“Could we do that?” Rexie smiled for the first time since her arrival at the castle.
“Follow me.” Adair rose and quickly led the way through the open French doors. The path to their right led around the front of the house to the gardens. With any luck at all, Vi would distract Bunny long enough that she could get what she needed from Rexie. Perhaps Rexie would get what she needed, too.
The morning was a beautiful one, the sky blue, the breeze cool, and this early in the morning the sun had risen just high enough in the sky to shoot bright lances of light off the surface of the lake. Pansies bordered the path and behind them peonies bloomed in various shades of pink.
Wesley Pinter, Glen Loch’s gardener and landscaper, a man who’d been handling the maintenance of the castle’s gardens since she was a child, was unloading the last planter from his truck. She noted he’d settled them temporarily on either side of the stone arch. The chairs that they’d set up for the rehearsal the day before were still there and Adair led Rexie to the first row. She gestured her into one and sat beside her.
Then she cut to the chase. “Were you in love with your first husband?”
Rexie tensed. “Mummy says it was infatuation. My therapist says we were just too young. We rushed into it and we weren’t right for each other. Coming from the same kind of background helps to ensure compatibility.”
A wave of sympathy washed over Adair. Those were Mommy’s words or a therapist’s, not Rexie’s. She laid a hand on the younger girl’s arm. “Tell me what happened?”
“Why? It’s over. My divorce became final six months ago, and Barry returned his signature on the papers by overnight delivery. I’m no longer Mrs. Barry Carlson. I took my maiden name back as soon as I could.” There was a trace of grief in her eyes, a mix of anger and hurt in her voice. Not good.
“Where is Barry now?” Adair asked.
“In Montana. His family owns a horse farm there, and his mother opened a wildlife refuge. We met while he was finishing his degree in veterinary medicine at Cornell. I was a freshman, and I fell in love with him the first time I saw him. I could actually feel my heart take a tumble. He said it was the same for him. We got married as soon as we could. Barry insisted on that. He comes from a religious family and he didn’t want me to just move in with him. We didn’t have time to do a big wedding thing. We didn’t even tell our parents right away. I sometimes wish we’d never had to.”
“That’s when the trouble started,” Adair said.
Rexie sighed. “They were so upset. My father was furious, my mother hurt and disappointed. Barry’s family wasn’t happy, either. Especially when he told them that he was going to get a job in the East.”
“What happened next?” Adair prompted.
“We started trying to make everyone happy again. My father got Barry a job in a very upscale, very busy veterinary practice on Long Island, and my mother threw a huge wedding reception for us at her country club. But I could see that Barry wasn’t happy. Neither was I. I barely saw him, and when I did we always argued. And when his grandfather died he went back to Montana.”
“You didn’t go with him?”
Rexie’s eyes grew shiny with yet-to-be-shed tears. “He didn’t ask me to. He promised he’d come back. But each time he called he made excuses. An ailing horse, then sick animals at the refuge forced him to extend his stay. Then he sent me a letter saying that we’d made a mistake and he wanted me to handle the divorce on this end.”
A Dear Jane letter, Adair thought. Why was it that men were so lacking in class?
“After that he wouldn’t even take my calls. I’d leave a message but he’d never call back.” She blinked back the tears and her voice became very firm. “I made a huge mistake marrying Barry. This time I want a guarantee. Can you give me that?”
“I can promise you that getting married here will give you your best shot at it.”
“Rexie?” Bunny’s voice was accompanied by the sound of Alba’s bell.
Adair turned to see Aunt Vi bringing up the rear of the small parade. Bunny was a bit breathless when she reached them. “We have to leave for the city now if we’re going to make the final fitting on your dress. Then we have to get ready for your bachelorette party tonight.”
“Our gardener just unloaded the planters,” Adair said. “Can’t you stay long enough to give them your final approval?”
Bunny waved a hand in the direction of the flowers. “I’m sure they’ll be lovely. But we need to make this fitting. The dress has to be perfect. It’s a copy of the one I wore on my wedding day. She’s going to wear my veil, also.”
Bunny gave Rexie a little push toward the car, then spoke in a very low voice to Adair. “My plan is to keep her busy and focused on the wedding. Your job is to make sure that there are no more glitches on this end. She and Lawrence chose this place against my wishes. They’ve refused to change venues at this late date, and I’ve agreed because I want my daughter to be happy.”
Bunny’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes as she continued. “I’m sure you want her to be happy, too. That way I’ll have only good things to say about Castle MacPherson.”
With that, Bunny hurried to catch up with her daughter. Seconds later the flashy red convertible sped out of the driveway.
“Well, well. There’s a core of steel beneath that sweet magnolia exterior,” Vi murmured as she stepped to Adair’s side. “And none of the ‘glitches’ yesterday were your fault. You certainly can’t be blamed for the storm, nor for the fact that the groom-to-be was late and distracted.”
“Well, Bunny can’t very well get angry with Mr. Banes. Not when she’s so desperate to make sure this wedding takes place.”
“What did you learn from Rexie?”
“Her upcoming marriage will be a marriage of convenience.”
“Whose convenience?” Vi asked.
“Exactly. There’s money involved. And I think Rexie’s still in love with her first husband.” She glanced through the stone arch. “I’ve always believed there’s a lot of power here. I suppose we should just leave it to the legend. But I’d like to know more about what’s going on with the Maitlands and Banes that makes this wedding so important.”
“You’re still afraid we might have a runaway bride on our hands.”
“Or lightning may strike again.” She was beginning to think that the stone arch might have more power than she’d ever realized.
5
THE CAR CAME out of nowhere, flying over the crest of the hill and then smacking down to barrel toward him. Cam’s reflexes, honed by his training as well as the experience of battling two brothers as he grew up, kicked in immediately. The narrow dirt road in front of him led to only one place. The castle. And it was going to be very tricky to negotiate past the red convertible shooting toward him at race car speed.
Tall pines with trunks as thick as a giant’s thighs pressed close on either side. Thanks to that summer he’d spent playing on the castle grounds, he had some knowledge of the road.
The blonde driving the convertible didn’t. Or she wouldn’t be speeding. She was risking her own life as well as her passenger’s. Keeping his hands steady on the wheel, he set his foot gently against the brake.
Tires squealing, the convertible ahead skidded, swerving wildly from one side of the road to the other. Dust spewed and he prayed for it to settle. He couldn’t edge over yet. He was going to need a wide angle when he made his turn. And he prayed it was coming up soon.
With a bare twenty feet to spare, Cam spotted the slight break in the trees he was looking for and pulled his steering wheel hard to the right. His car fishtailed, bringing it parallel to the trees before it straightened and shot forward. Narrowing his eyes, he pressed his foot gently on the brake, aiming the front of the car right between the two giant pines. He thought of the biblical image of trying to squeeze a camel through the eye of a needle. Impossible. But the car whispered through and bumped its way into a shallow gully. He was grinning as he managed to stop just short of the next tree.
Jumping out of his car, he ran back to the road to check on the convertible just in time to see it disappear around a curve. Son of a…
But it hadn’t been a son of a bitch driving that car, he reminded himself. It had been a woman and she’d been in as much of a hurry as the Disney villain Cruella de Vil when she’d been hunting down those hundred and one Dalmatians. Turning, he glanced up the hill where dust still hung in the air. There was only one place she could have come from, since the road dead-ended at the castle.
Then he glanced back down at his car. He’d managed to avoid crashing it, but he was going to need a tow out of that gully. The castle was still a couple of miles off. A nice hike if you weren’t in a hurry. There was a part of him that was anxious to get back there. But there was still a part of him that was practicing avoidance where Adair was concerned—something that he’d been doing for the past seven years.