Frowning, Edward glanced toward Shelby’s door. Shuffling over, he put his ear to the panels. Nothing.
When he did the same to Moe’s? He could hear them both, the strong Southern drawls going back and forth like the fiddle and the banjo of a Bluegrass Band.
Edward closed his eyes for a moment and sagged against the closed door.
Then he picked himself up and caned his way down those stairs, out onto that grass, and back to his cottage.
This time he had no problem opening his booze. Or pouring it into his glass.
It was during his second serving that he realized it was Friday. Friday night.
Wasn’t that a lucky draw.
He had a date, too.
TWENTY-SIX
Sutton Smythe looked over the crowd that had filled the Charlemont Museum of Art’s main gallery space to capacity. So many faces she recognized, both those she knew personally and those she had seen on newscasts, on television, and on the big screen. Many people waved at her as they caught her eye, and she was cordial enough, lifting her palm in return.
She hoped that none of them came up to her.
She wasn’t interested in connecting over a kiss on the cheek and an inquiry about their spouse or an introduction to their escort of the night. She didn’t want to be thanked, yet again, for her generous donation last month of ten million dollars to kick-start the capital campaign for the museum’s expansion. She also didn’t want to have to acknowledge her father’s permanent loan of that Rembrandt or the Fabergé egg that had been gifted outright in honor of her dearly departed mother.
Sutton wanted to be left alone to search the crowd for that one face she was looking for.
The one face she wanted … needed … to see.
But Edward Baldwine was, once again, not coming. And she knew this not because she’d been standing here in the shadows for the past hour and a half as the guests arrived to the party she was throwing on behalf of her family, but because she’d insisted on seeing a copy of the RSVP list once a week, and then daily, leading up to the event.
He hadn’t responded at all. No, “Yes, I shall attend with pleasure,” nor any “No, I am sending my regrets.”
Could she really be surprised?
And yet it hurt. In fact, the only reason she’d gone to William Baldwine’s party the night before was in hopes of seeing Edward in his own home. After he had not returned her calls for days, months, and now years, she had thought that maybe he would make an appearance at his father’s table and they could organically reconnect.
But no. Edward had not been there, either—
“Miss Smythe, we’re ready to seat the guests, if that’s all right with you? The salads are down on the tables.”
Sutton smiled at the woman with the clipboard and the earpiece. “Yes, let’s dim the lights. I’ll make my remarks as soon as they’re in their chairs.”
“Very well, Miss Smythe.”
Sutton took a deep breath and watched the herd of expensive cattle do what they were told and find their places at all those round tables with their elaborate centerpieces, and their golden plates, and their engraved menus on top of linen napkins.
Back before the tragedy, Edward had always been at these things: Shooting her sardonic smiles as yet another person glommed on to him to ask him for money for their causes. Asking her to dance as a rescue maneuver when she got cornered by a close talker. Looking at her and winking … just because he could.
They had been friends since Charlemont Country Day. Business competitors since he’d graduated from Wharton and she’d gotten her MBA from the University of Chicago. Social cohorts since they’d entered the charity-dinner circuit when her mother had passed and his had started to go to her room with greater and greater frequency.
They had never been lovers.
She had wanted to them to be. For as long as she had known him, it seemed. But Edward had stayed away, sticking to the sidelines, even setting her up with other people
Her heart had always been his for the taking, but she’d never had the guts to walk over that line that he’d seemed so very determined to draw between them.
And then … two years ago had happened. Dear Lord, when she’d heard about him heading off for another of those South American business trips of his, she’d had a premonition, a warning, a bad feeling. But she hadn’t called him. Reached out. Tried to get him to take more security or something.
So in some way, she had always felt partially responsible. Maybe if she’d …
But who was she kidding. He wouldn’t have stopped going down there for any reason other than bad weather. Edward had been a true competitor in the liquor industry, the heir apparent to the Bradford Bourbon Company not just by birthright, but by his incredible work ethic and savvy.
After the kidnapping and the ransom demand, his father, William, had tried so hard to get him free, negotiating with the kidnappers, working with the US Embassy. Everything had failed until, eventually, a special team had been sent in and had rescued Edward.