Finding Ever After

by Pepper Basham

  His grin quirked crooked, but the lines around his eyes softened with tenderness. “In the bumbling about sort of way, you mean?”

  His words swooped low and near her ear, inciting the most tantalizing feeling like fingertips dancing down her neck. She closed her eyes, her breath squeezing tight in her throat. “And…and I told her you were charming.”

  “I am rather charming, that’s true.” He tilted his head, his gaze caressing her face. “A charming monkey.”

  She shook her head with a chuckle and then sobered. “I…I told her that you hear me and understand me in a way no one ever has…and you care. That’s why I came tonight. For you and me. I’m grateful we met, James Craven.”

  He kept his waltz stance, but the look he gave her smoothed away all her concerns about Lorraine Collins and social status. “Alice wouldn’t be with us if it weren’t for you, but I’m grateful to have met you for much more than that. You dream with me.” He tilted his head, teasing her smile wider. “And my dreams aren’t always the easiest for most people to understand. I…I’m a better person because of knowing you, Stella.”

  His whispered admission washed over her like a touch to her soul. Her vision blurred, and she looked away from those sapphire-hued eyes as the music ended.

  “Come, I want to show you something.” His fingers wrapped around hers, and he drew her through the crowd to a grand stairway matching the paired stairway on the other side of the ballroom. “It will be the perfect time of day for the view.” At the top of the stairs, a large hallway spread to their right and a set of doors opened onto a balcony to their left.

  James unclasped the doors and drew her into the cool, pine-scented evening. Mountains, coated with a layer of sunlit gold, framed the horizon and drew her focus to a glorious display.

  “Oh!” The word burst out on a breath. In the distance, the jagged, rocky cliff rose into the orange-hued sky, a magnificent waterfall cascading over the rockface to a lake below. And not a trickle, as some she’d seen before, but full and wide.

  “Orchard Falls,” he whispered by her ear, his warm breath sending heat rippling down her neck and into her cheeks. She sighed back against him for a brief moment, and he lowered his lips to her hair.

  Her breath came in halts and stops as her eyes flickered closed. “It’s…it’s beautiful.”

  “And just to this side of the falls, do you see the rooftop there?”

  She opened her eyes and followed his direction, his cheek almost resting against hers as he guided her hand to the place he pointed out. A three-story brick colonial-style house nestled on a parallel hilltop, auburn trees leading up the drive to the front.

  “That’s my house. There. Not as grand as this, but—”

  “Perfect.” She looked back at him, his face so close.

  His gaze dropped to her lips again, almost in silent entreaty—though the request resounded through her, her heart beating an enthusiastic yes in response. “I’m glad you think so.”

  “I’m sorry I ran away from you the other day in Biltmore Village, but there was so much to take in about you and”—she waved toward the vast expanse of the ballroom below them—“your world.”

  “Well…” He squinted and looked back to the view. “Over there is more my world than any of this.”

  “That one suits you better.”

  He nodded and tapped her mask. “I wear my mask for this one when needed. The dutiful millionaire’s son.” With a gentle push, he slid her mask up to rest atop her head, near her crown. “But not with you. We don’t need masks.”

  “No,” she whispered as his fingers skimmed over her temple.

  “Stella, you must know how I feel about you. I’ve not tried to hide it.” His palm slipped up to cradle her cheek, a look so filled with admiration and gentleness that it tugged her toward him, closer. “I don’t want to hide it.”

  “Yes, I know.” Her gaze found his. “I think I’ve known since the first time we met.”

  His thumb traced the edge of her lips, his smile soft, subtle. Inviting. “And I don’t give a whit about status and such. You know that?”

  She nodded, his touch fogging up her thoughts. This man, so good and kind, cared for her and needed to know the truth about why she’d misled him. Why she’d been in hiding. “James, I…I need to tell you something. About me. My…my life in Boston.”

  He stepped closer, shrouding her in his presence. His care.

  His gaze roamed her face, looking at her as if she were the most precious thing he’d ever seen. Oh Lord, please allow him to still look at me with such…love.

  “What is it?”

  “You need to be prepared. To share with your family the real reason I didn’t tell you my name. Why I’ve…avoided dinners at Biltmore and kept my presence in Asheville quiet.”

  His silence, his patience offered her invitation.

  “When I was in Boston, while I attended the art school, I worked as a companion to a young lady there. She was the only daughter to a widower. A rather well-known businessman.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I fear you’ll learn about it before I can tell you the truth.”

  James took her hands into his. “You’re trembling. What is it? Did someone hurt you?”

  “James, step away from that woman.”

  A petite woman wearing a deep-purple gown, a golden sash, and a crown on her dark head emerged from a hallway at the top of the stairs. Miss Lorraine Collins walked by her side wearing a smirk fit for what was, no doubt, her role in this moment. Twisted.

  “Stepmother, what is the matter?” James glanced to Stella, then looked to the crowd of guests below them on the ballroom floor.

  “This woman is not who you think she is, despite what she may have done for Alice.”

  “Marilyn, I think you need to calm down.” An older version of James rushed forward from the same hallway.

  “This woman”—Mrs. Craven waved her hand toward Stella—“has come from Boston with a horrible reputation that she’s attempted to conceal from everyone, and but for Miss Collins’s generous divulgement of the facts, you would have been further drawn in to her deceit, James.”

  The force of Mrs. Craven’s accusatory stare stole Stella’s voice. Oh no. Please. Not here. She looked back to Lorraine, whose smile only grew with Cheshire cat satisfaction.

  “What are you talking about?” His question surfaced much lower than the high pitch of Mrs. Craven’s declaration.

  “This Stella Emory worked as a companion to Miss Collins under the employ of her father in Boston.” Mrs. Craven’s wild eyes narrowed on Stella. “Do you deny it, Miss Emory?”

  James’s brow puckered in confusion, flipping his attention from her to Mrs. Craven. “No. I don’t deny it.”

  “Stepmother.” James gestured with his head toward the growing crowd at the foot of the stairs. “It sounds as though this conversation may need a more private venue.”

  Mrs. Craven ignored James’s suggestion. “Miss Collins has confessed to me, with the utmost shame and embarrassment, that in order to protect you, James, she has had to make certain unladylike actions of Miss Emory public. It appears that Miss Emory is used to working her womanly wiles to gain favor with men of higher rank than herself. Particularly, Miss Collins’s father.” Mrs. Craven glared at Stella before returning her attention to James. “And now you.”

  “That is not true. I am not the one who made inappropriate advances.”

  “Of course you would deny it—and even blame it on the master of the house! Miss Collins said you do as much.” Mrs. Craven’s examination of Stella from her shoes to her head left a nauseating feeling in its wake. As if Stella were unclean. “How dare you turn your own iniquity over onto a gentleman!”

  “I can assure you, Mrs. Craven, I have never, nor would I ever act in such a disgraceful way. Whatever it is Miss Collins has accused me of, I have not done it.”

  “Marilyn.” Mr. Craven tugged his wife back from the
stairs. “This is neither the time nor place. Do see reason.”

  “I am here to protect you, James.” Mrs. Craven ignored her husband’s appeal, too lost in her own argument—her mothering instinct, Stella assumed—to see reason. “And she’s already proven her dishonesty, hasn’t she?” She grimaced toward Stella as if she were someone’s castoff before turning her attention back to James. “You said yourself that she withheld her name in self-protection, which shows a sense of deception. Why not lie about this as well?”

  “I have not lied, Mrs. Craven.”

  “Stepmother!” James’s voice echoed in Stella’s ears. He gestured toward the guests gathering at the bottom of the stairs, witnesses to the entire horrible scene. “Let’s take this somewhere private, as Father suggested, where we can discuss it rationally. You have an audience.”

  “Yet Miss Emory paraded herself into our home for everyone to see, disgracing us with her sordid reputation. Why should she receive consideration? We offered this woman welcome into our circle. A woman with no family—no home, even.”

  A whimper slipped between Stella’s lips from the sting in Mrs. Craven’s words. She shook her head, her gaze meeting James’s before she grabbed her skirt and raced toward the stairs.

  Just as Stella began her decent, Lorraine reached to stop her, catching the edge of Stella’s charm bracelet. Stella couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop. With a strong jerk and a snap, a few of her precious charms spilled to the floor. She paused only long enough to look up at James. What must he think? In front of all of the guests! Shaking her head, she dashed down the stairs and into the masses.

  “Stella!” James called, but she didn’t stop. She ignored the faces of the crowd as they parted to let her through, James’s voice echoing her name from behind her.

  The cool November air pressed against her hot face, highlighting every tear trail on her cheeks. She wiped at them, running blindly toward the garage, weaving her way around dozens of guests’ cars to reach her goal: escape.

  Mr. Lawson, the driver Mrs. Vanderbilt had assigned to her for the evening, sat smoking his pipe along with a few other men.

  She slowed her pace as she approached him, attempting to gain some control of her emotions. “Mr. Lawson, I’m sorry to interrupt your fine time here, but I’m not feeling well. Could you bring the car around for me, please?”

  The older man stood, scratching his head in his usual humble way. “I’d be happy to, miss, but it’s going to take a while to move some of the other automobiles around so yours is free. If you’ll wait inside, I’ll pull around when it’s—”

  “No, never mind.” Stella shook her head. “Thank you.”

  She wouldn’t wait any longer near the people who’d just heard such slander against her. Mrs. Craven’s opinion blared clear to all. And James? Oh, what must he think? After she’d misled him about her name and now this? No, she wouldn’t wait. She ran toward the estate drive, which spilled out into the quaint town of Orchard Falls, as Mr. Lawson called after her.

  She had to get away. Catch the train in Orchard Falls back to Asheville and disappear into the mountains with Granny for as long as she needed. That’s what she’d do until Mrs. Bertram arrived to clear her name—or at least until the people at Biltmore learned the truth.

  Stella ran past various parked cars and carriages toward the estate’s entrance gate. Car lights shone from the drive up ahead, so Stella slid behind one of the great stone pillars on either side of the drive to allow it to pass, catching a glimpse of the profile of an older woman. Probably the godmother James had talked about Stella meeting. Oh, what a relief that at least one person at the party didn’t witness the horrible affair. Every other person of high society in the surrounding area did, though. How could she ever show her face to James again? To anyone of their mutual acquaintance?

  Even once she had Mrs. Bertram’s letters, would they truly be influential enough to clear Stella’s name from something like this?

  She lifted her skirts and darted down the long drive, the evening air cutting into her damp face. A woman with no family. No home. Mrs. Craven’s words reverberated in her head, piercing with new sting. But she’d almost had it, hadn’t she? She slowed her pace and rubbed at her stinging wrist, where the bracelet had bitten into her skin under Lorraine’s hold.

  Stella examined the bracelet in the fading daylight, her fingers moving over each charm to identify it. Two gone. Broken from their clasps.

  New tears warmed her vision, and she squeezed her eyes closed. How fitting. She’d lost the glass slipper and the full heart. Her own happily-ever-after had been figuratively and literally ripped from her grasp. She opened her eyes and stared ahead, a sob shivering from her lips into the night air. The way to Orchard Falls stretched before her down the drive. Her escape.

  A steeple rose above the tree line in the distance, her misty blue mountains silhouetted by a few final molten rays of sunset. Her heart squeezed with a resounding ache of loss…of shame. She’d thought, after all the pain, that she’d have her own fairytale ending. And she almost had.

  A beautiful Cinderella moment.

  But here she was, running away from a beautiful possibility, her opportunity no more than a pumpkin after all. Dear Lord, please help me.

  She stopped and reworked her own words back through her mind. Cinderella? Running away? Her breath caught. No, wait. Why was she running away? She turned back toward the house, the glittering lights from the upper story windows still visible above the hedgerow. Running away only proved her guilt, didn’t it? And she’d done nothing wrong.

  She pulled the mask from its place atop her head and fisted it in her hand. Oh, she had a note to add to the fairytale book once she returned to Biltmore, and she’d place it directly beneath the illustration of Cinderella and her fairy godmother. It was all fine and good to fall in love with fairytales, but Mrs. Bertram’s goddaughter needed to understand the reality that framed every fairytale. What happened in the real world impacted the imagination, the dreams, and living within a magical world without a firm grip on reality left a heart broken.

  A person needed both.

  Stella marched back toward the house. Magic is as much your own making as any fairy godmother’s.

  And facing the truth may not gain her a prince or a fairytale ending, but it provided her with something else. Something that would last longer than midnight magic.

  Self-respect.

  10

  A Golden Heart

  What was happening? Besides the fact that his stepmother’s unchecked voice had quieted half the room, had Miss Collins just accused Stella of soliciting favors from her employer? Guests nearest the stairs stopped dancing, turning to the boom in his father’s voice. James closed his eyes and released a long breath. His stepmother was an excellent woman, but her tendency to explode before thinking rarely benefited her…or those around her.

  James had been victim to it on more than one occasion, especially when it related to romance.

  “Marilyn.” Father took his wife’s arm. “This is neither the time nor the place. Do see reason.”

  James spared the instigator of all this a glance, and Miss Collins did nothing to hide her smile. A smile of…satisfaction? What was she up to?

  Stella’s arm nestled against his, close. He turned to her, but she only stared ahead, her eyes growing rounder as his stepmother drew closer.

  “I am here to protect you, James.” Marilyn sent him one of her erratic looks. “And she’s already proven her dishonesty, hasn’t she?” She grimaced toward Stella as if she were someone’s castoff before turning her attention back to James. “You said yourself that she withheld her name in self-protection, which shows a sense of deception. Why not lie about this as well?”

  James groaned and closed his eyes. Clearly, Father had divulged further information about Stella to Marilyn.

  “I have not lied, Mrs. Craven.” Stella’s voice warbled to the surface.

  From the slanted gaze of Miss Collins and
what he knew of Stella Faye Emory, James would stand behind Stella, but this public spectacle had gone on long enough.

  “Stepmother!” He gestured toward the guests gathering at the bottom of the stairs. “Let’s take this somewhere private, as Father suggested, where we can discuss it rationally. You have an audience.”

  “Yet Miss Emory paraded herself into our home for everyone to see, disgracing us with her sordid reputation. Why should she receive consideration? We offered this woman welcome into our circle. A woman with no family—no home, even.”

  A sound like a wounded animal came from the woman at his side, and with a final glance in his direction, Stella started for the stairs. Miss Collins reached for her, snagging at Stella’s bracelet. For a second, Stella paused, her bracelet caught, but then she pulled her arm free, breaking off a few of the charms as she continued her escape down the stairs.

  “Stella!” James started after her, but his stepmother grabbed his arm.

  “She’s lied to us, and you would go after her? James, do not let your heart rule your head.”

  “No more than you should let emotion rule reason?” James jerked his arm free. “Since when is one person’s word valued over another’s without proof? As far as you know, this could all be slander and you’ve ridiculed Miss Emory before an entire crowd of people without justification.”

  “And yet you brought her here for the whole room to see. She caught everyone’s eye. Why shouldn’t they know the truth?”

  “Because we are above petty retaliation.”

  Something flickered on his stepmother’s countenance, softening the hardened edges of her brow. Had James met his mark?

  “James.” Father stepped between them. “Marilyn. You are making more of a scene than the girl ever did.”

  Stepmother blinked and looked over the room, then with a sudden sob, covered her mouth and ran into the nearest room to their right.

  Silence froze the moment—in fact, the entire room. Even the music stopped.

  Father raised his head, cleared his throat, and offered a tight smile. “Please.” He gestured toward the orchestra. “Please, continue. We shall be back with you shortly. Thank you.”