Heiress (26 page)

He turned down the hall and nudged open a door. Inside the expansive room, a grand brass featherbed, a rolltop desk, and a deep mahogany two-door wardrobe conjured up memories. Everything, from the red damask coverlet on the bed to the green velvet drapes, all swept her back to Fifth Avenue. It smelled too, of dried rose petals, as if they might be lifted from the tiny rosebud wallpaper.

“This was my mother’s favorite room,” Daughtry said.

“It’s beautiful.”

He walked toward the bed.

“No, I’m filthy. And that’s French damask!”

He stared at her a second, curiosity flashing across his face, then set her down on the hard-backed desk chair. “Hold onto something, this might hurt,” he said as he knelt before her.

Taking a hold of her boot, he looked up at her. “And, for the record, I’m sorry.”

He took the boot off as gently as he could. Even so, she had to bite back a cry, her body trembling by the time he got it off. “You may have broken it.”

She wiped her cheeks, staring at the swollen mass. Whatever she’d done before, the fall in the barn made it worse. “Doc Sampson already said it was sprained.”

“A bad sprain. But Dawn will know what to do.” He stepped back as the woman came in with ice in a basin of cold water. She lowered Esme’s foot into it and Esme sucked back her breath.

“I don’t think you’re going anywhere for at least a couple of days, Miss Stewart,” Dawn said.

“Call me Esme.” She looked at Daughtry and closed her eyes as the ice worked its way into her bones.

Dawn picked up her other, booted, foot. “Leave us, Charlie. I’ll call you when she’s ready for guests.”

Indeed, she’d been transported back to a life of ease, right here in the wild hills of Montana.

Dawn drew her a bath, filled it with rose petals, and helped her clean up. Then she let her choose between a pair of Daughtry’s wool pants or a crimson brocade dress with creamy lace sleeves and a collared bodice, a gown she might have worn to a Vanderbilt dinner party.

Something inside her made her choose the dress.

She sat on the settee as Dawn did her hair—nothing fancy, like Bette would have done, but swept up with a pair of pearl combs. “Mr. Hoyt gave these to his second wife. I know he will enjoy having someone wear them again.”

Esme stared at her bare décolletage and imagined the pearl and diamond dog collar around her neck, the one tucked away in the safe at the
Times.
Someday, she might wear it again. When the prodigal felt ready to return.

“You’re beautiful, Miss Stewart,” Dawn said.

A knock came at the door. Dawn opened it, and Daughtry stood in the hallway, wearing a western brocade vest, a pair of pressed black woolen pants, a gold ascot at his neck. “I heard we had a guest for dinner,” he said, and something about his smile sent heat through her.

“Dawn suggested I stay.”

“I agree with Dawn.” He drew in a breath, a smile pushing at his mouth. “You look breathtaking.”

She ran her hands down the dress, allowed the compliment to sink through her, warm her in a way she hadn’t felt in years.

“My father said he’d join us at dinner.” He stepped inside the room. “May I?”

She frowned and he held out his arms. Oh. She nodded.

He smelled spicy—bathed, yes, but with a hint of the woodland and alpine breeze, and she realized he was wearing an imported scent. He carried her with ease to the parlor and settled her on a crushed velvet divan. A fire coaxed warmth into the room and over the mantle hung an oil of a woman, Native American descent in her features.

“My mother. She was a half-breed, from the Crow tribe. My father married her when he was just a teenager, when he came out to pan for gold down in Virginia City. She died when I was twelve.”

“I’m sorry. Was this her dress?”

“Yes. My father had it made for her in Paris. Now that he had money, he wanted to turn her into one of those fancy New York Knickerbockers.”

Esme thought she recognized the handiwork of a Paris house.

He stood at the window, staring at the sun setting over the far white ridge. “We visited New York two years before she died. We took the train and I remember wondering how so many people could live in such a tiny place. The streets were muddy, the skies dark. But she loved the shops and the hotels. We took rides through Central Park and she bought so many dresses I thought we’d need another train car to haul them home. She simply ignored the expressions of those who questioned her presence, who made assumptions as to why she assumed the right of my father’s arm.”

His voice turned dark and he stopped, swallowed.

“One night, though, we took a carriage to the Metropolitan Opera. My father allowed me to join them, and we waited in our hotel lobby until my mother appeared. In just that dress.” He looked over at her, but he had only his mother in his eyes. “She was radiant. That night, she wasn’t the Crow wife of a miner from Montana. We were society. Footmen helped us into our rented landau. We took an opera box. And, we dined later at Delmonico’s.”

“It sounds glorious.” She remembered nights like that. Glorious might be the word she would have used back then if she weren’t intent on escaping matrimony.

His smile fell and he returned to her. “It certainly wasn’t Montana.”

“Is that why you moved there?”

He glanced at her, turned his back. “My father sent me away.”

Her gaze returned to the woman over the mantle. “She sounds like a lovely woman.”

“She was. She loved my father—would have done anything for him. I think that’s why she put up with all the scorn in New York City. All our money couldn’t buy her respectability.”

“New York can be a fickle city, caught up in appearances rather than substance.”

Her words turned him, and again he frowned at her. “What do you know of New York?”

Oh. She stared at her hands, debated her response. “I read the
Chronicle,
sometimes. The society page.” It wasn’t a lie, exactly. But the truth swelled before her—what if he found out she descended from the Price family? The miners, Silver City considered her one of their own. But if anyone—especially Abel, found out she came from money, from power, from the elite set, he might not let her attend the union meeting.

She might lose her scoop.

Which meant she couldn’t tell anyone—not even Daughtry.

“You read the society page?” He gave her a wry smile. “I very much doubt that. What would you care of the society page, the frivolous party life of the rich and foolish?”

His words stung her, despite their accuracy, despite the fact that she herself had thought them, once.

“They’re not all rich and foolish—”

“Let’s see, shall we? I’ll be right back.”

He disappeared across the hallway and she stared at the sunset, the way the reds and oranges bled out over the vast horizon.

He returned, holding a copy of her father’s
New York Chronicle.
She folded her hands in her lap and refrained from leaping to grab it.

“Here’s a gem,” he said. “ ‘Mrs. Astor Hosts Glittering Ball to Ring in the New Year. All the fashionable of New York attended last night’s annual ball at Mrs. Astor’s residence at 842 Fifth Avenue. Everything was done to the most perfect taste. Large vases of American Beauty roses adorned the vestibule and the entrance hall and decorated the handsome ballroom, the grandest of all New York.’”

Esme tried not to the let the image fill her mind, but once there, the grandeur of Mrs. Astor’s ballroom revived her memory. The gilded walls, the lilt of the orchestra, the gold-embroidered ball gowns.

“‘It was nearly midnight when the guests arrived, following the opera
The Magic Flute
at the Metropolitan Opera. Mrs. Astor did not attend the event. After greeting her guests in the Louis Sieze drawing room, Mrs. Astor enjoyed Landers Orchestra playing from the ballroom. Supper was called at 1 A.M. The menu was as follows: Filet de Boeuf aux Champignons farcies, Pommes Surprise, Terrapin…’”

She could see the dinner before her, the small tables with cover for six or eight, the white-gloved attendants, the smells of sumptuous, rich meats and gravies. “That’s enough.”

“There’s more. Don’t forget the guest list. ‘After supper, the cotillion was danced. It was led by Mr. Foster Worth, dancing with Mrs. Orme Wilson. And Henry Lehr, dancing with Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt. Mrs. Astor’s gown was a trailed robe of dark velvet, trimmed in pointelle lace, garnished with her array of diamonds, tiara, stomacher, and necklace. Mrs. Foster Worth, with child, wore a white gauze robe embroidered with silver. Her ornaments were diamonds and rubies.’ And…” He put down the paper, waggled his eyes at her, and for the first time, she looked at him and saw the tease in his face. “ ‘Mrs. Rosamond Street wore a white mousseline gown over silk, trimmed with lace.’ ” He glanced at her again. “Simply riveting news. What is mousseline, anyway?”

“It’s a sauce, I believe. Or a fabric of fine film.”

Oops. He stared at her, one eyebrow high. “Interesting.”

“Can I see the paper, please?”

He handed it over and her eyes tracked to Jinx’s name. With child. A few years ago, she’d read an announcement of the birth of a son, Jonathon. This must be her second child then. She ran her finger down the guest list. “I see here the name Daughtry C. Hoyt.” She gave him a look. “Rich and foolish?”

“It’s the most fashionable party of the season,” he said, winking. “I do it for my mother, I think. They didn’t want an Indian among their elite sect. So, I join them with my secret.”

Indeed, if Mrs. Astor knew his genealogy, she might have his name blackened from the lists. “That you secured an invitation at all is something. I hear her parties are quite elite.”

“I’m friends with a number of politicians. And my friend Grayson Donahue asked me to escort his sister, Elise.”

“So, you didn’t suffer too poorly.” She closed the paper. “If you have a life in New York, then why did you return to Silver City?”

He sat down opposite her. “I’m not a fool. I saw you fall—tried to get to you, in fact, but I lost you in the crowd. Thankfully, I spotted Abel helping you to the newspaper.” He looked at his hands, now cleaned from the work in the barn. “I have no doubt he also filled you in on the past. And, the accident.”

A good newspaperwomen would ignore the pain in his gesture, despite his kindness to her and would go for the jugular. But she tempered her words. “He blames you.”

“I blame me. And every week I read the reports of accidents from the Anaconda and Amalgamated mines, not to mention the Silverthread, as reported in the
Copper Valley Times.”
He didn’t wink and she believed him. “And every single time, I feel responsible. Which is why I returned. I am hoping to convince my father to sell Silverthread.”

“You’re going to sell Silverthread?”

“I want to get out of the mining business. Erase the past.”

“But what about all those miners who need jobs?”

He got up, walked to the window. “They won’t be the responsibility of the Hoyt family.”

“But the Amalgamated is twice as dangerous. Butte is a town of sin—and Silver City is…you can’t take their livelihood away from the miners.”

He rounded on her. “Why? You heard Abel. He wants to take the livelihood from the Silverthread. We’re already overextended, and a strike could put us in debt, cause us to lose everything anyway. And then Anaconda could buy us for the smell of the Montana air.”

“I thought the Silverthread was flush?”

“My father only makes it seem that way with his benevolent gifts to the widows, the Christmas endowments to the miners’ children, the scholarships. But every bit of it comes from his investments. Silverthread hasn’t been profitable in three years. It might help if my father didn’t pay the Silverthread miners twenty-five cents more per day for their base pay than the Copper Kings of Butte, or if we produced more than one-tenth what the Amalgamated and Anaconda mines produce. Or, if we had a smelter of our own instead of shipping the ore out to Anaconda. But see, I could take the sale and invest it in the stock market. I’ve spent the last year keeping our stocks alive and preparing for our bankruptcy. I could move my father out to New York City and invest in celluloid film. Did you know they showed the first motion picture in New York, just before I left?”

She stared at him, seeing Abel and Ruby, Agnes without their homes. “What are you talking about? Celluloid film? What about the livelihood of your miners?”

“I can’t have thirty-eight miners’ deaths on my conscience anymore.”

She studied his face, the lines etched around his eyes. Yes, she knew what it felt like to live with regret. “If there were another way to save the mine, would you do it?”

“Mr. Hoyt, dinner is served.” A butler Esme hadn’t seen earlier appeared at the door, white gloves and all.

But Daughtry just stood there, considering her words. Finally, “I don’t know if I believe in second chances. Do you?”

“Are you buried in Page Six?”

Esme looked up to Daughtry’s question. Back to the
Chronicle,
which she’d commandeered after dinner and stolen to the parlor for a thorough read-through. “Actually, no. I wanted to read the news.”

He came in, bent down, and stoked the fire. Funny, in that moment, he reminded her of her father, an old memory scurrying up of him finding her tucked into a book in his den. “I’m afraid it is old news. At least three months.”

“Old news from New York is recent news for Montana.” The lamplight flooded over the page onto her dress, glinting against the golden threads. She should take it off, escape this fantasy before it took root.

“Are you warm enough?” He sat down on the settee opposite her.

“Yes.” In fact, getting much warmer, with him sitting across from her, his dark eyes considering her.

“May I see your ankle? I promise not to look at anything else.”

Indeed, there went a blush. But she raised her hem enough for him to find her ankle. He took it into his wide hands, ran his thumbs lightly over the swelling. “It’s still quite injured. I fear you should stay here until it is recuperated.”