Amanda (10 page)

Her casual tone was just right, easing the tension around the table and providing Sully with an easy out.

With a smile—however faint and brief—in her direction, Sully said, “That’s true enough.”

“About the party,” Kate said. “The usual people, Jesse?”

Jesse nodded. “We’ll have steaks. And that band from Nashville, the one we got last time.”

“Two weeks isn’t much notice,” Walker commented, “and the band’s probably already booked for that weekend. It’ll cost you, Jesse.”

“That doesn’t matter,” said the man who had just disparaged a small equestrian event for having modest prize money. Sublimely unconscious of inconsistency, Jesse smiled at Amanda. “you’ll like our friends and neighbors, honey.”

“I’m sure I will,” she murmured.

Walker wondered if she had abandoned the idea of protesting because she’d thought better of it or simply because Sully’s attempt had quickly taught her the futility of arguing with Jesse. He didn’t know, and her face gave nothing away.

It was a lovely face, no argument there. Even sitting at the same table with Kate, Amanda more than held her own. The finely drawn and delicate features might not be recognizably Daulton, but they were certainly attractive.

No. Beautiful. And surrounded by all these large, sun-bronzed, and robust people, she seemed doll-like in her pale, exquisite beauty. Even the casual spring dress she wore was a soft thing, touching her body lovingly.

Couldn’t fault her taste, so far anyway.

Looking at her across the table during the remainder of the meal, Walker watched her sip the red wine Jesse had chosen—to celebrate her return, he’d said— and listened with half his attention to Reece telling her that Glory’s summer parties were famous, there were usually four or five every year, and that the band from Nashville was really a good one. Reece seemed intent on making up for Sully’s churlish taciturnity; he was
as polite and friendly to his “cousin” as Jesse could have wished.

“Do you still ride, Amanda?” he asked her about the time everyone was finished eating.

“No, I’m afraid not.” She smiled and didn’t elaborate.

“Pity. The only real way to see some of the prettiest parts of Glory is on horseback. There’s a mountain trail, for instance, with a gorgeous waterfall.”

“I’ll make a point of seeing it,” she promised him, “on foot. I like to take walks.”

She had very delicate hands, Walker thought. They were small, with long, slender fingers tipped with neat oval nails, and, though graceful, seemed without force. If she’d inherited the rather fierce Daulton strength as well as gray eyes, it certainly wasn’t apparent, Walker decided—and then realized where his unguarded thoughts had led him.

What on earth was wrong with him? He had no more reason tonight to believe she was the real Amanda than he’d had at any point today or in weeks past. Less, in fact, after she herself had blandly pointed out the lack of resemblance between her and Christine Daulton—and between her and the little girl she had once supposedly been.

And the fact that, after pointing out the lack of any resemblance, she had not made the slightest attempt to offer any explanation for those differences made it worse. She didn’t give a damn whether
he
believed her, Walker reflected grimly, because after her welcome to Glory, she could now be fairly confident that Jesse did.

And Jesse’s belief was all that really mattered.

“The path to King High is a nice walk,” Kate told Amanda in her usual tranquil voice. “there’s a creek with a footbridge and a little gazebo. And straight
through the valley is lovely if you don’t mind going through the pasture.”

Even Kate accepts her.

Walker heard himself say, “She minds. She’s afraid of horses.” And he was only a little startled to realize he sounded as morose as Sully on a bad day.

Amanda seemed surprised as she looked at him, but all she said, and with a quiet dignity that turned his assertion into an unjust accusation, was, “I know I used to love horses, but I had a fall when I was about twelve. A bad fall. And, no, I don’t like horses anymore. I’m sorry if that disappoints everyone.”

Walker felt like a total bastard, despite all his furious silent reminders to himself that she was probably lying through her teeth. Naturally she’d had to think up some excuse for being afraid of horses when the real Amanda had loved them.

Jesse reached over to pat her hand. “Everybody understands that, honey,” he said, sounding relieved that her un-Daultonlike trepidation had a reasonable cause. “A bad fall can shake anybody’s nerve. And who knows? Now that you’re home and around horses, you’ll probably be riding again before you know it.”

She looked doubtful, but smiled at him. “Maybe. Anyway, I’ll … probably avoid the pastures for a while.”

“Still plenty of trails,” Reece told her cheerfully.

“And I have a map with them all marked out,” Jesse said, giving her hand a last pat. “Remind me later to get it for you, honey—it’s in my study.”

“Is everybody ready for dessert?” Maggie wanted to know.

Amanda excused herself at just after eight o’clock, pleading tiredness after a rather full day, and left the
others in the parlor—all the others except Sully, who had vanished after supper without explaining where he meant to go. Instead of going directly up to her room, she slipped out the front door and walked across the porch to lean against a white column and gaze over the neat front lawn of Glory.

In late May it was still fairly cool in the evenings, and though Daylight Savings Time was supposed to delay the sun setting, it appeared to sink early here in the shadow of the mountains; twilight had arrived. The air was crisp, the light plentiful without being bright, and a full moon was rising.

Her mind was full of thoughts and questions and speculations, all of them churning, and one of those thoughts was that she might be simply too tired to sort out everything right now.
Let everything soak in for tonight
, she thought.
Tomorrow I’ll be able to start figuring this out.

But, even weary, she was too restless to go up to her room just yet, and the thoughts wouldn’t just lie there obediently and seep into her tired mind, content to be explored tomorrow.

Hard to believe she’d been at Glory only a matter of hours. It seemed much longer. Yet, at the same time, she felt very much a stranger here, very wary of saying the wrong word or doing the wrong thing. And they watched her so much, all of them, with expressions that ran the gamut from Maggie’s neutrality to Sully’s hostility.

The biggest hurdle was behind her: Jesse. He all but danced with delight whenever he saw her, and if, as she shrewdly suspected, his belief that she was his Amanda had more to do with hopes inspired by his failing health than any evidence she had offered—well, the end result was nevertheless what she cared about.

Unless something pretty serious happened to shake
his faith in her—such as an absolutely conclusive negative finding by the private lab doing the DNA tests— Jesse was unlikely to be swayed by anyone else’s doubts about her.

Walker McLellan’s, for instance.

He had assigned to himself the role of observer in their little drama, and it was clear he intended to remain detached and alert while the situation evolved. The dispassionate lawyer, far removed from a tangled situation and untidy emotions. But whoever had said that bit about the best-laid plans of mice and men had known what he was talking about; Walker, it seemed, was having trouble sticking to his plan.

He had watched her most of all, often with contained but discernible irritation, and if she had the satisfaction of knowing she had disturbed his emotions as well as his logical and analytical mind, that satisfaction was somewhat marred by his definite suspicion of her.

The opening of the door behind her caught Amanda’s attention, but she only looked back over her shoulder to watch Walker cross the porch and join her.

“I don’t see your car,” she said, for something to say, as she returned her attention to Glory’s front lawn.

“I walked over.” He nodded toward the west, and when she looked she thought she could make out the beginning of a path that started at the edge of the lawn and disappeared into the woods.

“Handy,” she noted.

“And good exercise.” His voice was cool once more.

Since he didn’t seem to be leaving yet, Amanda cast about in her mind for a safe subject. “Why doesn’t Sully ride in the shows? Isn’t he good enough?”

“he’s probably the best rider in the Southeast,”
Walker told her, still dispassionate. “But he’s too big and heavy to give most horses a decent chance over jumps. So—he trains them. And other people show them.”

“How … galling,” she said slowly. “Not to be able to do fully what you love most.”

“Sympathy? he’d hate that, and it’s wasted. What Sully loves most is Glory. As long as he has this place, He’ll be fine.”

“But he doesn’t have it, does he? I mean—”
Damn, why did I have to say that?

“I know what you mean.” His impersonal voice took on a sardonic edge. “No, Glory belongs to Jesse, to give or bequeath as he chooses, and everyone here knows it. Kate, Sully, Reece, all of them raised here and all of them with their lives invested in this place, could find themselves out in the cold without so much as a by-your-leave. If Jesse so decrees. And once he makes his wishes known, there isn’t a judge in the state who’d set aside his will. Is that what you wanted to know?”

Amanda looked at him for a moment before responding, and she was a little startled at how unsteady her voice was. “I know you don’t believe it, but I don’t want Glory. I don’t want the money or—or any of it. All I want is my past—and my name. Is that too much to ask?”

Walker smiled without amusement. “you’re right. I don’t believe it.”

She wasn’t surprised, except that his flat statement caused her an unexpected twinge of—of what? Of pain? “Why can’t you believe it?” she heard herself ask. “Why do all my motives have to be greedy ones?”

“The least improbable explanation generally turns out to be the truth,” he replied dryly. “And avarice is
very probable. I can’t begin to tell you how many normally rational and devoted relatives I’ve seen squabble over the wills of the dearly departed. To hear no objection during the reading of a will is the exception, not the rule.”

“Even so, can’t you accept that there might be something more important to me than money?” Disturbed, Amanda realized that this wary lawyer’s opinion of her meant far too much for her peace of mind— and when had it happened?

“I could accept it,” he told her, still as dry and unfeeling as dust, “if you had told the truth about everything else. But you haven’t—Amanda. The background you offer is full of holes, you’re vague and evasive about what you supposedly remember, and how you spent the past twenty years is anybody’s guess. You reappear suddenly and without much explanation, claiming virtual amnesia—and there’s a fortune at stake. Shall I go on?”

“No.” She turned her gaze to the peaceful scene spread out before them, and wished she could be as tranquil. “I think You’ve made your opinion quite clear.”

“Then we understand each other. I don’t believe you’re Amanda Daulton, and I won’t change my mind without a hell of a lot more proof than You’ve offered so far.”

“Then,” she said, “I’d call it a good thing that Jesse’s in charge here instead of you. A very good thing.”

“Don’t be too confident,” he warned her with a very faint bite in his lazy voice. “If you think Sully and Reece are going to stand by and do nothing while you get your hooks into Glory, your research into the Daulton family was seriously deficient.”

He left without another word, striding across the
lawn and vanishing from her sight as he took the path home.

Amanda didn’t move for a long time, and she didn’t try to figure anything out. But her weary mind did offer up one fairly reliable conviction for her to ponder. Walker McLellan was definitely feeling about her now.

And she didn’t think he liked her very much.

“Be careful you don’t burn,” Maggie advised, pausing as she took a shortcut across the patio from the rear wing to the main house.

“I’m wearing three layers of sunscreen, two of them waterproof,” Amanda promised, setting her tote bag down beside a lounge chair at the pool. “it’s as automatic as putting on my clothes, believe me; I practically burn with a roof over my head and on a cloudy day. But I’ve been looking at this beautiful pool for three days now, and I couldn’t stand it anymore.”

Maggie smiled. “Better to start now than in July; maybe you can build up some resistance.”

“Maybe. Anyway, Jesse said he needed to work in his study after breakfast, so I thought I’d swim a little. Is swimming at night allowed, by the way?”

“Allowed—but don’t come out here alone. The house is so big that if you got in trouble we might not hear you.”

“That sounds like a sensible precaution,” Amanda agreed. “And do the dogs go in?”

The housekeeper glanced at the two big Dobermans, who had become Amanda’s near-constant companions since she’d arrived and now sat on the other side of the lounge with an air of waiting interestedly to find out what she was going to do next.

“They might well go in today,” Maggie told
Amanda. “It isn’t their normal habit, but they seem reluctant to get too far away from you. They sleep at your door now, don’t they?”

Amanda looked down at her canine chums with faint vexation. “they’d sleep in my bedroom if I’d let them, probably on the bed. But I don’t think that’s what Jesse had in mind when he got them.”

“No, they’re supposed to run loose in the house at night.”

“So I figured.”

“Not that Jesse would say anything if you did let them into your room.”

Amanda smiled. “I don’t know about that. He’s exasperated with me; I can’t seem to master his beloved chess.”

“Don’t feel bad about that. Walker’s the only one around here who can give him a decent game, even though he made all of us learn to play years ago. I’m too predictable, he says. Sully is too reckless, Reece too cautious—and my poor Kate has an unfortunate tendency to simply play badly.”