Summer in Eclipse Bay

Chapter 23

Octavia parked in the drive in front of the old, two-story house, turned off the ignition, and got out of the car. It was six-thirty in the morning, but fog veiled the early light and cast a damp pall on the entire town.

Or maybe it was just her mood, she thought as she went up the steps and crossed the front porch. She had not slept much last night.

She banged the brass knocker on the front door. When there was no response, she banged it a second time.

Eventually the door opened a crack.

"What on earth are you doing here at this hour of the morning?" Edith Seaton demanded.

"I think you know why I'm here," Octavia said gently. "I came to get the Upsall."

Edith stared at her through the narrow opening for a long moment. Without warning her face suddenly crumpled. In the space of five or six seconds she seemed to age at least a decade.

"Yes." She stood back and held the door open. "Yes, I suppose you'd better take it."

Octavia stepped into the shadowy foyer.

Edith turned, not speaking, and led the way toward the living room. She wore a long, faded dressing gown and slippers.

Octavia took a quick look around as she followed Edith. The house was decorated with what appeared to be leftovers from Edith's shop. There was a display of carnival glass in a case that stood against one wall. Small porcelain figures were arranged on the end tables. The furniture was heavy and old-fashioned.

Edith sat down very stiffly in a rose-patterned rocking chair. Octavia went to stand at the window that overlooked the garden.

"How did you figure it out?" Edith asked in a resigned voice.

"I came across a key in my back room. Last night I asked the Willis brothers if they recognized it. They said they had installed a special lock in the door of your shop. We checked. The key fit. Last night I got a phone call from Noreen Perkins. Sean Valentine had tracked her down to ask her about a missing painting and she was worried that I might think she'd had something to do with the theft."

"And you asked her about the key, I suppose," Edith said dully. "She no doubt told you that several months ago we exchanged keys and that she also gave me the security code to the gallery."

"Yes. She said that both of you had occasionally gotten accidentally locked out. She had trouble remembering the security code for the alarm system so she made sure you had it in case she ever needed it."

"We thought it would be a convenience for both of us."

Edith said. "But after she left, I forgot all about having the code and a key in my desk. Just never gave it another thought."

"Until the day you and everyone else in town discovered that Claudia Banner was my great-aunt."

"I couldn't believe it." Color rushed back into Edith's face. Her gnarled, spotted hands knotted into fists. "It was as if her ghost had come back to haunt me. Worse yet, it was happening all over again, just like it happened all those years ago. But this time it was my grandson she, I mean you, seduced."

"I did not seduce Jeremy."

"All that talk about putting his pictures on display in your gallery. Encouraging him to do more paintings for you. It was seduction, all right, and well you know it."

"It was business, not seduction."

"You went out to dinner with him several times, too."

"We are friends, Mrs. Seaton. But not lovers."

"Only because something better came along," Edith shot back hoarsely. "You dropped my Jeremy like a hot potato when Nick Harte started to date you. Don't deny it."

"I do deny it. Every single word. You're putting your own spin on this, Edith, but I think deep down you know that it isn't the truth."

"You caused trouble between Jeremy and Nick the same way Claudia Banner did with Mitchell Madison and Sullivan Harte."

"So you took the painting the night of the storm and tried to destroy my good name in a noble attempt to defend Jeremy from my wiles?" Octavia shook her head. "I'm not buying that, Edith."

Edith sat in rigid, stubborn silence.

"Do you know what I think?" Octavia sat down in the chair across from the older woman. "I think you used Jeremy as an excuse to take revenge for something that Claudia Banner did to you all those years ago. She is beyond your reach and maybe you told yourself you had put it all behind you. But when you realized that I was her niece, the old anger came rushing back, didn't it?"

Edith flinched. "She got away with it. But then, Claudia Banner got away with everything. She never paid for the trouble and pain she caused."

"Tell me what my great-aunt did to you, Edith."

"She seduced my husband." Edith surged up out of her chair. "And then she used him."

Octavia was on her feet now. "How did she use him?"

"Phil was the accountant for Harte-Sullivan. She got him to doctor the company books while she carried out her scam. That was the reason Mitchell and Sullivan never saw the bankruptcy coming until it was too late."

Octavia drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I see."

"It was as if she was some sort of sorceress," Edith whispered. "She put my Phil under a spell for a time. The poor fool never realized how she'd manipulated him until he woke up one morning and discovered that she had vanished. He actually thought that she would contact him after the heat died down. He really believed that she loved him and wanted him to run off with her. It was months before he finally understood that he'd been used."

"Was that when you discovered his role in the bankruptcy?"

"Yes. I'd suspected he was having an affair with her, but I never dreamed that she had seduced him into helping her drive Harte-Madison into bankruptcy. I was stunned. He was a Seaton, after all. How could he do something like that?"

"But you kept the secret."

"I had no choice. I had to think of the family name. I had the children to consider. Just imagine what they would have had to face here in Eclipse Bay if it had come out that their father had had a hand in the destruction of Harte-Madison."

"It would have been rough on them."

"And then there was the financial situation. If the truth had surfaced, my husband's career as an accountant would have been destroyed. At the very least the shame and humiliation would have forced us to leave town. Where would we have gone? This was our home."

"So you buried the past as best you could. Your husband never told Mitchell and Sullivan what he'd done."

"Of course not. I pointed out to him that there was nothing to be gained by confessing his part in their disaster and everything to lose."

"You succeeded in protecting your husband and the Seaton name, but you never forgave him or Aunt Claudia."

"I swear she was some sort of witch. She never paid for her wicked works. Probably never even gave her victims a second thought."

"You're wrong there, Edith. Aunt Claudia thought about the past a lot toward the end. In a way, she was obsessed with it."

There was no need to get into the specifics, Octavia thought. No point bringing up the fact that Claudia had never even mentioned the name Seaton during those times when she had talked about her adventures in Eclipse Bay. The only people who had concerned her at the end had been the Hartes and the Madisons.

"I have no right to ask you to forgive me for what I did," Edith said. "My only excuse is that, for a while after

I discovered who you were, I went a little mad. It was as if a curtain had opened and I was looking at the past again. It all came crashing back and the only thing I could think about was punishing that dreadful woman."

"It's called visiting the sins of the father on the son, or in this case, visiting the sins of the great-aunt on the niece."

"I told myself I was doing it to show Jeremy and Nick the truth about you, but you're right, of course. I did it to avenge myself."

"So you took the Upsall and started the rumors that I was the thief."

"When I finally came to my senses, it was too late. It will all come out now, won't it? What Phil did in the past and what I tried to do to you. This time I won't be able to keep the stain off the family name. Jeremy will be embarrassed. The rest of the family and most of the people in town will think I've gone senile. And as for my friends-" Edith trailed off, bowing her head.

So much for nearly four decades of Wednesday and Saturday bridge games and civic committee meetings, Octavia thought. Even if the community and her friends were willing to forget the affair, Edith would never be able to hold her head up high in Eclipse Bay again.

She put a hand on one of Edith's thin shoulders. "You know, it was Aunt Claudia who urged me on her deathbed to come to Eclipse Bay. She said she wanted me to see if perhaps I could repair some of the damage she had done here. I assumed that she was referring to the Harte-Madison feud, and I have to tell you that I was feeling pretty useless because the Hartes and the Madisons took care of that issue all by themselves."

Edith took a hankie out of the pocket of her old robe and dabbed at her eyes. "Yes. Those two stubborn men seem to have become friends again."

"They didn't need me," Octavia said. "But maybe I was looking in the wrong place. Maybe this was the damage I was supposed to repair."

"I don't understand," Edith said.

"I know. I'll explain it to you while you get dressed. Hurry, we don't have a lot of time."

"It's very kind of you to want to help me after what I did to you, but it's too late, my dear. The truth will be all over town by nightfall. It's only right after all this time."

"You're going to have to trust me on this, Edith. For Jeremy's sake and the Seaton family name."

"But-"

"Aunt Claudia owes you this much," Octavia said.

She unlocked the gallery an hour earlier than usual and went straight to work reorganizing and tidying up the shop.

She took down drooping balloons and swept the cookie crumbs off the floor. It required three trips to the Dumpster to get rid of all the used paper cups, plates, and napkins.

When the trash had been dealt with, she concentrated on the display panels. One by one she took down the framed drawings that had been done by the children and replaced them with the usual pictures. She stacked the kids' pictures in one corner in the back room, ready to be collected by the proud artists.

She was coming through the door that separated the back room from the showroom, a large seascape in her hands, when she caught a glimpse of Nick's car. He was just pulling into the parking lot. Directly behind him was Mitchell's big monster of an SUV.

Nick, Carson, and Sullivan, accompanied by Mitchell, came through the front door two minutes later. They all looked at her, concerned and serious and a little baffled.

"Okay, we're here," Nick said. "What's this all about?"

"Hang on," she said. "I'll be right back."

She darted into the other room to scoop up the painting that she had left propped against the leg of the worktable.

She walked back out into the main room holding the picture aloft for all to see. "Look what I found when I started cleaning up after the art show this morning."

They all dutifully stared at the painting. None of the men said a word.

"Hey," Carson said gleefully, "I remember that picture. It's the one that belongs to A.Z. and Mr. Nash and the Heralds. The one everyone said had been stolen."

"It is, indeed," Octavia agreed. "You really do have a good eye for art, Carson."

He beamed.

She put the Upsall very carefully on the counter. "Evidently it got pushed behind a stack of pictures that was leaning against the wall. Heaven only knows how long it would have stayed back there if it wasn't for all the rearranging I had to do in here this morning."

"Well, shoot and damn," Mitchell said. The somber look evaporated from his eyes. A knowing expression took its place. "It was in your back room all along. How about that."

"Thank the good Lord we didn't rush off to confront our suspect last night," Sullivan said dryly. He grinned at Octavia. "Could have been more than a little awkward."

"Naturally, I feel like a complete idiot," Octavia said. "But at least this fiasco is finished and Nick no longer has to play detective."

Nick smiled slowly. He did not take his eyes off Octavia. "I was just starting to get the hang of it."

That evening Nick drove her back to the cottage after dinner with Carson and Sullivan at Dreamscape. There was obviously a conspiracy at work to give them some time together, Octavia thought, amused. No one had even been particularly subtle about sending them off by themselves this evening.

She made coffee and put two large, leftover chocolate chip cookies on a plate. When she carried the tray out into the living room, she found Nick slouched deep into her sofa. Looking comfortable, she thought. At home. Like he had every right to be there.

Something I should have said that first night at Lillian's show. Something I knew at the time. Something I've known all along. Just didn't quite recognize it until recently. Probably because I'm a little out of practice… I love you.

A deep sense of joy welled up inside her and shimmered through her senses.

Nick watched her set the tray down on the coffee table.

"Alone at last," he said.

"Mmm." She put one of the cookies on a napkin and handed it to him.

He took a healthy bite. "Okay, let's have the real story," he said around a mouthful of cookie.

"You refer to the case of the missing Upsall, I presume?"

"What else? It's the only thing this town is talking about at the moment." He stretched out his legs and sank deeper into the sofa. "With the exception of you and me, of course."

"Mmm."

He sounded so matter-of-fact about the you and me part.

"You can skip the version in which you miraculously discover the Upsall when you tidy up your back room, by the way. I'm not buying it for a second."

She curled one foot under her leg and took a tiny sip of coffee. "The other version is a little complicated."

"Let's start with the fact that Sullivan, Mitchell, and I all know that Edith Seaton took the picture."

"She had her reasons."

"Sullivan and Mitchell figured that out. Phil Seaton was their accountant in the old days. Can one assume that your great-aunt seduced him into covering her tracks for her?"

"I'm afraid so. And afterward Edith was so horrified at the thought of being caught up in the scandal that she covered up for Phil."

"But never forgave your aunt, I take it?"

"She blamed Claudia for everything, not without considerable justification, I might add. When word got out that I was related to her old nemesis, Edith freaked. After all, I was having dinner with Jeremy, encouraging him to paint, and then I started sleeping with you. Clearly history was about to repeat itself. It was just too much for her to handle."

"So she stole the picture and spread the rumors. Piss-poor sort of revenge, if you ask me."

"It was the only kind that was left to her," Octavia said simply. "And she could justify it to herself for a time because she truly believed that I was turning out to be a bad influence on Jeremy."

"Because you encouraged him in his painting?"

"Yes."

"Huh." Nick ate the last of the cookie. "She didn't have any qualms about taking the easy way out, did she? Obviously she went along with your scheme to make the Upsall magically materialize in your back room."

"To be fair, she was reluctant at first. But when I told her that we were doing it for Jeremy's sake and for the sake of the Seaton name, she went for it. I also told her that I was sure that was the way Aunt Claudia would have wanted it."

Nick raised his brows and reached for his coffee. "Think it's true?"

"To be honest, I'm not sure Claudia even remembered Phil Seaton, let alone worried much about the damage she did to his family. But even if that was the case, one thing is certain-she definitely owed the Seatons. And now the debt has been paid in some small measure."

"Thanks to you."

She put her empty cup down on the coffee table. "It was the least I could do, given that I never got the chance to fulfill my mission of repairing the Harte-Madison feud."

"I thought you had concluded that the real reason Claudia sent you here was so that you could get wild and crazy."

"Yes, well, if that's true, all I can say is, mission accomplished."

"Not quite." His mouth quirked in sexy promise. He reached for her and started to pull her close. "But you know what they say, practice makes perfect."

She spread her hands against his chest, holding him off for a moment longer. "Before we get to the wild and crazy stuff, there's something I want to tell you."

"And that would be?"

"It may have been Aunt Claudia who sent me here to Eclipse Bay but you're the reason I decided to stay on even after it became apparent that the feud was ending."

"Is that right?"

"I love you."

He smiled slowly. The look in his eyes was so dazzling she could hardly catch her breath.

"I was hoping you'd say that," Nick whispered against her mouth. "Now can we get to the wild and crazy stuff?"

"Of course," she said demurely. "I'm sure Aunt Claudia would have wanted it this way."

"Do me a favor." He pushed her gently down onto the sofa. "Don't mention your aunt again for a while, okay?"

"Okay."

She put her arms around his neck and kissed him with all the love and passion that she had discovered within herself here in Eclipse Bay.

Wherever you are, Aunt Claudia, she thought, thank you.