THE TROPHY WIFE

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  Contents:

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

  Epilogue

  © 2006

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  One

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  She needed a miracle. Fast.

  Elizabeth Stanton sat at the desk in the study of her Houston home, a gray stone mansion nestled among huge oak and pine trees in exclusive River Oaks, the "old money" section of town.

  Her father, grandfather and all the previous generations of Stanton men as far back as the early 1800s had worked at the mahogany desk.

  At five foot four and one hundred and six pounds, Elizabeth was dwarfed by the massive piece of furniture, and the well-worn leather chair seemed to swallow her.

  Had she been aware of such things she would have thought the image appropriate: at that moment she felt small and helpless, with no place to turn.

  Elizabeth gazed at the financial report that her banker had given her less than an hour before, as though if she stared at the figures long enough they would somehow miraculously change.

  After a time she sighed and lowered her head, cupping her forehead with her hand. She had to face it. She was broke. Or as good as. What in God's name was she going to do?

  "Damn you, Edward Culpepper. Damn you to hell," she railed through clenched teeth.

  At her wit's end, Elizabeth shot to her feet so abruptly the chair rolled back and crashed into the mahogany credenza. At any other time she would have been concerned about possible damage to the family heirloom, but she was so agitated she barely noticed.

  She paced the Oriental rug, but after a few aimless circuits of the paneled room she came to a halt in front of the French doors that led out to the side terrace. With her arms crossed over her midriff, she absently massaged her elbows through the sleeves of her teal satin blouse and stared out over the side lawn.

  There was nothing much to see at that time of year. A couple of weeks ago, in late October, a "Texas-blue norther" had blown in, and within the space of an hour the temperature had plummeted from a muggy ninety-six to just above freezing. Since then the region had been blasted by one cold front after another.

  Outside the French doors, gusting winds tore at the trees, sending showers of oak leaves and pine needles dancing across the lawn. Near freezing temperatures had turned the grass the color of straw. The azalea beds, laid out in fanciful shapes of butterflies and rainbows, were now dormant, the plants stripped down to bare sticks. So were the crepe myrtle and oleander bushes that formed the hedge around the property.

  A hard freeze was expected that night, and Dooley Baines, their gardener-handyman, was fighting the wind to cover the tender plants.

  Dooley and his wife Gladys, the cook-housekeeper, had worked at the Houston house ever since Elizabeth could remember. Their entire married life they had lived in the three-bedroom apartment above the garage, had raised their two children there and, with the help of Elizabeth's father, had put them both through college. The couple fully expected to continue at their jobs as long as they were able.

  Elizabeth watched Dooley, his back bent from years of stoop work, tending his beloved garden, blessedly unaware that his employer, and his secure world, were teetering on the brink of ruin.

  Elizabeth's Houston property, and that of most of her neighbors, covered several acres. Over the top of the hedge she could glimpse the slate roof of the Whittingtons' home through the stripped tree branches.

  Mimi Whittington was her closest friend, one of only a handful of people on whom Elizabeth knew she could count to stand by her through good times and bad.

  And these were definitely bad times.

  As though Elizabeth's thoughts had somehow conjured her up, at that moment Mimi stepped through the gap in the hedgerow between their houses and headed for the side terrace.

  That gap was the only flaw in Dooley's otherwise picture-perfect garden and the bane of the poor man's existence. Years of her and Mimi squeezing through the hedge had created the hole and worn a trail through the grass. Dooley had fussed and scolded, but in the end he had given up and shaped the gap into a narrow arch and laid a path of stepping-stones from the opening to the side terrace to accommodate the daily foot traffic that occurred whenever Elizabeth was in Houston.

  Watching Mimi, Elizabeth had to smile. Her friend scurried along the path in stiletto heels, clutching her ankle-length sable coat tight at her neck. How typical of Mimi to wear fur for an afternoon visit.

  Beneath the coat Elizabeth caught glimpses of skintight black leggings and a big shirt in a wild print of purple, gold and black. Her friend's blond hair was being whipped every which way by the wind.

  Mimi called to Dooley and waved. Then she looked toward the house and saw Elizabeth standing at the study doors and grinned and waggled her fingers at her.

  Elizabeth opened the door when Mimi reached the terrace, and her friend burst into the study on a gust of frigid wind and a cloud of Chanel perfume.

  "Laudy, Laudy, Miss Claudie! It's getting' cold out there," she exclaimed in her syrupy East Texas drawl, giving an exaggerated shiver. "I nearly froze my arse off just runnin' over here. I swear to goodness, there's nothin' between us and the North Pole but a barbed-wire fence."

  She slipped out of her sable coat, tossed it over the back of one of the fireside chairs as casually as she would have an old rag and fluffed her short platinum hair with both hands, the rows of gold bangles around both wrists clanking. "I declare, that wind destroyed my do. And I went to Mr. André this morning after dance hour. If he could see me now the poor man would have a hissy fit."

  Elizabeth stifled a grin and the urge to ask how he would know that Mimi's coiffure was mussed? Currently she wore her hair in one of those spiky, "artfully messy" dos. With Mimi, one never knew from week to week what style she would be sporting or what color her hair would be.

  "By the way, don't think that just because you missed dance hour this morning because of business that you don't have to make it up. I'm gonna work you into the ground tomorrow morning."

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "I figured as much. You old slave driver," she added in feigned annoyance.

  For the past twenty-three years, ever since Elizabeth was nine years old, Mimi had given her dance lessons in the attic studio in her home that her late husband had built for her. Mimi liked to give the impression of being languid and spoiled and that was most people's opinion of her. Few knew about those vigorous early-morning dance sessions, which had become a fitness workout for both of them.

  "Gotta keep the bod in shape, and dance is a lot more fun than a gym," her friend insisted.

  Shivering, Mimi held out both hands to the cheery blaze dancing in the fireplace. Her acrylic nails were long and painted crimson, and every finger, including her thumbs, was adorned with a ring. From her ears hung long, linear diamond earrings that almost brushed the tops of her shoulders and swung and sparkled at the slightest movement of her head.

  "Mmm, that feels divine," Mimi purred, turning to warm her backside. She rubbed her rear end with both hands and fixed Elizabeth with a look. "So? How did the meeting with Walter and John go? Please, please, please tell me John has found a way to recoup your money and throw that two-timin' snake in the grass in jail where he belongs."

  The other woman's ire on her behalf brought a feeble smile to Elizabeth's lips. Though Mimi was ten years her senior, the two of them had been friends almost from the moment they met.

  Mimi claimed that they had been friends in previous lives and were destined to be friends forever.

  Whatever the reason, most people in their social set were baffled by their friendship. They were about as different as any two women could be.

  Elizabeth was qui
et and reserved by nature.

  Brash, outrageous, flamboyant, unpredictable—those were but a few of the words that people used to describe her friend, and Mimi would be the first to admit that she was all of those things and more. A free spirit with a heart of gold, a somewhat bawdy sense of humor and the means to do just exactly as she pleased. She thumbed her nose at convention, and if you didn't like it, tough.

  When Horace met her she'd been competing in ballroom dancing competitions and occasionally working as a Las Vegas showgirl.

  "The only assets I had were a pretty face and a knockout body," her friend freely admitted with no apology. "So I put them to good use in a place where I could make the most money and not betray my principles or make my dearly departed mama ashamed of me. Dance competitions and the Vegas stage beat dancing in a sleazy strip joint or flipping burgers."

  When fifty-two year old Horace Whittington married nineteen-year-old Mimi, to no one's surprise she had been labeled a gold digger by Houston society.

  On the surface the match had appeared to be the same old story, a pathetic older man attempting to regain his youth by marrying a young, mercenary female with dollar signs in her eyes.

  What few people had realized at the time was that Mimi truly loved her Horace—whom she called "Big Daddy"—with every fiber of her being. And why not? Horace Whittington had been a thoroughly nice man, good natured, honest, loyal and generous with those whom he loved.

  He'd also been a handsome devil. Horace had kept himself fit, and at six feet tall, with his shock of silver hair, twinkling blue eyes and tanned craggy face, he'd looked like the Hollywood version of the successful westerner.

  There were many in Houston society who would like to snub Mimi, but they didn't dare. The Whittington family was too influential.

  "Now that Big Daddy's gone, some of the old biddies would like nothing better than to revoke my membership in the River Oaks Country Club," Mimi had told Elizabeth a short time after Horace's death. "But they don't dare. Not as long as I've got Big Daddy's money.

  "You know how the 'committee junkies' are always throwing some hoity-toity ball or other kind of fund-raiser for their current pet charity. Big Daddy used to call them the 'Cause of the Month' events. The Whittington Foundation contributes more than a million dollars every year at those shindigs. The blue bloods may not want me, but they sure as heck want the Whittington money, and they're willing to grit their perfect capped teeth and put up with me to get it.

  "Personally, I don't care didly whether I belong to the country club or not. I only keep my membership because I know it irritates the you-know-what out of them to have to rub elbows with a nobody from nowhere."

  Elizabeth gently chided her friend for such remarks, but in truth the assessment was not far off the mark.

  However, no matter how anyone felt about Mimi personally, eventually even her harshest critics had been forced to admit that the Whittington marriage was a happy one. Horace and his Mimi had been inseparable throughout their twenty-one-year marriage.

  For months after his death of a sudden heart attack less than a year ago, Mimi had been inconsolable. That was the only time that Elizabeth had ever known her to cry, and it had broken her heart to see her scrappy friend so despondent.

  After a while, though, she had picked herself up and gotten back into the game of life with all the gusto and flair that was uniquely Mimi.

  "Big Daddy would not want me to grieve forever," she had proclaimed in her syrupy drawl. "Why, if that man looked down from heaven and saw me weepin' and wailin' and carryin' on, he'd wrangle a pass from St. Pete himself and come down to earth and personally kick my incredibly cute butt up over my shoulders."

  And he would have, too, Elizabeth thought. If there was one thing that Horace had wanted above all else, it was for his Mimi to be happy. The same couldn't be said for Elizabeth's marriage.

  Other than her attorney, John Fossbinder, and her banker, Walter Monroe, who had also been serving as her financial adviser for the past year, Mimi was the only person who knew the full story of Elizabeth's ex-husband's desertion. Most people in their set assumed that Edward had developed a roving eye and Elizabeth had kicked him out and quietly sought a divorce.

  The bare bones of the story was accurate, but the full depth of Edward's betrayal had not yet leaked out. Still, Elizabeth knew it was only a matter of time. You couldn't keep a scandal like the one her ex had created quiet forever. Neither could she keep from selling off family heirlooms and jewelry to keep up with expenses and preserve the appearance that the Stanton fortune was still intact.

  Elizabeth gave her friend a helpless look and shook her head. Mimi knew that she had just returned from a meeting with her banker and her attorney. For hours the three of them had discussed her situation and what, if anything, could be done to salvage the Stanton fortune.

  "I wish I could tell you that things are looking up, but I can't. Over the past year John has exhausted every avenue that might be even remotely available to me, with no luck. Apparently I have no legal recourse. According to John, what Edward did was unethical, even bordering on criminal. But he was clever. It seems there are no charges that I can bring that will stick. And no way to reclaim my money."

  "Unethical, my patootie!" Mimi scoffed. "That bastard robbed you and your aunt blind. The records prove that practically from the day your father died and you inherited his two-thirds of the estate, Edward began siphoning off money from the Stanton holdings. And his sticky fingers were in the till right up until the day that he took off with his little chippie for parts unknown. If that's not a crime, I don't know what is! You ask me, that spineless worm should be tarred and feathered and locked up in the cross-bar hotel for life!"

  "I don't know that he's spineless, necessarily." Elizabeth gave her friend a wry look. "He had the guts to rob me of most of my family's money and get away with it. Then run off with my lifelong enemy."

  Mimi snorted. "Sugar, that doesn't take strength or character. That just shows what a low-life, cheating thief he is. And you ask me, any man who'd choose Natalie over you has no taste a'tall."

  Mimi's vehemence brought another wan smile to Elizabeth's lips. Her friend always carefully avoided any mention of Edward's mistress unless Elizabeth introduced the woman's name into their conversation. She knew that Mimi's silence took extreme willpower; Mimi boiled with anger on her behalf and desperately needed to vent.

  "How Edward could so much as look at that woman is beyond me," she railed on. "Natalie Brussard may have money and looks, but she is one nasty piece of work."

  "She is that," Elizabeth agreed.

  Ever since they had been children, Natalie had harbored an almost pathological envy of Elizabeth. For her part, Elizabeth had never understood why. Natalie's family was wealthy and socially prominent. Growing up, she had enjoyed the same privileges as Elizabeth, attended the same private schools, belonged to the same clubs.

  In their senior year of high school, to Elizabeth's embarrassment and Natalie's fury, Elizabeth had been voted most beautiful. The accolade was a meaningless, teenage thing that Elizabeth had dismissed as unimportant, but in hindsight she realized that it was at that point that Natalie's envy had turned to hatred. Why, Elizabeth couldn't fathom. With her dark hair and black eyes, Natalie was a beautiful woman, in a sultry, femme fatale sort of way.

  Yet throughout their lives she had always wanted anything Elizabeth had, whether it was a piece of clothing, a car, a part in a school play, whatever. Ever since their early teens Natalie had practically made a career out of trying to steal Elizabeth's boyfriends. With Edward, she'd finally succeeded.

  The pain of Edward's desertion and cheating had paralyzed Elizabeth at first, but that blow had been minuscule compared to the shock she received when she filed for divorce and discovered the depth of his perfidy. With the exception of the family farm and the Houston house, her husband had stripped almost bare every asset, every account, every Stanton investment, and transferred the money to a
secret Swiss account.

  "You mean there's nothing John can do? Nothing at all?" Mimi asked, bringing Elizabeth back to the present.

  "Apparently not."

  "Damn." Mimi sank down on the leather hassock in front of one of the fireside chairs and let out a long sigh. "If that's what he told you it must be true. John's a real barracuda when it comes to looking after his clients' interests. If there was a way, he would've found it."

  Elizabeth strolled back to the French doors and resumed her absent contemplation of the scene beyond the panes. With his old peacoat buttoned up to his throat and his stocking cap pulled down low over his ears, Dooley pounded stakes into the ground to secure the tarps over the plants. Over her shoulder, Elizabeth murmured, "The toughest thing is going to be explaining all this to Aunt Talitha."

  "You haven't told her?"

  Elizabeth winced and shook her head. "Just that our investments are down. What else could I do, Mimi? She is eighty years old. This house and Mimosa Landing have been home to her all her life, just as they've been mine. I'm afraid she'll have a heart attack if I tell her how bad things truly are."

  "Don't sell her short. Talitha's a tough old bird."

  Elizabeth sighed. "The mistake Aunt Talitha and I made was giving Edward full power of attorney over everything but Mimosa Landing and this house. Now that's all we have left."

  "Oh, sugar, you didn't! When you told me you'd turned everything over to Edward I thought you'd meant he was advising you on your investment portfolio."

  "At the time it seemed like the thing to do," Elizabeth explained, watching Dooley work. "I trusted Edward. Why wouldn't I? He was my husband. His parents and mine had been friends for years, and I'd known him all of my life. I had no training or experience in business or finance, but Edward had both. Plus a law degree. It seemed logical that he should take over." Elizabeth shook her head. "He took over, all right."

  "Oh, sugar. I do wish you had come to Big Daddy for advice after your papa died. He would've told you the same thing he always told me.