spent her childhood in appeared before her like a mountain, all red bricks and white columns and black shutters. The place was a real show-stopper: twenty-one rooms on five acres smack dab in the middle of Greenwich.
The estate had been bought by their father when Value Shop Supermarkets had gone public in the seventies and it was just the kind of mansion you’d expect a business magnate to live in: big money even in a wealthy zip code.
Personally, she’d always liked the lawn best. It was great for catching fireflies and doing cartwheels. As for the rest of it—the pristine facade and the formal rooms and the decorator style and the antiques—that kind of stuff she could cheerfully leave at the side of the road. There was something about engineered beauty that made her nervous.
Probably because it was just such a cover-up in their case. Subterfuge for the ugly dysfunction within the family.
As she went around the circular drive, there were a number of cars parked in front of the house and not much room. She ended up easing the Viper in between a Mercedes the size of an elephant and a vintage, mouse-like MGB convertible. After turning off her car, she picked her duffel bag up from the passenger seat, got out, and realized she wasn’t breathing again.
Looking to the sky, she wondered whether there was a patron saint for flinchy younger half sisters? Probably not.
So instead of praying, she decided to lead with the false confidence routine, squaring her shoulders and marching up to the house as though she had a backbone thick as a red oak.
The butler who answered the front door was someone she’d never seen before, but she recognized the formal dress. Her father had always made the staff wear uniforms and evidently so too did Richard.
“Yes?” the man said. His voice was as precise as his tidy gray hair. Matter of fact, he kind of looked like a living doll, all perfectly arranged. Eyes were even a little beady, too, though not unkind.
“I’m Richard’s half sister, Madeline. Madeline Maguire.” She felt like flashing a picture ID.
“Oh—ah, you are expected.” Although clearly not what he had expected. “May I take your bag to your room?”
“Thanks. Are they already seated for dinner?”
“Yes.” He hesitated as he took her bag. “But…perhaps you’d like to change before going in?”
“No.” She was late enough already.
She thanked him again and went to face the lions. By the volume of talk coming out of the dining room, she figured there were probably twenty people tonight. Not a surprise. Her father had always said that was a good number. Intimate enough so there could be a single conversation over the table; public enough so that rivalries could be diffused.
The moment she came into the dining room’s archway, Richard looked up from the head of the table. Somehow, it was a shock to seen him, even though he hadn’t changed at all.
No, she thought, he was just the same. Still pale-haired, tanned, fit…with eyes like motion detectors. When Richard looked at you, you weren’t so much stared at as surveilled.
While the conversation at the table dimmed, his eyes flicked over her, reviewing the khakis and the polo she had on. His annoyance and disgust were evident without the benefit of words: his lowered eyebrows said it all.
To avoid the urge to run back to her car, Mad assessed his guests. As she took in the group, all she could think of were salt-and-pepper shakers: everyone was lined up, men alternating with women, the whole lot of them glowing with wealth. And their fancy exteriors honestly seemed to house dry goods. Not a belly laugh in any of them, she’d wager.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said to no one in particular.
“Traffic must have been awful,” Richard replied smoothly. He nodded to an empty seat on his right. “You will sit here.”
As several people murmured and all of them stared, Mad started on the walk of shame down the long, thin room, her loafers making a clicking sound on the inlaid floor. She smiled in a general way, feeling like an inept, ugly Miss America candidate. Who was about to get dinged by the judges.
When she sat down, Richard said under his breath, “You could have called.”
“I know. But I don’t have a cell phone.”
“Which makes you the only person in America without one.”
Richard turned away and promptly started to talk horses with the woman on his left, as if he were resuming a conversation that had been rudely interrupted.
Mad took a sip from her water glass and thought fondly of her new lawyer.
As a salad plate was put down in front of her, she snuck a peek at her half brother, and up this close, she realized he had in fact changed. Richard no longer resembled their father, he’d reached his life goal and had turned into the man: he was a carbon copy now, presiding over his fancy guests, eating with Christophe silver on Royal Crown Derby plates, sipping from Baccarat glasses. And yes, the Maguire family signet ring was on his right ring finger.
As their father had always worn it.
Looking at the stamp in the heavy gold, everything slid into place.
Richard was like a Brooks Brothers bobble head spitting back criticisms that had made her cringe when she was growing up: her father back from the dead. That was why she was so weak around her half brother. It wasn’t just because he’d been hard on her when they’d been younger.
Putting a label on the dynamic kind of helped and she wondered why she hadn’t figured it out sooner. Then again, she’d always done her best to avoid thinking about Richard.
Which was part of the problem, wasn’t it?
Mad blotted her lips, returned the damask napkin to her lap and realized that she’d crossed her feet together under her chair like a good little girl.
Oh, hell, no, she thought. If she was going to make it through this weekend in one piece, she needed to fight the urge to fall into place.
Feeling like a rebel, she eased up, cocked one foot under her butt, and sat back down with her leg on the chair.
“Isn’t that right, Madeline,” Richard drawled.
“Excuse me?” She deliberately played with the tassel on her loafer. Sure enough, Richard caught the movement and his eyes bugged out.
He opened his mouth as if he were going to scold her, but seemed to realize that would have been absurd.
As he cleared his throat, it seemed more curse than cough. “Penelope was commenting on the new Rubens exhibition at the Met. But I told her you wouldn’t have seen it because that kind of thing doesn’t interest you.”
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