by Jenna Kernan
Her husband struggled against the grip of the younger men. “You have no right to hold me.”
“We do if she’ll bear witness,” said one patrolman.
“Hush now,” said the other.
“This is outrageous,” said Hart.
Troy cocked a pistol. The distinctive click drew the attention of every person in the room.
Chapter 27
Troy leveled the pistol at her father, who instantly ceased his struggles with the patrolmen to face this new threat. Instead of protests and bluster, he trembled. Sweat beaded on his upper lip.
“He means to kill me. You must protect me.” He drew back in an awkward attempt to drag the two patrolmen before him while they still clasped his arms.
“Lena, you got a room you can lock up?”
“Several.”
“Pick one, ’cause if I have to listen to another word, I’m likely to shoot your pa.”
Eleanor lifted a brow at the patrolmen, who exchanged confused looks.
“Gentlemen?” she said and motioned toward the door.
The older one shrugged. “Can’t fault us if we’re at gun-point. Lead the way, miss.”
She stepped from the room and waited as Troy motioned with the barrel of a revolver for the men to follow. In a few minutes they had secured her father in the wine cellar where he howled like a madman.
Troy took possession of the key and then returned the revolvers to the patrolman. “You two best wait outside for your captain.”
The men hurried up the stairs, bumping into each other in their rush to vacate the premises.
“Eleanor!” bellowed her father. “Release me this instant.”
She faced him. “No, Father. I think that is just where you belong.”
He threw himself against the iron bars he’d installed to keep his thieving servants out of his supplies. The hinges shuddered, but held. She turned away from the sound that sent a chill up her spine. At the top of the stairs she glanced back at the spitting, frothing man that was her father.
“Eleanor!” he shouted. “I forbid you to go with this savage.”
Her eyes narrowed as fury erupted from within her.
“The only savage here,” she said, “is you.”
With that, she lifted her skirts and ascended to the upper floors, leaving her father to throw himself against the iron bars like the animal she now knew him to be.
Chief Constable Martin listened to the servants, Charlotte and Eleanor, before turning to Troy.
“So you admit to striking Mr. Hart?”
“I tried to disarm him but he was against it.”
“So you hit him?”
Eleanor rose to her feet, anger making her bristle. “What is the matter with you? We have all told you what happened. If not for Mr. Price, my mother and I might both be dead. He saved us.”
“He broke into your house, assaulted Mr. Hart and tied him to the table.”
Her mother set aside her cold compress. She motioned to her footman. “Send for Mr. Howard March. Tell him I am in need of his immediate assistance.”
Martin paled at the mention of his superior, then seemed to gather his courage and faced her mother. “A prominent man has been attacked in his own home. Someone is to blame.”
“Mr. Martin, please recall that it is I who supports the patrolman’s benevolent society, not my venerable husband.”
Martin’s forehead gleamed with perspiration. “I can’t arrest Mr. Hart—I’ll lose my job.”
“Good heavens, I don’t want him arrested,” said Charlotte. “Only temporarily subdued.”
“Mother!” cried Eleanor. “Of course you do.”
Charlotte turned to her daughter. “Now you listen to me, my girl. It is bad enough for the servants to gossip. I won’t have the whole town knowing my business.”
“Well you can’t keep the man locked in his own cellar,” said Martin.
Charlotte tapped her index finger to her lips as she thought.
“How long do I have to file charges?” she asked.
“Usually we just arrest them when we learn about a crime.”
“Not in this case. I want you to interview my daughter, Mr. Price and my staff in my presence. Then I want a copy of all reports brought by courier to my sister’s residence in Boston. I’ll be staying there.”
“I can’t do that.”
“I see. Then you have grown weary of your work as constable? Perhaps you do not need favorable references to pursue this new opportunity?” She touched a finger to her pointed chin, thoughtfully. “We shall wait for Mr. March and see what he makes of it. I’m certain he will concur with me.”
The man rubbed his neck as if feeling the noose tighten. Eleanor admired her mother’s use of connections. By summoning the Chief Constable of Newport as if he were an upstairs maid, she had achieved her purpose. This underling was well and truly cowed.
“Why don’t we just arrest Mr. Price?” said the constable, who no longer sounded at all sure of himself.
“And take my rescuer off to prison? I think not.” How her mother managed to look haughty with one eye completely swollen shut was beyond Lena. “I will assume responsibility for this man until you finish your investigation. Should you find need to question him further, contact my solicitor, Mr. Kingsley. Now if you will kindly wait across the hall in the dining room, I shall assemble my staff.”
Thus dismissed, the man nonetheless continued to linger a moment, seemed on the verge of further discourse and then reconsidered.
“Yes, Mrs. Hart.” His bow held the stiffness of a man ill at ease with his situation.
“Fetch him some tea,” her mother said, waving a hand at the footman standing guard by the door. “Then bring ’round Mrs. Beardsley.”
When the housekeeper appeared, Charlotte rallied from the settee once more.
“Mrs. Beardsley, please gather all the servants who witnessed the altercation in the dining room. I wish a word.”
Beardsley’s eyes widened and her face turned a bright shade of pink. “Yes, madam.”
“I expect the constable will want to hear the truth this time.”
“Yes, madam. It’s just that—well, Mr. Hart, he told us that he’d have our jobs if we said a word.”
Charlotte’s eyes narrowed.
“Tell them that I shall add a silver dollar to their month’s wage and guarantee employment to each man and woman who tells Constable Martin the truth.”
“Yes, madam.”
“I also require a coach prepared. I am leaving for Boston today. Please make the arrangements. I shall not sleep under his roof one more night.”
“Yes, Mrs. Hart.”
She turned to her daughter. “Gather what you need. You will accompany me.”
Eleanor turned to Troy. He stood silent waiting for her.
“No, Mother. I go with him, if he will still have me.”
Charlotte cast her withering gaze upon Troy. “Why wouldn’t he? Through you, he’ll become richer than Midas. Even without your father’s inheritance, which I seriously doubt, you are still my heir and that amounts to a fortune.”
“Troy is not interested in my money.”
Charlotte laughed, turning her swollen face into a grotesque mask. Then she leveled her one useful eye on Troy.
“You do not deserve her.”
He nodded. “True enough. But neither do you.”
Charlotte gasped. “How dare you?”
Lena scowled. “Mother.”
“He is beneath you.”
Troy wisely remained mute.
“Mother, he will be my husband. You can’t stop me with threats or bribes,” said Eleanor.
She waited while her mother mulled this over.
At last she nodded her understanding. “Are you certain, Nora? Even I will not be able to orchestrate your readmittance into society if you wed this man.”
“I don’t care about society or their petty rules. I have no more use for them.”
Her mot
her looked doubtful.
“There is more to the world than New York and Newport, Mother.”
She scoffed. “Yes—but we shall never see London now.”
Lena clasped her mother’s hand, feeling the warmth and inhaling the familiar scent of gardenias. “He is my world.”
“Oh, Nora. Don’t ever give a man your heart. They are such clumsy, thoughtless creatures.”
Eleanor looked at Troy, whose eyes twinkled with mischief.
“Goodbye, Mother,” said Eleanor and kissed her cheek
Charlotte glared at Troy. “You shan’t have a nickel from me, my boy. Do you understand?”
Troy moved to stand beside Eleanor, his hand proprietary upon her lower back.
“Always managed without it. Besides, Lena and me got jobs waiting on the Missouri.”
Her mother paled. “Jobs! You cannot mean to force your wife to work.”
“I’ve seen what happens to folks with no work. You and your husband are the laziest, most useless folks on God’s green earth. I wouldn’t trade a hair on Lena’s head for the whole lot of you.”
“Harts do not work. It is simply not done.”
“She’s a painter, a damned good one, plus she’ll be a Price soon enough and free of the whole superior lot of you.”
“Barbarian.”
“I take that for a compliment.” He spoke to Eleanor now. “Best be going before they sic the dogs on me.”
“I’ll just get a few things.”
Troy rolled his eyes. “I ain’t got all day.”
“Nora, you can’t mean to go with him now? Come to Boston. Your aunt and I will give you a proper wedding.”
Eleanor glanced at Troy who made a face. “Sounds awful.”
She giggled.
“We will visit before heading west.”
Charlotte glared at Troy.
“I’ll wait outside, but if you’re not out in twenty minutes, I’ll kick in the front door.” He headed out leaving Charlotte and Eleanor alone.
“You are making a dreadful mistake.”
Eleanor sighed and nodded. “I shall hope that my mistakes prove less disastrous than yours.”
Charlotte sighed and returned the ice to her eye.
“Will Father follow us?”
Her mother thought for a moment. “I am going to offer your father a bargain. He and I will keep separate residences henceforward. In return I will not press charges. I believe I can convince him to leave you in peace.”
“No divorce.”
“Certainly not.”
“What if he refuses?”
“Oh, he won’t. Your father loathes a scandal.”
“Will you be all right?”
“Nora, you know my connections. Your father will not wish to jeopardize them. He’ll allow it.”
“Then why did you stay with him all this time?”
“I didn’t really. I stayed here and he worked in New York. We rarely see each other even when we’re living in the same house. I don’t care who he sees and he allows me the same freedom. It was the perfect match.”
Eleanor felt a well of pity for her mother and the life she had chosen.
“In any case, I shall just formalize our understanding. With luck, I’ll not see him again.”
“The perfect match,” said Eleanor.
Her mother suddenly looked small and fragile.
“I’ll miss you, mother.”
Charlotte hugged her daughter. “I will see that he does not follow. I shall insist that Constable Martin leave him in the cellar until after I vacate the premises and that will take me the rest of the day. I shall not go before I have his name on a signed contract. But, Nora, he shall certainly disown you.”
Eleanor kissed her mother’s cheek. “Farewell.”
“Wait. I did not say I would disown you. When you reach New York, send word. I’ll see funds released to you. But they shall be in your name. If you are to ruin yourself, at least you won’t starve.”
“Thank you, Mama.”
Charlotte lowered her compress to hug her daughter. “I shall miss you, Nora. Write to me soon.”
“Yes, Mama.”
She left the room, hurrying upstairs to gather the pieces of her old life she could not yet abandon and to don a heavy woolen cloak. She exited the grand entrance holding only a reticule, but trailed by two footmen carrying her bags.
Troy drew his hat from his head. “I don’t have a mule here, Lena.”
“We don’t need them.”
She turned to the footmen, who loaded the bags into the waiting carriage and tied Scheherazade to the back. Beside the mare stood a black Arabian gelding. Troy lifted his brow.
“A wedding gift from your bride,” she said.
The men withdrew.
He glanced about. “You gonna take a carriage all the way to New York?”
Lena bounced on her toes with excitement. “Certainly not. There is a steamer at 4:00 p.m. today.”
The footman held open the door and Eleanor swept inside, settling in as Troy crawled in beside her. The door closed and a moment later the wheels ground on the gravel as they rolled past the great lawn before her parents’ palatial summer home. Up until this moment, it had been her home as well.
Uncertainty fluttered within her.
“It’s a lot to give up,” Troy said.
She stared into his confident eyes.
“I’ll love you all my life, Lena. As for the rest, this world is safer than the way we’ll make together.”
She fingered her throbbing cheek unsure that was true. Certainty swelled anew. She belonged with Troy.
“I shan’t miss it.” She snuggled against him as they cleared the wrought-iron gates. Now he hesitated.
“I’ll never be able to give you anything so grand.”
She smiled reassurance to him as she captured his hands.
“You already have. Your love is more grand that all this finery.” Her hand swept toward the house. “This is a trap. A lovely gilded cage full of luxury and emptiness. I am the luckiest woman in the world. Soon I’ll be Lena Price.”
He gave her a dazzling smile and she threw herself into his arms for a kiss filled with promise and longing.
Warm autumn sunshine greeted her like a promise as they rolled down Bellevue Street past the manicured lawns and neatly trimmed hedges.
Freedom filled her lungs.
“What about your paints?” asked Troy.
“I’ve packed them.”
Troy rolled his eyes.
“What?” she asked.
“I’m afraid we’ll sink the boat.”
She laughed. “Are you insinuating that I do not know how to pack?”
“I seen the folderol you consider essentials, when you don’t but need one change of clothes and a proper coat.”
She grinned at him. “A woman needs a few more items than that, I’m afraid.”
“No—I’m afraid.” He gave her a look of mock horror.
She pressed a hand over her heart in a gesture meant to imitate grave offense. “Do you want me to marry you dressed in buckskin?”
“Buck naked would be better.”
Her cheeks flamed. “Mr. Price!”
His gaze radiated desire. “I’ve missed you, Lena.”
The heat generated by his words threatened to set her aflame.
“I want to love you again.”
“We are not yet wed.”
“Pick a church then.”
Eleanor pressed a finger to her mole and thought. “I believe the steamboat captain can perform that service.”
Eleanor stared down at the simple gray dress and smiled. As a girl she had pictured her wedding day. Her mind had swathed her in ivory silk for a ceremony at Trinity Church in New York surrounded by society’s premier citizens. What a relief to never have to face such a charade.
“Perhaps this dress is just right for a bride.”
He grinned. “I prefer what’s underneath.”
She la
ughed.
They reached the docks of Newport and purchased two tickets for the Washington. The steamer already waited there with two huge paddlewheels freshly painted and the dual boilers gleaming copper bright. She arranged a cabin and spoke to the captain, who agreed to marry them as soon as they’d cleared the bay. She found herself nearly desperate to be alone with Troy and waited impatiently for the call to board. As she stood upon the rail, she recalled how Troy had rescued them.
“How did you know to come to our aid?” she asked.
“Figured the chair flying out the window weren’t an everyday occurrence ’round here.”
She shook her head. “But the window is at least ten feet from the ground and you dived through.”
“A trick of the Sioux. They leap on an enemy from horseback. Gives them an advantage.”
Eleanor smiled at Troy. “You certainly are a knight to rescue two damsels in distress.”
“One particular damsel looked to be wielding a poker with some degree of skill.”
She laughed at that. “Well, I am certain my fencing master would be pleased to hear it.”
“Lena, do you want to wait to get hitched?”
“For what?”
“For your ma and family. I can wait, if you’ve a mind to.”
She stared up at his earnest face.
“Well, I can’t,” she said.
He released a breath. “Thank God.”
She laughed and he leaned in to kiss her, but she stepped away. “If you kiss me, I’m afraid I shall make quite a fool of myself.”
He pressed his lips in a grim line as if in pain and then nodded his agreement.
At last the ropes were thrown clear and the great engines engaged. Soon water streamed off the wheels as the steamer churned into the bay.
A porter arrived.
“Captain is ready for you on the bridge, Miss Hart.”
Troy offered his elbow and they followed their guide. Captain Richards bowed to Eleanor and shook Troy’s hand. His brown mustache curled up in a smile.
“Quite an honor for me, Miss Hart,” he said. “Let’s get started then. If you’ll just stand over here. I’ve asked two of my officers to stand as witnesses.”
They moved into position and the captain began the ceremony with New England economy.
He finished in record time.
“Bring the bottle,” he called to his officer.