The Necklace by Claire McMillan

Author:Claire McMillan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Touchstone

THE INVITATION

After Baldwin and Pansy leave, Nell gnaws on a cold drumstick and drinks warm whiskey while listlessly poking through cupboards in the butler’s pantry—lavish sets of china, complete with finger bowls, and stockpiled table linens with thick monograms she can’t decipher. Someone’s going to have to clean this place out, and like a sinking balloon she realizes it’s going to be her.

She’s done now with this trip back in time. And she’s petulantly cursing her father for leaving so quickly. Pansy has Baldwin; who’s in her corner?

She pulls herself up and reminds herself that she is a grown woman who no longer needs her daddy. During this trip, she’s constantly had to remind herself that she’s no longer a child. Her emotions keep flinging her back into the past. So much has happened since she arrived only days ago for the will meeting, and already she needs distance from it. Emerson left this morning. Lucky him.

She thinks back to shutting down Louis Morell’s invitation to dinner. She’d been taken by surprise. Work keeps her underwater, such that she can’t remember the last time she met someone interesting. The men she knows in Oregon don’t go on dinner dates. And then, with her father there, there’d been no way to backpedal and accept Louis’s offer. Or perhaps she’d misread the situation. Maybe it was just a work thing after all. He must have someone. A man like that, of course he does. She thinks maybe she’ll call him. All she has is his office number, and she leaves her name and number with the assistant.

In less than a minute her phone rings with an unknown number.

“Glad you called the office. I’ve got a bunch of voice mails from Pansy.”

She mentions that she took the necklace to the museum.

“So I’ve heard,” he says.

Is nothing secret in this town? Nell thinks.

“I was meeting with a client out your way . . .” He trails off.

There’s something forced in his voice, and she’s almost sure this story is a ginned-up excuse to see her, the thought both creepy and exciting.

“Stop by, why don’t you?” she invites.

When he agrees, she hangs up and runs through the house, throwing out the chicken and trying to decide if she has enough time to brush her teeth but refreshing her whiskey instead.

“Making the final call,” she says in a mock solemn voice as she opens the door, relieved to see someone, anyone, who’s not family. “Rewriting the will to jilt the third wife and leave everything to the nubile nurse.” She’s feeling the whiskey, feeling the release from the tension of the morning, feeling the relief it’s not Pansy or Baldwin.

“Come on now, not everyone practices cutting-edge intellectual property law. Some of us are journeyman lawyers, serving the people.”

“Or the dog? I love it when they leave everything to the Pekingese. And a tiny percentage of estates need lawyers, journeyman.”

“Not all of us were on the law review, okay?”

“You’ve been researching me?”

“A lucky guess,” he says.

He’s already walking toward the flower room, leading her with that ease he has.

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