Beauty So Rare, A (A Belmont Mansion Novel Book #2) (49 page)

It came their turn, and he placed his and Caleb’s standing order with Mrs. Fitch.

She nodded. “As well as the order you pick up every Friday morning?”

“Yes, madam. That is correct.”

He paid, then stepped off to the side.

“Hot coffee, strong and black,” Fitch said a moment later, handing him a full mug. “And another hot coffee, strong and black.” Then he winked at Caleb, leaning close. “With lots of cream and sugar,” he whispered.

The boy grinned as Fitch handed him a mug identical to Marcus’s. “Thank you, sir.”

Fitch grabbed his own cup he always kept off to the side. “How goes the renovation, Marcus?”

“Quite well, so far. The old courthouse has better bones than I initially thought.” Marcus shot Caleb a look. “But don’t tell Miss Braddock I said that. I don’t want her to say, ‘I told you so.’ ”

Caleb grinned.

Fitch looked at him over the rim of his cup. “You think it’s gonna turn out like you want it to?”

Marcus saw the real question his friend was asking. Fitch knew him well. The man had seen him bid on job after job for new construction, only to be passed over. And instead, have to settle for taking something old and trying to breathe new life into it.

“Actually . . .” Marcus sipped his coffee. “I think it is. And better than I thought it would.”

With a thoughtful nod, Fitch disappeared into the back, then returned with two large baskets of doughnuts and placed them on the counter. “Don’t know where your crews manage to put all these, but the missus and I sure appreciate your regular business.”

Marcus glanced at the queue already backed up to the door again. “As if you need more business.” He drained his mug and picked up the baskets.

Fitch grinned. “I’m grateful for it all the same. Along with the chance to do what I enjoy.” He grabbed a nearby rag and wiped a coffee ring from the counter. “Work is good for a man. Gives him purpose. Reminds him there’s a lot more to life and living than just tending his own self.”

Later, at the old courthouse, after Caleb had distributed the doughnuts—the boy knowing each man’s favorite—Marcus thought again
of what Fitch had said about work, and how Fitch was grateful to be doing something he enjoyed.

Marcus looked around at the exposed wooden beams and framed walls absent their plaster, at the stacks of fresh-cut plank wood and piles of Tennessee limestone set to frame the fireplaces, and he thought about how much he enjoyed doing what he was doing right now.

Building a widows’ and children’s home certainly wasn’t anything he’d ever aspired to. Nor would anyone ever look at this building and stop on the street to stare. But it felt right—him being right where he was. Doing exactly what he was doing. And somehow he knew—despite the lack of divine revelation or prickles up the back of his neck—that what he was doing would stand the test of time. Whether or not this building was still standing a hundred years from now or not.

He grabbed his notebook and pen and headed upstairs to meet with Callahan. But when he opened it, he realized he’d grabbed Caleb’s notebook by mistake. As he closed it, a name caught his eye. At the very top of the page. He grinned.

Then followed the line across to the columns containing each woman’s address and date of birth, and made special note of February twenty-first.

That afternoon, Marcus visited the Deed and Title Office in the current courthouse, three doors down from the mayor’s office. Just passing by Augustus Adler’s office felt like a knife in the gut. Marcus hadn’t seen the man in weeks, and wanted to keep it that way.

True to Lawrence Hockley’s statement days earlier, the clerk had the paper work ready for him.

“Mr. Geoffrey, if you’ll just sign right here, sir. This confirms your receipt of the document.”

Marcus did as the clerk instructed, then a minute later in the hallway, he stared at the official deed. He now owned a piece of America. Something he’d never expected to own.

He folded the document and slipped it inside his coat pocket. Now, to tear down the old plank-wood building standing—or leaning—on the site, and begin construction on the—

“Well, well . . . if it’s not the builder of heretofore unseen designs.”

Recognizing the caustic voice behind him, Marcus knew it would be best if he simply walked on and left well enough alone. But he couldn’t.

He turned. “Mayor Adler . . .” This was one person in America he
wouldn’t
miss.

“Tell me, Mr. Geoffrey . . . what brings you back to this fine
new
courthouse? According to newspaper accounts, you’re spending your time across town renovating the old one to be a . . . widows’ and children’s home, I believe?” Adler’s smile said he found the fact amusing. “Not exactly what you had in mind when you first arrived in my fair city, is it, Mr. Geoffrey?”

Marcus itched to wipe the smug look off the man’s face.

“I’m certain you’ve heard,” the mayor continued, his tone even more pompous than usual. “We’re making excellent progress on the new opera house. Reporters from New York, Boston, and Philadelphia have all penned stories about the building, and have been quite profuse in their praise. They’re already touting Nashville as the
musical city of
the South
.”

The pleasure of what Marcus was about to say was the only thing that enabled him to smile. “That’s good to hear, sir. I take it, then, that your son finally determined how to build the proper supports to sustain the balcony? So he could explain it to the reporter?”

Familiar blotches of red crept up the man’s neck. “Careful, Mr. Geoffrey. Renovations have paper work that can go astray, delaying the project for months. If not burying it for years.”

Oh, how different this exchange
would be if we were in Austria, Mr. Mayor.
As it was, Marcus realized he wasn’t completely without defense. “Yes, sir, you do that.” He smiled. “And I’ll send one Mrs. Agnetta Hanson Hightower, a leading benefactress of the renovation, to speak with you herself. And if that doesn’t work”—he leaned closer—“I’ll send her daughter too.”

Carrying the image of the mayor’s slack-jaw expression, Marcus strode down the hallway and was still smiling when he reached the street.

He briefly stopped by the mercantile to check on the order he’d placed for the kitchen ranges and worktables. The kitchen in “the home,” as Eleanor and others now referred to it, wouldn’t be ready for some time. He’d temporarily boarded up the main entrance and instructed workers to use the door at the back of the building when they needed to access the area. He wanted the new kitchen to be a surprise for Eleanor.

He stopped by the boardinghouse for a late lunch. He hadn’t taken time that morning to read the newspaper, so he enjoyed the prospect of
doing so. Turning to the second page—not three bites into his meal—he was drawn to a column heading. His heart stuttered a painful rhythm as the words sank in.

Within minutes, he was at the telegraph office, scrawling a message and shoving it across the counter.
“
Kontaktieren Sie diesen Mann—”
Seeing the clerk’s confusion, he started again. “Wire this man in Boston. Relay to him the message written below. Tell him to wire it to the international address he has on file.
Immediately
.”

The clerk looked at the paper then back at him. “This is gonna cost a small—”

Marcus slammed a twenty-dollar note on the counter. “Just send it.
Please
.”

As the
click-click-
click
of the telegraph spirited his words over miles of wire, for the first time in months, his heart truly turned toward home. Russia had done worse than mere posturing this time. They’d crossed a line, and Austria was at war.

 40 

Y
ou have every right to be angry with me, Eleanor. But if what I’ve told you is true, if the newspaper article is correct”—Marcus felt even worse than he’d thought he would at giving Eleanor the news—“then I have no choice but to leave.”

A score of emotions played across her face—first surprise, then disbelief, which swiftly gave way to concern, then disappointment. He hated the prospect of breaking his promise to her and leaving the renovation unfinished. But mostly . . .

Mostly he hated leaving
them
and what they might have been—or what he’d wanted them to be—unfinished.

“
War
,” she whispered, the word heavy even when spoken that softly. “I’m so sorry, Marcus.”

He looked at her in the gray half-light of the propagating room, a chilly Sunday afternoon rain gently pelting the fogged glass panes of the conservatory. The temperature outside had fallen overnight but did nothing to disturb the perpetual summer of the greenhouse.

“So . . . you’re saying you have to leave . . . much sooner than you planned?”

“I’m saying it’s a possibility. I won’t know for certain until I hear from my father, or my uncle. I sent a telegram to them Friday. But still . . . no word.”

She nodded. “This is only the second time you’ve spoken of your father to me. Or of your uncle. What business is your father in?”

He fingered one of the wilted flowers of the potato plants on the table between them, the conversation getting dangerously close to home. “He’s in government.”

Her eyes widened. “That sounds exciting.”

“And I assure you it’s not.”

She frowned and started to say something else, but he beat her to it.

“I suppose the reason I don’t mention them more often is because . . . I’m not close to either of them. I never have been.”

“Not like you were with your brother.”

The tenderness in her voice touched him.

“Losing Rutger was like losing the last of my family. First my grandfather, then my mother . . . then my brother. Now they’re all gone.”

The compassion in her eyes threatened to loosen his tongue further. He should’ve left well enough alone when it came to her comment about his father and uncle. But he’d been alone within himself for so long, it felt good to talk to someone—no, to talk to
her
—about home. Or what used to be home.

Still, he realized he was walking a fine line. The
pitter-pat
of rain grew louder on the glass panes overhead.

“Your aunt was kind enough to let me read her recent issues of newspapers from other cities in this country, as well as ones she receives from Europe.”

Eleanor smiled. “I think she gets half a dozen papers per day. Did you learn anything new?”

“Not much. The articles that did include mention of it did so without using the term
war
. They referred to it as
politically based upheaval
or
escalation
of unrest
.”

“Perhaps that’s all it is, then. Maybe the journalist here in Nashville purposefully chose to present the news in a more . . . sensational manner.” She gave him a hopeful look. “It’s not as though he hasn’t done that before.”

He appreciated her outlook, and her desire to put him at ease. “Admittedly, that thought did cross my mind.”

“Will you fight? If it comes to that?”

Her question caught him off guard. But not because he didn’t know the answer.

“Yes, I would.”

The gray of storm clouds overhead seemed to settle around her. “I’ve seen war,” she whispered. “Enough to last a thousand lifetimes.” She looked down at her hands laced together at her waist. “I was a volunteer in the surgical tents . . . near the battlefields. In the recent war.”

A moment passed before she spoke again.

She lifted her head. “I’ve never tried to imagine a world without God. This one seems hard enough as it is.” Her laugh held no humor. “But
in those moments . . .” She firmed her jaw. “Caring for the wounded, trying to comfort the dying . . .”

Her eyes closed, and he knew firsthand the horrors she must have lived through, and was reliving again. Savagery no woman should ever have to witness, much less carry inside her.

Finally, she looked at him again. “Promise me, Marcus . . . you’ll be careful.”

He’d thought she would be angry with him over the possibility of his leaving before the renovation was finished, but her first concern was for his safety. It took restraint he didn’t know he had to resist circling the table and taking her in his arms. Not in order to kiss her—though he’d welcome that opportunity, had he the right—but to hold her. To chase away the pain in her eyes and the loss she still obviously felt from that time in her life.
God, why did you put this woman in my
life . . . if I can’t have her?

The question came so clearly within him, he was almost surprised she hadn’t heard it too.

“I promise,” he whispered. “I’ll be careful.
If
it comes to that.”

Her own transparency inspired his, and he found himself wanting to tell her the truth—about who he was, the kind of man he’d been in the past as opposed to who he was now, largely because of knowing her. But the better part of him—or at least the
greater
part—knew better.

Best he leave America—and her—as the man she knew and respected, rather than as the Archduke of the House of Habsburg, whom he knew she wouldn’t respect.

He looked down at the potato plants, then back at her, and rallied a change of mood. “Now, Miss Braddock, you asked about grafting potatoes, did you not?”

Following his lead, she smiled. And, in part, the gloom fell away.

“I certainly did, Mr. Geoffrey. And . . .” She walked to where she’d laid a cloth-covered dish and a gunnysack. From the latter, she withdrew a pair of gloves. “I found these at the mercantile. They’re a little big.” She tried them on, demonstrating. “But they’ll work for grafting, I think.”

He laughed. “So you’ve come prepared, have you?”

“Indeed, sir.” She held out gloved hands as proof.

“Have you ever planted potatoes before?”

She paused, then shook her head.

“Have you ever planted
anything
before?”

She frowned at him, deservedly so. “I’ll have you know that my father”—she faltered, but only for an instant—“has planted many a
vegetable garden in his life.” She glanced at the gloves again, an embarrassed smile tipping her mouth. “And I, in turn, have sat and read to him for hours on end as he did.”

Able to imagine the scene only too well, Marcus laughed hard, glad when she did too. “Well, that explains why you didn’t recognize the plants on the table before you.”

She looked down, then peered up again. He could see her mind working.

“Those are potato plants?”

“They are.”

“And . . . I’m assuming you planted them?”

He nodded.

“But judging by their size, and how they’re wilting, I’m guessing you did this long before—”

“I’ve been grafting far more than just flowers and . . . pink roses for your aunt. I’ve been working with potato plants for years, Eleanor. And have been collaborating with the botanist I told you about, Luther Burbank, in Boston, who is doing the very same. But before you get excited,” he said, already seeing a gleam slip into her eyes, “we have had very little success. The potatoes graft well enough, but none of the combinations have yielded the desired results.”

The momentary gleam in her eyes faded. “And you’re thinking this time will be no different.”

“Not at all. I’m always hopeful that the next time will prove fruitful. If I didn’t have that hope, I wouldn’t keep trying.”

“Of course,” she said, apology in her tone. “So . . .” Gloved hands on hips, she stepped forward, looking at him square on. “Where do we begin?”

He held up his bare hands. “We simply start digging. I’ll walk you through the first one.”

With exuberance, she removed the gloves, tossed them aside, and joined him by the table.

Though not wanting to get ahead of himself, Marcus couldn’t deny his own excitement. What if—after such a long time—
this
was the moment he’d been waiting for? And Eleanor was there to share it with him.

“See how I’ve hilled up the soil around the stem?”

Watching where Marcus pointed, Eleanor nodded while pushing up her sleeves. She wanted to do this right. And to think he’d already been working on grafting potatoes for years . . .

She’d respected his skills before. But now she admired him even more.

“Start first by pulling the soil away from the plant.”

She did as he instructed, smoothing it down.

“Good. Now work the plant out of the soil a little, just to loosen things up.”

Nervous, Eleanor gave the stem a slight tug.

He laughed. “A little harder than that.”

She gripped it and pulled—and the stem lifted, bringing a portion of the root with it.

“
Perfect!
” He leaned closer, looking more like a boy at Christmas than a botanist or architect. “Now, take your hand, like this”—he demonstrated, fingers splayed, slightly curled—“and go right down into the soil by the stem.”

“Like this?” She slowly pushed her hand down until the cool soil enveloped it.

“Just move your fingers around, nice and gentle. You’ll feel it.”

She appreciated his enthusiasm and that he’d allowed her to stay and help. Especially after the difficult conversation they’d just had. His leaving early was one thing. But leaving to go fight in a—

“I feel something, Marcus!” She wrapped her fingers around the cool lump, then looked at him for what to do next.

“Simply pull, twisting at the same time, and it should come up—”

She pulled the potato from the deep-sided trough and held the dirt-encased little tuber out to him. But he shook his head, his gaze never leaving her hand.

“Now gently rub the dirt away. Not too hard because you don’t want to disturb the skin.”

With her clean hand, Eleanor did as he said, trying to brush away the soil, but . . . “I can’t get the dirt to come off.”

She laid the potato in his palm, and he looked at it up close. Then he reached into the soil, just as she had done, and pulled out another potato, and another, and another, and another.

By the time he’d harvested the first trough, she knew. He didn’t have to say anything. The collection of odd-shaped, blemished little tubers piled on the table beside them said it all.

Feeling his disappointment, and sharing it, Eleanor went to work on the second trough. Which yielded the same results.

“I’m sorry, Marcus.”

He sighed, wiping his hands on a rag. “So am I.”

“What do we do now?” she asked softly.

“
We
”—his smile was halfhearted at best—“will clean ourselves up and enjoy your latest culinary masterpiece.”

“No . . .” She gestured toward the plants. “I meant about the potatoes. You’re not giving up.” She looked at him. “Are you?”

“No.” He exhaled again. “But with the renovation and the possibility of leaving, I—”

“I’ll help you. In whatever way I can.”

This time his smile was one she recognized.

“Thank you, Eleanor. Before trying another graft, I’ll take a brief hiatus, study my notes again, and send my findings to Luther Burbank. Who knows, maybe he’s found something that might help us both.”

Side by side, they washed their hands in a barrel behind the conservatory, the water ice-cold. Back inside, Eleanor shivered, squeezing her hands to encourage the blood flow.

“What did you make this time?” He started to lift the cloth, but she pretended she was going to smack his hand.

“No peeking!” She laughed at his bewildered look. “This is a special treat.”

“Aren’t they all?”

“You’re very kind, Mr. Geoffrey. But this one has proven quite the challenge. This is my seventh attempt.”

He looked at her. “What happened to the other six?”

“You don’t want to know.” She positioned the dish in front of him. “Are you ready?”

“Whatever it is, I’m certain I’ll enjoy it.”

She smiled, then whipped the cloth back. “
Ta da!
”