Page 35 of Irish Rose
Automatically Erin put her hands behind her back. “What is it?”
“It’s a present, of course. Aren’t you going to take it?”
“There’s no need for you to give me presents.”
“No, but I didn’t think of it as a need.” Pride was something Adelia understood too well. Her own had been bruised repeatedly. “I’d like you to have it, Erin, from all of us as a kind of welcome to a new place. When I came here I had only Uncle Paddy. I think I understand now how happy it made him to share with me. Please.”
“I don’t mean to seem ungrateful.”
“Good, then you’ll pretend to like it even if you don’t.” Dee sat on the bed and gestured with both hands. “Open it. I’ve never been long on patience.”
Erin hesitated only another moment, then laid the box on the bed to draw off the top. Under a cushion of tissue paper was dark green silk. “Oh. What a color.”
“It’s expected today. Well, take it out,” she demanded. “I’m dying to see if it’s right on you.”
Cautiously Erin touched the silk with her fingertips, then lifted the dress from the box. The material draped softly in the front and simply fell away altogether in the back to a slim skirt. Dee rose to hold the dress in front of her cousin.
“I knew it!” she said, and her face lit up. “I was sure it was right. Oh, Erin, you’ll be dazzling.”
“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” Almost reverently she brushed her fingers over the skirt. “It feels like sin.”
“Aye.” Then, with a laugh, Dee stepped back for a better viewpoint. “It’ll look like it, too. There won’t be a man able to keep his eyes in his head.”
“You’re kinder to me than I deserve.”
“Probably.” Gathering up the box, she handed it to Erin. “Go put it on, fuss with yourself awhile.”
Erin kissed her cheek. Then, letting her feelings spread, she gave her cousin a hard, laughing hug. “Thank you. I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”
“Take your time.”
Erin paused at the door. “No, the sooner I have it on, the longer I can wear it.”
The party was already underway when Burke drove up. He’d nearly bypassed it altogether. Restless and edgy, he’d thought about driving up to Atlantic City, placing a few bets, spinning a few wheels. That was his milieu, he told himself, casinos with bright lights, back rooms with dim ones. A party with the racing class, with their old money and closed circles, wasn’t his style.
He told himself he was here because of the Grants. The fact that Erin would be there hadn’t swayed him. So he told himself. Since their last encounter he’d nearly talked himself out of believing there was something between them. Oh, a spark, certainly, a frisson, a lick or two of flame, but that was all. That overwhelming and undesirable feeling that there was something deeper, something truer, had only been his imagination.
He hadn’t come tonight to prove that, either. So he told himself.
It was Travis who let him in. Burke could hear voices raised in the living and dining rooms along with the piping Irish music that set the tone.
“Dee was worried about you.” Travis closed the door on the nippy mid-March air outside.
“I had a few things to see to.”
“No problems?”
“No problems,” Burke assured him. But if that was true, he wondered why his shoulders were tensed, why he felt ready to jump in any direction.
“You’ll know just about everyone here,” Travis was saying as he led him into the living room.
“You’ve got quite a crowd,” Burke murmured, and was already searching through it, though he didn’t move beyond the doorway.
“I think you’ll see that Dee’s outdone herself in more ways than one.” With the slightest gesture, Travis had Burke’s gaze traveling to the far end of the room and Erin.
He hadn’t known she could look like that, coolly sexy, polished. She was sipping champagne and laughing over the rim of her glass at Lloyd Pentel, heir to one of the oldest and most prestigious farms in Virginia. Flanking her were two more men he recognized. Third- and fourth-generation racing barons, with Ivy League educations and practiced moves. Burke felt his blood heat as one of them leaned close to murmur something in her ear.
Both amused and sympathetic, Travis laid a hand on Burke’s shoulder. “Beer?”
