From her earliest days, she had known she must not. Never said aloud, nonetheless she had always known that she was held to a higher standard. That she had to be very careful not to slip.
But though she sometimes chafed at the propriety required, she loved her parents deeply and knew they loved her. It was bedrock. She was a DeMille.
“Agnes is pleased with your handling of the gala,” her mother Margaret murmured.
Her mother’s friend Agnes was a tyrant, but Lacey merely smiled. “I think things are going well.” It all seemed so superficial, after what she’d seen today—but the funds she raised would go to the Child Advocacy Center.
“You and Philip will drop by our little gathering week after next?”
Little gathering didn’t quite do justice to Margaret’s annual cocktail reception for four hundred, held the night before a hospital fund-raiser. “Certainly,” Lacey responded. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
“You make a lovely couple.”
Of course they did. Margaret had hand-picked Philip as her latest bid for Lacey to marry and settle down to raise the next generation of DeMilles. A prominent young plastic surgeon with blue blood of his own, suave blond Philip Forrester was considered quite a catch.
Except by her. She couldn’t seem to convince her parents that they wouldn’t marry.
“Lacey, are you all right?” Philip asked.
“What?” She stirred. Around them the crowd buzzed, and Lacey realized that her item had been called as next up for bidding. “Oh—yes. Just fine.”
Philip leaned down and whispered, “So where shall I take this fabulous picnic you’re auctioning? Will you actually prepare it with your own hands?”
Lacey met his smile with one of her own. “You’d like it better if I let Clarise do the cooking.”
“You don’t need to learn to cook. We’ll have our own servants.”
“Philip, we aren’t—” He, like everyone else, assumed.
His glance grazed her. “Please, Lacey. Not tonight.”
There was nothing wrong with Philip. He was well-set financially, with a successful career and family money behind him. Impeccable manners, moved through the upper crust with aplomb, treated Lacey like a princess, but…
But what? What was she waiting for? She’d been through a number of beaux, had received her share of proposals from men her parents considered eminently suitable. She had accepted none. They all wanted what she brought to the table, not who she was.
She wanted something no one had offered. To be loved for herself, not her money or social position. Maybe she was a hopeless romantic, but Lacey had dug in her heels over this one requirement.
She’d been foolish twice, been impetuous and learned hard lessons. She would never again fall for a charming rogue. But she wanted that one great love, that grand passion.
Just then her father winked at her. “Want me to run up the bid, Princess?”
Lacey smiled and shook her head, rousing herself to tune into the bidding. Around her, discreet gestures raised the price by fifty or a hundred dollars.
“Fifteen hundred,” the auctioneer nodded toward Philip’s faint signal. “Do I have sixteen?”
A brief silence.
The auctioneer scanned the crowd. “All right. A gourmet picnic for four provide by Lacey DeMille going once, twice—”
“Two thousand,” came a voice from the back.
Lacey blinked. Who would do that? Around her, the crowd stirred. She couldn’t see over them to find the owner of the voice.
“Well, Ms. DeMille has not only created a marvelous occasion, but it appears that she’ll garner the highest contribution yet. Further bids?”
Philip glanced down at her, eyebrows lifted.
Lacey shook her head. “You don’t need to up the ante.” She was well aware that he was only here for appearances.
“Two thousand going once…going twice…”
Philip glanced across the crowd and frowned. “Twenty-one hundred.”
“Three thousand.” Same voice.
Lacey resisted the urge to stand on tip-toe. Around her, heads were craning to see the persistent bidder.
The auctioneer looked straight at Philip. “Do I have thirty-five hundred?”
She knew that Philip’s sense of thrift was screaming. He could easily afford it, but he considered economy a prime virtue. And this was her cause, not his. He didn’t like her choice of volunteer work. Like her parents, he thought she should be doing something more antiseptic.
After a long pause, he nodded, jaw clenched.
“Thirty-five hundred. Do I hear four thousand?”
The crowd fell silent. Expectation vibrated the air around them. Lacey wanted to slink out of the room as fervid glances darted her way.