Catherine put her hands on Ann's shoulders and held her away to study her. The past few years had changed Ann. Her hair was still golden, her face still sweet, dominated by her large, expressive blue eyes, but sun and weather had worn Ann's face, which was finely lined now and covered with freckles. Yet in spite of these imperfections, and rather because of them, Ann's face looked interesting. It had a quality of experience behind it, of laughter and sun. Ann's long blond hair was carelessly tied back with a string. Catherine touched the string and laughed.

"Oh, I'm just a poor working girl!" Ann said, her eyes shining. "I can't be bothered with makeup and frills. But Catherine, you look gorgeous! Motherhood must agree with you. Did you bring pictures of my nephew and niece?"

Catherine was happily caught up in the heat and chatter of the moment. Before the morning had ended, Elizabeth and her two-year-old son came in, kissed Catherine, and sat down to trade news. Tom pa.s.sed through with some papers for Madeline to sign and greeted Catherine with a peck and a smile. Before Catherine noticed her coffee cup was empty, someone jumped up to refill it. When the telephone rang, it was never for her. Hortense wanted to show Catherine her wedding gown, Elizabeth wanted to talk about babies, Madeline wanted to hear about Kathryn, Ann wanted to hear about Drew and Marjorie.

Then Ned came in. He was wearing only a white shirt and blue jeans, and his black hair was mussed as if he'd been dragging his hands through it, but his entrance caused all the women to go quiet, each in her own way satisfied at the presence of this handsome male.

"Catherine," he said. "You're back."

He stopped just inside the doorway, so Catherine rose and crossed the room to hug him. She kissed him on the cheek, which was stubbly. He smelled like ink and electricity, dark and sharp and vivid. She took his hand and pulled him to the table.

"It's so late. What have you been doing?"

He sat down next to Catherine. Ann put a cup of coffee in front of him.

"I, my lazy dear, have been working. Since before dawn. I've just about finished revising a book, the first in a series, I'll have you know, and a series that a publisher is seriously interested in!"

"My G.o.d, Ned, how marvelous!" Catherine said. "Tell me about it."

"Yes, Ned do tell her about it," Hortense said, her voice tinged with mischief.

"Oh, he won't tell anyone anything," Madeline said. "He's a wretched tease. No one will publish his awful books, he isn't even writing anything, he's just pretending so we'll all wait on him hand and foot. How I've spoiled the child."

Catherine laughed and listened to the family banter. As she watched, Ann said, "Madeline, your tag's sticking out," and rose to tuck in a tag in the neck of Madeline's shirt. Ann's hands on the older woman were gentle, but casual, possessive, relaxed, as if this sort of touching were a common thing. And Catherine remembered how, so long ago-twelve years ago!-Catherine had fallen in love with this family and wished her own were like it. Now little Ann, her baby sister, had done her one better and made this family her own. She was living here, working here, one of them.

As Catherine watched, Hortense said, "Well, all, we've got to get back to work. See you at tea, Catherine."

"Are you sitting in the garden today?" Ann asked Catherine, rising with Hortense. "Don't worry. I'll find you. I want to have a nice long lovely private talk." She kissed Catherine on the cheek, then, before going out the door, bent to kiss Ned's cheek, a more lingering kiss.

Well! Catherine thought. What is innocent little Ann up to? But Ned excused himself before she could ask, and soon everyone had gone off on their various errands. Catherine was left alone, stuffed with food and new thoughts.

After she bathed and unpacked, Catherine wandered out in the early afternoon to survey Everly's gardens. It was a hot, clear August day. The flower beds made her jealous. Ann and Hortense had been working hard over the past few years, and it showed. The house rose above the gardens in its grand stone solidity, scorning wood and its submission to time and weather.

Catherine found a corner to herself on a stone bench by a brick wall so covered with l.u.s.trous ivy, it seemed quilted. Above her the apple, pear, and plum trees hung down their tight green or purple-blue fruits. She had purposely found the wilder part of the garden, where the flowers blazed untidily, abundant and boisterous, greedily unkempt. Fat, p.r.i.c.kly globe thistle, as silvery blue and swollen as a pigeon's breast, mingled with golden rudbeckia, white Shasta daisies, and pink trumpeting Crinum, exiled here because although their fragrance was heavenly, their long, flopping, slender swords of leaves made them unwelcome in a more well groomed section.

She could hear Madeline's secateurs click-clacking away nearby. Birds chattered and chirped, bees hummed. She closed her eyes and was almost asleep again when a fresh rush of cool air pa.s.sed over her. Ann slid onto the bench next to her.

"Didn't I arrange a smashing day for you?"

Catherine laughed. "I can't get over how British you sound!"

"I love it here! Listen, Hortense said to take all the time I want, but we've got buckets of work to do, so I don't want to leave her alone for long. Tell me, how is everyone back home? Anything you can tell me out here that you couldn't tell me at the table?"

"No, not really. Mother and Dad are just like always. How their bodies continue to function, I don't know. I think they miss you, Ann. They see very little of Drew and Lily. You know Mother, she's afraid the children might mess up her clothing, and she does have a point. Children are so messy! But G.o.d, Ann, how I love them! And Kit is-" Catherine smiled, out of breath, out of words. "Wonderful."

"You have a perfect life."

"Perfect? Oh, I don't know. Nothing on earth is perfect. But I know I'm very lucky."

"And rich. And happy."

"Yes. And rich. And happy."

"How's Kathryn?"

"Stranger and stranger. Very reclusive. But physically in good health. I suppose we all should be glad she has that big place to ramble around in. Her own private inst.i.tution. We don't have to worry about her. Anyway, she's fine. Now tell me all about you. I can't believe you haven't been home in four years."

"This is my home, now, Catherine."

"Oh, Ann, really-"

"Listen." Ann turned on the bench to face Catherine more fully. "Catherine, Ned's asked me to marry him." Her eyes were shining.

Catherine was surprised at the jealous little kick in the stomach Ann's words gave her. Where did that come from? she wondered.

"Annie. How lovely. But-"

"It is lovely. Catherine, I've had a crush on him since I first saw him. When I was just fourteen! I've held every man I've met up to him, and no one compares. I love him, Catherine. And he loves me."

"Oh, Annie, how wonderful."

"We haven't told anyone else yet. This should be Hortense's summer. She works so hard, she deserves her time of celebration. We'll probably make an announcement after her wedding."

"I'm so happy for you, Annie."

"I knew you would be-oh, and Catherine, I need to ask you something. I need your help. Ned wanted to marry someone with money, for Everly. But he loves me, Catherine, and he's been so frustrated by this money business-Catherine, please help us. I've thought of a plan. You could sign over your rights to Kathryn's Everly to me."

Catherine flinched as if she'd been slapped. "What are you talking about? I don't have any 'rights' to Everly!"

"Oh, come on, Grandmother must have-"

"She hasn't ever said a thing about her will or to whom she's leaving Everly!"

"Well, we all know she'll probably leave it to you. Won't you just hear me out? I've thought it all through. You've got your home, your children, your husband, you've got your apartment in New York, and your White River house, and I know when Kit's parents die you'll have their place in Maine. You can't possibly want to be saddled with Everly. It's falling apart. It will need tons of money to get it back in shape. But it's worth a lot. The land alone is worth a fortune. Grandmother's old. When you sell Everly, you'll have more money than you'll know what to do with."

Catherine sat silent, stunned, staring at her younger sister. "Ann. Listen. We don't know who will inherit Everly. Perhaps I will. If I do inherit Everly, I won't want to sell it. But it's just as likely that Kathryn will leave it to you, or to Mother and Father, and then part of it will eventually come to you-"

"Exactly!" Ann snapped, triumphant. "All right, then. I'll sign over my rights to Everly to you. Now. And you give me money in return."

Catherine laughed, astonished. "Annie, I can't just 'give you money'! Well, of course, I can give you something, and I will, gladly, but I can't possibly give you enough to make any difference to this place. You're going to need pots of money to restore this Everly."

"You've got pots of money."

"I've worked for it! It's my money from my business! I certainly don't have enough money to restore this Everly and keep my business going. I don't think you understand. A lot of my 'wealth' is tied up in the business-"

"Oh, you're so selfish!" Ann burst out, pounding her knees with her fists in frustration.

"That's not true."

"Yes, it is. You're selfish, and you always have been. Oh, just go away. Leave me alone. If you won't help me, then just leave me alone!"

Ann was in tears. She rushed off from Catherine, down the white stone path, around the corner of a boxwood hedge, and out of sight. Catherine was left sitting on the stone bench, breathless. What could she do now? The silence that before had spread around her in sunny innocence now seemed to hold a quality of waiting, listening-it was as still as if the garden were holding its breath. Who had heard their words? Catherine no longer heard the gentle clicking of Madeline's secateurs. How close was Hortense? And even if no one had overheard, how many of the Boxworthys were aware of Ann's plan? Undoubtedly Ned knew, and Ann and Hortense were best friends, and if Hortense knew, it was a good guess that she had told her mother....

Catherine shuddered. It was completely unrealistic of Ann, and completely self-centered, to expect Catherine simply to hand over a fortune, for a fortune was what it would take to bring this Everly back into first-cla.s.s shape. But Ann had never had to deal with money before, and it was true that Catherine was wealthy.

But if all the Boxworthys were waiting for Catherine to share her wealth, and if they would sit in judgment of her, think ill of her, even hate her if she didn't-Oh, it was so unfair! This Everly had been her haven, at least in her mind, the place where she could retreat from the cares of the world. Now it could never be the same. Ann had brought the cares of Everly and dumped them all in her lap.

At that, Catherine rose, as if brushing them off her skirt. Quickly she retraced her steps along the garden path to the house. What could she do, track down each of the Boxworthys and explain her position, her finances? d.a.m.n Ann! But now it was done, and although Madeline and the others would no doubt remain kind, even understanding, they were bound to be disappointed. And would Ned marry Ann now if she had no money and no chance of ever having real money? That was not her responsibility, Catherine thought.

Through an open window at the side of the house, Catherine saw Elizabeth and one of the local girls washing up after breakfast and measuring flour into a large bowl in preparation for tea. She could hear Elizabeth's two-year-old yammering from the kitchen playpen. Hard work, yes, but Elizabeth seemed happy enough. As she looked, Catherine also saw how the wood framing the kitchen scene was chipped and warped. It needed painting. More, it needed rebuilding. It had cracked in the middle, and the wood was splintering. Above it, a rusty gutter pipe hung down, unhinged. Ivy climbed up the wall and wrapped around the pipe on its way to the second and third stories. Cosmetically, Everly was charming. Underneath, it was falling apart.

But Catherine knew that if she was lucky enough to inherit Kathryn's Everly, it would take all her money and more to restore that house. She couldn't be responsible for this Everly, too, and it was wrong of Ann to expect it of her.

Still, Catherine felt she'd been tossed out of the Garden of Eden. She walked through the long shadowy hallway and up to her room. She sat for a while, thinking, and then she began to pack.

Madeline appeared to be genuinely distressed when Catherine found her in the library and told her she was leaving.

"But, my dear," she said, her hand going to the brooch at her throat.

"It's just that I miss my children. I've never been away from them before, and little Lily is only a year old, I've only just stopped nursing her."

"Oh, well, I do understand. I felt that way about my little ones, too. In fact, I never took a trip away from them until they were all in their teens. So I do understand. Still, it's a pity that you can't stay."

The chauffeur had just returned from Heathrow with two couples arriving as guests at the bed-and-breakfast, but he was cheerful enough about driving Catherine back to the airport. Catherine left him to load her luggage and went out into the garden to find Ann. Ann was pushing a wheelbarrow of compost down to the far end of the kitchen garden, hidden from the public garden by a brick wall. Her forehead was streaked with dirt, and she looked tired.

"I'm leaving, Ann," Catherine said. "I thought I'd say good-bye."

"Good-bye. I think you're selfish and mean."

"Well, I'm not, Ann, and someday I'll tell you some things that I've done that have helped you-"

"Helped me!"

"Yes. But I won't tell you now. I'm going home. But I do want to say that I hope it works out somehow, for you and Ned."

"I'll just bet you do."

"Oh, Ann." Catherine sighed and waited, wishing for a sign of softening on her sister's part, but Ann only stabbed at the compost with a pitchfork and angrily dragged it onto the pile.

Catherine was so angry, so frustrated, and over all, so wretchedly tired from the two transatlantic trips that when she phoned Kit from Logan to tell him she was back in the States, and why, she broke down on the phone and began to cry.

"I'll rent a car and drive up. G.o.d. It's so embarra.s.sing. People are looking at me as if I'm a lunatic." She crunched the receiver between her head and shoulder and used both hands to dig into her purse for a handkerchief.

"Catherine, listen. Do what I say." Kit's voice was firm, even harsh. "Go to the Ritz-Carlton. When we hang up, I'll call and make a reservation for you there. I'll drive down today. I should be there by this evening."

"The children-"

"The children are being spoiled rotten by my parents. You'd have a heart attack if you saw the amount of sugar they're consuming. You need a break. You wanted to relax and look at some G.o.dd.a.m.ned flowers, and that's exactly what you're going to do. I'll be there tonight to take care of you. All right?"

"All right," Catherine said.

She followed the porter to a taxi and gave directions. The Boston day was so hot that it took her breath away, but she was already breathless and as giddy as a teenager in love for the first time. Kit was going to come down and take care of her. She'd been feeling so soiled, so shabby, because of Ann, like a second-rate sister, not worthy of being loved, and here was Kit, shining, sterling, coming to her rescue, and in the light of his love she was renewed.

She spent a week with Kit, the first week they'd had alone together since the children were born. Since she'd spent so many summers in Maine, he thought she deserved equal time, and he drove her to western Ma.s.sachusetts. They went to concerts at Tanglewood and plays at Stockbridge and Williamstown. They toured the vast mansions, former summer "cottages" of the very wealthy at the turn of the century. Some of the estates had been made into public gardens. There were bridges arching over meandering streams where willows bent and trailed their leaves like a maiden's tresses; clever gates and stairways in the midst of nowhere, built simply as a setting for birches and bushes and plants; fountains, mirror pools, water falls, gazebos, paG.o.das and temples, sunken gardens, terraced hills, mazes, cul-de-sac rooms hiding statues with blind eyes and smiling mouths. Catherine studied it all, wishing she could copy this or that at Everly someday. When she confessed her secret fantasies to Kit, he said calmly, "Well, if Kathryn doesn't leave you Everly, perhaps we can arrange to buy it." Catherine was overwhelmed by the way Kit championed her. She couldn't tell him enough how much she loved him.

In September she returned to work, rested and refreshed, and glad of it, for Sh.e.l.ly overwhelmed her with his newest plan: he wanted to computerize Blooms. At first the very thought terrified her. She was still able to spend a few moments in each section of her business and understand what was going on, what shape things were in. She prided herself on the fact that in an emergency she could take over any job at any level in her business and do it well. But computers! It was a technological outer s.p.a.ce she wasn't sure she was prepared to enter.

Once again, Kit rea.s.sured her. Of course she could understand how to use computers. She'd only have to take a course or two, and what Sh.e.l.ly was proposing was really very simple, just a faster way of ordering, invoicing, paying out. Catherine finally agreed to the computer plan and then, in the process of going over their bookkeeping needs, realized what an octopus her company had become now that they were wholesaling. No wonder Sandra had sprouted gray hairs! She took over the tenth floor of their building for the business offices, gave Sandra and Sh.e.l.ly each a posh office at the front of the building, and moved her office up to the back. Jason and his a.s.sistant, Leonard, were moved to the second floor, and a freight elevator was put in to streamline the scurry from the storage and cleaning s.p.a.ce in the bas.e.m.e.nt to the second floor. Carla ran the first floor, taking care of walk-in customers, receiving and checking the flower shipments against invoices, and answering the phone and opening the mail before sending it on up to Catherine or Sh.e.l.ly or Sandra. Some days Catherine felt like the mayor of an efficient and very fragrant city.

Catherine remained so angry at Ann that at Christmas she sent the Boxworthy family a huge box of gourmet fruits, chocolates, and liqueurs but did not send her usual private gift and card to her sister. In return, she didn't receive a card or present from Ann, nor did her children. Very well, I don't care, Catherine thought.

But one January Sunday when she and Kit were alone in their bedroom, reading the paper by the fire and enjoying their private time, Mary knocked on the door to tell them that the phone call was for them, long distance from England, and urgent. Catherine's heart plunged with fear. Ann. But her news was good: Ned's book was a great success, and they were getting married in June at Everly, and Ann wanted Catherine and Kit and everyone to come.

Ned's books, it turned out, were mysteries starring a sardonic, attractive, rather mischievous chief inspector who lived in a home much like Everly. His first novel was already on the best-seller list, a television company had optioned the series and was in the process of having the novel made into a television screenplay, and he'd just delivered his second book to his publisher. The TV series money alone would cover the major work needed at Everly.

In the face of such great amazing good luck, Catherine knew she couldn't stay angry, or at least she could not stay away from the wedding. So in June she and her family flew to Everly, along with Drew and Marjorie and Sh.e.l.ly. Everyone had tried to convince Kathryn to go, but she remained adamant and stayed home.

The Boxworthys had shut down the bed-and-breakfast for the summer and scheduled the renovations on Everly to start after the wedding, so there was plenty of room for all of Ann's relatives. Ned had also insisted on hiring a housekeeper and two live-in maids so that his mother and sisters could have a week of idle luxury, enjoying their guests and eating meals and drinking tea they didn't have to prepare. It was a week of indolent, often spicy, companionship as everyone got to know everyone else. Groups lingered over the enormous breakfasts or strolled together in the gardens, little boys chased each other from the grand front door through the long hallway and the swinging door to the servants' quarters, out the open back door from the kitchen to the back stoop, then around the house and back through again. Individuals flashed and regrouped and fit together like chips in a kaleidoscope: Madeline Boxworthy, Elizabeth, Tom, their six-year-old son, Maddy, their three-year-old son, Stephen, pregnant Hortense and her husband, John, Ned and Ann, Drew and Marjorie and Sh.e.l.ly, Kit and Catherine, and four-year-old Andrew and two-year-old Lily. It was for just such occasions that these houses had been built, Catherine thought, and remembered how much larger families used to be a century ago, with more children, fey old spinster aunties, and daft bachelor uncles all crowded together under the same roof. She tried to envision growing up at Everly with her parents and Kathryn, and the thought made her shudder. It was still the people, not the house, that made a family.

But the Eliots and the Boxworthys and the Bemishes all blended together for the week at Everly in surprising harmony. Ann greeted Catherine and Kit with perfunctory kisses and the obligatory cries of delight at seeing Andrew and Lily, but once they'd gotten over their initial wariness, she surrendered herself to the pleasures of being her parents' blue-eyed angel child. And she was their angel child; she had done what no one else could do, she had brought the original Everly back into the family. Marjorie and Drew had brought trunks of presents, and Marjorie had already sent over her wedding gown for Ann to wear. Marjorie hadn't offered the gown to Catherine for her wedding, Catherine remembered, then swallowed her jealousy. She had been afraid of this, that childish old envies and shallow petty wounds would revive in this celebration of her sister's marriage, and as the week pa.s.sed she had to fight off crimson devils of temper that continued to p.r.i.c.k at her. Marjorie and Drew practically ignored Andrew and Lily, who were as adorable and cherubic as children could be, in order to concentrate their adoration on Ann. Watching them, Catherine resolved to be much nicer to Kit's parents, to be grateful to them because they loved their grandchildren.

Fortunately Elizabeth and Tom and their children were there, and Catherine was able to sit in Everly's gardens, watching all the children play, talking with friends. She had been right about her children at Everly: Andrew did run, with Elizabeth's son, whooping like a maddened Indian through the gardens, and Lily did eat not only the dirt, but some of the flowers as well. Tom took Kit off several afternoons to play golf, and in the light of their husbands' friendship, Elizabeth and Catherine grew closer. Catherine almost felt at home at Everly again.

One late afternoon Catherine managed to get off by herself for a private ramble through the gardens. She'd just sat down on her favorite marble bench when she heard footsteps and saw Ned approaching.

"h.e.l.lo, gorgeous," he said, sitting next to her, close to her. "I hoped I'd steal some time alone with you."

"Ned," Catherine said fondly. "Lucky Ned."

"G.o.d, yes, isn't it the truth! I do love it, you know, writing these mysteries, and I love every minute of the fuss and glory from my publishers and fans."

"And you love Ann."

"I love Ann. I do, Catherine, don't you worry about that. And I won't be the first famous Brit to be involved with a woman, then marry her younger sister!"

Catherine laughed with him. "You are pleased with yourself these days! Tell me. Does Ann know that you and I-"