She pulled her arm from his hand and sniffed. “Protecting our good name.”
“Protecting? You just—”
“I just made a preemptive strike,” she said, crossing her arms. “The duchess knows already, Will. She knows. It took her but an hour to find out the truth.”
“Who—”
“What does it matter? All we can do now is to make sure that everyone knows we didn’t invite Cora in. It’s either gather against her or fall with her.”
Will’s mouth dropped open. “How can you say such a thing?”
“It’s the truth of it. If we wish to fraternize with these people, we need to deal with it as my father wished—head-on—and deal with the repercussions. We shall be accepted or we shall not. Now if you’ll excuse me…”
Will clenched his fists at his side. “It’s not you who will bear the repercussions, Vivian. It will be Cora. Through no fault of her own.”
Vivian paused, and a flash of doubt ran through her eyes.
“You’ve ruined her,” he growled. “Before we’ve even begun.”
Vivian lifted her chin. “I didn’t ruin her, Will. My father ruined her mother. He might want to make her into a woman of society, give her the opportunity, but she will never be more than a Molly Brown to these people, or to me. If we do not make it clear that we are different, that she’s been thrust upon us like an unwelcome gift, we’ll be treated the same. We’ll all be ruined.”
“Isn’t that what it means to be a family?” Will asked. “To stand together?”
“She is not family to me,” Vivian said. “She is a stray dog my father brought home.”
With that, she walked off, and Will turned away, setting his plate on the nearest table, no longer hungry.
It emerged exactly as he feared.
When he reached the dance floor, outside on a massive stone patio beside the conservatory that was ringed with strands of electric lights, many couples were already dancing, including Cora with one of the gentlemen who had been eyeing her when they arrived. Will watched as the duchess and her friend joined the group at the far edge. They laughed as they bent to speak into each other’s ears.
His uncle and Antonio joined him, and with one look, both sobered and surveyed the crowd. “What is it, Will?” Stuart asked.
“They know,” he said simply.
Antonio’s eyes moved to Cora. Apparently, he’d been informed of the truth already too. “It did not take long.”
“No,” Will said bitterly. Not when her self-serving half sister came right out with it. But had Vivian been right? Had the duchess already uncovered the truth? They’d been foolish, thinking they could keep it quiet.
The dance ended, and another song began. Another gentleman stepped up and bowed toward Cora. She accepted his offer, and they set off on a fox-trot. But his eyes didn’t stay on her. They traced the crowd on the far side, suddenly aware that everyone seemed to be murmuring about them—and judging by their expressions, not in an admirable way.
It made Will wince as he watched people bend toward one another, whispering, laughing, and glancing in Cora’s direction. By the time the dance was done, no one from the far side stepped forward to offer to dance with her in a third.
Will was moving before he realized what he was doing. He only knew he couldn’t leave her there, alone, with no idea of what was about to happen to her. He stepped toward her as her partner thanked her for the dance.
Will smiled down at her and cocked his head. “Fancy a dance with a bear-in-training?” he said.
“A dancing bear,” she returned with a grin. “I thought they were only in circuses.”
“This might constitute a circus of another sort,” he said, taking her into his arms. He was glad when the musicians began another waltz. Immediately he led her forward, then back, swaying in time with the music. She was enjoying herself, and he hated to be the one to break into her brief joy. But if he didn’t tell her, she’d soon discover it herself.
“Cora, as this dance ends, I was wondering if you’d do me the honor of a walk.”
She looked up at him with curiosity in her big blue eyes, measuring him, trying to decipher the reason for his request.
“Only a walk, nothing more,” he assured her.
“I…I see.”
Was there a glimpse of disappointment in her tone? Or had he imagined it? He lifted her hand, and she turned under it, then smoothly returned to his arms.
“So why the invitation to stroll?” she asked.
“A friendly intervention,” he said softly. “I’ll explain more on our walk.”
Her eyes studied his, and then she finally glanced over his shoulder at the crowd around the perimeter of the floor. It only took a minute before her eyes abruptly returned to his, alarm alive in them. “They know,” she whispered. She flubbed a step, but Will pressed his hand to her lower back, helping her back into the beat.
“They do,” he said. He kept his expression neutral, as if they were merely continuing their conversation. “I guarantee you that you are not the only person here with questionable parentage.”
“But I am the only one they’re talking about.”
“Smile. Keep that head high, Cora.”
“I…I can’t.”
“You can.”
They reached the end of the dance, but there was none of the pleasure in it that he’d enjoyed aboard the Olympic. Cora was distracted, clearly counting the moments until she could flee. But he held her arm in his. “Walk as if you’re in no hurry,” he whispered. “Return their glances with confidence, as if to say you know they know, but you don’t care.”
“I cannot,” she said, staring at the handkerchief peeking from his breast pocket.
“You can,” he said. “Begin with me. Look up at me. Return my smile. You can do it, Cora. Take a deep breath.” He smiled at her, willing her to join him in the charade. So much of society was a charade, keeping up appearances. Regardless of what one felt within. He hated that part. But it was part of the game. And he was determined to see Cora through it.
Her gaze finally met his, and then she forced a smile. “You’ve come to my rescue again,” she murmured.
They turned and began walking. “You may feel dreadfully alone, Cora,” he whispered. “But you never are.”
CHAPTER 17
Cora
“Thank you, Will,” I managed. But the crowd seemed to close in on me, one solid swaying mass. One individual indecipherable from the next. “You’ve brought me far enough. I can make it on my own from here.” I hated myself for it, but I abandoned him then; I dropped his arm, turned, and walked away, shoulders straight, head high. Ignoring him as he whispered my name like a groan, as if he felt a measure of my pain. Walking through the crowd as if I had someplace to go. But inside, I knew I was fleeing before I broke down in front of them, in front of Will.
I made my way through the palace, nodding to servants, determined to hold back my tears. Hurrying now that I was safely away from the crowds, half blinded by my welling eyes, I turned down one wrong hallway and had to go back. I slowed when I heard the bear’s raised voice from a parlor.
I crept closer to the doorway. I could not see who else was inside, only robin’s-egg blue walls and decorative white molding inside.
“Nevertheless, I see no recourse,” said the duchess. “Kindly resume your journey in the morning. I will say you were eager to continue on with your travels.”
I took a step back. She was tossing us out?
Horrified, I moved back to the main hall, found my corridor and hurried toward my room. But my eyes narrowed when I saw Anna and Jensen outside. They straightened as I neared, as if they had been waiting. I slowed but forced myself forward, each step feeling as though I were plowing through mud. Hurriedly, I wiped my face of tears, hoping my fragile state wouldn’t be too obvious.
The maid blushed as she bobbed a quick curtsy. “Beggin’ your pardon, miss. But we’re to see you to another room for the night.”
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br /> My frown deepened as my head swirled in confusion. “All…all right,” I stammered. The tall, elegant butler ducked inside, grabbed hold of my biggest trunk, and waited for us in the hall. Anna did the same, opting for a smaller trunk. “Jensen will return for the rest of your things, miss,” Anna said. “This way.”
We walked to the end of the hall and through a large, decorative door that led to a set of stairs we took down. Behind this door was another hall, the walls a simple white, the doors plain. Servants’ quarters. Cold washed through me. I alternately hated myself for my wounded pride—wouldn’t I have once been honored to be even in this hall of the palace?—and burned with fury at the affront.
The maid didn’t look at me as she set the trunk down. Numbly, I sat on the corner of the bed. It was a simple cot with clean bedding. A pillow. A blanket. There was a small window, and through it I glimpsed the very top of the conservatory. The conservatory where people were laughing and drinking and talking right now…probably about me. About the Kensingtons and the nouveaux riches and the audacity of them, thinking they could bring just anyone into these social circles…
The servants disappeared and reappeared a few minutes later with more of my clothing. “Is there anything you be needin’, miss?” Anna asked. “I could help you find a nightdress and change—”
“No, no,” I said, as kindly as I could. This wasn’t her fault. Whose fault? My mother’s? My father’s? “I’ll be all right, Anna. Thank you.”
She paused at the door. “It’s a cruel thing they’ve done, miss. Don’t let it get to you…” She wrung her hands, her face earnest. “Just don’t allow them to get to you, Miss Cora. Get a good night’s sleep. We’ll show them what you’re made of.”
With that, she disappeared, closing the door behind her. I wanted to give in to the grief that was heavy in my chest. But now my eyes were dry, as if the sadness were set aside in a locked trunk. Present but unreachable. Shock, I assessed distantly. Like I felt after Papa’s stroke. Stunned. Unable to speak or even react.
Papa, Papa, I thought, my heart breaking at the sound of his name in my mind. If only you hadn’t taken ill. We’d be home, working together.
He would’ve been cordial to Wallace Kensington. Soberly respectful. But there was no way he would’ve let him steal me away. Not that Wallace had really stolen me. I’d come of my own free will. But had I? No. I’d come out of love for Papa.
Lord, why? Why bring me all this way? For what? For this? For this? I studied the white plaster of the ceiling as if in it I could see my God. I wanted to shake my fist at Him in frustration. Why put me through this? Why not just leave me on the farm if He wanted me to suffer? I turned and lay down on the bed, my fingertips rubbing over the rough linens, so different from the lush accommodations upstairs but more like what I’d known at home. There, their touch would comfort me.
But now they only made me feel unclean, unworthy.
Less-than.
A quick rapping at my door awakened me.
I blinked several times, the memories of last night coming back to me. I didn’t know when I fell asleep, or how long I’d slept—only that my headache had faded, leaving me with a thick, groggy sensation. I sat up and looked down at myself. I’d slept in my evening gown. I reached up and pulled the headpiece—now crumpled—off my head, knowing I was making my hair all the more a mess.
The knocking resumed. “Miss Kensington?” said a woman’s voice.
“Coming,” I muttered, forcing myself to my bare feet. At some point in the night, I must’ve kicked off my slippers, but I didn’t remember doing so.
I opened the door and found Anna, with Will right behind her. His mouth fell open at my disheveled state. Abruptly, he closed his lips. “Cora, I had no idea you had been moved. I—I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right. I obviously slept well enough.” I seemed to be over the humiliation.
“But in your evening gown, miss!” said Anna, bustling in. “I’ll see to her, Master Will. Go and tell the bear we’ll join the family on the patio shortly.”
He nodded and departed, anger and sorrow fighting for space in his eyes.
I turned to stare at my five trunks crammed into the room, but I had no idea where to find proper clothes, no matter what I’d said to Anna last night. What was on the agenda today? The British Museum, if I remembered right. Would that be before or after we moved into a hotel? I sank to the edge of the cot, feeling overwhelmed, lost.
“Hmm,” said Anna, going directly to the smallest trunk. “I think I put your green suit in here. Don’t you think that would be appropriate today?” There was barely room enough for her to move between the trunks and the bed.
I thought about the beautiful grass-green jacket that fell so elegantly down my torso, and the matching straight skirt and parasol. “Certainly,” I said.
“Well, then, up with you, so we can get you ready for the day,” she said, her tone firm, as if to wake me from my odd, foggy reverie.
I obediently stood and reached behind by back to undo my gown, suddenly anxious to be out of it, out of anything that reminded me of the night before. But I could not reach the hook and eye, nor more than a few of the buttons.
Anna sighed and came over to me, brushing aside my hands and unbuttoning it for me. She held it as I slipped out of the sleeves, and then she pulled it up over my head as if I were a child. Then she moved to a small stand and poured water from a pitcher into a bowl. There were no en suite bathrooms, nor was there running water in this portion of the old palace. “Get to it, then. See to your bath.” She looked up at me, but I felt like she was looking down her nose at me. “Quit feeling sorry for yourself, miss. You must deal with your lot. This is not the end of the world.” She gripped my shoulders and waited until I looked her in the eye.
I was standing there in my corset, in a servant’s room, with a servant of my own behind me. Nothing made sense… Nothing had made sense in a long time.
“You might feel alone, miss, even forsaken. But you’re not. The bear is livid, by the way. I’ve not seen him so angry in a good long while. And if not him, look to your Lord. He’s seen it all. What you’ve been through and what’s ahead. Trust in Him, girl. He’ll see you through this.”
Trust Him? Hadn’t I trusted Him through the last weeks, through all the change? And for what? How much more humiliation was I to suffer?
I turned to the basin and dipped a cloth in, hurriedly wiping my face, my neck, and my body. Then I pulled out the remaining pins from my hair and brushed it out, thinking, growing angrier by the minute. “God watched the father I loved, laid out on a barn floor. God watched as Mr. Kensington came to collect me as if I were a prize horse he’d bought, the ‘long-lost daughter.’ God watched my siblings treat me with outright disdain. And last night, God saw me brought low. This is how the Lord cares for His people?” I turned to face her, invigorated by my fury.
Anna raised an eyebrow at me, her lips a grim line. She looked back up at me and lifted the hem of the green skirt so I could step in. Once it was on, she gently but firmly turned me around to button up the back, then urged me toward a stool. Her eyes met mine in the reflection of the mirror above the basin. “God,” she said, her tone gently reproving, “brought Mr. Kensington to you, and with him, a world of potential. As I see it, each of our lives is a journey, Miss Cora. A path that takes us over the mountain or down through a dark valley. But He never abandons us. Never. That is how He cares for us—walking with us every step of the way.”
I stared at her image in the mirror, thinking over her words. She seemed to catch herself, regret in her eyes. “Beggin’ your pardon, miss,” she said, with a tiny curtsy.
“No,” I said, with a wave of my hand. “Please.” I rubbed my face, feeling a tinge of shame. “I’m not myself today.” Not myself. I hadn’t felt myself for weeks. Not since I left home…
She took the brush from the counter and gave my hair a few more strokes, then expertly wound it up in a sweeping style. �
�Put some blush on those cheeks. You will not go down to that patio and face them with anything but confidence. Your mother may have been little more than a maid like me, but your father is a man of great influence. And your God? Well, He is enough, Miss Cora. Enough.” She laid a light hand on my shoulder. “Shall I wait for you outside the door and see you down to the patio?”
“Thank you, Anna,” I muttered. “I’ll get myself there in a moment.”
She gave a quick bob, turned, and left, quietly closing the door behind her as if she were suddenly a subservient sort of person, rather than the outspoken, brash woman she had just shown herself to be. I closed my eyes and held my head in my hands, thinking about her words.
She was right, of course. Much as I disliked admitting it.
I straightened to powder my face, then unscrewed the lid of a beet-juice jar and hurriedly rubbed some color onto my cheeks. I studied my reflection in the mirror.
Here, I wasn’t the daughter of Alan and Alma Diehl, simple folk but upstanding citizens, the friends of every one of their neighbors. Here I was despised, open to the world’s ridicule, the illegitimate child of a copper king who was one of the wealthiest men of the world.
I had been claimed, not left to subsist on a dirt-poor farm in Montana. It was not a fair deal, but it was a deal. There was still much to gain from walking this road. It wasn’t easy, but at least there was a road forward, upward, outward.
And my papa, my mama…they’d want me to take it. To put one foot in front of the other. To see where it led.
CHAPTER 18
William
He’d never been so proud of one of his clients as he was of Cora that morning. She’d emerged from her room and joined them for breakfast on the patio as if she belonged nowhere else.
It took true inner strength to conduct herself so, especially after what she’d faced the night before.
The duke and duchess had excused themselves from joining the group, citing a “previous engagement,” but before they’d known the truth of Cora’s parentage, there had been no plans other than to spend the day with their guests. It was fine by Will. This way, their group could speak of the subject at hand and be done with it.
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