French Silk(16)

He suddenly realized that he was standing, although he didn't remember rising to his feet. "You had a real problem with the televangelist and what he might do to your business, didn't you, Ms. Laurent?"

"He was the one with the problem, not I."

"He had pronounced you his enemy and pledged not to let up on you until he won."

"Then it was his own crusade. I wasn't a participant."

"Are you sure?"

"What do you mean?"

"Hadn't open warfare been declared between the two of you?"

"No. I ignored him."

"Where were you the night of September eighth?"

Her head snapped back. "Pardon me?"

"I believe you heard me."

"September eighth was the night Wilde was murdered. Am Ito understand that you're implicating me?"

"That's the general idea."

"You can go straight to hell."

With her succinct words still electrifying the space between them, the double doors opened behind Cassidy. He whipped his head around, almost expecting Tugboat Annie to come barging in with a bent to forcibly evict him from the premises.

The woman who came in looked too delicate to bend the wings of a butterfly. "Oh, my goodness!" she exclaimed when she saw Cassidy. Flattening her hand against her chest, she said, "I didn't know we had a caller. Claire dear, you should have told me I'd be receiving this afternoon. I would have changed into something more appropriate."

Composing herself, Claire moved to the other woman and took her arm. "You look as lovely as always, Mama. Come meet our guest."

As he watched them approach, Cassidy wished to hell he had control of this situation. He'd lost it when the amazon downstairs had let him in, and he'd never fully regained it. The tenuous hold he'd been grappling for had slipped away with the appearance of the woman at Claire's side.

"Mama, this is Mr. Cassidy. He's … he's here on a business matter. Mr. Cassidy, this is my mother, Mary Catherine Laurent."

"Mrs. Laurent," he said. Demurely she extended her hand. He had an insane impulse to bend at the waist and kiss it, for that seemed to be what she expected. Instead he gave her fingers a light squeeze and released them.

Soft brown hair waved away from her smooth, youthful face. As she looked up at him, she tilted her head to one side. "You're the spit and image of your daddy, Mr. Cassidy. I remember when he attended the cotillions in his dress uniform. My goodness, we girls swooned over him."

She laid her fingers against her cheek as though trying to stave off a blush. "He knew he was good-looking and shamelessly broke all our hearts. He was quite a rascal until he met your mama that summer she came visiting from Biloxi. The first time he saw her she was wearing an apricot organza dress and had a white camellia pinned in her hair. He was instantly smitten. They made such a lovely couple. When they danced together, they seemed to scatter fairy dust."

Baffled, Cassidy looked to Claire for help. She was smiling as though what her mother had said made perfect sense. "Sit down, Mama. Would you like some sherry?"

Cassidy caught a whiff of Mary Catherine Laurent's rose perfume as she sat on the chair next to his and decorously pulled her skirt over her knees.

"Since it's coming up on five o'clock, I suppose I could indulge in a sherry. Mr. Cassidy, you'll join me, won't you? It's quite improper for a lady to drink alone."

Sherry? He'd never tasted the stuff and didn't care if he ever did. What he could use right now was a solid belt or two of straight Chivas. But Mary Catherine's inquiring smile was too much for even a jaded prosecutor like him to resist. God forbid that he'd ever have to put her on the witness stand. One smile from her and a jury would be convinced that the moon was made of Philadelphia cream cheese if she said it was.

"I'd love some," he heard himself say. He cast a smile toward Claire; she didn't return it. Her expression was a frosty contrast to her warm coloring, made even rosier by the hues cast by the late-afternoon sun.

"Tell me all about the naval academy, Mr. Cassidy," Mary Catherine said. "I was so proud for your parents when you received the appointment."

With the help of a basketball scholarship, Cassidy had attended junior college in his small hometown in Kentucky before laying out a year to work and raise enough money to attend a university. He sure as hell had never been a candidate for a military academy. A voluntary stint in the post—Vietnam army had helped him finance law school after his discharge.

"It was everything I'd hoped it would be," he told Mary Catherine as he accepted the glass of sherry she had poured for him from one of the glittering crystal decanters.

"Claire, would you care for some?" Mary Catherine lifted a glass toward her daughter.

"No, thank you, Mama. I've still got work to do."

Mary Catherine shook her head sorrowfully and said to Cassidy, "She works all the time. Way too much for a young lady, if you ask me. But she's very talented."

"So I see." He had already noted the framed designs hanging on the walls.

"I tried to teach her knitting and crochet," the older woman said, pointing to the basket now at her feet, "but Claire Louise's only interest was in making clothes. She started out with paper dolls. When the wardrobes in the books ran out, she would draw, color, and cut her own."