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By Root 1355 0

that Maryanne naked had been the biggest disappointment of his life. She was one of those women who looked stunning in clothes, but out of them she was small-breasted and sinewy. Socially she was always charming, always well-dressed and he had never once heard her raise her voice. She was a good if rather distant mother to his children. He still occasionally made love to her, but he was not in the least bit in love with her. Oh, he had been in the beginning; he had admired her striking looks and her forceful personality that some called bossy, and he’d liked the effortlessly confident way she rode a horse and the way she strode into any room as though she owned it. Maryanne had generations of aristocratic breeding behind her and it showed.

As he watched her patting dry her long, smooth legs, he guessed that it had just been a mutual admiration society—one that he had mistaken for love. In the seven years they had been married their relationship had never drifted into casual affairs on either of their parts the way so many other couples they knew had; instead they had channeled their energies into politics. Maryanne did not want sex with a stranger, or even her husband; all she wanted was to see him advance in his career and maybe ultimately to enter the White House.

“You’d better get dressed,” she told him, gliding into a white silk robe. “I thought I would keep the food simple tonight—you know these politicians, all they ever want is steak, steak, steak. They alone could keep Chicago in business. And I decided on the Château Leyoville Las Cases, they know a good claret when they taste it. The 1870 port has been decanted and—oh my goodness, just look at the time. Buck, will you please go and bathe….”

He said, “I saw Harry Harrison today.”

She glanced quickly up at him. “Trouble?”

“He’s been nothing but since his father died—and probably before. He wanted to get at his trust fund and I had to say no.”

“Quite right,” she said briskly. “From what I read about him, he’d spend it all on rather squalid women anyway.”

Buck sighed as he left her in front of the mirror trying on a diamond necklace and debating whether she should wear her pearls instead. As he walked back along the hall he wondered whether it was all worth it.

He was ready and waiting on the dot of seven-thirty, the fire was blazing, the dogs were snoozing picturesquely in front of it, and Maryanne looked suitably regal in the long-sleeved red silk with a heart-shaped neckline that showed off the magnificent Brattle diamonds. “I thought I’d better remind them who they’re dealing with,” she whispered, smiling as she adjusted his black tie. “My, we make a handsome couple,” she added with satisfaction.

A dozen influential men and their wives had been invited for dinner, and the leader of the House of Representatives and his wife were the last to arrive. “I bring greetings from the White House,” he told Maryanne, kissing her soft cheek. “President Coolidge says his grandfather knew your grandfather.”

“Indeed he did,” she agreed. “I believe they were at school together.”

She saw to it that the men were served their favorite whiskey, even though she disapproved of it before dinner. The ladies were offered champagne. And then little Miffy made her entrance, curtsying shyly as she was introduced. Unerringly, she picked out one of the most important party contributors and climbed onto his knee, looking up at him with her mother’s engaging smile. For a moment Buck wondered whether Maryanne had coached her, but then he told himself he was being mean.

Dinner was Maryanne’s idea of a simple meal: soup, fish, beef, chocolate dessert and cheese, perfectly chosen for the company, perfectly cooked and perfectly served, and accompanied by some of the most beautiful wines France had to offer. Immediately afterward, she swept the ladies off the the drawing room, where they chatted about their children and their country houses and their husband’s sailboats, while Buck escorted the men to the library, where they sat on deep leather sofas in front of the roaring fire, sipping