“I feel rather sorry for her,” Mrs. Canfield admitted. “What Daniel Penworth did to her was inexcusable.”
“No, it was unavoidable,” Haley argued. “Diana was like a noose around his neck. He didn’t love her, and he tried to let her down gently, but Diana wouldn’t give up. People think that Diana is sweet and kind, but the truth is she doesn’t care about anybody or anything except herself and that stupid arts-and-crafts magazine that she runs.”
Marilee Jenkins seconded all that with a nod. “I don’t blame Dan one bit!”
Cole waited for someone else at the table to come to Diana’s defense. Mrs. Canfield looked uneasy and Missy Desmond looked bewildered, but no one spoke a word in Diana’s behalf. The auctioneer announced that the first of the ladies’ items was about to be auctioned, and Cole deliberately turned his shoulder to his dinner partners.
A few tables away, a slender redhead arose to applause and began to model a magnificent diamond necklace she was wearing. She carried the whole thing off with the ease and aplomb of someone who knew she was born to be admired and “on display,” smiling as she moved about the crowd, and her husband opened the bidding. As soon as her husband bid, another man at their table instantly topped his bid, grinning as he deliberately forced the husband to go higher. After that the bidding was rapid, frequently accompanied by bursts of laughter around the room, which made Cole correctly assume that the husband’s friends were cheerfully forcing the husband to pay more and more.
Cole rather enjoyed watching the game, which was played with gusto as each wife and girlfriend arose to model her desired auction item, and each man involved bore the expense forced on him by his friends, who bid against him with blasé humor. His gaze kept straying to Diana’s table, wondering how she was reacting, but as each item was awarded to the lady who was already wearing it, he noticed that her expression grew subtly more somber and tense.
When the time was finally nearing to auction off the necklace she was wearing, she began to fidget with it, her long fingers curling around it and then slowly flattening over it as if she wanted either to hide it or tear it off. Her entire body seemed to freeze as the auctioneer proclaimed, “Ladies and gentlemen, the next item to be auctioned off is an extraordinary example of the workmanship of a bygone era—a remarkably fine amethyst-and-diamond necklace, being shown by Miss Diana Foster.”
Cole understood why she would naturally dread being the focal point of so many fascinated gossips, but not until she actually slid back her chair to stand up did he belatedly realize that her embarrassment was going to be compounded a hundred times by the conspicuous absence of Dan Penworth, who should have been bidding on that necklace. He watched her rally and manufacture a smile as she arose, and at the same time he heard whispers erupt around the room.
At the table behind him, a man jokingly remarked that Dan had probably married his Italian girl to avoid the cost of Diana Foster’s necklace, and everyone laughed.
Cole felt anger and protectiveness begin to simmer inside him—emotions that leapt into steady flame as the clueless auctioneer beamed at Diana and then at the crowd in obvious expectation that her own man would open the bidding. “Opening bid will be fifteen thousand dollars. Do I have fifteen thousand dollars?” He paused, bewildered by the awkward silence. “This necklace is a bargain at twice that amount. “Will someone give me ten thousand dollars?” His expression cleared and he nodded. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Dickson. . . .”
The bidding paused at $13,000 so that a prospective purchaser could have a closer look at it. “Poor Diana,” Mrs. Canfield said, addressing her remarks to Cole. “I knew her papa very well. He’d have bought her that necklace just to put an end to this.”
“Diana needed to be knocked down a peg or two, and everyone knows it,” Haley Mitchell argued. “She’s a conceited bitch.”
Franklin Mitchell had the grace to look a little embarrassed at his daughter-in-law’s language, if not her venom. He glanced at his inebriated son as if he expected him to say something, but when Peter spoke, it wasn’t to contradict his wife. “Diana has always had a very high opinion of herself,” he informed Cole.
“It’s the truth,” the senior Mrs. Mitchell said coldly.
Unaware of the very personal reasons the people at his table had for disliking Diana and relishing her plight, Cole mistakenly assumed everyone else in the ballroom was just as heartless and just as vengeful.
In his mind he saw a lovely, dainty teenager holding out a sack filled with food, her smile sunny and soft as she contrived to give him food and simultaneously spare his pride. “Could you possibly find some room for some of these canned peaches, Cole? My grandmother loves cooking and canning, but we’re running out of storage space in the pantry. . . . I hope you can help us eat some of Gram’s potato salad and chicken; she made enough for an army last night!” He remembered other things, such as how perfectly neat and clean she always seemed to be, from the tips of her polished loafers to the tips of her fingers, their nails neatly filed but never polished.
Interlaced with his reverie was the auctioneer’s voice: “I have thirteen thousand dollars—Do I have fourteen thousand dollars? I have thirteen thousand dollars.”
“Peter,” Haley said suddenly, her voice filled with excited malice. “Buy that necklace for me. I want it.”
“Final warning, ladies and gentlemen,” the auctioneer intoned.
Peter Mitchell looked at Diana, who was two tables away “modeling” her necklace, and he called out in a loud, slurred voice, “Wait—we’d like a closer look!”
Cole watched Diana turn and move obediently toward their table. He already knew that Diana had originally believed her faithless fiancé would be buying the necklace for her tonight. Now it suddenly occurred to him that she’d undoubtedly bought the purple gown she was wearing because it set the amethysts off to perfection.
He watched Diana’s smile wobble as she paused across from him and subjected herself to Mitchell’s leering at her breasts; he saw her fingers lift to the largest stone at the bottom of the necklace to show it to him—the long, slender, womanly fingers that had once been a girl’s hand holding out offerings to him.
Mitchell reached for it, deliberately brushing his knuckles over the soft skin above her bodice. In a swift but subtle countermove, she stepped back, reached behind her nape, unclasped the necklace, and held it out to him in her hand.
Her fixed smile never wavered, but as Mitchell reached for the necklace, her gaze recoiled from his hand, bounced to Cole’s face, then quickly darted away. In that one brief, unguarded moment while her gaze encountered his, Cole saw something that drove him to an instant and monumental decision.
Maybe he had a latent and heretofore unrecognized urge to play the knight in shining armor for some damsel in distress, or maybe his next action was merely the civilized version of a prehistoric male swinging his club at an adversary to prove his superiority. Maybe he was subconsciously aware that fate was offering him an opportunity to solve not only Diana’s problems but his own. Perhaps it was a combination of all three.
But whatever his motives, the outcome was a foregone conclusion, even before Mitchell looked over at the auctioneer and announced, “I’ll make it fifteen thousand dollars.”
“Twenty-five,” Cole snapped before the other man had drawn a breath.
The auctioneer looked stunned but ecstatic. “Ah-ha! We have a new and serious bidder in the competition,” he informed the audience with a triumphant smile. “Mr. Harrison has just jumped the bid by ten thousand dollars,” he continued, attracting the attention of people who hadn’t been particularly interested in the necklace until then, “and he hasn’t yet had a close-up view of this unique piece! Miss Foster,” he said to Diana, “will you please allow Mr. Harrison a moment to inspect the extraordinary quality and color of the stones, as well as the superior craftsmanship of the necklace itself.”
With a smile that clearly showed relief, Diana hastily obeyed the suggestion to move arou
nd the table to Cole. When she reached his chair, she held the glittering necklace out to him in her hand, but Cole ignored it completely and looked at her face instead. With a warm, teasing smile, he said, “Do you like it?”
Diana saw the amusement glinting in his silvery eyes, and she sensed instinctively that he was deliberately prolonging the moment and playing to their audience, but she was desperately anxious to get out of the spotlight, rather than share in the increased glare that came as another hundred pairs of eyes swiveled toward Cole Harrison. Diana didn’t care who bought it; she only wanted the ordeal to end. “It’s beautiful,” she proclaimed with an emphatic nod.
Cole leaned back in his chair, shoved his hands into his pants pockets, and his smile turned lazy, as if he had all the time in the world to ponder his purchase and was actually enjoying the audience’s attention. “Yes, but do you like it?”
“Yes, honestly! It’s splendid.” In the sudden hush of curiosity stealing over the ballroom, Diana’s breathlessly emphatic declaration rang loudly enough to cause a ripple of good-natured laughter.
“Then, you think I should buy it?”
“Of course, if you have someone to give it to.”
The auctioneer sensed instinctively that the audience’s interest had peaked and would soon begin to ebb. “Mr. Harrison,” he asked, “are you satisfied with your inspection, sir?”
Cole’s smile turned openly admiring as he studied Diana’s face. “Extremely satisfied,” he said, plainly referring to Diana and not the necklace.