Love, Louisa Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Also by Barbara Metzger and Untreed Reads Publishing

  Love, Louisa

  To Louisa, I miss you still. And to all lost friends, forever.

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Love, Louisa

  By Barbara Metzger

  Copyright 2016 by Barbara Metzger

  Cover Copyright 2016 by Untreed Reads Publishing

  Cover Design by Ginny Glass

  The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

  Previously published in print, 2004.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, dialogue and events in this book are wholly fictional, and any resemblance to companies and actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Also by Barbara Metzger and Untreed Reads Publishing

  A Loyal Companion

  A Perfect Gentleman

  A Suspicious Affair

  A Worthy Wife

  An Angel for the Earl

  An Enchanted Affair

  An Enchanted Christmas: A Regency Collection

  Autumn Glory and Other Stories

  Bogged Down (a short story in The Killer Wore Cranberry: A Fourth Meal of Mayhem)

  Cupboard Kisses

  Father Christmas

  Greetings of the Season and Other Stories

  Lady in Green

  Lady Whilton’s Wedding

  Mama Made Kugel (a short story in The Killer Wore Cranberry: Room for Thirds)

  Minor Indiscretions

  Miss Treadwell’s Talent

  Rake’s Ransom

  Saved by Scandal

  The Duel

  The Hourglass

  Valentines

  Wedded Bliss

  The House of Cards Trilogy

  Ace of Hearts (The House of Cards Trilogy Book #1)

  Jack of Clubs (The House of Cards Trilogy Book #2)

  Queen of Diamonds (The House of Cards Trilogy Book #3)

  The True Love Trilogy

  Truly Yours (The True Love Trilogy Book #1)

  The Scandalous Life of a True Lady (The True Love Trilogy Book #2)

  The Wicked Ways of a True Hero (The True Love Trilogy Book #3)

  www.untreedreads.com

  Love, Louisa

  Barbara Metzger

  To Louisa, I miss you still. And to all lost friends, forever.

  Chapter One

  On the night of their engagement party Louisa cracked up her fiancé’s car. The relationship went downhill after that, but not as fast as Howard’s beloved Porsche went down that steep, icy slope. The Porsche might have fared better if not for the garbage truck at the bottom of the hill, and the engagement might still have flourished, if not for the money, the wedding, and Howard’s mother.

  “My mother? How the hell did my mother get into the discussion about paying for the car?” Howard was pacing the Manhattan apartment they shared on East Fortieth. Out one tenth-floor window you could almost see the FDR Drive and the East River; from the other, the new condo being built across the street. Howard jerked the verticals shut on the construction, offended by the disorderly scene. He was not much better pleased with the sight of Louisa in her sweatpants and faded T-shirt, with her yellow-pad lists of wedding guests spread all over the table. “She wasn’t the one who backed her piece of Japanese junk into my Porsche.”

  Of course not. If Irene, as Mrs. Silver insisted her future daughter-in-law call her, had tried to back her huge Cadillac down that ridiculously long, icy Great Neck driveway, she would have flattened the Porsche. Louisa refrained, quite nobly she thought, from mentioning again that if Howard had had the hand brake on his car fixed, the damn thing would not have budged at a mere tap from a Toyota, which piece of junk, incidentally, hadn’t sustained so much as a scratch. Louisa also stopped herself from pointing out that if Irene had not spent the engagement party finding fault with Louisa’s dress, hair, and friends, Louisa just might not have been in such a hurry to leave. What she did do was point at the four yellow pads with her pen. “It’s the wedding, Howard. If your mother didn’t insist we have such a big affair, I could afford to help pay what the insurance won’t.”

  The insurance company, it seemed, did not have as great an appreciation for Howard’s classic sports car as Howard had. What they were offering was book value on a totaled wreck, not payment for painstaking rebuilding. The decision rankled Howard, but not as much as his asking for her money rankled Louisa. He earned a lot more, had more money in the bank and the mutual funds, and wasn’t paying nearly enough toward the wedding his mother wanted for her only son. His mother had offered plenty of advice, but she hadn’t offered to pay for anything except the flowers—if she got to pick them out. Louisa’s widowed mother was buying the extravagant wedding gown—that Irene insisted on helping select, since Louisa’s own mother was living in Florida. On a fixed income.

  “You know I can barely pay for that orchestra your mother wants. If she adds one more name to her list, we’ll have to cut back on the sushi bar.”

  “Mother only has our best interests in mind. Those people can be a great help to my career.”

  Howard was already a successful tax attorney, working long days, nights, and weekends. If he were any more successful, Louisa would never get to see him at all, except at the law firm, the same one where she was personnel director. They’d had that argument before, too, so she did not bring it up again. “I don’t see what the issue is here, anyway. In two months what I have is yours, and vice versa. So all this talk of who pays for what, the wedding or the car, the rent and the honeymoon, is silly. Isn’t it?”

  Howard fiddled with her notepads, making neat stacks out of her scraps of paper. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that pre-nup thing again.”

  Louisa barely glanced at the table, knowing she’d have to start all over again, now
that he’d put her lists out of order. “I thought we decided we didn’t need one?”

  “Yes, but I’ve been thinking. It might be best, you know, to protect you.”

  “Me? You’re the one with investments, profit sharing, and pensions. I’ll be out of a job when we marry.”

  The company’s policy did not let married couples work together, so Louisa was already training her replacement.

  “You’ll have no trouble getting another job,” he answered, which was no answer at all, of course. He moved to stare out the window, the one that showed a corner of the East River, if you craned your neck around the dark Con Edison plant.

  “I’ll never make half your income.”

  “Exactly. If we have a contract, you won’t have to worry about getting your fair share of my earnings, in case we get a divorce.”

  “Howard, we’re not even married yet and you’re thinking about a divorce?” Louisa put her pen down and went to join him at the window.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I just want things to be above board, with no confusion.” He did not turn to meet her eyes, though.

  Louisa put her arms around him from behind and rested her head against his back. “You do love me, don’t you, Howard?”

  “Of course I do, sweetheart.”

  *

  Howard loved Louisa so much, he saved her from a bad marriage. He didn’t show up for the wedding.

  Louisa knew there was a problem when Irene’s flowers did not arrive at the North Shore Inn that afternoon. Neither did Irene, the groomsmen, or the ring bearer, Howard’s cousin’s son. The photographer kept glancing at his watch. How many pictures of the bride checking her frilly garter could he take? Louisa took the silly, scratchy, useless thing off so she could pace better, almost mowing down her mother and Bernie, her mother’s Florida boyfriend. Louisa would not think about where those two had spent the last night. Bernie in a tuxedo instead of his Bermuda shorts was enough of a revelation.

  Louisa’s brother-in-law Jeff was drinking, her sister Annie was nagging at her kids to stay clean, the kids were picking on each other and whining…and Louisa was pacing. “Stop that,” her mother ordered. “You’re making me dizzy. Besides, you’ll get sweat rings under your arms. How will that look?”

  Louisa listened to her mother as well as her niece and nephew did to theirs. She kicked her gown’s trailing satin train out of her way as she turned and headed back across the room adjoining the reception hall.

  “How did Howard seem yesterday?” Annie wanted to know, or else she just wanted to distract Louisa. “Maybe he got sick and he’s in a hospital somewhere. Should we call his mother’s house?”

  The implication that Howard would have called his mother from the emergency room instead of Louisa was not lost on anyone. Louisa scowled at her sister and snatched a glass away from her nephew before he could drink his father’s cocktail. “He was fine in the afternoon, getting ready for the bachelor party. I am sure someone would have notified me if he’d had a heart attack or something.”

  “So he could have had too much to drink and overslept?”

  “Mama, it’s four o’clock in the afternoon. No one oversleeps that long, not on their wedding day.”

  No, Howard hadn’t had an accident on the Long Island Expressway, hadn’t fallen down in a drunken stupor and broken his head, and hadn’t run off with some hired stripper. He must have spent the whole day calling his friends and business associates, for none of them showed up at the catering hall. Only Louisa’s friends and family arrived, huddled together on one side of the big wedding parlor while, behind a screen, the Itzhak Perlmanpriced violinist played over and over the same pieces Louisa had selected four months ago. For what she was paying him, Louisa thought the maestro ought to know more than three songs. She sent her niece and nephew behind the screen to tell him to play something else.

  The baby’s breath in Louisa’s upswept blond hair was gasping its last when the inn’s manager finally brought Howard’s message. The poor man was pale and shaking, wringing his hands—and that was before Louisa threw up on his feet.

  Howard thought she deserved better. He thought she’d be happier without him. He thought Louisa would come to agree with him.

  Louisa thought she was going to die. Right there, in front of her nearest and dearest and a dozen waiters who couldn’t hide their smirks. Her mother was weeping in Bernie’s arms—at least one of them had someone to comfort her—and Annie was apologizing to the violinist for the spilled ginger ale. She was sure his violin could be wiped clean. Annie’s husband Jeff pressed a glass into Louisa’s hands. “If you love me, this is hemlock,” she told him.

  It wasn’t. It was the pricey champagne that was supposed to be the wedding toast, the one thing that could have been returned if it was unopened. Louisa drank it down without admiring its bouquet or bubbles. Then she pulled the veil off her head, jerked the buttoned train off her gown, and marched into the big room and down the white-runnered aisle, by herself, to The Flight of the Bumblebee. It seemed appropriate.

  Despite the lump in her throat and the tears flowing down her cheeks destroying what the professional makeup artist had applied hours ago, Louisa ordered the rest of the champagne bottles opened and served. “As a…as a t-toast to my 1-lucky escape,” she managed to get out before collapsing into the arms of the judge who was to have performed the wedding ceremony. His black robe was now smeared with the remnants of her makeup, but at least she hadn’t thrown up on him too, she thought proudly, accepting another glass of champagne after he helped her to a seat.

  Everyone was watching her, but she couldn’t look back, not to see the pity there. They were all expecting her to crawl away, she knew, to weep and moan and have hysterics. She would not give him—the absent, abysmal ass Howard—the satisfaction. Louisa wiped her eyes and raised her chin. She’d paid for the damn wedding, and, by god, she was going to hold the damn wedding, even if it killed her. She could have a nervous breakdown tomorrow.

  She turned around and held up her glass while the waiters scurried about with trays of stemmed glasses. Jeff, thankfully, shouted, “To Louisa, who was too good for that mama’s boy anyway.”

  Everyone cheered, and again, when she had the head waiter announce that the reception was going on, with hors d’oeuvres being served on the terrace.

  The food was superb, as artfully balanced on the plates as a Calder mobile. Louisa did not eat.

  The music was lively, with no YMCA’s, horas, or macarenas. Louisa did not dance.

  The champagne kept coming, replaced by two kinds of wine and then cordials. Louisa did not let a pourer pass by.

  The company was friendly. After all, they were mostly related, or had known each other forever. The few strangers, escorts and such, were soon made welcome by the small group. Louisa did not mingle. Buffered by her mother and sister, insulated by her brother-in-law and Bernie, she sat with a smile frozen on her face, her heart frozen in her chest. Her mother frowned at the glass clenched in Louisa’s hand and told the waiter to bring hot tea. With lemon.

  “Hot tea isn’t going to fix this, Mama.”

  “Neither is falling down drunk in front of your friends. Think what everyone will say: that Howard was right to call the wedding off, rather than marry an alcoholic.”

  “Mama, you know I barely touch the stuff. In case you haven’t noticed, this is not a usual event.”

  “And you haven’t eaten anything all day, either. You’ll get liver failure or something, like those college boys.”

  Before her mother could expound on binge drinking, or extend her lecture to Annie’s husband, Jeff interrupted and said, “I know a guy who knows a guy who can take care of the bastard for you.”

  Louisa did not have to ask which bastard her brother-in-law meant. “Take care of Howard?”

  “Yeah, you know, old-fashioned revenge. Teach the jerk he can’t treat you like this. He breaks your heart, we break his head. I’ll help pay.”

  Louisa was t
empted, but she was sober enough to know not to trust her own judgment.

  Besides, this could not be happening to her. She’d wake up tomorrow in Barbados happily married. But not to Howard. He was not in sight, so not in her befogged imagination.

  What had she done to deserve this? Louisa had done everything he and his mother wanted for the wedding, and it had not been enough. It was never going to be enough. She had to face the facts. No, she did not have to. Not today. She pushed aside the tea and picked up her wineglass again.

  Annie wiped chocolate off her daughter’s face and hands. “I think you ought to write the creep a letter, telling him you’re pregnant with his child. That ought to shake him up enough.”

  Louisa looked over to where her ten-year-old nephew was licking sugar roses off the wedding cake. She shuddered. “I’ll consider it.”

  “No, you ought to sue the bum.” Bernie seldom spoke, in recognition that he was not really family, but he did now, patting Louisa’s mother’s hand. “Money. That’s the best way to get back at someone like Howard, hit him in the pocketbook. Go for big bucks, for breach of promise.”

  “Do people still do that, Bernie?”

  He shrugged his thin shoulders. “I don’t know. Ask a lawyer.”

  There was silence at the table. Everyone knew Howard was a lawyer.

  “What I think,” Mama said, “is that living well is the best revenge. Our Louisa can get on with her life, and be happier without Howard than she would have been with such a two-faced, lying cad.” (Mama read a lot of paperback romances.)

  Jeff raised his glass. “To getting even.”

  Bernie raised his cup of coffee. “To Louisa and a better life tomorrow.”

  Annie raised the question: “But how?” Louisa had no job, no home, not much money, no husband, no lover—and that bright tomorrow was sure to bring a hangover.

  “I don’t know,” Louisa replied in as firm a voice as she could find, “but that’s what I’ll do. I’ll make a better life for myself. As soon as I come back from my honeymoon.”

  Chapter Two

  She’d held the reception herself. She could damn well go on the honeymoon by herself. What else could Louisa do, anyway, go back to Howard’s apartment?