Juliette had seen enough of Seattle to notice the lines of grimly determined men crowding the outfitters' stores. Since the hotel was near the wharf area, she'd even strolled to the piers to watch the crowded Alaskan steamers sail off for the Klondike.
"Are you suggesting that Jean Jacques went to the Yukon to search for gold?" she inquired, forming the words slowly.
"I'm starting to think it's certainly possible. What I don't understand is why he didn't sail immediately. Why would he wait until late July ?"
"Men are still sailing to the Yukon. Steamers leave for Alaska every day."
"True. But the stampeders are taking a risk by leaving this late. Winter comes early up there. So why didn't Jean Jacques sail in April or May?"
"Maybe he didn't have enough money to pay for his passage and his outfit? Someone told me the Canadian customs won't allow anyone into the Klondike unless they have a year's worth of supplies."
Clara's lips thinned into a bitter twist. "He had plenty of money, believe me."
It was small comfort to realize that Clara also felt foolish. Juliette wished that she had never met Clara Klaus. Clara was living, breathing proof that Jean Jacques was not the man she had so totally believed him to be. Lowering her head, she gazed into her lap at her wedding ring, hating that Clara's ring was identical to hers.
In fact, Clara Klaus brought out the worst in her. Her mother and aunt would have been appalled by the unladylike thoughts tumbling through her head and the sharp words that occasionally shot from her lips like barbs aimed at Clara.
"So what do you suggest we do now?" she said, looking away from the curly red strands falling out of Clara's hat.
"I don't know what you're going to do, but I'm going to visit every outfitting store until I confirm that Jean Jacques bought supplies for the Yukon."
"Couldn't we just ask down at the piers? The ship companies must have passenger manifests." But they didn't know the date he had sailed or even if he had sailed. Didn't know which ship company he might have chosen or if he had used his correct name.
Juliette nodded to the maître d', and he hurried to hold their chairs so they could rise and leave the dining room. As they did every night, she and Clara stepped outside and took a turn around the terrace. A damp fish scent reminded Juliette of the nearby Sound. And they could hear street noises, the rush and rattle of harness-drawn vehicles, the cough and bang of an occasional horseless carriage. The wonders of electricity were evident as here and there bright lights flickered on across the city. Power poles and telephone wires were strung along every street like giant clotheslines.
A hollow space opened inside her. Never had Juliette felt so out of place and so completely alone as she did this minute with Clara by her side and dozens of people within sight.
Not a single person, certainly not Clara, cared about Juliette March. No one gave a fig that the noise and bustle of this enormous city unnerved her or that she grieved for the man who had left her behind.
Homesickness swamped her like a wave rearing out of the gathering darkness. She yearned to run home and hide herself away in Aunt Kibble's house. She belonged in small sleepy Linda Vista, where crossing a street didn't terrify her, where strange men didn't tip their hats and pretend a small courtesy gave them the right to run their eyes over her figure. She didn't have the temperament for travel and new places. She wasn't that brave. It did, in fact, astonish her that she had come as far as Seattle.
But going home would be a mistake. Sooner or later, everyone in Linda Vista would hear their suspicions confirmed: that she had been victimized by a confidence man. Such stories had a way of surfacing; they didn't remain secret.
And she couldn't face the scandal and gossip, not after she had once been a role model of decorum. So she wouldn't go home.
But she had no idea what to do next.
Sighing again, she slid a sideways glance at Clara. Only a lifetime of rigid adherence to good manners made it possible for her to endure the intolerable necessity of traveling with a woman her husband had dallied with. She detested Clara Klaus because Clara had known Jean Jacques's touch, and imagining them together made Juliette's bones ache.
"You're quiet tonight," Clara commented, pausing to examine a riot of blossoms stuffed into a stone urn. "Not that I care, you understand, but what are you thinking about?"
"I'm thinking about what you said at the table." Juliette touched the back of her glove to her forehead. She absolutely did not want to dwell on Clara lying naked in Jean Jacques's arms. It was better to suppose such an outrage had never happened. "If we find the outfitting store where my husband purchased his supplies, what do we do then?"
Clara halted at the corner of the terrace and faced her with narrowed eyes. "Every time you say 'my husband' I want to slap you silly."
Such statements no longer shocked her. Which was shocking in itself. "How utterly vulgar to threaten a person!" Truly Clara was common and base.
"Jean Jacques is my husband, too. He is not exclusively your husband."
Juliette's lips went as stiff as her spine. "He was my husband first!" That was important. Hers was the legal marriage. At least that was her assumption, and she believed she was correct.
Clara puffed up, and her face pulsed red. "You know what I think? I think my husband got tired of your prissy superior attitude and left you to find a real woman he could laugh with and be himself with! That's what I think!"
"I'll have you know that Jean Jacques and I laughed all the time!" Juliette refused to be intimidated by a person who slurped her coffee. Pulling to her full five feet two inches, she glared up at Clara. "If I weren't a lady, I would point out that my husband left you quicker than he left me! Apparently sinking to a common level wasn't as fulfilling for him as you'd like to believe!"
"If being common means not putting on silly airs or extending my pinkie when I sip from a cup, then I'm common and proud of it!"
Furious, both Clara and Juliette turned in a spin of summer skirts and strode toward the lobby door. At the foot of the grand staircase, they faced each other again.
"Breakfast at seven," Clara snapped.
"You never said what we'll do if we find where he bought his supplies."
"I don't know, all right? You can go home to California. I wish you would. Maybe I'll buy a boardinghouse with the money I got from selling the inn." Lifting her plain dark skirt, Clara started up the staircase. "I can't wait to see the back of you and your stiff-necked ways!"
"And I you," Juliette said, raising her chin. Even to her own ears she sounded prissy. And she was so weary of this conversation. Every night they exchanged a variation of the same words and sentiments. My husband; your husband. No, my husband.
Juliette didn't tell Clara what was constantly on her mind. She didn't say, I hate you because he touched you and lay with you and held you in his arms. I hate you because you laughed with him and because he said beautiful things to you. I hate you because jealousy is tearing me apart and because I need to know that he loved me better and more than he loved you.
Frowning and blinking hard, she lowered her head and stared at the brooch pinned to her lapel. If she wore this brooch and her blue garter every day, Jean Jacques would come back to her.
Waiting, she gave Clara time to reach her room and go inside so they wouldn't have to encounter each other in the corridor.
Had he ever loved her? Even a little bit?
Blinking rapidly at the liquid burn in her eyes, she lifted her skirts with shaking hands and ascended the staircase. She had never dreamed that a person could hurt so much.
Most of the outfitting stores were strung along First Avenue South, not far from the piers. Mountains of goods spilled onto the sidewalk and into the street, presided over by eager-eyed men checking lists against receipts.
Clara didn't spot any women near the corner of First and Yesler except herself and Juliette. Even so, they didn't attract much attention. Dreams of riches stuffed the heads of the men crowding the walkw
ays and stores, not thoughts of women. Many seemed unaware of the noisy chaos around them; they concentrated solely on packing a year's supply of food into as small a space as possible.
Clara and Juliette began at the top of the street and moved slowly toward the Northern Pacific ticket office, stopping at each of the outfitting stores to interrupt feverishly busy salesmen with questions about a handsome Frenchman. No one recalled the name Jean Jacques Villette.
Discouraged, they silently entered the next store and then stopped abruptly. Juliette gripped her arm. "Good heavens! There's a woman working in this store."
Clara fully supported a woman's right to work if she must, but she, too, was shocked to discover a female working in a store catering exclusively to a male clientele. That the woman was young and attractive made her presence seem even more inappropriate. On the other hand, Clara reminded herself, some people believed it was scandalous for a woman to hand a man a key to a hotel room.
Drawn like magnets, Clara and Juliette passed two harried salesmen and moved directly toward the woman at the back of the store. She watched them approach with cool eyes.
"Can I help you?" she asked, stepping back from her worktable and wiping loose cornmeal off her hands.
Sacking cornmeal was respectable enough, Clara decided. "We'd like to inquire if—"
"Oh!" Juliette sat down hard on top of a flour barrel. Her hands flew to her mouth, and her eyes widened until they must have ached. Shock blanched the color from her cheeks.
Frowning, Clara stared at her. "What's the matter with you?"
"Her hand. Clara, look at her wedding ring!"
"Oh, no!" This time it was Clara who examined a wedding ring and felt like fainting from the pain of recognition. Confusion altered her breathing. How could this be? How many women had Jean Jacques married? Blinking to clear the fog from her vision, she steadied herself on the table in front of her. There was no question. The woman wore Jean Jacques's grandmother's silver heart ring.
The black-haired woman looked back and forth between them with grave apprehension as if she expected them to start foaming at the mouth any instant. "Uncle Milton?" she called, not taking her gaze off Clara and Juliette. "I need some assistance."
"We're not having fits, and we're not crazy," Clara whispered. From the corner of her eye, she saw Juliette yanking at her glove. "Look." She and Juliette held out their left hands.
The woman reeled backward as if they had struck her a punishing blow. Stunned by shock, she stared at her own left hand, then again at Clara's and Juliette's hands.
"My God." Disbelief and bewilderment made her face go slack. She raised trembling fingers to her lips. "The rings. How can this be possible?"
"We both married Jean Jacques Villette," Juliette stated in a toneless voice. "Apparently you did, too."
"My God," the black-haired woman said again. "He had two other wives?" She raised swimming eyes to the tin ceiling. "I trusted him. I…" In the silence that followed, Clara could almost see the woman working it through. "Everything was a lie, wasn't it?"
"I'm sorry," Clara said softly. "We know how hard this moment is for you. It's a shock to us, too, believe me."
"All the time he… but he was married to you two. And I…" Her eyes snapped down into slits. "That son of a bitch! He told me all the things I wanted to hear and played me for a fool."
"Zoe?" A bearded man wearing a long apron emerged from a back room. "Is everything all right here?" He swept a curious glance over Clara and Juliette.
"I'm sorry, Uncle Milton, but I have to leave now." The woman threw off her apron and ran her hands over her skirts, then looked around as if she couldn't remember where she'd put her hat and gloves. "I need to talk to these ladies."
Zoe Wilder shoved a hat on her head and snatched up a small wrist bag. "Follow me," she snapped at Clara and Juliette, then she almost ran out of the outfitting store.
"I feel sick," Juliette whispered. Her face had turned the color of whey. "We're in the center of a nightmare that just gets worse and worse."
Clara understood. A sense of unreality made her feel dizzy as they followed Zoe outside and climbed back up the steep incline to First and Yesler.
Grimly, Clara watched wife number three veer into a small park, fling herself down on a wooden bench, and fall forward, burying her face in her hands.
Clara and Juliette silently waited, once again subjecting themselves to the misery of comparisons.
* * *
Chapter 4
After punctuating Juliette's and Clara's tales of woe with little moans and cries, Zoe related her story. As she finished on a half-sob, drops of warm summer rain splattered her hat brim and spotted her skirt. Jumping to her feet, she dashed toward her boardinghouse, beckoning the other Mmes Villette to follow.
Once inside she recognized her mistake. Pain pinched the faces of her rivals as they gazed around her small sitting room and then stared at her bedroom door. Oddly, until now Zoe hadn't noticed how little Jean Jacques had left behind.
Her gaze swung to the book of wildflowers on the small round table near the window. Between the pages she had pressed the roses from the bouquet Jean Jacques had given her on their wedding day. She had one of his handkerchiefs, a cuff link she'd found beneath the bed, and a book of poetry. These items could have belonged to anyone.
Fearing her knees would collapse, Zoe sagged against the wall and covered her eyes. How could she have been so stupid? Why hadn't she looked beyond that handsome face? There must have been signs if she'd had the eyes to see, small slipups if she hadn't been too dazzled to notice.
"We're not permitted to cook in our rooms, but everyone does. I'll make some coffee." If Ma were here she'd throw up her hands. Not only had Zoe brought home her husband's other wives, she was about to serve them refreshments like the perfect little lady that Jean Jacques had believed she was. Or had he?
Opening her eyes, she stared at Juliette. Juliette perched on the edge of the divan, her spine not touching the back cushion. Her knees were modestly pressed together, her hands folded in her lap. With a sinking sensation, Zoe suspected Juliette was the genuine item. And they could not be more unalike. Zoe didn't possess Juliette's quiet stillness, nor her sense of style. She would never have sat as Juliette was sitting. Everything about Juliette March Villette proclaimed her pedigree. Her posture, her clothing. The way she spoke, the way she walked and carried her head. And the reverse must be true as well. Everything about Zoe Wilder Villette announced that she was a Newcastle girl with a chip on her shoulder and calluses on her palms. She knew how to work and fight and swear, and she suspected her background was as obvious as Juliette's.
Aching inside and no longer sure of anything, she went through the motions of making coffee atop the potbelly stove. At once the room became unbearably hot, so she opened her window, not caring if rain dripped inside. For a long moment she gazed at her watery image reflected in the upper panes. The face of a fool.
She should have known that Jean Jacques couldn't be real. Handsome princes didn't appear and lay a kingdom at the feet of someone like Zoe Wilder. What craziness had made her think she deserved to have her dreams come true?
"Oh, Ma," she said softly, pressing her forehead to the cool window glass. She had betrayed the people she loved most. Jean Jacques's aristocratic tales of wealth and the exalted life they would lead together had made her feel ashamed of her family. She had actually felt humiliated when she anticipated what the servants would think when Ma came to visit wearing her crushed hat and mended stockings. Shame almost dropped her to her knees.
She would never forgive him for making her feel embarrassed about her family.
"Thank you. This is good coffee," Juliette murmured after Zoe poured. She balanced her cup and saucer on her knees, making the feat look comfortable and easy.
Clara's eyebrows lifted toward a fringe of red hair. "What are you doing? This is the worst moment of our lives, and you're making polite comments about the coffee!" Disgust pu
rsed her lips as she set her saucer on the floor beside her sensible shoes.
Zoe wished she had splurged and purchased the table she wanted to place before the divan. Later, Jean Jacques's other two wives would probably laugh and make cutting comments about how they'd had to place their cups and saucers on the floor.
"We needn't abandon proper manners because we're upset and distraught," Juliette announced, raising her chin. "Manners are the armor of civilized people. Manners will see one through the most difficult situations."
Clara sighed heavily and rolled her eyes.
First Zoe listened in disbelief. Then outrage stretched her skin tight across her cheekbones. Jean Jacques must have secretly chuckled every time he referred to her as a lady. Mortification flamed bright on her throat. She, who always believed herself too smart to be flimflammed, had been taken in completely. What stuck in her craw was how easily and quickly she had lost her senses. A few besotted glances. A few flattering honeyed words. Clean fingernails. And she had fancied herself in love.
"I am going to find him," she said furiously, speaking between her teeth. "And when I do, I swear I am going to put a bullet between his lying eyes!"
"I'd appreciate it if you didn't make me a widow before I get my money back," Clara said in a short, terse voice.
"And not before he explains everything," Juliette added.
Clara threw out her hands and gave Zoe an exasperated look. "She refuses to believe that he married us for the money!"
"If it was only money, then why didn't he take more?" Juliette glared at them. "I would have given him twice the amount he suggested. He could have waited until you sold your inn, Clara, and taken those funds, too. And you would have given him all your reward money plus your nest egg, wouldn't you?"
"Yes," Zoe admitted, hating the truth of it.
"But I guess I do know it was mostly the money," Juliette admitted softly, blinking down at her cup and saucer. "I want to believe it wasn't only that. I want to believe he loved me a little, too. Maybe that's why he only took part of my money. In any case, he owes us an explanation. I need to hear the truth from his own lips."
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