The Fiancée Fiasco (12 page)

Belinda was a buxom woman a few years younger than Winthrop. She had a round, pleasant-looking face. Now that face was smiling with suppressed mischief. "So, it's true, then, is it?" She appeared to be stemming an outburst of laughter with difficulty. "Meredith said no way. But I said, that brother of ours, he's deep. You never know what he's going to do."

"Meredith is my other sister," Winthrop explained.

"And you must be Roseanne." Belinda extended her hand with a warm smile. "I must say, you are a most welcome surprise."

"Roseanne is only here until Friday next week," Winthrop felt obliged to tell Belinda. "Then she's going back to Seattle and her job."

"But you are getting married," Belinda demanded.

Winthrop hesitated and then looked down at Roseanne. A small, ironic smile curved his lips.

Roseanne swallowed something painful down her throat. Maybe it was the ring weighing down her finger in such an unnatural fashion. Maybe it was the effect Winthrop's eyes never failed to have on her. But she suddenly felt very strange and lightheaded.
You are getting married
.

Marriage. The very concept had been distasteful to her since the age of eleven. Yet somehow this evening, with Winthrop smiling down at her, his blue eyes warm and complicitous, Roseanne found the idea...recklessly pleasant.

Whoa. That was weird. No, worse than weird—
perverse
. And yet she found herself gripping his hand more tightly.

"Never mind answering," Belinda chuckled. "I can see which way the wind is blowing. Good luck in there you two."

Roseanne turned abruptly back toward Belinda. "You aren't staying for dinner?"

Belinda made a gesture of utter negation, waving her palms in front of herself with an alarmed expression. "Dinner with both Win and Dad—together? Are you kidding?"

Win gave an appreciative grunt. "Come on, Roseanne. We're going to be late."

Jerking her attention from his heartless sister, Roseanne let Win lead her into the house. They entered a grand hallway. A showy white staircase curved elegantly to the second floor. Carpets, polished wood, and marble meshed together with overly exquisite good taste, as though someone had been paid a great deal of money to make it look that way.

They turned left into another room, equally meant to impress, this one some kind of parlor. The furnishings were pseudo-colonial; like the house, they were oversized and a little too colorful. Standing by the mantel was a man who matched the room, oversized and too colorful.

He wore a red, Western-style shirt, black trousers and a black scarf tied through his collar. A pair of leather cowboy boots held his feet planted in an aggressive, wide-apart stance. He was not as tall as Winthrop, but what he lacked in height he made up for in musculature. Although Win's father was in his seventh decade, he looked vital enough to fight a bull.

"Evenin' Winthrop," he said flatly. He lifted a large snifter of brandy to his lips. "Good of you to make it this time."

"Evenin' Pa." Winthrop's tone was much the same as the other man's. He made no move to greet his father physically, no handshake or clap on the shoulder. Certainly no embrace. "Where's Ma?"

"In the kitchen. Where else?" Mr. Carruthers swirled the brandy in his mouth before swallowing. "Though heaven knows we pay both a cook and a maid. Eh, she'll be out soon enough."

There followed an awkward pause. Roseanne perceived an almost unbearable discomfort emanating from Winthrop.

"This here is Miz Roseanne Archer," Win finally managed to supply. And that was it. No designation of their relationship or other explanation for her presence at this Sunday dinner.

Oh, great. It seemed Winthrop was unable to lie to his parents. Roseanne suppressed a sigh. This was going to be a challenge.

Meanwhile, Win completed the introduction. "Roseanne this is my father, Samuel Carruthers."

"Miz Archer." Despite Win's reticence, Samuel's eyes rested on her with grim speculation. He appeared to be calculating how much of an obstacle she might be to his desired oil merger with Sylvia's father.

The undercurrent of tension weaving through the room was starkly apparent, despite the lack of words between the two men. In Roseanne's family of five women, confrontations were not handled with anything like this restraint. Screams and imprecations were hurled, tears were shed, and then apologies and embraces were shared. It was all over very quickly, usually within a matter of minutes. Roseanne had the impression that the conflict she was now witnessing had dragged on for many years.

After a few minutes more of unbearable silence, minutes that seemed much longer than they probably were, a handsome woman entered the room through a swinging door, presumably one leading from the kitchen.

"Winthrop." She came to a full stop, and then folded her hands together, her expression carefully impassive. She made no move to approach her son. That, apparently, was his duty.

Pulling Roseanne with him, Winthrop stepped toward his mother and bent to place a kiss on her dutifully presented cheek.

Roseanne found herself staring. Didn't anybody in this family have feelings?

"Mother, I'd like you to meet Roseanne Archer."

Winthrop's mother turned her eyes in Roseanne's direction, reluctantly acknowledging her existence. Roseanne recognized the cold blue emptiness she had sometimes seen in Winthrop's eyes.

"How do you do?" Mrs. Carruthers' voice hit the very outer limit of civility.

"Very well, thanks." Roseanne put out her hand, infusing her own tone with as much generous warmth as she could. Just because everyone else in the room happened to be icy statues didn't mean she had to join the club.

Winthrop's mother let Roseanne take her hand, but she gave no pressure or effort of her own to the brief shake. There followed another long, awkward silence.

"Might as well eat," Winthrop's mother finally announced.

Over dinner, the atmosphere around the dark polished wood of the dining room table could have been cut with a knife.

"I must say, we feel mighty honored to meet a lady friend of my son's," Samuel Carruthers remarked as he sliced into his steak with a vengeance. He fit a piece of bright red meat into his mouth and chewed as though he meant it. "It just strikes us as mighty peculiar that Winthrop should pick this particular time to suddenly end his imitation of a cath-o-lic priest." Samuel's eyes fell shrewdly on Roseanne. "You got any thoughts on the subject, Miz Archer?"

Winthrop's father was clearly not a man to have the wool pulled over his eyes. He'd noted Roseanne's arrival on the scene so shortly after the rumors of Win reuniting with Sylvia. What he'd come up with was suspicion.

Roseanne opened her mouth, fully prepared to give her thoughts on a variety of subjects, including Mr. Carruthers' lack of manners.

But Win cut in before she had a chance to get started. "Miz Archer—that is, Roseanne—doesn't have to explain anything to you, Pa." His voice was level, and dangerously soft.

Carruthers senior raised his eyebrows and turned his forceful gaze onto his son. "Then maybe you would care to do the explaining, son."

To her right, Roseanne caught the long-suffering sigh of Winthrop's mother.

"I'd be happy to," Win said. "Especially since it's me you've got the beef with, not Roseanne."

Samuel Carruthers' jaw set. "You sure are right about that."

With a faint smile, Winthrop raised a glass of whiskey to his lips. "But you got to tell me which you'd like explained: the fact I'm a complete failure as a son, or that I couldn't succeed as a husband?"

Samuel leaned over the table, crossing his fingers before his plate. "I could have forgiven everything—the way you rejected whatever I tried to teach you, the way you spurned my every value—if you'd only had the red-blooded wherewithal to hang on to your wife."

Winthrop stared at his upraised glass, still smiling faintly, but Roseanne could see the color drain from his face.

"Frankly," Samuel went on, "both your mother and I are utterly bewildered by your behavior in that marriage."

"I don't blame you," Winthrop murmured under his breath. His smile faded swiftly.

"One minute you were the happiest man on earth, finally doing something right by your family, incidentally. And the next minute you were throwing it all away without a word of explanation."

"It's quite a puzzle, isn't it?" Winthrop set his glass back on the table with exaggerated care.

"Your mother and I have never understood why you didn't reconcile with Sylvia," Samuel continued doggedly. "When this newspaper report came out, we thought you'd finally come to your senses."

"Come to my senses?"

Samuel seemed to gather himself to enact a necessary duty. "Son, it's as plain as the nose on my face that you're still head over heels in love with that girl."

Winthrop looked up sharply at that. His eyes were suddenly blazing. The composure he'd been holding dropped right away.

Roseanne felt a sharp pang in the middle of her chest. Winthrop's father was right. Win still loved Sylvia. Now that his guard was down, the fact was written in every drawn and etched line of his face.

She felt simultaneously astonished, baffled—and oddly hurt. He still loved his ex-wife. But Win had left Sylvia—tossed her away, even. How could he love her?
Still
? And why did that pang in the middle of her chest seem to be expanding?

No. No. None of that mattered. All that mattered was that Roseanne had a job to perform, and she was determined to do so. It seemed that despite her presence at this dinner, despite the gigantic diamond ring on her finger, Winthrop's parents thought he ought to be remarrying Sylvia. Roseanne's job was to change that idea. So, stamping down all irrelevant emotions, she cleared her throat, loudly. "Pardon me," she said, also loudly.

Three pairs of eyes glared at her, all equally displeased to find her still privy to this family conversation.

"If you don't mind," she barreled forward, "I think we ought to turn this discussion toward Winthrop's present, er, obligations."

Belatedly, Winthrop appeared to remember his fake engagement. And regret it. "Now, Roseanne," he interjected smoothly, "there's no need to discuss our private plans with my parents at this point in time." The coward was chickening out.

Roseanne didn't know if that was what decided her or if it was his father's overbearing bully tactics. She'd never liked a bully.

"On the contrary, I think there's every need. And the sooner," she added significantly, "the better."

By Winthrop's rapidly transforming expression, Roseanne could see he was almost on to her plan. So she forged ahead quickly, turning to Samuel with a supremely sweet smile. "I'm afraid, Mr. Carruthers, that any discussion of Winthrop reconciling with his ex-wife is utterly moot. You see—"

"No!" This from Winthrop, who was chiming in just an instant too late.

"Oh yes, darling." Roseanne's smile warmed significantly as she turned it in his direction. She quickly scanned her repertoire of euphemisms to find one that could be true, without being an outright lie. She knew Winthrop would not be pleased with a lie. "I'm afraid the rabbit died." Surely, somewhere in the state of Texas, Roseanne rationalized, a rabbit had died. And Win's parents were old enough to understand the implication.

"Criminy!" Winthrop surged up from his seat, frustration mixed with an equal load of embarrassment. It was, she decided, the perfect expression for a man who'd just found out he was going to become a father. He couldn't have done better if he'd tried. "Roseanne, you can't do this!"

Roseanne delicately cleared her throat and looked down at her carmine fingernails. "Well, it wasn't only
my
doing, darling."

"The hell it wasn't—isn't—! Listen, Roseanne—"

"I'm sorry, Win. There aren't any two ways about it. You're going to have to marry me." She turned to Winthrop's amazed father for confirmation. "Isn't that right, Mr. Carruthers?"

Samuel looked from Winthrop to Roseanne and back again. Slowly but surely, a broad smile came over his face. "Why, saints in heaven, miracles do happen after all. A grandchild! I didn't think you had it in you, son." Totally forgotten was the oil merger. A grandchild trumped all.

"I didn't! I don't. That is—" Winthrop stopped, clearly at a loss. His eyes raked mercilessly over Roseanne but it was clear he could think of no way to deny her story. "Hell, I had no idea."

Roseanne turned to give Mrs. Carruthers her best woman-to-woman look. "The fathers are always the last to figure it out, aren't they?"

Unlike her husband, Elizabeth Carruthers looked more sour than pleased. Her eyes glittered suspiciously at Roseanne. "Oh, do you intend on keeping this child, Miz Archer?"

A hot flush of anger washed through Roseanne. Of course she wasn't really pregnant, but to have Winthrop's mother even suggest she'd do anything but carry his baby made her suddenly furious. "Of course I intend to keep it," she retorted. "What do you think I am?"

Samuel stood and clapped his son on the back. "Congratulations, son. I guess I'll just have to hang on until the next generation grows up then, don't I? Business sense like mine tends to skip a generation, you know."

Winthrop threw Roseanne a helpless glance and made a strangled sound. "Right, Pa. You wait."

"Do you know I'm not feeling all I could be, what with the morning sickness and all," Roseanne decided, also rising to her feet. "If none of you mind terribly, I'd like Winthrop to drive me home."

"Good idea," Winthrop concurred at once. "We don't want you taking any
chances
, do we?" His furious glare was quick and for her alone.

Roseanne smiled serenely, confident she'd succeeded in bringing everything under control. Any idea of Sylvia and Win getting back together was officially at an end in this household. "It was so nice to meet both of you," she claimed.

Looking regal, Elizabeth Carruthers rose from her seat. "Good night, Miz Archer. I suppose we'll be seeing more of each other in the near future."

"Right. You can bet on it. Uh, Winthrop?" Maybe the situation wasn't quite as under control as Roseanne had presumed. "The sooner the better."