“He’s out exploring the island. He’s an early riser.”
“I understand you like to ride. We have a fine stable here.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Blackwell. I’ll just wander around, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course not.” Kate turned back to Tony. “Are you sure you won’t change your mind about taking Miss Wyatt for a sail?” There was steel in her voice.
“I’m s-sure.”
It was a small victory, but it was a victory nevertheless. The battle was joined, and Tony had no intention of losing it. Not this time. His mother no longer had the power to deceive him. She had used him as a pawn once, and he was fully aware she was planning to try it again; but this time she would fail. She wanted the Wyatt Oil & Tool Company. Charlie Wyatt had no intention of merging or selling his company. But every man has a weakness, and Kate had found his: his daughter. If Lucy were to marry into the Blackwell family, a merger of some kind would become inevitable. Tony looked across the breakfast table at his mother, despising her. She had baited the trap well. Lucy was not only beautiful, she was intelligent and charming. But she was as much of a pawn in this sick game as Tony was, and nothing in the world could induce him to touch her. This was a battle between his mother and himself.
When breakfast was over, Kate rose. “Tony, before your phone call comes in, why don’t you show Miss Wyatt the gardens?”
There was no way Tony could refuse graciously. “All right.” He would make it short.
Kate turned to Charlie Wyatt. “Are you interested in rare books? We have quite a collection in the library.”
“I’m interested in anything you want to show me,” the Texan said.
Almost as an afterthought, Kate turned back to Marianne Hoffman. “Will you be all right, dear?”
“I’ll be fine, thank you, Mrs. Blackwell. Please don’t worry about me.”
“I won’t,” Kate said.
And Tony knew she meant it. Miss Hoffman was of no use to Kate, and so she dismissed her. It was done with a light charm and a smile, but beneath it was a single-minded ruthlessness that Tony detested.
Lucy was watching him. “Are you ready, Tony?”
“Yes.”
Tony and Lucy moved toward the door. They were not quite out of earshot when Tony heard his mother say, “Don’t they make a lovely couple?”
The two of them walked through the large, formal gardens toward the dock where the Corsair was tied up. There were acres and acres of wildly colored flowers staining the summer air with their scent.
“This is a heavenly place,” Lucy said.
“Yes.”
“We don’t have flowers like these in Texas.”
“No?”
“It’s so quiet and peaceful here.”
“Yes.”
Lucy stopped abruptly and turned to face Tony.
He saw the anger in her face. “Have I said something to offend you?” he asked.
“You haven’t said anything. That’s what I find offensive. All I can get out of you is a yes or a no. You make me feel as though I’m—I’m chasing you.”
“Are you?”
She laughed. “Yes. If I could only teach you to talk, I think we might have something.”
Tony grinned.
“What are you thinking?” Lucy asked.
“Nothing.”
He was thinking of his mother, and how much she hated losing.
Kate was showing Charlie Wyatt the large, oak-paneled library. On the shelves were first editions of Oliver Goldsmith, Laurence Sterne, Tobias Smollett and John Donne, along with a Ben Jonson first folio. There was Samuel Butler and John Bun-yan, and the rare 1813 privately printed edition of Queen Mab. Wyatt walked along the shelves of treasures, his eyes gleaming. He paused in front of a beautifully bound edition of John Keats’s Endymion.
“This is a Roseberg copy,” Charlie Wyatt said.
Kate looked at him in surprise. “Yes. There are only two known copies.”
“I have the other one,” Wyatt told her.
“I should have known,” Kate laughed. “That ‘good ol’ Texas boy’ act you put on had me fooled.”
Wyatt grinned. “Did it? It’s good camouflage.”
“Where did you go to school?”
“Colorado School of Mining, then Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship.” He studied Kate a moment. “I’m told it was you who got me invited to that White House conference.”