by Merry Farmer
“I’ll make sure he does.” Cyrus winked at the man.
There wasn’t much more to discuss. A few more details were shared, then Howard and Cyrus shook Peabody’s hand and headed on their way.
“It’s good to know that we’re already rich men at least one time over,” Cyrus said as they continued on. “Now maybe your sister will consider my offer of marriage.”
“She hasn’t said yes yet?” Every time Cyrus or Virginia talked about their dance around the topic of marriage, it gave him a warm feeling in his gut. The two were perfectly suited to each other. It was about time they made their long-time dalliance—the activities of which fooled precisely no one—official.
“You know Virginia,” Cyrus answered, face pink with pleasure.
“Yes, I do. Heaven help the man who gets into an argument with my sister!”
They headed on along Commerce Street. Howard surprised Cyrus as they reached Second Street by turning instead of going on.
“We’re not going to Heeney’s for lunch?” he asked.
“We’ve got other business first.”
Howard’s grin was so sly that Cyrus shook his head. He had a plan. He always had a plan. Winning Elizabeth Ayers was as easy as revealing the extent of his fortune to Carl Ayers. Any man who would use his daughter to seal a business deal would be just as likely to renege on that deal when a better one came along. One conversation would solve the entire problem.
He was in the middle of mentally rehearsing what he planned to say as they approached the building that held Mr. Ayers’s office, but that preparation was cut short as the front door opened and Jonas Armstrong strode out.
“Why, if it isn’t Jonas Armstrong.” The sharp, giddy thrill of victory rose up through Howard’s spine, and he straightened to his full height. Bearding this lion, who thought he could lay claim to Elizabeth, in his den would be a treat.
Jonas searched the street for the source of the greeting. When he spotted Howard and Cyrus, his eyes narrowed in bland distaste. “You.”
Howard doffed his hat and greeted Jonas like a gentleman. “We were not properly introduced last night.”
Jonas curled his lip. “There was a reason for that. I have no interest in being introduced to impudent riff-raff.”
He began to walk on, but stopped as Howard said, “Impudent? Why, I suppose I have been called that before.” Howard winked at Cyrus.
“Mostly by your mother,” Cyrus added. “Oh, and Professor Cowley. And Mr. Deeters at the bank. Oh, and let’s not forget Mrs. Chambers.”
“Mrs. Chambers,” Howard repeated, giving the name a saucy connotation.
Jonas pivoted back to them, letting out a peevish breath. “I’ll thank you not to accost gentlemen on the street,” he snapped. “Or to molest ladies in a ballroom.”
“Molest?” Howard quivered with insult. “I would never.”
“How were you admitted to the mayor’s ball anyhow?” Jonas sniffed. “I thought the guest list was exclusive.”
“We let ourselves in,” Cyrus said, tossing Howard a wink.
Chuckling inwardly, Howard played along. “Any man who hopes to get ahead in the world should always make their own invitation.”
Jonas studied the two of them as if he had something sour in his mouth. “I know why you’re here.”
“You do?” Howard asked.
“That makes one of us,” Cyrus said. “I’m still not sure.”
Jonas raised a hand as if to swat their antics away. “You’ll never get a job in this town. Not as a clerk, not as a junior accountant, not as a street-sweeper. I’ll see to it that every reputable establishment will toss you out on your backsides the moment you step through the doors.”
“Dear me.” Howard shook his head. “That does sound unpleasant.”
“Tough luck there, Howard.” Cyrus pretended to console him.
“I don’t think I will ever recover from the blow.” Howard sighed dramatically.
“There, there. You could still join the army.” Cyrus patted his shoulder.
Jonas huffed. “I don’t have time for you.” He spun back to his original course and marched on.
This time Howard let him go. He and Cyrus chuckled and exchanged winning looks, then turned to head inside the building.
Carl Ayers had his office on the building’s second floor. As expected, Howard and Cyrus only got as far as his secretary’s desk.
“Mr. Ayers is engaged.” The owlish man attempted to dismiss Howard without even looking at him.
“And I am engaged as well.” Howard beamed and hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his vest. “To his daughter.”
The clerk looked at him over the top of his glasses. “You don’t look like Jonas Armstrong to me,” he drawled.
“Jonas Armstrong is ancient history,” Howard declared. “Behold, the future!”
As he stood straight, arms extended to tease the clerk with his show of enormous ego, the door behind the desk opened and Mr. Ayers stepped out.
“Grundy, I need you to—”
Carl Ayers stopped short at the sight of Howard. His whiskers quivered and his jaw hardened. He stepped to the desk, slammed the paper he held on the surface, then straightened and did his best to appear intimidating.
“Get out,” he said.
Howard responded with a smile. He stood a few inches taller than Mr. Ayers, so he had no need to puff himself up or make himself more intimidating than he already was. Instead, he worked to appear as warm as possible, though all the while, he studied his opponent, looking for signs of weakness.
“Father, how delightful to see you in such high spirits this morning,” Howard said.
“What are you talking about? Grundy, get this man out of here,” Mr. Ayers ordered.
“Y-yes, sir?” Grundy cowered in his seat.
“I have simply come to pay a visit and to assure you that I will do my utmost to give your daughter Elizabeth the happiest life any woman could wish for.” Howard ignored him, sticking to his own agenda.
Mr. Ayers let out an exasperated breath. “I don’t know who you think you are, but whoever that is, I will not be spoken to in such an impertinent manner by…by a nobody.”
“And I wouldn’t expect you to be,” Howard agreed. “So it’s fortunate that I’m not a nobody.”
“You are as far as I’m concerned.” Mr. Ayers began to turn away.
“On the contrary, sir,” Howard continued with his best smile. “I am somebody. I am somebody near and dear to you, somebody you will very much want to say that you know in just a short time.”
Mr. Ayers took the bait and pivoted back to Howard. “Who are you, then?”
With a grin as wide as the western horizon, Howard said, “I’m your future son-in-law.”
Mr. Ayers turned red, the loose flesh around his neck shaking with rage. He raised a long, bony finger and pointed to the door. “Get out, you impudent scoundrel.”
“Impudent again.” Howard sighed.
“I told you so.” Cyrus was having a hard time not laughing.
“If I see you so much as darken my doorstep again, I’ll call the authorities,” Mr. Ayers went on.
“You would do that to your own son-in-law?” Howard feigned hurt.
“You are no such thing. Get out now!”
The point was made. The time to back off had come. Howard continued to smile as he took a step toward the door, Cyrus with him.
“I understand your surprise at the situation,” Howard said. “But my only concern is for Elizabeth. Elizabeth wants me, not Jonas Armstrong.” He said the name as though it was a joke. “And so she shall have me, and I shall have her.”
“You shall not,” Mr. Ayers snapped.
Howard grinned and bowed his head, though not in acquiescence. When he lifted it again, deadly seriousness shone in his eyes. “Mark my words, sir. You will embrace me as a beloved son before this month is done. You will welcome me into your house with open arms, and you will smile with pride and gratitud
e on the day you give Elizabeth’s hand to me.”
“Get out now!” Mr. Ayers shouted.
Back straight, smile still in place, as if he hadn’t a care in the world, Howard turned and marched out the door.
Once they were in the stairwell leading to the first floor, Cyrus let out a breath. “That went well.”
Howard snorted with laughter. “Of course it did. I’m Howard Haskell. I always get what I want.”
Chapter 4
Elizabeth’s friends could talk of nothing else but the startling events of the ball all through their walk along the riverfront. Elizabeth could think of nothing else. But her thoughts and her friends’ chatter were as different as could be.
“Can you imagine the audacity of the man?” Madeline gasped, twirling her parasol on her shoulder.
“To think that he could simply walk up to you and demand a dance,” Henrietta echoed.
Bravery, that’s what Elizabeth called it. Daring. The kind of daring that would take a man far in life. All the way out to the burgeoning land of the West.
“He was rather handsome, though,” Isobel added. She stood on the opposite side of Elizabeth from Madeline and Henrietta, and had been taking up the role of advocate for Howard Haskell since they’d set out from Clay Street.
“Ugh.” Madeline wrinkled her nose. “He was far too tall for my tastes.”
Tall. Elizabeth sighed. Yes, Howard was tall. Delightfully so. And as handsome as Isobel said and more. Elizabeth had never seen a man with such vibrant eyes, such an arresting smile. He was well-formed, and she was certain that he could labor with the very best men making their way West. If anyone could tame the wild wilderness, it would be Howard.
And he wanted her to come with him.
She sighed again, so obvious that Henrietta and Madeline rolled their eyes.
“It will all come to naught, you realize,” Madeline said, her attitude a little too superior for Elizabeth’s liking. “Your mother will see to that.”
Elizabeth’s dreamy spirits sank. “She will not.”
But, in fact, Elizabeth had a terrible feeling that she would. Her mother was nothing if not persistent. She wanted Elizabeth to marry Jonas Armstrong as much as her father did, maybe more. The match would mean that she would be admitted into the highest circles of Cincinnati society.
Once again, Elizabeth was a pawn.
“I’m sick and tired of being a piece in someone else’s game.” She let her thought be spoken aloud. When her friends gasped at her boldness, Elizabeth stopped and faced them, gripping the end of her parasol tight enough to break it. “Well, I am. Don’t you want something more than to be maneuvered by your parents into a loveless marriage? Don’t you want to fall in love and have adventures?”
Madeline laughed. “I want to adventure to the finest couturiers in Paris on my husband’s dime so that I can dress like a queen.”
“And you will if Horace Trumbolt continues to pursue you the way he has been.” Henrietta supported her, the light of new gossip in her eyes. “Did you see the way he—”
“There is more to life than Paris fashion and being pursued by wealthy men.”
Madeline and Henrietta blinked, their backs going up in offense at Elizabeth’s proclamation. Isobel shrank under her parasol by Elizabeth’s side.
“There may be more than that for you,” Madeline rounded on Elizabeth. “For those of us whose fathers do not have as solid a foothold in society, a suitable marriage is the difference between a life of comfort and a life of disgrace.”
“Well, maybe I would prefer a life of disgrace.” Elizabeth raised her voice, shocked with herself for doing so on a street corner. A street corner near her father’s place of business, for that matter. But her heart was about to burst with newfound feeling. “Perhaps I want a life of adventure. The unknown is exciting.”
“The unknown is dangerous,” Henrietta replied, eyebrow arched.
“Then perhaps danger is what I crave.” She knew it was true the moment the words were spoken. So much for not being one to take risks. “Anything is better than living my life at someone else’s whim.”
“Not anything,” Madeline contradicted her. “Not social disgrace.”
“Well, I think—”
Henrietta froze, her jaw hanging open, as she and Madeline spotted something over Elizabeth’s shoulder. Frowning, Elizabeth turned, Isobel with her.
Her heart knocked into her ribs, then sped up a hundred times. There, coming toward them, in discussion with the man she recognized as his friend from the night before, was Howard himself. The two men were laughing and gesturing, as if sharing a story.
“Howard.”
She spoke loud enough that even though Howard was on the other side of the street, he heard her. His head shot up, and a moment later, delight filled his face.
“Elizabeth!” His answer to her call could only be described as booming. And just like a cannon, he shot out into the street, avoiding a carriage that momentarily hid him from Elizabeth’s sight, and bounded up onto the sidewalk beside her. “My dearest Elizabeth. How blessed I am to see you, just as my heart was aching for want of you.”
Elizabeth’s cheeks flushed red. The heat that kissed them swirled through her, settling in a particularly sensitive spot. Any man who could make her long so desperately for him when they had known each other less than a day was a man worth spending all the rest of her days getting to know.
“What brings you here to…” She glanced around, gauging where she was. “…to Second Street?” Had they really wandered so far up from the riverfront? How close were they to her father’s office?
Behind her, Madeline, Henrietta, and Isobel backed up, whispering amongst themselves.
“I had business dealings, my love.” Howard inched forward, reaching for her hand. She gave it freely, and Howard raised it to his lips. He did not release it once her knuckles had been kissed.
“Are you in business?” Elizabeth gasped as soon as the question was asked. “Good heavens. I don’t even know what you do for a living.”
“Worship you, my darling,” Howard replied, stepping closer.
They were too close, really, but the safety of her three friends behind her and Howard’s friend hopping up to the curb to shadow him would have to do for the time being.
Elizabeth pulled herself together and laughed at his response. “Surely, you must do more than worship me, a woman you hardly know.”
“Shouldn’t every man worship his wife?” He squeezed her hand, gazed deeply into her eyes.
The sensation of falling came over Elizabeth, delicious and unsettling all mixed together. “I am not your wife,” she admitted, eyes fluttering down in disappointment. “And I’m afraid I never will be.”
“Do not fear, my love.” Howard laughed—actually laughed—in the face of her fear.
Frustrated that he would take her feelings so lightly, she snapped her gaze up to meet his. “It is impossible. My parents will never allow it. As my mother said to me last night, once you’d returned to your friend—” She nodded over Howard’s shoulder to the man with him. “—my marriage to Jonas Armstrong is already set, and a great many people are relying on the match.”
“The only person who should rely on any match is the lovers involved.”
His use of the word ‘lovers’ had her blushing and tingling down to her toes.
“Would that it were that simple,” she sighed.
Howard shrugged, letting go of her hand at last. “But it is that simple.”
With Howard, she believed it certainly could be. Her heart wanted to laugh, but her mind knew better.
“If you believe that, you do not know my parents.”
“And if you believe that, then you do not know me.” The smile Howard tacked to the end of his pronouncement was nearly enough for Elizabeth to take him at his word.
Nearly enough.
“But that is the point.” She stepped boldly closer to him. “I don’t know you. At least not as w
ell as I’d like to.”
“There is only one way to remedy that.” Howard winked.
Elizabeth caught herself laughing. No, she couldn’t afford to be distracted. “There is only one way, and that is for us to spend time together. But how will my parents possibly allow that? I have already been chastised for not spending enough time with my intended fiancé.”
“Do you love him?” Howard’s question was so serious and so important that a ripple of anxiety raced down Elizabeth’s spine.
“No,” she whispered. “Not at all. Jonas is well-placed in society and industrious, but…but he is boring.” She took a breath, the freedom of finally being able to say as much making her dizzy. “He doesn’t care for me at all. The only thing he cares about is money. I am considerably less valuable to him than his investment portfolio.”
“All the more reason for the two of us to run away to the frontier as soon as possible,” Howard murmured with as much passion as if he was whispering naughty words to her. He didn’t seem to notice that his friend was smirking at the conversation, or that her friends were whispering furiously.
Before Elizabeth could point out either situation, he went on. “But never fear, my love. I have a plan.”
“A plan?” Her brow rose in spite of the fact that her head still spun.
“Of course.” Howard grinned. “You must always have a plan. Two or three if you can manage it. That’s what makes a man—or a woman—successful in life.”
Elizabeth was unable to keep her smile inside. “What is it, then? What is your plan?”
“To love you ’til the day I die,” Howard declared.
Elizabeth laughed, utterly taken in by his charm.
“At least, that is my initial plan,” Howard went on. He moved in closer still, so close that their stance could almost be described as an embrace, and whispered, “Wherever you go, there I will be. Whatever social functions you attend, I will be your shadow.”
“But mother refuses to let me out,” Elizabeth sighed. “I think she knows how…how enamored I am of you.”
