Deception Read Online Free PDF Page B

name. She’s from right around Oaklawn, and she knows about the Sumners. They’re sort of the Rockefellers of these parts, you know, the rich and famous.” Sally shrugged. “Folks are always interested in what goes on here with the Sumners.” She glanced up at Connor. “You’ve been big talk already, and seeing as how you’re young and beautiful, it’s bound to heat up.” She hesitated. “But that’s just folks around here. They talk, especially about Mr. Clay. Willene said this afternoon, after she saw you, that you’d stir up the coals of old gossip for Mr. Clay.”
    “I hope not,” Connor said.
    Sally blanched. “Please don’t tell Willene I said that. She’ll say I’m making trouble. She warned us all about gossipin’.”
    “Don’t worry,” Connor reassured the girl. “Sticks and stones,” she added. She didn’t much care what the locals said or thought. It might be a different story with Clay, if his political ambitions were sincere. “I’m just another employee, like you.”
    “Oh, Ms. Tremaine, a horse trainer is mighty different from a maid.”
    “We’re both paid for a service,” Connor said. “That’s the best way to look at it, and the best thing to tell anyone who asks. I work for Mr. Sumner, just like you and Willene. Nothing more and nothing less.”
    “Mr. Sumner is waiting to have dinner with
you,”
Sally said without any rancor.
“That
makes it different.”
    “We need to discuss the riding plan for the children,” Connor said. Sally was a country girl, but she was sharp to discern the difference in status that she, Connor Claire Tremaine, would never have seen. She was learning her first lesson in the social strata of hired help in the South.
    Sally opened a dark door that led from the right side of the hallway. Connor found herself standing in a formal dining room. “I thought Willene said we were having an informal meal,” she said, realizing too late that she had whispered. The house was big, elegantly furnished. She caught her reflection in a mirror over the mantel. She looked as out of place as she felt.
    “Mr. Sumner said he wanted to eat in here,” Sally said.
    “I’ve noticed something about this house,” Connor said, forcing her voice to a normal pitch. “There are an awful lot of mirrors. There’re three in my suite, at least four in the hallway, one in the entrance hall, and that one over there, as big as a wall.”
    “Yes, there are a lot of mirrors. I dust them.” Sally looked down at her shoes.
    “Is there any particular reason for them?”
    “I think it’s the light. They make it seem like there’s more light in the house.”
    “I see,” Connor said. “They’re all ornate, though. Mr. Sumner’s choice?”
    “No, ma’am.”
    “Mrs. Sumner?” Connor felt as if she was pulling teeth. Where had the mirror-loving Mrs. Sumner gone after the divorce? No one at Oaklawn seemed to want to talk about her very much.
    “Yes, ma’am. She didn’t like the dark, either. She was afraid of it, worse than me, even. She said she was raised up to live in the city, not out in the sticks by herself. She said …”
    The door swung open and Clay stepped into the room. Sally froze for a moment, looking from Clay to Connor. “I’d better go help Willene. I’ll take that cup, if you’re finished.” She held out her hand and Connor put the coffee cup and saucer in it.
    Clay drew back Connor’s chair and held it for her. As Connor took a seat at the table, Sally returned to the room with wine. At Clay’s nod, she poured. Connor noticed that her hands were visibly shaking, and she hurried from the room.
    “She’s as nervous as a cat,” Clay commented as he sipped his wine. “Did anything happen to upset her?”
    “Not that I know of.” Connor was seated to Clay’s left. A gleaming expanse of table stretched to her right. It was set for two, with long tapers burning brightly. A small bowl of fresh flowers had been cut, too. It was a simple but