Marta Perry - Season of Secrets

“Look who’s here, my dear.” Nervousness threaded Phillips’s voice. “It’s Marcus. And his son, Courtney.”

Margo managed to avoid eye contact with both of them. “You’re needed back at the cash desk, Phillips. Come along, now.” She turned and stalked away, leaving an awkward silence behind.

“I’m sorry.” Faint color stained Phillips’s cheeks. “I’m afraid I must go. Perhaps I’ll see you again while you’re here. It was nice to meet you, Court.” He scuttled away before Dinah could give in to the temptation to shake him.

“That woman gets more obnoxious every year.” She could only hope Court would believe Margo’s actions were motivated by general rudeness and not aimed at them. “How Phillips stands her, I don’t know.”

“He seems to come to heel when she snaps her fingers.” Marc’s dry tone was probably intended to hide the pain he must feel.

“Would you expect anything else?” The voice came from behind her.

Dinah turned. Not James Harwood. It was really too much that they’d run into both of the men who’d been Marc’s closest friends in the same night. Still, James and Phillips ran in identical social circles, and they were both mainstays of the Alpha Club, regulars at the elegant old building that graced a corner of Market Street near The Battery.

“Hello, James.” This time Marc didn’t bother to offer his hand. It was clear from the coldness on James’s face that it wouldn’t be taken.

“James, I—” A lady always smoothes over awkward situations. That was one of Aunt Kate’s favorite maxims, but Dinah couldn’t think of a thing to say.

“You shouldn’t have come back.” James bit off the words. “You’re not welcome here.”

Court took a step closer to his father. The hurt in his eyes cut Dinah to the heart. Court shouldn’t have to hear things like that. Marc should have realized what might happen when he brought him here.

“I’m sorry you feel that way.” Marc’s tone was cool, the voice of a man meeting rudeness with calm courtesy. But a muscle in his jaw twitched as if he’d like to hit something. Or someone.

“I think we’re ready to leave now.” She’d better intervene before they both forgot themselves. “We have what we came for, don’t we, Court?”

Politeness required that Court turn to her, and she linked her arm with his casually. “Ready, Marc?”

Please. Don’t make matters worse by getting into a quarrel with James. It’s not worth it.

Whether he sensed her plea or not, she didn’t know. He flexed his hands, and she held her breath. Then he turned and walked steadily toward the car.

“Hey, wouldn’t it look cool if we strung lights along the banister?” Court, standing halfway up the staircase, looked down.

Struck by a sudden flicker of resemblance to Annabel in his son’s face, Marc couldn’t answer for a moment. Then he managed a smile.

“Sounds great. What do you think?”

He turned to Dinah, who was dusting off the stack of ornament boxes they’d just carried down from the attic. In jeans and a faded College of Charleston sweatshirt, her dark curls pulled back in a loose ponytail, she looked little older than the sixteen-year-old he remembered.

She straightened, frowning at the stairwell. “What do you think of twining lights with an evergreen swag along the railing? I think I remember several swags in a plastic bag in the attic.”

“I’ll go see.” Court galloped up the steps, managing to raise a few stray dust motes that danced in the late-afternoon light. A thud announced that he’d arrived at the attic door.

Marc winced. “Sorry. Court doesn’t do much of anything quietly.”

“I’d be worried about him if he did.” Dinah glanced up the stairwell, as if following Court in her mind’s eye. “At least he’s not showing any signs that being here bothers him. And if he’s not upset after what happened last night—”

“I know. I guess I haven’t said you were right, but you were. We should have gone somewhere else for the tree.”

“I wish I hadn’t been right.” Her face was warm with sympathy.

Maybe it was the sympathy that led him to say more than he intended. “I expected antagonism from Margo. She never liked Phil’s friendship with me, and she and Annabel were like oil and water.”

“I remember.” Dinah’s smile flickered. “Annabel had a few uncomplimentary names for her.”

“Which she shouldn’t have said in front of you.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Margo doesn’t matter. But Phil and James—”

He stopped. No use going over it again. No use remembering when the three of them had been the three musketeers, back in their Citadel days. He’d thought the bonds they’d formed then were strong enough to survive anything. Obviously he’d been wrong.

“Phillips is still your friend. He’s just not brave enough to stand up to Margo. He never has been.”

“Maybe.” He’d grant her Phil, and his patent knuckling under to the woman he’d married. But…“James thinks I killed Annabel.” He checked the stairwell, but Court was still safely out of hearing, rummaging in the attic.

Dinah started to say something. Then she closed her mouth. It didn’t matter. Her expressive face said it for her.

“You think I should have been prepared for that. You tried to warn me.”

“I thought it might be awkward. I didn’t expect outright rudeness.”

She sounded as primly shocked as Aunt Kate might have, and he couldn’t suppress a smile.

“You don’t need to laugh at me,” she said tartly. “They were all brought up to know better.”

“Next you’ll say that their mothers would be ashamed of them.”

“Well, they would.” She snapped the words, but her lips twitched a little. “Oh, all right. We’re hopelessly old-fashioned here. I suppose James has been in politics too long to have much sense left. And besides, you know how he felt about Annabel.”

That startled him. “Do I?”

She blinked. “Everyone knows he was crazy about her.”

“I didn’t.” Had he been hopelessly stupid about his own wife? “How did Annabel feel about him?”

“Oh, Marc.” Dinah’s eyes filled with dismay. “Don’t think that. It never meant anything. Just a crush on his part.”

“And Annabel?” Dinah wanted him to let it go, but he couldn’t.

“Annabel never had eyes for anyone but you. She just—I think she was flattered by James’s attention. That was all. Honestly.”

She looked so upset at having told him that he didn’t have the heart to ask anything else. But he filed it away for further thought.

He bent to pick up the stack of boxes. “We may as well take these to the family room. If I know my son, he’ll drag everything out, but he won’t be as good about putting things away.”

Dinah went ahead of him to open the door to what would be the back parlor in most Charleston homes. They’d always used it as a family room, and he and Court had managed to bring down most of the furniture that belonged here. By tacit agreement, they’d avoided the front parlor, the room where Annabel died.

“Court looks so much like you. Looking at him must be like looking at a photo of you at that age.”

He set the boxes down on the wooden coffee table that had been a barn door before an enterprising Charleston artisan had transformed it. “Funny. I was thinking that I saw a little of Annabel in his face when he looked down from the stairs.”

“I know.” Her voice softened, and he realized he hadn’t done a good enough job of hiding his feelings. “I see it, too—just certain flashes of expression.”

He sank onto the brown leather couch and frowned absently at the tree they’d set up in the corner. He’d told Court it would be too big for the room. The top brushed the ceiling, and he’d have to trim it before the treetop angel would fit.