Fiona Hood-Stewart - Southern Belle

“You spend the night in my arms then walk out as cool as you please to a date with your ex? Oops, I forgot, you’re still married to the man. Perhaps you never meant to leave him? I can assure you that from where I was standing the two of you looked awfully cozy.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“I happened to walk into the Palace Hotel at lunchtime today. Unless I’m much mistaken, you were on a sofa by the window of the lounge smiling at someone who was kissing your hand. You didn’t seem too upset about it.”

She drew back, shocked at just how angry he was. “Harlan came here to try and persuade me to return to Savannah—he’s worried that my absence makes him look bad. I told him that wasn’t an option right now. We had lunch and now he’s leaving again.”

“Do I look stupid, I wonder?” Johnny asked conversationally, hands stuffed in the pockets of his corduroys.

“No, you look jealous,” she retorted, matching his tone. “And with no reason to be.”

“Jealous? Ha! That’s a good one. Why on earth would I be jealous? After all, we’re just having a holiday fling, aren’t we?”

“Yes. I suppose we are,” she replied quietly, looking him straight in the eyes.

“If that’s what you really feel, then I agree wholeheartedly,” he responded stiffly.

Also by FIONA HOOD-STEWART

SILENT WISHES

THE LOST DREAMS

THE STOLEN YEARS

THE JOURNEY HOME

Look for the latest novel by

FIONA HOOD-STEWART

SAVANNAH SECRETS

www.mirabooks.co.uk

To Carter Parsley,

the other Southern Belle

With love

Many thanks to all those who have helped me while writing this book. To Remer and Susan Lane, Howard and Mary Morrison, Remer and Christina Lane and Fran Garfunkel of Savannah, Georgia, for their generous hospitality and helpful input. To Bill Riley for the reference to the Samovar, which he told me over dinner at a castle in Switzerland, and last but not least to those whom I share my life with and who patiently bear with my writing every day: John, Sergio and Diego. As always my thanks to my editor Miranda Stecyk and the team: Dianne Moggy, Amy Moore-Benson and Donna Hayes.

Part I Part I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Part II

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Part III

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Part IV

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Epilogue

The much awaited rain—the rain everyone had been praying for, because the drought had been so bad—poured heavily down in doleful drops, battering the roof, dripping from the tiles and the gutters, past the windows of the wide, netted porch, before streaming relentlessly onto the grass. Within a few hours the yellowing lawn was nothing but a broad, soggy puddle stretching down to the Ogeechee River, giving the plantation’s freshly planted gardens an abandoned, almost forlorn look.

Curled in the rocker in the enclosed section of the porch that had once served as the nursery, Elm MacBride stared blindly out the window, her fingers tweaking the tiny red shutters of the well-worn dollhouse that dated back to the turn of the century. Only a week earlier she’d sat in this very spot, begging for rain. Old Ely—whose great-granddaddy was the trusted slave who’d helped her ancestors save the Hathaway family fortunes by stashing gold in the plantation’s well—had talked about it day after day for a month, how the land was too dry, how the garden so desperately needed it. Yet now, as she stared at the rivulets tracing irregular patterns down the windowpanes, her mind overflowing with the bewildering events of the past few days, the rain seemed strangely irrelevant.

What did seem relevant was just how blind she’d been—how profoundly dim-witted and completely oblivious to the affair her husband had apparently carried on right under her nose. She shifted restlessly, still trying to assimilate Harlan’s betrayal—and the fact that he’d had the gall and total lack of sensitivity to drag her through the humiliation of adultery within their own circle. She swallowed a suffocating rush of shame and frustration and brutally reminded herself that she’d needed a snide remark from the woman her husband was sleeping with before she’d realized what was going on.

The corner of the tiny shutter dug into her palm and she drew her tense hand quickly away from the miniature house and its many memories. In her anger, she’d almost crushed it. Taking a deep breath, she straightened her stiff shoulders and blinked. That Harlan had taken a mistress was inexcusable. But worse, she reflected, cringing, was learning that he didn’t care that she knew.

At first, just thinking of him in bed with Jennifer Ball, her all-time nemesis since play school, had left her feeling physically sick. Then, once she’d mastered the nausea that rose in her throat after hearing Jennifer mention blithely at the tennis club that Harlan was “a great fuck,” she’d carefully finished her lunch, signed the club voucher and driven back to their town house, determined to confront him.

She’d found Harlan in the bedroom, straightening his tie in the gilt mirror above the mantelpiece. Their eyes met in it before he turned, checked his cuff links and prepared to leave for his congressional office.

“Hey,” he’d murmured noncommittally, the practiced smile not reaching his eyes.

“Hey.” Elm had felt strangely nervous, as though the man before her was a stranger and not her husband of twelve years. She’d watched, disbelieving, as he’d stood, arrogantly at ease by the pocket windows, and chitchatted as if nothing were amiss, when surely Jennifer had called him, crowing about her run-in with his stupid wife. He’d even remarked that they were expected for dinner at the Thomas-Leighton house that evening, to please not forget to send flowers; the same things he always remarked upon in that slightly cynical, somewhat patronizing tone she’d become used to.

Elm had watched as he’d picked up his briefcase, bereft of speech, desperately trying to summon up the feverish flood of abuse—so alien to her nature it frightened her—that she’d prepared on the drive home, and been ready to hurl at him.

But the words just wouldn’t come.

Then, before she could gather herself, he’d flashed her a calculated smirk—one that said he knew she knew, but also that he doubted she had the guts to do anything about it—and left the room before she could find the language to hold him back, to ask him why. But the message couldn’t have been clearer: he expected her to ignore what had happened and get back to being a dutiful wife.

And there was the crux of the matter, she realized bitterly, gripping the well-worn arms of the old chair and rocking rhythmically. It wasn’t so much Harlan going to bed with another woman—though that had hurt dreadfully—particularly as it was only six weeks since she’d subjected herself to one last, unsuccessful in vitro fertilization treatment. Or that their sex life—the one area of her tottering marriage she’d desperately wanted to believe had remained intact—was clearly a sham. It was the knowledge, the glaring recognition, that the man she’d known for as long as she could remember had little or no respect for her.