Society Wives: Love or Money: The Bought-and-Paid-for Wife. Maureen Child

this morning’s breakfast discussion, she’d had little time to weigh the options. Jack’s version tempted her because doing nothing, saying nothing, was always easier. But was it best for Lew? She just didn’t know. But seeing the letter—her heart raced as a tall, familiar, fully-dressed figure entered the room—she hoped, would make up her mind.

      Although she’d watched him arrive, Vanessa looked away to take a long sip from her water. Then he was there, standing beside her chair, an envelope in his hand. Her whole stomach went into free fall and she had to close her eyes against a dizzying attack of anxiety.

      “Are you all right?” he asked.

      She nodded. From the corner of her eye she saw Liz Kramer peering their way and she sucked in a quick breath. “Can we go somewhere more private? I’m afraid some more old friends are about to come over here.”

      To his credit, he didn’t turn and look. “There’s the guest library downstairs. Or I could arrange a private meeting room—”

      “The library will do fine. Thank you.”

      Tristan stood back, hands in pockets, while she turned the envelope over in her hands. He tried not to notice the pale trepidation on her face. Or the tremor of her fingers as she drew the single sheet of folded paper from inside.

      But he couldn’t ignore the tightening in his chest and gut, the desire to reach out and … hell … do what? Take the bloody letter back? Ignore his reason for holding onto it this morning, so he could hand it to her and judge her reaction?

      Logic said she wouldn’t look so uncharacteristically nervous—she of the cool poise and composure—unless she were guilty.

      Damn it all to blazes, he needed that guilt. He should be turning up the heat, pushing and prodding her into a hot-tempered admission. Except she looked too fearful and vulnerable and he couldn’t. Not yet.

      “It’s white,” she murmured, so low he wouldn’t have made out the words if he weren’t so intensely focused on her face. Her lips. The wide bemused eyes she suddenly raised up to his. “This is the original? Not a copy?”

      “That’s the original.” Then, when she continued to sit there studying the paper and the envelope, he asked, “Aren’t you going to read it?”

      Perhaps she’d been building up her nerve or delaying the inevitable, because now she unfolded the letter and scanned it quickly. When she got to the end, she stared at the page for a full minute. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking only that she was thinking. In the silence of the large library room, deserted but for them, he could almost hear the wheels turning and the gears engaging.

      But when she finally spoke it wasn’t to point out the lack of concrete proof in the letter’s content, as he’d expected. It was to ask, “Why would somebody do this?”

      Hands deep in his pockets, Tristan shrugged. “To create trouble for you.”

      “Well, they’ve succeeded there,” she said dryly, surprising him again … and reminding him of her first baffling reaction.

      He nodded toward the letter. “You commented on the white paper.” She’d also asked if it was a copy. “What’s going on, Vanessa? What aren’t you telling me?”

      “I …”

      Vanessa paused, her chest tight with indecision. Despite Jack’s instructions to divulge as little as possible, she wanted to share. Yesterday, no. Out by the poolside, no way. But this man had shown a new consideration, in fetching the letter so promptly, in whisking her away to a private room without question, in standing aside and letting her read in peace.

      Besides, telling him about the letters would take the focus off her and the secret she didn’t want to share. This one he would probably hear anyway, if he hadn’t already, on the town grapevine.

      “A couple of months back,” she commenced slowly, decision made, “two people I know here in Eastwick each received an anonymous letter. I thought … I had thought … this one might be connected.”

      “Now you think not, because the paper’s different?”

      “And there’s no demand of any kind.”

      He went still. “Are you saying these other letters contained extortion demands?”

      “Yes.”

      “Demanding what? What’s the link?”

      “Did you know Bunny Baldwin?” she asked. “Lucinda was her real name but everybody called her Bunny. She was married to Nathan Baldwin, a friend of Stuart’s. I thought you might have known them when you lived here.”

      “It’s been twenty years.”

      “You remembered Frank Forrester.”

      “He and his first wife spent a lot of time at our house.”

      Oh. She looked away, unaccountably stung by the sudden hard cast to his eyes. Our house. Did he still feel that attachment? Was that why he was so bound and determined to win the estate back?

      She wanted to ask, to know his true motivation, but he cut through her thoughts and reminded her of the subject at hand.

      “I take it this Bunny Baldwin is the link between the letters?”

      “Yes.” A sick, tight feeling twisted her stomach as she thought about poor Bunny. Although the woman had been fearsomely intimidating—and had cast some speculation about Vanessa marrying so spectacularly well—she’d also been mother to one of Vanessa’s closest friends. “She passed away a few months ago. They thought it was a heart attack but Abby, her daughter, discovered her journals missing. Long story short, the police are now reinvestigating her death.”

      “Because of some missing journals?”

      “Have you heard of the Eastwick Social Diary?”

      His answer was a noncommittal, “Refresh my memory.”

      “It’s a gossipy newsletter and Web site column about who’s who and doing what—” or whom “—in Eastwick. Bunny was the writer and editor, and the journals contain her notes and sources plus all the material she chose not to print.”

      “Chose not to?”

      Too agitated to sit, Vanessa rose to her feet and slowly circled the seating arrangement. This connection to his letter and its allegations had to be broached, as much as she dreaded how the conversation would go down. “I gather she thought some stories were too scandalous or damaging or potentially libelous to print.”

      That’s all she had to say. The sharp speculation in his eyes indicated he’d joined the dots without needing further clues. “These journals were stolen and the thief has attempted to blackmail persons named in the journal?”

      “That seems the likely explanation.”

      “And you think it’s possible the same person sent the letter to me?”

      “I thought so.” She lifted her hands and let them drop. “But then it’s not the same stationery.”

      “You think a blackmailer uses the same paper every time?”

      “I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. Do you?”

      “There’s no hint of extortion,” he said after a moment’s pause. “And if this person did have blackmail in mind, he’d have sent the letter to you. To entice you to pay hush money.”

      She exhaled on a long note of resignation. Yes, he was right. Although … “Do you believe there’s no connection to Bunny and the journals? Because this is rather a big coincidence, a third anonymous letter whose source could have been the same as the first two.”

      He regarded her silently for a long second. “What are you trying to sell me here? What’s your angle?”

      “I