“But I thought you said…” She hung onto her voice before it deserted her. “You said that you expected big things from me.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You will marry Foster Worth, and you will represent the Price family in society. That is big enough.”
His words burned into her, churned her stomach. She stood up, her breath webbed in her chest. “No.”
He too, had risen, come around the desk. “What?”
“No, I won’t marry him. I won’t marry anyone. I don’t need you or your job—I’ll go work for Pulitzer! He already has Nellie Bly—”
The blow came fast, an open palm, landing on the side of her cheek. Flame exploded on her face, and she fell back, landed in the chair behind her. Her breath caught and she cried out.
Her father stared down upon her, unmoved. “You will marry Foster Worth. This summer, in Newport. And tonight, you will take every last book in your room, including the Women’s Journal that I know you’ve been hiding, and you will burn them.”
She pressed her hand to her hot cheek, feeling as if it might be split open. Tears slurred her vision.
“Go home, Esme. Don’t make me escort you out like a stray puppy.”
Somehow she pushed to her feet, gripping the back of the chair for balance. Her father returned to his chair, turned, and stared out the window overlooking the street.
She found her reticule, the one with a new story inside.
“By the way, I won’t publish anything written by A.W. again. Nor will any other paper in this town, I can promise you that.”
She wiped her soggy face. “Yes, Father.”
He stopped her just as she began to close the door. “Esme?”
She paused in the crack between his office and reception, her eyes closed.
“I’m only trying to protect you. You have no idea what kind of world is out there. Trust me, I only want the best for you.”
She wanted his words to balm her, but they only burned inside. “Yes, Father.”
He said nothing more as she let herself out. She didn’t look at the receptionist. The clack of the typewriters turned to bullets in the corridor. She gripped the railing as she descended the stairs, her legs numb. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think—
“Esme?”
The voice stopped her as she hit the landing, but she couldn’t turn toward it. He’d see her failures.
“Esme, what is it?”
Oliver cupped his hand beneath her elbow. She shook her head but he came around her, lifted her chin with his hand.
“Your face—did someone strike you?”
She put her hand to her mouth, but it trembled.
“Come with me.”
She let him lead her toward the cloakroom, into the vestibule off the main entrance. He turned on the overhead light, shut the door, and motioned her to sit on a stool. Coats hung from a rack, smelling of grease and the street, the cold. In the feeble glow of the electric light, Oliver seemed tired, his collar turned up, his dark hair tousled. He knelt before her and peered at her with those devastating brown eyes that always seemed to see more than she intended.
“Have you been up all night?”
“Byron wanted to develop his shots. I just turned in the ones he selected for the society page.”
He still wore his dress shirt, open now at the neck, and smelled faintly of chemicals. His hands as they took hers felt soft, freshly washed. “What happened?”
“I told my father.”
He froze, but he didn’t take his hands from hers. “About A.W.?”
She nodded, her throat again tightening, and looked away. Would she ever erase his face, the sharp laugh, the sting of his hand? “I thought that perhaps he’d see that—”
“That you don’t want to marry Foster Worth?”
Something in his tone made her meet his gaze. She nodded, and for a second a smile nipped at his face. Then, “What did he say?”
She slipped her hand to her face. His expression darkened. “He struck you.” He climbed to his feet.
“Oliver.”
“He struck you. A man never hits a woman, Esme. Ever.”
“He’s my father.”
“I’ll kill him.”
“He’s your boss.”
“Not anymore. Not—”
She grabbed his arm. “No. Leave it, Oliver. I—I do entertain too many ideas. I’m full of fancy. I thought I could be like…well, be a journalist. I thought that’s why I was born into the family I was—to help people. By writing. ”
He knelt before her again. “You can. You could write for the Globe. Or the Sun, or Town Topics.”
“No. I was a fool to think I could be someone else.”
“You’re an amazing writer, Esme. I believe in you. Prove to him that you can write—better than any man in his city department.”
“He won’t care.”
“Make him care. Do something that will make him realize that he—”
“No.” She stared at him, the earnestness of his expression. An hour ago, she thought she possessed that also.
Instead, with her father’s words, his hand upon her face, she’d realized she’d simply been playing a game. She couldn’t make the world a better place. Couldn’t stand up to the forces of poverty and evil.
She couldn’t even stand up to her own father.
She stared at him, and as if something else possessed her, she reached out and touched his neck, tracing her finger into a scarred groove just below his collarbone. “I still remember when you got this.”
He seemed stripped, his eyes in hers.
“It was when you were twelve. You were running toward me, then suddenly you went down and landed right in the hedgerow. Came up with a stick in your chest.”
“I thought—I thought I heard someone calling for me.” He let his words hang there and she stilled. “I thought you were calling for me.”
She made to move her hand, but he caught it against his cheek. His voice dropped to a whisper. “Please don’t marry Foster Worth.”
Oh.
Then he leaned forward, stopping a breath away. He…did he want to kiss her? His breath was so close, she could taste it, feel the touch of his lips on hers. She met his eyes and saw in them something she hadn’t noticed before.
You can’t have both worlds, Esme. Choose one.
He searched her face, his gaze settling on her lips, and it ignited something unfamiliar clear through her. “Esme, I—”
“Esme?”
Her father’s voice echoed down the marble steps, into the corridor, the effect of a jolt upon her skin. She jerked back, away from Oliver. “I have to go. He was probably watching and saw that I didn’t go out the front door. He ordered me home.”
He took her hands, his gaze in hers. “Leave with me. Today, right now.”
“Oliver, what are you saying? I can’t—”
“Esme?” Footsteps now on the staircase above.
“I love you, Esme.” His words turned soft, urgent. “I have for years. And I’ll take care of you—I don’t know if I’ll ever be rich, but I promise you’ll never be hungry, and I swear no one will ever hurt you—”
“Esme?” Her father sounded as if he might be on the landing.
Oliver loved her? She stared at him, the way his hair fell into his eyes, his immense shoulders, so much history behind them. You can’t have both worlds, Esme. Choose one.
“I can’t, Oliver. I—”
“Do you love me? Because I think you do.”
“Esme? Are you still here?” The voice came past the coatroom and she stilled, her eyes caught in Oliver’s.
“I have to go.”
He closed his eyes.
“You don’t understand.”
“I think I do.”
“Please, Oliver. I—I don’t have a choice. What else can I do?”
“You can be the woman you were meant to be.”
She swallowed, his words stirring, tugging. And then she saw her life.
By the way, I won’t publish anything written by A.W. again. Nor will any other paper in this town, I can promise you that.
Her father would destroy her.
And Oliver.
“I am that woman I was meant to be.” She got up, and he drew in a breath. She blinked back the burn in her eyes, her throat.
Finally, he nodded, his face hard in the dim light. Footsteps returned, passed by. She listened to them move across the circular entryway.
Oliver took her hand. “Quickly now.”
He pulled her out of the room, across the corridor, and to the employee entrance. “Go out, take a right. Your carriage will be just down the street.”
“Oliver.”
He turned and caught her eyes. His smile seemed pressed out of a dark place inside, despite his gentle tone. “I will never forget how you pulled the stick out of my chest. Then bandaged it every day until it healed.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Any lower and it would have been fatal.”
He pushed her out the door. “Be well, Miss Price.”
Chapter 3
Jinx could taste spring in the breeze that stirred through the elms, hemlock, cedars, blue spruce, and empress trees that lined the winding pathways of Central Park. Winter’s bite had lost its edge, despite the fresh dusting of snow, the below-freezing temperatures. Two more weeks and the season would turn toward new life, red and orange buds on the trees, and not long after that, the arrival of her debutante trousseau from Paris.
She drank in the blue skies, the snap of the air, the euphoria of flying as she glided over the Central Park pond.
“Jinx! Are you coming into the warming house?”
Alistair Whitney skated up beside her, turning backwards to grin at her. He wore a Russian shopka, his greatcoat collar turned up, a white silk scarf blowing in the breeze. A boy poised at the edge of manhood. After his graduation from prep school, he would attend West Point or Harvard, but like Jinx, he had surrendered to the pull of a Saturday afternoon with his chums.
“I’m not cold yet. I’ll be in presently.”
Her maid, Amelia, waited in the warming house with hot tea and a warming blanket, along with Delphine Wilson and Elizabeth Fish. They’d conspired the outing during dance class yesterday, while in the arms of the boys from Dodsworth’s Dancing Academy. Lizzie and Del had already ordered their trousseaus and the jaunt to the skating rink served more as a way to compare notes. In six months, they might not be talking to each other as they competed in the social arena for the right catch.
Alistair skated off, and Jinx closed her eyes, spreading out her arms, letting the wind caress her face, drinking in the fresh air. Finally, she would step into her life, the one she’d whittled herself to fit. With Esme’s marriage to Foster Worth, doors would open to Jinx. She would be included in the parties of the Vanderbilts and the rest of high society.
Even if Esme despised her role. Thankfully, she hadn’t fought her engagement, but retreated instead into her chamber or spending endless hours at the piano, filling the music salon with Chopin or Mozart. Mother had to drag her to her fittings for her gown, and Jinx had taken over the planning of Esme’s wedding in Newport, an activity she seemed born to.
She helped Mother plan the transformation of the ballroom of Seacrest, their Newport cottage, into a lush and exotic garden—from palm fronds to lilies, to roses that would hang in cascades from the chandeliers. She convinced her mother to employ a sixty-piece orchestra and had already begun working with the chef on the perfect menu of terrapin and squid.
It ignited in her the resolution that someday, she would be the doyenne who watched the “buds” through her lorgnette and determined their suitability. She would be the one to set society’s standards. She would create the perfect world and never again wonder where she belonged.
“Look out!”
She opened her eyes a second too late to stop herself from plowing into the tall bulk of a skater, his hands open to catch her. She slammed into him and then, in an inglorious moment, tumbled them onto the ice. “Oh!”
She landed hard on her knee, her hands slamming into his chest.
His arms curled around her to cushion her, but she collapsed onto him, gray dots before her eyes as the confines of her corset sealed off her breath.
“Are you okay?” He pushed her off him, setting her on the ice.
She fought to catch her breath. “I…think so.” Or, perhaps she wasn’t, because as she looked up… “Foster?”
He smiled, and in that moment, something curled inside her. Warmth, perhaps—she felt her face heat as he climbed to his feet then reached down and hooked his arm under her body.
She held onto his arms as he swooped her to her feet. “Thank you.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
She still had a grip on his greatcoat and fought for her composure. But he had amazing eyes—gray, yet flecked with green and the ability to whisk the words from her chest. And her legs hadn’t recovered, it seemed, as he smiled down at her. “Hello, Jinx. It’s been awhile.”
She smiled. So, he remembered the days when his family would visit hers, at Newport. But then, she’d been about ten-years-old to his sixteen.
“I never did know, why do they call you Jinx?”
“My real name is Jacqueline, but my father started calling me Jinx when I was young. It stuck.” Lately, though, she’d begun to wonder if he hadn’t meant it as a term of endearment, but rather an epitaph to her unfortunate birth.
“I like Jacqueline better.”
Oh.
He held out his arm. “Just until you get your feet under you.”
She slipped hers through and he pushed off.
“I know I should have been by to see Esme, and of course renew my acquaintance with you and your family earlier. After the engagement, I had to return to London and then Paris to secure the spring line of clothing for our stores.”
“I’ve never been to Paris, although my father did suggest a trip there for Esme’s trousseau.”
“I didn’t know she was going to Paris. Then again, she doesn’t talk to me.” He had his hand on hers, over her glove, warming it. “I fear I have offended her.”
Why did Esme have to trouble everyone with her moods? “She is fine. Simply busy with the wedding. And, she can be rather…bookish.”
“I remember her sitting beneath the oaks on your estate, lost in a book while we played croquet.”
“You remember our croquet game?”
“I remember you cheating for the win.”
“I didn’t cheat!” She glanced up at him and found his smile. “You are simply a miserable croquet player. You stole my ball and flung it into the surf!”
“That was my brother, Benny, if I recall.” He winked at her. “He was always the sore loser. You remember him—he’s just about your age.”
“Of course.” She remembered him as the boy who mocked her for her freckles right after he’d thrown her croquet ball into the surf. “Is he still at West Point?”
Foster laughed. “No, sadly, he couldn’t quite manage the military. Father sent him to Paris before he fell ill. Bennett is managing our shipping there, if that’s what you want to call it.”
“Oh.” She didn’t know what to say as he continued to skate with her, cupping his hand over hers.
“I’m afraid Father extended too long a leash to Bennett. He’ll be back before the season at Newport, most likely, looking for a fresh advance on his allowance. Oh, I shouldn’t have said that.” He winced, shook his head, found her eyes again. “Family.”
“Indeed.”
“I hope that after Esme and I are wed, such a term will be met with endearm
ent between our people.”
He had long strides, but she suspected he shortened them for her as he directed her around the pond. She spotted Amelia standing outside, her cloak blowing around her, waiting for Jinx’s arrival. She ignored her.
To be seen on the arm of Foster Worth, her future brother-in-law, couldn’t hurt her prospects for next season.
Although, for a moment, she’d forgotten about her debut and simply hung onto Foster. He hadn’t exactly let her go, either.
“We’re not going to Paris, by the way.”
“Oh. Very good. After the social season ends, I would like to call on your family more often, and it would be ever so pleasant to have someone there with whom I could have a conversation, and who, perhaps, enjoys mine?”
He glanced at her, and for a second, she thought she recognized a flash of question on his face. He enjoyed her conversation?
“Esme, I’m sure, will be delighted to see you.”
He looked away, and the wind threatened to steal her hat. “Esme and I shared few words even when we were children. It was with you I laughed.”
She didn’t know why, but his words stirred deep inside her.
“Esme has her charms.”
“I think you and I both know the nature of my betrothal to Esme. I do not beguile myself to believe it is more than simply a mutual advantageous agreement.” He slowed then and turned to skate backwards, now holding her hand. “It is left to me to find friendship elsewhere.”
She stared at him, and had he not had her hand, she might have stopped skating. “I—I should go to the warming house. Amelia is waiting for me.”
“Are you cold? My sleigh is waiting. I have a buffalo robe, and the weather is beautiful for a ride.”
A ride.
With Foster Worth.
“I have not yet been presented into society. I need to return home, practice my quadrille. I cannot get the form of the hobbyhorse steps.”
“I could help you. Perhaps you need a partner?”
He still had her hand and she stared at it now. “I—I don’t know what to say.”
“Say that my marriage to your sister won’t extinguish the spark of friendship between us. Indeed, I can admit that I look forward to seeing your smile even more than Esme’s, heaven help me. And I will ensure, dear sister-in-law, that you will have the most advantageous match in society that I can manage.”
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