The Vineyard (9 page)

All right, she reasoned. Without a point of reference, perspective was often lost in photographs. In the case of the pictures of the Great House, she had relied on the trees. But trees could be larger or smaller. If Olivia had imagined them larger than they were in real life, the Great House would have seemed larger as well.

And then there was the age factor. The Asquonset she had worked with was many years younger than this one. Some things were bound to be different. But the windows were the same—large, handsome, multipaned casement windows angled open. The peaked gables were the same. The shingled roof was the same.

The face the house wore might be craggy and hard, but its eyes were open, its brows raised in curiosity as they approached. With clouds floating in wisps above the roof and the vineyards spilling beneath it, Natalie Seebring's Great House was still an impressive sight.

Driving that final short distance, Olivia allowed herself a final dream. She pictured pulling up at the door and having a beaming Natalie run out, followed by a flock of household staff, lining up on the walk, eager for introduction.

Olivia pulled up in the semicircle at the end of the stone walk and parked the car. A low stone wall marked the crescent. A nearby flagpole flew the American flag on top and the Rhode Island flag beneath it.

She sat for a few seconds, waiting. The front door was a wood-framed screen, much as she had imagined, but it remained empty and dark.

Climbing out, she rounded the car. Taking Tess's hand, she went up the walk. Her heart was in her throat. So much was at stake here.

The front steps were stone, five in all, and wide. They climbed them, crossed the darkness of the porch, and peered inside.

“Is anybody home?” Tess whispered.

Olivia put her ear to the screen. “I hear voices.”

“Talking about us?”

“I doubt it.” If she was wrong, they were in trouble. From the sounds of it, there was an argument going on.

She knocked softly on the wood frame of the screen door. The distant voices were joined now by the jangle of the telephone.

They had come at a bad time. Given her druthers, Olivia would put Tess back in the car, drive out to the main road, waste five or ten minutes, then rearrive. It was a foolish thought, of course. It would be ridiculous to turn back now. Besides, they had already been seen by the man in the vineyard.

Mustering courage, she pressed the doorbell, an ivory button encased in a swirl of wrought iron. The chime was resonant. The voices inside stopped. Seconds later, the sound of light footsteps approached. Seconds after that, Natalie Seebring appeared.

When she saw them and smiled, Olivia felt a wave of relief. Everything was going to be all right. Natalie was here—and even thirty years older than in the last photos Olivia had seen, she was lovely. She was of average height and slender, in neat jeans and a polo shirt with the vineyard logo on the breast pocket. But Olivia was most drawn to her face. Her skin was dewy, only barely made up, lightly creased but soft and sweet. Her hair was thick and white, gently shaped to her jaw, faintly windblown, feminine but not prim. She stood straight and agile, wore her age with pride and style, and exuded command.

Olivia was immediately in awe.

Still smiling, Natalie opened the door and, amid the faintest scent of freesia, waved them inside. Olivia was just as delighted with what she saw there. The front hall was large and predominantly green. It had an Old World feel to it, with lots of dark wood interrupted by several murals. The staircase made a gradual turn, with a
landing every five or six steps. A big orange cat sat on the first landing. A smaller black-and-white one sat halfway to the second.

Olivia could tell the instant Tess spotted the cats by her excited little catch of breath.

“You're just in time,” Natalie said. “There's a war going on here. I need reinforcements.”

The words were barely out of her mouth when a woman entered the hall. She looked barely sixty. Her gray dress said she was the maid.

“Mrs. Seebring, that's your daughter on the phone.”

“Olivia, Tess, this is Marie,” Natalie said, rolling the
r
. “She has worked at this house since she was old enough to hold a job. That's thirty-five years. Now, suddenly, she decides she wants a career change? I don't think so.”

“It's time,” Marie said, extending a piece of paper that Olivia guessed to be her notice.

Natalie drew her hands back out of reach. “I won't take that. You're upset with the change, is all. But I need you, Marie.”

Marie shook her head.

“At least wait until after the wedding,” Natalie begged.

“I can't,” Marie said and handed the paper to Olivia, who took it out of sheer surprise. “Mrs. Seebring's daughter is on the phone. The woman has been trying to reach her. Would you please make her take it?” She turned and walked off.

“Marie,”
Natalie protested.

“I have wash to do.”

“I don't
care
about the wash,” Natalie called, but the maid was gone. She sighed and gave Tess a more tenuous smile. “Guess we lost?”

Tess nodded. “Are these your cats?”

“Yes. That's Maxwell on the landing and Bernard halfway up.”

“They're both boys?” Tess asked, then gave a small cry and bumped into Olivia when a third cat brushed her leg.

“That's
Henri,”
Natalie said, giving the name a French twist. “No need to be afraid.”

Tess knelt to pat the cat. This one was a black-and-gray tiger. “I'm not afraid. I just didn't see him coming.”

“Neither did I,” Natalie said. “He showed up here one day looking half starved, and I couldn't turn him away.”

With Tess momentarily content, Olivia was acutely aware of the telephone button blinking red on the mahogany table by the stairs. “We can wait here, if you want to take that call.”

“I don't,” Natalie said. “My daughter isn't any more pleased with me than Marie is. None of them understands. As far as they're concerned, I'm an old piece of cotton candy that should just be sweet and pink. They don't credit me with having a mind.”

“The phone, Mrs. Seebring!”
came Marie's distant call.

Natalie pressed two fingers to her temple. Her eyes met Olivia's.

“Would you like me to take it for you?” Olivia asked.

Natalie's relief was instant. “Please. Introduce yourself. Tell her that I can't talk now.”

Delighted to be of use so soon, Olivia crossed to the phone. In an upbeat voice, she said, “This is Olivia Jones. I'm Mrs. Seebring's new assistant. I'm afraid that she can't take the phone—”

“Assistant?” an upset voice cut in. “What kind of assistant? And why
can't
she take the phone? I'm her daughter. I only want a minute.”

Olivia looked at Natalie, who held up her hands, shook her head, took a step back.

“I believe she's outside,” Olivia said into the phone. “Can she call you back?”

“Of course she can. The question is whether she will. She's avoiding my calls. Olivia Jones, you say?”

“Yes.”

“When did you start working for my mother?”

“This is actually my first day.”

“Do you know what's going on?”

“Uh, I'm not sure that I know what you mean.”

“The wedding.”

“Yes. I know about that.”

There was a pause, then a beseeching, “She needs to rethink this. It isn't right. My father's been dead barely six months.”

Olivia didn't know what to say to that. She was a newcomer. She was an outsider. “I think you ought to talk with your mother about this.”

“That's easier said than done. This is a woman who couldn't tell her own daughter that she was remarrying. She knows that what she's doing is wrong. It's an embarrassment.”

From the far side of the room, Natalie said, “She can't accept
that I have a heart that beats, and beats hard. I'm supposed to be old and dried up.”

Olivia hadn't covered the mouthpiece quite fast enough.

“I heard that,” Susanne charged. “She's standing right there, but she's too cowardly to take my calls. She knows that she shouldn't be doing this, not after everything my father did. He built that vineyard. She wouldn't be there today if it weren't for him. Look, will you give her a message?”

“Yes.”

“Tell her that her family isn't going to that wedding. My brother and I are sick about this. She was supposed to have loved her husband.” There was a tiny pause. “What did you say she hired you for?”

“I'm helping out in the office.”

“Oh dear. Someone else left? They're dropping like flies. They don't like what she's doing either. Are you another one of her strays?”

Olivia was mildly offended. “Excuse me?”

“She takes them in, you know. Some work out. Marie has been there forever. Others are one-week wonders. She goes by gut instinct. Did she tell you that?”

“Yes. But I'm not a stray. I've spent the last five years doing photo restoration work under Otis Thurman. I left his office to come here.”

“That's very nice, but I'd like you to listen for just a minute. Please don't speak. Just listen. We're worried that Natalie is either fading mentally or that she's being brainwashed by Carl. We don't know how else to explain this marriage. So I ask you—beg you—to keep an eye on her. If you sense that either of those things is happening, will you call me?”

Olivia's loyalties instinctively lay with Natalie, but she wasn't getting into a fight with Susanne. “I'll try,” she said.

“Thank you. I appreciate that. Please tell my mother that I'll call again next week. Oh, and welcome to Asquonset.”

Olivia hung up the phone and turned to Natalie.

The older woman looked sheepish. “I'm sorry. I'm afraid I've dragged you into the middle of my hornet's nest.”

Olivia wasn't sorry in the least. Barely five minutes there and she felt part of the household. “She sounded upset.”

“She is. She doesn't understand.”

“But if you've explained it to her …”

A guilty look stole over Natalie's face.

“You haven't?” Olivia asked, startled. “Maybe if you did …”

Natalie looked torn, as though she desperately wanted to do that but for the life of her couldn't. “It's easier said than done. She idolized her father, as did her brother, Greg. And that's wonderful. I wanted that. I worked to make it so.” She studied the wall of books, seeming suddenly tired. “So now there are misconceptions that need clearing up. How to do that without speaking ill of the dead?” She kneaded her fingers. “Family dynamics are like nothing else in life. You set a pattern early on, and it's nearly impossible to change. I've always had trouble talking to my children—talking
openly
to my children. Some things are hard to discuss. Some things are more easily said to a stranger.”

“Like me?”

Natalie didn't answer at first. She put a hand on Tess's head, seeming to take comfort as Tess stroked a loudly purring Henri. “I hope so.”

“And it all has to do with the wedding?”

“Oh, no. It has to do with more. Lots more. But the one common thread is Carl.” She looked up toward the door through which Marie had gone, and her face brightened. “Ah. Two more boys. The big, mangy one on the left is Buck. He's a Maine coon, dropped off at Pindman's last fall by a tourist who couldn't stand his howling in the car a second longer. The tall, lean one is Simon. He's my vineyard manager. Simon, say hello to Olivia Jones and her daughter, Tess.”

Olivia looked up to see the man from the vineyard—apparently not just any old worker, but the vineyard manager, no less. Well, he certainly was tall, she decided, although she wouldn't have said he was lean from that earlier chest-and-above glimpse. She could see the whole of him now, though. His waist and hips, covered by loose work shorts, were lean indeed, as were his legs, which were as dirty as his work boots and the gray socks that protruded from the top. His sunglasses sat on the top of his head, half lost in all that auburn hair, but his sunburned nose was the only touch of warmth on his face. His eyes were a midnight blue and cold. His jaw was shadowed.

Natalie's vineyard manager. This could be a problem, Olivia thought as she glanced at Tess, who was staring at Simon. Although the child didn't seem frightened, she made no effort to move away
from the hand Natalie had placed on her head. There was safety in that hand. Olivia could feel it even from where she stood.

Simon nodded first toward Tess, then Olivia.
He doesn't want us here,
Tess had said. Olivia didn't know if it was that or if the man was simply tough.

“He's the dark, silent type,” Natalie said with fondness, even pride. “Like his father. Speaking of whom …”

“He's in the shed,” Simon said in a voice that was dusty and deep. “He says he'll be over in a bit. I'm heading up to Providence.”

Natalie's smile faded. “Oh dear. There's a problem.”

“I'm not sure. I saw something on the reds that may be the start of mold. I want a second opinion.”

Natalie explained to Olivia, “It's been a wet winter and spring. We were hoping that the sun and wind would dry out the vines.” To Simon, she said, “I was planning on your joining us for dinner.”

Olivia thought she saw a wry twist at the corner of his mouth, but his eyes held Natalie's and his voice remained respectful. “I'm sorry. I can't tonight.” With only the briefest glance at Olivia, he turned and left. Buck followed him out.

The phone rang.

Natalie sighed and said, “Since the business phone doesn't ring here, that will most likely be my son. Susanne calls him to complain the minute she hangs up with me.”

Olivia gave the phone a quick look. “Shall I?”