“Have you eaten yet?”
“No, but—”
“Then set the table,” he said, breaking the connection.
Lily stared at the phone in her hand for several seconds before placing it on the desk to go set the table. She thought about calling Daniel back and insisting that he respect her wishes to be left alone. But she did need to talk to him and try to find out how much he knew about the sale of the Beauchamp mansion to her father as well as try to find a way to tell him about the baby.
Maybe then she would know more about what kind of battle her father had gotten her into with the Addisons. And how Daniel was going to react when he learned about the baby.
As Daniel steered his Mercedes around the Kincaid mansion to the carriage house in the back, he couldn’t help but smile. After having lunch with Lily, she had asked him to stay for a bit so they could talk, but he’d had to decline because of an afternoon meeting with the president of the dockworkers’ union. He had, however, managed to convince her to let him pick her up after the meeting for a trip to check out the most recently renovated exhibit at the aquarium, then have an early dinner at the little bistro she loved in the French Quarter. As far as he was concerned, that was progress in getting things back to the way they had been before his mother’s dinner party.
Parking the car, he hesitated before opening the driver’s door. Everything had been going great between them until the night of the party. But immediately afterward, Lily had decided to be conveniently busy whenever he asked her out. Could his mother have possibly said something to Lily that evening, causing her to have a sudden change of heart about seeing him? Or had the thirteen-year difference in their ages suddenly become a problem for her?
He dismissed the latter thought outright. Surely he would have had an indication if age had become an issue. They both enjoyed most of the same things and there had never been any sort of gap in conversation when they discussed the kind of music they liked to listen to, the books they had read or type of movies they preferred. No, the problem had to have been generated by his mother. He narrowed his eyes. It wouldn’t surprise him if she had said something to insult or hurt Lily. In the past, when Charlotte Addison felt that someone was beneath her, she had never hesitated to let that person know all about just who she was in the pecking order of society. On more than one occasion, he had witnessed her boasting about her family pedigree and the fact that the Beauchamps were considered to be in the highest echelon of Charleston’s social order.
But when could she have had the chance that evening to talk to Lily alone? He had purposely tried to keep Lily at his side throughout the evening, anticipating that his mother might say something insulting. And he had been certain that given the chance, she would. Not only was The Kincaid Group the chief rival of Addison Industries, his mother seemed to have a huge problem with Reginald Kincaid in particular.
As he got out of the car and walked toward Lily’s door, Daniel decided that by dinner he fully intended to have his questions answered and things straightened out between them. Then at his earliest possible convenience, he would confront his mother and firmly suggest that she mind her own business and stop meddling in his social life.
“I see you’re ready to go,” Daniel said when Lily stepped out of the carriage house before he reached the door.
“Actually, I had just returned from checking on my mother to see how she’s doing when I heard you arrive,” Lily said as she walked toward his car.
“How is your mother faring?” he asked, knowing the entire family had been dealing with one shock after another since their ordeal began.
“Momma is holding up surprisingly well,” Lily said, frowning. “It makes me wonder if she might not be in a state of shock and everything that’s happened will come crashing down on top of her later.”
Opening the passenger door, Daniel helped her into the car, then walked around to slide into the driver’s seat. “Sometimes grief brings out a strength in people they never knew they had,” he suggested, suspecting that might be the case. With a quiet grace about her, Elizabeth Kincaid had always impressed him as having the heart and soul of a steel magnolia lying just beneath the surface of her soft-spoken, genteel exterior.
“I think you might be right,” Lily said. “It’s like she’s become the rock that the rest of us are leaning on.”
Reaching over, he covered her hand with his. “And don’t forget. I’m here for you too, sweetheart.”
Lily gave him an odd look before she finally nodded. “Thank you, Daniel. I appreciate your compassion, but as I’ve told you, I’m going to be fine.”
Neither had a lot to say on the drive to the aquarium and Daniel hoped that the exhibit he wanted to show her would help relieve some of her tension and stress. “When I heard the plans for renovating this area of the aquarium, I knew it was something you would enjoy,” he said as he bought two cups of shrimp from Gilligan’s Shrimp Shack not far from the entrance to the exhibit.
Lily eyed the two plastic feeding sticks the attendant handed him as they walked toward the Saltmarsh Aviary. “What are we supposed to do with those?”
“We’re going to feed the stingrays,” he said, anticipating her reaction. He wasn’t disappointed when her eyes brightened with almost childlike excitement.
“I’ve always thought stingrays look so graceful as they swim,” Lily said as they walked up to the enormous tank.
He placed a shrimp on the end of one of the sticks, and handed it to her. “Just stick it down into the water and wait.”
As he watched, Lily did as he instructed and in no time a large ray glided up to the stick and ate the shrimp. “Oh, Daniel, this is definitely my new favorite thing about the aquarium.”
Her enthusiasm was infectious and by the time both shrimp cups were empty, Daniel felt as if he were a good ten years younger. It was always this way when he was with Lily. Her zest for life never failed to improve his mood and he found that his outlook wasn’t nearly as jaded and cynical as it had been just a few hours ago.
“Thank you for bringing me,” Lily said as they walked on to view the puffer fish and diamondback terrapins in the mock saltmarsh tidal creek.
He shook his head. “No, I’m the one who should be thanking you.” Reaching down, he took her hand in his and brought it to his lips to kiss the back. “Seeing all this wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun without you.”
By the time they left the aquarium, Lily looked more relaxed and he gave himself a mental pat on the back for thinking to bring her to the exhibit. “What do you have planned for after dinner?” he asked on the short drive to her favorite bistro.
For the second time that afternoon, she gave him a look as if trying to decide what she wanted to say. “Mr. Parsons stopped by my mother’s this morning to drop off the keys to the different properties my father left to me and my siblings. I thought I would go take a look at the home I inherited.”
“Where’s it located?”
“In the Battery.”
“Nice area,” he said, meaning it. He had been raised in the Battery, and it was where some of the finest homes in Charleston were located. Steering the car into the restaurant’s parking lot, he switched off the engine and turned to face her. “Since we’re already out, why don’t I drive you over there after we eat?”
She gave him that look again—the one she had been giving him all afternoon. If he didn’t know better, he would swear she suspected him of something. But he didn’t have a clue what he could have done to deserve it.
“That might be a good idea,” she finally said. “I think I’d like to get your opinion on what I should do with the place.”
As he guided her into the bistro, Daniel grinned. “If you want to know how to pack it, ship it or liquidate it, I’m your guy. Decorating? Not so much.”
After