A Summer In Europe (40 page)

“He will—in ten minutes. Now’s your chance to either warn him or wait it out and watch him squirm. Your choice.” She shooed him toward the back door, over his objections and despite the worried looks he kept shooting at Gwen. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Emerson. Stop looking so terrified. I’m not going to eat her. Not when I have a nice sausage-and-egg scramble for our tea.” Her eyes glittered with a look Gwen recognized from having been around her sons: speculation and strategy, mixed with a dash of mischievousness. “Leave us alone for a moment.”

Reluctantly, Emerson walked inside and Gwen could tell that, despite the kindness in her expression, his mother was not a woman whose word one disobeyed.

Lucia sighed happily. “Oh, this is delightful. Now that we’re finally alone, I have an important question or two to ask you.”

Gwen nodded, steeling herself for an onslaught of intensely personal and most likely embarrassing queries. She couldn’t have guessed more wrongly.

“I’m planting pink hydrangeas and white baby carnations on either side of the patio door,” Emerson’s mother informed her, pointing at the two sides. “The two planters on the left are turquoise-glazed pottery, rectangular, with the dimensions of one foot by two feet each. The three flowerpots on the right are brick-red ceramic tile, circular, with a diameter of eighteen inches each. Now, if I have more carnation plants than hydrangeas, on which side should I plant them?”

Gwen calculated. “The baby carnations should be on the right,” she answered, almost immediately.

“Why?” Lucia asked.

“Two reasons,” Gwen said, shifting into logic mode. “I know you’re an artist. From a color standpoint, you wouldn’t pair pink with brick red. Pink would go with the turquoise and white with the brick red. But, also, from a mathematical standpoint, the total area of the round pots is larger than the area of the planters. So it would make sense to put the carnations on the right side, where the colors would be a better match and they would have more space to grow.”

Lucia, giddy with some internal source of mirth, licked her bottom lip like a cat and grinned broadly. “I like you, Gwendolyn Reese. Not only is your assessment of the colors correct, but your math is impeccable as well.” Then, as if to prove she was very much Thoreau and Emerson’s mother—not only in math and strategy, but in high drama, too—she added, “In the game of life, I think people are a lot like plants. Figuring out what type of flower someone is helps determine where they’d be happiest. Where they’d grow best. What nutrients they’d need. Which pot would be the most appropriate fit, so to speak.”

Gwen smiled noncommittally. Was Emerson’s mom going to tell her that she thought Gwen was like some kind of weird plant? A milk thistle, perhaps? A snapdragon?

“And Thoreau had no idea how very right he was,” Lucia mused, leading Gwen in a circuitous path around the yard that, eventually, brought them to a garden wall near the side of the house, which featured an artistically designed tile mosaic the brothers must have done when they were boys.

Gwen saw Emerson’s handprint when he was, maybe, about six years old. Involuntarily, she reached out to touch it, smiling at those little fingers and tracing a few of them with her own. “Thoreau was right about what?” she asked.

“That you belong with my son,” Lucia stated.

Gwen swallowed and gently shook her head. “Oh, look, um, Emerson and I are just friends and—”

Emerson’s mom laughed gaily, like she was in on some hilarious joke that, clearly, Gwen had missed. “I wasn’t speaking of Emerson, darling,” Lucia said. “But I do think you may be utterly perfect for Thoreau.”

This Gwen could say with certainty: The Forrester family’s machinations on
The Bold and the Beautiful
had nothing on morning tea with the Edwards clan.

Still reeling from Lucia’s comment, Gwen trailed after her as she spun once on her toes and headed inside. “No, I don’t think—” Gwen began, but Lucia cut her off.

“Do me one small favor, dearie—and do yourself one, too—watch Thoreau. Take a good long look at him. Consider him as an option. Carefully. Don’t dismiss the idea too quickly.”

What was Gwen supposed to say to that?
No, I don’t want to consider your eldest son ... ?
It was bad enough sorting through her conflicting feelings about Emerson and Richard; she didn’t want to toss Thoreau in there anywhere. Not when she’d already kissed his brother. Not when she had an almost-fiancé back home. But, again, Lucia Edwards was not a woman one openly disobeyed, so Gwen clamped her mouth shut and followed her into the living room.

A pretty, dark-haired woman was there, standing awkwardly between the two men. Amanda, Gwen guessed. And the tableaux the three of them made looked very much like one of those soap-opera cutaway moments when the actress the viewers had been following walked into a room, only to find herself in the midst of a heated drama being played out before her.

Lucia brushed past Gwen and hugged the woman. “Amanda, darling. So glad you could join us.” She beamed a bright smile at her boys. “I’ll leave you two to the introductions so I might finish up in the kitchen. I’m feeling rather peckish now. Tea will be served in ten minutes.” She glided away.

“Hi,” Gwen said politely.

“Hello,” Amanda replied, adding a small wave.

Emerson, who’d looked plenty concerned on the car ride over and in the backyard, was even less relaxed now. The crease between his brows deepened when he spotted Gwen behind his mother, while Thoreau, whose complexion was already heightened by some unspecified emotion, could only nod distractedly at her as his brother belatedly introduced the women.

She and Amanda shared a glance and, in that one instant of eye contact, Gwen deduced something important: Amanda was at least as nervous as Gwen was, and she was also
nice
. She might not be perfect. Thoreau might have relationships issues with her. But she was a good person. She wasn’t here to play games. Like Gwen, she was here because Lucia had demanded it and because—also like Gwen—she had a sense of loyalty toward one of the Edwards brothers. Thoreau, of course, in Amanda’s case. Gwen turned an interested eye on him. He caught her gaze and returned it, looking perplexed.

When they were called in for the light meal, she did as his mother had asked and studied him. Carefully, just as Lucia had requested. She saw Emerson watching her, even more bemused than his brother, but other than a hastily whispered, “What did my mother say to you outside?”—to which she’d shrugged and murmured, “Nothing very serious”—the conversation that swirled around them at the table was deceptively ordinary and civil:

“Would you like more tea? Cream, milk or sugar?”

“And how did you find Vienna? Beautiful this time of year ...”

“Shall I pass you the scones? Some apricot jam, perhaps?”

Thoreau caught Gwen looking at him at the table, too, but his gaze immediately shifted over to Amanda, who was doing her best to navigate the disquieting normalcy of the meal with a smile and a resolute attitude. Gwen wondered at that. Wondered at their relationship and how it had weathered the weeks apart. There was something between the two of them—that much was obvious. But it wasn’t until Lucia asked Amanda a question about her summer that Gwen saw the first real flash of truth. The dark-haired woman responded with an almost imperceptible grimace before explaining, in a strikingly cheery tone, that she’d spent a fun holiday week with her sister and young nieces. Gwen’s gaze shot back to Thoreau and saw a bolt of pain in his expression that he quickly masked by reaching for another serving of egg-and-sausage scramble.

Ah. Real emotion. Right there.

Lucia might be the mother of both of these men, but Gwen was sure she was dead wrong about her eldest son. No matter what Thoreau himself might have said, his heart was tangled up with Amanda’s. There was nothing between him and Gwen. Nothing she would have wanted there to be, either. Even if Emerson in no way factored into the equation, she still wouldn’t have chosen his brother. Didn’t Lucia know that? What game was their mother playing?

“Would you like to try a new tea? The chamomile now?” Lucia asked Gwen, pointing to the teapot a few inches from Thoreau’s place setting. “Or do you prefer the original English breakfast blend?” She indicated the teapot nearest Emerson.

Gwen met her gaze. “The
original,
please.”

A corner of Lucia’s mouth lifted in a grin. “Are you quite sure?”

“Yes,” Gwen said decidedly.

Lucia’s eyes twinkled as she asked Emerson to refresh Gwen’s teacup.

Emerson glanced between the two women and chewed some more on his bottom lip. “We ought to get going,” he said at the earliest possible moment. “Thoreau and I don’t need to join in the London sightseeing today, but I do need to make sure Gwen is back in time for the tour.”

Amanda piped up with a pressing commitment for the afternoon, too. Thoreau immediately offered to see her out and, soon, the quintet was disbanded. Before Gwen could escape the Edwards house, however, Lucia cornered her alone one more time.

“Thank you for taking my request seriously,” Lucia murmured, “even though you seemed to come to a decision rather swiftly.”

Gwen nodded and took a step back. “Thoreau and Amanda belong together. I don’t know what he might have said to make you think otherwise, but they’re clearly committed to each other.”

“Yes, and you helped that along nicely.”

“How do you mean?” Gwen asked.

Lucia leaned closer and lowered her voice even more. “Over the past month, Thoreau told me about how he tried a few times to worry his brother into thinking there might be something between the two of you. Thoreau is not used to having the tables turned on him, however. He’s too often the manipulator in social stratagems. Even Emerson doesn’t go to Thoreau’s extremes in playing out his chess moves with real people. Thoreau needed to feel the sting of his meddling, if only to make it clear what he’d be losing if he didn’t play things straight with his lady friend.”

Gwen processed this. The morning had clearly been some sort of ploy on Lucia’s part to ... what? Be a matchmaker? Teach Thoreau a lesson? Kind of an ironic way to go about it. “So, you were just trying to make Thoreau uncomfortable?”

Lucia smiled peacefully and nodded. “People don’t change unless they’re made uncomfortable, Gwen. It was a useful tutorial for Thoreau. And, of course, I needed to shake up Emerson a bit while I was at it. Sorry not to explain this all in advance, but you would not have reacted so perfectly and naturally if I’d clued you in.”

Gwen crossed her arms and stared at the woman. This was one bizarrely dysfunctional family. Was every freaking thing they did part of a big strategy game?

“Emerson has been very kind to me,” she said coolly, the irritation she felt making her valiant. “And I can’t say I like the way you and Thoreau have been trying to control him.” She exhaled. “He and I are
friends
. And, as a friend, I don’t want to see him hurt. Please don’t use me as a pawn in a game like that again.”

Lucia laughed and wind chimes danced in the air. “You’re no pawn, Gwen. Not really. But I truly apologize for my interference.” She observed her with those shrewd eyes. “Of course, if that’s how you feel, I’m relieved. You deserve him, then.”

Gwen opened her mouth to contradict but Lucia waved her off.

“No, I’m quite sincere. I’ll be interested to learn how it all works out. It will, of course, be up to you to decide if he deserves
you
.” Lucia let that thought hang in the air between them for a few moments before seeing Gwen to the door, where Emerson was waiting with palpable impatience. He’d somehow managed to keep it under control, but his intensity all but made the light waves vibrate. “Just fascinating!” his mother said, under her breath. “Pity you don’t live in England, Gwen. We could do this more often.”

Gwen couldn’t quite bring herself to agree, but when she saw the fierce concern in Lucia’s eyes as she said good-bye to both of her sons, Gwen would have been blind not to recognize how much their mother loved them. She was manipulative and meddlesome—a dangerous combination—but she was also trying to make sure, in her own way, that her boys were happy. Gwen sensed Lucia would do whatever it took to achieve that.

While she doubted her own mother would have gone quite as far as Emerson’s, her mom
might
have—had she been given the chance. Aunt Bea, in trying to parent a motherless child, had pulled her own strings, hadn’t she? Played her own kinds of games ... And Gwen realized how grateful she was to her aunt for that. For loving her enough to be intrusive, even at the risk of irritating her. For caring so much that no small thing—like Gwen’s fragile heart—could be overlooked.

Emerson drove the short distance to the bed-and-breakfast and dropped her off before noon—time enough to collect her belongings and take the final bus trip of the tour.

“I apologize for my mum, although I did warn you,” he said, pulling into the parking lot, but letting his car idle. “Er, what was with all of those looks between you and my brother?”

She shook her head. “Nothing, really. Just watching to see how often he kept tabs on Amanda. He likes her a lot. Loves her, maybe.”

Emerson relaxed, marginally. “That he does. It’s been odd to see him work so hard to change. For him, you realize, it’s a big risk
not
to commit quickly. I can respect him for that, even though I don’t entirely understand the drive to do it.”

She pressed her lips together and tried to smile. “I think I
do
understand. Entirely,” she admitted. “I think he hopes that by committing—by getting the most significant pieces of his life in order as soon as possible—he’ll be able to control something that really can’t be controlled.” She sighed. “It’s a kind of insurance. A security thing. A way to ward off the sense of chaos that’s just at the end of our fingertips. Life is uncertain. Choosing a mate quickly makes it seem less so somehow. You’ve got an ally with you then.”

He listened and seemed to be studying the contours of her face as she spoke. “That makes sense, I suppose. I always thought it was rather the opposite, though. Kind of a selfish thing. That bringing a mate into the chaos would make both people more unstable, rather than be a means of steadying each of them. I’ll have to think on that some more.” He cocked his head to one side. “I know you’re not free to date other men, but you should know something. Knowing you has been ... a good influence on me.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Thanks.”