“I thought so too.” And then in a soft distant voice. “He'll pay for that in the end.”
“What the hell do you mean?” Brad looked shocked.
Shr shrugged. “I don't know.” And then she looked up at Brad, with a grim little smile. “I wanted to marry him to get back at you. I guess you could say I used him. But the funny thing is that he used me. He got the last laugh. He got me to say I'd marry him, and then he tells me he's sterile a month before the wedding.”
“Would you have married him if you'd known?”
She shook her head. “No. I guess he knew that. That's why he didn't tell me.”
Brad looked thoughtful as he looked down at this woman he had once thought that he knew, but he realized now that he didn't know her at all. She was manipulative and vengeful, and yet she had her vulnerabilities too—needs that spurred her to hurt others. He was deeply sorry for his brother. In her own way she was actually much worse than their mother. “It was wrong of Greg to hide that from you.” It startled him to see that side of his younger brother. “Maybe in the end this will be for the best. You'll be able to devote yourselves to each other.”
She didn't answer at first. “Wouldn't it matter to you if your wife couldn't have children, Brad?”
“Not if I really loved her.”
“But she can, can't she?”
He hesitated for a long moment and then decided that he had better tell her. She'd find out soon enough, and he wanted to be honest. “Serena is pregnant, Partie.” But as soon as he said the words, he knew he'd made a mistake, there was a look of viciousness in her eyes that was almost frightening.
“Knocked her up quick, didn't you? Is that why you married her?” If it were, maybe she'd feel better. Maybe he'd had to marry her.… But her hope was stillborn.
“No, it's not.” His eyes met hers squarely, and after a long silence she turned on her heel and walked away. And a moment later Brad went back inside, and immediately ran right into Greg.
“Where's Pattie?” There was a look of nervous suspicion in his eyes and it was obvious that he was drunk again as he lurched slightly toward his brother.
“She's here somewhere. We went out for some air, and she just came back in. Maybe she's in the ladies' room.”
Greg stared at Brad. “She hates your guts.”
Brad nodded slowly, watching Greg's eyes, and for the first time he realized how little he knew him. “She wasn't right for me, Greg. I would have broken it off when I got back anyway, even if I hadn't met Serena.” He was sure of that now. “We'd have made each other miserable.” But he wasn't sure that she and Greg would do better. “Are you happy, Greg?” He wanted to tell him that it wasn't too late to change his mind, that he'd be better off, but he wasn't sure if he should tell him.
“Hell, yes, why not?” But he didn't look like a happy man. “She'll keep me on my toes.” For a moment he looked malevolently at his brother. There was jealousy there too, even more than he had seen in Pattie's eyes. “She's a firebrand in bed, but you know that. Or have you forgotten?”
“I never knew.” It seemed the only thing to say as he cringed at his brother's remark.
“Bullshit. She told me.”
“Did she? Maybe she just said that to make you jealous.”
Greg shrugged as though he didn't really care, but it was plain he did. All his life he had come in second best to his brothers. He knew what he was, and what he wasn't. “I don't really care. Virgins are the shits. I didn't even like them when I was in college.”
“Apparently.” Brad wanted to bite out his tongue for what he had just said, and his eyes instantly met Greg's.
“She told you, didn't she? The bitch. Why the hell did she have to tell you?”
“You should have told her before.” It was an almost fatherly reproach.
“And maybe you should mind your own goddamn business. I don't see you running your life so smoothly either, Brad, marrying your little Italian piece of ass. Christ, I'd expect you to have the brains to leave that where you found it.”
“Stop it, Greg!” Brad's voice was low and gruff.
“The hell I will. If you'd done what Mother expected you to, she wouldn't be on my back. You'd be in politics where you belong and I could do what I want. But no, Big Brother has to play independent, leaving me holding the bag. And me, what do I get out of all that? I get a royal pain in the ass and a gun to my head. Now I'm the hope of their hearts and I get stuck with all their expectations. Looks to me like you got off easy, as usual.” He sounded more drunk than he had before, and infinitely more bitter.
“You don't have to do what they want. You can please yourself, for chrissake.” Brad was actually sorry for him. And at the same time he knew that Greg didn't have the guts, not to face up to their mother, or Pattie.
“The hell I can. And now there's Pattie. She expects me to go to work for her father.”
“If you don't want to, don't.”
Greg looked at him with bitter amusement, and his face broke into a wintry smile. “Brave words, Brad. There's only one problem.”
“What's that?”
“I'm not a brave man.” And with that, he drifted off, leaving Brad feeling desperately sorry for him.
24
The next morning Serena tiptoed downstairs to make herself a cup of tea and get a cup of coffee for Brad, when she ran into her mother-in-law in a blue satin dressing gown in the kitchen.
“Good morning, Serena.” She said it so icily, it was worse than if she had snubbed her totally, and Serena felt instantly both rejected and subdued.
“Good morning, Mrs. Fullerton, Did you sleep well?”
“Relatively.” She gazed at Serena, and did not ask her the same question. Her eyes were calculating and very, very cold. “I've been thinking that it might be wiser if you declared yourself ill today, rather than go to the wedding. You have the perfect excuse at your disposal.” She was referring of course to the baby. But Serena looked shocked. She had no desire whatsoever to go to the wedding, but she knew it would cause talk if she didn't go.
“I don't know if Brad—”
“Of course it's up to you. But in your shoes, I would think that you'd be grateful to spare yourself the embarrassment. This is Pattie's day after all, you might think of that, and not cause her more pain than you already have.” Serena wanted to give in to her urge to cry but instead she nodded in silence.
“I'll think about it.”
“See that you do that.” And with those final words, she left the kitchen. The servants were bustling about somewhere else, and Serena let herself down into a chair and blew her nose softly. After she'd pulled herself together, she poured Brad his coffee, made her cup of tea, put both on a tray, and walked slowly upstairs, trying to decide what to do, and when she reached their room, she knew that she had no choice. If her mother-in-law wanted her to stay away from the wedding, then she wouldn't be there. Ana perhaps it was better that way.
As she let herself into their room with the tray, she heaved a small sigh, and Brad looked up as he heard her.
“Something wrong, love?”
“No … I—I have a terrible headache.”
“Do you?” He looked instantly worried. “Why don't you lie down? It must have been all the dancing last night.”
Serena smiled at him. “It's not that. I'm just tired.” And then, as she lay down on the bed, she looked up at him. “You know, I feel awful saying it, Brad, but … I don't think I should go.”
“Do you feel that ill?” He looked surprised, this morning she wasn't even pale, and she had drunk her tea very quickly, something she didn't do, he had noticed, when she wasn't feeling well. “Do you want me to call the doctor?”
“No.” She sat up in bed and kissed him. “Do you think your brother will forgive me?”