The President's Daughter - Mariah Stewart [14]
“Either would be fine.” Simon followed her into a room that fairly burst with sunlight pouring in through windows that wrapped around three walls.
“Or perhaps something cold?” Sarah Decker paused in the doorway.
“Tea would be fine.” He nodded.
“I think I’ll have tea as well, and a few of the raspberry shortbread cookies the housekeeper made yesterday,” she said brightly. “That is, assuming that our daughter and her friends didn’t finish them off last night.”
“This is a terrific room.” Simon dropped his briefcase on the floor next to one of the high-backed wicker chairs that flanked a round table with a glass top.
“Isn’t it lovely?” His hostess beamed. “It was an old sunporch, but it needed such repair when we moved in. I spend so much time in this part of the house now. I have lunch here every day, overlooking the gardens.”
Clearly this was a woman’s room, with delicate lace curtains tied back at all the windows, pale rose flowered wallpaper covering the one wall that wasn’t windowed, and white furniture, all reinforcing Simon’s first impression of Sarah Decker as a very soft, feminine woman.
Sarah returned in minutes with a tray that held a teapot, two blue-and-white ceramic mugs with small matching plates, a sugar bowl, two spoons, several linen napkins, and a clear glass plate upon which a small mountain of cookies was stacked.
She took the seat opposite Simon’s. He had a feeling that the tray had been prepared and waiting in the kitchen.
“Here you go,” she said as she placed the tray in the center of the table.
“Mrs. Decker—”
“Sarah,” she said as she lifted a mug, poured the tea, and offered the mug to Simon with one smooth, practiced movement. “Please call me Sarah. I’m feeling enough of the years, with my oldest daughter turning twenty in February and my youngest turning seventeen next week. And unless you object, I’ll call you Simon. Is that all right?”
“That would be fine.”
“We’re really quite informal here, as you can see.” She blessed him with a smile and stirred a touch of sugar into her tea.
Simon had viewed countless film clips and photographs of the former First Family over the past week, but once again he acknowledged that none of them had really captured the beauty of the woman who sat across the table from him. Sarah Hayward had been a pretty teenager, but over the years she had grown quite lovely. Simon suspected there might be a bit of steel under all that softness, considering the sturdy New England stock she’d come from.
“My mother said she had a pleasant conversation with you yesterday,” Sarah said.
“The pleasure was all mine. I’m looking forward to meeting with her. I’m guessing she was a formidable First Lady. In her own quiet way, of course.”
“My mother has been quietly formidable in every aspect of her life.” Sarah laughed. “In every role she’s played.”
“That’s an interesting way to put it. Which do you feel was her best?”
“Her best?”
“Her best role.”
“Oh, that’s easy.” Sarah slipped several cookies onto a plate and passed it to Simon with a napkin. “Mrs. Graham Hayward was definitely the job she did best. Both before and after the White House.”
“And as a mother?”
“She was wonderful. Loving. Supportive. Always on our side, mine and Gray’s. When we had a problem, she helped us to find a solution. She taught us both that there were few situations in this life over which we could not gain a certain amount of control if we tried hard enough. She was also very understanding, always put our needs and our happiness first, regardless of what anyone else might think.”
“Such as . . . ?”
Sarah nibbled at the corner of her cookie. “Such as letting me stay at boarding school even after my father was elected.”
“That was important to you?”
“It was at the time. I was thirteen when my father ran for his first term. My parents were gone for weeks at a time. After my father won the election, I begged to stay at school, to stay with my friends. My mother championed that for me, convinced