Winds of Nightsong. V. J. Banis

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СКАЧАТЬ would have patched up your differences long before this.”

      “We will never patch up our differences, Ellen. And as you know, the Nightsongs will not be controlling MacNair Products for much longer.”

      “What do you mean?” Efrem asked, surprised.

      Lorna merely smiled and glanced at Michael Crane. “Forgive us, Mr. Crane. It’s family business, and something that should be discussed only with family. So this is not the time, Efrem,” she snapped. “Now,” she said, more gently, handing the baby back to her father. “Have you had tea? I’ll have some brought in.” She pulled the bellcord. “You’ll stay for tea, of course, Mr. Crane.”

      “Thank you,” he said sweetly. “I’d like that very much.”

      Ellen objected. “I’m terribly sorry. Mother, but Judith should be napping. We’ve had her out too long as it is.”

      “Nonsense. Have the butler wheel the carriage into the dining room. Little Judith can nap while we have our tea. Besides, I like having a baby in the house again.”

      Ellen was overruled, the carriage wheeled in, and the tea served. It was an ostentatious display, with too much heavy silver and china and damask as well as an overabundance of food. Efrem looked at it all with undisguised distaste.

      “So you’re from New York, Mr. Crane?” Lorna asked as she began pouring tea from the Georgian tea service. “Do you know my daughter and her husband?” Before he could answer, she said, “The Dillons. My daughter married a man named Sean Dillon.”

      “I’ve heard of him, of course, but I’ve never met the man.”

      “You must look them up when you return. Susan married beneath herself, of course, but I understand they live well enough.” Her nose crinkled snobbishly.

      “Actually I won’t be going back East, Mrs. MacNair. I’m planning to settle somewhere here in California.”

      “Oh? And just what is it you do, Mr. Crane?”

      “Not much of anything,” he answered with a chuckle.

      “You’re Ellen’s cousin?”

      “A very distant cousin. I didn’t know I had any relations here in San Francisco until my mother received word of Ellen’s father’s death a few years ago. Mother was Mr. Stanton’s second cousin, so Ellen and I are rather far down the ladder.”

      “You didn’t bring your mother with you?”

      “She died last year.”

      “I’m sorry.”

      “I inherited some money—not much, but enough to give me a bit of freedom. I never had cared much for life in New York, and then quite by accident I fell into conversation with Efrem when he and Ellen were visiting the city. During our conversation he mentioned that he’d married a Stanton. The name registered and I realized I was talking to the husband of one of my relatives. Your son and daughter-in-law were kind enough to invite me to visit them.”

      Ellen patted his hand. “I’m glad you took us up on the invitation, Michael. And you’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”

      “Which might not be very long unless I find a job. My meager inheritance won’t last long.” He looked at Efrem. “Your son suggested he might be able to help me get a job with MacNair Products. I know nothing about manufacturing cosmetics, but I’m sure I could learn. I have a good brain, people tell me.”

      Efrem said, “I’ll speak to Leon about it Monday morning, Michael. I’m sure something can be worked out.” He laughed. “We won’t let you starve.”

      “You’re so kind,” Michael said, looking like a little boy who’d just been given a very expensive present, one he knew he didn’t deserve.

      Lorna watched Efrem and Michael. Suddenly she was reminded of the sordid business of Efrem’s relationship with Leon Nightsong, which had almost become the scandal of San Francisco years and years ago. She had thought Efrem’s homosexual proclivities a thing of the past, but there was something in the way her son was smiling at this extraordinarily handsome young man that frightened her.

      And Michael Crane was indeed handsome. He had dark blond hair, deep brown eyes, and a quick smile, the features and physique of a Greek statue. Although she guessed him to be no more than twenty-four or five, perhaps younger, his eyes told her that he was much older than that in experience. He smiled too easily, but only with his lips and not his eyes. There was an artificiality about him that bothered her. He reminded her of Ramsey. Far different in looks, of course, but both had the same coldness in their eyes. Suddenly she felt quite uneasy.

      “There’s time enough,” Lorna said, “to be thinking about going to work, Mr. Crane. Enjoy San Francisco. It’s a delightful city and very exciting.” She smiled. “And it may well be that you will have to come to me for employment at MacNair Products if all goes as planned.”

      “Family business,” Michael said with another smile.

      Lorna shrugged. “Being Ellen’s cousin, you are more or less family, so I have no objections to discussing my plans in your presence.” She was talking to Efrem now.

      “You’re not going to start in on Lydia again, Mother?”

      “Start in again! I have never stopped. And I won’t rest until that woman is completely out of our lives.”

      Efrem said, “If you would just relax and let yourself get to know her, Mother, you’d find that Lydia is a delightful, warm, considerate woman.”

      “She’s a witch, and we all know it.”

      “Mother MacNair, I think you are being unfair.”

      “I am not being unfair, Ellen. I know Lydia far better than any of you. She once tried to break up my family. I’ll never forgive her for that. And I certainly will not tolerate her taking over the business your father worked so long and hard for.”

      “But Father willed it to Lydia,” Efrem argued.

      “That will can be contested, which is exactly what I intend doing.”

      “Isn’t it a little late? Father’s been dead for over a year.”

      “Not quite a year,” his mother was quick to remind him. “Besides, when I was going through your father’s safe, I found a certain paper that was not mentioned in the bequests he made in his will.”

      “What paper?”

      “It seems your father bought a fifty percent controlling interest in Lydia Nightsong’s companies.” She felt Michael Crane watching her and turned to him. “I’m sorry, Mr. Crane, this may be boring you.”

      “Not at all. I’m fascinated.”

      “Well,” Lorna continued, turning back to Efrem and Ellen, “under the terms of your father’s will, MacNair Products was bequeathed to Lydia. There was no mention made of Peter’s half ownership of Empress Cosmetics. According to my attorney, that fifty percent of Empress falls into the category of ‘all other rights, assets, properties and estates,’ СКАЧАТЬ