The driver took their bags out of the car, and as though by magic two African-American men appeared, and greeted Tom warmly. One was a college student who worked for them part time, and the other was a dignified older man who looked kind and was well spoken. Jed had worked for Tom’s family for years. He had been there in Alexa’s day as well, and he had no trouble figuring out who the beautiful young blonde was, although he had had no warning of her arrival. She looked just like her mother, and he smiled widely when he saw her.

“Good evening, Miss Savannah. It’s nice to see you again,” Jed said, as though her visit had been much anticipated and warmly expected. She didn’t remember him, but she was touched that he knew her name, and Tom looked gratefully at him. Jed’s family had worked for the Beaumonts for generations, all the way back to the days of slavery. Even once freed, they had stayed. Jed felt a strong kinship with the Beaumonts, and their home, and had worked for Tom’s mother when he was born. Now he was guardian, caretaker, and occasional waiter and driver, and he was almost like a father to Tom.

Tom introduced them so Savannah would know Jed’s name, and he also introduced Forrest, the young student. Both men carried her bags inside, as Tom paid the cab, and Savannah stood close to her father, looking anxious. Tom had told them to put her bags in the blue guest room. It was the largest and most elegant of the four they had, and would make a nice home for her in the coming months, and for the duration of her visit. There was plenty of room for her to giggle with her friends there, once she’d met people at school.

Savannah followed Tom into the house. The ceiling in the hall was immensely high, with a gigantic crystal chandelier that the original owners had brought from France. And there was the kind of sweeping staircase you saw only in movies. Savannah remembered that now too, and running down it with her mother when they were rushing somewhere. Her room had been close to her parents’ and down the hall from her brothers’. It had been a pretty pink room, full of sunshine, stuffed animals, and toys, and flowered chintzes. It was in sharp contrast to the room her mother had decorated for her in New York, which was simple, modern, and stark white. She still had that same room now, and had just left it. In its own way, it had represented her mother’s icy, barren state of mind when they moved into the apartment in New York. Her life was a blank page, and in some ways, Savannah thought their apartment still looked it. Her mother was warm, but their home wasn’t. And Thousand Oaks was filled with a sense of tradition, spectacular antiques, family heirlooms, and grandeur. Alexa had had a wonderful life there, for the seven years it had been her home. And Savannah had been happy too.

Her father led her into the living room, which was equally opulent and full of antiques. There was another beautiful chandelier, and the furniture was upholstered in delicate brocades. There were family portraits and statues, and vases full of flowers. The room had a delicate scent, and Savannah noticed that all the lampshades and the curtains were decorated with silk tassles. It reminded her of France. Everything was impeccable and in perfect order, but there was no one around. There was no sign of Luisa, or her and Tom’s daughter, and the house was deadly silent.

They walked through the enormous dining room, where every wall boasted the portrait of a Confederate general, their ancestors. Tom escorted Savannah into the kitchen, which was large, bright, and modern, and he told her to help herself there whenever she wanted. Meals were prepared by a cook and two assistants, but there was no sign of them either. The house was deserted.

Tom led her up the stairs then, to her room, which took Savannah’s breath away. It was a room for a princess or a queen, and her suitcases already sat on stands, ready for her to unpack them. But Luisa was nowhere in evidence.

Tom left Savannah then, and went to his own room down the hall, and found Luisa there, stretched out under the canopy of their enormous four-poster bed with a damp cloth on her head and her eyes closed. She heard him come into the room and said nothing.

“We’re here,” he said simply, and didn’t approach her. He slept in his study occasionally when she had “sick days,” which meant they weren’t speaking to each other. Her mother’s migraines were how they explained their sleeping arrangements to Daisy, so he didn’t “disturb” her. They tried to hide the fact that their marriage was rocky. She was too young to understand it, or so they thought. “Luisa?” he said more loudly, when she didn’t answer. He knew she wasn’t sleeping. Her jaw was tense, and she was fully dressed. She was wearing a pink Chanel suit, with a ruffled pink blouse, and her pink and black Chanel shoes looked hastily abandoned beside the bed. He suspected she had dived onto it, and grabbed the damp cloth when she heard them coming. She had no intention of welcoming Savannah. As far as Luisa was concerned, she didn’t belong here, and she was anything but welcome.

“I have a migraine,” she said in a strong voice that suggested otherwise, and in a heavy South Carolinian accent, like his own. His family had been in Charleston for hundreds of years now, and hers had originally arrived in New Orleans, but had come to Charleston before the Civil War as well. Their histories and roots and traditions were deeply woven into the South. It wouldn’t have occurred to either of them to live anywhere but here. Her seven-year sojourn in Dallas when she left him had been an agony for her. She thought Texans uncivilized and tacky, but liked the fact that most of them were rich, at least those she met with her husband. But all they had was money, she liked to say, not manners. Luisa was a snob about all things southern, and as far as she was concerned, Texas was not the South, and it was all new money. It had none of the history and dignity of Charleston.

“I’d like you to come and say hello to Savannah,” he said firmly, offering no sympathy for her headache, which he did not believe for an instant. “She’s in the Blue Room.”

“Get her out of it immediately,” Luisa said with her eyes closed. “That room is for important people who come to visit us, not a child. Put her in one of the rooms upstairs. That’s where I want her.” She said all of it with her eyes closed, and moving no part of her but her mouth. The room she was talking about was a maid’s room in the attic, and Tom seethed inwardly at what she’d said, but wasn’t surprised. Luisa had declared war on him and Savannah on the phone that morning.

“She’ll stay in the Blue Room,” he said firmly. “Where’s Daisy?”

“Asleep.” He glanced at his watch. It was nine-thirty.

“At this hour? What did you do? Drug her? She doesn’t go to bed till ten.”

“She was tired,” Luisa said, and finally opened her eyes, and looked at him, but made no move to get up.

“What did you tell her?” he asked, his own jaw tensing now. And he knew that this was just the beginning. He was well aware of what Luisa was capable of. Her behavior was appalling, whenever she chose. He felt sorry for Savannah. He was used to Luisa’s vendettas and venomous ways. Savannah surely wasn’t, and had no idea what she was in for. He had brought her here anyway, he wanted her here, to keep her safe from the dangers she was facing in New York. He was going to do everything he could to protect her, as best he could. But Luisa was a loose cannon, and he knew it.

“About what?” Luisa stared at him blankly, in response to his question about what she had told Daisy.

“You know what I’m asking you. What did you tell Daisy about Savannah?” He studied his wife. She was as blond as Savannah and Alexa, but in her case it wasn’t real and came out of a bottle. She wore her hair in the same flip to her shoulders she had worn since she was sixteen, and went to the hairdresser three times a week to maintain it, with a staggering amount of hairspray. She was impeccably groomed, fussy in her style of dress, wore too much makeup for his taste, and a lot of jewelry, some of which she had inherited from her mother, and the rest he and her last husband had paid for.

“I told her you had a youthful indiscretion, and Savannah was the result, and we’ve never wanted to tell her.” He looked horrified at the suggestion that Savannah was an illegitimate daughter who had suddenly turned up, if that was what she had told Daisy.

“Did you say I was married to her mother?”

“I said that we didn’t need to talk about it, and preferred not to, and Savannah will be staying for as short a time as possible, because her mother is in trouble.”

“For God’s sake, Luisa, you make it sound like her mother is in rehab, or jail.” He was appalled, but not surprised.

“Daisy is too young to know that criminals are threatening Savannah’s life. It would traumatize her forever.” So would the lies her mother told her, Tom knew only too well. But it was hard to stop them, or the spin she put on every story, in her favor. Luisa was the worst of what people said about southern women, that they were hypocritical and dishonest and covered it with false sweetness and charm. There were lots of other southerners, men and women, who didn’t use good manners as a cover-up for lies and were sincere. Luisa was not one of them, and always had an ulterior motive, a plot, or a plan. Her plan now was to make Savannah’s life as miserable as possible, and Tom’s.

“I want you to come and say hello to Savannah,” he repeated with an unfamiliarly hard tone in his voice. Luisa didn’t like it at all. She sat up on the bed, swung her legs down, and looked at him with narrowed eyes.

“Don’t try to drag me into this. I don’t want her here.”

“That’s clear. But she is here, for extremely important reasons. All I want is for you to be polite.”