“Dinner is going to be exquisite, and I understand there is a show after that we really can’t miss. Oh, how I love it here at LaTorchere, Cynthia. It’s better than Tuscany, which I must admit was a bit of a disappointment. But this place is so exclusive and classy, and there are just oodles of well-heeled people here. You can’t miss it. You simply have to come!”
Cynthia was a trifle amazed to find she didn’t have to, and she wasn’t going to. She folded her arms over her chest and said that powerful little word again.
Her mother’s eyes filmed over with tears, but she was quick enough with her handkerchief that her makeup was not affected by the little cloudburst. “Why are you being like this?”
“Mother, I’m just tired.”
“That’s why this holiday is for you! I’ve worked you much too hard. I should have broken the Civil War into chunks, instead of tackling the whole thing at once. Now you’re exhausted, and unhappy, and it’s my fault. I am honor-bound to fix it.”
“No,” Cynthia repeated again. That heady word was proving absolutely addictive. It was true she did work hard. Her mother was known to the world as Emma Bluebell Forsythe, writer of historical volumes of nonfiction that consistently made the bestseller lists.
The research for each novel was meticulous, and Cynthia’s job also involved keeping her mother’s many social activities and obligations sorted out and scheduled.
It was true that as her mother’s personal assistant Cynthia was exhausted.
Unhappy? She supposed there was truth in that, too, though she didn’t feel particularly unhappy. She wasn’t sure when she’d last felt anything at all. She was going through her life like a wooden puppet, making the motions, dancing the dance, but strangely detached from the whole process.
“Mother, if this holiday is truly for me, could you just let me have some breathing space, some time to myself?”
“Well, of course, it’s truly for you,” her mother wailed, “but I’m the one who knows what is best for you!”
Cynthia closed her eyes. And tonight that was a wealthy German industrialist. Last night it had been the exceedingly boring, but rich, Maxwell Davies. Tomorrow, unless she put her foot down, it would be Count Dracula if he was on vacation here and single.
There was a loud knock on her mother’s door, and then a deep, masculine voice called, “Bluebird, what on earth is the hold up?”
Cynthia opened her eyes to see Jerome Carrington coming though the door of her mother’s suite.
Jerome was a silver-haired dynamo whom her mother had recently met. He was the only one who could get away with calling Emma Forsythe Bluebird. The occasional very good, very old friend was allowed Bluebell, but no derivatives of the unusual name had ever been allowed.
“Good evening, Cynthia,” he said, and then turned to her mother with a stern expression on his handsome face. “You said that you would be outside my room at nine o’clock precisely, and here it is, nearly nine-fifteen.”
Her mother glared at Jerome. Not only was he the only one who called her Bluebird, he was certainly the only one who would have the nerve to reprimand her over such a small thing as fifteen minutes of tardiness.
Emma was a shrewd judge of character, though, and had obviously decided Jerome was not one to accept any form of excuse. Naturally, she blamed Cynthia for her lateness.
“It’s Cynthia’s fault,” she wailed prettily. “I’ve been standing here forever trying to talk sense into her. I have the most wonderful evening lined up for all of us, and she says she’s not coming. Jerome, talk to her!”
“All right,” he said, and he turned to Cynthia. She saw the loveliest spark of mischief in those steel-gray eyes. “My dear,” he said to her. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-six,” she replied.
“Hmm. Plenty old enough to be making your own plans for the evening. Bluebird?” And he crooked his elbow to Emma.
Emma sputtered and looked between him and her daughter and back to him. He did not remove his arm, but arched a questioning eyebrow at her.
“Oh,” she sputtered, “all right then. Cynthia, you and I will talk later.”
Much later, Cynthia hoped as she shut the door of her private suite on the departing couple. She looked around. She loved her rooms. They consisted of a small living area, an island kitchen, and a small alcove for dining. There was one bedroom and a bathroom. Outside, a patio with deep inviting deck furniture stretched the full length of the ground-floor suite, and both the bedroom and living room had French doors that opened onto that outdoor living area. It was separated from the public walkways by a bevy of gorgeous flowering shrubs and gardens. Beyond those gardens and pathways, in the distance, Cynthia could glimpse the endless blue of the sea.
The color scheme was serene and tropical. The furniture was not just beautiful, but also comfy and inviting. Everything at La Torchere Resort was a delight to the senses, including these lovely rooms that seemed to be awash in light and cheeriness.
Her own apartment at home did not give her this same sense of lightness. Of course, it was furnished with antiques, discards of her mother’s. Her own sofa was French Provincial in design, covered in a dark brocade. It was stiff and formal, not at all inviting like these furnishings. Had she ever put her feet up on it?
And her apartment building was in an area that her mother approved of. The historic district, of course, one block from her mother’s own home, a sprawling eighteenth-century mansion that had been in Emma’s family since it had been built.
But the delight Cynthia felt in her space at La Torchere made her suddenly aware of her own apartment’s deficiencies. The windows there were small, and the ceilings were too high. There was too much dark oak throughout. The furnishings were not her, for all that they were expensive and exquisite.
Here at La Torchere, she didn’t know why anyone ever had to go beyond the serenity of their own suite. Cynthia just wished she could have the vacation of her dreams—which was to have three good books to read and the time to read all of them—instead of having to contend with her mother’s agenda everyday.
And her mother’s agenda was matchmaking. Only the wealthy and successful need apply.
But rather than waste one moment of her hard-fought freedom thinking of that, Cynthia waltzed over to her suitcase and unearthed a well-hidden book that her mother would definitely call trashy. Moments later she had on a pair of comfy pajamas—a long-sleeved top and trouser bottoms. She made herself a cup of cocoa, plumped the pillows on the sofa and settled back with a sigh.
“This is the life,” she told herself. Through the doors that opened onto the patio outside her room she could hear the whisper of the sea and the chatter of night birds. A warm, fragrant breeze played across her body. She opened the book and settled into the guilty pleasure of reading all about Jasmine and her sheik.
But rather than soothing her, transporting her to another world, the book seemed to unleash a terrible restlessness in her, a yearning for a life that was not her own. It didn’t help that her mother had unearthed the fact that Jerome’s granddaughter had met a real live sheik right here at La Torchere, and they had fallen madly in love with each other!
After a few hours of trying desperately to enjoy her fantasy of a perfect evening, Cynthia tossed the book aside. Why was she reading when there was a real world outside her door, exotic and compelling, waiting to be explored?
Not her mother’s world of fancy nightclubs and five-star restaurants.
No, Cynthia felt drawn to a world of waves washing sand and flowers releasing their fragrance into the darkness.
She glanced at the clock and snorted.
“At midnight? Cynthia, really.” This was happening to her more