dialing nine-one-one yet. And you?”
Torn about what I heard from that Comitatus meeting. Too happy to be in Arden’s presence again. Worried about the dark sedan that followed you here from the rail station. “I’m feeling more than a little silly that I chose to hide in a pantry instead of taking a stairway to the whole of upstairs,” he admitted, and offered his hand in truce.
Val deliberately ignored it.
“Much as I’m sure you would have enjoyed rifling through Miz Greta’s private things.” Arden pushed his hand back down to his side, her own hands soft, her scent sweetly familiar. Thanks for the brush-off, Val. “I’d rather know why it’s your business whether I’m over my head, off my game or out of my mind. There’s a great deal I wouldn’t put past you, Smith. A great deal…” She widened her eyes to think of the enormity of things that included.
“Nice vote of confidence,” Smith muttered, to drag her back on track.
It worked. “But stalking? Why shouldn’t we call the authorities?”
None of them expected Greta to step in. “Because if we call the police, Mr. Donnell will miss the story he risked so much to hear. Let’s all return to the parlor to deal with the larger issue at hand. Mr. Donnell, would you like some iced tea?”
Val’s mouth dropped open in blatant amazement. Arden, being Arden, revealed her surprise with the barest of blinks—but Smith was pretty adept at reading the annoyance of those blinks, and he grinned in pure triumph. Maybe the old lady was crazy, maybe not. But he wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth…especially when he’d seen so few gift horses lately.
“Why, thank you, Miz Greta. I would love some tea…and maybe a slice of that delicious strudel?” As he accompanied his new favorite person and her gamboling, happy dog toward the front of the house, making the most of his status as a welcome guest, Smith caught Arden’s soothing murmur to Val.
“Just take deep breaths, and it will pass. He inspires almost everyone to kill him, sooner or later.”
She had no idea how right she was.
The question was, how could someone as perfect as Arden have inspired similar—and all-too-real—threats?
And why was someone with tinted windows parked just down the street, keeping watch on her?
Greta Kaiser was not crazy. Nor was she completely blind, physically or emotionally. The macular degeneration gave her central blindness. That meant if she looked directly at Smith Donnell, she saw no face at all, barely a head. But she could glimpse, with her remaining peripheral vision, how Arden Leigh snuck peeks at him when she thought nobody was looking. When Greta turned her old eyes on Arden, the beautiful socialite all but vanished—but Greta got a clearer impression of Smith Donnell beside her, a hint of strong profile and brown hair and blatant interest in—almost longing for—someone he had supposedly dumped. He’d managed to sink onto the love seat next to Arden before Val could.
Arden made an amusing show of ignoring his nearness completely.
Greta also noted Smith’s worn jeans and T-shirt, his cheap shoes. Put that together with the unlikelihood of Arden having dated someone from a significantly lower social caste—have known each other’s families since childhood—and Greta found far more truth on the couple’s periphery than anyone might by looking at their relationship straight on.
This man may have lost his chance to be Arden Leigh’s hero…but he might yet prove to be Greta’s.
“My family name,” she said, when everyone had finished their bickering and settled back in the parlor, Dido flopped happily between them, “is Kaiser. Does anyone know what that name implies?”
“It’s German,” offered Arden.
Greta turned expectantly to Smith, even if that meant losing sight of his expression.
“It means ‘emperor,’ right?” he asked. When Arden and Val stared at him, he seemed to square his shoulders. “What, you think I bought my way through college?”
“Yes, ‘emperor’.” Greta settled back in her favorite chair, comforted by Dido’s chin on her foot. “The name derives from the word ‘Caesar,’ because the Hapsburg dynasty professed direct lineage to the Roman emperors, themselves descendents of the epic hero Aeneas. Hence our claim to the Holy Roman Empire.”
“And you’re a Hapsburg?” Arden sat up. “Of the Austrian Hapsburgs?”
In periphery, Greta caught the suspicion that began to darken Smith Donnell’s strong profile. He was starting to figure this out already.
Clever. Arden had exceptionally good taste.
“Let us say we are a significant branch off that family tree. As you might guess, my father was a powerful man, descended from a seemingly unending line of powerful men. I was born in this house, back when Oak Cliff was the garden spot of Dallas society. I fully expected a life of private schools, debutante balls and eventual marriage into wealth. But instead…” She took a deep breath, bracing herself against the memories. “Even before my coming out, shortly after World War II, my father lost everything. Our fortune. Our standing. The house—I did not inherit it, only bought it back decades later, after the falling property values made it available for a fraction of its original cost.
“We were wholly ruined, and I never knew why.”
Arden leaned forward to take Greta’s hand, offering sweet comfort. Greta smiled directly at the black-haired beauty, effectively erasing Arden from her vision but allowing her to glimpse Smith’s sudden, wary stillness.
“Well…” He paused, then continued, not quite hiding the sympathy in his tone. “That would be terrible.”
He, she felt increasingly convinced, should know. If he didn’t, she was endangering herself and perhaps Arden and Val—even Dido—by continuing. But life was risk.
“Astute as ever.” Arden’s poise had degenerated into dry sarcasm. Interesting.
“College,” Smith reminded her amiably. But, observing the contrast between his current apparel and the upper-class confidence of his posture, Greta felt sure he’d spoken from firsthand experience.
“Our family never wholly recovered.” She could not admit her childish resentment, nor how long into adulthood it had followed her. A foolish marriage, for all the wrong reasons. A bitter divorce, for the right ones. So many lost years. Instead, she cut to the significant part of the story. “But when Papa developed Alzheimer’s, someone had to care for him. My mother was gone by then, and my brother, and I’d bought back the house, so I took him in. And that’s when Papa began to explain.
“At first, I thought him delusional.” Greta’s laugh came out harsh, startling her spaniel. “He was delusional, or he never would have spoken of such things. When I asked him, during sentient periods, he denied everything with such vehemence that I stopped asking. But when he confused me with others, with men from his past, I became curious and encouraged his stories.
“He admitted to having joined an ancient secret society of powerful men.
“And he admitted to ruining us by crossing them during the War.”
Arden
