Savage Beauty - Peggy Webb Page 0,1

Allistair consulted anybody? Stephen had unilaterally decided to ignore their spring wedding date and book the church for early January. Just thinking about it gave Lily a headache.

Granted, he’d been a bachelor for thirty-nine years. He’d never even come close to marriage, which probably explained why he couldn’t come up with a logical reason for the rush. She was definitely going to talk to him. Tonight. After the party.

Now, she said to her daughter, “Stephen meant well.” He always did, didn’t he?

She really should correct Annabelle about calling him stupid, but she would save that for later. She knew the humiliation of being singled out in front of friends. “He’s a good person, and he loves you, Annabelle. You have to try.”

“I don’t care what you say. If I have to wear that dress I’m not going.”

An argument over a dress would do nothing but exacerbate the situation.

“Okay. I can accept that.”

“Mom, you’re the best!” Annabelle gave her a bear hug.

“You’re not off the hook. You have to thank Stephen for the dress.”An eye roll from her daughter. ”And you have to mean it. As soon as he gets back from the airport with his mom, find him and explain that you want to wear the party dress Gran made.”

Lily’s mom, a seamstress, had died quietly in her sleep at the end of spring. The thought of her mother not getting to see her walk down the aisle with a good man made Lily’s heart hurt.

“Okay,” Annabelle said. “I can do that.” She gave her best friend a high five. “Look at Cee Cee. I don’t know why he picked out a little kid’s dress for me and gave her one that makes her look like a Hollywood movie star.”

Cee Cee was already wearing her gift, a charming blue velvet dress that matched her eyes and set off skin that looked like the finest mahogany. Her curly black hair made a halo around a sculpted face the cameras would love.

“You look beautiful.” Lily hugged her close.

From the moment Cee Cee and Annabelle had met in fifth grade, Lily had tucked this shy but endearing child into her heart and under her wing. Cee Cee had never known her father and had been given up by her mother then shuffled from one foster home to another for years. Lily had tried to fill the void. That included inviting her to spend school holidays with them and as much of the summer as her foster parents would allow. To Lily, Cee Cee was part of the family, another child to love.

“When I tried my new dress on, I couldn’t take it off,” Cee Cee said. “I feel like a princess in a fairy tale. Have you seen the decorations downstairs, Lily?”

“Not yet.” Lily was as happy as if she’d personally put every decoration in place. Cee Cee deserved a fairy-tale experience, and so much more. She was determined to help this child achieve her dreams.

“There are four gigantic Christmas trees all done in blue and silver,” Cee Cee said. “It looks like a castle or something.”

Annabelle snorted. “More like the Addams Family. This whole house is creepy. I expect Lurch to pop out from behind one of the stupid locked doors. Every time I go near one I get a lecture about snooping from that old man with the missing pinkie.”

Now she’d gone too far.

“You cannot talk that way about Stephen’s grandfather.”

“He does have only nine fingers, which is creepy.”

“Annabelle!”

Her daughter raised her hands in mock surrender. “Okay. Sorry, Mom. I’m going out front now to wait for Stephen.”

“Be nice to him, and his mother, too,” she said, but she wasn’t sure Annabelle heard. The girls were already racing off.

Lily slipped out of her robe and into her bath. When Stephen’s grandfather Clive escorted her into the party, he’d look every inch the aristocratic patriarch and powerful founder of a Southern family empire. She had no intention of embarrassing the family or herself.

Reporters had descended on Allistair Manor from all the major national television and newspaper networks. Some had even flown in from France and Great Britain.

And why shouldn’t they? Stephen C. Allistair was unveiling not only his bride-to-be but his latest hybridized creation, a stunning blue rose with white edging. There was nothing like it in Allistair Roses, and very few in the world. Breeders had not achieved a blue rose until eleven years ago, and then their efforts ran more toward lilac than true blue. Stephen’s vivid blue rose was