Night Whispers by Judith McNaught
“Wait,” Courtney said, trying to forestall her departure. “Why did you learn martial arts?”
“To make up for my lack of height,” Sloan said lightly as she shoved her chair back and stood up; then she smiled down at her youthful hostess and said, “Thank you for the most memorable meal I’ve ever had. And thank you for making me feel like a member of your family.”
It registered on Sloan that Courtney actually seemed at a loss for words for the first time since she’d set eyes on Sloan, but she was distracted by Noah who stood up and said, “I’ll walk you home.”
In silence, Courtney and Douglas studied the pair as they strolled side by side across the lawn.
Propping her bare feet on Noah’s chair, Courtney crossed them at the ankles and wriggled her toes, studying the brownish red lacquer she’d applied to her toenails. “Well?” she said finally. “What do you think of Sloan now?”
“I think she’s lovely and utterly delightful,” Douglas replied. “I also think,” he added mildly as he stirred a spoonful of sugar into his coffee, “that you went beyond reasonable bounds with some of your comments. In the past, you’ve always exercised a modicum of restraint in front of strangers, but this morning, you didn’t.”
“I know,” Courtney cheerfully agreed. “I was great! Noah should double my allowance for what I accomplished today.”
“What do you think you accomplished?”
“It’s—like—so obvious! I made Sloan relax. She was uptight at first, and who could blame her? I mean, she doesn’t know anyone in Palm Beach; she doesn’t even know her own family. She’s lived in a small town her entire life, she doesn’t know how to flirt, and you can bet she’s never had any money.”
“I’m certain Carter provided very well for her mother and her.”
“Well, if you’d have been listening to the way she answered my questions, instead of staring at her big, beautiful-”
“Courtney!”
“—eyes. I was going to say ‘eyes,’ ” she said truthfully. “Anyway, if you’d have been listening instead of staring, you’d have found out that her mother works as a clerk in a boutique and Sloan went to a local college and worked part-time. Are you following me so far? Can you see where I’m going with all this?”
“Not yet, but I’m trotting along in your wake, trying to keep up.”
Courtney rolled her eyes at his obtuseness. “Considering all the stuff she revealed about herself, can you imagine how overwhelmed she must be by Noah? I mean, besides the fact that he’s tall, dark, gorgeous, and sexy, he is also rich and sophisticated. I went to a lot of trouble to make him seem more normal and approachable to her.”
“Ah, I see,” Douglas said dryly. “I suppose that explains why you found it necessary to refer to his ex-wife as ‘The Wicked Witch from the West’ and to imply that his mistress has buckteeth?”
“I never referred to Nicole as his mistress!” Courtney protested indignantly. “The word ‘mistress’ has an elitist sound to it that might have scared Sloan off. I referred to her as ‘Nicole.’ ”
She leaned forward to inspect a possible chip in her pedicure and sighed dramatically. “Poor Sloan. Noah is going to turn on the charm. He’ll take her out on one of the yachts, lavish her with attention, dazzle her with a trinket, and he’ll lure her into bed. She’ll fall for him, just like women always do; then she’ll find out he’s as hard as nails and the only thing he really cares about is making money. He’ll get too involved in ‘business’ to bother with her; she’ll sulk; he’ll get bored; then he’ll dump her and break her heart. You know,” she concluded cheerfully, “if I weren’t his loyal, devoted sister, I’d warn Sloan that he’s really a complete bastard!”
• • •
The shy self-consciousness that Sloan thought she’d overcome at breakfast began to return as he walked beside her, but Noah eased it by asking her if she liked to go sailing and then telling her about the time Douglas and Courtney nearly capsized in a storm off the coast of Nassau.
Two houses away from her father’s house, a group of youngsters were building a sand castle. The youngest, a chubby little toddler of about a year and a half was still unsteady on his feet and trying valiantly to keep up with two older boys as he ran to the surf with his pail. He careened past Sloan on his return trip, tripped, and fell, his water spilling on the sand.
“Need some help?” Sloan asked, crouching down to his level. Still clutching the handle of his pail in his fist, he rolled onto his rump, looked at her, and burst into wails of dismay. Sloan swept him up—baby, pail, and sand—and hugged him to her, laughing. “Don’t cry, little one,” she soothed, patting his back while the nanny, whom Sloan had spoken to earlier that morning, started forward and then stopped. “Don’t cry. We’ll help you.”
He quieted, rubbed a sandy fist in his eyes, and hiccuped. Sloan put him down and took his free hand in hers. “We’ll help you,” she promised again, and looked at Noah. “We will, won’t we?” she said.
Noah looked down into those beseeching pansy-blue eyes of hers and then at the baby’s hopeful brown ones. Silently, he reached for the pail. Sloan smiled at him. The baby smiled at him. His brain captured the moment like a snapshot.
He wanted her.
24
“Children are so much fun to be around,” Sloan said a few minutes later as they walked away from the sand castle that was still under construction, with ample water now.
“You are fun to be around,” he corrected her with a shrug that struck Sloan as significant.
“Thank you. Don’t you like children?”
“You’re welcome, and no I don’t.”
“Really?” The informality of their breakfast conversation caused Sloan to ask him a question that made her feel ill-mannered as soon as she asked it. “Is that why you’ve never had any children?”
“I was already twenty-five when Courtney was born, and she’s cured me of any illusions I might have had about wanting a child or about a child wanting me for a parent.”
“I didn’t mean to pry,” Sloan said sincerely. “I shouldn’t have asked that.”
“You may ask me anything you’d like, and I will be as honest and direct as I can. I’d prefer it that way.”
Since breakfast, Sloan had been mentally preparing to give flirting her best shot, but now he was asking for honesty and straightforwardness, and that was as alarming as it was impossible. “Okay,” she said lamely.
“That was your opportunity to assure me that I can ask you anything, and that you will also be honest and direct.”
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” Sloan said warily, and he gave a shout of laughter.
“Let’s try it out, shall we?” He put a detaining hand on her arm and stopped her behind the hedge that concealed her father’s fence at the beach.
“You mean, right now?”
“Right now.” With startling directness, he said, “I’d like to spend time with you while you’re here. Starting with tonight.”
“I can’t,” Sloan replied, sounding absurdly panicked to her own ears.
“Why not?”
“There are three very important reasons,” she said, getting control of her voice. “They are Paris, Paul, and Carter.”
“Paris told me last night that you’re not romantically involved with Paul. I am not romantically involved with Paris, and since none of us are romantically involved with Carter, I don’t see this as an obstacle.”
“I meant that I need to spend time with them.”
“We can work that out. Is there anything else in the way of our getting to know each other?”
“Like what?” Sloan asked evasively, but he saw through her ploy in an instant.
“Let’s not play games with each other. I’ve already played them all, and you wouldn’t enjoy them even if you knew how to play them.”
Stalling for time, Sloan looked at the small seashell she’d picked up on the beach and pretended to examine it. He waited in silence u
Sloan wondered how honest and refreshing he’d think she was if she told him the truth. What bothers me when I’m alone with you is that I’m not an interior designer, I’m a cop working under cover, and I’m not here to reunite with my father. I’m here to spy on him. Paul isn’t my friend; he’s an FBI agent who is here for the same reason. Oh, and by the way, he’d also like me to find out what I can about you. She wasn’t innocent and honest; in fact, she was probably the most deceitful person he’d ever met. She was also so attracted to him that her stomach knotted just thinking about how he’d react when he found out the truth.
“Are you attracted to me?” he asked bluntly.
Sloan had the distinct feeling he already knew the answer. “You know what,” she said shakily, “let’s not be too honest.”
He was still laughing when he leaned down and kissed her lightly on the mouth. “There, that’s out of the way. The first one is the hardest. Things will be easier now.”
Sloan stared at him, her mind reeling with disbelief and longing and dread.
• • •
Sloan half expected Noah to leave her at the back door, but he followed her inside. She could hear Paul’s voice followed by a burst of laughter that seemed strangely discordant in this house of stultifying dignity and dark wood. “It sounds like they’re all in the dining room,” she remarked to Noah as she followed the sounds down the hall.
The family had finished breakfast, and Paris was looking at an open photo album with Paul leaning over her shoulder. “That tennis racquet was almost as big as you were,” he remarked with a chuckle.
“She was three years old there,” Edith put in. “That’s the same age I was when I started my lessons.”
They looked up as Noah and Sloan walked in, and Carter’s smile froze. “Have you two been together all morning?”
“My father and Courtney waylaid Sloan on the beach and forced her to have breakfast with us,” Noah said smoothly.
Carter relaxed, his good humor restored. “Better watch out for Douglas, Sloan. He’s quite a ladies’ man.”
Edith was never completely good-humored, Sloan noted as the old woman gave Noah a dark look. “You ought to put a muzzle on that child, Noah. Her manners are atrocious.”
“She’s lonely and bored,” Sloan contradicted gently. “She’s extremely bright, she doesn’t know anyone here, and she’s surrounded by adults. Her only diversion is to shock and annoy. Children do that.” In apology for having openly disagreed with her, Sloan patted Edith’s shoulder and said, “Good morning, Great-grandmother.”
The old lady’s scowl relaxed into its habitual but less daunting frown. “Good morning,” she replied stiffly.
“Sloan is very fond of children,” Noah put in, helping himself to a cup of coffee from the silver pot on the sideboard. “Even Courtney.”
“I don’t like children,” Edith bluntly reminded him. “You and I have that in common, as I recall.”
“We do indeed,” Noah agreed.
“That has been my only objection to you marrying Paris.”
That very personal remark caused the servant at the sideboard to back out of the room through a side door, and Sloan decided to follow his lead. “I need to wash up,” she said, making the first excuse that came to mind as she backed through the archway into the main hall. “I got maple syrup on my fingers when I picked up the pitcher. Excuse me.”
Paul stood up. “I need to get something out of my car,” he said, but when he walked out of the dining room, he went only as far as the living room across the hall. Picking up a magazine from the coffee table, he thumbed through it.
“I’m quite serious, Noah,” Edith said severely in the dining room. “I haven’t survived for ninety-five years only to see my family line come to an end with Paris.”
“Aren’t you forgetting about Sloan?” Noah asked in an attempt to simultaneously remind her that Sloan was part of the family and avoid a discussion of nonexistent marital plans between Paris and him.
“I did forget about Sloan,” she admitted, looking slightly chastened. “I suppose I haven’t known her long enough to automatically think of her in that way; however you’re quite right.”
Noah was perfectly satisfied with her answer, but Carter’s next remark set off a chain reaction of surprise followed by an instantaneous blast of anger: “Whether Sloan has children or not, she can never carry on the family line,” Carter said curtly. “The idea is preposterous. She doesn’t know anything about being a Reynolds, and it’s thirty years too late to begin teaching her. Her children will reflect her own upbringing, her own values, not ours.”
“She could learn,” Paris put in bravely.
“I didn’t ask your opinion, Paris. Although you may already regard her as a full-fledged member of our family, no one else will. Our friends don’t know her, they’ve never even heard of her, and they’d never accept—”
“I have a solution for your problem, Carter,” Noah interrupted with an edge to his voice. “What are your plans for tonight?”
“I haven’t made any specific plans for evenings while Sloan and Paul are here,” he said, taken aback by Noah’s tone. “I assumed Paris and you would probably want to spend some of your evenings with them going out on the town and doing whatever it is you young people like to do.”
“Good. Since no one has made specific plans for tonight, you can give a party to introduce Sloan to your friends and make damned certain they accept her.”
“Impossible,” Carter scoffed, already shaking his head in the negative.
“Imperative,” Noah contradicted coolly. “The longer you delay, the more conjecture there will be about her and about why you’re afraid for people to meet her. My father has undoubtedly mentioned her to his friends, and word will spread like wildfire.”
“Be reasonable! She’s only going to be here for two weeks, and then she’ll be gone. Besides, I think the ordeal of a party would be too stressful for her.”
“She’ll just have to bear up under the strain,” Noah said with thinly veiled sarcasm.
“I think a party for Sloan is a terrific idea,” Paris said, flinching a little under her father’s icy stare but refusing to lower her gaze.
“Paris,” he warned in a withering voice, “your attitude is beginning to annoy—”
“You are always annoyed when you’re wrong, Carter,” Edith said. “I happen to agree with Noah and Paris. We must give a party to introduce Sloan to everyone, and the sooner the better.”
“Fine,” he said, throwing up his hands; then he retaliated against Paris by coolly pointing out to her the negative results of her unprecedented opposition to him. “You said you wanted to spend as much time as possible with Sloan while she’s here. Instead of that, you’re going to have to spend it organizing a party which she isn’t going to enjoy, and getting out invitations to people who will come to gape at her but who won’t accept her.”
“They’ll accept her,” Noah said icily, “if you act as if you expect them to. If you’re afraid you don’t have enough influence to ensure that, then I’ll be happy to lend my influence at the party, since we know all the same people.” Having thrown down the gauntlet, Noah softened his voice and looked at Paris. “You won’t need to give up any of your time with Sloan, Paris. I’ll have Mrs. Snowden arrange the party and handle all the details.
“Paris, I assume you have a party guest list of some sort that you can give me?” She nodded, and he said, “Fine, then all you have to do is tell your staff to get the house ready today, and I’ll have Mrs. Snowden do everything else.”
“I shall handle the staff,” Edith announced. “Sloan and Paris can spend the day getting their hair done, and whatever else it is young women do that takes all day when there’s a special party to at
Sloan walked in just as Edith spoke, and she looked in confusion from Paris’s smile to Carter’s glower. “Are we going to a party?” she asked when everyone stopped talking and looked at her.
“We’re giving a party for you and it’s going to be wonderful!” Paris exclaimed. “Noah, thank you so much for volunteering Mrs. Snowden. I’m afraid she’ll have to handle invitations by telephone.”
“Mrs. Snowden enjoys a challenge.”
“I really don’t need a party,” Sloan ventured cautiously. “I don’t want anyone to go to any trouble for me.”
Carter looked at the other three. “I told you she’d feel that way,” he said triumphantly.
Sloan was about to reinforce Carter’s opinion when Noah arrogantly informed her, “This isn’t your decision to make. It is appropriate for your family to introduce you to their friends, and a party is the ideal way to do it.”
Sloan sensed the hostile undercurrents between the two men and couldn’t imagine how a simple party could have caused it. She considered ignoring Noah’s order to keep her opinions to herself, but Paris looked so excited that Sloan couldn’t bring herself to make another protest, and Edith looked so stubborn that she knew there wasn’t any point in making one.
“In that case,” she told Noah with an uncertain smile, “I’d like Courtney to be invited.” When he nodded, she decided to retreat from the discussion and the room, and she looked at Paris. “I think I’ll go upstairs and take a shower.”
Paris slid back her chair and stood up. “I keep our guest lists and Christmas card lists and all that on the computer. I’ll get a guest list for you right now,” she told Noah. To Sloan’s surprised pleasure, Paris caught up with her in the doorway, slipped her arm through Sloan’s, and said, “This is going to be so much fun! We’ll do a little shopping this morning, get our hair done, have a massage. Paul said he had some errands to do . . .”