When Night Falls by Cait London

Author:Cait London
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2002-09-18T04:00:00+00:00

“Uma, wait!” Pearl called as Uma stood alone in the Whitefords’ rose garden, admiring Mitchell’s work. Retrieving a garden from a vicious storm had meant trimming broken branches and stems, and now the garden looked untouched.

She certainly wasn’t untouched, Uma thought with a quiver that ran through her every time she thought of Mitchell’s body against hers, within her, the passion and the fever, the hunger that prowled through her.

Uma watched Pearl make her way through the English maze, frowning as her hostess gown caught on a rose bush. She jerked away her skirt and hurried toward Uma. “I want to talk with you.”

“Your party was wonderful, Pearl.” Pearl needed reassurances; her parents and her husband had left her fragile and wounded. Her mother was a cold, determined woman, and as demanding as her father that Pearl be the perfect child. When she failed, she was punished.

“Thank you, Uma. I think my esteemed ancestor from Boston, Matilda Radford, would have been proud of me tonight. I’m told she threw wonderful soirées that the social set back then wouldn’t miss. Shelly seemed so distracted that I had to get on to her several times tonight. I pay her well, you know.”

Pearl’s parents’ financial bias left little room for sentimentality. “She loves helping you. You’ve been so good to her and Dani.”

“Yes, I have. But I want to warn you about Mitchell. Body language tells, and tonight, you were definitely very intimate with him—as if you’d been in bed with him. I know you very well, Uma, and you’re usually so cautious. Mitchell isn’t for you. I don’t care if he is supposed to be an executive looking for a site for a new building and supply complex or that Madrid needs the financial stimulation. I cannot allow you to—to give yourself to a man who is beneath you. You know that his father was a drunk, and the whole Warren family, dating back generations, couldn’t keep a family homestead, selling it off piece by piece. The neighbors saw him coming out of your house this morning, still wearing his overnight beard. Don’t you dare dishonor your mother, your family, by having an affair with that low-class—”

“That’s enough, Pearl.” Pearl was on one of her favorite tirades, just getting warmed up to list all of the Warrens’ misfortunes and Fred’s drinking.

Pearl was determined to have her say. “Thank goodness my girls are visiting Walter’s sister in Connecticut. I wouldn’t want them to know that the woman who they think of as an aunt is…is interested in a Warren, one of the lowest families in this town. Don’t tell me that you can actually stand there and think that he is an equal to you, with your background. He doesn’t fit into Madrid, not the class that you’re in. He’s a lowlife, Uma. His great-great-grandfather was hanged for horse thieving. His great-great-great-grandmother was part Indian, and there’s some shanty Irish blood in there somewhere. I just cannot let you get involved with someone whose family bloodline reads like a criminal report.

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