n the foyer of Philip Bancroft's house, Jonathan Sommers hesitated uneasily, searching through the crowds of people who, like himself, had come to pay the obligatory condolence visit on the day of Cyril Bancroft's funeral. He stopped one of the caterer's staff who was carrying a tray of drinks and helped himself to two that had been destined for other guests. After tossing down the vodka and tonic, Jonathan deposited the empty glass in a large potted fern, then he took a swallow of the scotch in the second glass and wrinkled his nose because it wasn't Chivas Regal. The vodka, combined with gin he'd drunk from a flask in the car outside, made him feel slightly better fortified to face the funeral amenities. Beside him, a tiny elderly woman was leaning on a cane, studying him with curiosity. Since good manners seemed to require that he speak to her, Jon cast about for some sort of polite conversation pertinent to the occasion. "I hate funerals, don't you?" he said.

"I rather like them," she said smugly. "At my age, I regard each funeral I attend as a personal triumph, because I was not the guest of honor."

He swallowed a bark of laughter, because loud laughter on this austere occasion would be a severe breach of the etiquette he'd been taught to observe. Excusing himself, he put the unfinished scotch down on a small table beside him and went off in search of a better drink. Behind him, the elderly lady picked up the glass and took a dainty sip. "Cheap scotch!" she said in disgust, and put it back where he'd left it.

A few minutes later Jon spotted Parker Reynolds standing in an alcove off the living room with two young women and another man. After stopping at the buffet table to get another drink, he walked over to join his friends. "Great party, isn't it," he remarked with a sarcastic smile.

"I thought you hated funerals and never went to them," Parker said when the chorus of greetings was over.

"I do hate them. I'm not here to mourn Cyril Bancroft, I'm here today to protect my inheritance." Jon took a swallow of his drink, trying to wash away the bitterness he felt over what he was about to say. "My father is threatening to disinherit me again, only I think the old bastard really means it this time."

Leigh Ackerman, a pretty brunette with a lovely figure, looked at him in amused disbelief. "Your father is going to disinherit you if you don't attend funerals?"

"No, my lovely, my father is threatening to disinherit me if I don't 'straighten up' and make something of myself immediately. Translated, that means I am to appear at funerals of old family friends such as this one, and I am to participate in our family's newest business venture. Or else I'm cut off from all that lovely money my family has."

"Sounds dire," Parker said with an unsympathetic grin. "What new business venture have you been assigned to?"

"Oil wells," he said. "More oil wells. This time my old man has cut a deal with the Venezuelan government to carry out exploration operations over there."

Shelly Fillmore glanced at the small gilt-framed mirror over Jon's shoulder and touched a finger to the corner of her mouth, smoothing a tiny smudge of vermilion lipstick. "Don't tell me he's sending you to South America?"

"Nothing as essential as that," Jon scoffed bitterly. "My father is turning me into a glorified personnel interviewer. He put me in charge of hiring the crews to go over there. And then you know what the old bastard did?"

His friends were as accustomed to Jon's tirades against his father as they were to his drunkenness, but they waited to hear his newest complaints, anyway. "What did he do?" Doug Chalfont asked.

"He checked up on me. After I picked out the first fifteen able-bodied, experienced men, my old man insisted on meeting everyone I'd interviewed personally so that he could rate my ability to choose men. He rejected half of my choices. The only one he really liked was this guy named Farrell, who's a steelworker and who I wasn't going to hire. The closest Farrell's ever been to an oil rig was two years ago, when he worked on a few little ones in some damned cornfield in Indiana. He's never been near a big rig like we'll have in South America. Furthermore, Farrell doesn't give a damn about oil drilling. His only interest is the one-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar bonus he'll get if he sticks it out for two years over there. He told my father that right to his face."

"So why did your father hire him?"

"He said he liked Farrell's style," Jon sneered, tossing down the rest of his drink. "He liked Farrell's ideas about what he planned to do with the bonus when he gets it. Shit, I half expected my father to change his mind about sending Farrell to Venezuela and offer him my office instead. As it is, I have been ordered to bring Farrell in next month and 'acquaint him with our operation and introduce him around.'"

"Jon," Leigh said calmly, "you're getting drunk and your voice is getting loud."

"Sorry," he said, "but I've had to listen to my father singing this guy's praises for two damned days. I'm telling you, Farrell is an arrogant, ambitious son of a bitch. He has no class, no money, no nothing!"

"He sounds divine," Leigh joked.

When the other three remained silent, Jon said defensively, "If you think I'm exaggerating, I'll bring him to the Fourth of July dance at the club and you can all see for yourself what sort of man my father thinks I ought to be."

"Don't be an idiot," Shelly warned him. "Your father may like him as an employee, but he'll castrate you if you bring someone like that to Glenmoor."

"I know," Jon said with a tight smile, "but it would be worth it."

"Just don't dump him on us if you bring him there," she warned after exchanging glances with Leigh. "We aren't going to spend the evening trying to make small talk with some steelworker just so you can spite your father."

"No problem. I'll leave Farrell all by himself and let him flounder while my father looks on, watching him try to figure out what fork to use. My old man won't be able to say a word to me either. After all, he's the one who told me to 'show Farrell the ropes' and 'look after him' while he's in Chicago."

Parker chuckled at Jon's ferocious expression. "There must be an easier way to solve your problem."

"There is," Jon said. "I can find myself a wealthy wife who can support me in my accustomed style, and then I can tell my old man to go fuck himself." He glanced over his shoulder and signaled a pretty girl in a maid's uniform who was passing a tray of drinks. She hurried over and he grinned at her. "You're not only pretty," he told her as he put his empty glass on her tray and took a fresh one, "you're a life saver!" From the flustered way she smiled at him and then blushed, it was obvious to Jon, and to the rest of the group, that she was not immune to his six-foot-one muscular body and attractive features. Leaning close to her, Jon said in a stage whisper, "Is it possible that you're only working for a caterer as a lark, but that your father actually owns a bank or a seat on the exchange?"

"What? I mean, no," she said, charmingly flustered.

Jon's smile turned teasing and sexy. "No seat on the exchange? How about some factories or some oil wells?"

"He's—he's a plumber," she blurted out.

Jonathan's grin faded, and he sighed. "Marriage is out of the question, then. There are certain financial and social requirements that the winning candidate for my wife will have to be able to meet. However, we could still have an affair. Why don't you meet me in my car in a half hour? It's the red Ferrari out in front."

The girl left, looking both miffed and intrigued.

"That was completely obnoxious of you," Shelly said, but Doug Chalfont nudged him and chuckled. "I'll bet you fifty bucks that girl is waiting in your car when you leave."

Jon turned his head and started to reply, but his attention was suddenly diverted by the sight of a breathtaking blonde wearing a black sheath with a high collar and short sleeves, who was walking down the stairs and into the living room. He stared at her with slackened jaw as she paused to talk to an elderly couple, and when a group of people shifted and blocked her from his view, he leaned sideways, trying to see her. "Who are you looking at?" Doug asked, following his gaze.

"I don't know who she is, but I'd like to find out."

"Where is she?" Shelly asked, and everyone looked in the direction he was staring.

"There!" Jon said, pointing with his glass as the crowd around the blonde moved and he saw her again.

Parker recognized her and grinned. "You've all known her for years, you just haven't seen her in a while." Four blank faces turned to him, and his grin widened. "That, my friends, is Meredith Bancroft."

"You're out of your mind!" Jon said. He stared hard at her but could find little resemblance between the gauche, rather plain girl he remembered and the poised young beauty he beheld: Gone was the baby fat, the glasses, the braces, and the ever-present barrette that used to hold back her straight hair. Now that pale golden hair was caught up in a simple chignon with tendrils at her ears framing a face of classic, sculpted beauty. She looked up then, somewhere to the right of Jon's group and nodded politely at someone, and he saw her eyes. Halfway across the room, he saw those large aquamarine eyes, and he suddenly remembered those same startling eyes peering up at him long ago.

Strangely exhausted, Meredith stood quietly, listening to people who spoke to her, smiling when they smiled, but she couldn't seem to absorb the reality that her grandfather was dead, and that the hundreds of people who seemed to be drifting from room to room were here because of that. The fact that she hadn't known him very well had reduced the grief she'd felt for the last few days to a dull ache.

She'd caught a glimpse of Parker at the graveside service, and she knew he could very well be somewhere in the house, but in view of the melancholy circumstances, it seemed wrong and disrespectful to go looking for him in hopes of furthering a romantic relationship at that time. Furthermore, she was growing just a little bit weary of always being the one who sought him out; it seemed to her that it was his turn to make some sort of move toward her. As if thinking of him had suddenly summoned him to her side, she heard an achingly familiar masculine voice say in her ear, "There's a man over in that alcove who's threatened my life if I don't bring you over so that he can say hello."

Already smiling, Meredith turned and put her hands into Parker's outstretched palms, then felt her knees go weak as he pulled her forward and kissed her cheek. "You look beautiful," he whispered, "and very tired. How about going for one of our walks after we get the social amenities over with?"

"All right," she said, surprised and relieved that her voice sounded steady.

When they reached the alcove, Meredith found herself in the ludicrous position of being reintroduced to four people she already knew, four people who had acted as if she were invisible when she'd last seen them several years earlier, and who now seemed gratifyingly eager to befriend her and include her in their activities. Shelly invited her to a party the following week and Leigh urged her to sit with them at Glenmoor's Fourth of July dance.

Parker deliberately "introduced" her to Jon last. "I can't believe it's you," he said, but the alcohol was making his words a little slurred. "Miss Bancroft," he continued with his most winning grin. "I was just explaining to these people that I'm in urgent need of a suitably rich and gorgeous wife. Would you marry me next weekend?"

Meredith's father had mentioned Jonathan's frequent rifts with his disappointed parents to her, Meredith assumed Jon's "urgent need" to marry a "rich" woman was probably the result of one of those, and his entire attitude struck her as funny. "Next weekend will be perfect," she said, smiling brightly. "My father will disown me for marrying before I finish college, though, so we'll have to live with your parents."

"God forbid!" Jonathan shuddered, and everyone laughed, including Jonathan.

Putting his hand on Meredith's elbow, Parker rescued her from further nonsense by saying, "Meredith needs some fresh air. We're going for a walk."

Outside, they strolled across the front lawn and wandered down the drive. "How are you bearing up?" he asked.

"I'm fine, really—just a little tired." In the ensuing silence, Meredith tried to think of some sort of witty and sophisticated repartee, then she settled for simplicity and said with sincere interest, "A lot must have happened to you in the last year...."

He nodded and said the last thing Meredith wanted to hear. "You can be one of the first to congratulate me. Sarah Ross and I are getting married. We're going to announce our engagement officially at a party Saturday night."

The world tilted sickeningly. Sarah Ross! Meredith knew who Sarah was and she didn't like her. Although she was extremely pretty and very vivacious, she'd always struck Meredith as being shallow and vain. "I hope you'll be very happy," she said, carefully hiding her doubt and disappointment.

"I hope so too."

For a half hour they strolled about the grounds, talking about his plans for his future and then about her plans for her own. He was wonderful to talk to, Meredith thought with a feeling of poignant loss—encouraging and understanding, and he completely supported her desire to attend Northwestern instead of Maryville.

They were heading toward the front of the house when a limousine pulled up in the drive and a striking brunette got out of it followed by two young men in their early twenties. "I see the grieving widow has finally decided to put in an appearance," Parker said with uncharacteristic sarcasm as he looked at Charlotte Bancroft. Large diamond earrings glittered at her ears, and despite the simple gray suit she was wearing, she looked alluring and curvaceous. "Did you notice that she didn't shed a tear at the funeral? There's something about that woman that reminds me of Lucretia Borgia."

Privately Meredith agreed with the analogy. "She isn't here to accept condolences. She wants the will read this afternoon, as soon as the house clears out, so that she can go back to Palm Beach tonight."

"Speaking of 'clearing out,'" Parker said, glancing at bis watch, "I have an appointment in an hour." Leaning forward, he pressed a brotherly kiss to her cheek. "Tell your father I said good-bye."

Meredith watched him as he walked away, taking all her romantic girlhood dreams with him. The summer breeze ruffled his sun-streaked hair, and his strides were long and sure. He opened his car door, stripped off the jacket of his dark suit, and put it over the back of the passenger seat. Then he looked up and waved good-bye to her.

Trying desperately not to dwell on her loss, she forced herself to walk forward to greet Charlotte. Not once during the service had Charlotte spoken to either Meredith or her father; she had simply stood between her sons, her expression blank. "How are you feeling?" Meredith asked politely.

"I'm feeling impatient to go home," the woman retorted icily. "How soon can we get down to business?"

"The house is still full of people," Meredith said, mentally recoiling from Charlotte's attitude. "You'll have to ask my father about the reading of the will."

Charlotte turned on the steps, her face glacial. "I haven't spoken to your father since that day in Palm Beach. The next time I speak to him, it will be when I'm calling all the shots and he's begging me to talk to him. Until then you'll have to act as interpreter, Meredith." She walked into the house with a son on each side of her like an honor guard.

Meredith stared at her back, chilled by the hatred emanating from her. The day in Palm Beach Charlotte had referred to was still vividly clear in Meredith's memory. Seven years earlier, she and her father had flown to Florida at the invitation of her grandfather, who'd moved there after his heart attack. When they arrived they discovered that they had not been invited merely for the Easter holidays, but rather to attend a wedding—Cyril Bancroft's wedding to Charlotte, who had been his secretary for two decades. At thirty-eight, she was thirty years younger than he, a widow with two teenage sons only a few years older than Meredith.

Meredith never knew why Philip and Charlotte detested each other, but from what little she heard of the explosive argument between her father and grandfather that day, the animosity had started long before, when Cyril still lived in Chicago. With Charlotte within hearing, Philip had called the woman a scheming, ambitious slut, and he'd called his father a silly, aging fool who was being duped into marrying her so that her sons would get a piece of Cyril's money.

That trip to Palm Beach had been the last time Meredith had seen her grandfather. From there, he had continued to control his business investments, but he left the operation of Bancroft & Company entirely to Meredith's father, as he had done from the day he moved to Palm Beach. Although the department store represented less than one fourth of the family's net worth, by its very nature its operation required her father's complete attention. Unlike the family's other vast holdings, Bancroft's was far more than a mere stock transaction that yielded dividends; it was the foundation of the family's original wealth and a source of great pride.

"This is the last will and testament of Cyril Bancroft," her grandfather's attorney began when Meredith and her father were seated in the library along with Charlotte and her sons. The first bequests were for large sums that went to various charities, and after that four more bequests were made to Cyril Bancroft's servants—$15,000 each to his chauffeur, housekeeper, gardener, and caretaker.

Since the attorney had specifically requested that Meredith be present, she had already assumed that she was probably the recipient of some small bequest. Despite that, she jumped when Wilson Riley spoke her name: "To my granddaughter, Meredith Bancroft, I bequeath the sum of four million dollars." Meredith's mouth fell open in shocked disbelief at the enormous sum, and she had to concentrate on listening while Riley continued: "Although distance and circumstances have prevented me from getting to know Meredith well, it was apparent to me when I last saw her that she is a warm and intelligent girl who will use this money wisely. To help ensure that she does, I make this bequest with the stipulation that the funds are to be held in trust for her, along with any interest, dividends, etc., until she attains the age of thirty. I further appoint my son, Philip Edward Bancroft, to act as her trustee and to maintain full guardianship over said funds."

Pausing to clear his throat, Riley looked from Philip to Charlotte to her sons, Jason and Joel, and then he began to read Cyril's words again: "In the interest of fairness, I have divided the rest of my estate as evenly as possible between my remaining heirs. To my son, Philip Edward Bancroft, I bequeath all my stock, and my entire interest in, Bancroft & Company, a department store which constitutes approximately one fourth of my entire estate." Meredith heard it, but she couldn't make sense of it. "In the interest of fairness" he'd left his only child one fourth of his estate? Surely, if he meant to divide everything evenly, his wife was entitled to no more than one half, not three fourths. And then, as if from a distance, she heard the attorney finish, "To my wife, Charlotte, and my legally adopted sons, Jason and Joel, I leave equal shares in the remaining three fourths of my estate. I further stipulate that Charlotte Bancroft is to act as trustee over Jason and Joel's portion until such time as they have both attained the age of thirty."

The words legally adopted tore at Meredith's heart as she saw the look of betrayal flash across her father's ashen face. Slowly, he turned his head and looked at Charlotte; she returned his stare unflinchingly while a smile of malicious triumph spread across her face. "You conniving bitch!" he said between his teeth. "You said you'd get him to adopt them, and you did."

"I warned you years ago that I would. I'm warning you now that our score still isn't settled," she added, her smile widening as if she was thriving on his fury. "Think about that, Philip. Lie awake at night, wondering where I'll strike you next and what I'll take away from you. Lie awake, wondering and worrying, just like you made me lie awake eighteen years ago."

The bones of his face stood out as he clamped his jaws to stop himself from dignifying that with a reply. Meredith tore her gaze from the two of them and looked at Charlotte's sons. Jason's face was a replica of his mother's—triumphant and malicious. Joel was frowning at his shoes. Joel is soft, Meredith's father had said years ago. Charlotte and Jason are like greedy barracudas, but at least you know what to expect of them. The younger boy, Joel, makes my skin crawl—there's something strange about him.

As if he sensed that Meredith was looking at him, Joel glanced up, his expression carefully noncommittal. He didn't look strange to Meredith or at all threatening. In fact, when she'd last seen him on the occasion of the wedding, Joel had gone out of his way to be nice to her. At the time, Meredith had felt sorry for him because his mother openly preferred Jason, and Jason, who was two years older, seemed to feel nothing for his brother but contempt.

Suddenly Meredith couldn't stand the oppressive atmosphere in the room any longer. "If you'll excuse me," she said to the lawyer, who was spreading some papers out on the desk, "I'll wait outside until you're finished."

"You'll need to sign these papers, Miss Bancroft."

"I'll sign them before you leave, after my father has read them."

Instead of going upstairs, Meredith decided to go outside. It was getting dark and she wandered down the steps, letting the evening breeze cool her face. Behind her, the front door opened, and she turned, thinking it was the lawyer calling her back inside. Joel stood there, arrested in midstep, as startled as she by their confrontation. He hesitated as if he wanted to remain but wasn't certain he was welcome.

It had been hammered into her head that one was always gracious to anyone who was one's guest, so Meredith tried to smile. "It's nice out here, isn't it?"

Joel nodded, accepting the unspoken invitation to join her if he wished, and he walked down the steps. At twenty-three, he was shorter by several inches than his older brother, and not as attractive as Jason. He stood, looking at her, as if unable to think what to say. "You've changed," he finally said.

"I imagine I have. I was eleven years old the last time I saw you."

"After what just happened in there, you must wish to God you'd never laid eyes on any of us."

Still a little dazed by the terms of her grandfather's will and unable to assimilate what it all meant in terms of the future, Meredith shrugged. "Tomorrow I may feel that way. Right now I just feel—numb."

"I'd like you to know—" he said haltingly, "that I didn't plot to steal your grandfather's affection or his money from your father."

Unable to either hate him or forgive him for cheating her father of his rightful inheritance, Meredith sighed and looked up at the sky. "What did your mother mean in there—about settling a score with my father?"

"All I know is that they've hated each other for as long as I can remember. I have no idea what started it, but I do know my mother won't stop until she's satisfied with her revenge."

"God, what a mess!"

"Lady," he replied with deadly certainty, "it's only just begun."

A chill raced up Meredith's spine at that grim prophecy, and she snapped her gaze from the sky to his face, but he merely lifted his brows and refused to elaborate.