Ethel had found Catherine’s expression particularly touching. There was something poignant and infinitely sad about the mother and child that spoke to an empty place Ethel had believed marriage would fill. It had not. Concealing from her husband what she had found had been her first act of quiet disobedience.
Buchanan had been the family name of Aaron’s first wife. Persistent questioning had gotten her few details of her husband’s life before they were wed, but she did learn that Catherine had had a sister.
If it had been entirely up to Aaron, that would be all Ethel ever found out about her predecessor. But society loved to gossip; so when the second Mrs. Sorensen showed herself curious about the first Mrs. Sorensen, the women in whose homes she was served tea were only too happy to supply her with the particulars.
Ethel’s father had been a man of long and deep silences; early on in her girlhood she had learned how to manage him. When her husband displayed a marked preference for rarely opening his mouth, except to give her an order or comment acerbically on something she had done that displeased him, she knew how to react. Silence met silence. Sometimes several days would pass with only the most mundane of everyday comments exchanged. Ethel knew the pitfalls to be avoided; she was becoming expert at sidestepping them.
This letter from Claire Buchanan’s lawyer. Although it revealed very little, she believed she could fill in the background from what had been gossiped about in teatime tittle-tattle. The Buchanan sisters had been beautiful, talented, and very wealthy. What they had not been, unfortunately, was born into fashionable society. The father had been a concert pianist, the mother a singer. Artistes. One could admire their musical talents, but they would always remain on the fringes of what was socially proper and acceptable.
Claire had not married. She had achieved a modest amount of acclaim on the concert stage and in various touring opera companies. Her brother-in-law deemed her an undesirable influence on his wife, who had abandoned the expectation of an operatic career at his command. If Claire Buchanan saw fit to instruct her lawyer to inform her late sister’s husband that she had written a new will excluding him from inheriting, it must be because in the old will her sister and probably her sister’s heirs had been her beneficiaries.
No wonder Aaron’s face had turned thunderous when he read the letter. Her husband liked to live well, which meant that he needed a wife whose income could maintain him in the style to which he believed himself entitled. After their marriage it had been a shock to learn how quickly and how deeply Aaron dipped into the considerable marriage portion she brought him.
Ethel refolded the letter and replaced it exactly where and how Aaron had left it. Nowadays she judged everything by what effect it would have on her and her unborn child. She wondered where Aaron kept the marriage contract that spelled out the financial arrangements made for her by her father.
And whether she would understand them even if she could find it.
CHAPTER 11
“Aaron Sorensen doesn’t exist as a business,” Josiah Gregory said, hanging up his hat and coat and shaking out his umbrella. “He’s never applied for a commercial license of any kind from the city, and he doesn’t own or rent any properties other than the house he inherited from Miss Buchanan’s sister.”
“Claire told us he imported and sold European antiques. He met the Buchanan family because he was brokering the sale of a piano once owned by Franz Liszt. The father insisted his two daughters come with him when he arranged to play the instrument.” Prudence turned to Geoffrey for confirmation.
“She said her father became fixated on the piano, although he had no intention of purchasing it,” he agreed. “Three months after that impromptu concert, Catherine and Sorensen eloped.”
“There are no records of him ever leasing or buying a showroom,” Josiah repeated firmly.
“We need bank records and the names of the clubs he belongs to,” Geoffrey said, “and everything we can find out about his second wife and her family.”
“Sir?” Josiah questioned.
“Inheritance can become a habit,” he answered.
* * *
Prudence’s assignment was to locate someone who had purchased art or furniture from Sorensen. “If he really is doing business, it has to be by referral,” she told Geoffrey and Josiah.
“Creating phony antiquities is a cottage industry in Europe,” Geoffrey warned her. “The problem is in convincing a client he’s been deceived. Most don’t want to admit they’ve been made fools of.”
“The new money cares more for glitter than authenticity,” Josiah said. “It makes them vulnerable to swindlers.”
“Then that’s where I’ll begin. I have a silver bowl full of calling cards from women whose visits I had no intention of returning. Until now.”
Josiah looked pointedly at the black mourning dress she was wearing for her late fiancé.
“I know,” she said. “The one-year anniversary of Charles’s death is not until next month. But I’ve already worn gray on occasion and I’m certainly not in seclusion. People are much less shocked by social change than they used to be. I’ll start making my rounds this afternoon.”
* * *
The first two calls Prudence paid netted her nothing. She had opted for a muted gray dress of half mourning to make things easier for her hostesses, but conversation had been subdued and stilted. Everyone in society had been acquainted with her famous father; her fiancé’s family and his tragic death during the Great Blizzard were equally well-known. While good manners dictated that neither topic be mentioned, Prudence’s independent lifestyle meant that the women in whose parlors she sat weren’t sure exactly how to treat her.
“Keep them off balance, Prudence,” Geoffrey had counseled. “Lawyers use all sorts of tricks to get what they need out of reluctant or hostile witnesses.”
“I wish you could come with me,” she’d told him. “You have a way of sensing when someone is stretching the truth.”
“You’ll do fine,” he assured her.
“Georgina Langston has to have gotten her Louis the Fifteenth pieces somewhere,” Josiah commented when Prudence showed him the list of women whose calls she intended to return. The refurbishing of the Langston mansion had been thoroughly covered by the gossip press. “They were certainly not passed down through the generations.”
“The family fortunes were made during the war,” Prudence confirmed. “Nouveaux riches on both sides.”
“The Times named them the ‘shoddy aristocracy,’ ” Geoffrey said.
“Georgina is desperate to be accepted,” Prudence continued. “She couldn’t marry into any of the old families, but she did manage the next best thing.”
“No one will remember after another two or three generations.”
“You’re a terrible snob, Geoffrey.”
“Family is everything to a Southerner. It’s what makes us interesting to outsiders and each other.”
“If there is anything to find out about Aaron Sorensen, Georgina will know what it is,” Prudence told them. “That’s why I’ve included her, even though we’ve only been introduced once. She firmly believes that knowing all the city’s important gossip will gain her the entrée into society that her husband’s money can’t purchase.”
“I sometimes wonder what the fascination is, or why anyone bothers,” Geoffrey said.
“That’s tantamount to heresy, sir.” Josiah never let a day go by without reading the society and gossip columns. He handed back Miss Prudence’s list. “I don’t see how you can fail, miss.”
* * *
“I’m so delighted you noticed my latest treasures,” Georgina Langston purred. “I didn’t realize until after they arrived how empty the room had been.” She beamed proudly at a pair of yellow silk upholstered Louis XV fauteuils squeezed into a place of honor in her overcrowded parlor.
“They’re stunning,” Prudence said. She couldn’t have put it into words, but there was something not quite right about them. She wondere
d if they might be distressed reproductions being passed off as the genuine article. Geoffrey had described ateliers in the back alleys of Paris where artisans routinely aged the new antiques they crafted. So many came on the market every year it was a wonder the aristocrats of the ancien régime had had any room in their palaces and hotels particuliers to stand upright.
“I do wonder where you found them,” Prudence continued. “Was it perhaps through a private importer? They’re much too beautiful ever to have been in a gallery.”
“I was very fortunate,” Georgina said. “Aaron Sorensen is a genius at finding exactly what his clients need and want. You may have heard the name?”
“I may have,” Prudence lied. “It sounds familiar, but I’ve only recently begun coming back into society again.”
“Of course. It must be terribly painful to have had two bereavements so close together. You’re being very brave, Prudence.”
“I’m out of touch. Wasn’t there some scandal associated with him?”
“It’s a very difficult situation. Awkward. Embarrassing.” Georgina paused to sip her tea and pique Prudence’s curiosity. “He remarried two months after his first wife died. Everyone talked about it.”
“Were there children?”
“No, and that’s what made it so shocking. The first Mrs. Sorensen died within a day of giving birth, and so did their daughter. So it wasn’t a case of a baby needing a mother to take care of her.”
“I’m surprised the second lady consented to wed if the proper mourning period had not been observed.” Prudence’s too-strong tea was getting cold. She hoped Georgina wouldn’t notice she hadn’t drunk it.
“They married in Philadelphia, not New York. It was hasty, if you catch my meaning.” Georgina’s pursed-lip disapproval communicated what she was too well mannered to say. “At first, the new bride didn’t wear mourning for her predecessor. I had the impression she may not have been aware there was a first Mrs. Sorensen until after the wedding.”
“How is that possible?” Prudence asked. “And what makes you think she didn’t know?”
Georgina settled in for a lovely bit of pure gossip. “When she made her first round of calls, she seemed very curious about Catherine Sorensen.”
“I thought you said she didn’t know about her.”
“Not at first. Someone, I think it may have been Henrietta Ludlow, mentioned that it was sad, but perhaps a blessing in disguise, that Mr. Sorensen’s first wife and child had died together. ‘Stepchildren are always more difficult to raise than one’s own’ was the way she phrased it. Apparently, the second Mrs. Sorensen turned as pale as a ghost and had to resort to her smelling salts. By which Henrietta inferred that the husband hadn’t told her about the wife whose place she had taken.”
“I can’t imagine what she felt. Such a deception, and nothing she could do about it.”
“After that, she asked questions at every opportunity. It became embarrassing. We realized it must be because her husband hadn’t told her he’d been married before.”
“Perhaps he spoke of his previous marriage as though it had happened some time ago, and she was taken aback when she understood how recent it had been.”
“That’s exonerating him more than he deserves, Prudence. I think he wooed her, seduced her, and married her in one of the most cold-blooded examples of self-aggrandizement I’ve ever heard of.”
“But he must have been a wealthy man in his own right. And wasn’t his first wife an heiress?”
“Perhaps when he married her. But he spends lavishly, and there was talk that he lost heavily at cards. There probably wasn’t much of the first wife’s portion left when she died.”
“What club does he belong to?” Prudence asked. A gentleman drank and gambled within the sacred precincts of his private club, where everyone from fellow members to the doorman knew to the penny how much went into other men’s wallets every night. Not much of anything else about him remained private for very long, either.
“At least two that I know of. The Lotos Club and the Union Club.”
Membership in two clubs was expensive to maintain, but perhaps necessary if a compulsive cardplayer needed to cover the size of his overall indebtedness. What was more telling to Prudence was that the clubs Georgina named were well-known for their private art collections and for the number of art connoisseurs and collectors in their ranks. It was considered bad form to conduct business in one’s club, but that was exactly what the members did, of course, using a kind of code all of them understood perfectly.
“I’m sure I heard the name Sorensen during one of my earlier calls,” Prudence said. “Could it be that the second Mrs. Sorensen is in the family way?”
“Ethel is her name. She was a Caswell before she married.” Georgina offered slices of sugared date-and-nut cake. “The Philadelphia Caswells.”
“I don’t believe I know any of them,” Prudence said. She took a polite bite of the cake and wished she hadn’t.
“They aren’t a large family,” Georgina began enthusiastically. Now that she knew Prudence was neither a relation nor a friend of the Caswells, she wouldn’t have to watch what she said. “They’re prominent in Philadelphia, though. Old stock, but too many only children in the past few generations. I believe Ethel may be the last of the direct line, and being female, the name will die with her father. Such a shame when that happens.” Georgina herself was fertile to a fault, five children under the age of seven, all of them healthy if not particularly attractive.
“Will her mother come for the accouchement?”
“Mrs. Caswell passed away some years ago. Mr. Caswell never remarried. And he’s not in the best of health himself. One doesn’t want to attract ill fortune, but I believe Ethel is afraid he won’t live to see his grandchild born.”
“How dreadful for her.”
“What’s worse is that she’s often alone in that big house, with just servants for company. Sorensen travels frequently and is absent for weeks at a time.”
“Surely, he doesn’t leave her for anything but the most urgent of reasons.”
“No one knows. He never reveals where he’s going.”
“But his wife must be aware of his destinations.”
Georgina shook her head. “I don’t know what she’d do if she needed him and had to send a telegram.”
“I’ve never heard of anything so callous and uncaring,” Prudence declared. “Unless he’s traveling on business and can’t help it.”
Prudence’s gaze drifted over to the two Louis XV fauteuils. The more she learned about Claire Buchanan’s brother-in-law, the less likely she thought it was that they were genuine. She wondered if Georgina suspected she’d been cheated and was too embarrassed to admit it.
Prudence considered the only other possibility. Could Georgina, with or without her husband’s knowledge, have connived at passing off a reproduction as a genuine antique? Decorating one’s home with the absolutely right furniture and accessories was as important to someone climbing the social ladder as patronizing the correct dressmaker, serving vintage wines, and knowing all of the arcane social customs that meant nothing to outsiders. There was one way to put her suspicion to the test.
“I simply must see this beautiful yellow silk up close,” Prudence gushed. As she walked toward the Louis XV fauteuils, she heard the swish of another gown and knew that Georgina was following close behind.
“I love the whole Rococo feeling,” her hostess said. “All the splendid curves and the gilt, ornate, but still so light and playful. Don’t you find it so?”
Prudence pinched the corded silk edge of a seat cushion between her fingers. The material was too supple and strong to be more than a hundred years old.
* * *
“The clubs will be no problem at all,” Geoffrey said, reading over the report Prudence had dictated to Josiah.
He had begun introducing Pinkerton procedures into the office, including the vitally important task of transcribing accurate and detailed acco
unts of interviews as soon as possible after completion. Prudence had taken to the practice enthusiastically. She had learned to write clearly, succinctly, and with great respect for facts when helping her father analyze briefs and compose opinions from the bench.
“Why is that, Geoffrey?”
“I’m a member of both of them.” He smiled at the quizzical look on her face. Interesting that Prudence obviously did not think of him as the sort of gentleman who would spend his leisure hours at exclusive private clubs. He wondered where she thought he did spend them.
“Won’t they get suspicious if you start asking questions?”
“All I have to do is hint that Sorensen may not be paying his gambling debts elsewhere and I’ll have as much information about him as we’ll need. No club wants to retain a member who might incur disgrace or cause a scandal to be associated with its name. It will be in their best interests to find out everything I know. Which I’ll be reluctant to share until they begin to open up to me. That’s the way the game is played among gentlemen.”
“And among ladies,” Prudence added.
“I’ll stop in at the Union Club tonight,” Geoffrey said, “and I’ll ask Ned Hayes to come along if he’s free.”
“I’d like to be a fly on the wall,” Josiah said.
“That’s the only way a woman will ever gain admission to the sanctum sanctorum,” Prudence declared. “Fortunately, we have other ways of worming secrets out of men.”
Josiah was properly scandalized.
CHAPTER 12
“If he’s a gambler, especially if he’s been losing lately, he’ll be looking for a game. It’s as much an addiction as laudanum or liquor.” Ned Hayes knew what he was talking about. Cocaine and whiskey had nearly cost him his life when a thirst for justice lost him his job as a detective with the New York City Police. Working with Geoffrey Hunter had helped moderate his dependencies, though Ned doubted he would ever be entirely free of them. He hadn’t used his membership at the Union Club for years, but he’d agreed to come along with Geoffrey tonight because it was where Aaron Sorensen had led them. Memories of the past be damned. “Do you know what his preferences are?”
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