A Stranger's Wife

by Maggie Osborne

  Chapter 15

  “I thought I heard you come in about an hour ago,” Lily said, setting aside the book she’d been holding in her lap. It was Christmas Eve, and things had been going so well between them. She’d expected him earlier tonight.

  “I only just arrived.” Leaning over her, Quinn kissed her lightly, tenderly, his mouth lingering, then he poured them both a cup of hot spiced wine from the punch bowl near the Christmas tree.

  How strange. Lily had been so certain that she’d heard him at the door that she had run upstairs to find him. She hadn’t heard him moving about his bedroom, and he hadn’t responded to her rap at the connecting door. Still, she’d been so positive he was home that she’d looked into every room.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t here for supper, especially tonight,” he said, warming himself before the fire. “In politics, there is always a crisis it seems, even on Christmas Eve. Well, shall we light the candles on the tree?”

  Abruptly she noticed that his hair was not damp although heavy wet snow had been falling for the last hour. And he didn’t have the fresh cold scent about him that he usually carried in from outside.

  He was lying about having arrived home only minutes ago. He must have been in his bedroom and must have chosen to ignore her knock at his door.

  Incidents like this jolted her and brought her up short. Each night when Quinn held her in his arms, her heart soared, and she felt as if she were part of him and always would be. She forgot there were sections of his life that remained closed to her. Forgot the dark ambitions that condoned deceit, lies, the secrets he carefully guarded. Her spirits plummeted.

  “My aunt thought it was foolish to chop down a tree, drag it inside the house, then place lighted candles on the branches,” she said finally, gazing at the Christmas tree. While she’d been waiting for him, her thoughts had turned toward Missouri and Christmases past.

  This Christmas Aunt Edna would decorate her farmhouse with a few pine boughs and hang a wreath on the door as she did every year, Lily thought, but there would be no tree for Rose to gaze at in wonder. No shining ornaments or lovely candles. There would be no pile of gaily wrapped packages bearing distinctive ribbons from expensive shops.

  Rose’s Christmas gifts, like Lily’s so many years ago, would be a pair of mittens, new wool stockings, perhaps a warm coat if her old one could not be mended again. And maybe, if there was enough money, the rare treat of an orange in December.

  “It’s Christmas Eve.” Setting his wine aside, Quinn sat beside her and stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. “I wanted this to be a happy Christmas for you. Did something happen today to dash your spirits?”

  She wanted to say: You lied to me.

  But there were other things that hurt, too. “I’ve been thinking about Rose off and on all day. I’ve never had a Christmas with her.” A lump rose in her heart.

  If Lily had been home, she would have insisted on a tree. It wouldn’t have been as tall or as beautiful as the tree before her, wouldn’t have been decorated with exquisite ornaments or expensive beeswax candles, but Rose would have had a tree. And Lily would have made sure there was a gift for her daughter that wasn’t practical, something frivolous and wonderful like a china doll with gold hair or a jack-in-the-box or a book of fairy tales with colorful illustrations.

  Quinn closed his eyes briefly, then stroked her fingers. “You’ll be with her next year.”

  But next year she wouldn’t be with him. She and Rose would be somewhere in Europe, and Lily would be missing Quinn as badly as she missed Rose tonight. By now she should have known that it wasn’t possible to have it all. Life didn’t work that way. Not for her. For every plus, there was a minus.

  Frustrated, she started to tell Quinn that she wanted Rose and him even though she knew that dream could never be possible. But when she turned to him, the words died on her tongue. A deep weariness lay at the back of his eyes. The vertical lines creasing his craggy face from cheek to jaw were deeper, and his gaze seemed troubled and far away.

  “Did your meeting go badly?” she inquired, pressing his hand. She couldn’t be near him without wanting to touch him. Even stroking his fingers thrilled her. “You seem low in your mind tonight.”

  “It gets harder and harder to hide things from you,” he replied, his smile humorless. Leaning back on the settee, he rubbed the bridge of his nose and passed a hand over his face. “I apologize. On the way home tonight, I let myself think about all that’s happened this year and how many things have changed.”

  Lily turned her gaze toward the fire in the grate, aching inside. Last year Miriam was here. He and Miriam had lit the Christmas candles together, had sat before their tree and wished each other a merry Christmas. Miriam would have been pregnant with Susan, blissfully happy that it appeared she would finally carry a baby to term. They would have talked about the baby and the new house and a future that must have appeared smooth and filled with all good things.

  Now Susan slept beneath a blanket of snow, and Miriam was gone.

  Gently, Lily withdrew her hand from his. She didn’t belong here, not tonight. The gifts beneath the tree were tagged with Miriam’s name. Miriam had chosen the ornaments that decorated the branches. Miriam must have dreamed of this night; it should have been Susan’s first Christmas. Wherever Miriam was, she, too, must be thinking of the disasters the year had wrought. And like Lily, Miriam would be thinking with anguish about a lost child. Was she also missing her husband? Regretting that she had run away? Yearning to come home?

  “Suddenly I feel like crying,” Lily whispered.

  “Next year you’ll be with Rose,” Quinn repeated, his eyes on the tree. He gave his head a shake and emptied his cup of hot wine.

  If his statement was intended to comfort or cheer, it didn’t. While Lily longed for her daughter, the thought of being reunited with Rose also terrified her.

  “It’s so confusing. Tonight I long for her. But sometimes I think it would be best for Rose if I never went home again. What if I’m a bad mother?” she asked in a voice so low that Quinn had to lean to hear. Lifting her head, she looked at him with tortured eyes. “Sometimes I get so frightened. I don’t know anything about children, and I haven’t had a chance to learn. And what if she doesn’t like me? What if she’s ashamed of me?”

  She hadn’t forgotten the things Quinn had said the first night she’d talked to him, and she had thought a lot about the impact of her choices on Rose. She had brushed Quinn’s statements aside and insisted that the rules didn’t apply to her. And they hadn’t, not then.

  Oddly, it was Miriam who was showing her the value of rules. When Miriam broke the rules and ran away from her husband, her decision had altered the lives of many people. There was Quinn, of course, and Paul. The servants Quinn had replaced and those he had hired. Ripples extended to Helene Van Heusen and the mysterious Mr. Ollie and the boy beside the City Ditch. And Lily most of all. If not for Miriam, Lily would still be in prison.

  In her case, breaking the rules had burdened Aunt Edna with another child to raise, had deprived Rose of a mother and Lily of her child. Breaking the rules meant that Rose was a bastard with an ex-convict for a mother. A mother who had never been there for her. A mother bowed with guilt and remorse. Blinking hard, Lily stared at the Christmas tree.

  She and Miriam were alike in so many ways. They were even alike in the pain they had caused the people who might have loved them.

  “I’m sorry she isn’t here tonight,” Lily said in a low voice.

  Quinn placed his large warm hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. “You’ll be a good mother because you want to be. And you’ll be living in Europe, where no one knows your past and where bastardy isn’t the stigma that it is here. Rose won’t be ashamed of you if you teach her that everyone makes mistakes and remind her that you paid dearly for yours. She will love you,” he promised.

  He thought she was still talking about Rose. Maybe it was better that way.

&nbs
p; Tilting her chin, he kissed her, his mouth warm and heavy with promises for later. Then he looked into her eyes. “Now. What else is bothering you?”

  “It’s hard to hide things from you, too,” she said with a faint smile. Drawing a breath, she nodded when he asked if she wanted more wine. “Helene Van Heusen called today.”

  Stiffening, he turned from the punch bowl. “Did you receive her?” he asked sharply.

  “No. She brought us a gift. A plant in a pot tied with Christmas ribbon.”

  Quinn swore softly. “I wouldn’t have thought Helene would breach etiquette to the point of calling when you haven’t returned her calls. This is the second time she’s left a card, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Lily admitted uncomfortably.

  What she didn’t tell him was that Helene had also left a letter for her. In the letter Helene apologized profusely for whatever offense she had unwittingly committed that had resulted in the end of a friendship she had valued and cherished. She begged Miriam to please tell her how she had offended, so she could rectify the wrong at once. And she mentioned that she was not alone in her suffering. Another suffered as well. She implored Miriam to call on her, if not for her sake, then for the sake of a mutual friend whose concern approached despair.

  Quinn returned to the settee and frowned. “Of course you didn’t accept the plant.”

  “She left it at the door with Cranston.”

  “Instruct Cranston to return the damned thing tomorrow.”

  “That seems so rude,” Lily said, slowly, watching his expression. “Is it really necessary or wise to make an enemy out of Helene?”

  “We’ve discussed this. Helene is firmly in the enemy camp already. Her objective is to elicit information that her husband can use against me to his candidate’s advantage.”

  His jaw tightened in an expression that Lily recognized. In fact, she had seen it mere minutes ago. His lips twitched at the corners, and he pushed a hand through his hair. Behind his eyes truth warred with fiction. This time he didn’t lie, he said nothing.

  Lily would return the plant as he insisted. But she also knew she would disobey him and call on Helene Van Heusen.

  For weeks she had vacillated between wanting to learn more about Mr. Ollie and an instinct that warned her to let sleeping dogs lie. What purpose would it serve to learn the details of Miriam’s secret? And she really didn’t want to know if the relationship with Mr. Ollie had progressed beyond the meetings at the City Ditch, shrank from learning the extent of Miriam’s betrayal.

  It wasn’t curiosity that had renewed her decision to call on Helene. It was the hint in Helene’s letter that Mr. Ollie or M or whoever he was, was becoming unmanageable. Helene had raised a niggling fear that unless Lily sent a message through Helene, Mr. Ollie might attempt to approach her directly. That would be disastrous. Her impersonation of Miriam was adept enough to deceive women who had known her casually or as a social peer, but she doubted she could deceive a man who had known Miriam intimately, perhaps as a lover.

  “Have we covered everything? Or is something else troubling you tonight?” Quinn asked gently, smoothing an errant curl behind her ear.

  “One more thing. And Quinn, I reserved the most upsetting item for last.”

  Alarm darkened his eyes and his expression sobered. “What it is?”

  “I must beg your forgiveness.” She spread her hands, then stared down at her lap. “You haven’t mentioned it, but I know this has been on your mind every waking moment exactly as it’s been on mine. I can’t think, I can’t sleep or eat. I’m terribly distraught.”

  “For God’s sake! What’s happened?”

  “Pretending it didn’t occur won’t change the fact that our lives are ruined.” She cast him a sidelong glance. “I . . . I’m so desperately sorry that I trod on your toes when we danced at the Halversons’ ball.”

  He stared at her.

  “I know I humiliated us both. We’ll now be social pariahs. And this after I swore to you that my waltz was flawless.”

  It was Christmas Eve. The only Christmas she would ever have with a man she was falling hopelessly in love with. When she remembered this special night a year from now, she did not want to regret that she had ruined it with depressing talk and a despairing mood.

  “I’ve wept all day, knowing how angry and disappointed you must be. I’ve destroyed the slippers that offended by stamping on your toes. I wouldn’t blame you if you can’t find it in your heart to forgive. I can’t forgive myself. My only recourse is to throw myself out of the window and end this shame.”

  Quinn fell backward on the settee and laughed until his eyes were moist. “Oh my darling. You are so unexpected, so . . . Come here,” he said gruffly. Taking her hand, he led her to the doorway and stood her beneath the mistletoe. “Let’s begin again. Good evening, Mrs. Westin.”

  She wrapped her arms around his waist and smiled up at him, her eyes shining with the love that flooded her heart. “Good evening, cowboy. Did you have a good day?”

  “Very productive, thank you. And you?”

  “Cranston and I reviewed the arrangements for tomorrow’s brunch, and I checked the gifts to be certain we haven’t overlooked anyone.” They would entertain the servants in the formal receiving parlor. After the buffet, Lily would distribute gifts, and Quinn would give each employee an envelope containing an extra week’s pay.

  Leaning back in his arms, Lily warmed herself in his smile. “Everyone except the Blalocks accepted your offer of taking the day off to spend Christmas with their families.” But it would be like having a day alone as they seldom saw the Blalocks in any case. Mary Blalock’s arthritis made descending from the third floor difficult, and Lily had seen her only three times since arriving. James Blalock reported directly to Quinn.

  “How do you want to spend our day alone?”

  “I know exactly,” she murmured, gazing up at the mistletoe with a sparkling flirtatious glance. “The instant everyone has left the house, I think we should run upstairs and jump into bed. We’ll spend the day reading and . . .” Lifting on tiptoe, she kissed his earlobe and released warm breath in his ear. “Cook is leaving us cold ham and fresh bread and cheese. I’m sure you can find a bottle of good champagne. We won’t answer the door, we won’t do anything sensible. We’ll eat and read and make love all day.”

  His gaze softened, and he pressed her hips next to his so she could feel his powerful reaction to her suggestion. “You are every man’s dream of the perfect mistress,” he murmured before he bent her into a passionate kiss.

  It was a lovely compliment and should have made her happy.

  * * *

  The week between Christmas and New Year’s was crowded with teas, soirees, musicales, parades, dinner parties, and culminated in a gala New Year’s Eve ball. And these were the invitations they had accepted out of the flood of cream-colored envelopes that had arrived once it was known Miriam’s period of mourning had ceased. They had rejected an equal number of invitations as having conflicting times or dates or because one event was less politically advantageous than another.

  Lily leaned back in her office chair and handed Paul an envelope stuffed with names, addresses, and notations as to the type of note required. “Tell Mr. Smith”—she didn’t know the forger’s real name and didn’t care to know—“most are thank-you notes. Two are acceptances. One is a letter of condolence. Mrs. Alderson’s father passed on three days ago.”

  Paul placed the envelope inside his jacket and reached for his coffee cup. He nodded at her appointment book. “We want you on the podium for Quinn’s speech Tuesday night. It will be similar to last week’s event.” He hesitated. “We’ve had time to conduct an informal straw poll, and your presence was well received.”

  Lily smiled. “You could look happier about it.”

  He considered her for a moment, then closed the door of her household office. “You scare the hell out of me,” he said quietly, returning to his chair beside her. “You’re as unpredict
able as Quinn. In retrospect, being the first to jump to your feet and applaud was inspired. I’m sure you read the newspaper accounts.”

  “The charming Mrs. Westin will be a gracious and enthusiastic first lady should Westin win his bid for the statehouse,” Lily quoted, pleased with herself.

  “Enthusiastic is not a word that leaps to mind when one thinks of Miriam,” Paul said, lowering his voice to an annoyed whisper. “And regardless of the voters’ fickle approval, no true lady would have forgotten herself to the extent of being the first to stand and applaud.”

  Her smile faded and she sighed. “I haven’t had a cigar in weeks. I can’t recall the last time I had a whiskey.”

  “I can tell you exactly when you last disgraced yourself by kissing your husband in public,” he snapped.

  “And you’ve pointed it out at least a dozen times. What you haven’t mentioned is how well I’ve conducted myself at the soirees, balls, and throughout the constant rounds of calling and receiving!” She glared at him. “You drive me crazy. You’re always criticizing, refining, molding me into her. Then you turn around and remind me that I’m not her.”

  She admired Paul for his unflagging loyalty to Quinn, for his political genius, for his attention to detail and his dedication. For the rest of her life, Lily would be grateful to him for all he had taught her, usually with patience and good humor.

  But she never forgot that Paul could send her back to Yuma and Ephram Callihan. He didn’t mention the threat, but it was always there between them. As long as her fate rested on his whim, they could never be friends, would never be entirely comfortable with each other.

  Paul’s single-minded objective was to see Quinn sworn in as Colorado’s first governor. He’d made it clear that he viewed Lily as a solution to one difficulty but also as a potential problem that could get worse.

  “We haven’t discussed your altered arrangements with Quinn.”

  “Must we?” she asked, keeping her voice light.

  “This deception is a dangerous situation that could explode in our faces at any time,” he said, speaking slowly, his eyes narrow on her face. “Because the impersonation has been successful so far, does not mean that it will continue so. What I’m saying is I’ll breathe a huge sigh of relief when you are on your way to Europe. Do you understand?”