Romance: He Done Her Wrong (Cuddlesack Queens #2) Read online

  Cuddlesack Queens

  He Done Her Wrong

  Morris Fenris

  Cuddlesack Queens: He Done Her Wrong

  Copyright 2017 Morris Fenris, Changing Culture Publications

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  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Bonus Story

  Thank You

  Prologue

  “This is not the way it was supposed to be.”

  “Living happily ever after, you mean, like the myth of fairy tales?”

  “No. It was my decision to make. I was to be the one calling the shots.”

  “I see. Your pride was hurt, then.”

  A glare, cold and imperious: The Queen of Hearts, commanding someone to lop off their heads. “Don’t be ridiculous. I am far above all that.”

  “What is your picture of the ideal marriage, then?”

  “There is none.”

  “No ideal marriage?”

  “Of course not. The best anyone can hope for is a mutual partnership. I expected that. But, as in any business, the one who brings the most assets into that partnership has the most leverage.”

  “And that should have been you?”

  “Naturally. He had nothing; I had everything. No one seems to appreciate that fact.”

  “Do you feel you’ve been treated unfairly?”

  “There’s no question of that. I’m locked up here, while he gets off scot-free.”

  “Ah. But wasn’t it more a matter of the innocent victim getting off scot-free?”

  “So you say. I know the truth of the matter.”

  “And that is—?”

  “The marriage—the partnership I thought I was entering into—became a dud. A terrible disappointment. Not up to what I had hoped for, at all. In fact, I was near to pulling the plug myself when everything went down.”

  “Were you? And what brought you to that decision?”

  “Oh, he had designs on some little bit of piffle. I could tell that. And the two of us were just spinning our wheels, anyway. Better to end the thing from a position of strength, in my opinion.”

  “I see. But I understood that you had someone else in your life by then.”

  “True. The man I should have married the first time around. However, we plan on doing just that, the moment I’m released.”

  “Congratulations. Do you expect that to take place soon?”

  “You tell me. It’s in your hands, isn’t it, once you’ve decided that I’m—what’s the phrase?—fit enough to rejoin society again?”

  “Once I have evaluated your situation and made my reports, yes.”

  A hard, suspicious look. “And what happened to the privilege between doctor and patient?”

  “Never fear, that condition still holds. We’ve been together nearly a year now. Tell me, do you feel we’ve made progress in that time?”

  “Amazing progress. So amazing that I now feel absolutely positive I am ready to walk out that door and into the street as a free woman.”

  “Well, that’s certainly encouraging to hear. Therapy does work wonders, doesn’t it?”

  “Most assuredly, Dr. Renault. From your lips to God’s ears.”

  No mention was made of the fact that, once caught up by the silken threads of Annajane Merrill’s web, you were stuck there until she had finished sucking out the last bit of juice from your desiccated carcass.

  Chapter One

  “Surprising. Or, maybe not so much,” observed Martin Halliwell. After a quick glance out the kitchen bay window, at what was transpiring next door on the Cuddlesack’s Queen Street, he returned calmly to his Wall Street Journal and scrambled eggs.

  “What, after all that went on in that house?” His wife, Julia, sitting opposite in her favorite blue robe, motioned for the maid to pour more coffee. “It was a scandal! Of course, her father did his best to hush it up, but facts leaked out. Shooting your own husband, imagine!”

  “I suspect there might be lots of women eager to shoot their own husbands,” said Martin mildly, “if only they could find out where to buy a gun. And learn to shoot it.”

  “Well, at least the sign is tasteful.” Julia chose to ignore the ribaldry. So typical of Martin in the morning, before she’d barely opened her eyes and started her heart pumping again with a generous snort of caffeine.

  He risked another glance outside. “It is that. I wondered if they might be putting the place up for sale one of these days. After all, Jeff is remarried and living in Connecticut somewhere, so I’ve heard. And Annajane has been locked up in a looney bin for almost the past year.”

  Choking on a spurt of shocked laughter, Julia barely managed to swallow the sip from her freshened coffee. “Martin, really. I understand she was charged under that mental disease or defect thing-y and ordered to a psychiatric hospital.”

  “Sure she was. With the billions her doting papa had available to throw at any capitulating judge? That’s justice, all right. Wonder if the woman will have her head screwed on straight, once she’s released.”

  Silence for a moment, while the maid cleared away a few dishes and then discreetly disappeared until called forth once more. Martin, waiting for a response, looked across the table at his wife with one raised brow. Slightly rumpled as to appearance, now that both boys had departed in a rush for summer camp, and apparently unconcerned, she was spreading marmalade on half an English muffin.

  “Well?” he finally said.

  “Well, what?”

  With a sigh, he folded and put aside his newspaper. “You know something I don’t know?”

  “Um. Well, it seems she was released a few weeks ago. Earlier than expected.”

  “Okay. And you found this out by what means? Your hairdresser? The cook? Some bystander you passed on the street?”

  “No,” said Julia, irritated. “The landscaper. Don’t be an ass, Martin; she called me.”

  Smiling, he leaned back in his chair to contemplate his wife and the situation. Lovely to his eyes, even slightly disheveled, with her summer-streaked blonde hair and figure still perky despite the added stress of childbirth and years gone by. He, on the other hand…

  “Oh, yeah? Lemme guess—she’s writing a book about her experiences in the joint and wants you to finance it.”

  Julia had had enough. Calmly she picked up the other half of her muffin and flung it, butter and all, at his unsuspecting head. “Oh, drat,” her mutter followed the fling, which had missed its target entirely to bounce off the sunnily papered wall behind him and end up a heap of crumbs on the floor.

  “Huh. Rotten aim, Jules; you never could throw worth crap. Wanna call what’s-her-name—Pilgrim? Patien
ce? Patricia?—to clean it up?”

  “Prudence. And, no, thank you. I clean up my own messes. Isn’t your office calling you?”

  “Nah, I don’t have to be in court till ten. Gonna stay and bug you a while. So why did she call?”

  Dusting her hands on a white damask napkin, Julia reached for another spoonful of the hash browns which she so dearly loved and in which she so rarely indulged. “To tell me she’s back staying in the house—temporarily, it would seem, given the realtor’s post—and invite me to lunch.”

  “Huh. Thinking you’ll meet with her?”

  Julia hesitated, looking troubled. “Well—I thought I should. I mean, for five years she was part of our group here on Queens. I don’t really feel I have a choice.”

  “Great. You can find out more then, as to what it was like being strapped down to a table for shock treatment.”

  “Martin Halliwell, you are incorrigible!” It was Monday. Perhaps his whole purpose in teasing and heckling was to start the week off with a bang. Whatever, she was fast losing patience. “You are worse than any old gossip sitting around the stove in a general store, chewing the fat.”

  “And tobacco. Don’t forget about chewing the tobacco. Hey, Snookums.” He shoved aside his chair, rose, and swung past only to snag one hand in her ponytailed hair for a quick caress. “Just trying to keep up with local news, that’s all. Lissen, when you two gals get together for lunch—”

  Rolling her eyes, Julia braced. “Yes?”

  “Ask her about Roger Kendricks, will you?”

  “Roger?”

  He had already turned and was walking away, only to pause at the doorway. “Yeah. Those two were an item for quite a while. You knew about that, didn’t you?”

  “I did. I wasn’t aware that you knew.”

  “Aw, sure. Saw him out and about quite a bit. Even played a few rounds of golf with him once in a while. And he talked. Just curious how the whole thing is gonna shake down. Are you going to your book club meeting this afternoon?”

  Swiveling on her chair to follow the conversation, she crinkled eyes more aqua than Mediterranean depths. “Imagine your remembering my pesky little schedule. Yes. Some romance novel I’ve been devouring for the last week.”

  “Oh, that explains the sexy goddess mood lately in the bedroom. Which,” he did a bit of eye-crinkling himself, “I would never dream of complaining about.”

  Although Julia lifted her chin in mock hauteur, the glimmer of a smile lay tucked into the corners of her mouth. “As well you shouldn’t. The steamy language—no, the purple prose!—of A Sailor and His Captive has had me hot as a damned chili pepper. And you, poor jaded city attorney, will just have to suffer through it with me.”

  With a wide grin, her husband returned long enough to swipe a passionate kiss, along with a teenager’s grope of what lay so temptingly beneath the robe’s piqué. “Keep on reading those trashy books, sweetheart,” he advised huskily. “Where all the ladies swoon upon command, and all the heroes are tall and handsome.”

  A far cry from his own somewhat weathered self. Balding, bespectacled, and overweight by the slight paunch of his middle, Martin Halliwell could hardly fit any fantasy-seeker’s dreams. Still, he and the woman he had loved from their first moment of meeting, and would love forever, seemed to get along all right. Their fifteen years of marriage had produced a thriving career, a majestic house, two admirable sons (for the most part) and the rock for Martin’s existence. Without this to come home to, every night, there would be no point in living.

  “My hero is certainly tall and handsome,” she glanced up to assure him with an evil leer. And stretched out interested fingers for a little touchy-feely operation to correspond with his.

  “Uh.” Taken by surprise, he worked to straighten his fogged-over glasses. And the disarrayed front of his trousers. “I don’t suppose—?” He cast a longing look toward the set of stairs leading to their second-floor bedroom.

  “Nope. Not right now, Romeo, my boy. I’m going to finish my breakfast without any more harassment, and you are heading off to defend rapists and murderers. No.” Her gem-colored eyes teased, her smile held hints of things to come. “However, there is always later tonight…”

  “Witch. I’ll hold you to that,” he muttered, escaping to grab his briefcase on the way to the garage. Flowers, he thought, opening the door. A dozen red roses. No. Two dozen. That ought to be favorably received.

  “Get home before ten o’clock for once, will you?” she hollered after him. “We’ll have pot roast!”

  Which, of course, he didn’t hear. Already long gone, with his mind forcibly yanked away from marital treats to the jousting yard of the County Courthouse, and the myriad of cases demanding his attention today.

  Meanwhile, Julia could linger over her breakfast without feeling one speck of guilt.

  Other than, possibly, what to do about her friendship with the madwoman next door.

  Another glance through the big window showed all quiet and serene. A few late forsythia were still bursting their brave blooms in the back hedgerow, and a few early pink floribundas were peering through the classic white picket fence that separated their properties. An expanse of green grass, tended weekly by an expert team of lawn-care specialists, held shady spots and sunny spots, plenty of shrubs and a mixed bag of trees, and, to the rear, a huge play area for two rambunctious boys.

  Although Julia had always taken great interest in gardening and horticulture, Annajane had not. Julia was the steady, stay-at-home soccer mom, involved in school and family; Annajane was the flighty society belle, quick to show off the latest in designer fashion while attending every imaginable gala. Their worlds intersected on only rare occasions, and then just briefly, with their one claim to friendship being co-habitation in the Cuddlesack.

  Everyone in the neighborhood had been shocked beyond belief at what had happened some ten months or so ago, everyone discussed back and forth as to what things were coming to. The whole sordid affair could hardly have been missed: colored lights flashing with impunity on their secluded street, and sirens bellowing, and dozens of uniformed emergency personnel flooding the area, and bullhorns being employed.

  Most residents had been too well-bred to stand outside and gawk, but not the Halliwells. In fact, Julia had shaken off her husband’s restraining hand in order to rush next door, to see if she might be of service. She reached the official police “Do Not Cross” yellow tape line just as Annajane was being escorted to a waiting squad car.

  Nibbling now at her last piece of muffin and delicious orange marmalade—all right, so she’d have to do a few extra minutes on the treadmill shortly—Julia considered the ramifications of seeing her former neighbor again. Finding that the house was to be sold came as a distinct relief. Less embarrassing for everybody that way. She wondered where Annajane planned on relocating. And, following Martin’s line of reasoning, she wondered just how mixed up the lady was with Roger Kendricks, whose own house, at the end of Queens, had been shut up and silent for several weeks.

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

  “But we’re married, of course,” said Annajane blankly.

  “Married?” repeated Julia, equally blank. “When—where—how—uh—did this happen?”

  “As soon as I was released from—um—the arms of the judiciary system, I flew to France. Roger was already there. He’d taken care of whatever necessary legalities, and we had a very nice private ceremony in a Parisian chapel.”

  That explained the absence of Roger Kendricks for most of the month of May, and the empty, lonely condition of the ostentatious dwelling that crouched like a royal lion in the Cuddlesack. Still, it did leave much for one to wonder at.

  “Paris, huh? Well, that’s fabulous. I hope it was a beautiful wedding,” Julia offered generously, despite her misgivings. “And that everything went smoothly for both of you.”

  Annajane’s invitation had brought them to a chic restaurant closer to, by
her description, civilization. Meaning, pricey, with normal food dressed up to look like nothing ever seen before. A far cry from Martin’s homely pot roast, scheduled for later tonight. Glittering chandeliers dripped from the ceiling, embellished golden paper as elaborate as castle tapestries covered the walls, and elegant white Chippendale armchairs were drawn up to damask-draped tables set with exquisite service.

  Overkill, thought Julia, glancing around the room. Almost she could long for a small tomato sauce stain on one of the napkins, or a drip of candle wax adhering to the crystal holders. The place was not of her choosing, but its décor did certainly suit Annajane.

  “Oh, we think it did. I’ll have a glass of Veuve Clicquot,” she diverged to instruct Marcel, their server, who was waiting patiently in the wings. “And the escargots in puff pastry to begin with. Then the long line caught yellow fin tuna splashed by Goan lime, minus the avocado crème fraiche. I’m allergic to avocadoes. Julia, what are you in the mood for?”

  “Um. Well.” Hastily she flipped through the menu discarded earlier. “Oh, I guess just some Chardonney, and—well, um, the bruschetta. With cream of mushroom soup.”

  Had she imagined it, or did Marcel’s well-bred French lip curl just a little at her more plebeian choice? “Very good, madam. I’ll return momentarily.”

  For a few minutes the subdued murmur of conversation around them, as other diners settled in and met up and discussed the latest news, took precedence over their own small table, situated beside a large sunny window. The muted clink of silver against china, the vibration of footsteps softened by plush carpet, the background strains of classical music piped in over the very best of sound systems: all intruded only remotely into their own private preserve.

  “You look well,” said Annajane, with an appraising glance.

  “Thanks, AJ.” Julia would have liked to return the compliment, but her friend seemed more brittle and tightly wound than ever, even despite her ravishing golden beauty and the months of therapy. “I’ve been well.”