place like Mississippi? Had the worldly Ms. Hayes ambushed her presumed rival in a hotel ladies’ room to scope out the competition and rattle her a bit? Hadn’t legal pit bulls like her been known to employ such tactics before?