OREY’S PLANE WAS TWO HOURS LATE, AND IT WAS NEARLY SIX o’clock by the time the taxi turned down a quiet street lined with palatial homes built at the turn of the century when the Vanderbilts and Goulds spent summers in Newport. Spence’s house was at the end of the road, and one of the most imposing of them all.

Shaped like a wide U that faced the street, it was a three-story masterpiece of architecture and craftsmanship with soaring white columns that marched across the front and joined both wings. No matter how Corey felt about Spencer Addison, she adored his house on sight. A high wrought-iron fence surrounded the lush lawns, and the driveway was secured by a pair of ornate gates that swung open electronically after the cab driver gave her name on the intercom.

A butler answered the front door, and she followed him across an octagonal foyer that was easily sixty feet across with pale green marble pillars supporting a gallery above. It was a rotunda meant to welcome bejeweled women in fabulous ball gowns and furs, Corey thought wryly, not modern businesswomen in dark suits and definitely not a female fhotographer in a turquoise silk shirt and white gabardine pants with a matching jacket over her arm. If jewels were the ticket of admission, she’d never have gotten in the front door of this place, not even with the wide gold bracelet at her wrist or the turquoise and gold earrings at her ears. These were authentic pieces and very fine, but this place called out for emeralds and rubies. “Could you tell me where I’ll find the group from Beautiful Livingmagazine?” she asked the butler as they approached the main staircase.

“I believe they are out on the back lawn, Miss Foster. If you wish, I can show you to them now and have your suitcases taken upstairs to your room.” Corey was more anxious to see how things were progressing outside than she was to unpack, so she accepted the butler’s offer and followed in his wake.

In contrast to the foyer, which had been quiet and serene, nearly all the other rooms she passed were hotbeds of activity, with furniture being rearranged and wedding decorations being put up.

Her mother’s handiwork was clearly evident in the dining room, where a forty-foot table had been set with exquisite china and crystal on handmade lace cloths, but the unmistakable “Foster Signature” would be the individual centerpieces that would be placed on the table the morning of the wedding for each pair of diners. All of the centerpieces would contain the same kinds of flowers, but each arrangement would be unique, and all of them were meant to be taken home by the ladies whose places at the table they had adorned during dinner, a token – Mrs. Foster said in her monthly column in Beautiful Livingmagazine – of the hostess’s affection for her guests.

The author of that column was standing on the back lawn, oblivious to the glorious expanse of blue water or the pink and gold sunset taking place on the horizon as she directed four of the six freelance helpers that Spencer’s sister had provided. Corey’s grandmother was standing beside her, irritably shooing away her two assistans with the obvious intention of rearranging the wires that were being wound in and around the framework of the flowered arches the bride would walk under on her wedding day.

Corey came up behind them and gave them both a hug. “How’s it going?”

“About like you’d expect,” Corey’s mother said, kissing her cheek.

“Chaos!” Her grandmother said flatly. Age had not made many changes in her except that she had acquired a disconcerting bluntness that her doctor ssaid was common to many of the elderly. If something was true, she came right out and said it, though never with any malice. “Angela – the bride’s mother – is interfering with everything and getting underfoot.”

“How’s the bride holding up?” Corey asked, avoiding asking about Spencer.

“Oh, she’s a sweet enough girl,” Gram said. “Pretty, too. Her name is Joy. She’s dumber than a box of rocks,” she added as she walked off to correct one of her helpers.

Stifling a nervous laugh, Corey glanced over her shoulder, then exchanged knowing glances with her mother, who said a little worriedly, “I know how important it is to use real events like this for our magazine layouts, but they’re very wearing on Gram these days. She doesn’t like working under any sort of deadline pressure anymore.”

“I know,” Corey said, “but she always insists she wants to be part of it.” She looked around at the bustle and activity taking place on the grounds, at the newly erected gazebo being covered in climbing roses, at the banquet tables beneath the big white tent near the water, and she smiled at the transformation taking place. “It’s going to be splendid.”

“Tell that to the bride’s mother before she drives us all crazy. Poor Spence. If he doesn’t strangle Angela before this is over, it will be a miracle. When she isn’t worrying, she’s complaining, and she’s nipping at his heels like a hyperactive terrier all the time. She’s the one who wanted Joy’s wedding to take place here, and she’s the one who wanted us here, and it’s Spence who’s paying the bill. Diana was right about that. Spence never complains and Angela never stops.”

“I wonder why he’s paying for the wedding when Angela’s husband is supposedly a German aristocrat with relatives all over the social register.”

Mrs. Foster paused to pick up a long strip of crepe paper skittering across the grass near her foot. “According to what Joy told me – and the child is quite a chatterbox – Mr. Reichardt has noble ancestor but little money to go with it. At least not the sort of money Spence has, and when you think about it, Angela and Joy are really his only family. I mean, his father remarried when Spence was still a baby and never wanted anything to do with him, and when his mother was alive, she was too busy enjoying herself to ever bother with him. To be fair to Mr. Reichardt, Joy isn’t his daughter. Joy’s father was Angela’s second husband. Or was it her third? Anyway, according to Joy, Spence is paying the bill because his sister thinks it’s important to Joy be married in a style that befits the step-daughter of a fancy German aristocrat.”

Corey chuckled at the problems of the rich and multimarried. “What’s the groom like?”

“Richard? I don’t know really. I haven’t seen him, and Joy doesn’t talk about him. She spends most of her time with the caterer’s son, whose name is Will. I gather they’ve known each other for several years, and they seem to enjoy each other’s company. By the way, have you seen Spence yet?”

Corey shook her head as she reached up to shove her hair off her forehead. “I’m sure we’ll bump into each other sooner or later.”

Mrs. Foster nodded toward three people walking their way. “Here come Mr. and Mrs. Reichardt with Joy. Dinner is in two hours, and I suggest you say hello to them and then excuse yourself to go unpack. The next two hours will be the last peace and quiet you get until you leave this madhouse in three days.”

“Sounds like a good idea. I have some phone calls to make before dinner, anyway.”

“By the way,” she added, “Gram and I eat in the little room by the kitchen, not in the dining room with the family.”

Corey heard that with a sharp twist of annoyance. “Are you telling me that Spencer is treating us like servants?”

“No, no, no,” Mrs. Foster said with a laugh. “We prefer to eat in the kitchen. Believe me, it’s much more pleasant than listening to Mr. and Mrs. Reichardt and the two other couples who are friends of theirs and staying here for the wedding. Joy usually eats in the kitchen with us. She likes it better there, too.”

Mrs. Foster had likened Angela to a terrier, but Corey thought it a false analogy after meeting the trio. With close-cropped, white-blond hair and brown eyes, Angela was as exotically elegant – and as nervous – as a Russian wolfhound. Her husband, Peter, was a Doberman pinscher – sleek, aristocratilly aloof, and temperamental. Joy was… Joy was a cute cocker spaniel, with wavy, light brown hair, and soft, inquisitive brown eyes. As soon as the introductions were over, the wolfhound and the Doberman ganged up on Corey’s poor mother and dragged her off to show her something they didn’t like about the way the living room was being decorated, leaving Corey alone with Joy.

“I’ll show you up to your room,” the eighteen-year-old volunteered as Corey started toward the house.

“If you have something else to do, I can ask the butler where it is.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Joy said, coming to heel on Corey’s left and trotting off beside her toward the house. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. You have such a nice family.”

“Thank you,” Corey answered, a little startled by what she instantly sensed was a very genuine girl who was far more interested in getting to know Corey than she was in talking about herself or her wedding.

A flagstone terrace with French doors wrapped around the back and right side of the house, which both had spectacular water views. Corey started across the terrace toward the doors at the back, but Joy turned right. “Come this way, it’s quicker,” she told Corey. “We’ll cut through Uncle Spence’s study and avoid-“

Corey stopped short, intending to insist on not using that entrance, but she was too late. Spencer Addison was walking across the terrace, heading toward the steps that led down to the side lawn, and even if she hadn’t seen his face, Corey would have recognized that long, brisk stride.

He saw her and stopped abruptly, a welcoming grin sweeping over his tanned face as he shoved his hands into his pockets and waited for her and Joy to reach him. Once that special smile of his had made her heart thunder, but now she felt only a swift, sharp jolt of recognition. At thirty-four, wearing casual gray pants and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled back on his forearms, he still managed to look every bit as handsome and sexy as he had when he was twenty-three years old.

He turned up the heat of his smile as she came close, and when he spoke, his baritone voice was richer, more intimate than she remembered. “Hello, Corey,” he said as he slid his hands out of his pockets and made a move to hug her.

Corey responded with a smile that was appropriate for greeting a casual acquaintance whom one hasn’t seen for many years – a friendly, serene smile, but not too personal. “Hello, Spence,” she replied and deliberately held out only one hand so that he had to settle for a handshake. No hug.

He understood it and he settled for it, but his handclasp lasted longer than was necessary, and so she ended it.

“I see you’ve already met Joy,” he said, shifting the conversation to include his niece. To her he added a mild reproof, “I thought you were going to tell me when Corey arrived.”

“I just arrived a few minutes ago,” Corey said. Once, the thought that he wanted to see her or was eager to see her, as his words implied, would have sent her spirits soaring. Now, she was older and wiser and doing a rather excellent job, she thought, of handling this first meeting and remembering that Spencer was and had always been all charm and sex appeal and no substance. She glanced at her watch and then apologetically at him. “If you’ll excuse me, I have some phone calls to make before dinner.” On the off chance that Spencer intended to volunteer, she directed her request specifically to Joy, “Would yu mind showing me where my room is now?”

“Oh, sure,” Joy said happily, falling into step beside her. “I know exactly where it is.”

With a polite nod in Spence’s direction, Corey left him standing on the terrace. He turned and watched her walk away; she knew he did because she could see his reflection in the glass panes of his study doors, but the knowledge scarcely affected her. She was completely in control and proud of it. She couldn’t deny the jolt of nerves she’d felt at the first sight of him, or the increase in her pulse rate when he smiled into her eyes and took her hand in his, but she attributed all that to a natural phenomenon, a sort of irritating but understandable response to an old, forgotten stimulus. Long ago, he had affected her that way, and even though her emotions were no longer engaged, her body was reacting like one of Pavlov’s dogs to the sound of a bell.

Joy led her through the foyer and up a sweeping staircase with beautiful wrought-iron scrollwork. The staircase ended in a wide gallery that wrapped around the foyer on the three sides. Long hallways branched off the gallery at regular intervals, and Joy headed down the first of them, then continued walking until they came to a pair of double doors at the end. As she reached for the brass door handles, she confided with a smile, “My mother and stepfather wanted their friends to have this, but Uncle Spence said it was ‘reserved’ for you.” She threw open the doors with a flourish and stepped aside to give Corey her first, unobstructed view, then she looked expectantly at her, waiting for reaction.

Corey was speechless.

“It’s called the Duchess Suite,” Joy provided helpfully.

In dumbstruck silence, Corey walked slowly into a vast room that looked as if it belonged in Nicholas and Alexandra’s summer palace. The suite was decorated entirely in pale blue and gold. Above the bed an ornately carved golden crown secured panels of ice blue silk that draped the bed at its corners, ending in graceful swirls on the pale blue carpet. The thick, tufted coverlet was of blue ssatin and so was the headboard with its arched gilt frame.

“It’s called that because the original owner of the house had a daughter who became the duchess of Claymore when she married. This was the room she used whenever she came home from England, and it was called the Duchess Suite from then on.”

Corey found it hard to concentrate on Joy’s narrative as she looked around. The draperies at the windows were of blue silk with elaborate swags fringed in gold, and in the corner was a French secretary with carved panels on the doors and a dainty chair pulled up in front of it that was also upholstered in blue.

“When my uncle bought the house a few years ago, he had the entire place renovated and all the furniture in all the guest rooms restored, so that they all look pretty much the way they did a hundred years ago, when the house was built.”

Corey pulled out of her daze, and turned to Joy. “It’s – breathtaking. I’ve only seen rooms like this in pictures of European palaces.”

Joy nodded, and added with a grin, “Uncle Spence said he used to call you Duchess when you were my age. I guess that’s why he wanted you to have this suite.”

That announcement had a definite softening effect on Corey’s attitude toward Spence. He’d been inexcusably thoughtless of her feelings as a young man, but he’d evidently mellowed a little with age. It hit her then that she was giving him far too much credit for what was a very small gesture that hadn’t inconvenienced him in the slightest.

“Dinner’s at eight o’clock. I’ll se you then,” Joy added as she left.