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  “I’m not telling you anything, but I think he’s right about our staying here in this house. We should guard the body. If Phyllis wants to get something out of the freezer for dinner, we need to be here to stop her.”

  Ariel whirled on him. “Are you saying that we should stay here in this house all day and just wait?”

  “Isn’t that what R.J. said to do? He is—”

  “A businessman from New York,” Ariel said. “What does he know?” She held up the two one-hundred-dollar bills R.J. had left with the note. “Do you think this was all the money he had? Did he give us all of it and keep none for himself?”

  David made himself more comfortable on the couch, as though he meant to spend the day there. “I guess he thinks he can earn money anywhere, so he doesn’t need what he had secreted away. Remember that he and Sara are workers. You and I are …” He shrugged as though there was no description for them.

  “Worthless. Are you saying that you and I are worthless?”

  “Not at all. I’m sure that if anyone wanted to host a party, you’d be very valuable. But the fact that everyone on this island seems to hate us—”

  “Do they? Or have they been told to stay away from us?”

  “Same difference.”

  Ariel sat down on the end of the couch. The tips of David’s feet were under her thigh, but he didn’t move. He’d never seen her so upset. “Money!” she said in disgust. “Do you realize that money is the cause of all my problems?”

  David frowned. “Do you and Miss Pommy have money problems?”

  “Yes!” Ariel said. “She has it all and I have none. If I just had my own money, I could live my own life.” She stood up and David wiggled his toes. “She’s raised me to be as helpless as a footbound woman. My education, such as it is, has carefully prepared me for nothing whatever. I can set a table with twelve pieces of silverware by each plate. Did you know that I have never eaten a banana out of its peel in my life? Knife and fork only. Usually all fruit is cut up for me.”

  David was looking at her with interest. He didn’t know Ariel knew there was another way to eat a banana—or knew there was another way of life other than her own.

  “What can I do in life except marry some man and plan his dinner parties?”

  “I think there should be more of that in the world,” David said softly.

  “Oh, do shut up! You’re always thinking about your own future and what you want from a woman. Perfect wife; perfect parties. David, you are the most perfect person I’ve ever met.”

  “Me?” he said in disbelief. “You’re so perfect—”

  Ariel cut him off. “I want to do something. Be someone.”

  He sat up on the couch. “Excuse me for being stupid, but how does marrying R. J. Brompton achieve that?”

  “He’s strong. He’s independent. He’d tell my mother to get off my back, then he’d go to work and let me do what I want to do in my own life.”

  “Which is?” David asked with interest.

  Ariel sat back down on the couch. “That’s just it. I have no idea what I want to do.”

  “You could always earn some money for the next two days, so when you see Brompton next time you could throw his bills in his face. Unless we’re arrested for murder,” he added as an afterthought.

  “All my life I’ve lived in fear of my mother. She controls what I wear, what I eat, even who I marry, but right now, when I think of that body in the freezer, I wish she’d show up here. I think I’d run to her and throw my arms around her.”

  “And what do you think Miss Pommy would do when your mascara messed up her outfit? She’d be furious if she couldn’t get the makeup off her clothes.”

  “Makeup? Are you kidding? I don’t have any makeup on.”

  “Could have fooled me, but then you always look great.” David touched her forearm, his fingers beginning to climb upward.

  Suddenly, Ariel stood up. “Remember when we were in the pub? Remember that I told Sara I was going to make old Phyllis dress her age?”

  “I think she does dress her mental age.”

  Putting her hands on her hips, Ariel looked down at him. “That woman wants a man.”

  “I think she has a few of them.”

  “No, not like that. Think with something besides your lower extremities. She wants a husband, but what kind of ‘husband’ is she going to get wearing what she does?”

  “Bikers. Teenage boys.”

  “Right. Exactly.”

  David smiled. “I saw half a dozen women looking at you since we’ve been here.”

  “No, not me, at Sara. She has on the good clothes.” She looked down at her simple cotton slacks and cotton knit shirt. “These are reproductions of Sara’s clothes, but still …”

  “The clothes don’t matter. It’s you they were looking at. Ariel, you don’t realize what a presence you have, what style, how different you are from other women.”

  “Really?” she asked softly. “I’ve not been to places that other women have. I’ve always been cooped up with Mother.”

  “And who is more stylish than Miss Pommy?”

  “No one,” Ariel said. She looked at David. “Do you think that what I know is worth something?”

  “I think you could run a modeling agency in New York City. Or be editor in chief at Vogue.”

  She smiled. “What about on King’s Isle, North Carolina?”

  “I think the lines would be out the door. Just imagine the gossip you’d hear!” David had meant the comment as a joke, but the minute he said it, they looked at each other.

  “What do you think I could find out?” she whispered.

  “Anything. Everything. You could get the women to tell you what’s really going on.” He’d gone from laughing to serious. “Ariel, honey, exactly what can you do? Could you do one of those drugstore makeovers?”

  “I don’t know. I never thought about it before, but a lot of times when I see a woman I think about what she could wear or how she could do her hair to make her look better. Take Britney, for instance.”

  “Who?”

  “Britney. The woman you love. The one you stayed in Arundel for, remember?”

  David gave a little laugh. “Yeah, love of my life. Britney. What about her?”

  “She could be pretty if she tied her hair back and quit drawing that black liner on a quarter inch outside her eyes. And her mascara clumps too much. If she—”

  Ariel stopped talking because David put his hand to the back of her head and pulled her mouth to his. It was the first time he’d kissed her in any way except brotherly. It was a hard, firm kiss that let her know that he wasn’t her brother.

  When he broke off, he stood up, his back to her, and stretched. “I think I’ll take a shower, and when I get out, we’re going to see about getting this started.” He didn’t glance back at her until he was at the bathroom door. When he saw that Ariel was still sitting there, a shocked look on her face, he smiled. Sink or swim, he had decided to let her know how he felt about her.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “YOU PROMISE, RIGHT?” PHYLLIS SAID, looking at herself in the mirror. She had on half the makeup she usually wore, and was wearing a man’s shirt and trousers that, to her mind, looked too big. But she had to admit that she looked … different. Classy, almost.

  “I swear it,” Ariel said. “R. J. Brompton will put you up in New York for one week and he’ll introduce you to at least four eligible men. What happens after that is up to you.”

  “And Saks?”

  “A five-thousand-dollar shopping spree.”

  “With a stylist,” Phyllis said.

  Behind her, Ariel made her hands into claws, but smiled and nodded when Phyllis looked at her again.

  “I don’t know …” Phyllis said, looking back at the mirror. “I’m not sure how people would take it if I helped you.”

  “I understand,” Ariel said, straightening Phyllis’s cosmetics. She’d had to pound on the bedroom door to waken the woman from