Always (30 page)

“Why is this so important to you?”

Ross had to consider his reply. He knew that there were other factors running through Malcolm’s mind aside from gambling on a walkout by his assistant editor. For example, did he have anything at all to gain by running the piece? And exactly how much did he stand to lose if Councilman Gibson withdrew his personal political support?

Ross reminded himself that the most important issue here was that a crime be brought to trial, not that he emerge the victor in a power struggle with his editor. He decided to break the impasse. “Maybe I should mention that Emily Winters has picked up on this incident as some sort of female crusade. She doesn’t have a newspaper to publish her views, but you know she’ll find some way of stirring things up.”

Malcolm scowled at this, but the tension in his broad shoulders seemed to lessen, taking the pressure off both of them. “Emily Winters,” he muttered and flopped back down into his chair. “A troublemaker. Just like her father.”

Ross resisted an urge to smile his satisfaction. Emily would be delighted to learn that the mighty Malcolm Davenport had flinched at the mere mention of her name. “You know she won’t give up easily,” he added. “In fact, it’s already too late to ignore this thing. It won’t go away simply because we refuse to print it. Our readers will wonder why we had our heads buried in the sand on this one.”

“They’re like warts,” Malcolm grumbled as if he hadn’t heard a word Ross said. “No sooner do you get rid of one than there’s another growing in its place. Run the damn piece.”

Ross had to be sure he’d heard right. “Did you say, run it?”

“Yes, I said run it, but it’s going to be your name on it. I’m sure as hell not taking the backlash for this when it comes out who the ‘lady’ is, you hear me?”

“I hear.”

A renewed flutter of feminine knocking came at the door. “Daddy! I won’t wait one more minute!” Before Malcolm could change his mind, Ross took the editorial from his desk, tucked it into his coat pocket, and reached for the door.

“Why, Ross!” Johanna exclaimed, sweeping into the office. “What a delightful surprise! I didn’t know you were back! Daddy, why didn’t you tell me Ross was back?”

She was dressed in a fluffy beige-and-brown day dress with a matching feathered hat. Her bright blue eyes sparkled and her pink lips curved in a beguiling smile. Delicate feminine perfume invaded the room with her, chasing away all remnants of her father’s cigar smoke. She clutched a leather portfolio to her bosom.

“I only got in a few minutes ago myself,” Malcolm responded, not bothering to rise from his seat. “You’ve brought my portfolio, I see.”

“Oh, yes.” She set it on his desk. “Mama said you’d be fit to be tied when you realized you’d left it behind.”

“Your mother was correct. Extend my thanks to her when you return home.”

“I will when I get there,” Johanna said lightly, then turned to Ross again.

She was utterly breathtaking in appearance, but Ross could no longer bring himself to feel anything for her. Instead, his mind flashed upon stormy blue eyes, silky raven hair, and feminine underclothing scattered upon the floor of his parlor. He should have felt guilt, but he didn’t. He felt nothing at all as Johanna linked her arm through his. “I’m on my way to the dress shop for my final fitting.”

By her impish expression, he discerned that he was supposed to pick up on some undercurrent of meaning. “A final fitting?”

She laughed, obviously taking his ignorance for male obtuseness. “Why, for my wedding dress, silly.”

“Oh. Of course.” It suddenly felt as if live fish were swimming circles in the pit of his stomach. The sense of victory he’d experienced a few moments ago had vanished. He was a man good and well trapped in a snare of his own making.

“Why don’t you take your dinner break, Ross, and walk her to the shop? I’m sure there’s much for you two to catch up on.”

Malcolm’s tone was flat, but full of implied meaning. Ross looked to see the man still seated behind his desk. He had relaxed back into his chair, his hands clasped around his middle in a casual pose. His hard gray eyes, though, were anything but casual. They were fixed on Ross as if seeing into his thoughts.

I don’t love your daughter
. It seemed to Ross that the truth had to be plain on his face.

Love,
those cold gray eyes seemed to reply,
has nothing to do with it
. Ross had already pushed him. He was not a man who would take well to being crossed.

“Oh, Daddy, what a wonderful idea!” Johanna was saying. “Say you’ll walk along with me, Ross. So much has happened since you’ve been gone. Why, I’m fairly bursting with it all.”

“Go on, Ross,” Malcolm said in that same flat monotone, “You’ve accomplished more than enough here for one morning, don’t you think?”

“Fine,” Ross said, tearing his gaze from Malcolm. He tried to muster a smile for Johanna’s sake. “Let’s go.”

As he led her through the city room, he reminded himself that it wasn’t Johanna’s fault that he’d fallen in love with another woman. It was Emily he wanted, but after all that had gone wrong between them, would she ever be able to trust him? Unfortunately, there was only one way to learn the answer to that question. He would have to jilt Johanna and bring Malcolm Davenport’s wrath down upon his head. He would have to throw his future away.

He had some hard thinking to do.

*

“Merciful heavens, Emily, it’s hard to believe it’s her, isn’t it?” Melissa Carpenter whispered. She leaned to one side to cast a discreet glance at the garishly dressed, disheveled blonde who was puzzling her way through the latest edition of Godey’s Lady’s Book in the cluttered front parlor of Miss Beatrice Ellinger’s Boardinghouse for Young Ladies. “She’s changed so much, I wouldn’t have recognized her. She looks so... so...”

“Old,” Emily supplied, casting a pitying look over her shoulder at Stacy Bliss.

Emily had been shocked, too, when Karl had brought Stacy by the print shop that afternoon. After listening to Emily complain all morning about the injustices of the court system toward women, he’d suggested that perhaps they should try to do something about it. First, though, they needed to talk to the victim in person. Would she be willing to testify if they could pressure the police chief into bringing charges against Gibson?

Karl had taken it upon himself to seek Stacy out and had had little trouble locating her. Emily had barely been able to reconcile her memory of the fourteen-year-old farm girl of their schooldays with the brassy-looking woman who stood in the print shop.

It was clear that Stacy had been leading a hard life. She was only a few years older than Emily herself, yet she looked like a woman well into her thirties. The cheerful sparkle Emily remembered in this young woman’s eyes had been replaced by a cynical glint that suggested the vivid bruises still marring her neck and cheekbones were not the first she’d encountered at the hands of a disgruntled “suitor.”

“She says she’ll testify against Gibson,” Emily continued, “but we still have a problem.”

“What problem is that?” Melissa asked.

Stacy wasn’t the only one who had changed over the years. It was no wonder that Karl had not immediately recognized Melissa Carpenter upon running into her on the street. The redheaded duckling had transformed into a graceful swan. Having outgrown the pudginess that had marked her childhood and adolescence, the minister’s daughter had thinned out everywhere except for her hips and well-developed bosom. Her high cheekbones accentuated large, long-lashed, golden brown eyes, and soft auburn curls escaped her black net snood to frame an elegant, classically beautiful face.

Knowing Melissa, however, Emily suspected that her friend remained blissfully unaware of her own beauty. Having obtained her teaching certification three years before, she had surprised her family by turning down a proposal of marriage from her steady beau, Elwood Beamsdorfer, before moving into Miss Bea’s Boardinghouse for Young Ladies. Since then, she had dedicated herself to her job and her volunteer work at the Home for Friendless Children.

Taking her friend by the arm, Emily led her down a carpeted corridor to the kitchen where an enticing aroma of boiled ham and sweet apple schnitz wafted from a covered kettle on a cast-iron range. They had excused themselves from Stacy on the pretense of pouring some iced tea.

“We need to clean her up,” Emily said, “get her settled in some decent surroundings, and find her a respectable job.”

“You mean, she’s not going back to...” Melissa reddened at the idea of Stacy’s occupation. “You know what I mean.”

“She told Karl that she doesn’t want that kind of life anymore, but she doesn’t know how to get away from it.”

Melissa frowned, then moved to take three drinking glasses down from a cupboard and set them on an oak table. “Maybe she should just move away from here. People aren’t likely to forget what she’s done. You know that better than—” Melissa cut off, clearly horrified at her own slip. “Oh, dear. I didn’t mean that how it sounded. I just meant—”

“I understand.” Emily knew her friend better than that. Over the past four years, they had exchanged occasional letters and never once had Melissa referred to the rumors about Emily or asked if they were true. Instead, she’d kept her missives cheerful, writing mostly about the children she taught at school and at the home.

“You only speak the truth,” Emily said. “I do know from experience that most people aren’t quick to forget the past. Maybe you’re right that it would be best for Stacy to move away eventually, but first she needs a hand up. She needs friends. Remember, she’s not blessed with a family who will stand behind her in times of adversity.”

Melissa let out a sympathetic sigh as she moved to the range and tested a brass teakettle to see if it had cooled. “That poor girl. What a terrible shame.”

Sensing that she was gaining headway, Emily pressed on. “First and foremost, she needs a place to live and a job. I’d give her a job myself except I can’t afford to pay any help yet, and since it’s clear that her family won’t help her, that’s where you come in.”

Melissa turned to Emily with wide eyes. “Me?”

“Well, you and Miss Bea, that is.”

“Miss Bea?”

“You mentioned at the funeral that a room would be vacant at the end of the month. One of Miss Bea’s tenants was leaving to get married. Is that room still available?”

“Well, yes, but I thought at the time that you might want to move in. I’m not sure how Miss Bea will react to having a—” Melissa reddened again and turned away, quickly retrieving an ice pick and a bowl from a second cupboard. “What I mean to say is, we need to maintain a certain level of propriety for the sake of the other ladies’ reputations, if not for our own.”

Emily waved this concern away. “Bea Ellinger has a heart bigger than the Susquehanna River. I’ll bet there are ten stray cats on your back porch waiting for their dinner as we speak.”

“More like a dozen,” Melissa admitted.

“And what about that time she let Old Quint Stehman stay in her garden house when he was drying out from the rum?” Emily pressed. “Nobody else in town believed that man was worth a dime and now, because of Miss Bea, he’s got a job at the mill and has reconciled with his grandchildren. The woman’s a saint, I tell you, and she’s got the spunk of twelve men to boot. She’s never backed down from a fight just because of what people might think, and she won’t turn Stacy away, either. Not if you tell her that Stacy wants to repent from the sordid life she’s been living.”

“You may be right about Miss Bea’s soft heart,” Melissa said, moving to the icebox, “but what if Stacy doesn’t really mean it about wanting to change? What if she turns right back around and resumes that sordid life of hers even after Miss Bea and I decide to take a chance and help her?”

Emily had known Melissa Carpenter since they were toddlers and had never once failed to talk the pleasant-natured minister’s daughter into anything Emily had set her mind on. She sensed now, however, that a
coup de grace
was in order. “I was thinking the very same thing as we were on our way over here,” Emily said, squelching the twinge of conscience that would have nipped this white lie in the bud, “but you know what I thought of then?”

“What?” Melissa asked as she chipped some small chunks from a block of ice in the top compartment of the cabinet.

“I thought about what the Good Book says in cases just such as this.”

All at once, Melissa stopped chipping. There was no sound in the kitchen aside from the simmering kettle on the range.

Emily let out what she hoped sounded like a heartfelt and penitent sigh. “‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.’”

Melissa showed no signs of responding, so Emily continued, “Whether Stacy is sincere at heart, I certainly cannot know, but how many times are we called to forgive? Is it seven?”

Ice pick and bowl in hand, Melissa turned around to assess Emily. “You know, I always hate it when you quote Scripture.”

Emily tried to look innocent. “I can’t imagine why.”

“It won’t work.”

“What won’t work?”

“You can’t make me feel guilty by quoting Scripture, and that’s that.”

“Good heavens, why would I want to make you feel guilty? You certainly have nothing to feel guilty about, do you?”

“I should say not.”

“Well, good. That’s a burden off our shoulders.”

Melissa frowned hesitantly, then turned back to the icebox to finish her task. When she was done she crossed to the table and set the bowl of ice down with a clunk. For a moment, she didn’t move.

Emily held her breath.

“Seventy times seven,” Melissa muttered.

Emily had to suppress a grin. “What did you say?”

“Seventy times seven,” Melissa repeated, her attention stubbornly trained on the ice bowl. “That’s how many times we are called to forgive. If Miss Bea gives permission for Stacy to stay here, then maybe I can get her a job doing laundry at the Home.”

Emily felt an almost overwhelming urge to embrace her dear old friend, but she managed to hold herself in check. “I just knew you would help. Miss Bea isn’t the only one with a heart as big as the Susquehanna.”