Her silence is all the confirmation I need.
“My grandmother is too kindhearted to send you off, but I’m not. My patience for leeches has grown thin over the years. I trust you know how to pack your bags and find your way?”
“I won’t leave until Cornelia asks me to,” she says with a venomous tone. “Contrary to what you may believe, I am of value to her, just not in the conventional ways. No, I don’t till her gardens, but I eat dinner with her every night and I read to her in the afternoons. We take walks around the garden and we talk. We’re friends.”
When our gazes lock, she tips her chin up.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not leaving.”
She turns and stalks out of the room, her footsteps the only thing I hear, even after she’s long gone.
The following morning, I’m headed down to breakfast when I hear shuffling in my grandfather’s old office. I know Cornelia has taken to using it in recent years and I expect to find her in there, sitting in his oversized chair, which is why I stop and peer in.
Instead, I find Maren rifling through papers behind the desk, visibly distressed.
“What are you doing?”
Her body tenses and she squeezes her eyes shut as if I frightened her. I probably did.
“Looking for your grandmother’s glasses,” she replies, not a hint of kindness in her tone.
“Well they’re clearly not there in those papers.”
She stops her search and glares up at me. “Are you insinuating something? If so, I’d rather you just say it.”
I have the uncanny urge to smile and let her know I’m partly teasing. I don’t think she’s dumb enough to sneak around my grandmother’s office in the middle of the day, especially while I’m still here. Besides, she didn’t even shut the door.
When I don’t reply, she continues her search, but not for long.
With a huff, she dips down to retrieve a pair of my grandmother’s reading glasses that had fallen onto the ground. Mission complete.
“I wasn’t snooping,” she says as she brushes past me.
I have no choice but to follow after her, listening as she curses me under her breath.
We turn a corner and I could quicken my stride and catch her with ease, but I know she’d hate it. Instead, I speak up. My voice is deceptively casual, though we both know I’m trying to get a rise out of her. “You know we’re going to the same place. There’s no need to walk three steps ahead of me. I think we’re capable of having a cordial conversation.”
She laughs caustically. “We aren’t.”
Down in the breakfast room, my grandmother sits with the newspaper held up a mere inch from her face. When she hears our footsteps, she folds it down and sighs gratefully.
“I knew you’d find them, dear. Hurry along, I’m trying to read this story about azaleas and it’s giving me eye strain.”
Maren shoots me a pointed told-you-so smirk as she hands her the glasses before turning to the breakfast buffet.
“It looks like you picked up a stray on your way back down,” my grandmother adds, winking at me.
“Not by choice,” Maren murmurs under her breath as she starts to fill her plate with toast and sausage and eggs.
“What was that?” my grandmother asks.
“I said, ‘What a glorious day it’s going to be!’”
I smile despite myself and Maren catches it, her eyes going round as saucers.
I immediately drop it and clear my throat, moving along to fill my plate as well.
“What are your plans for the day, Nicky? Tell me you aren’t running back to the city right after breakfast.”
“I’m going to the club this morning to sail.”
“You are? You should take Maren with you! We were just discussing the fact that she’s never been before.”
“No!” Maren says, shooting the word out of her mouth so fast it’s a wonder I don’t feel it whoosh past like a bullet.
“But Nicky’s a wonderful yachtsman.”
“I’m sure he is,” she says, glancing at me. I swear she’s sizing me up, but I can’t be sure. “Even still, I’d rather not. Besides, you and I were going to prepare those baskets for the Boys and Girls Club, remember?”
I’m frowning, and it takes me a second to realize why exactly her answer annoys me so much. It’s not like I want her to come sailing with me, but her adamant refusal doesn’t sit well either. If her plan is to needle her way into Cornelia’s life permanently, shouldn’t she want to ingratiate herself to me, Cornelia’s only grandchild, as well? She should be flirting and smiling and pretending to be a perfect angel.
I nearly choke on the thought. With her rich brown hair and sharp green eyes, angel is the last word I would use to describe her.
“It’s better this way,” I say, aiming my words at Cornelia. “Rhett and I already have a full boat, and I wouldn’t have time to keep an eye on Maren.”
“Who says you’d have to keep an eye on me?” she challenges, standing up a bit straighter.
“Spoken like a true sailing novice. Have you never seen a yacht in action? Injuries are extremely common with someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing.”
“It’s not as if I’d be the one tying the lines off, or whatever it is you do on a sailboat.”
“No, you’re right—you’d just be in the way.”
Maren and I stand facing each other with our plates in hand, holding each other’s gazes as if we’ve entered into some unnamed competition. Her eyes narrow and seem to say everything she’s unwilling to give voice to. I cock my head in challenge.
“Why do I feel like I need to ring a bell and call for a timeout between you two?” my grandmother asks with a deep-set frown.
Maren is the one to look away first, so she can finish scooping some fruit onto her plate before carrying it over to the table.
“Ignore us. We haven’t had our coffee yet,” she says, smiling at my grandmother.
I finish making my plate and then pull out the chair across from Maren. We do a charming job of avoiding each other through the rest of breakfast, directing conversation through my grandmother. She must realize what we’re doing, but she doesn’t let on.
Maren is the first to finish and she rises, sweeping a hand down the front of her sundress to flatten the nonexistent wrinkles.
“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll ask Collins and Chef if they need anything from the market. I feel like going on a walk into town.”
Suits me just fine.
I’d like to speak to my grandmother alone, to have one more chance to talk sense into her concerning Maren, though admittedly, as I get started and her eyes plead with me to drop it, I find I’m tempted to take her up on it. Even as I speak, there’s less conviction behind my words than there was a week ago, and the thought is unsettling.
I want her gone. Don’t I?
14
Maren
I watch from my window as Tori and Nicholas talk on the driveway Sunday evening. Dappled sunlight spills through the trees, highlighting them from above. Tori is wearing a bright red sweater with a coordinating scarf tied in the French style around her neck. She smiles, and I can’t imagine what they’re saying. I even creak my window open a smidge, just in case their voices carry, but it doesn’t work and I’m left feeling like a stalker.