Sign of the Throne: Book One in the Solas Beir Trilogy (9 page)

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Corbin,” Abby said, hoping David hadn’t noticed the way Cassandra emphasized his introduction. “And you as well, David,” she said, glancing at him and smiling politely.

“Nice to meet you, Abby,” Margaret replied. She smiled warmly and shook hands with Abby.

The woman was dressed to the nines in heels and a tailored suit jacket and skirt. Abby had never seen anyone dressed so formally for running errands. Her own mother tended to wear jeans and flip-flops when she went out. Then again, Abby’s mother had little need to visit a tailor and had never designed her own dress. Talk about living in different worlds.

David stepped forward, and Abby found herself staring into his intense blue eyes as he took her hand. He didn’t say anything, but he smiled slightly when he shook her hand, and then held on to it a few seconds longer than necessary before releasing his grip. Abby smiled back and then lowered her eyes when she realized she was still staring at him. Thankfully, Cassandra came to her rescue.

“Abby has been watching my children,” she said. “She’ll be starting at the university next fall. Riordan and I just love her—she and her friend Jonathon Reyes will be our guests at the ball.”

“That’s wonderful,” said Margaret. “Philip’s business partner and his wife, and their daughter, Amelia, will be joining us at our table. They always stay at the inn when they visit from London, and this year we get to treat them to the ball. It really
is
the best party of the year, Abby. I’m sure you’ll have a fantastic time. Don’t you think so, David?”

David seemed absorbed in his own thoughts. Hearing his name, he made eye contact again with Abby. “Yes, I’m sure she will.” He smiled again slightly.

“Well, it was nice to see you both,” Cassandra said. “We’ve got to be off. Abby promised to help me find a dress today. David, I’m sure Moira will want to see you—will you stop by some time?”

David turned to look at Cassandra, breaking eye contact with Abby. “Of course,” he said. “Please let her know I’ll visit her soon.”

As Margaret Corbin chatted with the tailor, David stared out the shop window, watching Abby walk down La Playa Boulevard with Cassandra. It looked like they were headed toward the shopping district located south of Newcastle Beach.

Now he knew her name, and he knew there was a very good chance he would see her again, since she was associated with the Buchan family. He would definitely be stopping by their house soon. Hopefully he’d run into Abby there, but if not, he thought he might be able to tease some information out of Cassandra. And if nothing else, he now knew that she would be attending the Autumn Ball.

He frowned. Cassandra had said that Abby was going with Jonathon Reyes. David didn’t know the guy personally, but he had heard plenty about him. Jon was the flirt Michal was always complaining about. It sounded like the guy flirted with a lot of girls at the pool. David wondered if Jon flirted with Abby too. Probably, since she worked at the pool with him. But Cassandra had used the term
friend
, rather than boyfriend. He wondered how much Cassandra knew about Abby and Jon’s relationship. Yes, a reconnaissance mission at the Buchan house was definitely in order.

Cassandra and Abby were browsing the boutiques in Santa Linda’s premier shopping district along Calle de Oro, otherwise known as the Street of Gold. On the west side of the street were a series of hotels perched on the cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. While Cassandra was thumbing through a rack of formal dresses, Abby was staring out the boutique window, watching a hotel valet accept the keys to an impressive red convertible. She had a feeling that people who could afford a room in one of those hotels would have an amazing view of Newcastle Beach. Of course, people with that kind of money probably lived in a community like Newcastle Beach anyway.

“Well that was…different,” Cassandra said.

Abby turned to look at her. “What do you mean?” Wide-eyed, Abby thought back to her conversation at the tailor’s. Had she said anything embarrassing in front of David and his mom?

“David,” Cassandra said, seemingly oblivious to Abby’s inner angst. “He’s never been the most talkative person, but he was really quiet today. I think he took an interest in you though.”

“Really?” Abby asked, a little too enthusiastically. She toned it down. “What makes you think that?”

“I’m not sure,” Cassandra admitted. “A gut feeling. And the fact that he barely made eye contact with me the whole time. He seemed entirely focused on you.”

“I thought he just felt uncomfortable,” Abby said. “I mean, we kind of stood there, awkwardly staring at each other—”

Cassandra laughed. “Oh, I wouldn’t say he was staring at you awkwardly. I think he was rather fascinated by you.”

Now Abby laughed. “Oh, I doubt that.”

“No really, Abby. I think he was intrigued. It looked to me like he didn’t know what to make of you and was trying to figure you out,” Cassandra said. She stopped browsing and turned to look at Abby. “You have to understand that his world is pretty different from yours, Abby. The kind of girls he’s known growing up…”

“I know,” Abby sighed, resigned.

“No, I don’t think you do,” Cassandra said.

Abby looked at her. “Sorry?”

“You have
no
idea how attractive you are, do you?” Cassandra asked. She put her hands on her hips and studied Abby’s face.

Abby looked away. “Attractive? I think that’s stretching it a bit,” she said, laughing nervously.

“No, really,” Cassandra said. “Sure, the girls in Newcastle tend to be very pretty. They’ve got good genes working in their favor. It’s no secret that wealthy people tend to end up with attractive spouses, so it stands to reason that they have good-looking children. But the girls I’ve met are also rather self-absorbed. They’ve had things handed to them—they’ve never had to struggle to get what they want.”

Abby frowned. “Yeah, well, Jon says David has had everything handed to him too.”

Cassandra crossed her arms. “That’s because our friend Mr. Reyes has a serious crush on you, and he’s not going to let you go without a fight. He won’t be giving any points to David, I can promise you that,” Cassandra said. “Jon is smart, but he’s not objective, at least not when it comes to you. But I’ve known David longer than Jon has, and I can tell you that he may have come from a wealthy family, but he’s not spoiled. Meg and Philip did a good job with him. I’m serious though, Abby, you have no idea how other people see you. Not only are you beautiful, but you know who you are and what you want. You’ve been tested and tried, and you insist on living on your own terms, no matter the cost. Inner strength like that is very attractive to a boy like David.”

“I guess so,” Abby said. “I mean, I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t know—”

“No, trust me on this—that’s what first attracted Riordan to me,” Cassandra said. She took a dress from the rack and studied it.

Abby smiled. “Now, the way
I
heard it was that Riordan saw you walking across the university commons and thought you were the most enchanting woman he had ever seen,” Abby said. “I believe he quoted, actually
quoted,
Keats’s ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci.’ I suspect it had something to do with the color of your hair and his weakness for a girl with a Scottish heritage.”

Cassandra laughed. “Well
that
goes without saying. I am quite a vision. But seriously, looks only go so far. Trust me, and don’t write David off just yet.”

Abby shrugged. “I guess we’ll see.”

“I guess we will,” Cassandra said, returning the dress to its place on the rack. “All right. No luck finding something for me to wear in this store. Onward.” She and Abby left the boutique and walked down to Cassandra’s favorite shop in the Gold District.

Abby had no idea what to make of Cassandra’s analysis of David or her continued dreams about him.
Okay, universe, what are you trying to tell me?
she thought. She had started to think she must be wrong about David and the dreams, and had tried so hard to forget about the whole thing. And yet, here she was again, thinking about him, torturing herself over something that could mean everything, or nothing at all. Maybe it was all just a coincidence. And maybe none of it mattered anyway if David was really leaving the country.

She focused instead on being in the moment with Cassandra, enjoying vicarious shopping and trying to be helpful in offering her opinion of the dresses Cassandra selected to try on.

Cassandra had two main concerns when it came to finding a dress. She was petite, so it was hard to find one that didn’t leave her swimming in fabric. And her auburn hair, though gorgeous, tended to clash with certain colors.

Upon trying her tenth dress, Cassandra announced, “I feel like an eggplant.”

“No, violet’s good on you,” Abby assured her. “It’s a pretty contrast with your hair.”

“Is it? I swear I look like a giant grape.” Cassandra moved in close to the full-length mirror and studied her face, pulling the crow’s feet near her eyes taut. “Or maybe a raisin. Either way, I should
not
spend this much time in front of a mirror. One more dress and I’m done for today.” Cassandra looked in the mirror one more time, scowled at the dress, and ducked back into the dressing room.

“How about the green one?” Abby called after her.

A few minutes later, Cassandra reappeared in the doorway of the dressing room. “This one?” she asked.

Abby stared at her. “Wow. Stunning!”

Cassandra grinned and struck an over-the-top pose, with one hand on her hip and the other in her hair. “Think so?”

Abby laughed, nodding with approval. “Most definitely! It looks fantastic!”

The dress looked great and she could tell Cassandra knew it. The one-shouldered, form-fitting gown was a peridot jewel tone that complemented Cassandra’s hazel eyes. A line of embroidered flowers accented in tiny crystals cascaded diagonally from the shoulder across the dress to her waist.

“Oh, you’re an angel,” Cassandra said. “Thank you—I like it too. I do believe I have found
the
dress.”

“It
is
the dress. It’s perfect.” Abby smiled. The gown was just so Cassandra. It was like someone had taken her flitting pixie personality and embodied it into the very fabric of the dress.

“You, my dear, have impeccable taste, you know that?” Cassandra said. “If not for you, I’d have given up and gone as a purple people eater.”

That night, Abby had a nightmare. The scene before her was so vivid that she thought she was awake. Her closet door was open, and in the darkness within, she saw a black presence coming toward her. She couldn’t make out details, but the form was humanoid and devoid of light, much blacker than the surrounding darkness of her bedroom.

Suddenly, she heard something pecking at her window, followed by the frantic beating of feathered wings against the glass. Something was trying to get in.

Abby startled awake, momentarily frozen with fear when she heard tapping against the glass. The shadow had remained in the dream, but something was at the window.

She got out of bed and walked over to the window, jumping back when a small pebble hit the glass in front of her face. “Jon,” she whispered, annoyed. She wrenched up the second story window and looked down.

He grinned up at her and put a finger to his lips, gesturing toward the tree house.

“
Jerk,”
she mouthed, smiling. “Be right down
.
”

Jon watched as a pajama-clad Abby quietly closed the back door behind her and crept down the porch steps to where he was waiting.

“Hi,” she whispered, grinning.

“Hi.” He had an afghan draped over his arm, and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Come sit with me.” He turned and climbed the ladder to the tree house.

Now that he had reached his full height, the inside of the tree house was much too small for him to squeeze into. But the roof was flat, and since the autumn leaves were thinning in the canopy overhead, it was a great place to stargaze. He climbed up onto the tiny porch and then side-stepped over to a thick branch, which he used to boost himself up onto the roof.

Once he was settled, Abby climbed up the ladder and tossed him the afghan. Then, carefully, in her pajamas and slippers, she navigated the branches beside the tree house to reach the roof. Jon reached out his hand to assist her and pulled her up beside him.

“Thanks,” she said, smiling at him. She took back the afghan and nestled in next to him on the roof. She looked him over. “Hey—how come I’m wearing pajamas and you’re not?”

Jon chuckled, looking
down at his worn-out sweatpants and faded T-shirt. “These
are
my pajamas.”

“Oh,” she said. “Very stylish.”