The President's Daughter - Mariah Stewart [26]
“So all the other guys were lining up to dance with your lady?” Simon wondered who him and she might have been. “That’s some feeling, isn’t it, when all your friends stare at your girl and wish she was with them?”
“Oh, not really my girl,” Kendall said softly, the sadness deepening. “Not really. She never could see anyone but him.”
“Your lady had her eyes on someone else?”
“Who could blame her? He was everything. Had everything . . .” The tired blue eyes drifted to the window and beyond once again. “He couldn’t stop looking at her, couldn’t take his eyes off her. And she knew; if I’d suspected it before, I was pretty certain then. ‘This is dangerous,’ I told him. ‘Can’t you see that she’s watching every move you make?’ Of course, he knew that I loved her, too. Maybe he thought I just wanted her for myself.” He turned back to Simon and smiled a half smile that was etched with pain. “And of course, I did.”
“You and a friend were in love with the same woman,” Simon said softly.
Kendall nodded.
“And he was married? It was dangerous because he was married and his wife was there, too?” Simon was touched that, so many years later, Kendall still felt the loss of his old love.
Another nod.
“I’m sorry, I don’t remember her name—”
“Blythe.”
“Of course, Blythe. And she came to the party with you.”
“She always went there with me. Everyone thought she was my girl, because she always came there with me. But she was his. She was always his. Only his.”
“Remind me again who he was.” His curiosity piqued, Simon leaned forward.
Just far enough for Kendall to drop a bomb in his lap.
“Graham,” Kendall whispered. “She was always Graham’s.”
When his wits resurfaced, Simon asked, “Graham Hayward? The President of the United States, Graham Hayward?”
Kendall paused, his face softening just a bit, as if suddenly amused. “She was so young. Much too young for him. Much too young for me. And yet, we both . . .”
Kendall stopped, as if unable to speak the words.
“Loved her.” Mr. Morality, Graham Hayward?
“Yes. We both loved her.”
“And you took her out in public because he could not?” Graham “High Road” Hayward?
Kendall’s eyes welled up.
“That must have been very hard for you, sir. To be with the woman you loved, knowing she loved someone else.” These were the ramblings of a confused old man, weren’t they?
“Every minute she was with me, she was only waiting for the time she would be with him.”
Simon reached out a hand to touch Kendall’s arm. “Mr. Kendall, are you saying that Graham Hayward had an affair while he was President?” He tried to keep the words from gasping out of his mouth.
Tears sped down Kendall’s face, some falling onto his chest as he nodded.
“Graham Hayward had an affair?” Simon repeated, wondering if Kendall could possibly be telling the truth. And yet the pain on the man’s face was so keen. Even after the passage of so many years, it had a fresh, new look.
“Yes.”
“With . . . ?” Simon had to hear Kendall say it. Say the name.
“Blythe. My Blythe.”
“Are you sure of this? How can you be sure they actually had an affair?”
“Because I brought her to him.”
Stunned, Simon sat back and felt the thunder roll through him. “You brought her to the party . . .” He swallowed hard, trying to imagine how it might have been.
“As my guest, yes. And we would stay, sometimes, stay the night at the White House. Until it became too dangerous. And only when she was out of town, of course.” Kendall’s voice had fallen to a whisper so low that Simon had to lean forward to hear him. “Blythe loved him, but she would never have dreamed of staying there while she was there. It just wouldn’t have been . . . right.”
The rest hung between them, unspoken.
“By ‘she’ do you mean the First Lady?”
Kendall nodded.
“Was she aware of the affair?”
“There were times when she would look at me . . . at Blythe. At