“What made you think of the Bible verse about pride?”
“Oh.” Mrs. Hogendobber had forgotten to answer Harry's query. “Tommy, H. Vane, Blair, and even Archie. Ridley was part of it for a little while. It's a rich-boys' club. Expensive sports cars, airplanes . . .”
“Archie doesn't have that much money,” Harry interrupted.
“Enough for a Land whatever-you-call-it.”
“Land Rover.” Harry paused. “I never thought about that. I mean, it seemed discreet enough. White.”
Cynthia Cooper's squad car was parked in front of the bank although it was after banking hours. Harry turned into the parking lot, pulling in front of the old brick freestanding bank building.
“Hey.”
“Hey there.” Cooper rolled down her window.
“We just came from Tommy Van Allen's. Poor Mrs. Dodds.”
“And Aileen Ingram was there to help out.” Miranda spoke over the animals' heads.
“She can't spring Archie until tomorrow.”
“What?” both women said.
“The judge won't set bail until then.”
“He can do that?” Harry wondered.
“He can do whatever he wants. He's the judge.” Coop smiled.
“You've had a hard day,” Miranda said sympathetically.
“I've had better ones.” Cooper smiled weakly.
All heads turned as Sarah Vane-Tempest drove by with H. Vane-Tempest in the passenger seat.
“He's made a remarkable recovery,” Miranda noted.
“For how long?” Mrs. Murphy cryptically said.
31
Sir H. Vane-Tempest had recovered sufficiently to fight with his wife, who started it.
“Why are you protecting him?” Sarah tossed her shoulder-length blond hair.
“I'm not protecting him.”
“The man tried to kill you. I insist you press charges.”
“Sarah, my love, he was behind me. Hundreds of men were behind me. Anyone could have fired that shot.”
“Archie had it in for you. The other hundreds did not. Why are you protecting him?”
“I am not protecting him.”
“Then what are you protecting?” She sat across from him as he reclined on the sofa, more tired from this exchange than from his physical trauma.
“Nothing. Why don't you fix me a real cuppa? That tepid slop at the hospital was torture.”
Angry but composing herself, Sarah walked into the kitchen. It was six-thirty, and the maid and cook had left for the day. However, she could brew an invigorating cup of tea without help. She measured out the loose Irish blend, placing it in the ceramic leaf tray of the Brown Betty teapot. She shook her head as if to return to the moment and brought out two fragile china cups delicately edged in rose gold. These had belonged to H. Vane's mother. She hoped the sight of them would improve his mood.
He beamed indulgently when she returned pushing the tea caddy. Scones, jams, white butter, and small watercress sandwiches swirled around the plate, a pinwheel of edibles. The cook made up scones and tea sandwiches fresh each day. The Vane-Tempests practiced the civilized tradition of high tea at four.
He eagerly accepted the cup filled with the intoxicating brew.
He put raw sugar, one teaspoonful exactly, into the cup.
“Ah.” He closed his eyes in pleasure as he drank. “My dear, you are unsurpassed.”
“Thank you.” She sipped her cup of tea.
“My mother loved this china. It was given to her as a wedding present from her aunt Davida. Aunt Davida, you know, served as a missionary in China before World War I. I always thought she was a little cracked, myself, but her china wasn't.” He lifted his eyebrows, waiting for the appreciative titter.
Sarah smiled dutifully. “H., you're awful.”
Pleased, he replied, “You wouldn't have me any other way.”
Sarah wanted to say that she'd be happy to have him forty pounds lighter, with a full head of hair, and perhaps twenty years younger. Some wishes were best left unsaid. “Darling, you're right. I knew from the first moment I saw you that I couldn't live without you.”
He nibbled on a scone. “Americans do some things supremely well. Airplanes, for instance. They build good airplanes. However, they can't make a decent scone and they haven't a clue as to how to produce thick Devonshire cream. Odd.”
“That's why you brought over a Scottish cook, yes?”
“Indeed.” He reached for another scone. “They want their country back, you know. I read the papers front-to-back in the hospital. Just because I was slightly indisposed didn't mean I should alter my regimen. Why England would even want to keep Scotland or Wales is beyond me. And Ireland? Pfft.” He made a dismissive motion with his hand.
“That's why we live here.”
“Yes. Except here we have to listen to the bleatings of the underclass, interwoven as it is with color. Silly.”
“Not to them,” Sarah said a mite too tartly.
“Reading the speeches of Martin Luther King, my pet?”
She recovered. “No. What I'm saying is, there is no perfect place, but some are closer than others. And this is very close to heaven.”
“Americans are too rude to develop proper tea culture. It takes a great civilization to do that: China, Japan, England. Do you know even the Germans are starting to get it?”
“With ruthless efficiency, I'm sure.” She smoothed her dress skirt.
He held out his cup for a refill. “They aren't that efficient. That's a myth, my dear. I've done business with them for years.”
“I never appreciated how good a businessman you were until you were nearly taken away from me.”
“Oh?” He reveled in the compliment.
“You never discuss business with me.”
“Dull, my darling. With you I savor the finer things in life: music, dance, novels. I adore it when we read together and I love it when you read to me. You have such a seductive voice, my sweet.”
“Thank you. But I must confess, H., I rather like business. I read The Wall Street Journal when you're finished with it and I puzzle my way through Süddeutsche Zeitung sometimes. I wish I had gone further in school.”
“Beauty is its own school.”
“The more I know, the more I admire your acumen.”
He placed the cup on the tray. “Sarah, building airports is not a suitable venue for a woman.”
“But darling, you don't do that anymore. Now you invest in the stock exchange, here and in London. And you have other irons in the fire. It's fascinating. You're fascinating.” She stood up and pressed her hands together, standing quite still. “If you had died, if that fool had killed you, I would have been totally unprepared to administer your empire.”
He guffawed. “That's what I pay lawyers for and—”
“But who will watch them? You may trust them. Why should I?”
“Really, my dear, they would serve you as faithfully as they have served me.”
“Henry, my experience of life is that each time money changes hands it sticks to somebody's fingers. That army you pay is loyal to you—not to me. And there is the small matter of your ex-wife and your two daughters residing in palatial splendor in England. Well, I forgot, Abigail is in Australia now, in outback splendor.”
“My ex and my daughters are provided for. They can't break my will and they'd be fools to try because the astronomical costs would jeopardize their resources. I pay the best minds on two continents. Rest yours.”
“No. I want to be included.”
“Sarah, you have twenty thousand dollars a month in play money. You can do whatever you like.”
“That's not what I'm asking and I am not impugning your generosity to me. What I want is to understand your business holdings.”
“I—” Flummoxed, Vane-Tempest began to stutter.
Still standing with her hands pressed together, Sarah half whispered, “Because I did not know whether you would live or die, I sat at your desk and I read your papers. I opened the safe and I read the papers in there. You are an amazing man, Henry, and I don't even know the half of it. I only know what you're doing here in Albemarle County. I haven't a single idea of what you may be doing in Zimbabwe or New Zealand or Germany. I do know you avoid the French like the plague.”