My Sweet Audrina (Audrina 1)

Gratefully I smiled, happy she wasn’t going to abandon me for Vera, who seemed to have become the epitome of glamour. I knew Billie admired all that Vera now represented. Pretty clothes, long polished nails and the kind of jewelry Vera wore—that’s when I realized it was my mother’s jewelry, my aunt’s jewelry she was wearing. The stolen jewelry.

Jewelry that she took off and stashed somewhere before Papa and my husband came home together.

We were seated in the Roman Revival room. The sun had just settled down behind the horizon, leaving a bloody trail of fire clouds, when Papa threw open the door and strode inside with Arden at his heels.

Papa was talking. “Damn, Arden, how the hell can you forget when you make notes? Do you realize your mistakes are going to lose several good clients? You have to list all the stocks each client owns and call them when dramatic changes occur, or, better, before they occur. Anticipate, boy, anticipate!”

That’s when Papa saw Vera. He stopped in the middle of another chastising remark and stared at Vera with loathing. “What the devil are you doing here?”

Billie winced. Papa had disappointed her. Arden threw Vera an uneasy glance, then came to kiss my cheek before he settled on the sofa beside me, putting his arm about my shoulders. “Are you all right?” he whispered. “You look so pale.”

I didn’t answer, though I did snuggle closer to him, feeling safer with his arm about me. Vera stood up. With her high heels on she was still about five inches shorter than Papa, but on those stilts she managed to look formidable even so. In the corner of the large room, Sylvia squatted down on her heels and rolled her head about idiotically, as if she were deliberately going to undo all the progress we’d both struggled to achieve.

“I had to come home, Papa, to see my mother’s grave,” said Vera in a small voice of apology. “A friend called and told me when she died, and I cried all night and really wanted to come for her funeral. But I was on duty and couldn’t get off until now. I’m a registered nurse now. Also, I didn’t have enough money to get down here, and I knew you wouldn’t send me the money to come. It comes as such a shock when someone healthy dies in an accident. That same friend sent me the newspaper obituary. It arrived on the day of her funeral.”

She smiled then, tilting her head to one side in a charming manner, separating her feet so she stood staunchly, with her arms akimbo. Suddenly she appeared not so sweet, but defiant, masculine, taking up almost as much space as Papa did when he spread his legs wide and prepared himself for assault.

Papa grunted and glared at her. He seemed to recognize her challenge. “When will you be leaving?”

“Soon,” said Vera, casting down her eyes, gone dovelike and demure as she tried not to appear hurt. But her feet stayed apart, and that betrayed her put-on expression of meekness. “I felt I owed it to my mother to come as soon as I could.”

Arden leaned forward to better watch her expression, dragging me along with him as he forgot his arm about me.

“I don’t want you in my house!” snapped Papa. “I know what went on here before you left.”

Oh, dear God. Vera threw Arden a nervous, warning look.

Immediately I pulled free from Arden’s casual embrace and moved to the far side of the sofa. No, I tried to tell myself, Vera was deliberately trying to involve Arden and ruin my marriage. But Arden looked guilty. I felt my heart crack. All along he’d claimed I was the only one he loved. And Vera must have told the truth a long time ago about sleeping with Arden.

“Papa,” appealed Vera in her seductive, throaty voice, “I’ve made my mistakes. Forgive me for not being what I should have been. I’ve always wanted to win your approval and be what you wanted, but nobody told me anything. I didn’t know what Mr. Rensdale wanted when he kissed me and started petting. He seduced me, Papa!” She sobbed as if with shame and bowed her smooth cap of shining, orangey hair. “I came back to pay my respects at my mother’s grave, to spend Thanksgiving Day with the only family I have, to renew our family ties. And I also came to collect what valuables my mother left me.”

Again Papa grunted. “Your mother had nothing of value to leave you after you ran from here and stole what jewelry she had, and what jewelry my wife left Audrina. Thanksgiving Day is a week away. Pay your respects at your mother’s grave today and leave tomorrow morning.”

“Damian!” said Billie reprimandingly. “Is that any way to talk to your own niece?”

“It’s exactly the way I talk to this one!” stormed Papa, pivoting about and striding toward the front stairs. “Don’t ever call me Papa again, Vera.” He glanced back at Billie. “It’s our night out on the town, have you forgotten? The movies after dinner in a good restaurant. Why aren’t you dressed and ready to go?”

“We can’t leave the house on the day your niece comes home,” Billie said in her calm way. “She thinks of you as her father, Damian, regardless of what you call your relationship. We can always dine out and go to the movies. Damian, please don’t embarrass me again. You’ve been so kind, so generous—I’d be so disappointed if you—” There she broke off, looking at him with tears in her eyes.

Her tears of distress seemed to affect him greatly. “All right,” he said, turning then to Vera. “I want to see as little of you as possible, and the day after Thanksgiving you leave. Is that understood?”

Vera nodded meekly. Bowing her head, she sat down to lock her legs together and form a lap on which she could demurely fold her hands, a well-trained, modest young woman. And modesty was something Vera had never possessed. “Anything you want, Pa—Uncle Damian.”

I turned my head just in time to see Arden gazing at her pityingly. From one to the other I stared, sensing it had already begun. The seduction of my husband.

In no time at all Vera and Billie were fast friends. “You dear, wonderful woman, to take on all this housework all by yourself when my father could easily afford a maid and a housekeeper. I marvel at you, Billie Lowe.”

“Audrina helps a great deal,” said Billie. “Give her credit, too.”

I was in the powder room down the hall from the kitchen, tediously trying to untangle Sylvia’s wild mop of chestnut curls. Pausing, I waited to hear what else Vera had to say to Billie. But it was Billie who again spoke.

“Now, if you’d do your bit and run the vacuum in the two best salons, I’d really be grateful. Be sure to use the attachments on the lamp shades, furniture and draperies. It would help Audrina. She really has her hands full trying to teach Sylvia how to talk and move correctly, and she’s succeeding, too.”

“You’re kidding.” Vera sounded surprised, as if she was hoping Sylvia would never talk. “That kid can’t really talk, can she?”

“Yes, she can say a few easy words. Nothing is clearly enunciated, but understandable if you listen closely.”

Holding Sylvia by the hand, we followed Vera to watch her enter the Roman Revival Salon, where she pushed the vacuum without enthusiasm. I loved Billie for putting her to work without asking, as if she assumed Vera would be