The Man She Married

by Muriel Jensen

  “Okay,” Gideon agreed, “but this wasn’t what kind of furniture to buy or where to go on a vacation. This was the loss of our child!”

  “I know. But my guess is she was too grief-stricken herself to think straight. I’d give her the benefit of the doubt.”

  Gideon closed his eyes, letting that possibility sink in. It sounded plausible. He was surprised that it hadn’t occurred to him. Possibly he was too grief-stricken himself at the moment to have thought that through. But he couldn’t get over the notion that she lost the baby because of him. Maybe he could forgive her, but could he forgive himself?

  “Eat up,” Randy advised. “Sounds like you’re going to need your strength.”

  Giving Prue a generous motive for her behavior eased his mind a little and relaxed him sufficiently to allow him to eat the waffle.

  “WELL, YOU’D THINK he’d have sufficient consideration for the rest of us,” Bruno said, pacing the living-room floor, “to either be punctual or let us know whether or not to cancel the shoot.”

  Prue, sitting in a wing chair in the living room, her knees folded up against her chest to ease her misery, heard Bruno’s complaint for the fourth time with growing impatience.

  “I’ve explained over and over that we had a quarrel, and it really isn’t his fault. He needed to walk it off, or drive it off, or whatever he’s doing. He’ll be back. He wouldn’t leave us in the lurch.” She’d listened to Bruno’s complaints through the breakfast of fruit and French toast that Justine and Georgette had prepared.

  Bruno rolled his eyes. “Personal issues shouldn’t affect business.”

  “This isn’t business,” Justine said, coming out of the kitchen with a cup of tea for Prue, who hadn’t been able to eat anything. “This is photography. It’s an art. It’s better served by emotion and drama.”

  He expelled an impatient breath. “Oh, little miss contest winner now knows all about photography.”

  “That’s it!” Georgette sprang to her feet and said to Justine, “Can you finish this job?”

  Justine straightened, the steaming teacup still in her hand, her eyes wide with surprise. “Finish it? You mean…”

  “I mean take the photographs,” Georgette demanded.

  Justine blinked once, handed Prue the tea, then nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I can.”

  “Good.” Georgette turned to Bruno. “You’re fired, Bruno.”

  Bruno went white, then red. “We have a contract,” he reminded her flatly.

  “I’ll pay you for the whole shoot,” Georgette said. “And if you’ll leave the film you’ve already shot, and your cameras so we can finish the job, I’ll give you thirty percent more. Someone will bring your cameras back to you. This will only take us a couple of days.”

  Bruno squared his shoulders. “You’re making a mistake. She has no experience…”

  “She has heart,” Georgette said, “and she’s not continually treating everyone like underlings. Can we keep the work you’ve done and borrow your cameras?”

  “No one uses my cameras.” Bruno began to pack up his things, but tossed Georgette several rolls of film.

  “It’s all right, Georgette,” Justine said with a smile. “There’s a photo studio in town. I’ll go talk to them. If I can get one good camera and a tripod, we’re in business.”

  Georgette raised an eyebrow. “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure. Fancy equipment is nice, but I can make do without it. I won the contest with a 35mm Minolta.”

  “This isn’t a contest,” Bruno argued, stacking his things by the door, “with a bunch of sympathetic judges wanting to give some wide-eyed newbie her big chance. This is business. If your photos aren’t superior, this ad campaign is going nowhere.”

  “Bruno, darling, you forget that I own the company,” Georgette said. “And I’m sure Justine’s going to do a brilliant job.” Georgette handed Prue her cell phone. “Call your sister’s cab and see if she can take Bruno and his cameras to the airport.”

  “I’ll drive him,” Justine said, “if I can use the van.”

  “I’d rather take the cab,” Bruno huffed.

  He was gone in ten minutes.

  Prue gave Justine the van keys Gideon had left on the dresser. “Go talk to the photo studio about a camera,” she asked. “If that doesn’t work, I know the woman who owns the Maple Hill Mirror. She might be able to help.”

  Justine nodded. “All right. Is it okay if I throw your name around?”

  Prue laughed. “The photographer’s wife did order my little black dress. Tell him she can have it for nothing if he’ll rent us his cameras.”

  “I’ll come along,” Georgette volunteered. “When subtle courtesy doesn’t work, I’ve learned to browbeat.”

  Prue was putting a load of laundry in the washer, Drifter sitting in front of the bathroom’s heating vent, when Gideon came home. He looked tired and hurt, as though all the wit and energy with which he usually bristled had been sucked out of him.

  They stood at opposite ends of the long living room, she with her arms full of towels. She opened her mouth to try to explain why she hadn’t told him about losing the baby, and simply couldn’t organize the thought. It had made sense once, but it didn’t seem to any longer.

  He raised both arms halfway in a gesture of helplessness.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, shocking her out of her speechlessness.

  “For what?” she asked, hugging the towels.

  He seemed surprised that she’d asked the question. “Because you lost the baby. Because it was probably the shock of opening the door and seeing Claudia with me that did it.”

  She was horrified that he seemed absolutely sincere. She tried to remember their conversation earlier, wondering what she’d said that had prompted him to believe the miscarriage was his fault. Then she recalled that she’d put forth the story that her stay in the hospital had been because of a nervous collapse, and she’d been happy to let him think he’d been responsible for that. But the miscarriage was another story.

  She tossed the towels into a corner and walked halfway toward him, stopping when he made no move toward her. “The miscarriage wasn’t your fault,” she insisted. “The doctor said that sometimes it just happens. That there was probably something wrong that would have been a problem later, and it’s best just to believe that nature knows what it’s doing.” Her throat tightened when she remembered how she’d felt hearing that. “It’s no comfort, of course. Nothing is. But I never considered you responsible.”

  He drew a breath that caught in his chest. He coughed and folded his arms. “I still feel responsible. We had a baby when you went to Maine, but when you left, we lost it.”

  “I never considered it your fault,” she said again, and took a few steps closer to him. He still made no move toward her. “In fact…I think a lot of the reason I didn’t tell you is that the miscarriage made me feel like a failure. As though I’d done something wrong that made me lose the baby. Maybe I shouldn’t have driven all that way. I didn’t feel well and I was tired.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” He dropped his arms and took a step toward her. “How can you blame yourself?”

  She shrugged, all that old guilt coming back, filling her eyes with tears and clogging her throat. “I guess when you can’t explain something bad, you try to blame somebody for it. And I was the one carrying her…”

  He took another step closer, his eyes darkening. “It was a girl?”

  “No.” She wrung her hands. “I don’t know. It was too soon to tell. I just felt it was a girl. She was Lisa. Princess Prue II.”

  He closed the gap between them and took her into his arms. She clung to him, crying out all the grief she’d borne alone at the time. The event was frighteningly fresh now as she explained it all to him, but his arms around her, the pain in his voice, somehow helped ease hers.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered again.

  “I know. I am, too.”

  IT DIDN’T SEEM to matter that
Prue had absolved him of guilt in the loss of their baby, or that Randy had tried to explain that it was often impossible to tell why a fetus was lost without warning. Gideon knew only that he’d had a child he hadn’t known about, and Prue had lost it after the shock of finding him with Claudia.

  He had to make up to Prue in some small way for all the heartache she’d endured alone. And at the moment, the only way he could do that was to help her with this ad campaign. If it was successful, she would have everything she’d ever wanted. She’d lived all of their married life devoted to his job as a New York State senator. The least he could do now was dedicate the next few days to her.

  He couldn’t see beyond that time. He couldn’t imagine them living in harmony the rest of their lives with the death of their child between them. So he pushed the future out of his mind and focused on the present.

  “Did you have something to eat?” he asked, leading her into the kitchen.

  “I wasn’t hungry,” she said, “but Georgette and Justine made French toast for themselves and Bruno. What about you? Want me to fix you something?”

  “I ate with Randy at the Barn,” he said, reaching into the refrigerator for the strawberries they’d bought the other day. “How about a bowl of berries? You always used to like that. With some yogurt?”

  “Okay.” She went to the cupboard for two bowls. “Did you call him?” she asked.

  He explained about running into him there as he poured the berries into a colander and washed them. “We commiserated about being married to the O’Hara sisters.”

  “Mmm.” She smiled, making a disgruntled sound. “He’s not even married yet and he’s complaining about Paris?”

  “Not at all,” he corrected, finding a knife, hulling the berries and cutting them up into the bowls. “He adores her. Where is everybody, incidentally? Where’s the van?”

  “Bruno’s on his way back to London,” she said with a wide grin. “Georgette fired him when he kept grumbling about you being gone. And she and Justine went to the photo studio to see if they could borrow some cameras so we can still shoot today.”

  “Aunt George fired Bruno because I was gone?”

  “Because he kept complaining that you were gone, even after I explained that we’d quarreled over something important and you needed time. Then Justine came to your defense, he climbed all over her, so Georgette fired him.” She spooned berry-flavored yogurt onto the strawberries. “It was glorious. You should have been here.”

  “So…Justine’s going to do the shoot?” He carried the bowls to the table and Prue followed with spoons.

  “Yes. And I bet she’ll do a great job. Georgette seems convinced she will.”

  “Well, good. Eat up so the color in those berries gets into your cheeks. You look a little pale at the moment.”

  She picked up her spoon, but looked at him with blue eyes dark with concern. “So you’ve forgiven me for not telling you about the miscarriage?”

  “It’s hard to blame you,” he said, “for anything that happened.”

  “Then we’re agreed that, though you worked too hard and I behaved like a princess, neither one of us is responsible for the loss of the baby?”

  He wasn’t agreed, but he didn’t want to do anything that would thwart the photo sessions.

  “Right,” he replied simply. Then he grinned at her to get rid of that frown on her forehead. “So eat, then do something about your hair. It’s scary.”

  She swatted his arm, but the frown line dissolved as she smiled. “Thank you. That’ll make me smile for the camera.”

  Drifter leaped up onto the table. Prue put him down on the floor, going to the cupboard to get his tuna.

  “How long does Drifter stay when he comes home?” she asked. “Did Hank say?”

  Gideon shook his head. “As long as he feels welcome, I guess. Isn’t that what keeps us all in place?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  GIDEON WASN’T FOOLING her for a minute. He was harboring bad feelings about this morning, and she couldn’t tell if he was angry at her, though he continually denied it, or if he was blaming himself despite her insistence that he shouldn’t. Something was wrong.

  All she could think to do was pretend as he was doing, probably for the sake of the shoot, that everything was all right. When she understood the problem, she could take more appropriate action.

  Justine and Georgette returned home with a camera, film and a tripod, and several other pieces of equipment the helpful Douglas Helm of Helm Portraits had refused to rent but allowed them to borrow. Georgette grinned broadly. “We’re on our way, and I’ll wager we won’t miss Bruno one bit.”

  They shot a Prudent Designs burgundy pantsuit in the Perk Avenue Tea Shop, Gideon also in a suit, studying a sheaf of papers between them on the table. The decadent stuffed croissants on their plates provided an interesting counterpoint to the “business meeting” set.

  Prue sat sideways at the table so that the suit was visible.

  “Put a little cream from the filling on her chin, Gideon,” Georgette advised, “then flick it off with your finger for the photo.”

  Gideon did as she suggested, teasing Prue in a whisper as he leaned closer to remove the cream with his index finger. “She obviously doesn’t know what a tidy eater you are. You’re the only one I know who can crack crab without a paper bib.”

  She’d forgotten about that. He was referring to a cookout at his family’s home when they’d been short one bib, and his father had tried to give her his because she’d been wearing a new white sundress. She’d refused, insisting that he had to protect the shirt she and Gideon had brought him back from their honeymoon in Hawaii. His mother had wanted to wrap a simple tea towel around her, but it had turned into a wager to see if she could get through the meal without spotting her dress.

  Gideon, she remembered, had put his money on her. “The princess,” he told his family, “never gets a spot on anything.”

  She’d won the bet, she recalled, and he’d rewarded her with a long night of lovemaking.

  She could see in his eyes that he was remembering the same thing.

  Georgette’s face suddenly appeared between them. “Shot’s over,” she said emphatically, as though this wasn’t the first time she’d said it. “It would save time if you two didn’t zone out to that place you go to every time you look into each other’s eyes. Up, up. We’re going into the kitchen.”

  “Did you clear that with the ladies?” Prue asked worriedly.

  “Got their approval while you were making googly eyes. Come on.”

  The four of them spent half an hour in the kitchen with Cecilia Proctor and Bridget Malone, the two sisters-in-law who owned the tea shop. They were middle-aged and lively, and ended up in several of the shots. They sent a box of pastries with them when they left.

  “How’s the camera working?” Georgette asked Justine as Gideon drove them into the Berkshires.

  “Beautifully,” Justine replied. “I think this whole thing is going to work.”

  Gideon drove an hour into the wooded hills until Georgette spotted an aesthetically perfect grouping of flame-leaved trees.

  “There!” she said, pointing to a grove of maples that were so beautifully shaped and colored they might have been placed there specifically for the purposes of Prudent Designs ad campaign.

  Gideon pulled off the road.

  Justine pointed to a low branch heavy with giant red and gold leaves. “We’ll put you right under that branch, Prue, so that it frames the top of the photograph.”

  Prue pulled the cloak on over the suit she still wore, while Georgette fussed with her hair. “Hair up or down?” she asked Justine.

  “We’ll do some of each. And hood up and hood down, so we can see what looks most dramatic.”

  “All right.”

  Gideon pulled on his alpaca overcoat and they went to stand together under the tree while Justine set up.

  “I’m thinking it’s a clandestine rendezvous,” Georgette said
. “Gideon’s come to rescue you from a cruel husband.” She pulled the hood up over the updo she still wore from the “business meeting” in the tea shop.

  Something flickered in Gideon’s eyes at the cruel-husband remark. Prue wasn’t sure what the look meant—a flare of guilt, maybe. Curiously, his insistence on being responsible for her miscarriage made her hurt for him as much as she hurt herself.

  “Paris said the cloak made her feel like a smuggler,” she told Georgette to distract him.

  Georgette flicked lint off her shoulder. “We’ve got a protective scenario going here, and it’s working. You can be a smuggler with a cruel husband, if you want.” She turned her attention to Gideon and pulled up the collar of his coat. “If you could re-create the look you had in your eye at the tea shop, that’d be good.” She stepped back and went to sight through the lens with Justine.

  “It’s going well even without Bruno, don’t you think?” Prue asked.

  Gideon nodded. “I do. And this is a breathtaking setting.” He looked around at the beauty of the trees against the bright blue sky, an afternoon wind blowing leaves all around them as though they were charmed. It reminded him of their place in Maine.

  “It makes me think of walking out the kitchen door of the summerhouse.” She looked wistful. “Remember when I dried all those leaves and made a mobile for the stairway that we left up all year?”

  He remembered that very well. They’d made love under it once on the landing. They’d been teasing about the first to use the shower and she’d taken off at a run for the upstairs bathroom, and he’d tackled her on the landing.

  A frown appeared between her eyes. “When was that?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What year of our marriage?”

  He had to think about that. “Ah…the last year, I think. It seems to me we were getting ready for a dinner party with the Watsons. And he worked with me on the budget crisis, which was in my last year.”

  Her gaze remained unfocused as she thought back.