Читать книгу Outcast - Joan Johnston - Страница 19

“Mr.—Senator—and Mrs. Hamilton, I love your daughter,” Waverly began. “My goal in life is to make Julia happy. Without using her money.” He flushed deeply and added, “I mean, with the money I earn. I mean, I intend to be the one to support my wife.”

“Why, you … “ Ham spluttered.

“Honey,” Julia said to Waverly, “we can talk about this later.”

“Insolent puppy!” Ham snarled.

“Let the man have his say,” Ben’s father interjected.

“No one dictates to me in my own home,” Ham said ominously.

“Waverly has a right to speak,” Ben’s father insisted.

“He has no rights in this house!” Ham said heatedly. “Not where my daughter is concerned. I will be the one—”

Waverly interrupted, “Sir, I only want to make it clear—”

Ham whirled on the groom and said, “If you know what’s good for you, young man, you will keep your mouth shut.”

“I will not,” Waverly said, his face pale.

Ben was surprised at Waverly’s stubbornness. At his courage in the face of a very powerful—and unhappy—future father-in-law. He felt the knot growing in his stomach. He watched carefully, alarmed because his father looked agitated enough at Ham for the two of them to come to blows. Ben began figuring the quickest way to get between them if that happened.

Julia had insisted on being seated next to her future husband, and now Ben realized she must have anticipated some sort of confrontation during dinner. She reached out and laid a hand on Waverly’s arm, attempting to tug him back into his seat.

It didn’t work.

“Julia and I don’t need your money,” Waverly said to Ham, his brown eyes earnest. “We plan to live a simple, happy, loving, long life together.”

Ham’s lips became a rigid hyphen.

Ben’s glance slid to his mother. Abigail Coates Benedict Hamilton delicately dabbed at the sides of her pink-painted mouth with her napkin. With exquisite grace, she raised her eyes from the antique lace tablecloth and met Waverly’s troubled gaze.

“I know you love Julia,” she said in a calm, quiet voice. “And that you will do your best to make her happy.”

Ben held his breath. Do your best? The insinuation was there that Waverly’s best wouldn’t be nearly good enough.

“What does that mean?” Ben’s father demanded.

Ben nearly groaned aloud. Why couldn’t his father leave well enough alone?

“Just what I said,” his mother replied, her voice even.

“It sounded like you were denigrating the boy.”

“The boy?” his mother said, lifting an eyebrow.

Ben watched his father scowl as he corrected, “The young man.”

“That certainly was not my intention,” his mother said, her voice showing agitation for the first time.

Julia rose abruptly from her chair and stood beside Waverly. She stared with dismay at her mother and said, “Wave will make me happy, Mother.” She gazed imploringly at her father and said, “I love him, Daddy.”

The bridesmaids and two younger groomsmen lowered their glances nervously. Hands gripped napkins in laps.

Ben felt the muscles tighten in his neck and shoulders, felt his legs tense for action.

“I know you love Waverly, dear,” his mother said to Julia. “But—”

“But what, Abby?” his father interrupted. “He’s not good enough? Your daughter deserves better?”

“What the hell is your problem?” Ham demanded.

“Honey,” his father’s second wife implored. “Maybe—”

“Stay out of this, Patsy!” his father snapped.

Ben watched his stepmother’s hazel eyes flash. Watched her lips press flat. In his experience, Patsy Taggart Benedict gave as good as she got. She shot a look toward the end of the table, but she held her tongue.

Ben followed Patsy’s glance to his mother and saw that her eyes had narrowed. Saw her mouth begin to purse. And felt his stomach roll. His mother had a very long fuse, but the explosions when she blew were dangerous and devastating.

Ben was seven—his younger brother Darling had just died in an accident—when his parents began to fight on a regular basis. He would grab five-year-old Carter and head for the nearest closet, where they would hide until the yelling had stopped.

It had almost always started like this. With a question. And an unsatisfactory answer.

In an effort to avert the calamity he foresaw, Ben rose with his champagne glass in hand and said, “To Julia and Waverly. May they live happily ever after.”

His father was quick to join him. “To Julia and Waverly,” he echoed as he stood.

He was followed, Ben was surprised to note, by Paige, who rose and said, “To Julia and Waverly.”

Chairs scraped on hardwood as the bridesmaids and groomsmen quickly got to their feet. Ben watched tears brim in Julia’s beautiful blue eyes as she glanced toward her obdurate father.

Those glistening tears broke the senator’s will, and he stood, holding his glass out as he said, “To Julia.” And then, reluctantly, “And Waverly.”

His mother was last to rise. Her gaze was focused on her daughter as she said, “To the bride and groom. May they live a fairy-tale life … happily ever after.”

There were cries of “Here! Here!” as everyone drank.

Waverly swallowed the last of the champagne in his glass and allowed Julia to give him a loving kiss and shove him back into his seat.

The knot remained tight in Ben’s stomach until the archbishop arrived, shortly after the pecan pie was served. Everyone happily abandoned the dining-room table for the gazebo on the back lawn, where the wedding would be held. Even though most of the women were wrapped in fur, it was bitterly cold outside, and the rehearsal was brief. Everyone was happy to get back inside.

The bridesmaids meandered upstairs, where they would spend the night talking with the bride. The groomsmen got into their cars and headed to the bachelor party being held at the Benedicts’ estate, The Seasons, a mere five miles, as the crow flies, from Hamilton Farm.

The senator and Ben’s mother were walking the archbishop out to the foyer when Ben’s father stopped him and said, “How about a quick nightcap, son?”

“Dad, I’m hosting the bachelor party.”

“I want to talk with you about what happened today in D.C.”

“Can we catch up at the party? I need to say good-bye to Patsy, but then I really should be going.”

“Patsy’s in the parlor. Come on, I’ll pour you a drink.”

Ben realized his father wasn’t going to take no for an answer and nodded his acquiescence. Patsy gave his father a worried look and a kiss on the cheek. “Be careful driving home tonight, Foster,” she said.

“I will,” his father said. “You be careful driving back, too, honey.”

“I will,” Patsy replied.

Patsy and his father had come in separate cars because Foster had been late getting away from the White House. He worked as a special advisor to the president, and lately there always seemed to be some crisis brewing for which his services were required. It worked out all right because now he had a way to get himself home after the bachelor party.

Foster gave Patsy a hug and said, “I’m sorry about earlier tonight.”

“I can’t believe you let that woman get under your skin. Again.”

His father shrugged apologetically.

Patsy shook her head, then turned and gave Ben a hard hug and a quick kiss. “And you. You saved the day. As usual.”

“I don’t know about that,” Ben said.

“Trust me. If you hadn’t stood up when you did things might have gotten out of hand.”

“Thanks, Patsy,” Ben said, uncomfortable being reminded of all the times he’d acted as a peacemaker. And the reason it had been necessary.

“I’m sorry I can’t stay and visit longer,” Patsy said. “Camille has a school project to finish this weekend. Come see us more often. We miss you.”

Ben didn’t reply. He felt his stepmother’s pain from being second fiddle too much to spend more time with her. And the less opportunity his father had to chide him for leaving the military, the better.

Once Patsy was gone, Ben took the crystal glass of bourbon his father handed him and said, “I was afraid you and the senator were going to end up trading punches.”

“Waverly Collins has giant-sized balls,” his father said with a chuckle. “I’ll say that for him.”

“My friend is in love.” And has a baby on the way. Ben stared at the iced bourbon in his glass, thinking the last thing he needed was more alcohol, then swallowed it down. “And he was drunk, of course.”

“How are you doing?” his father said.

“I’m fine.” Ben didn’t feel like explaining to yet another person, especially his father, why he’d shot at some gang kid. He did his best to steer the conversation in another direction. “It was good of you to defend Waverly tonight.”

“I didn’t know Ham could turn that shade of purple,” his father said wryly. “If it hadn’t been for you, things might have gotten ugly. And Julia—”

“Julia has always been able to wrap Ham and Mother around her little finger.” Ben saw his father frown at the interruption but continued, “Neither of them is happy with her choice of husband. But neither of them is willing to make her unhappy by saying she can’t have the man she wants.”

Unfortunately, Foster Benedict wasn’t the kind of man who let himself get distracted. He looked into Ben’s eyes and said, “Are you all right, son?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Ben replied.

“I read the report from the mayor’s office on that gang killing this afternoon. You actually shot at a fourteen-year-old kid?”

Ben huffed out a frustrated breath. “Dad, he was—” Ben cut himself off as he saw his mother enter the parlor and head in their direction.

Ben watched his father’s shoulders tense as his ex-wife stopped in front of him. Ben could smell his mother’s perfume, a musky scent she’d worn for as long as he could remember. He’d been surprised as a kid when he’d realized all women didn’t smell like that.

“I wondered if you would mind giving President Taylor a message for me,” she said to Ben’s father.

Ben was surprised at the request. His father had been named a special advisor to President Andrea Taylor shortly after her election eighteen months ago. The president had taken quick advantage of Foster Benedict’s military expertise when she had to make decisions about which covert antiterrorist activities to support.

It might have been a perfect job for his father if Ben’s brother Nash hadn’t been the man in charge of planning and executing the covert activities authorized by the president. Ben’s eldest brother and his father often knocked heads when it came to how an operation should be conducted.

Ben had figured the president would get tired of referee-ing and get rid of one, or both, of them.

But his father gave consistently wise advice.

And Nash Benedict was the best at what he did, a sometime assassin who worked directly for the president with unsurpassed skill and daring.

So President Taylor kept them both. Listened to both. And made her own choices.

Abigail Hamilton had been studying to be a surgeon before she’d married Foster Benedict, and her prodigious charitable activities were directed toward medical causes. So Ben wasn’t surprised when she said, “Would you please ask Andrea if she would mind meeting with the nurses who work in the Pediatric Oncology Clinic at Georgetown University Hospital before she takes her tour of the children’s cancer ward next week? The administrator says the nurses deserve an attagirl. I don’t think Andrea will mind, but I need to make sure before we say anything to the nurses.”

“Why don’t you call her yourself?” his father said.

His mother wrinkled her nose. “There’s a new, overly protective executive administrative assistant to the chief of staff. The impertinent female makes it impossible for old friends to talk to the president without telling her exactly what they want first.”

And his mother had no intention of doing that, Ben thought with amusement. She intended to put the administrative assistant in her place by using her contacts to go around the woman.

“No problem,” his father said. “I’ll give you a call after I talk with Andrea on Monday.”

Ben saw the trap into which his mother had fallen before she did herself. She’d avoided the administrative assistant, all right, but she’d obliged herself to accept a call from her former husband. Whom she otherwise avoided like three-day-old fish.

Ben saw the momentary hesitation before his mother nodded and said, “Thank you.”

She turned her attention to Ben. “Ham told me what happened in Washington today. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Ben said, somehow managing not to snap the words at her. “I’d better get going. I’m Waverly’s ride to his bachelor party.”

“If you need anything … “ his father began.

“Dad, I’ve got everything covered.” Ben escaped the room, leaving his parents standing awkwardly across from each other. It served them right, he thought. Any animosity—or attraction—that existed between his divorced parents should have been dealt with a long time ago.

He made a detour to the kitchen hunting for Waverly, then searched each room as he walked toward the front of the house, finding no sign of his friend. He eyed the staircase that led upstairs where the bridesmaids—and the bride?—had disappeared. Surely Waverly hadn’t gone up there. Not with the senator breathing fire.

He let out an exasperated breath as he debated where to search next. Where the hell was the groom?