Bait & Switch (13 page)

She took the flowers, questions filling her mind. They had nothing to do with the flattery that poured from his mouth as easily as rain from the sky.

Why had her mother invited Gaston when she’d made a point of insisting she get to know Mitch? And how could Amelia justify breaking her rule that there must always be an even number of diners at the table?

“If you don’t invite me in soon, the wind might do it for you,” Gaston said.

“Of course. Forgive me. Come in.” Peyton moved back to grant him admittance. He had plenty of room to step around her, but instead he moved close, brushing a kiss against her forehead. He’d put on his expensive cologne with such a heavy hand that she almost sneezed.

“Gaston, my dear, how lovely it is to see you.” Her mother fluttered into the room, the heels of her size-five feet making dainty clicking noises on the hardwood. She kissed the air on both sides of his cheeks. “Are those roses for me? I can not tell you how much I adore roses.”

“Good evening, Amelia. Yes, the roses are for you.” He slanted a pointed look at Peyton, probably to remind her of what he’d said about their beauty. “I’m as delighted to be here as you are to have me.”

“Is that Gaston I hear?” Her father strode into the foyer and clapped the younger man on his shoulder before heartily shaking his hand. “I hear you’ve been a busy man. Word at City Hall is that your renovation project on Smith Street has expanded to include four of the properties around it.”

“Four other properties!” Peyton exclaimed so loudly that both men turned toward her. She was past caring about propriety. “Is that true, Gaston? Are you going to renovate all of it?”

He laughed and took both of her hands in his, which were curiously cold. “It’s true, my sweet. I plan to renovate the houses and resell them.”

“That’s fantastic.” The wheels in Peyton’s mind spun. “If you renovate five buildings, it can only spur surrounding property owners to follow suit. It’ll be a real boon for that part of the city.”

“That’s what I’m aiming for,” Gaston said with the smile that never quite seemed to reach his unreadable gray eyes. But why was she thinking about that now? She’d misjudged him so badly when they were teenagers that it was obvious he had layers she didn’t know about. He’d seemed like the kind of slick-talking, empty charmer all fathers warned their daughters against yet he’d turned into a champion for their city.
 

“If you need help with the way the properties used to look, I could dig up records at one of the historical societies,” she offered.

“Thanks,” Gaston said. “I might ask you to do that.”

He still held her hands in his. She started to feel uncomfortable. Making sure her smile didn’t fade, she slipped her hands out of his grasp. His eyes didn’t leave her face.

“Come into the study with me, Gaston, and I’ll pour you a sherry.” Her father broke the uneasy connection between them. “Then you can tell me more about the property.” He winked broadly. “And how you hope to make a killing on the resale property.”

The men departed amid deep-voiced chatter and laughter, leaving Peyton alone with her mother.

“Gaston is such a fine young man from such a good family,” Amelia said. “He obviously has a head for business on his shoulders, too.”

Peyton had been Amelia’s daughter long enough to realize she’d earmarked Gaston Gibbs as son-in-law material. It wouldn’t do any good to point out she wasn’t interested. Amelia only heard what she wanted to hear.

“He’s a man who could keep his wife in style,” Amelia continued. “His wife would not have to diaper horses and cart pushy, noisy tourists around the city.”

Peyton held onto her temper, although her mother refused to give up her fixation on the diapers the horses wore to assure the city’s lovely streets were free of waste.

“How many times do I have to tell you that I’m not the one who changes the diapers?” Peyton asked.

“That makes no difference, dear. Appearances are what matters. People
assume
you change the diapers.”

As she always did, Peyton swallowed the rant that threatened to erupt from the back of her throat.

“I wish you’d told me Gaston would be joining us, Mother. I thought dinner would be just the four of us.”

“Whatever gave you that impression, dear?” Amelia laughed her delicate laugh. “The more the merrier, I always say.”

“You never say that.”

“I could always start. It’s a perfectly fine expression.”

“A ‘third wheel’ is a perfectly fine expression, too, which is what Gaston will feel like when Mitch gets here.”

“Nonsense, dear. If anyone feels like an outsider, it will be Mitch, who did not have the good fortune to be born in God’s Country like the rest of us.”

It would be futile to point out that not everyone thought of Charlestonians as God’s chosen people, especially because her mother knew Peyton loved the city as well as anyone on the peninsula.

“You should have stuck with your rule not to invite an uneven number of people to dinner,” Peyton said. It was as close as she ever came to criticizing Amelia.

“Who says I did not stick to my rule?” Amelia plucked the roses from Peyton’s grasp. “I do hope Barbara can take time out from her cooking to find a vase and put these lovely flowers where we can enjoy them.”

She flashed Peyton a beatific smile and walked away. Peyton checked the urge to rush after her and demand an explanation. Her mother, however, considered both rushing and demanding unladylike.

Peyton was trying to figure out the puzzle for herself when the doorbell rang again. She resurrected her smile of anticipation and swung open the door.

A thirty-ish woman with dyed blonde hair, tall black boots, a black miniskirt and a thigh-length black poncho trimmed with silver stars gave her a grin so genuine Peyton couldn’t help smiling back.

“I hope I have the right place,” she said in a voice as high as a child’s. Her hair wasn’t moving in the wind either. “I’m Hattie. Who are you?”

“Peyton McDowell.”

No sooner were the words out of Peyton’s mouth than Hattie was enthusiastically shaking her hand and proclaiming it nice to meet her. “So you’re Amelia’s daughter? She invited me to dinner! Oh, she’s the nicest woman.”

“I thought I knew all my mother’s friends,” Peyton said, thinking of the society types her mother usually ran with, “but I don’t remember meeting you.”

Hattie lightly slapped her shoulder. “Amelia and I met on line at the grocery store this morning. She was so pretty and classy. I about died when she asked me to dinner. I tried to say no, but she didn’t want the number of guests at her dinner party to be uneven. I just couldn’t bear the thought of people thinking her odd.”

Hattie clutched something which, on closer inspection, appeared to be a bottle of salad dressing. The other woman must’ve seen Peyton’s gaze fall on the condiment because she held it up.

“There’s an ingredient in most salad dressings that makes me break out in hives, so I always bring my own,” she explained. “Low-fat, low-cal, oil free. It doesn’t taste too good, but at least it doesn’t make me red and blotchy.”

Before Peyton could think how to reply to that nugget of information, she caught a glimpse of Mitch walking up the sidewalk. She wasn’t sure whether to cheer or moan.

She’d never seen a man look so good in a pair of dark slacks and a white knit shirt. Although Mitch’s clothes were obviously expensive, both Gaston and her father were wearing suits, complete with dress shirt and tie.

She could only imagine what Amelia would make of that.

“I can tell that hunk’s off limits by the way you’re looking at him,” Hattie said in a stage whisper, her black eyebrows arched like a camel’s back. “I sure hope Amelia invited someone half as good for me.”

Despite the delicious menu of she-crab soup, salad with raspberry vinaigrette dressing and sautéed Atlantic Salmon, Mitch wouldn’t say dinner with Peyton’s parents was going well.
 

Not only was one of the guests a low-life in disguise, Peyton’s mother had drawn up seating cards that positioned Peyton next to the low-life and catty-corner from Mitch.

Not being able to touch Peyton only made him want to touch her more. That wouldn’t happen if Peyton’s father had anything to say about it. The solicitor scowled at him from his place at the head of the table.

“Would you please pass the butter, Thomas?” Mitch gave the solicitor his imitation of Cary’s most charming grin, the better to win him over with.

“The name’s Sir,” he said.

“Daddy,” Peyton drew out the syllables like a plea, placing one of her slim-fingered hands on her father’s forearm.

“Fine,” Peyton’s father muttered. “He can call me Mr. McDowell if it’s that important to you.”

Mr. McDowell handed the miniature sterling silver tray containing the butter to Hattie “I-can-string-more-sentences-together-than-you-can” Feinstein. Hattie passed the butter to Mitch with a sympathetic look.

“You can call
me
anything you want, sugar,” she whispered so Mitch alone could hear. “Hattie’s already short for Henrietta, but Henny or Hen’s fine with me. Heck, call me Hat if you want.”

“Thanks,” Mitch said.

He noticed the solicitor had no problem with the criminal at his table using his first name. But then, Flash Gordon radiated snobbery and wealth in his Gaston Gibbs disguise. Mitch would love to expose him, but so far his undercover investigation had been a bust.

“I hear the Dock Street Players are doing a charming production of
Porgy and Bess
. Everybody is saying it's a must see.” Gibbs turned to Peyton. “I was hoping that you—”

“Would you believe I've lived in Charleston for twenty years and I've never seen Porgy and Bess?” Hattie interrupted. “It’s supposed to be so heartbreaking when Bess goes to New York at the end and Porgy sings that song.” Hattie broke into an off-key rendition of, ‘Oh, Bess, oh where’s my Bess?’”

Peyton smiled across the table at Hattie. “I've seen it so many times I can take a pass. Why don’t you and Gaston go together?”

“One can never see
Porgy and Bess
enough times, Peyton dear,” Amelia rushed to interject. “And I do believe Gaston was about to ask if
you
would like to see it with him.”

Enough
, Mitch thought,
was enough
.

“Peyton and I are dating, Amelia,” Mitch said. “Do you really think Gaston would ask out my girl when I'm sitting right here?”

Gaston sent him a look of thinly disguised irritation. Mitch wondered if he were crazy to provoke the criminal who could send his brother to jail. And, in the process, possibly see to it that Mitch never worked as a cop again.

“Gaston probably figures he's safe,” Mr. McDowell intoned dryly. “If you and my daughter had plans for that night, odds are you wouldn't show up anyway.”

“Daddy, please.” Peyton used the same pleading tone on her father as she had a few minutes ago.

Judging by Mitch’s glare and the tightness around his mouth, maybe he was the one Peyton should have been trying to soothe.

“This isn’t any of your—” Mitch began.

“I once dated a guy who never showed up.” Salvation came in the form of Hattie’s high, cheerful voice. “He’d call me up, ask me out and say he’d pick me up at such and such a time, only he wouldn't show. A couple of weeks would pass and he'd call to apologize and ask me out again. Then we'd go through the whole rigmarole all over again.”

“Why did you keep saying yes if he kept standing you up?” Peyton was eager to pursue any line of conversation that didn’t end in Mitch forever ruining whatever civil relationship he could have had with her father.

“Because he had a harelip,” Hattie said. “And one leg two inches shorter than the other. He wore this thick black shoe to even things out, kind of like the ones Herman Munster had on that old television show, but he was still lopsided.”

“Look, Mr. Mc—” Mitch tried again, obviously still bristling from the insult.

This time, Peyton didn’t let him finish. “I don’t understand what his disabilities had to do with you dating him.”

Hattie put a hand to her chest in drama-queen fashion. “Why, I couldn’t let him believe I was prejudiced against men with harelips and lopsided legs. Besides, I’m no dummy. After the first couple times, it's not like I expected him to show.”

“This is quite intriguing, dear.” Peyton’s mother unexpectedly joined the discussion. “So are we to understand you never refused a date with him?”

“Only once. Would you believe that's the only time he showed up? Then he was peeved at me for being in the middle of a dye job. But what did he expect me to do?” She pointed to her platinum-blonde hair. “I gotta keep that dye on a long time to cover up all the brown under here.”

“I do believe the actress who played the role of Bess in George Gershwin's original operatic production was a brunette,” Amelia said, a transparent attempt to draw the conversation back to the point where Gaston was about to ask Peyton out.

Peyton shot a glance at Mitch, hoping he had his temper in check. She tried to convey with her eyes how important it was that he get through this dinner with her parents. He didn’t know them well enough to realize they were only tough on the men she dated because they wanted the best for her.

“Tough luck for Bess.” Hattie speared a miniature tomato with her fork and waved it as she talked. “Peyton over there can tell you that blondes have more fun. That's why I became one. My mama and sisters and grandmama are brunettes. When they get together, woo wee, it is one dark time.”

“Where are your people from, dear?” Amelia asked sweetly.

“Here, there and everywhere in eastern Europe. We Feinsteins started out mostly in New York but we were freezing our buns off. Just about all of us took off for points south.”

“The McDowells have been in Charleston for more than three hundred years,” Amelia said, pride oozing from her voice. “And Gaston, is it not so that your branch of the Gibbs family descended from the city’s original settlers?”

“Quite true,” Gaston said. “My family and this city date back to 1670 and the original Charles Towne settlement.”