Kaitlin had to admit, she could easily see Zach breaking hearts. He’d been darn near perfect last night. He’d driven through the dark to rescue her from a storm, then made exquisite love to her, teased her and sympathized with her. If a woman were to let herself fall for a man like that, heartbreak might well be the inevitable outcome.
Ginny turned to Lindsay. “Now, my Dylan. That one’s a catch. He’s wealthy, you know.”
“I do have my own money,” said Lindsay.
Ginny chuckled and gave a coquettish smile. “A girl can never have too much money.”
Lindsay was obviously puzzled. “You don’t mind me marrying your great-nephew for his money?”
Ginny looked askance. “What other reason is there?”
Lindsay’s brows went up. “Love?”
“Oh, pooh, pooh.” Ginny waved a dismissive hand. “Love comes and goes. A bank balance, now there’s something a gal can count on.”
“Your lovers didn’t have money?” Kaitlin asked, fascinated by Ginny’s experiences and opinions.
A sly look entered Ginny’s eyes, and once again she glanced around the kitchen as if checking for eavesdroppers. “They had youth and enthusiasm. I think they wanted my money.”
“Do you have any pictures?” asked Lindsay, obviously as interested as Kaitlin in the older woman’s love life.
“Indeed, I do.” Ginny wiped her hands on the big apron, untying it from the back. Then she beckoned both women to follow her as she made her way toward the kitchen door.
In the stairwell, Kaitlin asked, “Did the other Harper men break women’s hearts?”
“Every single one,” Ginny confirmed with a decisive nod.
“But not their wives.” Kaitlin’s tone turned the statement into a question.
“Sometimes their wives, too.”
“What about Sadie? Wasn’t Sadie happy with Milton?”
“Milton was a fine man. He’d have made a good lover. But once they were married, Sadie, she worried all the time.”
“That he was unfaithful?” asked Kaitlin.
Ginny stopped midstair and turned on her. “Oh, no. A Harper man would never be unfaithful.” She turned and began climbing again.
“Then why did Sadie worry?”
“She was the groundskeeper’s daughter. Oh, she pretended all right. But at her heart, she was never the mistress of the castle. That’s why she wouldn’t make any changes.”
They came to the second floor, and Ginny led them down a wide hallway. Overhead skylights let in the sunshine, while art objects lined the shelves along the way.
“The castle is really beautiful,” said Kaitlin. She wasn’t sure she’d have changed anything, either.
“So was Sadie,” said Ginny in a wistful voice. “Before Milton, we swam naked in the ocean and ran across the sand under the full moon.”
“Do you really think he broke her heart?” Kaitlin persisted. Like Emma, Kaitlin really wanted to believe Sadie had been happy here.
“No. Not really. But sometimes she felt trapped, and sometimes she worried.” Ginny swept open the double doors of a closet. She moved aside a fluffy quilt and extracted a battered shoebox, opening it to reveal a stack of photographs. “Ah, here we are. Come meet my lovers.”
Nine
Zach found Kaitlin in the portrait gallery, gazing at a painting of his grandmother when she had been in her twenties.
“Hey,” he said, coming up behind her. He didn’t ask and didn’t wait for permission before wrapping his arms around her waist, nestling her into the cradle of his body.
“Do you think she was happy?” Kaitlin asked.
“Yes.”
“Did she love your grandfather?”
“As far as I could tell.” He hadn’t spent much time looking at the portraits over the past years, and his memory of his grandmother was that of an old woman. He’d forgotten how lovely she was. No wonder his grandfather had married her so young.
“Ginny says she felt trapped sometimes.”
“I love Ginny dearly,” Zach began, a warning in his tone.
There was a thread of laughter in Kaitlin’s voice when she interrupted him. “She doesn’t seem too crazy about you.”
“But you know she’s not all there, right?”
“She’s a blast,” Kaitlin responded. “And her memory seems very sharp.”
“Well, it had to be a pretty big cage. They went to Europe at least twice a year, and spent half their time in Manhattan. You should have seen the garden parties. The governor, theatre stars, foreign diplomats.”
“Okay, so it was a big cage,” Kaitlin conceded.