THE TROPHY WIFE Page 2

  "'Mimi, darlin',' he used to say. 'When I kick the bucket and you've got all my money, you can bet your sweet cheeks that the scallywags will be after it. Just you remember one thing and you'll be okay. Never let anyone else sign the checks.'

  "And I haven't," Mimi declared. "Anytime my money leaves my possession, I'm going to know who it went to and why."

  "Yes, well, that's a lesson I've learned the hard way." Elizabeth turned from the French doors and started pacing the room again. "If only Ian had lived," she murmured. "If he had, Edward wouldn't have gotten his hands on the Stanton money and none of this would have happened."

  All of his life, Elizabeth's younger brother, Ian, had been groomed to take over management of the family's fortune. No one, including Elizabeth, had seen any need for her to study finance or business in college since Ian would be steward of the family fortune for her generation. The possibility that he would be killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver at age twenty had never occurred to any of them.

  "C'mon, sugar. You don't really believe that, do you? A snake is a snake, whether you find it in the garden or the parlor. Edward may not have gotten away with as much if Ian had lived, but you can bet he'd've found a way to make off with some of your money. And he would've cheated. If not with Natalie, with someone else. Because that's what he is, a snooty, pretentious, low-life, untrustworthy son of a bitch."

  Elizabeth sighed. "You're right. And wallowing in what-ifs isn't going to help me, either. What is, is, and I'm going to have to find a way to deal with it."

  A heavy silence followed as both women pondered the situation. The only sounds were the crackle and pop of the fire, the whistle of the wind under the eaves of the big house and the muffled thump, thump, thump of Dooley's hammer.

  "Sugar, I hate to see you so worried," Mimi said after a while. "Why don't you let me loan you the money you need to tide you over. You know I've got plenty."

  Elizabeth sat down on the hassock facing Mimi and took her friend's hands in hers, her gaze warm and full of appreciation. "Mimi, we've been over this before. You're a dear to offer, but I can't accept. First of all, loaning or borrowing money from a friend is never a good idea.

  "That's a lesson I learned from my papa. And second, it wouldn't do any good. I've been tiding myself over from month to month by selling off valuables, mostly jewelry. Just last month I sold my great-grandmother Ida's diamond necklace."

  "Oh, no. Sugar, you didn't! Not the Stanton diamonds."

  Elizabeth nodded. "I had to. But it's like putting a Band-Aid on a sucking chest wound."

  "Oh, dear. Are your finances that bad? I thought you were just having a cash-flow problem. I had no idea the situation was critical. I mean, the Stanton fortune was so huge!"

  "Let me put it this way. At present, my outgoing is more—much more—than my income. The few investments that Edward so kindly left me don't earn enough to cover payroll and expenses every month."

  "Oh, sugar," Mimi murmured, squeezing Elizabeth's hands. "I'm so sorry."

  "The crazy thing is, technically Aunt Talitha and I are not without assets. I still have this place and Mimosa Landing. For now, at least. For the past four years straight the farm has been operating in the red. One year the crop was poor because of the drought and the next the hurricane wiped us out. Then the grasshoppers came.

  "I wasn't too worried until this year, after I'd found out that Edward had stolen almost all of my family's fortune.

  "And wouldn't you know, this year's farm expenses have been the highest yet. Our farm equipment is old. One of our harvesters had been on its last legs for years, and we had at least one tractor that was good for nothing but scrap metal.

  "Truman managed to keep the harvester patched together and running until this spring, but it's on its last leg. We had no choice but to purchase a new tractor and a new harvester, to the tune of well over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And that's a conservative estimate. I had to put up fifty acres of land as collateral before the bank would loan me the money to buy the machinery. It was land that wasn't originally part of Mimosa Landing, but even so, losing any patch of land will be wrenching."

  "How close are you to that happening?"

  "Too close. A big payment on the note is due next month, and I don't have it."

  "Can you scrape enough together to pay the interest? I'm sure Walter would cut you some slack if you could do that."

  Elizabeth shook her head. "I don't even know where I'm going to get the money to put in next spring's crop. Or make payroll next week."

  "Oh, dear. So … what are you going to do?"

  Elizabeth sighed. "I guess I'll have to sell this house. I should be able to get a few million for it. I don't know how long that will last, though. Most people don't realize how much it costs to operate a farm these days. Especially an enormous place like Mimosa Landing."

  "Sell this house? You can't do that! Why, I wouldn't know what to do without you here to talk to once in a while!"

  "I know. I'll miss you, too, but I don't have much choice. I'm certainly not going to sell the farm. Not so much as one acre. Not as long as I have breath in my body."

  The farm had been in Elizabeth's family for almost two hundred years. Each succeeding generation had added to the family's fortune, and over the years their base of wealth had expanded into many other areas, but it was the old homestead that Elizabeth valued above all else, as had all of the Stantons before her.

  Mimosa Landing was her heritage, her birthright. Generation after generation of Stantons had poured their blood, sweat and tears into that land, and she could not let them down. No matter what other losses she had to endure, she had to hold on to Mimosa Landing.

  "Okay, Miss Scarlett," Mimi teased. "I understand how you feel about that farm. But there has to be some way to fix things without selling this house. If you do that, word that you're broke will spread like wildfire."

  "I don't care about that. The loss of the money and the lifestyle that comes with it don't matter that much to me. I can do without those things. But I can't bear the thought of losing Mimosa Landing. I can't. I won't!"

  Elizabeth bit her lower lip, her eyes conveying her fear. "I'll miss seeing you, too, Mimi. You have to know that."

  Her gaze swept the elegant, walnut-paneled room. The furniture in the mansion had been passed down through the years, with almost every generation putting their personal mark on the place. Many things, like old Asa's desk, were older than the house itself.

  The mansion was big and sturdy and at the same time elegant. For business reasons, ever since her great-grandfather'd had the place built in the early twentieth century her family had divided their time between their Houston home and Mimosa Landing. The estate meant almost as much to Elizabeth as did the farm. "My great-grandfather had this place built when River Oaks was a new neighborhood. It's going to break my heart to sell it.

  "But what concerns me even more is what will happen to Dooley and Gladys. They're not old enough to retire, nor do they want to, but I can't be certain that new owners will keep them on, especially given their ages."

  "Oh, dear. I hadn't thought of that. I can't imagine this place without Gladys and Dooley."

  "I know. They've lived in the apartment over the garage nearly all their adult lives. They consider it their own. I can't bear the thought of them being kicked out."

  "Mmm, me neither," Mimi agreed. "Gladys loves this house. She's more protective of the place and all the antiques than you are. And the grounds here are Dooley's pride and joy. It would break his heart if he couldn't putter around with his plants or tinker with something around the place every day. Oh, dear. This is bad."

  "And I don't know what to do to fix things. If I don't sell this house I won't be able to meet payroll, or pay taxes."

  A knock interrupted their conversation. The door opened and the housekeeper stuck her head inside the room. "Pardon me, Miss Elizabeth, but there's someone here to see you."

  "Who is it, Glad
ys?"

  The older woman sniffed and folded her arms beneath her ample bosom. "I've never seen him before," she said with undisguised suspicion.

  Gladys prided herself on knowing every member of Houston society by sight, their family tree and every scrap of gossip ever uttered about them. "I asked if you were expecting him and he said no, but that it was important that he speak with you. He says his name is Max Riordan."

  "Oooh, yum," Mimi purred.

  "Maxwell Riordan?"

  "Yes, ma'am. Here's his card," Gladys said, stalking into the room. Everything about the older woman spelled disapproval, from her pursed lips and stiff posture to the way her sensible, rubber-soled shoes squeaked on the wood floor. Gladys and Dooley were every bit as protective of Elizabeth as they were of the River Oaks estate. "He doesn't look like a flimflam man, but if you want me to send him away, I will," the housekeeper volunteered.

  And she would, too, Elizabeth thought, tempted. She glanced at the card. The visitor was, indeed, Maxwell Riordan.

  "No, I'll see him. Show Mr. Riordan into the front parlor, Gladys, and tell him I'll be there shortly. Oh, and bring in a tray of coffee, please."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "What on earth does Maxwell Riordan want to see me about?" Elizabeth wondered aloud as the door closed behind the housekeeper.

  "That's what I'd like to know." Mimi gave Elizabeth a sly look. "What's going on between you and that good-looking hunk? Is there something you haven't told me?"

  "Don't be ridiculous. I barely know the man."

  Elizabeth had met Maxwell Riordan about a year ago, and a few times since then they'd run into each other at various functions, but they were more acquaintances than friends.

  He was someone who was considered to be on the fringes of Houston society, someone who was invited to fund-raisers because of his money, but who wasn't truly part of the social scene.

  Elizabeth's conversations with the man had consisted of little more than a greeting and a few words of polite chitchat before moving on. He certainly wasn't someone she would expect to drop by her house for a social visit.

  "And I wouldn't call him good-looking," Elizabeth added. "Dangerous-looking is more like it."

  "Sugar, don't you get it? That's what makes him so gorgeous and sexy. Max Riordan may be a bit rough around the edges, but he's all man." She gave an exaggerated shiver and rubbed her hands up and down her arms. "I declare, just thinkin' about the man gives me goose bumps."

  "Mimi Whittington, behave yourself. I swear, since Horace died you've had sex on the brain."

  "Maybe so, but I'm not the only one who thinks that man is delicious. I went to a fashion-show luncheon at the club last week and the gals at my table—Trudy, Delia, Blair, Madison, Becca, all of them—were practically drooling over him. There was a lot of speculation about what it would be like to have Max Riordan as a lover."

  "Oh, really?" Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. "They'd go to bed with him yet they're not wilting to let him join the country club, even though he lives in River Oaks?"

  "Isn't that a hoot!" Mimi replied, laughing.

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "If that's all those girls have to talk about, they have entirely too much time on their hands."

  Elizabeth was fairly certain that the speculation had merely been idle talk. The friends whom Mimi mentioned were all basically nice women, but other than golf and tennis, "doing lunch" and attending committee meetings for their various charities, they had little of substance to occupy their lives. Elizabeth was grateful that she had Mimosa Landing to run. The farm took up most of her time.

  "Oh, you know how they are," Mimi replied with a wave of her beringed hand. "If you can believe the gossips, Max is filthy rich, but he's learning that it takes more than money to be accepted by this hoity-toity bunch. We both know that the only reason I got into the country club was because Big Daddy had money, clout and the proper pedigree. And, of course, having your family's support helped a lot, too.

  "Unfortunately for Max, no one seems to know anything about him or his family, or where he got his money. There's a rumor that he's spent some time in the Middle East and South America," Mimi confided. "Brud Paine hinted that he may have gotten his start importing drugs."

  Elizabeth's eyes widened. "Really?"

  "Mmm. But I don't know if there's any truth to that. You know how jealous Brud is of any man who catches the ladies' eyes. One thing is certain, though. Max doesn't have the polish or sophistication of someone born to money.

  "Being an outsider myself, I know what that's like. Lord knows, it took me a year to learn which fork to use and what a finger bowl was for. In addition, you know how the old families around here feel about the nouveau riche."

  Elizabeth nodded. She did not believe in class distinction, as did some of her contemporaries. Her great-great-great-grandfather Asa Stanton and his wife had lived in a two-room log cabin with a packed dirt floor when they first homesteaded along the Brazos River. Elizabeth's parents and grandparents had stressed to her and her brother that they were never to forget their family's humble beginnings and to never, never look down on someone else because of theirs.

  Both Elizabeth's grandfather and her parents had stressed to her and her brother that the lifestyle they had was not an irrevocable birthright but a gift that they enjoyed because of the hard work of every previous generation of Stantons. Her grandfather also stressed that she and Ian owed future generations the same.

  "Always remember two things, and you'll be all right in this old world and the next," her father had advised them as children. "The first is, privilege carries with it responsibilities. The second is, never judge a man by his pocketbook, but by his actions."

  Elizabeth tried to live by those two tenets. She had voted for Max Riordan's acceptance into the River Oaks Country Club when his name had been submitted to the general membership, but she had to admit that she had not been particularly upset when one of the other members had blackballed him.

  Elizabeth could not put her finger on what it was about him that bothered her, though she could truthfully say it had nothing to do with his family history or the newness of his wealth. Whenever she was around the man, something made her … well … not nervous, exactly, but a bit on edge.

  She sighed and stood up. "I guess I'd better go see what he wants. Are you coming?"

  Mimi lounged back, elbows bent, her forearms resting on the seat of the leather easy chair behind her, and shook her head. "No, I'll wait here. He came to see you. He might not appreciate me horning in. But when he leaves hurry back and tell me what he said."

  With her hand on the doorknob, Elizabeth paused and gave her friend a droll look. "Oh, right. As if you're not going to listen in at the parlor door."

  "Who, me?" Widening her brown eyes, Mimi placed her hand on her bosom and blinked, the picture of innocence. "Now, would I do that?"

  Chuckling, Elizabeth turned to leave. "Just do me a favor and don't make any noise, okay?"

  * * *

  Two

  « ^ »

  Max stood at the window with his back to the room, staring out at the Stanton estate. This place made a statement, he thought. A quiet, tasteful, but strong statement—the owners had money, lots of it.

  More than that, though, the house and grounds oozed class. And permanence.

  And a long family history. Roots that went deep. Like the enormous oaks that dotted the grounds. The trees had probably been there for hundreds of years. Their girths were more than two or three men could span with linked hands.

  This, Max thought, was exactly what he'd been striving for all of his life. The sense of having made it, the serenity and belonging that this place exuded.

  In the beginning he had believed that those things would come to him through achieving wealth, and he had set his sights on building a massive fortune. He'd reached that goal years ago. Still, that elusive something he yearned for remained just out of his grasp.

  Turning away from the window, Max sc
anned the parlor, drinking in the quiet elegance and timelessness that was evident everywhere he looked.

  He had paid an interior designer a small fortune to decorate his penthouse. Most people thought the place was beautiful, but to Max it had that "showroom" look and feel, as though no one lived there.

  In a way, he supposed he didn't, really. The condo, less than a mile from here, was little more than a way station for him, a place to sleep, shower and shave and store the majority of his clothes. He was seldom there for more than a few days at a time.

  Whereas this place, for all its grandness, felt like a home. Everything was perfect, right down to the tiniest detail, from the antique furniture, to the Oriental rug, the brocade draperies at the tall windows, the sixteen-foot ceilings rimmed with intricate molding, the crystal candy dish on the coffee table and the knickknacks scattered around. Yet there was not a trace of that sterile feel his condo had.

  He heard the tap-tap of high heels on the marble floor of the foyer and turned to see Elizabeth Stanton enter the room.

  "Mr. Riordan, I'm sorry I kept you waiting," she said with a polite smile.

  "No problem." Max gave her a quick, unapologetic onceover as she walked toward him.

  Even at home on a blustery autumn afternoon she had a look of elegance about her. Just as he'd expected.

  Her shiny, bluish-green blouse exactly matched her eyes and looked terrific with the brown tweed trousers. Simple gold earrings and a gold watch with a brown leather band were her only jewelry.

  "Won't you sit down?" she offered, gesturing toward the sofa.

  Those times when he'd run into Elizabeth at parties or other formal occasions she'd worn her hair in some fancy updo, but today the thick mane swung loose around her shoulders. The style was casual, but even he could see that her hair had been expertly cut. It swung forward like a shiny, mahogany silk curtain as she sat down in one of the Queen Anne chairs flanking the fireplace, then swung back when she straightened, every hair settling back into place perfectly.