Smiling, Eden took the young man’s hand. He was nice-looking in a pleasant way, rather like a young missionary. She had an idea that this was the type of man Brad had wanted his daughter to marry. That she’d instead married a man who was good on a tractor must have been a disappointment. But Eden liked Remi. Maybe he didn’t have the last names that were so important in Arundel, but he seemed like a good guy. At least his daughter didn’t marry someone like Stuart, Eden thought as she followed Brad and Drake into the next room, Jared just a step behind her.
They entered a room that again was of a scale that could have been intimidating, but the use of refurbished furniture brought it down to a human size. Through a wide doorway to the right was a large room filled with well-dressed people. They were milling about and munching on tidbits passed by waitpersons dressed in white and black.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Brad said, and his entire demeanor changed from laughing and warm to…well, laughing and warm. But the new version was like that of a salesman. He walked into the room full of people, smiling, his hand extended.
“Ah, Brad the salesman,” Drake said, smiling at Brad’s back, then he turned to Eden and looked at her again. “So you’re the one.”
Eden wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Was she pleased that the gossip of Arundel was already matching her with Brad? Or was she annoyed that she was assumed to be a done deal?
Before she could reply, Jared cleared his throat, and Drake looked up at him, puzzled as to who he was. When he figured it out, he looked Jared up and down as though to ascertain his wounds. “The man looking for the circuit box,” he said, extending his hand to shake.
“Jared McBride.” He shook Drake’s smaller, whiter, softer hand. “I take it you’re of one of the ‘families’ of Arundel.”
“That I am. Cursed with three last names. Shall I tell you my middle name?”
“No,” Jared said, and for a moment Eden saw a frown cross Drake’s handsome face. She knew that in that instant Jared had been cataloged and dismissed. “Mannerless Yankee” she could almost hear McBride being described as.
For a moment, the three of them seemed to have nothing to say to one another. Or at least Eden and Drake had nothing to say. McBride was still looking about the room and at the people through the doorway.
“Don’t let us keep you,” Eden said. She could tell that Drake was waiting for her to explain why she was there with her rude neighbor, the man she’d put in the hospital. But Eden couldn’t imagine repeating the story about McBride being her cousin, so she said nothing.
“Yes, Brad is to speak in a few minutes, then we’ll have lunch. You’re staying for lunch, aren’t you?”
“She’s doing the landscaping for all the houses,” Jared said, looking at Drake with his eyes narrowed.
“Landscaping? But I thought you were…” He broke off, obviously having no idea what to say. “Yes, of course. Landscaping. I’ll talk to Brad. Will you be all right here alone?”
“She’s always all right when she’s with me,” Jared said.
Before he could put his arm around her shoulders for the third time that morning, Eden sidestepped him and reassured Drake that she’d be fine. When he was gone, she turned on McBride. “Where were you raised that you could be so vile to that young man? You were insufferable!”
“I hate snobs, and he was the pinnacle of snobbery. Right up there on the crest. Top of the garbage heap.”
“Yo
u don’t know that. He seemed quite nice. He—”
“ ‘Shall I tell you my middle name?’ ” Jared mocked. “Who says ‘shall’ nowadays?”
“Certainly not any of the writers in the manuscripts that I’m given to edit. Are you jealous of that young man because he has an education? Is that something you never had? Please don’t tell me that you quit school in the tenth grade so you could be an—”
She broke off at a look from McBride. He was so paranoid that he probably thought the entire clubhouse had been bugged and someone was dying to find out that he was an FBI agent. She threw up her hands in exasperation. “It’s no use trying to talk to you.” She lowered her voice. “I’m sick of people like you thinking that everyone who has an education and knows how to use a napkin is a snob. I wish my daughter had married someone like Drake Haughton instead of that useless man she did marry, and I bet that Brad wishes his daughter had married someone like Drake too.”
“So what’s wrong with the Cajun kid? I’ve never seen anybody handle a tractor the way he did. He moved that dirt around so there wasn’t a crumb of it left behind. He could scoop out the ashes in a fireplace and not hurt the living room rug. But now you’re telling me that that’s not worth anything. No, a man needs to have lots of last names and—”
“For your information, I happen to like Remi. I have nothing whatever against him.”
“Then it’s just Granville who thinks he’s above somebody who drives a tractor. He’d rather his daughter marry a prissy little—”
“Hello,” said a voice behind Eden before she could answer McBride. She turned to see a young woman, not much taller than she was, with lots of crinkly red hair and blue eyes that were dancing with delight. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything. I’m Minton Norfleet, Minnie to everybody, and I’m Braddon’s right-hand man.”
Through this entire speech, Minnie’s eyes had never left Jared. At first, he was looking only at Eden, but when Minnie kept staring at him, he drew his eyes away and looked at Minnie.
When McBride’s eyes softened as he looked at Minnie with what could have been thought of as a sexy look, Eden rolled her eyes in disgust. “Yes,” she said too loudly, “Brad mentioned you.”
“Did he?” Minnie said, her eyes still on McBride. “I hope he said good things, as there are lots of very good things about me.”
“I bet there are,” Jared said under his breath.