The Promise Read Free Page B

there that morning. He knew it would be hot in New York, but he knew, too, that he had to appear at Marion's apartment in coat and tie. That was essential. Marion had no tolerance for “hippies,” or for nobodies … like Nancy. They both knew what he was facing when they kissed good-bye at the door.
    “Good luck.”
    “I love you.”
    For a long time Nancy sat in the silent apartment looking at the photograph of them at the fair. Rhett and Scarlet, immortal lovers, in their silly wooden costumes, poking their faces through the holes. But they didn't look silly. They looked happy. She wondered if Marion would understand that, if she knew the difference between happy and silly, between real and imaginary. She wondered if Marion would understand at all.

Chapter 2
    The dining room table shone like the surface of a lake. Its sparkling perfection was disturbed only on the edge of the shore, where a single place setting of creamy Irish linen lay, adorned by delicate blue and gold china. There was a silver coffee service next to the plate, and an ornate little silver bell. Marion Hillyard sat back in her chair with a small sigh as she exhaled the smoke from the cigarette she had just lit. She was tired today. Sundays always tired her. Sometimes she thought she did more work at home than she did at the office. She always spent Sundays answering her personal correspondence, looking over the books kept by the cook and the housekeeper, making lists of what she had noticed needed to be repaired around the apartment and of items needed to complete her wardrobe, and planning the menus for the week. It was tedious work, but she had done it for years, even before she'd begun to run the business. And once she'd taken over for her husband, she still spent her Sundays attending to the household and taking care of Michael on the nurse's day off. The memory made her smile, and for a moment she closed her eyes. Those Sundays had been precious, a few hours with him without anyone interfering, anyone taking him away. Her Sundays weren't like that anymore; they hadn't been in too many years. A tiny bright tear crept into her lashes as she sat very still in her chair, seeing him as he had been eighteen years before, a little boy of six, and all hers. How she loved that child. She would have done anything for him. And she had. She had maintained an empire for him, carried the legacy from one generation to the next. It was her most valuable gift for Michael. Cotter-Hillyard. And she had come to love the business almost as much as she loved her son.
    “You're looking beautiful, Mother.” Her eyes flew open in surprise as she saw him standing there in the arched doorway of the richly paneled dining room. The sight of him now almost made her cry. She wanted to hug him as she had all those years ago, and instead she smiled slowly at her son.
    “I didn't hear you come in.” There was no invitation to approach, no sign of what she'd been feeling. No one ever knew, with Marion, what went on inside.
    “I used my key. May I come in?”
    “Of course. Would you like some dessert?”
    Michael walked slowly into the room, a small nervous smile playing over his mouth, and then like a small boy he peered at her plate. “Hm … what was it? Looks like it must have been chocolate, huh?”
    She chuckled and shook her head. He would never grow up. In some ways anyway. “Profiteroles. Care for some? Mattie is still out there in the pantry.”
    “Probably eating what's left.” They both laughed at what they knew was most likely true, but Marion reached for the bell.
    Mattie appeared in an instant, black-uniformed and lace-trimmed, pale-faced and large-beamed. She had spent a lifetime running and fetching and doing for others, with only a brief Sunday here and there to call her own, and nothing to do with it once she had the much coveted “day.” “Yes, madam?”
    “Some coffee for Mr. Hillyard, Mattie. And … darling, dessert?” He shook his head.