The Ashford Affair Read Online Free PDF Page A

have been seventy, at least, but the good people at Frederic Fekkai had spun silver back into gold, keeping her hair the same pale blond it had been in the wedding photos on Granny Addie’s piano. There were many wedding photos. Aunt Anna had been married no fewer than eight times. Her hair brushed against Clemmie’s cheek as Aunt Anna enveloped her in a Chanel-scented hug. “We were afraid you’d been eaten by wolves!”
    “Nope, just my desk,” said Clemmie, disengaging herself.
    “Your mother was getting worried about you,” said Aunt Anna.
    “Nonsense,” said Clemmie’s mother stiffy. No Fekkai magic for Clemmie’s mother. She wore her hair cut short, in an uncompromising gray. “Clementine works very hard.”
    “How is everyone?” Clemmie asked hastily. It was the conversational gambit of least resistance. “Do you still have Shoo-Shoo?”
    “Oh, goodness, you are behind!” said Aunt Anna.
    Clemmie’s mother looked pained. She generally did when Aunt Anna talked. After years on the transatlantic scene, Aunt Anna’s accent wasn’t quite anything anymore, not quite English and not quite American. Affected, Clemmie’s mother called it, which was rather rich coming from someone who sounded like the upstairs of Upstairs Downstairs.
    “—darling little Pekinese,” Aunt Anna was saying. “Jonathan got the Columbia job, so he’s apartment-hunting. Won’t it be nice to have him back in the city? Millie was staying with me for a bit, but she’s moved in with her boyfriend now.”
    “Isn’t she, like, ten?” Millie was one of Aunt Anna’s stepchildren, one of the younger batch, relic of her third husband—or was it her fourth? It was so easy to lose track. Clemmie could see her mother pursing her lips. It drove Clemmie’s mother crazy that Aunt Anna dragged her stepchildren to family events when they weren’t, in Clemmie’s mother’s view, family at all.
    “Oh, sweetie!” Aunt Anna laughed her tinkly laugh. “She’s twenty-three now! I know, I know, it’s too awful. But she seems very happy with her Sean. They have a place in Yorkville.”
    “Isn’t she a bit young to be living with someone?” asked Clemmie’s mother.
    “Better young than never,” replied Aunt Anna cheerfully.
    Clemmie didn’t think it was meant to be a dig, but it stung all the same. Her left hand felt very, very bare after the weight of Dan’s ring.
    Her mother sniffed. “Not everyone makes a career out of matrimony.”
    Aunt Anna winked at Clemmie. “We can’t all be lawyers, can we? How’s tricks, kiddo?”
    “Busy,” said Clemmie quickly. “Really busy. I’m in Dallas on Thursday for a deposition and then London the week after that. It’s been crazy. How’s Granny Addie holding up?”
    “Come see for yourself,” Mother said before Aunt Anna could say anything. She put a hand on Clemmie’s arm and propelled her forward toward the living room, where the cocktail hour was in full swing.
    Behind her, Aunt Anna shrugged and waved. Clemmie grinned back at her.
    The living room was crowded with men in Brooks Brothers suits and women in black sheath dresses, colorful scarves at their necks. Most were friends of the family of various varieties, rather than relatives. Clemmie’s two older brothers had settled in California with their families. She recognized one of her nieces, now in her twenties, interning with some fashion designer. Clemmie’s second-oldest brother seemed to have sent his wife as emissary, but, for the most part, their side of the family was underrepresented. Uncle Teddy, Mother’s younger brother, had died relatively young, a victim of a heart attack in his forties, but his children and grandchildren had come out in force, doing their bit to honor Granny Addie.
    There was only one thing missing from the scene. “Where’s Granny Addie?” Clemmie asked.
    Her mother looked tired. “She’s resting a bit,” she said. She had moved in with Granny Addie a few months ago, ostensibly