“You mean Alec Stanton?”
“Who else would I mean? You don’t have other young men hanging around, I hope?”
“No,” Laurel said simply. She had thought they’d slide easily into the inevitable discussion, but now she dropped down onto the overstuffed couch and waited to see how Howard’s mother meant to handle the subject.
“He’s got to go.”
That was certainly short and sweet. “I suppose you have a reason?”
“Several of them,” the other woman replied in tones of grim condemnation. “To begin with, it can’t be good for your reputation to have someone like him making free of the place.”
“I don’t think you can call it ‘making free’ when all he does is work.”
“He comes and goes as he pleases, riding that outlandish motorcycle like some kind of Hell’s Angel. Which is another thing. He’s not our kind at all.”
“And just what kind is he?” Laurel crossed her arms over her chest as she leaned back against the couch.
“You have to ask, when it’s as plain as day? Just look at all that long hair and earrings.”
“One earring. A lot of men wear them these days.”
Her mother-in-law dismissed that without a pause. “If that’s not bad enough, there’s that disgusting tattoo he flashes for everybody to see!”
“Yes, and he’s from California, too,” Laurel said in dulcet and entirely false agreement.
“Exactly! Full of weird ideas of all kinds, I don’t doubt. Politics, religion—”
“Sex?” Laurel supplied helpfully. The word, she knew, was one her mother-in-law always had trouble saying.
Mother Bancroft’s indrawn breath was perfectly audible. “What do you know about that? What have the two of you been up to out here? I can just imagine it’s nothing good, with you being a widow and him a—I don’t know what!”
It had been so long since Laurel had felt the almost-painful anger that threaded through her veins. Voice taut, she said, “A nice-looking young man?”
Disgust squirmed across the other woman’s wrinkled features. “He has been up to something! I knew it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Laurel said sharply. “Nothing whatever is going on except that I’m reclaiming the front garden and planting it with roses, and Alec is giving me a hand with the heavy work. Well, he’s also going to paint the house, but—”
“There! You see?” the other woman exclaimed in triumph. “He’s moving in on you. He’ll find more and more to do around here until you won’t be able to get rid of him. The man’s a hustler, Laurel.”
“Oh, come on, that’s crazy.”
“Can’t you see it? Are you so naive you can’t tell from the way he acts and talks to you?”
“Apparently not. How is it that you know when you haven’t even met him?”
Sadie Bancroft breathed heavily through her bulbous nose, kneading her purse with fat, white fingers. “He’s got you under his spell, I can tell. This is awful. He’ll be climbing into your bed, if he hasn’t already. Then he’ll start asking for money. He’ll take every penny you’ve got.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Laurel snapped as the heat of indignation rose in her face.
“He will! He’s a gigolo, can’t you see it? He preys on lonely older women. You may not be as old as some he’s taken, but you keep to yourself out here, don’t have any friends, so you’re fair game. He’ll smile and pay you all sorts of compliments, but then he’ll screw you unless you get rid of him first.”
Laurel was startled her husband’s mother would use such a word, though not especially surprised she would think it. She was the kind of woman who kept the tabloid press in business; it was her favorite entertainment next to listening to television preachers and joining right-wing conservative letter-writing campaigns. For all her discomfort with talking about normal sex, she reveled in the salacious and bizarre, loved knowing people’s secrets, and positively enjoyed believing the worst about the best of people.
Her voice tight, Laurel retorted, “There’s not a word of truth to anything you’ve said. You just want to be sure I don’t change anything here at Ivywild, including myself. You would like to keep me from ever looking at another man.”
“Laurel!”
“It’s true. I’m supposed to bury myself here because Howard is dead.”
“Oh!” Mother Bancroft fell back with a hand to her chest. “How can you say such a thing to me?”
“Because it’s the way it is. You think I don’t know how you feel? You think I don’t realize that you want me shut up here as a punishment for causing Howard’s death? I’ve always known!”
“You’re getting hysterical, saying things you don’t mean—”
Was she? If so, it felt good. “I’m saying what should have been said a long time ago. You think I killed Howard on purpose and have been telling people so for years. You feel I should have gone to jail, that maybe I still should. Ivywild is a substitute, and you don’t care who you hurt so long as you keep me shut up here where I belong.”
The older woman came slowly erect. Eyes narrowing, she said, “All right, then, since you brought it up yourself. I know you murdered my Howard. You never were the right wife for him, not from the first. You thought you were better than my son—smarter, sharper—and you even made him believe it. You were always idle, always dreamy-eyed and artistic, reading or playing with that disgusting pottery mud out in the shed. What’s more, you were no proper mother to his children. I dread to think what Marcia and Evan will say when they hear what you’re up to now.”
“And you’ll make certain they do.” The pain in Laurel’s chest was sharp as she thought of her son and daughter hearing the ugly things coming from her mother-in-law’s mouth.
“They have a right to know,” the woman said, compressing her lips. “But you were never smarter than my Howard. And you’re sure not so smart now if you can’t see this Alec person for what he is.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know Alec or anything about him.”
“Any fool can figure it out. All you have to do is listen to the things his brother is saying all over town.”
Alec’s brother. Dread for what might be coming moved along Laurel’s nerves, though she refused to let Mother Bancroft see it. “And what is that?”
“Gregory Stanton told Zelda herself, down at the beauty shop, that this Alec of yours lived with an older woman out in San Francisco. Seems he started as her gardener, but wound up a lot more than that before it was over. She even married him, the silly fool. And when she died, she left him all her money.”
“No,” Laurel whispered. The protest lacked conviction. Howard’s sister, Zelda, was always the first to hear everything.
“Yes, indeed. Ask him if you don’t believe it. Just you ask him!”
There was gloating triumph in the other woman’s face. Laurel turned away from it since she couldn’t deny the rumors. How could she, when they had come from Alec’s brother, his brother who was dying?
When her mother-in-law had gone, Laurel wandered around the house, too disturbed to think of dinner, unable to settle