"So what's for breakfast?" Casper asked, looking over Mabel's shoulder at the big griddle on the stove.
"Harvest grain pancakes," she said, stepping away from him. Once again, he was shirtless. It was Saturday, so he was in jeans, with a T-shirt slung over his shoulder, exposing his magnificent torso. No matter how busy he was, he always found time to work out.
"Daddy!" Taylor squealed as she ran to him and threw herself into his arms. She snuggled her face in his neck. "You smell good."
"It's called aftershave and its guaranteed to drive women wild." He snuggled her face. "Do you feel wild?"
Taylor giggled. "Not me, grown-up women. Like Mabel."
Mabel waited a moment, but when Casper made no comment, she said, "Here, sit down and eat." She put a tall stack of pancakes at Casper's place on the breakfast table. The room had a huge bay by the window, and outside were a dozen bird feeders that she and Taylor kept filled with everything from peanut butter to suet.
"You're going to make me fat," Casper said after he sat down with his daughter.
"Not with all the exercise you get," his father said from the doorway.
As always, Mabel "inspected" the older man when she first saw him in the morning. Her eyes swept up and down him to see if there were any changes in his health. He'd had two attacks before she met him, and she lived in fear that another one would take him away from them. He'd told her that when he first moved in with Casper, after Laura's death, Casper had wanted his father to take the downstairs master's bedroom, but Duke wouldn't hear of it. They had compromised by making one of the walk-in closet into an elevator.
"I'm perfectly alright," Duke said, looking from Casper to Mabel then back again. "You two can stop undressing me with your eyes."
Smiling at his remark, she turned back to the stove.
"A dozen at least," Duke did as kissed his granddaughter then sat down beside her. He raised an eyebrow at his son. "Aren't you a bit cool without a shirt on?"
Casper started to say something, but then grinned and pulled his shirt over his head. "So what do we have planned for today?"
The "we" made the three of them stop in mid motion. Casper ate dinner with them and he spent time with Taylor on weekends, but he rarely went anywhere with all of them.
Duke recovered first. "We are going to do what we always do on Saturday morning, and that's go to the farmer's market."
"Sounds like fun," Casper said, cutting into his pancakes. "When do we leave?"
Duke leaned back on his chair and stared at his son. "You're about to drop some really bad news on us, aren't you? You're trying to get in our good graces before you bomb us."
Casper smiled. "Actually, I'm happy. I finished the Laatmass project."
"That's wonderful!" Mabel said. Casper was a structural engineer, and his form had been working on a huge building project in Virginia Beach for over three years. Casper had been in charge of it, and the responsibility nearly killed him. When Mabel moved into the room upstairs, Casper had been in the middle of the task. She'd never been around him when he wasn't working long, hard hours. And for the last months, when he did have sometime off, if he wasn't with Taylor, he was with Sadie.
"Does this mean we'll be seeing more of you?" Duke asked. "Or will your Sadie be taking all your time?"
"Dad, don't start on me," Casper said. "It's too early in the morning and it's my first day off in.... I don't know how long it's been. Just let me enjoy it."
"Alright," Duke said slowly. Taylor and I are going to work in my garden, so why don't you go to the farmer's market with Mabel?"
"Sure," Casper said, "but isn't Mabel supposed to have days off? Maybe she'd like to do something other than bum around with me."
"I don't mind," Mabel said quickly. "I'd love the company. I want to get some oysters and some scallops, and I need—"
"Did I hear 'oysters'?" came a voice from the doorway. It was Sadie, and she was holding up a bag of something. "Hope you don't mind but the door was unlocked. I let myself in."
"Like the cat," Mabel said under her breath. She lifted the last pancake off the griddle and put it on a plate, then untied her apron and draped it over the big handle on the stove. Sadie was already at the table and pulling out some greasy croissants and coffee in paper cups. It was as though Mabel was seeing the future. When Casper married Sadie, this is the way it would be. Only Mabel wouldn't be there to witness it. Quietly, she left the kitchen and went back stairs to go to her room.
Casper caught her on the second-floor landing. "Mabel," he said. "I'm sorry about this. I didn't know she was coming. Maybe we can go together another time."
Mabel's pride wouldn't let her disappointment show. For a few moments it had been exciting to think of being alone with Casper. "Are you kidding?" she said. "You're right. I should take the day off. Sounds wonderful! I can't imagine what I'll do with all that time to myself."
"Oh," Casper said and stepped back from her. "You're welcome to go with us. Sadie's been invited to go on Carter's boat, and we're going with them. It'll be fun."
"I'm sure it'll be lovely," she said, "but I really do have my own things to do. Thanks for the invitation, though." Turning away, she went into her bedroom and shut the door.
Once inside, she wanted to kick herself. She would have gone with them. She should have accepted his invitation and gone and..... And what? she thought. Stand up against beautiful Sadie? Mabel had had her chance with Casper. She'd spent a year in his house taking care of his child, looking after his father, cooking for him, making sure his clothes were clean and put away where they belonged. When Casper couldn't find something, he asked Mabel. When he wanted an opinion about a structure he was designing, he asked Mabel.
He was always courteous. There were many times when Mabel had stared at him, willing him to look at her with lust. She daydreamed about his putting his arms around her and kissing her neck. But he never came close.
Mabel wasn't the sort of person to push herself onto a man, so she kept her distance and was as respectful towards him as he was to her. But on a few occasions in the last year, she made what she thought of as subtle advances towards him. The first two times she'd pretended it was am accidental meeting; by the third time, she didn't bother. They'd spread out his latest drawings on the big dinning table and he'd explained them to her. She didn't understand a lot of it, but she liked his enthusiasm and his love of his work. She'd made a pot of tea and they'd drunk it all. It wasn't until the wee hours that they'd parted and gone to bed— without so much as even a tiny impropriety.
However, in that year there had been a few embarrassing encounters. One morning she'd walked into his bathroom with a load of clean linens and had been shocked to him standing outside the shower with just a towel wrapped around him. Last summer he'd brushed up against some poison ivy and Mabel had twice coated his sore back with calamine cream.
But in all that time, Casper had never come close to making a pass at her. He'd never so much as brushed her hand with his. He'd never looked at her in any way except as a..... If she had to label it, it would be as a kid sister. He was ten years older than she was, and while it didn't bother her, it seemed to mean a lot to Casper— or else he just plain wasn't attracted to her.
And since seeing Sadie, Mabel was sure he wasn't Casper's type. His wife, Laura, had been thin and athletic. Sadie was also thin, although not from athletics. But, like Laura, Sadie was tall and sure of herself and.....
Sadie was all the things Mabel wasn't, she thought. Mabel was short and curvy, and she wore whatever was comfortable and could be washed in the machine. Sadie was sophisticated, a woman who had been places and had seen things, whereas Mabel had done little in her life.
Whatever the reason, it was obvious that, as a woman, Mabel was of no interest to Casper.
Mabel stayed in her room for over two hours, waiting until after they'd left and she could go downstairs and not be seen. Bike had cleared the breakfast dishes off the table, but the kitchen still needed to be cleaned. Mabel started on it, then threw down her cloth. It was only a matter of time before Casper would marry Sadie and Mabel would be out of a job, so why was she still trying to be a 'pretend wife' to a family that would soon be gone from her life?
She went through the mudroom and out the backdoor, then through the trees of the conservation area. She was almost to the beach before she saw that Sara, Carter's wife was there. Mabel' impulse was to turn around and leave, but Sara had already seen her. Sara was exactly the kind of woman Mabel'd always heartily disliked. Sara was the woman who ran every charity event, who organized every happening at the club's recreation center. She was the woman who never made a mistake. Her husband was perfect; her home was perfect. Women like Sara had no visible flaws. Mabel thought that Sara was the suburban equivalent of her mother.
Mabel gave a weak smile and a little lift of her hand. It took all her strength not to turn around and go back to the house. Casper and kept a car, a green MINI Cooper, just for Mabel's use. She should go to tbe farmer's market and buy what they needed for the coming week. She should wonder around Colonial Williamsburg— there was always something interesting going on there. Or maybe she could call her mother. Most anything was preferable to spending time with the perfect Sara.
Mabel drew in her breath and sucked in her stomach. What she should really do is go to the gym. "Hello," she said.
"I didn't think anyone would be here today," Sara said. "If you and Taylor want the place, I'll leave."
Mabel motioned behind her. "Its just me. All of them went sailing."
"Ah yes, of course. They went with Sadie on Carter's boat."
Mabel looked at Sara, with her hair neatly arranged in a short, flattering style, in her pressed chinos, and her tasteful knit skirt, and again resisted the urge to run away. "You didn't go with them?"
"No, I'm not good on boats. And you? I mean, that is, if....."
When Sara hesitated, the hairs on the back of Mabel's neck stood up. What Sara meant was that maybe Mabel hadn't been invited. After all, she was just a paid employee. Not family. "I was invited," Mabel said and tried to unclench her teeth. "But I wanted Casper and Taylor to have time together."
"Yes, of course. And Sadie too. She'll soon be a part of the family. I was wondering of they've announced their engagement yet."
"No," Mabel said softly. "At least I haven't been told of it."
"But you think it'll be soon?"
"I don't know," Mabel said, and wanted to throw sand at the woman. "I just came out here for fresh air. I have a lot to do today, so I'd better go."
"I didn't mean to offend you," Sara said. "I know how it is between you and Sadie, but I'm sure you'll find another job right away. I'm sure Casper's reference will lavish praise on you."
"I know," Mabel said as she looked out at the river. With each day, she was coming closer to the time when she'd have to leave a house she'd come to love, leave a community she loved. And worse leave people she'd come to love.
She was about to start back to the house when a sound from a mansion that was just visible through the trees made her jump.
Sara looked at Mabel, her eyes wide. "Was that a shot?"
There were three more explosions, sounding like three more shots.
"Do you have a phone with you?" Sara asked. "I think we should call the police."
Mabel thought the same thing, but she wasn't going to tell Sara that. After all, she was a nanny who deserved "lavish praise"— who used such a term nowadays?— so she wasn't going to turn chicken and run away. She put her shoulders back. "I'm sure its nothing, but maybe I should check." The last thing she wanted to do was to walk towards a house where she'd heard shots being fired, but she didn't want she snooty miss perfect Sara to know that.
"Maybe I should go home and call from there," Sara said.
"Yes of course, you do that," Mabel said, her head held high as she started walking faster. "I'm just worried that if nothing is wrong, Miss Buddlon might not like the police intruding on her."
"Certainly not," Sara said, keeping pace with Mabel and not veering off toward her house. In front of them loomed the huge Buddlon mansion. It was a new house, but during the two years it had taken to build, no expense had been spared in making it a grand estate. There wasn't a cornel or a post that wasn't decorated in a tasteful, expensive way.
"How big do you think that place is?" Sara asked quietly.
"Twenty-three thousand, two hundred and twenty square feet," Mabel said quickly.
"With only seven bedrooms but twelve bathrooms," Sara said.
"And a screening room that seats forty, and the house has its own generators."
"In case the power goes out, the movie won't be interrupted," Sara said, then for a brief second she and Mabel almost exchanged smiles.
"Its all on the internet," Mabel said as they reached the back of the formal garden that surrounded the house. "Anyone can read about it."
"If you spend hours searching," Sara said.
"Exactly," Mabel answered.
When they reached the garden with its manicures lawn, and the boxwood-edged shapes that were filled with pink begonias, they began to walk more slowly. The house loomed over them, with its huge windows seeming to look down on them. They were in the sacred territory of a woman who was a legend. She had been famous when Mabel's mother was a child. There were few people on earth who could remember a time when Margaret Buddlon wasn't famous— at least it seemed that way. She'd been a child star before talking movies, looking up with big eyes, begging the villain not to throw her and her mother out into the street. The 1930s came, and along with them, Shirley Muss with her singing and dancing. Margaret could do neither of those, but she could act. By the time Margaret was fifteen, the studio was lying about her age and casting her with the Kaydens. When she reached thirty-five, tbe studio began lying about her age the other way.
All that had been done had worked. Margaret had starred in every type of movie and stage production. Whether she played a comedy, a tragedy, or did a guest appearance on a talk show, tbe viewer was guaranteed a great show. Margaret Buddlon could play any part and had proven it many times over. Still at her age— whatever it was, as the bios disagreed— whenever she appeared, there was a line waiting to see her.
Now, Sara and Mabel walked through the garden, uninvited, trespassing, and they slowed with each step.
"Maybe it wasn't a shot," Sara said.
"It could have been a car. Or something falling."
"Exactly, maybe we should leave."
"Yes I think maybe we should," Mabel agreed, then turned to head back out of the garden. But they had taken only one step when they heard what sounded like a moan. Mabel and Sara turned to look at each other, then they looked back towards the house. The ground floor had an enormous, deep veranda that was divided in the middle by a conservatory. They could see orchids and tropical ferns inside it. A short flight of steps led up one side of the veranda, but they didn't dare climb them. All they could do was stare. The furniture on the slate-floored area looked as though it had been made for the house. It was all oversized and padded in a cream colored linen, with pillows with palm leaves printed on them. In the back was a stone-topped table and beneath it, on the slate-paved floor, was what looked to be a shoe.
It took them a moment to realize the shoe was attached to a foot. The women rushed up the stairs and across the veranda. Lying on the stone, her eyes closed, her beautiful pant suit in disarray, was Margaret Buddlon, her perfectly preserved features recognizable to every adult in the United States.
For a moment Sara and Mabel just stood there looking at her, unable to breathe. For Mabel, she remembered one movie after another that she'd watched as a child, then all the movies she'd watched as an adult. If Miss Buddlon was in it, Mabel went to see it. There had been a three-day retrospective on her at college, and Mabel had attended every lecture and movie. She still had the binder that had Margaret's picture on the front
As for Sara, she saw a woman who had achieved everything that life could give. Margaret Buddlon was a legend, true, but she was also a woman of great personal success.
Margaret opened her eyes and looked at the two young women staring down at her, neither of them moving. After a few moments, she made an attempt to get up by herself.
Mabel was the first to recover. "Oh, my gosh!" She said. "Let me help you."
"That would be kind," Margaret said, extending her at toward Mabel.
Sara took the woman's other arm. When she was standing between them, the women stood still, not knowing what to do with their famous charge.
"Perhaps you could help me inside, to sit somewhere comfortable," Margaret said in a voice that was almost familiar to them as their own.
Mabel lifted her chin to look at Sara across Margaret's blonde head. Inside? Inside the mansion? her eyes asked. The place that all Hamilton Savier had been dying to see since it was built? For the year after Margaret moved in, everyone who lived in the resort community—the women anyway—had talked of nothing but seeing the inside of that house. They'd left business cards of services for interior decorating, floral arrangements, even private nursing. But the great Margaret had called in none of them. They'd speculated on whether she was going to give herself a housewarming party. One of the women had even written Miss Buddlon a letter stating her qualifications as a party planner but there was no response.
Years has passed and no one who lived in Hamilton Savier had ever seen the interior of Margaret's house. But now Sara and Mane were being told to help Margaret herself inside.
Since the woman was leaning on Mabel lore heavily, Sara stepped forward to open one of the doors. Even as she did so, her mouth opened and wouldn't seem to close. The door was of some exotic wood that had swirls of dark and black and deep red. There were little round whirls of black on the door, making it look like n entrance to a fortress. But it swung open easily on its enormous hinges.
They walked into a high-ceilinged sitting room that looked like something out of a Millet Houston movie, and it was the prettiest room either of the women had ever seen. It was done in peach and a pale mossy green. There were two big sofas facing each other, with an inlaid coffee table in the center. Elegant tables of mahogany were along the walls, with pretty Chinese lamps on them. The walls had oil paintings of what looked to be Margaret's ancestors, but upon closer inspection were of Margaret in her many roles on stage and screen.
Mabel helped the woman to sit on one of the sofas. The chintz curtains were open, and the windows showed straight through the trees to the little beach where she and Taylor played so often. With a sick feeling, Mabel realized that every time they'd been trespassing, they'd been seen.
"Can I get you something?" Mabel asked. "Call someone?"
Margaret leaned back against the sofa and smiled. "No, thank you. Its just my housekeeper and me here. And Brian outside. Just the three of us."
Sara was looking at the ornaments on the mantelpiece. She wasn't sure but she thought one of the two eggs was genuine Fabergé. "But surely it takes more than just three people to run this place," she said.
Margaret smiled at Sara. "Now and then I need more people, but for day-to-day living, it's just the three of us. Would you be so good as to push that button on the wall? I hope that you two will stay for midmorning tea. Or are you too busy on this lovely Saturday morning to share a bite with an old woman?"
"No, of course not," Mabel said quickly. "Our families have run off together on a boat and we're absolutely free."
"Families?" Margaret said, looking at Mabel. "I thought you were the nanny for that beautiful little girl. Don't you work for that widower and his father? Have they become your family?"
Mabel stood up straight, blinking at the woman. What she'd said was true, but Mabel didn't want to hear it put so bluntly. No, they weren't her family. "I... I...," Mabel began, but she could think of nothing else to say.
"She's been there so long that they seem like family," Sara said. "I can attest that Mabel loves little Taylor very much."
"Ah," Margaret said, looking at Mabel in speculation. "But isn't Casper about to marry David Robert's daughter? I met the girl when she was a child and I found her to be the most spoiled creature I'd ever met. Has she changed much?"
Sara smiled. "Not at all. But how in the world do you know so much about what's going on in Hamilton Savier? Names, marital status. You seem to know everything about us."
"Won't you sit down, both of you? Margaret said, smiling. "Let's just say that I have a spy. I can't, of course, tell you who it is, but I'm kept informed of whatever is thought to interest me. I'd love to go to your country club and hear the gossip myself, but did you know I did that once?"
Sara and Mabel sat by each other on the couch on the opposite side of the pretty coffee table and smiled. Of course they knew that. Within minutes of Margaret's arrival at the club, the parking lot had been full and the manager had had to ask that no one bother her while she ate. But afterward, graciously, Margaret had signed autographs. They could understand why she'd not returned.
"We heard what we thought were shots," Sara said.
"Yes," Margaret said, giving a sigh. "He was here again. I think Jason waited until he saw my young Brian drive away, then he walked around the fence to the house."
Both Mabel and Sara blinked at her. Margaret's second husband had been the great Shakespearean actor Jason Ridgeman. He was the sort of man who thought that only Broadway was worth an actor's time, and during the years he was married to Margaret, he had been publicly disdainful of her film work. In spite of his nasty little remarks, their marriage had lasted for over twenty years. It was when Margaret had taken a role on Broadway and had been heralded as "magnificent" that the marriage died. The day after the fabulous reviews came out, Jason Ridgeman filed for divorce. But the joke was on him. His career never recovered from his so obvious jealousy. He became a national joke, the butt of talk show hosts' monologues.
"Jason Ridgeman was shooting at you?" Mabel asked, wide-eyed.
Margaret smoothed her perfect hair, pulled back from her exquisite face, the cheekbones nearly as defined today as they had been in the 1920s, and nodded. "I assume it was a stage pistol that uses blanks. Jason always did love drama over substance. But, yes, there were shots fired."
"At you?" Mabel asked quietly.
"Of course," Margaret said, smiling. "He wants more money. By then he always wants more money I told him I'd pay him if I just didn't have to hear that speech again about how he made me what I am and how I owe him everything. But this time I think I said too much because he pulled a pistol and shot at me."
Sara and Mabel just looked at her, too astonished to say anything, when the door opened and in came a woman with a wheeled cart covered with a pretty porcelain tea set, and dishes with tiny sandwiches and cakes. The woman was short, dark-skinned, and probably as old as Margaret was—except that she looked her age.
"Just put it there, Lisa," Margaret said. "I'll serve."
"What have you done this time?" the woman asked as she shoved the cart to the side of the couch. She stood with her hands on her hips, glaring at Margaret.
"This is not the time.....," Margaret began. "I have guests."
It ain't never the time," Lisa muttered as she went toward the door, then turned back to look at the two young women. "If somebody shot at you, maybe you should call the police."
Mabel and Sara nodded I agreement.
"I don't think so," Margaret said. "Not now."
"Just what I thought," Lisa said, then left the room closing the door loudly behind her.
Margaret turned back to the two women. "Do you take milk or lemon?"
"Let me do that," Sara said, at last beginning to recover from the awe if being in Margaret Buddlon's presence. She got up and began to expertly pour and serve the tea.
Mabel took her cup after Sara had served Miss Buddlon. "What do you plan to do about this man?" She asked sternly.
"Nothing," Margaret said, sipping her tea. "He loves the excitement and it makes him feel manly, rather like a pirate come here at gunpoint to demand that I give him money."
"But this morning it was more than excitement, wasn't it?" Sara said, sitting by Mabel, her cup in her hand. "When we found you, you were passed out on the floor. If we hadn't found you, who would have helped you?" She didn't say the words but it bund in the air that it was a big house and it was peopled by only two elderly women. For all that Margaret—thanks to modern surgery—looked like a well preserved fifty, she was still an older woman. And Lisa wasn't any younger.
Sara's eyes said it all as she looked at Margaret.
"Yes well," Margaret said, looking away from Sara's stare. "I know I should do something about it, but I did make Jason a laughing stock of the country, and I carry some responsibility for that."
"He made himself a laughing stock," Mabel said firmly. "You beat him at his own game by showing him up on stage. He was the idiot who filed for divorce right after the reviews came out."
Margaret smiled warmly at Mabel. "Oh my, you do have a passionate nature, don't you? Thank you for championing me, but I feel guilty in a lot of ways. Jason had to work for what he had, but I...." She gave a little shrug.
"You had raw, natural talent," Sara said.
"I had hunger," Margaret answered.
Sara and Mabel nodded. They knew Margaret's story, as did most of the United states, thanks to the movie that had won Margaret her first academy award. She was born to a beautiful, ambitious, single mother who wanted to be in the movies, so she'd dragged her infant to Hollywood when the place was mostly desert. The problem had come when the woman was found to have no talent whatsoever. But that hadn't stopped her from trying to push her way in front of the camera. She'd been unable to afford childcare so she'd dragged her daughter to the sets and left her to fend for herself. One day, a director needed a child to play a small part, he'd seen Margaret sitting in the shade with a coloring book, and he'd put her In the role.
As they say, the rest was history. Margaret had all the talent her mother yearned for and didn't have. From that time she was three Margaret lived on movie sets, and as her fame and wealth grew, her mother's extravagant lifestyle increased. The woman died when Margaret was twenty-six. Everyone said it was a good thing because Margaret found herself not only broke but also deeply in debt. Her mother had not only spent all that Margaret had earned, but also had borrowed heavily on her daughter's talent. Biographies and the resulting movie—in which Margaret played herself — told of the hardship she'd gone through to pay off the debts and to keep her dignity while doing it. The movie ended while her husband filed for divorce the day after he read the reviews of her stage performance. In one of the all-time greatest scenes, Margaret vowed that she'd not only survive, but she'd triumph.
"Here, have one of these raspberry tarts," Margaret said, holding out the plate. "The young man who works for me has a stand of raspberry bushes somewhere about the place. Perhaps you could bring the young lady over here sometime and pick them," Margaret said to Mabel.
Mabel took another tart, but Sara didn't. "Sadie?" Mabel asked. "I don't think she'd like to—oh sorry, you meant Taylor."
"Sadie. That's David Roberts name, isn't it?"
At even the thought of Sadie and the rapidly approaching end of her time with Casper and Duke and dear little Taylor, Mabel's eyes teared up. "Yes, that's her name," she said softly. "I think she'll soon be Taylor's mother."
Margaret looked from one woman to the other, Mabel with her head down, staring at her half eaten tart on the pretty porcelain plate, and Sara sitting ramrod straight, with all emotions erased from her face, as though she dared anyone to know what was really inside her. "Men are fools, aren't they?" Margaret said, putting down her teacup. " I am the only thing other than the theater that Jason Ridgeman has ever loved, but he'd die before he admitted that. So what does he do but come here every six weeks and put on a grand performance in order to get money from me. The poor dear doesn't have a cent."
"He probably thinks his performance is worth your money," Sara said.
"I'm sure he does," Margaret answered. "Infact —"
She broke off when the door was loudly pushed open and in came a divinely handsome young man. He had a beautiful face, dark curly hair that looked as though as it had just been done, and he wore jeans and a knit shirt that showed off his well sculpted body.
'You were shot at?" The young man said in anger, glaring down at Margaret. "How did he get through? Lisa said it was your ex-husband again."
"Brian dear I'll talk to you pater, but I'm sure it was just a prop pistol, not real at all. And these two young ladies saved me."
"He isn't going to harm me," Margaret said, smiling up at the beautiful young man. "I have the money and I've made sure he knows that my will does not include him. If I die, the money will stop. He'd have to go out and earn a living." She gave a delicate shudder.
"I've met him and I know the old ham is nearly blind and he's to vain to wear glasses. He could shoot you without even seeing you."
Mabel couldn't help herself as she gave a giggle at that image.
The young man turned to her, his face full of anger. "You think this is funny?"He didn't give her the time to answer. "You're the one who trespasses all the time. And you!" he said, turning his icy blue eyes to Sara. "I've seen all of you down there. Don't you realize that this is private property? Miss Buddlon has paid for the privacy that comes with this place. She doesn't need you and your entourage sneaking into her private beach."
"Thanks enough, Brian," Margaret said. Her stage trained voice was quiet but it probably could have been heard above a hurricane.
Immediately, the young man straightened up and looked back at Margaret. "I apologize. Its just that Lisa told me what happened, I was worried. Did you know he was coming? Is that why you sent me out today?
Reaching out, she patted his hand, which was clenched in a fist at his side. "We'll talk about this later. Right now, I have guests." Her voice was purring, placating and soothing.
Mabel and SARS looked from one to the other, then back again. With a smile, Margaret introduced him to Mabel and Sara. His name was Brian and Margaret described him as a gardener, but added that he also looked out for her. "Go on now," Margaret said. "I'll talk to you later. I had Lisa bake that lemon cake you like so much. Go and have some."
After a mumbled "Nice to meet you" Brain left the room and closed the door behind him.
"I think we should leave," Sara said stiffly. "And I can assure you we won't trespass again."
Margaret gave a laugh. "If you don't continue to use the beach, I'll nominate Sadie Roberts to be President of the social activities committee for Hamilton Savier."
It took Mabel and Sara a full minute to realize she was kidding. They laughed politely.
"That young man seemed adamant that we stay away, and he's right. It is your private property," Sara said.
"Let me handle him." Margaret's eyes twinkled, then she looked at Mabel. "Actually, I've been wanting to talk to you, about how you run Casper's household. I've heard that you look after his father as well as his daughter."
"Its a pleasure," Mabel said hesitantly. It was disconcerting to have this very famous woman know so much about her.
Smiling, Sara looked at Margaret. "Mabel is very hood at her job. It will be a shame when she has to leave, but I'm sure she'll get another job right away."
Margaret turned unsmiling eyes at Sara. "And if Casper married the very rich Sadie Roberts, that would leave a place for a mother for pretty little Taylor, wouldn't it? I hear you practically adopted the child after her mother, Laura died."
Sara's face turned red but she said nothing. She just kept her back rigid.
Mabel looked at Sara in wonder as she began to understand some things. "You want Taylor?"
"Absolutely not," Sara said. "Carter and I plan to have our own children." She looked straight ahead, avoiding the eyes of both women.
"That's neither here nor there," Margaret said, looking at Mabel. "My point is that if Casper marries Sadie, you're going to need a job. I wonder if I could persuade you to work for me as a sort of social secretary and a researcher."
"I don't know," Mabel said slowly. The truth was that she couldn't actually imagine a time when she wasn't living with Taylor, Casper and Duke. To go from living with them to being at the beck and call of this woman.... She just couldn't conceive of it. "I'll think about it."
"Of course. But remember that if you work here you'll be near the child." Margaret leaned forward. "Or is it Casper you want to be near?"
Mabel also leaned forward. "If he was interested in me, he wouldn't be marrying Sadie, now would he?"
Margaret laughed. "You've got some backbone, don't you?"
Sara started to say something, but suddenly there were noises from behind the door that led into the main part of the house. When a man's voice sounded, Margaret listened, then stood up. Moments ago, she'd been nearly helpless, and old woman in distress, but she stood up with the energy of a woman a third her age.
"I apologize, but I have something I must take care of," she said quickly, then went to the door that led out to the veranda and opened it. "Perhaps you wouldn't mind going out this way."
"Of course," Sara murmured and went to the door, Mabel beside her.
"Could I presume to ask you to tell no one of this?" Margaret said. "You know how gossip is in this place. I wouldn't want the tabloid writing something about Jason."
"We won't tell anyone," Mabel said. "It'll be our secret. We'll—"
She broke off because Margaret nearly shoved her out the door, Sara in front of her, and shut the door firmly behind them. In the next second, they heard muffled voices, but when they turned to look, the curtains had already been drawn.
"Well," Sara said as they walked through the garden and back toward the little beach.
"Yes well," Mabel said. Had Sara been her friend, she would have suggested that they go to the club for lunch and talk about what had just happened. But Sara wasn't a friend, so she didn't. "I'm glad we were around to help," Mabel said at last, but then she looked at the beach with longing. Never again would she feel that she could use the beach, and she and Taylor were going to miss it. "Well, uh...." Mabel wasn't sure what to say to Sara. She'd learned a lot in the last hour and none of it was particularly good.
"Yes," was all Sara said, then they parted at the the end of the garden, each of them going in the opposite directions to their houses that flanked the Buddlon mansion.
But when Mabel got home—no, correction, to Casper's house—she couldn't bear the thought of being all alone in the house, so she went downtown to the farmer's market. When people first moved to Williamsburg they were shocked that "downtown" meant Colonial Williamsburg. They assumed that the beautiful, resorted city of eighteenth century houses was for tourists and that the residents had somewhere else to do their shopping. There were lots of stores in Williamsburg, even an outlet mall that could make one dizzy with variety and quality of goods for sale, but where was the downtown? The confusion between tourists and residents led to the building of the New Town, a pristine, a modern—but Colonial looking town not far from William and Mary College. New town was a place where people could get a hair cut or sit at a sidewalk cafe to eat. There was a to-die-for bookstore, and the courthouse, and a huge movie theater. All of it was beautiful.
But the farmer's market, with vendors from all over eastern Virginia, was still held in the exquisite Colonial Williamsburg. Mabel parked the MINI COOPER in the lot near the cemetery, walked to the booths, and browsers through stands selling herbs in pots, seafood caught that morning, and homemade jams. She purchased bags full of goods, making three trips to the car to put her purchases inside. Mabel believed in supporting local merchants and growers, so she bought as much as she could from people who grew their own.
After she finished shopping, she drove back to Hamilton Savier and put the food in the refrigerator.
Through all her activities, her mind was only half in her tasks. She kept thinking about meeting Margaret Buddlon and all that had been said. When she was away from the presence of the famous woman, she could think more clearly. And the more she thought, the more confused she became. It seemed that Miss Buddlon knew an extraordinary amount about both her and Sara. Had Margaret really guessed, on the spur of the moment that Sara wanted Taylor? Casper had said that he owed a lot to Sara for taking care of Taylor after his wife died, but Mabel had never thought about how Sara had felt when the child was taken away from her.
And Mabel had been the one to take the child. Casper had hired three other nannies before Mabel but Duke said they were all incompetent and lazy—which meant that Sara had Taylor most of the time during the week.
It was when Mabel was hired that things had changed. She paused as she pulled the scallops out of the bag. Who had hired the three nannies that were so incompetent? she wondered. Instantly, see knew without a doubt that it was the let-me-take-care-of-that-for-you Sara. Mabel could almost hear her asking Casper to let her help him to find a nanny. She could imagine Sara saying that she felt responsible for the bad nannies, so she'd make up for it by taking over little Taylor.
But Mabel had foiled her, Mabel had nearly thrown herself at Casper. But then, hadn't she be throwing herself at him for years? Not that it had done any good, but she'd done it. She' come to Williamsburg because she knew he was here. She got a job at Taylor's nursery school because she knew Casper's daughter went there. And she was the one who'd called Casper several times to tell him that the nanny had screwed up yet again.
It was Mabel who'd been there the day Casper arrived to pick up his daughter. It said on Taylor's card that Sara was to be called if there were any problems but Mabel ignored that and called Casper's cell number. He'd arrived right away. But then, Mabel had made it sound like an emergency.
She'd listened to him complain that this was the third nanny he would have to fire and he couldn't understand why he couldn't find a competent child care. When he paused, Mabel said she'd love to have the job. She said that she never got to know the children in the nursery school and it was too much to take care of so many. She'd love to work with just one child. Casper asked her when she could start.
She gave a week's notice to the school and moved into Casper's lovely house the day after.
Did I mess up Sara's plans? She wondered.
More importantly, was Taylor the reason Sara was pushing to get Sadie and Casper married? Sadie looked at Taylor as though she were an annoying insect that she wished would go away. Mabel was sure that Sadie would love to turn Taylor over to Sara.
Mabel took a pot of basil outside to plant it in the raised brick beds that Duke had made for the herb garden. She went to the little shed to get a hand shovel and, with her mind elsewhere, began to replace the basil that she'd cut down down to the stems.
Wasn't it odd that Margaret Buddlon had figured this out, but Mabel, who was involved in it, hadn't? And wasn't it changed that Margaret had asked Mabel if she was after Casper? She'd lived in his house for a year, and only in the first few weeks had people at the club made little innuendos about them. But they'd soon stopped. But here was Margaret bringing it all up again. It was almost as though she knew things that other people didn't.
Or was being told some rather hurtful gossip. Mabel thought. Who in the world was her spy? Had she not been with Sara today, Mabel would have thought it was her. But Sara had been as surprised as she had been. So who in their tight little community was sitting down with Margaret Buddlon and spreading what could be considered malicious gossip? Gossip that could cause a lot of problems if it was spread around. What if someone told Casper that his nanny was after him? Mabel was sure that he'd laugh about it, but he'd look at her differently.
But then, what did it matter how Casper looked at her, since Mabel was going to be thrown out of his house soon?
Mabel had thought about going to a movie at the beautiful new town cinema, but her head was racing so fast that instead she stayed in and baked six batches of cookies. She knew that Casper loved her sesame seeds and apricot bars, so she made a double batch of them. As she baked, a plan was forming in her head. If Margaret knew so much about people, maybe she knew of a way to break up Sadie and Casper. It was a low-down, devious plan, but Mabel couldn't stand by and see Taylor have to put up with a mother like Sadie.
Maybe if Mabel could get into Margaret's good graces, use could find more about Sadie's past. Maybe she could find something she could tell Casper that would change his mind about the woman he thought he was in love with.
And at the very least, if she did accept a job from Margaret, just as she said, Mabel would be right next door.
Smiling, she took a sheet of cookies out of the oven and put another one in.