Betina Krahn (22 page)

“But the perfect description nonetheless.” Webster’s smile had a bittersweet tinge as he watched her sweeping around the floor. “She is the same both inside and out. Rare for a woman. She is precisely what she appears to be.”

“Is she?” Bear said, irritated by Webster’s oblique boast of an intimate knowledge of her.

“She is beautiful, generous, passionately tenderhearted—”

Bear snorted. “And stubborn, changeable, and ridiculously independent.”

“Then you haven’t known her long enough. Or well enough,” Webster said, searching Bear in a way that made him feel uncomfortable and annoyed.

“Lucky me,” Bear shot back.

Webster’s meaning-laden smile unsettled him.

“Yes. Lucky you.”

The music ended just then and, as Kenwood escorted her from the floor, they were set upon by a dozen other guests who all apparently deemed it their right to have a turn about the room with her. Webster hurried over and together with Kenwood and Pierpont fended them off to procure her a bit of room.

Bear watched her with her three fiancés and felt an unsettling spurt of anger. Her troubles with those three, he reminded himself, were of her own doing. He was about to turn on his heel when she looked up, spotted him, and went motionless. Against his better judgment, almost against his will, he allowed himself to meet her gaze.

The distance between them and the crowd around them both momentarily disappeared. In the space of a heartbeat, he was once again in the guest room of her house, his body pressed hard against hers, exploring the sensual connection that seemed to have been forged between them the moment they met. It was a brief but steamy visitation of desire that condensed moments later into agitation.

“Miss Wingate,” he said, taking her offered hand, chagrined to find that he had crossed the middle of the busy dance floor to reach her side.

“How good to see you, Mr. McQuaid.” The relief in her eyes approached worship. Then she turned to the others with her hand still in his. “You remember Mr. McQuaid. The railroad builder from Montana.”

Out West, looks as sullen and challenging as the ones they gave him would have likely resulted in the sound of steel clearing leather. Here, however, they resulted in a doggedly civil tension that caused each man to stand taller, inflate his chest, and lower his voice half an octave.

The jockeying for position as the four accompanied her
to the punch table was nothing short of intolerable. Money or no money, Bear thought, he should have headed for the door at the first sight of her trio of fiancés. Instead, he had allowed himself to meet her eyes and now felt her furtive glances of entreaty twining irresistibly around his better sense. She was doing it again—pulling him into the tangled web she had woven for herself. And—dammit—he didn’t seem to be able to resist.

Ellen Channing Day Bonaparte, the hostess of the evening’s festivities, and William Fisher, the first chairman of the Charity Organization Society, positioned themselves on the musician’s gallery in the ballroom, calling the guests together for the first of what would be several donation reports made throughout the evening. These announcements of major contributions were, in reality, cannily timed prods to the pride of less forthcoming donors. It was considered something of a measure of one’s importance on the economic and social ladder to be included in these lists of social benefactors.

Fisher clapped his hands and called for attention so that Mrs. Bonaparte could announce: “We are off to a wonderful start this evening. The Children’s Home Society is grateful to announce a gift of fifteen thousand dollars from Miss Diamond Wingate.” Whatever was announced afterward was largely lost in the reaction of the crowd to such a princely sum. Exclamations of surprise and awe swept the room as eyes widened and necks craned for a glimpse of her.

“There she is!” Evelyn Vassar had just threaded her way into the ballroom with some of her lady friends to hear the announcements. Catching sight of Diamond at the side of the crowd and pointing her out to the others, she applauded and nodded to Diamond enthusiastically.

“Did they say what I thought they said?” Morgan demanded of Diamond. “Fifteen thousand dollars? My God,
giving them that much money only encourages them to be wasteful and inefficient. It only fosters pauperism.”

“A laudable contribution,” Louis intoned, ignoring Morgan. “But one must not put all of one’s charitable eggs in one basket. There are other charities—fine organizations that also deserve attention and patronage, my dear.”

“Oh, I have plans to donate to others,” she said. “Including the mission.”

“You do?” Louis relaxed visibly. “Well, of course, I know you are quite devoted to our cause. And just how much, may I ask, do you intend to donate?”

“Well, I believe that depends,” she said, flicking a glance at Bear.

“On what, my dearest angel?” Louis was poised on the edge of his nerves, body taut, eyes shining, hands wringing in anticipation. But a burst of applause from the crowd drew her attention back to the gallery.

Her response was eclipsed by yet another announcement: “And a wonderful donation to the Firemen’s Fund of ten thousand dollars, which they can surely use after the Hampden fires. A gift from Miss Diamond Wingate.”

“Ten thousand?” Louis’s face developed unbecoming red blotches.

“For fighting fires?” Morgan whispered furiously. “That’s the city’s responsibility, not yours!”

“They had no funds for equipment or the new station they needed in Hampden and the east end,” she said, stepping backward and looking about for an avenue of escape. There were people on their left, people on their right, and a wall directly behind them. She cast a longing glance toward the doors.

“But, ten thousand dollars,” Paine said, wetting his dry lips. “All because a few ramshackle buildings burned? You could burn down half of the east end and rebuild it for that kind of money.”

Bear watched her weathering their collective scolding and was torn between his anger at them and his anger at her. The conflict produced opposing impulses to step in and set the self-serving bastards back on their heels and to stay out of it and let her sink into the hole she had so willfully dug for herself.

Diamond Wingate was far from helpless, he told himself. She had more than enough resources, determination, and internal steel to deal with the constant demands of her fortune and other people’s reaction to it. She didn’t need his help. Then she looked up, and he glimpsed the struggle visible in her irresistible blue eyes. He sucked in a breath and couldn’t seem to expel it.

“… have chosen this fortuitous evening to announce a major gift to the new Johns Hopkins Hospital,” William Fisher was proclaiming in a booming voice that Bear would have ignored, if dread hadn’t been so visible on Diamond’s face. “Miss Diamond Wingate has pledged the magnificent sum of
one hundred thousand dollars
to establish a wing devoted to the needs of children!”

“
One hun
—” Morgan’s mouth worked silently and he grabbed his chest.

“
A hundred thousand?
” Louis looked as if he’d been poleaxed. “Why that is beyond generosity—beyond the bounds of charity—beyond all reason!”

“Hoping to buy yourself a bigger halo, Diamond Mine?” Paine said sharply. “I have it on good authority that they only come in one size.”

“I—I hadn’t realized they would announce the hospital donation tonight,” she stammered, shrinking visibly from the boisterous reaction of the crowd and the unprecedented hostility of her three fiancés. “I had only just decided to donate it … to celebrate my birthday.”

At the mention of her birthday, veins appeared in Morgan’s temples. “You might have spoken with me about this,
Diamond. I cannot believe you would be so irresponsible as to give that much money to a
hospital.
”

“How could you take it upon yourself”—Louis demanded, his countenance aflame—“to dispose of such a vast sum without consulting me?”

“What are you trying to do, Diamond Mine?” Paine put in, hovering irritably over her shoulder. “Give my father a heart attack?”

Bear watched people turning to congratulate or gawk at Diamond and spotted Evelyn Vassar, nearby, applauding decorously and mouthing the words: “Bravo, my dear!” When he looked back, Diamond was registering the curiosity and judgment in the looks turned their way and growing ever more frantic.

“What I am
trying
to do is help the children of Baltimore live healthier lives,” she declared quietly, glancing about and praying no one outside that circle of five could hear. But her defense of what they clearly considered to be an “excess” only spurred them on to greater outrage.

“I insist, Diamond, that you cease making donations of this magnitude.” Morgan’s words were all too audible. Heads turned and necks craned. “In fact, I believe you should cease making donations of
any
magnitude!”

She gasped, recoiled physically, and banged into Louis.

“Don’t be absurd, Kenwood,” the little missionary snapped, then turned on her himself. “Diamond, you know how I feel about the university’s exorbitant spending on that ‘hospital.’ The wretched, smelly thing will get built with or without your help. There are far more worthy endeavors for your money than—”

“Spare us the holy harangue, Pierpont,” Paine said irritably, reaching in to claim her hands. “Diamond, you know how my father despises universities—those peacocks at Johns Hopkins most of all. He will be furious. You’ll have to take it all back.”

“You’re over the line, Webster,” Morgan declared angrily. “This is none of your precious family’s concern.”

“It certainly isn’t,” Louis interrupted, stinging visibly from Paine’s remark. “A family ought to pluck the beam from their own eye before telling others how to behave. And you, Morgan—what do you think you’re doing, telling her what to do with her money?”

Bear saw the guests around them drinking in the tension and the reasons for it. His fists clenched. The fiancés’ gentlemanly truce had dissolved into a verbal combat that revealed their basest motives toward Diamond. After tonight she should have no illusions about how callously they had abused her friendship and no qualms about squashing their matrimonial expectations.

Then, just as it seemed that things couldn’t get much worse …

“I have every right,” Morgan declared recklessly, “to insist that my future wife consult me in the disposition of our soon-to-be marital assets.”

The pronouncement had the impact of a small dynamite discharge at close range. Diamond grabbed her throat with a strangling sound; Louis pressed his handkerchief to his mouth in horror; and Paine reached for the hip flask hidden in his trouser pocket.

“Your future wife?” Louis’s blotches returned with a vengeance. “How dare you say such a thing in public without—”

“It’s time, Diamond,” Morgan declared, seizing her free hand. “We’ve waited long enough. Your birthday is only a few days away.”

“Birthday?” Paine said with alarm, pulling her around to face him. “Tell him, Diamond Mine, who will be announcing an engagement on your birthday.”

She opened her mouth but it was Louis’s voice that issued forth.

“Diamond and I, of course.” Louis tried to claim her arm from Paine, but had to settle for hooking her elbow. “We intend to announce our upcoming vows on my dearest’s birthday.”

“You? Marry Diamond?” Disbelief briefly outstripped Morgan’s outrage.

Louis turned to her. “Tell them, dearest. Tell them we intend to marry before the summer is out and to turn Gracemont into our first orphan asylum.”

Her eyes filled with horror. “Orphan asylum?”

“Diamond,” Morgan prodded, “tell them!”

“Speak up, dearest!” Louis demanded.

“Set them straight, Diamond Mine, or I shall have to,” Paine threatened.

The humiliation of being made the object of a public quarrel by men she once counted as dear friends had reduced her to anguished silence. Bear had seen sheep caught by wolves that were shown more mercy. His blood pounded in his head, his hands ached from being clenched, his arms burned with the need for action. Then Morgan reached for her wrist, intending to assert his claim physically, and the last rational restraints inside Bear snapped.

“Sorry to disappoint you, gentlemen,” he heard his own voice, harsh with anger, booming over the scene. “But she’s not marrying any of you!”

Diamond’s contentious fiancés froze, then slowly turned their glares from each other to him.

“She is marrying
me.
”

The silence that followed his pronouncement was deafening. Hardly a breath was taken in or released in the ballroom as the echoes of his words reached the distant corners.

“You?” Morgan said in a rasp.

“
Me.
” he affirmed loudly. “As soon as is humanly possible.”

What the hell was he doing? part of him protested. He must be crazy—she had driven him right around the bend. Then he lowered his gaze to her upraised face and felt a convulsive thud in his chest. Those blue eyes … so irresistibly clear and deceptively deep—an incomprehensible urge to possess and protect them gripped him.

It hit him like a thunderbolt: he wanted her. Signed and sealed. Lock, stock, and barrel. He didn’t want just an option, he wanted ownership. With his next heartbeat, he understood that his impulsive claim was not just the answer to her problems, it was also the answer to
his
.

Around them, Baltimore society stood in shock, absorbing the reality of a confrontation four long years in the making. Passions, pride, and matrimonial ambition had driven many a young man to the brink of open conflict, but until now none had ever plunged over the edge.

Mindful of Diamond’s generosity and having seen over the years her passion for discretion and decorum, the doyens of local society didn’t know whether to view it as a scandal that should be laid at her own feet, or as outrage perpetrated against her by men who knew better than to air such matrimonial grievances in public.

“My goodness!” came a familiar female voice. “What a surprise—a truly wonderful surprise! Our dear Diamond is
finally
engaged to marry!” When Diamond tore her gaze from Bear McQuaid, she came eye to eye with a beaming Evelyn Stanhope Vassar, who began applauding for all she was worth.