Diana was so intent on making them understand what led up to her decision to marry Cole that she didn’t notice the growing sorrow and regret in her family’s expressions. Gentling her voice, she held out her hands as if asking for understanding. “I know you’ve always assumed that because Daddy and his friends were all wealthy and successful, and because I grew up among them, that I had inherited some sort of instinctive ability to start up a successful business, but I didn’t.”
When she paused for a moment, her grandmother reminded her in a quiet, gentle voice, “And yet, that’s exactly what you did.”
Diana’s overwrought emotions veered from near-tears to near-laughter. “It was a fluke!” she said. “What I ‘inherited’ from my upbringing was a healthy fear of poverty. That, and a firsthand knowledge of how callous and cold wealthy people can become when one of their own goes broke. There’s a stigma associated with it, and I didn’t want Corey to discover it the hard way. I didn’t want any of you to experience it. I wasn’t some sort of daring entrepreneur, I was scared of the alternative, and so I took a risk, an enormous risk. All we had was this house, and I was so scared when I mortgaged it to start up the business that I threw up when I got home. I just couldn’t think of any other way to keep us together and go on living as we had.”
She paused and took a deep breath before she confessed the true extent of her youthful incompetence. “I made some costly mistakes, particularly in the beginning, that I will always regret. In order to raise money from private investors, I sold them stock in the company, stock that’s now worth a fortune in comparison to the money I got for us. I’ve made other mistakes, too, like holding us back out of fear several times when I should have pushed forward.”
Finished with the worst of her admissions, she said ruefully, “Everything I’ve achieved with Foster Enterprises hasn’t been the result of genius; it’s been the result of endless worry and work, combined with a whole lot of luck!”
The only person who didn’t look completely taken aback by Diana’s revelations was Cole, yet he was the most stunned of all. He’d assumed that Foster’s Beautiful Living magazine had started out as a hobby, a whim when Robert Foster was still alive—a self-published vanity magazine that the Foster family had originally used to show off the family’s unusual living style, showcase Corey’s exceptional photographic ability, and give Diana a chance to dabble at being a publisher when she graduated from college. Never, ever, would he have imagined that the magazine had been created out of financial necessity and daring, not boredom and unlimited wealth. Until that moment, he’d also assumed that Diana was probably Foster Enterprises’ figurehead, not its founder.
What astonished him most of all was that she’d undertaken the enormous risk and responsibility when she was only twenty-two. Twenty-two. He’d been the same age when he struck out on his own, but he’d already led a hard life by then; he was used to scandal and hardship and opposition. Diana, on the other hand, had always struck him as being delicate and sheltered and endearingly prim.
In the uneasy silence that occurred while the family came to terms with the second major shock of a decade, they seemed to have forgotten that Cole was there, and normally he would have preferred not to be. He knew he could put an end to the discussion by either excusing himself or politely reminding them that such personal family matters were better discussed with family and not outsiders. He had, in fact, perfected that tactic and used it often, whenever a woman he was seeing attempted to draw him into a discussion about her children, her parents, or her ex-husband and his family. Discussions among family members or about family members invariably made him feel like an alien being who had sprung from a rock in a cave and had spent his first two decades on some uninhabited planet.
His own youth hadn’t given him the slightest insight into normal family dynamics nor even a glimpse of how members of a loving family interacted.
Henry Britton finally spoke, his words springing from guilt and hurt. “Diana, you didn’t need to put yourself through all that for our sakes. We weren’t your dependents, after all. Your grandmother and mother and I could have gone back to Long Valley and lived as we used to live. Corey could have gone to college nights and worked for a photographer during the day.”
Cole expected Diana to indulge in some sort of righteous outburst at having her efforts and sacrifices treated as unnecessary, but although her voice was teary, she smiled softly and shook her head. “You don’t understand, Grandpa. I couldn’t let that happen without at least putting up a fight. Corey has a rare gift, but she had to have a chance to show it off, and she might never have gotten that chance if she’d had to support herself by taking candid wedding shots for some local photographer who’d take all the credit and pay her peanuts in return.”
Diana transferred her gaze to her mother and grandparents, and her voice grew heavy with emotion. “None of you realize how remarkably talented you are. You all have such amazing gifts that millions of people have fallen in love with you and everything you represent. The three of you still think of what you do as sort of a hobby, as ‘puttering’ in the gardens or in the workshop or in the kitchen, but it’s much more than that. You see beauty in simple things and show other people how to see it, too. You prove to people that there’s pleasure and harmony to be found in the creative act. You’ve reminded people that the job of a true hostess isn’t to show off her home or her possessions, but rather to make each and every one of her guests feel special and important. People watch you on television, working together and laughing together, and they believe in you.”
Diana’s voice shook with feeling as she added, “The four of you have made a real difference in the attitudes and priorities of a huge number of people—men and women, young and old. The politicians all talk about a return to traditional values and getting back to basics, but you have shown people a lovely, simple route that will take them there.”
Finished with every explanation and argument she could think of, she returned to the original reason for the meeting: “Whether or not you believe all that, you have to believe me when I tell you that Cole did not coerce me into marrying him. In my opinion, marrying him was the best of all possible alternatives, and I’m glad he trusted me enough to ask me. I know he’ll live up to his part of the bargain, and I intend to live up to mine.”
Diana sensed instinctively that the best thing to do for now was to let her family discuss the matter among themselves and come to terms with it. She looked at Cole and said, “We’d better go now.”
Still grappling with his surprise over Diana’s gentle but emphatic support of him in opposition to her family, Cole followed right behind her, but when they neared the doorway, Diana’s grandmother issued an invitation in the form of a gruff challenge: “Do you intend to at least stay for Sunday dinner, young man?”
Diana refused in an attempt to spare Cole any more of an ordeal. “Not today,” she said. “Another time, maybe,” but to her surprise, Cole turned to Gram with an equally challenging smile and said, “I wasn’t aware that I’d been invited.”
“You are now,” she announced.
Mary Foster seconded the invitation with quiet firmness. “Please have dinner with us.”
Henry made it unanimous, though his voice was gruff. “You haven’t had any of Rose’s cooking in a long time.”
“Thank you,” Cole said to all of them. He glanced at Corey, and he thought he saw in her eyes a tentative offer of friendship. “In that case, I’ll be happy to stay.”
Diana decided it was still best to take Cole outside so that her family could talk freely among themselves and come to terms with her unorthodox marriage. They had already begun to change their attitude in the living room and the proof was their invitation to Cole to stay for dinner. She had every reason to think that the meal would be a pleasant one for Cole, but since he had had no way of knowing that, she’d been both surprised and pleased when he accepted their invitation.
Chapter 34
OUT
SIDE, THE WORKTABLES AND EQUIPMENT had all been put away, and without their presence to distract the eye, the back lawn had been restored to its normal state of manicured, semitropical splendor.
Palm trees surrounded by fragrant gardenias leaned gracefully over chaise longues at poolside, their giant fronds rustling softly in the breeze. Stately clumps of crepe myrtle dripping with blossoms added dignified splashes of light pink and white, while the pink and red asters covered themselves in exuberant glory and the hibiscus bushes flaunted exotic flowers the size of salad plates in colors ranging from tangerine to yellow to red.
Since Diana knew that men were usually enthralled by her grandfather’s workshop, with its array of tools, equipment, millwork, and fine woods, she took Cole there first. He pretended to be interested in everything she showed him, but she could tell that he wasn’t, so she invited him to stroll through the greenhouse and then the cutting gardens tucked into the back corners of the lawn.
When he still seemed distracted, she decided that the scene in the living room had darkened his mood far more than he’d let show. In view of some of the things that had been said, she couldn’t blame him. Deciding to bring it out in the open, Diana stopped on the lawn near the pool. Leaning her shoulders against a palm’s smooth, thick trunk she said simply, “I’m sorry about what was said inside. Please try to make allowances for my grandfather’s age.”
“I did,” he said dryly.
“But you’re still embarrassed,” Diana surmised.
He shook his head. “I’m not embarrassed, Diana.”
“Are you angry?” she asked, studying his features for a clue.
“No.”
“Then what are you?”
“I’m impressed.”