He nodded.
"Yes, I had a feeling it wasn't with a 'y' and an ‘e’," she murmured. "Didn't I see you at the Congress Club recently?"
"Maybe."
"Whose guest were you?"
Grace interrupted. "When are Jackson and Blair coming?"
Turning to her daughter, Carolina said, "They should be arriving any minute. We will be ten for dinner tonight, with Mr. Cobith, the Raleighs, and the Blankenbakers. Marta is working on a fabulous roast beef."
There was a pause and Carolina glanced back at Smith, fixing her eyes on his leather jacket. "We dress for dinner here."
When he neither looked away, nor showed any reaction, her mother's brow rose.
Grace jumped in again. "I think we better get settled. Why don't I show John to his room."
"He is in the green suite."
With Wilhelm and Smith behind her, Grace headed up the staircase. On the upper landing, she asked Wilhelm to take her bags to her room and took Smith down the hall in the opposite direction.
When she opened the door to a masculine room steeped in dark greens and wood, he didn't even bother looking inside.
"Where are you sleeping?" he asked.
"At the other end of the house. This is the guest wing."
“How far away?"
"Down the hall, take a left, go past the stairs. I'm the corner room, ocean side."
"Show me."
Grace noticed that he kept his bags with him as they went to her room.
"Who's across the hall from you?" he asked as she opened her door.
"I don't know. Probably no one."
"Then I'm taking that room."
"But you can't—"
His cocked eyebrow stopped her. "Unless you want me sleeping on your floor?"
When she shook her head vigorously, he walked into the other room.
As his bags landed with a thump, Grace tried to corral her anxiety into a manageable bundle of snakes. It was highly unlikely her mother would venture outside the new first floor master suite to check exactly who was sleeping where.
Although it wasn't completely outside the realm of possibility.
Grace went into her own room, feeling frustrated at her mother. At Smith. Most of all at herself. In the grand scheme of things, she had to wonder why she was so scared of giving a guest of hers another room to sleep in. She was thirty now, for Chrissakes. When was she going to be enough of an adult to stand up to her mother?
If she kept on her current course, she was going to be gumming soft foods and using a walker before she found her backbone with that woman.
As Grace looked around, she felt time contract. She'd spent some, if not all, of every summer at Newport and the room hadn't changed in thirty years. The drapes and wallpaper were the same pale yellow they'd always been and the furniture hadn't been moved since she'd graduated from the nursery into her "grown-up room" when she was three. The windows, which overlooked the ocean and the gardens, still let in the light in a familiar pattern across the floor. And the French doors, which opened out onto the terrace, made that comforting, chatty noise as the offshore breeze came up against the house.
Grace opened one of the doors and stepped onto the second-story porch, which ran around the house. Down below, past the gardens and the lawn, the ocean rushed and retreated at the shore. It was a sound she associated with the house, with her room. With happy times.
When she heard footsteps behind her, she stiffened.
"I just wish you weren't so conspicuous—" She turned. "Jack!"
Grace laughed out loud and threw her arms around her friend. She was pulling back, a wide smile on her face, when she caught Smith watching the two of them from the hall with narrowed eyes.
"Er, John," she said, stepping back into the room. "I'd like you to meet an old friend of mine, Jack Walker."
Jack smiled in the direction of the doorway but then cocked an eyebrow. "Well, this is a pleasure. How are you doing, stranger?"
Tensions rose as Smith came in from the hall and the men shook hands. As they squared off at each other, she remembered that night at the Congress and wondered what had sparked such friction between them.
"Where's Blair?" she asked, hoping to diffuse the testosterone surging in the air.
Although if that was the goal, she'd probably have better luck giving the two of them a manicure and a makeover.
Jack looked over at her. "Blair cracked a molar and needed a root canal. She stayed behind to have a bonding experience with her endodentist and a hell of a lot of Novocain. She'll be here, on Motrin, sometime tomorrow."
Grace grimaced. "Sorry to hear that."
"And Ranulf?"
"Not here. Busy." The words rushed out of her mouth. "He's been very busy. He's in Europe. Being busy."
Oh, that sounded believable, she thought, remembering wryly that there must have been a time when she'd been articulate.
Jack gave her a wink and slipped a casual arm around her shoulders. "It's just as well. What they don't know, can't hurt them."
Grace watched as Smith stalked out of the room.
It was going to be a hell of a long weekend, she thought.
chapter
15
By the time drinks were served in the library, night had settled in and the temperature had dropped. To cut the chill, Wilhelm had started a fire in the fireplace and Grace stood with her back to the flames, sipping a chardonnay.
The room was one of her favorites in the house because, unlike most of the others, it wasn't cavernous. The walls were covered with bookcases of leather bound volumes and she'd always liked the way the gold lettering on the spines glowed in the firelight. Armchairs and couches, covered in dark red silk, were stationed strategically by the windows for reading and heavy velvet drapes fell to the floor in great sweeps. A dark ruby oriental rug added to the jewel-like color scheme.
When she was younger, she'd been convinced it was a wizard's room, relocated from some fantastic place.
Jack came over to her, looking handsome in a black suit. With his patrician features and hooded eyes, Grace wondered why she'd never been attracted to him. Plenty of women were. Most women, as a matter of fact.
He smiled at her. “So, your friend doesn't say much, does he."
Grace glanced over at Smith, who was leaning up against the doorjamb across the room. He was wearing all black, though not a suit, and in the dim light, his eyes seemed especially dark.
She offered Jack a smile. "You just don't know him."
"And I'm not in a big rush to. As dinner companions go, that guy makes a cold draft seem damn appealing."
"You know, I’m really looking forward to seeing Blair tomorrow," she said, eager to stop talking about Smith. "Tell me, when are you two tying the knot?"
Jack laughed and took a drink from his bourbon. "Changing the subject. Good defensive maneuver and a particularly well-chosen topic, too. Shall we talk about the weather?"
Grace laughed. "You are going to ask her, aren't you?"
Her friend's eyes narrowed as he looked down into his drink, swirling it casually. "I’ll get around to it at some point. Who knows? Maybe even sooner rather than later."
"What are you waiting for? "
An elegant shrug was followed by a wicked smile. "The planets need to be properly aligned. My moon needs to be ascending, but for the past thirty years or so, it's been sinking fast. Or maybe it's the other way around."
"She's a lovely woman."
"I know. And she puts up with me which makes her a saint." Jack looked up. "Just don't ply me with the whole marriage is fabulous routine. My mother's been using that line a lot lately and it's losing its punch."