Page 4 of One Last Night

“Black maple, actually. I thought it was mahogany too.” She laughs. “You should have seen Julian’s face turn red when I told him that. You would have thought I called it cheap plywood.”

That’s the second time she points out a disagreement with her son. I wonder if this is how they show affection or if there’s truly conflict between them.

Not your business, Mary. You’re here for the children.

“The first floor is the living room—Irefuseto call it a parlor—the dining room, kitchen, and the great room. That's where we entertain. The children take to school in the den on the other side of the great room. It used to be Parker's study, but after he passed, I saw no need to keep a bunch of old books and a massive globe that showed the world as it was two hundred years ago."

Once more, I don’t know how to respond to that.

“The servants are on the third floor, but I’ve given you the guest room on the second floor so you can be close to the children. They’re sixteen years old, so I doubt they’ll have nightmares or anything like that, but I’m sure they’ll appreciate having you close. I understand you’re an excellent confidant.”

“I try to be,” I say modestly.

Victoria tells me about the house, but she doesn’t bother to lead me to any of the rooms. Instead, she leads me straight through the foyer and the great room—a truly impressive structure with a gorgeous crystal chandelier—and out into the vineyard beyond.

She turns to me with a gleam in her eye, and it’s clear that this is the true source of Victoria Bellamy’s pride. “Aren’t they gorgeous?”

I look at the rows of vines, their grapes swollen nearly to bursting. They are beautiful. In every academic and aesthetic sense of the word, the rows of Chardonnay, Riesling and Pinot Noir are breathtaking.

But as my eyes travel over the sinuous tendrils crawling over the stakes and lattices of their supports, I am reminded that in the wild, grapes are parasites, clinging tightly to other plants and burdening them with the weight of their prolific bunches of fruit.

“They’re lovely,” I tell her.

She takes my hand and—giddy as a schoolgirl—leads me into the first row. I nearly cry out when the lattices overhead block the sunlight.

“These are my Chardonnay,” she explains. “My favorite white varietal. It’s often called the red wine of white wines. Don’t tell Julian I said that, though. He gets all huffy about things like that.”

She leads me to another row and says, “The next several rows are Riesling. I don’t enjoy them as much, but they make for very popular wines, and they growsowell out here, so it makes business sense to reserve some acreage for them. The Pinot Noir is on the far end, but we’ve already harvested those. Usually the Chardonnay is the first to ripen, but ours are a unique cultivar that matures later in the season.” She grins at me, “And believe me, Mary, it issoworth it.”

Her love for her work eases some of the disquiet I feel, but I am still grateful when we return to the house. “I’ll show you more later,” she tells me. “And I justknowwe’ll spend a lot of time among my grapes. But you’ve had a long drive, so I’ll let you get settled and get some rest before dinner.” She squeezes my hand. “Welcome to the family, Mary.”

“Thank you, Victoria. I look forward to meeting your grandchildren.”

I head upstairs to my room. Fortunately, Grant is there, perhaps knowing that his employer will forget to tell me where it is. I thank him for his help, but though he really is easy on the eyes, I am very relieved when the door closes, and I am alone.

I sit on the edge of my bed and try not to fixate on the vines. The image of spiders is gone, replaced by the sinuous and far more venomous image of snakes slithering through the shadows.

CHAPTER TWO

I take Victoria’s advice and rest for a few hours. Then I unpack my luggage and enjoy a brief call with Sean where he carefully avoids mention of the letters on my bed at home and I carefully avoid mention of the disquiet I felt earlier in the day.

I am in a better state of mind when Grant fetches me for dinner. There’s nothing sinister about grapevines, and while they might be parasites, they’re not the sort that kills plants or leeches resources from them. Victoria and her son might not see eye to eye on everything, but find me the family that does, and I’ll find you a family that’s lying.

Victoria is waiting for me in the great room. Three others are with her, a tall man in his early forties with curly ash-blonde hair and piercing gray eyes set in an austere but handsome face and two children who share their father’s piercing gray eyes but carry them underneath straight hair that is flaming red.

The children are identical in nearly every sense. In fact, the only visible difference between them is that one is a boy and the other a girl. They have the same upturned noses—another trait they must have inherited from their mother, since Julian has his mother’s aquiline nose—the same high cheekbones and the same sloping shoulders.

They regard me with the same serious expression too. From what I understand, their previous tutor was with them for ten years. It might be some time before they welcome me into their family as easily as their grandmother did.

Julian steps forward and extends his hand. He smiles, and the look drives the austerity from his face. “Julian Bellamy. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Wilcox.”

"It's wonderful to meet you, too," I reply. "And this must be Nathan and Luann.”

The children bow formally. I laugh and return a curtsy of my own. “A pleasure to meet the two of you as well. I look forward to getting to know you.”

Luann manages a smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Mary.”

Nathan offers neither a smile nor a greeting, but that’s all right. It’s common for one child to be more outgoing and the other to be more reserved. Even identical twins aren’t ever completely identical.

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