Annabelle finished her beer, went over and set the bottle on the drainboard by the sink. “Well, don’t. You’d get caught and then where would I be? You’re my only friend in the world. Thanks, Jonas. By the way, what I could see of the yard looks lovely as always.”
“I try. Hard to get decent help these days.”
“At least money is not a problem. Not for her, at any rate.”
“For you?”
“Not at the moment.” She brushed her lips across his cheek.
“If you do need money, let me know. I have some put by.”
“I’m fine, Jonas, really. Elizabeth pays me better than I deserve, and I get the apartment rent free.”
“Just remember, I’m here if you need me.”
“I always need you. I’d never have gotten this far without you. And if you ever call me Miss Langley again, I’ll deck you.” She trotted down the steps and waved over her shoulder. She could see Jonas standing in the open door of his apartment in her rearview mirror until she turned out of the driveway.
Before she went to bed, Annabelle carefully rolled the clean, dry lace between sheets of acid-free tissue. The blood had come out completely, thank God. The lace was from an early-twentieth-century wedding dress. With luck it would become another bride’s treasured memory. With luck, yards of fine Swiss batiste, some supervision from Mrs. Jackson’s chef d’atelier, and the fine mending and sewing talents of Marian and the other seamstresses.
Annabelle stripped and pulled on the oversize silk pajama top that served as night wear. As she looked at herself in the mirror and picked up her toothbrush, she murmured, “Elizabeth needs a chef d’atelier the way I need a third leg.” She knew she was only a glorified seamstress and purchasing agent. Marian and the Vietnamese women who sewed for Elizabeth needed precious little supervision.
Still, she was grateful to Elizabeth for making a place for her, giving her a fancy title and even providing living quarters rent free.
“Your being here frees me to go to lace auctions and hunt garage sales for old lace dresses and things, and allows Marian to get on with the sewing and mending,” Elizabeth told her. “Of course I need you.”
Kind woman. They were all kind. And she was grateful. Only sometimes she got so tired of having to be grateful.
CHAPTER FOUR
“WHY DID I AGREE to this?” Annabelle said to her reflection. Maybe she’d simply tell Ben she’d changed her mind about going to Elizabeth’s dinner party. Elizabeth obviously had no idea Ben planned to bring her, otherwise she would have mentioned it. She probably thought he was bringing the tall blonde he’d been looking at dress designs with.
She bundled her masses of hair into a semblance of a French roll and sprayed it long and hard with a hair spray that was guaranteed to hold like superglue, but tendrils still escaped around her face and at the nape of her neck. The heck with them.
She pulled on an ankle-length black skirt and slipped her feet into a pair of chunky black shoes. God, she looked as though she’d been working in the salt mines of Transylvania!
She flipped the shoes off and into a corner of the closet, then ripped off the skirt and threw it onto the floor after them. Once, just once, she wished she were six foot four and weighed ninety-six pounds like the models in New York. Instead, she resembled her roommate Vickie’s two rescued alley cats, Dumpy and Frumpy.
She pulled a pair of black slacks off a skirt hanger and climbed into them, then a flame-orange turtle-neck sweater, and over that a wildly patterned Tibetan quilted tabard.
Lord, she’d burn up at a dinner party in April!
Off came the tabard and sweater. Off came the slacks. Onto the floor.
Okay. Something simple but elegant. She reached into the back of the closet and pulled out the black Chinese silk cheongsam Vickie had made her for Christmas. She’d never had the nerve to wear it. It fit perfectly, but the style was more suited to the tiny Chinese ladies from the Lower East Side and Mott Street. When she glanced at her watch, she nearly whimpered. Ben would be on time, of course. And that gave her five minutes.
She yanked the silk dress over her head, pulled on a pair of high-heeled black strappy sandals she’d bought in a moment of madness because they were on sale, grabbed her small black purse—the closest thing she had to an evening bag—and did up the fancy gold frogs along the neck of the dress.
She hadn’t even looked at the mirror when the bell at the foot of the stairs sounded, and a moment later she heard Ben’s voice. “It’s open. Okay if I come up?”
“No! I mean yes!” She shoved the closet door closed on the disaster inside. He might take one look at her and offer to take her to McDonald’s instead of his mother’s house.
She heard his footsteps at the top of the stairs and turned to face him.
“Suffering succotash,” he whispered.
She caught her breath. “I’m sorry, Ben. I told you I didn’t have anything to wear.”
He shook his head. “Couldn’t prove it by me. You look gorgeous.”
“I do? I mean, I don’t. I feel like a sausage.”
“You don’t look like any kind of sausage I’ve ever eaten. Come on. You know how Mom is when people are late.”
“Ben, are you sure you want to do this?” she said, but his hand was already warm on the small of her back as he herded her toward the staircase.
“Yes, ma’am, I do. It’ll be all right. You’ll see.”
They walked out into the fragile April night, into fairy lights that glimmered in the trees in the Jackson garden, and deputized for the wan sliver of moon that rode above their heads. She could smell the azaleas and the early roses.
She looked up at Ben as he tucked her hand under his arm. “Watch your step, Princess Turandot, the paving’s uneven.”
“Wasn’t she that opera bitch who beheaded all her suitors?”
“Ah, but in the end she was vanquished by love.”
As I hope you will be, Ben thought. He heaved a sigh of relief. At least he hadn’t been totally daffy when he’d fallen for Annabelle. With her hair up and those little curls around her face, and that incredible Chinese dress, she was the most luscious woman he’d ever seen. Wildly sexy. Next to her all the blond beauties looked as though they’d come out of the oven too soon and been stored in the refrigerator too long. Annabelle radiated heat.
He had heard all the stories about her mother, the hot-blooded Cajun from Lafayette, who’d refused to wear stockings and white cotton gloves in the summertime and went barefoot in the Langley garden.
And had inspired such desperate passion in her husband that he had killed her. At least he’d gone to prison for it. He knew the gossip as well, of course. That he’d lied to protect his child, the real killer.
Looking down at Annabelle, he refused to believe this beautiful girl could do anything that heinous even by accident.
He couldn’t change his life’s direction. He still wanted to be district attorney, and then maybe governor…senator.
So, if he intended to do all the things he planned with Annabelle by his side, there was only one solution.
He’d have to change Annabelle. At least in public. In private he hoped he read the signs right—that she was every bit as sensual as she looked.
“I can’t do this,” Annabelle said when they