Night Music

Prologue

It was the family meeting to end all family meetings. Frustrated, annoyed, and generally feeling “we’ve had enough and we’re not taking it anymore,” each one of the occupants of the room had come at the first call. Lettice Kitteridge had poked, prodded, and interfered in her grandchildren’s lives long enough. They were out for revenge.

“After what she did to Miles and me over my grandfather’s will,” Catherine Wagner-Kitteridge said, “she has to be taught a lesson about this matchmaking. She went too far this time.”

“Absolutely,” Ellen Kitteridge-Carlini added. “She threw me at Joe.”

“
I
threw me at you,” her husband, Joe, said. “Or did you forget the skating rink, El?”

Ellen smiled. “You were in desperate straits.”

“And using desperate measures.”

“She did a full-blown American invasion on me,” Rick Kitteridge said, his English accent noticeably pronounced among his cousins. He and his wife, Jill Daneforth-Kitteridge, had flown over from England especially for this meeting.

“You never would have met me if she hadn’t,” Jill pointed out. “Think of all the fun we had.”

“I could have skipped my brief career as a cat burglar,” her husband grumbled.

Jill giggled and whispered something in his ear about nights in white satin.

“She never trusted Remy,” Susan Kitteridge-St. Jacques said, interrupting her brother’s wife.

“
You
never trusted me, chère,” Remy said. “Fortunately it took just one look for me—especially in that bikini you were wearing.”

Susan blushed, then chuckled. “Grandmother didn’t like that either.”

“You all forget that I was subjected to the worst torture of all,” Anne Kitteridge-Farraday said. “She moved in with me!”

“Unforgettable,” her husband, James, agreed, then added hastily when his wife glared at him, “You, I mean. Not Aunt Lettice.”

“Obviously we have all had our share of Lettice’s matchmaking attempts,” Catherine said, bringing the family conclave back to order. “But the point of this meeting is to stop her before she strikes again.”

Devlin Kitteridge studied his sister-in-law as she spoke. Leave it to his brother to marry a beautiful go-getter, he thought. Glancing over at his twin, he had to admit that Miles looked happy enough. But Devlin wasn’t there to celebrate the newlyweds’ bliss. He was there to get his grandmother off his back. Ever since Miles had married, his grandmother had paraded woman after woman under his nose. She’d even sent them down to his charter-boat business in Wildwood, New Jersey, when he refused to come up to her home in Gladwynne, Pennsylvania. It had reached a point
that any time he saw a woman under the age of thirty-five walking on the same side of the street as he, he was certain she’d been sent by Lettice to trap him.

As far as he was concerned, women were only an occasional recreational requirement. Go beyond that and they could break a man. He ought to know. So should his brother. Catherine had jerked Miles’s chain countless times, yet the man came back for more. He even called her his earth angel.

Dev grimaced. Obsession could easily turn to tragedy. Quickly, as he had for years, he turned his mind away from that thought and back to the current discussion.

“I have only one question,” he said. “
How
are you going to stop her?”

“Worried?” Miles asked, chuckling.

“Annoyed. I’m the only victim left.”

“Why don’t you find someone for Great-grandmother?” Anne’s son, Philip, asked, having wandered into the room in the middle of the discussion.

In one swift motion all the adults swiveled around to face him.

“I mean … she found someone for all of you,” he added, looking nervous at the sudden attention. “Maybe if she had someone, she’d be happy and leave everyone alone.”

“Out of the mouths of babes,” Anne murmured.

“He’s a Kitteridge,” someone said.

James ruffled his adopted son’s hair. “He’s a Farraday.”

“Any ideas who we could match her up with?” Catherine asked. “All the older gentlemen I know are scared to death of her.”

Philip shrugged. So did the rest.

“Wait a minute,” James said. “My grandmother told me a long time ago about Aunt Lettice being engaged to someone before she married your grandfather. Something about it being a great tragedy—”

“Call her,” Dev snapped impatiently.

James merely looked at him.

“Chill out, big brother,” Miles admonished. “Save the orders for your boat.”

“You’re not her next intended victim,” Dev reminded him.

Anne nodded decisively. “Call her,” she said to her husband.

“I know, I know,” James said. “I got the ‘obey’ part in my end of the wedding vows.” He rose and walked over to the telephone.

He was back a minute later. “Marshall Rayburn.”

Joe whistled. “The surgeon? I didn’t even know they knew each other.”

“Neither did the rest of us.” James grinned. “He’s a widower.”

“Well, well,” Miles said.

“There’s more.” James was laughing now. “He’s got a granddaughter, Hilary, who’s single. Are you all thinking what I’m thinking?”

Suddenly the very air changed, and Dev, who had been so irritated a moment ago with the slow pace of this meeting, now felt as if his relatives were reading one another’s minds at lightning speed.

“It’s going to be tricky,” Remy said.

“We’re going to have to blind-side her,” Susan added.

“Is it fair to Dr. Rayburn to saddle him with her?” Rick asked.

“This is no time for a conscience,” Jill said. “The
plan’s got to be foolproof, because Lettice is no fool.”

Ellen laughed. “We’re going to sucker-punch her.”

Anne joined her. “I love it.”

“I think of it more as a merger,” Miles said.

“If we play it right, it’ll be the coup of the decade,” Joe said.

“The century.” Catherine rapped on the coffee table. “Then we’re all agreed.”

“What?” Dev asked. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You’ve been away too long,” Miles said. “Even Rick, who lives across the ocean, got it. We’re going to trick grandmother into being matched with Marshall Rayburn.”

“Oh.” Dev grinned. “Hell, let’s go for it.”

“I’m glad you’re in agreement. We’ll just drop the hint to Grandmother about the granddaughter. You should probably go see Hilary first, to let her know to play along for a dinner or two.”

Dev frowned. “What dinner or two?”

They told him. His jaw dropped in astonishment and horror.

“No,” he said. “
No! No! No!
”

The family smiled.

One

“Dresden?”

Hilary Rayburn watched Devlin Kitteridge—who looked distinctly out of place in her elegant living room—casually handle her most prized possession, a two-hundred-year-old ceramic shepherdess. “Yes,” she replied.

He looked her up and down as if she were a piece of meat in an Armani suit, then set the shepherdess on the glass shelf of the étagère with a clang. “Thought so. They always look as cheap as their knockoffs.”

Hilary bit her tongue against a caustic remark. He could be a prospective customer, she told herself, and she couldn’t afford to offend any at this point in her business. She tucked her silk scarf higher on her shoulder, then walked over to the étagère and closed and locked the door. Smiling sweetly, she said, “That one survived four border disputes, two revolutions, and two world wars before my grandmother smuggled it out of Hungary. If it looks careworn, it has a right to.”

He grinned at her, seeming not at all embarrassed. Hilary knew some members of his family, including his formidable grandmother, but she had only heard about him. And she had heard nothing good. His appearance certainly lived up to his black-sheep reputation. Tall and lean, he was dressed in worn jeans and a maroon polo shirt that had seen better days. His features were all sharp, rugged angles and could have been carved in granite. His skin was darkly tanned, the crow’s-feet at his eyes obvious, giving his face an older look. His eyes were a stunning blue-green, the kind of sharp contrasting color that Paul Newman possessed. As those eyes fixed on her, she felt he could easily strip away the social mask she always kept in place, suddenly exposing the real Hilary. She didn’t like that notion.

Their gazes still locked, he pushed his hair off his forehead. As she watched his tanned fingers thread through the dark and sun-streaked strands, she wondered if all the air had left the room. She couldn’t quite catch her breath. The scent of male and the sea teased her senses, and she felt a primitive awareness course through her bloodstream. At last she realized she was staring at him, and with effort she turned away.