Lady Be Good (18 page)

“It figures you’d like him. He’s just your type.”

“Quite.”

“Is that a gleam of speculation I see in your eye?”

When she didn’t reply, he frowned. “First you’re after a little boy. Now you’ve got Dex sighted through the crosshairs. Nobody could ever say you’re particular.”

She wasn’t going to let him bait her. “Desperate women can’t be particular.”

“I guess I’d better dance with you, then.” He spoke just begrudgingly enough to let her know he was doing her a favor.

“Oh, no.” She gave him a pleasant smile. “It would require far too much effort on your part.”

That made him so mad his teeth started to itch. Damn, but there was something about this woman that rubbed him wrong. He’d wanted to get away from her tonight, but then she’d shown up here. The worst thing was that part of him had been glad to see her, which was why he hadn’t behaved too well, because he didn’t want to be glad to see the virgin head mistress.

She made no secret of the fact that she disapproved of him, and he didn’t like the notion that he was nothing more than a sexual convenience, even though he felt the same way about her. Or at least he thought he did.

He wasn’t used to being confused about a woman, and his thoughts returned to the person who’d put him in this position in the first place. If it weren’t for Francesca, he might be able to talk Emma into a discreet fling. The two of them could use each other, then forget about it. But Dallie’s wife had more ways of finding out other people’s private business than anybody he knew, and she’d never forgive him if she thought he’d taken advantage of her friend. It also wouldn’t be the slightest use telling her that Lady Emma had started the whole thing when she’d tried to buy his body.

He felt claustrophobic, as if he were being forced into a small, windowless room with no exit. Lady Emma was too bossy, too difficult, one of those women who could run right over the top of a man, beating on him with her demands until he’d been flattened like a cartoon coyote. Frustrated, he pulled her to her feet and led her, none too gently, back to the dance floor, where it didn’t take more than a few seconds for his temper to bubble up again.

“Stop trying to lead!”

“Then move faster.”

“It’s a ballad.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to fall asleep.”

“I’m not falling asleep! I swear . . .” But whatever he’d been about to swear slipped from his mind as her hair brushed the bottom of his chin.

For a moment he could have sworn he smelled violets, which was very peculiar, since he had no idea what violets smelled like, except somehow he knew they smelled just like Lady Emma.

E
ven though she knew she should put her time to better
use working on her research paper, Emma luxuriated in her leisure the next morning. She visited Kenny’s horses, took another long walk along the river, then changed into her bathing suit, fetched her straw hat, and accompanied Patrick to the pool. They sat beneath a French market umbrella at one of the rectangular tables around the water and shared a glass of peach-flavored iced tea along with still-warm slices of a dark, spicy sweet bread drizzled with icing. As they ate, Patrick filled her in on some of the local lore and told her a little about his book of photographs before he excused himself to develop film in the basement darkroom.

Emma moved to one of the chaises that sat in the shade and opened up her notes from Lady Sarah’s journal. The day was warm, and she wanted to discard her cover-up, but she was afraid Patrick would come back, and she didn’t like the idea of him seeing her tattoo. It was one thing to show it off when she thought she was being watched, but quite another to expose people to it privately. She was thankful for her caution when she looked up to see an attractive blonde coming toward the pool with a baby in her arms.

The woman was a few years younger than Emma and a bit plump, but not unpleasantly so. Everything about her reeked of money, from the diamond tennis bracelet that glimmered on one tan wrist to her linen tunic and shorts. She had sleek, jaw-length blond hair and flawless skin enhanced with little more than some tawny lip gloss.

The woman beamed at her. “Lady Emma, it’s such an honor to have you in Wynette. I’m Shelby, of course.” Mystified, Emma set aside her notes and rose from the chaise. As she shook the woman’s outstretched hand, the baby squealed and reached for his mother’s hair. “This is Peter.” Her smile faded and her words developed a bite. “The forgotten child.”

“How do you do? Hello, Peter.”

He gave her a shy, droolly smile set off by four small teeth, then buried his face in his mother’s neck. The baby was adorable, and Emma felt a pang of envy. He had curly dark hair, a button nose, and beautiful eyes with sooty black lashes. His eyes were an unusual shade of blue, so deep they were nearly violet.

Something uncomfortable prickled at the back of her neck.

The woman took a seat at the umbrella table and shifted the baby onto her knees. “I thought Kenny might be here, but I should have known he’d do his best to avoid us.”

“He’s, uh, playing golf this morning.” Emma sat next to her. “How old is Peter?”

“Nine months, and he’s still nursing. He’s a bruiser. Twenty-two pounds and thirty inches at his last checkup.” She automatically pushed Emma’s empty iced tea glass out of the baby’s reach. “Kenny’s been in town since yesterday, but he hasn’t made the slightest attempt to come to the house, and I can’t forgive him for that. Ignoring his own flesh and blood.”

Emma’s stomach wrenched.
His own flesh and blood.
She took in the little boy’s dark hair and violet eyes. Kenny must have looked exactly the same. She felt dizzy. His baby.

Even as she thought it, she struggled for another explanation, but those bright violet eyes were so unusual that the resemblance couldn’t be coincidental, and this woman would hardly be so upset if she were a distant relative. The possibility that Kenny had fathered a child, then walked away, made her feel sick.

“I’m sorry,” she managed. “I didn’t quite get your name.”

“Hello, Shelby.”

She turned to see Kenny approaching. He wore a pair of coral swim trunks and had a yellow towel draped around his neck.

At the sound of Kenny’s voice, the baby’s legs stiffened, then began to pump with excitement. Ignoring Shelby, Kenny tossed aside his towel, then scooped up the little boy and brought him to his face. “Hey, buddy, how you doin’? I was coming to see you this afternoon.”

The woman gave a short snort.

Saliva bubbles dripped from Peter’s bottom lip as he grabbed Kenny’s hair and kicked his chubby bare feet.

They looked so much alike that Emma could only stare. At the same time, the sick feeling in her stomach wasn’t going away. How could he have deserted such a beautiful child? Then again, why should she be surprised? This was a man who always seemed to take the easy way out.

“You want to swim, Petie boy?” Kenny asked.

“Don’t get his overalls wet,” Shelby said. “I just bought them at Baby Gap yesterday.”

Kenny unfastened the straps and slipped off the overalls. “I think we’ll keep that cloth diaper on, just in case you forget to act like a gentleman.” He dropped the overalls on the table and tucked the baby in the crook of his arm as he looked down at Emma. “You want to come in with us?”

Her neck felt so stiff she could barely manage to shake her head.

“Come on, Petie. It’s just us guys, then.”

As Kenny carried the baby into the water, Emma tried to think what she could say to Shelby. She heard a faint sniffle.

“Damn him.”

She looked across the table and saw Shelby’s eyes fill with tears as she watched Kenny and the baby in the water.

Emma’s heart went out to her. The diamond jewelry and expensive clothing showed that Kenny had been generous with his financial support, but that meant nothing if he’d abandoned his responsibility. She was filled with a crushing, irrational sense of disappointment. Despite every signpost along the way, she’d expected better of him.

Emma reached across the table and laid a sympathetic hand on her arm. “I’m so sorry.”

The woman sniffed and gave a self-conscious laugh. “I guess I shouldn’t take it so hard. I must still have a little postpartum depression, what with not losing all my weight and all. But when I look at the two of them together . . .” Her face twisted and a big tear ran down her cheek. “He won’t take responsibility! And Peter is his own flesh and blood.”

Emma could feel her heart hardening against him. Logically, she knew her reaction was extreme—they’d only been acquainted for a few days—but emotionally she couldn’t help it. “He’s despicable,” she said, speaking to herself as much as Shelby.

Shelby looked a bit startled by Emma’s reaction, then gratified. “I guess it takes an outsider to see things clearly. Everyone in Wynette just shrugs it off. They say, well, that’s just the way Kenny is, and then they start telling stories about how he threw a stone through somebody’s window or stood up his prom date. Since he wins golf tournaments now, he doesn’t have to follow the same rules of decency as everyone else.” Once again, her eyes filled with tears. “I just love that little baby so much and—” She fumbled in the pocket of her tunic top for a tissue. “I’m sorry, Lady Emma. I don’t usually get like this, and I really wanted to make a good impression on you. But it’s nice to have some sympathy for a change.” She stood, blew her nose, then picked up Kenny’s discarded towel and walked to the edge of the pool. “Bring him here, Kenny. We have to go.”

“We just got in. He’s having a good time. Aren’t you, Petie boy?”

The baby gave a squeak of delight and slapped the water with his hands.

“He needs his nap, and I want him now!”

Kenny frowned and brought the baby to the edge of the pool. “Jeez, Shelby. What’s wrong with you?”

“
You’re
what’s wrong with me! Come here, Petie.” She leaned down and snatched the baby from Kenny, then wrapped him in the towel Kenny had brought from the house. As she walked over to pick up the overalls and her purse, she gave Emma a wobbly smile and something Emma was very much afraid might be a small curtsy. “Thank you, Lady Emma. This has meant a lot to me.”

Emma nodded, and Shelby walked away without so much as a glance at Kenny.

Emma heard a faint splash and turned to see that Kenny had dived under the water. Long moments later, he emerged at the far end of the pool and begin to swim laps. One after the other. Slow, lazy laps. The laps of a man with nothing better to do. No honest work. No responsibilities. No children he’d abandoned.

He flipped to his back, poked along, and as she watched, her anger singed away at all the soft, forgiving places inside her. She’d dedicated her life to being a champion for children, and this man represented everything she detested. Her stomach coiled in self-disgust as she remembered how close she’d come to letting herself be seduced by him.

He emerged from the pool, looked for his towel, then apparently remembered Shelby had left with it wrapped around his illegitimate son, so he sluiced the water from his skin with his palms. As she watched those long, languid strokes, nausea propelled her to her feet. Dimly, she understood that this wasn’t her fight, but she couldn’t reason away the avalanche of angry emotion that was churning inside her. Anger and the awful, suffocating
disappointment
that he wasn’t who she thought. It pushed her forward, toward the side of the pool.

He looked up at her. Smiled his lazy smile.

She didn’t plan to do it. Didn’t even feel it coming. But the next thing she knew, her arm was swinging through the air, and her hand had connected with his jaw.

From some distant, red-hazed place, she watched his head jerk and saw beads of water fly. A stain spread across his jaw where she’d hit him. Her stomach cramped.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?”
He cursed, then stared at her with eyes that had gone as deep and dark as a bruise.

Her legs felt as if they’d turned to water. She should never have struck him. Never. This wasn’t her concern, and she’d had no right to appoint herself his executioner.

His eyes blazed. “I’d throw you in that pool right now, except you’ve got your suit on, so what would be the point?”

His anger recharged her. “You’re despicable.”

A muscle jumped in his injured jaw, and at his side, his fist clenched. “Aw, hell . . .” Without warning, he scooped her up and threw her out into the deep end of the pool.

She came up, sputtering and furious, only to see him stalking toward the house, walking away from her as he’d walked away from that beautiful baby. “What kind of man are you?” she cried. “What kind of man abandons his own child!”

He froze in his tracks. Slowly turned. “What did you say?”

Her hat floated up next to her. She snatched it as she treaded water. “Being a man means more than planting sperm and then writing a big check. It means—”

“Planting sp—”