A Stranger's Wife

by Maggie Osborne

  Feeling as if she were drowning, she glanced up at Westin. For a long moment they held each other’s gaze, then Lily looked down at the crystal glass she still clasped in her hand.

  There was no choice, and she knew it. But at the end of seven months, she would finally and truly be free, and then she could go to Rose. If she had to, she thought, wanting to weep, she supposed she could make herself wait another seven months to see her baby. And it appeared that she had to.

  “You knew from the beginning that I would agree to whatever you wanted rather than return to that hellhole,” she whispered. She didn’t dare look at either of them for fear they would see the hatred in her eyes and find an additional way to punish her.

  “Excellent,” Kazinski said. “You won’t regret your decision.”

  Her decision? She almost laughed. Silk-lined walls were no less a prison than adobe.

  When she could control her expression, she looked up at Westin, waiting for him to say something, but he didn’t. He leaned back on the coach seat, an ankle crossed over his knee, gazing at her with a stony frown.

  A light shiver traveled down her spine. It had been a long time since a man had studied her so intently or had looked at her as if trying to probe beyond her exterior.

  She watched his jaw tighten and release, tighten and release. And she wondered what had happened to his wife. Where was Miriam Westin? And just why had she disappeared?

  Chapter 2

  “Now that you’ve seen her, talked to her, what do you think?”

  “I think we’re sinking deeper into quicksand.” Before lighting an after-dinner cigar, Quinn rolled up his sleeves and opened his collar. Undoubtedly the heat was worse inside the house, where Lily Dale had remained. Perhaps she had retired to her room and stripped out of her heavy black prison clothing. An unwanted thought leapt into his mind as he narrowed his gaze on the low dunes rolling away from the house Paul had borrowed for their use tonight. Hating himself for wondering, he tried to guess if her hips and breasts could be as remarkably similar to Miriam’s as her face.

  Paul leaned back in a porch chair and crossed his ankles on top of the railing. “We can scrap the plan at any point before we publicly announce that Miriam has recovered from her illness. Until that moment, we’re not irrevocably committed.” He smoked in silence for several minutes. “Nothing has changed, Quinn. The reasons for replacing Miriam with a ringer remain valid. First, voters prefer a family man. Second, everyone knows you have a wife. Eventually you either have to produce Miriam or explain her absence. Do we really want anyone to learn what happened to her?”

  Quinn swore and fixed his eyes on the deepening darkness. “It would be a hell of a lot easier and cleaner simply to announce that Miriam did not recover from her illness. We arrange a funeral and go on from there.”

  “A sympathy vote might work in any election but this one. The first year of statehood will require a great many social events, and the candidate with a social wife will have an edge. That means we have to produce Miriam. If you bury Miriam before the election, you also bury your political chances. Without her, the party will drop you like a hot potato,” he finished flatly.

  Quinn turned the glass of whiskey between his fingers, then flexed his shoulders in a futile effort to ease the tension squeezing his spine. “Her table manners are atrocious. She stole the leftover bread and hid it in her pocket.”

  Lily Dale looked enough like Miriam to be her twin, but the two women had not inhabited the same world. The profound differences between them appalled and fascinated him.

  “Stealing food is a habit that will pass.” Paul rolled his cigar between his thumb and forefinger, studying the ash. “We have two months, Quinn, no more. After that, if we don’t produce Miriam, your wife’s continued absence will begin to raise questions and hurt your candidacy.”

  Quinn didn’t see how she could be ready in two months. “She’ll deceive people from a distance, but the minute she speaks . . .” He shook his head and pulled a hand down his jaw.

  “‘Ain’t’ is the biggest problem and easily eliminated.”

  “Her personality is nothing like Miriam’s.”

  Toward the end, Miriam had become silent and remote, but she had never been tough. Suspicion and boldness had not formed part of her character. And she had been too much the lady to express anger or outright opposition. In contrast, Lily had studied him throughout dinner with a burning gaze that revealed all too clearly her deep resentment and anger.

  “Lily isn’t a lady, and she never will be,” Paul commented, releasing a stream of smoke into the still, hot air. “But she’s smart enough to recognize eventually the opportunity she’s being offered, and clever enough to make it succeed for her and for us.” He paused. “This will work. People change. If someone mentions that Miriam doesn’t seem like herself, you nod and agree that tragedy and illness have changed her. Mention that she’s stronger in some ways, still confused and vulnerable in other areas.” He shrugged. “I’m convinced we can be successful.”

  “If the impersonation is ever exposed, we’re both ruined,” Quinn said, watching fireflies dance past the porch.

  “Then we have to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  Until today, Paul’s idea had been an interesting abstraction, but Lily Dale had suddenly become real when Quinn saw her snatch the supper rolls and stuff them into her pocket. She was a woman fresh out of prison with opinions and viewpoints colored by that experience. He couldn’t guess how her life experiences would impact on the success of the deception, and it worried him. He could imagine countless possibilities for disaster.

  There was something else that he hadn’t had time to consider thoroughly when Paul first proposed this plan. He and Lily Dale would be living together privately as well as publicly.

  Frowning, he shifted in the porch chair. Already he could see that she would be beautiful once the damage of the last five years began to fade. Living with her would be difficult and dangerous; he sensed that, too, because he was drawn to her, attracted by this strange new Miriam who did not acquiesce easily, Miriam with defiance and fire in those stunning lavender eyes. Miriam who was suddenly an interesting stranger.

  “Lily will emerge from the prison mentality very rapidly. She’ll understand that we aren’t going to punish her by withholding food. She’ll grasp that we won’t beat her or mistreat her, and the defensiveness and defiance will disappear.” Paul studied him with a thoughtful gaze. “The key to success is you. If you treat her exactly as you treated Miriam, any small doubts about Lily will fade.”

  Could he do that? Accept a stranger as his wife? Bitterness twisted his lips. Of course he could. At the end, Miriam had been a stranger. “How do you plan to accomplish the miracle of transformation?”

  “Clothing will create an immediate improvement. Senora Alvarez is taking her measurements now. We’ll telegraph the information to a seamstress in Santa Fe and another in Denver. The Santa Fe seamstress will have a small traveling wardrobe ready for Lily when we arrive. The Denver seamstress will begin at once to alter Miriam’s clothing. She’s already been informed that Miriam lost significant weight during her illness.”

  An expression of distaste pinched his face. “Must she wear Miriam’s clothing?”

  “Of course she must.”

  “It’s going to take more than a new wardrobe to make a lady out of Lily Dale.”

  “Agreed.” For the next half hour Paul detailed the steps necessary to transform Lily into a credible semblance of Miriam. “Finally, I’ll use every minute of our travel time to tutor her in etiquette and deportment. She’ll have approximately four weeks to acquire some polish.”

  Quinn’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re a man of unsuspected talents.”

  “I’ve been studying the subject,” Paul said with a laugh. Standing, he placed his hands against the small of his back and stretched. “You’re going to miss learning the etiquette of calling cards and how to manage the train of your ba
ll gown.”

  “We need to talk about that,” Quinn said after his grin faded. “Perhaps I should stay with you and Lily instead of returning to Denver.” He wasn’t entirely sold on this idea. It might be wise to stay so he could cancel the impersonation if it appeared to him that it couldn’t succeed.

  Paul shook his head. “I want her focused on learning to be a lady, and frankly you’ll only be a distraction. More importantly, you know you need to be in Denver. Do I need to remind you that you have two upcoming speeches, you’re on the committee drafting the new state constitution, there will be a hundred decisions to make in order to finish the rebuilding of your house, and there’s your law firm to attend to. You’ll have plenty of time to get acquainted with her later.”

  “Most likely I’ll go directly to the ranch. I can handle my obligations from there.”

  Paul shrugged and glanced at his pocket watch. “Speaking of speeches, I’ll have the corrected versions ready before we part company in Santa Fe.”

  Quinn remained on the porch after Paul went inside. Insects bumped against the lighted window behind him. The desert cacti had retreated to dark silhouettes that resembled men with their arms raised in surrender.

  He smoked in the darkness and contemplated the upcoming year and everything he hoped to accomplish. As the first governor of a newly created state, he would be faced with fascinating challenges. He would be the man who set Colorado’s direction and guided the new state through its infancy. If he did his job wisely and well, he’d earn a small place in history.

  It all hinged on winning the election. And for that, regardless of how he felt about it, he needed Lily Dale. But he didn’t need her through the inauguration as Paul insisted. Once he won the vote, Lily became expendable. The sooner he was rid of her, the better.

  Rubbing his neck, he stared into his empty whiskey glass. Lately it had become a game to try to pinpoint exactly when and how things had started to go wrong, and then to follow the chain to the present moment. Would Lily Dale improve his luck, or would she be the worst mistake yet? Swearing beneath his breath, he stood abruptly and entered the house, intending to refill his glass from the decanter in the library before he returned to the cooler air on the porch.

  He didn’t bother to light a lamp. Enough light fell through the library door to illuminate the decanters atop a cart near a wall of books. He filled his whiskey glass, replaced the decanter, and turned. That’s when he saw her.

  For one ghostly moment, he believed he was looking at Miriam, and he sucked in a sharp breath. She stood behind a high-backed chair as if she’d heard him approach and tried to hide.

  Damn it. She knew he’d seen her, now he had to talk to her.

  “I ain’t snooping. I came in here looking for a drink, same as you,” she said quickly, sounding sullen and defensive.

  The shadows were too deep at the edges of the room for Quinn to see her clearly, and he was glad. He swallowed a long drink of whiskey then glanced toward the door. “I have what I came for . . . good night, Miss Dale.”

  “I’d like permission to speak to you.”

  “You don’t need permission to speak.” This glimpse of her life made his chest tighten. “It’s cooler outside. Shall we?”

  When she stepped into the bar of light, he noticed she still wore the shabby mismatched suit provided by the prison, but she’d brushed out her hair and tied it at the neck. From there, it hung to her waist like a golden cord. Although the long strands were dull and dry, he was unaccustomed to seeing a woman with her hair down, and he found the sight annoyingly provocative.

  Turning away from her, he reached for the decanter. “I’ll pour you a glass of whiskey.”

  “Thank you.” A long pause suggested that she wasn’t accustomed to observing polite amenities.

  But her voice reminded him of Miriam’s when Miriam was coming down with a cold, husky and low-pitched. However, Miriam’s voice had possessed a tentative quality that Lily’s didn’t. Lips pressed in a tight line, he carried their drinks to the porch and set them on the table between two chairs.

  When she reached for the glass, passing her hand through the light from the window, he noticed ragged, torn fingernails.

  “That is so good,” she said with a sigh. Tilting her head, she gazed up at the stars. “We used to describe tastes and smells—it was a game we played occasionally to pass the time. I thought I remembered the taste of good whiskey, but I didn’t.” She hesitated. “I suppose I should ask if your wife liked whiskey?”

  “No.” Miriam had considered even the smell of whiskey unpleasant.

  “Too bad for Miriam,” she said after a moment of silence. “I guess she didn’t smoke either.”

  The image was so ludicrous that he almost laughed. Then he realized she was eyeing him with an expectant expression. “Are you saying you want a cigar?”

  “I wouldn’t refuse if one was offered.”

  He reminded himself that she was not Miriam, and therefore her request should not surprise him. Removing a cigar from the silver case in his jacket pocket, he clipped and lit it before he passed it to her. She inhaled deeply, then released a stream of smoke with a small sound of pleasure.

  “Who does this house belong to?”

  “The name of the owners doesn’t matter,” he said, unwilling to impart information that she didn’t need to know. “The important issue is privacy. Right now, you wouldn’t be mistaken for Miriam. That will change by the time you leave Santa Fe. After Santa Fe, you and Paul will stay in hotels. If you’re remembered, it won’t matter then. In the press release, it will be mentioned that Paul fetched you back to Denver.”

  “Where will you be? Won’t you be with us?” Her lavender eyes studied him above the rim of her glass as she took another sip, but she dropped her gaze when he looked at her.

  “I’ll leave you and Paul in Santa Fe and take the stage straight through to Denver. You’ll follow in the private coach at a more comfortable pace. Paul needs time to teach you the things you need to know.”

  She nodded and her lips tightened. “So which of you is the boss? Do I take orders from you or from Mr. Kazinski?”

  It was an interesting query. It also wasn’t the real question. “Either Paul or myself can scrap this plan at any time. That’s what you’re asking, isn’t it?”

  “I want to know which of you bastards can send me back to prison. Who do I have to please?”

  “You have to learn a role and play it well enough to convince people who knew her that you’re Miriam. If you do that, you’ll please us both,” he said sharply. At this moment, watching her draw on the cigar, he held serious doubts as to the possibility of success.

  “Next question. What am I supposed to call you?”

  “In public, you’ll refer to me as your husband, Mr. Westin.” His tongue formed the words with repugnance. “You may call me Quinn in private.”

  For the moment at least, it appeared her questions were answered. Although it didn’t seem to trouble her to smoke and sip her whiskey in silence, her simmering resentment made him uncomfortable.

  “Have you been to Denver?” His inclination was to leave her and go inside, but he would have to live with this woman. Surely they could find something to say to each other.

  “No.”

  “The city’s growing rapidly. At last count the population had reached about eighteen thousand.” When she didn’t comment, he ground his teeth, then continued talking. “Denver sprang up near the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte River. The most distinguishing features are the mountains west of town.”

  He couldn’t tell if she was interested or even if she was listening. She kept her face turned away from him, gazing out at the starlit desert, watching their cigar smoke slowly dissipate.

  “Are you always this quiet?” If so, then he’d finally discovered something she had in common with Miriam.

  “We were punished for talking without permission.”

  “Prison reform is part of m
y campaign platform. Someday I’d like to hear about your prison experiences.”

  “Well, you ain’t going to. I don’t want to think about that time ever again.”

  Trying to talk to her was like attempting to push a boulder up a steep hill. “As you wish.” Frowning at the darkness, he searched for a new topic. “Did you have an attorney at your trial?”

  “Why do you care?”

  He had already noticed that she looked for traps in every question. “I’m an attorney,” he explained, speaking through his teeth. “I’m interested in trials.”

  When she turned to stare at him, the light from the window lit her cheekbone and the tip of her chin, sharpening the gaunt contours, calling his attention to how painfully thin she was. For an instant he experienced a disorienting conviction that he was looking at Miriam after a long and wasting illness.

  Her stunning resemblance to his wife kept him off-balance, made him believe he knew this woman when he didn’t.

  “You don’t look like a lawyer,” she said at length. “You look like a cowboy.”

  Her comment made him smile and relax a little. “I own a ranch outside Denver. Presently I’m winding down my affairs at the firm. Once I win the election, I’ll close the firm’s doors.”

  “Oh. Well Cy and I had a lawyer all right, but it didn’t do any good. He was in the judge’s pocket.”

  He disliked assumptions of that sort and was tempted to say so, but decided against provoking her. “I’m sorry your husband was hanged,” he said instead, noticing that she crossed her legs at the knee instead of at the ankle. Paul had his work cut out for him.

  A soft sigh dropped her shoulders. “Cy wasn’t any good. He deserted from the army. Lied when the truth was better. Stole things he didn’t even have a use for. It didn’t bother him to shoot a man in the back.” She hesitated, then her chin came up. “But he did one good thing. He gave me Rose.”