Миранда Джеймс: Dead With The Wind

He smiled sweetly at An’gel. “Have you ever been to New York?”

At first An’gel thought she had misheard him. “New York? Yes, I have been there several times.”

“I’m going there right after the wedding. It’s my first time, and I can’t wait.” He beamed at her and wandered past her and Dickce, apparently headed toward Willowbank.

“That has to be Lance,” Dickce said in an undertone once the young man was about fifty feet away.

“There can’t be two of them in St. Ignatiusville,” An’gel said tartly. “Of course it’s Lance. Jacqueline certainly wasn’t exaggerating about his looks.”

“Almost too perfectly beautiful.” Dickce snickered. “I suppose the Lord didn’t think a man that pretty needed to be weighed down with much of a brain.”

“I wonder what he was doing here,” An’gel muttered as she moved to knock on Benjy’s door.

“Come in,” Benjy called. “It’s not locked.”

When An’gel stepped in the room, she was immediately greeted by Peanut, who acted like she had been gone for two days, instead of an hour. An’gel patted his head and spoke to him before he transferred his attentions to Dickce. The cat, Endora, regarded them languidly from the center of Benjy’s bed.

“We ran into your visitor,” Dickce said. “We were pretty surprised to see him. Did he want something in particular?”

Benjy laughed. “Yeah, he was looking for the main house. I thought he’d never been here before, but when I pointed out that it was right next door, he just shook his head and said something about taking the wrong driveway.” He laughed again. “He definitely seemed a little confused. Do you know who he is?”

“Yes, we do. He’s Lance Perigord, the groom,” An’gel said in a dour tone.

Benjy hooted with laughter. “You gotta be kidding me. He’s really the groom? Does the bride know he’s gay?”

CHAPTER 4

Dickce thought she hadn’t heard Benjy correctly. “Did you say that Lance is gay ?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Benjy said. He looked back and forth between the sisters. “At least I’m pretty sure he is. But if he’s the groom, well, maybe I’m wrong.”

“Why do you think he’s gay?” An’gel asked.

Benjy appeared uncomfortable and didn’t answer.

“Sister, you sound like you’re cross-examining. This isn’t a trial.” Dickce shook her head at An’gel. “It’s okay, Benjy, you can tell us.”

“He made a pass at me. Or at least I think he did.” Benjy blushed, and Peanut barked. Benjy bent to rub the Labradoodle’s head.

“Oh, my,” An’gel said.

Dickce could tell her sister was rather nonplussed by their ward’s bald response. Honestly, sometimes An’gel is such an old maid , she thought. Dickce considered herself more aware of such things, while An’gel could be a bit stuffy.

“He obviously has excellent taste.” Dickce grinned at Benjy, and he flashed her a grateful smile in return. Dickce thought their nineteen-year-old ward handsome, even with the eyebrow ring he continued to wear. With good food and plenty of exercise, he had filled out, no longer the scrawny youth they had first met a couple of months ago. He had also gained in self-confidence, and Dickce was particularly proud of him for that. He was such a bright boy.

“You said you think he made a pass,” Dickce said. “Tell us exactly what happened.”

“Okay,” Benjy said. “But please sit down. I didn’t mean to keep you standing there.” He gestured toward the armchairs and the sofa in his suite.

Dickce was pleased by his good manners. He had picked up a lot the past two months. She chose one of the armchairs, and Endora left the bed and hopped into her lap. The cat laid a paw on Dickce’s arm, and Dickce recognized the signal that Endora needed attention.

An’gel sat on the sofa with Benjy at the other end. Peanut, to Dickce’s amusement, jumped in between them and thrust his head toward An’gel’s face.

“No, Peanut,” Benjy said in a stern tone. “It’s rude to stick your nose in a lady’s face.”

The Labradoodle turned to Benjy for a moment before settling down between Benjy and An’gel, his head in An’gel’s lap and his tail across Benjy’s.

“Good boy,” Benjy said. “Now, about this Lance guy.”

“Yes, go on,” Dickce said when he paused.

Benjy looked pensive for a moment. “I kinda hate to say this, because I only talked to him a few minutes.” He hesitated. “He’s kinda dumb.”

“We have heard that from people who know him much better than we do,” An’gel said.

Benjy grinned. “Okay, then, I don’t feel so bad. Anyway, I was sitting here reading, and Peanut and Endora were sacked out, when somebody knocked on the door. I figured it was one of you back from the big house. But when I opened the door, there stood this guy looking like a model out of a magazine. He stared at me, pretty strange-like. Then he said, You’re not Jackson .

“Now, I have no idea who Jackson is, so I told him my name and asked him if I could help him.” Benjy shook his head. “Then he asked me if I’d ever been to New York, and I told him no. Next he says I look like a model, which was a really weird thing to say, because I don’t look anything like a model. I mean, they all look like him, in the magazines. Anyway, then he asked me if I’d like to go to New York with him.”

Dickce exchanged a glance with An’gel. Lance sounded like a complete idiot, as far as she was concerned. “What did you say to that?”

Benjy laughed. “I told him I’d like to go to New York sometime, but I didn’t think I could go with him. He looked puzzled, at least I think that’s what it was, and said he was disappointed because it would be nice to have a cute boyfriend in New York. I really didn’t know what to say to that, but it didn’t matter, because then he asked me if I knew the way to Willowbank. I told him I did and showed him how to get there. About then was when y’all came back.” He rubbed Peanut’s head, and the dog’s tail thumped in his lap and brushed up against his face until he stopped rubbing.

Dickce glanced at An’gel again, wondering what her sister made of Benjy’s story. She returned her gaze to Benjy. “That remark about having a cute boyfriend in New York is definitely odd, especially when I suppose he’ll be there with his wife.”

“I wonder why he has this fixation on New York.” An’gel looked puzzled. “Perhaps that’s where he and Sondra are planning to honeymoon.”

“It didn’t sound to me like he was planning to take her with him,” Benjy said. “Do you think maybe he forgot he’s getting married?”

Dickce laughed. “Frankly, from what we’ve been told, it might very well have slipped his mind. He evidently couldn’t find his way to Willowbank today, and I’m sure he’s been there thousands of times.”

“There is definitely something odd going on here,” An’gel said. “You might as well know this, Benjy, because I’m sure it will be mentioned soon by others. Sondra will be a wealthy young woman once she’s married. Her father left her a huge fortune in trust until she marries or turns twenty-five.”

“She’s just about to turn twenty-one,” Dickce said in response to Benjy’s look of inquiry. “It sounds to me like she’s impatient to get her hands on her inheritance, and marrying Lance is an easy way to do it.”

Benjy regarded her for a moment. “So you’re saying this is kinda like a marriage of convenience? Isn’t that what they used to call it?”

“Still do, as far as I know,” An’gel said. “So here we have a situation where the bride wants her inheritance but perhaps doesn’t want to have a husband who would try to control her or her money.”