The Husband List

by Janet Evanovich

  While Helen and Amelia giggled with their girlfriends, Caroline sat at a small, round courtside table with Harriet. Both had watched Jack, Harriet with maidenly yearning and Caroline as though she were planning her next great adventure. Jack hoped it involved more stolen kisses.

  Match done, Charles and he now sat with Caroline and Harriet, all drinking tall glasses of water fancied up with slender lemon slices. Jack downed his and wished for a beer … or three. He remained thirsty and possibly in need of some numbing.

  “Papa has promised to build me a home on Fifth Avenue as a wedding gift,” Harriet said to him.

  “How nice for you,” Jack replied, hiding a smile at her lack of subtlety about as poorly as Caroline was concealing her restlessness.

  She opened the small watch pinned to a bejeweled ribbon at her waist and awkwardly looked down at it. Her build wasn’t nearly flat enough to make that an easy viewing.

  “It’s nearing eleven,” he said to her.

  She rose. “Then it’s time for my sisters and I to be on our way.”

  She glanced where the twins had last been sitting, but the cluster of girls had moved on.

  Caroline sighed. “And to think they’re supposed to be watching me.”

  Harriet and Charles looked confused, but Jack laughed.

  “I’d best go round them up,” Caroline said before giving the Vandermeulens a cheery good-bye and moving on.

  Seizing the opportunity, Jack rose, too. After he’d accepted a dinner engagement for tomorrow with Harriet’s family, he jogged up to Caroline.

  “Are you always going to bolt from Harriet like a spooked horse?” she asked as he pulled even with her.

  “I prefer to think of it as a strategic retreat,” he replied. “Harriet is a sweet girl, if relentless. I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but even if I were entertaining thoughts of marriage, she’s not my type.”

  “In what way? She’s rich enough,” Caroline said as they walked into a grove of sturdy elms to the far side of the Casino’s tennis courts.

  He’d promised to be honest with her, so honest he’d be. “I can’t imagine her in my bed, night after night and year after year.”

  Caroline stopped. “She’s the ideal of all that’s beautiful. I’m not educated regarding lovemaking, but I’m sure you could bear up long enough to create an heir or two.”

  Jack shrugged. “It’s not all about beauty. It’s about wanting, too.”

  He looked at her more closely. His bluntness hadn’t rattled her. She’d tipped up her head to watch him. Her gaze was level, as was her voice. Harriet would no doubt have collapsed in a heap of ruffles and lace at a conversation such as this.

  “If you have that luxury, I suppose,” Caroline said. “As you’ve pointed out to me, I don’t.”

  “Luckily, I do,” he replied.

  “Am I your type, Jack?”

  He hesitated. Honesty was only going to bring heartache.

  “No,” he said.

  Caroline looked as though she were absorbing a blow.

  “And yet you more or less offered to kiss me today,” she pointed out.

  “Better me than someone who will take advantage of you,” he replied.

  She laughed. “That’s nearly noble of you.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  She moved a step closer, and he looked around to see if they were being watched. They weren’t.

  “But you made that dangerous promise, Jack. Be honest with me. Am I your type?”

  “I have my rules,” Jack replied, trying out some of his Da’s sidestepping.

  “And what do those rules include?”

  “Not destroying my friendship with your brother.”

  “I don’t plan to tell Eddie that I kissed you.” She smiled again. “Or that you want to kiss me. And you do, even if you won’t admit it. There’s no other reason you would have said what you did in front of Flora.”

  She might be an innocent, but she was no fool.

  The sea breeze pushed at the brim of her hat. “So kiss me, Jack.”

  The Casino grounds were a dangerous place for such things. Ironically, that made them safe, too. Here, he wouldn’t forget himself. Here, she could have the ideal, chivalric sort of kiss she’d probably summoned in her maiden’s imagination.

  Without responding to her request, Jack drew her closer to the trunk of the nearest tree. He used both hands to bring her mouth to the perfect angle for exploration.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  Her brown eyes were alight and her lips were curved into a slight smile. “I was ready on Saturday at the museum.”

  He laughed. “Well, then…”

  He brushed his mouth against hers once, then twice, and finally settled in with more intent than he had on Saturday.

  Damn, but she felt good. But Jack knew he had to end it before he frightened her.

  “More, Jack,” she murmured when he drew back. “There has to be more.”

  There was, but her almost duke should be the man to awaken her to that.

  “Please,” she added.

  Such a simple word, and one he couldn’t fight against.

  “Open your mouth for me,” he said against her lips.

  She did as asked, and he tasted her. She made a surprised little sound, but she didn’t push him away. In fact, she clutched at him. She tasted so sweet that he could have stayed until sundown.

  The longer he kissed her, the more she relaxed into him, and the more he wanted her. He could imagine Caroline in his bed, night after night, year after year. But that privilege was also destined for the almost duke.

  Jack backed off, and Caroline steadied herself against the tree trunk they’d somehow ended up leaning against.

  He drew a ragged breath and tried to will his heart to stop pounding with absolute hunger.

  “Well, then,” Caroline said after a drawn-out silence. She stepped away from the tree, straightened her hat, and brushed at her skirts. “Thank you very much for that. It was quite … pleasant.”

  Pleasant? That had been pleasant? What a damnably weak, obnoxious word.

  And then Jack realized that not only was Caroline failing to meet his eyes, she couldn’t look above his shoes.

  Hah! She was as shaken as he.

  “Now I’ll go find the twins,” she said. “I’m sure they’re out front in one of the boutiques. They’d much sooner be there than here on the lawns. I’ll see you around, Jack.”

  Jack watched as she walked away in a not-so-straight line.

  He’d see her around, all right. And he would kiss her again when he did.

  SEVEN

  Friday at not quite eleven on a purportedly sunny Providence morning, Jack squinted into bluish cigar smoke that hung like fog in Heinrich Krantz’s massive brewery office. Somewhere at the far end of the room sat Krantz and his three sons. And no doubt all four of them had cigars clamped between their molars. No one man could produce this level of smoke so early on in the day. But not even this haze could block the smell of hops, barley, and yeast brewing. The sour scent was perfume to Jack.

  Next to Jack stood Gustav Muller, Jack’s brewmaster from Liberty Brewery, in Philadelphia. Wiry, temperamental Gus was also Jack’s brewing mentor and the reason Jack had taken to the beer industry with such passion. Gus knew beer better than anyone else, and Jack knew business well enough that he hadn’t been bested yet. He was sure that together they could wrap up the East Coast beer market as others were doing in the Midwest.

  He’d asked Gus to join him this morning because the older man could speak the same language as Krantz in more ways than one. In exchange for Gus’s help in closing the deal, Jack had promised him a small ownership percentage in Krantz and Sons. Apparently, he’d chosen the right incentive. The brewmaster was ready to spring.

  “Steady,” Jack said to Gus as they crossed the office’s threshold.

  Jack and Gus approached a mahogany table that easily seated twenty and was positioned next to broad windows over
looking the brewery’s central courtyard. Krantz had built himself a redbrick castle of a business. He looked every inch the aging king in his crimson upholstered chair at the head of the table. His sons, in lesser thrones, were younger echoes of their portly, bearded father.

  Jack and Gus reached the table. Jack waited for an invitation to sit.

  And waited.

  “What does an Irishman know about beer?” Krantz asked once he’d decided to set his cigar in the ashtray in front of him.

  “I’m an American, sir,” Jack said. “And a New Yorker. Manhattan drinks more beer than Erlich, Ruppert, and their competitors … including me … can produce. And I’m proud to be drinking and brewing my share.”

  “Faugh! Erlich!” Kranz spat. “Verräter! He cares more about his land and his mansions than his brew. He should be stripped of the title of brewery owner.”

  “One day I intend to do that,” Jack said.

  After a pause, Krantz laughed. The sound was rusty, probably from limited use.

  “You think big,” he said.

  “Yes.” Growing up with Da, it had never occurred to Jack that there was any other option.

  “Sit down,” Krantz commanded.

  Jack and Gus took their seats opposite the Krantz sons.

  “You see those boys?” Krantz asked Jack, who nodded even though the “boys” in question had to be in their forties.

  “If even one of them put in a minute more than I had asked, you would not be sitting here. But that one,” Krantz said, pointing at the son opposite Jack, “had to be a professor. And Friedrich in the middle, a poet.” He shook his head with disgust. “A poet.”

  Krantz didn’t even mention the third son, who apparently had done worse than a poet in his father’s eyes. None of his sons looked to be disappointed with themselves, though.

  Jack understood the need to move from beneath a parent’s shadow. He could have stuck with Da, but then he’d have never had the knowledge he could make it on his own. Easy words from a millionaire’s son, he supposed.

  “The only thing they like that I do is cigars. And so I will sell this place, but only to someone who can prove they know der arsch from a drinkable lager,” Krantz said.

  Jack didn’t need Gus to translate that.

  “What will it take to prove it to you?” Jack asked.

  The brewery owner pointed at Gus. “That is your brewmaster, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Send him away.”

  This would be the easiest damn money Gus had ever made. He’d get his percentage for a trip from Philadelphia to Providence.

  “Gus?” Jack asked.

  To Gus’s credit, he didn’t hesitate. He simply rose and left. Gus trusted him, as he should. Jack would come through.

  After Gus had departed, Jack asked, “And now that Gus is gone?”

  “You will work for me,” Krantz said. “You will shovel der dünger in the delivery stables, build fires for the coopers, and then move on to the beer … when I decide you should.”

  “You understand that I own three breweries?”

  “But not mine.”

  The man had a point.

  “Until August, you will have my Mondays and Tuesdays,” Jack said. “The rest of the week I need to make money.”

  Krantz laughed. “Good. Because if you succeed here, the price will be high.”

  “You have no idea how high,” his son Friedrich added.

  Jack suspected Friedrich wasn’t referring to money.

  “Report to the stables at four-thirty Monday morning,” the elder Krantz said.

  Four-thirty. Jack nearly winced. He’d forgotten how early the day started when delivering beer. Not that he’d ever done it, but he’d seen his brewery schedules often enough. He’d have to take the Sunday night boat to Providence instead of the Monday morning. But that, too, was a small inconvenience if it landed him this place.

  “I’ll be there,” Jack said.

  “Good luck,” Friedrich Krantz replied.

  But Jack didn’t need luck. He had determination.

  * * *

  CAROLINE SLOGGED her way through hip-deep seawater at Bailey’s Beach. The sun shone down with a determined relentlessness and the pull of even the low, rolling ocean swells sucked the sand from beneath her slipper-shod feet. No matter how poised a young woman might be, no dignity could be maintained when wearing heavy navy blue wool while attempting to enjoy the waves.

  She plucked her skirt away from the ankle-length white cotton drawers that covered black silk stockings encasing her legs. Clearly, the only swimming she was to enjoy was that of swimming in fabric. She almost wished she had used the headache excuse that Amelia and Helen had summoned. Mama didn’t think it was odd that the twins had matching headaches. Caroline doubted Mama would give her the same latitude.

  Caroline glanced ahead to Harriet Vandermeulen, who was reaching shore well ahead of her. Not only was lucky Harriet allowed to wear knickerbockers while bicycling, but her bathing costume was a non-heat-trapping pearl gray and shorter in length.

  “Wait for me,” Caroline called.

  Harriet turned back and waved Caroline on. “No time! The noon flag is up, and the beach will soon be the gentlemen’s. Hurry!”

  Caroline had heard it whispered that sometimes the men swam au natural on Fridays. She was probably doomed to perdition for being envious of their freedom, but that did not reduce her envy.

  She picked up her pace, though. Caroline preferred the marble nudes she’d managed to catch glimpses of while in Paris at the Louvre Museum to the thought of seeing, say, Harriet’s brother in the same state. There were certain things a girl simply did not need to know.

  Harriet looked back once more, giving Caroline a clearly challenging smile. “Come on! Last one off the beach must dance with Gordy Bullard twice at the next dance!”

  The other girls on the beach giggled and began to hurry toward the triangular pavilion that held the families’ individual bathhouses. Clumsy Gordy had flattened more than a few toes already this summer.

  Harriet shot across the sand. Her athletic gait suited her far better than the mincing steps she took when gentlemen were present. Right then, she was the rambunctious friend Caroline recalled—and missed—from childhood. They had all changed. Even Caroline had not been immune.

  Grabbing on to some of that long-lost joy, Caroline lifted her skirt to nearly her knees and began to run.

  “Unfair! We should have all started in the water,” she called.

  But Harriet didn’t reply. She had reached the building. Breathless and laughing, Caroline pulled up to the rear of the group of young ladies. Harriet was waiting for her.

  “Don’t leave without talking to me. We need a moment alone,” Harriet said in a quiet voice.

  Caroline nodded and then made her way to her family’s bathhouse, so noted with Papa’s initials painted on the door. Ten minutes later, Caroline was dry and pounds lighter in organdy as opposed to wool. Annie, who was already becoming more adept at clothing changes, was busy draping the wet swim costume over a wooden rack for transport home when Caroline exited the bathhouse. She headed toward the drive leading back to Bellevue Avenue, where the carriages and drivers awaited. As did Harriet.

  Though she was too bright and sunny to lurk, Harriet was doing a fine imitation of it. While all the other young ladies were waiting for their carriages to pull up along the drive, Harriet stuck close to the shrubbery. Gone was any hint of the hoyden in her. She looked quite angelic in her petal pink dress and hat with a fat clutch of silken white roses pinned to the ribbon at its crown.

  Caroline joined Harriet next to a dark green rhododendron bush.

  “I have a secret to share,” Harriet said. “Promise not to tell anyone.”

  Caroline didn’t answer, hoping the conversation would stop there. She had secrets enough of her own to keep track of without adding in Harriet’s.

  Harriet, however, forged on.

  “I’m going to ge
t married before Christmas,” she announced.

  “That’s wonderful,” Caroline replied with what she hoped was an appropriate level of excitement. In public she tried to keep her current poor opinion of marriage to herself. “Who has proposed?”

  “No one, yet. But I have decided on the date and I even know the man. I plan to marry Jack Culhane.”

  Caroline was certain she couldn’t have heard that correctly. “Jack?”

  “Yes.”

  “The Jack who is my brother’s best friend?”

  “Well, of course,” Harriet replied while adjusting her white silk gloves.

  From the time they’d been little, Caroline had felt as though Harriet had somehow been able to sense—and grab—what Caroline most wanted. When it had been the pinto hobbyhorse in Caroline’s nursery, that had been one thing. Jack was another matter altogether. However, any reaction other than mild curiosity would only heighten Harriet’s fervor. She had always been fiercely competitive. Right until this moment, Caroline had liked that about her.

  “I don’t believe Jack’s the marrying kind,” Caroline said with a slight shrug.

  Harriet laughed. “All men are the marrying kind. Well, most. My Uncle Nathaniel is a confirmed bachelor, but Mother says he had his heart broken when quite young.” Her blue eyes widened. “Has Jack had his heart broken? Has Eddie said something to you?”

  “Jack’s heart is intact,” Caroline replied. “Possibly even untouched. The only thing I’ve seen him in love with is beer.”

  “Beer? Are you saying he overimbibes?”

  “No, he owns breweries. He loves buying them and talking about them and plotting how to own more. You knew that, didn’t you?”

  Harriet looked somewhat confused. “No, I don’t believe I did.” Then she brightened and said, “But it’s no matter. When he marries me, he won’t have to work anymore.”

  “Harriet, he doesn’t have to work now. He likes to work,” Caroline replied.

  Her friend laughed. “You’ve always had the oddest sense of humor.”