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he lifted her hands and kissed them. "You're loyal and warm and compassionate to those you care for. What you lack in common sense you make up for with humor and charm."
The emotions that swirled inside her threatened to erupt in laughter or tears or screams. She forced them to wither and kept her face as blank and cold as her voice. "That's a fascinating analysis. You'll have to bill me for it. I'm a little short of cash."
"No charge." He drew her to her feet again, brushed at the hair that danced wildly around her face. "Listen, if you need something to tide you over until—"
"Don't you dare offer me money," she interrupted with a snap in her voice. "I'm not some destitute family retainer."
It was his turn to be insulted. "I thought you were a friend."
"Well, keep your money in your numbered Swiss account, friend. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself."
"As you like." After a shrug, he held out his hand. "How about a lift back to the house?"
Her lips curved coolly. "How about you stick out your well-manicured thumb?" She strode away, picking her way with careless grace over rocks. Moments later he heard the panther roar of his own car and the skid of tires on pavement.
Christ, he thought with a quick laugh. He was crazy about her.
She was still seething with fury when she marched into the house. Temper carried her well down the central hallway before the sound of voices registered. Calm, reasonable voices. Overly calm, Margo realized at once. Coldly reasonable and bitingly formal.
It made her shudder to think that husband and wife would speak to each other in such lifeless tones. However wrenching it had been, she much preferred the passionate exchange she'd just had with Josh to the kind of studied argument going on between Laura and Peter in the library.
The heavy pocket doors were open, allowing her to step up to the threshold and observe the entire scene. Such a civilized room, Margo thought, with its soaring ceiling, its two levels walled with books and diamond-paned windows. The old Bokhara rug and the smell of leather. A civilized room, she thought again, for a civilized argument.
How perfectly horrible.
"I'm very sorry you feel that way, Peter. I simply can't agree with you."
"The business, the running of Templeton hotels, our place in society, and the media are hardly your fortes, Laura. I would not be in the position I'm in, nor have the responsibilities I have, if your parents and the board of directors didn't value and respect my opinion."
"That's true."
Margo stepped quietly to the doorway. She could see Laura standing in front of the window seat, her hands clasped loosely. There was such temper and distress in her eyes that Margo wondered how Peter could remain oblivious to it.
For himself, Peter was in front of the lovely old Adam fireplace, very lord of the manor with one hand on the mantel and the other wrapped around a Waterford lowball glass gleaming with light and unblended Scotch.
"In this case, however," Laura continued in that same quiet, empty voice, "I don't believe the family would share your concern. Josh certainly doesn't."
Peter let out a hard, dismissive laugh. "Josh is hardly one to worry about reputation. He's more at home flitting off to clubs and rubbing elbows with Eurotrash."
"Be careful." Laura only murmured the warning, but there was force behind it. "You and Josh approach things differently, but you're each an important part of Templeton. My point is that Josh fully supports Margo's remaining at Templeton House as long as she chooses. And, foreseeing this altercation, I contacted my parents this morning. They're delighted Margo is home."
His lips went thin and white at that. Margo would have been pleased by the reaction if his temper hadn't been directed at Laura. "You went behind my back. That's typical of you, isn't it? Running to your parents whenever we disagree."
"I don't run to them, Peter." There was weariness now. As if giving in to it, Laura sat down on the padded window seat. Light streamed in through the lovely arched window at her back, causing her to look fragile, pale, and heartbreakingly beautiful. "And I don't discuss our private problems with them. In this case it was, in your words, business."
"And business is for me to handle." His voice was clipped, all reason with an undertone of carefully controlled impatience. "You only have the house to run and the children to see to. Both of which you're putting in second place to some misguided sense of loyalty."
"No one and nothing comes ahead of my children."
"Really?" A small smile curved his lips as he took a sip of his Scotch. "I don't suppose you found time in your busy and demanding day of manicures and luncheons to watch television? One of the tabloid shows dedicated an entire thirty minutes to your old friend. There was a particularly interesting clip of her sunbathing topless on a yacht. Several of her close friends gave interviews detailing her many affairs and her so-called free-spirited lifestyle. Naturally the show didn't fail to report her connection with Templeton, and her long-standing friendship with Laura Templeton Ridgeway."
Pleased that she didn't respond, he inclined his head. "It included a picture of the two of you, and the children. In addition, a waiter at the country club was happy to tell them how the two of you and an unnamed woman had a giddy champagne lunch by the pool two years ago."
Laura waited a beat. "Kate's going to be annoyed they didn't get her name." Out of patience, she waved a hand and rose, and he saw that what he had taken for
shame was annoyance. "Really, Peter, it's all nonsense. The last time we were on the Riviera you were irritated with me because I was too shy to go French, yet you're condemning Margo because she did. And if any of those people had been her friends, they wouldn't have been chafing to give interviews, which they were paid for, that gossiped about her. And nearly half the women I know get snockered at the club regularly. If we wanted to have a giddy champagne lunch to celebrate being together, it's no one's business."
"You're not only blind and stubborn, but you're foolish. And this attitude you've developed of late has gone on long enough."
