Miss Charlotte Surrenders

BRETT WAITED UNTIL all three Langston sisters were gone, then let himself into the house and headed straight for the library.

He frowned when he saw the top of the desk. Last night it had been covered with Charlotte’s papers and notes. Now it was clean as a whistle. He had been hoping to get some idea how far along she was in her investigation of Sterling.

Brett tried the desk drawers. Locked. Cursing, he picked up the phone and punched in his credit-card number. Seconds later, Franklin came on the line.

“Brett? What have you got?”

Not as much as I’d like so far, he thought. “Charlotte Langston called your secretary last night.”

“Yeah, I know. Marcie told me this morning. She also said she hung up on Charlotte. I suppose it’s too much to hope Miss Langston won’t try again?”

“Way too much,” Brett concurred grimly.

“Have you learned anything else?” Franklin asked.

“Just that Charlotte Langston and her sisters are in desperate need of money.” Briefly, Brett explained what Charlotte had told him. “She’s meeting with the bank this morning to see about a loan,” Brett finished.

“You think that’s why she’s so hell-bent on unmasking Sterling?” Franklin asked.

“That’s part of it,” Brett said.

“And the rest?”

“She sees it as a challenge.” And Charlotte Langston was not a woman to turn away from a challenge, Brett had discovered.

“Any chance she’s onto you?” Franklin asked.

That, Brett thought, remembering the three-way conversation he had eavesdropped on the evening before, was a difficult question. “She doesn’t trust me.”

“Why not?”

“Because she doesn’t see me as a farmer, despite the fact I passed her quiz on cotton with flying colors.” Brett hoped the dirt samples he had taken and sent out to the lab this morning would help bolster his image as agriculturalist extraordinaire.

Franklin harrumphed his displeasure. “You want me to put someone else on the job?” he asked gruffly.

“Nope,” Brett said quickly. This wasn’t a job he would trust to anyone else. Charlotte Langston needed special handling. “I’m staying.”

Brett heard a car pull up in front of the house. None of the sisters was due back for hours! “Gotta go,” Brett whispered into the phone, as he heard a car door slam. He dove for cover behind the long leather sofa, stretching out along the cushions just as a key turned in the lock. Because the sofa faced the fireplace, with its back to double doors leading into the library, he wouldn’t be seen by whoever had arrived unless she actually came into the library.

Someone slammed into the house. Brett inhaled the faint scent of lilacs. Charlotte, he thought. Her high heels clicking on the parquet floor, she bypassed the library and headed straight for the kitchen.

Brett breathed a sigh of relief. He was about to get up from the sofa when another car pulled up out front. Cursing his ill fortune, he stayed where he was and continued to feign sleep in case anyone spotted him. In the meantime, he thought, he was in a pretty good position to listen to all that went on, at least at the front of the house.

* * *

“I GOT HERE AS SOON as I could,” Jared Fontaine said, his straight blond hair gleaming in the sunshine as he took the steps leading up to the house.

“You must’ve left your office the moment I telephoned,” Charlotte said, ushering Jared into the parlor. With its Georgian paneling, milled moldings and soaring white ceiling complete with two crystal chandeliers, the room was the most elegant in the entire mansion. Moving soundlessly across the oriental rugs, Charlotte opened the blue velvet drapes that covered the double French doors, letting sunlight spill into the long, rectangular room. She glanced around quickly, checking to see if everything was in order. “I barely had time to put water on for tea.”

“I didn’t come for tea, Charlotte. I came to see you.” Jared took both her hands in his and held them away from her body. “Honey, you look as if you haven’t changed a bit.”

That was true, she thought uncomfortably, but at the moment it was correct for all the wrong reasons. Normally, she wore slacks and blazers and clipped her long hair back at the nape of her neck. But that wouldn’t work in the conservative Poplar Springs business community, so she had rummaged through the back of her closet for something appropriate to court a hopelessly old-fashioned banker in, and come up with a demure pink business suit. She’d added a strand of costume pearls and clip- on earrings, and combed the heavy waves of her shoulder-length hair in the loose, girlish style of her youth.

Unfortunately, the Southern-belle ensemble that was charming Jared Fontaine now hadn’t made a dent in Hiram’s stony resolve, Charlotte thought. But that was where Jared came in. An attorney and old family friend, he could advise her on what to do.

Jared dropped his grip on her, thrust his hands in the pockets of his trousers and stepped back. In a white double-breasted suit, he looked dapper and successful.

They exchanged smiles. “Please make yourself at home in the parlor, Jared, while I run back to the kitchen and get our tea,” Charlotte said.

When she returned, Jared was seated in one of the two wing chairs in the alcove in front of the French windows. It was the coziest, most intimate spot in the room.

Trying not to attach any special significance to that, Charlotte set the silver tea service down on the table between them as Jared’s sherry-colored eyes lasered into hers.

“So what has you so upset?” he asked gently.

“First Unity Bank is trying to force us to sell Camellia Lane because we can’t pay the balloon note on the first mortgage.”

Jared’s expression remained impassive. “How much do you owe?” he asked.

“Fifty thousand,” Charlotte replied, as she poured steaming tea into two bone-china cups.

He whistled, his eyes focused on the movements of her hands. “That’s not exactly penny change.”

“No, it isn’t,” Charlotte agreed, sitting back in her chair. “Which is why we need your help. I’ve already talked to Hiram, to no avail. But I thought perhaps if you intervened—”

Jared held up a hand. “I’ll be honest with you, Charlotte. The likelihood of you and your sisters getting an extension from the bank is slim. You owe the money. The bank has every right to collect.”

Charlotte’s expression fell. Jared and his family were very well connected; she had been counting on him to help her. “Couldn’t we even get a couple more weeks?” Enough time for her to find Sterling?

“It’s doubtful. Life here is changing. With the new auto plant coming in next year, Poplar Springs will no longer be the sleepy little burg we both grew up in. The price of land in this part of Mississippi is already shooting up.”

“All the more reason why my sisters and I should hold on to Camellia Lane,” Charlotte said stubbornly.

He shook his head. “Don’t be a fool. Now is your chance to get out of debt and in on the ground floor of something really big.”

With effort, Charlotte kept her voice Southern-lady-pleasant. “You’re not listening to me. I don’t want to sell, and neither do my sisters.”

Jared settled his broad shoulders more comfortably against the back of the chair and balanced the saucer on the flat of one hand. “It doesn’t work that way, Charlotte. If you don’t sell your land, then someone else here will sell theirs. A year from now, if other subdivisions do pop up in the meantime, then there’ll be no demand for your land.”

“So much the better,” Charlotte said with a shrug.

Jared studied her. “You really want to fight Hiram, don’t you?”

“And the Heritage Homes developers. Camellia Lane is one of the few antebellum mansions left in this part of Mississippi. It should be preserved. The question is, will you help me?”

Jared studied her as if a great deal were at stake for him, too. “If I do…does that mean you’ll stay on?”

“In Mississippi?”