Dangerous Ladies (64 page)

Four, of course, stood by the liquor decanter holding two cocktails.

“That’s one way to get a head start,” Devlin said.

Four grimaced, walked to Grace, and handed her a drink.

Four didn’t look well. He was pale, his beige linen pants were rumpled, and his loafers were scuffed. Devlin shouldn’t give a damn—Four had cheated him, then made the mistake of thinking it was okay because they were friends.

Yeah.
Like it was okay for Devlin’s father to screw Grace, get her pregnant, show up a couple of times a year and lavish attention on Devlin, then abandon Devlin to the troubles his occasional appearance created. Like it was okay for Nathan to ruin his own business, take the money, walk away from his legitimate family and his illegitimate son, and never look back. Devlin had had enough of getting screwed by people who were supposed to care.

Yet long ago, when they were kids, Devlin had developed the habit of worrying about weak-willed, likable Four. No matter how hard Devlin tried, he couldn’t seem to break that tradition.

Taking Meadow over to Four, he handed her over, and spoke in his ear. “Please, Four. Keep your wits about you tonight, or my mother will have Meadow flayed for dinner.”

Four brightened, always pleased to be handed a job he knew he could manage. “Sure. I’ll keep an eye on her.” He asked Meadow, “Can I fix you a drink?”

Devlin went to Grace and kissed her cool cheek. “You look marvelous, Mother.”

“Thank you, dear. So do you.” She wore a knee-length black sheath with a red silk paisley scarf draped over her shoulders and diamond studs in her ears. Her blond hair was dressed in some swirly thing at the back of her head, and he could almost feel her exerting her will on the room. “Shall we sit down to dinner?”

“Let’s. I’m starving!” Meadow viewed the long table with dismay. “But we’re not sitting there, are we?”

“We’ll use the round table,” Grace announced.

That surprised Devlin; he would have guessed Grace wanted the length of the polished wood to properly intimidate Meadow. As it
was, sitting at the round table meant no one took the head. He wondered what Grace intended by such a democratic maneuver.

As soon as the servers had changed the settings and presented the little group with the first course, he found out.

“I’ve decided you two should remarry in a little more . . . proper . . . circumstances.” Grace’s tone made it clear a runaway wedding in Majorca was the height of immaturity. “With a little concentration and planning, we could pull it off by September.”

To Devlin’s surprise, Meadow shook out her napkin and shrugged. “Sure.”

His eyes narrowed on her. She didn’t care if his mother planned a wedding.

Why?

Because she didn’t intend to be here for it.

Because she would be in the Cascade Mountains, blowing glass—or if she stole a valuable painting from him, in jail. “Excellent idea, Mother, but surely the maven of Southern planning and propriety could accomplish a wedding in less time than that. I hear June is an excellent month to get married.”

“Pushing. Pushing,” Meadow muttered into her water glass.

“I never thought I’d see the day that you’d get married not once, but twice, in a scandalous hurry.” Four buttered a slice of his bread.

“What do you mean, in a
scandalous
hurry?” Meadow asked.

“Devlin’s
so
concerned with appearances,” Four said, “and this will look like he
had
to marry you—not once, but twice.”

“I’m not amused,” Devlin said. Not amused because perhaps, if the gods of fertility were against them, Four was right.

“Because I got pregnant, do you mean?” Meadow laughed. “Does anyone get married for that reason anymore?”

Devlin looked directly at her. “I do.”

“But that’s a recipe for failure. People marry because they have interests in common and because they’re in love, not because they accidentally”—Meadow made quotation marks with her fingers—“made a baby.”

“It’s not easy for a child to be illegitimate,” Grace said.

The intensity of her voice surprised Devlin. He hadn’t realized his mother had even noticed.

Meadow looked at the three of them as if they were speaking a different language. “Is it easy for a child to have parents who don’t care for each other? Or who divorce? I don’t think so.”

“Knowing my son, I’m sure it’s a moot point.” Grace utilized her society smile. “And it’s not as if you two are hippies running around the woods like free-range chickens, having sex willy-nilly and without protection.”

Meadow snorted into her napkin. “No, heaven forbid we should behave like free-range chickens.”

In his lap, Devlin twisted his napkin into a knot. And heaven forbid that he should have knocked Meadow up.

Before Meadow regaled them with the assurance that moonlight really did act as an aphrodisiac, Devlin said, “Perhaps, Mother, we should ask Meadow how
she
wants to celebrate her wedding.”

“I
am sure, given Meadow’s indifference to the niceties of society”—Grace coolly viewed Meadow’s skirt and blouse—“she’s happy to leave the details to me.”

Until that moment, Meadow hadn’t realized she’d fallen into a BBC costume drama. Yet here she was, the upstart who married the prince—that part was played by Devlin—and now had to prove herself worthy of her new role.

She only wished she could take it half as seriously as did Grace Fitzwilliam.

She considered how best to express her sentiments in a way Grace would understand. “As long as my friends and family are around me, the details are immaterial.”

“See?” Grace gloated at Devlin.

Meadow gave in to her spirit of mischief. “But we can’t have the ceremony until Eddy returns from Europe.”

“Is Eddy your uncle?” Grace asked.

“No, Eddy’s one of my dear friends—and my maid of honor.” Meadow beamed at Grace.

“Tell me Eddy is a variation of Edie?” Grace’s fixed smile expressed pain and hopelessness at the same time.

“I think it stands for Edmund.” Meadow frowned in overdramatic fretfulness. “But he hates that, so everybody calls him Eddy.”

Four looked between Meadow and Grace, then lifted his glass and drained it.

Devlin rose from his chair and walked to the window. He stared out into the garden.

But his shoulders were shaking. Meadow had wanted to see him laugh for a long time, so she piled it higher and deeper. “I’ve known Eddy since grade school, and we promised we would be each other’s maid of honor.”

“You promised.” Grace sounded faint.

“We used to imagine what our weddings would be like.” Meadow relished Grace’s horror. “We always knew he would be a lovelier bride than me—he’s awfully pretty—and I made him promise he wouldn’t overshadow me when I got married.”

Grace fanned herself with her hand.

“Hot flash?” Meadow asked cheerfully.

A chortle escaped Devlin.

Four covered his ears.

“I don’t have anything as vulgar as a hot flash, and if I did, it wouldn’t be proper to mention it.” Irritation tinged Grace’s cultivated tone. Leaning back, she closed her eyes. “I feel faint.”

“Only one thing to do for that.” Meadow pushed back from the table, pulled Grace’s chair out, grabbed her by the back of the neck, and pressed her head down between her knees.

Grace shrieked.

Devlin turned and stared.

“Sorry, old man.” Four threw his napkin on the table. “I’m out of here.” He left in such a hurry he almost burned a trail in the carpet.

“Best treatment for faintness.” Meadow grinned when Devlin
covered his eyes with his hand. “Nothing to worry about. She’ll be fine in a minute.”

“I’m fine now.” Grace’s voice was muffled.

“You shouldn’t come up too soon. You don’t want to faint again,” Meadow said.

Grace struggled, but Meadow held her in an untenable position. She could have wrestled her way free, but dignified Grace wouldn’t lower herself to physically fight.

At least . . . not until she was desperate. Then she shoved Meadow back and sat up, brushing at her hair with her hands. “That is quite enough of that. We’ll return to the wedding plans when you two are feeling more reasonable.” She stood.

“Don’t forget we need to discuss the party, too!” Meadow said.

Grace started to close her eyes and put her hand to her forehead in another pretended faint. Then she remembered, shot Meadow a wary look, and made quite a dignified exit, considering the fact that the back of her dress had hitched up to show an incongruously silky pink undergarment.

Devlin waited until her footsteps had faded before he burst into laughter. He laughed so hard he collapsed into a chair and held his sides.

Meadow watched him in satisfaction.

Laughter.

She’d bet he couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed like that, with all his heart and soul and body.

And amusement had a way of making him look . . . not softer, but more dashing, like a man who understood what it was to live life to the fullest without the suspicion and wariness that dogged his footsteps. When he stopped, he still grinned at her. “Do you really have a transvestite friend named Eddy that you’ve known since grade school?”

“Of course. Eddy’s a great guy. I remember . . .” But she was supposed to have amnesia.

“What else do you remember?” Like a cat viewing a mouse that was struggling beneath its paw, Devlin watched her.

He’d caught her in her lie again. He looked remote again. He’d made her feel . . . uncomfortable again. “It’s odd the things I remember and the things I don’t. I guess I never mentioned Eddy to you before?” She held her breath and waited to see if he’d let her go . . . again.

“No. You never mentioned Eddy before.”

She released her breath. For some reason he still wanted her here. She was safe for another day. “I seem to be distressing your mother.”

“As if you care.” He grinned again.

“I care enough to wonder why she’s so . . . so . . .”

“Judgmental? Overweening? Concerned with appearances?” With his hands on his hips, he looked Meadow over from head to toe, and she realized that Grace might find her lacking, but Devlin appreciated every last inch. “She’s not used to girls who aren’t in awe of her.”

“In awe?” Meadow strolled over, taking her time, letting her hips roll and her legs flex. “Why?”

“Because she’s so good at everything. Don’t you watch television?” He gathered her close.

“Not much.” She didn’t really remember what they were talking about—or care. All she knew was that he held her in his arms, and the warmth they created between the two of them could illuminate Seattle in December. She unbuttoned his shirt and slid her hand inside, loving the texture of hair over his soft skin. Standing on tiptoe, she kissed his jaw on one side, then the other.

He stood still, eyes half closed, allowing her the freedom of his body.

She zoomed in on his lips and—

“Dears, I have an idea for the party. . . . Oh, my God, are you at it again?” Grace stood in the doorway, her hands over her eyes.

Meadow exhaled in frustration.

Devlin buttoned his shirt. “You should knock before you enter.”

“It’s only evening. This is the dining room. The door is open. The
waiters could walk in at any minute!” Grace peeked between her fingers, and when she saw they had separated, she marched right in. “Listen for one second, and then you can go back to doing”—she waved a slender, expressive hand—“whatever it was you were doing.”

“So it’s been a while for her?” Meadow said out of the corner of her mouth.

Devlin jerked with suppressed amusement.

Grace glared at Meadow, then at Devlin.

Then her gaze lingered on Devlin, her blue eyes thoughtful, and Meadow wondered what was going through her mind.

Devlin seemed puzzled, too. “Mother?”

“All right, here’s my idea. See if you don’t like
this
, Meadow.” Grace panned the room with her hands. “I see the whole party taking place outside. We’ll turn the estate into a carnival. We’ll have games—not electronic games, but games like, oh, knock down the pins with a ball and, er . . .”

She waved her hand at Meadow.

“Break the balloons with the dart,” Meadow supplied.

“Exactly.” Grace nodded with satisfaction. “I knew you would know what kind of games they played at
those
places.”

“She’s good with an insult.” Again Meadow spoke out of the side of her mouth.

“The best,” he answered.

“I can hear you!” Grace tapped her toe.

“I know, Mother, and it would be best if you didn’t listen,” he said. “If we hold the party outdoors, it might rain.”

“It won’t,” Grace said. “The elements don’t have the nerve to mess with my plans.”