demanded gently, not wanting to set his sister-in-law off again. “Did you two have another argument?”
“Chuck doesn’t really argue, you know that. He just quietly does whatever he wants.”
Kane swore softly. “I’ve been too easy on him.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” Ann said. “We both know there’s only one person to blame. Her. Did you find her? Did you talk to her?”
Since this entire thing had begun, Ann had refused to use Susannah’s given name. Kane had told Ann about his intention of confronting Susannah once he’d discovered she was attending the conference. Working out of Boston as he did, this was his first chance to meet Susannah. “I found her and I talked to her,” he replied.
“What did she say?”
Kane was reluctant to tell Ann that Susannah Hall claimed she was innocent of any wrongdoing. Until Kane could talk to his brother himself, he decided not to be too specific about the details.
“Don’t you worry, Ann,” he reassured her. “I’ve got everything under control.”
* * *
Susannah was running late. So what else was new? she asked herself as she dumped her briefcase on the bed and kicked off her high heels. She sighed in relief, rubbing her toes as she sat on the bed for a second to catch her breath.
Two heartbeats later, her second was up. She headed for the closet. She only had half an hour to get ready for the big party tonight.
It was a must-attend function and promised to be a spectacular spread. The organizers had rented one of Savannah’s most impressive historical homes for the evening. Everything had been taken care of: from providing charter buses to take participants from their hotels to the historical district, right down to supplying rental costumes in the requested sizes.
Susannah’s period costume had arrived while she was still at the convention center, so it was with some trepidation that she pulled back the opaque garment bag to reveal a lovely dress in deep red velvet. She couldn’t believe the costume company had actually supplied her with the right color and size.
Finally, something was going right! Although she’d never admit it to a living soul, Kane’s appearance as an avenging angel this afternoon had thrown her. So had his accusations.
After stripping off her business suit, she carefully tugged the dress over her head. She was relieved to see that it did fit. She wasn’t relieved by the amount of cleavage it showed.
The dress, which zipped at the side so she was able to fasten it herself, had a long skirt, ending just above her ankles. After a long day on her feet, she wasn’t about to cramp her feet into another pair of high heels for what would no doubt be more standing tonight, so she instead chose a pair of velvet flats.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t time to do much with her hair. Savannah’s springtime humidity had turned her dark waves into an uncontrollable mop. The best she could do was pin it up so she wouldn’t get too hot.
The finishing touch to her outfit was an antique garnet necklace that was a favorite of hers. A matching pair of drop earrings and bracelet completed the set, which she’d inherited from her great-grandmother. Normally, Susannah didn’t bring the set on a business trip, but the promise of the costume party tonight had been too good an opportunity to resist.
Glancing at her watch, she swore softly. She only had five minutes to get downstairs and catch the charter bus going to the party. Susannah grabbed her purse and was out in the hallway before realizing that she should have switched to a smaller bag.
Such was her life in a nutshell, Susannah noted as she impatiently jabbed at the elevator button. She was almost organized. Almost together. But inevitably there would be one thing that threw a wrench in the plan. Tonight that one thing was her purse.
She was the last one to board the bus, where everyone was dressed to the nines. Once they reached the historical house, guests had to show their invitations at the door in order to be allowed inside. It took Susannah five minutes to find the gilt-edged invitation in her bag—which still held the apple she’d picked up for lunch, along with the personal cassette player she’d listened to on the flight that morning, among other things.
Slinging her purse back over her shoulder, and almost decking the man behind her, Susannah followed the crowd into the front parlor. The place was packed. Rather than head for the buffet table laden with food, she chose to join a tour that was gathering at the foot of the stairs.
On her way there she bumped into someone, or more accurately her purse did. “Sorry,” she said with a smile that evaporated as she recognized Kane Wilder. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“Looking for you,” Kane replied. “I told you I wasn’t done talking to you.”
“Well, I’m done talking to you.” With those words, she slipped past him and moved up the stairs with the rest of the tour group. To her dismay, Kane followed her.
“Only two people to a step, please,” the tour guide requested when Kane joined her on the stairs. “We’re trying to minimize the wear and tear on the structure.”
Wanting to minimize the wear and tear on her own composure, Susannah strove to keep her attention focused on holding up the long skirt of her dress as she climbed the steps. It was better than thinking about Kane—who was directly behind her.
He’d looked incredibly dashing in his black formal wear, white tie and tails complete with a starched collar true to the Victorian period. She could feel his eyes on her and she wished she were ten pounds lighter. Maybe fifteen. The dress did nothing to hide her full figure.
Kane was enjoying the view of Susannah Hall’s velvet-covered derriere. The stiff set of her bare shoulders radiated an ice-age chill. With her hair pinned up, he could see her pale nape as she leaned forward. For the first time since he’d arrived, he was glad he’d decided to attend this bash.
He’d been tempted to stay in his hotel room and wait for his brother’s call, but past experience told him that Chuck wouldn’t be back for some time yet. When his brother got in a snit, he tended to brood for hours. Kane would check in with him again when this party was over. Meanwhile, he planned on hounding Susannah until she relented and agreed to leave his brother alone.
At the moment, the tour guide was the only one talking. “The Whitaker house is a fine example of Federal architecture. In its heyday this house was at the center of Savannah society. At its low point, it was an apartment tenement in the 1930s and was almost torn down in the 1950s to build a parking lot when, thankfully, the Historical Preservation League saved it.”
Susannah shuddered to think of this lovely home being demolished and paved over. Sensing Kane coming closer, she edged around the person ahead of her. Throughout the tour of the second floor she managed to weave her way in and out of the crowd, always staying one step ahead of him.
“As you can see,” their guide continued, “the second floor houses the family’s bedrooms, which have been decorated with period furnishings. On the wall along the stairway you’ll see several family portraits, including that of Elsbeth Whitaker—who is said to have committed suicide on these very steps.”
Susannah rubbed her hands over her bare arms as a chill settled over her. She couldn’t see the painting due
