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“That we’re normal,” Augusta replied. “A lot of people don’t have anyone to work through the past with.”
Alexis frowned at her. “I hate it when I’m angry and you just flatten out the source of it with logic and understanding.”
Augusta smiled in the face of her exasperation. “No, you don’t. You really love me and Athena, you just deal with your own rejection by trying to reject us in return. But we’re here for you whether you like it or not.”
Alexis turned to Athena, a new alliance formed in their amazement over Augusta. “Where did this Pollyanna come from?” She shook her head. “I can’t in all conscience leave you alone with her.”
Athena felt the turmoil always created inside her by the mention of their mother settle down into the acceptance she always thought she’d mastered but hadn’t quite.
“Okay. But, I’m not like her.” She didn’t have to specify who she meant.
“I know,” Alexis replied. “I’m just…jealous.”
Athena raised an eyebrow in astonishment. “Of what?”
“Your ability to get on with it. I still wonder all the time what I did wrong.”
“The same thing we all did,” Athena replied. “We challenged her position as most beautiful and adored. We didn’t mean to, but we were born with her looks and we were children. We stole the show. She couldn’t forgive us for that.”
“And she couldn’t love us,” Augusta finished. “It’s nothing we did. The sooner we all come to terms with that, the sooner we find relationships, let love into our lives. Move on.”
“After we get the truth out of the Cliffside gentlemen,” Athena said. She reached a hand toward each of her sisters. “Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“Agreed.”
They stacked hands in the ritual sharing of an oath—in the tradition of the Three Musketeers.
ATHENA STOOD on Cliffside’s wide doorstep, tugging at the neckline of her Regency period gown. Her hair was partially concealed by a beaded cap that left only a few red tendrils showing.
The cut of her gown made her bosom swell above the low neckline and she was wishing that the costume had come with a shawl.
Lex pulled her hand away.
Athena held up her white silk mask while Lex tugged down on the neckline of her dress. “I thought you wanted him to be so captivated by you that he’ll tell you everything. Showing bosom does that to a man.”
“Easy for you to say.” Athena indicated the relatively high neckline of her simple, slip-style flapper dress. “You’re covered.”
Lex put her fingertip to the hem of the dress that fell above midthigh. “If I showed any more leg, this would be a chemise!”
Gusty fidgeted with the strings of her bag and looked anxiously toward the window where revelers could be seen laughing and dancing.
“Relax!” Athena ordered. “You’re going to be fine. You look so sweet and innocent, the one you get will spill his guts to you.”
The door was opened by a pretty but considerably mature Marie Antoinette who’d eaten a little cake herself.
She looked first surprised, then smiled widely. “You must be those pretty girls in the chamber of commerce office!”
Athena, Lex and Gusty smiled in unison.
Marie Antoinette opened the door wider, inviting them inside.
Athena felt a virulent stab of nostalgia. The house was so familiar and…not. She looked around her and recognized the armoire that had been upstairs, the little round mahogany parlor table. But the sofa and chairs were new, as was the artwork on the walls.
And the duck decoys.
Nostalgia turned to anger—and that steadied her and brought her back to her purpose. What kind of a mean man would hunt ducks?
The same kind who’d cheat a helpless old woman out of her house!
“Food’s in the dining room.” Marie Antoinette pointed with a fan that appeared to be Japanese. Then she tapped it against her chin as she surveyed the room. “Let’s see if I can find you one of our hosts.”
“Oh, don’t worry about us,” Athena said. “You go back to the party.”
“I can’t just leave you…” she began to protest, then the doorbell rang.
Lex shooed her toward the door. “Go. We’ll be fine.”
“I’m not fine,” Gusty said under her breath when Marie Antoinette went to the door. “I’m terrified!”
“Just stick to the plan,” Athena said patiently. “Make friends with him, try to draw him out. If it doesn’t work, simply wander away. We’ll all meet back at the car at the bottom of the driveway.”
Lex closed a cold hand over Athena’s arm. She pointed discreetly toward the far edge of the living room where a Musketeer was surrounded by a pair of cowgirls, Abraham Lincoln, and Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Captain Picard.
“There’s one,” she whispered.
“Go, Gusty,” Athena said. “Before you lose your nerve.”
Gusty closed her eyes, drew a deep breath, gathered up her skirts and floated off in his direction.
Lex turned to Athena in surprise. “She did it! I didn’t think she’d do it!”
“Of course she did it. She always comes through for us. She’s just not as foolish as we are. Look!”
Athena turned her sister toward the kitchen from which a Musketeer emerged with a champagne glass in each hand. Without prompting, Lex placed herself in his path. “Hello!” she said. “Is one of those for me?”
The Musketeer handed her the glass and gave her his full attention as she tucked her hand in his arm and began to chatter as they walked toward the sofa.
Athena wandered through the dining room, then the kitchen, in search of the third Musketeer. Her heart was pounding in her chest. Though she’d denied it to Gusty, this scheme was chancey, but since the direct approach wouldn’t work, she couldn’t think of any other way to find out who David Hartford was, why Sadie had left him her home, and whether or not he’d had anything to do with her death.
DAVID TOOK ANOTHER antihistamine, knowing it would do nothing to combat the exhaustion he felt. After being up half the night getting ready for the party, a pill that would make him even drowsier was the last thing he needed. But he’d been sneezing nonstop since before the party started half an hour ago, and he was afraid he was besmirching the heroic image of the literary Musketeer.
He replaced his itchy wig, adjusted his beard and mustache and put on the mask. Then, with a flourish to put himself back in character, donned his hat.
He was halfway down the stairs when he spotted her.
From his vantage point some distance above her, all he could see was red hair trapped in some kind of beaded net, the tip of a pert little nose, and the soft, beautiful swell of breasts rising out of the top of her dress. The breath caught in his throat and his heart lurched. For a moment he couldn’t move. All he could do was stare down on her and take in the exquisite perfection of the view.
Then she turned as though she sensed his presence and caught his eye.
Not that he could see hers, or she his—not behind the masks. But there was something in the way she turned to look up at him, something in the small smile that curved her lips that told him she’d been waiting for him.
Probably not deliberately, but now that she’d seen him, she wanted to know him. Just as he wanted to know her.
He walked down the stairs and around the railing to where she stood. He removed his hat, again with a flourish, and gave her the bow he’d seen in movies.
“Mademoiselle,” he said. “D’Artagnan at your service.”
She smiled teasingly. “Technically, D’Artagnan wasn’t one of the ‘three’ Musketeers.”
He made a tsking sound. “But we’re not being technical tonight, we’re being fanciful.”
“My apologies, monsieur.” She curtsied, arms gracefully held out. “I am…Constance.”
Well. D’Artagnan’s love. She was willing to play his game.
And the rest of her—what he could see of her—was just as beautiful as his aerial view had been.
Her face was oval shaped, her lips like a small heart above a pointed little chin. She wore a black ribbon with a cameo on a slender neck fringed with fiery red tendrils of hair that had escaped the beaded headpiece.
He peered into her mask. “Blue or green eyes?” he asked. “Ah. Blue. Dark blue. But no freckles with that hair?”
She laughed lightly. He loved the sound of it.
“No, mercifully,” she replied. “Though there are a few on my back.”
“You must show me,” he teased.
At which point she turned and obligingly lowered her head, revealing slender shoulders dusted with little honey-colored dots.
It was all he could do to stop himself from lowering his lips to a small scar he saw there. He’d been celibate a long time, but he hadn’t realized it had been this long.
“Are you hungry, Constance?” he asked briskly.
He saw her blink once. “Famished,” she replied.
“Then come with me.” He tucked her arm into his and walked her toward the buffet table in the dining room. He handed her a plate.
The spread was impressive. There were large succulent prawns on ice, fancy meat and pastry roll-ups, several fruit salads, vegetable sticks and luscious chocolates.
While she pondered the table, he went into the kitchen to snatch two glasses and open a bottle of champagne. He returned to find her plate holding a very modest amount of shrimp and raw vegetables.
He led the way back to the stairs, walked halfway up, then settled them comfortably on a carpeted stair, letting his legs stretch down to make room for hers.
“Tell me, Constance,” he said, placing the glass on the stair and pouring champagne, “Are you a member of the historical society?”
She bit a shrimp in half, then shook her head as she chewed. “No. But I’m glad I happened to be here for the party.”
“You don’t live in Dancer’s Beach?”
“I’m…visiting.”
“Family?”
“Friends.”
“Friends are important,” he said. “I value mine.”
She nodded. “The other two Musketeers?”
He laughed. “You noticed. I guess the costumes are corny, but we saw them and sort of related, I guess.”
“To the fight against despotic evil?”
“Nothing so noble,” he denied candidly. “To the camaraderie, the tankards of ale, the wenching.”
She tsked. “Wenching isn’t healthy.”
“Yeah, well, like a lot of men, I talk more than I do.”
He drank his champagne to cover his close observation of her as she admired the elegantly carved stairway. He was trying to imagine her without the mask.
“I don’t recall that the Musketeers had such elegant surroundings,” she said.
“Mmm.” He refilled her glass, then his own. “When we’re not Musketeering, we need someplace comfortable to be.”
“But this is so big.”
“I know. It needs children, parties.”
“Do you have them?”
He smiled. “The children? No. No wife yet, either, but I’m looking.”
“Ah.” She took another bite of prawn. “The prospective Mrs. D’Artagnan might be here tonight.” She pointed with her glass toward a very attractive woman dressed as Cleopatra. “The Queen of Egypt is very fetching.”
He glanced at the woman, agreed with a nod, then turned back to his plate. “But there are all those palace intrigues and I understand she has something going with the Emperor of Rome. Are you single?”
She nodded absently, then asked, “Do you know anything about the history of this wonderful house?”
“Just a little,” he replied. He didn’t want to talk about the house, he wanted to talk about her. And him. “It was built before the turn of the century by someone who married into the Buckley family that founded Dancer’s Beach.”
“It’s nice to have a house with history. Are you the owner?”
“I’ve just recently moved in with a couple of friends.” All he could think about was how beautiful this woman was, even with half her face covered. “We’re not very settled yet, but we’re working on it.”
“What do you do, Mr…?”
