“Are you implying that I am at fault because that stupid little fool had an affair with a gunman?” Her voice was brittle, but carefully modulated, cool, dangerous.
Edward took another swallow of his coffee, now decidedly cold, then set the cup and saucer down. “Of course not, Mamá.”
“Then you will write to Colin McCrory at once indicating that it would be best if the engagement were discreetly broken.”
“I dislike having Colin McCrory for an enemy,” Stanley said with a frown.
Sophie sniffed. “By the time this whole tawdry affair comes out, he'll have so many other things to worry about, you'll be the least of his problems.”
A sly smile insinuated itself on Edward's boyishly handsome face. “I imagine Mariah Whittaker is ready to kill McCrory—or his new wife.”
Sophie gave her son a quelling look. Men could be so vulgar at times. “She was a fool to take him to her bed before she wrung a proposal out of him.” Dismissing the jilted Mariah, she tapped her cheek with one bony finger. “I wonder what hold this mysterious female has over Colin? Heaven knows he's avoided matrimony all these years.”
“I have every confidence you'll find out, Mamá,” Edward said dryly.
* * * *
Ed Phibbs had a nose for news and it was twitching as she sat at her desk in the cluttered office of the Arizona Miner. Desk was really a lofty appellation for the rickety old table in one corner of the narrow room. She shared the long table with the newspaper's typesetter who had stacked his case boxes and linseed oil rags on it.
Sniffing the pungent aroma, she tapped her pencil on the tablet in front of her and squinted in concentration. “Lucille Guessler's holding a tea this afternoon to welcome Colin McCrory's new wife to Prescott,” she said to her boss, Clement Algren.
Clement, disdainfully called Fatty Algren behind his back, raised his gray eyebrows and squinted at her from myopic eyes. “Thought you hated covering teas and other such female folderol,” he said suspiciously.
Ed's hatchet face was all blandness and guile. “It is news when the richest and most confirmed bachelor in the territory brings home a mysterious new wife after keeping company with Mariah Whittaker this past year.”
Clement harrumphed. “Keeping company” was probably a polite euphemism for what really went on with the scheming Mariah, but Clement let it pass. “You better not be thinking about that story on McCrory's war with the Tucson merchants. I told you to keep that long, bony nose out of it.” He stood up, all five feet of him, formidable only because of his girth. One wag in town had said, “He’s so fat he don’t have no sideways.”
Ed knew better than to trade insults with the cantankerous old newspaperman who had given her a desperately needed job as a reporter last month. “I'll just write up the tea,” she replied innocently. “Lucille Guessler is having it to challenge Sophie Stanley as social arbiter of Prescott. I wonder who'll win,” she added idly, not really caring a fig.
“You might see what you can find out about that girl of McCrory's while you're at it. I don't believe that tale about her going with him to Yuma to witness his marriage for one minute.” If he could get the goods on Colin McCrory, Win Barker just might be real grateful, real grateful indeed. He looked at the tall, gangly woman who grated on his nerves. She was altogether too quick for a female, taking on airs above herself, wanting to usurp his rightful role as the reporter and editorial writer on capital politics.
“It does seem fishy, but all that gossip of old Elda Simpson's about her girl Louise helping Eden elope with some gunhand sounds just plain crazy.” Ed loved playing devil's advocate to Fatty Algren.
“Well, Edward Stanley sure must've thought there was something to it. He broke his engagement with the high and mighty McCrory's daughter fast enough,” he said nastily. “Never could see why a smart young state councilman like Stanley, with his political future, wanted to marry into a family of Apache lovers.”
“Maybe their money? Or McCrory's political influence back in Washington?” Ed couldn't resist taunting.
He harrumphed again, his face glowing cherry red. “Just you have a care about the Stanleys' good name—and stay away from politics. That's my business.” He rocked back on his heels and the floorboards groaned in protest.
Ed blinked her protuberant gray eyes innocently. “I'm on my way to report on the tea. I do so wonder what Mrs. McCrory will be wearing.”
Algren gave her a warning look, then turned around and sat down at his desk. Ed Phibbs smirked at his back before leaving the office.
* * * *
Maggie was no more concerned with what she would wear to the tea than Ed Phibbs. Her major concern since arriving in Prescott was Eden, who sat by the hotel window, shoving some chicken and dumplings back and forth on her plate without eating a bite.
“I let you skip breakfast on condition that you'd eat lunch if I brought you a tray, Eden,” Maggie said, trying to sound stern.
“I just couldn't face that crowded dining room of whispering people again,” Eden said, her voice breaking.
Maggie forced a cynical smile. “They were whispering about me, not you—wondering about my mysterious past.”
“Everyone will think you're a perfect match for Father.”
Some perfect match. We sleep in separate bedrooms and act like polite strangers. Maggie wondered if that was how Eden envisioned the life she had expected to have with Edward Stanley. If so, small wonder she ran away with Judd Lazlo! “You have to stop brooding over Edward Stanley. Any man who would send a note to break his engagement without the courage to talk to you face to face was never worth having,” Maggie said indignantly, still furious over the cruel, cowardly way Eden had been treated. “He made a decision based on gossip.”
“He didn't make the decision at all, I'm certain. His mother did. Sophie Stanley could never abide the faintest hint of scandal. She believes Edward will be a United States senator, perhaps even president one day.” Eden's voice was cold now. Thinking of Sophie as a mother-in-law had always chilled her to the bone.
“No man with that lack of gumption will ever be elected president,” Maggie said firmly. “Eden, you can't let the Sophie Stanleys of this world win. If you don't stand up to her and all her friends right now, you'll spend the rest of your life hiding. The young woman who put that centipede in Judd Lazlo's boot wasn't a coward. She was incredibly brave—willing to sacrifice her own life to save her father.”
“Who wouldn't have been in danger except for me.” Looking up at Maggie's determined expression, Eden sighed and took a bite from a dumpling.
“You're getting so thin you have to walk down the street twice just to make a shadow, young lady. Eat every bit of that food.”
In spite of herself, Eden smiled. “What would I do without you, Maggie? You're the one with the real courage.”
“Pshaw. We'll show this town's old biddies that a couple of McCrory women can face down whatever they dish up. Finish that food while I lay out your dress for the tea. The green dimity, I think?”
An hour later the McCrory women climbed down from their carriage in front of Lucille Guessler's white gingerbread house ringed with her prize-winning pink Baroness Rothschild roses. Maggie was dressed in a powder blue linen suit with a frilly white blouse, sophisticated and understated in contrast to Eden's demurely innocent dimity frock.
“Chin up. You've had lots more practice balancing teacups than I have,” Maggie said as they approached the front porch and an unctuously smiling Lucille.
Her gushing welcome could not hide her avid curiosity as she inspected both women with over bright spaniel brown eyes. “I have been so excited about introducing you to Prescott society, Mrs. McCrory. You simply must tell us all about how you were able to capture that elusive rascal, Colin.”
Maggie gave vague answers, smiled a great deal and attempted to include Eden in as much of the conversation as possible while she made small talk with half a dozen women clustered around her in the Guesslers' clutter
ed parlor. In spite of Eden's reticence, Maggie sensed no overt rancor on the part of the women she had been introduced to so far. Even if they were a bit curious about the gossip, they had the good breeding not to bring it up.
Gradually, as Maggie was embroidering on the tale of how she met Colin while he was on a business trip to San Francisco a year earlier, the room began to grow quieter. By now, there were at least two dozen ladies present, all sipping tea and sampling the Guessler cook's baking expertise, which ran to gooey petit fours and sodden cream puffs.
A striking woman with ebony hair, dressed in magenta silk was staring daggers at Maggie's back from the front hallway. Her face was pale, as perfectly chiseled as a Michelangelo sculpture. And just as cold. The low, furtive whispers began as she made her way across the crowded room. She stopped in front of Maggie and her thin delicate lips smiled but her icy blue-gray eyes did not.
“You must be Colin's new wife. I'm Mariah Whittaker. Colin and I have been friends for nearly fifteen years. I don't know what I would've done without him after my husband passed on two years ago.”
So she's the one Eden warned me about, Maggie thought wryly, returning the cool, distant smile. “My condolences on your loss, Mrs. Whittaker,” Maggie said dulcetly. She could see Lucille Guessler wring her linen hankie until the lace ripped loose from the edges.
“Your marriage was quite a surprise to everyone in Prescott,” Mariah said, ignoring Maggie's taunt and continuing her offensive. “Colin has never mentioned you at all, I'm afraid.”
“My husband, as you should know—being such old friends—is a taciturn Scot who keeps his own counsel, Mrs. Whittaker.”
“Really. My, I wonder if even poor Eden knew about Colin's plans.” She turned with mock solicitude on her face to question Eden. “Had you even met your new stepmamá—that is, before you went to Yuma for the wedding?” she added slyly.
Eden's face went scarlet as every eye in the room was now fixed on her; but before she could think of how to field Marian's nastily insinuated question, Maggie intervened.
“As a matter of fact, Eden was just as surprised by her father's wedding plans as you were—but considerably happier about them,” she added. She winked at Eden.
Mariah's eyes turned opaque with fury. “Of course, Eden did have other things on her mind before she returned to Crown Verde with you and Colin.”
“You are referring to my relationship with Edward Stanley, I assume. The engagement has been broken, and no one is happier about that fact than I,” Eden said with quiet dignity.
Maggie could have kissed her. “No one but her new stepmamá,” she said, parroting Mariah's pretentious pronunciation. Turning to her agitated hostess, she dismissed Mariah with a swish of her skirts, presenting her back to the fuming woman. “You must show me your famous roses, Lucille.” Taking her stepdaughter by the arm, she added, “Eden's told me all about them,”
They strolled across the parlor, with Lucille making further introductions as they moved from one small group to the next, wending their way to the side door adjacent to Lucille's rose garden. After their exit, conversation returned to its earlier buzzing, although the group that gravitated to Mariah's side was decidedly dour-looking and spoke in sharp whispers intended to carry to their neighbors.
“A nobody from heaven knows where...probably married Colin for his money.”
“That girl ran off with a common gunman. Who'd believe that fool story about Yuma?”
“I for one don't blame Edward Stanley one whit. Eden McCrory is ruined.”
Ed Phibbs had taken in the entire confrontation and its aftermath and admired the gumption of McCrory's women. Lordy, how she detested backbiting busybodies. Perhaps, if she could do a flattering piece about the new Mrs. McCrory, she might learn a bit more about the taciturn Scot himself. It was worth a try, and Ed Phibbs would shake hands with the devil himself if it meant a story.
She bided her time until the tour of the rose garden was over. As the trio drew near the porch stairs, Ed descended to meet them.
Maggie saw a tall, mannish-looking woman wearing a shapeless brown dress and sensible shoes approaching them with a no-nonsense look on her elongated, quizzical face.
“Oh, dear, ladies, I hope you don't mind Miss Phibbs. She's a newspaper person,” Lucille Guessler said with a censorious tone.
Ed extended one big bony hand to Maggie for a fervent shake, then to Eden as their hostess made introductions. “Please, just call me Ed. My full name is Esmeralda Doucette Phibbs.” She rolled her eyes in a self-deprecating expression. “Now I ask you, do I look like an Esmeralda—or an Ed?” Her voice creaked high, then low with a peculiar rhythm.
Eden suppressed a chuckle. Maggie's instincts were to like the homely, unpretentious woman with the highly unlikely name and the calliope voice; but she was wary of any newspaper reporter who wanted to dig into her past—or what had happened to Eden. Then again, if she could get Ed Phibbs to do a favorable write-up, it might help Eden quell the storm of gossip flurrying about her.
“Ed it is then, if you'll call me Maggie.” She was rewarded by Ed's gummy smile.
“I'd like to do an interview with you, Maggie. You've just landed the most eligible bachelor in Arizona Territory. After his eluding the likes of the Widow Whittaker for over a year, that's news!”
Maggie laughed out loud. “I suppose we could work something out. We won't be leaving town until tomorrow afternoon when Colin arrives to escort us back to Crown Verde. How does ten a.m. at our hotel sound?”
Eden looked worried, but Maggie gave her arm a gentle squeeze of reassurance. At present, they needed every ally they could get. She prayed her judgment about Ed Phibbs was sound.
By the time they left the Guesslers' later that afternoon, Maggie knew that Eden's nerves were frayed from smiling and pretending that everything was normal with gossip flying around her thick as snowflakes in a blizzard. Mariah and a number of her friends made a frosty, early departure, leaving Lucille's soiree in shambles as the remaining women broke into small nervous cliques, whispering and casting furtive glances at Eden and Maggie.
Maggie made their farewells and thanked the harried older woman, who had by this time almost reduced her linen handkerchief back to flax by wringing it so hard. Their carriage was brought around and they headed back toward the hotel.
“I told you it wouldn't work. I'm a pariah and I'll spoil your chances in Prescott society if I come to town with you and Father anymore,” Eden said quietly.
“That's absurd,” Maggie remonstrated sharply. “That Whittaker witch simply used you as a means to attack me. There will always be those who gossip. The good thing about their kind is that some new scandal comes along every few weeks, and they haven't the mental capacity to remember the last one after the next one occurs. It will blow over.” At Eden's look of disbelief, Maggie tried to think of something to divert the girl from what had certainly been a depressing afternoon.
As they neared the livery stable, Maggie had an idea. “Why don't we return the rig here and walk back to the hotel? It's only a few blocks, and I seem to recall a hat shop along the way.”
“I suppose that would be nice,” Eden replied without any great enthusiasm.
They meandered along Alarcon Street, browsing in the shop windows and watching the flow of people in the bustling capital. Teamsters cursed at mules plodding along, pulling their heavy wagons laden with everything from cook stoves to calico, while an Overland Stagecoach whizzed by in a flurry of dust. Men in rough range clothing rubbed elbows with nattily dressed legislators and various political functionaries. Here and there, pairs of well-dressed ladies strolled with parasols, while a few more humble sodbusters' wives dragged shaggy-haired, barefoot children behind them as they went about their monthly shopping trip in the big city.
Men tipped their hats and the farm women smiled shyly, but several of the well-groomed older women ignored them and whispered as they passed by on the opposite side of the street. A mixed reception at
best. Then, as Maggie was pointing out a frilly parasol that would look lovely with one of Eden's day gowns, a reflection in the shop's polished glass window caused Eden to stiffen and freeze.
Maggie overheard the caustic clipped tone of the silver-haired woman and knew who she must be.
“She has some nerve showing her face in Prescott after the shameful way she's treated you.”
“Mamá, please,” a low male voice pleaded.
Maggie turned to get a look at the fabled Stanleys. The woman was the wicked queen straight out of Sleeping Beauty; and oddly enough, the young man with the earnest and embarrassed look on his face was pretty enough to be a fairy-tale prince with curly brown hair and dark eyes. But there was something missing. Backbone. Character.
Maggie surveyed mother and son with the cool, disdainful look she had spent years cultivating, raking them with glacial blue eyes. She willed Eden to turn and stare them down as well, and was rewarded when the younger woman met her former fiancé’s gaze with her chin uptilted. Edward crimsoned and firmly took his mother by the arm, attempting at once to tip his hat perfunctorily to Eden and Maggie while at the same time dragging Sophie away from an ugly confrontation.
Having made her point, the matriarch clutched her gray silk skirts and swished them when she turned away, as if from some offal that would contaminate her. After they disappeared down the street, Maggie could see Eden's resolve crumple, and the tears she had held at bay all afternoon finally welled up in her eyes.
She blinked them back as she said forlornly, “I was a fool to think Lazlo was exciting and Edward was dull. How could I have been so blind, Maggie?”
Maggie took her arm and they began to walk slowly toward the hotel. “It seems to me if Edward had been really all that wonderful and worthy of your love, your head wouldn't have been turned by Lazlo—or any other man. Marrying Stanley would've been a horrible mistake.”
They heard the commotion before they even turned the corner, the sounds of a dog screaming in pain, then the loud, grating curses of a drunken male voice.
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