Chinatown?”
As he turned toward her again, she found it both difficult to swallow and to suppress the jealous feelings she had no right to be experiencing. He nodded. “Uh…yeah.”
It was probably why his skin looked so incredibly toned.
He looked torn. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”
Obviously, she wasn’t welcome, at least by Carrie, but she had come all the way downtown, and Dermott wanted to know, so… “Remember when we talked a couple of weeks ago, and I told you Granny Ginny was visiting?”
He nodded slowly, probably visualizing the woman he’d met so many times. She was five feet tall, nearing ninety, and she’d shown up on this trip dressed in a fur-collared pink coat with a matching pillbox hat.
Willfully forgetting that a naked woman was waiting in his bedroom, Bridget ducked her chin to nuzzle Mug. “She’s going to be in town for a few days, so maybe you’ll get a chance to see her. She just loves you.”
Dermott grunted noncommittally.
In case Dermott had forgotten any details of the family history, Bridget quickly reminded him of how her own father, Jasper Hartley, had gotten drunk, fallen from a pedestal table in the Hartley House parlor and met his death, and how, during the war, Miss Marissa Jennings had remained at Hartley House with a housekeeper named Lavinia, waiting for her fiancé’s return, prefiguring the moment when, on the night they were to marry, she’d seen Forrest killed. Lavinia had been swept away by the water’s currents in the swamp where she’d been hiding, and Miss Marissa had been shot.
When she was finished, Dermott said, “No offense, Bridget, but I really never understood how anybody could have known about the curse, since Miss Marissa was supposedly alone in the swamp when she uttered it.”
“Granny Ginny always mentions that discrepancy,” Bridget admitted, loving that Dermott had always been such an apt listener. “And to tell you the truth, even she’s not really sure of the answer. All we know is the story’s been handed down through generations, and that Hartley women have definitely had trouble with their love lives. Granny Ginny did say that she’d heard a distant relative called in a psychic medium once, though, who confirmed that there was a curse.” Bridget paused. “And don’t forget, the house is haunted.”
Dermott looked at her a long moment. Seemingly deciding not to pursue that line of thought, he said, “Okay. We’ll assume there’s really a curse. You also said Miss Marissa got shot, but then you’ve said she was hit by a cannonball.”
“Granny Ginny always mentions that, too,” Bridget quickly said. “I guess there’s some debate as to whether she was killed by a bullet or cannonball. All that’s really known is that she probably died in the swamp, and Granny says that when she haunts the house, there’s sometimes blood on her wedding dress.” She paused. “But not all the time.”
Dermott considered. “Well, unless the Union army was advancing on the property and facing a bunch of Confederates, I don’t think they would have used a cannon.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” agreed Bridget, glad he understood. “It’s more likely she died from a bullet wound. Still, Granny says that when she haunts Hartley House, she sometimes carries a cannonball, but maybe that’s just because it’s symbolic of war, and—” Pausing, she realized Dermott was staring at her. “Hmm?”
He said, “You don’t believe this, do you?”
“Nights like this make it seem possible,” she offered.
As her gaze shifted to the windows, she felt uncomfortable. For years, they’d talked about how the World Trade Center buildings marred the view from Dermott’s high-rise. Now, both wished they’d never said such a thing. Bridget had realized too late that she’d taken the buildings for granted, too. She’d rarely visited them, and they’d been such a familiar part of the landscape since her childhood that it was hard to visualize them now. She should have paid more attention, but she’d thought the buildings would always be standing, tall and proud.
Tears stung her eyes, and she wondered what on earth was wrong with her tonight. Dermott’s voice pulled her from her reverie. “You really do believe all this, huh, Bridge?”
She shrugged again. “You know I do. And anyway, Granny Ginny’s a good storyteller, so whenever she talks, she makes it seem real. The main thing is—” She paused. “Did you get my voice mail?”
He nodded.
“Well, like I said, I had another talk with Granny. Now she says the curse will end if the Hartley diamond’s found, and…” She held up her hand, displaying the bauble on her right ring finger. Her voice quickened. “You have to admit all this is strange, Dermott.”
He eyed the bunched cluster of cubic zirconias. “Did your grandmother really say that was a replica of the engagement ring Forrest Hartley gave Marissa Jennings?”
“Not only that, but she says there’s proof. A painting in the parlor of Marissa in her wedding gown, wearing this exact ring.”
“And you’re sure you never saw it?”
Bridget shook her head. “I haven’t been there since I was a baby. When I saw the painting, I wasn’t even a year old. I couldn’t have remembered the ring.” She surveyed Dermott. “Oh…you think she’s lying.”
He shrugged.
“Maybe she is,” Bridget continued, “but all we have to do is go look. She says the portrait’s right there, hanging in the parlor. And I know I used to sleep on the pedestal table when I was a baby, under the chandelier, so I guess I was thinking…”
“That the Hartley diamond is hidden in the chandelier?”
She’d have to see the chandelier to know, of course, but… “Isn’t it possible the prisms in the chandelier look enough like this ring—” she held up her hand again “—that the original ring was hidden there?”
He looked skeptical. No…his was definitely not the excited let’s-pack-our-bags-and-go-look Bridget had been hoping for. “And you saw the ring when you were under a year old, which enabled you to reproduce it when you were twenty-eight?”
“Well, I don’t know,” she said defensively.
“If the original ring was hidden in the chandelier, Bridge, don’t you think the Yankees would have found it? Not to mention everyone else who looked, such as your grandmother?”
That was the thing about Dermott, he always made such excellent points. “Still, you’d think the Yankees would have removed the chandelier, but they didn’t do that, either, and no one knows why.”
“And your guess is?”
Ducking to sprinkle Mug with more kisses, she said, “Granny Ginny said Miss Marissa and Lavinia probably tried to take down the chandelier, so they could hide it, but it wouldn’t budge.” Her voice dropped, becoming hushed, just as Granny Ginny’s did whenever she told the story. “It was as if the chandelier grew a mind all its own,” she repeated, using Granny Ginny’s words. “Granny Ginny said it decided not to leave Hartley House.”
Now his lips were twitching. “Hmm. A chandelier that
