Turning off the shower after she was well rinsed, Ashley stepped from the glass-and-marble surround and reached for a towel. The towel was warm from the heating rack. Once dried, she looked at herself critically in the full-length mirror. She wasn't one of those tiny size-zero or size-two little girls. She was the average size of the American woman: size fourteen. But there wasn't an ounce of fat on her body, her legs were long, and her breasts were high and softly rounded. Everything was in proportion, she thought smugly, even if she couldn't be called dainty. That was one reason she had opened Lacy Nothings: so that every women from size two to size twenty-two could have sexy underwear and night wear.

Pulling on a pair of soft, fleecy pale gray pants and a light pink cotton tee, Ashley padded downstairs in her bare feet and headed for the screened porch that overlooked the bay. Byrnes was waiting for her with a glass of red wine. Ashley took it from him and sniffed. "North Fork viticulture," she said, and the butler nodded. She took a sip of the wine, swishing it about her mouth, breathing the fragrance. "Bedell Cellars Main Road Red," she decided, and looked to him for confirmation.

"Very good, Miss Ashley," Byrnes said with a small smile.

"Mrs. B. is cooking me a filet, isn't she?"

"Yes, miss. Shall I tell her to put it on now, or do you wish to wait?" the butler asked.

"Now, please, I'm starving!" Ashley told him. "It's been a long day, and Grandfather's will cannot be broken."

"Mr. Kimbrough was a very careful and thorough man, Miss Ashley," Byrnes observed, and then he hurried off to the kitchen.

Ashley chuckled as she sipped her wine and gazed out over the bay. Byrnes knew her late grandfather probably better than anyone. He had grown up at Kimbrough Hall, as his father had been the previous butler. And he knew all about the clause that had been added to her grandfather's will at Lila's behest.