A Stranger's Wife

by Maggie Osborne

  Quinn’s office door opened and closed, and he inhaled the memory-provoking scent of forget-me-nots. When he turned in his chair, Lily had hitched up her skirts and perched herself on the edge of his desk. Leaning, she flipped open his humidor and withdrew a cigar.

  “I haven’t had a smoke since you left us in Santa Fe,” she said, tossing Paul a defiant glance.

  Her hair had regained its gloss and shine, and she wore it in an elaborate arrangement of blond curls that dropped over her right shoulder. It didn’t concern her that a froth of petticoats were exposed when she crossed her legs or that she displayed several inches of trim ankles.

  Quinn watched with fascination. Like a chameleon, she had changed again. The genteel lady who had emerged from the coach had become a hoyden. But he understood this, too, was a performance. She had shown him her version of a lady, exaggerating the downcast eyes and gliding steps; now she showed him an exaggerated version of herself.

  She inhaled, then blew a smoke ring into the air before she looked at him, her gaze flicking to his lips. Then her eyes narrowed and she glanced at Paul.

  “All right, gents. No more stalling.”

  “Gentlemen, not gents,” Paul said automatically, frowning at her cigar.

  “The time has come to talk about Miriam. I want to know who she is and what happened to her.” She stared at Quinn, and the light shining up from his desk lamp illuminated her eyes and the determination stiffening her chin. “We’ve put this off long enough. Either we talk about Miriam now, or I’m leaving for Missouri in the morning.” Leaning her head back, she blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling. “So talk, cowboy.”

  Chapter 6

  “Keep your voice down,” Paul warned sharply, glancing at the door. “Threatening to leave is unnecessary and damned annoying. The plan was always to turn you into a lady first, and then into Miriam.”

  “Well now’s the time for the Miriam part,” Lily repeated, watching the lines deepen on Quinn’s craggy forehead. His mouth thinned, and his stare was as dangerously flinty as a rock cliff. He had a way of looking at her as if he saw inside, and his gaze sent a light shiver down her spine as he removed his jacket and slowly rolled up his sleeves. The muscles in his forearms swelled, and she knew he was angry.

  Obviously, she disturbed him in complex ways. As he did her. When he’d kissed her, she had felt his arousal and a corresponding leap of desire that shook her to her toes. He hadn’t intended to kiss her, that had been an accident. But the instant his mouth took hers, he’d wanted more. She had felt his desire in the bruising tension in his fingers and in the flare of heat that enveloped her. And Lily had wanted him, too. All her good intentions had flown out of her mind, replaced by a wave of physical sensation that weakened her knees and robbed her of breath.

  For a moment she’d felt dazed, and then she’d wondered who he was kissing. Miriam? Or her? She’d been surprised how painful it was to think he might have been kissing Miriam.

  One thing was certain. There was no confusion now. Quinn looked at her and saw Lily Dale, and he disliked her for making demands, for resembling his wife, and, she sensed, for arousing him.

  She held his gaze while she waited for him to speak, and her stomach tightened and grew hot. Never had any man provoked such a confusing mixture of emotions. When Quinn stared at her with that electric blend of desire and anger, her neck prickled, and she felt a tiny thrill of fear, remembering this was a powerful man who could return her to prison on a whim. Confusingly, power mixed with desire also exerted a darkly seductive appeal.

  “All right.” His voice was as hard as his gaze. “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything.” Suddenly she felt foolish, perched on his desk like a bar girl. Telling herself that she had made her point, had jolted him into taking her seriously, she slid her feet to the floor and took the chair next to Paul. “Why is obtaining information about Miriam like prying a barnacle off of a rock?” she asked, leaning forward to tip an ash into the tray and wishing she hadn’t lit the cigar. It didn’t taste as good as she had expected. Worse, enough ladylike qualities had rubbed off on her that smoking seemed crude and distasteful.

  She’d had an idea that by flaunting herself, she would force Quinn to admit the contrast between Lily Dale and the performance she’d put on for Smokey Bill. Now she suspected her flamboyant entrance had only annoyed him.

  “I can’t succeed in this impersonation if neither of you will talk about Miriam. How does she move? How does she behave? What was her daily routine? What made her happy or sad? What did she like or dislike?” Looking up from smoothing down her skirts, she held Quinn’s gaze. “What was her marriage like?”

  “I understand the necessity for this conversation, but it’s repugnant to expose my wife’s life to a stranger,” he said, speaking between his teeth.

  Anger choked her. “Listen. I’m going to be the best friend Miriam Westin ever had. I’m going to do my damnedest to represent her well and not embarrass her. When she returns, she’ll have nothing to apologize for. And that ain’t going to be easy.” Deliberately she said “ain’t” in another attempt to remind him of how far she had come. Lifting her hands, she waved the cigar and hoped he noticed that her fingernails were clean and no longer ragged. “I can’t succeed without knowing more about her.”

  “She’s right, Quinn.” Paul frowned at both of them. “It’s time.”

  Leaning back in his chair, Quinn gripped his whiskey glass against his stomach, his jaw working. Lily could almost see sparks of resentment flashing off his lanky body, and she knew she caused them. Anger was the barrier he erected against whatever he felt when he looked at her.

  “I gave you the impression that Miriam had led a comfortable and sheltered life, and that’s true. But Miriam’s early life was not easy or happy. Her mother died when Miriam was ten. Five years later her sister Susan died at the age of twelve. Her brother was killed in the war, and the man she was engaged to marry never returned. Her father died five years ago. Miriam spent most of her life in mourning.”

  “Good Lord,” Lily said, blinking. “Everyone she loved fell over dead.” For the first time in years, she thought of her own family. Drunken Indians had killed her parents, and she’d had a sister who died young of diphtheria. She, too, had grown up motherless and missing a cherished sister.

  Miriam began to take shape in her mind. Miriam had been a deeply sad person. “Go on.”

  Quinn’s brooding gaze dropped to a portrait of a forbidding-looking man who shared Quinn’s strong jaw and pewter eyes. “When I met Miriam, she was twenty-two and living with her father.” He fell silent, then dragged a hand through his hair. “Judge Alton was an influential man, a powerful political figure.”

  Lily listened carefully, then straightened abruptly. “You bastard,” she said softly. She saw it now. “You married Miriam to further your political career, didn’t you!” Her mouth twisted. She hadn’t begun to suspect how ruthless he could be.

  He stared at her, no apology in his gaze. “Ambition was part of the reason, yes. But Miriam was also a beautiful woman.” His eyes traveled over her face, and Lily knew he was seeing the woman he had married. “And I was idealistic enough to believe I could make her happy.”

  “Did you?” Lily demanded.

  He returned his gaze to the portrait of the man who must be his father. “I doubt it,” he snapped.

  “Well, that’s not too surprising. It couldn’t have made her happy to know you married her to gain her father’s political support. Did she know it?” Lily asked, her eyes blazing. Of course Miriam had known. She must have felt as used as Lily did.

  He shrugged and took his time lighting a cigar. “People marry for many reasons. Miriam was an innocent, but she wasn’t stupid.”

  “Then why did she marry you?” Lily asked rudely. Right now, she didn’t like Quinn Westin.

  “Her father wanted the match,” Quinn answered, his words falling like chips of ice. “Miriam had waited for a man who did
n’t return from the war. She was approaching spinsterhood, and after the war suitors were few and far between. At the time I came along, the judge was already ill and anxious to see his daughter married and settled.”

  But what had Miriam wanted? Had she been content to live in her father’s home and care for him? Or had she dreamed of a home of her own? Had she wanted to marry Quinn, or had she married him because the match would make her father happy?

  “How old is Miriam now?”

  “Two years older than you. She’s thirty.”

  With every unwilling word Quinn uttered, Miriam’s ghost gradually took on flesh and form. Lily could imagine her. A pretty woman, sad, quiet, and shy, an obedient daughter who wanted to please the only remaining member of her family.

  She considered Quinn as objectively as she could and decided he was handsome and compelling even when he was scowling in anger. Had Miriam thought so? Had she found it easy or hard to love him? Had he made her heart pound and her skin flush? Had she welcomed his touch, yearned for his kisses, or had she dreaded the times he came to her?

  Paul stood abruptly and returned his whiskey glass to the drink cart. He glanced at Quinn. “If you’ll excuse me, I have some reading to finish before supper.”

  His tact surprised Lily. But of course he knew this story.

  Quinn waited until the door closed, then continued speaking in a flat voice. “Miriam wanted children. I’m sure you’ll understand that. Unfortunately, her constitution was never strong, and pregnancy was difficult for her. She suffered four miscarriages before she carried a baby to term.”

  Lily’s mouth dropped, and she straightened with a jerk of astonishment. “You have a child?” she asked when she could speak. She could not believe they hadn’t told her. The omission was shocking.

  He walked to the drink cart and turned his back to her. “Miriam delivered a daughter eight months ago. She named the child Susan in memory of her sister.”

  Lily sputtered. “You have a daughter? And you never mentioned her?” It was an outrage that he hadn’t so much as hinted at a child. That neither of them had mentioned that Lily would have to deceive a child. Placing her hands on the arms of the chair, she prepared to rise. She would not do this.

  After setting a whiskey glass on the desk in front of her, Quinn stubbed out the cigar she’d left forgotten and smoldering in the ashtray, then returned to his chair.

  “In May the house in town caught fire. Susan died in the blaze.”

  “Good God.” Bits of information fell on her like stones dropping from the sky, battering her sensibilities. She fell backward in the chair. “And Miriam?” she asked after catching a breath, staring at his expressionless face. “Did Miriam die, too? Is that what happened to her?”

  “Miriam suffered minor burns and a serious burn on her leg.” Unable to remain seated, he rose and stood at the window, sipping his whiskey and frowning out at the dark range. Leaving Lily to work out the implications.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered, her fingers flying to her lips.

  The air rushed out of her lungs and she slumped, blinking hard. Miriam had lived, but her baby had died. She would have blamed herself, would have tortured herself by replaying the fire in her mind, desperately trying to rearrange the outcome.

  A moist lump rose in Lily’s throat, and tears glittered in her eyes. She knew about torturing oneself with if onlys. If only she hadn’t listened to Cy. If only she hadn’t agreed to accompany him to the gambling hall. If only she had done this differently or that, she would be with Rose right now.

  Not a day of her incarceration had passed that she hadn’t run the conversations with Cy through her mind, trying to make them end differently so she could be with her baby. A thousand times she had imagined herself saying no, or turning away at the door of the gambling hall and refusing to step inside. Imagined herself not pulling the trigger.

  Miriam would have tormented herself in the same way, only it would have been worse because her baby had died. There would never be a second chance to save her child, there would be no reunion at some date in the future.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered again, pressing her fingertips to her eyelids. Her chest ached, and her heart went out to Miriam Westin. “She blamed herself for Susan’s death.”

  “Miriam saved herself but not her baby,” he said harshly, his voice a low, gravelly rumble. “Of course she blamed herself.”

  “And you blamed her, too.” She heard it in his coldness, in the odd lack of expression in the telling.

  “The fire was swift and intense. No one could have saved Susan. Her nursemaid died that night, too, as did one of the upstairs maids. Frankly, it’s a miracle that Miriam escaped.”

  She wiped her eyes, surprised that she’d guessed wrong. If not blame, then what was she hearing in his voice? “Where were you? Did you try to save your daughter from the fire?”

  “I was out when the blaze started. By the time I arrived, the interior was an inferno.”

  Did he blame himself for not being there? Was that what she was hearing? Lily wished she could see more than his profile. She drew a deep breath. They had to finish this. “How long after the fire did Miriam disappear?”

  “Almost immediately.” He rubbed his forehead, concealing his eyes from his reflection in the window glass.

  Lily swallowed the last of her whiskey, hoping the liquor would steady her. “Quinn, you have to find her.” She gazed at him, wishing he’d look at her. “Wherever Miriam is, she’s hurting, and she needs you.”

  His laugh was shocking. The sound was harsh, almost cruel. “Believe me, Miriam is happier where she is than she ever was with me.”

  She stared at the Irish linen molding his broad shoulders and following the ridge of his spine, and clenched her fists. “How in the hell can you be so cold?” she asked in a low furious voice. “Your daughter died five months ago, and your wife has run away. She did run away, didn’t she? That’s what happened.”

  “Oh yes,” he said, lowering his hand from his face and staring out the window. “Miriam ran far, far away.”

  Suddenly he turned and hurled his whiskey glass at the wall. The crystal exploded in a shower of glass with a sound like shot, and Lily jumped, her heart pounding.

  “Don’t tell me that Miriam needs me because she doesn’t. Don’t suggest that she wants to be found, because that will never happen.” A silvery fire burned at the bottom of his eyes. “If you have any more questions about the fire or about Miriam’s disappearance, ask them now—because we will never again discuss this.”

  The intensity of his fury pushed her back into her chair, although she didn’t understand it. Either his grief had taken the form of rage, or there was something he still wasn’t telling her. She suspected the latter since he hardly seemed like a man in mourning.

  “You and Paul always speak of Miriam in the past tense,” she said after he turned back to the window. He tightened his jaw, and his fists opened and closed at his sides. “Do you believe she’s dead? Could despair have driven her to take her own life?”

  She didn’t think he would answer, but finally he said, “Miriam is alive.”

  The revelations had come too fast, were too shocking, for Lily to think of the questions she would later wish she had asked. She couldn’t move beyond imagining Miriam’s despair and grief and self-blame.

  Lifting a hand, she watched it fall back to her lap. “Where is Susan buried?” At the moment, it was the only question she could think to ask.

  “In the Prospect Hill Cemetery.”

  She tried to think of something else, frustratingly aware that a hundred questions would crowd her mind an hour from now. “Was Miriam really suffering from consumption?”

  “Her health was delicate, but I doubt she was consumptive.”

  A rap sounded at the door, and Paul leaned his head inside Quinn’s office. He looked at the shattered glass on the floor, then lifted his eyes. “Supper is on the table. Would you prefer to have it served here?�
��

  Quinn withdrew his pocket watch, snapped it open, and glanced at the time before he tucked the watch back in his pocket. “Are there any other questions?”

  Lily gazed at him, feeling limp. The anger had faded from his expression, and he looked as tired and drained as she was. It occurred to her that he had known this conversation was coming, and had dreaded it. “I have dozens of questions, but I can’t think . . . I’m just . . .”

  “If there’s anything more about the fire or that night, ask now.”

  She pushed a wave of hair off her forehead and tried to focus her thoughts. “Where were you that night?”

  “I was with Paul.”

  “How did the fire start?”

  “The cause was never verified.”

  His answers were clipped, unelaborated, resented. Every instinct suggested there was more than he had revealed, but she couldn’t guess what it might be and didn’t know the right questions to ask. Frustrated and suddenly angry, she rounded on Kazinski.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about Susan?”

  “Would knowing that Miriam lost a child have changed anything?” He opened the door wider as if to allow the tension in the room to escape.

  “She lost five children. Susan and four miscarriages!” How had Miriam borne the losses in her life? Lily knew how it felt to lose people she cared about, and she could identify with Miriam’s pain. But not the depth of it. Miriam’s losses had continued year after year. Just as she began to recover from one blow, another had fallen.