Outcast
“We can get a babysitter.”
“You have any idea how much it costs for child care these days? For diapers and baby food? You have a one-bedroom apartment. You’re going to need a bigger place.”
“We can’t afford a bigger place right now, especially with the doctor’s bills,” Waverly said.
“You’re damned lucky Julia has money of her own.”
“Julia has agreed to live on my income,” Waverly said.
Ben shook his head. “How long do you think that’s going to last?”
“The rest of our lives.”
“Do you really think Julia can live without all the luxuries she’s grown up with? That she’ll want her child to grow up without a bedroom of his or her own? Even if Julia were willing, her parents won’t be.”
“Julia promised me she won’t ask her parents to buy her stuff once we’re married,” Waverly said.
“She won’t need to ask. All she’ll have to do is mention she needs something and Ham or my mother will get it for her. Which is a moot point, because Julia can buy anything she wants for herself in three years, when she turns twenty-one and inherits the fifty-million-dollar trust fund that’s waiting for her.”
“Fifty million?” Waverly blurted.
“I thought you knew.”
“She told me she had a little money coming when she turned twenty-one. I knew your family had money, but … She never said—Damn it all to hell!”
“I wish I’d never introduced the two of you,” Ben muttered.
“Don’t say that. I love her.” Waverly rubbed his palms dry on his tuxedo trousers. “I can’t believe this.” He stared at Ben, his eyes wide, as though they were ten thousand feet in the air and Ben had just told him both engines had flamed out.
“See what I mean?” Ben said. “Right now you’re thinking, ‘Why on earth would you take a regular job when you have that kind of money, Ben?’ Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re not wrong,” Waverly said. “Why did you take a regular job with that kind of money?”
“Just stupid, I guess,” Ben said.
After graduation from West Point, Ben had gone into the army. It had seemed romantic and exciting and challenging. It gave him something to do with his life.
Until the day came when he’d realized he couldn’t remain a soldier one more hour. That he had to quit.
But he’d lived as a soldier most of his life, in a family full of soldiers, and he’d felt surprisingly lost after he left the military. He’d needed a reason to get out of bed in the morning. He’d needed something useful to do with his life.
No one who needed to work simply to put food on the table or clothes on his back or a roof over his head could understand the utter emptiness—the unnecessariness—of a life where all those things were already provided.
Ben had thought about ridding himself of his wealth. But there were problems with that, too.
Ben grimaced when he heard a wailing siren and saw flashing red-and-blue lights in his rearview mirror. He carefully maneuvered his Jag through a slick pile of burnished leaves on the side of the road. They were less than ten miles from Hamilton Farm. “Don’t say it,” he said before Waverly could speak.
The Virginia motorcycle cop had a hand on his Glock as he approached the driver’s-side window. “License and registration,” he said.
Ben handed over his license and registration.
“Show him your badge, Ben,” Waverly said irritably. “You’ll be in trouble with your boss if you end up with a ticket for speeding.”
“What badge is that, sir?” the cop asked.
“Just write the ticket,” Ben said.
“What badge is that, sir?” the cop repeated.
Ben shot Waverly a dark look and pulled out his ICE badge. “You should ask him for his badge, too.”
The cop eyed Waverly, who said, “I’m MPD.”
“The senator’s been looking for you,” the cop said, as he handed back Ben’s license and registration. “I’ll give you an escort to The Farm.”
The cop pulled his Harley-Davidson out in front of Ben’s Jag and turned on his flashing lights and siren.
“Does this happen often?” Waverly asked, his eyes wide with astonishment.
Ben shot his friend a sardonic look. “Get used to it. Like I said. It isn’t easy being rich.”
He glanced at his friend and saw the dawning realization in Waverly’s eyes that when he married into Julia’s family, his life would take a drastic turn.
“Does Julia have to take the money?” Waverly said. “Can she turn it down?”
“You can’t get rid of my mother’s money. Or the senator’s money. Neither Julia—nor your child—will ever want for anything if they can help it.”
“I intend to support my family myself,” Waverly said through tight jaws.
“Good luck telling Julia’s parents to butt out of your life,” Ben said as they entered the half-mile-long, oak-tree-lined drive along the James River that led to The Farm.
“I plan to do just that,” Waverly said. “Tonight.”
Ben grinned as the elegant Southern mansion came into view. “This I have to see.”
11
“You’re late.”
“Hello, Ham,” Ben said, shaking hands with his mother’s second husband.
Randolph Cornelius Hamilton, III, met them in the wild-rose-wallpapered foyer of The Farm with a bourbon in hand. His glazed eyes and slurred voice suggested he’d already had a few.
Waverly cleared his throat nervously and said, “Good evening, Senator. There was an incident—”
Ben watched as Ham waved away his future son-in-law’s offered hand. Waverly accepted the dismissal without protest. Ben couldn’t imagine Waverly confronting the senator about supporting Julia. But he had a feeling it would liven up the party if he did.
“I know about the kid getting his throat cut,” Ham said. “Terrible!” He turned and headed down the oak-pegged central hallway, obviously expecting the two of them to follow.
Ham glanced at Ben over his shoulder and said, “I would think you could have arranged to do your paperwork on Monday. Everyone’s been waiting in the parlor for half an hour to go in to dinner.”
Ben exchanged a chagrined look with Waverly. The rich and powerful didn’t believe that the rules applied to them. Don’t want to hang around and do your job? Just leave. It can wait until you’re good and ready to do it.
The wedding being held tomorrow at Hamilton Farm, home to Hamiltons since Virginia was a colony, was the Washington society event of the season. The expected crowd of several hundred included the exceedingly rich and the oh-so-powerful. Julia had acceded to Waverly’s request to keep the wedding party small, so there were only four male and four female members of the wedding party.
“I assume that the ‘everyone’ waiting in the parlor includes Mother,” Ben said.
“And your father,” the senator added ominously.
Ben grimaced. He’d tried to talk Waverly out of making Foster Benedict part of the wedding festivities. Waverly had argued that since both his parents were dead, he wanted Ben’s dad to participate in the wedding as one of his groomsmen.
Even when Ben had pointed out the problems of having both his mother and father under the same roof for an extended period of time, Waverly had remained adamant. Ben could count on one hand the number of times his parents had sat down at the same dinner table in the twenty years since their divorce. This made four.
His mother was a lady in every situation. His father was a former officer and a gentleman. They’d loved each other passionately. Which meant they’d hurt each other horribly.
And the love and the pain were ongoing.
It was like watching an impending train wreck and knowing there was nothing you could do to prevent it. At the same time, you couldn’t take your eyes away.
“They’re here!” Ham announced as he entered the parlor with Ben and Waverly.
Ben took one look at the tableau—his father on one side of the room, his mother on the other—and could almost feel the tension arcing between them.
The furniture was Victorian, which meant spindly and uncomfortably stuffed with horsehair, and there was little of it in the parlor. The twelve-foot windows were draped elegantly with pale-rose-colored silk, and the walls bore an ivy-patterned rice paper above and forest-green wainscoting below.
The other two groomsmen were standing near a sideboard that held a wide selection of crystal liquor decanters. His mother, his half sister Julia and Julia’s three bridesmaids and maid of honor were arranged on the settee and wing chairs. His father and stepmother stood alone near the only apparent warmth in the room—the crackling fire in the white-marble-faced fireplace.
His mother immediately stood, adjusted her expensive, yet elegantly simple, black off-the-shoulder evening gown around her and said, “Shall we go in to dinner?”
“Abigail?” Ham said, holding out his arm to his wife.
Ben’s mother crossed and laid her hand on Ham’s arm. “Hello, Ben,” she said as she moved past him. “I’m so glad you were able to make it.”
Ben heard a world of censure in his mother’s voice. Apparently, she’d spent more discomfiting time in his father’s company than she’d wanted to.
“Julia?” Waverly said, holding out his arm to his fiancée.
Julia crossed to Waverly and tucked her arm around his. “You got here just in time to avoid World War III,” Ben heard her murmur as she kissed her fiancé tenderly on the lips.
Ben could understand how Waverly had fallen in love with Julia. She was as beautiful as his mother must have been at the same age. She had perfect teeth that she displayed in a perpetual smile and cornflower-blue eyes that gazed adoringly at his friend pretty much all the time. Her sun-streaked blond hair proved, even more than the healthy glow of her flawless skin, how much time Julia spent outdoors horseback riding and playing tennis and sailing.
Most of all, for a girl who’d been given everything she could want from the day she was born, Julia was surprisingly kind and thoughtful of others.
Ben watched as each of the groomsmen held out an arm to one of the bridesmaids. Rhett winked at him as he passed by, then turned his charming smile toward the young woman he was escorting.
He looked for his eldest brother, then recalled that Nash was off on some troubleshooting mission for the president and had said he might or might not make it to the wedding tomorrow. Ben thought of Carter, as he often did, now that he was no longer fighting overseas himself, and prayed that his younger brother was safe and well in Iraq.
Ben held out his arm to the maid of honor, one of Julia’s very young friends, who lifted her chin proudly as she put her arm through his.
“Hello, Paige,” Ben said with a smile meant to melt some of the ice he could see in her eyes and in her spine.
“Hello, Mr. Benedict,” the girl replied with frost in her voice.
“Please call me Ben.”
“I’m being polite to you for Julia’s sake,” the girl said haughtily. “But I don’t like you. Or your friend.”
“If you think Julia’s making a mistake marrying Waverly, why did you agree to be her maid of honor?”
“It is when one’s friends are being foolish that those friends need one the most.”
Despite the speech without contractions, or maybe because of it, Paige Carrington seemed even younger than the nineteen years old Ben knew she was. He felt too old and jaded to be a part of this wedding party, but he’d promised Waverly he’d be his best man. The worst was almost over. He hoped.
Hamilton Farm’s exquisite mahogany dining-room table would have seated twenty easily. The wedding party of fourteen was spread out along the length of it. Four tall silver epergnes holding white beeswax candles and layered with pale pink roses made conversation with those sitting across the table difficult, if not impossible.
Ben leaned to his left and whispered to Julia, “Remind me again why we’re having the rehearsal after dinner, instead of before?”
“Archbishop Hostetler is performing another wedding right now,” Julia said. “He should be done by the time we’re finished with dinner.”
Ben wished Waverly were sitting closer. He was at the end of the table on the other side of Julia. Ben could see his friend was uncomfortable with the undeniable evidence of the Hamiltons’ wealth—the silver service, the gold-trimmed china and the servile waiters.
He was clearly too nervous to enjoy his food. Ben watched as Waverly’s bowl of she-crab soup went back full, then watched Waverly fidget as a uniformed waiter served him orange-glazed pork loin, new potatoes and honeyed peas and carrots.
For the next hour, Waverly tossed back champagne like there was no tomorrow. And Ben was pretty sure he hated the stuff.
Ben kept his gaze focused on Waverly, because he didn’t like what he saw when he glanced at his father, who was sitting near the center of the opposite side of the table. It was annoying to watch his father glancing surreptitiously at his mother.
Ben wondered how his stepmother, who was positioned near the head of the table beside Ham, could sit there and ignore his father’s disrespectful behavior.
Ben heard laughter at Rhett’s end of the table and watched as his mother shot her youngest son an admonishing look. Rhett’s grin was unrepentant. He picked up his champagne glass and drank deep as he stared into the eyes of the blushing bridesmaid to his right.
Ben heard Waverly loudly clear his throat. His friend scraped his chair back as he stood, champagne glass in hand. It seemed the groom was about to offer a toast to his bride.
The first words out of Waverly’s mouth made it clear Ben was wrong.
12
“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.