“Kenny says Tom’s got a girlfriend, and he wouldn’t be surprised if they tied the knot one of these days. He says they’ve been seeing each other for a couple of years.” Thea grinned. “Kenny is cute, don’t you think? Oh, not hunky like Tom, but real sweet.”
“Kenny does seem nice,” Ronnie murmured. The idea of Tom “tying the knot” with a girlfriend of many years’ standing made her stomach clench.
It was probably nothing but idle talk, she told herself. On that never-to-be-forgotten night, Tom had said that she was prettier than his girlfriend. Would a man say something like that about a woman he was planning to marry?
“Kenny says they used to have this real big-time political consulting firm, but Tom got into a jam and their firm went bankrupt and they lost everything. He says they’re on the comeback trail and it’s important that they do a good job with you.”
Her attention effectively distracted from thoughts of Tom’s relationship with his girlfriend, Ronnie glanced up, frowning. What Thea said jibed with everything she herself had observed in Tom: the sense she had that he lacked money, the fierce need to succeed in what he was doing with her, the sheer time and energy he was putting into the effort.
“What kind of jam?” Ronnie asked, almost unwillingly.
Thea shrugged. “I don’t know. Kenny didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. Maybe—”
She was interrupted as the phone on Ronnie’s desk began to ring.
“Want me to get it?” Thea reached for the phone even as Ronnie nodded.
“Mrs. Honneker’s office. No, she’s not available right now.” Thea listened for a minute, sucking in her cheeks in an expression that for her was indicative of anxiety. “At nine forty-five tomorrow? Yes, I’ll—I’ll tell her. Okay. ’Bye, Moira.”
Thea hung up. For a moment the two women’s gazes met, trepidation in Thea’s and frowning curiosity in Ronnie’s.
“What?” Ronnie finally asked.
“That was Moira from the Washington office,” Thea explained unnecessarily. She hesitated, then blurted, “The Ladies’ Home Journal interview has been rescheduled for ten in the morning. Tom apparently called them up, told them there had been a misunderstanding, and they agreed to come back. Only now it’s a joint interview with you and the Senator. Moira called to say that the Senator wouldn’t be able to make it home tonight, but he’ll meet you in the library downstairs at nine forty-five in the morning. He’s planning to wear a navy suit, blue shirt, and yellow tie. So—so you can color-coordinate your outfit to his, Moira said.”
Chapter
22
“YOU SNEAKY SON OF A BITCH,” Ronnie said in a venomous undertone to Tom as, with one hand on the carved oak balustrade, she walked down the final few steps of Sedgely’s grand staircase.
It was nine-thirty on Wednesday morning. Sunshine poured through the glass panels on either side of the front door, sparkling off the many facets of the antique crystal chandelier overhead and illuminating dust motes in the air. The marble-tiled entry hall gleamed from the cleaning Selma had given it the day before. Pale gold wallpaper in a subtle damask pattern made the walls seem to glow in muted reflection of the brightness outside.
A quick glance around had revealed that so far Tom, who stood just inside the door, hands in pockets, was alone. He was wearing a charcoal-gray suit, a white shirt, and the same blue tie he had worn on Monday, which had the same unwelcome effect of enhancing the color of his eyes.
The mere sight of him was enough to make Ronnie furious all over again. In the wee dark hours of the night she had promised herself that she would remain coldly dignified in his presence no matter what the provocation, but now, facing him, Ronnie could no more hold her tongue than she could fly.
“Good morning to you, too, Miz Honneker.” It was a honeyed drawl, uttered with a charming quirk of a smile.
The combination of drawl, smile, and Miz Honneker did it. Ronnie saw red.
“How dare you go over my head to my husband to reschedule an interview I canceled?” Eyes snapping, she stepped down into the hall and walked right up to him, pointing an index finger at him as she went. Instead of backing down, as most were prone to do when confronted with her temper, he stood his ground.
“You can always cancel again. Only this time you’ll have to explain to your husband exactly why.” He caught the hand that would have stabbed, index-finger first, into his chest and held it. His hand was warm, and hard, and strong. As she met his gaze, his smile took on a harder edge. “I don’t suppose you’ll want to tell him the truth: that you came on to me and I turned you down, so you’re hell-bent on making me pay.” He paused, his gaze measuring her. “By the way, did you get that Michael guy to play anything besides tennis with you yesterday?”
Eyes flaming, Ronnie jerked her hand from his hold just as the front door opened. She glanced past Tom to find Kenny, dressed in a bright green sport coat and checked trousers, leading in a lumbering, scruffy-looking animal that resembled nothing so much as a cross between a Saint Bernard and a poodle. It was huge, with long, Shirley Temple-like ringlets in different combinations of black and white covering its body. Two black eyes were barely discernible through the curls.
“What is that?” she asked.
“Down here in Mississippi we call it a dog,” Tom answered. Before Ronnie could do more than slay him with a look for that bit of sarcasm, Lewis came down the stairs. Dressed in the promised navy suit and yellow tie, his silvered hair impeccably brushed back from his forehead, Lewis looked like a senator. He looked—statesmanlike was the only word Ronnie could think of to describe him. She hadn’t seen him since Sunday morning, when he had left for a lightning trip to Washington—and she hadn’t missed him.
“How ya doin’, honey?” Lewis asked genially, wrapping an arm around Ronnie’s shoulders and bestowing a kiss on her cheek. She smiled at him with more warmth than she had shown him for some time, then realized that the smile was for Tom’s benefit. The realization wiped it from her face.
“That the dog? What’d you say his name is?” Lewis redirected his attention to Tom.
Tom glanced at Kenny, who answered for him. “Jefferson Davis, Senator Honneker.”
“He’s from the local animal shelter,” Tom put in. “The spin is that Miz Honneker here found him there, bought him and brought him to Sedgely to live. She very likely saved the poor animal’s life.”
Ronnie stared at Tom as the import of this sank in. He actually meant for her to lie about the acquisition of this—beast.
“Give me a break,” she said witheringly, and turned left toward the living room, where the interview and photo session were to take place.
Decorated in shades of soft gold, white, and rose with ornate, white-painted woodwork and sweeping silk drapes in a rose-and-white stripe, the living room—formerly the house’s parlor—was large, beautiful, and impressive, and filled with antique furnishings and paintings. Lined with eight floor-to-ceiling windows, it had always reminded Ronnie of something out of a movie set. Even now it was hard for her to believe that people actually inhabited rooms like that.
Not that any member of the family ever did but Dorothy. It was used mainly for entertaining—and to impress visiting reporters and their ilk.
“I suppose I named the dog too? Jefferson Davis? How corny can you get?” Ronnie threw this last remark over her shoulder.
“It’ll appeal to your husband’s constituency—his southern constituency. Given the fact that you’re from up north, you need to do what you can to seem more assimilated,” Tom answered. He was behind Lewis, who was behind Ronnie. Kenny, with the dog, brought up the rear.
“You can just call him Davis if you want,” Kenny put in. “He comes to that too.”
Ronnie snorted. “He probably comes to anything. Have you tried ‘dog’?”
“Now, Ronnie, I talked this over with Tom and he’s got a good idea: This here dog’ll appeal to just about every voter in Mississippi,” Lewis said. “I want you to do like he says,
and say you got him at an animal shelter ’cause you felt sorry for him and named him after Jeff Davis in honor of our great state and the late president of the Confederacy. It’ll make people around these parts like you better. Anyway, I’ve been sayin’ for a long time now that I’ve been wantin’ a dog.”
Lewis had said no such thing that Ronnie had ever heard. In fact Eleanor was allergic to fur, and as a consequence animals had not been allowed inside any of the family houses for the last thirty-eight years, a state of affairs that had never seemed to particularly bother anyone who lived therein. Though on the altar of all-mighty politics, Lewis would be willing to give houseroom to an elephant, let alone a dog.
“Fine. Whatever,” Ronnie said over her shoulder. Her simmering rage at Tom was bubbling very near the surface, and she didn’t want it to boil over in front of witnesses. She made an effort to rein in her temper as she passed through the open pocket doors of polished mahogany that separated the hall from the living room, where Dorothy awaited them.
“Good morning, Dorothy,” Ronnie greeted her mother-in-law with a smile. Dressed in a mint-green summer suit, Dorothy looked both frail and elegant as she sat on the rose brocade sofa that was the centerpiece of the room.
“Ronnie.”
“Good-mornin’, Mama.”
Dorothy’s whole face lit up as Lewis walked into the room behind Ronnie.
“You’re looking mighty handsome today, son,” Dorothy said as he leaned down to kiss her cheek. When he straightened, she looked over at Ronnie, who was pouring herself a cup of coffee from the tray of refreshments that had been placed on a table in front of the window.
“You look real nice, too, Ronnie,” she added.
“Thank you, Dorothy. So do you.”
Ronnie knew that she did in fact look nice. She was once again wearing the triple strand of pearls Lewis had given her, with a cotton-blend dress in a shade of yellow so pale it was almost cream. The dress (selected by one of Tom’s cohorts especially for this interview and photo session) was slim-fitting but not tight, with a jewel neckline, little cap sleeves, a straight skirt that reached midway down her calves, and a skinny belt made out of the same fabric as the dress. The hem and neckline were enhanced with delicate cutouts and pale yellow embroidery. Her shoes were beige leather pumps, with sensible two-inch heels.
Dorothy would have looked equally nice wearing exactly the same outfit.
“Lord-a-mercy, what is that?” Dorothy exclaimed as Davis came lumbering into the room, his toenails clicking on the polished wood floor. Kenny, holding the dog’s leash, glanced up, but it was Lewis who answered.
“We got us a dog, Mama, for this interview. Tom’s idea, and I think it’s a good one. Voters love dogs. Tom’s come up with a catchy slogan, too, for the campaign now that we’re slugging things out toe-to-toe with Orde. What was that again, son?” Lewis asked Tom, frowning.
“HBO,” Tom supplied. “Honneker Beats Orde.”
“HBO,” Lewis repeated to Dorothy. “Honneker Beats Orde. It’s gonna look good on bumper stickers.”
George Orde was a former state legislator who had zoomed up the polls as Lewis had stumbled. At this point he seemed to be the principal threat to Lewis’s continued occupation of his Senate seat.
“If we keep on doing what we’re doing, Orde shouldn’t be too hard to beat,” Tom said.
“I don’t think so either,” Lewis said.
“What’s its name?” Dorothy asked, referring to the dog.
“Jefferson Davis,” Ronnie said dryly. “Or just Davis for short.”
Upon hearing his name, Davis wagged his tail, almost upsetting a porcelain shepherdess on a polished wood side table. With a quick grab Kenny saved the expensive antique from annihilation.
“Good dog,” Lewis said, patting him while Kenny hung on to the leash with one hand and restored the figurine to its rightful place with the other.
“Senator, Mrs. Honneker, Mrs. Lewis: Miss Cambridge is here with Miss Topal and Mr. Folger from that magazine,” Selma announced from the doorway. All eyes turned in her direction. Thea walked in past her, accompanied by a pony-tailed man in a T-shirt and jeans with a camera slung over one shoulder, and a fortyish woman with short, chicly styled brown hair, bright pink lipstick, and a beige business suit. In one hand the woman carried a leather briefcase. In the other she held a half-eaten doughnut.
With a mighty woof Davis went for the doughnut. Miss Topal dropped her briefcase with a shriek. A lamp crashed. Doughnut in mouth, leash trailing, Davis bounded into the hall with Kenny, Thea, and Selma in hot pursuit.
“Take this,” Tom hissed in Ronnie’s ear, shoving something cold and moist into her hand. Ronnie looked down at the object, first with surprise and then with revulsion. It was a small piece of ham purloined from one of the ham biscuits on the tray—what on earth?
She looked up at Tom with incomprehension. So surprised was she by this unexpected gift that she even forgot to glare.
“Davis, here!” Kenny yelled. The sound was close at hand, perhaps in the hall. Toenails scrabbling frantically over hard wood preceded the dog’s reappearance by mere seconds. The reporter, Miss Topal, jumped back out of the way as fleeing dog and pursuing humans barreled back into the room.
The dog checked for a moment, lifting its head as if glancing around. Its nose tested the air. Then it headed straight for Ronnie.
Eyes widening, mouth falling open, she watched it come.
“Say his name: Davis. Call him!” Tom ordered under his breath. The urgency of the whisper prompted obedience.
“Davis!” Ronnie produced the name with a squeak.
The dog bounded to a stop in front of her, wagged its tail, and started urgently licking her hand. The photographer unslung his camera.
“Smile,” Tom quietly instructed her as the camera started clicking away.
Chapter
23
“SON, GETTING THAT DOG OUT HERE was a stroke of genius. Pure genius.” Chuckling, the Senator clapped Tom on the shoulder as they walked into the dining room, where Selma was putting final touches to the table.
Tom could see that the room hadn’t been changed by so much as a silver candlestick since he used to eat supper in it with his roommate’s family nearly two decades before. The wallpaper was still the same, some unbelievably expensive hand-painted Chinese import. The drapes were heavy gold brocade, tied back to frame tall multipaned windows and thick with fringe. The furniture—a table that seated ten without the addition of any leaves, china cabinet, huntboard, and silver chest—was dark, heavily carved, and antique. The very plates used to set the table looked the same. The fine white china rimmed with gold was almost translucent, it was so old. Tom remembered how, as an impecunious college student eating with his roommate’s rich and distinguished family, he had feared breaking a piece even by using his silverware too forcefully. He had cut his meat very, very carefully and scooped up his peas as if they were loaded with nitroglycerin, just in case.
Over the ensuing years Tom had changed a lot. Sedgely did not appear to have changed at all.
The Senator added, “That should be a heck of an article. Great pictures too. Ronnie with that dog! Great!”
“I’m glad it worked out so well, Senator,” Tom said, stopping at the place Lewis indicated by a wave of his hand. He watched as His Honor walked around to his own chair at the head of the long, polished wooden table. After the Ladies’ Home Journal people had left, he, Kenny, and Thea had been invited to stay for a late lunch with the family, and all had accepted.
Now, finding himself directly across from Ronnie, he almost wished he had declined. Ronnie managed to look both gorgeous and sexy even in the sedate dress picked out by the personal shopper at Nordstrom’s. Ruby highlights brought out by the chandelier overhead glinted in her hair; her skin looked as creamy to the touch as he remembered it being. The subtle pink lipstick on her mouth enhanced rather than hid its fullness, just as the modest lines of her dress enhanced rather than hid her
figure. With only the approved amount of makeup to add a little polish, her eyes were soft and full of secrets. She was wearing the pearls he had removed for her the day they had met and, he could have sworn—though surely so subtle a scent could not reach all the way across a table—the same enticing perfume.
She was mad at him. Whenever she glanced his way, ire crackled in the air around her as tangibly as sparks around a sparkler on the Fourth of July. He only hoped no one else could see it.
She was looking at him now. Standing behind her chair, hands curled around its ornately carved back, her gaze met his across the table.
“HBO and Jefferson Davis,” she said under the cover of the general hubbub of everyone getting settled. “I can’t believe you get paid for thinking up things like that.”
Tom shrugged. “We’ve each got our specialties,” he said, and sat down. He wasn’t going to get into a fight with her. Not today, not tomorrow, not next week. He was going to turn the other cheek as many times as it took until her anger had burned itself out and the fire that still smoldered between them had cooled down.
After that Ronnie studiously ignored him, which Tom supposed was about as much as he could hope for under the circumstances. But the rigidity of her facial muscles and the occasional flash of her eyes warned that her anger was barely held in check. Anyone with an ounce of perception would be able to pick up on it in about two minutes flat.
Thank the Lord his tablemates did not seem to be blessed with much perception.
Selma wheeled in a serving cart laden with bowls of soup, distracting Tom’s attention. Food was a good thing to focus on, he decided, safe and without hidden undercurrents. As his bowl was set before him, he saw it was cream of tomato with a dollop of cream and a sprig of dill on the top.
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