by Judith Stacy
Mitch hadn’t expected any. More than anyone else in the house, he understood Noah’s actions. He knew what drove him, what he ran from. And for that reason, he was confident Noah wouldn’t give him any trouble.
Mitch had moved a small writing desk into the study for Noah to use and made a point of putting it near the window, facing the front lawn, the driveway and the street beyond. He’d been surprised at how quickly Noah caught on to the work he assigned him. Busywork, at first, adding figures and verifying totals. But Noah had started asking questions reminding Mitch that his father had proved himself a smart businessman in amassing the Branford family’s extensive holdings. Perhaps Noah had inherited his father’s business sense.
Georgie and his underhanded business dealings that had emptied the family bank account stayed in the back of Mitch’s mind, though, and he kept a close eye on everything Noah did. Noah and George were, after all, half brothers.
“I’m leaving in a while,” Mitch said. “Your sister and I are going to some sort of charity function this afternoon.”
Noah pulled a ledger from the stack and flipped it open on the desktop. Mitch continued to marvel at how sure-handed he was, how well he compensated for the arm he’d lost.
“It’s at the Monterey house. They have it every year,” Noah reported, then shook his head. “And every year she’s…with child…again and everybody pretends to ignore it.”
“Does Madeline tell you the neighborhood gossip in her letters?” Mitch asked.
Noah glanced up at him, wary for a moment, then sat down at the desk. “Sometimes.”
“Will she be at the Monterey home?”
Mitch waited, certain he could see Noah’s thoughts in the expressions that played across his face. Waiting—hoping, perhaps?—that Mitch would ask Noah to accompany them to the charity event. Or perhaps considering, at long last, sending Madeline a letter for Mitch to deliver personally.
But Mitch didn’t offer. He wouldn’t push Noah. It was too soon.
Noah looked away. “She’ll be there. Her family goes to everything.”
He picked up a pencil and went to work adding columns of figures. Hayden appeared a few minutes later, advising Mitch that Rachel was ready to go.
He shrugged into his jacket and the butler passed him his bowler as he left the study and found Rachel waiting in the foyer.
She stood in front of the mirror, leaning forward ever so slightly, adjusting the angle of her hat. Her dress was the color of rich cream, accented with bands of deep blue at the hem, collar and cuffs.
She looked beautiful. Mitch’s heart ached a little at the sight of her.
He followed her outside to their waiting carriage and climbed in after her. If she was annoyed that he took the seat next to her, she didn’t say so.
But her expression told him that she was unhappy about something and he figured it stemmed from their “etiquette” lesson last night. He didn’t have to wait to find out for sure. Rachel seldom held back her feelings.
She kept her chin up and her lips pressed tightly together for another moment, then spoke as the carriage pulled away from the house.
“We can’t have a repeat of last night in the kitchen,” she said.
“Last night?”
“Don’t play innocent,” she said, cutting her gaze to him.
“Oh, yes.” Mitch nodded. “When we kissed.”
Her cheeks flushed ever so slightly. “We did more than simply kiss, if you’ll recall.”
“I recall that you did this.” He captured her hand and pressed it to his chest, then lifted his other hand. “Then I did this—”
She caught his fingers, stilling him, then pulled her own hand away from his chest.
“It was inappropriate,” Rachel said. “And we agreed we wouldn’t do that sort of thing.”
“We didn’t agree,” Mitch pointed out. “You made the choice and I respected your decision.”
“Is that how you’d characterize your behavior last night?” she challenged.
“That wasn’t part of your table etiquette demonstration?”
She turned away but Mitch saw her press her lips together even more tightly, struggling to suppress a smile. He couldn’t recall when anything had pleased him more.
“I assure you, Rachel, I have the upmost respect for you,” Mitch told her. “You and your underwear.”
Her head whipped around. “My what?”
He cringed mentally, wishing he could bat his words out of the air.
Rachel tugged at her skirt as if he could see straight through the fabric and scooted a little farther away from him.
“You needn’t act so prim and proper,” he said, annoyed with himself. “It’s not like I’ve never seen your underwear.”
She gasped. “You’ve been sneaking into my room? Going through my bureau? I knew I should have barred that door somehow.”
“I’m not that desperate—not yet, anyway.”
Rachel looked him up and down, color high in her cheeks, a mixture of fear and intrigue on her face. Was she wondering what it would be like? The two of them together, rolling around under the covers? Discovering the delight a husband and wife could share?
Or was she considering slapping him after all?
“It matches, doesn’t it,” he said, deciding that if he was about to get slapped he might as well make it worthwhile. “Your dresses, I mean. Your underwear is the same color as your clothing.”
Her cheeks flushed anew and he wasn’t sure now if she was insulted or intrigued. He wasn’t sure, either, if he would get an answer.
“You’ve actually thought about this?” she asked.
“We are married, after all,” Mitch said. “If you told me what color underwear you wore, it wouldn’t be a sin, or anything.”
She gazed at him as if she couldn’t understand why he would have the slightest interest in her undergarments. Mitch decided to drop the subject. He was starting to sound as desperate as he felt.
“So where are we going?” he asked. “Noah said it was the Monterey home?”
“Yes. Stephen and Caroline Monterey. He’s a very successful businessman. I doubt you met him at Uncle Stuart’s gentlemen’s club, though. Stephen is a homebody.”
Which was probably why his wife was pregnant so often, Mitch thought, the notion bringing on a familiar stirring.
He wondered if Rachel had the same thought because she folded her hands primly in her lap and sat a little straighter on the seat.
“It’s their annual charity event for the children at the Sacred Heart,” she said. “Every year there are—”
“The what?”
“The Sacred Heart Orphanage,” Rachel said. “Every year more orphans attend, and this year—”
“Children?”
Rachel jumped, startled at Mitch’s demand. “Yes, children. They are—”
“From an orphanage?” He sprang to the edge of his seat, his gaze impaling her.
“What’s wrong, Mitch?” She reached for him but he pulled away.
“Stop!” He pounded his fist against the roof of the carriage. “Stop now!”
“Mitch, please—”
Stunned, Rachel watched as he opened the door and swung to the ground before the carriage pulled to a stop.
Treasures, castoffs and memories crowded the attic as Rachel waited. She’d been there for hours, knowing this was where Mitch would come when he returned home.
A heaviness still gathered around her heart as it had since he left their carriage abruptly this afternoon. It was after midnight now. He’d be here soon. Surely…
Another half hour dragged by while Rachel roamed the attic, opening dusty trunks, peering into crates and boxes, recalling occasions when the family wore the formal attire now stored in the spacious redwood closet.
Such recollections usually evoked sorrow and sadness of the worst kind, memories of what her family had once been. But tonight her heart went out to Mitch, and to the family that had never been.
/> Footsteps sounded on the attic stairs, heavy, quick and sure. Mitch was home.
Rachel’s heart lurched as she turned to face the staircase only to hear the footsteps slow. He’d seen the light on up here, she realized. Seconds passed and finally Mitch appeared at the top of the steps. He froze there, his gaze stilling her across the wide room.
He wore denim trousers, work boots and a white undershirt. He’d come to pound out his emotions with his fists, as she’d expected.
But he didn’t move from the spot at the head of the stairs. She saw his hands curl into fists and his chest expand with heavy breathing. He hadn’t expected to find her here. Her presence was a challenge to him. He wanted to turn, to leave, she guessed, but wouldn’t back down.
Mitch squared his jaw and walked over to the punching bag, ignoring Rachel standing a few feet away. He curled his fists up and delivered a right jab to the bag.
“I saw Albert Taft,” he said, following with a left cross. “I told him I’d accept his job offer and take a look at the quarry’s company books.”
Rachel didn’t give a response and Mitch didn’t seem to expect one as he shuffled his feet and struck the bag a few more times.
He glanced at Rachel. “I have the time. It won’t interfere with what I’m doing for your family.”
Two quick jabs, followed by two more.
“I tried to find Leo,” Mitch said. “Leo Sinclair. My friend. I couldn’t find him.”
A few more minutes passed with only Mitch’s heavy breathing and the thud of his fists against the punching bag filling the silent attic. He danced back and forth. Sweat beaded on his forehead.
Finally Rachel spoke.
“If I’d known, I would have told you ahead of time,” she said. “I wouldn’t have let you walk into that event and be surprised in front of everyone.”
He stopped then and looked at her, his jaw set. Yet beneath his fierce gaze, she saw something more, something she was certain Mitch wanted no one to see.
“It wasn’t hard to figure out,” she told him softly and took a step closer. “It’s why you never talked about your past, why you evaded all my questions—everyone’s questions, I suspect.”
Mitch turned back to the punching bag but only stared at it.
It was all she could do to keep her distance from him. His stance told her he wanted no closeness, yet she yearned to hold him right now.
“How old were you?” Rachel asked.
“Five,” he said quietly. Then he drew himself up as if steeling himself against the memory, and turned to face her. “Five. I was five years old when my mother died and they sent me to that place.”
“What happened to her?”
“She fell on the stairs. That’s all I know. She fell and she died.”
His words came out in a heated rush, but Rachel didn’t back away.
“What about the rest of your family? Your father?” she asked.
“I never had a father.”
“Why were you sent to an orphanage? Surely, someone else in the family—”
“No one wanted me. Or could afford to raise me.”
“Couldn’t afford—”
“She was a maid. A maid for a wealthy family. She worked in their home, a grand mansion, cleaning and scrubbing and polishing, day in and day out.”
The outburst seemed to cost him his strength. Mitch’s shoulders sagged a little and he turned his head away.
“And she was a wonderful mother,” he said, barely above a whisper. “She read to me and sang to me and took care of me, even when she was so exhausted she could barely stand.”
Another moment passed before Mitch spoke again.
“We lived on the third floor with the other servants. Sometimes I’d sneak downstairs for a look at the grand world that was just below us. My mother was always afraid the mistress of the house would find me there. She didn’t like children.”
Servants with children usually lived elsewhere. The same was true of the staff in Rachel’s own home. It was unusual that Mitch’s mother had been allowed to keep her son with her.
“I was told that she’d died,” Mitch said. “That night a man and woman came for me. I don’t know who they were. We were on the train for days. They said I was sick. They gave me medicine. I slept most of the time. They left me at the orphanage in San Francisco.”
“And you never knew…?”
Mitch shook his head. “I don’t know where I lived before. I don’t know the name of the family my mother worked for. I do have my own name. That much I remember.”
“No one ever came for you? Aunts, uncles? Grandparents?”
“No one.”
“Your friend Leo Sinclair. Was he in the orphanage with you?” she asked.
Mitch nodded.
“And you were never adopted?”
He uttered a bitter laugh. “Every Sunday we were lined up and put on display for the public. People came in and looked us over, deciding if they wanted any of us. We all hoped we’d be picked.”
Rachel’s stomach twisted into a knot. “Picked?”
“Picked for adoption. Picked to go live with a real family, in a real home. I was always big for my age. Not cute or sweet, like some of the others.”
“Never picked by one of the families?”
“Not until I got older. Then everyone wanted me because of my size. Tall, strong. I’d make a good worker for them, they figured. But by then I was long past wanting to get picked. So I made sure I wasn’t.”
“What did you do?”
“When a family showed up and expressed interest in me, I took the father aside and explained to him, quite graphically, that I’d—well, it involved his daughters and wife, and it was enough to send them packing.”
Rachel could only imagine the sort of thing Mitch had told them.
“So you were never adopted?” she asked.
“The headmaster, who made us call him ‘uncle,’ let us work, as long as he got a cut of the money. I sold newspapers. I got to know some of the shop owners in the neighborhood. One of them was an older lady who ran a dry goods store. Her husband had died and she needed help. When she asked about me working there, I said something particularly disgusting to her. She just laughed and said it sounded like fun.”
Rachel gasped, but Mitch smiled at the memory.
“She was like a dear, old grandmother to me—or what I’d always imagined a grandmother would be like. I left the orphanage and worked for her. She taught me about running a business, pointed me in a direction, urged me to complete my education and helped out financially as much as she could.” Mitch’s smile faded. “She died a few years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” Rachel said.
His expression hardened. “Don’t pity me.”
“I admire you,” she said. “I admire you for all you’ve accomplished, with little help from anyone. And I’m sorry that I forced you to live here with us. If I’d known about your…background…I wouldn’t have insisted upon it. It was selfish of me. I was only thinking of myself. And for that I owe you an apology.”
Mitch didn’t respond. If he wouldn’t tolerate her pity, he certainly didn’t want her apology. Not now, anyway.
“Did you ever try to find your family?” Rachel asked. “I mean, there must be relatives somewhere, don’t you think?”
“Why would I?” Mitch shook his head. “If they cared anything about me, they’d have come for me at the orphanage and not left me in that place.”
Rachel was emotionally wrung out and Mitch appeared the same. But she couldn’t leave the subject behind just yet.
“From now on, I’ll explain to you exactly where we’re going, who’ll be there, what the event is about,” she said.
Her offer seemed to embarrass him, somehow. He looked away without responding.
Rachel moved closer and, as she’d done so many times before, she laid her hand on his arm and rose on her toes. He accommodated her by leaning down a little so she could whisper in his ear.
With all her heart she wished she could gather him in her arms, hold him, stroke her fingers through his hair and make everything better for him. He deserved it, and doing so would make her feel better, too.
She left the attic not feeling very proud of the way she’d acted since Mitch had come into her life. It never occurred to her that he needed anything. Mitch was so strong, so self-assured, so independent.
She gave so much to her own family, every ounce of her emotion, strength and love, but none to him. All she did was take from Mitch. She’d given nothing back, except a promise to allow him into the world of high society.
She knew now that he needed more than that. Could she figure a way to give it to him?
And would he take it?
Chapter Twenty-One
“If you want out, now’s the time.”
Noah’s words intruded on Mitch’s thoughts. He looked up from the desk to find the boy standing at the study window, gazing outside. He’d come in just a few minutes ago after finishing his morning tutoring session.
“They’ll arrive soon,” Noah said, nodding toward the driveway. “The women. For the luncheon.”
Mitch nodded, finally understanding. The house had been in turmoil for days as preparations for what Rachel had called the La-La luncheon were underway. Servants had been cleaning and polishing everything from the floors to the silver. The kitchen staff and gardeners had been likewise busy, all under her direction.
Mitch made a note to give the staff a raise.
“Believe me,” Noah said, sounding wise and confident, “you don’t want to be here when all those women show up.”
Mitch had no idea why, but he decided to take Noah’s word for it. He decided, too, that the audit he’d begun on Albert Taft’s company books could wait.
“Okay, then,” Mitch said, rising from his chair. “Let’s go. You and me. Let’s make a break for it.”