Reluctant Deception - Cambria Smyth Page 0,1

to be concerned about the legacy left to one’s children. Hadn't several friends confided how much more emotional they were during these nine precious months?

She leaned back against the cool metal and closed her eyes.

Of course, Harte's Desire would stand for centuries.

Chapter One

Borden's Landing, New Jersey

Early May, more than one hundred and thirty years later

He'd promised revenge.

Libby Reed shuddered in remembrance as she pulled up to the massive wrought iron gates marking the entrance to Harte's Desire. Once proud, but now hanging forlornly from loose hinges, the open gates were rusty and weathered from decades of neglect. A new sign on one of its ornate rails hung in sharp contrast, shiny and freshly painted. Libby read with dismay the words proclaiming this the site of another Darnell project.

Darnell. Christopher Darnell. Those memories were not easily forgotten.

How ironic he was now her neighbor.

How unsettling she would be meeting with him, here at Harte's Desire, in less than an hour.

Why did she ever agree to do this? A promise was a promise, and she kept her promises. Would he keep his?

He couldn't possibly recognize her. Thankfully, they'd never met face to face. And since she last bested him--well over three years ago--she'd changed her appearance and her name. Once closely-cropped, her blonde hair was now well past shoulder length and she'd traded in the wire-rimmed glasses for contacts. Taking her transformation one step further, she'd even shed twenty pounds of excess weight at the local health club.

She didn't look at all like the Libby Chatham he'd sworn to avenge, she assured herself. Since her divorce, she'd gone back to her maiden name Reed. And, she used her given name of Elizabeth these days. It was more professional. Only family and close friends still called her Libby. Surely, her secret would be safe.

Shaking the troubling thoughts aside, Libby drove through the sagging gates and followed a narrow, shade-dappled lane leading to the mansion.

Despite her anxiety, she was filled with the excitement and anticipation of a small child on Christmas morning. Today she would get her first look inside the house which had captured her imagination and curiosity for as long as she could remember. Her grandparents had lived on five acres next to Harte's Desire for most of their lives, so she'd been raised on the mansion's history, lore, and legends.

How many times had she listened to Pop-Pop Reed tell its story? Would the famous rose garden still be there? And its unique, octagonal gazebo? Was the house, built by Chester and Amanda Harte in 1878, as magnificent as Pop-Pop remembered? Harte’s Desire wasn’t visible form the road, so its condition was unknown. And the river view…was it as spectacular as Pop-Pop described?

Grandma Reed often reminisced about playing in Amanda's garden as a child and would talk about the great number of prizes Amanda's roses took in local flower shows. Libby continued down the lane, lost in her reverie, until a rut in the lane jolted her back to the present.

Libby was amazed that ownership of the mansion had stayed within the family for so long. Its most recent occupants had been the well-known, but rarely seen, Harte sisters. Granddaughters of Chester and Amanda, they inherited the house after their father's death because he was the Harte's only child. Eccentric spinsters and recluses, they chose to lead a cloistered life in Harte's Desire, rarely venturing forth from their slowly deteriorating mansion.

Libby vividly remembered the gossip that flew around Borden's Landing after the last sister died six months ago. No one had been inside the building for years, and the townspeople speculated on its future. It was rumored there were no direct heirs, but some distant relatives were eventually located. Having neither the finances nor the interest to restore Harte's Desire, they put it up for sale.

And that was when, and how, Christopher Darnell came to Borden's Landing, she thought bitterly.

Who hadn't heard of the infamous Mr. Darnell, the most powerful real estate developer in Philadelphia?

New buildings were his trademark. He never, ever restored or rehabilitated old or historic ones, adapting them for modern use. Darnell buildings were slick, modern, and always futuristic. There was never an allusion to earlier architectural styles, no gingerbread or fanciful embellishments of any kind. Sleek and polished, his structures were as individual and apart from the others as the man who erected them.

The papers never mentioned a family, she recalled. No wife or children, but his name was often cited on the society pages. Probably a doddering widower,