He had great eyes, eyes like the shiny black stones I collected from my favorite beach on the Channel. That's the only explanation I can offer for helping this last-minute lover in his gift selection.
"Which bracelet do you like best?" he asked. "That silver one, or the gold one with the green paint."
"Green enamel," Joseph corrected him.
I leaned over the case, studying them. "The green and gold."
"But all of her earrings are silver," the guy protested.
"Then why did you ask me?" I replied, exasperated.
He lifted his hands, then dropped them heavily on the glass. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Joseph wince. The guy had strong hands, square hands, totally un artistic hands. Was it crazy to be attracted to a guy's hands?
I like the enamel one too," he admitted. "But since she likes silver, I was hoping you'd choose that and make it an easy choice."
"Both bracelets are pretty. It's just that I like to wear green."
His fingers stopped drumming the case, his hands finally becoming still. I looked up and found him gazing at my hair. He met my eyes, then perused my face-just stared at me, making no effort to pretend he wasn't.
"I see," he said. "Because of your eyes. Your eyes are grass green."
Grass green?
"What I mean is pale, bright green-" Joseph shook his head.
"See-through green, like-like the plastic of a Sprite bottle."
He seemed pleased with the accuracy of that last description. I hoped he wasn't going to compose his own gift card.
"I'll take the silver bracelet," the guy said, turning to Joseph, pulling out his money. "I'm kind of in a hurry."
Joseph must have realized that a sale was the quickest way to get rid of this guy. Moving behind the counter, he took the customer's money. The guy pocketed the bracelet, leaving without a box or bag.
"You were saying," Joseph prompted me, as the bells on the door jingled and fell silent.
"I'll be here for a while. I took a temporary job."
"Wonderful. Where?"
"Mason's Choice."
He looked at me surprised.
"Do you remember Mrs. Hopewell?" I asked.
"Despite my best efforts to forget her."
"She's still there."
Joseph sat down heavily on a shop stool. "Why did you go back, Katie?"
The tone of his voice made me uneasy. "Why not?"
He thought before he spoke. "Your family didn't leave under the best of circumstances. What does your mother think of this?"
"I don't know. I haven't seen her for twelve years."
His brown eyes grew wider for a moment.
"Victoria left us when we got to England."
He stroked his beard with long fingers-the only part of him that had remained thin. He had been a musician, I remembered. Poor man, studying music, having to listen to Ashley and me banging on the schoolroom piano.
"I had no idea, no idea at all. Do you know why your mother left?" he asked.
I shook my head.
"What did your father tell you about the Westbrooks?"
"He wouldn't talk about them. All I know is what I remember from when I was five. For instance, Mrs. Caulfield, Ashley's aunt, couldn't stand Ashley and got along better with horses than people."
"Still does. I heard Robyn just came back from the Florida horse-show circuit."
"Mr. Trent," I said, using the name for him that I had used as a child, "was very serious."
"Yes. He runs the business for Adrian."
"What is their business?"
"Furniture and art. They began with a handful of local auction houses, like Crossroads, the one here on the Eastern Shore. In the last two decades they've been doing a lot of importing. Have you seen Adrian? I heard he's getting cancer treatments and they haven't been successful."
"They haven't?" I wondered what the Westbrooks had told Patrick. "He's coming home Friday."
Joseph pressed his hands together and rested his mouth against his fingertips, thinking. "Which means the vultures will be gathering. You'll have to deal with all of them, Katie." He reached for a store receipt and scribbled down a number. "This is the phone at my mother's house. The number printed on the top is the store's. I'll be in Wisteria for the next few weeks. Call me if you need anything."
"I'll be all right," I said, smiling. "You know, I've spent a lot of time in other people's households. I've seen it all."
"I'm sure, but why don't you check in with me now and then."
"I don't check in with anyone," I said, then added quickly, "What I mean is that I'm used to being on my own. When Dad was alive, he checked in with me."
Joseph shook his head. "The Westbrooks are not nice people, Katie. You can't trust them."
"Don't worry," I replied. I haven't trusted anyone in a very long time."
The next afternoon the Westbrooks' groundskeeper, who introduced himself as Roger Hale, picked me up from the Strawberry, then drove to Patrick's private school, which was at the far end of High Street, backing up to Wist Creek.
No street in Wisteria was far from a piece of shoreline. The town, a parcel of land jutting into the mouth of the Sycamore River, was surrounded on three sides by water, the river and two wide creeks named Oyster and Wist. The next point of land outside of town and moving in the direction of the Chesapeake Bay was the Scarborough Estate, and the point after that was Mason's Choice, where the river flowed into the bay.
"Do you think you can find your way?" Roger asked me, when he had driven from the school to the estate. He parked in a multi-car garage that was to one side of the house. From now on it would be my job to transport Patrick to and from in a staff car.
"Yes, thanks." It wasn't the route I was concerned about, but trying to drive on the right side of the road, which was opposite from the way I had learned in England. It's just a matter of concentration, I told myself, and decided not to bring up the matter.
"I'll leave a map in the car," Roger said, as he pulled my bags from the back of it, "and one on your bureau when I take your luggage to your room. You get on to the house now-Mrs. Westbrook is always anxious to see Patrick."
Patrick had chattered cheerfully in the car, but as he and I approached the house, he grew quiet. He turned his head suddenly, looking at the tall windows to the left of the main entrance. Someone gazed out from the library, but the weather had cleared and the bright reflections on the glass made it difficult to see who.
"I always go in through the kitchen," Patrick said.
"Sorry, but your mother told me to bring you in the front."
He hung back.
"Come on, Patrick. She wants to see you straightaway."
He stood rooted in the grass. If we hadn't just met, I would have worried that he had learned that ugly, defiant look from me.
"All right," I said. "I'll go in. When you're ready to join me, knock on the door. But I'll answer only the front entrance."
"Our. doors aren't locked in the daytime," he informed me.
I continued walking. You re mean.
"But I was being so much nicer than usual," I replied.
He stared at me and I winked. "Come on, the sooner you see your mother, the sooner we can go outside and play."
When he and I entered the main hall, his mother emerged from the library.
"Darling, how was school?"
"Okay." He edged away from the library door.
She held out her arms. "Are you forgetting something? Patrick!" She sounded hurt.
He dutifully went back and kissed her.
"Trent has just arrived from Philadelphia. Come say hello to him and Robyn. You as well, Kate."
Through the door I could see Robyn pacing back and forth, pressing a cell phone to her ear. Years in the sun had aged her skin. The vertical creases between her eyebrows had deepened noticeably, and her black hair had streaks of silver. She still had the bone structure of a beautiful woman, but Ashley's suggestion that she was the bad queen in Snow White didn't seem that farfetched. As Patrick and I entered, she glanced at me, then turned her back.