“Ms. Wright, I was just going to the buffet table for a small snack when you arrived.” Moriah smiled. “Would you like to walk over with me?” A graceful wave of her hand toward the connecting buffet room was followed by a nervous smile.
“Of course,” Jaci said. “I’d love to.”
She could feel Chase’s eyes boring into her as they moved off together. But it was the Brockheims who bothered her the most. They didn’t want their daughter in her company. They wanted her by their side, not making nice with the problem of the week, where gossip was concerned.
Unfortunately for them, Moriah had her own agenda. Especially where the Robertses were concerned.
“Richard is becoming more frightened, and spreading gossip about you more than ever.” Moriah lowered her head as she spoke, pretending to check her purse for a second as they moved through the crowd. “They’ll strike soon, Jaci.”
“And when they do, we’ll be ready for them.” Jaci shrugged.
“Annalee tried to order mother to make you leave.” A flare of anger lit the brown depths of Moriah’s gaze. “As though anyone can order my mother to do anything. But she upset her, and father isn’t pleased over that.”
“I’m sorry about that, Moriah,” Jaci said softly as they entered the buffet room. “I hate to be the cause of any problems for your family.”
“As though my parents haven’t dealt with their kind before.” Moriah’s voice took a decided snap as she led Jaci to a deserted corner of the room. “And I’m tired of waiting. We should make the first move. This has to end.”
“Enough, Moriah.” Jaci glanced around, making certain no one could overhear their conversation. “We have to have the evidence first. Until we acquire that, then we have nothing to back us up.”
Moriah’s lips thinned in anger, and she turned her back to the room to ensure no one could see the emotion on her face.
Moriah Brockheim was a completely different woman when there were no social rules in effect. She laughed and played practical jokes, she was prone to drink a little too much wine when with friends, and she knew how to keep their secrets, because she had a few of her own.
“They aren’t as careful, nor are they as smart as they used to be,” Moriah said as she turned and led Jaci from the buffet room. “Come on, let’s find Daddy’s office. He has a marvelous brandy in there. I think I could use a shot of it.”
The office was secluded, private. Moriah coded in the lock, then opened the door and ushered Jaci inside before locking it behind them.
“I hate these parties,” Moriah said, as she turned on a lamp and moved across the room, her dress brushing with a soft sigh against the hardwood floor. “Father always gets worried when I refuse to attend.”
She moved to the bar, poured the brandy, and then handed Jaci a glass.
“Annalee’s stories have been changing over the years,” she said then. “The woman is obviously losing it. Father became enraged tonight while she was demanding that you be ordered from the party. It seems, in addition to attempting to steal the money and seducing her husband, that you attempted to seduce her as well.” Moriah’s grimace of enraged distaste was painful to see. “As though that slut would need to be seduced.”
Moriah was a secret friend, one Jaci had made certain no one suspected she possessed. Moriah’s experience with the Robertses went back further than Jaci’s, and the scars from it went deeper. Neither of them could risk the Robertses knowing how close their association truly was.
“Moriah, you should have told your parents by now,” Jaci said.
Moriah sniffed at that. “Father would kill them. Mother would cry for months, and the scandal would be horrifying. But I want to see them destroyed, Jaci. I want it with a hunger that keeps me awake at night.” Her fist clenched at her side before she lifted the brandy glass and choked back the liquor in it.
She coughed after it went down, her face flushed, and a second later she seemed to gain the control she needed to breath out wearily.
“Have you told Cameron what happened?” Moriah asked.
Jaci shook her head. “You’ll know when Cam knows—everyone will know.”
“You’re going to have to do something about that bitch soon,” Moriah said. “She won’t stop.”
“I told you, it ends here.”
She and Moriah had talked several times after she had come to Alexandria, though they didn’t dare to meet outside the social arena that would bring them together.
“Daddy will of course discuss all this in great detail after the party.” Moriah’s smile was tight and hard. “Mother is upset at Annalee’s demands. You could see Annalee’s fear in her eyes tonight. Or perhaps I just wanted to see it. I’ll let you know what they say. Daddy won’t stand for such behavior in his home.”
“Moriah, have they bothered you further?” Jaci asked. She worried about that. They had terrified Moriah years before, left her with scars that Jaci feared might never heal.
“They know better,” Moriah snarled, her lips tightening as the rage inside her flared to the surface. “The only thing that keeps me silent is the fact that it would destroy my parents. They would blame themselves for it, and I can’t bear that.” She shook her head as she sat the brandy glass carefully on the bar.
When she turned back to Jaci, there was a glitter of tears in her eyes. “Do you still have nightmares, Jaci?”
Jaci nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“I see them and I become ill.” Moriah breathed out roughly. “Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever forget it.”
“You won’t forget it,” Jaci said, “but you’re surviving, Moriah. That’s all any of us can do.”
Moriah breathed in roughly and nodded again. “Very well, we’d better get back. I’ll call you tonight and let you know what Father said. Perhaps somehow, together, we can find a way to neutralize those monsters.”
Monsters were exactly what they were. As Moriah moved ahead of her to allow them to reenter the party separately, Jaci felt her chest clench at the other girl’s pain.
It was one thing to attempt to attack a grown woman and force her into the nasty games the Robertses played. But they also had attempted to force a child into them. Moriah had only been fifteen when her parents sent her to spend the summer with the Robertses while they traveled overseas to attend to business Harold Brockheim had.