A Stranger's Wife

by Maggie Osborne

  But one small mystery was solved. Now she knew why the clothing they had provided was all in dark shades. Miriam would only now be entering the second phase of mourning.

  Standing, Lily cut a slow stare across both men, and her lip curled in disgust. “The two of you make me sick.” Her stomach had begun to churn when she heard about the fire, and it hadn’t stopped. “You have ice in your veins. No compassion, no pity, no sympathy. All you think about is yourselves.”

  Right now, she had a sad suspicion that Miriam was more real to her, a stranger, than she had been to her husband and Paul.

  Lifting her skirts, she strode toward the door. “Get out of my way. I don’t want to sit at the same table with either of you. Tell someone to bring a supper tray to my room!”

  “Wait.” Paul caught her arm. “Quinn? We have to give her the rings sometime. It might as well be now.”

  Quinn swore and thrust a hand through his hair, then he threw open a drawer. He withdrew a small box, held it for a minute, then tossed it to Paul as if the box had burned his palm.

  “What is this?” Lily asked, taking the box. But she knew.

  “Those are Miriam’s wedding rings,” Quinn growled, sitting heavily in his desk chair. Lifting a hand, he rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  “Are these replicas?”

  Paul said yes, and Quinn said no. After giving them both a scathing glance of contempt, she pushed past Paul and strode to her room, slamming the door with enough force to knock a picture off the corridor wall.

  Someone had lit the lamps and laid a small fire in the grate. After warming her hands, Lily sank to the edge of the bed and opened the box. Carefully, she withdrew Miriam’s rings and held them on her palm. The betrothal ring featured a diamond nestled between two gold roses that locked into a third rose on the wedding band. Extending the wedding band to the lamp, she strained to read the inscription inside the band. Q.W. to M.A., 6/10/67.

  Sighing, she dropped backward on the bed and closed her eyes. Quinn was right. A woman who left her wedding rings behind did not want to be pursued or found. Miriam had no intention of returning.

  She roused herself when a smiling cowboy brought a supper tray to her room. He introduced himself, but it was a name she didn’t recognize.

  “Put the tray there,” she instructed listlessly, pointing to a small table near the vanity. She shouldn’t have requested a tray, her appetite had fled.

  After the cowboy departed, she wandered around the room, opening bureau drawers, looking inside the armoire. But there was nothing of Miriam here.

  The ranch house was furnished to suit a man’s preference and comfort, there was no evidence of a woman’s softer touch. No effort had been made to conform to style or to coordinate colors or furnishings. This was a man’s house, from the heads of trophy animals to the leather chairs to the rustic tables and simple draperies.

  Miriam had left no imprint here, telling Lily that Quinn and his wife liked different things. Miriam had not shared his interest in ranching, had not cared enough for his company to accompany him to the ranch. Or perhaps he had not invited her, which amounted to the same thing.

  After inspecting a utilitarian pitcher and washbasin, she wandered back to the table and her supper tray. Beefsteak and fried potatoes, beans, greens, and a slab of apple pie. Sitting down, she nibbled at the beans as more questions began to come.

  Exactly how had Miriam managed to run away?

  Paul had explained that ladies did not discuss or handle money. When Lily shopped, she’d been instructed to direct shopkeepers to send an invoice to her husband. She would have a carriage and driver at her disposal, so she would not require coins to hire transportation. In fact, a lady had no need of actual money.

  So, how had Miriam financed her escape? She would need money to buy a ticket to somewhere else, money to replace the clothing she had left behind, money to feed herself and pay for lodging, money to establish herself in a fresh start.

  The question nagged her enough that she decided to ask Quinn if Miriam had access to money of her own. Perhaps an inheritance from her father?

  After smoothing her hair, she walked down the corridor to the dining room, stopping outside the door when she heard Quinn laugh. Following the turmoil of talking about Miriam, the sound of his laughter set her teeth on edge. It seemed wrong.

  On the other hand, she told herself, trying to be fair, while the information about Miriam and Susan was new to her, it had been five months since the fire, almost that long since Miriam’s disappearance. He’d had time to adjust and come to terms with his altered circumstances.

  Shamelessly, she eavesdropped as Quinn brought Paul up to date on events that had occurred during his absence, and referred to political topics obviously discussed earlier. When she heard their chairs scrape back, Lily turned to flee, but stopped when she heard Paul’s next question.

  “Has anyone inquired about Miriam?”

  “The inquiries were easily handled,” she heard Quinn answer. The scent of cigar smoke drifted into the corridor, and she heard the clink of glasses, pictured them pouring brandy. “I still think we should have announced Miriam’s death and taken our chances with the voters.”

  For an instant Lily stood rooted to the floor, then she edged nearer to the doorway.

  “You know my advice. But if you absolutely cannot accept Lily, then I’ll get rid of her.” Something about Paul’s tone made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. “But it would be a mistake. She’s going to be successful. You saw how easily she managed Smokey Bill.”

  “Damn it, Paul. It’s like seeing a ghost.”

  “And it’s going to get worse as she adopts Miriam’s mannerisms. I don’t know what to tell you, Quinn, except you have to deal with the resemblance. You need her to win this election.”

  “Will she pass Helene Van Heusen’s inspection?”

  During the ensuing silence, Lily’s mind raced. Helene Van Heusen. Miriam’s close friend. A friend Quinn and Paul both objected to because Helene’s husband ranked high in the opposing political party. That Miriam had insisted on continuing the friendship revealed a flash of spunk that surprised Lily.

  “I’m guessing Helene will spot the personality differences at once,” Paul conceded. “But the resemblance is so stunning it will never occur to her that this isn’t Miriam. She’ll try to explain the differences some other way. The best solution is to limit contact.”

  Lily waited to hear more, but their conversation shifted to Helene’s husband and political strategies. After a time, she tiptoed away from the door and crept back to her room.

  Peering into the mirror as she brushed out her hair, she tried to decide if Quinn had been speaking rhetorically or if Miriam really was dead. Earlier he had insisted Miriam was alive, but Lily didn’t trust either Quinn or Paul when it came to Miriam. There was no way to know for certain what had happened to Miriam Westin, so she told herself—once again—that Miriam’s fate was none of her business. All she had to do was play the role she had been hired to play.

  But it wasn’t that simple anymore. She was beginning to identify strongly with Miriam.

  It was Miriam’s face she saw in the mirror. Miriam’s eyes stared back at her. Tomorrow she would slide Miriam’s wedding rings on her finger.

  And there was Miriam’s husband. And a kiss that had seared her inside and left her shaking.

  Turning, she spun away from the face in the mirror.

  Chapter 7

  Surprisingly, Quinn found Lily at the corral when he arrived at the stables to saddle up for his morning ride. It hadn’t occurred to him that she would be a horsewoman.

  “That’s stating it too strongly,” she said with a smile, lifting her face to the cool sunshine. She wore a sliver of a hat that trailed gauzy wisps behind her but didn’t protect her face, and she’d forgotten to bring a parasol. “I’m not a horsewoman, but I did grow up on a farm, and I like horses and riding. Although this is the first time I’ve ridden a lady’s
saddle.”

  She rode well, sitting relaxed in the saddle, her touch light on the reins. Quinn pulled down the brim of his hat and turned the buckskin’s head toward a copse of bare-branched cottonwoods. He couldn’t shake the notion that he was looking at Miriam when he glanced at Lily. More accurately, looking at Lily was like observing a shadow that didn’t conform to the movement casting the shadow. He didn’t subscribe to the current vogue of spiritualism, but there was something otherworldly and almost eerie about her similarity to his wife. And jolting when she did or said things that Miriam would never have done or said, startling when her expression or gesture was eerily exact.

  “Miriam didn’t ride,” he commented. When Lily arched a pale eyebrow in his direction, he shrugged. “I bought the saddle years ago before I knew she had no interest.”

  “She disliked the ranch, didn’t she?”

  Paul had correctly assessed Lily’s quick mind. Already she had assimilated the information Quinn had provided only last night and let her shoulders drop slightly, conveying an overall suggestion of sadness. He hadn’t realized that Miriam didn’t hold her shoulders back, that she’d had a drooping carriage. But he saw it now in Lily’s altered posture.

  “The ranch is too rustic for Miriam’s taste,” he said, studying her from the corner of his eyes. The possibility that she would uncover things better left buried concerned him greatly now that he grasped her talent for nuance.

  “Miriam would have been offended by the animal heads mounted on the walls,” she continued in a musing tone. “Am I correct?”

  She was picking up information she needed in order to be successful, but it startled him that she intuited Miriam’s likes and dislikes so readily. Curiosity prompted his own question. “Do the trophy heads upset you, too?”

  Lily adjusted her leg in the saddle brace and ran a gloved hand over her riding skirt. “People have to eat. If a set of trophy antlers comes with the meat . . .” She shrugged.

  A practical woman. But then, he supposed she would have to be to survive the life she’d led. “Like many women, Miriam didn’t care to be reminded where her dinner came from.”

  “If she’d wrung the necks of a few hundred chickens, like I have, or prepared hams for smoking, or butchered a cow or stuffed sausages, she would have learned to be less squeamish.” Looking back at the house, she added, “Miriam may not have liked the ranch, but I like it very much.”

  “So do I,” he said quietly, pride in his voice. He’d had the building stones and roof tiles imported from Italy, and the design was an adaptation of a farmhouse he’d once stayed in outside Milan. “You might consider Italy,” he suggested after he’d explained the house’s origin. “The climate is mild, and the people are warm and friendly.”

  “I haven’t had time to think about where I’ll go when this is over.”

  They rode toward the cottonwoods, and occasionally Quinn’s boot brushed the hem of her riding skirt. It would have been less jarring on his nerves to move away from her, but harder to converse. To his surprise, he found her easy to talk to.

  “I think I’ll see how this saddle rides and discover if I can stay on it.” Leaning forward, she patted her horse’s neck, then made a low, clicking sound and touched her crop to the mare’s flank. The horse accelerated to a trot, and then, at her urging, broke into a canter.

  Quinn watched with a smile. As Paul had predicted, her confidence was growing. Only a self-assured woman would urge an unknown horse into a canter while riding an unfamiliar saddle.

  Touching his heels to the buckskin’s belly, he followed, admiring her form, and reined up beside her. “That could have been a foolhardy experiment,” he said, studying her flushed face. Her lavender eyes sparkled with pleasure. “She might have tossed you.”

  “Oh hell, I’ve been tossed before.” Tilting her head, she gave him a measuring look. “Want to race back to the barn?” His expression must have reflected his astonishment because she laughed. “I was only joshing.”

  Their horses stood side by side in a meadow cleared of sage and sunflowers. Autumn leaves fluttered along the fence line, riding the tail of a cool breeze. Sunshine stitched the heavens to the earth. On a fine autumn morning like this, there was no place Quinn would rather have been than riding his land with an interesting woman at his side. And she was interesting.

  The black riding habit suited her admirably, making her throat seem paler by comparison, providing a stylish contrast to the abundance of blond hair. Today she wore her hair pulled back in a thick knot on her neck, a plainer style than Miriam had ever worn and flattering in its elegant simplicity. The first time he’d seen her, her hair had reminded him of straw. Now he thought of corn silk.

  A few weeks of nutritious food, rest, and fashionable clothing had transformed her into a beauty.

  “Quinn, for heaven’s sakes. You don’t need to look so angry. I wouldn’t have raced. I know it isn’t something Miriam would do.” She lifted a hand to shade her eyes. “And Miriam wouldn’t have forgotten her parasol either. How did your nose get broken?”

  He was watching the sunlight glowing like a halo around her wheat-colored hair, lighting her face, and the change of subject was so abrupt that it took a moment to realize she had asked a question.

  “We should go back,” she said when he remained silent. “I shouldn’t be out in the sun, and Cookie will have breakfast on the side table by now.” Tilting her head, she gazed at him. “Seriously, what happened to your nose?”

  He told her the story on the way to the barn, then she told him about breaking her arm when she was a child. He fixed his gaze on the cowboys drinking coffee near the corral and clenched his teeth. He was far too interested in her and needed to reestablish a distance. He didn’t want to know that she’d climbed trees as a girl. Or had wrung the necks of chickens. Or could ride a horse with grace or foolhardy bravery. She had asked questions when he explained his broken nose, but he didn’t inquire what she was doing in the neighbor’s apple tree, or how old she had been when she fell and busted her arm.

  Ideally, she should only be an employee, an insubstantial shadow hired to impersonate his wife. But he was beginning to understand that Lily was too strong a personality to remain in any shadow. As her confidence returned, so did her stubbornness, defiance, and a vibrant, sparkling spirit. Miriam had been quiet and unobtrusive, like a fine aged wine. But Lily was like champagne, bright, bubbling, irrepressible.

  And she would only become more so as time carried her further from Yuma and her prison experience.

  They didn’t speak between the corral and the house and said little during breakfast, but Quinn was acutely aware of every careful movement she made, every bite she swallowed. He watched the way she handled her napkin and utensils, observed the practiced grace with which she now held her coffee cup.

  “I’m not going to steal the muffins,” she said in that low, husky voice. Amusement danced in her eyes. “Those days are behind me.”

  “I apologize for staring,” he said, letting his gaze travel to her lips, then back to her eyes. “You’ve changed a great deal since I saw you last.” Looking at her now, it was hard to picture her even as she’d been last night, flouncing into his office and perching on his desk top in a show of ankles and petticoats. Part of her fascination was her mercurial ability to be one thing one minute and something else a minute later.

  Of all meals, breakfast was the most intimate. A man didn’t share breakfast with an unknown female. If a woman sat across from him, it was a woman whom he knew well, a woman he most likely had slept with. Frowning, he studied her, knowing they would share many breakfasts before her term of employment ended, breakfasts like this one where an awareness of unacknowledged sexual tension sizzled between them. He didn’t recall ever being this alert to every small nuance of a woman’s voice or movements.

  She had removed her hat and gloves and riding jacket, and he carefully held his gaze above the high-necked shirtwaist that curved over her breasts. But he wa
s aware of the rise and fall of each breath to the extent that he silently swore and tried to recall when he had last been with a woman. It had been too long. Hell, maybe Paul was right, maybe he should consider a mistress.

  To bring his thoughts back to reality, he made himself inspect her left hand and the rings flashing when she moved her hand through the sunlight.

  His jaw clenched and he recalled the day he had purchased Miriam’s rings. He’d been rushed, due in court and running behind schedule, consulting his pocket watch every few minutes. When the jeweler offered a suggestion, he’d accepted it with only a cursory glance at the sketch he was shown. Later, Miriam had praised him for making such a thoughtful selection. Even in the beginning he hadn’t done right by her.

  He set down his coffee cup as Paul strode into the dining room dressed for traveling.

  “It’s acceptable to dine informally at the ranch,” he said to Lily by way of greeting, “but in town you would wear a morning dress to the breakfast table.” He nodded to Quinn, then filled a plate from the buffet laid out along the sideboard.

  “I believe we’re about to receive a hundred instructions,” Lily said with a sigh. But she surprised him by giving Paul a fond smile as he took a seat at the table.

  Paul returned her smile, and Quinn felt a sudden and unreasonable barb of jealousy. “You and Quinn are to work on mannerisms this week. And you’re to review the prints for the house in town so the layout will be familiar. Continue going over the cards describing people you know, and continue practicing any areas where you feel shaky or unsure. Pass the butter, please. Are you reading every evening?”

  “I like Mark Twain,” Lily said, handing him the butter dish. “Thomas Hardy is slower and harder.”

  “Something both of you need to remember is that servants have big ears. And all servants are gossips. Once you leave the ranch, you should assume that someone is always listening and conduct yourselves accordingly.”

  “No one is listening here?” Lily asked, glancing over her shoulder at the dining-room door.