of something burning. He had let her go after she set the kitchen afire with a forgotten pie. It had taken weeks to get the smell of smoke out of the house, not to mention the expense of ordering new cookware to replace all the ones that she had ruined. Jackson was his latest try at replacing Mrs. Clark, and just look how well that had turned out. His stomach was ready to revolt if he could not find someone to cook very, very soon. Kathleen took care of the noon meal, but he needed someone here full time, to provide the other two meals. He was finding it damned hard to live on only one meal a day, and Tommy, who was a growing boy after all, looked half-starved lately.
After Jackson had finally left, spitting and cursing, Nick poured himself a glass of brandy and stared moodily at the walls of his study. As always happened when his spirits were low, he thought back on the events that had led to the untimely demise of his wife.
Damn Mary and her cheating, lying heart.
Essentially all of his current troubles could be traced back to meeting and marrying that faithless, spoiled little schemer. She was probably somewhere in the afterlife laughing at his predicament in that contemptuous way that she had.
Nick swirled the liquid in his glass, studying it moodily. Two years ago, he had been delirious with happiness, newly wedded, ready to found a dynasty and conquer the world. Well, that had all gone to shit, he thought sourly. His wife had destroyed his belief in women. Before marriage, he had thought all women like his mother; soft, and giving, and faithful. Now he knew the truth. His mother had been the exception, not the rule. Most women just did not have it in them to be truthful. Oh, yes, they were all great actresses . . . until you married them. Then you found out the real truth: Dance to their tune, or spend the rest of your life in misery. Nick’s mouth quirked up, but there was no humor in the expression. In his wife’s case, her lack of morals had been matched only by her skill at pretense.
Mary had thought they would stay in Boston after they married. Oh, she knew that he had a horse breeding farm in the wilds of Missouri Territory, and she knew that he was chafing to go home to take care of matters there, but she thought that she could wheedle him into changing his mind. After all, she had been getting what she wanted from men her whole life by batting her lashes, flattering them outrageously, and giving them a pretty smile. She had no idea it would not work with him. And when she had finally figured it out, it was an understatement to say that she was not pleased, but she was not ready to declare him the winner just yet. Even though she had lost the initial battle with her new husband over staying in Boston, surely it would not be so bad. She had never for one moment thought that her new husband had been going to actually work on his horse farm. They had servants for that. Eventually, Nick would come around, and then they could spend all their time in Boston pursuing hedonistic pleasures, being part of the society she had loved so very much. Mary had absolutely no idea what their horse farm in Missouri was really going to be like because she had lived in staid, civilized Boston all of her life. She had romanticized it and envisioned plantations and servants to cater to her every whim, with a rousing, exciting social life.
The reality of the matter was that small farms were scattered across the wild landscape of Missouri and the nearest town contained only a smattering of buildings. She was used to sweet-smelling gentlemen with soft hands who indulged and pampered her. What she got was a husband who worked harder than a field hand and smelled of horse more often than not. And out here, in the wild, there was no social life to speak of, and what there was had bored her. She had loathed the farm and its isolation; she had loathed the ‘common’ farmers and landowners she encountered. Mary had wanted gay parties and civilized company, and it was simply not to be found in Missouri. It must have come as a shock to her, but Nick