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She, too, studied the house. Templeton House, her home now. She thought that of the three of them, she was the one who understood what it was to face the worst, and wait. She'd been eight when she lost her parents, had seen her world rip apart and leave her drowning. But the Templetons had taken her in, had loved her, and though she'd only been a second cousin on the unstable Powell branch of the family tree, had given her family. It was always wise to wait.
"I know what I'd do. I'd scream and curse God," Margo decided. She did so now, slipping as easily as a chameleon into a pose of abject suffering. "Then I'd take the dowry and sail around the world, see everything, do everything. Be everything." She stretched up her arms, loving the way the sun stroked her skin.
She loved Templeton House. It was the only home she remembered. She had been only four when her mother left Ireland and came there to work. Though she had always been treated as one of the family, she never forgot that she was a servant's daughter. Her ambition was to be more. Much more.
She knew what her mother wanted for her. A good education, a good job, a good husband. What, Margo wondered, could be more boring? She wasn't going to be her mother—no way was she going to be dried up and alone before she was thirty.
Her mother was young and beautiful, Margo mused. Even if she played both facts down, they were facts nonetheless. Yet she never dated or socialized. And she was so damn strict. Don't do this, Margo, don't do that, she thought with a pout. You're too
young for lipstick and eye powder. Worried, always worried that her daughter was too wild, too headstrong, too anxious to rise above her station. Whatever her station was, Margo thought.
She wondered if her father had been wild. Had he been beautiful? And she'd begun to wonder if her mother had had to marry—the way young girls did. She couldn't have married for love, for if she'd loved him, why didn't she ever speak of him? Why didn't she have pictures and mementos and stories of the man she'd married and lost to a storm at sea?
So Margo looked out to sea and thought of her mother. Ann Sullivan was no Seraphina, she reflected. No grief and despair; just turn the page and forget.
Maybe it wasn't so wrong after all. If you didn't let a man mean too much, you wouldn't be too hurt when he went away. But that didn't mean you had to stop living too. Even if you didn't jump off a cliff there were other ways to end life.
If only Mum understood, she thought, then shook her head fiercely and looked back out to sea. She wasn't going to think about that, about how nothing she did or wanted seemed to meet with her mother's approval. It made her feel all churny inside to think of it. So she just wouldn't.
She would think of the places she would someday visit. Of the people she would meet. She'd had tastes of that grandeur living in Templeton House, being a part of the world that the Templetons moved in so naturally. All those fabulous hotels they owned in all those exciting cities. One day she would be a guest in them, gliding through her own suite—like the one in Templeton Monterey, with its staggering two levels and elegant furnishings and flowers everywhere. It had a bed fit for a queen, with a canopy and thick silk-covered pillows.
When she'd said as much to Mr. T., he'd laughed and hugged her and let her bounce on that bed. She would never forget the way it felt to snuggle against those soft, perfumed pillows. Mrs. T. had told her the bed had come from Spain and was two hundred years old.
One day she would have beautiful, important things like that bed. Not just to tend them, as her mother did, but to have them. Because when you had them, owned them, you were beautiful and important too.
"When we find Seraphina's dowry, we'll be rich," Margo announced, and Kate snorted again.
"Laura's already rich," she pointed out logically. "And if we find it we'll have to put it in the bank until we're old enough."
"I'll buy anything I want." Margo sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees. "Clothes and jewelry and beautiful things. And a car."
"You're not old enough to drive," Kate pointed out. "I'll invest mine, because Uncle Tommy says it takes money to make money."
"That's boring, Kate." Margo gave Kate's shoulder an affectionate jab. "You're boring. I'll tell you what we'll do with it, we'll take a trip around the world. The three of us. We'll go to London and Paris and Rome. We'll only stay at Templeton hotels because they're the best."
"An endless slumber party," Laura said, getting into the swing of the fantasy. She'd been to London and Paris and Rome, and she thought them beautiful. But nothing anywhere was more beautiful than here, than Templeton House. "We'll stay up all night and dance with only the most handsome men. Then we'll come back to Templeton House and always be together."
"Of course we'll always be together." Margo slung an arm around Laura's shoulders, then Kate's. Their friendship simply was to her, without question. "We're best friends, aren't we? We'll always be best friends."
When she heard the roar of an engine, she leapt up and quickly feigned disdain. "That's Josh and one of his creepy friends."
"Don't let him see you." Kate tugged hard on Margo's hand. Josh might have been Laura's brother by blood, but emotionally he was every bit Kate's too, which made her disdain very genuine. "He'll just come over and hassle us. He thinks he's such a big shot now that he can drive."
"He's not going to bother with us." Laura rose as well, curious to see who was riding shotgun in the spiffy little convertible. Recognizing the dark, flying hair, she grimaced. "Oh, it's just that hoodlum Michael Fury. I don't know why Josh pals around with him."
"Because he's dangerous." She might have been only twelve, but some females are born able to recognize, and appreciate, a dangerous man. But Margo's eyes were on Josh. She told herself it was because he irritated her—the heir apparent, the perfect golden prince, who continually treated her like a slightly stupid younger sister, when anyone with eyes could see she was almost a woman.
"Hey, brats." With the studied cool of sixteen years, he leaned back in the driver's seat of the idling car. The Eagles' "Hotel California" blasted out of the radio and rocked the breezy summer air. "Looking for Seraphina's gold again?"
"We're just enjoying the sun, and the solitude." But it was Margo who closed the distance, walking slowly, keeping her shoulders back. Josh's eyes were laughing at her beneath a shock of windblown, sun-bronzed hair. Michael Fury's were hidden behind mirrored sunglasses, and she couldn't tell where they looked. She wasn't overly interested, but she leaned against the car and gave him her best smile. "Hello, Michael."
"Yeah," was his reply.
"They're always hanging out on the cliffs," Josh informed his friend. "Like they're going to trip over a bunch of gold doubloons." He sneered at Margo. It was much easier to sneer than to consider, even for a moment, the way she looked in those teeny little shorts. Shit, she was just a kid, and practically his sister, and he was going to fry in hell for sure if he kept having these weird thoughts about her.
"One day we'll find them."
She leaned closer, and he could smell her. She arched a brow, drawing attention to the little mole flirting with the bottom tip of it. Her eyebrows were shades darker than all that pale blond hair. And her breasts, which seemed to grow fuller every time a guy blinked, were clearly outlined under the snug T-shirt. Because his mouth was painfully dry, his voice was sharp and derisive.
