Heiress

by Susan May Warren

  But given the choice between betraying her soul and having Jack…

  “And we pray for all those lost on the battlefields of France and Germany, of Belgium in this great, horrific war. Bring them into Thy peace.”

  What was peace, anyway? Did she have to die to get it? Because it seemed that her life had disintegrated into one endless cycle of betrayal, revenge, and fear.

  She confessed her sins alongside Foster and her children, and her mind wandered to the upcoming sermon, then the psalm for the day as they received absolution.

  “The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to their cry; the face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth.”

  The words had burned into her brain, now caused her breath to washboard in her chest.

  She couldn’t count on God to help her keep her son out of war; she’d have to manage it herself.

  The priest ended the prayer and raised his hands. “The peace of the Lord be always with you.”

  “And also with you,” she responded then turned to offer peace to her fellow congregants—the Fishes behind them, the Astors across the aisle. Foster, she noticed, lifted a hand to the mayor.

  “Are you sure I can’t go to Ellie’s house after services?” Rosie leaned over, her voice not as quiet as Jinx would have preferred. What was it about her daughter that managed to rankle her nerves? She simply refused to take no for an answer, pushed ahead with her own desires, despite the wounds to others.

  “We are having lunch at Delmonico’s. After that, perhaps,” Jinx said as the congregation sat for the blessing of the Eucharist. She hesitated just for a moment, just in case—

  “He’s not here, Jinx,” Foster growled, and reached for her hand to tug her down.

  She turned, slipped her hand free. “I have no idea who you are referring to.”

  A muscle pulled in her jaw as the presider told the story of Jesus and how communion came to pass, and she swallowed hard against the burn in her throat. She didn’t expect him to be here, not really. Bennett seemed to manage to avoid her every time he’d come from London in the last seventeen years—so few times she could probably count them on one hand. She ached to see him—had hoped to that first time, when Rosie turned two and she’d reentered the social scene. She’d heard that he had taken rooms at the Waldorf. She searched for him from her box at the Met, and on the dance floor at Alva Belmont’s New Year’s ball, and even at Elise Donahue’s wedding. Perhaps, however, he didn’t have the courage to attend after breaking their betrothal so many years prior and leaving poor Elise nearly an old maid.

  But Bennett neatly managed to avoid her. She only knew of his arrival in New York from a tiny sighting at Delmonico’s with Foster, listed on Page Six.

  Foster, of course, said nothing. In fact, since his brother escaped Newport that summer, he hadn’t invited him back to their home once.

  He knew. He had to know. Lewis’s sudden appearance at the dock always itched at her, as if Foster might have sent him to threaten Bennett. And, it didn’t help that Jack had Bennett’s smile, his infectious charm, a way of listen ing as if he genuinely cared. Bennett had given all his best traits to Jack.

  The priest blessed the sacraments then they recited the Lord’s Prayer. She watched as Jack reached out, took Rosie’s hand, played with her thumb. Rosie stifled a giggle.

  If Foster sent him away, to West Point, to become a soldier, she would tell him the truth. Jack wasn’t his.

  Jack had never, ever, been his. He’d never had Foster’s cruelty, never his slithery charm, and never, either, his interest in business. Jack would rather spend his afternoon reading or driving or sometimes, playing cricket or ice hockey with his St. Paul boarding school chums than join the military.

  They rose and filed forward for the host and wine. Jinx took the host on her tongue, swallowed it, and then let the wine burn her throat.

  The priest finally dismissed them to their lives of Christian service.

  Foster left her in the pew and headed for the vestibule as Jinx again greeted the Fishes, the Wilsons, the Astors.

  “Yes, you may go to Ellie’s after lunch,” she said to Rosie as she hooked her arm through Jack’s. Rosie grinned, too much triumph in it, but Jinx didn’t have the energy to fight her.

  Jack tucked his hand onto hers as they eased down the aisle. He looked like a soldier already, with his broad shoulders, his dark blond hair, those blue eyes. He already had the attention of every young lady in Manhattan. Too bad the practice of social debuts had died with the war—he might have found himself the center of society’s attention.

  She hadn’t a prayer of pushing Rosie into a finishing school, however. Rosie had a mind of her own and it didn’t involve learning French or how to dance a cotillion. Jinx couldn’t even imagine forcing her into a corset.

  Foster waited by his gleaming white Rolls Royce, with the red wheels and plush leather seats, something he purchased off the ballroom floor of the Astor’s Hotel in January. He refused to allow a driver to do anything but polish it.

  “Hurry up,” he said as Jack opened the door for Rosie and Jinx. They climbed in the back. “I’ll drop you at Delmonico’s. I have business.”

  On Easter Sunday afternoon? Oh, yes, probably at the Knickerbocker Theater, the Winter Gardens, or perhaps even at the Casino, where his latest floozy awaited backstage.

  “Of course you do,” she said, considering her options. If she showed up at Delmonico’s unescorted, it just might make the top news on the social pages.

  But if she didn’t, and Bennett also happened to dine at Delmonico’s…

  No. She had spent the last seventeen years pushing him from her mind. Or, trying to.

  “Just take us home. Genevieve will manage to scrape together something for us.”

  They ate in the immense dining room, just the three of them, a simple lunch of eggs Benedict. Then Jack ferried Rosie to the Fishes’, left to play cricket with his pals.

  Jinx spent the day in her room, reading the Ladies Home Journal. It came to her as no surprise to hear Foster’s steps on the marble floor long after the sun dropped into the Hudson.

  It had taken her seven hours, anyway, to churn up her courage.

  Jinx wrapped her dressing gown around her, padding down the stairs into the dark foyer. Foster stood in his office, a fire crackling in the hearth, holding a highball of bourbon. So much of their house reminded her of the one she’d grown up in—the smoking room opposite the stairs and the dining room, the ballroom in the center of the house with an overlooking balcony, the servants’ quarters in the basement. She’d remodeled twice, planted a garden in the back, turned the stables into a motorcar garage. She’d then turned her attention to the suffrage movement, and along with Alva, Frances Perkins, and Anne Morgan, joined the Mink Brigade and picketed with the working class women of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.

  Foster had stopped talking to her shortly afterward.

  A year later, she’d walked in the funeral march of some of those same women.

  She’d arrived home to find Foster waiting for her, surly on too much bourbon. It was the first time he used his fists on her.

  She’d taken Rosie with her when the suffragettes marched on Washington two years ago.

  Foster had moved into rooms at the Astor Hotel.

  She’d hoped he’d stay there, but for some reason he’d moved back home six agonizing months ago.

  She held onto the mahogany doorframe, muscling up her courage. The entire room oozed of power, designed after John D. Rockefeller’s Moorish smoking room, from the black marble hearth, the rich red and gold leather wall panels, the black velvet slipper chairs, the exotic gold candelabra. She hated the room, the smells of his cigarettes that oozed from it, and most of the time kept the doors open to the garden.

  Somehow, she dredged up her voice. It sounded oddly unfamiliar. “I don’t want him going to West Point.”

  He stood with hi
s wide back to her, staring at the fire. “I don’t care what you want. He’s too much of a mama’s boy.”

  “He’ll go to war, Foster. Do you want him to be listed among the dead, to be praying for his eternal soul? He’s already been accepted to Harvard. Why can’t he—”

  Foster rounded on her. “Because no son of mine is going to be a coward.”

  His words rattled her, and the retort nearly breeched her lips before she swallowed it back. “Jack is no coward. But he wants to be a lawyer.”

  “I don’t care what he wants. He’s my son—or at least you claim he is! And until you tell me the truth, he’ll do what I say!” Foster threw his drink into the fire, the glass crashing against the hearth, the fire flaring. “West Point will make him into a man.”

  She ignored his accusation. “Will it turn him into the kind of man you are? Who hits his wife? Betrays her with other women?”

  She should have expected it, but Jinx jumped as Foster rounded on her, his eyes glassy. She backed away, but he reached out and buried his hands into the flesh on her arms, pulled her close. His breath slid over her, filled with heat. His words slurred out, a growl. “You’ve wrecked him with your doting.”

  She pushed against him. “Let me go, Foster.”

  “Why? You’re my wife, aren’t you?”

  Her eyes burned. Oh, she wished not. She stiffened, looked away.

  He held her for a long moment, his fingers boring into her flesh. Finally, he flung her away. “Not much of one,” he said, and returned to his sideboard, picking up a fresh glass.

  His hand shook as he poured himself a drink. Then, he sat down at his desk, opening a drawer.

  He pulled out a cherry box, set it on his desk. “I bought these years ago. Perhaps we should finally find a way to end our differences.” He opened the box, turned it.

  Nestled inside crushed cherry red velvet lay two dueling pistols.

  “You’re drunk. And crazy. Stay away from me.” She rubbed her arms, backing from the room.

  She whirled around and nearly ran into Amelia, still attired in her housekeeper’s uniform. “I heard a crash,” she said softly.

  “It’s nothing, Amelia. Thank you.” She’d become an excellent housekeeper after Jinx had to replace her for a younger lady’s maid. And, for Amelia’s part, she never spoke of that day in Newport when Jinx had nearly freed them both.

  “Mama?” Rosie stood in the foyer, her coat in her arms. “Are you well?”

  Oh, she had a beautiful daughter. At first, she’d seen so much of Foster in the girl, her tight brown curls, those cool gray eyes. But she’d blossomed into a beauty—not at all like Jinx, but not Foster either, with her heart-shaped face, her slender form.

  In fact, Rosie reminded her of Esme.

  Jinx held out her hand, caught Rosie’s. “Go to bed.”

  Rosie handed off her coat to Neville, who had appeared as if from the walls. Jinx turned and saw Lewis in the shadows, his eyes on her raising gooseflesh on her skin.

  Her legs shook as she climbed the stairs, her stomach in knots. She managed to hold in her breath until she reached her room.

  She’d created a palace in here, with her bed the throne, the gilded walls, the purple velvet tapestries, white marble fireplace, chaise lounge, and French Renaissance writing desk.

  She should have created a fortress.

  She lifted her sleeves, examined the marks of Foster’s grip impressed into her arms. Good thing Jack hadn’t yet returned. Once, Jack had seen her bruises and his teenage anger had scared her.

  Downstairs, she heard yelling—probably Foster in one of his drunken monologues. Another smash, the sound needling through her. He’d go through an entire service at this rate.

  Sitting at her dressing table, she wrapped her arms around her waist, stared at herself in her mirror.

  No wonder Foster chased other women. Crow lines framed her eyes, tiny wrinkles around her lips. She had lost weight, her face sallow, but on her it only turned her severe. To her own eyes, she appeared wrung out, defeated.

  At least Foster hadn’t hit her. She ran her hand down her face, as if the bruise still remained, but it had vanished long ago.

  She closed her eyes, remembering his rage, how she’d tried to run from him.

  How Lewis had stood in the corner and watched, a gleam in his eye. How Amelia cleaned up the crystal Foster had flung across the ballroom.

  How Daphne prepared an ice pack to reduce the swelling and delivered her regrets to the final dinner party of the season.

  Maybe, in fact, the bruises remained.

  Jinx put her forehead on the dressing table and let a sob trickle out. No one would hear her anyway. Still, she cupped her hands over her mouth, pressed hard.

  Her own weeping had the power to frighten her.

  The knock came quietly, and she thought it might be the knocking of her own heart. But it came again, louder.

  Jack couldn’t see her like this, eyes swollen, nose red. She got up, pressed a cloth to her face. “Just a moment.” Wrapping her robe around herself, she cinched it tight, got up.

  Took a breath.

  She wouldn’t allow him to go to West Point. To war.

  Not with young men returning in pine boxes. She would lose herself if Jack went to war.

  And the rest if he never returned.

  She opened the door. “Jack, I know what your father—”

  Not Jack, but the man who stood there took away her breath, just as handsome as Jack, just older, with his own fine lines of pain around his eyes. Tousled blond hair, blue eyes that could stop her heart and an expression on his face that told her he hadn’t forgotten her either.

  Bennett.

  * * * * *

  Lilly Hoyt had too much of her father in her spirit. Esme stood at the window, dressed in her Easter attire—a simple shirtwaist with mutton-chop sleeves and a linen skirt under a long buttoned jacket—and watched her thirteen-year-old daughter ride into the yard on her father’s Arabian. She wore a pair of britches, her braids flying in the wind, armed with a .22, and not in the least ready for morning services.

  How her daughter could have inherited so much courage and downright stubbornness from a father she’d never even met baffled Esme. Drove her, in fact, to want to pack up their things and march her to Misses Graham’s Seminary for Young Ladies in New York City where, at least, she’d learn some manners.

  She met Lilly at the door. “So much for a morning bath. Your dress is laid out, and I don’t even want to know why you were up at the crack of dawn armed with your father’s shotgun.”

  Lilly had inherited all of Daughtry’s dark looks too, with her sable brown hair, her dark exotic eyes. In fact, the only thing she seemed to have of Esme’s was her sass.

  “Abel spotted wolves in the south pasture. I didn’t want them spooking the buffalo. There are three new calves.” Lilly hung her hat on the peg near the door. Esme picked it up and handed it to Dawn, who also took Lilly’s buffalo jacket, which was oversized and mannish on her. Dawn glanced at Lilly’s boots and shook her head.

  Esme grimaced. “Could you at least use the side entrance when you’re covered in mud?”

  Lilly gave her a look, stormed back outside to remove her boots. She left them on the porch and walked in, barefoot. She gave Dawn a narrowed-eyed look and headed up the stairs.

  “She needs a firmer hand,” Dawn said.

  Esme had long ago realized that if she hoped to parent her fatherless daughter, she’d need more hands on deck. Dawn had become a grandmother of sorts, making Esme ache for her mother’s advice.

  How Phoebe had raised her with such refined manners eluded Esme.

  “She needs a father,” Esme said. “And the buffalo herd makes her feel close to him. Especially since President Roosevelt declared it a national herd. She considers them her personal responsibility.”

  “She acts like a boy, and she’s getting to the age where people are going to notice.”

  Esme drew in a bre
ath. Yes, at Lilly’s age, Esme had already begun attending finishing school, spending hours practicing her dances, learning German and French. She couldn’t imagine Lilly attempting a waltz, let alone walking across the room balancing a book atop her head. “Could you ask Abel to unhitch the brougham? We’ll have to take the runabout to town in order to make it to service on time.”

  Outside, the Easter morning sun ate away the last of the frost, climbing over the recently repainted red barn, tempering the lick of the spring breeze, still so rife with the winter chill. The bitterroot had yet to peek through the matted grasses, but this time of year stirred the memory of Daughtry like a fragrant wind. She saw him riding through the fields, tall and cowboy in the saddle. Saw him in his cutaway jacket, a gold ascot at his neck as he offered her his arm. Heard his whispers in her ear, his laughter nourishing her bones.

  In the springtime, she felt winter melt away, saw herself stronger, surviving another season of loneliness. She spun her wedding ring around on her finger with her thumb.

  “Fine. I’m ready. You know I hate wearing a dress, right?”

  She turned to the lovely image of her daughter in her Easter attire—a white dress with a belted navy overcoat, her hair hanging long and wavy, freshly freed from her braids. And, she’d washed her face, leaving only a springtime freshness upon her skin. She looked like a girl who lived outdoors, more comfortable with the hands of the ranch—Abel and Hank, Thomas and Dustin, all former miners who had moved out to the ranch after the accident.

  She didn’t know what she would have done without Abel. After he’d healed from burns, learned to walk again without a foot—he’d become more than a ranch hand, a brother, really. For a while, she wondered if she loved him, but after knowing what real love felt like, she couldn’t give Abel her heart.

  And, as if he knew, he never asked.