Southern Belle

Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)

Part IV (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Part I

1

The much awaited rain—the rain everyone had been praying for, because the drought had been so bad—poured heavily down in doleful drops, battering the roof, dripping from the tiles and the gutters, past the windows of the wide, netted porch, before streaming relentlessly onto the grass. Within a few hours the yellowing lawn was nothing but a broad, soggy puddle stretching down to the Ogeechee River, giving the plantation’s freshly planted gardens an abandoned, almost forlorn look.

Curled in the rocker in the enclosed section of the porch that had once served as the nursery, Elm MacBride stared blindly out the window, her fingers tweaking the tiny red shutters of the well-worn dollhouse that dated back to the turn of the century. Only a week earlier she’d sat in this very spot, begging for rain. Old Ely—whose great-granddaddy was the trusted slave who’d helped her ancestors save the Hathaway family fortunes by stashing gold in the plantation’s well—had talked about it day after day for a month, how the land was too dry, how the garden so desperately needed it. Yet now, as she stared at the rivulets tracing irregular patterns down the windowpanes, her mind overflowing with the bewildering events of the past few days, the rain seemed strangely irrelevant.

What did seem relevant was just how blind she’d been—how profoundly dim-witted and completely oblivious to the affair her husband had apparently carried on right under her nose. She shifted restlessly, still trying to assimilate Harlan’s betrayal—and the fact that he’d had the gall and total lack of sensitivity to drag her through the humiliation of adultery within their own circle. She swallowed a suffocating rush of shame and frustration and brutally reminded herself that she’d needed a snide remark from the woman her husband was sleeping with before she’d realized what was going on.

The corner of the tiny shutter dug into her palm and she drew her tense hand quickly away from the miniature house and its many memories. In her anger, she’d almost crushed it. Taking a deep breath, she straightened her stiff shoulders and blinked. That Harlan had taken a mistress was inexcusable. But worse, she reflected, cringing, was learning that he didn’t care that she knew.

At first, just thinking of him in bed with Jennifer Ball, her all-time nemesis since play school, had left her feeling physically sick. Then, once she’d mastered the nausea that rose in her throat after hearing Jennifer mention blithely at the tennis club that Harlan was “a great fuck,” she’d carefully finished her lunch, signed the club voucher and driven back to their town house, determined to confront him.

She’d found Harlan in the bedroom, straightening his tie in the gilt mirror above the mantelpiece. Their eyes met in it before he turned, checked his cuff links and prepared to leave for his congressional office.

“Hey,” he’d murmured noncommittally, the practiced smile not reaching his eyes.

“Hey.” Elm had felt strangely nervous, as though the man before her was a stranger and not her husband of twelve years. She’d watched, disbelieving, as he’d stood, arrogantly at ease by the pocket windows, and chitchatted as if nothing were amiss, when surely Jennifer had called him, crowing about her run-in with his stupid wife. He’d even remarked that they were expected for dinner at the Thomas-Leighton house that evening, to please not forget to send flowers; the same things he always remarked upon in that slightly cynical, somewhat patronizing tone she’d become used to.

Elm had watched as he’d picked up his briefcase, bereft of speech, desperately trying to summon up the feverish flood of abuse—so alien to her nature it frightened her—that she’d prepared on the drive home, and been ready to hurl at him.

But the words just wouldn’t come.

Then, before she could gather herself, he’d flashed her a calculated smirk—one that said he knew she knew, but also that he doubted she had the guts to do anything about it—and left the room before she could find the language to hold him back, to ask him why. But the message couldn’t have been clearer: he expected her to ignore what had happened and get back to being a dutiful wife.

And there was the crux of the matter, she realized bitterly, gripping the well-worn arms of the old chair and rocking rhythmically. It wasn’t so much Harlan going to bed with another woman—though that had hurt dreadfully—particularly as it was only six weeks since she’d subjected herself to one last, unsuccessful in vitro fertilization treatment. Or that their sex life—the one area of her tottering marriage she’d desperately wanted to believe had remained intact—was clearly a sham. It was the knowledge, the glaring recognition, that the man she’d known for as long as she could remember had little or no respect for her.

And so she’d run to the plantation, to the welcoming safety of Oleander Creek, to hide from the harsh new truths about her marriage. It was what she always did, she reflected, angrily pitching a faded, flowered cotton cushion across the room. And worse, in the five days she’d been here, she’d solved nothing. All she’d done was ask herself repeatedly why her husband was risking their marriage—and his political career—for the sake of a white-hot affair, right here in Savannah, the community that had twice elected him to Congress.

Elm’s hand dropped in her lap and the chair stopped rocking. What had she expected from him? Embarrassment? Defensiveness? Shame? That she would have understood, could have tried to deal with—might even have made an attempt to bridge the gap and mend the rift.

But he’d demonstrated neither. She’d reviewed the scene repeatedly since that awful morning, and realized that his complete lack of emotion or contrition had turned the ache in her heart numb.

It had also cast a healthy damper over her prickly rage.

Nothing seemed important any longer, neither the facts nor the words nor her stunned feelings. In fact, she’d spent the better part of the week in a haze.

Then, finally, this morning she’d woken with a new focus for her fury: herself. Elm Hathaway MacBride, who at thirty-four years old should know a damn sight better, still hadn’t taken any action, had done nothing to alter the status quo, she reflected with disgust. It was especially galling to know that was exactly what Harlan was counting on.

It was as though she’d been fast asleep and someone had abruptly drawn back the drapes, exposing her to harsh, glaring light. At first she’d blinked, then all at once she’d seen clearly, realized that it wasn’t only Harlan she despised, but herself for having lived for twelve long years like a myopic mouse, making pathetic excuses for his absences, justifying his late nights at committee meetings, applauding his campaign-planning reunions, in a desperate desire to pretend everything was fine. Now, as she sat swaying in the rocker, arms hugging her slim, T-shirted torso, she felt more than just hurt or betrayed; she felt foolish.

For a few moments Elm tried to clear her mind by listening to the rhythmic sound of pattering rain, that relentless, decadent, passionate Southern rain that could rant and rave like a banshee, weep till it tore out your soul, make you yearn as it dripped sensually from trailing Spanish moss perched on the ancient branches of the live oaks that bordered the house and the lawn, and stretched on and on, all the way down to the river. Turning, she gazed out across the property toward the Ogeechee, aware that it was in the same state she was: bursting and about to overflow. Yet even as she whipped up her anger again it felt suddenly remote, as though in the past few hours she’d distanced herself mentally and physically from what, only yesterday, had represented a major disaster. Perhaps, she considered thoughtfully, it wasn’t quite as catastrophic as she’d first imagined.

She glanced at her watch. It was nearly 2:00 p.m. Tracing a pattern on the faded carpet with the toe of her loafer, Elm faced the truth: her well-ordered world had been turned upside down, and the protective barriers she’d so carefully built around herself had collapsed as thoroughly and dramatically as an imploded building. Worse, this dreadful lack of inner peace she was experiencing would continue to haunt her until she took action.

Shoving her fingers through her straight, blond shoulder-length hair, aware now that she hadn’t washed it in two days, Elm took a long, stark look at the wreckage. It was time, she realized with a jolt, to pull herself together and get a grip, instead of hiding out at Oleander Creek.

Usually her family’s centuries-old plantation afforded immediate comfort in times of distress. But not this time. Neither had immersing herself in her painting, the one area of her life that Harlan hadn’t taken over and that afforded her not only pleasure, but the beginnings of success, as her landscapes and portraits—usually Southern scenes and people that she captured with a bold, distinctive brush stroke—became increasingly known throughout the country.

But this time, nothing seemed to help.

As suddenly as it had started, the torrential rain slowed abruptly to a trickle, its intense fury spent. Rising quickly from the wicker rocker, Elm knew an urgent need to get outside, to wander around the plantation’s grounds, desperate to rediscover the sense of serenity that the place had always brought her in the past. She longed to be enveloped in that hazy, magical soothing cloak of oblivion that always caught her unawares the minute she stepped past the ancient wrought-iron gates of the property.

Moving through the dining room, Elm automatically straightened the Hepplewhite chairs surrounding the wide mahogany table and reflected that since Harlan’s betrayal she had experienced no delight at the ancient wisteria covering the Oleander’s trellised walls, nor captured that wistful touch of recognition when she’d stepped—as she always made herself—in the crack in the river-mud brick steps where some careless Yankee soldier had smashed his rifle butt almost a century and a half before. Nothing.

Not even a gentle sigh escaped her as she stepped onto the wide porch, home to the balmy breezes that blew softly in from the river, where she’d spent so many dreamy nights of her girlhood, gazing at the full moon shining bright and clear, while moonbeams played a stealthy game of hide-and-seek over the river and the ever-present scent of lavender and thyme seeped gently past the oleander trees and the camellias. Not even the sight of the old canvas hammock, strung up between the two live oaks a few paces from the hunting lodge, had helped one iota. And reluctantly Elm realized that for the first time in memory Oleander Creek had failed her.

Even as this occurred to her, she wondered if it wasn’t she who had failed Oleander Creek. The plantation had long been home to people of great courage and initiative, rare individuals who’d faced stark, seemingly insurmountable obstacles with decisiveness and grace. Maybe it withheld its pleasures from those who didn’t deserve her.

At the thought, she ran from the dining room, through the study—an addition built in the 1920s by her grandmother—into the hall, and grabbed her jacket, confused. She felt irritable, antsy, shaken and desperate, as though the needle of her compass was suddenly spinning. Opening the front door, she headed quickly down the steps to the old Jeep Cherokee parked on the gravel and shells, unwilling to admit that her safe haven wasn’t safe anymore; that the long hours spent churning up trowel-loads of earth in the gardens had resulted in nothing; that slashing swabs of thick, rich, brightly colored oil paint on endless canvases had in no way assuaged her feelings. And that, like it or not, she was going to have to delve inside the closed Pandora’s box deep within herself to find the answers.

Letting out something between a huff and a groan, Elm turned the key in the ignition, drove around the flower bed and down the bumpy drive that stretched for two miles before it reached Ogeechee Road, knowing definitively that her world had changed and was engulfed by a wave of nostalgia. Nothing would ever be the same again. She’d only felt this way once before, when her mother had died—robbed, defiled and defrauded. But back then she’d been too little to understand, with no one to blame except cruel fate and the cancer that had taken her mother, two bewildering forces that had seemed too huge to counter.

But this was different.

Now, she acknowledged, veering past the gate and waiting for a break in the oncoming traffic, she had a say in the matter and knew where the blame lay. It was her own damn fault for choosing to remain oblivious, aloof, content to sail blithely along, pretending—to herself and others—that everything in her marriage was just dandy, never once admitting that her life was not quite the picture-perfect postcard she’d tried so hard to project.