A Proper Wife

by Sandra Marton

“I did what I had to do,” Bettina said, as if she’d read Devon’s thoughts, “and it was all for you.”

  “I never asked for anything,” Devon said tightly.

  “The sacrifices,” Bettina said, “the struggle...”

  Devon shut her eyes. I won’t listen, she told herself fiercely, I won’t. She’d grown up on this litany, hearing about her mother’s hardships, of how she’d all but given up her own life for her daughter’s...

  “Next, you’ll turn your back on me, same as your father did.”

  The bitter accusation twisted, sharp as the blade of a knife, in Devon’s heart.

  “You know I’d never do that, Mother.”

  Bettina smiled. “Good girl!” She bent down, gave Devon a kiss that was actually a cheek-to-cheek caress, and then she looked at her watch. “Oh, look at the time! Come along, darling. Grandfather Kincaid is sending his car for us and we don’t want to be late. Put on something bright and pretty, for a change. And use some of my drops in your eyes, will you? You look as if you’ve been crying, for heaven’s sakes!”

  It was better than looking as if you’d been socked in the jaw, Devon thought.

  What on earth had made her think of that?

  Whatever the reason, she was glad of it.

  For the first time in hours, Devon smiled.

  CHAPTER TWO

  AT A few minutes past four every Friday afternoon, end-of-week celebrants from Wall Street’s financial offices began pouring out into the streets. Lounges and bars filled up with regulars intent on getting the weekend off to a quick start.

  Ryan and Frank, who had made a ritual of toasting the week’s end together since their university days, snagged the last pair of empty leather stools at the mahogany bar at The Watering Hole and exchanged friendly greetings with Harry, the bartender.

  “Evening, gentlemen,” Harry said. “The usual?”

  “Yes,” Frank answered, but Ryan shook his head.

  “I’ll have a Coke.”

  “A Coke?” Frank said, lifting his eyebrows. “What’s the matter, pal? Did that dame’s right hook rattle your brain?”

  Ryan touched his hand gingerly to his jaw. “It was a good shot,” he said grumpily. “Is there a mark?”

  “A little shadow, maybe, right there—”

  “Ouch!” Ryan drew a sharp breath just as the bartender put an ice-filled glass and an open bottle of Coke in front of him. He took an ice cube from the glass, wrapped it in his handkerchief and held it gently against his jaw. “Maybe this will help. I don’t really feel like trying to explain a lump on my jaw to my grandfather.”

  “Ah,” Frank said, “now I get it. No booze because you’re making the long drive out to see the old man, right?”

  “You’ve got it.” Ryan waggled his jaw carefully from side to side. “Can you believe that dame? She walks around, shows off damned near everything she’s got, then gets ticked off when a guy notices. Whatever happened to decorum?”

  “Decorum?”

  “Yes. Decorum. You know, less cleavage, less leg, less of everything on display.”

  Frank’s brows rose just a little. “This from the man who once dated Miss November?”

  True enough, Ryan thought with some surprise. When had he ever cared how much a woman showed? If she was good-looking, the more, the better.

  His eyes met Frank’s. “It was Miss December,” he said, smiling. “Don’t you remember those little bells?”

  Frank chuckled. “Man, do I ever!” Frowning, he peered at Ryan’s jaw. “That bruise is turning color. You’d better run up a tale Grandpa will buy.”

  Ryan sighed. “The hell with it. If he asks, I’ll tell him the truth. He’ll probably tell me the girl gave me exactly what I deserved.”

  “The old man hasn’t changed, huh?”

  “Unlike the female of the species,” Ryan said with a fond smile, “my grandfather is always predictable.”

  So was an evening in the Kincaid house, Ryan thought as Frank excused himself and headed for the lavatory.

  Drinks first, in the old-fashioned sitting room. Bourbon for Ryan, seltzer for James since he’d given up whiskey on orders of his doctors. Then Agnes Brimley, his grandfather’s prune-faced housekeeper would call them into the dining room for a medically approved dinner of gritty brown rice, mushy vegetables and stringy chicken. Dessert would have the look, smell and texture of pulverized soap.

  Then the old man would shut the door on both logic and the disapproving Miss Brimley, light up one of the ropy cigars that were his sole remaining vice, fix Ryan with a rheumy eye and deliver The Lecture of the Month.

  The World and How Much Better it Had Been Seventy Years Ago was always the choice opener. Second would come Advice on How to Manage Kincaid, Incorporated—even though in the five years Ryan had been running the development firm his grandfather had founded, he’d built it from being an east coast success to a national conglomerate.

  But those were only warm-ups to James’s favorite lecture, which always began with the words, “Time is passing, my boy,” and ended with the admonition that Ryan was going to be thirty-two soon and that it was time he settled down.

  Ryan smiled. And he would sit through it all without more than token protest. What would the pundits of high finance make of that? Ryan Kincaid, the man Time magazine had dubbed The Lone Raider, would endure the lectures for the simplest, most complex of reasons—because he loved his grandfather and his grandfather loved him, even if the old man would sooner eat nails than admit it.

  His grandfather had raised him and Gordon both, after their parents’ messy divorce. Now, with Gordon gone, neither Ryan nor the old man had anyone else to care about.

  “So, what about Sharon?”

  Ryan looked up as Frank eased himself onto the stool again.

  “What about her?”

  “She can’t be thrilled to be without you this evening, considering how she fusses over our weekly boys’ night out.”

  Ryan grimaced. “If it’s all the same with you, I’d rather not talk about Sharon.”

  “Problems?”

  “Well, I forgot her birthday.”

  “Which is why we ended up in Montano’s.”

  “Yeah, but there’s more.” Ryan sighed. “I thought we understood each other. She didn’t want anything permanent and neither did I. Now she’s starting to talk about how all her friends are getting married and having babies.”

  “I hope you told her you’re too young to end your life.”

  Ryan lifted his glass, brought it to his lips, gazed into the dark liquid and then put it down again, untouched.

  “The thing of it is, I’m not.”

  Frank recoiled in horror. “What?”

  “We’re pushing middle-age, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “At thirty-two?” Frank began to grin. “I get it. You’re anticipating Grandpa Kincaid’s lecture about Getting Married, Settling Down, and Producing Little Kincaids to comfort him in his old age.”

  “There are times I almost think he’s right.” Ryan’s mouth twisted. “After all, my brother’s dead, and heaven knows his marriage didn’t produce any heirs.”

  “Yeah. That was a fiasco, wasn’t it?”

  “What else could it have been? Gordon got himself hitched to San Francisco’s own version of Jezebel.”

  “Bettina Eldridge, right? I remember.” Frank sighed. “Look, pal, this is America. Kingdoms are not lost because the Prince Royal has yet to take himself a bride. Tell that to the old man, why don’t you?”

  Ryan ran his finger along the edge of his glass. “My grandfather’s gotten very old,” he said softly. “Time passes, you know.”

  “Tying on the ball and chain won’t stop the clock from ticking,” Frank said bluntly, “but if you think it will, there’s always Sharon.”

  Ryan grinned. Even back in their undergraduate days at Yale, Frank had had a way of bringing things back to basics.

  “Thanks, but no thanks. Marriage just isn’t man
’s natural state.”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  “Hell, just look at the Kincaids. My mother celebrated her fifteenth anniversary by asking my father for a divorce so she could go off and become an anthropologist. My father fell for his secretary a year later and disappeared into parts unknown. My brother married a woman who saw dollar signs whenever she looked at him...”

  “Marriage sucks,” Frank said agreeably.

  “My grandfather’s always telling me that his marriage was a joy, but why wouldn’t it have been? The rules were simpler. My grandmother was an old-fashioned woman. Pleasant, sweet-tempered, eager to please.”

  Frank sighed. “That’s how women were raised in those days, pal. A girl was raised to be a lady. To play piano, serve tea and embroider doilies, to bring a man his slippers and his newspaper...”

  Ryan’s brows lifted. “We’re talking about a wife,” he said gently, “not a cocker spaniel.”

  “And with it all,” Frank said, ignoring the interruption, “she’d be gorgeous and more than willing.”

  An image suddenly swept into Ryan’s mind. He saw the blonde from Montano’s, saw himself stripping her of that velvet cape. He saw her naked under his hands, all tanned, silky skin, high, sweet breasts and gently curved hips...

  Damn! Ryan reached for his glass and drank the last of the chilled Coke.

  “If I could find a babe like that, I’d marry her myself,” Frank said emphatically.

  “Who wouldn’t?” Ryan grinned, glanced at his watch, and stood up. “You’re describing a proper wife. But they haven’t made a model like that in years. And that’s exactly what I’m going to point out to my grandfather.” He took out his wallet and tossed a couple of bills on the bar. “Thanks for the talk, friend. It was just what I needed.”

  Frank smiled modestly. “My pleasure.”

  “This time when the old man launches into the Why Don’t You Settle Down speech, I’ll sing him a chorus of I Want a Girl Just Like the Girl that Married Dear Old Grandad. Then I’ll fold my arms, sit back, and smile.”

  As he had since childhood, Ryan sat to James’s right at the Kincaid dining room table. But tonight was nothing like those childhood dinners. It was nothing like the hideous dinners of the past several years, either.

  Ryan frowned. What in hell was going on?

  Prepared for the sort of awful meal he’d described to Frank, he’d come close to falling out of his chair when Miss Brimley had come marching in with the first course.

  “Ah,” James had said happily.

  “Ah,” Ryan had dutifully repeated, and prepared for the worst. But when his grandfather had uncovered the tureen, a wonderful scent had wafted to Ryan’s nostrils.

  “Lobster bisque?” he’d said incredulously.

  “Lobster bisque,” James had replied.

  Agnes Brimley had glared.

  The bisque had been followed by well-marbled beef, baked potatoes slathered in sour cream, and tossed green salad with Roquefort dressing.

  “And a good claret to wash it all down, of course,” James had said.

  Now, with the meal ending, Ryan cleared his throat.

  “Are we ... celebrating something, Grandfather?” he asked carefully.

  James looked up from his plate. A strange little smile skimmed across his mouth.

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way, my boy, but yes, I suppose you might say that we are.”

  Ryan nodded. “And what would it be, sir?”

  James smiled and shook his head. “No more questions for now, Ryan. We’ll talk after dessert, I promise.”

  As if on signal, Miss Brimley banged open the service door, the very briskness of her step an indication she disapproved of whatever it was she carried on the oval silver platter in her hands.

  “Dessert,” she said coldly.

  Ryan stared at the platter as she extended it to him. He hadn’t seen such an assortment of goodies since childhood. Tiny golden creampuffs, bite-size chocolate éclairs, chunky squares of shortbread....

  He raised shocked eyes to Miss Brimley. “Are those white-chocolate brownies?”

  She sniffed. “Indeed.”

  He started to reach for one, thought of the workout he put himself through each morning, and drew back his hand.

  “I, ah, I don’t think so, thanks.”

  The housekeeper’s expression softened, if only slightly. “At least someone’s still using his brain as God intended!”

  James wheezed out a laugh. “If you are trying to ruin my appetite, Brimley,” he said, helping himself to one of everything, “it will pain you to know you are not succeeding. Bring in the coffee, if you please. Real coffee, not that decaffeinated swill you’ve been pawning off on me all these years. Then shut the door and leave us alone.”

  When she’d done as ordered, James sighed, reached inside his vest, took out a cigar—an act that only recently had seemed daring but which now was all but fraught with innocence, Ryan thought dazedly—and bit off the end.

  “Excellent meal, my boy, don’t you think?”

  Ryan rose and took his grandfather’s old-fashioned cigar lighter from its place on the mantel.

  “I suppose that depends on your definition of excellent,” he said, his tone wry. He held out the lighter and flicked the wheel. “Julia Child would probably agree, but I suspect your doctors would take a different view.”

  “Doctors,” James said dismissively. “Shamans, you mean, beating their drums and dancing around the fire when we all know the best they can hope to do is delay the inevitable.”

  Ryan grinned. “Your diet may have changed but I see your disposition is still as sweet as ever.”

  The old man chuckled, then drew on the cigar until the tip glowed bright red.

  “So,” he said, blowing out a wreath of smoke, “what’s new in your life, young man?”

  “Why don’t you tell me what’s new in yours first?”

  James’s lids drooped down over his eyes. “What could be? I spend my days taking pills and eating pablum.”

  “Not tonight.”

  “No.” James smiled. “Not tonight.”

  “You said you’d explain that cholesterol-laden feast once we’d finished it.”

  “You don’t mind if we have a chat first, do you?”

  Ryan frowned. His grandfather’s tone was light. Why, then, did he feel so uneasy?

  “No, of course not. What would you like to talk about?”

  “I told you. What’s new in your life?”

  “Well, let’s see... We’ve decided to bid on that property in Santa Fe, and the subdivision we’re developing outside Vegas will—”

  “How did you get that bruise on your jaw?”

  Ryan grinned. “Would you believe me if I said I bumped against the shower door, reaching down for the soap?”

  “No,” James said, his eyebrows lifting. “I would not. Did some irate husband give it to you?”

  “Grandfather!” Ryan shook his head. “I’m surprised at you,” he said, trying not to smile. “You know I believe in the sanctity of marriage.”

  The old man got a strange look on his face. “I’m counting on that. And I’m still waiting to hear how you came by that bruise.”

  “Suppose I said a woman gave it to me?”

  James chuckled. “I’d say you probably more than deserved it. All right, don’t tell me how it happened. I don’t suppose it matters.” He tapped his cigar against the rim of an ashtray. “What else is new?”

  “Well, that Vegas subdivision—”

  “Yes, yes,” James said impatiently, “I’m sure Kincaid, Incorporated, is doing fine. You’ve made an enormous success of the company, more than I ever did, and we both know it.”

  Ryan laughed. “Wait a minute,” he said. “This is too much for one evening. First that meal, then flattery—”

  “I meant,” James said, his voice overriding Ryan’s, “what’s new in your private life?”

  “Ah.” Ryan smiled and sat d
own. “We go straight to the bottom line. You want to know if I’ve proposed marriage to anyone between now and the last time I saw you.”

  “Not to ‘anyone,’” his grandfather said without smiling back. “To a woman who would make a good wife.”

  “A proper wife,” Ryan said, and chuckled.

  “I see nothing amusing here, young man!”

  “I was just thinking of a conversation I had with Frank Ross—you remember Frank, don’t you, sir?”

  “I do. I take it he has not settled down yet, either.”

  “I’m not sure you appreciate how the world has changed,” Ryan said gently. “Women aren’t what they were.”

  “They are precisely what they were. There have always been women men should marry. The trick is to find them.”

  “Well, when I find one-”

  “When, indeed,” James said sharply. “At the rate you’re going, it will be never. And time is passing.”

  “Grandfather,” Ryan said firmly, “I really have no wish to discuss this tonight.”

  The old man gave him a searching look. Then he sighed and stubbed out his cigar.

  “This room is drafty. Let’s go into the library.”

  Ryan rose to his feet. “Let me help you, sir,” he said as James put his hands on the arms of his chair. It was an offer he made each time he saw James struggling to stand. The response was always the same. “I’m not in my grave yet,” the old man would say.

  But not tonight.

  “Yes,” his grandfather said, “I suppose you’d better.”

  Ryan’s eyes shot to the old man’s face, but it gave nothing away. He eased him to his feet, led him across the hall to the library where a fire blazed in the hearth despite the mildness of the fall evening, and settled him into a leather wing chair.

  James sighed. “That’s better. Now pour some cognac.”

  Ryan started to object, then thought better of it. Why not cognac? Compared to dinner, cognac was small change. He poured drinks, handed one snifter to his grandfather, then drew a chair to the fire and sat down.

  “All right, Grandfather,” he said, “let’s have it.”

  “Have what?” James assumed an air of innocence.

  Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve pushed me as far as I’m going to go. Now I want some answers. What’s going on?”