Page 58 of Deadly Misfortunes

“An online dating service. She’s curious about how they do matches online.”

Mrs. Landry laughed. “Well, I’ll say, I’ve checked on some of those myself. I read an article a while back about how well it worked for some. But you’ve got to be careful too. One man promised fifteen different women he would marry them. They had ordered wedding dresses and everything. He said he was a war hero. He was for real, and he was serving on Active Duty in the Army at the time. Once the truth came out about his con—he was an officer even, and certainly not a gentleman—he was up on charges. He was quickly kicked out of the service. He left out the little fact that he had a wife already when he arranged to marry all these other women.”

Gregory nodded. “Yeah, it’s a real gamble. You never know what kind of clown you could really end up with.”

“But what if you find your soulmate?” Sascha dipped a jumbo shrimp into a hot and spicy cocktail sauce. Dripping in red sauce, she raised it to her lips.

She glanced over at Gregory, whose gaze was riveted to her lips, planted around the succulent meat.

He cleared his throat. “How would you know if he truly was your soulmate?”

Mrs. Landry smiled. “Soulmates. Ahhh, that’s what your father and I are. Cute term. I like it.”

Cute term. Now she could see how Gregory would never believe her concerning the concept of soulmates. Cute term. Ugh.

“Well, son, she has already found hers—you. So you don’t have anything to worry about there.”

He leaned over, kissed Sascha’s cheek, and waggled his brows. “You’re absolutely right.”

She would kill him once they reached his home. Or maybe when they got into his car. How could he make the situation worse than it already was?

“Now, Rose, don’t you get any ideas,” her mother said.

“Nope. Not me. I’m going to meet some guy named Fenton, and he will be my one and only. Right, Sascha?” Rose asked.

Did Rose really believe her now?

“Hopefully. At least you’ll be happily dating him for a while.”

“Who is he? And what happened to Marvin?” Mrs. Landry asked.

“He’s behind bars,” Sascha said. The words just slipped out, even though it was true. As soon as she heard Marvin’s name, she saw him behind bars.

“You said bars,” Rose said, her face a little pale. “I thought you meant like clubs.”

“What’s wrong, dear?” Mrs. Landry asked Rose. “And why is Marvin in jail?”

Sascha concentrated on the image of Marvin, but shook her head. “I don’t know.”

Everyone was watching her. She suspected Rose was coming to the conclusion that she was the real deal. Even her mother was looking at Sascha as if she wondered if maybe there was more to her comment than that.

When they finished the meal, his mother ushered them into the den again. “We’ll have a bottle of champagne to celebrate your engagement.”

While the maid fetched the glasses and bottle, Gregory wrapped his arm around Sascha and pulled her close as they sat on the loveseat. “I’m not sure she has quite gotten used to the idea yet.”

Mrs. Landry nodded. “Well, I must say, this is really sudden, but certainly a pleasant turn of events. I’d seen Camden, and he told me about Sascha entertaining at the Worthingtons’ party. I guess she made all the winning moves with you all right. I thought maybe the way he discussed her, he wanted to ask her out instead.”

“He prefers blondes.” Gregory gave Sascha a light squeeze.

Sascha’s cheeks heated again. When would the visit with his parents ever end? Then she figured she needn’t wait for her Aunt Meg to place a curse on Gregory. She could do it on her own, soon, if he antagonized her any further.

Then Sascha’s thoughts turned to the business with the attempts on Gregory’s life, and she wondered if the family had any ideas about this. “I’m sure this has nothing to do with anything, but I saw the newspaper clippings about Louis Landry and his heroics.”

Everyone waited for her to say more.

“Well, I know this is really far out there, but what if a descendant of Louis’s best friend, Sam Fontenout, had a grudge against Louis for having eliminated Sam? I mean, I know it’s a lot of years since then, but sometimes people carry on generational hate for something that happened in the past.”

Still, no one said anything.