The Once-a-Mistress Wife

She elbowed him in the ribs, and he frowned at her but did not release her. Mary had always been so ethereal, dancing in and out of his life in a way that made him suspect he’d never be able to hold her for long. He would not waste this opportunity.

“Channing, I’d like you to meet Kane Brentwood. We met when I was living in London. Kane, this is my cousin Channing Moorehead, and his sister Lorette.”

He shook hands with both of them. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“We were very close to Uncle David,” Lorette said. “We’ve always lived our lives in an exemplary manner…to show our respect for him.”

“We’re all impressed, Lorette,” Emma said with a touch of sarcasm.

Mary smiled gratefully at her friend, and Kane realized, with his usual sense of great timing where Mary was concerned, he’d bungled into a moment where he shouldn’t have. There was a real tension between Mary and her cousins—something not unlike the tension between him and his family.

Lorette turned toward Emma to say something and Mary quietly withdrew, stepping away from the others in the anteroom. The behavior was so unlike the Mary he’d known, but grief did make people vulnerable.

He cupped her elbow and drew her farther away from the others. “What’s their problem?”

“Don’t worry about it, Kane. It has nothing to do with you.”

“I’m not so sure you’re right, Mary-Belle. I’m not going to simply walk now that I know we’re both free.”

“I’m a different woman now, Kane. I have an image to uphold,” she said, glancing over her shoulder to make sure that no one was near. “One that makes it impossible to be your mistress.”

“What image? I saw your work in a London gallery last spring. Your canvases were always remarkable, but there is something…breathtaking about these new ones.”

“Thank you, Kane. But it’s not my image as an artist that I’m concerned with. No one here knows anything about that part of my life.”

Kane couldn’t believe that she’d keep something that was such an integral part of who she was a secret. Mary had lived and breathed painting the entire time they’d been together—almost ten years. He’d had to resort to being her model a time or two to get her attention.

“What image are you concerned with, darling? That of being a mother?”

“No. My child was stillborn,” she said softly, and he felt the pain in her words. He wanted to comfort her, but she shook her head.

“I was speaking of the Duvall family image. I came home to claim my heritage, Kane. A heritage that isn’t as old as yours but is every bit as stringent. I have to go now. Thanks for coming.”

He nodded and let her walk away. He wasn’t sure what to make of the new Mary or her words. But one thing was very certain—now that he’d found her, he wasn’t leaving Eastwick without laying a claim on her. The kind of claim he should have made when they’d first met, instead of letting his own arrogance force them into roles from which there was no escape.

The funeral wasn’t long but went by very slowly for Mary. Afterward, everyone came to the Duvall mansion for the wake. In the midst of the crowd and condolences, Mary retreated to Grandfather David’s study for a few moments of solitude. She sat in his big leather chair that smelled faintly of the tobacco he’d always smoked. She inhaled deeply, wrapping her senses in her grandfather’s memory.

There was a knock on the door, and Mary knew the interruption signaled she’d been gone from the wake long enough. She answered the summons to find Emma, Caroline and Lily standing there.

“We thought we’d find you hiding out,” Emma said, closing the door firmly once they were all inside.

“I’m not hiding,” Mary said. Though she suspected her friends knew that she was lying, they’d never call her on it. And she needed time away from the pressure of making nice to all those people. After she was forced to be her society self for too long, she felt an itching deep inside to do something bold and crazy. To shake things up. She had no idea how her friends could survive the daily grind that was society life.

“Not even from Channing? God, that man is an ass,” Caroline said.

“Maybe. Is he looking for me? Is that why you came to find me?” Mary asked.

“No Felicity and Vanessa are running interference with Channing, and Abby cornered Lorette. We’re here to find out more about that dreamy man with the British accent.”

The last thing she wanted to talk about was Kane. She didn’t even know where to begin or what to say to her good friends. “That couldn’t wait until the next Debs lunch?”

“Who knows when we’ll have time for the next one with everyone getting engaged and planning weddings,” Caroline said, her eyes glittering with that effervescent joy she brought to everything.

“There’s really not much to tell. I met him when I was in London.”

“When?” Emma asked.

“My second week there. I was working in Harrods,” Mary said. She remembered the way he’d stopped at the display of women’s scarves and lingered for almost thirty minutes, never once pretending he was going to buy one but just flirting with her.

“And that’s it?” Caroline’s voice held a disbelieving tone. “That was ten years ago. The man today looked like he was more to you than a customer.”

“He was. We had an…affair,” Mary said because she thought her friends would understand that better than knowing that she’d lived in an apartment he’d paid for and that she’d made herself available to him whenever he’d wanted her. She’d been a kept woman.

“I knew there was more between you,” Lily said. “There was something about he way he looked at you. And that kiss…”

Mary’s lips still tingled, but she was trying very hard to forget that. To forget everything about Kane except the fact that he was no longer a part of her life.

“I haven’t seen him in almost three years.” To be honest, she didn’t want to remember the last time she’d seen Kane.

She’d been so hurt and angry that she’d said something she never should have. When she’d returned to Eastwick, Grandfather had said that her behavior had caused pain to others and herself, and she’d immediately thought of Kane. If she’d had the comportment then that she had now, maybe things would have turned out differently and she would still have her son…alive today.

“He definitely looked like a man who wanted to rekindle the relationship with you,” Caroline stated.

“I can’t. Not now. I have too much going on.”

“Sure you can,” Lily said. “You could at least explore the possibility.”

Mary shook her head. Kane wasn’t going to be a part of her life again. He was her weakness, and she knew if she allowed him back into her life, she’d have to face her past and the lies she once told. Lies that still haunted her.

Two

Kane was up early the next morning, jogging along the beach of Long Island Sound. He’d spent a restless night trying to come up with something he could use to force Mary back into his life. He knew that it was going to be hard to convince her, but he wasn’t a man who was used to failure.

He’d left the family import business when he’d had his marriage to Victoria annulled. His relatives had been appalled that he hadn’t done his duty and stayed married to the woman, even though their marriage had been strained from the beginning. At his family’s response, Kane had realized that he meant nothing more to them than his role as heir. He’d taken that opportunity to make a complete break with them.

He’d been living in Manhattan for the last year and a half, where he’d taken a small investment firm and turned it into one of the up-and-comers in the financial world.

He glanced at the horizon, gauging how much farther he’d run before turning back, when he spotted a familiar figure—Mary. She was sitting on the sand and staring out at the ocean. He slowed his pace to a walk to get his breathing under control before he got to her.

“Good morning, darling.”

“Morning, Kane,” she said, tipping her head back to look up at him. The sun left her face in shadows but brought out the warm highlights in her dark hair. Her locks whipped around her face in the breeze, and in that moment she strongly resembled the woman he’d once known. No longer buttoned-up and perfectly coiffed.

“What are you doing here?”

He put his hands on his hips, standing over her. “Jogging. I’m afraid I’m a bit sweaty. Do you mind if I join you?”

“Would it matter if I said yes?”