A Stranger's Wife by Maggie Osborne

Author:Maggie Osborne [OSBORNE, MAGGIE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC027050
ISBN: 9780759522299
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2001-04-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

By Friday, Lily’s nerves were frazzled. She had changed her mind a dozen times about what she would wear for her first at-home before finally deciding on a dove grey velvet trimmed in black and cream. She instructed Elizabeth to dress her hair to match the style Miriam had worn in the portrait Lily would sit beneath, and she chose the same small pearl earrings that Miriam had worn in the painting.

After much anxious indecision, she finally selected a menu featuring tea cakes with fancy French names, and toast points with marmalade. Cranston seemed content with her choice, so she told herself that she was, too. But he’d thrown her off-balance when he inquired which china she wished to use. Stumbling over her tongue, she had suggested the flowered set. Considering that the rooms where Miriam had spent her time were papered and carpeted with flowers, Lily assumed she must have purchased at least one set of flower-patterned china as well. When Cranston nodded, she knew she had guessed correctly, and her shoulders sagged in relief.

Every afternoon and evening she settled into her small household office and reviewed Paul’s cards until they were crumpled and ragged and her mind reeled with names and details. It was Mrs. Brown whose daughter had recently married a Spanish count, not Mrs. Black’s daughter. Mrs. Smith who was organizing the Christmas ball, not Mrs. Smyth.

Now the day of her at-home had arrived, and she was edgy and nervous, utterly convinced that she couldn’t possibly succeed.

“Damn,” she muttered, pacing across the formal parlor where she would receive her guests. She would call Helene Van Heusen by her first name along with a handful of others, but most of the callers were to be addressed by their married names. With luck, she would remember which were which. But she didn’t feel lucky.

She was convinced the ladies would take one look at her and immediately suspect she was not Miriam. The moment she spoke they would know for certain.

Someone would denounce her. Newspaper headlines would proclaim the scandal. Quinn would be ruined, his candidacy in shambles. Paul would send her back to Yuma in chains.

“Stop pacing,” Quinn said, entering the room. “You’ve done this a hundred times.”

Glaring, she bit off a shout of frustration. She was almost certain to pour scalding tea on someone’s hand rather than into her cup, or spill her own tea in her lap. She could imagine herself calling a dear friend of Miriam’s by the wrong name, or politely asking a widow how her husband was feeling.

“I can’t do this,” she said, sinking into a chair. The wrong chair. Jumping to her feet, she flung herself into the chair beneath the altered portrait. “I’m not up to it. I’m rushing things. This was a mistake.”

“Nonsense,” Quinn said, taking a chair across from her. Amusement twinkled in his eyes. “You’ve always been nervous before a social event.”

By now she knew Miriam’s habits well enough to know that Miriam would not have paced or flung herself from chair to chair.

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