LITMIR.BIZ

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was a Banks Bailey of the Banks Baileys whose ancestors crossed over on the Mayflower, the same Baileys that had made a fortune in diamonds or furs or maybe it was farming—but it was so far in the past that no one could remember. However, the family members were pleased with the way their money doubled and tripled and quadrupled over the years. Banks Bailey women appeared regularly in the pages of Town & Country . Their husbands were featured in Forbes and Fortune. Their homes in House Beautiful and their pets in Pedigree.

      It would have been a surprise to the columnists of any of these papers to learn that none of the Banks Bailey money had ended up in Chessey’s purse.

      The linen envelopes were this June’s invitations to family weddings and christenings and dinner parties. For each and every one of them, Chessey would come up with something to wear and something to give. The former was not too much of a problem, because her cousins were quite generous about last year’s clothes. Although the Chanel suits and dresses by Dior ran short because Chessey inherited her legs from her mother, Chessey kept these hand-me-downs neatly mended and pressed. She was quite confident that she’d manage to have something appropriate to wear for every occasion she was duty-bound to attend.

      The second problem, what to give, was more daunting. Her cousins had, in quite rapid succession upon reaching their twenties, married men of highly developed pedigrees and portfolios. Chessey was always thrilled by love matches and considered the fact that every cousin had married a millionaire a wondrous statistical oddity. Still, weddings required a gift and millionaires marrying Baileys expected more than a toaster from the local housewares store. And christenings—well, something engraved was always nice. She snuck a peek at her checking account balance.

      In a toss-up between eating and presents, she’d pick presents. Besides, she could always make up for her choices by eating well at the parties. She made a list of the RSVP’s she’d have to return, the presents to select and the times of all these events.

      She picked up her phone on its first ring. “Good morning, Chessey Banks Bailey, Protocol.”

      “Get up to the eighth floor, stat,” a voice snarled and then hung up without waiting for a reply.

      She recognized the trademark charm of her boss’s aide.

      “Good morning to you, too,” she said to the dial tone. “I’m just fine, and how are you?”

      She put down the phone.

      A summons to Winston Fairchild’s office. She made a quick check of her lipstick, satisfied that none of it had ended up on her teeth. Then she grabbed her briefcase, on impulse throwing in her clutch purse.

      Winston Fairchild III. Everything a woman could want in a man. Intelligent, refined, cultured. A Harvard graduate. Distinguished family. He was exactly the kind of man her family would welcome for Sunday dinners, holiday weekends. So suitable that she might even be considered a normal Banks Bailey were he escorting her. Even her grandmother had asked her why she didn’t invite him to the family compound.

      Chessey allowed herself the briefest of fantasies. A fantasy involving classical music, reading the hefty Sunday New York Times together, drinking cappuccino.

      Completely unattainable, Chessey concluded, knowing that she was not like any other Banks Bailey cousin and therefore Winston Fairchild had a habit of looking at a point just above her head, far, far away, whenever they passed each other in the hallway.

      

      Chessey knocked first on the wood paneled door and, on hearing a vague response, entered the corner office. She had only been summoned once before, two years ago for Winston Fairchild III’s one-minute “glad to have you on board at the State Department, fill out your withholding form at my secretary’s desk” talk. She noted that the ficus in the enamel planter still looked dead.

      The office was more crowded than she remembered.

      The head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, two congressmen and a Defense Department undersecretary. Chessey quickly recovered from her gee-whiz reflex. She held out a slim, manicured hand to introduce herself to the general, Winston having conceded the duty with a vague you-know-everyone-here wave.

      As she exchanged introductions with the New York representative, she saw what looked to be a circus performer with his feet up on the table.

      He slouched against the cushions of the chintz couch and reared his head back to catch the peanuts he threw in the air. He never missed. After four such dazzling feats, while explaining to the horrified congressman from Arizona that he once did this two hundred times in a row, the performer did a double take in her direction. A peanut landed in his lap.

      He was breathtakingly handsome—but only if you went in for strong, primitive types. The kind with hard, square jaws. Frankly appraising blue eyes. Sharply defined muscles. Coarse, callused hands. Incongruously boyish smiles.

      Which Chessey didn’t.

      She stood a little closer to Winston, whose scent was familiar because she had smelled it just the day before on a scent strip in Town & Country magazine.

      “I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting you,” she said, holding out her right hand to the stranger. “Chessey Banks Bailey.”

      Rather than shake, he gave her the once-over—twice—and then howled.

      “Whooee! I knew there was something I’ve been missing for the past two years!”

      His words were delivered with an inappropriate leer. Chessey bristled and then gaped first in reproach and then astonishment.

      “You’re Lieutenant Derek McKenna!” she exclaimed.

      “One and the same, darlin’,” he said. He uncrossed his ankles, dropped his boots to the floor and rose to take her into his arms.

      Before she could marshal a protest, he kissed her. Full on the lips, enduring her small fists against his chest as he would an annoying but helpless fly. His mouth possessed hers, claimed her as the spoils of a conquering hero and when he abruptly let her go, she felt strangely bereft, as if she were a doll cherished and then discarded by a child.

      She steadied herself with a hand on the back of the wing chair in which Winston sat.

      If she had been given time enough to hope that Winston would come to her aid with gentlemanly rebuke, she was to be disappointed.

      He said nothing.

      Kisses like this didn’t happen to Baileys.

      Nor, she would suspect, to Fairchilds.

      She wondered if Winston might harbor the ridiculous notion that she had provoked the lieutenant. If she were at fault for this appalling behavior. The other men were shocked—shocked!—but they gave her no mind. Indeed, their eyes followed Derek, who sprawled on the couch.

      Winston, on the other hand, shook his head disapprovingly.

      “Totally untrainable,” Lieutenant McKenna announced. “Not suitable for American audiences. Bound to cause more trouble than I’m worth.”

      “Soldier,” the general said sternly.

      Chessey touched her chest to still her galloping heart. Shock was being replaced with outrage, outrage that was all the more potent because it contained the niggling iota of attraction. McKenna barely noticed her, which made her outrage spiral upward like a tornado.

      He had no right, no right at all!

      “You don’t want me, General,” Derek pleaded. “First time I land a kiss like that on a Junior League matron, you’ll have to hide your head in shame for having set me loose.”

      “Soldier,” the general repeated. “I’ve had enough of this nonsense.”

      “I’m telling you, send me home,” McKenna said, with enough pleading in his voice that some of the men looked at their shoes, a single spark of decency within them realizing the unfairness of asking a man who had given so much for his country to simply do more.

      And

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