Night Whispers by Judith McNaught
“I don’t have a problem, exactly. I just don’t know what to do with him. He was trying to flirt with me.”
“Then flirt with him.”
Sloan twisted the stem of her wineglass in her fingers. “I’m not very good at flirting, and he’s very good at it.”
“Well, practice on Maitland. Pretend he’s someone you’re investigating, only smile at him when you ask him questions about himself, and then remember to smile at him while he’s answering. Look straight into his eyes. No, not like that!” he said with a sharp crack of laughter. “You looked catatonic.”
“Just what do you suggest I ask him about?” Sloan retorted, stung by his laughter.
“What’s the first thing you wondered about after he picked us up tonight?”
“I wondered how much he pays for a tune-up for his Rolls-Royce!”
“Well, don’t ask him that,” Paul warned with another laugh.
“We don’t exactly have a lot in common,” Sloan said, irritated anew by his mirth. “He’s a rich, spoiled aristocrat from another universe. Just look at the suit he’s wearing. How much do you think it cost?”
“Don’t ask him that, either,” Paul said.
“I’m not completely stupid. However, I’m glad you think this is so funny.”
She sounded genuinely hurt, and Paul sobered. “Sloan, you have a job to do. I’d like to know about those documents he brought over to the house this morning. Make peace with him. Better yet, make friends with him. Friends tell each other things. Your father regards Maitland as a friend, and he’s undoubtedly mentioned things to Maitland in passing that we might find interesting even if they don’t seem significant to Maitland. Understand?”
Sloan decided to take advantage of their remaining moments of privacy to discuss something else. “If you’re interested, I know the security layout at the house.”
“I’m interested.”
• • •
The music was winding down, and Sloan hurriedly added the rest of the information she needed to share with him: “One more thing—Paris asked me today about my relationship with you, and I told her that we aren’t romantically involved.”
She told him what she’d said and why she’d done it, and Paul nodded. “Okay. That’s good. Actually, the way things are working out, I think it’s going to be very much to our advantage if she and Maitland both know that.”
“Paris likes you,” Sloan warned. “She thinks you’re trustworthy.”
“I like her, too.”
“You know what I’m trying to say.”
“I do, and stop frowning at me. It looks odd.” Sloan smoothed her frown into a smile. “That’s better. You concentrate on Maitland. I’ll worry about Paris.”
Sloan had neither the desire nor the opportunity to follow Paul’s instructions on that matter, because Noah Maitland treated her with chilling courtesy for the rest of the evening.
23
Courtney poked her head into the kitchen, where a stout woman in her early sixties was stirring chopped pecans into pancake batter. “Morning, Claudine. Where is everyone?”
“Your brother decided to have his breakfast on the terrace,” she said without looking up. “Your father is outside, too.”
“I’ll have a waffle. I’m glad you don’t get sick very often. Yesterday we had to fend for ourselves at breakfast. I burned my bagel.”
“It’s a miracle you survived,” Claudine unsympathetically replied.
“When I have my own cook, I’m going to have a French chef!”
“Good, then you’ll get fat from all that rich food, and it will serve you right.”
Satisfied with their ritual morning sparring session, Courtney grinned and retreated back through the doorway. “I think I’ll have French toast instead of pancakes.”
Outside, she stopped at a serving cart where Claudine had set out a pitcher of fresh orange juice. She poured orange juice into a glass; then she sauntered down the terrace steps to the second level, where Noah was seated at a table beneath a bright yellow umbrella, reading one of several newspapers stacked near his elbow.
“How did you make out with Sloan Reynolds last night?”
“I didn’t.”
“You’re kidding,” Courtney said with unconcealed delight as she slid into the chair next to him. “You struck out?”
He turned to the financial section before he answered. “I crashed and burned,” he murmured without looking up.
“The woman must be blind!”
Noah mistook her remark for loyalty and flashed her a brief smile. “Thank you.”
Courtney was quick to correct his mistake. “I meant she must be blind, or else she can’t read, because she obviously hasn’t had a look at your financial statement. If she had, she’d be sitting in your lap, right now.” When that failed to evoke a reaction from him, she looked over her right shoulder across the lawn, toward the beach. “Where is our father?”
“The last time I saw him, he was digging in a flower bed near the edge of the lawn.”
Courtney leaned back and peered around a clump of trees, looking for him. “That’s not what he’s doing now. He’s standing around like he’s watching for someone. I’ll bet he’s watching for Sloan! It was about this same time yesterday when he saw her.”
That got Noah’s attention, Courtney noticed. He twisted around in his chair and squinted into the sun.
“Just because you struck out doesn’t mean he will. Maybe she prefers older men. I would love to have a look at this woman. I think I’ll go down there and hang around with him.”
“No you won’t. Don’t embarrass us.”
“I like to embarrass us.”
Noah had a feeling she was right about their father’s reason for lingering by the shrubbery at the edge of the lawn, and he sighed in disgust. “Roger Kilman called for him a little while ago. Run down there and tell him he had a phone call. It’s absurd for him to be standing around like that.”
“Jealous?”
“That’s enough!” Noah warned sharply; then he instantly regretted his tone. “Will you just do what I asked you to do without an argument for a change?”
“Possibly,” Courtney replied with a sudden smile, watching her father wave at someone and start forward. A moment later a blonde in running shorts and a tank top jogged into view on the beach and stopped to talk to him. Courtney watched for a few moments. “I’ll bring him back here no matter what it takes,” she promised enthusiastically, already sliding her chair back.
Sloan had given Douglas Maitland several reasons why she couldn’t accept his invitation to join him for breakfast on the terrace, but he overrode her protests with charming insistence, pointing out that her family were all late sleepers; then he put his hand beneath her arm and marched her forward.
A sloping, beautifully landscaped lawn stretched the two-hundred-yard distance from the beach to the house, where it ended in a broad limestone terrace with three levels. Umbrella tables, chaise lounges, and white wrought-iron chairs with bright yellow cushions were invitingly arranged on each level, and as they neared the terrace, Sloan belatedly realized that one of the tables was already occupied by a man and a girl.
Sloan didn’t need to see his features to be certain the man was Noah Maitland. She had seen him only three times, but his chiseled profile, his glossy black hair, and his wide-shouldered physique were emblazoned on her brain, and her nervous system reacted to the stimulation of his presence with an annoying jolt of adrenaline.
Sloan was trying to think of some last-minute excuse for a hasty retreat when the girl at the table jumped up and trotted down the terrace steps, heading straight toward them.
“You are about to meet my daughter, Courtney,” Douglas warned her cheerfully, and tightened his grip on Sloan’s elbow as if he sensed her desire to flee and somehow automatically attributed it to the girl’s impending arrival. “It is an experience most people find difficult to forget. Her mother was my fourth wife. A lovely woman, but
Tall and thin, the teenager had permed dark hair that she wore in a thick ponytail over her left ear, and she walked with a coltish exuberance that didn’t fit with Sloan’s image of the spoiled, conceited, whiny teenager whom she assumed Douglas was warning her about. Courtney’s first words didn’t fit with that image either. “You’re Sloan, aren’t you?” Sloan started to nod, and Courtney put out her hand. “I’ve been dying to meet you. I’m Courtney.”
Sloan was not only taken aback; she was more than a little charmed by the child’s enthusiasm, her mischievous smile, and her familiar gray eyes. “I’m very happy to meet you,” Sloan said, shaking her hand.
“People sometimes start out feeling that way, but they usually change their minds.”
Sloan dealt with teenagers all the time in Bell Harbor, and she had a feeling that if she didn’t follow through with Courtney’s opening salvo, she’d be showing Courtney a lack of interest rather than good manners. “Why is that?”
“Because I say whatever I think.”
“No, my dear,” Douglas contradicted mildly, “it is because you refuse to think at all.”
Courtney ignored him and rushed toward the terraced steps, forcing them to hurry to keep pace with her. “Noah is going to be so glad to see you,” she predicted as they approached him from the side. “Noah, look who I found—”
He was not glad to see her, Sloan noted. He glanced over his shoulder, and Sloan saw annoyance flash across his face before he laid down his newspaper and politely stood up. “Good morning, Sloan,” he said with flawless formality and no warmth.
“I ambushed her on the beach,” Douglas confessed, pulling out a chair for Sloan across from Noah’s and settling into one on her right. Courtney took the chair on Sloan’s left, and a woman appeared on the terrace carrying a tray with a coffeepot and cups.
“We’re going to be four for breakfast, Claudine,” he told her. “Sloan, what would you like to have?”
“Whatever you’re having will be fine,” Sloan said, trying not to think about how unfriendly Noah seemed and how stilted and awkward that was going to make the meal for her. She needn’t have worried. While Claudine was still filling the coffee cups, Courtney lit a conversational bonfire. Perching her chin on her fists, she looked from Douglas to Noah and then to Sloan. “How does it feel to be the only woman in Palm Beach to have both Maitland men chasing you? And who is the leading contender?”
Sloan thought she must have misunderstood her. She blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Courtney, please—” Douglas started to intervene, but he changed his mind when Courtney explained, “Noah said Sloan shot him down last night.”
Douglas turned an intrigued smile on Sloan. “Did you really?”
“No, I—” Sloan glanced at Noah, who was scowling at Courtney, who wasn’t daunted in the least.
“Yes, she did,” Courtney told her father. “Noah said so this morning.” Turning to Sloan, she said, “I asked him how things went with you last night, and he said he ‘crashed and burned’—”
“No,” Sloan blurted desperately. “You misunderstood. He—he didn’t even get off the ground—”
She didn’t realize what she’d said until Douglas gave a bark of laughter and slapped his knee. Sloan felt as if the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland were going to materialize next if she didn’t get the situation under control. Since Noah seemed to be the only other relatively normal person at the table, she looked directly at him. “What I meant to say,” she explained very clearly and concisely, “is that you couldn’t have ‘crashed and burned’ because you weren’t even trying to—to—”
A flicker of amusement lit his gray eyes, “to get off the ground?”
“Exactly,” Sloan said emphatically. She’d been at the table for less than two minutes and she felt as if she’d already fought her way through a treacherous minefield. “Thank you,” she added feelingly.
Noah had intended to make an excuse to absent himself from the meal, but the beguiling gratitude on Sloan’s face changed his mind. “Don’t thank me yet. This could get worse.”
“I guess you weren’t in very good form last night, Noah,” Courtney concluded.
“I guess I wasn’t,” he said.
Courtney decided to switch to a more vulnerable target and aimed at Sloan. “Noah said you have a black belt in karate and that he saw you throw Carter on his ass—”
“That wasn’t karate,” Sloan interrupted, trying not to look shocked.
“What was it?”
“They were some martial arts moves taught in self-defense classes. They probably came from tae kwon do or jujitsu.”
“Do you know any karate?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a black belt?”
“I teach self-defense to women,” Sloan evaded. “As a volunteer.”
“Would you show me some moves so I can defend myself?”
“We’re the ones who need to defend ourselves from you,” Douglas said dryly.
Sloan was inclined to agree with him, but she couldn’t resist the irrepressible teenager. “Yes, if you’d like.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
Stalling for time, Sloan took a sip of water while she tried to think of some way to divert Courtney from the inquisition in which she clearly took unrestrained delight. She almost choked when Courtney helpfully suggested, “At this point, most people ask me what courses I’m taking at my school and what my college plans are.”
Sloan bit back a guilty laugh, looked away, and encountered Noah’s knowing gaze and sympathetic grin. She’d assumed he lived a life of elegant leisure, far above the stresses inflicted on ordinary humanity, and the realization that he had “to endure” the whims of a precocious teenager made him seem very human and very likable. Unaware that her expression had softened as much as her attitude, she smiled at him and then turned to Courtney. She wanted to say something that was true and not superficial, and after a moment, she said with quiet sincerity, “I’ll bet your IQ is off the scales.”
“You’re right. So is Noah’s. Now, where did you go last night? Where were you when you shot Noah down and he crashed and burned?”
“We went to the Ocean Club, and I didn’t do—” Sloan said desperately.
“We were on the dance floor,” Noah clarified piously. “I was trying my best to carry on a flirtation, and she volunteered to fix me up with a friend of hers.”
Douglas laughed out loud, and Courtney studied her with wide-eyed respect. “Are you really immune to his great looks and legendary wealth? Or—were you just playing hard to get?”
Mortified, Sloan looked at Noah, who waited to hear her answer.
“Don’t keep us in suspense, my dear,” Douglas prodded with an expectant grin.
The entire conversation was so outrageous that Sloan covered her face with her hands, leaned back in her chair, and started to laugh. She laughed so hard she made the others laugh, and when she tried to explain, the expressions on their faces made her laugh again. “I don’t . . . don’t know the first thing about flirting,” she told Courtney. “If I’d had a . . . a telephone, I’d have called my friend Sara from the dance floor . . . and asked her . . .”
“Asked her what?” Courtney said eagerly.
“I’d have asked her what I should say to a man who asks what he can do to . . . to impress me.”
“You mention jewelry,” Douglas promptly advised. “You bring up a diamond bracelet.”
That incredible suggestion sent Sloan into fresh peals of laughter. “Is that what wealthy Palm Beach women do?” she managed between giggles. No longer self-conscious, she lifted her gaze to Noah’s. “What would you have done if I’d . . . I’d mentioned a diamond bracelet?”
Noah looked at her soft, provocative mouth and l
“On second thought,” Douglas joked as he correctly interpreted Noah’s thoughts, “don’t bother with a bracelet, Sloan. You can go straight for a diamond necklace.”
Time passed very quickly after that. By the time the breakfast plates were being cleared away, Sloan felt almost as if she were a family friend, and much of that was due to Courtney. With democratic impartiality, the outspoken teenager had switched her attention from Sloan and aimed a series of equally impertinent, and frequently hilarious, comments at her father and then her brother. No one was spared, and by the end of the meal, her three victims had bonded with each other in shared helplessness, sympathy, and laughter.
In that short time, Sloan learned an amazing amount about both men from Courtney, including the fact that Noah had been married for three years to someone named Jordanna, who had supposedly soured him on marriage, and that two of Douglas’s wives had been Sloan’s age.
Courtney gave her father absolutely no quarter, and he let her get away with it, but Noah had limits, Sloan noticed, and those limits evidently involved his work. He ignored Courtney’s numerous gibes about his personal life and even some of the women he’d been involved with, but when she started to make a remark about his “business associates,” Noah’s jaw tightened and his voice turned ominous. “I wouldn’t go there, if I were you,” he warned her.
To Sloan’s surprise, the irrepressible fifteen-year-old stopped in midsentence and did not “go there.”
Claudine arrived with a coffeepot and started to refill Sloan’s cup, but Sloan looked at her watch and shook her head. “Those were the most delicious pancakes I’ve ever had,” she told the cook, and Claudine beamed at her. “I have to go,” she said to the others. “Everyone will be looking for me.”