Baroness

by Susan May Warren

  She pushed open the door, closing it behind her. Maybe he’d come home to surprise her—he did that once after he’d won, bought roses and scattered them around the house. “Guthrie?”

  She flicked on the light.

  She slammed her hand against her mouth to press back her scream.

  Guthrie lay thrashing on the floor of the foyer on his stomach, one man twisting his hand behind his back, pinning him, another with his knee in his back, his hand clamped to his mouth. Blood dripped from a cut over his eye, his nose bled over his captor’s hand.

  He shook the man away. “Rosie, get out of here!”

  The man wrenched his arm harder, and he yelled in agony.

  “Stop—you’re going to break his arm!”

  “It’s not his pitching arm,” said a voice from behind her. She froze.

  She steeled herself as Cesar walked out of the shadows. He held a bat—one of Guthrie’s—in his grip.

  “Hello, Rosie.”

  “Leave her alone! This doesn’t involve her!”

  She glanced at Guthrie. What didn’t—

  “It absolutely involves her, Guthrie. How stupid are you? This is all about me losing my star.” Cesar stepped up to her, tucked his cold hand under her chin. “I’ve missed you, Red.”

  Then he kissed her. She jerked herself away from him and threw her hand up in defense when she saw him curl a fist.

  “Don’t you touch her!”

  She heard a pleading on the tail of Guthrie’s voice that made her want to weep. She dropped to her knees, crawled over to him. “What’s he talking about? How did he find us?”

  “C’mon, pet, I read the paper. Guthrie made all the headlines when the Giants bought him.” He tapped the bat in the palm of his hand. “Perfect timing too, because my ace at the Yanks had started to dry up.”

  She shook her head.

  “Do the math, sweetheart. You cost me a hundred grand in bookings. I need recompense. Guthrie here agreed to throw a few games, work off your debt.”

  She stared at him. He looked away from her.

  Oh, Guthrie. So that was why he couldn’t bear to talk to her. She’d turned him into a cheat.

  “Except for today, see. Today, he decides to win. So I had to remind him just what he had to lose.”

  Guthrie howled as Cesar’s man twisted his arm.

  “Leave him alone! I’ll get you the money—I have the money. Please. Don’t hurt him.”

  Cesar crossed the room in one step and grabbed her by the hair, yanking her to her feet, putting his face in hers. “I know you do.” His breath bore the stench of whisky. She turned away from the spittle on the sides of his mouth, and he dropped her back on the floor. “You’ve got two days.” He tapped his enforcer on the shoulder, and he released Guthrie.

  Guthrie turned over, and she saw the fury in his eyes. She grabbed his hand, pulled him to her. “You’ll have it, Cesar. I promise.”

  “Good.” Then he crouched next to her and pressed his hand on her belly. “Because we wouldn’t want anything to happen to Junior here.”

  Guthrie lunged at him, but the muscle behind Cesar landed a kick on his jaw, slamming him back into the wall.

  Cesar smiled. Held up his fingers. “Two days.” He touched her on the cheek. “You’re still so beautiful, Red. Such a shame.”

  Then he got up.

  As soon as the door closed behind him, she pounced from the floor and locked it.

  She began to shake as she turned. Guthrie sat against the wall, his face battered, his shirt ripped, breathing hard. He looked up at her with eyes that apologized.

  “I don’t understand. How did this happen?” She fell to her knees, catching herself on the floor, scrabbling over to him.

  Guthrie looked away. “You were right, Rosie.” Then he cupped his face with his hand, covering his eyes. “I should have listened to you.”

  “How long have you been throwing games?”

  It seemed he couldn’t look at her. “About a month.”

  She did the math. Right about the time he’d seen her with Dash.

  “And not every game—just the ones Cesar told me to. He found me after a practice one day, told me that if I didn’t work with him…”

  “He’d kill me.” She sat back, hearing her nightmares play in her head.

  Guthrie took her hand. “We can leave. Disappear. I don’t have to play baseball. I can farm, or work on the docks. Maybe become a fighter—”

  “Stop. Guthrie. Please.”

  “No, listen to me, Rosie. I got a little stashed away. See, I figure that Cesar wasn’t the only one who could make good off me. I figured it out that every time I threw a game, he bet against the Giants and made a bundle. So…I did the same. I…used the pearls left from your necklace as seed money and created a little nest egg.”

  He tried a smile. “I figured he had it coming.”

  Oh, Guthrie. She pushed herself off the floor, held onto the wall as she made her way to the kitchen and dug out a rag. Wetting it, she returned to where he sat on the floor then pressed the rag to his nose, his eye. The welts on his knuckles. “How much do you have?”

  “About five grand.”

  Five thousand dollars? “That’s a lot of money.”

  He brushed her hands from their tending. “I know. It’ll get us to Chicago, maybe even out to California. We’d be safe there.”

  How she wanted to believe him. He had electric eyes, the kind that could spark her own hope, the eyes that made her believe she could run away with him, marry him, live happily ever after. But, “I know Cesar. He’ll find us. And kill us all.” She pressed her hand over her womb. “Charlie needs his father. And his father needs baseball.”

  “I don’t need baseball. I have you.” He drew her down to him. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

  “I thought you were angry about seeing me with Dash.”

  She heard his chuckle deep in his chest.

  “I have no fear of Dashielle Parks.” He pressed a kiss to her head. “I just wish I had the money to keep you safe.”

  But, see, she did.

  * * * * *

  So this is what it felt like to want to go home. Lilly stood at the rail of the S.S. Majestic as the fog cleared the New York Harbor. Lady Liberty gleamed under the cast of morning light, rose gold and orange, as if a torch guiding them home. She raised her face to the salty wind, breathing in the taste of the sea, the cry of the gulls over the ship. How could it have been only four years ago that she had stood here detesting Oliver, blaming him for stealing her future, ripping her out of Rennie’s arms?

  She should throw herself at his feet and thank him. Too easily she’d seen the life from which he saved her. Hollowed out from too many careless nights like Presley, or pregnant and abandoned like Hadley, Hem’s wife. No doubt, Rennie would have broken her heart too many times over before Lilly realized the truth.

  She belonged in New York, with her family. With Oliver.

  Never know what a father will do for the daughter he loves. Presley’s words had embedded inside her, and since that moment, as she’d steamed across the Atlantic on the Majestic, she’d suddenly seen everything— Oliver presenting her with pearls on her eighteenth birthday, arriving in Spain, fury on his face, his head in his hands, weeping as Esme died.

  “It’s just you and me now.”

  Oliver and his cry of pain outside her hospital room in Wyoming.

  “Why is it so hard for you to believe that I love you?”

  Because she didn’t belong to him. She wasn’t his flesh and blood, his responsibility. His real daughter.

  But perhaps it didn’t matter. He’d adopted her—nearly against her will—and then committed to loving her. Despite her anger. Despite her rebellion. Despite the fact that she’d spent so much time running from his love.

  The ship parted the fog, rolling it back as they entered the harbor. She waited until they docked then returned to her stateroom, where she instructed the porters to deliver her c
ases to Oliver’s chateau— no, her home—on Fifth Avenue. Then she caught a cab and headed to the Chronicle.

  She wanted to see him. To knock at the door and enter his office and have him look up when for the first time—probably ever—she would greet him with kindness.

  Like a daughter would.

  She never thought she’d miss the sounds of the Chronicle— the newsies who greeted her as she entered the round entryway, the linotype machines, the rumble of the presses, the acrid pinch of the chemical baths from the photo department. She climbed the stairs and didn’t even bother to stop at her office, just headed right to Oliver’s suite.

  His receptionist greeted her, turning from her typewriter to face her. A little older than she, Madeline, with her dark, pinned-back hair, her steely eyes, had a way of dressing down someone with a look, making sure they had a sound reason for disturbing her publisher.

  Lilly debated, then headed right for his door. She was his daughter, after all. “Is he in a meeting?” She reached for the handle, her hand raised to knock.

  “He’s not here.”

  She stilled, turned. “What?” Oliver never took off time from work— he practically lived at the paper. “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know, ma’am. He told me he’d be out of the office all day.”

  Lilly pressed her hand on his door, then, “I’m going to check his appointment book.”

  Madeline found her feet as Lilly opened his office and stepped inside, but she didn’t chase her. Lilly closed the door behind her.

  Once upon a time her mother had shared this office with Oliver. Lilly well remembered doing her studies on the tufted leather sofa against the wall, or listening to her mother and Oliver argue about headlines and print runs. She made a point of not entering after her mother’s death, the memories too rich to taste. Now, she could almost see Esme, regal and tall, standing at the round window overlooking Chronicle Square, watching the pigeons roost on the arms of the statute cast of August Worth, Lilly’s grandfather. She would be wearing a simple shirtwaist, perhaps with a vest or sweater, a dark skirt, her blond hair piled upon her head, or caught at the nape. Sometimes at home, her mother let her hair down, and it flowed like a river of gold. If only Lilly had been born with her heiress beauty. But she’d taken on her father’s features—coal-black hair, matching eyes. She looked more like her grandmother, a descendant of the Crow.

  Lilly went around Oliver’s massive desk and stood at the window, staring down. In this spot, she could almost imagine her mother’s voice.

  “Whatever happens, honey, don’t forget who you are. Don’t forget the blessings God has bestowed upon you. Don’t forget your name and where you belong.”

  But, she had. She’d forgotten everything that made her who she was. She’d forgotten the courage born from her mother, the compassion of her grandmother, the honor of her birth father.

  Most of all, she’d forgotten the blessings He’d left her with.

  Oliver.

  Paris had made her remember. She could thank Rennie for that much, perhaps.

  She turned away, out of the pocket of memory, and her gaze scraped across Oliver’s desk, landing on a trio of framed pictures in the corner. Esme and Oliver on their wedding day, a twinkle in her mother’s eye, despite the solemn expression. The next, an arranged photograph taken of all three on holiday in Newport. Lilly looked as if she had eaten something sour for breakfast.

  And the third picture? Just of her, a shot taken by Oliver—he was always taking out his camera in the unstaged moments of life. She’d never seen this photograph before—of her, seated on the window seat in the parlor, her knees tucked under her skirt, her hair in long braids, reading a book in the afternoon light.

  She looked lost in her own world, oblivious to the fact that Oliver’s lens focused on her.

  Perhaps she’d always been oblivious.

  How had she never recognized Oliver’s steadfast love?

  Or perhaps she had simply disdained it.

  But it hadn’t disdained her. His love had followed her across the ocean and back, even out West. What had that preacher said in Minnesota? And the Word says that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, not things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height or depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

  Rennie was wrong. God’s love was here, in this world, if she just looked for it. He did show up when she needed Him. In Oliver, over and over. And perhaps God kept showing up, despite the fact she’d run from Him too.

  She ran her thumb over the picture of her mother, of Oliver, still hearing the preacher. When God adopts you into His family, you belong to Him. He’s stamped His name on you. A name that comes with His protection. And His birthright—which is eternity and the power to live with joy on this earth. It’s all yours, just as if you’d always belonged. But the Good Word says that to have this, you must repent.

  Repent.

  She sank into Oliver’s chair. Stared out toward the city. “O God, I’m sorry I turned away from You. That I ran from You. From where I belong.”

  In His arms.

  And, at the Chronicle.

  She returned the frame to the desk and headed to the door, opening it to poke her head out. “Madeline, I need Bernie and Mitch in here with a status of today’s edition.”

  The woman stared at her, and Lilly shut the door before the secretary called security.

  She hadn’t a clue what she might be doing, but she, like her parents, would figure it out, trusting in God’s blessing.

  Six hours later, she’d put the paper to bed, toured each of the departments, and written a column that she might actually read. Especially after Bernie complimented her on the Lindbergh piece. Commitment. It felt like fire in her veins.

  She took the train home then walked through Central Park, through the column of arching elms along the pathway, breathing in the lazy fragrances of the pear and cherry trees, the pink magnolia blossoms. Sometimes she could still smell the prairie on the wind, but Central Park conjured its own magic, with the mounted police patrolling the park, the scurry of squirrels upon the willow oaks.

  How many times had she strolled through the park with her mother, capturing the memories of her childhood?

  Yes, she belonged here.

  She exited the park and crossed the street to the Price family chateau. Once upon a time, footmen—Oliver, in fact—stood at the door to attend guests through the iron gates. When Oliver married Esme and moved into the chateau, he’d retired many of them, given others a job at the paper, manning the presses or working delivery. Now, only a handful of staff remained—the cook and two scullery maids, her mother’s lady’s maid-turned-housekeeper, Bette, and her two assistants, and Mr. Stewart, Oliver’s father and butler, who had resisted his son’s insistence to retire.

  Apparently, in the golden age of the Price family, Phoebe Price employed a small army to keep the grounds running, her parties on the social register of must-attend events. Even Aunt Jinx had a larger house staff, despite her smaller assembly of rooms in the Warren and Went-worth Building at 927 Fifth Avenue.

  Lilly opened the door, the lilac trees in the courtyard of the house scenting the July air. Still, the silences, marred by only the ticking grandfather clock in the foyer, drilled through her, especially when she dropped her handbag and pushed open the doors to Oliver’s office.

  Once upon a time, her grandfather, August, occupied this space. After he passed, Esme had remodeled with white wallpaper to contrast the dark mahogany wainscoting, opened the velvet drapes at the windows to allow in the light, and replaced the family picture over the fireplace with an oil duplicate of the sitting trio of their family on Oliver’s desk. Photographs of the city, from vagrant children to crime to architecture, hung on the wall opposite his desk. Apparently in his youth Oliver had worked as a photo stringer for the Chronicle. She barely believed it.

  Behind his desk he’d hun
g her mother’s debutante picture. Lilly could never reconcile the buttoned-up young lady with the woman she knew, the one as comfortable on a horse as she’d been drinking tea.

  Lilly had made a point to never enter Oliver’s lair, and now, just standing in the opening of the double doors felt too intimate.

  Even, invasive.

  “Ma’am, can I help you?”

  Bette had served her mother in her youth and knew the secrets of the Price family better than any of them. White streaked her long black hair, netted at the back of her neck. She wore the requisite housekeeper’s black dress minus the white apron of her assistants. She had always frightened Lilly, just a little.

  “I was hoping to find Oliver.”

  It just might be the first time she’d ever said that, but Bette didn’t comment. Simply, “I’m sorry, ma’am. He left last night after work without a word. I don’t believe he was expecting you back so soon.”

  She wasn’t expecting herself back so soon. Or, ever. Still, “I sent him a telegram from the Paris office. I thought he might have received it.” Of course, it had been a little vague. Finished in Paris. Coming Home.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. I’ll tell Cook you have arrived and will be needing dinner.”

  Lilly tried not to taste the bitter swell in her throat as she climbed the stairs to her room. He would return…and she would be here running the paper and waiting for him when he did.

  She had reached the landing when she heard the door open and footsteps in the foyer. She turned, her hand on the rail, and warmth spread through her, something new and brilliant as Oliver walked into the room holding his fedora and a small satchel.

  “Oliver!”

  He looked up, and she didn’t know why it had taken her so long to see it—the warmth in his eyes, the delight. “Lilly!” He set down his bag and opened his arms.

  She’d never had a father. Not until this moment when she wrapped her arms around his waist, let the warmth of his embrace speak to her. Safety. Protection.

  Love.

  Why had she been so afraid of it?

  She stepped back, smiled into his eyes.

  “I read your article. Magnificent, Lilly. How was Paris?” Despite his warmth, as he stepped back, she saw something flash through his eyes. Concern? Even, panic?