Her Own Rules/Dangerous to Know (7 page)

“That's sweet of you, but I want to stay in tonight. I'll order room service and pack. You did say you were picking me up at six tomorrow morning, didn't you?”

“Yes. Sorry about that, but we do have to leave early. We'll be about four hours on the road, three and a half if the traffic's light. We'll spend a couple of hours in Keswick and then head down to Ripon. We've a great deal to do in one day. In fact, we might have to spend the night in Ripon.”

“No problem. And Patsy?”

“Yes?”

“I don't think I hurt his feelings too much, do you?”

“You may have. Don't underestimate the effect you had on him.”

“I've probably damaged his ego, that's all.”

“Oh definitely, Meredith, I'm certain of that. But I also believe that our Reed, the glamorous playboy, fell rather heavily for you. That's
always
been my opinion. Oh well, what can one do . . . so he finally met his Waterloo.”

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

M
eredith found it hard to fall asleep.

For a long time she tossed and turned until finally, in exasperation, she got out of bed. After putting on a warm woolen dressing gown, she went and sat on the sofa in the sitting room. Her mind was racing.

She had not drawn the heavy velvet draperies earlier, and moonlight was filtering in through the muslin curtains that hung against the window-panes. Everything had a silvery sheen from this natural light, and the room was peaceful.

Meredith leaned back against the silk cushions of the sofa, thinking of Reed. How unpleasant their parting had been, and how foolish she had been to get involved with him in the first place. She was forty-four years old; she ought to have known better.

How unlucky she was with men. Always.

No, that was not quite true.

There had been one man.
Once.
A man who had been exactly right for her. He was dead. He had died too young. Such an untimely death . . . that's what they had all said. And how truthfully they had spoken.

To die at the age of thirty-six was some terrible trick of God's, wasn't it?

Meredith had asked herself this question a thousand times. She had striven hard to find some special meaning in that awful, untimely death. She had found nothing. There was no meaning in it. None at all.

And all she had been left with was a void.

Of course there had been Cat, just a toddler, and Amelia, poor Amelia, and they had shared that void with her, and the grief. How they had mourned him . . . endlessly . . . she and Amelia. His women. The women who had loved him.

I'll always mourn him, Meredith thought, the old familiar sadness rising in her, filling her throat. Oh Jack, why did you die? How many times had she asked herself that in the silence of her mind. There was no answer. There had never been an answer. Not ever in twenty-two years.

And how many times had she asked herself when she would meet another man like Jack. She never would, she knew that now, because men who were like him were among the very few. And they were already spoken for. Jack had been spoken for early on in his life, when he was only twenty-two. And he had married that youthful love of his.
Amelia.
Then one terrible day she had been thrown by her horse. When she was only twenty-five and pregnant. And she had lost the baby and been crippled for life, a paraplegic trapped in a wheelchair. But he loved her; he would always love and cherish Amelia and she would always be his wife; he had told Meredith that and she had understood. And she had loved Amelia and Amelia had loved her and Jack; and Cat, she had loved her, too. Amelia had given them her blessing in her own silent, smiling way, full of approval, and gratitude for their love and kindness and loyalty.

Jack.

Blond, blue-eyed, tanned. So quick and sprightly and energetic. Full of good humor, tall tales, laughter, and life. No wonder she had fallen in love with him instantly, the first day she had set eyes on him. A
coup de foudre.

So long ago now.

May of 1969.

She had been just eighteen.

Meredith closed her eyes. Behind her lids she could see his face. She remembered what had gone through her mind that day as she had stared back at him, held in the grip of his mesmeric gaze.

Such a beautiful face for a man, she had thought, such a sensitive mouth and those extraordinary eyes. Such a lovely blue. Bits of sky, she had thought then. His eyes are like bits of a summer sky.

Now, tonight, so many years later, Meredith saw herself as she had been on that May afternoon . . . the images of the three of them floated before her eyes. They were all so clear . . . so very vivid and alive . . . she and Jack and Amelia.

The decades fell away.

She tumbled backward in time . . . tumbled back into the past.

 

“Can I help you?” the young man asked politely getting up off the steps where he had been sitting, pulling off his tortoiseshell sunglasses and peering intently at her.

Meredith stared back at him. “I'm looking for a Mr. Silver,” she answered, jumping off her bike, almost falling in her haste and sudden confusion. Unexpectedly she was feeling self-conscious in front of this handsome man, so well groomed and well dressed, wearing gray pants and a dark-blue cashmere sweater over his lighter blue shirt.

The man walked over to her, thrusting out his hand. “Well, you've found him,” he announced, “I'm Mr. Silver.”

“Mr.
Jack
Silver?” she asked, shaking his hand.

He nodded. “That's right. And the only Mr. Silver who's alive and kicking. That I know of, anyway. The rest are over there.” He indicated a plot of land behind him.

She followed the direction of his gaze and saw a small walled cemetery to the right of a copse of trees. “You have your own graveyard?” she asked, sounding awed.

He nodded, and there was a questioning expression on his face as he asked, “How can I help you?”

“I've come about the advertisement in the newspaper . . . for a receptionist.”

“Oh yes, of course, and whom might I be speaking to?”

“I'm Meredith Stratton.”

“Well, hello, Meredith Stratton. Pleased to meet you!” he exclaimed, thrusting out his hand once more. “Pleased to meet you indeed, Meredith Stratton!”

She took his hand and shook it for a second time.

He did not let go of it. Then he smiled at her, a wide, warm smile that showed his beautiful teeth. They were very white in his tanned face.

She smiled back at him, liking him.

He started to laugh for no apparent reason.

She laughed with him, instantly captivated by this man whom she had never seen before.

Still holding on to her hand, he led her and the bike she was clinging to over to the front steps, where he had been sitting. “Come inside. But I do think you'll have to leave your transportation out here,” he said, and grinned.

Meredith nodded, her eyes dancing, and then she removed her hand from his and propped her bike against the porch railings.

“Nice bike you have.”

“It's not mine. I borrowed it. That was the only way I could get here.”

“Where did you come from?”

“New Preston. We've been living up above Lake Wara-maug.” She glanced away, her eyes focusing on the lake at the bottom of the rolling lawns and flower gardens. “You've got a nice lake,” she murmured.

“Silver Lake,” he told her. “It used to have a Native American name a few years ago, a few
hundred
years ago, that is. Lake Wappaconaca. But an ancestor of mine bought this land and the local folk got into the habit of calling it Silver Lake, after him, and that name stuck. And this, of course, is Silver Lake Inn, built in 1832 by that same ancestor . . . a hundred and sixty-three years ago this year.”

Meredith stood looking up at the inn. “It's a lovely old building.”

“Come on, let's go inside. I want you to meet Amelia.”

The moment she stepped through the doorway of the inn Meredith knew that it was a very special place. The walls were painted a cloudy mottled pink and they gave the entrance the warmest of rosy feelings. The floor was so highly polished it gleamed like a dark mirror; an old carved chest, two high-backed chairs and a small desk were obviously vintage antiques, and looked valuable even to her untrained eye.

Everywhere there were fresh flowers in tall crystal vases and bulbs growing in Chinese porcelain bowls; their mixed fragrances assailed her . . . the scent of mimosa, hyacinth, narcissi mingled with the smell of beeswax, lemons, and dried roses, ripe apples cooking on a stove somewhere.

As she took all of this in, looking around her wide-eyed, Meredith was awed. Yet she was filled with a curious kind of excitement and pleasure such as she had never known before. She crossed her fingers, praying she would get the job. Glancing at the small antique desk with its silk-shaded porcelain lamp and telephone, she could not help thinking how nice it would be to sit in this entrance hall, being a receptionist, greeting guests. It was certainly more appealing to her than working as an au pair, looking after children all day long, even though she loved children.

Jack ushered her down a short corridor and opened the door at the end. A woman sat behind a desk with her back to the door; she was gazing out of the window.

“Amelia,” Jack said. “We have an applicant at last. For the job of receptionist.”

The woman slowly turned, and Meredith realized immediately that she was sitting in a wheelchair. Her breath caught in her throat as she returned the woman's steady gaze. Meredith was startled by her beauty. Dark hair, parted in the middle, tumbled around a pale, heart-shaped face. Wonderful high cheekbones, a dimpled chin, and a sensual mouth were nothing in comparison to the amazing vivid green eyes below perfectly arched black brows. It's the woman from
Gone With the Wind,
she thought.

Amelia said, “You're looking rather strange. Are you feeling all right?”

Meredith realized she was staring and exclaimed, “Oh yes, I'm fine.
Sorry.
I'm so sorry to stare at you, it's very rude.” The words tumbled out, and then because of her youth and ingenuousness, she rushed on unthinkingly. “You're so beautiful. You look like Vivien Leigh in
Gone With the Wind.
Doesn't everybody tell you that?”

“Not everyone. And thank you for your lovely compliment,” Amelia answered with a smile and exchanged an amused look with Jack.

Jack cleared his throat and took charge. “Amelia darling, may I introduce Miss Meredith Stratton. Miss Stratton, this is my wife, Mrs. Amelia Silver.”

Meredith walked across the polished wood floor and took the woman's slender hand in hers, then stepped back, still moved by such perfect beauty.

“Please, do sit down, Miss Stratton,” Amelia murmured. “Make yourself comfortable.”

“Thank you.” Meredith lowered herself into a chair, straightening her cotton skirt as she did. “I'd feel better if you called me Meredith, Mrs. Silver. I'm not used to Miss
Stratton.”

Again a small smile fluttered briefly on Amelia's pretty mouth. “I'd be happy to call you by your first name.”

Jack, who was now sitting on the window seat to the right of his wife, remarked, “Meredith comes from New Preston. At least, that's where she bicycled from this afternoon.” He now directed his words to Meredith and went on. “But you originally hail from Australia, don't you?”

She nodded. “Sydney But how did you know? Oh, my awful voice, that's how, isn't it?”

“It's not awful,” Amelia said. “But you do have a slight twang, one that's distinctly Australian. And tell me, when did you come to live in Connecticut?”

“Last year. I'll have been living here just a year this July. I came with the Paulsons. They're an American family I met when they were living in Sydney. Mr. Paulson's with an advertising agency. I worked for them in Sydney as an au pair.”

“And now you wish to leave them. May we inquire why?” Jack probed.

“I want to change jobs, Mr. Silver. But it's a bit more complicated than that. Mr. Paulson has been transferred again, this time to South Africa. The family are about to leave for Johannesburg. They asked me to go too, but I don't want to. I want to live in America. I never want to leave Connecticut. It's the most beautiful place I've ever seen.”

“But what about your family? Your parents back in Australia? How do they feel about this?” Amelia seemed slightly puzzled. “Surely they want you to go home?”

“Oh no, they don't . . . what I mean is . . . well, you see . . . they're . . . dead. They died, yes, they did. In a . . . car crash. When I was ten.” Meredith nodded to herself. “When I was ten,” she repeated.

“Oh you poor girl,” Amelia exclaimed, her face changing yet again, filling with sympathy. “How terribly sad, heartbreaking for you. And do you not have other family out there? Relatives?”

“No, I don't. There's no one.”

“But how awful for you to be so alone in this world.” Amelia turned her chair to face Jack. “Isn't it sad, darling?”

“Yes, it is.”

“How old are you?” Amelia asked, giving her a warm, encouraging smile.

“Eighteen. I was just eighteen at the beginning of May.”

Jack said, “Have you ever worked as a receptionist? Had any experience in a hotel?”

“No, but I'm good with people. At least, Mrs. Paulson says so, and I've been helping her with her paperwork for two years. You know, her checkbook, household accounts, things like that. She's even taught me a bit about bookkeeping. She says I have the right skills for this job, Mr. Silver. And you can phone her anytime. She's also going to give me a written reference. It'll be ready later this afternoon. I can bring it back to you tonight if you want.”

“That won't be necessary,” Amelia said briskly, then addressed Jack. “I think you should speak to Mrs. Paulson about Meredith right away. Now. You don't mind if we call her while you're still here, do you, Meredith?”

“Oh no. And she's at home packing. I think she's sort of expecting you to give her a call.”

“What's the number, Meredith?” Jack asked as he crossed to the desk and picked up the phone.

She gave it to him; he dialed. And a moment later he was engaged in a conversation with Mrs. Paulson, or, rather, he was listening, saying very little, hardly able to get a word in edgewise.

Amelia sat quietly, waiting for the conversation to come to an end.

Meredith clasped her hands tightly in her lap, suddenly anxious and tense. Even though she knew Mrs. Paulson would say all the right things, she couldn't help worrying a little. This job was important to her.

When Jack finally hung up, he said to Meredith, “She's full of praise for you, says you're a clever girl, diligent, honest, and hardworking, and she told me you looked after her children very well.”