First Impressions Read online

  Chapter Eleven

  “I’M going to have it put on a brass plaque and framed,” Brad said, leaning back in his chair and smiling across the table at Eden. “ ‘Nature tamed, trained, and enclosed.’ Marvelous. Perfect. What was the other one?”

  “ ‘Geometric symmetry within an enclosed space,’ ” Jared said, looking at Minnie.

  “Not a word I said was original,” Eden protested, but she was pleased with Brad’s praise. She gave him a mock look of anger. “As for you, you owe me big time. An impromptu speech! On material I haven’t looked at in twenty years.”

  “You were magnificent,” Brad said, looking at her in awe. “If that’s what you do off-the-cuff, I can’t imagine what you’d do if you had time to really prepare a speech. I want to hear everything that led up to that speech,” he said as the waitress gave them their drinks. “From beginning to end. All of it. How did you figure out exactly which way to slant your speech?”

  Eden played with the straw in her margarita. “It was the diamonds on the woman in the first row. The one with the streaked hair.”

  “Mrs. Wainwright. This is one of four houses she owns. She wants to be here because she’s heard that some formerly famous people are buying into Queen Anne.”

  “Right. Rich. I stood at that podium and looked at the audience and thought, How can I sell the idea of gardens that are expensive to install and even more expensive to maintain to a bunch of people who, for the most part, couldn’t care less what was planted in front of their houses? I’m sure they’d be happy with two paper bark birches and some petunias.”

  “You made it into a competition,” Jared said, taking a drink of his McTarvit single malt whiskey.

  “It was an excellent idea, and, judging by the response, it’s going to work,” Minnie said, her eyes never leaving Jared.

  “What I had originally planned was to try to sell them on the idea that eighteenth-century gardens were pretty and practical, but they’re not. They’re a pain in the neck. Everything is enclosed and orderly, and you can’t use a Weedwhacker anywhere.”

  “You were brilliant,” Brad said in admiration.

  Eden sipped her drink and basked in the praise. As soon as she’d stood before that audience of rich people she’d known that the speech she’d planned was useless. She’d meant to try to persuade them that an eighteenth-century-style garden was as easy to take care of as an American lawn with a few trees stuck in it. But when she looked at them, she remembered what McBride had said about snobs, and she’d decided to play on that snobbery. Who in their right mind today would want a garden that was going to take an army of strong young men to take care of? Gardens such as no one outside of historical parks would want? They’d be expensive to install, what with adorable little outbuildings with lead roofs, bricked pathways, and trees that Thomas Jefferson would have known. No one in their right mind would want a garden that close to being historically accurate.

  When Eden had seen the eyes of her audience as she said that no one would want such a garden, she knew she was on the right track. She hadn’t been aware of it, but her fear in all this had been dealing with the clients. She didn’t relish trying to please some woman who had too much money and too much time on her hands. She didn’t want to think about trying to talk them into putting in a garden that was nothing like a modern American “yard.” Worse, she didn’t want to have to deal with them later when they found out that the gardens were only beautiful when they were well and carefully maintained.

  But when she’d warned the audience that the gardens were a pain, she saw eyebrows lift. For the most part, these were people who had achieved a lot in their lives. Senators, a former governor, two CEOs, men and women who’d been everywhere and seen everything, according to what Minnie had told her just before she went onstage. Yet they’d stepped down and were, for the most part, now retired. When Eden saw by their faces that she was challenging them, in essence dropping a red flag in front of them, she continued telling them that under no circumstances should they install an eighteenth-century–style garden.

  After her speech, Eden had hoped for one or two people to stop at her table, but she got a line that ran out of the door and into the next room. She was handed cards of people whose names made her blink in recognition, and she was asked to call to make a date to talk about what she could do for them.

  “Dolley Madison,” one woman said. “Anything that Dolley liked, that’s what I want. Can you do that?” Eden said she’d try.

  “I want something that Mount Vernon will envy,” another woman said. “Can you make me a greenhouse like the one they have?”

  Eden stared at the woman. The Mount Vernon greenhouse, designed by George Washington, was magnificent—and very expensive. “I’m sure we could,” Eden managed to say.

  Another woman, with skin lined by years of sun, leaned forward and whispered, “The best. That’s what I want. The best. I don’t care what it costs, I just want the best in the whole place. Can you do that?” Eden opened her mouth to say that she could, then she closed it and smiled. “Every woman here has asked for the same thing from me. What I can promise you is that you will have a garden that is different from anyone else’s on earth.”

  “I guess that’ll have to do,” the woman said, obviously disappointed.

  By the end of the long session, Eden had made it appear that if she designed a garden for anyone she was doing that person a favor—and she hoped she could keep up the charade. She didn’t want to be put in the position of having to argue with these people about what could and could not be put in the gardens.

  Throughout her consultations Jared McBride had watched her and had continued talking on his cell phone. Twice he seemed to be arguing with someone, frowning and gesturing.

  Now, at dinner, Brad said, “You were great,” then he looked at Jared and Minnie for agreement.

  “The best,” Minnie said, looking at Jared adoringly.

  Jared lifted his glass to Eden. “I was impressed,” he said softly, and Eden blushed with the praise.

  “To Eden,” Brad said, lifting his glass.

  “To the eighteenth century,” she said.

  “To Queen Anne, who gave her life so others could use her name,” Jared said.

  “To bringing in a profit,” Minnie said, then they all laughed, clinked glasses, and drank.

  It was a lovely dinner, Eden thought as she sat in the car beside Jared. Right now, Eden couldn’t feel any anger toward him, as they’d all had such a good time. There’d been no animosity, no lightly veiled threats about who owned whom, no tension. They’d just talked and laughed all evening. There had been a heated discussion about Princess Diana’s death in which Jared had said little, which made her think he knew more than he was telling. Twice, Brad had made halfhearted attempts to get McBride to talk about his experiences as a cop before he retired and moved to Arundel, but Jared wouldn’t tell. He was good at skimming the issue and telling nothing.

  It was Jared who brought up the story of the sapphires.

  “That old saw?” Brad asked. “Everyone knows that old man Minton sold the necklace.”

  “I thought that was a secret!” Eden gasped. “Mrs. Farrington told me that only those in her family knew the truth.”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Brad said, confused. “Only the family knows.”

  “The family!” Minnie said, looking like she wanted to pull her hair out. “The family. I hate the thing! Marrying into one of ‘the families’ in Arundel is like being initiated into the Mafia.”

  “Being part of it got you a place to live,” Brad said calmly. Obviously, he didn’t take aspersions of the family lightly.

  “Not fair,” Eden cried. “I was given a place to live when I was desperate, but I’m not part of the family.”

  “I think you were,” Brad said. “Everyone knew about Mrs. Farrington’s son, so I think they looked on you as a gift from God. Your daughter became the grandchild that Mrs. Farrington was never going to have. And i