Son of Stone (24 page)

“You know what that does to me,” she said. “If you aren’t careful, I’ll have to start all over.”

“All right, all right,” he said. “I’ll wait for you downstairs.” He wandered down to the library, past the string quartet, who appeared to be rehearsing, or perhaps just playing for their own amusement.

He poured himself a small Knob Creek and took a chair by the fire, happy to have a moment to himself before the bash, with the music lending atmosphere.

A
rrington walked into the library at the stroke of five forty-five and poured herself a Knob Creek.

“You’re a bourbon drinker? I’m still learning about my new wife.”

“I’m looking for a more instant buzz than champagne will give me,” she said. “I can’t face all these people sober.” She sank into the chair opposite him.

“I’ve never seen you look more beautiful,” he said. “We have to get a picture taken, since we’ll never be this young again.”

“What a nice way to put it!” she laughed. “Don’t worry, there’ll be a photographer; in fact, he’s already arrived and is stationed outside, to get people as they enter.”

A car door slammed outside.

“Oh, oh,” she said, tossing off the rest of her bourbon, “here they come. Why is someone always early? Haven’t they ever heard of fashionably late?”

“Fortunately, they are
your
friends,” he said, “so I cannot be blamed for their swinish conduct.”

“I’ll blame you if I want to,” she said, getting up. “Come on, time to play host.”

Stone made his bourbon vanish and followed her into the main hall. The quartet started up, on cue, with “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.”

Somes opened the door, and the first half dozen of their guests entered. Introductions were made, while a maid made their coats disappear, and Stone heard spoken, for the first time in his life, the words “And this is my husband.”

The seventh person through the door was a tall, slender man with a head full of graying hair and a supercilious expression.

“Stone, this is our architect, Timothy Rutledge. Tim, this is my husband, Stone Barrington.” Those unfamiliar words again.

Stone extended his hand, and Rutledge gripped it lightly by the fingers, as if he were warding off a bone-crushing handshake. “How do you do?” he said, as if he didn’t care how Stone or anyone else did.

“Good to meet you,” Stone lied. “You’ve done a very fine job on the house.” That was the truth.

One corner of Rutledge’s mouth turned up slightly. “You’re very kind to say so,” he replied, as if kindness were a curse.

Arrington forestalled any more conversation between them by taking Rutledge by the arm and introducing him to someone else.

Once the flood of arrivals subsided from a river to a trickle, Stone grabbed a flute of champagne from a passing silver tray and circulated, mustering all the charm at his disposal. He was greeted, in most cases, by some warmth, and in others, by a trace of sleet. He would have to ask Arrington later what caused the dividing line. The eyes of the women invariably darted from console to chandelier to carpet, while the men, mostly, looked for a waiter bearing booze, and they didn’t seem to care what kind.

A bit after seven, when Arrington judged that enough lubrication had been passed among her guests, she nodded at Somes, who produced a silver bell and walked around the house, singing, “Dinner is served. Dinner is served in the dining room!”

The string quartet sawed away on some Vivaldi while the guests rushed the dining room and the buffet on the groaning board. Half an hour later they were distributed around the ground floor on furniture, the stairs, and on the floor, scarfing up filet of beef or wild salmon and allowing Somes to repeatedly refill their flutes.

Stone shared a small sofa in the living room with a plump, beautifully coiffed Virginia matron named Vilia.

“A beautiful name,” he said. “I’ve always loved the Lehár song.”

“From my mother’s favorite operetta,” she said, smiling broadly at his recognition.

“I once saw a production of
The Merry Widow
, due to circumstances beyond my control, entirely in Finnish.”

“And how did that come about?” she asked.

“Well, I was in Helsinki at the time, and I was one of at least two Americans in the audience. I know, because they sold us both the same seat. We compared tickets, and he wandered off somewhere.” He looked up to see a woman passing the piano who appeared distinctly of New York and not Virginia. She was tall, slender, and wore a tight, low-cut black dress with a slit up her leg nearly to the illegal limit. She looked vaguely familiar, but out of context. He thought about it and couldn’t place her. As he watched, she set down her flute and produced, from God knew where, an iPhone, and began snapping pictures of the room, in a manner more befitting a backyard barbecue than a haut monde Albemarle County soiree. She was joined by a lanky young man who reminded Stone of Rutledge, the icy architect, and who, apparently, told her to put away the electronics. She reclaimed her champagne and trailed him from the room, teetering on six-inch heels.

 

 

Kelli Keane was having the time of her life. She had been to some good parties, but never anything quite like this. There were men dressed in red hunting jackets, for Christ’s sake, over their black ties, and women in ball gowns! Kelli had a very good memory, and she digested as many names as she could, for matching later with her photos. David was being a prick about the pictures, but she had snapped shots in every room before he stopped her. A change in the music turned her head.

Two members of the string quartet had exchanged a violin and a cello for a guitar and a banjo, and they were executing an enthusiastic reel. They finished to a big round of applause from the guests, then recovered their original instrumentation and began playing “Good-Night, Ladies,” apparently the signal for the gentry to put down their glasses and get the hell out. The butler and three maids appeared, carrying armloads of coats and, miraculously, found their owners. Twenty minutes later, Kelli and David were in their rental car, headed back to the inn.

“You were naughty to take photographs,” David said.

“Then I’ll make it up to you by being naughty when we get to the inn,” she said, stroking the inside of his thigh with her long nails.

 

 

Stone said good night to some guests then turned and spotted Arrington, who had been backed into a corner by Tim Rutledge, and Stone did not like the desperate expression on her face. Stone walked over to them, shouldered Rutledge out of his way, and held his arm out to Arrington, who took it and walked away with him. As they passed Somes, Stone said to him, through a clenched smile, “Find Mr. Rutledge his coat,
now
.”

They walked into the library, now empty of guests. “What was
that
all about?” he asked.

“Oh, it was nothing,” she said. “Just Tim being Tim.”

Stone nodded toward the gun cabinet near the fireplace. “I hope those are loaded,” he said.

“My father always kept them that way,” she replied, “but you keep your hands in your pockets.”

T
hey lay on their backs in bed, naked, holding hands.

“Well,” Stone said, “that seemed to go very well.”

“Did it?” Arrington asked, sighing. “I hardly noticed. I didn’t have the time.”

“Tell me about Tim Rutledge,” he said. “What did he want from you?”

“Guess,” she said.

“Was that all?”

“Not to undervalue your virtue, but somehow it seemed more complicated than that.”

“He wants not just my virtue but my house and my fortune.”

“Did you explain that those things were already committed?”

“I did so, and succinctly, but he wouldn’t take ‘No, not now, not ever, now get out!’ for an answer. You arrived just in time.”

“Are there any other former lovers lurking about that I should be wary of?”

“No, and he is included in that category because, for a year, you weren’t around.”

“I wasn’t invited.”

“Well, I was busy, I guess, and he was around. Constantly.”

“Did you give him hope for the future?”

“I did not. On the contrary, I actively and explicitly discouraged any thought of the future.”

“Good. Then I don’t have to feel sorry for him.”

“Oh, he’ll have moved on to someone else by next week—probably a married woman, that being his specialty. He’s known among the local matrons as ‘The Prong.’”

Stone laughed.

“Oh, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” Arrington said. “We have a family plot in the local churchyard. You’re welcome to join us.”

“Is that where you wish to rest for eternity?”

“It’s quite pretty, really.”

“I always thought I’d like to be scattered somewhere.”

“After cremation, I suppose.”

“Yes, cremation obviates dismemberment.”

“Scattered where?”

“Someplace beautiful. Off the dock at the Maine house would be nice.”

“I liked that house,” she said. “The cousin who bequeathed it to you had very good taste in houses.”

“Yes, he did.”

“You get bequeathed a lot of things, don’t you? Houses, paintings, airplanes.”

“I do. I’m fortunate in my family and friends.”

“Do you want me to tell you about my will?”

“No, I’d rather know nothing, thank you.”

“Not everything is in it. I’d better tell you a few other things. I’d been meaning to write a letter, and I may yet, but mostly it’s about how you would deal with Peter in my absence, should that ever occur.”

“I am statistically likely to precede you into the Promised Land, but go ahead.”

“I’m concerned that Peter might have too much, too soon, and I like your idea of keeping things in trust until he’s thirty-five, so I put that in there. You have the authority, however, to deal with that as you wish, up until he’s thirty-five.”

“Thank you. I’ll try to keep a tight rein on things.”

“I don’t think that will be hard, since he never seems to think about money, unless it’s in connection with his filming budget. I just don’t want a truckload of cash dumped on him before he knows something about handling it.”

“I understand, and I entirely agree.”

They were quiet for a moment.

“Is that it?” Stone asked.

“I’m thinking,” she said. “Give me a minute.”

“All right.”

“Give my jewelry, in reasonable amounts, to Peter’s wife, when he marries. Funny, but I’ve been thinking about Hattie as Peter’s future wife, which is silly, I suppose.”

“We can wish for that,” Stone said. “They seem very well suited to each other.”

“But they’re so young!”

“And getting older every day,” Stone said. “He says she’s smarter than he is.”

“No!” Arrington said. “I’ve never heard him say that about
anybody
!”

“He’s probably never met anybody who’s that smart,” Stone pointed out.

“There is that,” Arrington admitted. “He’s spent his whole life stunning me, on an almost daily basis, with his precocity.”

“I’m beginning to get used to that,” Stone said.

“Really? I never have.”

“I still have difficulty thinking of him as a child.”

“Well, he is. You’ll see that in him, eventually. It comes out at the damnedest times.”

“He’s going to be gone before I get to know him fully,” Stone said. “I want to spend some time with him in Maine this summer, teach him to sail. He already wants to learn to fly.”

“Fly? He doesn’t even drive yet!”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to let him even take lessons until he’s at least eighteen. Once he starts at Yale, he’ll be too wrapped up in work to even think about it.”

“I hope you’re right, though I think he has traits that will make him a good pilot. He’s organized and detail-oriented, and, of course, he learns with blinding speed.”

“We’ve had only one flight in my Mustang, coming down here, and he seems already to have grasped the avionics pretty well.”

“That’s the sort of thing he does.” She yawned. “I’m sleepy,” she said.

“Then go to sleep.”

“No making love?”

“We’ll save it until the morning.”

“All right.”

“I have a date to go riding with Peter and Hattie at eight. Do you want to come?” he asked.

“No, I’m going to sleep until lunchtime. That’ll give the staff time to make the house pristine again. I don’t want to see it until then.” She yawned again, then her breathing became regular.

Stone was not far behind. He dreamed about Peter and Hattie and, maybe, a grandchild. Then there was something unpleasant, something shocking, but when he jerked awake he couldn’t remember what it was. It took him an unusually long time to get back to sleep, and when he awoke the following morning he was tired, as if he hadn’t slept at all.

S
tone showered, dressed, and went downstairs to the kitchen, where he sat, alone, at the long table and waited for his breakfast to be cooked. Then Peter and Hattie joined him and placed their orders.

“Beautiful day outside,” Stone said.

“Great day for riding,” Peter replied.

Hattie was quiet.

“Did you sleep well, Hattie?”

“All right, I guess.”

“Ready to greet the new day on horseback?”

“Sure.”

“Did you two have a good time at the party?” Stone asked.

“Oh, yes,” Peter said. “But I knew hardly any of those people.”

“Don’t worry, you won’t have to spend any time with them. I think your mother had the housewarming just so that they wouldn’t be angling for invitations to see the house.”

“Get it all over at once, huh?” Peter said.