LITMIR.BIZ

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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?

      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

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