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A Race to Splendor

Page 2

by Ciji Ware


  “Yes, indeed,” Kemp said, hastily gesturing for her to be seated. “Perhaps you’d like a cup of tea?”

  Ignoring the offer, she snapped, “And you, I presume, are Ezra Kemp.”

  “I am,” Kemp said, eyeing her warily.

  She hadn’t asked J.D.’s name, so he assumed she remembered they’d once attended elementary school together and that, for a time, their mothers had been social friends. However, Miss Bradshaw was currently ignoring him completely, which allowed for enough time to conclude she’d grown into a comely enough creature—if one’s tastes ran to attractive, lecturing schoolmarms.

  “Well, Mr. Kemp, rather than tea, I’d ask you—and Mr. Thayer—to remove yourselves from the premises, forthwith.”

  Before Kemp could express his consternation, J.D. intervened. “As difficult as this may be for you to accept, Miss Bradshaw, the fact is, I own the Bay View now, fair and square. Our club—which Mr. Kemp, here, and I financed and annexed to the hotel—is due to open in a week.”

  She threw him an imperious glance. “I gather that is your claim, Mr. Thayer. However, you’ve built it illegally on my property, and thus the opening will be canceled. That new building appears to have been thrown together in a week,” she added with disdain. “Trust me, sir, it will never be used as a gaming parlor.”

  “Miss Bradshaw,” J.D. said with the politesse of a man who understood the rules of society, even if he didn’t obey them, “please do sit down and let us discuss this.”

  “No, thank you, I prefer standing.”

  “Well, now. At least tell us why you believe you have the authority to issue orders regarding the Bay View Hotel.”

  J.D. was amused as well as annoyed. She had sass, all right. Her complexion was stained with color now, and her hands were planted firmly on slender hips clothed by the latest Paris fashion. He had never met an attractive woman for whom flattery was not catnip and therefore he softened his tone.

  “According to the newspaper, I understand congratulations are in order on your earning your degree in architecture. Quite an unusual and praiseworthy accomplishment for a young woman, I’d say.”

  Bradshaw’s daughter ignored the compliment and took her time removing her soft kid gloves. J.D. suspected that she was stalling to formulate her next line of attack. She clutched her handbag and lifted her square chin, one feature of her physiognomy not nearly as feminine as her perfect skin and lovely bosom. For the first time she gave him her complete attention.

  “I am fully authorized to put an end to the unfair advantage you three took of my grandfather during his last illness, and that especially applies to you, Mr. Thayer.”

  J.D. snapped to attention, scuttling any contemplation of Amelia Hunter Bradshaw as easily biddable.

  “Authorized? By whom?”

  Her accusations were serious and could produce unhappy consequences if they traveled beyond the four walls of her grandfather’s former office.

  “I have been informed that I am Charles Hunter’s sole heir, and as such, the Bay View is under my control. This hotel and its assets were never my father’s property to hazard in a poker match. Surely you’ve had a look at my grandfather’s updated will and testament?”

  Charlie Hunter had signed a new will?

  J.D. marveled at how cool and collected she sounded. Yet, how angry. Amelia caught his glance and held it.

  “Therefore, Mr. Thayer, the outcome of any boyish games that took place in my absence is meaningless, and whatever business matters you may have conducted here are null and void.”

  But J.D wasn’t really listening. The daughter was now the late Charlie Hunter’s sole heir? What about the mother—his partner Henry Bradshaw’s wife? She had been holy hell to deal with too, with her hysterics and fainting fits, but fortunately for all concerned, she’d simply taken flight while they’d completed their transactions.

  Ezra Kemp’s startled reaction mirrored J.D.’s own. They both glared at Amelia’s father, who stared at his boot tips as if he were about to be ill. Amelia noticed their shifted attention and pointed a well-manicured finger at her father.

  “My grandfather never did—and never would—put a known drunkard in charge of the Bay View, and all of you know that,” Amelia said sharply. “Apparently, when he saw what was happening after his first stroke, he was well enough, thank the Lord, to call in his lawyer, change his will to make me his sole heir, and had it witnessed and notarized, as well.”

  “Amelia!” Bradshaw exclaimed. “How dare you! I want you to cease this—”

  Amelia didn’t even take a breath, let alone acknowledge her father’s admonishments. “Frankly, I think you so-called partners of Father’s knew my grandfather’s last wishes very well, but proceeded with this scheme nevertheless.”

  “Well, well, Henry,” J.D. said quietly. He drew a narrowing glance on Bradshaw Sr. “Did you know about this new will your daughter says Charlie Hunter drew up?”

  Ignoring the question, Henry pounded the desk with his fist. “Everybody knows that after Charlie got sick, I was perfectly within my legal rights as his son-in-law to take charge of this place! His second stroke made him a babbling idiot!”

  “No one ever put you in charge of anything, Father,” Amelia cut in.

  J.D. was frankly caught off guard by this news of Charlie Hunter’s revised will. Bradshaw had assured him his wife was the heir, and therefore her property was legally her husband’s to manage and control, even if it meant wagering it in an all-night poker match six weeks ago and gambling away the rest of his assets last night.

  “What you must understand, Miss Bradshaw,” J.D. said in as calm a tone as he could muster, “is that our lawyers have told us that heads-of-households have legal authority over wives and—it is also assumed—over unmarried female relatives to decide all financial matters as they see fit. I’m afraid substituting you for your mother as heir to Charles Hunter’s estate makes no substantive change, as it might if the new heir were an emancipated son or grandson. Therefore your father, as your and your mother’s guardian, has operated squarely within the law—”

  Before he could finish his sentence, Amelia Bradshaw whirled in place and unleashed her pent-up wrath.

  “This is a perversion of the law and it’s utter nonsense—and you know it, Mr. Thayer. I am thirty years old and in no need of a guardian! And there is one more thing you may not know about. Very soon, this hotel property will be outside the purview of my parents’ marriage—and therefore your assertions just now will be moot.”

  J.D. had riled her, and for some reason he didn’t find as much satisfaction in the deed as he would have thought. For the briefest moment, he considered his own mother’s legal predicaments and then pushed such contemplations aside.

  Meanwhile, Amelia’s father had been emboldened by J.D.’s show of support.

  “Lord knows Victoria couldn’t run this place, Amelia,” Henry Bradshaw protested to his daughter. “Who else was there to take over the reins with you being gone? Charlie changing his will from your ma to you means nothing. I’m the head of this family now and the steward of this place!” Only his garbled speech came out “Ah’m su’ward o’ thesh playsh,” which considerably lessened its impact.

  “That’s right, Miss Bradshaw,” echoed Ezra Kemp. “Before I invested a dime, I checked with my attorney. The law is mighty clear on husbands’ and fathers’ rights over their womenfolk.”

  After all, thought J.D., possession was nine tenths of the law, and their lawyers had said that if they picked the right judge, there was little likelihood the radical 1872 California Civil Code provision—giving wives the power to manage their separate property—would be enforced. A bit worrisome, however, was that the revised law said little about the separate or inherited property of unmarried females past the age of twenty-one whose fathers were habitually blind drunk.

  Then, J.D. felt his stomach unclench a few degrees. With Victoria and Amelia Bradshaw abroad while Charles Hunter lay paralyzed in Room 12, an
y judge would surely find that Henry, as Hunter’s son-in-law and only male relative, was legitimately in charge of operations at the Bay View Hotel. Therefore J.D.’s prize, won from Bradshaw just before Charlie Hunter went to His Maker, would likely remain intact.

  If it came to it, he’d buy the damn hotel furniture from the chit, though from the way Amelia Bradshaw tilted her chin with a look of iron determination, he suddenly doubted if much would dissuade her from challenging his claims of ownership. Nothing, it would seem—not even her father’s bluster—appeared to daunt her.

  “May I remind you gentlemen I have written proof on my side. Besides the will, which I have just been shown by Grandfather’s—and now my—lawyer, I also possess a number of letters written to me while I was in France by Charles Hunter that relate how, in front of witnesses here at the hotel, my grandfather declared that he wanted me to oversee all operations as soon as I returned from abroad.” She turned to face J.D. once again. “After all, I am a grown woman with a degree in architecture, as you so kindly pointed out, Mr. Thayer, and perfectly able to take on these responsibilities. Let us not forget, gentlemen, times are changing—and so are our laws. It’s 1906, for pity’s sake!”

  “Things haven’t changed to the degree where females rule the roost, eh, J.D.?” Kemp retorted. “Especially unmarried females like Miss Bradshaw here.”

  She shot back, “Four western states have already granted women the vote.”

  “Not yet California, thank the good Lord!” J.D. replied mildly.

  He assumed his rejoinder would get a rise out of her and was not disappointed. Her eyes flashed with incandescent fervor and no small degree of irritation. She strode over to the desk looking anything but a naïve spinster longing for compliments.

  “It’s a new century, Mr. Thayer, and we ‘females,’ as you put it, are quite capable of seeing to our own affairs. My grandfather understood this perfectly. Why can’t you?”

  J.D. paused to consider his next words carefully. “I’ve nothing but respect for you and your grandfather, Miss Bradshaw, but Charles was mortally ill and—”

  “As inconvenient as it may be for you three,” she interrupted, “I presently speak and act as the true owner of this hotel.” She turned toward Bradshaw. “I’m home now, Father, and you’d best start adjusting to the fact that I’m in charge from here on out.”

  “You in charge?” bellowed Bradshaw. “We’ll just see about this!”

  Following this outburst, he clapped a hand to his mouth and lurched from the room, apparently to be sick in the water closet down the hall.

  “Miss Bradshaw,” J.D. began, “surely we can come to some understanding—”

  “The understanding you all must come to is that when my mother’s divorce from Father becomes final—”

  “Divorce?”

  Thayer and his partner had pronounced the word simultaneously.

  “Ah, more bad news for you, I fear,” she said. “As my mother tearfully explained before I left Paris, she filed for divorce from my father on the basis of desertion by reason of habitual drunkenness here in San Francisco prior to departing for Europe. One day very soon, she will legally be beyond the reach of my father’s schemes. Or yours. And therefore, so am I. Meanwhile, your gambling club is closed before it opens. You don’t own one joist or crossbeam of this hotel.”

  “But what about the twenty thousand dollars still owed me on that new building out there?” Kemp protested.

  Amelia smiled sweetly, but J.D. saw the steel in her jaw. “Perhaps you should consult with that lawyer of yours, Mr. Kemp. I’m sure he’d be happy to advise you.”

  J.D. dug into his vest pocket and swiftly laid out several small strips of paper. “Is this your father’s handwriting?” Amelia drew closer to the desk and peered down.

  “Those may be his IOUs, but as I said before, Mr. Thayer, the Bay View Hotel and its assets were never his to wager. They aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.”

  “You can’t just ignore—”

  Amelia held up a hand. “Ah… but I have a plan to reconfigure that space you built so shoddily, shore it up properly, and then turn it into additional hotel rooms. Thus, as our profits increase, I’m sure we can come to some equitable arrangement to pay you back for the cost of your materials.”

  She was a clever woman, he’d allow her that, but the only compensation he’d accept was clear title to the Bay View Hotel. J.D. Thayer had dreamed, schemed, and even scammed a bit to gain the upper hand with his two unreliable partners. No one hundred-ten-pound female, however talented, attractive, and self-possessed, was going to wrest this particular prize from his grasp.

  Chapter 2

  Ten days later, Amelia sat quietly in a courtroom with John Damler, an attorney specializing in real estate law who had been hastily recommended over the telephone by Julia Morgan, her college friend from the engineering department at the University of California at Berkeley. Amelia and her lawyer awaited Judge Haggerty’s pronouncements at a preliminary hearing into the matter of Charles Hunter’s will and the ownership of the Bay View Hotel.

  Damler had done his level best to get the preliminary hearing to show cause before another judge of his own choosing, but had been out-maneuvered by Thayer and Kemp’s cronies in city government.

  She cast a quick glance over her shoulder. During the entire proceedings, J.D. Thayer lounged in a chair at a table to her left, positioned in front of the wooden railing that separated the two combatants from the rest of the courtroom. From the corner of her eye, she saw he appeared the ever-so-reputable businessman and had the air of a person without a care in the world. Today on his six-foot frame, he sported a dark, three-quarter-length coat and matching trousers, gray vest, and pointed-toe boots. He was perfectly groomed from his trim black mustache to the lustrous shine on his footwear. His tanned skin looked even darker against his starched white shirtfront and winged collar. Tall, dark, and handsome, to be sure.

  Tall, dark, and dangerous, you mean… a voice echoed in her head.

  Despite Thayer’s clever legal maneuvering, Amelia was pleased that her attorney had been impressed by the raft of letters she submitted in evidence to the court. They’d been posted to Paris by her late grandfather and bolstered her case rather well, she thought—especially the last one sent immediately prior to his second stroke. Charlie Hunter had penned:

  As we both know, your father has the Irish disease and your mother has neither the temperament nor a head for business. Your da’s been drinking more than ever while you’ve been gone and I have now determined that the Bay View will only be safe in your hands. But never fear, Melly. You and I will see to it that poor Victoria will always be cared for, wherever that wastrel son-in-law of mine ends his days.

  The missives, as well as her grandfather’s newly drawn and duly witnessed Last Will and Testament, seemed irrefutable evidence, Amelia thought. The judge was bound to see that Charles Hunter’s wishes had been utterly thwarted by her father and his smarmy partners, and their recent machinations were therefore invalid.

  Even so, a voice of warning rang in her head. J.D. Thayer was unscrupulous, perhaps, but she had to admit that the man was impeccably attired and carried himself like a gentleman, which is more than could be said for Judge Haggerty.

  In Amelia’s opinion, the judge they’d been assigned was a glib, overbearing blowhard whose pronouncements in the courtroom, thus far, sounded like nothing so much as the declarations of a snake-oil salesman. What worried her the most—in addition to the fact Haggerty was obviously a political appointee—were the legal issues of female separate property and the archaic tradition of male guardianship under California law—and its interpretation from the bench.

  Just as Amelia stole another glance in Thayer’s direction, her adversary shifted his weight, turned his head, and stared at her with a faint smile creasing his lips. He inclined his head in a polite gesture of recognition, an action that only served to infuriate Amelia even more.

 
During the lengthy hiatus waiting for the judge to appear, Thayer hadn’t deigned even to look at her, and here he was, making a grand show of manners!

  Playing the victor was more likely, fumed Amelia. It disturbed her that the fellow appeared so cocksure of himself. His glance might even have been construed flirtatious, if she hadn’t been painfully schooled in the ways a man might appear to be showing a lady deference when, in fact, he only used that ploy to secure something else he desired.

  Yes, J.D. Thayer was a handsome devil, in the same way Etienne had been a vastly attractive creature. Amelia certainly knew enough by now not to trust that either one of them had her best interests at heart.

  Curiously, J.D.’s portly partner, Ezra Kemp, had not come to court at all, and her father’s whereabouts remained a mystery. After their confrontation at the Bay View on the day of her homecoming, Henry Bradshaw had bolted out the door and had not been heard of since, taking refuge at some dive on the Barbary Coast, no doubt.

  Blast them all to Hades!

  Amelia twisted in her chair to see if the bailiff had returned to the courtroom. When would Judge Haggerty get off his derrière and do what was expected of him? Her pulse quickened at the sight of the court officer who burst through a side door and strode to the front of the chamber.

  “All rise,” barked the bailiff as the judge entered through a paneled opening behind the bench. The black-robed justice took his place while the bailiff intoned, “Be seated.”

  Judge Haggerty cleared his throat and gestured to the documents spread before him.

  “The court finds the letters in Miss Bradshaw’s possession merely to be the expression of a loving grandfather’s vague sentiments toward his only grandchild.” The jurist picked up an official-looking document. “This purported Last Will and Testament of Charles Hunter was signed with an ‘X,’ which might, under certain circumstances, be considered acceptable by this court. However,” he continued, scowling in Amelia’s direction, “it was made immediately prior to death and attested to by a Miss Edith Pratt—his private nurse and Miss Bradshaw’s longtime school friend—and by one Grady O’Neill, a hotel employee who owes his livelihood to Miss Bradshaw’s continuing good will.”

 

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