While We Were Watching Downton Abbey Part 26

"Oh, you know," Claire said. "Eat a little turkey. Watch Miracle on 34th Street and White Christmas on cable."

"When will Hailey be home for the Thanksgiving break?" Edward asked.

"She won't," Claire said. "She's going home to Pittsburgh with her boyfriend."

"You mean you'll be on your own?" Samantha asked, ashamed that she'd never even thought to ask. She'd been so consumed with her absent husband and forcing herself out of bed every morning that she'd barely thought about the women who'd so unexpectedly become her friends.

Claire and Brooke exchanged looks. "Not exactly. You know Zach is taking the girls up to Boston, so we're going to do Thanksgiving together."

Samantha had an image of Brooke and Claire sitting in Claire's tiny apartment, eating frozen turkey dinners and watching ancient movies on television; what should have seemed pitiful seemed more attractive than the elaborate meal in the sterile environs of Bellewood.

With a warm good night, Edward boarded an elevator. Claire gave them each a hug and headed down the hall to her apartment.

Brooke and Samantha waited for an elevator. When two arrived Brooke shot her a wink. "Shall we race?"

Samantha smiled back. But she was far too sober and preoccupied to sway or giggle about it.

As she entered the too-silent penthouse, Samantha vowed to call Cynthia and see if there would be room at the Thanksgiving table for Brooke, Claire, and Edward. It would be nice to have some sort of buffer to help smooth over what was bound to be an awkward "reunion" with Jonathan. a.s.suming it was a reunion at all and she hadn't said or agreed to anything on the phone that night that she'd have cause to regret.

ALICIA CULP'S SIXTIETH BIRTHDAY PARTY WAS HELD in the Georgia Aquarium's Ocean Ballroom. Beneath a blue-lit wavelike ceiling and surrounded by mood lighting, the one hundred and fifty family members and guests must have felt as if they were deep beneath the ocean's surface. The occupants of the two ma.s.sive aquarium tanks that pierced two of the ballroom's walls swam and swirled in the water watching the guests almost as eagerly as the guests watched them.

Brooke greeted each guest and made sure they had their table a.s.signments while Claire spent much of the night following in Hunter's wake, receiving and communicating lastminute changes and instructions.

After drinks, pa.s.sed hors d'oeuvres, and a sumptuous Mediterranean-themed dinner, the crowd watched a television-worthy video of Alicia Culp's life to date. This was followed by ribald toasts and poignant testimonials from the people who were closest to her. But the piece de resistance was the small fleet of limousines that pulled up at midnight to whisk Alicia and her family to the Learjet that would fly them to Greece for their weeklong private cruise.

Edward watched Alicia Culp's face as Hunter Jackson a.s.sured her that this was no joke, that her family was coming with her, and that her suitcases were already packed. By any standard the party and the cruise that was about to follow were a resounding success.

"Thank you so much. I can't get over how spectacular an evening it's been," a tear-streaked but smiling Alicia Culp said to Edward as her husband handed her into the lead limo.

"That boy of yours certainly knows how to deliver the goods," Jim Culp said. "And he knows how to sell a concept. I'm thrilled to be in on the ground floor of a company as impressive as Private Butler. And I wouldn't be a bit surprised if most of our guests feel the same."

"Thank you." Edward watched Hunter Jackson as he orchestrated the group farewell with lots of personal smiles and politician-worthy handshakes to some of Atlanta's wealthiest and most influential citizens. Despite the amount of work he'd done, he still looked-and acted-far more like one of Alicia and James Culp's guests than one of the employees. "He does have a decided flair," Edward said.

"And he knows how to spend money," Culp said. "Lots of it. Had to talk me into some of the expenditures. But every one of them was worth it." Culp slid into the backseat next to his wife. With impeccable timing Jackson stepped up, leaned into the backseat to offer the couple a personal farewell. The moment he closed their door the limousine driver and the string of perfectly matched Lincolns drove off.

"Well, you certainly made an impression on James and Alicia Culp," Edward said to Hunter as the last taillight disappeared from view.

"Is there something that didn't satisfy you?" Jackson's question seemed both idly curious and slightly taunting. Edward chastised himself for being stingy with his praise. Jackson had done an impeccable job. He simply had no interest in mastering the demeanor of a concierge whose only true goal was the customer's satisfaction.

"To the contrary," Edward said. "I apologize if I've seemed at all unappreciative of what you've accomplished. I'm hugely impressed. You've managed to exceed both my and the client's expectations."

Jackson smiled what might have been the first real smile Edward had ever seen cross his face. Edward was struck with how many potent personal weapons Mother Nature had put in Hunter Jackson's a.r.s.enal. But he couldn't completely shake the feeling that Jackson might not have the restraint required to avoid a total nuclear meltdown.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

LIKE A FOOTBALL PLAYER PREPARING FOR A BIG bowl game, Samantha spent the days before Thanksgiving "suiting up" for her first encounter with Jonathan in thirty days.

The fact that this encounter would play out in front of Cynthia, Hunter, Meredith and the unexpected New York boyfriend, as well as Claire, Brooke, and Edward both comforted and terrified her.

She'd been threaded, waxed, shaped, plucked, manicured, pedicured, Botoxed, ma.s.saged, colored, and cut. All she needed now was a coach to give her a pep talk and tell her which "play" had the best chance of success though she was no longer certain whether a clear victory was even possible.

She was so nervous the night before that she barely slept and awoke at six a.m. on Thanksgiving to once again debate her clothing options. The red Kamali suit would say "confident but attractive" while the Stella McCartney dress whispered "soft and s.e.xy." She liked the navy-and-white St. John knit but was afraid it would make her look like his mother.

She alternated closet dithering with apartment pacing and coffee drinking until she was a jangling, caffeinated mess. No matter how many times she told herself, "This is Jonathan, you'll know what to say when you see him," she felt like an unprepared rookie about to go into a t.i.tle-clinching game.

What if her mind went blank? What if she'd studied the wrong playbook? Deep down she was afraid that she'd already lost the most important contest of her life without even knowing she'd entered it. Jonathan had told her that attempting to be the "perfect wife" wasn't enough, but she still didn't know what was.

With trembling fingers she showered, put on makeup, and blow-dried her hair. After retrying all three outfits, she finally decided on a ruched black matte jersey dress. Its square neck and three-quarter sleeves made it casually stylish, and she was counting on its wide leather belt to keep it from hanging like a sack and disguise the shrinking of her curves.

She spent the drive to Bellewood in her own pregame pep talk so that by the time she got there all she wanted to do was tackle Jonathan, pin him to the ground, and demand to know what it was he wanted to hear. Only Jonathan hadn't arrived yet. Nor had he seen fit to text her his arrival time. She'd slit her own wrists before she asked Cynthia what time he was expected.

At the drinks cart in the living room she found Hunter, Meredith, and Meredith's friend from New York. "I've missed you two," she said, hugging her brother and sister. "How've you been?"

"Good," Meredith said as she reached toward the stranger. "Samantha, this is Kyle Bromley." A small smile played on her lips; her usual air of dissatisfaction was noticeably absent. "Kyle, my sister Samantha Davis."

"h.e.l.lo, Mrs. Davis." Bromley put a hand out to shake hers. "It was so nice of you and your mother-in-law to extend the invitation for Thanksgiving. I didn't know until the last minute whether I'd be able to get down to visit Merry."

Hunter coughed into his palm. Samantha started at the nickname she hadn't heard, let alone thought, since Meredith had hit p.u.b.erty. "It's a pleasure to meet you. How long will you be in town?"

She smiled and nodded in what she hoped were the right places as he answered, but her attention was focused on listening for any hint of Jonathan's arrival. "And you, Hunter, I heard how fabulous the Culp birthday was. Congratulations."

"Thanks." He smiled and shrugged as if it were no big deal.

"I can't wait to hear more about the party. Edward Parker and my friends Claire and Brooke should be here soon."

Hunter's face registered surprise and something else she didn't take the time to try to a.n.a.lyze. Clearly her siblings were doing far better without her intervention and supervision. She felt a tiny loosening of the band around her chest. But she couldn't stop listening for the sound of a car. Or worrying about why Jonathan had chosen not to fly in until this morning.

Samantha wandered into the kitchen, which was redolent with warm and wonderful smells. "There you are!" Doris wiped her brow with a handkerchief and enveloped Samantha in a big puffy hug. "I'm gonna make sure you get extra today; you look like you've started wasting away."

"You know I'll never be able to pa.s.s up your oyster stuffing," Samantha said.

"No, ma'am, you better not. I'm gonna have to give Mr. Jonathan a piece of my mind for letting you get this skinny."

"I've always heard a woman can never be too thin," Samantha said, running a nervous finger under the belt at her waist.

"Humpf." Doris went back to basting her turkey as Samantha greeted Zora, who was dressed in a crisp white uniform.

Reluctantly she went in search of her mother-in-law and found her in the foyer examining herself in the large gilt mirror. "h.e.l.lo, Cynthia," she said, offering a dutiful hug and accepting air kisses to both cheeks.

"h.e.l.lo, Samantha. Jonathan's due any minute," she said happily. "He texted just after he landed."

Samantha tried not to blanch at the fact that his mother had flight information while she'd been left in the dark.

Cynthia looked Samantha directly in the eye. "I'm glad he's finally come home," she said. "I wouldn't want to see anything or anyone drive him away again."

They stared at each other. Samantha refused to be the first to look away. "Then we have the same goal."

Cynthia's lips thinned, but for once Samantha didn't care. She'd come here determined to straighten things out with Jonathan; she could not allow Cynthia to deter or distract her.

"So maybe we should try playing on the same team for a change," Samantha said, apparently unable to let go of the football metaphor. "Because frankly I think that if you stopped rooting for our marriage to fall apart, all of us-including your son-would be a lot better off."

One of Cynthia's eyebrows shot upward. "You have no idea how painful it is for a mother to see her child's unhappiness and be powerless to stop it." The comment was more observation than put-down.

"No." Samantha had no idea whether the fierce protectiveness she'd always felt for Meredith and Hunter differed from what she might have felt for a child of her own. She would never know. She'd been without her own mother for so long that she'd become little more than a comforting memory. "Jonathan's lucky to have a mother who cares so much about him. But whatever's wrong between Jonathan and me is up to us to work out. If we can."

The doorbell rang. Samantha's heart hammered in her chest until she reminded herself that no matter how long Jonathan had been gone he would not be ringing the doorbell of the home he'd grown up in. Samantha spotted Edward, Brooke, and Claire through the sidelights and stepped out of the way so that Cynthia could open the door.

"Welcome." Despite the conversation that had been interrupted, Cynthia did a fair impression of a hostess glad to see her guests. Samantha hugged all three of them, even the proper concierge, and introduced them to her mother-in-law.

"Thank you so much for the invitation," Edward said with a slight bow that only he could pull off. He handed Cynthia a gift bag from the three of them, which she placed on the foyer table. "It's lovely to be included and I so look forward to experiencing a traditional southern Thanksgiving." He gave her a dazzling smile. "I can't tell you how much I've appreciated your referrals to Private Butler."

Cynthia smiled and laced her hands through the concierge's bent elbow and escorted him into the living room her head tilted at a coquettish angle.

"Did you see that?" Samantha asked.

"The man has some serious skills," Claire said.

"I'll say," Brooke agreed.

The two of them stared at her. "What?" she asked. She knew she didn't have anything between her teeth because she'd been unable to even swallow toast that morning.

"Are you all right?" Claire asked.

"Of course," Samantha said brightly.

Claire and Brooke looked at her.

"Or I will be as soon as I have a chance to talk to Jonathan. You don't have any tranquilizers with you do you?"

They laughed, though Samantha wasn't sure she'd been joking. If ever a person could use rapid tranquilization, it was she.

That laughter died as footsteps sounded on the marble floor.

"Ladies." Jonathan's voice directly behind her made her stiffen. Her breathing grew shallow and rapid. Though she'd been waiting impatiently for this moment, now that it was here she didn't feel remotely ready. "Samantha."

"We'll just go join the others," Claire said. She and Brooke greeted Jonathan and disappeared.

"Jonathan." Her voice wasn't the only thing that shook as she turned and searched his face for some sign of how to proceed. She clasped her hands together to keep them from fluttering about, but wasn't as successful controlling her inner southern belle, which surfaced without warning. "I swear, you've been gone so long I almost forgot what you looked like," she said with a ridiculously saucy lilt. She barely managed to close her mouth before a "fiddle-dee-dee" escaped.

Jonathan continued to study her and once again she found herself worrying about what she might have said to him during their drunken phone call. A vee of concern formed between his eyebrows. "Mother a.s.sured me that you were fine. But you've lost weight. And you don't look good. Have you been sick?" He sounded surprised.

Had he really imagined a month without him would have no impact? The fear and panic twisted inside her and began to grow into something strong and unfamiliar. He'd made it clear he didn't want her grat.i.tude. At the moment that was fine with her. Because she was beginning to realize just how ungrateful she was that he'd left her without any real explanation and then refused to speak to her for an entire month.

"I've been on a diet. And Michael stepped up my workout program," she lied. He of course looked practically bursting with good health. His sleeves were rolled up to reveal lightly tanned forearms. His blond hair was sun streaked and a fresh smattering of freckles spanned the bridge of his nose. Whatever he'd been doing for the last month it didn't include pining away over her. "What have you been up to?" She held his blue eyes with her own trying to read his thoughts, still looking for a clue, but he gave nothing away.

"Oh, just business. And the occasional golf game." He shrugged. "I spent time in Chicago going over expansion plans with Andrew Martin. And then I took care of some things for him in Boston. He and his wife both asked about you."

He was so calm, so casual. Clearly he hadn't spent this morning with sweating palms and a racing heart. Had she really considered throwing herself into his arms and begging him to just give her another chance? Had she actually imagined it could be that simple?

She pulled herself up and raised her chin. The emotions bubbling inside her separated like an unbound braid and she recognized the steeliest of them as anger. She'd spent four weeks agonizing over how she might fix whatever was wrong between them. But had he really left to let her figure it out? Or had he left to punish her?

"Oh? And what did you tell the Martins?" she asked. "That you'd decided to take a break from your marriage? That you'd told me you weren't happy and left me sitting alone trying to figure out what I'd done wrong like some child given a time-out by her parents?"

The dinner bell rang. Voices in the living room signaled a move toward the dining room.

"Did you tell them that instead of returning any of my messages you hid behind texts and relied on your mother who barely tolerates me for information about my well-being?" She saw his eyes widen in surprise at her tone and how close she'd come to shouting.

Her chest rose and fell as she tried to regain control. She'd never lost her temper or even raised her voice to him, not once in twenty-five years. But then he'd never abandoned her before. Or refused to communicate. Short circuits of emotion spiked through her.

There were tentative footsteps and the clearing of a throat. "Miz Davis asked me to let you know that supper is being served."

"Thank you, Zora," Jonathan said. He crooked his elbow. "If you're finished, I expect we should go in?" he said to Samantha in the same polite tone he might have used to inquire if she'd like an iced tea or suggested the pecan rather than the praline pie. She might have turned and left if it weren't for her guests.

They entered the dining room together, but she'd never felt so alone.

EDWARD AND THE OTHERS HAD JUST TAKEN THEIR seats when Jonathan Davis escorted his wife into the dining room, seated her between Edward and Kyle Bromley, then took his place at the head of the table. His mother, who sat at the opposite end, offered a carefully worded prayer of thanks, welcomed them all, and urged everyone to begin. "Zora will serve the turkey and ham," Cynthia said. "But please help yourself to the dishes you see on the table. We're treating this as a family dinner. I hope you won't mind the informality."

Davis maintained a pleasant smile as a tall black woman in a white starched uniform carried in a gigantic oval platter. Dishes and serving platters covered the diamond-cut tablecloth. Baskets of warm corn bread and dinner rolls as well as an a.s.sortment of gravy boats anch.o.r.ed each corner while pats of b.u.t.ter imprinted with the letter "D" sat on each bread plate.

"You'll want to try both the corn bread and the oyster stuffings," Samantha told him. "And the sweet potato souffle as well as the green bean ca.s.serole. And I guess I should warn you that the ham has a Coca-Cola glaze. This is Atlanta after all. And we do love our c.o.ke products." She smiled but her eyes were guarded. "In fact Asa Candler was a close personal friend of Jonathan's grandfather."

"Interesting," Edward said as a basket of still-warm corn bread and biscuits reached him. He felt Hunter's eyes on him and wondered if the boy was uncomfortable having his employer there.

Samantha nodded to the basket. "Doris's corn bread and biscuits are completely worth the calories. And you'll want to leave at least a little room for the desserts." Samantha kept up a running commentary on the food and its origins, turning occasionally to make sure Meredith's young man was included, but Edward noticed she put little on her plate and ate even less. Her cheeks remained flushed and though she interacted with Claire and Brooke, who sat on either side of her husband, she never actually addressed or looked directly at him. Davis looked at his wife often but only when her attention seemed placed elsewhere.

Meredith laughed and Samantha smiled. "It's nice to see Meredith happy."

Edward nodded and looked more closely at the middle Jackson sibling, whom he'd always considered of average looks. Without her usual expression of pursed-lip disappointment the resemblance to her sister and brother was more apparent.

"Kyle's the first person beside Jonathan who's ever thought to call her Merry." Samantha's eyes flickered to her husband then skittered back to her plate.

"My grandfather used to say that 'every pot has its lid,'" Edward replied.

"I like that," she said wistfully. "It's so hopeful. She reached for her gla.s.s of wine, her look pensive. "But what happens when the fit isn't as tight as it's supposed to be?"

"That I don't know," Edward said. "I thought I'd found the right lid once. But it turned out that I was mistaken."