by Wendy Wax
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
MINUTES AFTER HUNTER’S EXIT, THANKSGIVING at Bellewood came to an end.
“I’m so sorry,” Samantha said repeatedly as she walked Edward, Brooke, and Claire out to their car. “I had no idea. I . . . I’m so sorry!”
They looked at her numbly. Equally numb, she stood on the brick drive and watched them drive away. When she came back inside Zora and Doris were clearing the table. Cynthia had retired to her room with a headache. Only Jonathan remained.
“I can’t believe this,” Samantha said. “Edward barely looked at me. Claire and Brooke didn’t say a word.”
“Everyone’s in shock right now,” Jonathan said. “I’m sure this can be sorted out.”
“But how?” She was practically wringing her hands. “I told Hunter we wouldn’t bail him out anymore. But reimbursing the investors wouldn’t be bailing him out, would it? It would be protecting them from him.”
“It’s not your place to fix this,” Jonathan said. “Hunter’s an adult. And so are the people who gave him money. You’re not responsible for his every move.”
“But you know he misled them. Oh, God, I asked Edward to take him on.” The words rushed out in a torrent of guilt. “I put him in Brooke and Claire’s path. That makes me responsible. But I don’t know what to do.”
“Normally, I’d say we could simply buy out anyone who thought they were investing in Private Butler and doesn’t want to leave their money with Hunter,” Jonathan said. “But . . .” He hesitated. “We don’t actually have the cash to do that right now.”
She looked up at him so quickly she was lucky she didn’t give herself whiplash. These were words she’d never heard cross his lips. “What? What did you say?”
He hesitated again but finally spoke. “A lot of our and the firm’s money is tied up in real estate. Real estate values here are still in the toilet. A lot of people, including a lot of our clients, have been wiped out.” He offered it as a simple statement of fact, but she saw the tick in his cheek. The tension in his body.
“But you never said anything.” She could hear the shock in her voice. And what sounded a lot like fear. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to worry you. After what happened with your parents . . . well, I’ve always known how important financial security is to you.” He didn’t add that he knew that was why she’d married him, but then he didn’t have to. “It’s not that we don’t have money,” he said. “It’s just that we aren’t liquid at the moment.”
The comment and the burst of remembered panic that followed it brought her up sharp. What was she doing? Before the meal she’d been hurt and furious at how he’d thrown her gratitude in her face and then left her to stew like some badly behaved child. Now, at the first hint of trouble she’d turned to him just like that child. Just like she always did.
She forced herself to meet his eyes. He was watching her carefully, his blue eyes intent, looking for something from her that he once again refused to name. She dropped her eyes under his regard, trying to still the panic. She was no longer the twenty-one-year-old girl who’d found herself suddenly parentless, saddled with her parents’ debt and responsible for her brother and sister, but those same feelings coursed through her. When she raised her eyes again his were shuttered.
Was it something she’d said? Or something she hadn’t?
She’d arrived at Bellewood praying for some sort of resolution between them but things had only grown more complicated. Her mind swam with uncertainty, robbing her of the ability to think. How could she right things with Jonathan when he wouldn’t even tell her what was wrong? How could she think about her marriage while she was frantically trying to grapple with how to save her friends from her brother?
“I need to go home.” She held her breath wondering—hoping—if he would ask her to wait while he went to get his things.
“I guess I’ll stay here,” he said, his tone making it clear that she had, in fact, failed some sort of test. “I’ll be tied up in meetings for most of the next couple of weeks, coming and going at odd hours. If I stay in the guest wing I won’t bother anybody.” He said this as if it were a logical reason to stay at Bellewood rather than in their home with her.
She wanted to argue but her heart was too heavy, her panic too real. Weak-kneed, she retrieved her purse, went into the kitchen to thank Doris and Zora, then returned to where he stood at the door. “Please give your mother my thanks for the meal and for inviting my . . . friends.” She would not utter the word “former” though she was afraid that’s what they were.
With her marriage in tatters and lacking the funds to make things up to Edward and the others, she drove home, pulled on her most comfortable pajamas, and crawled into bed. Where she spent a sleepless night trying to understand how she’d lost her husband, tallying the number of people Hunter had wounded, and shivering from guilt for introducing her brother, the financial terrorist, into an unsuspecting crowd.
* * *
SAMANTHA GAVE HERSELF THE HOLIDAY WEEKEND to wallow. But on Monday when Michael buzzed to be let up for their morning workout she couldn’t seem to stop. Feigning illness, she lay there for most of the week ignoring the phone and the doorbell until she was no longer pretending but felt sick in every sense of the word. Sick with disappointment in her brother and in herself for doing such a pitifully poor job of raising him. Sick with remorse for letting him loose on people she’d come to think of as friends. Sick with fear and regret that her husband was finally in town and yet she felt farther from him than when they’d been on opposite ends of the country.
When the phone and doorbell finally stopped ringing, Samantha lay on her bed in the silent apartment staring at the ceiling, the wall, the carpet. Even getting to the kitchen felt like wading through quicksand.
On the rare occasions when she got hungry she ordered pizza or Italian food delivered.
With no outside stimuli her brain consumed itself with questions it could not answer. How could she force Hunter to fix the mess he’d made? How might she make things up to Claire, Brooke, and Edward? And what in the world was she supposed to do about Jonathan?
Her brain shut down completely on this last question, unsure whether her marriage was repairable and unable to even imagine trying until she’d fixed the damage that Hunter had done.
On Sunday evening the front door opened and footsteps sounded in the foyer. Jonathan came into the bedroom. He settled his large frame on the chaise. She could see the firmjawed resolve on his face. His eyes were flat and dark as if someone had drained both color and emotion out of them. “It’s been ten days, Samantha. You can’t just lie there indefinitely.”
She stared at him mutely. Waiting to see if he might try to snap his fingers and command her to feel better. And if so, whether it might work.
“I just came to pick up another suit. I have to fly up to Boston for a few days.”
She looked more closely at him, trying to tell if this was more than it sounded.
“I’ll be back on Thursday.” He answered her unspoken question. “Don’t you think you should at least go to the screening tonight?”
She might have laughed but for the energy required. She could just imagine the looks on Edward, Brooke, and Claire’s faces if she showed hers in the clubroom. And what about Mimi Davenport? She winced at the memory of Hunter’s nasty imitation of the older woman. Which hadn’t prevented him from taking her money. Isabella would be unlikely to waste a syllable of her accent on the sister of the man who’d conned her out of what little she’d had. She simply couldn’t face them until she at least had a plan for getting them their money back.
“I spoke to Edward,” Jonathan said. “I’ve offered to look at the contracts Hunter’s investors signed. But I’m not hopeful. One of the few details Hunter paid attention to over the years is the importance of tying up loopholes.”
He considered her and she had a horrible vision of what she must look like. Not that her excessive grooming e
fforts before Thanksgiving had made one whit of difference.
“If we could get Hunter and Edward to talk, there might be room for some sort of compromise.” His voice was that of an attorney laying out a possible scenario. His face was composed. His eyes were . . . she wasn’t sure since she was having such a hard time meeting them.
“It’s not up to you to swoop in and fix this,” Samantha said. Her voice sounded rusty with disuse. “I’m the one who has to make this right.”
“It’s kind of hard to do that from bed.” It was a simple statement of fact. “If you do manage to get up, maybe you can locate the woman I married.”
But wasn’t that the problem? Hadn’t he said he didn’t want that woman or her gratitude?
She turned her head to the wall and squeezed her eyes shut. This was not the time to respond to that question or to dissect their marriage. She couldn’t even let herself think about it until she figured out how to make things right. If only she knew how.
They didn’t speak again while he pulled the suit from the closet and filled a small suitcase. She lay there in silence as he walked out of the room and let himself out.
* * *
EDWARD STOOD AT THE CLUBROOM DOOR JUST after ten p.m. that Sunday night saying good night to the last of that week’s Downton Abbey audience.
“Are we all set then, sir?” Isabella’s accent had become so flawless that Edward sometimes had to remind himself that her last name was Morales and that she’d never left the continental United States. “Yes, Isabella. Thank you. You and James may clean up and go.”
“I can’t hardly believe there’s only one more program of the second season left,” she replied as she deposited the plastic glassware in the trash can.
“I know,” Edward said. “Plus a Christmas show.”
“Will there be a holiday party around it like you said, sir?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied, watching James shrug out of the livery jacket. Edward’s holiday spirit was sorely lacking. He simply couldn’t come to terms with how completely everything tied to Private Butler, including Edward’s own reputation, had been tarnished by Jackson’s machinations. Nor could Edward believe how completely he’d underestimated the younger man’s destructive streak.
As if movement might help him dodge his thoughts, he moved about the clubroom, picking up bits of garbage and checking that no personal possessions had been left behind. Edward had called all of his customers to apologize and to explain what had happened. Those who’d invested with Jackson—and he’d been horrified to discover how many of them there were—were shocked and angry. Even Mrs. Davenport had shaken an arthritic finger at him after last week’s screening and asked him what he intended to do about it.
Legally, it appeared, the answer was “nothing.” Which was, of course, completely unsatisfactory.
Out in the hallway he found Claire Walker and Brooke Mackenzie talking near the elevator. It seemed almost strange to see them without Samantha Davis, whom he’d seen no sign of since Thanksgiving.
“Ladies.” He nodded and smiled, though he suspected his was no more convincing than theirs. He bit back yet another apology.
“We were wondering, Edward, whether there was any way that our money could end up invested in Private Butler like we wanted it to be,” Claire Walker said.
He met both women’s eyes and then wished that he hadn’t. It was bad enough that wealthy people like Jim Culp and Mr. Fitson had been conned; even Mrs. Davenport would not be bankrupted by the loss. But these two women and Isabella and James . . . He couldn’t believe Hunter Jackson had gone after such tiny fish.
“I really don’t see how,” he said. He no longer knew whether Jackson would have ever turned investor money over to fund Private Butler’s growth under Edward’s direction. Or if it had been a scam from the beginning. “I have consulted with Jonathan Davis, but it doesn’t look encouraging.”
“But what if . . .” Claire began.
“I’m truly sorry,” he said, meaning it. “As far as I know Jackson intends to use that money to build a competing concierge business.” He still couldn’t believe the man thought he could compete after six weeks in the business. But then there was a lot about Hunter Jackson he didn’t understand. “Maybe his sister has some idea of his plans,” he said. “Perhaps you should speak to Samantha about it.”
Claire snorted.
“We would,” Brooke said. “If she’d return any of our calls.”
“Yeah,” Claire added. “I guess the whole friendship thing was a joint figment of our imaginations.”
Edward reached out to push the elevator call button. “I never had that sense,” he said. “I’ve always liked Samantha; I think there’s quite a lot of warmth beneath the polish.” The elevator arrived and he prepared to step on. “But then I’ve good reason to question my powers of perception. My ability to size up people and their intentions has certainly fallen far short of the mark.”
Claire resettled her purse strap on her shoulder. “It seems pretty clear that our investments aren’t going to double and triple like Hunter promised. I just hope the money won’t be completely lost.”
The reminder of Jackson’s potshot promises was one more fist to the gut. The whole thing was a bloody nightmare. He stepped onto the elevator and held down the “door open” button. “I’ll do whatever I can to work you both into the schedule,” he said. “But I’m not at all sure how many hours I’ll have to offer.” He didn’t yet know how many clients he’d ultimately lose over the whole investment scam. Or how badly Jackson’s company, if in fact he actually formed one, would impact Private Butler’s bottom line.
Late that night or more accurately, early the next morning, when he was still unable to sleep, Edward dialed England and caught his great-uncle Mason over morning tea.
“Aren’t you the early bird?” his great-uncle asked.
Edward caught a glimpse of himself in a nearby mirror, unshaved face, bleary eyes and all. “I look a bit more like the boogeyman at the moment. Or Frankenstein’s monster come to life.”
“Still broodin’ on the whole financial fiasco, are you?” Mason asked.
“I think brooding might be an understatement. I’m so angry I can hardly see straight. And I keep thinking there must be something I can do.”
Edward heard the sound of a spoon against china and the creak of a chair. He could picture his great-uncle in the cozy cottage kitchen that opened onto his tiny garden. Julia Bardmoor surfaced briefly in this vision and he allowed himself to wonder why he’d turned being a concierge into the goddamned Holy Grail. Just like Downton Abbey’s Carson and even Mrs. Hughes, he’d given everything up in the service of others. How could he let all those sacrifices be for naught?
“You know, lad,” Mason said breaking into Edward’s thoughts. “I’ve been thinking. The boy’s methods are reprehensible. Completely beyond the pale. But perhaps it’s time to open your mind as I’ve been urging. Allowing others to invest in Private Butler—especially satisfied clients—might not be so far off the mark.”
Edward pondered this as he stared out his bedroom window into an inky patch of night sky. He wasn’t sure why he’d been so adamant about refusing money to grow his business, but it was becoming clear that if he stuck to the course he’d charted, he could end up with far less than he’d hoped for and on a path only wide enough for one.
But no matter what he’d once thought, he couldn’t simply stand by and allow his clients to be hurt because he couldn’t set aside his pride.
* * *
IN THE END IT WAS CYNTHIA DAVIS WHO FORCED Samantha out of the apartment. She did so with an unexpected and well-placed kick to the butt.
Samantha was standing in the kitchen eating cold spaghetti and meatballs out of a plastic foam container for breakfast and replaying Claire and Brooke’s final agonizing messages for what might have been the fifth time, when she heard a key turn in the lock.
She froze. Stopped chewing. Looked down. She was
wearing her oldest, most stretched-out pajamas and a mismatched pair of Jonathan’s wool hunting socks. Her hair had been pulled up into a scrunchie two or three days ago. Which was the last time she’d washed—or even looked at—her face. She considered and rejected several escape plans. It was Thursday, the day Jonathan had said he’d be back from Boston. But it was only ten a.m. Her heart skidded in her chest. What if he’d come back early to have things out? Or to tell her he was leaving for good? She wasn’t anywhere close to ready for that conversation. But if it were going to happen, she couldn’t let it happen while she looked like this.
Turning, she hunched forward and began to tiptoe through the kitchen toward the family room. From there she might be able to make it to one of the back bedrooms or bathrooms without being seen.
“There you are.” The voice caught her mid-tiptoe. It wasn’t the voice she’d been expecting. “Trying to scurry back into your little mouse hole I see.”
Samantha straightened and turned. She held the container of spaghetti and meatballs in one hand, and a sauce-smeared fork in the other as she faced her mother-in-law.
Cynthia held the key that Jonathan had given her years ago in case of emergency. “I’ve never used it,” she said, dangling the key from its gold fob. “But I think this”—she looked Samantha up and down—“qualifies as an emergency, don’t you?”
When Samantha didn’t answer Cynthia dropped the key and her purse on the counter. She stepped right up to Samantha and removed the fork and the container from Samantha’s hands, then laid them in the sink. “You look like hell.” It was a simple statement of fact. “Sit down.” She pointed to the kitchen table, then added, “There are a few things I want to say to you.”
The pajamas somehow made resistance seem futile. Unsure what else to do, Samantha sat.
“As you know, I’ve never really understood why Jonathan insisted on marrying you,” Cynthia said. “But then I was very angry with your parents at the time.”
