Fallen Hearts (Casteel 3)

"Well? What house?"

"The Hasbrouck House," he announced.

"What? You're kidding!"

He shook his head. "It's up for sale," he said.

The Hasbrouck House was a beautiful, colonial-style home a half mile east of the factory site. It was owned by Anthony Hasbrouck, who was considered "old money"; his family went back to preCivil War times.

"I don't believe that Anthony Hasbrouck would sell that house."

"His investments haven't been doing well lately and he is desperately in need of cash." Logan seemed to know a lot about Anthony Hasbrouck.

"I see." I imagined that Logan, who now hobnobbed with all the power brokers of Winnerow and the surrounding area, discovered this. By the way he was smiling, I thought he had probably already made Hasbrouck a handsome offer for the property.

I couldn't hide my excitement about it; I knew the home. Tom and I had often walked past it when we were children. To us it always looked like one of those mansions described in great novels, with its sprawling, beautifully landscaped grounds and tall pillars in the front. There was an enormous carvedoak double door that looked as if it would take a giant butler to open. It was easy to imagine wonderful dinner parties taking place in this mansion. All sorts of romantic adventures would go on behind those great oak doors.

We used to dream about living in it. Everyone in the family would have his or her own room. As the oldest daughter, I would dress like a Southern belle and take visitors out to the garden to drink mint juleps.. . . Tom would pretend he had his own string of racehorses. I smiled, remembering our silly, childish dreams that suddenly looked like some sort of prophecy. Oh, Tom, Tom, I still miss him so. My bright dreamer brother. And now every dream, one after another, was coming true, but never the way we had imagined it, never quite as bright and shiny and golden as the dream meant it to be. Logan saw the wistful smile on my face and brightened.

"I'd hoped you would agree to the idea," he said, warming more to his plan, "and went ahead and made us an appointment to view the house tomorrow morning. Is that all right?"

"Yes," I said, a little disappointed he hadn't spoken with me about it first. It reminded me too much of the way Tony did things. Logan was too much under Tony's influence, too eager to emulate him in every way. And though I was impressed with how quickly Logan was becoming a take-charge businessman, it was the soft, sweet, caring boy I had fallen in love with that I needed and missed.

The next morning Anthony Hasbrouck, a man who wouldn't have given me a second look when I was a little girl living in the Willies, who had once chased Tom and me away from his front gate, now put out the red carpet for me as he guided us on a tour of the mansion. He wore a black velvet smoking jacket, black slacks, and velvet slippers and spoke with a syrupy thick Southern accent, calling me "Heavenly," instead of "Heaven."

"Why, thank you for showing us your place, Mr. Hasbrouck," I said.

"You call me Sonny, all my friends do."

"Sonny it is, then," I said, turning to Logan. "If we take this house," I whispered loudly enough for Mr. Hasbrouck to hear, "we're going to have to have the whole place redecorated. It's just been allowed to fall to pieces." I enjoyed going on and on about how much more glorious his house would become in my care, how many more rugs there would have to be, how the old kitchen wouldn't do at all. I rarely enjoyed flaunting my wealth, but with people like Mr. Hasbrouck, people who had looked down on us Casteels, who had chased my lovely Tom away from his dreams, I truly did enjoy it.

"And most of all," I said, taking Logan's arm as we strolled through the grounds, "we are going to have to have a lot more servants and gardeners--I just can't believe what has happened to this old estate."

Mr. Hasbrouck turned bright red. He kept twirling his mustache and gritting his teeth. I knew he couldn't stand to have to sell his house to a Casteel, but as Logan assured me, he needed the money.

"Sonny," I said, smiling brightly and acting as charming as I could, "I do like your home, but I'm afraid the price is just too high for what we'll be getting." I forced my face into a frown.

Logan was flabbergasted. He reeled around. "But, Heaven, darling--"

"I suppose your pretty little wife is right," Mr. Hasbrouck said. His face was now as red as a tomato. "Heavenly, you sure do strike a hard bargain."

As soon as we got into the car, Logan swept me into his arms. "Not only do I have the prettiest wife in town, but I have the smartest. I can't wait until we get back to Farthy so I can tell Tony how you handled this."

It was three days later, when Tony ushered Logan and me into his office for a welcome-home drink, that Logan announced the news. "Tony," he began, his eyes glittering with pride and excitement, "Heaven and I have taken the first big step of our marriage. We've bought our own home."

At first I could barely read Tony's response, it was such a mixture of muted surprise, sadness, loneliness. Then he simply looked bereft.

He didn't say anything one way or the other about it, but I sensed he wasn't happy that we had bought the Hasbrouck house. It was too much of a home away from home, and the reality that we had another life, apart from the one at Farthy, was not something he liked. I felt sorry for him, knowing he feared being lonely, especially now, with Jillian gone.

As the weeks passed, while I should have been absorbed in ordering wallpaper and draperies, rugs and furniture, and inquiring into household help, I found myself barely able

to get out of bed. Tiredness had become my constant companion, and I felt somehow distant from myself, as if I didn't really know who I was or what I wanted. Had it been a mistake to buy the house? Why was I feeling so confused, so listless? I made several trips into Boston, to the posh department stores, to order things for our new home, only to return to Farthy wrung-out and exhausted.

"Heaven," Logan said one night after dinner, when I told him I Was going to bed early, "you seem too tired these days. Is something wrong? I hope this new move isn't going to be too much of a strain on you."

"I'm fine, darling," I murmured.

"I want you to see the doctor tomorrow, Heaven. This isn't like you."