Carolyn McSparren - The Wrong Wife

“I see nothing wrong with that. Besides, I do have passion.”

“I’m not only talking about making love.” Elizabeth looked him square in the eye. “I’m talking about fighting and demanding and making wild love and driving one another nuts. Your ice princesses don’t incite that kind of passion, do they?”

“God, I hope not!” Ben laughed. “If my ice princess and I both know the score going in, we’ll never drive each other crazy.”

“Boring!”

“I know it’s not the life you want for me, Mother, but it’s all I’m capable of. Something broke inside me when Judy was killed. So now I intend to marry a woman who fits into my life-style, has the same goals, the same ambitions, the same views of life. Someone who doesn’t need the part of me that isn’t there any longer. In short, a partner and a friend.”

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “Job description—one suitable wife. Must be tall, thin, blond, rich, socially adept and completely self-sufficient. Applicants must apply in person.”

“If you like.”

“I don’t like, darling, but it’s your life.” She waved an elegantly manicured hand toward the front door at the end of the marble entry hall. “Are you making a job offer to the one I’m about to meet?”

“Maybe. She fits your description. Plus Brittany is Phi Beta Kappa, has a career she enjoys and is very good at, and would make an excellent public servant’s wife.”

“She sounds like a gorgon.”

“She’s a wonderful girl.”

“So why haven’t I met her before now?”

“Because I didn’t want to put pressure on either one of you. That’s why she’s coming over this afternoon. She really does need a dress for the Steamboat Ball, and she loves your antique lace.”

“Does she know how much one of my dresses costs? Particularly one designed to look like an 1880 riverboat costume. And I assume she wants it to look modern enough for her to wear after the costume ball.”

“Money’s no problem. Although I did hope you’d cut her a deal because your poor starving son is only a lowly assistant district attorney.”

“Of course Mommy will be nice to the gorgon, darling. After all, I don’t have to live with her. Nor with you, thank God.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’d hit you over the head with an ice hammer to try to break through to the fallible human being.”

“I will probably be the next D.A. when Phil’s judgeship comes through next month. I have to be above reproach if I’m going to win the election on my own at the end of this term.”

“So your wife must be above reproach too. Have you sicced a private detective on her to see whether there are any skeletons in her closet?”

“Of course not.”

The bell on the front door bonged. Elizabeth stood and smoothed both her skirt and her face and pasted on her professional smile. As Ben followed her to the door, she said quietly, “You’re tempting fate, darling. One of these days, love is going to jump up and bite you. You can’t hide away forever.” She opened the door. “Brittany, how nice to meet you,” She held out her hand. “I’m Elizabeth Jackson. Ben has told me so much about you.”

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Ben wandered around the big living room that his mother had converted to a showroom for her antique lace dresses. His mother and Brittany sat side by side on the love seat. All he could see was the backs of their heads. They twittered and turned the pages of Elizabeth’s display books, while she made quick sketches on the artist’s pad in her lap.

He knew both women were making an effort to like one another because of him.

But nothing could alleviate the boredom of listening to the endless snatches of clothes conversation. He drove his hands deeper into the pockets of his chinos and sighed deeply.

“That’s enough,” Elizabeth said, looking up. “Go away, Ben. You’re driving us both nuts.”

Brittany flashed him a radiant smile. “Sweetie, I know this is boring for you. Why don’t you go to the club and have a drink. I’ll call you from the car when I leave.”

“Better yet,” Elizabeth said, “go talk to Marian in the workroom.” She flicked a hand toward the back of the house. “Everybody else has already gone home, but she hasn’t seen you in months, and I’ve got a new chef d’atelier straight from an upscale Seventh Avenue house in New York. At the moment, she’s helping with everything from ordering materials to sewing, but if I could keep her, I’d turn her into a designer. She’s very good. Introduce yourself if she’s there. Think of it as practice for vote gathering.”

“Well…”

“Go. Shoo.”

He’d spent many afternoons after school studying upstairs in the workroom, when his mother was just starting to turn a profit with her antique-lace creations and before his life shut down.

Marian Wadsworth was more like an aunt than his mother’s employee. She’d even tried unsuccessfully to teach him the fundamentals of sewing. His hands were too big and too clumsy. But she’d been endlessly patient.

And he had been remiss not to keep in closer touch.

He took the back stairs two at a time. The rubber matting deadened his footsteps. He would surprise her.

He tiptoed across the landing to the baize-covered door to the attics, long since converted to work space for his mother’s designs. He took a deep breath, grasped the knob, turned it silently, flung open the door, spread his arms and shouted, “Maid Marian, it’s Robin Hood returned from the Crusades. Come and kiss me!”

“Are you nuts?”

Ben only had time to glimpse an infuriated female face before the woman dropped to the floor.

“Damn and blast! You’ve made me spill the paillettes!”

At that point, all he could see was a well-rounded upturned bottom in black leggings.

“Don’t just stand there, get down here and help me dig these things out of the cracks in the floor.”

“I-I’m sorry,” Ben stammered. “I thought Marian was here.”

“Well, she’s not. I am. She’s gone to get some more blue paillettes.” The woman at his feet was picking up small flat disks of what looked like blue glass. “Ah, gotcha!” she said, and held up one of the shards. “Are you going to help or not?”

Ben dropped onto his haunches. A completely unruly mass of chocolate curls fell over the woman’s face. Her fingers were workmanlike with short, unvarnished nails. He slid one of the fragments of blue from a crack and handed it to her. “Here.”

“Lovely. That only leaves about fifty more. We’ll never find them all.”

She sat back on her heels, pushed her hair off her face and turned to frown at him. She peered over horn-rim half glasses and said, “Ben. Of course it would be you.”

Her eyes were the color of dark Barbados rum.

He sucked in his breath and felt suddenly as though he were Butch Cassidy in the last scene of the movie. Everything had turned golden. The world tilted into slow motion.

“Close your mouth, Ben Jackson. You look like a dead carp.”

He tried to snap his mouth shut, but only succeeded in gulping. “Uh…wha…who?”

“You don’t even recognize me. Par for the course.”

He wanted to say, “You look edible, luscious, wild and sexy and dangerous and crazy and I want you.”

“Uh, familiar” is what he said. He controlled his libido—it didn’t control him. Or never had, until now. Then the penny dropped. “Annabelle? Annabelle Langley?”

He heard the door open behind him. “Ben! Belle! Why are you two crawling around on the floor?”

He tore his eyes away, and reached a hand back to Marian as though she were offering him a lifeline.

“Get up, Ben, you’ll get filthy,” Marian Wadsworth said.