Читать книгу A Self-Made Man - Kathleen O'Brien - Страница 7

“OH, MY LORD, WHAT’S THE matter with the baby?” The horrified bellow could be heard fifty yards away. “Lacy! Where are you? The baby is upside down!”

The chatter in the crowded riding arena skipped a heartbeat. More than a hundred guests had gathered in the cleverly converted Barnhardt stables, expecting to be lavishly feted in return for their financial support of the new Pringle Island General Hospital Neonatal Unit. This development—an upside-down baby—was clearly quite a surprise.

“Lacy! Come here!”

Under the soft light from overhead fixtures, two dozen faces turned toward Lacy Morgan with expressions of well-bred curiosity. Down along the main aisle, which had once housed the eight Barnhardt horses, other guests poked their heads inquisitively out from the individual stalls, where they had been viewing the items placed for auction.

“Lacy, come quick!” The call grew shrill. “Lacy, for heaven’s sake, come look at this baby!”

Lacy sighed internally, recognizing Tilly Barnhardt’s voice immediately. No one but Tilly could hit that particular note and hold it quite that long. And no one but that eccentric elderly matron would have dreamed of interrupting this glittering event, the kickoff fund-raiser for the neonatal wing, with such a dreadful caterwauling.

“Excuse me. I believe I’m being paged.” Lacy bestowed an apologetic smile on her companion, a gentleman who, for the past half an hour, had been telling her everything any human could want to know about corn options—and perhaps, if she were truthful, just a little more. Murmuring reassuring noises at the other guests, she plucked a champagne flute deftly from a passing waiter’s tray and, lifting her long blue silk skirt slightly with one hand, she glided across the softly polished hardwood floors toward the echoing wail.

She found her elderly friend just inside the tack room, standing in front of a huge oil painting, scowling fiercely.

“Tilly, my love, do hush.” Lacy held the champagne flute out with a smile. “Half the guests think someone is being murdered in here.”

“But look! Look what some fool has done!” Tilly extended one long forefinger toward the painting dramatically. “It’s the Verengetti! It was our coup! The highlight of the entire show, and it’s been hung upside down!”

Lacy patted the older woman’s shoulder, her fingers encountering the familiar rough patches of worn velvet. Tilly had worn that same black velvet dress to meet two presidents, bury three husbands, and raise about five million dollars for the hospital. As the wealthy widow of Pringle Island’s most beloved obstetrician, she could afford to buy a new evening gown for every night of the week. But she could also, she always said, afford not to. Her lack of pretension was one of the qualities Lacy valued most.

“It’s not upside down,” Lacy explained, turning her own attention to the riot of pink and blue splotches that were the Verengetti trademark. In the center the pink and blue formed a baby held in a woman’s arms, and the woman was clearly standing on her head. It was probably a statement about the cosmic implications of motherhood, but Lacy knew that Tilly would find any such explanation unacceptable. “It’s supposed to look like that, Tilly.”

Tilly snorted. “Nonsense.” She studied the painting, tilting her head at such an extreme angle Lacy began to fear that her stiff white wig might topple. “Really?” She transferred her glare to Lacy. “Like that?”

Lacy nodded. “I’m afraid so.” She extended the champagne again, and this time Tilly took it.

“Well.” The older woman drained half the flute in one swallow. “Well.” She flicked a wry glance at Lacy. “I guess you’d know, with your fancy art degree and all. I guess that’s the kind of stuff they teach you at graduate school nowadays.”

Lacy smiled. “I’m afraid so.”

It was an old joke between them. Tilly was the only woman in town who hadn’t ever been impressed by Lacy’s rather extensive academic credentials. Tilly’s indifference had driven Lacy’s late husband crazy when he’d been alive. Malcolm Morgan had wanted everyone in town to admire what a refined, intellectual trophy wife he’d created out of poor little Lacy Mayfair—and for the most part everyone had obliged. Everyone except for Tilly. And, of course, Lacy herself.

Lacy cared less than anyone about her own transformation. After all, what did book learning have to do with appreciating art and beauty? She remembered the day ten years ago when, on a high school field trip, she had seen her first real painting. No college could teach you that sense of paralyzed awe, that sudden tingling as genius touched your soul, just as surely as a hand pressing upon your skin.

Ironically, now that Lacy gazed routinely on works of great beauty, she almost never felt that physical thrill anymore. Yes, she really was Malcolm’s creation, wasn’t she? Lacy Morgan, elegant in blue silk, might have learned a million facts, but she had forgotten something that scruffy little Lacy Mayfair had once known better than anyone. She had forgotten how to feel.

And it wasn’t just paintings that had lost their power. After years of Malcolm’s tutelage, she could identify any opera from a single musical phrase, but no aria ever sounded quite as poignant as her favorite rock and roll ballad had once sounded on an old cheap radio, while she danced with Adam Kendall in the rain….

Adam Kendall. Perhaps it was being here in these stables tonight that had conjured his name. Once, ten years ago, she and Adam had met here at midnight, searching for a place to be alone. If she let herself, she could even smell the hay again, could imagine that she saw the moonlight reflecting in the horses’ dark, liquid eyes as they blinked curiously at the intruders.

But she wouldn’t let herself. She shook herself mentally and took a deep breath, pressing her lips together tightly. She didn’t have time to dredge any of that ancient history up right now. Not tonight.

Not ever, for that matter.

Tucking the feel of Adam’s arms and the smell of freshly cut hay back into the airtight mental casket in which they’d been locked for the past ten years, Lacy borrowed a sip of Tilly’s champagne and studied the Verengetti dispassionately. Did she even like the painting? She wasn’t sure. But she liked the money it would bring to the hospital in tonight’s silent auction. With a coldhearted objectivity that even Malcolm might have envied, she calculated how much. Fifteen thousand, perhaps? More if it weren’t for the upside-down problem.

Tucking her arm through Tilly’s, Lacy nudged her friend toward the central reception area. “We’d better get back,” she said. “It’s not going to do the neonatal unit any good if people start whispering that we’re in here stringing babies upside down. And besides,” she added, completely deadpan, “Howard Whitehead is eager to tell you all about corn options.”

Tilly snorted. “That impossible old windbag,” she said forcefully. “He knows he’s going to give us ten thousand dollars tonight, but he’ll insist on boring us all to death first.” She glanced over at Lacy. “I swear, I don’t know how you stay so calm. It’s not human, damn it. Don’t you ever lose your temper?”

Lacy laughed. “Not with a man who’s planning to donate ten thousand dollars, I don’t.”

Companionably arm in arm, they wandered down the main aisle, peeking occasionally into the stalls, exchanging greetings with old friends, answering questions about the artwork. They had almost reached the arena again when Kara Karlin, one of the hospital’s board of directors, came rushing toward them.

“Oh, there you are,” she said breathlessly. “Lacy, you won’t believe who’s here tonight! And he’s asking for you!”

Tilly groaned. “If it’s Howard Whitehead, tell him you couldn’t find us.”

Kara’s eyes were big brown discs glistening with excitement. “No, no. It’s someone else. Someone new. Well, not really new, but—” She dragged Lacy awkwardly toward the center of the crowd while she talked. “Oh, you’ll see. You just won’t believe it. He’s the most— I mean, talk about glamorous. I mean, he’s so completely— Oh, come on, Lacy. Hurry!”

“I’m hurrying,” Lacy assured her, amused and more than a little curious. Who could reduce this middle-aged matron to such babbling incoherence? She hoped it wasn’t another second-rate entertainer—their quaint small-town New England streets occasionally attracted film productions. Last year a minor soap opera star had nearly brought the town to a standstill by buying condoms at the local gas station. “But, honestly, Kara, unless you want me to trip over my skirt and meet this exciting personage flat on my face, you’d better slow down.”

Kara took a deep breath and squeezed Lacy’s hand. “Fine. Be that way. But just look,” she said excitedly, coming to a theatrical standstill and staring straight ahead, “and see for yourself!”

Lacy paused, surveying the crowd slowly, searching for the mysterious new arrival. If this were another celebrity sighting, she hoped she could muster a polite display of excitement. Sadly, she wasn’t particularly impressed by actors. But that wasn’t really their fault, was it? She wasn’t particularly impressed by anything anymore.

She scanned the familiar faces. Howard Whitehead had snagged some other poor soul. The hospital director was lobbying the mayor. The candy stripers were bunched together, flirting with a waiter. A couple of artists whose work had been donated to the auction were happily arguing in the corner.

And then there was that group of women over by the stage, all bleached smiles and winking diamonds, all clustered around a tall, dark-haired…

The man looked up suddenly, as if he sensed her presence. He looked directly toward her, his gaze as unerring as radar. He stared at her boldly, poised, unblinking, unflinching. And her heart stood still.

Oh, dear God. It couldn’t be.

But it was. Even from across the arena she could see that his eyes were blue. A deep, rich, melted-sapphire blue. As blue as her dress. And with a disturbing flash of insight she knew why she loved this dress, why she had bought it in the first place, why she wore it whenever she could. She touched her neckline, cool silk under shaking fingers, flushing instinctively, as if everyone in the room would suddenly know why, even after ten years, she still draped herself in silk the color of his eyes.

“I—” She knew Kara was waiting for a response, but she discovered that her lungs had flattened to a useless emptiness, and she couldn’t speak. Her lips felt swollen, clumsy. “He—”

“Yep.” Kara chuckled triumphantly, apparently interpreting the stammering as confirmation. “See what I mean?”

Yes, Lacy saw, though it hurt her. She couldn’t take her gaze from him, couldn’t turn away. Not one single muscle in her body seemed to be under her own control.

Her helpless shock seemed to amuse him. He watched her for a long, brazen moment, letting his own gaze wander over the elaborate French twist of her thick brown hair. He had always preferred it loose…. Then down the low, tight bodice, the full, flowing skirt of her evening dress. He had vowed he would buy her just such a dress someday…. And then up again, to the hand she had pressed against her breast, to the ugly square diamond she wore there. He hadn’t even been able to afford a high school ring, but…someday, Lacy. Someday.

But someday had never come. And now she wore another man’s ring. She saw his eyes harden as he stared at the diamond, and she lowered her hand nervously. She shouldn’t have. It was the sign of weakness, the hint of shame he apparently had been waiting for. He watched her hide her trembling hand in the folds of her skirt. And then slowly, with an intense and private knowing, he smiled. It was a beautiful smile. A cruel and unforgiving, diabolically beautiful smile.

He hated her.

A sudden whirlpool formed in her bloodstream, pulling down, down toward a sinking, sickening vortex. Was she going to faint? She wouldn’t allow it, wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. How dare he hate her? She pressed her fingers against the rough wooden wall as she felt herself spinning, drowning in a maelstrom of emotion.

Had she said she no longer knew how to feel? Then what was this wild barrage of sensation? Lips, bonfires, rain, hands, music, magic, tears, pain, blood, pain, pain—the memories came hurtling at her like jagged bolts of lightning. She was almost bent double from the sheer electric power of it.

“Well, I’ll be darned. If it isn’t Adam Kendall!” Just behind Lacy, Tilly’s voice was full of a delighted surprise, and in typical uninhibited fashion it carried across the arena easily. “Come here, young man, and give your old friend a kiss!”

Adam’s expression lightened as he recognized Tilly, and, with a few polite murmurs, he obediently began to move toward them. He seemed indifferent to the bevy of disappointed beauties he left behind, but Lacy could tell, from the angle of their collective gaze, which was focused somewhere just below Adam’s waist, that they were consoling themselves by admiring the geometrical perfection in the ratio of shoulders to hips.

And it was perfect. Lacy knew, much better than these women, just how achingly perfect he was, physically. Strong muscles tapered down his long, lean torso, ending in sexy, shadowed hollows just deep enough to accept a kiss. Skin tanned golden from shirtless summers at the concrete factory ran like honey down his back, falling to the paler, tight silken curves of his buttocks….

She heard herself make a small noise, and then she felt Tilly’s hand on her elbow, steadying her. Amazing, really, how much welcome strength could be conveyed through those thin, elderly fingers.

“Courage, child,” Tilly whispered, and thankfully Lacy felt her balance returning. She took a deep breath, raised her chin and, with all the equanimity she could summon, forced herself to watch calmly as Adam Kendall, the most desirable, dangerous man she had ever known, walked slowly, arrogantly back into her life.

“Mrs. Barnhardt,” he said, and this time his smile held no sting. He accepted Tilly’s outstretched hand, then bent to kiss her cheek. “It’s good to see you again. La he extranado.”

Tilly made a small scoffing noise, but Lacy could tell she was flattered by whatever Adam had said. In the old days, Tilly had given him Spanish lessons in exchange for odd jobs around the house, occasional grooming of the horses. Today his accent was flawless, a testimony to her success.

“Nonsense,” Tilly said tartly, covering her pleasure. “Dashing young men do not miss creaky old ladies like me when they set off to see the world. Not for a split second.”

Adam laughed. “The world can be a pretty rough place, Mrs. Barnhardt, even for dashing young men. I remember one particularly ugly winter when I would have traded the whole damn globe for a slice of your blueberry pie.”

Tilly blushed and scowled simultaneously. “Watch your language, young man. You know, I tried to mix a little etiquette into those Spanish lessons, but apparently it didn’t take. You haven’t even said hello to my friends.” She urged Kara forward. “I don’t think you know Mrs. Karlin. She’s the head of our hospital volunteer board.”

Kara grinned goofily, apparently struck dumb by Adam’s smile, and then overcompensated by vigorously pumping his hand. He didn’t protest. He merely raised one eyebrow in mild curiosity and allowed her to continue. Finally, Kara seemed to notice that she still held his hand and let go abruptly, apologizing in unintelligible mortification.

Tilly chuckled. Turning to her other side, she slipped her arm around Lacy’s shoulders. “And of course,” she said with just a hint of protective warning in her voice, “you must remember our little Lacy.”

Lacy forced herself to meet his gaze, bracing for the pain of recognition. She had always loved Adam’s eyes. Stunning blue dramatically framed by black brows and black velvet lashes. Clear, intelligent, audacious, sexy. Uptilted with a secret laughter he had reserved for her, glowing with a rogue tenderness that lay deep beneath the streetwise facade.

And the fire—oh, yes, the fire! Startled by the sight, she realized that she had naively assumed that their decade of separation would have extinguished Adam’s fire—just as it had snuffed her own. But it was still there, the fire that had warmed the coldest nights of her life….

Apparently it would take more than ten years to turn Adam Kendall to ice. She could only imagine the parade of women who had lined up to keep the flames alive after he left Pringle Island, and Lacy, behind.

She fought a shiver that skimmed across her shoulder blades and, somehow, with the help of Tilly’s firm embrace, held her posture erect. She offered him a smile and held out pale, numb fingers.

“Hello, Adam,” she said with extreme courtesy. “Welcome back.”

He took her hand. His tanned fingers were warm, his grip so strong her bones pressed tightly together. But she hardly felt either warmth or pain. He might as well have been shaking hands with a plastic mannequin.

“Hello, Mrs. Morgan,” he said, and she wondered whether anyone else could hear the slow, scathing emphasis on her name. “This is a pleasure. You’re looking well.”

“She’s looking well? Nonsense!” Tilly tightened her hold. “She’s looking magnificent, and you know it. Bellisima, no crees?”

Adam once again scanned Lacy slowly. “Yes,” he agreed finally. “Bellisima. She’s right, Mrs. Morgan. You’re looking particularly…prosperous. Marriage seems to have agreed with you.”

Tilly frowned. “Adam—”

But Lacy had, at long last, found her tongue. Apparently even mannequins could speak up if pushed far enough.

“And traveling has obviously agreed with you, Adam,” she observed pointedly, scanning his crisp, sinfully well-cut tuxedo in a deliberate replication of his earlier perusal of her. “You’re polished to a rather high gloss yourself.”

He shrugged, smiling. “Just window dressing.” He cocked his head sideways, proving his point by suddenly looking far more like a pirate than a gentleman. “Apparently, Mrs. Morgan, we’ve both learned the value of wearing the right uniform.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Uniform?” His smile was really quite unpleasant. Why, then, did it still cause that little hitch in her heartbeat?

“Yes.” His grin broadened, though it never quite reached his eyes. “After all, if you don’t suit up, they won’t let you play, will they?”

She took a moment to breathe past her anger. How dare he? Perhaps his clothing was just a costume, a veneer applied to disguise the irreverent rebel he had always been, but her transformation was deeper, more fundamental. She wasn’t that same untamed child he had once known, painfully thin from poverty, slightly scraggy from neglect, starved for love. His love.

No, by God, she hadn’t “suited up” to play a poised young widow. She had changed far more than her gown. She was no longer naive, desperate or foolish. And she had learned to live without love.

“I really wouldn’t know,” she said coolly. “Unfortunately, I have very little time to play games. Which reminds me, I should be getting back to the other guests.”

She ignored Kara’s shocked inhale, not caring whether the woman thought she was rude. How could Kara understand? Kara Karlin, the mayor’s daughter, knew nothing of Lacy’s past. Lacy Mayfair simply hadn’t existed for the Pringle Island upper crust. Socially, she had been “born” on the day she married Malcolm Morgan.

Lacy turned to Tilly. “Perhaps you should take Adam and show him some of our more expensive paintings,” she said, meeting Tilly’s worried gaze with a grim implacability. “After all, now that he’s gone to the trouble of suiting up as a rich philanthropist, we certainly wouldn’t want to deny him the chance to get in the game, would we?”

UP IN THE OLD HAYLOFT, right next to the hot black spotlight that had been trained on the podium below, Gwen Morgan looked down on her stepmother, who was conversing with some rich guy in a tuxedo. Lacy looked spectacular tonight, Gwen acknowledged reluctantly. That vivid blue suited her, and the choice to go without earrings or necklace was brave in this crowd, but somehow right. Every other woman looked vulgar compared to the elegant widow Morgan.

But then, when didn’t Lacy Morgan look perfect? She had been making Gwen feel ugly, awkward and clumsy, either over-or underdressed, and occasionally even downright invisible, for the past ten years.

Gwen nudged the spotlight an inch, so that its light caught the crown of Lacy’s head, shining on the thick, glossy knot of exquisitely dressed hair. Another flawless call. Gwen touched her own tangled mass of perverse curls, remembering the day, years ago, when she had nearly scorched it all off her head trying to iron it into some desperate approximation of Lacy’s long, swinging pageboy.

Her father, telephoned by the nuns who ran the elite boarding school where Gwen had been incarcerated at the time, had been furious. What fool would bother such a busy man over such a triviality? “Just leave it alone, for God’s sake,” he had barked. “Your hair is problematic enough already.”

Problematic. Even at thirteen, she had known the word was a euphemism for “disappointing.” He’d found her problematic all around—from her messy hair to her bad grades, from her pitiful tennis serve to her intractable acne. And especially problematic had been her maddening habit of being in the way when her father wanted to be alone with Lacy.

Lacy Mayfair Morgan. Her “stepmother.” Her father’s new child bride. A child bride only five years older than Gwen herself. A child bride who, though she’d been born on the wrong side of the tracks, had definitely inherited what Gwen had started to sarcastically call the Sleek Gene.

As Gwen watched now, Lacy smoothly turned away from the tuxedo guy to speak to some other penguin-suited moneybags. The younger girl had a sudden, regressive urge to throw something down on her stepmother’s understated French hairdo. A spitball, maybe, or a water balloon…

Naw. Why bother? It would just give Lacy another chance to handle herself with magnificent aplomb, showcasing the Serene Gene, which apparently was also in her DNA. Gwen watched her stepmother move safely out of range, and she wondered if this was what God felt like. Bigger, higher, above the fray, comfortably able to pass judgment anonymously.

She sighed irritably. Probably not. For one thing, she was pretty sure God didn’t have pests like Teddy Kilgore fiddling insistently at her navel ring.

She captured Teddy’s thumb and squeezed it hard. “Put your paw on my belly button one more time, and I’ll break every one of your fingers.”

It was too dark up here for her glare to have much effect, but she frowned at him anyway. At twenty-one, Teddy Kilgore was two years younger than she was, a straight-A pre-med student, the apple of his snobby mother’s eye, and pretty much a roaring bore. But ever since the day Gwen had come home from boarding school wearing her first training bra, Teddy had been making passes at her every chance he got.

Sometimes she liked it. Sometimes she didn’t. Right now she wished he’d have another beer. Maybe then he’d pass out and let her concentrate on watching the Stepwitch.

No one but Teddy knew Gwen was in town yet. She would have to announce herself eventually, of course. She needed someplace to stay. And, naturally, she needed an advance on her monthly check, which only Lacy could arrange. But Gwen wasn’t ready. She wanted to have these few minutes of secret superiority, silently observing Lacy before the balance of power shifted, as it always did, back to her stepmother.

“Damn it, Teddy,” Gwen whispered, exasperated. The young man had leaned over and begun nibbling at the small gold navel ring, pulling it between his teeth. She couldn’t shove him away without losing an inch of skin, so she grabbed a handful of his silky black hair and tightened her fist warningly. “That hurts.”

He lifted his head and gave her a pout that he undoubtedly thought was sexy. “Aw, c’m’on. If you don’t want men to play with it, why do you wear it?”

“That’s the important word,” she answered, not easing her grip on his hair even fractionally. “Men. Unfortunately you don’t qualify.”

“Well, darn.” Teddy took his disappointment in stride. He rolled over, lying flat on his stomach on the loft, and wiggled his fingers in front of the spotlight. “Look,” he said mischievously. “I can make dirty finger shadows on the curtains down there.”

Gwen looked, wondering if there might be any amusement in a game like that, but though she could see some hazy movement on the curtains behind the podium, she couldn’t make out details. Teddy might have been creating a bunny or a T-rex. She squinted. Or maybe a profile of Adolph Hitler?

Teddy was chuckling, apparently more impressed by his efforts than she was. “Look. I learned this one at school. It’s two people with—”

“Shhh!” Gwen put her hand over Teddy’s fingers and captured them against her pink crystal-studded T-shirt. Lacy was nearby again, this time talking to someone Gwen couldn’t see. Gwen thought she had heard her own name mentioned. “I want to listen to this.”

“What—?”

“Shh!”

“—and we understand she’s been living in Boston,” the disembodied voice was saying, the tones making Boston sound as decadent as Gomorrah. A Pringle Island snob, then—Gwen knew the type. Her father had been the worst. “We couldn’t believe it, of course, but we were actually told that Gwen was installed in a doctor’s household…acting as an au pair!”

Lacy looked unfazed. “Yes,” she said. “I believe that’s true.”

“Oh, Lacy, my dear.” The speaker, who Gwen finally recognized as Jennifer Lansing, the town’s official Minister of Gossip, made a wounded little note of utterly false sympathy. “I know how you must feel. A nanny! After all the advantages you and Malcolm gave her, to be working as a, well, it’s really just a glorified baby-sitter, isn’t it? Malcolm must be turning over in his grave.”

Lacy laughed. “Surely he would understand. She’s quite young, after all. There’s plenty of time to pick a real career.”

Jennifer sniffed. “She’s only a few years younger than you, Lacy dear, and… Well, really, there’s no comparison, is there? Still, perhaps baby-sitting is a step up from her last job, which I hear was waitressing in Spandex tube tops at the Honeydew Café. Better babies than lewd old men with roaming hands, I suppose.”

Lacy bowed her elegant head, accepting the other woman’s sympathy. “I’m sure you’re right. But speaking of babies, have you seen the lovely Verengetti that was donated tonight? I can’t help picturing it in your conservatory. Not everyone has a room with enough scope and style to carry off a painting like that, but you…”

Gwen watched with a barely repressed fury as Lacy led Jennifer away. The nerve of those two self-satisfied snobs! Just exactly what did they think was wrong with being a nanny? Just because neither of them had any children… And as for the Honeydew Café—well, Jennifer was so tightly wrapped, so bony and repressed that people would pay her not to wear Spandex.

Besides, who had appointed them Gwen’s career counselors? She could spend a year laying sewers, if she wanted to. Or she could go be a rodeo clown. It wasn’t anyone’s business but her own.

She didn’t realize she hadn’t released Teddy’s fingers until he protested. “Hey,” he complained, tugging at them. “Ease up!”

She looked over at him, still half-blind with resentment. “Sorry,” she mumbled, trying to hold on to her composure. She felt more like screaming. She felt like yelling down at the departing Lacy that she didn’t give a flying flip what anybody thought of her choices—that her father might have turned Lacy into an obedient little robot-snob, but thank God he hadn’t managed to make one out of his daughter, too.

Teddy must have misinterpreted the intensity in her expression, because his eyes widened, and he made a clumsy move toward her, his lips already pursed for a big, juicy kiss. His awkward lunge pushed them both in front of the spotlight. Suddenly Gwen was truly blinded, this time by hot, white light. She realized that their writhing shadows must be projected on the podium backdrop below, like some X-rated shadow play.

A rather conspicuous method for announcing her arrival in town. The idea definitely had merit, she realized with a rising sense of defiant glee. She stopped struggling and let Teddy wrap his arms around her waist and lower his lips to hers.

Let’s see the Stepwitch handle this. Gwen had observed one indisputable fact through the years: if there was anything that made her frigid little stepmother uncomfortable, it was sex. In fact, she’d bet her trust fund that the widow Morgan, proud possessor of the Serene Gene, hadn’t had a real red-hot firecracker kiss in five years.

Maybe longer.

As Gwen guided Teddy Kilgore’s happily stunned face down toward her collarbone, she recalled what an icy, utterly passive, silently submissive wife Lacy Mayfair had been to Malcolm Morgan.

Heck, maybe ever.

She ran her hands up and down Teddy’s back with exaggerated strokes, knowing it would take broad gestures to attract adequate attention. Teddy responded enthusiastically. “Hot damn,” he murmured against her neck, and then set about taking advantage of his amazing good luck.

He wasn’t a bad kisser, actually. If she hadn’t had other things on her mind, she might even have enjoyed it. Her efforts were rewarded quickly. Within no more than a minute, she heard a few startled sounds from the people right below them. Slowly, as more and more people caught on, a rustle of curiosity moved through the crowd, silencing the normal hum of conversation.

Her fingers buried in Teddy’s black hair, Gwen twisted him a few inches to one side and peered over his shoulder into the audience below. Most of the people were watching the shadow show on the curtains, some smiling with incredulous amusement, some holding back shock with well-manicured, bejeweled fingers.

But one person had already figured it out. One face in the crowd was turned the other way, up toward the loft, up toward the spotlight. Staring straight at the actors.

It was Lacy, of course. Her beautiful face was pale, impassive, as always, but Gwen knew she must be horrified. Echoes came to her from years past. Her father’s voice. Disgusted. Cold.

Control yourself, Gwen, for God’s sake. Haven’t you ever noticed that Lacy never makes a spectacle of herself like that?

Gwen tilted Teddy’s shoulder out of the spotlight’s glare, and tossed her stepmother a broad grin and a wink.

Yeah, she thought wickedly. But I do.