I thought someday he’d want it back, but he never has.”
She didn’t need to ask what the disappointment was. Obviously Baxter hadn’t wanted his son to marry an insignificant waitress when all of Savannah society was his for the taking.
She could add up two and two as well as the next person. Lydia had been right. Baxter had sent her here to push his family into doing his bidding with the threat of a new potential heir. Even if he became convinced she was Trey’s child, he’d never welcome her.
Lydia swung back to face her. “I hope that doesn’t put a bad taste in your mouth. Baxter’s all right—one just has to know how to handle him. That was something Trey never mastered. He needed a wife who could do it for him.”
“Meaning my mother couldn’t?”
“I’m afraid she was too unhappy during her marriage to handle anyone.”
“Unhappy? My aunt said that she and Trey were deliriously happy.”
“Did she?” Lydia’s voice was gentle. “Well, perhaps that’s what she wanted to believe. I saw them both from the time they came back to this house. Oh, Trey put on a good front. He’d defied his father at last and gotten away with it, I suppose he thought. Grace knew better. She knew their marriage was destined to fail from the moment they got here.”
The rest of Lydia’s tour went over Corrie’s head as she struggled with that careless comment. When she was finally out in the garden again, she walked slowly toward Baxter’s house, mind preoccupied.
Aunt Ella had emphasized one thing clearly, in spite of her faltering speech after the stroke—how happy Gracie had been. That had been the only thing that reconciled her to the sudden marriage that she knew would take Gracie away from her.
Poor Aunt Ella. She’d had no one else. Her parents dead, her only brother killed in Vietnam, leaving his daughter for Ella to raise when his wife drifted off into the hippie subculture. Ella had given all her love to Gracie, and later, to Gracie’s daughter,
Now Lydia claimed the love Aunt Ella saw between Gracie and Trey wasn’t true—or at least, that her mother’s happiness had vanished by the time she arrived in Savannah. What would it have taken them to drive from Wyoming to Savannah? Three days, four? How could all that newlywed joy have been gone already?
“Ms. Grant?” Mrs. Andrews stepped out of the garden door, shading her eyes with one hand. “There was a message for you. Mr. Courtland’s secretary called, and they need you to come to their office right away.”
She didn’t answer until she’d covered the space between them, having no wish to advertise her business to anyone who happened to be around.
“Did he say what he wanted?”
“No, ma’am. Just the secretary, saying please stop by this morning. Do you want me to call a taxi for you?”
“How far away is it?”
“Not that far.” Lucas’s voice had her spinning around to face him. He stood on the path that led to his house. “I’ll walk with you and show you the way.”
Another tête-à-tête with Lucas was the last thing she wanted, with the memory of the previous night’s emotion fresh in her mind. His face showed no discomfort at all. Had he forgotten so quickly?
“Thanks anyway. I’m sure I can find the office on my own if Mrs. Andrews will give me directions.” But Mrs. Andrews had disappeared back into the house, apparently feeling that her duty was done.
“You wouldn’t want me to think you don’t enjoy my company, would you?” Lucas touched her arm, gesturing toward the gate in the wall that led onto the street. “I’ll show you a bit of Savannah while we walk.”
Her impulse was to prolong the argument, but that would make his presence into too big a deal. Instead she stepped through the gate and onto the sidewalk, determined to ignore him as much as possible.
Then she paused. “Maybe I should change clothes. I keep forgetting that you people dress a lot more formally than I’m used to.”
Lucas’s amber gaze slid from her violet challis top to her white slacks. “You look fine,” he said, closing the gate behind them. “What do you think of Savannah so far? Or have you been here before?”
“I’ve never been east until this trip. All I know comes from the guidebook I read on the plane.” They crossed the street to the square. “I did read about the squares, of course.”
The city’s founder had laid it out around a series of squares, with houses, public buildings and churches grouped around them—quiet oases in the midst of a busy city, the guidebook had said. Now she understood what the book had meant. Tree branches met overhead, and the traffic suddenly seemed faraway. She and Lucas might have been alone in the country.
Lucas gestured toward a row of white brick town houses, each with an intricate wrought-iron railing leading up to a glossy black door. “The wrought iron is characteristic. Kind of reminds you of New Orleans, doesn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know.” Corrie smiled, realizing they’d embarked on yet another fencing match. “I’ve never been farther south than St. Louis. As I think I mentioned.”
His eyes acknowledged the point. “Savannah is one of the most livable cities in the country and one of the most historic. We aim to keep it that way.”
“We?”
“We, as in native Savannahians. You won’t find people more devoted to their heritage. It takes quite a few generations to really belong.”
A point to him. Obviously she would never belong, any more than her mother had. She thought again of what Lydia had said, realizing she was beginning to feel protective of that young Gracie, as if she were a younger sister instead of her mother.
“You can’t walk a step in Savannah without tripping over history and legend, so mixed up together you can’t tell which is which.” Lucas had continued his own train of thought. He stopped in front of the monument in the center of the square. “A case in point.”
Corrie looked up at the city’s founder, James Oglethorpe, sword in hand, cast in bronze.
“Facing the enemy.” Lucas’s voice was soft in her ear.
“What?” For an instant she thought he meant her, as if the founder of Savannah himself would take a sword to this interloper.
“Oglethorpe. He’s facing south, because his enemies were the Spaniards in Florida. What did you think I meant?”
“Nothing.” She shouldn’t let this get to her. “Thanks for the history lesson.”
“Any time, sugar. There’s nothing a native enjoys more than talking about his city.”
She looked at him, curious at the feeling in his voice. “You sound as if you’re in love with it.”
“Not it. Her. Savannah is always a female. A faded, genteel Southern lady with just enough eccentricity to make her charming.”
Not the place for a forthright Westerner, obviously. Maybe that was why her mother had been unhappy. She’d known from the beginning she’d never belong.
Corrie turned away, and a flight of pigeons took off from the square with a rustle of wings. If she let Lucas make her uncomfortable with every other word, she was in for a very long visit.
“How much farther is it?” Maybe she should have argued a bit more about coming alone. She could have walked along and indulged her own thoughts, instead of being constantly on her guard.
“It’s this way.” Lucas took her hand as if she were a child who needed guiding. No, not a child, she corrected. There was nothing parental about the way his fingers interlaced with hers. She pulled her hand free.
Lucas smiled. “The office is on Broughton Street.