Webb stared at her mouth, enchanted by that tiny, spontaneous smile. He hadn't had to coax that one out of her.
"Well, at least that's a plan," he grumbled to hide his reaction.
"Gloria and Harlan are in their seventies; I'm not going to make them move. They can live here the rest of their lives if they want."
"I know you don't want the house crammed with relatives," she said.
"I'll be moving out, too-" "You aren't going anywhere," he interrupted harshly, rising to his feet.
She looked at him in bewilderment.
"This is your home, damn it. Did you think I was trying to tell you to get out?" He couldn't keep the anger out of his voice, not just at the thought of her leaving, but that she had thought he would want her to.
"I'm just a distant cousin, too," she reminded him. "How would it look for us to be living here together, even with Gloria and Harlan here? It's different now, because the house is so full, but when the others move out people will gossip if I don't, too. You'll want to get married again someday, and-" "This is your home," he repeated, grinding his teeth together in an effort to keep his voice down.
"If one of us has to move out, I will."
"You can't do that," she said, shocked.
"Davencourt will be yours. It wouldn't be right for you to leave just so I'll have a place to stay."
"Haven't you ever thought that it should be yours?" he snapped, goaded beyond endurance.
"You're the Davenport. Don't you resent the hell out of me for being here?"
"No. Yes." She watched him for a moment, her eyes shadowed and unreadable as the words lay between them.
"I don't resent you, but I envy you, because Davencourt is going to be yours. You were raised with that promise. You shaped your life around taking care of this family, this house. Because of that, you've earned it, and it should be yours. I knew when I went to find you in Arizona that Lucinda would change her will, giving everything to you again; we discussed it beforehand. But even though I envy you, I've never thought of Davencourt as mine. It's been home since I was seven years old, but it wasn't mine. It was Lucinda's, and soon it'll be yours."
She sighed, and gingerly rested her head back against the chair.
"I have a degree in business administration, but I got it only because Lucinda needed help. I've never been interested in business and finance, while you thrive on it. The only kind of work I've ever wanted to do is train horses. I don't want to spend the rest of my life in business meetings; you take that part of it, and welcome to it. I won't be left destitute, and you know it. I have my own inheritance."
He opened his mouth and she held up her hand to stop him.
"I'm not finished. When I'm no longer needed here" She paused, and he knew she was thinking of Lucinda's death, as he did. It was always there, looming in their future whether they could bring themselves to speak openly of it or not.
"When it's over, I'm going to set up my own stables, my own house. For the first time something will belong to me, and no one else will ever be able to take it away."
Webb's fists clenched. Her gaze was very clear, yet somehow distant, as if she, looked back at all the things and people that had been taken from her when she'd been too young and helpless to have any control over her life: her parents, her home, the very center of her existence. Her self-esteem had been systematically stripped from her by Jessie, with Lucinda's unknowing assistance. But she had had him 277 as her bulwark until he, too, had turned from her, and since then Roanna had allowed herself to have no one, to care for nothing. She had in effect put herself in dormancy. While her life was on hold she had devoted herself to Lucinda, but that time was coming to an end.
When Lucinda died, Roanna planned to leave.
He glued down at her. Everyone else wanted Davencourt, and they weren't entitled to it. Roanna was legitimately entitled to it, and she didn't want it. She wanted to leave.
He was so pissed off that he decided he'd better go back to his room before he really lost his temper, something she wasn't in any shape to endure and that he didn't want to do anyway, He stalked to the door, but paused there for the last word.
"We'll work all that out later," he said.
"But you are not moving out of this house." It was the day of Lucinda's welcome-home party for him, and as Webb drove home he wondered how big of a disaster it would be. He didn't care, but it would disturb Lucinda a great deal if things didn't go exactly as she had planned. From what he'd experienced that afternoon, things weren't looking good.
It hadn't been much, not even a confrontation, but as a barometer of public sentiment it had been fairly accurate. He'd had lunch at the Painted Lady with the chairman of the agricultural commission, and the comments of the two women behind him had been easily overheard.
"He certainly has a lot of brass on his face," one of the women had said. She hadn't raised her voice, but neither had she lowered it enough to ensure she couldn't be heard.
"If he thinks ten years is long enough for us to forget what happened ... Well, he has another think coming."
"Lucinda Davenport never could see any fault in her favorites," the other woman commented.
Webb had looked across at the commissioner's face, which was turning dark red as the man studiously applied himself to his lunch and pretended he couldn't hear a thing.
- 279
"You'd think even the Davenports would balk at trying to force a murderer down our throats," the first woman said.
Webb's eyes had narrowed, but he hadn't turned around and confronted the women. Suspected murderer or not, he'd been raised to be a southern gentleman, and that meant he wouldn't deliberately embarrass the ladies in public. If men had been saying the same things he would have reacted differently, but not only were the two verbal snipers female, they were rather elderly, from the sound of their voices. Let them talk; his hide was tough enough to take it.