Southern Belle
Elm MacBride belongs to a world of wealth, politics and Southern hospitality. But when her husband, a self-absorbed politician who will stop at nothing to seize power, betrays her, Elm flees Savannah to her old friend's chalet in the heart of Switzerland.Meeting a beautiful woman on the ski slopes is the last thing Irishman Johnny Graney thought would happen when he agreed to a family vacation in Gstaad. After all, no woman has been able to capture his heart since the terrible day his young wife was killed. But there's something intriguing about Elm MacBride, in whom he senses an incredible strength.And Elm finds herself equally drawn to Johnny's passion for his home, the Thoroughbred horses he raises–and for her.But the ties Elm has to the world of old politics are not easily severed and she finds herself an unwilling pawn in her husband's game of power, forced to maintain appearances with a man determined to control her every move. And when his desperate actions threaten to destroy her, Johnny must save not only their love, but Elm's very life…
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“You spend the night in my arms then walk out as cool as you please to a date with your ex? Oops, I forgot, you’re still married to the man. Perhaps you never meant to leave him? I can assure you that from where I was standing the two of you looked awfully cozy.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“I happened to walk into the Palace Hotel at lunchtime today. Unless I’m much mistaken, you were on a sofa by the window of the lounge smiling at someone who was kissing your hand. You didn’t seem too upset about it.”
She drew back, shocked at just how angry he was. “Harlan came here to try and persuade me to return to Savannah—he’s worried that my absence makes him look bad. I told him that wasn’t an option right now. We had lunch and now he’s leaving again.”
“Do I look stupid, I wonder?” Johnny asked conversationally, hands stuffed in the pockets of his corduroys.
“No, you look jealous,” she retorted, matching his tone. “And with no reason to be.”
“Jealous? Ha! That’s a good one. Why on earth would I be jealous? After all, we’re just having a holiday fling, aren’t we?”
“Yes. I suppose we are,” she replied quietly, looking him straight in the eyes.
“If that’s what you really feel, then I agree wholeheartedly,” he responded stiffly.
Also by FIONA HOOD-STEWART
SILENT WISHES
THE LOST DREAMS
THE STOLEN YEARS
THE JOURNEY HOME
Look for the latest novel by
FIONA HOOD-STEWART
SAVANNAH SECRETS
To Carter Parsley,
the other Southern Belle With love
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to all those who have helped me while writing this book. To Remer and Susan Lane, Howard and Mary Morrison, Remer and Christina Lane and Fran Garfunkel of Savannah, Georgia, for their generous hospitality and helpful input. To Bill Riley for the reference to the Samovar, which he told me over dinner at a castle in Switzerland, and last but not least to those whom I share my life with and who patiently bear with my writing every day: John, Sergio and Diego. As always my thanks to my editor Miranda Stecyk and the team: Dianne Moggy, Amy Moore-Benson and Donna Hayes.
Contents
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.
