Legacy of Secrets Read Online Free PDF Page A

said that when she married him she had traded her social advantages for his money. And they were right. He gave her a million-dollar marriage settlement with an additional one million dollars for every year they were married, to be paid into her account on their wedding anniversary. She was as cool as her husband was volatile, as clinical as he was passionate, and the gossips said that within a year of their marriage he had taken a lover. And they later said she was only the first of many.
    S HANNON SAID, “I KNEW about my father’s latest mistress, Joanna Belmont, though I guess not many other people did, except Buffy. And that was only out of self-interest.” She added bitterly, “She just wanted to protect her investment. Obviously she couldn’t have considered Joanna much of a threat. She probably thought she was just some actress.
    “At least she used to be an actress, because I know for a fact that Joanna hasn’t worked since she met my father. She’s beautiful, you know. Thirty-five years old, six foot two in her heels, blond, and I guess you could say she’s flamboyant. Her theater bios said she had the smile of Doris Day, the body of a young Ginger Rogers, and the legs of Shirley MacLaine, and I guess my dad found that an unbeatable combination. And maybe Joanna really cared about him, too, because with her flashy temperament it couldn’t have been easy for her to keep a secret.”
    She shrugged wearily. “Anyhow, that was the way things stood the night of the party.”

T HE NIGHT WAS HOT and humid. A lavish dinner of caviar with scrambled eggs, Maine lobster, raspberry chocolate marquise, and vintage champagne had already been devoured by the four hundred guests under the lantern-lit trees, and on the long terrace with its distant view of the lake. Now they were dancing in the sumptuous swagged green-and-white silk marquee. Its billowing curtains were looped back to catch any breath of breeze, and elegantly gowned women strolled the lawns, fanning themselves with the long-handled Chinese paper fans Buffy had provided in anticipation of the heat. She had also provided umbrellas and tented walkways in the event of rain: Buffy was a woman who left nothing to chance, and Shannon thought her stepmother would have made a good corporate attorney. Buffy hadn’t approved of the cabaret that was about to start, though. Her father had insisted on it against all her protests. “It’s so Irish,” she had complained.
    “Well, for God’s sakes, I am Irish,” he’d bellowed. “And so is Shannon, despite all your efforts to tame her.” And he had gone ahead and booked a traditional Irish band and a troupe of Irish dancers and singers to teach his guests to jig.
    Pushing his way through the happy crowd of dancers, Bob Keeffe grabbed his daughter’s hand and led her onto the stage. Silencing the band with a wave of his hand, his big voice boomed across the lawns without the aid of themicrophone. “Ladies and gentlemen, my friends,” he called, and the young people gazed obediently up at him and the strollers outside the marquee turned to listen.
    “As you know, this party is a celebration of Shannon’s birthday,” he said. “But
these people
are a celebration of her Irish red hair and her smiling Irish eyes.” Amid laughter he took the mike and announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, the fiddles and flutes and the squeeze-box will play for you, and these lovely young people”—he waved to the dancers standing behind him—“will show you how to
really
dance.”
    The music started up, and Bob put his arm around Shannon and whirled her away. Within minutes the floor was bouncing and the guests outside on the lawns drifted back to the marquee, drawn by the magnet of the different music.
    Later, as she danced with her fiancé, Shannon saw her father make his way alone to the edge of the marquee. Leaning against the struts, one hand in the pocket of his immaculately cut white dinner jacket, he watched the