must hurt people’s feelings a great deal.”
“Not intentionally.”
As he followed her into the dining room, she said, “I really don’t understand your lack of manners. I can tell from your accent that you’re from the South.” When she stopped dead still just beyond the open pocket doors, he skidded to a halt, barely preventing himself from barreling into her. She whipped around and glared at him. “You are from the South, aren’t you?”
“Born and bred in Kentucky. Lafayette, Kentucky, to be exact.”
“Didn’t your mother teach you how important good manners are?” Her big brown eyes bored into him, demanding a response.
“My old lady was too busy trying to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads to worry about unimportant things like good manners.”
“Oh. Oh, dear, Vic, I’m so terribly sorry. You were…poor.” She whispered the word as if saying it aloud would breach some idiotic code of etiquette.
“Nah, honey, I wasn’t just poor. I was white trash.” The only reason he decided to be so specific was because he hoped that knowing his background would warn her off, just in case he did make a move on her later. He figured the Paines didn’t associate with people of an inferior social class.
“Well, you certainly seem to have overcome your upbringing,” Dottie Paine said as she strolled into the dining room, in a flowing hot-pink jacket and matching slacks in some sort of silky material. “In my experience, self-made men are far superior to the ones who were handed everything on a silver platter.”
Forcing himself to ignore Penny Sue completely, he turned to her elderly aunt and smiled. “Why, thank you, ma’am.” Without so much as a by-your-leave to Penny Sue, he headed straight for Miss Dottie, pulled out her chair at the antique Duncan Phyfe dining table and assisted her in sitting. She looked up at him and batted her long black eyelashes. He chuckled inwardly. The old gal was actually flirting with him. He’d bet she’d been a real firecracker in her younger days. Not easy. No sir, not by any means. But the kind of woman who knew how to make a man glad to be a man.
Casting a sidelong glance at Penny Sue, he wondered if perhaps she possessed that same ability. Maybe it was a gift with which all the Paine women had been blessed. But you won’t be finding out for yourself, an inner voice reminded.
“We often eat in the kitchen or the breakfast room,” Dottie said. “But tonight, with a gentleman visiting, I thought it appropriate to dine in here. I hope that meets with your approval.” She glanced at her niece. “After all, it isn’t all that often that we have a man around the house. Not since dear Percy passed on.”
“Percy was my father,” Penny Sue explained as Vic pulled out a chair for her, being careful not to touch her.
Avoiding eye contact, he nodded, then took the seat opposite her.
Miss Dottie picked up a small silver bell and rang it. A tall, thin woman with short white hair, a straight back and a pleasant look on her plain face entered the room. Vic guessed her to be in her early sixties. She carried a silver tray laden with three salad plates.
Penny Sue made the introductions, which surprised Vic. In his experience, most people didn’t introduce their servants to a guest. “Ruby, this is Mr. Noble. He’ll be staying with us for a while. He’s the bodyguard I hired for Lucky.”
The housekeeper’s sharp blue eyes sparkled with good humor. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Noble.”
“Nice to meet you, too, Mrs….?”
“Just Ruby.” She sized him up, then said, “I hope you like banana pudding.”
“I do,” he told her.
“If you’ve got any special requests while you’re staying here, just let me know,” Ruby said. “Tell me how you like your coffee, your eggs—”
“I don’t want to be any trouble,” Vic said. “I’m sure however you prepare things will be just fine.”
“Black coffee would be my guess. And scrambled eggs.” Ruby looked him over a second time. “No starch in your collars, right? You’re not a suit-and-tie kind of man.”
“Goodness, Ruby, stop giving him the third degree,” Dottie scolded.
“Kind of nice having a man about the place again, isn’t it, Miss Penny Sue?” Ruby winked at her as she set a salad plate in front of her. “Especially such a good-looking one.”
The minute Ruby disappeared into the kitchen, Penny Sue said, “You’ll have to forgive Ruby. She’s rather outspoken. And rather determined that I won’t die an old maid.”
“She never did learn her place,” Dottie said. “Then again, Mama and Daddy weren’t sticklers about servants keeping their place. A good servant is worth his or her weight in gold, Daddy always said.”
“And Grandmother Paine taught me that everyone should be treated the same,” Penny Sue added. “Treat people the way you want to be treated.”
These two Paine women were oddities, Vic thought. Old-fashioned Southern-belle types, but without the snooty superiority he’d grown accustomed to seeing in the women for whom his mother had slaved year in and year out.
From the salad through the entrée, dinner conversation hardly lulled for more than a minute or two, and during those brief lulls he supposed he’d been expected to contribute his input. But barely missing a beat when he didn’t respond, either Dottie or Penny Sue kept the chitchat going. Neverending, actually. Talk, talk, talk. And about nothing. Absolutely nothing. Apparently this ability was another Paine trait.
Just as Ruby served dessert—large bowls of banana pudding topped with thick meringue—the doorbell rang.
“It seems that somebody’s early for tonight’s family meeting,” Ruby grumbled. “It’s barely six-thirty.”
“Well, never mind,” Dottie said. “Go see who it is and show them into the front parlor.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll do it.” Penny Sue shoved back her chair and hopped to her feet. “I shouldn’t eat dessert anyway. It goes straight to my hips.” Emphasizing the word hips, she planted her hands just below her waist on either side and slid her open palms down over the smooth material of her tan suede skirt.
There was nothing wrong with her hips, Vic noted. They were perfect. Wide, rounded and totally feminine. He swallowed hard. Everything about Penny Sue was ultra-feminine, from her beautiful face to her great body to her soft laughter and the sexy way she moved. Unconsciously sexy, which was far more captivating than a blatant display.
“It’s probably Eula,” Dottie said. “She’s always early. Comes from having too much time on her hands since she retired.”
Penny Sue hurried from the room, her tan heels tapping on the wooden floor. Vic’s gaze followed her out into the hall, but from where he was sitting, he couldn’t see all the way to the front door.
“My niece is a lovely girl, isn’t she?” Dottie held a small, delicate hand to her throat and played with the short strand of pearls she wore.
“Yes ma’am, she is.”
“Are you married, Mr. Noble?”
A tight knot formed in the pit of Vic’s belly. “No ma’am, I’m not.”
“A man your age should have a wife.”
He wanted to ask her how she knew his age, but instead said, “I’m not good husband material. Too set in my ways.”
Just as Miss Dottie opened her mouth to reply—and Vic was certain the old lady would have had an excellent comeback—they heard Penny Sue screaming.
Loud, frightened screams.
Vic knocked over his chair as he jumped to