Wife by Wednesday (14 page)

“That depends,” Samantha said.

“On?”

“If your sister joins us. Three women with an open credit card are positively dangerous.”

They laughed. And despite the obvious differences between his mother and his wife, he wasn’t worried about them getting along. Samantha had listened to his description about his mother’s spending habits, about her love of fashion, and used it to gain her affection. By the time they reached The Plaza, Blake was certain that his mother didn’t even notice Samantha’s department store jeans and non-designer shoes. Blake was equally sure that Samantha would burn the clothes on her back the minute she had a chance.

Thankfully, his mother waved them off at the door and didn’t join them inside the hotel. The early dawn hours graced them with a deserted lobby. The bellhop quickly shuffled them to their suite. Blake tipped the young man and closed the door behind him.

Alone, Sam toed off her shoes and flung herself in the sofa. “I might actually like your mom after I get over the fact she ambushed us at the airport.”

“I asked her to wait for us in Albany.”

“She’s a mom. She’s curious.”

“Still, she should have waited.” And he’d have a private word with her at the first opportunity.

“She needed to see that I wasn’t five months pregnant with her own eyes.”

Blake had started to place his suitcase on the bed when Samantha’s words registered. “Pregnant?”

“Oh, please, you didn’t see her eyes drifting to my waist?”

No, the thought had never entered his mind. “You’re not serious.”

“Very. She was on a recon mission. First to see if an heir is on the way, second to make sure I wasn’t a complete wash in the class department.”

Blake leaned against the frame of the bed, his mind buzzing with the possibility that Samantha was right. “How can you be sure?”

“Women are emotional creatures. Everything is in their eyes. Once your mom took off her sunglasses, I could read every glance, every twitch.”

He shrugged. “I think I need to have you come into my next management meeting. You seem to have the spy thing down.”

“When I was in college, I minored in psychology.”

“You could have had a career in criminal justice.”

“Not likely. Sins of the father and all that.”

Samantha pushed off the couch, ending their conversation. There was hurt there, in her stance as she unpacked a few things and headed for the bathroom. Her father had done a number on her. Sadly, Blake wasn’t sure how deep her wounds were. He made a mental note to find out.

****

Samantha’s head no sooner met the pillow than Blake was waking her. After a long hot shower and a small meal, because face it, eating simply made her nauseous at this point, the honeymooners were on their way to Albany. The thought of Blake’s family watching her every move spread shivers up her spine. Samantha knew she’d dodged Blake’s mother’s initial inquisition. There was no telling if Linda would be as easily put off once Sam was on the woman’s home turf.

Dressed in a rust colored skirt and dress jacket, she prepared herself to meet the family.

Blake didn’t even question why she’d shoved her jeans and shirt into the garbage can at the hotel. He simply noticed the outfit there and offered a laugh.

Whatever! She shouldn’t have brought it to begin with… then she wouldn’t have been wearing it when Linda made her appearance. Not willing to be caught in anything but her best again, Samantha made certain the only clothes with her were on par with the former Duchess of Albany, maybe a few decades younger in style, but worthy of what the woman on Blake’s arm should be wearing.

The rain let up during their afternoon drive to the country. As London faded away, and the rolling hills spread before them, Samantha tried to relax in the seat beside Blake.

He spoke of his sister, who was about Samantha’s age. “Gwen’s always wanted me to settle down.”

Sam felt her stomach twist with Blake’s words. “Doesn’t it worry you…” Sam let her words trail off, her gaze shifting to the driver in the front seat. She wanted to ask if he worried about his sister becoming attached to her new sister in the short span of their marriage.

Blake flinched, uncertainly skirted over his face. “You and Gwen will get along fine. She’s very kind. Perhaps a little spoiled, but never mean spirited.”

Samantha dropped her discussion about Gwen’s attachment to a temporary sister-in-law for a time when the two of them could talk alone. The thought of deceiving all the people she was about to meet started to weight on her. The memories of her father, of the time right before he was placed in handcuffs, surfaced in her mind.

As a business major, Samantha spent many hours outside class discussing her father’s success with her professors. Even her boyfriend at the time, Dan, seemed to want to know everything about Harris Elliot and his small empire of wealth and property.

Dan was charming, charismatic, and more sly than a fox at a hole waiting for the rabbit to peek it’s soft, fuzzy head out.

Sam was the rabbit who didn’t know she was being played.

To think she’d slept with the man who eventually put her father behind bars. How stupid she’d been. They’d dated, studied, or so she thought, and rumpled a fair number of sheets. All the while Dan recorded their conversations, asked seemingly innocent questions, and helped the prosecution make their case against her father.

Even now, years later sitting beside her temporary husband, Samantha felt ill. Not that she’d knowingly given the prosecution evidence against her father, but the sins of her father snowballed into the death of her mother and Jordan’s wasted life.

Samantha remembered the day Dan confronted her with the truth about who he was. He stood beside a Federal Agent who threatened Samantha with her mother’s incarceration if she didn’t cooperate with their investigation.

The agent and Dan revealed some of the holes in her father’s business practices and informed her about the bugs throughout her house. “We have reason to believe your mother knows more about your father’s crimes. We need you to find proof otherwise or we’ll be forced to put them both behind bars.”

Samantha knew her mother was clueless, and was too shocked at the time to question why a Federal Agent would make a daughter prove a mother’s innocence. In the end, Dan and his friends simply used Sam to nail her father. They knew Martha had nothing to do with Harris’s schemes.

Samantha had questioned many things her father did over the years. He had silent partners, or so he said, but Samantha never met one. It really wasn’t until her business professor in her first year in college asked about her father’s profession that Sam became suspicious. She couldn’t give a concrete answer as to what her father did to make money… only that he did.

As for her mother, Martha, she was a housewife of a rich man. She lunched with her elite neighbors, never washed her own dishes, and looked the other way when her father had an affair. Her clothes were always perfect, and she didn’t allow Samantha or Jordan to leave the house in anything worn or cheap.

Samantha’s first year in collage opened her eyes to how the world really ran. Her sorority sisters, who disappeared like roaches to light when her father ended up in jail, showed Sam an awful lot about how to budget money. Two of the girls were from broken marriages and revealed their talents for skimming daddy’s money off their living expenses so they could take their spring breaks wherever the sisters wanted to go. They introduced Sam to big box stores where everyday essentials didn’t have to cost a small fortune. Samantha had been proud when she’d told her mom about how she’d budgeted her money so that her father’s bill would be nearly half what they’d originally thought. Martha took one look at the blue jeans Sam wore and refused to listen. “No daughter of mine is going to dress like that.”

Offended, but not willing to let her mother’s narrow mind stop her from learning financial reality, Samantha continued to put away nearly half of her father’s allowance every month into a separate account. That account saved her ass when the Fed’s seized the Elliot money.

Now Samantha was shuffling right back into a lifestyle she’d left behind. She couldn’t help but worry how her deception to Linda, Gwen, and whoever else Blake introduced her to, would turn out when Samantha and Blake split.

Blake’s hand covered hers, bringing to Sam’s attention that she twisted them in her lap. When she glanced into his beautiful grey eyes, she saw sympathy.
He probably thinks I’m nervous about meeting the family.

Little could he know her worry was much deeper.

For the first time since she’d slid on his ring, she questioned her decision.

What if she said or did something to mess this up for Blake, and his sister and mother were left without funds? Would Linda cope?

Sam shivered.

What if Linda took the path of Sam’s mother?

Sam shook her head and forced the memories of her mother’s funeral away.

“Everything is going to be fine.”

Suddenly, Samantha wasn’t so sure.

Albany Hall unfolded in front of Samantha’s eyes as the car drove up the secluded path to a circular drive.

“Oh, my word,” she hissed under her breath. Blake’s childhood home was the size of a small castle. Two distinct wings jutted out from a central structure. Samantha counted three stories, but wouldn’t doubt if there was a massive basement below ground. According to Blake, there were thirty-five rooms, not including servant’s quarters. Blake spoke of a ballroom and conservatory, a library with more volumes than anyone could ever possibly read, and sitting rooms aptly named by the color of the décor. “The blue room is off the main hall, the red room beside it.”

Stepping out of the limousine and into Blake’s world felt a bit like Cinderella at the ball. Only the clock ticking would run for a year. Samantha should have felt comfort with those thoughts, but she pictured the pumpkin and mice running at her feet and her left holding a glass slipper and regrets.

“Ready?” Blake asked before leading her inside.

If Gwen Harrison had any doubts as to Samantha’s presence beside Blake, she did a fine job of hiding it. She latched onto Sam’s arm the minute Blake escorted her into the massive estate and didn’t let go. She was young, beautiful, bubbly and no doubt very spoiled. Linda greeted her with an easy smile and introduced Samantha to Blake’s uncle, two cousins, who both eyed her with speculation, and an aunt on Linda’s side.

The servants stood ready to take her bags, bring her tea, and fade into the background.

“You can’t know how pleased I am to have another woman close to my age around here,” Gwen told Samantha. Where Blake hid his English accent, Gwen reveled in it.

“You’ve never lacked for company,” Linda told her daughter.

“Company, yes, but with family it’s different. Wouldn’t you agree, Samantha? I’ve never had a sister to confide in.” Gwen flashed a beautiful white smile. For a brief moment, Sam felt guilty. Although she had a sister, Jordan wasn’t healthy enough to have a relationship with her like the one Gwen suggested.

It was as if Sam was being given a second chance at a sister through Blake. But again, that year time bomb on their relationship loomed. “I suppose,” Samantha said.

“I have tea prepared in the red room, Blake. Why don’t we sit in there so we can hear all about your whirlwind courtship and marriage?”

Blake managed to slide beside Samantha and take her arm. The heat of him by her side added some comfort to her wandering thoughts. He leaned next to her ear and whispered, “How are you doing?”

Samantha noticed Blake’s cousin Howard watching them, his eyes narrow, his lips pulled down. She lifted Blake’s hand and kissed his knuckles. The light in her husband’s face forced some of the foreboding of their future away. “Fine,” she mouthed the word and Blake squeezed her hand.

Linda ushered them into the red room. Vaulted ceilings sat atop red, grey, and white wallpapered walls. The print was actually subtle despite the color. Floral paintings and silk drapes gave the room a feminine feel. A large bouquet of fresh flowers sat on a mantel above a stone fireplace.

On the coffee table sat a spread of sweet cakes and finger sandwiches, which the men reached for before taking the tea.

“Have you been to Europe before?” Linda asked as she poured dark tea into tiny cups.

“When I was in high school.”

“Then you know about tea time,” Gwen said.

“It’s just an excuse to snack midday,” Blake told her.

Gwen waved her brother off. “Don’t listen to him. He’s allergic to anything remotely English. I don’t think any of us were surprised to hear he’d taken an American wife.”

“Gwen!” Linda scolded.

“It’s true.”

Samantha chuckled.

“It isn’t my fault the women in Europe didn’t hold my interest,” Blake defended himself.

Howard stopped eating to ask, “So you and Samantha have known each other for a long time?”

Samantha and Blake had agreed that he would be the one to field the questions about their relationship. That way neither of them could stumble over the other.

“I wouldn’t say that.”