Silk and Stone (2 page)

Each faint whir and rumble of the elevators down the hall made her nerves dance. She could barely breathe, listening for the sound of those doors opening. She smoothed her upswept hair, then anxiously fingered a blond strand that had escaped. Jerking at each hair, she pulled them out. A dozen or more, each unwilling to go. If it hurt, she didn’t notice.

She clasped her hands in front of her pale yellow suit-dress, then unclasped them, fiddled with the gold braid along the neck, twisted the plain gold wedding band on her left hand. She never completely removed it from her body, even when she worked. It had either remained on her finger or on a sturdy gold chain around her neck, all these years.

That chain, lying coldly between her breasts, also held his wedding ring.

She heard the hydraulic purr of an elevator settling into place, then the softer rush of metal doors sliding apart. Ten years compressed in the nerve-racking space of a few seconds. If he weren’t the one walking up the long hall right now, if some unsuspecting stranger strolled by instead, she thought her shaking legs would collapse.

Damn the thick carpeting. She couldn’t gauge his steps. She wasn’t ready. No, she would always be ready. Her life stopped, and she was waiting, waiting.…

He walked into the doorway and halted. This tall, broad-shouldered stranger was her husband. Every memory she had of his appearance was there, stamped
with a brutal decade of maturity, but there. Except for the look in his eyes. Nothing had ever been bleak and hard about him before. He stared at her with an intensity that could have burned her shadow on the floor.

Words were hopeless, but all that they had. “Welcome back,” she said. Then, brokenly, “
Jake
”

He took a deep breath, as if a shiver had run through him. He closed the doors without ever taking his eyes off her. Then he was at her in two long steps, grasping her by the shoulders, lifting her to her toes. They were close enough to share a breath, a heartbeat. “I trained myself not to think about you,” he said, his voice a raw whisper. “Because if I had, I would have lost my mind.”

“I never deserted you. I wanted to be part of your life, but you wouldn’t let me. Will you please try now?”

“Do you still have it?” he asked.

Anger. Defeat. The hoarse sound she made contained both. “
Yes.
”

He released her. “Good. That’s all that matters.”

Sam turned away, tears coming helplessly. After all these years, there was still only one thing he wanted from her, and it was the one thing she hated, a symbol of pride and obsession she would never understand, a bloodred stone that had controlled the lives of too many people already, including theirs.

The Pandora ruby.

Part
          One
 

Chapter
          One
 

1961

T
he living room of the old Vanderveer family home, Highview, had been transformed into a glorious wedding chapel of white satin bows, enormous white urns filled with flowers, and, at the end of the aisle between rows of white wooden chairs, a white wooden trellis strung with garlands of white orchids. Judge Vanderveer’s wedding was the biggest social event the town had seen in decades. Life moved slowly in Pandora; the mountain gentry rarely ventured into the lowlands to find brides.

Mountain people were clannish. Indian or white, they looked down on the rest of North Carolina in more ways than one.

The bride, swaddled under a white veil and miles of
pearl-encrusted white satin, floated up the aisle, as perfect as Doris Day. Standing beside the trellis with a bouquet of orchids trembling in her fists, Sarah Vanderveer Raincrow stared in horrified disbelief. This couldn’t be happening.

Held by a delicate gold setting, shimmering in the light, the Pandora star ruby gleamed at the end of a long necklace on the bodice of Alexandra Duke’s wedding gown.

Sarah felt smothered by disbelief, as if the pink tulle and satin of her matron-of-honor’s dress had become a hot blanket.

My ruby. My heirloom. A gift from my husband’s ancestors. William gave it to her
. No, no, no—how could he, like this, without even an explanation or warning? There must be some terrible mistake. Her head swam. Her brother would not ignore generations of tradition.
But he has
.

There were gasps from the Vanderveers and Raincrows. The Dukes reacted with awkward, stony silence. Rachel Raincrow gaped at Alexandra as if she’d grown horns and a tail. Sarah had never seen anything rattle her mother-in-law’s serenity before.

Sarah turned toward Hugh desperately.

He stood under the trellis beside her big redheaded, red-faced, stern brother, and next to William he looked lean and exotic and achingly handsome in a black tuxedo. His dark gaze was already on Sarah. Her husband seemed as stunned and betrayed as she.

In the electric silence the minister cleared his throat. People waited, fidgeting. Sarah gave her future sister-in-law a venomous stare. Alexandra returned it.

Five minutes later Alexandra Duke took a giant step up the social ladder, and became Alexandra Vanderveer.

The parlor doors were shut, a hundred guests milling outside, confused and curious. William looked uncomfortable but firm, his eyes shifting away from Sarah’s wounded, condemning questions. His new wife kept one hand in his and the other delicately posed over her ruby
in elegant horror. “I didn’t realize Alexandra would wear the necklace today,” William said gruffly.

“Oh, William, I’m sorry,” Alexandra answered. “You said Sarah would understand. I thought you were going to
discuss
it with her after the rehearsal dinner.”

“I decided to wait until after we returned from our honeymoon.” William looked away, scowling. “This is a damned mess. My fault.”

Sarah cried out harshly and pointed at Alexandra. “You let
her
talk you into this. You’d never hurt me this way otherwise.”

William had tears in his eyes. “I believe”—he cleared his throat and his troubled gaze went to Sarah—“I believe, because our parents are dead and there are only the two of us to carry on, Sarah, that an invaluable heirloom should remain with the one of us who bears the family name. You’ve never expressed much interest in the ruby. All these years it’s been locked away in my office safe, and you don’t care for jewelry—”

“This isn’t about a piece of jewelry, it’s about
trust
. And our family’s traditions.” She turned toward Hugh, who stood beside her, somber and alert, one broad hand pressed against the small of her back in silent support. “And about Hugh’s family traditions too,” Sarah added urgently.

“Will, you’re as fair a man as I’ve ever known,” Hugh told him grimly. “This isn’t right. Not to Sarah, and not to me. My people gave that ruby to yours. The Vanderveers have always passed it down from mother to daughter. It belongs to Sarah.”

“William, I don’t want your sister to be jealous of me,” Alexandra interjected. She slid her fingers up the necklace, fingering the clasp. “I’m certainly not trying to
steal
a family heirloom. It’s just that I’m so
proud
to be your wife, to be a Vanderveer, and when you showed me the ruby, I admired it for what it
means
to you, William.” Her mouth trembled. “To me, it symbolizes a very dear, fine old family—one I want to be part of.” She undid the necklace. “Here. Sarah, please—take it.”

William, who looked protective and upset at her
speech, grasped her hand. “
No.
” He glared at Sarah. “Sister, I’ve raised you and looked after you, and to do it the best I could, I gave up dreams I had of traveling—seeing the world, being footloose and fancy-free. Now I ask this one thing of you—not to throw family traditions in my face when I’ve upheld the
best
traditions a family can hope for. I’ve done my duty. You will always be my sister, and I love you, and there’s no call for you to feel threatened because I’ve brought Alexandra into this house.”

Sarah gasped. “You think I don’t want you to have a wife? Good Lord—no. But not a wife who’d deliberately make trouble between you and everyone who respects you.”

“You’re the one who’s making trouble, sister. You’re ruining my wedding day, and that is the legacy people in this town will remember—that you destroyed the happiest day of my life with your bickering.”

Sarah’s hand rose to her throat. Stricken with betrayal, she gazed at Alexandra. “Why did you marry my brother? You had dozens of boys at college.”

“I have to explain why I cherish your brother? He’s so much more of a man—a gentleman—than anyone else I’ve ever met. How can you imply that I have ulterior motives. I love him.”

“Liar. William is crazy about you—blind in love with you. But you don’t love my brother—you love his name, and his title, and his money. And having our family’s heirloom is a way you can show everyone that you’ve moved up in the world—you’ve got more respectability than any Duke could earn with a thousand mills. You aren’t a Duke anymore—not a money-grubbing, slave-driving Duke.
That’s
what my brother and my ruby mean to you.”

“Those are damned lies,” William shouted. “Sarah, you apologize!”

Sarah stared at him in heartbroken defeat. “I was born and raised in this house. My mother sat in this very room and told me the story about the Pandora ruby, and how it would belong to me someday. If you don’t honor
that, I’ll never set foot in this house again.” Her brothers mouth moved silently. His agony was obvious. Alexandra touched his arm, and he looked away from Sarah. “I’ve done what I think is best. Please try to honor that.”

“No. I can’t.” She walked toward the door. “Hugh, stop her,” William said, starting forward, then halting, looking from his sister to his wife, who gave him a beseeching stare.

“She’s right,” Hugh said. He followed Sarah out of the parlor.

Hugh’s mother commanded a place of honor in the middle of the crowded hallway. Small, wide, and calm, she balanced an enormous paisley handbag on the lap of her print dress. An outlandish blue hat decorated with a single spring daffodil sat jauntily on her head, above a coiled braid of graying black hair. Around her neck hung a half dozen strings of garnets and rose quartz stones, all of which she’d collected herself over the years.

Rachel Raincrow’s bright-black eyes nearly disappeared under folds of honey-colored wrinkles when she squinted at Sarah and Hugh. “Is that woman keeping the stone?”

Hugh nodded.

“She’s a thief, then. And William is a fool.” Rachel Raincrow, daughter of a white road-construction engineer who’d passed through on a Roosevelt WPA project during the Depression without leaving her his name, was a first-class rockhound. No one understood quite how she did it, but she had an uncanny knack for finding anything that glittered. She’d supplied Pandora’s jewelers with local stones for years. A few of her more illustrious finds had paid Hugh’s way through medical school.

And no one took her pronouncements lightly. Alexandra’s reputation was doomed among the oldtimers.

Sarah caught Alexandra’s kid sister, Frannie, looking at them miserably. Frannie Duke was a little blond beatnik, a truly odd, gentle character among the Dukes, which was why she was the only one of the clan Sarah would have welcomed as a sister-in-law. Too bad Frannie was only seventeen and didn’t have Alexandra’s Barbie-doll
beauty. Too bad that quiet, sweet, aging-bachelor William had fallen in love with the wrong Duke sister.