Tempting Fate. Carla Neggers

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СКАЧАТЬ have been surprised if she walked right over the spot where Ulysses Pembroke had been murdered.

      On the other side of the park she crossed onto Union Avenue, a wide street lined with beautifully restored Victorian houses. The air was cool, fragrant with grass, pine and summer flowers. She passed the historic racetrack, quiet so late at night, its tall, pointed wrought-iron fences and red-and-white awnings silhouetted against the dark grounds.

      Soon she came to the narrow, unpretentious driveway and discreet sign that marked the entrance to the Pembroke. Not long ago there’d been no sign, just the crumbling, pitted driveway. No more. Transforming Ulysses Pembroke’s dilapidated house and grounds into an inn and spa had been Dani’s biggest gamble. So far, it looked to pay off.

      The biggest miracle, she thought, was that Nick hadn’t sold the property to a mall developer years ago, never mind that she’d threatened everything short of murder if he did. Instead, she’d leased the land from him and revived Ulysses’s long-defunct mineral springs, turning it into a profitable company that enabled her to buy out her grandfather. Of course, Nick liked to claim he’d never have sold out on her. Hadn’t he hung on to the old place, let it be a drag on his finances, for decades? But Dani was unimpressed. Nick Pembroke was a gambler. This time he’d just gambled on her.

      Walking up the driveway, she could smell the roses even before she passed the rose garden she’d restored, first on her own, with goatskin gloves and some books on roses, then later with a gardener and landscape architect. The garden was free and open to the public, as Ulysses Pembroke himself had intended when he’d first planted roses there over a hundred years ago.

      Beyond the gardens the paved road veered to the right, onto the hillside where she could see the lights of the main house through the trees. It was as big and ugly and ostentatious—and amusing—as one would have expected of someone as grandiose as her great-great-grandfather. The outbuildings were just as unconventional: a sixteenth-century stable the legendary rascal had had shipped stone by stone from Ireland; a Vermont red barn for which he’d had no discernible use; a marble bathhouse with Roman columns. There were two guesthouses and more gardens—informal, formal, vegetable, flower, herb, perennial, annual. Dani had had everything gutted, renovated, spruced up, modernized, restored—whatever was necessary, she did.

      Risky, maybe, but what was the worst that could happen? She could fulfill her Chandler grandfather’s expectations and fall flat on her face.

      She didn’t follow the road up to the main buildings now. Instead she headed straight along a narrow dirt road, onto a wooden bridge. She could hear the brook below her tumbling over rocks. The dirt road curved sharply to the right and opened into a clearing. In the middle stood her gingerbread cottage. She’d had it painted pink, mauve and purple, planted its front yard with a wild-looking mix of flowers. The area bordered woods that led to the far edge of the estate and Pembroke Springs.

      Dani went into the cottage through the front door and shook off the nostalgia that had gripped her since arriving back in Saratoga. She sorted through her mail. There were more cards from friends congratulating her on the opening of the Pembroke, and there were more requests for media interviews. Please, wouldn’t she reconsider her aversion to reporters? Her marketing team had counseled that the judicious, well-rehearsed interview could be good for business. Dani had countered that business was fine.

      On the bottom of the pile was the card from her aunt.

      She’d been expecting it.

      It was burgundy on cream—the Chandler racing colors—and addressed to Miss Danielle Chandler Pembroke, inviting her to the hundredth annual Chandler lawn party next Friday evening.

      Dani was always invited. She just wasn’t expected to attend.

      Twenty-five years.

      She dropped the card into the trash and made herself a cup of chamomile tea, wondering if she should even bother going to bed. She knew she’d never sleep tonight.

      “You and your kooky office.”

      Dani grinned up at Ira Bernstein from the overstuffed couch in her office at the Pembroke. She’d been at work since dawn; it was now just before noon. She had her feet up on a coffee table of cherrywood and green-tinted glass she’d picked up at a yard sale in the Adirondacks. She liked to think of it as art deco. Ira insisted it was junk.

      “Heard you were up prowling the grounds again last night,” he said. “Couldn’t sleep?”

      “I was up early.”

      “Stealing tomatoes, I understand.”

      He did know how to inch close to the line. He was a stocky, healthy-looking man in his mid-forties, with iron-gray corkscrew curls and an unfortunate tendency to undermine his brilliance as the Pembroke’s manager with impertinence if not out-and-out insubordination. Eugene Chandler had personally fired him ten years ago from the staff of the Beverly Hills Chandler Hotel. Apparently Ira hadn’t displayed proper deference toward her grandfather, the chairman of the board. Dani could just imagine. She’d plucked him from a managerial job at a mid-priced chain hotel in Istanbul. He’d instantly fallen in love with the Pembroke.

      He was also one of the few people who knew about his boss’s occasional bouts of insomnia. Thanks to Ira, Dani had nearly gotten her face knocked in when he’d set security on her a few weeks ago after a report of a prowler on the grounds. He considered the incident additional proof that he was damn good at his job: nothing slipped through Ira Bernstein’s fingers.

      “You can’t beat a tomato fresh off the vine,” Dani said. “Is there something you need from me?”

      He smiled, clearly relishing how far he could push and still not have her go for his throat. “Just wanted to let you know that two reporters have been by looking for you.”

      “And you told them what?”

      “That you’d been in a rotten mood for days—”

      “Ira.”

      “Took their names and numbers and promised I’d give them to you. I made no promises about what you’d do. However, here you go.” He dropped two scraps of paper on her table. “You can throw them away yourself.”

      “Did they want to discuss the Pembroke or the sordid details of my personal life?”

      Ira grinned. “There are no sordid details of your personal life.”

      The man did grate.

      When he didn’t get a rise out of her, he continued. “Both want in-depth interviews covering your professional and personal life in whatever detail they can get.” He waved a hand lightly. “They tried to bribe me for your dress size and brand of perfume, but I—”

      “Are you like this with the guests?”

      “I’m only cheeky with the people who sign my paychecks. A fatal flaw, I must admit. With guests I’m smooth as honey. Mind if I sit down?”

      She motioned to a mission-style rocker she’d found in a dusty store off the beaten track in Maine. Ira groaned—she might have asked him to sit on a bed of nails. Her Pembroke office wasn’t nearly as weird as he liked to pretend. It was an odd-shaped room with twelve-foot ceilings and double-hung windows, its decor reflecting her unorthodox executive style. In addition to her chintz-covered couch and rocker, and maybe art deco table, she had a Shaker jam cupboard, СКАЧАТЬ