SAVAGE BEAUTY Read online

  Savage Beauty

  Behind Closed Doors: Family Secrets

  Peggy Webb

  Savage Beauty

  Copyright © 2020 by Peggy Webb

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, transmitted, or distributed in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without specific written permission from the publisher. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher are illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is coincidental.

  Published by Westmoreland House, Mooreville, Mississippi

  Print Edition ISBN:

  Digital Edition AISN: B08BXWJMMH

  First Edition 2020, Printed in the USA

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Contents

  FamilySecrets.Life

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  FamilySecrets.Life

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  FamilySecrets.Life

  Untitled

  Sneak Peek

  Untitled

  Behind Closed Doors: Family Secrets Series

  About the Author

  Coming Soon

  Also by Peggy Webb

  Don’t Miss StormWatch

  Don’t Miss Breakdown

  FamilySecrets.Life

  The foundation of every relationship is trust. Whether in friendship or marriage, each partner should be like an inviting and nurturing home with every nook and cranny open to the light of truth. No secrets. No lies.

  FamilySecrets.Life

  Chapter One

  Ocean Springs could be any other coastal town in the Deep South with its quaint shops and tea rooms overlooking the blue waters of the Mississippi Sound where everything from fishing boats to yachts ride the waves. But the truth of this otherwise sleepy town is far more dramatic.

  Ninety miles of barrier islands, lying ten miles offshore, separate the sound from the Gulf of Mexico and create protected waters fed by two great rivers--the Pearl and the Pascagoula. The combination of salt and fresh water forms a sea teeming with plant and animal life.

  And many would say secrets.

  In the early twentieth century, the wildly eccentric artist Walter Anderson put Ocean Springs on the map by capturing the magic of sea and island on canvas. His art and his history still loom over the town.

  But looming even larger is Allistair Manor, a gothic mansion on the highest point in the outskirts of the city that protects the lives, loves and scandals of three generations of Allistairs, the royal family of American horticulture.

  Sitting inside her bedroom suite in the second floor west wing of the manor, Lily felt the full weight of the house, the family name, and its legends. This evening she would be introduced to the world as the woman who would soon become an Allistair. This evening her life would change forever.

  Her mind told her everything was going to be perfect, but her heart had its own opinion. It beat like the wings of a caged wild bird.

  Even the diamond and ruby necklace in the jeweler’s box on her dressing table made a statement about her future. Twenty-seven carats of precious stones winked at her with eyes turned fiery in the lamplight, and yet secretive as they nestled among the folds of the black velvet box.

  The gift was the latest of many from her fiancé, Stephen, all far too extravagant. Lily was not a diamonds and rubies kind of woman. She wasn’t even a lady-of-the-manor kind of girl. She was a practical single mom and interior designer who had moved in with her fiancé a week ago because her lease was about to run out. With the wedding now less than three weeks away, it didn’t make sense to pay another year’s rent.

  Besides, it was far easier to redecorate her new home onsite than to run back and forth from her downtown apartment. And there was the crux of her problem. This was no ordinary house. It was a dark mausoleum filled with outdated furniture and locked rooms.

  How could she ever make it a home if there were rooms she couldn’t enter? When she’d broached the subject to Stephen, he’d told her the archives of Allistair Roses were housed behind locked doors to protect the horticultural secrets of one of the world’s most famous families of rose breeders. Preventing piracy in the business was common.

  Still, the very idea of forbidden rooms in her own home had sent her to the new online site, FamilySecrets.life, where a team of psychologists offered advice and private counseling on an array of family issues. She’d been reassured to learn that it was the relationship, not the house, that mattered. She was on solid ground with Stephen.

  “I worry too much. That’s all.”

  She could—and would--transform the living quarters and turn the house into a home she would love. Hopefully, so would her daughter.

  Annabelle was storming down the hallway this very minute, making no bones about her state of mind. Lily would recognize her daughter’s combative march anywhere.

  “Mom!” Annabelle knocked once but didn’t wait for an answer. She swept into the bedroom, her strawberry blond hair in a messy ponytail, her tee shirt untucked from her blue jeans, and her full panoply of teenaged angst on display. “I look dorky in this dress. I don’t care if your stupid fiancé did give it to me. I’m not wearing it to the party.”

  Her daughter tossed the dress onto the bed and crossed her arms over her chest. At fifteen, she was already showing the curves of maturity. Not as much as her best friend Cee Cee, who trailed behind her, but still Lily felt a momentary shock at how quickly time had flown.

  It seemed only yesterday Lily had been a teenager herself, fatherless, living on the edge of poverty, and pregnant out of wedlock.

  “Let me take a look.” When Lily picked up the dress, Annabelle rolled her eyes.

  “See! It’s pink. With ruffles!”

  Lily wished her fiancé had consulted her first. But when had someone as powerful as an Allistair consulted anybody? Stephen had unilaterally decided to ignore their spring wedding date and book the church for early January. Just thinking about it gave Lily a headache.

  Granted, he’d been a bachelor for thirty-nine years. He’d never even come close to marriage, which probably explained why he couldn’t come up with a logical reason for the rush. She was definitely going to talk to him. Tonight. After the party.

  Now, she said to her daughter, “Stephen meant well.” He always did, didn’t he?

  She really should correct Annabelle about calling him stupid, but she would save that for later. She knew the humiliation of being singled out in front of friends. “He’s a good person, and he loves you, Annabelle. You have to try.”

  “I don’t care what you say. If I have to wear that dress I’m not going.”

  An argument over a dress would do nothing but exacerbate the situation.

&
nbsp; “Okay. I can accept that.”

  “Mom, you’re the best!” Annabelle gave her a bear hug.

  “You’re not off the hook. You have to thank Stephen for the dress.”An eye roll from her daughter. ”And you have to mean it. As soon as he gets back from the airport with his mom, find him and explain that you want to wear the party dress Gran made.”

  Lily’s mom, a seamstress, had died quietly in her sleep at the end of spring. The thought of her mother not getting to see her walk down the aisle with a good man made Lily’s heart hurt.

  “Okay,” Annabelle said. “I can do that.” She gave her best friend a high five. “Look at Cee Cee. I don’t know why he picked out a little kid’s dress for me and gave her one that makes her look like a Hollywood movie star.”

  Cee Cee was already wearing her gift, a charming blue velvet dress that matched her eyes and set off skin that looked like the finest mahogany. Her curly black hair made a halo around a sculpted face the cameras would love.

  “You look beautiful.” Lily hugged her close.

  From the moment Cee Cee and Annabelle had met in fifth grade, Lily had tucked this shy but endearing child into her heart and under her wing. Cee Cee had never known her father and had been given up by her mother then shuffled from one foster home to another for years. Lily had tried to fill the void. That included inviting her to spend school holidays with them and as much of the summer as her foster parents would allow. To Lily, Cee Cee was part of the family, another child to love.

  “When I tried my new dress on, I couldn’t take it off,” Cee Cee said. “I feel like a princess in a fairy tale. Have you seen the decorations downstairs, Lily?”

  “Not yet.” Lily was as happy as if she’d personally put every decoration in place. Cee Cee deserved a fairy-tale experience, and so much more. She was determined to help this child achieve her dreams.

  “There are four gigantic Christmas trees all done in blue and silver,” Cee Cee said. “It looks like a castle or something.”

  Annabelle snorted. “More like the Addams Family. This whole house is creepy. I expect Lurch to pop out from behind one of the stupid locked doors. Every time I go near one I get a lecture about snooping from that old man with the missing pinkie.”

  Now she’d gone too far.

  “You cannot talk that way about Stephen’s grandfather.”

  “He does have only nine fingers, which is creepy.”

  “Annabelle!”

  Her daughter raised her hands in mock surrender. “Okay. Sorry, Mom. I’m going out front now to wait for Stephen.”

  “Be nice to him, and his mother, too,” she said, but she wasn’t sure Annabelle heard. The girls were already racing off.

  Lily slipped out of her robe and into her bath. When Stephen’s grandfather Clive escorted her into the party, he’d look every inch the aristocratic patriarch and powerful founder of a Southern family empire. She had no intention of embarrassing the family or herself.

  Reporters had descended on Allistair Manor from all the major national television and newspaper networks. Some had even flown in from France and Great Britain.

  And why shouldn’t they? Stephen C. Allistair was unveiling not only his bride-to-be but his latest hybridized creation, a stunning blue rose with white edging. There was nothing like it in Allistair Roses, and very few in the world. Breeders had not achieved a blue rose until eleven years ago, and then their efforts ran more toward lilac than true blue. Stephen’s vivid blue rose was so breathtaking it rivaled the Allistair rose that had started their horticultural empire. His grandfather Clive’s world-renowned black rose.

  “When is your precious Lily Perkins coming down?” Stephen’s mother glided into place beside him at the bottom of the grand staircase. “Reporters from CNN and FOX are already clamoring to interview me.”

  He tamped down his irritation. “They’ll just have to wait, Toni. This evening is not about you.”

  “Well, it should be.”

  Of course, that’s what she would think. Toni Allistair had always put herself first. She was a super model with bogus claims of Polynesian royalty in her family tree. Additionally, she was considered the reigning matriarch of the Allistair family. A term she hated.

  In fact, she hated everything about the family except its founder…and his money. Even if Stephen’s father hadn’t had health issues, Toni would never have stayed in the marriage. She’d been only too happy to leave her husband in the hands of medical professionals and leave Stephen to be raised by his grandfather.

  “If you wanted to be the center of the adoring press, you should have stayed in New York.”

  “What?” Even when Toni raised her eyebrows, nothing else on her face moved. He’d lost count of the number of face and body lifts she’d had. “And miss meeting my granddaughter?” She shivered and cast a disdainful look in Annabelle’s direction. “Couldn’t you at least have picked a brood mare who didn’t have children? Especially a teenager? She makes me look old.”

  If the press weren’t everywhere, Stephen would have walked off. Brood mare stung, but Toni wasn’t that far off the mark. She never was. That’s why she and Clive got along so well. Both were blunt to a fault.

  It had been Clive who reminded him of his duty to the family.

  You’ve got to find a wife and have a son to carry on the family tradition, Stephen. I’ve worked too hard to find the secret to the perfect rose to have it die with the third generation.

  Stephen had met Lily this past summer at a benefit to raise money for the Walter Anderson Museum. She was a gorgeous woman with blue eyes and long wavy hair that looked like a sunset, vivid red streaked with gold. All natural. Her daughter was proof she’d bear him a great-looking son, one worthy of the Allistair name.

  She was easy-going and easy to love. But the truth was that his work consumed him, especially of late.

  That’s why he’d moved up the wedding date. The sooner he got Lily pregnant, the quicker he could concentrate on his masterpiece--a rose that would be so impossibly beautiful, he hadn’t even confided in his grandfather. His heart sped up just thinking about it.

  “Look at what the cats dragged up.” Toni nudged him, bringing his attention to the second floor landing where Clive posed with Stephen’s fiancée on his arm. Wearing his full silver hair long enough to touch the collar of his tuxedo, he appeared to be a man far younger than eighty-eight. And Lily was simply stunning in the white Christian Siriano gown and heirloom necklace Stephen had given her. “I see the little tramp wasted no time getting her hands on your grandma’s diamonds.”

  Thankfully, the press and the photographers Stephen had hired for the evening were too busy snapping pictures of Clive and Lily to overhear his so-called mother’s vicious remarks.

  “Toni, retract your claws, or I’ll call you a cab to the airport.”

  “I don’t care what you do as long as you don’t let that bedraggled urchin call me grandma.” She nodded toward Annabelle then made a beeline for a group of reporters on the other side of the room.

  The air seemed fresher without her. At his grandfather’s signal, Stephen joined Clive and Lily at the top of the stairs where he announced his engagement with all the fanfare worthy of an Allistair.

  With dozens of cameras turned on them, he leaned in and whispered to Lily, “Are you happy, darling?”

  “Of course.”

  Her smile was genuine, and that made everything so much easier for Stephen.

  She had to have noticed he didn’t introduce Annabelle. But neither had he mentioned his wicked biological gene-pool of a mother. Thankfully, Lily would not be like the narcissistic Toni. And she certainly wouldn’t be like his grandmother, who had been too weak to be an Allistair.

  Just as Lily’s daughter proved her great genes, her history proved her courage. She’d survived a pregnancy at sixteen, a tumultuous one year marriage to a muscle-bound football player who didn’t want her or their daughter, single motherhood, and the death of both parents. Still, she
had managed to earn a college degree in interior design and start her own business.

  “Kiss her,” someone called.

  “I’m happy to oblige.” Imagining the picture they made, much like the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, he held the kiss through the frenzy of clapping and congratulations that echoed through the downstairs ballroom. Allistair Roses could only benefit from this kind of publicity.

  One of the reporters called, “Roses,” and the rest of the crowd took up the chant. “Roses! Roses!”

  “Duty calls, Lily. You don’t mind finding the girls and bringing them to the conservatory, do you? Clive and I need to get there ahead of the reporters.”

  “Of course not. I don’t have to be pampered like your greenhouse cultivars.”

  “You’ve picked a champion, son, and a stunning one, at that.” Clive clapped him on the shoulder then winked at Lily. “I’ve got to borrow this stud for the Allistair show.”

  They flanked Lily and escorted her down the stairs then watched until she was out of earshot.

  “Don’t you think you’re laying on the champion brood mare/stud analogy too thick?” Stephen asked.

  “I can say a lot of things now that I couldn’t when I was your age.” Clive, who never displayed remorse about anything, led the way out of the ballroom toward the attached glass conservatory.

  Two guards stood on either the door, and four more were strategically placed inside. Stephen nodded at them, but didn’t stop to speak. They knew their job. In five minutes they’d remove the gold rope and let the reporters along with Lily and the two girls inside. Afterward, the rest of the guests, which included most of the population of Ocean Springs and the surrounding Gulf coastal area, would be allowed to view the roses in groups of ten.