at him.
His pale silver eyes glittered as they registered her delicate features, her soft mouth and exquisite complexion. “You’re safe,” he said quietly, without understanding why he said it.
She jerked a little, as if she hadn’t expected the words. She averted her face, embarrassed.
Their hostess came into the room, followed by a server with a silver tray laden with coffeepot, china cups and condiments. “Coffee for anyone who likes,” Pam announced with a smile as she directed the valet to a beautiful mahogany side table.
She turned. “I promised you a surprise. But it’s going to come as a surprise to my guest.” She glanced at Ida. “Would you?” she asked, indicating the grand piano.
“Oh, please, I’d really rather not...” Ida began.
Pam gently took the hand that had been under Jake’s and tugged. “Come on, chicken.”
Ida flushed. But Pam had been kind to her, after all.
The piano was beautiful, Ida noted as she sat down at the keys after positioning the bench where she wanted it.
“What will you play?” Pam asked, while Jake stared with barely concealed shock at his dinner companion.
Ida smiled. “This is one of my favorites.”
And as her fingers touched the keys, the exquisite melody of Stephen Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns,” from the 1973 musical A Little Night Music, filled the room.
Ida’s eyes closed as she played from memory, her heart full, brimming over, as her thoughts drifted to the past, when her mother listened with a rapt face to this song, sung by Judy Collins. It had been her mother’s favorite.
She played with all her skill, feeling the music in every cell of her body as it rose to a crescendo and, slowly, faded into a stunned silence.
Her eyes opened. She blinked. And suddenly there was furious applause, even from Jake.
“You play beautifully,” Pam said. “You should do it more often.”
Ida got up, a little self-conscious. She smiled. “Thanks.”
“And now that I’m through putting you on the spot,” Pam teased, “coffee?”
Ida laughed. “Please.”
* * *
“IT WAS YOU PLAYING, when I brought your Jaguar home that day,” Jake mused as they drove away from Pam’s mansion.
“It was,” she confessed. “The piano has gotten me through some very bad times.”
“Where did you learn?”
“My husband, my first husband, had me professionally taught,” she replied with a sad smile. “It was something we shared, a love of beautiful music. He played like an angel. I loved to sit and listen to him.”
“Didn’t you wonder, when you were first married?”
“You mean at the lack of physical contact?” She laughed. “I worried myself sick. I was certain that I smelled bad, or that I wasn’t pretty enough, or that he just wasn’t attracted to me at all. It was a relief, in some ways, to discover the truth.”
“You didn’t mind?” he persisted.
She studied the purse in her lap. “People are what they are,” she said simply. “He was a good and kind man who never beat me or gambled away what we had or embarrassed me in public, the way many men do to their wives. He was fun to be with. He was very educated. We liked the same things, had similar tastes in music and politics and even religion.” She sighed. “He was the best man I ever knew, regardless of how he felt about his place in life.”
He smiled. “You’re not what I expected.”
She shrugged. “Who is, really?”
* * *
HE PULLED UP at her front door. “Your horse. How was the mare injured?”
She was taken aback by the question. She couldn’t even think up a plausible lie.
“You think it was done deliberately,” he persisted.
She hesitated, drew in a breath, then nodded.
“By whom?” he asked.
She looked at him with wide, pained eyes in the light from the map reader. She grimaced. “I...can’t talk about it.”
“Your second husband,” he guessed. “Was his name Merridan?”
“Oh, no,” she said quickly. “It was Trent. When I divorced Bailey, I reverted to my first married name, Merridan. Most of my stocks and bonds and my land holdings were still in that name anyway. I changed my will, too,” she added darkly, not choosing her words, “so that when I die, all my holdings go to various charities. He won’t get a penny.”
“There’s gossip that he was in prison.”
Her pale face turned to his. “Was. Yes.”
His face went bland. “So he’s out now, is he?” Jake asked.
She bit her lower lip.
“Out for blood, too, unless I miss my guess.”
“Blood. Money. It’s all the same to him,” Ida said.
“You think he hurt the horse?”
“I don’t know. Laredo,