Her Man Friday (11 page)

Everything.

Seemingly overnight, the Rigbys had fallen from swimming amid the cream of the Main Line social elite to stumbling along with the tired, the weak, the poor, the hungry. They'd pretty much become the wretched refuse Lily had studied about in her American history class. They'd been booted from their roomy six-bedroom home in Ardmore
and
their Center City townhouse. They'd watched as the cars and boats were repossessed one by one, had stood by helplessly as every privilege they'd come to take for granted had been jerked right out from under them.

At the lowest point, things had gotten so bad that the Rigbys had found themselves living in a homeless shelter, eating the kind of food they would have tossed out before. Such had been their lot in life for three full months. Lily had gone from wearing DKNY off the rack to DAV cast-offs, and she'd left the posh Emerson Academy for a public high school in a
very
questionable Philadelphia neighborhood. Her friends had disappeared as quickly as her lifestyle, and she'd learned fast and hard that life, if left untended, could become a very dark and ugly place.

Ultimately, her father had found another job—albeit one that held far less prestige and paid much less than his last—and they'd gradually improved their standing. Now her parents lived in a middle-class suburb of Philadelphia, and both of them had jobs that, if they weren't high-paying, at least provided them with the necessities required to make life livable. But the Rigbys would never, ever again be wealthy. And Lily had sworn a long time ago that she would never, ever again fall into the kind of poverty they had suffered for those short, yet all-too-long, months.

On the contrary, she was determined to recoup the family losses. Like Schuyler, she had attended Harvard on an academic scholarship, and she had chosen a double-major of economics and business, specifically to boost her earning potential on the outside. She'd vowed years ago to dedicate her life to recapturing the good name of Rigby—and the Rigby fortune—that her father had lost. Not because she wanted to relive the excesses of her youthful life, but because she'd come to learn that there were far more important things that money could buy than big houses, silk dresses, and imported cars.

It could buy food to fill an empty belly, and blankets to warm a cold back. It could buy courage, and it could buy dignity. Lily had met too many people in her time at the shelter who'd had none of those things. For a while, she'd been one of them herself. Ever since college, her ultimate goal in life had been to found, fund, and manage a vast organization whose sole purpose was to lend a hand to the people who needed help.

Schuyler, of course, thought her intentions were ridiculous. Which was actually kind of odd, seeing as how he'd come from exactly the kind of family that would benefit from the type of foundation Lily had always envisioned. His father had abandoned his mother, his younger sister, and him when Schuyler was barely three years old, and the three of them had spent much of their lives living as refugees. He'd never had a place to call home for more than a few months at a time, had made the circuit from shelters to halfway houses to the street and back around again. Hunger, insecurity, and fear had been his constant companions while he was growing up.

Yet as an adult holding an MBA from Harvard that enriched his BS in mechanical engineering from MIT, as a man who had worked and sweated and sacrificed to build an empire from nothing, Schuyler scorned everything that smacked of welfare. He was a staunch Republican and conservative, and he showed nothing but contempt for people who had fallen on hard times. Although he spent lavishly on things to enrich his own lifestyle, he was otherwise a parsimonious hoarder of every nickel he made.

And for the life of her, Lily couldn't imagine why he would want to deny someone who was needy the basic essentials of life. Especially since he knew firsthand just how terrifying and soul-emptying such a way of life could be.

As she always did when pondering the puzzle of Schuyler Kimball, Lily sighed and pushed her troubling thoughts away. She'd made a promise to him a long time ago, and he had made one to her. So far, they had both stuck to their words with no problem. Schuyler was a big boy now; it wasn't up to Lily to be his conscience. It wasn't up to her to remind him what was right and what was wrong. It wasn't up to her to tell him what a big, fat jerk he could be sometimes.

Nor, she told herself further as she considered her options for dress again, was it up to her to be Leonard Freiberger's… anything. She snatched the black dress from its hanger and tossed it onto the bed, then went about changing her identity from social secretary to dinner hostess. Because even though, technically, it was Schuyler who owned and operated Ashling, he and Lily really had a partnership in that respect. Schuyler owned the estate. Lily operated it. It was an arrangement that worked out quite nicely.

As she made her way back downstairs to Ashling's generous dining room, she realized she still wasn't certain whether or not Schuyler would be joining the rest of the household for dinner. She knew he was home and had been for over an hour, had in fact known that from the moment he'd set foot in the house. Not just because he'd screamed, "Lileee! Darlüing! What happened while I was gone?" the moment he was inside the front door, the way he always did when he returned from a trip. But because the entire estate seemed to hum with energy and activity whenever Schuyler was in residence. It was as if there was simply too much to the man for his body to contain it all, so whatever it was that made him Schuyler spilled out over everything—and everybody—else.

He was, quite simply, a remarkable human being. Everyone knew that. Especially Schuyler. And there was no point in anyone trying to dissuade him of the idea.

The dining room, when Lily entered it, shone like an African landscape at sunset. Its sweeping paneled walls of bird's-eye maple glowed like warm honey beneath the gentle light of a spectacular chandelier reigning over the room—a massive, ornate oval of pale gold glass that spanned the length of a banquet-sized table. The three dozen chairs lining the table were upholstered in faux leopard, the expansive rug beneath it patterned in a surprisingly realistic-looking zebra stripe. On the walls where men of lesser conscience would have mounted dead animals, Schuyler had opted for tribal decorations instead—masks, carvings, textiles, and seemingly primitive, but very elegant, weaponry.

Although Schuyler himself had never hunted in his life—the sight of blood and the mere suggestion of violence generally made him throw up—it didn't prevent him from being caught up in the whole Ernest Hemingway/Teddy Roosevelt manly man sort of thing that seemed so popular with testosterone-driven units these days. And he had been to Africa on a number of occasions, though he usually viewed the vistas from a climate-controlled Land Rover driven by someone named Omar, while he and someone of the feminine persuasion sat in the back sipping martinis and listening to the soundtrack from
The Lion King
.

All of that, however, was immaterial, because mystique, to Schuyler, was everything. Well, mystique and mood were everything. Mystique and mood and money. And image, too. Okay, so maybe mystique wasn't quite everything. But it did count for quite a lot where Schuyler Kimball was concerned. And Ashling reflected mystique—and mood and money and image—in every room.

The table, Lily noted as she approached it, was set with very fine china for eight instead of the customary six—a population of less than one quarter its capacity—and she wasn't much surprised to realize that someone else, in addition to Mr. Freiberger, would be joining them tonight. A woman, no doubt. With big hair, big bosoms, big assets… and a very tiny brain. Schuyler never came home from a trip alone. And he never brought with him women who indulged in activities as unnecessary and mundane as thinking.

"Miss Rigby."

Lily's own thoughts were interrupted by the quiet summons, and she spun quickly around to find Mr. Freiberger standing framed by the entrance to the dining room. He'd donned his icky gray tweed jacket again, and had straightened his ugly blue necktie, but he still looked adorably rumpled.

Well, maybe not
adorably
rumpled, she amended. It was, after all, rather difficult for a man who evoked notions of a construction crew on a hot day to appear
adorable
. And not exactly rumpled, either. No, what Mr. Freiberger appeared to be, she decided upon further inspection, was rather sexily mussed, as if he'd just tumbled out of bed after a raucous and very satisfying experience.

"Good evening, Mr. Freiberger," she hastened to greet him, before the image in her head could proceed any further and become more graphic.

Oops.
Too late
.

Just like that, a
very
graphic image exploded in her brain, so graphic that she saw quite clearly what Mr. Freiberger wasn't wearing, and who he had tumbled before leaving his imaginary bed. And Lily was absolutely certain she'd
never
seen herself smiling quite like that before.

"I'm so glad you could stay for, um… dinner," she said, stumbling over the last word.

Even across the expanse of the dining room, she saw his smile turn sexy, and she wondered if he'd guessed what she'd been thinking about. "I wouldn't miss um-dinner for the world," he told her, his voice laced with an unmistakable intent.

Oh, dear. Evidently he
had
guessed what she'd been thinking about. Well, some of it, anyway. She doubted he could have figured out that part where the two of them had been coiled around each other, doing something she'd always wanted to try, but had never had the nerve to even—

"The others should be along shortly," she hurried on, battling with questionable success the heat that was fast creeping up from her belly to her breasts and all points beyond. "Whenever Mr. Kimball is in residence, we always dine at precisely seven o'clock."

Mr. Freiberger took a few idle steps forward, the soft scuffing of his shoes on the hardwood floor the only sound in the otherwise silent room. "And when Mr. Kimball isn't in residence?" he asked. "Whatever do you do then, Miss Rigby?"

Just how the man made the question sound sexually charged, Lily couldn't have said, but somehow, it came across as exactly that. Mr. Freiberger seemed to be suggesting that Schuyler performed a service for her that gave the designation of
social secretary
a whole new meaning. It was that spark of something speculative in his eyes, she finally decided, a speculation that overflowed into the even timbre of his voice.

Ever since he had shown up on Ashling's doorstep, Mr. Freiberger had played fast and loose with Lily's libido, and she couldn't for the life of her figure out why. Oh, certainly, beneath all that
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
bookishness, there was an odd kind of sexual heat burning and churning, but still. The man was a bookkeeper, a very small cog in the very large machine that was Kimball Technologies. No one of Leonard Freiberger's capacity should exude such an air of authority and command. Nor should he be able to rev up her motor with a simple look. But her motor had most definitely been revved. And she couldn't help but wonder just what Mr. Freiberger planned to do once he got under her hood.

"I beg your pardon?" she said, cursing herself for the faintness and uncertainty she heard in her voice. "What did you mean by that?"

He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, then lifted his shoulders and let them fall in a shrug that was nowhere near casual. Because his gaze remained firmly fixed on Lily's face—or, more specifically, on Lily's mouth—and his eyes were lit with a dark and intriguing fire. "What do you mean, what did I mean?" he asked, a naughty—and very knowing—little smile dancing about his lips.

She opened her mouth to respond with something flirty and fun that she would doubtless later wish she hadn't said—mainly because she didn't have time for flirty and fun these days, no matter what her treacherous libido seemed to think. And even if she
did
have time, she was in no position, thank you very much, to take on someone of Mr. Freiberger's evident… um… prowess. But she was spared the response because Janey Kimball chose that moment to flutter in with her mother in tow—something that prevented her from saying much of anything at all. Because Janey, God help them all, was clearly in a snit.

Lily supposed that if she tried very, very hard, and was very, very patient, she might someday be able to convince Schuyler's sister that the earth and moon and stars in fact did
not
revolve around Janey Kimball. But really, what was the point? To dissuade the woman of such notions would only make her that much more irritable—and, therefore, more irritating—and why unleash such a creature on an unsuspecting public?

"Janey," Lily said when the other woman breezed past her without so much as a nod of acknowledgment. "Have you met Mr. Freiberger? He works for your brother."

Then, not wanting to exclude Schuyler's mother—well, Lily often wanted to exclude Miranda Kimball from things, but it would be frightfully impolite to do so—she turned her body to include the other woman in the introduction, as well. "Mrs. Kimball," she added, "this is Leonard Freiberger, an employee of Kimball Technologies. Mr. Freiberger, Mrs. Miranda Kimball and Miss Jane Kimball."

"Mrs. Kimball," Mr. Freiberger stated formally, dipping his head first toward Schuyler's mother in greeting. "How do you do?"

Miranda lifted a hand to press her fingertips lightly against her temple, then sighed with a melodrama that put her daughter's affectations to shame. Her attire, too, rivaled Janey's in the Golden Age of Hollywood department—a flowing, silver lame caftan with matching turban, and enormous rings on each of her fingers. Norma Desmond had nothing on Miranda Kimball in the wardrobe department, Lily thought. And not in the insanity department, either.

"I'm afraid I'm not well at all, Mr. Freiberger," Miranda said in a much-put-upon voice. "But thankfully, Montgomery has come to help me with my problems. He's been very helpful."