Page 2 of Deadly Little Scandals
“What?” John David said innocently, before trying and failing to bite my armpit.
“You two are bad influences on each other,” Lily declared. “I tell you, Sawyer, there are days when I’d swear he was your brother, not mine.”
That was Lily’s version of teasing, but still, I froze. Lily had no idea—none—what she’d just said.
No idea that it was half-true.
John David seized the moment and managed to wriggle out of my grasp. He was taking aim with his weapon when Aunt Olivia rounded the corner.
I’d swear he was your brother.Lily’s words echoed in my head, but I forced myself to focus on the present—and the stormy look on Aunt Olivia’s face. I stepped in between John David and my aunt and offered her what I hoped passed for a sedate smile.
“Aunt Olivia,” I said calmly. “We found William Faulkner’s life vest.”
John David and I were summarily convicted of “inappropriately timed horseplay” and “wearing on my last nerve, I swear” and sentenced to loading the car. I wasn’t about to complain about a much-needed distraction.
Months ago, I’d moved into my maternal grandmother’s house after she’d offered me a devil of a deal: if I lived with her and participated in Debutante season, she’d pay for college. I’d agreed, but not because of the half-million-dollar trust now held in my name. I’d willingly become a part of this lavish, glittering world because I’d wanted, desperately, to know which scion of high society had knocked up my mom duringherDebutante year.
And the answer to that question? The one Lily didn’t know?Her father. Aunt Olivia’s husband, my uncle J.D.
“Are you feeling okay, Sawyer? You’re looking a little peaked, sweetheart.” Aunt Olivia was holding a to-do list that appeared to have taken no fewer than eight Post-its to write. I was willing to bet that not a single item on that extensive list saidFind out husband slept with and impregnated my younger sister nineteen and a half years ago.
Also probably not on her list?Realize sister got pregnant on purpose as part of some idiotic, godforsaken teenage pregnancy pact.
“I’m fine,” I told Aunt Olivia, mentally adding that to the list of the lies I’d told—in words and by omission—in the past six weeks.
Under normal circumstances, Aunt Olivia probably would have tried to feed me for good measure, but she apparently had weightier things on her mind. “I forgot the backup avocados,” she said suddenly. “I could run to the store real quick and—”
“Mama.” Lily came to stand in front of Aunt Olivia. The two of them didn’t look much alike, but when it came to manners and mannerisms, they could have been twins. “You don’t need to go to the store. We’ll have plenty of avocados. Everything is going to be fine.”
Aunt Olivia gave Lily a look. “Fine is not the standard to which Taft women aspire.”
Lily gently plucked the list from her mother’s hands. “Everything will beperfect.”
A third Taft female added her voice to the conversation. “I’m sure that it will.” Even wearing her version of casual wear—linen capris—the great Lillian Taft knew how to make an entrance. “Sawyer, honey.” My grandmother let her gaze settle on me. “I was hoping you might accompany me on a little errand this morning.”
That was an order, not a request. I took inventory of all the rules and social niceties I’d flouted in the past twenty-four hours but was unsure what I’d done to merit Lillian wanting to talk to me alone.
“Should we wait for you, Mama?” Aunt Olivia asked, her eyes darting toward the clock.
Lillian dismissed the question with a wave of her hand. “You head on up to the lake, Olivia. Beat the traffic. Sawyer and I will be right on your heels.”
y grandmother’s errand took us to the cemetery. She carried with her a small floral arrangement—wildflowers. That caught my attention, because Lillian literally had a florist on speed dial. She also grew her own roses, yet the bouquet in her hands looked like it had been plucked from a field.
Lillian Taft was not, generally speaking, the low-cost DIY type.
She was uncharacteristically quiet as we walked a gravel path down a small hill. Set back from the other gravestones, in the space between two ancient oak trees, there was a small wrought-iron fence. Though the detail work was stunning, the fence was small, barely reaching my waist. The parcel of land inside was maybe twelve feet across and ten deep.
“Your grandfather picked this plot out himself. The man always thought he was immortal, so I can only assume he was planning on burying me here instead of the other way around.” My grandmother let her hand rest on the wrought iron, then pushed the gate inward.
I hesitated before following her to stand near the tombstone inside: a small cement cross on a simple base. My eyes took in the dates first, then the name.
EDWARD ALCOTT TAFT.
“If we’d had a son,” Lillian said softly, “he would have been named Edward. TheAlcottwas a matter of some debate between your grandfather and myself. Edward never wanted a junior, but there was something about the sound of his full name that I liked.”
This wasn’t what I’d been expecting when she’d whisked me away for a one-on-one.
“Your grandfather and I met on Memorial Day weekend. Did I ever tell you that?” In typical fashion, Lillian did not wait for a reply. “I’d snuck into a party where a girl of my provenance most certainly did not belong.”
