Moonlight Masquerade (34 page)

Carter looked surprised at her words. “Nothing.”

“What does that mean exactly?”

“I'm not doing anything about the cookbook and I don't plan to. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

Sophie wasn't sure she believed him. “That's the Treeborne cookbook,” she said. “It's worth everything. Your family never shows it to an outsider. They—”

“The whole thing is and always has been a publicity
gimmick. Yes, my great-grandmother had a cookbook and—”

“In code.”

Carter smirked. “Yeah. A code made up by her. She had a drunken husband who sold everything she owned, so she made it useless to him.”

“Do you know what it says?”

“Yes I do, since she told her son when he decided to go into the frozen food business and it's been passed down to me.”

“So the ads
are
true, and when your father sees that the cookbook is missing he'll—”

“Do nothing,” Carter said. “Right now all he can think about is merging with the Palmer cannery. That's why he wants me to marry the owner's daughter. She's a serious druggie.”

Sophie glared at him. “Is this where I'm supposed to feel sorry for you? Poor you. Married to make a deal. Sounds like the title of a book.”

Carter looked at her for a moment. “You don't seem like the woman I knew.”

“The one who had to be nice to local football heroes in the hope of getting a tip? Or the one who had to give up a career and stay in a town run by Treebornes? Or maybe you mean the one who was swept off her feet by the son of the town tyrant for a summer fling?”

Carter couldn't help a smile. “Whoever she was, I liked her.” He lowered his lashes and his voice. “No, Sophie, I loved her. In fact, I've come here to ask you to marry me.”

While she stared at him in astonishment, he reached into his pocket and withdrew a ring box, which she
recognized as a design created by her friend Kim. “I stopped in a little jewelry store when I got here yesterday and I bought you a ring.” He went down on one knee and as he opened the box he said, “Sophie Kincaid, will you—”

She got up from the chair, walked to behind the counter, and put on an apron.

Carter, his face red with embarrassment, got up, closed the box, put it on the table, and went to her. “Sophie?”

She was scrubbing the clean countertop.

“Sophie, please talk to me.”

When she looked at him, her face was furious. “So that's it?” she said through clenched teeth. “You walk in here and expect me to say yes to a marriage proposal? Then what? I throw my arms around your neck and all is forgiven? Do you even remember what you said to me before you shoved me out the front door?”

“I didn't mean to be so physical, but I was afraid my father would come home. If he saw you there he might have said some really cruel things to you.”

“Cruel? Like what
you
said to me? Your father couldn't have hurt me as much as you did. To be able to do that you have to know a lot about a person—as you did about me. All those months when we were together and I'd confided so much to you! You used every bit of it to cut me down.”

“I didn't mean—”

“Don't try to make me think you didn't mean to hurt me. You meant every dagger slash. And you know what? You had thought about every bit of it, planned it. You
did
mean it!”

“You're right,” Carter said, “but my father—”

He broke off because someone had knocked on the door. Standing outside was a short, stout man with gray hair, and he was holding a two-foot-square piece of plywood with a plastic covered lump on it. Over his shoulder was a big canvas satchel.

“Not now,” Sophie mumbled. “We're closed!”

The man gave a sad, pleading look at Sophie and gestured toward the object he was holding. It was familiar to her. She knew it was a sculpture he was in the process of making and he wanted her to look at it. Critique it.

“Come back later,” she said, then looked at Carter.

But he'd gone to the door and was unlocking it.

“I'm—” the gray-haired man said, but Carter cut him off.

“Sophie, this is Henry,” Carter said.

There was a split second when the older man looked surprised, and he gave Carter a hard look, as though trying to remember him, but then he recovered his equilibrium and looked back at Sophie.

“Henry,” Sophie said, her voice angry, “now is not the time for this. I'll look at what you've made later.”

Carter took the platform from the man and set it on a table. “Should I . . . ?”

“Sure,” Henry said, looking from him to Sophie and back again. “I'm sorry to interrupt, but the pastor said you were here and that you'd know what to do with this. It's not quite right, but I can't figure out what's wrong with it.”

Carter unwrapped the plastic to expose a foot-tall clay sculpture of a Revolutionary soldier. He was leaning
on his rifle and looking as weary as a man at war would be.

“That's great,” Carter said enthusiastically. “Really wonderful. You are a man of enormous talent, and your technique is beyond anything—”

“Stop it!” Sophie snapped. “Really, Carter, just stop talking about things you know nothing about. This figure is out of proportion. If he were real he'd be five feet on the bottom and six feet on the top.” She was so angry at Carter that she didn't think about what she was doing but grabbed the legs of the clay man and squeezed until she was almost down to the steel armature underneath.

“This is what you always do, isn't it, Carter? You look at something—or someone—and think it's absolutely perfect. You're fascinated with it. But then when you spend time around it, you begin to see that she isn't what you thought. Get me an ice pick.”

“What?”

“Get her an ice pick,” Henry barked, and Carter ran to search through drawers until he found one.

Sophie dug the pick into the clay to make an adhesive surface. She glanced pointedly at Henry who was watching her with an intensity usually reserved for brain surgery. “Is that bag empty?”

Quickly, he set it on the table, opened it, and pulled out a lump of plastic-wrapped clay, and unrolled a canvas carrier full of plastic and metal sculpting tools. She grabbed the clay, pulled off the wrap, and began to knead it into the legs. Her hands worked with lightning speed as she rearranged the clay. She was greatly hindered by the steel structure underneath but
she was able to add a half inch length onto the man's legs.

“What did young Treeborne do to you?” Henry asked.

“He told me I wasn't the kind of woman a man married,” Sophie answered. “To bed, yes. Wed, no.”

Henry gave Carter a look that said he was an idiot.

“He thinks because his family's rich and mine isn't that we're different classes. He thinks that I wouldn't know how to act in the Treeborne mansion. I guess I'd hang the laundry in the front hallway.”

“Like Mrs. Adams,” Henry said, and Carter and Sophie looked at him. “When she moved into the White House it kept raining so she hung the laundry in the East Room.”

Sophie didn't know what that had to do with anything. She took a plastic tool out of the roll and began carving away at the upper body of the clay soldier.

“Why'd you say such a stupid thing?” Henry asked Carter.

His face turned red. “My father . . . ” Carter glanced at Sophie.

“The Palmer deal,” Henry said.

Carter nodded.

Sophie looked from one man to the other. “Oh great. I have two of you from the same world. This is my lucky day.”

“I used to be in that world,” Henry said. “But now I'm in yours.” He watched as Sophie began to work on the soldier's face. “Is that ring from you?” He nodded at the box on the table as he looked at Carter.

Carter grimaced. “I asked—”

“I saw you on your knee,” Henry said, “but I was
hoping that you'd dropped something. A proposal is a serious matter and needs some planning. It shouldn't be done in front of a window where everyone can see. And not wearing everyday clothes.” Henry smiled at Sophie.

“Let me guess. You've been married to the same woman for thirty-two years.”

“Thirty-four,” he said, his eyes twinkling.

She looked back at Carter. “I think you could learn a lot from this man. Now, if the two of you will excuse me—” She turned to leave the room but Henry caught her arm.

“I haven't stayed married all these years by leaving a lady to stew in her own anger. Let's take a walk.”

Sophie gave him a look of I-don't-know-you.

“We can walk to the church, in plain view of everyone, but I do think you need to get out of here. And besides, young Treeborne here can vouch for me.”

“He is—”

Sophie didn't so much as look at Carter. All she knew is that she very much wanted to get out of the restaurant. “I'll get my coat,” she said and hurried up the stairs.

Minutes later, Henry was holding a door open for her. As they went out into the fresh air her mind began to clear. “I'm sorry about that in there. Especially about your sculpture. It does show talent. It's just that your armature was out of proportion and that made everything off. Your teacher should have caught it.”

“Don't have one,” he said.

“I'm sure the local colleges have art courses and you could take one.”

“I've had too many years of being the boss to be able to stand there and listen to some kid talk to me about form versus line versus perception.” He waved his hand. “Besides, in a college classroom I'd be called ‘the old man' and my ego couldn't stand that.”

“Better than being too low class to marry,” she said before she thought. “Sorry. Carter showing up today threw me. Usually, I have rather nice manners.”

“That makes one of us. I have three daughters, all of them about your age, more or less, and you should have heard what I said to the last boy who played with my third daughter's heart. His ears will be stinging when he's ninety.”

Sophie couldn't help smiling. “You sound like a good father.”

“If I was, it was because my wife made it clear that no matter how successful I was in the business world, at home I was to help with the dishes and the diapers.” He chuckled. “I used to spend the day making multi-million-dollar deals with Tokyo, then on the way home I'd have to stop and pick up half a gallon of milk.”

“And was it all worth it?”

“My daughters are sane and sensible, and my wife still loves me. What do you think?”

“I think you're a very lucky man.”

They'd come to one of the town squares and there was a bench under a huge oak tree. “Want to sit for a while?” he asked.

She hesitated. There was a lot of work to do before tomorrow and she needed to get busy on it.

Henry reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out
two fat little red-and-white-striped bags. “I have peanuts.”

She smiled. “In that case, how can I refuse?”

They sat next to each other on the bench and for a few minutes they shelled peanuts and ate them in silence.

“So, Sophie, what's
really
wrong in your life? You seem to be more agitated than young Treeborne could have caused. Is there someone else?”

“Maybe,” Sophie said hesitantly. She didn't know this man, but at the same time there was something about him that inspired confidence. From the way Carter had been in awe of him she was sure that Henry had been some very high powered man in the business world.

She wanted to pour her heart out to him, but since she'd graduated from college her life had been one long series of people wanting things from her. “What do you want from me?” she asked and couldn't help narrowing her eyes at him. “You showed up complete with a sculpture and two bags of peanuts. This isn't a coincidence.”

Henry smiled. “If you're an example of this generation, it's good I got out. You're too clever for me.”

“I doubt that. So what is it?”

He took a moment before answering. “My wife's sister lives in Williamsburg. I wanted to retire to a place of endless sun, but it was either come here or lose her.”

“She's a good bargainer.”

“Tyrant, is more likely,” he said. “So anyway, I hate golf, can't stand country clubs, and I don't know what to do with myself.”

“You're the man Russell mentioned.”

“That's me. When I was a kid I used to make figures out of mud. I wanted to go to art school, but my father sent me to study business. Back then I was as bullied by him as young Carter is by his father.”

“But you seem to have survived.”

“I guess business was in my blood,” he said. “But then I early on learned how to look at a deal as though it were an art form. Was my opponent a Gainsborough or a Pollock?”

“Or a Mondrian?” she said, amused.

“If I figured out his style I knew how to deal with him.”

“So what was on the walls of
your
office?”

Henry laughed. “I had my daughters' drawings framed.”

“Ah yes. Family. Everything for them. Did anyone ever figure you out?”

“Not until this moment,” he said.

“Which brings us back to my original question. What do you want from me?”

“A teacher. No, actually, I want an art buddy. As much as I love my family, I miss the office—and my wife dearly wants me to get out of the house.”

“An art buddy? And you're thinking about me for this?”

“Russell Pendergast gave me the idea. You know who his father is, don't you?”

“Randall Maxwell, isn't it? Colleague of yours?”

“Off and on. I can't say we're friends. When it comes to business he's a Robert Motherwell.”

Sophie had to laugh. Motherwell's paintings were a white canvas with huge, rough-edged black slashes and
ovals, sometimes with a vivid splash of red. Very dramatic. Unforgiving. “Did you beat him?”