Early to Bed?

With a start, Lily whirled to see a tall ethereal-looking woman standing at the top of the short flight of stairs. She wore a gauzy caftan in faded shades of blue, and her slivery white hair flowed down over her shoulders. She might have been a witch sprung right off the pages of a Harry Potter book. But the voice didn’t go with the rest of her. It had an “I don’t take any crap” tone that sounded more like a five-star general’s. The contrast aroused Lily’s curiosity, but then she met the woman’s eyes and felt a chill right through to her bones.

“Beware the Ides of March,” the woman repeated.

Any mention of the Ides of March brought two memories to Lily’s mind. First of all, the fifteenth of March was her birthday, and she’d just celebrated it two weeks ago. And anyone who’d studied Latin in school would recognize the warning that the soothsayer had given to Julius Caesar when he’d marched into Rome. Of course, the soothsayer’s prophecy had been dead on. As if on cue, lightning flashed and a huge clap of thunder rattled the glass doors.

Lily jumped.

“Hurry!” Raising one jeweled hand, the witch beckoned to her. “Disaster is near.”

Lily climbed the short flight of stairs to the lobby. If this was the way the hotel greeted its guests, it was no wonder that Henry’s Place was in dire financial straits. And it had such potential. Its location within walking distance of the theater district as well as Central Park was prime.

Though her father had shown her the file on the hotel the Romano family had been running for almost fifty years, the picture that the lobby presented was worth much more than the thousand words of his report. Decaying was the word that came to mind. Why in the world was Anthony Romano, the family spokesperson, refusing to sell to McNeil Enterprises when they obviously couldn’t take care of the place themselves?

In the end, the answer to that question wouldn’t matter. During her week’s stay at the hotel, her job, as her father described it, was to gather all the information she could to ensure that McNeil Enterprises’ next offer would not be refused. Find the weaknesses so we can exploit them.

“Leave your bags here.” The witch waved a hand at the mahogany reception desk that formed an L against one of the walls.

Lily immediately set down her suitcase and briefcase and followed the woman. She would have felt a lot better about the job her father had given her if she hadn’t had to lie about why she’d really come to Henry’s Place. She’d told Anthony Romano that she was heading up a new department at McNeil Enterprises that offered consulting services. She could provide him with an analysis that would allow him to revitalize the hotel. She was even supposed to offer him a financing plan. Of course, it would be a fake. Her real job was to ferret out information that would allow her father to force the sale.

The old Lily would have balked at the deception, and she would have described the job as spying. But the new Lily had to prove to her father and her stepfamily that she was fully capable of assuming a leadership position at McNeil Enterprises.

On the bright side, she might actually be doing the Romano family a favor. Their hotel looked as if it might not survive much longer in its present condition. As she followed the witch/soothsayer to a far corner of the lobby, she couldn’t help noting the marble floors were chipped in some places, gouged in others. The carpets covering them, though they must have been charming in their heyday fifty years ago, were badly in need of repair. As for the furniture—the tiny, exquisitely carved settee creaked ominously when her soothsayer sank down on it.

It was only then that Lily noticed the white pillar candles and the crystal ball on the small table in front of the settee.

“Sit.” The woman waved her to a chair across from her.

Still wondering how the five-star general’s voice could come out of that fragile body, Lily did as she was told.

“Give me your hand.”

Lily hesitated.

“Hurry. You don’t have any time to waste. The future is yours to shape.”

Lily stared at the woman. The words were such a close paraphrase of her motivational guru’s words that she found herself extending her hand. As soon as the long slender fingers closed over hers and turned her palm up, she felt another chill move through her. For a moment, the lobby became so still that Lily could hear the wind whistling outside the doors as if it were searching for a way in.

“Right here is the problem.” The woman traced a finger along her palm. “A line of deception. Today you begin a web of lies that could lead to great unhappiness for you and others.”

For the second time in as many minutes, Lily felt her stomach sink. How could this woman know that she had come to Henry’s Place on a spy mission? Had she failed before she’d even begun? Oh, that would make her stepmother and her stepbrother very happy.

“Why are you doing this?”

Why? That was a question she’d asked herself every day on that island retreat. But the answer always came back to the same thing. This was her one chance to win her father’s approval.

“Look at how short the line is.” The woman glanced up for a moment and met Lily’s eyes. “You’re not very good at deception.”

Maybe not. The problem was that she hadn’t been good at anything in her life. She hadn’t been the son her father would have preferred. Two years ago, she hadn’t been able to go through with a marriage that would have merged McNeil Enterprises with Fortescue Investments.

“Ah,” the woman said. “This other line—right here—is your love line. You have a lover in your future—tall, dark, handsome.”

Right. For the first time since she’d entered the hotel, Lily felt her tension ease. Finding a lover was standard patter for fortunetellers. The woman was obviously a hoax.

“Lovers from different worlds never have it easy. But if you have the courage to give yourself to him, he will love you for who you are,” the woman said.

A fantasy, Lily thought, but she couldn’t drag her gaze away from the older woman’s. How could a stranger—someone she’d just met—know that having someone love her for herself was her deepest, most secret fantasy?

“Dame Vera, here you are. Sir Alistair and I were so worried when we couldn’t find you.”

Lily felt a little as if she were wrenching herself out of a trance, but she managed to tear her gaze away from the older woman’s and shift it to the two people who were approaching. The young woman had dark hair, nearly black, that fell in a straight line to her shoulders. The name tag on her crisply ironed white shirt read Lucy. The man she’d called Sir Alistair was tall with finely chiseled aristocratic features that went with the wine-colored smoking jacket. Lily guessed his age to be somewhere between sixty and one hundred. He looked vaguely familiar—like an old friend she hadn’t run into in years.

“You could hardly expect me to remain in my rooms. The bathroom was flooding.” Turning to Lily, she murmured in a stage whisper, “Think Titanic an hour and a half into the movie.”

“I fixed the leak temporarily,” Lucy said. “Tony will see to it first thing in the morning. And of course, we’ll have a cleaning crew in.” Pausing, she sent an apologetic smile at Lily. “Dame Vera is one of our permanent residents, and she loves to tell fortunes.”

Vera rose from the settee. “I don’t tell fortunes. I see into the future. It’s a gift that carries with it a great deal of responsibility. Disaster is near and the fate of Henry’s Place hangs in the balance.”

Dame Vera? The name had a memory tickling at the edge of her mind.

“You don’t have to worry. You’ll always have a home here,” Lucy said in a soothing tone.

“A new owner might not see it that way.”

Lily shifted her gaze away from Dame Vera’s piercing stare in time to see shock appear on Lucy’s face.

“Tony would never sell this place. He promised Uncle Henry that he would keep it. It’s our family home—and yours, too.”

“Time will tell,” Dame Vera said, slipping back into her booming soothsayer voice. “In any case, it wasn’t necessary to bother Sir Alistair.”

“She didn’t bother me, my dear,” the man said. “I came over to see if—”

“You came over to check on me.” Vera glared at him. “I don’t need a keeper.”

Sir Alistair. The name along with the British accent finally rang a little bell in the back of Lily’s mind. Sir Alistair Brooks was a British film star she’d seen in a number of late-night movies. And Dame Vera? Lily peered more closely at her soothsayer.

“The day I get so forgetful that I can’t find my way back to the rooms I’ve been leasing for more than half my life, you can book me a suite at Bellevue,” Vera continued.

“I knocked on your door because one of your old movies is on the late show,” Alistair said. “Blithe Spirit. Elvira was one of your greatest roles, and I have a nice bottle of Merlot.”

Vera snorted. “What you have is a lecherous mind. And you know I prefer champagne.”

“One of these days, you’re going to agree to let me educate your palate.”

Vera slipped a hand through his crooked arm. “I’ve been drinking champagne since—”

“I know, I know—since Sir Richard Harris drank it out of your slipper. Well, he’s gone, but I’m still here. And I don’t believe they have suites at Bellevue,” he said as he led her toward the elevator.

“If that’s your way of suggesting that I move in permanently with you, you can dream on.”