Without embarrassing Alice Hardisson, Stone interpreted, making a noncommittal murmur. Alice would be the mother-in-law from hell, no matter who Billy married. Stone could almost find it in his heart to be sorry for the poor girl, but then, any female with no more sense than to marry Bill Hardisson probably deserved what she got.

He picked up the monologue still in progress. “Been hearin’ these awful rumors. Nothing in the papers yet, thank goodness, but I’m afraid she’s out to make mischief. I can’t think of anyone else who would do such a thing.” She sighed. “John Stone, I’m worried.”

“Why’d he marry her? Was she pregnant?”

“Good heavens, certainly not! Billy has better sense than to get hisself involved with a tramp like Lucy Dooley!”

“I thought you said he married her. That’s about as involved as you can get.”

“He’s just too trustin’ for his own good. Poor Billy. When a flashy tramp like that Dooley woman keeps flauntin’ herself at the club pool, wearin’ little more than she came into the world with—”

“That’s where he met her? The club?”

“That’s what I said, didn’t I? Oh, I’ll admit the girl has a common type of looks that men seem to like—she certainly took my poor boy in, but before they’d even been married six months, she showed her true colors. Poor Billy, he pleaded with her to behave herself. But when she started carryin’ on in front of all their friends—why, he had to ask her to leave.”

“They’re divorced now, I take it. So what’s the problem?”

“Well, naturally he divorced her. At least she had the decency to leave town, but we’re afraid now that he’s runnin’ for the state senate, she’ll come back and cause trouble.”

“Why?”

“Well, for goodness’ sake, John Stone, for money! What else would her kind want?”

“You mean that flock of tame lawyers you keep on a leash didn’t sew her fingers together before they let Billy marry her?”

“I was out of the country at the time, and that girl had poor Billy so besotted he just up and married her without makin’ her sign doodlysquat! Lord knows what she threatened to do, but he ended up paying her two hundred thousand dollars a year for three years just to stay out of Georgia. Poor Billy, he’s always been too softhearted for his own good.”

Or too softheaded. Six hundred thousand was a lot of loot!

“Now that the payments have ended, we’re afraid she’s goin’ to try and get more by threatenin’ to go to the papers with her vicious lies. She knows good and well he’s lookin’ to go to Washin’ton after one or two terms in Atlanna. That’s just the sort of thing her kind would do. Like all those hussies who end up on the television by threatenin’ decent men in high places. You know who I mean, John Stone?”

“I seem to recall a few such incidents, but why would you—”

“I just told you—there are already rumors circulatin’ around town. They can’t have come from any other source, because everybody here loves Billy. He’s always been a good boy.”

Stone grimaced. Billy loved Billy. Aunt Alice loved Billy. The rest of the world probably knew him for what he was—the spoiled, immature product of privilege and neglect. Not for the first time, Stone was glad he’d broken with the family at the age of fourteen, when he’d been shipped off to military school, and that it had never been “convenient” for him to spend much time with his aunt after that.

“Exactly what is it you think I can do?” he asked.

She didn’t beat around the bush. “I understand you’ve been hurt right bad, and you’re goin’ to be laid up for a while. I thought you might like to—”

“You thought I might like to go down to Atlanta and take her out for you?”

“What? Don’t be foolish, John Stone. If you want to take her out, that’s your concern, but I warn you, she’s not Our Kind of People.”

“I didn’t mean— That is, take her out means—” He gave up. He spoke three languages fluently and got by in a couple more. He had never spoken his aunt’s language, and probably never would.

“It just so happens that I’ve arranged for this woman to spend the summer at a place called Coronoke—it’s a little speck of an island off the North Carolina coast. I understand there aren’t any telephones there, and certainly no reporters, so I thought if you could go along and kind of keep an eye on her, just make sure she doesn’t get up to any more mischief—”

“Whoa! Aunt Alice, I don’t even know this woman, and you want me to be her jailer?”

“Don’t raise your voice to me, John Stone. I didn’t say that. All I ask is that you go down there and take advantage of the cottage I’ve leased in your name. You don’t have to let her know who you are—in fact, it’s probably better if you don’t—but you can keep her entertained so she’ll forget about causin’ trouble for Billy, at least until after his weddin’.”

“His wedding?”

“Oh. Did I forget to mention that Billy’s gettin’ married again in August? This lovely girl—she’s the granddaughter of old Senator Houghton—”

“In other words, you want me to pen this woman up on a deserted island— What did you call it?”

“Coronoke, and it’s certainly not deserted.”

“Right. Pen her up, don’t let her near a phone, and if she makes any suspicious moves, sic the federales on her, right?”

By the time he finished, Alice had very politely hung up on him. Feeling worse than he had when he’d come out of the hospital five days earlier, Stone called her back and, after apologizing, found himself reluctantly agreeing to finish up his recuperation on the island of Coronoke.