Heiress (22 page)

* * * * *

“What are you doing, Mrs. Worth?”

Amelia stood at the door of Jinx’s room, holding her morning tray. She entered the room, set it down on the bureau. “Are you and Mr. Foster leaving?”

A bag lay on her bed—she’d found it in a storeroom down the hall, where they kept her summer ball gowns, stuffed onto dress forms. Now, a few of her things—a corset, a pair of bloomers, her jewelry cases—lay upon her bed.

She had no idea how to pack for her escape from this life. Maybe she should take nothing.

Maybe she should leave it all behind, just like Esme.

She turned to Amelia, not sure what to say. “I…I’m leaving Foster.”

Amelia gave her the expression she expected, wide eyes, the intake of breath. Indeed, she might have reacted the same to those words, laying out so naked, if they hadn’t already been burning through her head for the past thirty minutes.

She was leaving Foster. She let the words slide through her again, unlock something deep inside.

“I’m going with Bennett to Paris.” At least, she hoped so. She turned to stare at her scattered items. “I don’t have much time before Mr. Foster returns.” Maybe she didn’t need them. None of them, none of this life.

She heard Amelia close the door. “He has already arrived.” Her voice shook. “Mr. Foster has such a temper. How will you leave?”

She looked at Amelia and must have worn a desperate look, because her lady’s maid drew herself up, nodded. “I’ll get your bathing costume.”

“But I’m not going to the beach.” Except, Foster didn’t know that, did he?

“You’re brilliant, Amelia,” she said as the maid returned, holding her bathing attire: the black-sleeved tunic, tied at the neck, her corset, full-length cotton drawers, and the shorter skirt.

Amelia loaded the clothes into the valise. Closed it. Paused. Then, “I will be happy to accompany you,” she said. She met Jinx’s eyes, something rare, bold. “I cannot stay here with Mr. Worth and his—his valet. There is an evil there that disturbs me. His valet watches you, miss, and sometimes follows you when you go out, even when Mr. Worth is at home.”

Jinx had always harbored a fear of Lewis O’Farrell, with his cauliflower ears, a nose that jagged down his face. She had noticed his black eyes that followed her with a sort of undisguised contempt.

She wanted to forbid him from the house when Foster wasn’t at home. But, he was still a servant. “He is a vile man, I admit, Amelia, but—”

“Please, ma’am. I will be happy to serve you, even in Paris. I have no one here.”

For the first time, Jinx considered her, the young girl who had turned into a woman while caring for Jinx. She’d cared for Jinx after her miscarriages, fitted her into her finery, made herself invisible in their home, always alert for her mistress’s needs.

“Yes. Of course.” Jinx had the sudden, mad urge to touch Amelia’s hand, to squeeze it. But they weren’t exactly sisters.

“Help me dress then fetch your things. I will wait by my carriage for five minutes.”

Amelia cinched Jinx inside a day dress then left with the valise.

Jinx pressed her hand to her chest. Took a breath. She ran her hand over her body, where Bennett’s child grew. Closed her eyes and heard her own voice.
Is it so terrible to love and want to be loved?

Perhaps not.

She didn’t look for Foster as she left, although she was glad he wasn’t in the dining room, nor the front salon. Perhaps he’d gone out.

With his valet.

She waited inside her covered landau, the glass windows and convertible top up, curtains pulled just enough so she could shrink back should Foster see her.

The door opened and Amelia climbed inside. She held Jinx’s valise, now bulging, to her chest. “I haven’t much,” she said, and opened the valise.

Inside, a small bag, tied at the top, was tucked inside.

Jinx drew in a breath. She hadn’t realized she’d given Amelia such a small life.

She signaled to the driver, holding her breath, but he pulled them out of the driveway, toward Belleview Avenue, without fanfare.

Without the faltering of her heart.

She clasped her hands on her lap, mostly to keep them from shaking. She couldn’t look at Amelia.

“To the harbor,” she said to her driver once they’d reached Belleview.

You have my blessing, my daughter.

She tried not to let those words taste bittersweet in her mouth. But perhaps her father had found his own healing in surrendering those words.

They finally turned onto Thames, and she drew back the curtain to locate Bennett. In the harbor, shiny yachts caught the sun and she spied the
Jinx
listing at anchor out in the marina.

Further on, in the shipping port, fishermen would be hauling in their morning catch, ships waiting to be loaded.

Here, however, porters loaded trunks into a yacht moored along the long pier. She read the name—the
Shamrock
, a beautiful three-masted yacht bound for Paris. She spotted Bennett on the dock, the wind in his hair, wearing a white linen suit, his hands in his pockets as he talked with the captain, and her heart gave a rebellious, joyous lurch.

He hadn’t left without her, just like he promised.

She tried not to listen to the voice pulsing inside, the one that told her that Foster would find them, hurt them.

No. He wanted to annul their marriage. Those words, from her father, had woken her, finally, to the truth. Whatever marriage they had was a disgrace to their vows, however selfish they’d been. Foster hated her. In fact, she had no doubt he’d be relieved if—

They pulled up across the street to the wharf, and as she watched, her breath caught.

Amelia leaned up, stared out the window. “It’s Lewis.”

Foster’s valet stalked down the pier toward Bennett.

Bennett looked up, his expression not welcoming. Lewis handed him something, Bennett took it, shook his head.

He turned away and flung whatever he held in his hand into the sea.

Lewis turned and walked away. Positioned himself at the end of the dock.

“Foster knows,” Jinx said quietly. He had to know. He didn’t want her for himself, but he didn’t want his brother to have her either.

“Mrs. Worth—”

“If I go out there, Lewis will see me.” She looked at Amelia then back to the valet. He hadn’t moved, and she thanked the shades she’d drawn, hiding her.

“We must go, now, Mrs. Worth.”

Yes. What did it matter that Foster knew? She’d be with Bennett, in Paris. She reached for the handle, opened the door.

On the dock, Bennett was boarding the yacht.

No. She glanced at Amelia, shook her head. “No!”

Workmen on the dock turned to stare at her, gulls cried overhead, the sea lapped against the pilings. Motorcars braked, a horse reared, snorting as its driver yanked back the reins.

Lewis turned her direction; she could see him searching.

“Mrs. Worth!” Her driver disembarked, pulled her back toward the curb. “Be careful.”

Bennett hadn’t heard the commotion, hadn’t turned, hadn’t run after her.

And, as she looked around her, she couldn’t move. Her own actions made her tremble. What was she thinking?

“Let’s go, now, ma’am!” Amelia had pushed out of the landau behind her, holding her valise. “Run!”

Eyes still watched her, and now they were casting off the ropes.

No. A lady didn’t run. She didn’t make a scene. She didn’t… She couldn’t run out on the dock like a wanton woman after her seafaring man.

She drew in a shaking breath. She couldn’t live as a tarnished, shamed woman. She’d worked too hard to create this life. Her life. She could live with her husband ignoring her, without his love, with his indiscretions—what Fifth Avenue woman didn’t? But she couldn’t live with the stamp of adultery, of betrayal upon her. She couldn’t be the fodder for Page Six.

And if she ran out on this dock, in the middle of a blue-skied Newport day, in full view of every tongue-wagger…

Jinx pressed her hand over her mouth as the yacht drifted from the pier, the motor stirring the waters to carry it into the marina then out to sea.

“Where are we going, ma’am?” Her driver jolted her from the view of Bennett’s yacht disappearing toward the ocean. Dressed in last night’s livery of a black leather waistcoat, a topcoat of suede, a top hat, only the best attire for her footman. A trickle of disgusting sweat dripped down his cheek.

She ignored the distress on Amelia’s face and found her voice. “Bailey’s Beach, please.”

He nodded then helped her back into the landau.

The landau jerked, and she caught herself on the handle inside the door. They pulled along the marina, and Lewis turned.

His dark gaze fell upon the carriage. Jinx drew back, shaking.

It didn’t matter what Foster suspected. She had a child now—his child, for all he knew. A child she would love and who would grow up to be strong and healthy. A son of Worth.

The sun’s full attention bathed Bailey’s Beach as her coachman helped her down at the entrance into the hands of the Bailey’s porter, a footman in gold livery. He knew her by sight, of course, and let her enter the grounds.

If she wanted to dispel any rumors kindled from Bennett and Elise’s debacle last night, she needed to make an appropriate appearance at Bailey’s Beach.

It would be her last before she took to bed rest.

Amelia had said nothing and now acted as if they had intended, all along, to bathe. She set to work securing the bathing machine, and Jinx waited in the shade until the four-wheeled, donkey-drawn carriage was erected. When she entered, she found a pitcher of orange juice and a basket of fruit waiting.

Amelia would serve as her dipper, and she helped her change into her bathing costume. Jinx even donned the required rubber-soled bathing boots, lacing them up the leg.

“Ready, ma’am?” Amelia asked, her voice strangely cool.

Jinx nodded and they sat as their attendant drew the carriage toward the sea. She heard the waves scraping the shore and looked out the front as the donkey waded into the waves until the water reached the level of the wheels. Then the attendant unyoked him and drew the animal around to the front.

The attendant drew down the awning in front to afford her privacy, then Amelia helped her into the water.

Jinx stepped down, dipping one covered foot, then the other, into the surf. The water swelled around her, lifting her skirt, but even as she waded deeper, the wool kept the freshness of it from her skin.

The cover of the bathing machine obscured the view of the ocean, but Jinx imagined it, stretching out beyond her enclave, an immense blue, waves free to roam from shore to shore. And somewhere in that expanse, Bennett had sailed away from her.

She wet her hands, drew the water to her face. Oh, to dive in. She longed for the chilly lick upon her legs, the mortar of sand between her toes, the salt in her mouth.

To let the sea baptize her.

Instead, her costume weighed upon her, tossed her off balance in the rile of the waves. She lurched forward and Amelia caught her.

“Careful, Mrs. Worth, you don’t want to fall.”

Jinx let Amelia steady her, dug her rubber-booted feet into the sand, then took a long breath, staring down at the darkness swilling around her knees, at the dark, tented puddle of sea that belonged to her. “I won’t fall.” No, not ever again.

SECTION THREE

Esme

SILVER CITY, MONTANA

1903

The
Butte Press
had scooped her again.

Esme sat at the long, polished oak bar of the former Trammers Saloon-turned-headquarters for the
Copper Valley Times
, her hands still black with ink from her single-plate printing press, and read the Butte sixteen-page weekly cover to cover.

The Butte paper had covered the recent vigilante hanging of two highway robbers on the road between Virginia City and Butte, the mining accidents from the Copper Valley mine just outside Silver City, an unsolved murder of a gambler found in the alley behind the Nickel, and the recent looting of Annie Doyle’s homestead. All articles found in her own eight-page
Copper Valley Times.

But the Butte paper also had headlines from Washington, New York, and San Francisco. She hadn’t known about President Theodore Roosevelt’s upcoming visit. No, that she found on page one, above the fold, and read it three times, hating Ellis Carter for every ounce of backdoor, underhanded shenanigans that allowed the Copper King-Newspaper Baron-Senator to trickle down information to his staff at the
Butte Press
.

She needed an insider in the halls of Washington, or even the state seat in Helena if she wanted to compete with the
Press’s
circulation.

And, with their advertising power.

She propped her chin on her hand and flipped through the paper again, counting the ads, the space. Paid-for space comprised half the paper. No wonder Carter could afford the mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York when he wasn’t in Washington, or paying off senators in Helena.

And, as if to grind salt into her wounds, there, on the back page, a quarter-page ad from Adelaide’s Mercantile, just three doors down from Esme’s office, advertising a shipment of Heinz 57. As if any of the immigrant workers down at the Silverthread mine could relate to an advertisement of a showy high society woman and her daughter admiring their housekeeper’s recent purchase.

The advertisement just reeked of Carter’s grimy fingers creeping toward her little town, greenbacks in one hand, a copper collar in the other.

“Miss Essie, I thought you went home.” Hudson came from the back room—which used to hold the kegs of beer, the bottles of whiskey back when Silver City boomed, years before copper was discovered in the defunct silver mines. Then, miners and gamblers, and even highway robbers bellied up to the long bar, staring at their grizzled mugs and bloodshot eyes in the mirror, hoping for substance before heading back out into the lawless and unorganized territory of southern Montana.

Esme had rolled into town ten years too late for the silver boom, but in time to acquire the saloon for the price of one of her pearl earrings. She’d purchased the linotype machine, the printing press, and the opportunity to prove her father wrong with the other.