Midnight Star (10 page)

“I pray you will be polite, sir. After all, I am paying!”

François ushered them to a quiet table away from the windows, hovering over them as he gave them the menus.

“You will love the menu, Miss Jameson. François has himself endeavored to produce it in French.”

Chauncey managed to contain her giggles until François had left them to themselves.

“François joined forces with a very real Frenchman, Pierre LeGrand, some six months ago. I assure you that Pierre does the cooking. Really, Miss Jameson, you must contain your mirth. I cannot imagine what all the gentlemen now staring at you must be thinking.”

“Doubtless what they are thinking redounds to your benefit, Mr. Saxton.”

“So sure of yourself, Miss Jameson?” he drawled. To his delight, she did not appear at all discomfited.

“Of course, sir. Have I not already received
three proposals of marriage in but a week and a half?”

Why, he wanted to ask her, do you appear to want me? He said nothing.

François handed Delaney a bottle of vintage Bordeaux wine. “This will doubtless be excellent, François. Thank you.” To Chauncey he murmured, “All the comforts of London, ma’am.”

When their glasses were filled, Delaney raised his and said, “Let us drink to you, Miss Jameson, and may you succeed in your endeavors.”

She flushed; she couldn’t help it. He is mocking me, she thought, and stiffened her spine. “Indeed, Mr. Saxton. To my success!”

“Why do I feel as though I’m a pig on the way to slaughter?” he remarked, giving her a crooked grin.

“You, sir,” she said severely, “are already wallowing in your conceit!”

“But I shouldn’t order the roast pork, hmm?”

“Perhaps a pig’s jowl would be more suitable.”

“Since we have covered everything except ham, Miss Jameson, I think I will direct you to the fish stew. I think you will find it quite unexceptionable. As to François’s pronunciation of ‘bouillabaisse,’ it is better left unheard.” He handed the menus back to François and gave him their order.

“I bow to your superior knowledge, sir.”

“But not to my superior wit?”

“I believe you told me, Mr. Saxton, that the gentleman in question has less than an ounce of wit.”

“You have hoisted me again, ma’am. It is not what I am used to.” He smiled at her, a smile of
genuine warmth. Had he used the same unconscious charm on her father? She felt something harden inside her.

“There are many things, Mr. Saxton, that one must become used to,” she said quietly.

“I feel you are plumbing depths while leaving me to flounder in the shallows. You remind me somewhat of my sister-in-law.”

“Your sister-in-law? Now I am drowning, sir.”

“Her name is Giana, and like you, she is English. She lives in New York with my brother, Alex. She is quite a stubborn, strong-willed little wench, but my brother has her under control now, I believe.”

He was drawing her, but she wasn’t paying attention. His sister-in-law was English, thus his English relations. She sipped from her wineglass. “What was her name, sir?”

“Sir? Since you insisted I accompany you to lunch, ma’am, and in addition you have trusted me with your money, perhaps you should consider calling me Delaney. I am not that old, only twenty-eight to be exact. Not even the exalted age of a loving uncle.”

“What was her name . . . Delaney?”

“Van Cleave,” he said, watching her closely. He heard the tension in her voice and didn’t understand it.

“Van Cleave,” Chauncey repeated thoughtfully. “I am afraid that the name is unfamiliar to me.”

“England is small, but not that small,” he said. For some reason, he didn’t want to tell her that Giana’s mother was now Aurora Arlington, Duchess of Graffton. Did he expect her to gush over him as did Mrs. Stevenson? No, she wouldn’t do
that. Just exactly what she would do, he couldn’t begin to guess.

There was silence between them for some minutes while François served the bouillabaisse. Delaney said thoughtfully, tapping his fingertip on his wineglass, “Everyone wonders why such a . . . lady as yourself is visiting San Francisco.”

“You as well, sir . . . Delaney?”

“Of course. I was given to understand that you not only possessed a beak of a nose but also were a terrible snob. I am pleased that the former is not true. But the latter . . ?”

“Oh, a dreadful snob, I assure you,” she said lightly. “This is quite delicious. I shall doubtless go to the poorhouse with a happy stomach.”

“It is not that expensive, Miss Jameson. May I tell you that you are the first lady to invite me to lunch?”

“Perhaps you should cultivate your charm.”

“But you did invite me, ma’am. I must not be that bereft of interesting qualities.”

“Shouldn’t everyone become acquainted with their banker?”

“You have a very agile tongue. I am not used to such quickness in a woman.”

“As I said, Mr. Saxton, perhaps you should cultivate your charm.”

“Back to ‘Mister,’ am I? I deserve it. Forgive me for insulting your sex. Then again, I am not quite used to having a woman seek me out.”

He watched her closely, but she kept her eyes lowered to her plate until, he guessed, she gained control. Which she did very quickly.

To his utter astonishment, she grinned
impishly and waved her fork at him. “Did you not wish to say ‘blatant,’ Delaney?”

“You, Miss Jameson,” he said, sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms across his chest, “are an enigma.”

“Do you dislike enigmas?”

“No. Such oddities add spice to life.”

She flushed. “I am not an oddity!”

“How about a rich, well-bred oddity?”

“At least when I have afternoon tea, it is not an affectation!”

“Poor Mrs. Stevenson.” He shook his head mournfully. “She does make such an effort, does she not?”

Before Chauncey could reply, a gentleman approached their table, his eyes never leaving her face.

“Ah, Tony,” Delaney said blandly. “How many scathing articles have you written today?”

“Nary a one, Del,” Tony said, his gaze still on Chauncey’s face.

“Forgive me. Miss Jameson, allow me to present to you Anthony Dawson, one of the owners of our most sterling newspaper, the
Alta California.
He also has pretensions to writing.”

Why won’t the wretched man go away? Chauncey thought ten minutes later. She tried to be polite, but her voice grew more clipped by the minute.

Delaney merely smiled, appearing somewhat bored as he listened to the endless stream of compliments Tony was pouring into Miss Jameson’s pretty ears. The compliments didn’t surprise him. It was the utter lack of feminine response to the compliments that struck him. A
handsome man, Tony, he thought, but Miss Jameson had no interest in him, none at all. Why me?

“I scent another proposal,” Delaney said blandly as he escorted her out of the restaurant.

“I hope not,” Chauncey said, a frown furrowing her brow.

“I suspect you will become quite used to them if you remain long in San Francisco. Tony Dawson is a good man, you know.”

Good men don’t interest me!

“Will you see me back to my hotel, Delaney?”

“Anything to keep the wolves at bay, dear lady.”

He did not ask to see her again. She dallied, waiting, but he said nothing.

“Will you come up for tea, Delaney?” she asked at last in desperation. “Real English tea?”

He cocked a brow at her. “Forgive me, ma’am, but I must see to the safekeeping of your diamonds. I trust you will enjoy your visit to San Francisco.” He tipped his hat to her and strolled away.

She felt her frustration mount. What was wrong with him? He had enjoyed her company, she was sure of it. Damnable wretched man!

Chauncey waited three days for Delaney Saxton to do something,
anything.
She saw him several times when she was shopping with Mary, but he merely greeted her politely and walked on.

“What is the matter with him?” she muttered, knocking a stone out of the way with the tip of her parasol. “Am I going to have to chase him down like a fox in the hunt?”

Mary didn’t reply to this, too intent on the splendor of Portsmouth Square. “That, Miss Chauncey,” she said, interrupting her mistress from her gloomy thoughts, “was the Jenny Lind Theater until just last year. Imagine that. All to praise the real Jenny Lind, but she never came here, you know. Bob, one of the porters, was telling me that it burned down three times! Finally Mr. Maguire sold it to the city. It’s now the city hall of San Francisco.”

“Doubtless good riddance,” Chauncey said ungraciously eyeing the touted architectural ornament with its American flag.

“What I want to do is go inside the El Dorado. A real gambling house,” Mary continued, pointing to the huge painted sign on the building next to city hall. She giggled. “It’s hard to imagine a gambling saloon next to the government building.”

“All right, Mary,” Chauncey sighed. “I’ll try to stop being an utter bore. Let’s talk about the weather.”

“So warm,” Mary murmured. “I cannot believe it’s February, and here we are wearing only light pelisses.”

“Marvelous,” Chauncey agreed. “Next you’ll be waxing eloquent about the beauty of the bay.”

“As sparkling as sapphires,” Mary said readily. “Come now, Miss Chauncey, all isn’t lost yet. You are going to a dinner party at the Newtons’ tonight. Surely Mr. Saxton will be there.”

“Yes,” Chauncey said sharply. “As well as Miss Penelope Stevenson.”

“Ah,” Mary said.

That evening, as Mary arranged Chauncey’s hair, Chauncey was cudgeling her brain for a likely strategy.

“Mayhap Mr. Saxton does love Miss Stevenson,” Mary said, a refrain that now came with depressing regularity.

“Bosh,” Chauncey said. “She has an insubstantial mind.”

“But she is quite pretty, doubtless laughs at everything Mr. Saxton says, and can keep house. What man ever cared about a woman’s mind, for heaven’s sake?”

“The voice of experience?” Chauncey asked, raising an ironic eyebrow. “You are a year younger than I. Besides, your Miss Penelope doesn’t even know when to laugh. It’s accidental if she hits it right. What I need is a foolproof plan.”

“You’re going to abduct him?”

“If Mr. Saxton doesn’t pay me proper attention this evening, I just might. Well, not quite, but—”

“Since Miss Stevenson will be present, you don’t wish to be totally outrageous. You can’t really expect the man to abandon his fiancée at the sight of you?”

“She is not his fiancée!”

“Yet.”

“We will see” was all Chauncey said, her voice stubbornly set.

“Did I tell you I met Mr. Saxton’s man this afternoon?”

“Mary!” Chauncey swiveled about on her dressing-table stool and gave her maid a wounded look. “How could you!”

“Lucas is his name and he’s a likable fellow. Introduced himself, bold as you please, and offered to carry my one little package. He has the look of a pirate with that black eyepatch and his one wooden leg.”

“Did you learn anything?” Chauncey asked with admirable patience.

Mary grinned. “Yes, miss, I did. He told me that there will be a big celebration for Mr. Washington’s birthday this month in Portsmouth Square.”

“Mary!”

“You’ve lost your sense of humor, miss. Very
well. Mr. Saxton rides every morning, early, usually on Rincon Hill.”

“Ah,” Chauncey said, her skeletal strategies at last beginning to gain meat.

Delaney Saxton was at his blandest at the Newtons’ dinner that evening. There were only six guests, and he guessed that Mrs. Newton had invited Miss Jameson for Tony’s benefit. Delaney gave his full attention to Penelope, half-hearing her amiable chatter, but his thoughts were on Miss Elizabeth Jameson. He laughed softly, remembering Lucas’ words. “She’s interested in you, Del. That maid of hers, a braw girl named Mary, pumped me until I felt like an empty well.”

Lord, but she looked stunning, he thought, sipping at his wine. She was seated between Tony Dawson and Mrs. Newton, and he could hear her tinkling laughter down the table. His eyes fell to her breasts, full and milk white, rising above the double row of lace. He felt a surge of lust and determined, somewhat peeved by his reaction, to visit Marie after he left the Newtons’. Damn, he even liked her nose, small and straight, with nostrils, he thought fancifully, that were utterly aristocratic. And those full lips of hers.

“Del, didn’t you hear a word I said?”

He turned to the lovely girl at his side, a lazy glint in his eyes. “Forgive me, my dear,” he said smoothly. “Actually,” he added, raising his voice a bit, “I was considering the impact of Spinoza’s philosophy on the flora and fauna of San Francisco.”

“That has nothing to do with my new gown!
Do you not like it, Del? Papa paid a fortune for it, I assure you!”

“But Spinoza, my dear . . .” Delaney protested.

“He’s one of those Eastern politicians, I suppose,” Penelope snapped.

“No,” Delaney said slowly, “he’s more in the nature of a vigilante, I should say.”

Delaney grinned to himself at the sound of a strangled gasp from Miss Jameson and a hoot of laughter from Horace Newton.

“Del, you’re impossible!” Horace said, wiping a spot of gravy from his chin.

“But life is so utterly boring without impossibilities.”

Chauncey waved her fork at him. “Really, Mr. Saxton, you should not tell such plumbers! Why, everyone knows that Joe Spinoza is a remarkable example of the spurious logic propounded by the Tories to keep the dreadful Corn Laws in place.”

“I fear, Miss Jameson,” Delaney said, his eyes sparkling as he leaned forward to see her clearly, “that you have confused Joe Spinoza with his brother, Otis. Otis, as everyone knows, lived most of his life in trees, watching the leaves change color.”

“Hold it a moment, Miss Jameson, Del,” Tony Dawson cried. “I want to get some paper and write this down!”

“Please do not consider that, sir,” Chauncey said kindly. “It would only embarrass Mr. Saxton when he discovers that Otis Spinoza, far from living in trees, spent the greater part of his life in Northern Africa studying the effects of the desert winds on the structure of sand dunes.”

“I am certain, Miss Jameson,” Penelope said
sharply, “that Del is not mistaken! He is very educated, you know, and reads scores of books.”

“Surely not, sir!” Chauncey said in astonishment. “Not books! Miss Stevenson doubtless jests at your expense.”

“My daughter never jests, Miss Jameson,” Mrs. Stevenson said with stunning clarity.

“Forgive me, ma’am,” Chauncey said with a charming smile. “Of course she does not.”

“There are some things young ladies should never do,” Delaney remarked to the table at large.

“Like show gentlemen up for idiots, Del?” Tony Dawson asked.

“Especially that.”

“I suggest then that you don’t stand up right away, Del,” Mr. Newton said. “You may find that you’re a good inch shorter!”

Delaney grinned directly at Chauncey, and raised his wineglass. “A toast to young ladies who seem to have forgotten that Americans have kicked the English back across the Atlantic two times in our short history.”

“To Otis Spinoza, may he soon build a tree house!” Tony called out.

“To American gentlemen who cannot bear to be bested and must hark back to ancient history!”

“To the gentlemen,” Mrs. Agatha Newton said, rising with a swish of silk skirts, “who will now be left to their port!”

Agatha Newton swept out of the dining room, trying to contain her mirth. Sally Stevenson had informed her that Miss Jameson was an utter snob. Sally always was a fool, she thought. She admitted that she had invited Miss Jameson because of Tony. He’d acted such a love-smitten
sot that she couldn’t bring herself to disappoint him. She met Miss Jameson’s eye and gave a very ladylike snort. “My dear,” she said, lightly touching Chauncey’s arm, “I feared letting it continue. You would doubtless have left all the gentlemen’s self-consequence in tatters!”

“I enjoy enlivening conversation, ma’am,” Chauncey said, drawn to the older woman, who in some elusive way reminded Chauncey of her mother’s sister, Lucy, who had died when Chauncey was fifteen years old.

“I did not find it so amusing,” Penelope said.

“No,” Agatha said soothingly, “of course you did not. You will play for us, will you not, Penelope? You present such a charming picture at the piano.”

“She will wait for the gentlemen,” Mrs. Stevenson said.

“You are right, ma’am,” Chauncey said. “There is no reason to waste talent on us.”

Agatha Newton was not at all surprised to see the gentlemen troop into the drawing room a very short time later. She was surprised, however, to see Delaney Saxton stroll immediately to Penelope Stevenson and stick to her like gum plaster. Odd, she thought. Very odd. Poor Tony. He hadn’t a prayer with Miss Jameson.

Delaney could not explain his actions to himself. He found Miss Jameson utterly fascinating, her wit razor sharp. They had sparred like a couple of duelists, and he’d enjoyed the hell out of it. But he had drawn away from her. He grinned sardonically as he strode up the steps to knock on Marie’s door, knowing full well that he
intended to use his mistress’s lovely body to assuage his lust for Elizabeth Jameson.

Even as he caressed Marie a short time later in her bedroom, he was picturing Elizabeth Jameson’s white breasts in his mind. His fingers tingled.

“
Mon amour,
” Marie whispered softly as she guided his hand downward, “how do you think?”

“I am thinking how much I want to be deep inside you,” Delaney said, automatically translating her charmingly fractured English. He pulled Marie on top of him and plunged himself into her. “Ah,” he said. “Now I’m not thinking anything.”

His last thought before his body exploded in release was how Elizabeth Jameson would look astride him, her back arched and her hair flowing down her white back.

He didn’t stay the night, somewhat to Marie’s consternation. I didn’t treat her very well, he thought as he rode through the quiet night back home, and it’s all that little witch’s fault.

What, he wondered, laughing softly, would she do next?

Two days later, Delaney joined Tony Dawson, Dan Brewer, and Horace Newton for lunch at Captain Cropper’s.

“This damned fellow Limantour,” Horace grumbled, forking down a bite of broiled terrapin. “You know, Tony, the scoundrel met with us at the Land Commission, filed a ton of documents and all that nonsense. He claims to own a goodly chunk of the city, Alcatraz, and Yerba Buena.”

“Don’t forget the Farallon Islands,” Delaney said.

“It’s all a swindle,” Tony said. “No one is really excited about it yet, Horace.”

“I wonder, though,” Dan said. “I get the distinct impression that the man is going to cause us a lot of trouble in the long run.”

Tony ordered another round of beer. When the frothy mugs arrived, he raised his. “Here’s to your Midnight Star mine, Del. Dan tells me she’s producing at a great rate.”

“Well enough,” Delaney said. “The ore is rich as hell, but I have a feeling that the quartz vein isn’t going to last much longer.” His thoughts skittered briefly to Paul Montgomery, and he frowned. It would be months before he heard anything. He’d made the decision that he wouldn’t send any more money until he had heard from the man.

“Heard you had some trouble,” Horace said, belching behind his hand.

“A bit,” Delaney agreed. “A couple of Sydney Ducks more than likely, who had more greed than brains.”

“At least the bastards are gone from San Francisco,” Tony said. “Lord, Del, you missed all the excitement when the Vigilantes took over in the summer of fifty-one and you were over in England playing around.”

“With the Midnight Star as the result,” Delaney said dryly. He shrugged. “I just hope the claim jumpers will steer clear for a while. I don’t particularly care for being both judge and executioner.”

“Speaking of trouble, Del, when are you going
to take the plunge? I saw old Bunker Stevenson the other day and he’s beginning to wonder if you’re running shy.” Horace gave him a wink over the rim of his glasses.

“Methinks,” Dan said slyly, “that Del here is running, but who will catch him is another matter.”

“I?” Delaney asked blandly, though he was aware of an increase in his heartbeat. “I never run, dear boy, at least from a two-legged filly.”

“Well, Agatha can’t say enough about the girl,” Horace said. “I have heard her mutter, though, that she’s too bright for her own good. Wonders what man would put up with that.”

“Sam Brannan was telling me that Cory Miniver threw his hat in the ring, along with another dozen males in San Francisco,” Dan said. “She turned him down flat.”

“I’m taking her to Maguire’s Opera House this evening,” Tony said. “There’s some Shakespearean drivel playing, and Miss Jameson being English and all, I thought she’d enjoy it.”