Carolina Isle (Edenton 2)

She didn’t answer, but looked at Sara. “Ariel, you have a crease in your trousers. And have you been using that face cream I gave you? Your complexion looks like a teenager’s. I’ll make an appointment for the dermatologist for tomorrow.”

Sara could only gape at her. One of her great vanities was her skin. In spite of too much sun and nothing to put on it but soap and water, her skin was one of her best features. Yet this woman …

Sara forced herself to smile. “Is that a new gown, Mother? You look beautiful in it.”

“Don’t be impertinent,” Mrs. Weatherly snapped, then turned and started back up the stairs. “David, see that she gets into her room. Ariel, I will see you in the morning and you will be given a chance to explain your unpardonable bad behavior.”

Sara stood there, her mouth agape, as she watched her walk up the stairs, then enter a room and close the door. She looked back at David, speechless.

“Translation: She missed you, was worried about you, and she wants to see you first thing in the morning to hear all about your trip.”

Chapter Five

THE NEXT MORNING, SARA WAS WAITING on the street corner when David picked her up at 7:00 A.M. She knew it wasn’t something that Ariel would have done, but she couldn’t bear to face “Miss Pommy.” Besides, she told herself, she wanted to see how Ariel and R.J. were getting along. Had he believed the switch?

“Coward,” David said pleasantly as she opened the door to his BMW.

“Through and through,” she said and laughed. “Have you heard from Ariel?”

“Think your boss threw her out before breakfast?”

“He sleeps naked. I worry that he seduced Ariel.”

Sara was only kidding, but when David almost ran into a fire hydrant, she gasped.

“He wouldn’t really, would he?” David asked.

Sara was trying to figure out what his concern was. Ariel’s last letters said that David was half in love with some “very unsuitable girl” who lived on “the other side” of Arundel. But now Sara was wondering if there was more between them than she’d realized.

As they drove though Arundel, Sara got her first look at the town. It was like a set for a movie about a perfect little town. So this is where I came from, she thought. She hadn’t been born in Arundel, but she’d been conceived here. “On top of a Ferris wheel at the county fair,” if her father was to be believed.

They passed big, old houses surrounded by beautiful gardens. Huge trees of magnolia and gingko shaded perfect lawns. Flowers bloomed everywhere. Houses had signs in front of them telling the name of the house and the date it was built. She saw the name Ambler, her mother’s maiden name, twice. In spite of her refusal to memorize the genealogy of the town’s founding families, she remembered Ariel’s comments about the Amblers: oldest, richest, most prominent. Her ancestors had walked on these streets, lived in these houses.

She came out of her reverie when David turned beside an enormous Victorian house painted blue and white. It was covered with porches, turrets, and little round windows, all romantic and dreamy.

Looking at her, David smiled. “Built by your great, great, great, et cetera, uncle.”

“A man of taste.” How good it felt to belong! she thought.

When they got to the parking lot, Ariel and R.J. were outside putting boxes in the trunk of his rented Jaguar. Actually, Ariel was putting in the boxes and R.J. was talking on his cellphone to somebody in Tokyo. Sara fully expected him to start ordering her around as soon as she stepped out of David’s car, but he didn’t. Instead, she found out what it was like to be on the receiving end of the R.J. tr

eatment, as she’d heard it described. He looked her up and down from head to toe, then back again. When he’d finished that, he looked into her eyes.

For the first time, Sara had an idea of why so many women fell for him. But she knew him and wanted nothing to do with his hot looks. It was easy, almost natural, for her to become Ariel and give him her best imitation of the look. When David reached her, Sara squeezed his arm possessively.

R.J. looked from David to Sara, then back again. There was a knowing little smirk on R.J.’s face, as if to say, This boy is no competition for a man like me.

Sara had to fight the urge to tell him what she thought of him, but to do that would give the game away.

“You must be Ariel,” R.J. said, at last off the phone. He put himself between her and David, and took her arm to lead her to the front passenger seat.

“And you must be Mr. Brompton,” she said, moving her arm out of his.

“Please, call me R.J.”

She was tempted to say, “Call me Miss Weatherly,” but she just smiled and put more space between them.

“I’m glad Sara asked to bring her cousin along on this trip,” he said suggestively.