Charmed: Gowns & Crowns, Book 6 Page 6

  “Oh, that would be delightful,” his grandmother said, the approval in her voice radiating through the phone. “I have to say, though, we’re all quite delighted at the thought of a visitor—and she sounded foreign, too, on the phone. So exciting.”

  Simon tensed. His grandparents were completely invested in the long-ago tale of the Contos collection, and the story had only grown more fantastic over the years. Had they guessed that Caroline was connected to the jewels in any way?

  But his grandmother went on breezily. “Yes, do come out, Simon. She seems like such a nice young woman, and I know she’d feel much more at ease with you in the house, versus listening to the meanderings of a couple of old farts like us.”

  Despite himself, Simon grinned. For all her southern gentility, his grandmother had an unexpectedly direct turn of phrase on occasion. Came from growing up on the remote Pearl Island, she always said, where it was easier to simply say what came to mind.

  “I’ll be there,” he promised. He would, too. Even if he had to leave his class early to do it.

  “That will be simply perfect. A pity you couldn’t get away now, actually.”

  His brows drew together. “Why?” he asked, a little too sharply. “You’re not going out today, are you?”

  “Oh! No, no, nothing like that. It’s just we suggested to her that she take advantage of the beautiful weather and go into town, walk along Battery Street and the park. She’d not been there before, and seemed quite excited about all the houses. She really is a charming—”

  “When was that?” Simon interjected, as casually as he could. “I mean, when did you suggest she head inland?”

  “Oh, it’s been a few hours now. I would have called you again earlier if I’d thought there was a chance you could act as a bit of tour guide for her.” Belle paused. “Do you think you might have time to do that?”

  “Probably not,” Simon kept his voice even, but he was already standing, glancing again at the clock as he pulled his jacket from another stack of papers. A knock came at the door. He frowned, the expression becoming more of a scowl as the intern edged the door open. She waved an envelope at him with evident excitement.

  “I’ll be there tomorrow, Belle,” he said, shrugging into his coat. “Thanks again for letting me know.”

  “No problem at all, dear. We’ll hold down the fort until you arrive.”

  Simon disconnected the call. The intern bounced into his office, her focus such that she completely missed his stern expression. He clearly was losing his touch. “What is it?” he snapped.

  “A letter from ICM—the literary agency for the university,” she exclaimed hurriedly. “They never are so formal to write a letter. Could it be a contract?”

  “I’m sure it’s not,” Simon said. “I only sent an email off to Dick a few minutes ago. Handle it, would you, unless it requires a signature? I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “But—” she called to his retreating back.

  “Tomorrow,” he said. And he pushed into the bright afternoon, a sudden burst of wind whipping through his hair.

  Chapter Seven

  The breeze was lively as Caroline strolled along the wide promenade fronting East Battery Street. She knew that Cindy Marx was following along somewhere behind her, but the security expert was good about giving her some space to breathe, despite that this was a far more public outing than Caroline had attempted since the night at the College of Charleston.

  But Mrs. Wetherington had been so insistent that East Battery Street was a must-see in Charleston, and Caroline had been eager for any reason to escape Sea Haven Island, at least for a little while. Cindy had been game for the excursion, and now that she was here, Caroline couldn’t remember seeing anything quite so charming and lovely as the row of brightly painted, antebellum mansions lining the historic street. She could almost imagine what they looked like inside—antiques and hardwoods and soft, muted colors, curved staircases and ethereal artwork. And all of it overlooking the beautiful harbor with its stream of pretty sailboats and elegant yachts, cruising along without a care in the world. She could see why Simon’s grandmother had recommended it.

  Her lips quirked. Simon. When had he made the shift from Dr. Blake to a first-name basis?

  Probably right around the time she’d completely lost her mind and kissed him not once—but twice.

  She felt her cheeks go warm. Well, maybe not abandon. That was surely overstating the matter. She’d simply been…startled by him, by the way he looked—and definitely the way he’d made her feel. That was all. It’d been a long summer, the day had been overwarm, and—

  Caroline burst out laughing, shaking her head ruefully. Truthfully, there was no reason to rationalize the moment. She never had to see the man again, if she didn’t want to.

  “Caroline?”

  The sound of her own name was so sudden, so unexpected that Caroline whipped around, startled, her hands going up in alarm. Simon—and of course it was Simon, it could have only been Simon—stepped back as quickly, his arms going up in a universal gesture of harmlessness, his coat flapping wildly in the breeze.

  “My apologies,” he said in his rich Southern voice. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “Everything all right, Caroline?”

  The hard, competent voice of her bodyguard suddenly sliced through the air, then Cindy was in front of her, all broad shoulders and cut biceps and no nonsense scowl. She didn’t push Simon away, exactly, but her positioning left no doubt that she wasn’t going to let the man get any closer without an explanation.

  “Dr. Blake,” Cindy said, with absolutely no inflection.

  If Simon was surprised, he gave no indication. Instead he seemed to withdraw into himself, his face a mix of reserve and gentility. “Ma’am,” he said with a small nod. “I regret upsetting you both. I assure you, it wasn’t my intention.”

  “It’s fine, Cindy,” Caroline said quickly, finally finding her voice. “I met Si—Dr. Blake at the museum the other day on Pearl Island. We spoke then.”

  “My grandmother called,” Simon said, furthering the explanation for them both. “She mentioned that you would be coming into town and, ah, asked me to show you around. If I could find you.”

  Cindy seemed to stare a little more intently at him. “You found her pretty easily.”

  At that, Simon’s face quirked into a grin. He really did have the most roguish smile…

  Fortunately, Cindy’s words refocused her. How had he found her? Battery Street was long and—despite the lateness of the summer—packed with tourists.

  Simon gestured to the houses across the street. “I figured she would stay longer here,” he said. “More so than the park beyond.” He gave Cindy a small shrug. “You can see trees and grass anywhere. A little more unusual to find mansions with such historic significance to the country.”

  “We’re good, Cindy. Truly,” Caroline said, giving the woman a game smile as Cindy turned toward her. “We’ll just…walk along here, for a bit.” She felt herself color again, but Simon cut in smoothly.

  “If that’s acceptable?” he asked. “You’re welcome to join us as well.”

  Cindy flashed a smile, then shook her head. “I’ll be around, but carry on.” She waved down the street. “Don’t go into the gardens, though. I don’t want to have to break out my orienteering equipment to find you.”

  Simon nodded. “Noted.”

  The bodyguard retreated down Battery, toward where the street was still referred to as East Bay. Suddenly awkward with Simon so close again, Caroline blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Your grandmother was right—it’s a beautiful area of town. And it’s all tucked together so neatly.”

  Tucked together? That’s how she’d best describe it? A wave of mortification suffused her. Simon rumbled a short laugh.

  “It’s known for that look, actually.” He gestured toward the line of houses, each painted a contrasting yet somehow exactly perfect shade of pastel. “Old legends have it tha
t the differing paint selections were used to help intoxicated sailors find their correct way home.”

  Caroline shot him a look. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

  “That’s how the legend goes,” Simon insisted. “The truth is only slightly less interesting. A woman named Dorothy Porcher Legge bought a number of these homes in the 1930s. They were run down and in fairly bad shape, and as part of her renovation plans, she painted them all pink. Others along the neighborhood followed her lead, but with differing pastel colors to make their own homes stand out. As a result…” he gestured again. “This is one of the most photographed streets in the South, I would say.”

  “Well, it’s lovely.”

  “It’s also the cornerstone to the city’s tourism market.” Another point and he drew her attention to a stately pink and white mansion. “That’s the Edmonston-Alston House, speaking of tourism,” he said. “It’s also a hotel now. One of the first homes built here in 1825. From its piazza, General P. T. Beauregard watched Ft. Sumter being attacked on April 12, 1861, the battle that started the Civil War. Eight months later, the house gave refuge to General Robert E. Lee.”

  “A violent history,” Caroline murmured, and Simon nodded.

  “It’s a miracle most of these homes survived that war. Others—and those in other cities—weren’t so lucky.” He turned then and his gaze took in the sea, his expression immediately changing. Caroline followed his glance to a boat heading out into the harbor. It was a pretty yacht, but nothing particularly caught her attention about it to justify the pleasure that she saw in Simon’s face.

  Then she realized he wasn’t looking at the boat so much as everything around it.

  “You love it, don’t you?” she asked abruptly. “The ocean.”

  He blinked at her, surprised. “Well yes, I suppose I do,” he said with a smile that seemed almost uncertain on his face, like he wasn’t used to making that expression. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve dreamed about sailing the sea, traveling far and wide. I never felt as much at home inland as I did on the water, for all that we didn’t own a boat. My parents were college professors.”

  Her brows lifted. “Like you.”

  He snorted. “Not at all like me. They loved to travel, yes, but they didn’t like the ocean. Had a sort of aversion to it, honestly. They’d drop me off each summer at my grandparents, and couldn’t seem to get away fast enough, for all that I knew they loved me.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “More information than you needed to know.”

  “Not at all.” Caroline forced her gaze away from Simon, but he’d betrayed more in that small admission than he realized. No young boy, no matter how pragmatic, would take the departure of his parents well. That they seemed eager to leave him…she couldn’t imagine it. “What did they do with their summers, that you couldn’t go with them?”

  “Research,” he said immediately, then softened the harsh word with a smile. “Also something we apparently have in common. But I don’t have children, so I guess that’s a difference. Or a wife,” he said, almost as an afterthought.

  “Because you don’t want to leave them behind?” Caroline asked light-heartedly—or she’d intended the question to be light-hearted. It came out strangely charged, however, and she instantly wished she could take it back.

  To her surprise, Simon didn’t bristle. In fact, he seemed almost somber as he considered her question. But he didn’t answer right away. Instead he refocused on the row of houses opposite the water, detailing their history for a several more strides. Then he glanced once more to her.

  “I’d never really thought about it quite like that,” he said, the words faltering a little. “But I suppose you’re right.”

  “I didn’t mean to pry, truly—”

  “No—no, please don’t apologize.” Simon’s gaze lifted again to the water. “I’m not very good at conversation, so I should be the one to apologize. But yes, I don’t want to leave anyone behind—not a wife or a child. I know…I guess I know what that’s like, and while I always understood it, it didn’t make it any easier.” He smiled a little sadly. “But it made for one hell of an imagination, I’ll give them that. After they’d go, in my own mind I was constantly out there on the oceans, fighting my way through gales or battles or crazy adventures.”

  Looking for them, Caroline realized, though for once she kept her mouth shut. Fighting his way toward them.

  Only he never really could reach them, she suspected. Not the way he wanted to. And as a result, she suspected that he’d learned to keep everyone else away.

  Simon struggled to come up with some other topic—anything, really, that wasn’t so personal. It wasn’t like him to be so forthcoming with anyone…let alone a virtual stranger.

  Then again, perhaps the reason he felt so comfortable was that Caroline was a stranger. Only destined to be in his life for the briefest of moments, then to be gone again.

  His mood abruptly darkened, and he tried to shrug off the wave of gloom. “How have you enjoyed your visit so far to South Carolina,” he asked, steering the conversation into safer waters.

  Caroline’s light laugh told him he’d succeeded in smoothing the moment over. “I like everything about it, actually. The food, the long warm nights, the wind off the ocean.” She shook her head. “It’s not at all like Garronia, though of course our shore is beautiful as well. Simply different.”

  “Different how?”

  “Rockier, for sure. There’s a lovely beach in the capital city that’s a tourist favorite, but much of the shoreline is cliffs and rocky patches of forest. It’s also less humid…which I never truly realized until I came here.” She waved a hand toward the houses. “I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to live here in the time before air conditioning.”

  “Most of the houses were built to accommodate the breeze from the harbor—especially these,” Simon explained, pointing to the homes closest to them. “They were built room upon room in a straight line, so the wind could pass unrestricted through the house. It was an ingenious way to keep things cool.”

  “That would certainly help.” The light changed at the corner and Simon reached for Caroline’s hand without thinking. She slipped her light fingers into his and the touch sent a wave of heat through him that had nothing to do with the sunshine bearing down on him.

  “This is the White Point Garden,” he said, though he kept them to the promenade, not crossing the street to get closer. The bodyguard had been pretty clear on that point, regardless of her pleasant demeanor. And truth to tell, now that he held Caroline’s slim hand in his, he suddenly didn’t trust himself being alone with her. There was something about her that seemed so natural and unaffected, her manner with him so easy, that he felt like he’d known her for far longer than a few days. It was impossible for two people to form a connection that quickly, he knew. And yet…he was the one who’d made an utter ass of himself, kissing her without provocation in the garden clearing at Pinnacle House.

  And she was the one who’d kissed him back not a half hour later, a moment that would forever go down as one of the best he’d spent in his lookout aerie, dreams of pirate ships and far-off adventures be damned.

  “What are you thinking about?” laughed Caroline, tugging him along. They’d made it to the far side of South Battery Street and he automatically began walking again, grateful that her hand remained in his.

  “I was thinking that I needed to remember not to take you into the park,” he said. “Your bodyguard looks like she could mean business, if she wanted to.” There was no way he was going to discuss kissing her. As it was his body was already reacting to the touch of her hand, that same shivery awareness that had so taken him by surprise on Pearl Island.

  To his surprise, however, Caroline sighed. He looked down to see a frown on her face, and he struggled to refocus. Had he said something wrong?

  “She means well, she really does,” Caroline said. “But she’s more a symptom of the overall problem, you know?”

&
nbsp; “I don’t,” he said, eyeing her. “What problem is that?”

  “Oh, well I—never mind.” Her blush attested to her embarrassment at revealing too much, and he was strangely heartened by it. At least he wasn’t the only one being caught off guard.

  “No you don’t,” he admonished her gently, squeezing her hand. The tender action startled him anew and he struggled to keep going. “You made me talk about the ocean, for God’s sake. The least you can do is tell me why having a bodyguard is a hardship.”

  She giggled, her face once transformed with pleasure, and he felt like a hero. The ricocheting of his reactions around this woman was going to give him whiplash if he didn’t watch it.

  “Oh, it’s not a big problem, truly.” They turned and kept walking, and she glanced away from him, taking in the beautifully manicured park and all its gleaming monuments to times gone by. “Cindy and her husband were assigned to us when my sister was here—she had a bodyguard too, so it’s not like we were singled out.”

  “Vince Rallis’s outfit.” Simon nodded. “I met your sister once, out on Pearl Island, and she was with Vince. She admired the Contos Collection we had there.”

  “Oh! Of course,” Caroline said, though her voice was fainter now. Then she rushed on. “But anyway, the mere fact that we need bodyguards is somewhat emblematic of our—my—whole life. It’s been dictated from the moment I was born it seems. Edeena’s even worse, of course, because she was the eldest.”

  “And she had that curse to overcome.” Simon’s words were pitched for humor, but he winced as soon as he uttered them.

  Caroline merely smiled, relieving him of the need to apologize. “It’s only the truth. As ridiculous as it may seem, that curse has shaped our lives for the past twenty-some years. It still shapes it, in a way.” Then Caroline squeezed his hand—for reassurance, he realized with a start. As if it was her task to make him feel more comfortable with the strange experience of having a normal conversation, not to reprimand him for saying something thoughtless.