All That Lies Broken (Ashmore's Folly Book 2) (47 page)

“The one about protecting the name and image of Cat Courtney. Listen, they take that very seriously. They’ve built that image, and they mean business about protecting it. That’s why they’ve had final approval on everything about this concert. That’s why her manager is coming up to direct the whole thing. We’re lucky we get any say-so.”

Diana said nothing.

“When you dragged her up there yesterday – if I were her lawyer, I’d argue that singing in casual wear without proper accompaniment was detrimental to the Cat Courtney image. You forced her into it. She couldn’t refuse – that might have hurt her image also.” Lucy eased off on the accelerator; her irritation was fueling her speed. “So you are going to apologize, and you are going to do everything in your power to smooth things over with her.”

“Oh, big damn deal.” Diana pulled down the vanity mirror. “So she wasn’t dressed in gold lamé. So what. You said it yourself. She won’t sue us.”

“She won’t,” said Lucy flatly. “But I don’t put it past her brother-in-law. He strikes me as the litigious type. And he, sweetie, controls half of Cat Courtney, Inc. He might not take kindly to someone damaging a St. Bride cash cow.”

“Like she’s a piece of property.”

“In some ways, she is. It’s like being a professional athlete.”

Diana didn’t answer. Lucy glanced at her and turned back to the road. The tunnel under the Chesapeake loomed before them.

She never felt comfortable driving through the tunnel; the sense of the millions of gallons of water over her head left her slightly uneasy. But the tunnel was well-lit, and traffic was still light. Another hour, and it would be bumper-to-bumper with people heading out to the Eastern Shore for the long weekend. She wasn’t getting the usual feeling of claustrophobia.

Diana said nothing while they were in the tunnel; she had never admitted it, but Lucy thought she had the same touch of claustrophobia. Certainly, something was eating at her, something that went well beyond Laura’s performance. She kept shifting around in her seat, moving her hands in her lap, twisting a ring so that it sent emerald lights into the air as they emerged from the tunnel into the light of day once again.

They were approaching the Eastern Shore when Diana said, “Speaking of Laura’s brother-in-law – do you think she still has a crush on Richard?”

The question came so out of the blue that, for a second, Lucy came unglued. Of all the ungodly things to come out of Diana’s mouth – did she know? Had she guessed? Laura and Richard had assiduously avoided each other at the party, showing more common sense than she could have hoped for. Had someone, make that Scott McIntire’s admin, unburdened herself of suspicions too juicy to keep to herself? “What do you mean?”

Diana stretched out her arms. “Oh, you know, she was so in love with him when she was younger. Think she still feels the same way?”

Oh no.
“I doubt it. Why?”

“Just wondering,” her sister shrugged. “Right off the bat, she jumped all over me about the divorce. Asking me why I was hanging on. And then she told this affecting little story about how her husband asked for a divorce and she was so relieved she kissed him and wished him well, like
that
seriously happened. She probably wanted to slug him.”

Lucy’s heart was beating hard. “No. I think she was sincere about that.”

“Then she asked what I want from Richard.” A note of sarcasm glimmered in her voice. “Maybe she thinks she can buy her hero out of his miserable marriage so he’ll give her the time of day.”

Lucy said directly, “What
do
you want, Di?”

That was a question they all wanted answered. Kevin Stone had promised to send over a preliminary proposal earlier in the week, but it had never materialized. They were withholding the Ash Marine offer until Diana made her demands known – no use giving that up, Tom had said, if they didn’t need it.

“What do I want?” Diana gave her a long, measured look. “Are you my sister or his lawyer?”

“Both,” said Lucy. “I want to know. And I am duty-bound to convey any offer to my client, so you might as well tell me, no matter how outlandish it is.”

Of course, Diana was supposed to convey any demands through her own attorney. It wasn’t entirely kosher, talking to her sister directly, but Diana had brought up the subject herself. What was she supposed to do, go deaf so she wouldn’t hear what her sister had to say?

Well, probably, but this was one ethical boundary she was going to nudge.

Prepared as she was to hear anything, Lucy was still shocked at the venom in Diana’s voice. “I want him to suffer. I want—” And from the corner of her eye, she saw Diana’s lips compressing, as though she were fighting back tears. “I want him to make up for what he did. I want him to be as miserable as I’ve been all these years.”

Lucy rather thought Diana had already gotten her wish.

“You can’t quantify suffering,” she said. “I can’t take an offer of ‘die, you bastard’ to him. What do you
want?
”

Diana hunched over. “I don’t know,” she said bitterly. “The problem is, Mr. Perfect is damn near untouchable. I sat down the other day, after I got over the shock – I made a list of what matters to him. And you know what? I can’t touch him! Ashmore Park is his, and I assume his inheritance is his separate property the way Daddy’s stuff is mine. He made me sign that waiver—”

One of her better legal maneuvers. When Richard and Scott had gone into partnership, she had insisted that Diana and Mel relinquish any rights to Ashmore & McIntire. Mel had laughed that she was signing away her rights in the inevitable bankruptcy, and Diana hadn’t bothered to read the paper. Lucy breathed a mental sigh of relief; she’d been concerned that Diana might try to invalidate that waiver. She wouldn’t succeed, but it would take time and energy to fight her.

“—I don’t want his stupid plane. If I take that, he’ll just get another one. I thought about the Great Lakes shipping trust, but I think that’s all tied up too so it’s protected against divorce.”

“It is,” Lucy said, and silently thanked the long-dead lawyers of Julia Tremaine Ashmore.

“And I doubt he has much else except the money he makes, and I’m not stupid – I know any judge is going to let him keep all of that. And I’m realistic about Julie. I know she wants to live with him. I know no court is going to take her away at this point. So,” Diana paused, and Lucy finally had to prompt her.

“So?”

Diana said in a low voice, so low that Lucy had to strain to hear her, “That only leaves his good name. I thought maybe I could get Laurie to testify. Except she got around me on that!” She buried her face in her hands. “That bitch – it’s like she’s always two steps ahead of me. Everywhere I turn, there she is, in the way!” Another silence. “I wish to God she had never come back.”

Lucy felt a piece of her heart crumble.

For so long, she’d wanted her family back together. She’d dreamed of a Thanksgiving dinner, Richard and Diana miraculously at peace with each other, Laura and her daughter back in the family fold, Julie secure and not so desperately trying to win approval. Her baby taking spoonfuls of strained vegetables while Tom carved the turkey. Reunited, all of them, happy to be together in the safe haven of their family.

And that would never happen. Not now. Richard could leave Diana behind, but Diana couldn’t let go because she was never going to forgive him for what had happened her senior year. That secret still lay smoldering between husband and wife. Even so, they might have declared a surface peace, but Laura had taken care of that. Her sisters were set against each other now.

She felt sick. She loved them both so much, and one was going to annihilate the other.

She was afraid she knew which one.

“We’re almost to Cape Charles,” she said, and was stunned to hear her voice, calm and steady. “About another hour after that. Tell you what. Why don’t I drop you at the library, and you go look through the newspaper archives. See if they’ve got old issues on microfiche. Look for any stories on unidentified bodies of women—”

“How much money does she have?”

“What?”

Diana said impatiently, “How much does she have? How much did this St. Bride leave her?”

She had a sinking feeling. “I don’t know. A lot. She’s been reluctant to come right out and say – I think she doesn’t want to put anyone off. A lot of it’s tied up in trust.”

“But she can still get her hands on quite a bit, right?”

“I don’t know,” Lucy said flatly. “I’m not going to ask, either.”

Diana had a little, strange smile. “Oh, yes, you are.”

“No.” Lucy bit out the words. “I’m not.”

She waited for the sword to drop.

“Yes, you are,” Diana said gently. “You are going to convey to your client that I want a cash settlement of – oh, I don’t know, enough to keep me comfortable for the rest of my life. Let’s say three million. I can live very nicely on that; I’m not extravagant. I just want a nice little place in Paris and my piano. And since I know damn well he doesn’t have three million lying around, and he won’t mortgage Ashmore Park – I’m not stupid – he can go get the money from anyone who might be willing to give it to him. And I’ll bet I know someone who will write him a check the second he asks.”

Three million. Blast. Diana must know what Ash Marine was worth.

“Tell your client,” continued her sister, “he can have his freedom for the mere sum of three million, in cash. I don’t want it tied up with any conditions, I don’t want him telling me what I can and can’t do, and I don’t want any nonsense about a trust, either. Tell him to swallow his pride and go get the money from Laura. And tell her, if she balks, she is letting her hero in for a long and messy divorce. Tell her,” Diana said, “I will make his affair with Francie public.”

Oh, God. What a nightmare. Not that the judge wouldn’t nip this in the bud, but the mere suggestion would end Richard and Laura, fast. She knew him; his pride and independence would keep him from ever approaching Laura again. And while that might be a good idea in the short term, as Tom had flatly told Richard the night before, what would it do to him in the long run?

What would it do to Laura?

What would it do to the family?

“I will
not
,” Lucy said. “That’s ridiculous.”

“No,” Diana said. “It’s quite reasonable. That’s the price of his good name. That’s the price of being an upstanding Republican and a fine Episcopalian and God’s gift to architecture. He pays me, and no one has to know he engaged in a tawdry adultery with his slutty sister-in-law when he had a wife and toddler at home.”

Richard hadn’t been overly harsh with Diana the day before. He hadn’t been harsh enough. If not for the consequences, she’d park the car and shove her sister decisively off the bridge into the Chesapeake. That would make the restraining order Tom was preparing the least of Diana’s problems.

It would take care of everyone’s problems – Richard’s, Laura’s, Julie’s, hers. Well, maybe not hers. Glaring tabloid headlines:
Fed-Up Female Finally Flips, Feeds Family Fiend to Fishes
.

“And what adultery did you engage in?”

Silence.

Lucy waited. She had known, from the beginning, that the affair with Francie hadn’t come up out of nowhere. She had seen the marriage falling apart for years before Francie ever made her move. Simple deduction, really – Diana hadn’t wanted to get married, and she knew for a fact her sister hadn’t taken her marriage vows too seriously. Diana had stayed with her off and on during the months after she’d left Richard in college, and more nights than not, Diana had not come home.

One evening a few winters before, she and Richard had relaxed before a fire at the Folly, polishing off a bottle of wine, talking about everything and nothing. Slightly tipsy confidences had followed. Lucy had never come closer to worming anything out of him; he had admitted that he had just finished a relationship, and she hadn’t let on that she already knew he and Jennifer were history. They had skirted around the issue of Diana, until, out of the blue, he had said, “Lucy, if she’d just loved me,” and he had stared into the fire, not saying another word.

Even though it was the wine talking, she had seen his bleakness, and she had been at a loss to offer comfort. She’d never realized until then that he knew Diana had never loved him.

It followed, day after night, that Diana must have been the first to stray. Unable to face the unspoken need of a man who loved his wife, needed her to love him, she had seen those vows as chains to be resisted and broken.
I don’t want you to love me, so I’ll give you a good reason to stop.

“Did Laura say anything to you?”

“What?” That seemed like a
non sequitur
. “What would she know about your – er, love life?”

“Nothing,” Diana said quickly, too quickly. “Just wondered.”

Well, that was curious. She waited.

“Do you think I can sue her?”

What!

“Okay,” said Lucy, when she caught her breath. “I really am going to feed you to the fishes. Sue her for what? Having the temerity to sing a song that you sang – how long ago was that?”