The Heiress (14 page)

“Hmm.” Bucky knew Daisy well enough not to believe a word of that.

And of course, Daisy thought uncomfortably, Bucky was right. Her relationship with Jack wasn’t anywhere near that routine. Her relationship with Jack was as unexpected and complicated as it was possible to be.

“If that’s the way you want it,” Bucky said with an offhand shrug, turning his full attention to whatever it was he was writing.

“It is,” Jack said firmly.

Not bothering to look up again, Bucky scribbled something else on his pad and moved off.

“Thanks for helping me with that.” Daisy breathed a sigh of relief the moment she and Jack were alone.

Jack gave Bucky—who was already busy taking photos of Eleanor Deveraux and Winnifred Deveraux-Smith, with Charlotte and Richard Templeton—another long thoughtful glance, then turned back to Daisy. “There’s some sort of angst between the two of you, isn’t there?”

Daisy really did not want to get into this—particularly with Jack. “We went to school together, from kindergarten on up.” She’d prefer to just leave it at that.

“And?”

Daisy pretended to study the array of appetizers laid out on the buffet. “I dated him a long time ago, okay?”

To Daisy’s dismay, Jack wasn’t buying her he’s-just-an-old-boyfriend-and-now-it’s-awkward-between-us excuse. He watched her pick up a plate and load it down with hot crab dip and crackers. “Why did it end?”

Leave it to Jack to cut straight to the chase, Daisy thought. Knowing the lawyerly inquisition wasn’t going
to stop until Jack found out the reason for the peculiar vibes between her and Bucky and that it was probably best if he heard it from her—and not Bucky—Daisy scooped some dip onto the end of a cracker and said, “Because we did not have a good time together at our senior prom.”

His expression more gallantly protective than ever, Jack helped himself to a plate of stuffed mushrooms and appetizer meatballs. Grabbing a fork and napkins for them both, he steered her out onto the portico and quietly shut the door behind them. He looked around to make certain they were alone on the shadowy veranda, then sat down on the low wrought-iron bench next to the side of the house and continued prodding. “Why do I think there’s more to this story?”

Because there is.
Figuring he might as well hear the basics from her instead of someone else, Daisy finished chewing her cracker. “I was pretty wild back then.”

Jack shrugged and looked at her expectantly. “An understatement, if there ever was one, and not completely untrue today, either.”

Daisy grinned at the gentle hint of teasing in his voice. She’d finally found a man who could appreciate her love of excitement. Although now that she was pregnant and married, to boot, she found her outlook on life—and perhaps her actions, too—becoming a lot more serious. Because it wasn’t just herself she had to think about now. She had the baby. And Jack, too.

“So what did he do?” Jack continued as Daisy took a seat next to him on the bench. At that moment, he looked all of his thirty-two years. “Get drunk and throw up all over your prom dress?”

Daisy wished that was all that had happened that
night, five years ago. “He rented a hotel room, and he—we—it was my first time and it was awful. So we broke up.”

“And Bucky Jerome was pissed,” Jack guessed.

“Oh yeah.” Daisy drew a breath, recalling Bucky’s emotional reaction to her leave-taking. “He, uh…”

“Wanted to continue being your lover.”

Daisy nodded, glad the shadows of the porch were hiding the hot embarrassment she felt. She looked Jack square in the eye, figuring she might as well tell him the rest. “He said I hadn’t given him a fair chance and he wanted another go at it.”

“But you weren’t interested?”

“I realized it was a big mistake because…”

“What?” Jack asked when she didn’t immediately go on.

Because I didn’t like it,
Daisy thought, blushing all the more. But knowing she couldn’t say that—it would sound too hokey and she wasn’t a hokey kind of girl, she said only, “Because he wasn’t special to me, so—” Daisy paused and shrugged her shoulders. “I got out of it. Anyway, my parents sent me to Europe with Iris that summer to try and get me interested in the family antiques business, which of course didn’t work, and then Bucky and I both went off to college, so our paths have rarely crossed since. I knew he was back and that he was working at the newspaper for his dad because he’s set to inherit it someday—the Jeromes have owned the
Charleston Herald
forever.”

“But for now, he’s writing the society column ‘Around the City.’”

Daisy’s eyes widened in surprise. “You know about that?” She wouldn’t have figured Jack was the type to read the society page. Any society page.

Jack nodded, his expression turning even more grim. “He put a mention of Grace and Paulo in the column. No one in the Deveraux family was happy about it.”

So Jack had learned about Bucky’s superambitious style through the Deveraux clan, Daisy thought. That made sense. “That doesn’t surprise me.” From what Daisy had been able to figure thus far, Bucky was copying the supersalacious style of some of the big-city gossip columns. It was a way to get famous fast, if you didn’t get sued, beaten up, fired or slandered yourself first.

“Do you want me to talk to him?” Jack asked, looking protective again.

Daisy frowned impatiently as she put her half-eaten appetizers aside. “And tell him what? He can’t print news of our marriage in the paper?”

Jack shrugged. “We could refuse to let him run our photo tomorrow, for starters.”

“No. The last thing we want to do is make him more curious than he already is about our elopement. Bucky curious is a very bad thing.” He was almost nosier than Daisy was. In fact, it had been Bucky who had encouraged her nonstop her senior year to try and find out who her real parents were the moment she turned eighteen. At the time, Daisy had been grateful for Bucky’s support in that regard—he was one of the few people who had understood, never mind applauded, her need to know where she came from. But as for the rest of it, Bucky was self-centered to a fault, and as reckless and relentless as she was. Worse, he was determined to make a name for himself in journalism circles, and he didn’t care who he had to step on, or over, to do so.

“All right.” Jack set his plate aside and stood. “But if he gives you any trouble, if he even looks at you funny from now on, I want to know.”

“You’re not going all protective on me, are you?” Daisy asked as Jack pulled her to her feet.

He wrapped his arms about her waist. “Would it really be such a bad thing if I was?” Not giving her a chance to answer, he leaned down and gently kissed her lips.

J
ACK HAD TO GIVE
Daisy credit—she was everything Richard and Charlotte could have wanted in a daughter that evening. She was cordial to everyone, not leaving until the last guests were out the door. But, Jack noted immediately, that was absolutely as long as Daisy was going to stay.

She paused to kiss her mother’s cheek as they were headed out, and merely nodded at her father. “Thank you for the party.”

“I meant what I said about the wedding gift,” Richard stated as he walked them to the door. He looked directly at Daisy. “Meet me at Rosewood tomorrow afternoon at two and we’ll pick something out.”

Daisy edged closer to Jack. “You have to work tomorrow afternoon, don’t you?”

Jack could tell Daisy was looking for a way out of the meeting. Fortunately, Daisy was correct in her assessment and he didn’t have to fib. Jack flashed Richard and Charlotte an apologetic smile. “I’m tied up all afternoon with Tom and Mitch—we’re working to resolve a dispute with one of the Deveraux-Heyward Shipping Company customers. But if we could do it later in the week, or perhaps early next week,” Jack said.

“I’m afraid that is impossible for me,” Richard Templeton said coolly. “But that’s all right. It’s not necessary for you to be there anyway, Jack. I’m sure Daisy
can pick something out for the two of you, can’t you, dear?”

For a moment, Jack thought Daisy was going to rebel at her father’s pushiness. “Sure,” Daisy said after a moment, the spirit seeming to drain out of her as quickly as it had appeared.

“Do you always do that?” Jack asked as he and Daisy got in the car.

“What?” Daisy busied herself putting on her safety belt.

“Bend to your father’s will.”

“Obviously not.” Daisy rolled her eyes at him and continued dryly, “Or I wouldn’t have earned a rep as the wild child of Charleston society.”

“Then why are you doing it now, first with Charlotte and then Richard?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Daisy wrapped her arms around her middle, as if trying to give herself a comforting hug, and seemed to shrink into herself. “I’m trying to save
you
some grief.”

If Jack weren’t in the midst of traffic, he would have taken her in his arms again and kissed her until she saw things his way. As it was, all he could do was lift his right hand from the steering wheel and reach over and gently cup her knee through the silky fabric of her skirt. “You don’t have to protect me, Daze,” he said softly, appreciating her efforts nevertheless.

“When it comes to my family, someone should.” The stubborn note was back in her voice.

As traffic cleared, Jack sped up. “Maybe I can reschedule that meeting tomorrow.” There had to be some way he could help her.

“You don’t have to. I’ll be okay. I promise.” Arms still clasped in front of her, Daisy stared straight ahead.
“He probably just wants a chance to lecture me on how I’ve dishonored the Templeton name and reputation once more with my recklessness. Believe me,” Daisy sighed heavily, “it’s not anything I haven’t heard before.”

B
UCKY
J
EROME’S NOSE
for news told him there was a lot more going on with Daisy and Jack Granger than she or her family wanted to let on. So first thing the next morning, he headed over to the family business to see what he could weasel out of Daisy’s uptight older sister, Iris, who was also the only member of the family who hadn’t been at Richard and Charlotte’s party the night before.

“Hello, Bucky. You’re here bright and early,” Iris Templeton said pleasantly as she unlocked the door of Templeton’s Fine Antiques and ushered him inside. Although Bucky felt a little bad about forcing himself on Daisy and her new husband the night before, he had no such compunction about Daisy’s snotty older sister. Iris had never been nice to him—except in the most insincere socially adept way—and he sensed she never would. And the same went for Charlotte and Richard Templeton. They had never for one second approved of Daisy’s association with him, Bucky knew. Not even five years before when he and Daisy had been boyfriend and girlfriend.

“I brought you a copy of the newspaper.” Bucky handed it over helpfully. “Thought you might like to see the mention of your younger sister and her new hubby.”

To Bucky’s disappointment, Iris’s face registered no
emotion about the nuptials, either way. How was he going to get a gossipy behind-the-scenes story about the Templeton clan if she didn’t reveal more?

“Thank you. I read it over breakfast. And the mention was nice. Although—” Iris looked down her elegantly chiseled nose at him “—the accompanying picture of them could have used some work.”

That was an understatement and then some, Bucky knew, doing his best not to grin. Jack’s face was half turned away, and Daisy was grimacing at the camera. Which just went to show, Bucky thought, even two people as good-looking as those two, could take a bad picture. “Yeah, well…” Aware Iris was waiting for an explanation or an apology or both, Bucky shrugged. “You’ll need to talk to my dad about that. He won’t assign me a photographer to go to these events, and I don’t know a lot about taking pictures.”

Iris walked from window to window, efficiently raising the blinds. “I haven’t noticed you having a problem taking a decent photo of anyone else.”

Bucky followed her. “You think I did that on purpose?”

Iris shot him a censuring look. “Didn’t you?”

“Maybe. Could be I’m a little jealous,” Bucky fibbed, knowing the truth was he had stopped thinking he and Daisy would ever get back together a long time ago. What he wanted now—besides maybe a little revenge for the way Daisy had so unceremoniously dumped him—was fame. If there was even half the story behind Daisy’s sudden elopement that Bucky sensed there was, he would have a very juicy story to write. “Which is why I wanted to talk to you. I thought you might be able to give me the lowdown on what’s really going on there.”

Iris walked through the shop, her high heels clicking on the wide-planked wooden floor. “You’re a reporter, Bucky. I don’t discuss private family business with the press.”

“So then the family has nothing to say about the match?”

Iris plucked a feather duster from behind the sales counter at the rear of the shop. “Whether or not the family approved would be a moot point, since Daisy and Jack are already married.”

Bucky watched Iris dispense with little spots of dust here and there. “You could pressure her to have the marriage annulled,” he said, still trailing along behind her. “It’s not as if that hasn’t been done before. An heiress runs off with someone clearly not of her ilk—the parents intervene and call in a few markers—presto, change-o.” Bucky snapped his fingers. “It’s like it never happened.”

Iris gave him a condescending look and countered sweetly, “You have an active imagination. Has anyone ever told you that?”

All the time.
Bucky whipped a pad and pen from his pocket. “How long has she been dating him?”

Iris put the feather duster away and ignored him.

Able to see the professional approach was not going to work, Bucky put his notepad and pen back in his pocket. “By the way, I was sorry to hear about your husband passing last year.”

“Thank you.”

“You’d been married for a long time, hadn’t you?”

“Almost twenty-two years.” Iris walked over and turned on the store’s interior lights.

“Wow. Think Daisy and Jack will make it that long?”

Iris smiled at him again, lethally this time. “Bucky…?”

Wondering if he should duck and cover before answering, Bucky responded, “Yes?”

“This is getting tiresome. So if it’s the only reason you’re here—”

“Actually, it’s not,” Bucky interrupted before Iris could throw him out of her prestigious shop. “I need to buy a present for my dad’s birthday, and I was thinking something for his office at work might be nice.” Where Adlai could see it every day and hopefully be reminded that Bucky was, if nothing else, the dutiful son. “I was hoping you could help me pick it out.”

Iris studied him. “I’d need to know a lot more about your father’s taste. I don’t think he has shopped here much in the past.”

“Actually, he’s not ever really been into antiques, not the way some of the other residents of Charleston are, but I was thinking that could change if I bought him something really special. You know, a conversation piece. So what do you say? Can you help me?” And in the meantime, Bucky hoped, maybe Iris would relax a little and inadvertently let something slip. Or he’d be able to find out something salacious that could end up in print just by nosing around.

“How much would you like to spend?”

Bucky thought about what his father was paying him at the
Herald.
“Low end,” Bucky said. “Definitely low end.” There was a limit, after all, as to how much he was willing to put himself out for a ploy that might or might not work, on either level.

The door clanged. A looker in high heels and an airline uniform with a photo-identification badge dangling on a chain between ample breasts walked in. She
was in her late thirties, early forties, and had shoulder-length red hair, savvy green eyes. As a rule, Bucky wasn’t into older women, but if he was, he would definitely be into…Ginger Zaring, Reservations Agent.

Iris shot Bucky a look that instructed him to control his gawking, then turned to Ginger Zaring. “May I help you with something?” Iris asked kindly.

“Yes,” Ginger said, her expression sober. She looked at Iris meaningfully. “I’d like to speak to you privately, if I may.”

For a second, Iris looked taken aback by the unmistakably intimate plea in Ginger Zaring’s eyes. Then she tensed. “Certainly,” Iris said in the too-cheerful tone of an experienced businesswoman bracing for trouble. Iris looked at Bucky. “Why don’t you have a look at the mantel clocks, and also the lamps and the crystal figurines at the front of the store.”

Bucky couldn’t imagine his father with a figurine, but what the heck.

“Sure thing,” Bucky said as Iris led the looker back to the rear of the store and into her office for a tête-à-tête behind the closed glass door.

T
HE WOMAN STARTED
the confession that Iris absolutely did not want to hear the moment her office door was shut.

Her lower lip trembling as if she was about to cry, Ginger Zaring lowered her eyes and said, “I’d give anything if the situation were different, but…I know you saw us yesterday afternoon and are very aware of what is going on.”

Iris stared at Ginger Zaring in frustration. Didn’t this naive woman understand that if they just pretended nothing had happened they could make it all go away,
at least as far as the two of them were concerned, anyway? “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t know you,” Iris lied tersely.

Ginger gave Iris a weary look that seemed to come straight from her soul. “It was during the open house for the Greenville Garden Society. The upstairs loft in one of the antique barns at Rosewood. Does any of
that
jar your memory?”

Iris squirmed at the ribald image that popped into her head. She hadn’t gotten a really good look at the time, for one simple reason, she hadn’t wanted to know.

“Look,” Ginger said even more unhappily, “I don’t have the time or the energy to play games with you.”

Iris swallowed the revulsion gathering in her throat. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her again. “It wouldn’t be wise of you to try. Therefore—”

“I want you to talk to him,” Ginger continued.

Iris drew a stabilizing breath and continued to play the innocent she wished like hell she still was. “Who?”

“You know who—your father.”

Iris looked down at the stack of receipts on her desk, garnered from yesterday afternoon’s sale. “Isn’t this your business?” she queried coolly.

Ginger paused, then continued in a low, stumbling voice, “The thing is, I thought I could handle this. I
was
handling it, even though it’s not really my thing. But lately he’s been really pushing the envelope.” Ginger looked up at Iris, a frightened, pleading look in her eyes. Her lower lip started trembling again. “I don’t think I have to tell you that this is the kind of foolishness that gets people killed.”

No kidding, Iris thought.

Her face a map of emotions, Ginger rushed on, “I’ve got a kid who means the world to me and I don’t want
what I’ve been doing with him to become public knowledge.”

So stop it instead of whining to me, Iris thought.

“And I sure as hell don’t want to
die
getting caught doing it,” Ginger continued in a low, choked-up voice.

Aware Bucky was just on the other side of the door, and this could well become a very ugly scene if she didn’t get it in hand, Iris worked to put her own revulsion aside, and said with as much empathy as she could muster, “I’m sorry you’re having difficulty, miss.”

Ginger breathed a sigh of relief and dabbed at the tears welling in her eyes. “I was hoping you’d understand.”

“But this isn’t the kind of thing I can discuss with him or you,” Iris continued stoically.

Ginger blinked, her heartbreak beginning to fade and be replaced by anger. “You can’t want this to come out any more than I do!”

Iris straightened the receipts on her desk. “No, of course not.”

“Then what do you expect me to do?” Ginger demanded, looking completely forlorn.

Iris shrugged and gave the best advice she could. “Take it up with him.”

“I’ve tried,” Ginger said emotionally. “He’s not answering his cell phone and short of calling the house—”

Oh God, Iris thought, please don’t do that. Please don’t involve anyone else in this mess. “I don’t know what to tell you except maybe you shouldn’t have gotten yourself into this in the first place.” It wasn’t as if he would listen to her anyway.

Ginger started to leave in frustration, then came back.
Looking as if she, too, were at wit’s end, she snapped at Iris, “He owes me money, you know. Lots of it.”

“Ms. Zaring,” Iris said icily, refusing once more to get involved in something beyond her control, no matter how desperate the woman was, “that is not my concern. It’s yours. And his.”

Ginger Zaring regarded Iris threateningly. “I am
not
going to let him stiff me. Bad enough, the stuff he’s had me doing lately. One way or another, I’m getting paid what I am due. And soon. The only question is—” she looked at Iris in grim contemplation “—exactly how ugly is it going to get?”

B
UCKY WAITED
until Iris had her back turned to him then edged as near as he dared. Without being too obvious about what he was doing, he tried to listen in as best he could. To his frustration, all he had heard was mumbling. Until…

“Damn it, I told you, just leave me out of it,” Iris all but shouted.

“I wish I could,” Ginger Zaring replied louder, “but you’re family and you know what’s going on, not to mention how wrong and how nuts it all is! And I’m desperate, truly desperate. You have to know that. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here, like this, talking to you and opening myself up to God only knows what other kind of risk…”

So, Bucky thought, Iris—or the Templetons—were being blackmailed by Ginger Zaring, airlines reservation agent. Was Jack Granger somehow in on the extortion, too? Was that why Daisy had suddenly married him, when as far as Bucky had been able to find out thus far, from phone calls to their mutual friends, Daisy and Jack hadn’t even dated? Or was Jack—an attor
ney—working to protect the Templetons? Or perhaps just Daisy? Or was Jack completely and naively in the dark about what was going on in the family he had just married into? On the surface, of course, Daisy’s new husband seemed like such a straight arrow, a fact that should have made him fit right in with the exacting and controlling Richard and Charlotte Templeton. But Bucky had been around long enough to know that the uptight, ultra-do-gooding politicians, star athletes and pillars of the community were often the ones with secret mistresses, illegal business deals and gambling habits on the side. It was always a shock when whatever was going on was uncovered. People just couldn’t fathom it.

Revelations like that sold newspapers and made careers. Bucky grinned. Was it possible he had just hit on his entrée to the big time? The only thing he knew for certain was that he had to find out more. Even if, Bucky thought, a tad guiltily, he ended up hurting or embarrassing Daisy a little in the process.

The front door opened and the bell above it jingled, letting Iris know there was someone else in the shop. A group of six very well heeled ladies strolled in, looking ready to spend. Out of the corner of his eye, Bucky saw Iris look toward the front of the store, grimace and reach into her desk. Pulling out some sort of invitation, she put it in Ginger Zaring’s hand and then said something low that Bucky couldn’t catch at all.

The office door swung open.

Iris practically pushed Ginger out the back entrance into the alley before the other customers could get a good look at her. She locked the door after Ginger, then strode forward, rubbing her hands together. “Bucky—did you find what you needed?”

Not nearly. “I think I’m going to need more time,” Bucky said honestly, glancing at his watch. “Unfortunately, I’ve got this chamber of commerce breakfast I’m supposed to be taking photographs at right now—”