So now I knew who had owned that exquisite dress. Lucy Montgomery, a woman whose nickname—Lucky—fit her perfectly. Someone whose legacy I had never been sure was something to be lived up to—or lived down. Leland named me for her, his much beloved great-aunt—actually, his favorite person in the world. My French mother changed the y to ie, but otherwise, I was her namesake.
She died when I was three, and even though my memories could only have come from old black-and-white photographs and remembered family stories, she had always seemed flesh-and-blood real to me, as vivid as Technicolor. My father adored her, a kindred spirit whose dazzling good looks and dangerous charm—so they said—could seduce you into betraying your own true self. My mother told me once in a fit of anger that in spite of the difference in their generations, Leland and Lucky were as alike as two peas in a pod, always expecting their tiny lies and little lapses of honesty to be forgiven or overlooked because they weren’t accountable to the same standards and morals as the rest of us.
“Are you all right, Lucie?” Mick asked. “You’ve gone very pale.”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s just such a shock to see her.”
“How did she get the name ‘Lucky’?”
“Like you’d imagine,” I said. “She was a happy-go-lucky person, a real free spirit. Or maybe a hell raiser, depending on your opinion. Look at the date when that photo was taken—it was the beginning of the Roaring Twenties, when women suddenly had so much more freedom. Sex, alcohol, cigarettes. Unchaperoned dates and petting parties. From what I heard, she was in her element. If she’d lived in the sixties, she probably would have been a hippie. Instead, I guess you’d call her ‘bohemian.’”
Mick stared at the photo and then at me in an intense, curious way. “It’s uncanny how much you two look alike. What happened to her?”
I turned red. “She went to England after her debutante season and fell in love with a married earl. It was pretty intense, a torrid affair, and, of course, eventually he went back to his wife and all of her money, which broke Lucky’s heart,” I said. “But the worst of it was that because of the affair, she changed her mind about going home and gave a girlfriend her ticket to sail back to New York.”
“What do you mean, ‘the worst of it’?”
“The ship was the Titanic.”
“God, how awful.”
“Lucky never forgave herself, even though everyone said she really deserved her nickname after that. From then on, she carried on sort of a gypsy life, traveling all over the world, living in hotels for months at a time or staying with the latest boyfriend she’d pick up somewhere. Inevitably, he owned a villa in Cannes overlooking the Mediterranean or a ruined castle in Umbria … a poet, some minor royal, a bad-boy heir to a shipping fortune.”
“Obviously she spent time here in Atoka.” Mick glanced down at the picture again. “She must have stayed at Highland House for a while.”
I shook my head. “It was too quiet for her, too provincial. In those days, there was still a lot of poverty here after all the destruction from the Civil War. Besides, Lucky had money, an inheritance from her mother’s family, so she could afford her nomadic life. The only time she worked was as an artist’s model when she lived in Paris and hung around with Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude Stein, Picasso … all the Paris writers and artists of that generation.”
“I would have liked to have known her.” Mick spoke with such passion that I felt a sudden unwelcome twinge of jealousy. Lucky had been dead for nearly thirty years, but she was still a seductress.
“Lucky fascinated everyone,” I said in a mild voice. “She had loads of admirers and lovers.”
“I wonder if Warren Harding was one of them. Just because he had that gorgeous woman on his lap didn’t mean she was the only one he was screwing around with,” Mick said. “He really was Jack the Lad, having his way with women in hotels, at the White House, even a place on H Street called ‘the Love Nest.’ I don’t know how he got away with it.”
“I do believe you’re jealous.”
He gave me an evil grin. “Not jealous. Curious.”
“Those were different times. He wouldn’t get away with it today,” I said. “How come you know so much about Warren Harding—and his sex life? Our most undistinguished president, and the most corrupt administration in American history, and all you talk about are his women.”
“That picture.” Mick tapped it with his finger. “There’s something about it. The way all those beautiful women are crowded around Harding and that gorgeous creature he’s feeling up … it’s so intimate. You shouldn’t look, but you can’t turn away.” He groped my thigh, but it was more brotherly than lustful.
“Down, boy.” I removed his hand and let it flop on the couch. “The Studebakers’ parties must have been pretty wild and uninhibited. I heard a story that there was even a duel once. Over a woman.”
“There was,” Mick said. “Jim’s son told me about it when we discussed the album. A lot of blood, but nobody was killed. They were all too drunk.”
I turned more pages. “I don’t see Lucky or Warren Harding in any other pictures.”
“That’s the only photo of Harding,” he said. “I couldn’t tell you about Lucky, since I didn’t know who she was until you pointed her out. Take the album home and have a better look. No rush to get it back.”
“Thank you. And now I really should be going. Thanks for the tea.” I closed the book and stood up. “Will I see you tomorrow for the hunt, or did you call it off?”
Highland Farm had been part of the Goose Creek Hunt’s territory ever since it had been founded a century ago. Once a season, they hunted on my farm; the date had been set for months and I’d received a fixture card with their schedule. After my father died, my neighbors on the other side had tried to pressure me into blocking the hunt from using my land, on the grounds that blood sports were cruel and inhumane. It would have meant turning my back on my heritage, my own family, and a way of life that was woven into the warp and weft of this part of Virginia, so I’d said no and that the Goose Creek Hunt was welcome to ride through my farm as it had always done.
Mick groaned. “Oh, God, sorry, I should have called, but yes, I canceled on account of the snow. Another call came in and I got sidetracked.” He shook his head. “Crikey, I’m so ready for this winter to be over.”
“Me, too,” I said. “We were supposed to start pruning the south vineyard tomorrow. Now Quinn’s probably going to have to plow it out, clear a path so the guys can get to the vines. They hate working in the snow because it’s so cold and it really slows them down. I wish we didn’t have to do it, but we can’t afford to fall behind schedule before bud break.”
He walked me to the front door and helped me on with my coat. “My winemaker tells me we’ll be doing the same thing,” he said, leaning in for a good-bye kiss. “So is it true we’re supposed to dress up for this party? Am I expected to look like Al Capone?”
I grinned. “Of course. That’s half the fun.”
“What are you wearing?”
“I’m not telling. Although, actually, you’ve already seen it.”
“I have?” He gave me a puzzled look. “When?”
“No hints. You’ll have to be surprised.”
He stood under the portico until I got in the Jeep and started the engine, then went inside. What would he say when he saw me in Lucky’s fabulous dress and realized where he’d seen it before? In a picture of a woman who had captivated him, my mirror image twin who had worn it nearly a century ago?
One more time the dress had worked its magic. This time it had bewitched Mick Dunne.
* * *
BY THE TIME I turned onto Sycamore Lane at the entrance to the vineyard, a few fat flakes had landed on the Jeep’s windshield. A harbinger of what was to come. I drove first to the house to leave the groceries with Persia Fleming, the widowed Jamaican woman I’d hired last fall as our housekeeper after Eli and Hope moved in. Before long, Eli poached her as Hope’s daytime caregiver when Hopie wasn’t in preschool, and she’d moved into a cozy little apartment that Eli had remodeled above the carriage house, where he had his architecture studio. By Christmas, I couldn’t imagine how we’d ever managed without someone as capable as Persia, who ran the house like a dream and cared for Hope with such devotion.
She met me at the door, holding a pink wand with a silver star on it and wearing an aluminum foil tiara on top of her silver-streaked cornrow braids, the ends of which she’d wound up in a loose bun. There was a smear of flour on her face like war paint and the house smelled fragrantly of baking.
“I was hoping you were Prince Charming,” she said in her lilting accent, taking the bag from me. “With a glass slipper.”
“Cinderella?” I said. “Again?”
“It was either that or Finding Nemo. Which I can recite by heart. And I’d rather be a fairy godmother than a fish, let me tell you.”
“Well, have fun.” I grinned. “We won’t be late tonight. Eli’s coming over to help with the blending trials for the new sparkling wine and then Dominique’s bringing dinner. With the snow on its way, it’ll be quick, so everyone can get home. Sure you don’t want to join us for dinner?”
She shook her head. “Hope wants hot dogs and macaroni and cheese. Comfort food before the blizzard. My little angel and I will be fine here, don’t you worry. You go make your wine.” Persia waved her wand at me, smiling. “Any wishes you need granted before I go?”
I had a laundry list. “No, not really. Mercury is in retrograde. I think it’s a bad time to make wishes.”
Her smile evaporated. “Oh, Lordy. I’d completely forgotten. Mercury in retrograde is bad. So many things go wrong. I’ll need to light some candles when I get home tonight.”
I drove over to the villa and wondered if both Thelma, with her Ouija board, and Persia, who dabbled a bit in the Jamaican version of voodoo, were right. Then I remembered my argument with Quinn that morning and what Thelma had said about relationships going to hell.
I, too, would be glad when this week was over and the planets were aligned properly and spinning around the sun as they should be once again.
* * *
SOMEONE—PROBABLY FRANKIE—HAD put a bag of ice melt outside the front door to the villa for when we’d need it later. She was standing behind the mosaic-tiled bar my mother had designed, head bent over something that absorbed her attention, glasses perched low on her nose. Mosby, the silver-gray barn cat that had adopted us a few months ago, lay stretched out in front of the fireplace, where a fire still blazed cheerfully. I bent to scratch his head and he rolled over and began washing himself.
Frankie finally looked up. “Oh, gosh, sorry, I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Is everything all right?” I walked over to the bar and set down the canvas bag with Mick’s photo album in it.
“I’m not sure.” She took off her glasses and chewed on one of the stems. “I’m just going over a report on Veronica House. We’ve got a board meeting the day after tomorrow. Father Niall wants to expand the homeless shelter. He says we need more space.” She frowned again. “It just that our financial situation seems to be a bit precarious. I talked to another member of the board who is helping to get ready for our diocesan audit. She says there’s some money that can’t be accounted for.”
“Oh?”
“We’ll straighten it out, don’t worry. Niall’s so generous, he can’t say no to anyone in need, especially when they’re desperate. He’ll help someone out, and then look for the money later. He has a good heart, that man. He wants to use the money from the ‘Anything Goes’ party for the food pantry, since we’re so low on supplies. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you for having this fund-raiser.”
“I’m glad we’re doing it. A lot of people would go hungry or sleep on the streets if it weren’t for Veronica House. And Father Niall O’Malley.” I opened the bag and pulled out the album. “I brought you something. The Studebaker album on loan from Mick. It’s got some great pictures.”
“That’s nice.” She ran her hand over the elaborately embossed leather as I had done, but she didn’t open the album. She still seemed distracted. “Thanks.”
“Are you all right, Frankie?”
“Me? Sure.” She looked over at the wall of French doors that led to a large deck with a view of the snow-covered Blue Ridge Mountains. “It looks like it’s already started to snow.”
“If you or anyone else wants to take off early, go ahead. We’ll still have enough people for the blend sampling. The rest of us live here.”
“No one’s leaving,” she said. “I already told everyone they were done for the day, but all of us want to stay. I think it’s because your cousin made carbonnade for dinner. Personally, I would walk a mile barefoot in whatever snow we get tonight for Dominique’s amazing beer and beef stew.”
I grinned. “Then let’s start the tasting early instead of waiting until five. Dominique’s coming over at four anyway. I’ll text Eli and let him know.”
“You’d better text Kit, as well,” Frankie said. “She’s still coming, and she’s bringing someone. A reporter who’s interested in working here on weekends to pick up some extra money. I was thinking of asking her if she’s free Saturday to help out with the party.”
“Kit doesn’t need to come tonight,” I said. “Or her friend. We can manage without them. She doesn’t need to drive all the way over from Leesburg in this weather.”
“She’s at Foxhall Manor, visiting her mother, so she’ll be passing by on her way home. She phoned earlier, while you were out, to make sure we hadn’t canceled,” Frankie said. “Apparently, she left you a voice mail and a couple of texts but never heard back from you. And she knows about the carbonnade. You won’t be able to keep her away, either.”
I pulled my phone out of my jeans pocket, pushed a button, and got nothing. “It’s dead. I think I need a new phone. My battery doesn’t hold a charge anymore, especially if it’s outside in the cold. Can you text everyone for me? Quinn, too?”
“Quinn,” she said, “barely spoke to me when he brought the tasting samples over and left them in the library a while ago. Something’s bothering him. What’s going on? Is it that argument you had this morning?”
I shrugged. Quinn had Gino Tomassi on his mind; that was why he was upset and moody. If he hadn’t told anybody he was related to the Tomassis before today, he sure wasn’t going to start admitting it now, especially after Gino’s visit and his parting threat this morning.
“Lucie?” Frankie gave me a quizzical look. “You know I can keep my mouth shut if there’s something you’d like to tell me.”
I trusted Frankie completely, but this wasn’t my secret.
“No,” I said, “there isn’t.”
She scooped up Mick’s album. “In that case, I’ll put this in my office for safekeeping. Then I’ll let everyone know about the change of plans.”
She swept out of the room, her heels making sharp little clicks on the tile floor, her way of letting me know she knew I was lying. But there was nothing I could do about it, so I let her go.
* * *
QUINN FOUND ME EATING Brie and crackers in the kitchen. “Can I talk to you for a minute? In the library, where we’ve got some privacy.” There was an odd glint in his eye.
I followed him through the tasting room and into the library, where we held informal talks and hosted small group tastings. Quinn closed the door behind us. Eight bottles, the samples for tonight’s blind tasting, were hidden in paper bags and lined up on a tray on an oak console table next to an arrangement of red and white Valentine’s Day mums and carnations. An assortment of wine-related magazines also lay fanned out on the table for guests to peruse.
Quinn picked up the latest issue of Decanter magazine, which was on top of the pile, and thumbed through it. When he found what he wanted, he held the magazine out to me so I could see the jagged edges of a missing page. “Did you rip out the page with the news of Gino’s deal with Dante Bellagio?”
“Nope.”
“Someone did.”
I took the magazine. “It was in the ‘Heard It Through the Grapevine’ column. There was also a story about celebrities who wanted to buy vineyards, especially in Virginia. Maybe someone wanted that article … though they shouldn’t have ripped it out of our magazine.” I set it back on the table. “What are you getting at?”
“I don’t know. I just think it’s odd, especially after today.”
“Maybe Gino took it. He came here before he showed up in the barrel room. Frankie gave him directions how to find it.”
‘Maybe,” Quinn said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “There’s something else. I’ve been making some calls to friends in California. The land Gino and Dante want for their joint venture? They’ve got their eye on a couple of midsize vineyards over near Angwin, on Mount Howell. The thing is, the owners don’t want to sell. So guess what Gino’s doing?” He took the magazine and rolled it up, smacking it against his hand as if someone was about to get a thrashing.
“Based on the look on your face, I’d say he’s doing something to force them to sell.”
He nodded.
Clearly we had moved on from our argument this morning. But I still I didn’t have a good feeling about what was coming next, especially when a muscle twitched in his jaw, a sure sign he was angry.
“The little wineries in California do most of their business from tourists who buy wine in the tasting room,” he said. “But the midsize vineyards compete with the big guys like Gino because they sell their wine through distributors. What I heard is that Gino is squeezing those middlemen not to take their wine, not to sell it. And since no one wants to alienate a guy with the clout and market share Gino has, the distributors are falling in line.”
“That’s horrible. He’ll ruin those vineyards. They won’t be able to survive.”
“And he’ll pick them off for a fire sale price when they do start to go under. I told you what he was like.” He smacked the magazine against the palm of his hand again. “So I’ve been thinking.”
“You want to stop him?”
“I’d like to try. I’m tired of watching him bully people.”
“How do you plan to do this?”
“I plan to find out if the blackmailer is right that Zara Tomassi did have a kid. Do it before Gino or his private eye does. As you so correctly pointed out this morning, they are still my family. Unfortunately. And my grandparents were not the only ones Gino’s family has screwed over.”
“Quinn, that could be dangerous. Someone’s blackmailing him.”
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
Oh, brother. “Blackmail,” I said, “is a crime. In case you forgot.”
“Gino’s not going to involve the cops, so…” He shrugged. “It’s just a little family matter, some money changing hands in return for a document Gino wants.”
“I don’t like this.”
“Look,” he said, “what do you think is going to happen if Gino does find a descendant—or descendants—of Zara’s still alive and well somewhere? That he’s going to be like some benevolent fairy godfather, waving a wand and all of a sudden whoever it is becomes a multimillionaire, part of the family business?” His voice rose as he spoke, and I put a finger to my lips. For all either of us knew, Frankie was outside the door, wondering what all the shouting was about.
He nodded and said more quietly, “He’s going to do to that person the same thing his old man did to my grandmother. He’s going to screw him royally, tie him up in so many legal knots and make him settle for whatever kind of deal it is he wants. Gino’s got lawyers, armies of lawyers.” He swept his hand as if encompassing the entire vineyard, all of Virginia even. “He wants to airbrush Zara’s descendants out of his life and our family. But he won’t be able to do that if I know about it, too.”
“So what’s your plan?” I fiddled with the wine bags, straightening them like a row of tan soldiers, even though they didn’t need straightening. I still didn’t like his idea.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if whoever is behind this is in the wine business and it’s a personal vendetta. A lot of Napa and Sonoma wine families go back generations. I’m going to make some more calls. And Lucie?”
I stopped fiddling with the bags. “What?”
“I thought you might want to help.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“Zara grew up in Washington and she still has relatives in D.C.,” he said. “If she had the baby, where would the logical place be for the kid to end up?”
“Washington.”
“Exactly.”
“You want me to try to find out what happened to Zara’s child? If he or she is still alive?”
“Her father was a big-shot congressman—Ingrasso, remember? There had to have been stories written about him and his family in the paper—you know, society stuff like weddings or fancy parties. I thought you could talk Kit into getting access to the Trib’s database of old stories.” He gave me a sideways look. “Without telling her why.”
“Lie to my best friend. You don’t ask much, do you?” I said. “Don’t you think Gino’s private eye is beating a path to the same doors?”
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not. And who’s to say we won’t get there before he does?”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll talk to her. She’ll be here tonight.”
Frankly, I was curious, too. If we were nimble enough to stay under the radar, maybe we could find out what had happened to Zara’s child and who was behind the blackmail. But what worried me more than Gino, his investigator, or even the blackmailer was Quinn. He nursed a grievance that had festered for three generations and I feared it could bring us to grief. Because revenge, as they say, is a dish best served cold.
And Quinn’s anger was still white-hot.