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Bella forced herself to take a deep, calming breath as she settled onto a rock-hard horsehair Victorian sofa. The sofa had survived fire and plague and pestilence over the centuries, which was why the uncomfortable thing still stood in the parlor at The Seasons.

  She took several more deep breaths but didn’t feel the least bit calmed. Oliver, Riley and Payne had already rejected her invitation, citing business commitments. “Who sent the latest gift?” she asked her assistant. “Lydia or Max?”

  “It’s from Lady Lydia,” Emily said.

  “So Max might still come.”

  “We can always hope, Your Grace.”

  Bella eyed the young woman. “But you don’t believe he’ll show.”

  “We can always hope,” Emily repeated. “You know how busy everyone is. According to the report from Warren & Warren Investigations, Courtland—I mean, the earl—Oliver—is purchasing ranch land in Argentina. Lord Riley is negotiating for oil tankers in Hong Kong. And Lord Payne…” A thoughtful frown wrinkled her forehead before she said, “Oh, yes. Mr. Warren reported that Lord Riley is on a ship somewhere in the Aegean, researching an underwater archeological find.”

  “And Lydia’s excuse?” Bella asked.

  “According to the note that came with your gift, she’s in Venice. She mentioned something about hunting down a stolen painting.”

  Bella picked up a needlepointed pillow from the sofa and threw it across the room toward the elaborately carved white marble fireplace. It fell short. She hissed with fury.

  “Are you all right, Your Grace?” Emily asked, rushing to her side.

  “I’m fine, Emily,” Bella said with irritation. “There’s nothing wrong with my heart. Go back to your knitting.”

  Emily reluctantly crossed the room, picked up a pair of knitting needles and a partially completed blue wool sweater from a silk-brocade-covered wing chair, and sat down.

  “You know what I hate most about what’s happening here?” Bella said.

  Over the clack of her knitting needles Emily asked, “What’s that, Your Grace?”

  “The smug look I’m going to see on my brother-in-law’s face when only one of my children shows up here today.” Bella heard footsteps on the creaky, carpeted wooden Gone-With-the-Wind staircase in the central hallway of the nearly four-century-old home. She glanced over her shoulder and found Foster Benedict, Bull’s younger brother—and her nemesis—standing in the doorway to the parlor. “Speak of the devil,” she muttered.

  “Good morning, Bella,” he said with surprising cordiality.

  Bella watched as Foster crossed to a breakfront where a silver coffee service and a selection of pastries had been set out by the butler. Foster had been incensed when she’d told him she intended to have her children visit her for Mother’s Day at The Seasons. He’d already made plans to have his children meet their mother there. He’d ordered her to go somewhere else.

  Bella had refused. Since she was still Bull’s wife, she was entitled to use of The Seasons. Instead, she’d suggested Foster have his family join hers, as they had during holidays in years gone by. Given no other choice, he’d agreed.

  “It seems it won’t be as crowded here this weekend as I feared,” Foster said.

  Bella saw the superior look on his face in the gilded mirror behind the breakfront. And heard the satisfaction in his voice. Foster expected five of his seven children—two of his four sons and his three teenage daughters—to be on hand today. He must be aware that at least four of her five children would not.

  “I wouldn’t look so smug if I were you,” Bella said.

  “Why not?” Foster said.

  “Your children are making their way here from a few miles up the road. It’s understandable if mine aren’t able to come from halfway around the world. And I’m expecting Max to turn up at any moment.”

  “One out of five,” Foster mused. “Frankly, one more than I expected.”

  “You’ve always been a son of a bitch, Foster.”

  “You’re the bitch incarnate,” Foster shot back.

  “How dare you!” Emily said, rising from her chair to confront Foster. “Take that back.”

  Foster laughed viciously. “Take it back?” He turned to Bella and said, “Tell your minion to back off, Bella. Or I’ll have her for breakfast.”

  Emily looked flustered, but she stood her ground.

  “Sit down, Emily,” Bella said in an even voice. Then she focused her narrowed eyes on Foster and said, “Don’t threaten Emily again, or I’ll have to retaliate in a way you won’t like.”

  “What would that be?”

  “Use your imagination,” Bella said. “You know I make good on my promises.”

  The last time they’d locked horns Bella had arranged for Foster to lose an extraordinary amount of money on one of his investments. Foster understood the power of money.

  His mouth turned down in a sour look. “Like I said. You’re a bitch.”

  He turned back to the silver coffeepot and continued his recitation as though their altercation had never happened. “Just so you know, Ben brought his fiancée, Anna,” he said as he poured coffee into a china teacup. “Carter’s home on leave from duty in Iraq, so he invited his girl, Sloan, to come for the day.”

  He added a spoonful of sugar, then turned to her with china cup in hand. “I’m surprising Patsy by having Amanda and Bethany and Camille flown in on the family jet from that French boarding school they attend. I pick them up in Richmond before lunch.”

  “I’m sure Patsy will enjoy having her daughters here,” Bella said neutrally. She was willing to be just exactly as polite as Foster was. Besides, she’d never had any enmity for Patsy or her three daughters. The elder two girls were twins with curly blond hair who resembled their mother. The younger had dark hair like her father.

  To be perfectly honest, Bella liked Patsy Benedict. Foster’s second wife would never be called thin or chic, but Patsy had warm hazel eyes and had always been extraordinarily kind to her.

  But from the beginning, there had never been any love lost between her and her brother-in-law. The first time Foster had met her, he’d called her “a conniving bitch.” He was the one who’d insisted on the prenup. This was the first time they’d come in contact with one another in ten years. It seemed Foster’s animosity had survived her separation from Bull intact.

  Which caused her to reply to his recitation with just a little satisfaction of her own, “I’m sure it will be nice to have most of your children here for Mother’s Day. But I can’t help wondering, where is their mother?”

  Foster cleared his throat uncomfortably. “She’ll be here.”

  “Why didn’t Patsy come with you from Washington?”

  Bella knew that Foster, a retired four-star general, currently served as an advisor to the president on terrorism. He and Patsy had a brick home in the Fan District of Richmond, but Foster spent most of his time in another large home they owned in Chevy Chase, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C.

  “Patsy’s been staying at her father’s ranch in Texas the past few months,” Foster said. “Her father’s been ill.”

  “Then it’s nice you’ll have a chance to get together today. When is she arriving? Are you picking her up at the airport, too?”

  Foster cleared his throat again. “She said she’d make her own travel arrangements.”

  Bella knew more about the situation between Foster and his second wife than she’d let on. She had enough social contacts in the Capitol to hear the rumors that Patsy and Foster had separated several months ago. Bella wasn’t sure of the exact problem, but it must have been something serious, since the couple had been together for nearly twenty years. She could understand why Foster didn’t want her around, if he was attempting a reconciliation with his wife.

  Well, Bella wouldn’t get in his way. For Patsy’s sake, if not his. Besides, she had enough problems of her own. How was she going to get her sons married off before she died, if they were determined to avoid her company?
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br />   Bella had employed Warren & Warren Investigations, with its main offices in Dallas, Texas, often over the years to keep tabs on her children. Sam Warren’s information had always been reliable. She rarely interfered in her children’s lives, but once or twice, as they were growing up, she’d come to the rescue of one or another of her sons without his knowledge.

  She’d helped anonymously, because she’d known none of them would want or appreciate her help. Lydia had remained loyal to her mother after the separation, but she knew the boys blamed her for breaking up their once-happy family.

  It was your fault. You’re guilty as charged.

  There were circumstances she’d never had a chance to explain that might have excused her behavior, if only Bull had been willing to listen. He’d been too angry to hear reason. And she’d felt too betrayed to explain.

  She’d stood shocked and heartbroken as Foster tried to goad his brother into divorcing her. His diatribe was indelibly etched in her memory.

  “She was a bitch when you met her, and she hasn’t changed one iota in the twenty-five years you’ve been married to her. I say cut your losses and get the hell out while you can.”

  Bella wasn’t sure she would ever be able to forgive Bull for refusing to listen to her. Although, at this point, it didn’t really matter, did it? She was running out of time to tell Bull the truth. Running out of chances to make amends before her heart failed.

  When Foster spoke, it was as though he’d been reading her mind. “I called Bull at his office in Paris and mentioned this little visit of yours to The Seasons. I wondered if he might have some idea why you decided to come here, considering the fact you haven’t been to The Seasons once since your separation.”

  “Oh?” Bella said warily. “What did he say?”

  “He was ready to get on a plane and come here himself. I didn’t think that was a good idea, considering everything.”

  Of course you didn’t.

  He arched a brow and said, “I told him that if you’d wanted him here, you would have invited him.”

  And you heard me tell Bull when we ended up brangling at the Heart Association Ball in February, that I would rather die than lay eyes on him again.

  “You know Bull,” Foster continued. “He does what he wants. If he comes, he’ll be on the jet from Paris with my girls. He thought it would be a good chance to see all the kids.”

  Bella heard the rest of Foster’s thought without it being spoken: He’s not coming here to see you. Bull Benedict wouldn’t spit on you if you were on fire. It wasn’t exaggerating to say that she and Bull had fought their own Revolutionary War during the ten years they’d been separated.

  “The condition his European banks are in with this crazy global economy, I doubt he can get away.” Foster set down his coffee cup. “I’d better get going, or I’ll be late.”

  Bella exhaled audibly when Foster left the room. She glanced at Emily, who was eyeing her worriedly, and shook her head to indicate she was fine. The young woman was acting like a mother hen with one chick. Bella didn’t bother repeating that she was fine. She simply rose and headed for the stairs. Climbing that enormous staircase was great exercise. And she needed time alone in her room to think.

  If she and Bull were going to be in the same room again, she should take advantage of the opportunity to explain what she’d kept secret for so many years.

  Maybe, at long last, she would.

  6

  “Hello, Bull.”

  “Hello, Duchess.”

  Bella felt her heart flutter when Bull called her Duchess. It had been his pet name for her during their marriage, spoken with tenderness and love. He’d rarely used it after they’d separated. Right now it sounded…so very good. She waited for the snide or snarly comment that usually followed, turning their post-separation encounters into a cat and dog fight.

  It didn’t come.

  She eased back into the Adirondack chair situated on the sunny bank of the James River, where both families had gathered for a Mother’s Day picnic, and gestured him into the chair beside her. “Would you like to join me?”

  “How are you?” he asked as he stooped under a colorful umbrella and slid into the slatted wooden lawn chair beside her.

  Such an innocent question. How should she answer it? She felt the tension gather in her shoulders just from sitting so close to Bull. Felt her heart begin the ridiculous pitty-pat that proximity to this masterful, passionate man always caused. She looked into his sky-blue eyes and opened her mouth to tell him the truth. What came out was, “I’m fine.”

  His gaze roamed her face. “You look a little pale. I didn’t see you at Cote D’Azur or Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat over the winter. What have you been doing with yourself?”

  I skipped a holiday on the French Riviera this year because I was getting a lot of medical tests. You see, my heart is failing. I’m slowly—but surely—dying.

  Bella thought the words. They never made it out of her mouth. She’d heard the subtle insinuation in Bull’s voice. The mocking suggestion that she’d been hiding out with yet another lover. The truth stuck in her throat.

  Lies came so much easier. At the beginning of their marriage, lies had been necessary. The truth would have destroyed everything.

  Unfortunately, lying had become the easy way to keep peace between them. It was difficult to believe she could tell the truth now and not have it turned against her. But she’d already lost Bull. When the most important thing in her life was gone, what did she have to lose?

  “To be honest, Bull, I’m—”

  Before she could finish her sentence, she was interrupted by Foster’s three teenage girls. They rushed up to her Adirondack chair and grabbed her hands and arms, pulling her to her feet.

  “Come and join us, Aunt Bella,” one of the twins urged. “We’re going canoeing.”

  Bella was already standing by the time she said, “No, thank you, girls. I prefer to enjoy the James River from its banks, rather than by paddling through it. You go ahead.”

  The twins turned their attention to Bull, who’d risen to his feet when the girls pulled her upright. “Come with us, Uncle Bull,” one twin pleaded. “We hardly ever see you anymore.”

  “Please come,” the second twin urged. “There are three of us, so if we take two canoes we need another paddler.”

  “What about your dad?” Bull asked. “Have you asked him?”

  “Daddy said he needs to talk to Mom,” the youngest of the three girls said.

  “We think that’s a good idea,” one of the twins said. Three worried glances slid to their parents, who were following an old wagon trail along the river bank. Foster and Patsy walked along separate tracks in the dirt road. The conversation seemed heated.

  “What about one of your older brothers?” Bull asked.

  “Ben and Carter already took their girlfriends out on the Chris-Craft,” one of the twins replied.

  “C’mon, Uncle Bull. Pleeeeeze,” the youngest girl begged, latching onto his arm with both her hands. “Otherwise, I can’t go.”

  Bull glanced in Bella’s direction. “I hoped to spend some time talking with your aunt.”

  Bella wondered what he had in mind. They’d rarely spoken cordially during their separation. They hadn’t spoken at all since February. And yet, before it was too late, she hoped to explain things she’d left unexplained.

  Time was running out.

  She was seized with a sudden fear. Once she told Bull the truth, there would be no turning back. Whatever chance they might have had for some sort of reconciliation before she died might be gone. There was still a great deal of the day left. Maybe, if she had more time to think, she could find a better way to say what had to be said.

  She glanced toward Camille’s crestfallen face and said, “Go ahead, Bull. We can talk when you get back.”

  “All right,” he said, his gaze intent on her. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

  Bella watched as Camille slid her arm through Bull’s a
nd hauled him off toward the boathouse, talking his ear off as he strode away. The twins ran ahead. Their matching pink bikini bathing suits revealed just how grown-up they’d become in the years since she’d last seen them.

  The sun was hot, and Bella settled back into the umbrella-shaded Adirondack. Foster’s second family was almost grown and would soon be leading lives apart from their parents. Meaning Patsy might feel more free to walk away from her husband. Which would be too bad. She didn’t like Foster, but she hated to see another family broken up.

  Bella’s gaze naturally sought out the riverbank again, where Patsy and Foster were walking together. Or rather, walking in the same direction. Their body language made it clear they weren’t “together.” They stopped and faced each other.

  Patsy’s chin jutted, and she perched balled fists on her hips. Foster locked his hands behind his head, then dropped them to his sides as he took a step toward Patsy. She took a step back, maintaining the distance between them.

  The sharp sound of Patsy’s voice carried to Bella, but not the words she spoke. The wind caught Foster’s intense masculine tones and carried them in her direction, as well, without revealing what he’d said.

  Bella wished she knew more about what had caused the rift between them in the first place. She’d always envied the fact that, after he divorced his first wife, Foster had found another woman to love. In the years since she and Bull had separated, Bella had never found another man who could inspire anything close to the feelings Bull had. Lord knew—and the gossip columns had reported endlessly—how hard she’d tried.

  It was little comfort to know that Bull hadn’t found anyone either. He, at least, had gone through several long-term liaisons. In each case, she’d held her breath waiting to hear him ask her for a divorce. But the relationships had always ended.

  With the days of her life numbered, Bella knew how foolish she’d been to walk away from the one man she’d ever truly loved. All those wasted years! Regret seemed futile, but she felt it all the same. She wanted Bull’s arms around her again before it was too late. She needed to tell him the truth. She just hoped he would be able to forgive her.