Ain't She Sweet? (12 page)

Ryan called out from behind her, “Don’t run, Sugar Beth! You’re only going to make it worse.”

She ignored him and raced for her car, but she couldn’t find her keys. She sank to her knees, pulled open her purse with both hands, and dug inside, plowing through wadded tissues, makeup, pens, and a field trip permission slip she’d forgotten to turn in. A tampon that had come unwrapped lay in the bottom of her purse. She bit her lip.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mr. Byrne coming toward her. He was bare-chested, his dark hair long and loose. “Get back in here now.”

Ryan’s eyes were pleading. “Come on, Sugar Beth. Do what he says.”

She fumbled with her purse. Tried to think what she should do. She’d lie and say she hadn’t known Winnie was in there. Their principal was a friend of Diddie’s. How much trouble could she get into?

Slowly her heartbeat returned to normal. There was no reason to be so upset. She grabbed her purse, shoved the contents back inside, and stood up. “What’s the big deal? The whole thing was an accident, Mr. Byrne. We didn’t know she was there.”

“You knew, all right.”

God, she hated him. The first day of school she’d thought he was cute—weird, but so sophisticated that he even made Ryan seem immature. But when she’d gone up to him after class to flirt a little, he’d been a jerk, completely unfriendly.

Deke, Bobby, and Woody were waiting inside the gym door. Ryan wouldn’t narc on her, and Deke and Bobby were tough, but Woody was afraid of his dad, so she shot him a hard look that told him he’d better keep his big fat mouth shut or she’d do something ten times worse than anything his dad could dream up.

“Would anyone care to explain?” Byrne had a skinny chest, and he looked stupid standing there without his shirt, but he didn’t seem self-conscious about it.

Sugar Beth told herself she hadn’t done anything that terrible. Winnie should have just run back into the shower room. God, she was such a dweeb. She should have laughed it off. That’s what Sugar Beth would have done.

She wondered if Winnie would tell Griffin. In Sugar Beth’s entire life, Griffin had never once mentioned his other daughter’s name to her.

“We didn’t know she was in there,” Deke said. “We thought the room was empty.”

Byrne had this little zit on the side of his chin. Sugar Beth focused on it because it made her feel better knowing he still got zits. “Is that right?” he said.

“Yes, sir.” They nodded.

Byrne’s gaze went from one face to the next, looking for the weak link and finding it when he came to Woody. “All of you?”

Woody gulped. His eyes went to Sugar Beth. “Uh-huh.”

“Then what happened to her clothes?”

Nobody had an answer for that.

“Sugar Beth, come with me. The rest of you can go.”

The boys scrambled away, all except Ryan, who stayed by her side.

“You, too, Galantine.”

“If it’s all the same to you, sir, I’ll stay here with Sugar Beth.”

“It’s not all the same. I wish to speak with her alone.”

Ryan got this stubborn look on his face that said he intended to stay right where he was.

But he had a scholarship to worry about, and Sugar Beth was afraid Byrne might try to screw it up. Besides, she didn’t want Byrne thinking she needed her boyfriend to protect her. “Go on,” she said.

The locker room door opened just then and Winnie came out. She was wearing her gym clothes and carrying Byrne’s shirt. Her hair hung in a wet tangle, the ends dripping on her gym shirt with its bulldog mascot. She didn’t look at Sugar Beth but at Ryan, and her expression was so full of anguish that Sugar Beth wanted to shake her. Didn’t she have any pride?

“We didn’t mean anything,” Ryan said softly.

Winnie ducked her head and walked away toward the front of the building. She was still carrying Byrne’s shirt, as if she’d forgotten she had it in her hand.

Ryan gazed at Sugar Beth, his troubled expression filling her with shame. She didn’t want him here, didn’t want him to see any more. She rose on her toes and gave him a light kiss. “Call me when you get home from work.”

He didn’t look happy about it, but he finally turned away and headed for the parking lot.

Byrne opened the locker room door. “In here.”

She realized she was a little afraid of him, and she hated him even more for that.

“Open your locker,” he said as soon as they were inside.

Shit. She hadn’t thought far enough ahead. “My locker?”

He waited.

She tried a counterattack. “You shouldn’t be in here, you know. It’s the
girls’
locker room.”

“Open the bloody thing, or I’ll get the janitor to cut off the lock.”

She thought about choosing another locker, Amy’s or Leeann’s, but he’d figure that out pretty fast.

Screw it. If he wanted to make a big deal out of this, that was his problem. She walked around two banks of lockers until she came to her own and twirled the combination. Her fingers were clumsy, and it took her three attempts to get it right. Finally, it clicked, but she didn’t open it.

His bare arm brushed her shoulder as he reached past her. He pulled open the small metal door.

Winnie’s clothes lay in a crumpled pile on top.

He didn’t say anything for a long time. He simply gazed at her, and she got this awful feeling that he could see right through her skin.

“Is this the kind of human being you want to be?”

She felt small and ugly. She bit off the urge to tell him how her father loved Winnie and not her, how she’d tried to be pretty enough, sweet enough, special enough, to make him notice her, but nothing had worked.

“Please inform your mother that I’ll stop by to see her this evening.”

Relief swept through Sugar Beth. Diddie would chop him into little pieces. She wanted to laugh in his face, but she couldn’t find a laugh anyplace inside her.

By the time he arrived at Frenchman’s Bride that night, Sugar Beth had done her work, not accusing him of attacking her—it would be another few weeks before she thought of that—just complaining about him to Diddie. How he put her down in class, embarrassed her in front of her friends. How his attitude had upset her so much that she’d done something really stupid. Something involving Winnie Davis.

Diddie wasn’t predisposed to feel sympathetic toward her husband’s illegitimate child, and as she met Colin Byrne, steely politeness undercut her gossamer blond beauty. “I don’t see the need to make such a fuss about a silly prank. I’m sure Sugar Beth meant no harm.”

Since Byrne wasn’t Southern, he didn’t understand how much power a softly spoken woman could wield, and unlike so many other people, he wasn’t rattled by Diddie. “She did mean harm, though. She’s been systematically persecuting Winnie Davis all year.”

His bluntness set Diddie’s teeth on edge, not to mention the fact that he had long hair, something she’d disapproved of from the beginning. “You’re an educator. I expect you to understand that the roots of this difficult situation lie not with Sugar Beth but with my husband’s lamentable
bohemian
lifestyle. My daughter is every bit as much a victim as . . . that
girl.
”

“What happened today was cruel.”

“Cruel?” Icicles dripped from the magnolia petals. “The lateness of the hour must have fatigued you, Mr. Byrne. I can think of no other reason a teacher would say something so unprofessional about one of the finest young women to ever attend Parrish High.”

“Perhaps it’s a cultural barrier, Mrs. Carey, but in England fine young women don’t subject others to humiliation.”

“I’ll see you out.”

In the end, Sugar Beth received nothing more than a mild reprimand from the principal, a man who owed his position to her mother’s influence. Winnie, in the meantime, let her hair grow longer and ducked to stay behind it.

Gordon raised his head from the bottom of the bed. Sugar Beth got up and went into the bathroom for a glass of water. Winnie had done well for herself. The best part of Sugar Beth—the part that believed in cheering on anyone who fought the odds and came out a winner—tried to feel good for her. But the old ghosts loomed too large, and she couldn’t manage it. One more item to add to the long list of things she still needed to do penance for.

She headed back to the bedroom, hoping for sleep. Tomorrow stood a chance of being one of the most miserable days of her life, and she needed to be ready.

“No doubt you thought I was sadly lacking in manners. You may sit down. At my feet.”

GEORGETTE HEYER,
These Old Shades

CHAPTER SIX

Sugar Beth didn’t like the butterfly rumpus going on in her stomach as she crossed the damp lawn toward Frenchman’s Bride. Unfortunately, she was already an hour late. After her uncomfortable trip down memory lane last night, she’d slept so badly that she’d turned off her alarm without thinking. Byrne wouldn’t be happy. Tough. Neither was she.

Gordon stopped to sniff a patch of grass, and a mockingbird called out. She had no intention of slinking in the back door, regardless of what he’d said, and she climbed the front steps, but when she got to the top, she saw a note stuck to the knocker.
Door locked.

Come in the back.

Bastard.
The latch didn’t budge, and she turned her wrath on her nearest target. “Now what do you think about your choice of friends, huh? I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

Gordon gave her a snotty look, but he stayed with her as she stomped down the stairs, not out of loyalty, but because she hadn’t yet fed him. She followed the flagstone path around the side of the house, then came to a dead stop.

A sleek new addition, invisible from either the street or the carriage house, rose from the space that had once held the unused patio. The addition encompassed a spacious screened-in porch and a sunroom with long, high windows. One more desecration.

She entered through the porch into what had once been the cozy kitchen where Ellie Myers, Diddie’s cook and housekeeper, had reigned supreme. But nothing was the same.

Walls had been knocked out, ceilings raised, skylights added, all of it coming together in a state-of-the-art kitchen. She took in the bird’s-eye maple cabinets and stainless steel appliances. A thick, tempered glass eating counter hung suspended over a section of the natural slate countertop. One end curved in a sculptured peninsula that separated it from the sunroom, which was decorated with an Asian flair—light walls and lacquered, oxblood furniture, along with some European pieces. An Adams sofa covered in burnished gold upholstery with brass nail-head trim sat near a decorative Victorian wooden birdcage. A few lacquered bamboo jars and earthenware ceramic pieces held a lush display of houseplants. The muted pagoda print on the chair and ottoman blended with a neighboring chinoiserie chest, which held a pile of books and an abandoned laptop computer.

The house of her childhood was gone, and it took her a moment to work up the energy to slip off her jacket. As she did, she noticed a neatly typed list propped on the slate countertop. She stopped at the first item:

Breakfast in my office: fresh orange juice, blueberry pancakes, sausage, grilled
tomatoes, more coffee.

No way did Byrne eat like this every morning, not with that lean body. She knew a test when she saw it, and she gazed down at Gordon. “He thinks I’m not up to the challenge.”

Gordon’s expression indicated he had his doubts, too.

She set to work. It took a while to find the dog food, which she poured into an exquisite Waterford bowl and set on the floor near the porch doors. “Only the best for you, right, champ?”

His mouth was already full, so he didn’t reply.

She was gazing in disgust at the old-fashioned glass juicer when she heard footsteps. She didn’t like the way her stomach plunged. She was accustomed to making men nervous, not the other way around.

Byrne entered the kitchen through a newly constructed archway. As his eyes skimmed over her, she gave herself high marks for her choice of work clothes. Housekeepers were supposed to wear black, weren’t they? And didn’t she just live to please?

Her stretchy black lace crisscross blouse had a plunging V neck, and her ancient black slacks still had enough life in them to hug her hips. He eyed the small turquoise butterfly that dangled from a silver chain in her cleavage. She wished she had a really spectacular rack to shove under his nose. Still, with the right bra anything was possible, and judging from the length of time it took him to move his eyes back to her face, she was doing just fine.
Uniform, my ass.

In contrast to her semihooker’s attire, he wore dark slacks, a long-sleeved burgundy silk shirt, and an elegant pair of suspenders. What kind of man dressed like that to work at home? As he looked down his imperious nose at her, she knew for sure he’d been trapped in the wrong century.

“Fresh from your morning trot in Hyde Park, m’lord?” She managed a slight curtsy, although it lost some of its effectiveness, since she was behind the counter, and he couldn’t see her knees bend.

He regarded her cuttingly. “Would it be possible to have my breakfast now, or is that too much of an inconvenience?”

“Almost done.”

He took in the nearly empty countertop. “I can see that.”

“I’m learning the kitchen.”

“You’re an hour late.”

“What do you mean? I got here before eight.”

“You were supposed to be here at seven.”

“I’m positive you said eight. Didn’t he, Gordon?”

Gordon was too busy giving him love to back up her story.

She pulled an orange from a bowl on the counter. “Is it true your parents were members of the British royal family?”

“One step from the throne.” Byrne noted the Waterford dog dish as he made his way into the sunroom, but didn’t comment.

“Liar. You grew up poor.”

“Then why did you ask?”

“So I could irritate you by pointing out the differences in our backgrounds. Yours, humble and squalid. Mine, pampered and privileged. And if you want fresh juice every morning, I’m going to need an automatic juicer.”