Tempting Fate (11 page)

“You amaze me sometimes. Can't you look in the mirror and tell you look terrific? A little bizarre maybe, but terrific. Honestly, Dani, I've never met anyone as gorgeous as you are who has no idea—maybe who doesn't want to have any idea…” Kate glared at her, as if Dani had done something particularly annoying. “You could have your pick of men.”

“Maybe it's lousy pickings.”

“And maybe you're just too afraid to let anyone care about you.”

“How can you deliver a lecture while serving two hundred?”

Kate grinned, unembarrassed. “Talent. Where'd you get the shoes?”

“I bought them.”

“Mark the calendar, Aaron.”

The teasing loosened the tightness in Dani's stomach, not just from having to face the Chandlers and the crowd, but from having spent fifteen minutes in a car with her mysterious guest.

“Kate, I need a favor. A guy's been following me around.”

“Who?”

“His name's Zeke Cutler. He's some kind of professional white knight—he's staying at the Pembroke.”

Kate wiped her hands on her oversize apron. “Is he here?”

“I don't know. He drove me over—”

“Oh-ho.”

Dani felt her cheeks burn. “It's not what you think. I just thought with your sources you could find out more about him.”

“The name's familiar, but I don't know why. I'll see what I can find out.” A woman who missed nothing, she indicated Dani's bruised wrist with a curt nod. “He do that?”

“I don't think so.”

“Dani, what—”

“It's a long story, and I know you're busy. Later, okay?”

“You're damn right later.”

A server raced over for more tortellini, and while Kate got to work, Dani made her exit. Soon, she thought, she'd tell Kate about the burglary, about finding Zeke in her garden, about Mattie's reaction. But first she had to concentrate on tonight.

Memory took her back through the house. She hadn't been there since Mattie came to take her back to New York while the search for her mother continued. Nothing in the big, elegant house seemed to have changed.

Outside, the breeze held the fragrance, still familiar to her, of the Chandler flower gardens, and she remembered the girl she'd been, so feisty and determined and free, willing to take on her grandfather or the whole world, it didn't matter. She'd had a mother who'd loved her and a father who'd been honest, and she'd adored them both, at nine not seeing them as flawed human beings, and never feeling alone. But that was then.

She rounded the curved front porch with its baskets of pink-and-white petunias, heard someone whisper her name, and people began looking in her direction. In seconds a hush had come over the two hundred Chandler guests.

Dani hesitated, her resolve wavering. She knew these people. They'd been her mother's friends. They'd helped look for her—they'd joined search parties and talked to the police and called everyone they knew for any possible tips, any hints about Lilli's state of mind, where she might have gone. What might have happened to her. In the ensuing years they'd cooperated with the scores of private detectives Eugene Chandler had enlisted to find his missing daughter.

And all the while Dani had avoided them, had avoided Saratoga Springs in August. For twenty-five years the prestigious Chandler Stakes and Lilli Chandler Pembroke's disappearance had been inexorably linked, not just for Dani, but for her mother's family and friends as well.

Looking at them, elegantly dressed, uncertain of what they should do, Dani wondered if they secretly resented her mother for not having vanished at a more opportune time, then realized how horribly unfair she was being.

But she understood their shock as they gaped at her. She could feel herself becoming not the good-humored, risk-taking child of Pembroke scoundrels, not herself, but the image of what they wanted her to be.

It was as if, for a brief, stunned moment, lovely, lost Lilli Chandler Pembroke had finally come home.

Only she hadn't. Dani had always known, even at nine, that she couldn't—didn't want to, ever—take her mother's place.

She thought of Zeke Cutler. Was this enough of a grand entrance for him? It was far more than she'd bargained for. But this was her own doing, and her response was her choice. She pictured Kate Murtagh in the kitchen with the shades up, howling with laugher because she'd told Dani so.

Dani made herself smile. There was really nothing else to do. “Hi, everybody,” she said. “Good to see you all.”

Their relief was palpable. She wasn't going to make a scene. They could have another glass of champagne and a bit of caviar before dinner and not have to think about Lilli's disappearance or John Pembroke's embezzling from his own father-in-law or Dani's having walked away from her Chandler trust.

She swept a glass of champagne from a passing tray as Sara Chandler Stone came up beside her. “Danielle,” she said, taking her niece by the hand and kissing her lightly on the cheek, “I'm so glad you came tonight. It's been far too long.”

Dani almost believed her. “I'm glad I came, too.”

Her aunt smiled, playing the perfect Chandler hostess to the hilt. Her perfume was light and elegant, the same scent her older sister had worn, and probably their mother before them. She wore a simple, stunning coral dress, with diamond studs at her ears and a sprinkle of diamonds in her hair.

She was staring at Dani. “That feather…in your hair…”

“It's the one Mother wore in
Casino.
It's meant as a tribute, Sara. Nothing more.”

“Of course,” Sara mumbled. But she looked shocked, and grief-stricken.

“I didn't mean to upset you.”

Sara carefully restored her hostess face. First the charming smile, then the rich, bright eyes; her cosmetics, Dani noticed, were expertly applied. She bet Sara hadn't needed a Magda to do her up.

“Oh, don't be silly. I was just surprised, that's all. I think it's a wonderful idea. Lilli would have been delighted. Here, let me introduce you to some of my friends. You haven't seen Father yet, I take it. He should be out soon. He doesn't move as fast as he used to.”

While Sara chattered on, Dani followed her around, surprising her with how many people on the lawns, among the beautiful gardens, her niece already knew. Their lives, hers and Dani's, were concentric circles within a larger circle, never touching.

People were gracious and interested, asking about the Pembroke and Pembroke Springs. No one mentioned Lilli or commented on the ostrich plume. Dani invited everyone she spoke to up to her newly opened spa-inn for high tea; many said they'd already sneaked a peek at her rose gardens.

Finally Sara excused herself. “I'll let you mingle now—I need to check with the kitchen.”

Dani wondered how Kate liked being called “the kitchen,” and smiled to herself, sipping her champagne near a stone statue of Demeter she'd tried to dress when she was six or seven. She realized, suddenly and with a rush of relief that surprised her, that she was no longer a frightened nine-year-old waiting for her mother to come and share her raspberries.

“You could have chosen a different dress,” Eugene Chandler said beside her. “Mattie's, isn't it?”

Dani tried not to let her grandfather's cold tone undermine her surge of confidence. “Yes—I'm surprised you recognized it.”

“It was a credible guess.” He wasn't very convincing, but he'd never admit to remembering what Mattie Witt had worn in a movie more than fifty years old. As for the ostrich plume, he'd claimed never to have seen
Casino
and his older daughter's searing performance. “I assume it was a deliberate choice on your part.”

It was an accusation, not a question, but Dani refused to let him get to her, which was exactly what he was trying to do. “No need to spend money on a new dress when I've got a perfectly good one in the attic. How are you, Grandfather?”

Tilting his head back slightly, he inhaled through his nose. Even at eighty-two he was straight-backed and still possessed an uncanny knack for irritating her. His bearing and arrogance—his pride, he'd say—had seen him through scandal and loss. But clearly he'd aged. He was the only surviving child of Ambrose Chandler and his very young third wife, Beatrix, who'd lost their three older children to diphtheria when Eugene was just a baby. Now he was an old man with parchment-thin skin and brown spots on his hands, arms and face. His blue eyes had clouded, and his lips had a purplish cast to them. Dani might have felt sympathy for him, for the man had endured pain and anguish—the early death of the wife he'd adored, the years of not knowing what had happened to his firstborn child, the embarrassment of having his son-in-law steal from his family's firm and the lack of a close relationship with his only grandchild.

But if tragedy ennobled some and embittered others, it seemed to have had no effect whatsoever on Eugene Chandler. His daughter was missing, so he just didn't talk about her. His son-in-law was a reprobate, so he ignored him. His granddaughter had thrown her inheritance in his face after his cruel, offhand remark about dropping the Pembroke from her name, so he went right on as if nothing had happened between them and he'd said nothing wrong.

But they'd never gotten along. As a child, even before her mother had disappeared, he'd shut down her lemonade stand because “Chandler ladies” weren't supposed to be entrepreneurs. He'd refused to let her climb trees where anyone might see her, he'd called her incorrigible and had pointed out every flaw in what she wore, what she said, what she did. It was as if from the moment he saw her black hair and black eyes he'd been looking for the Witt and Pembroke in her, and had tried at every turn to stamp them out. He'd never, it seemed to her, looked for the person she was: neither Chandler nor Witt nor Pembroke, but only herself.

“You know, Danielle,” he said softly, “you're much harder on us than we deserve.”

His words caught her off guard. “I'm not trying to be hard on anyone.”

But he walked away, proud and in control. Fortunately one of Kate's helpers stuck a tray of tiny spanakopita triangles under Dani's nose, keeping her from chasing down her grandfather for an explanation for his remark, or to apologize, guiltily, for behavior that had become automatic over the years. “Kate said for me to tell you she's hit the jackpot. I'm not sure what that means.”

Dani was: Kate had found out something on Zeke Cutler. But before she could sneak off to the kitchen, Roger Stone appeared beside her, handsomely dressed, the corners of his eyes crinkling when he smiled. Dani had always liked him, even if her unconventional executive style would give him ulcers and he'd seemed a little too eager to step into her father's shoes after Eugene Chandler had fired him from Chandler Hotels, refusing to involve the authorities in the misdeeds of his own son-in-law.

“It's been forever, Dani.” Roger took both her hands and whistled as he gave her a quick, appreciative once-over. “Don't you look smashing.”

“Thank you. I hope I haven't caused any trouble for you and Sara tonight by coming. I just wanted to see folks.” And she realized it was true—she'd
wanted
to be here.

His blue eyes warmed with understanding. “It's not you—it never has been.”

“It's my mother.”

“You don't have a sister, so perhaps it's difficult for you to understand, but Sara has deep feelings about your mother. Lilli disappeared less than a year after their mother died—it was a double shock, quite devastating. Tonight's always difficult for Sara, that's all. It's a reminder of what she's lost.”

“So am I.”

Roger studied her a moment, not a man to pretend or deny, and finally he nodded, without elaborating or minimizing.

Dani suddenly felt chilled. She'd almost rather have her aunt's flawless, if phony, good cheer. “I suppose it's the same for Grandfather.”

But Roger studied her, seeing much more, she suspected, than she wanted him to see. She sensed no condemnation, only a desire to understand. “It's not such a bad thing, you know, to remind them of Lilli. They don't want to forget her. They—” He stopped, frowning in concern as his eyes fell to her bruised arm. So far no one else had noticed the effects of yesterday afternoon's festivities at her cottage. “Dani—what on earth happened to you?”

“Oh, I stumbled on a burglar yesterday.”

“At the inn?”

“No, at my cottage. He didn't get away with much.”

“But you're okay?”

His concern made her feel uncomfortable, awkward. “Yes, I'm fine. It was a good lesson in locking my doors.”

“What did the police say?”

“Nothing. I didn't call them.”

Roger paused, assessing her response. “That was good thinking, I suppose. You just don't need that kind of publicity right now.”

“None of us do,” she said curtly.