The Rags-To-Riches Wife

  METSY HINGLE

  The Rags-To-

  Riches Wife

  Published by Silhouette Books

  America's Publisher of Contemporary Romance

  For Melissa “MJ” Jeglinski

  A very special lady, an even more special friend

  Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to

  Metsy Hingle for her contribution to the

  SECRET LIVES OF SOCIETY WIVES miniseries.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  About the Author

  Coming Next Month

  Prologue

  Coming tonight had been a mistake. She didn’t belong here, Lily Miller told herself as she stood at the door of the ballroom and stared at the elegantly dressed men and women. From the looks of the crowd and the amount of diamonds on display, every member of Eastwick, Connecticut society had turned out for the black-and-white ball. And she certainly didn’t belong with them.

  She should leave now before she started crying and made a fool of herself. But she couldn’t leave yet—not without telling Bunny Baldwin. After all, it had been Bunny who had insisted Lily attend the masquerade ball in the first place. Bunny had even gone to the trouble of providing her with a proper gown to wear to the fund-raising event.

  Remembering the gown, Lily smoothed the skirt with her gloved fingertips. The strapless black confection with the tulle petticoat was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. It was a dress for a princess. Only she wasn’t a princess. She was no one—not even someone’s daughter. Fighting back tears, Lily tried not to think of the detective’s phone call an hour ago, informing her that he’d hit another dead end in the search for her mother.

  Face it, Lily. If the woman had wanted you, she never would have left you in that church all those years ago. It’s time to stop wasting time and money searching for someone who doesn’t want you, who never wanted you.

  “Dance with me.”

  Lily blinked, then found herself staring up into the blue eyes of a tall, dark-haired stranger. He was dressed in a tuxedo and wearing a black mask, and for a moment she wondered whether he was real or if she had imagined him. “Pardon?”

  “Come dance with me,” he said and extended his hand.

  “Thank you, but I’m not—”

  “How can you say no when they’re playing our song?”

  “Our song?” Lily repeated and recognized the first chords of “Music of the Night” fromPhantom of the Opera. “How can we have a song when we don’t even know one another?”

  “Why don’t we change that?” he said and, taking her hand, he led her to the dance floor.

  Lily didn’t resist. And the moment he took her into his arms, it was as though a magical web engulfed her. All the pain seemed to dissolve. All she could see were those unwavering blue eyes, looking at her as though she were the only person in the world. All she could feel was the warmth of his body pressed against hers, the heat of his breath on her neck. There was something exciting yet safe about the masks. With the mask, she wasn’t unwanted, unloved Lily Miller. With the mask, she was a woman who was desired, a woman for whom there was no past, no future, only now.

  One dance spun into another and another and another still. And when he led her outdoors onto the terrace and kissed her, she didn’t feel the chill in the air. All she felt was the strength of his arms, the hunger in his kiss.

  “It’s almost midnight. The ball will be over soon,” he whispered.

  “I know.”

  “I don’t want the night to end.”

  “Neither do I,” she admitted and he kissed her again. He tasted of champagne. He tasted of desire and every nerve in her body sang beneath the feel of his mouth.

  “Then don’t let it,” he told her. Reaching into his pocket, he removed a hotel key card. “I’m staying in the hotel tonight. Room 503. Meet me.”

  Nervous, Lily reached for the gold locket at her throat, the disc bearing the initialL, that she’d been wearing when the nun had found her in the church. Only the locket wasn’t there. She’d taken it off after the detective’s call, she remembered. And for the first time in her life she didn’t have her locket to hold on to, to remind her that she was reliable, sensible Lily Miller.

  “Will you come?” he asked.

  Taking the key card, she said, “Yes.”

  One

  Her secret was safe, Lily Miller reminded herself again as she stared past the sea of mourners to the casket. A crack of thunder sounded overhead and clouds darkened the Eastwick skyline, causing the mid-May temperatures to dip below the fifty-degree mark.

  “Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust,” the minister began.

  Tears welled in Lily’s eyes and she reached into her coat pocket to retrieve a tissue. Dabbing at her eyes, she thought of the woman she had come to mourn—Lucinda “Bunny” Baldwin, the darling of Eastwick, Connecticut, society, the editor of the titillatingEastwick Social Diary and the woman who, oddly enough, had been her friend. How was it possible that she was dead, the victim of a heart attack at age fifty-two?

  Lily thought back to the last time she had seen Bunny—only two days ago. She had been so vibrant, all excited about some juicy new tidbit of gossip that, no doubt, would have appeared in one of her upcoming issues of theDiary.

  “We commend the soul of our sister, Lucinda, to You, Lord,” the minister continued.

  Guilt tugged at Lily as she remembered Bunny’s knowing looks during the past few months. It had been because of those knowing looks that Lily had tried to avoid crossing paths with the other woman for weeks now. But two days ago her luck had run out. Bunny had arrived early for the Eastwick Cares board meeting and she had been unable to avoid her any longer. When Bunny had started to question her about the night of the black-and-white ball, she’d realized that Bunny had figured out the truth, that she knew her secret. Lily had even feared that it washer secret that Bunny planned to expose in the pages of theDiary. She had been prepared to beg Bunny not to say or print anything, only she’d never gotten the chance. The other board members of Eastwick Cares had begun to arrive and she’d been forced to leave or risk being seen by Jack Cartwright. Yet, as she’d hurried away, she had wished for some way to ensure Bunny’s silence—at least until she could decide what to do.

  Be careful what you wish for.

  The old adage popped into Lily’s head. She had gotten her wish. She had wanted Bunny’s silence and now she had it. Her secret was safe. But at what cost? Overwhelmed by feelings of guilt, Lily squeezed her eyes shut for a moment.

  “May she live on in Your presence, O Lord,” the minister prayed.

  Opening her eyes, Lily focused her attention once again on the minister and the service being conducted at the front of the gravesite. “In Your mercy and love, forgive whatever sins she may have committed…”

  Lily shifted her gaze to the woman standing to the minister’s right, quietly crying into her handkerchief. She recognized her immediately—Abby Talbot, Bunny’s daughter. She noted the tall, intense-looking man with his arm around Abby and assumed it was Abby’s husband, Luke. She had never met the man, but according to Bunny he traveled a great deal, something that had bothered Bunny. Lily studied Abby. Though she had met her only once, she had liked the other woman. In truth, she had been taken aback by the pretty blond socialite’s warmth. She hadn’t expected someone of Abby Talbot’s social standing to be so welcoming to someone who lacked not only money a
nd a pedigree, but any family whatsoever. Yet, Abby had treated her as an equal. A wave of compassion engulfed Lily as she witnessed the young woman’s grief. She’d known from Bunny’s comments that the two of them had been close. She couldn’t even begin to imagine Abby’s pain at losing her mother so suddenly.

  Thinking of Abby’s loss brought home her own. She had lost a friend. While she and Bunny might not have been bosom buddies, and while she had never understood the older woman’s penchant for gossip, the two of them had been friends. And that friendship had been born out of their shared desire to help the underprivileged. Bunny had been fervent in her support of Eastwick Cares with both her time and her money.

  But she hadn’t limited her generosity to those who fell under the umbrella of the non-profit agency on whose board she served. No, Bunny had extended that generosity to Lily. She had treated her with kindness, and not just as an employee of Eastwick Cares. In many ways, she’d treated her almost like a daughter or, at the very least, a special friend. No one else had ever come closer to making Lily feel like a fairytale princess. Certainly not when she’d been a child shuffling in and out of the foster-care system. Then again, she hadn’t exactly believed in fairy tales, Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. By the age of six, she had learned that life wasn’t anything like the fairy tales. And while most of the families who took her in were kind,she wasn’t a part of their family.She didn’t belong.She never had. It was a lesson she’d learned quickly. As a result, she had never expected things like fancy clothes or party dresses. Those were for dreamers and silly young girls. She had never been either of those things.

  But for some inexplicable reason Bunny Baldwin had been determined to have the grown-up Lily Miller experience the fantasy she’d never known as a girl—attending a party all dressed up in a beautiful gown and feeling as though she belonged. Bunny hadn’t chosen just any party. She’d chosen Eastwick Cares’ major fund-raiser—the black-and-white ball.

  As if it had been only yesterday, Lily’s thoughts drifted back to that day last December when Bunny had marched into her office and proclaimed that she had to attend the ball. All Lily’s protests had fallen on deaf ears. Bunny had insisted that her employment as a counselor for the agency required she be there to assist at the event. That had obviously been one of Bunny’s white lies—as Lily had discovered within ten minutes of her arrival at the ball. For some reason, Bunny Baldwin had cast herself in the role of fairy godmother to Lily’s Cinderella. It was the only explanation for the society doyenne tricking her into attending the event and even presenting her with an elegant gown to wear. Oh, Bunny had claimed the dress was something that she’d found in the back of her closet. But she had recognized the quality of the beautiful black gown, Lily admitted, though it wasn’t until she was in the powder room the evening of the ball that she had learned from one of the other women that the gown she was wearing was a vintage Dior.

  Another bellow of thunder sounded overhead, jarring Lily from her memories. As the weather continued to deteriorate, Lily huddled in her coat and instinctively placed a hand on her stomach. She should leave now, she told herself. She had already taken a risk just by going to the church, she reasoned. Why push her luck? Every member of Eastwick society had turned out to pay their respects. And the Cartwright family certainly ranked among the city’s elite. No doubt Jack Cartwright had been there among the hundreds of mourners who had filled the church. For all she knew, he was among the small throng who had gathered at the cemetery for the burial. So far, she had managed to avoid him. But what if he saw her? What if Jack recognized her as the mystery woman he had slept with the night of the ball?

  Even now, more than five months after the masked ball, she couldn’t believe her behavior had been so out of character. But then, she had hardly been herself that evening, Lily reminded herself. Just thinking about that day and how great her expectations had been when she’d awakened that morning sent another pang of disappointment through her.

  She should have known better than to get her hopes up. If she had learned nothing else in her twenty-seven years it was never to expect something simply because she wanted it. Doing so had proven time and again to be a surefire path to disappointment. Yet, she had done just that. She had been so sure that this time it would be different. The detective she’d hired finally had a solid lead. She had believed that at long last she would have the answers she’d been searching for most of her life—who she was, where had she come from, why had she been left at the church all those years ago. Most importantly, she had believed she would finally know the identity of the woman whose soft voice and gentle hands were the only memories she had of her origins.

  Only the lead hadn’t panned out. She hadn’t learned anything more about who she was or why she had been abandoned in the church with only a note saying her name was Lily and a gold locket around her neck. Lily reached for the locket that, once more, was on a chain around her neck. She closed her fingers around it and felt the familiar sting of disappointment. She had been more than disappointed that night. She had been devastated. Hitting another dead end when she’d believed she was so close had left her reeling.

  She should never had gone to the ball that night—not in the emotional state she’d been in, Lily realized with the wisdom that comes with hindsight. But she hadn’t wanted to disappoint Bunny after she had gone to the trouble of providing her with the gown. Nor had Lily wanted to jeopardize her job by failing to show up. So she had gone—only to discover she wasn’t needed after all. Then, just when she had been about to leave, he was standing in front of her—the tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed stranger—asking her to dance. She had needed something, anything to block out the ache that consumed her. And once she was in his arms, all the pain, all the anguish of disappointment had faded.

  There had been only him. The strength of his arms. The warmth of his smile. The feel of his mouth on hers. For one night, she had ceased to be sensible, dependable, predictable Lily Miller who had never done anything remotely reckless in her life. For one night, she had allowed herself to experience passion instead of just reading about it. For one night, she had followed her heart instead of her head. And because she had, she was pregnant and expecting Jack Cartwright’s child.

  “Grant her eternal rest, O Lord…”

  Shaking off the memory, Lily took a breath, then released it. She scanned the faces of those gathered. Not surprisingly, many of them were familiar—members of Eastwick society, local dignitaries and politicians. Quite a few of them she’d met through her position at Eastwick Cares. Others she knew from the news or social columns. Then she saw him—the tall, dark-haired man standing two rows back from the minister. Her pulse quickened. Even without seeing his face, she knew from the set of his broad shoulders and the conservative cut of his hair that it was Jack Cartwright.

  Of course, she hadn’t known it was him at the ball. If she had known that the dashing man with the Tom Cruise smile behind the mask was the newest nominee to the Eastwick Cares board, she might have refused his request to dance. She certainly never would have accepted the key to his hotel room. But shehadn’t known it was him. Or maybe she hadn’t wanted to know. She’d wanted to believe that wearing masks and not exchanging names meant that she could steal those hours of happiness without consequences.

  She had been wrong.

  Yet, she didn’t regret what had happened, Lily admitted. How could she when the result was that she was going to have a baby? Smoothing a hand over her stomach, she felt a flutter of excitement as she realized that in just under four months, she would be able to hold her baby in her arms. She wanted this child, had from the moment she’d discovered she was pregnant. After being alone all these years, she was finally going to have a family.

  You are loved, my baby. You are wanted. You will always be loved. You will always belong.

  Silently, she repeated the vows she had made to her unborn child the moment she had learned the baby was growing inside her. And as much as she already loved
her child, she struggled once again with her decision to remain silent.

  Was she doing the right thing by not telling Jack he was going to be a father? she wondered. But how was she supposed to tell one of Eastwick’s wealthiest and most sought-after bachelors that the stranger he’d spent one night with was pregnant with his child? The answer eluded her—just as it had for nearly five months now.

  Or was she simply avoiding the answer rather than risk rejection? She could handle rejection, Lily told herself. But her baby…her baby was another story. She didn’t want her child, even at this stage in his or her life, to be unwanted.

  As though sensing her gaze, Jack turned and looked in her direction. He scanned the crowd of mourners as though searching for someone and then his eyes met hers. For the space of a heartbeat, she couldn’t move. She simply stared into those blue eyes. Suddenly his eyes darkened, narrowed, and she realized he had recognized her.

  “May her soul and the souls of all the faithfully departed rest in peace….”