True Love Read online

  Jared didn’t know whether to be impressed or disgusted. He was leaning toward the latter.

  He tried to fortify his courage as he started down the hall toward the front parlor. He and Aunt Addy used to laugh about people who marveled that Jared was never intimidated by anyone in the business world. Even when he was a young architect just starting out, he’d never been nervous when going into a meeting.

  “That’s because you’ve spent so much time around Victoria,” Aunt Addy said. “She has a way of making most people do what she wants. If you can handle Victoria, you can handle the world.”

  When Jared got to the doorway, he halted and looked at the scene. Sitting in the center of the couch was the beautiful Victoria. As always, she was perfect. Her glorious red hair was artfully messy, arranged to look as though she’d just stepped out of a breeze. Her green eyes, with their thick black lashes, managed to look at once seductive and innocent. And her body … He knew from having spent a lot of his life near her that to keep the shape she’d been born with she worked out as hard as a professional bodybuilder. But she managed to look as though she was unaware of her extraordinary figure.

  Four men surrounded her, all of them leaning forward as Victoria lounged back on the cushions. Aunt Addy’s good tea set was on the table, the cups filled, and there were pretty plates full of tiny sandwiches, cakes, cookies, pastries. Jared would have bet his next year’s salary that Victoria hadn’t done anything to prepare the tea.

  He was about to step forward when, turning, he saw his grandfather standing to the side. To Jared the man was as clear as sunlight, but no one else seemed able to see him. When Caleb looked up, what Jared saw made him draw in his breath.

  On his face was an expression of absolute love. Melting, soul-touching, raw, unbridled love, the kind a person dies for, sacrifices and suffers for. It was the kind of love that a person would wait two hundred years to see fulfilled. It was True Love in its purest form.

  Jared’s face must have registered what he’d seen, because in an instant, Caleb removed that love-struck look from his face. He showed his grandson his devil-may-care half smile, then was gone in a flash.

  “My darling Jared,” came Victoria’s voice. “You’re here at last.”

  Jared cursed his luck and his life, and gave a prayer for help, all at the same time. When he turned to face her, he was smiling.

  When Victoria engulfed him in her arms, he couldn’t help feeling glad to see her. She was kissing his whisker-stubbled cheeks and running her pretty hands over his long hair.

  “Is all this for my Alix?” Victoria asked. “She has always liked the motorcycle-gang look. Or is it Nantucket fisherman that she’s grown to like?”

  “I think it’s dirty architect,” he said as she slid her arm through his and he let her lead him toward the couch. Reluctantly, the other men made way.

  “Yes, my Alix would love that. You know everyone, don’t you?”

  Jared looked from one man to another. Yes, he knew them all. He gave looks to the three married ones to let them know they should leave—which they did, leaving only Dr. Huntley, who looked as though he’d taken root.

  “What a bad boy you are,” Victoria said to Jared after she’d said goodbye to the other men, her eyes laughing. “Freddy was just telling me how he and Alix had such a lovely time together. I had no idea you and she were looking into the family history.”

  Jared swallowed. He was going to tell Victoria as little as possible.

  Freddy—a.k.a. Dr. Frederick C. Huntley—sipped his tea. “Young Alix was looking for Valentina.”

  “Oh, yes,” Victoria said. “The elusive Valentina. Did she make any progress?”

  “None at all,” Jared said, putting a large cream tart in his mouth.

  Victoria smiled at him in a way that said she would eventually get everything out of him. She made Jared want to run upstairs and hide. Or maybe to grab Alix and fly back to New York.

  She turned to Dr. Huntley. “Freddy, you’ll have to tell me everything on your next visit.”

  “Oh,” Dr. Huntley said and it took him a moment to realize he was being dismissed. Quickly, he put his cup down, took one more sandwich, and stood up to say goodbye.

  As soon as they were alone, Jared gave a yawn. “I’ve been up for hours, I think I’ll—”

  “Jared, darling,” Victoria said, “we need to talk.”

  He stood up. “Sure, it’s just that your visit was unexpected and I have a lot of things I need to get done. If you’d told me you were coming—as you seem to have told the entire island—I could have blocked out some time. As it is …” He couldn’t think how to lengthen the lie. He took a step toward the doorway.

  “I want to know what your intentions are toward my daughter.”

  Jared looked back, his face showing surprise. “You want to know about Alix? And me?”

  “Yes, of course. That’s why I came. I know you warned me not to and I plan to be a quiet little mouse while I’m here, but I absolutely must know about my dear daughter.”

  Jared gave a pointed look at what had to be half a dozen flower displays about the room. This was being “a quiet little mouse.”

  “Oh, well,” she said with a wave of her hand. “I didn’t arrive on a yacht.”

  “Not this time.”

  Victoria smiled sweetly and patted the seat beside her. “Please sit down, Jared darling, I haven’t seen you in months and Kenneth has been his usual beastly self and won’t tell me anything about my own daughter. And look at this.” She reached under the couch and pulled out a white box that he recognized. “I saved these just for us, and …” She removed a bottle of twenty-five-year-old rum from behind a cushion. “This is to spice up Addy’s blasted tea. What do you say? Downyflake doughnuts and rum?”

  Jared shook his head. “Victoria, I swear you could charm the devil.” He sat back down on the couch beside her.

  “From what I’ve been hearing about you with my daughter, that’s just what you are. You aren’t planning to run back to New York and leave her behind, are you? Alix isn’t like me. She’s as serious as her father.”

  “No,” Jared said as he took the cup of tea she offered. It was half rum. “I’m not planning to leave Alix.”

  Victoria smiled. “Does she know that?”

  “I’ve dropped enough hints, so she should.”

  “Hmmm,” Victoria said as she broke off a tiny piece of doughnut and delicately nibbled at it. “We women aren’t good at hints. We like solid declarations of love and forever.”

  Jared put his cup to his mouth.

  “And we like rings,” Victoria said. “Anything but an emerald, and size five.”

  “Victoria,” Jared said, “I think I’m old enough to make decisions about certain aspects of my own life.”

  “Of course you are, darling, it’s just that I love you and Alix so much. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do,” Jared said. “I’ll take care of Alix, I promise.”

  “Isn’t she wonderful?” Victoria said. “I don’t know how Ken and I were able to produce a child who is the best of both of us. Are you impressed with her talent as an architect?”

  “Very much so.”

  “Ken said he’s building a chapel that Alix designed. Here, let me fill your cup, and have another doughnut. You do look tired and now that I’m here I’m going to help you with whatever you need.”

  Between the rum and the sugar Jared was beginning to relax. “Victoria, I don’t know where Aunt Addy’s journals are.”

  Victoria took in a breath, her hand to her remarkable bosom with its six inches of cleavage showing. “Is that why you think I came here? Jared, my dearest boy, I thought you knew me better than that. You’re looking at me as though you’re afraid that I might … Well, that I might tear apart the house searching for them. Pry up the floorboards or something dreadful like that.” There were tears gathering in her eyes, which made the emerald green of them shine even brighter. “Did you thin