Inheritance (84 page)

With a strangled oath, Felix shoved back his chair and al-

Judith Michael

most ran around the table to the door. "This meeting is adjourned! Adjourned!" He opened the door. "Until you can behave—" He stopped and pulled himself up with stiff formality. "Until this board can behave in a businesslike manner."

"Just a minute!" Ben had moved around the comer of the table and now stood in Felix's place. "I didn't hear a motion for adjournment." He looked at each member of the board. "Is there one?"

"I moved adjournment!" Felix exploded. "You heard me."

"I didn't hear a second," Ben said evenly. His look fastened on Asa, pinning him down, and Asa, suddenly unsure of where the real power lay, this time kept silent. Everyone kept silent. "There is no second," Ben said. "It seems this meeting is still in session. Laura, you had the floor."

He waited for her to identify herself as his sister. He didn't know why she'd waited this long; she wouldn't get her shares approved any other way. He felt a strange kind of relief, and dread. He didn't know what would happen, but from the moment he had seen her—this wonderfully beautiful woman who was his sister—all his love for her had welled up, and he knew that, whatever happened, they would not deny each other again. She's my family, he thought with love and pride. And he waited for her to tell them who she was.

But she was silent. "Laura," he said again, "you were saying—?"

Her eyes met his. She knew she couldn't do it. She'd thought she would have everything she wanted as soon as she owned a piece of the Salinger empire, but now that she was on the verge of having it, she knew there was more. There was Ben. She loved him and she had done him a terrible wrong, and she was not going to do another. He'll tell the truth in his own time, she thought, or he won't; that's up to him. I'm not going to force him; I owe him at least my silence. Because it wasn't only Clay I was blind about; it was Ben, too. Paul, I'm sorry; you were more right than you knew.

She closed her eyes briefly. I'm getting pretty tired of apologizing, she thought, but it was my own fault.

"Laura," Ben said urgently. "We're waiting." She opened her eyes. They were all watching her. She looked at Ben and shook her head.

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"What is this?" Cole Hatton demanded. "What are we waiting for?"

Ben took a long breath. What the hell, he thought; it had to happen sometime. I wish I'd had the guts to do it long ago. I wish I didn't feel as if I were on the edge of a cliff right now. "We're not going to wait any longer," he said quietly. "We're going to approve the sale of Virginia Starrett's shares to Laura Fairchild. I'd like to introduce her to you again, correctly this time." He glanced at Felix, who stood beside the door, frozen, knowing, somehow, that something terrible was going to happen. Ben reached out his hand, and Laura stepped forward to take it, her eyes wide, a smile trembling on her lips. "May I present my sister," Ben said clearly, and put his arm around her, and they stood together and faced the board of directors of Salinger Hotels Incorporated.

Her three rooms were exactly as she had left them, shining in the sunlight that had broken through when the storm passed. "They're too beautiful to change," Ben said as Laura walked through them. She was silent, trying to hold in the memories that battered her: all the love and laughter of the years she had lived there, the excitement of making a glorious new life, the exhilaration of discovering what Laura Fairchild could be, and do, and feel. "We used it for Judd for a while, but now we keep it as a guest apartment. Allison thought we might eventually put Judd's sister in it, when she gets old enough."

"Will it be a sister?" Laura asked. She was surprised at how normal her voice sounded.

^That's Allison's prediction."

Laura stood before the fireplace, looking at Paul's photograph of the three children building a sand castle. "I always thought of them as the three of us," she said softly. "You and Clay wanting to fly the pirate flag, and me thinking about ribbons and a room of my own."

"It's a brilliant photograph," said Ben. "Do you ever see him anymore?"

"Now and then."

He heard the change in her voice. "Are you still in love with him?"

Judith Michael

"I've been so busy," she said vaguely. "I haven't had time to fall in love with anyone else."

Ben was about to say he'd asked a serious question, but he stopped himself. He couldn't expect her to trust him with confidences, not this soon; first they had to get used to being together. And that was so hard, so amazing. He wondered if he looked as stunned as he still felt; it all had happened so quickly and everything was changing, minute by minute, while he tried to keep up. "Are you able to keep up with all this?" he asked.

"Almost." She smiled. "I was prepared, you see: I knew I'd be at that meeting. But still, to see you, and be with you . . . Ben, we have so many things to talk about."

"Do you want to go through the rest of the house first?"

"Not now. I mostly wanted to see Owen's rooms and mine. I'll make some lunch, and we can talk in the hving— Damn." Her face was burning. "I'm sorry; I'm behaving as if I live here."

Ben put his arms around her. "You should live here. I wish there was some way—"

"No. Of course not." She held him, then moved away. "I have a wonderful house in New York and that's where my work is; I couldn't live here even if you gave the house to me. I like the idea of you and Allison here, and Judd and Judd's sister. When will they get back?"

"I have no idea. Whenever Leni comes up from New York —did you know she's living there now? She's left Felix."

"I didn't know. How strange—I always thought of the family as staying the same. I knew I was changing, and years were going by, but whenever I thought of them, they were exactly the same."

"Nobody's the same; wait until you see Allison. They'll be here around five, I guess. Whenever the two of them go shopping, it seems to take most of the afternoon. I assume Judd is at the park now that the storm is over, and his nanny always has him back between four and five. It's the cook's day off; we'll make lunch together, is that all right?"

"I'd like that."

In Rosa's kitchen, the new cook had rearranged the utensils and dishes, and Laura felt resentful: what was wrong with the

Inheritance

way she and Rosa had kept it? "Smoked chicken," Ben said, taking packages from the refrigerator. "Ch^vre. Shced tomatoes." He runmiaged in the pantry. "Baguettes. Coffee or tea?"

'Tea, please."

In silence, they arranged the food on trays; there was so much to say they didn't know where to begin. But for Laura it was the first quiet time she had had since talking to Paul in her office the day before—impossible that it was only yesterday, she thought—and she let the silence surround her and ease the turmoil that had raged beneath her cool surface. It felt, eerily, like it might be the calm between two halves of a hurricane, but it was all right: whatever she had to face when she returned to New York and Colby's investigation, for now she was safe on Beacon Hill, in this loved house, and with Ben.

They carried the trays to the living room and sat on a velvet sofa Allison had moved to the bay window overlooking the cobblestones and tall trees of Mount Vernon Street. The storm had driven some of the red and bronze leaves from the trees, and they lay like fragments of stained glass on the brick sidewalks, glowing in the afternoon sun.

"Why didn't you tell them who you were?" Ben asked as he poured their tea. "I expected you to."

"I didn't want to hurt you with your family. If you'd wanted them to know about me, you would have told them, and obviously you hadn't. I know what it's like to be afraid of having a secret exposed, and I couldn't do it to you."

"I still don't understand." He handed her a cup. "I thought you hated me, ever since the robbery at the Cape."

"I did. I was wrong, Ben. I found out last night . . . Clay did it. He stole Leni's jewels."

Ben's hand froze. Then, carefully, he broke apart a baguette and buttered it. "I thought so. I even told you to ask him, didn't I? Clay was never one to resist temptation. How did you find out?"

"He still has the necklace. Had it. I found it and took it." She told him about her search in Clay's bedroom.

Ben sighed. "Idiot. Why the hell he didn't get rid of it . . ."

"I can't ask him; he's gone. But I'm glad he didn't; now I can give it back to Leni. I brought it with me. I thought I'd give it to you to return to her."

Judith Michael

"Now you can do it yourself. What do you mean, he's gone?"

"Myma—the girl he lives with—called this morning and said he was gone and it looked like he'd taken some ckHhes. I suppose the doorman told him I was there, and then he looked for the necklace and knew I had it. And he ran away. He always hated it when I scolded him; he—^" Her throat tightened and she stopped. "I worried about him," she said, her voice low. "He was like a little boy trying to be a big man, but he was so sweet to me, and I wanted him to succeed and be happy. And grow up. But there's more, Ben; at least it looks like there's something more ..."

Quickly she told him about Paul's film and Sam Colby. "I don't know if Clay has anything to do with it—^I can't believe he'd endanger the hotels that way—"

"He probably thought no one would make the connection. And he had all that temptation laid out in front of him, every day, every month. Can you think of anybody else in the hotels who might have done it?"

"No. Well, me. That's what Sam Colby thinks."

"He's an ass if he does. No one who's done what you have with those hotels would jeopardize them. Clay would, because he never could look ahead to the consequences of things. But you do; if you didn't, you wouldn't be where you are now."

"How would Sam Colby know that?"

"We'll tell him."

"And accuse Clay?"

"If that's the choice. My God, Laura, Clay hasn't worried about you; he's put you in the most damnable position—"

"We don't know that."

"We know it, because we know Clay."

Laura clasped and unclasped her hands. "I didn't do a very good job with him, did I?"

"You sound like a parent. You can't take the responsibility for Clay; I should do thai. I gave him a bad start."

Laura turned to him. "What did you do after the robbery?"

"You mean did I go on with my old ways?" He shook his head. "I never robbed anyone again. I thought about it—it was my only skill, you might say—but everything about it was wrong. It only took me twenty-six years to decide that.

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How's that for moral fiber? We should have brought it up at the board meeting when Felix looked like he was about to have a stroke."

"He wouldn't have understood it."

"No; he didn't even understand that we'd voted to adjourn. He wasn't functioning well."

"We gave him a bad time."

"Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy." They smiled together, then fell silent. "I can't believe it," Ben said. "I don't know how to feel. You're here and we're talking as if it's the most normal thing in the world, but it's not: it's a spectacular miracle. God, I've missed you; you have no idea how much I've missed you and wanted to see you—and been furious at you because you didn't believe me. Did you get my last letter?"

"Yes. I hated you for living in this house."

"I knew you would. After I mailed it I knew it was the most asinine thing I'd ever done. I should have called you. I couldn't do it; isn't that crazy?"

"Neither could I," Laura said. "I thought about it a lot, but I didn't know what to say; I was still so angry and hurt. What a waste anger is. . . . And then after a while I thought we'd gotten so far apart it didn't matter, we didn't care about each other anymore. But we never get that far apart, do we?"

"I hope not. At least not when we really love someone. Are you thinking about Paul?"

She smiled. "I think about Paul a great deal."

"You're very different, you know. I'd never have guessed you could be so cool and sure of yourself."

She laughed. "That's what the world is supposed to see. Inside, there's something like a cauldron, boiling away. You're different, too: gentler, calmer, much more confident. . . . You look very handsome and distinguished in those glasses. Like a diplomat about to bring nations together."

He smiled. "Right now I just want to bring us together."

"We are, aren't we? I mean, we're getting there. I feel strange with you, but then not strange, as if we've only been away for a little while. I want to hear all about you, all the things you didn't tell me in your letters. But ..." She picked

Judith Michael

at her food. "Rosa would say the most important thing is to eat; then we can handle anything."

"Wise lady."

"A wonderful lady. Ben, I'm sorry for what I said." She put down her fork and leaned toward him. "All those terrible things I said to you at the Cape. I know I was young, but I should have believed you, I should have trusted you, at least I should have thought a little bit instead of just striking out. I'm so sorry for all of it, for hurting you and sending you away, and for not seeing what I should have seen ..."

"Laura, it's all right, I know all that. I knew it then."

"No, you sounded so hurt—angry, but hurt, too—my God, more anger and more hurt—and I loved you, but I thought you didn't love me."

"That's usually the problem," Ben said dryly. He put his arm around Laura, and she rested her head on his shoulder. *The evidence was against me. And you loved Owen and needed him more than you needed me."

"But that was all I thought of. Myself and what I wanted, not you, not even Clay. I didn't even try to think about how he might have done the robbery if you hadn't; I was too worried about myself and losing what I wanted— '*

"Hey," Ben said softly. "You're overdoing the hair shirt. I accept all your apologies now and in the future, and if you'll give me a chance I'll make a few of my own."

Laura broke into laughter. "Dear Ben, it's so wonderful to have you back—" She turned up her face to kiss his cheek, and that was when Allison and Leni walked into the living room.