Heiress (7 page)

"Who was his mistress? What was she like?" She sensed his hesitation and swung back to face him. "I want to know. And don't worry about sparing my feelings. It's better if I know the truth after all these years. Momma probably doesn't know what it is anymore. You're the only one who can give me that."

After studying her thoughtfully for several seconds, Lane began telling her all he knew. "Her name was Caroline Farr. She was from somewhere in the East, I believe. Dean met her at a private showing of an art exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts here in Houston."

Chapter 5

Hot and tired, Dean tugged at the knot of his tie as he climbed the grand staircase to the second-floor suite he shared with his wife. He wished to hell he could shed all the pressure and frustration of the office as easily as he could shed the business suit and tie he wore to it. For three damned long years he had tried, but he just didn't fit the mold. Whereas making business decisions was so easy for R.D., Dean would agonize for days before recommending a course of action, and even then, most of the time he hadn't considered half the options R.D. raised. He had never felt so inadequate.

A long gallop before dinner, that's what he needed, Dean decided as he pushed open the door to their bedroom and walked in. He paused when he saw Babs, clad in a dressing gown and seated at the vanity table, primping in the beveled mirror.

"There you are, darling," Her reflection smiled at him from the mirror. "How was your day?"

"Rotten." Dean pulled the loosened tie from around his neck and closed the door behind him.

"That's too bad. But tonight you can relax and forget all about it and just enjoy yourself," she declared airily and waved a hand in the direction of the four-poster bed with its delicately carved maple posts ending in ornate finials and its Marlborough feet. "I had Jackson lay out your clothes, and your bathwater is already drawn."

Dean stared at the evening suit so precisely laid out on the peach and green floral-striped spread and began to tremble with anger. "What's going on? Don't tell me. Let me guess. It's another one of your damned parties." He couldn't hide the disgust he felt. Night after night, there was always something: a formal dinner invitation, a charity benefit—or if they stayed at home, they invariably had company over to dine, when they weren't the ones giving the party.

"Darling." Babs partially turned around to look at him, her hazel eyes widened by the look of hurt surprise he had come to know so well after nearly three years of marriage. "Tonight they're holding that private showing at the museum. When I asked, you said you wanted to go."

Maybe he had. He didn't remember. Too many other things were on his mind. "I've changed my mind, and we're not going."

"But everyone's expecting us to be there."

"Just once, can't we have a quiet evening at home?" "And talk," he wanted to add, but he had already learned that Babs didn't want to listen. Every time he tried to express the doubts he had about his role in the company and the dissatisfaction he felt, she brushed them aside with some variation of "It's hard now, but I know you'll work it out. You always do." He tried to tell himself that it was wonderful to have a wife who believed in him, who believed he could handle it. But he couldn't handle it. What would she think of him when she found that out?

"We'll stay home if that's what you want. I honestly didn't know that you didn't want to go tonight. I'm sorry. Truly I am." She rose from the peach velvet cushion covering the seat of the carved maple bench and crossed the room to cup his face in her hands. "I want to do whatever you want. So if you don't want to go, neither do I."

She smiled brightly, but he knew it was a lie. She loved all these social functions. It gave her the chance to be a little girl again and play dress-up. He felt guilty for depriving her of that. Just because he was miserable, that was no reason to make her evening miserable, too.

"We'll go." He caught one of her hands and pressed her fingertips to his lips. "You're probably right. I need to go out and take my mind off the office."

"I know I am." Raising on her tiptoes, Babs kissed him warmly. "Now, hurry and take your bath before the water gets as cool as rain."

Minutes later, Dean was stretched out in the long, claw-footed bathtub, letting the tension float away and sipping on a bourbon and water Babs had thoughtfully fixed for him. He listened with only half an ear to Babs as she chatted away to him from the other side of the door to their private bath.

"You're just going to love the new gown I'm wearing tonight, Dean." There was a slight pause before she continued. "Remind me to wear these stiletto heels the next time we're going to a party where there will be dancing. They are positively deadly. Once and for all I'm going to cure that left-footed Kyle MacDonnell of stepping on my feet. Oh, talking about cures, that reminds me. . . I was talking to Josie Phillips the other day, and she told me that if I wanted to guarantee myself of getting pregnant that we needed to make love on a night when there is a full moon."

"What?" The water sloshed around him as Dean sat bolt upright in the tub, hoping his hearing had deceived him.

"A full moon. Isn't that the wildest thing you've ever heard? But Josie swears that all four of her children were conceived when she and Homer did it on nights when there was a full moon outside. I checked the calendar, and there won't be a full moon again until the middle of this month."

In a flash, Dean was out of the tub. He was still dripping water as he opened the connecting door and walked into the bedroom, absently tying the sash of his terry-cloth robe around his waist.

"Babs, just how many people have you told that you haven't been able to get pregnant?"

She gave him a blank look, then shrugged. "I don't know. It's hardly a secret. People aren't blind. They can see for themselves that I'm not going to have a baby," Babs declared smoothing a hand over the close-fitting waistline of her off-the-shoulder evening dress in a black-on-white floral silk. "What am I supposed to say when people ask when we're going to have a baby? That we don't want one yet? You know we do. And you know how anxious poor R.D. is for us to have one."

"I don't think it's something you should be going around telling every Helen, Mary, and Jane about." He had enough trouble without having to face friends who knew he couldn't even manage to get his wife pregnant. "If you want to talk to someone about it, talk to a doctor."

"I have." She slipped on a long white-kid evening glove, carefully fitting the snug material between each finger. "He said I was just being too anxious and that what we needed to do was stop trying. Have you ever heard anything so preposterous? How in the world does he expect me to get pregnant if we don't do anything?" She reached for her other glove. "You really need to hurry and get dressed, honey. R.D. is already waiting for us downstairs."

At the private showing of the art museum's latest acquisitions, Dean viewed the new paintings with indifference. A low hum of voices surrounded him, the volume mostly subdued, although occasionally a cultured laugh rose above it. Despite the setting, there was a sameness to the gathering—the same people, the same conversation, and the same high-fashion look that made up nearly every affair Babs insisted they attend.

He wished now he hadn't given in and agreed to come. He could have been home at River Bend with the horses. There was a show in two weeks and he wanted the half-dozen Arabians they were taking to be in top condition. Not that he really needed to worry about that—not with Ben on the job. He envied Ben being able to work with the horses every day, all day. All he could manage was an early-morning ride.

When Babs wandered on to another painting, Dean drifted along with her, managing to appear interested even though he wasn't. The work was some surrealist thing, an incongruous mixture of colors and images. R.D. joined them, with the MacDonnells in tow.

"Amazing work, isn't it?" Beth Ann remarked, studying the painting as if mesmerized. "So full of power and energy, don't you think?"

Dean nodded and wished he had a drink.

"I think"—Babs paused as she contemplated the painting a little longer—"he must have really liked red."

For an instant, there was absolute silence. Then R.D. burst out laughing. "Babs, you're just too precious for words," he declared, wiping the tears from his eyes. "I swear, those are the first honest words I've heard tonight. Come on." He hooked a big arm around her small shoulders and herded her toward another painting on the other side of the room. "You've got to see this one over here."

A slightly embarrassed Beth Ann trailed after them dragging Kyle along with her, but Dean stayed behind and pretended to study the painting on the wall. Right now he wasn't in the mood for his father's company.

"Do you like it?"

Dean glanced sideways at the woman who had come up on his right. He was faintly surprised to discover he didn't know her. That in itself was a novelty, but so was the woman. She wasn't dressed like Babs or any of her friends. Instead she wore a plain black sheath and absolutely no jewelry. Her dark hair was lifted back from her face, then allowed to fall in a thick cascade onto her back—a style that didn't remotely resemble the curls of Babs's Italian cut.

As unusual as the woman's appearance was, Dean wasn't interested in making idle conversation with a stranger. "I find the painting very interesting," he said and started to move on.

"Then you don't like it," she stated flatly.

"I didn't say that." Dean frowned.

"No," she agreed. "You said it was 'very interesting.' That's what everybody says when they don't really like something."

"In this case, it isn't true. I happen to like surrealism," he replied, mildly irritated by the hint of censure in her voice, and tired of others believing that they knew what he liked or wanted.

"This isn't true surrealism, not like Dali." She continued to study the painting, her unusually thick eyebrows drawn together in a slight frown. "It's too coherent for that. This is more like a picture puzzle."

She spoke with such certainty and authority that Dean found himself drawn in by it. "What makes you say that?"

"Because. . ." And she went on to explain the symbolic use of numerals to represent mankind and the human intellect set against the blazing red of the sun, the vivid green of the land, and the swirling blue of water, creating an allegory of man and his relationship with nature.

Dean followed only part of it. Somewhere along the way, he became fascinated by her intensity—an intensity that was both serious and passionate. It was there in her gray eyes, the dark gray of the clouds on the leading edge of a thunderstorm, clouds shot with lightning and jet black in the center. It seemed perfectly natural to shift his attention from her eyes to her mouth. She had soft, full lips, the lower one pouting in its roundness—blatantly sensuous, not at all dainty like the sweetheart shape of Babs's. Dean started wondering what they would look like if she smiled.

"Do you work here at the museum?"

"No, I don't."

"You spoke so knowledgeably that I thought . . ." He shrugged off the rest of it.

"I've studied art extensively and spent two years in Europe going from museum to museum, poring over the works of the old masters."

"Are you a collector then?" Although he had never been good at judging a woman's age, she seemed young—young for an art collector, anyway. Dean doubted that she was any older than he was.

"No." She looked at him with a kind of amused tolerance. "I'm an artist."

"You are. Don't tell me this is one of your paintings." Dean stared at the oil she had lectured about so intelligently only minutes ago.

"No." She smiled for the first time—just a curving of the mouth, her lips together. "My style is much more turbulent, more emotional, not landscapes of the mind like his." As she gestured at the painting, Dean noticed her hands, the long fingers and the short nails. The hands of an artist, graceful and blunt.

"What's your name? I have the uncomfortable feeling that I'm going to be embarrassed when I find out who you are."

"I doubt it." Again there was that little smile. "I'm what is known as a struggling artist. I don't think the name Caroline Farr is going to mean anything to you. Maybe someday, but not now."

"I'm Dean Lawson." As he formally shook hands with her, Dean noticed the strength of her fingers and the firmness of her grip. He also noticed that his name didn't mean a thing to her. More than that, she didn't seem all that impressed by him. It pricked his ego just a little bit. Between his looks and his name, Dean had never had any problems attracting women, but Caroline Farr was obviously different. "I'd like to see some of your paintings sometime."

"I should warn you they're not surrealistic."

"My wife will be glad to hear that. She doesn't care for it at all.”

At that point their conversation returned to a discussion of art, and the inability of many to appreciate its different forms and styles. More precisely, Caroline talked and Dean agreed.

"Your accent. . ." Dean tried to place it and failed. "You're from somewhere in the East, aren't you?"

"Connecticut."

"Are you just visiting here in Houston?"

"Not really. Right now I'm staying at a friend's summer house in Galveston." When she said that, Dean automatically began to scan the milling guests, trying to remember which one had a beach house on Galveston Island. "It doesn't belong to anyone here."

"Was I that transparent?" Dean smiled.

"Yes."

"Sorry. But, since you're not from here, you're obviously someone's guest."

"Why?"

"Because this affair tonight is by invitation. The collection doesn't go on public display until tomorrow."

"Tomorrow I'll be in Galveston. I wanted to see it tonight."

"My God." Unconsciously Dean lowered his voice. "You mean you crashed this? You just walked in?" He hovered between incredulity and stunned admiration of her audacity.

"Of course." She was very matter of fact about it and indifferent almost to the point of arrogance. "This isn't someone's home. It's a public museum. Why should it be open to one—privileged—class of people and not to all?"