Wanderlust Read Free

wasn't. All of his money was so carefully invested that the bad times had barely made a ripple on his private waters.
    We'll do our best. Audrey smiled matter-of-factly at him. She bought very little for herself, and always had, but Annabelle still needed a number of things for her trousseau. And there were to be seven bridesmaids in her wedding. Audrey was to be maid of honor. J. Magrien had done the wedding gown, of antique French lace, encrusted with tiny pearls, with a high, high neck, which would frame Annabelle's delicate face, with a veil of the same antique lace and French tulle to set on her spun gold hair. Audrey was extremely pleased with the effect of the beautiful veil and gown, as was Annie. The only problem was getting her to go to fittings. The wedding was in three more weeks at Saint Luke's Episcopal Church, and there were a thousand details to attend to.
    And by the way, Harcourt will be here for dinner. She always tried to warn him in the morning. Now and then he forgot, and he would be furious to find some strange face, or even a familiar one, at his dinner table with no warning. And now he stared at her, as he always did at the mention of his future grandson-in-law. He was never quite convinced that Audrey wasn't jealous. It was difficult to imagine that she wasn't. Annabelle was only twenty-one, and Audrey was twenty-five after all, and in most people's eyes, not the family beauty. She had a tendency to make herself plain, to wear her hair pulled back too tightly, no rouge on her ivory cheeks to give them some color, no mascara to darken her auburn lashes, no lipstick to accentuate the full lips that would have been sensuous if she'd let them. But she seemed to want none of that. She had had no serious beaux. There had been several suitors over the years, but her grandfather had always scared them off. And Audrey didn't seem to care. To her, they all seemed so sedentary and very boring. She sometimes dreamed of a man like her father with adventure in his soul, and a passion for exotic places, but she had never met anyone even remotely like him. And Harcourt didn't fit the bill either, though he was perfect for her sister.
    He's a handsome lad, isn't he? Her grandfather's eyes combed hers, as they always did, expecting to see something that wasn't there and never had been, even if she had met Harcourt first, even if he had taken her dancing once or twice. But she had relinquished him happily to her sister, and in spite of what people might think, she did not pine for him or regret it. He would never have fed the hunger in Audrey's soul, and she doubted if anyone could. What she longed for she found in the photographs she took, and the tattered albums left to her by her father. There was something deep within her so like him. Even their photographs were much the same, their eye, their perception, their hunger for the rare and faraway ' . Harcourt will make a good husband to Annabelle. Her grandfather always said it as though taunting her, or pressing her to see her reaction. He still thought she had made a mistake in giving him up to her younger sister. He still didn't understand what was within her. Few people did. No one in fact. But it didn't matter to her. For years, Audrey had been used to keeping her own counsel about her private dreams. She couldn't indulge them anyway. Her place was here, running her grandfather's home and being there for him. And now she smiled at her grandfather, with the slow smile that began in her eyes and moved cautiously to her lips and made her look as though she were restraining gales of laughter. It always made one wonder what the rest of the joke was, as though she knew something one didn't ' as though there was more ' and there was ' there was a lot more of Audrey Driscoll, but no one knew it. Even her grandfather didn't suspect just how far her dreams went, or how great her hunger to follow in her father's footsteps. She was not cut out for the life destined for the