Carefully suppressing any hint of pity, Clara turned the register to face the woman and extended a pen, saying, "Of course you can examine the register from last year. I'd be happy to show—" She stopped talking and stared.
The woman's horrified gaze had fixed on Clara's wedding ring. She gripped the edge of the counter as if to hold herself upright and the color abruptly drained from her face, leaving her as white as a new towel.
"Your ring!" She sounded as if she were strangling.
"It's my wedding ring," Clara explained slowly, wondering if the woman was having some sort of fit. "It's a family heirloom. My husband's grandfather designed the ring, and his grandmother wore it all her married life. Then his mother wore it."
The woman shook her head. "No. This can't be. No."
"Ma'am? Can I get you something? A glass of water?"
"You don't understand. But look." She tore at her gloves, clawing at her left hand. "It has to be a coincidence. Yes, that's it, it must be a very strange coincidence." She thrust out a shaking hand and the counter lamp gleamed down on her wedding ring. Clara gasped, and her heart stopped beating. Her eyes widened until they ached.
The woman wore the same ring. Two bands of twisted silver enclosing filigreed silver hearts. But how could the rings be identical? Jean Jacques had said the ring was one of a kind, an original design.
"Oh!" The word became a wail, stretching on and on until Clara ran out of breath. She reeled backward a step, vigorously shaking her head in denial. "No. This cannot be. I won't believe this."
"Please," the woman whispered. "Tell me your husband's name."
"Jean Jacques Villette." The name choked her because one look at the woman's sickly ashen face confirmed an unfolding nightmare. "Mein Gott! We're married to the same man!" The words came from a great distance. Her ears rang and her knees shook. She felt nauseated.
If ever a situation had called for someone to faint, this was it. So Clara was glad to see the other Mrs. Villette sink below the countertop and hit the floor.
Somehow Clara stumbled through the dinner hour, seating her guests, overseeing the service, smiling and nodding good night as the guests exited the dining room. When everyone had departed, Clara discovered she couldn't recall a word she had spoken or anything she had done since Juliette March Villette fainted on the lobby floor.
She found herself standing in the middle of the dining room, staring stupidly at Hans and Gerhard as they set the tables for the breakfast service. Now and then they slid a glance toward her, then lifted eyebrows at each other as if she had gone daft and they didn't know what they should do about her.
Abruptly, she turned on her heel and returned to the lobby to pace in front of the counter.
What should she do now? Was there any point in going to Seattle as she had planned? But she couldn't stay here. The new owners would move into the personal quarters tomorrow, and her belongings were already in storage. The only items left to pack were the cuckoo clocks and Mama's tiny cups.
But wait. Stiffening, she stared into space. Why was she worrying about where she would lay her head? Her shocked mind had stopped on the questions: How can this be? Where will I go? But there were other equally important concerns.
Was she the first or the second wife? Was she married or not married? And what about her money? The money! Jean Jacques, her passionate, dearly beloved, no-good thieving scoundrel of a husband, had taken her nest egg.
Was it his thievery that made her so furious? That in the end, Jean Jacques had been like all her suitors, enamored by what she owned?
But that could not be true. Jean Jacques had chased her all over the inn, swearing that he would make love to her in every bed. And, laughing, she had let him catch her, and they had indeed made love in every bed. Closing her eyes, Clara swayed on her feet. A man couldn't fake desiring a woman. Jean Jacques had loved her. He must have loved her. But if he loved her, then surely he couldn't have loved Juliette March Villette.
Turning, she gazed toward the landing at the top of the staircase. She'd put it off long enough; they had to talk. And Miss March should be recovered by now.
She poured two steins of stout German ale strong enough to numb pain and carried them upstairs to room three. At first she thought Miss March wouldn't respond to her knock, then she heard a resigned voice bid her to enter.
Miss March was already in bed, wearing a plain, unadorned nightgown that circled high around her throat. She'd brushed out her hair and braided it for sleeping, but Clara doubted either of them would sleep tonight.
"Are you feeling better?"
"I'm sick at heart." The other Mrs. Villette's face remained waxy white, making her eyelids appear more red and swollen. "I can't move. I can't think. It's like my mind is paralyzed and my body is too heavy to lift. I've never hurt this much in my life. I can't bear it that Aunt Kibble was right."
So much for not revealing oneself to strangers. Shock and devastation had eroded Juliette March Villette's reserve. Unhappily, Clara foresaw that she and her husband's other wife would become intimates before this evening ended. "I brought you some ale."
She simply could not think of this woman as Mrs. Villette. It was repugnant, impossible. And she couldn't continue thinking of her as Jean Jacques's other wife. That was too painful. She decided to think of her as Miss March.
Miss March's eyebrows arched, and she sniffed in distaste. "I don't drink spirits."
"Well, it's time you started. I can promise you, this ale will make you feel better than the tea did," Clara stated, looking at the teapot Miss Reeves had brought up earlier. She set one of the steins on the edge of the bed and watched Miss March lurch forward to grab the handle before the ale toppled, then pulled a chair next to the bed.
Now that she was here, Clara couldn't remember the questions she had intended to ask. She was too distracted by the inevitable misery of comparing herself to Miss March. Judging by the way Miss March stared back, she, too, was making comparisons.
As far as Clara could see, they didn't share a single physical likeness. Where Clara was sturdy and big-boned, Miss March was slender and delicate. Clara's hair was curly auburn red; Miss March's hair was a smooth medium brown. Miss March had gray eyes; Clara's eyes were light brown. She was apple-cheeked and quick to laugh, whereas Miss March was fashionably pale and slow to smile. Clara sensed their backgrounds would prove as dissimilar as their personalities and appearance.
"It was the money," Miss March blurted in an anguished voice. Fighting tears, she sipped from the stein, then gasped and pursed her lips with a shudder. "Aunt Kibble warned me, but I didn't want to believe it."
"The second swallow goes down smoother."
"He said he was temporarily embarrassed. He said he only needed a loan." She gave her head a shake and swallowed another draft of the ale. She gasped again, but not as loudly. "Did Mr. Villette take money from you, too?" Her gaze pleaded with Clara to say yes.
Reluctantly, she nodded and explained about giving Jean Jacques her nest egg to buy a boardinghouse in Seattle, and how she had sold the inn to follow him. Then Miss March told her about giving Jean Jacques money to buy them a home in Oregon.
Finally they discussed dates and established the order of events.
Clara lowered her head. "So he married you first." Her mind felt numb, insulated from the pain that would knock her down later.
"I just can't believe this is happening." Unshed tears glistened in Juliette's eyes, and she bent her head over the ale stein. "I thought he loved me."
"I thought he loved me, too. I never doubted for a minute that every word my Jean Jacques uttered was true and sincere." Clara frowned down at her wedding ring. Jean Jacques had claimed it was an heirloom. One of a kind. And she had swallowed every word like a lump of sugar, had never dreamed that he could be lying. The bastard.
"He told me he was in the import-export business. His money was tied up in inventory."
"He told me he was in the hotel business," she said. "His mo
ney was invested in an inn in California that he was trying to sell."
"All lies. But… I keep remembering…" Scarlet flooded Juliette's cheeks. She spread her hands in a helpless gesture. "I don't know how he could have been so convincing if it was all a lie. I keep thinking I would have known. I would have sensed something. Something. Maybe I'm deceiving myself, trying to find one small thing to cling to. But I can't believe that he didn't love me. At least a little. It couldn't have been entirely the money."
The same argument unwound in Clara's thoughts. Jean Jacques couldn't have married her just for the money. He hadn't known that she had a nest egg tucked away for her old age. And he hadn't married her to get the inn. He'd specifically told her not to sell until he wrote. Now she knew he would never summon her, had never intended to contact her again. He was gone.
The anguish of knowing she would never see him again sliced through her heart like a blade, made worse by the shock of discovering she'd been taken in by a handsome and charming womanizer.
When Clara looked up, she saw that Miss March had covered her eyes with a lacy handkerchief. "I can't possibly address you as Mrs. Villette," she stated abruptly. For the first time in her life, Clara experienced a deep bite of jealousy. Sharp fangs poisoned her mind when she imagined her Jean Jacques making love to Juliette. And she couldn't push the hateful images away.
Juliette shuddered behind the handkerchief covering her expression. "And I can't possibly call you Mrs. Villette!"
"Call me Clara, and I'll call you Juliette. Or we can call each other Miss Klaus and Miss March."
Juliette automatically extended her little finger as if she drank from a teacup instead of a stein. Clara had never seen that done before. How on earth could Jean Jacques have married this prissy woman? He couldn't have loved her. He simply couldn't have.
"Mr. Villette married me first," Juliette said after a period of silence. Her chin came up. "I'm glad you concede that point."
Her tone surprised Clara. Perhaps a real woman existed beneath the brittle veneer of ladylike reserve. "My marriage is as authentic and as legal as yours," Clara answered sharply.
"I don't see how it could be since he was married to me when you seduced him."
"When I seduced him? I'll have you know that my Jean Jacques took one look at me and fell deeply in love! From that moment on, he pursued me relentlessly until I agreed to marry him! He was the seducer, not me."
"He called me his angel; he said I made him happy! I don't know what wiles you used to snare my husband, but when he rode out of Linda Vista, he was a happily married man!"
"Well, that didn't last long. By the time he walked into this inn, he'd forgotten that you ever existed!"
Juliette stared, then turned swimming eyes to the ceiling. Clara finished her ale and angrily told herself that she had no cause to apologize. Then Juliette apologized and made her feel as small as a mushroom.
"I'm sorry." Juliette wiped her eyes and her nose. "You must think I have the manners of a fishwife considering how I've behaved. I apologize for being angry at you. It's just that I want this nightmare to be someone else's fault, not my husband's." Blinking, she glanced at Clara. "We should be sympathetic to each other. We've both been betrayed."
Clara considered pointing out that Juliette had a foam mustache drooping across her upper lip. But she liked the idea of Juliette discovering the mustache later and being mortified.
Usually Clara thought of herself as a good woman, but Jean Jacques's other wife brought out her low-down, mean-as-a-cat wicked side.
"I'm sorry, too," she said finally. "I guess at some point we're going to have to put this mess in the hands of the authorities and let the law sort everything out."
Juliette looked horrified. "Put my husband in jail?"
"I'm starting to think that's where my husband belongs. I'm starting to think he stole my money. And I'm starting to get mad about what he did to me."
They stared at each other.
"I think it's possible that Mr. Villette has amnesia," Juliette said. This time she tactfully chose not to refer to Jean Jacques as her husband while she explained her theory. "Since he couldn't remember, he thought he was free to fall in… to marry you."
"That is the stupidest idea I've ever heard," Clara said after a minute. "And it doesn't explain identical wedding rings."
They looked down at their left hands.
"There has to be a reasonable explanation," Juliette insisted stubbornly. After a long silence, she sighed, "I've thought about everything, and I'm going to continue searching for him. Whether it's amnesia or not, I need to know why he did this to me."
Clara studied the foam mustache on Juliette's upper lip. The little bubbles were starting to dry. "The reason is money. He stole our money. I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to go to Seattle and get my nest egg back!" When she found Jean Jacques she knew she would burst into tears and love him and hate him and pray that he could somehow make everything right and wonderful.
Standing, she stared down at Juliette's slender fingers gripping the ale stein and glared at her rival's ring. No, her world would never be right and wonderful again.
Juliette handed her the stein and then rubbed her forehead. "I can't think of a ladylike way to say that I'd prefer not to travel to Seattle with you."
"Because we detest each other?"
"It might be more tactful to say that we don't know each other and don't wish to."
"Unfortunately, there's only one stage tomorrow. Unless you want to dawdle here for another day, that stage is your only way north to Seattle." Clara lifted her head and walked to the door. "I'll be on that stage." At the door she turned and looked back. Immediately she wished she hadn't.
Juliette presented a picture of abject misery: sad reddened eyes, the unadorned virginal nightgown, a slumped posture that cried pain and defeat. Clara wondered how she had managed to get this far in her search for Jean Jacques.
Sighing, she shook her head. She didn't need to lay out Mama's cards to read the future. Like it or not (and she didn't like it), she and Juliette would be traveling together.
First, there was only the one northbound stage. Second, she didn't want Juliette to find Jean Jacques before she did. And third, Clara was cursed with a caregiving nature. On some idiotic but basic level she felt it her duty and her obligation to look after her husband's other wife, Jean Jacques would expect her to take Juliette in hand because clearly she was stronger and more wise to the world than Her Ladyship.
Shaking her head, she covered her eyes. She didn't want to take care of Juliette. She wished Juliette would step off a cliff. Or get run over by a freight wagon. She would cheer if a huge rock squashed Juliette. Would love it if a swift-acting disease carried her away before morning.
In Clara's defense, she hoped Juliette's death was instantaneous. She didn't wish any painful suffering on the woman, she just wanted Juliette to vanish and never return.
"Breakfast is at seven." She sighed heavily, and did the right thing. "You have a foam mustache on your upper lip. You look ridiculous."
Closing the door behind her, Clara walked down the staircase and made it to her quarters before her heart collapsed and a flood of anguished tears streamed down her cheeks.
* * *
Chapter 3
The town of Newcastle filled the depression below a steep hillside that had been logged off to provide lumber for the small, weathered houses ranged along Coal Creek. Stumps littered the ridge like wharf pilings.
Unpainted fences defined minuscule front yards, and here and there a drooping azalea struggled to survive, but most of the yards were dirt and weeds defended by skinny roosters and a few tired hens.
These things Zoe remembered, but the soot and coal dust always surprised her. Yet if someone had inquired, the ubiquitous coal dust would have leapt to mind before anything else. It crept beneath sills and coated floors and furnishings with a layer of dark grit. Outside, the coal dust soiled wet laundry and settled on hats
and shoulders and plants and rooftops.
Before she sat down at her mother's table, Zoe shook out her skirts, knowing better than to brush at the dust and leave a smear. She'd wiped the table after breakfast, only two hours ago, but already a fine layer of grime had accumulated on the surface.
Ma pushed a cup of coffee across the table and glanced at the clock above the stove. "I wish you could stay longer."
"I do, too," Zoe said, but her answer wasn't true. Four of her six brothers still lived at home, in a house with two bedrooms. Creating space for Zoe inconvenienced everyone when she came to visit.
She castigated herself for not coming more often, but she'd been spoiled by living in Seattle on her own, reveling in the one thing she had never known in this house. Privacy. In her two rooms at the boardinghouse she didn't have to dress behind a screen, didn't have to listen to the rude noises six brothers could make, didn't have to fight for a seat at meals. Best of all, she didn't have to share her space with anyone except her husband. And she didn't mind that.
"You're happy, aren't you?" her mother asked, studying Zoe in the hazy light filtering past grimy windowpanes.
"Yes," Zoe answered softly, smiling down at her coffee. Ma had given her the last of the real cream instead of using the skim.
"I used to think you never would get married. I guess you broke every male heart in Newcastle." Alice Wilder smiled, and some of the years softened on her face. "When I was twenty-four, I'd already buried two babies and had two more hanging on my skirts."
That was the life Zoe had escaped, thank heaven. She didn't want to be stuck in a tiny, crowded house slaving after males who always had a dark line embedded beneath their fingernails no matter how hard they scrubbed. She didn't want a half dozen babies wearing her out before her time. Most of all, she wanted a few nice things in her life, something more than a coal miner's wife could expect.
"I was right to wait, Ma." If she had married a Newcastle man, she would have been stuck here. Instead, she had bided her time and used the wait to improve herself. Her reward had been Jean Jacques Villette. Zoe hadn't dared to dream that men like him existed.
I do, I do, I do Page 3
