Chapter Three. Vienna stared down at the palm of her hand, almost expecting to see the ghostly imprint of Mason's flesh

Vienna stared down at the palm of her hand, almost expecting to see the ghostly imprint of Mason's flesh. She closed her fingers so tightly her knuckles whitened. Sometimes she thought that first kiss had poisoned her like an enchanted apple, casting her into a slumber no one could awaken her from. None of her lovers had been able to break the spell.

Those failed relationships were a disincentive, Vienna reflected, an excuse she used to avoid dating. Maybe if she were more active, she would improve the odds of finding someone who could make her feel...awakened.

"You're not listening," her mother complained. "I can tell. You're miles away."

"No, I'm listening." She didn't have to be psychic to guess what Marjorie had been saying for the past few minutes. "It's just that I've heard it all before."

"And you'll keep hearing it until you do what has to be done."

"It's in hand, Mom."

"How? I was speaking with Wendell and he says you need to act now. There's an insurance policy, and who knows what she could accomplish with the money."

"A million or two isn't going to save her," Vienna said wearily. "Cavender Steel barely exists and the Cavender Corporation still owes the bank twenty million dollars. With her brother gone, those loans will be called in. All she has are some abandoned factories and that car parts business. Most of the profitable subsidiaries have been sold off. There couldn't be a better time for us to close the deal. That's why I made the new bid."

"Will they go for it this time?"

"Absolutely. They have no choice."

"What about the house? I promised your father-"

"I know, and I told you I would take care of it."

Not quite mollified, Marjorie said, "Your grandmother planted that orchard with her own hands. It killed your father that Cavenders were eating those apples."

Vienna knew better than to argue that it was cancer that had killed her father and the land in question had never belonged to the Blakes in the first place. Her grandfather had attempted to incorporate it into their property, erecting a new boundary fence in the wrong place in the hopes that their useless, hard-drinking neighbors wouldn't notice. For twenty years they didn't. But then, Vienna's father had discovered Mason stealing fruit one day. He'd fired a few shots over her head, just to scare her. To his astonishment, she fired back.

He called the police and had her arrested, but since she was only nine years old and had just lost her mother, the deputies let her go with a warning. But they made the mistake of telling the Cavenders to control her better. A week later Mason's father brought in the surveyors and kicked off another legal battle between the families. This time the Blakes lost and had to return the land. The judge had ordered that the fruit trees be left intact. Vienna's grandfather never stopped talking about it. If he could have staggered off his deathbed and picked up an axe, he would have cut those trees down.

Changing the subject, Vienna said, "Are you going to Bonnieux next spring?"

"I don't know. The thought of rattling around in that old villa by myself doesn't appeal."

Marjorie sounded cranky. She hadn't taken to widowhood as some women did, shedding grief after a few months and enjoying pursuits disdained by their late husbands. She refused to attend social events unaccompanied and had come to depend on her brother, Wendell Farrington, the supposed bachelor uncle of the family, as an escort. In reality, Wendell lived with his gay partner in an elegant Back Bay condo. A snappy dresser with the requisite Ivy League credentials, he charmed mature women and made Marjorie feel special. She saw him as an authority in all matters and constantly spouted his opinions, especially those about the business. Vienna had been groomed since birth to take over from her father, but what was a lifelong internship and an MBA compared to a penis? Bupkis, as far as Marjorie was concerned.

She placed her hand over Vienna's. "Wendell thinks we should take a mother-daughter cruise. He says I need cheering up. I have a brochure from Regent with all their destinations. They're going to have Apollo 14 astronauts on board doing talks."

Vienna couldn't think of anything more appalling, except perhaps taking her mother to Cats for the sixth time. "That sounds wonderful. Why don't you and Wendell go?"

"He's terribly busy with his commitments for the opera. Unlike you, he can't just take time off whenever he pleases."

Vienna didn't waste her time pointing out that she was the CEO of a half-billion-dollar company and Wendell was just dabbling in opera fundraising to impress his much younger boyfriend, a B-grade tenor. "Mom, you know I get horribly seasick," she said gently. "What about wintering in Palm Beach? You always tell me how much you miss it."

"I don't think I could bear it," Marjorie said. "Everything's changed. It's virtually mobsters sans frontières now, with all those Russian oligarchs and flashy people with bad manners."

"You don't have to mix with them, Mom."

If Vienna's childhood memories were any indication, Marjorie and her B&T Club friends spent most of their time in each other's homes gossiping. They never rubbed elbows with anyone outside their own rarefied circles. Marjorie and Wendell had jointly inherited the Palm Beach home of their childhood, after Grandmother Farrington had a fatal heart attack during a Dead Sea mineral cocoon treatment at the Ritz-Carlton Spa. Marjorie hadn't been down there once during the past three years. Vienna was surprised Wendell hadn't sold the place. He didn't share Marjorie's sentimental attachment to the home they'd grown up in.

"Everyone's selling and moving to Jupiter Island," Marjorie said gloomily. "And who can blame them? These days you can't ride a bicycle on Worth Avenue without being crushed by some ex-stripper in a Bentley."

"I'm planning to spend my next vacation in Bonnieux," Vienna said patiently. "I hope you'll consider coming with me."

Marjorie sighed. "I don't know. France is not what it was. The place is overrun with Muslims. Before long, you won't see people walking through the village with baguettes anymore. They'll be out in the middle of the road bowing to Mecca."

Vienna didn't know whether to laugh or groan. "Mom, I think France will be safe for Christians for a few more years."

"You think I'm exaggerating? I'm not a racist, you know. Perhaps we should sell the villa. All that maintenance..."

The waiter arrived to clear their salads. Vienna had forgotten to eat hers. She dragged the conversation back on course. "We're not selling Villa des Rêves."

"Wendell offered to take it off our hands. Naturally I said he could have it at a reasonable price. He'd be doing us a favor. It needs modernization."

"No, it doesn't. Dad spent a fortune restoring it." Vienna tried to sound patient, but she was hurt that her mother could even suggest palming the Luberon Valley farmhouse off on Wendell. She and her father had made Villa des Rêves their special project, overseeing the restoration during fleeting visits and longer family holidays. She couldn't bear to think about parting with the property.

"We could still take vacations there," her mother said with a sniff of disapproval. "Wendell wouldn't mind."

"It's not happening."

Their entrées arrived and Marjorie inspected her fish as though suspecting the roasted halibut she'd ordered was really horrid bream. Vienna waited for the inevitable complaints, but Marjorie had bigger things on her mind.

"Well, if you're not going to be practical, perhaps we should consider renting it out when we're not using it. Villas in Provence command quite a sum, you know. And then there's the apartment. The taxes are crazy and it's not as if either of us is in New York more than a few weeks every year. Wendell thinks we should let it month to month."

Vienna sliced into her chicken so hard, it went spinning across her plate. "I am not having our homes invaded by strangers. If we needed the income, that would be different. But we don't."

Marjorie was just inches away from a pout, her usual reaction when she didn't get her way. "Wealth is no excuse for extravagance. Blakes don't throw money away on frivolity."

Reading between the lines, Vienna asked, "Do you need an income adjustment, Mom?"

"Income adjustment" was Blake parlance for adding money to the private bank accounts of wives and dependent relatives who'd overspent.

"It's been one of those months," Marjorie confessed. "With the McCain fund-raisers and Wendell's birthday. Then, of course, I had to update my mourning wardrobe for the Cavender boy's funeral." Fretfully, she added, "I can't believe you made me go to that wretched service all alone. Imagine it. Surrounded by Cavenders. Anything could have happened."

"I didn't make you do anything of the kind. You're the one who insisted."

"Someone had to represent the family."

Vienna keyed a cash transfer into her BlackBerry. "Fifty thousand okay?"

Marjorie tapped her beige nails. "Round it up, sweetheart. We're going to New York soon, remember."

"Fifty is pretty round." Vienna felt bad quibbling with her mother over money. Still, if Marjorie saw ft to lecture her for extravagance, two could play at that game.

"I still have to find a dress for the Whitney Gala," Marjorie griped.

"You have plenty of time to torture the sales clerks at Barney's." The gala was over a month away, in October. "If you need more cash, that's what your Amex card is for. You know I'll take care of it."

Marjorie huffly sipped her Riesling. "You sound just like your father."

"Perhaps you could remember that similarity when you're telling me how incompetent I am and how I should be getting my business advice from your brother."

"I wish you didn't resent Wendell so much. He could be such a support to you. Especially now, with your cousins chomping at the bit."

"Mom, I'm not afraid of my cousins. They're employees, just like anyone else, and if they get in my face I can always sack them."

"Don't be ridiculous. Your aunts are on the board."

"Not indefinitely," Vienna said. "Anyway, all I'm saying is that I don't need a man to prop me up."

"Don't start on that topic. I don't want to hear about it."

"What topic?"

"You know what I'm talking about. I don't mind your lifestyle. I'm not a bigot. But you don't have to prove yourself by emasculating the men around you."

"I'm not even going to respond to that ridiculous statement."

"I blame your father." Marjorie tried to twist her black pearl necklace, but she was wearing one of her Tahitian strands and the pearls were too big. She reverted to cleaning her eyeglasses. "Norris never related to you as a daughter, only a substitute son."

"Please, can we just drop it?" Vienna gave up on her meal. The sooner she got the check, the sooner the homily would end. "I need to get going. I have a lot to do before I leave for Penwraithe this weekend."

The last thing she felt like doing was driving to the Berkshires, but she made the trip at least once a month to ensure the estate was being managed appropriately. She would have been tempted to spend more time there but driving past the gates of Laudes Absalom always unsettled her. Her father's memory was fresh enough without another reminder of the legacy he'd left behind, the task of finishing what her predecessors had started.

"Why do you take everything so personally?" her mother complained.

"Oh, God." To bring their lunch date to an immediate close, Vienna asked the question that invariably made Marjorie run for the hills. "Mom, have you thought about dating again?"

"Dating?" Her mother's small, expertly freshened face went rigid with distaste. She fanned herself with the hand that sported her newest ring, a large canary diamond. The hot flashes had stopped five years ago, but she'd retained the fanning mannerism as a means of showing off her jewelry. "Your father left some very big shoes to fill. And I don't have the slightest desire for a replacement. As if that were possible."

"You're only fifty-seven and you could pass for forty-something. It's not infra dig to look for a companion."

"Norris was the love of my life," Marjorie replied with an air of injured dignity. "I can't expect you to understand what that means, given the parade of so-called girlfriends you waste your time on."

Vienna choked on a sip of water. "Are you talking about the zero dates I've had in the past year? That's one of the great things about running the business, you know. I have no life."

"Just wait. One day you'll meet someone you can't bear to live without. Then you'll understand what I endure on a daily basis having lost your father."

"I miss him, too, Mom," Vienna said stiffly.

Marjorie conceded their shared sorrow with a tight-lipped nod, then rose and smoothed her dress. It was a charcoal shade that hinted at elegant mourning in its high neckline and modest three-quarter sleeves. Black, she was fond of telling everyone, was strictly graveside and no elegant woman wore it as day attire, even one recently widowed. The sober mood of her outfit was lifted by a Hermès scarf in the Axis Mundi design. The blue and gold silk accessory had been a gift from Norris Blake not long before he died.

Hoisting her handbag from the spare chair next to her, Marjorie said, "I must run, sweetheart. They won't stop the auction to wait for me."

Vienna got to her feet. "Good luck. I hope you raise lots of money. What's it for today?"

"Lupus. Such an underrated cause."

They exchanged the usual arm's-length embrace and air kisses.

"Remember," Marjorie could never leave without the last word, "your father's watching from heaven. Don't let him down."