"On trial for what?" she asked.
His breathing was coming hard now, his frustration pressing against his chest like a stone. "For the abduction of Charlotte Whittier, the woman."
Kathryn gasped.
Charlotte swallowed hard.
And he forged ahead, his words pouring forth on their own, out of his control. "Or have you actually killed off the woman, Charlotte? Have you and Cabot succeeded where God failed?"
"I won't have it!" Kathryn said, coming to her feet. "Not such blasphemy in my home and at my table!"
"You're jealous!" Charlotte shouted right back at him, not relying on Kathryn to end her battles for her. "Every man but Cabot is jealous because I've succeeded where they've failed. I've done what they've only wished they could do. And I've proven a woman can do it. I've done it for every wife at her husband's mercy, for every daughter that's made to learn the graces at the expense of common sense, for every woman whose rights are canceled by a man's tyranny. You watch me, Ashford Whittier. I'll be on the bench one day. And someday I'll vote too. And then there will be no stopping women. First in the courtrooms and then in the polling places. Eventually in every branch of government right up to the Congress and the White House itself!"
"And what will you have accomplished for women if you can't be who you are? What good will you have done them or yourself if all you're doing is emulating a man? Charlotte, you aren't a woman lawyer, you're just one more male lawyer, only you're wearing a dress."
Kathryn had made her way to the hall. She was stopped in the doorway, looking first at Ash and then at Charlotte as if the two were batting a lawn-tennis ball. She was stooped slightly, more weight than usual on her cane, and she balanced herself by holding on to the door frame. It appeared she was going nowhere without hearing Charlotte's response.
"Do you think that I could have gotten where I am, allowed to practice in any court in California, if I wasn't as tough and strong as I've become?" Charlotte asked him. She still sat at the table despite the fact that he towered over her now, shouting at her, berating her as if it were her fault he had fallen in love with her.
The knowledge staggered him, and he sat in the nearest chair, his knees just inches away from her thigh.
"Listen to me, Charlotte," he said softly, reaching for a dry cloth and patting at her sleeve for her. "You are a brilliant and talented woman. But you are a woman, and that's where your strength lies. Don't you see that as a woman you bring something special to the table? To the court? To everywhere you grace?"
"You don't understand," she said, and her bottom lip trembled so that she had to bite on it to get it under control.
"No," he said, signaling for Rosa to place the fancy cake in front of her. "It's you who don't understand. A woman doesn't just see the issues, the way a man does. She feels them. And to deny that gift, to shut off that caring side, that womanliness, is to throw away all that you've gained for women just for Cabot's misplaced respect."
"He does respect me, you know," she said softy, her hazel eyes swimming in tears. "And I deserve that respect."
"I don't doubt you deserve it," Ash agreed, cutting a piece of the cake for her. "And a lot more."
"What is this?" she asked, looking at the cake ringed with upright ladyfingers and filled high with whipping cream. There was also, according to Mrs. Mason, just a touch of almond liqueur.
"It's a charlotte russe," he said softly, licking off the bit he had gotten on his fingers in serving her. Mrs. Mason had done his request justice with the recipe she'd found in Mrs. Beeton's Household Management. He found himself entirely satisfied with her interpretation of the French confection. "The sweetest thing in the world."
He watched her eat every drop on her plate, delighted with how well she fancied it. Charlotte Russe, he thought. Indeed, the sweetest thing in the world.
Still and all, the celebration went flat, the rest of the cake was returned to the kitchen, untouched.
CHAPTER 8
He coulda just gone straight to old Doc Mollenoff's place instead of dropping by the tavern. His pa would have found out when he got home—if he wasn't too far gone to notice Davis missing from the couch. That's what anybody with a lick of sense woulda done. He coulda left a note reminding the old man that he'd be rubbing elbows with the silver-spoon crowd. But no, he had to go right into McGinty's and push his pa's nose in his own droppings.
He brushed at the fresh bruise on his cheek and gingerly touched an ear. The darn thing was probably still bleeding even with all the packing the doc had done.
"I—I..." he'd started to tell the old man sitting there on the stool like Her Majesty's own consort, with Deirdre hanging on his every word as she filled his small glass with another whiskey and the large mug with still more Oakland's Best.
Ewing had glared at him, waiting, and then turned away when Davis's tongue decided on its own that the old man wasn't worth the effort. Instead he'd just thrust the card the woman had given him at his father.
"And you think I wouldn't be knowing where me own son was wettin' the pillow with drool?" his father had asked. "The one lady in all of Oakland that's got 'er nose higher in the air than old Judge Mallory, and she's gotta take a shine to me own millstone. I know where them Whittiers are and I know what they be up to at any given moment."
Then he'd launched into one of his nothing-happens-in-this-town-of-which-I-ain't-aware speeches and proceeded to tell Deirdre, and anyone else who could stand hearing him crow like some peacock again, about how important a carrier of the mail could be. He was a bloomin mailman! Lord give him patience!
Meanwhile his da had blabbered on about how he knew the ins and outs that nobody else had put together, not even the coppers, bless their stinkin' hearts.
Davis shoulda left right then. He'd done what he come for, telling his da where he'd be. No need to rub his nose in how Davis had been invited to stay with the upper crust cause his da couldn't hold his liquor and went crazy every Friday.
It had taken him long enough, trying to get the whole thought out, everyone waiting for enough words so that they could just fill in the end themselves.
And before they could, he'd gone and got his ears boxed.
He deserved it, he figured. Deserved a lot worse than his da had ever managed to dish out. Always breaking down and being sorry before he ever really let that last punch loose.
Course, he didn't seem too sorry earlier in McGinty's.
The horsecar ride over'd been bumpier than usual. Too much rain, Doc Mollenoff had told him, trying to make Davis lean against him like some baby. Too little rain, the doc's sister had said before rolling up her shawl and handing it to Davis to hold for her. He didn't mind much about holding her wrap, though, since it made him a pretty good pillow against all the banging and bumping that had gone and woken up every pain he had.
She'd wrapped it about herself when they'd gotten off the trolley a few blocks from Mr. Whittier's place and hummed some tune that was real familiar to him, all the way to the house on Oak Street.
"I tried to refuse to speak to him at all," Miss Mollenoff was telling anyone who would listen just as that old geezer, Arthur, was pushing Mr. Whittier into the room. Arthur was so old, he made Mr. Whittier look kinda middle aged.
"Selma, it's all right," the missus said, a bunch of papers in her hand. She was a lawyer, Davis thought, looking at her and trying to figure out what her angle was. A lady lawyer. Now, that was something, all right. Probably thought she was too smart for the likes of him to outwit. "After dinner you'll tell me exactly what was said."
"After dinner my eye!" the mister said. "Be a good girl and give us something to sink our teeth into, Selma dear. No doubt it's salmon instead of steak for our bellies, so how about something tougher for our minds?"
"It's Friday," the really old lady, the lawyer's mother, said. "Of course it's fish."
"Thank you, Mrs. Vhittier," Dr. Mollenoff said with a slight bow as he held out the chair for her and helped her sit in it. When
Davis was that old, he hoped he'd be dead.
"Yes," Selma agreed. She was kinda pretty, in a plain way that reminded Davis a little of his mother. Not that his mother was plain—'cause she wasn't. She was beautiful. But Selma did look a little like her without some of the details drawn in. "Thank you. You're a wonder at remembering our laws."
"They're Jewish," the other Mr. Whittier, the one with the parrot, whispered to him. "So they keep kosher."
Davis nodded. He didn't know what a kosher was or where they kept it, but he figured wherever it was, it was probably the same place they were hiding their horns, which everyone knew Jews had. Selma had a lot of hair, piled high, and wide enough to hide a good-size set of horns, but the doc... he couldn't hide a single hair on his head without it sticking out plain as a pikestaff with the flag of Ireland waving on it.
***
"Foolish nonsense," Cabot said as he waved away the pottage of love apples and leaned forward at the table. "No offense intended, Mollenoff. I have no quarrel with Judaism specifically, but with religion in general. Archaic laws to bind a people to an unproven force and keep them subservient by the exploitation of their fears and the comfort of their traditions."
"Cabot," Charlotte said, outraged on her guests' behalf. "That's insulting. Judaism goes back thousands of years and their dietary laws are rooted in strong health concerns that have proven correct over the centuries."
"Yattita, yattita, yattita," Cabot said with a sigh that was meant to put her in her place. "And we're supposed to eat fish on Friday because Christ did. Take a man's idiosyncracies and—"
"Not in my house," Kathryn said, signaling the servants to stop in their tracks. "You will apologize to me, to our guests, and to the Lord, Cabot Whittier, or you will leave my table and, very likely, my heart."
She was stonily silent, her hands remarkably still, not a shake in them as she waited for Cabot's contrition.
"I'm sure Cabot didn't mean—" Charlotte began when her husband said nothing. Why here, why now, did he have to bring up his quarrel with God? She had understood, even accepted, his rejection of some all-powerful being's allowing him to be ruined as a man in his prime for the heinous crime of saving his little brother.
Under his tutelage she had kept her faith private and to herself until it had all but vanished. But to challenge the strong beliefs of others was an unforgivable breach of the social etiquette he embraced almost as strongly as others worshiped the Lord.
"Apologize," his mother demanded.
His brother, Ash, sat sadly shaking his head. "You know, Cabot, there are people who, in the face of adversity, actually embrace their faith instead of abandoning it."
"Well, I suppose some people have a need," Cabot answered. "And hope."
"You've left out gratitude," Dr. Mollenoff said, fingering tassels that escaped from just beneath his vest.
"Gratitude? Am I wrong that the Cossacks came to Poland and forced you from your home, Mollenoff?" Cabot asked. "Is that what you're grateful for? Weren't your relatives and friends left behind to die?"
"Cabot!" Charlotte didn't know how Kathryn managed to find her tongue. Her own was thick and lodged in her mouth where she fought against it to draw a breath.
"Are Selma and I not here, in America, where we are safe and free? For that I thank my God," Dr. Mollenoff said in the lyrical cadence his accent provided. "God is good, Cabot Vhittier. just because ve are not vise enough to understand Him doesn't reveal a veakness on His part, but on ours."
"Amen," Charlotte said softly, ignoring the widening of Cabot's eyes. Let him worship the law. After all, the California Penal Code had become his bible, the judges who handed down opinions, his gods.
Maria took a step forward with the silver platter on which the salmon and green peas were artistically arranged, but Kathryn raised her hand and shook her head.
"I'll have your apology, Cabot, or your good-night."
"And so you have it," Cabot said, bowing slightly with his head. "My apologies, Mother. My point being made, I see no reason to leave my belly any emptier than my head."
"That would be rather difficult from where I sit," Ash said, squeezing his mother's hand gently and refilling the doctor's goblet with wine. Next he reached over the table and carefully poured the deep red wine into Charlotte's glass, winking at her as he did.
"Don't you take anything seriously?" she asked him.
"I take a great many things seriously," he said, staring at her as if she were suddenly the only one in the room with him. "But my brother's opinion of religion is not one of those things."
"How about my opinion of the status of your case?" Cabot asked. "The meeting I had with our investigator last night? Miss Mollenoff's meeting with the district attorney? Who I believe Sam Greenbough sold those damn beans to and for just how much? Any of those concern you, or is your mind occupied elsewhere even as we speak?"
There was a note in Cabot's voice, a warning, perhaps, that Charlotte wasn't sure she had ever heard before. There was an edge, a gruffness, that belied the gentility in which he so prided himself.
"Contrary to public opinion, as well as your private opinion, I'm sure," Ash said to his brother in a surprisingly similar voice that only served to remind Charlotte of their relationship, "I can concentrate on more than one thing at a time. In fact, I can button my shirt, sing some ditty, and still have a thought in my head quite at the same moment."
"It's when you are unbuttoning your shirt that all that ability seems to hide under the sheets, then. Is that it?"
Across from her, Davis's eyes widened and his jaw dropped just a bit. When he caught her watching him, he quickly lowered his head and busied himself with the last drops of soup in his bowl.
"Why don't you tell us about what the district attorney asked?" Charlotte said to Selma, trying to steer the conversation, and her mind, away from the thought of Ashford Whittier unbuttoning his shirt. Pulling her gaze from his collarless shirt and leaning forward so that she could focus on Selma, who sat two seats away from her, she fought to rid her mind of her brother-in-law's chest.
It didn't work. Instead, Michelangelo's David came to mind and she sighed, caught herself, and tried to hide it with a stretch and mumblings about being tired. Selma was repeating how she had not wanted to tell the DA anything at all and how he had tried to trick her into admissions that she cleverly fought off at every turn.
Of course, Ashford Whittier didn't look one bit like David.
For one thing, he had clothes on.
She felt her cheeks burn and tried harder to concentrate on what Selma was saying.
"On and on he pressed me about the books. Did Mr. Whittier ever ask me to change an entry? Did he ever question my figures?"
And, too, Ashford Whittier had hair on his chest. Charlotte had seen the dark wiry strands escaping the confines of his unfastened collar twice now, looking like some springs gone haywire.
"And I told him that Mr. Whittier showed very little interest in the books at all," Selma continued. "That he took care of the importing and any dealings with the clients overseas."
David, now full blown and in all his naked glory, reached across the table for the platter of gratin of asparagus by her elbow. With a gasp she grabbed for her wine, took a small sip, and followed it with a very unladylike mouthful, swallowing it quickly. Too quickly. Choking for a breath, she wheezed as if the wine had been laced with bones.
Ash, once again fully clothed, thank goodness, was on his feet and behind her practically before her breath had caught in her throat. He grabbed her wrists and pulled her arms above her head with one hand while he pounded gently on her back with the other. Still coughing, her eyes swam in tears while everyone around the table shouted directions for her well-being.
Her voice croaking and broken, she tried to tell them all she was perfectly all right.
Actually, it was a wasted effort and she needn't have bothered trying, since Ash was reassuring them all of the fact while he gently massaged a spot be
tween her shoulder blades. "You're okay," he repeated over and over while his hands investigated her back and no doubt learned more than he had any business knowing. The tips of his fingers seemed to be searching for her corset. Tender circles made lower and lower on her spine announced that he had found none. He squeezed her shoulders in what felt like full approval, and she realized that she'd left her hands high in the air and that she was surrounded by five pairs of very wide eyes. Sheepishly she lowered her hands, and her gaze along with them.
But not before seeing the daggers that shot from Cabot's eyes at his brother. What did he want? For her to choke to death? She hadn't seen any move on Cabot's part to help her. Had Cabot ever touched her back? Anyplace but the top of her hand, which he patted frequently enough to make her feel like an obedient pet?
She hardly knew the feel of his hands, but his brother's had been warm, strong, and reassuring.
"Are you all right?" Selma asked her when it was finally clear that she certainly was, but no one seemed to know quite what to say.
"She's fine," Cabot said before she could get the words out herself. "I thought we'd done the wine thing, Charlotte, and that I'd taught you to sip rather than gulp it down as if it hadn't fermented yet."
"Thank you, Cabot, for embarrassing me further. I certainly hadn't suffered enough," she said with a tight, polite smile.
"I hardly think choking on a glass of wine is cause for recrimination." Ash made an elaborate ritual of placing his napkin on his lap, then shifted his body so that his back was to Cabot. "You're looking especially lovely tonight, Mother."
"Yes," Charlotte agreed. There was a distinct pinkness to her mother-in-law's cheeks despite the worried look on her face. "Very pretty, actually."
"Oh, Pretty! I want some of that!" Liberty shouted from the kitchen. Despite his banishment he seemed to follow conversations from the distance, and always had an inappropriate comment at an appropriate time. Each outburst was usually followed by "Shut up, you stupid bird!" said either by the parrot himself or by a disgusted diner or two.
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