Secrets by Jude Deveraux

and a huge movie theater. And all of it was beautiful.
    But the farmers’ market, with vendors from all over eastern Virginia, was still held in the exquisite Colonial Williamsburg. Cassie parked the MINI Cooper in the lot near the cemetery, walked to the booths, and browsed through stands selling herbs in pots, seafood caught that morning, and homemade jams. She purchased bags full of goods, making three trips to the car to put her purchases inside. Cassie believed in supporting local merchants and growers, so she bought as much as she could from people who grew their own.
    After she finished shopping, she drove back to Hamilton Hundred and put the food in the refrigerator.
    Through all her activities, her mind was only half on her tasks. She kept thinking about meeting Althea Fairmont and all that had been said. When she was away from the presence of the famous woman, Cassie could think more clearly. And the more she thought, the more confused she became. It seemed that Miss Fairmont knew an extraordinary amount about both her and Dana Craig. Had Althea really guessed, on the spur of the moment, that Dana wanted Elsbeth? Jeff had said that he owed a lot to Dana for taking care of Elsbeth after his wife died, but Cassie had never thought about how Dana must have felt when the child was taken away from her.
    And Cassie had been the one to take the child. Jeff had hired three other nannies before Cassie, but Thomas said they were all incompetent and lazy—which meant that Dana had Elsbeth most of the time during the week.
    It was when Cassie was hired that things changed. She paused as she pulled the scallops out of the bag. Who had hired the three nannies that were so incompetent? she wondered. Instantly, she knew without a doubt that it was the let-me-take-care-of-that-for-you Dana. Cassie could almost hear her asking Jeff to let her help him find a nanny. She could imagine Dana saying that she felt “responsible” for the bad nannies, so she’d make up for it by taking over little Elsbeth.
    But Cassie had foiled her. Cassie had nearly thrown herself at Jeff. But then, hadn’t she been throwing herself at him for years? Not that it had done any good, but she’d done it. She’d come to Williamsburg because she knew he was here. She got a job at Elsbeth’s nursery school because she knew that Jeff’s daughter went there. And she was the one who’d called Jeff several times to tell him that the nanny had screwed up yet again.
    It was Cassie who’d been there the day when Jeff arrived to pick up his daughter. It said on Elsbeth’s card that Dana Craig was to be called if there were any problems, but Cassie ignored that and called Jeff’s cell number. He’d arrived right away. But then, Cassie had made it sound like an emergency.
    She’d listened to him complain that this was the third nanny he would have to fire and he couldn’t understand why he couldn’t find competent child care. When he paused, Cassie said she’d love to have the job. She said that she never got to know the children in the nursery school and it was too much to take care of so many. She’d love to work with just one child. Jeff asked her when she could start.
    She gave a week’s notice to the school and moved into Jeff’s lovely house the day after.
    Did I mess up Dana’s plans? she wondered.
    More importantly, was Elsbeth the reason Dana was pushing to get Skylar and Jeff married? Skylar looked at Elsbeth as though she were an annoying insect that she wished would go away. Cassie was sure that Skylar would love to turn Elsbeth over to Dana.
    Cassie took a pot of basil out of its bag and went outside to plant it in the raised brick beds that Thomas had had made for the herb garden. She went to the little shed to get a hand shovel and, with her mind elsewhere, began to replace the basil that she’d cut down to the stems.
    Wasn’t it odd that Althea Fairmont had