Thirty people had been present, and she’d embarrassed her sister, who was not yet engaged, despite being two years older. Rose and Marigold had argued bitterly afterward, Rose in tears, Marigold angry with herself and unable to change anything—without humiliating herself. When she couldn’t bring herself to apologize because every time she looked at the goldfinch residing on her dressing table the words stuck in her throat, Father had sent her into service with the Chamberses, his business associates.
If Father hadn’t done that, Lucian wouldn’t have betrayed her with some distant Grassick cousin.
Surely Marigold could change that. Surely marriage to her would benefit him more than to a girl he couldn’t know well, since he’d only worked at the glassworks for a few months. If Father. . .
But Lucian thought Father wanted an excuse to send her away, keep her isolated from him until he moved south to Salem County. Whoever was right, Marigold faced questions and sympathy and the pain of seeing her sister marry first.
She mustn’t cry. Crying would make her eyes red, which would not look at all attractive. And Marigold wanted to look attractive. For no good reason other than feminine vanity, she wanted Gordon Chambers to faint with shock when he saw her walk into the Morrises’ parlor.
Except he wasn’t in the parlor when Marigold arrived. A dozen other people were, including the bespectacled Mr. Phillips, the Chamberses’ attorney. He raised his eyebrows at Marigold in her blue silk gown, as did a few others who recognized her, but when Mrs. Morris introduced her as “a friend from home,” people treated her like the guest she was, out of politeness to the Morrises, if nothing else.
Mr. Phillips gravitated to her side and brought her a glass of lemonade, then offered to escort her into dinner, then asked about her family.
“You know,” Marigold said.
“Of course. I wouldn’t have let you and the old housekeeper remain in that house alone with the children without looking into your background. You could have stolen all the silver and left the children on their own.”
“I’m happy to know someone was looking out for them.” Marigold curled her lip. “Unlike—ah, and here he is.”
Gordon, looking rather splendid in a black broadcloth suit and shimmering white shirt, strode into the parlor and straight up to Mrs. Morris. Only the low rumble of his voice reached Marigold’s ears, but she guessed what he was saying—apologies for being late.
“He had to buy a new suit,” Phillips murmured.
Marigold glanced at the attorney in time to see his upper lip curl.
“You don’t like him,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “He was irresponsible for taking so long to get here and irresponsible for wanting to leave again. But my mother tells me I shouldn’t be so hard on him. He had reason for wanting to leave Cape May.”
Marigold started to ask what, realized it was gossip, and compressed her lips. If Gordon wanted her to know, he would tell her. She would not lower herself to asking.
“You are such a fine girl.” Phillips took her hand in his and tucked it into the crook of his elbow. “You won’t talk about your employer.”
“No, sir.”
“But you don’t like him.” Phillips started to lead her across the room.
Her skirt brushed against the scented geraniums trailing their velvety leaves from pots along the baseboard. Their lemony freshness scented the air, mingling with hair pomades and perfume. Perhaps she should see about obtaining some geraniums for the Chambers—
“You don’t need to acknowledge that,” Phillips was saying. “Your eyes give you away.”
“Then I should keep them downcast, if they’re conveying those kinds of messages.”
She did dislike him. She had every reason to. He was inconsiderate and selfish. Just look how late he’d been to a party.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked the attorney.
“To meet the town’s newest bachelor.” Phillips laughed.
It couldn’t be avoided. With only a dozen guests, Gordon would notice her sooner than later.
He noticed her when she and Phillips were still a half dozen feet away. His root beer–colored eyes widened enough for her to catch the golden lights in them.
“Mr. Chambers,” Phillips called, “let me present Miss Marigold McCorkle.”
“We’ve met.” Gordon’s bow was stiff, his expression too blank.
Marigold almost felt sorry for him. Almost. Mostly, she wanted to laugh.
She dropped him a curtsy. “Yes, indeed we have, Mr. Chambers. Wasn’t it kind of the Morrises to invite both of us?”
“Very. . .democratic of them.” Gordon glanced to Phillips. “Things have changed since I was here last.”
“Not all that much,” Phillips began.
Before he could elaborate, Mrs. Morris invited everyone to move to the dining room.
Gordon sat at the far end of the long table from Marigold. She sat next to Mrs. Morris on one side and Mr. Phillips on the other. Both kept her entertained. The food slid past her palate on a variety of textures, spices, and categories—poultry, fish, beef; consommé, creamed vegetables, salad; trifle, cake, chocolates. She’d forgotten that life at the Chambers household had grown austere in comparison. They had enough to eat, but it was plain, unimaginative, prepared by an excellent cook of everyday dishes. The chef had gone with the other servants. By the time Mrs. Morris led the ladies from the dining room to freshen up in the upstairs chambers, Marigold decided she preferred simple meals on a daily basis. Her corset felt like it was about to cut her in half if she so much as breathed too deeply.
She felt rather unwell and out of place among women who hired nurserymaids. They didn’t entertain them.
“I should leave,” she whispered to Mrs. Morris. “Before the men come in. I shouldn’t have come.”
Mrs. Morris looked pensive for a moment. “Do you truly care what Mr. Chambers thinks of you being here?”
“He wasn’t happy to see me here. I shouldn’t have come.”
She’d come to tweak his nose, to annoy him. It was an unwise decision.
“I don’t want him to know who I am,” she explained.
“But he needs to, child. You need to go home.”
Marigold’s overly full stomach dropped to the bottom of her belly. “Is that why you invited me? You want Mr. Chambers to realize I shouldn’t be working for him and dismiss me?”
Even before Mrs. Morris answered in the affirmative, Marigold knew the old family friend had betrayed her.
❧
Gordon wasn’t annoyed so much as confused by Marigold’s presence at the Morrises’. Before he’d left Cape May, he’d learned in no uncertain terms that those who employed did not fraternize with those they employed. America might be the land of opportunity, but that meant that servants could become employers, if they chose. He hadn’t accepted that as a youth, who saw a damsel in distress, a maidservant damsel, and charged to the rescue—and caused trouble.
He always caused trouble when he took the time to care about someone.
Gordon didn’t think social mores had changed in Cape May over the past dozen years, yet Marigold stood chattering away with the attorney, dressed in a gown every bit as pretty and fine as those of the other women in the room, and being treated like a special guest. No wonder she didn’t care what she said to him, if she had friends like the Morrises.
And why would a nurserymaid have friends like the Morrises? It had to be more than the explanation of her grandmother working for Paul Morris’s family decades ago.
Gordon intended to ask her the first opportunity he received. He intended to walk her home. It was only half a block, so he didn’t know how much of an answer he would receive, but he would invoke his authority over her as her employer.
The notion unsettled him. He’d never been anyone’s employer. He didn’t like being anyone’s employer. He never rebuked Marigold for her bold speech because he’d lived in the West too long to remember that things
were different in the East.
So he would ask Mr. Morris.
Gordon opened his mouth to pose the question, but music began to drift from the parlor, a piano played with a light and skillful touch.
“Ah,” Mr. Morris said with a satisfied smile, “my wife has persuaded Marigold to play for us.”
Gordon followed the other men into the room, then stood in the doorway and stared regardless of the rudeness of doing so. Marigold perched on the stool, her gown billowing around her, her hair subdued to a rich auburn in the gaslight. She held her back straight, but not rigid, and music flowed from her fingertips as though it came directly from her instead of the instrument.
In that moment, he understood why he endured her boldness. He knew why he smiled even when she made him angry.
He was fast on his way to falling in love with her.
The realization set his resolve to end matters that night. He couldn’t have her under his roof under the circumstances. He couldn’t risk hurting her. If it meant he had to take the first applicant who approached the door, he would see Marigold gone the following day. Women never failed to complicate his life beyond patience. He was certain God had shown him he should be alone. How else had he eluded the clutches of dozens of females in the past dozen years? God had protected him and kept directing him onward, to where few people lived, especially not females, with their troubles.
And their deceptions.
He found himself seated on a sofa with Mrs. Morris while he listened to Marigold play. Most people talked. Gordon listened, enthralled, enchanted, sick with a knot forming in his middle.
“Who is she?” he asked at last.
“Marigold McCorkle.” Mrs. Morris smiled. “Do you know the story of the goldfinch bottle?”
“I don’t think so. Should I have?”
“Perhaps not. It’s a tale of faithfulness and giving up what’s too important to us for our hearts to serve God.” Mrs. Morris settled back against the hard, pink and white–striped cushions. “About ninety years ago, a young Scots glassblower made a goldfinch bottle for his fiancée. That man was Colin Grassick, and he married the owner of the glassworks that employed him.”
“Grassick.” A bell rang in Gordon’s head. “Your husband’s sister’s married to a Grassick.”
“Yes, Colin Grassick’s grandson. Because of youthful indiscretions, he lost the goldfinch. It was starting to be passed on to the eldest son.”
Gordon rested his elbow on the arm of the sofa and hoped the warmth of the room and his full stomach wouldn’t send him to sleep over a tale he didn’t understand why he should know.
“My husband’s sister helped Daire Grassick find the goldfinch,” Mrs. Morris continued, “and throughout it all, Daire learned that it was just too important to him and his family, so he gave it to the son of the Morrises’ maid. That gift and help from the Grassicks gave the McCorkles the push they needed to better their lives. They’re quite prosperous, and both of their daughters have graduated from Vassar.”
Gordon jerked upright. “Marigold? I mean, Miss McCorkle?”
Mrs. Morris smiled and nodded. “And now she’s inherited the goldfinch. At least she did. There weren’t any males in her generation, so her father decided it would go to the first daughter to marry.”
“Miss McCorkle is getting married?” Gordon felt like the fish from dinner had come alive and begun to swim about in his belly at this news.
“Not any longer. When you took so long to arrive, her fiancé broke off the engagement.”
Nine
Marigold glanced from Gordon’s proffered arm to her gloved hand to the tips of her white shoes peeking from beneath the bottom ruffle on her gown. “I’m quite all right walking on my own, thank you.”
“A gentleman offers a lady his arm when escorting her, Miss McCorkle.” Gordon’s tone was as grim as his expression.
Marigold let her gaze stray to Mrs. Morris. The older lady smiled and nodded.
Marigold ground her teeth and rested her fingertips on the sleeve of Gordon’s coat.
She’d taken Mr. Phillips’ arm without a moment’s hesitation, and he’d been nearly a stranger until that night. She knew Gordon Chambers. She should welcome his courtesy for the half-block stroll home.
Or perhaps she welcomed it too much. She was supposed to be in mourning for her lost fiancé, not liking the feel of the strong arm beneath her hand. Her heart was supposed to be breaking, not her person tingling, as though she anticipated a run straight across hot sand to dive into cold water.
Her face stiff, as though she’d spent too much time in frigid temperatures, Marigold bade her host and hostess good night and allowed Gordon to lead her from the house. To call his pace leisurely would exaggerate the speed. He crept down the sidewalk like a man three times his age. And he said nothing past the first house. Quiet filled the night, save for the distant rumble of carriage wheels and the whisper of the ocean breeze through the trees.
Wanting to burst into raucous singing, Marigold tossed out a question in front of the second house they passed. “So what did Mrs. Morris tell you about me?”
“Why,” he demanded, as he stopped and faced her, “didn’t you tell me what you lost by staying with my nieces when I delayed so long getting here?”
“Why did you take so long getting here?”
“That doesn’t concern you.”
“Apparently it does, since you just asked me why I didn’t tell you about my canceled wedding.”
“I—” He set his mouth in a thin line, then sighed. “You’re right. I caused the difficulty. That gives you a measure of a right to know. But. . .it’s difficult.”
She said nothing. She didn’t move.
That one corner of his mouth twitched. “You’re stubborn, aren’t you?”
She remained still.
“I honestly didn’t get the telegram for nearly a month. Then. . .” He looked away. “I did have some business matters to settle before I left New Mexico, but, yes, mostly it was because my brother’s death grieved me, and I couldn’t face the idea of coming back here, facing this place without him. Not particularly manly of me, is it?”
“I think that took about as much courage as a man can have to admit.”
She thought a great deal more, too. Nothing she would share with him—her shame for being so annoyed with him, her softening heart toward him. Too softening.
She needed to be away, to be home with her family, seeing Lucian when he returned for visits, mending matters, restoring her relationships. She couldn’t begin to have a regard for a man who wanted nothing more than to abandon people he should love.
Yet now she understood he just might have a reason.
“We can’t undo the past,” she said. “So no sense in worrying over it.”
“I feel responsible for the damage I caused you with my thoughtlessness. I didn’t think. . . . I didn’t realize. . . .”
“If Lucian’s love is so weak,” Marigold said with more bravado than she felt, “he isn’t—I’m better off. . . .” She blinked to clear her vision. “What’s done is done.”
“Perhaps not. You said you were to be in your sister’s wedding. Are you not going home for it within the week?”
“Yes, but I don’t know how you would manage, you and Mrs. Cromwell. Ruby’s so worried lately, whenever anyone leaves her, and if I go home. . .” She turned away and folded her arms across her middle to hold in a sudden stab of pain that bore no resemblance to physical discomfort.
Her discomfort lay in her heart, in her spirit, in her soul.
“You can’t stay here just because Ruby doesn’t want you to go away, Miss McCorkle.”
Miss McCorkle. Somehow his using her surname instead of “Miss Marigold” hurt. Though only a foot of warm night air swirled between them, it felt like a wall, or a hurricane blowing her out of Cape May.
“You can’t stay.” Gordon’s voice hardened. “I cannot continue to have a lady from your family acting as my nieces’ nur
serymaid.”
“You’re—you’re dismissing me?” Marigold’s eyes widened. “You’re not just telling me to go home for my sister’s wedding? You’re telling me to go home—forever?”
Poultry and pie warred in her belly. Her throat burned. In a moment she was going to be sick right there in front of an elegant mansion.
She swallowed and plunged on. “You take three months to get here. You give no explanation as to why. You make me postpone my wedding until my fiancé gives up on me, until my charges are convinced I am the only constant left in their lives, until I have to bear the shame of—you’re dismissing me because I’m not in need of this position? Why you, you—”
He laid his forefinger across her lips. “Careful, or you’ll give me more cause to dismiss you.”
For a full minute, they stood motionless in the center of the sidewalk, his finger burning against her mouth, her heart racing. Her lips moved; she thought to protest. She realized she had just kissed his hand. She jerked away and spun on her heel. Skirts crushed between her shaking fingers, she ran away from him. Her heels clattered on the sidewalk. Her breath rasped in her throat, from panting or sobs she neither knew nor cared. Getting away was what mattered, far away, secluded in her room, where she could cry all she liked and no one would have to know.
She not only had to face the humiliation of going home to see her sister married, she had to face seeing her unfaithful fiancé with another woman, face the moment when she would be expected to hand the goldfinch over to her sister, and now to confess she had been dismissed from her position because her family had pulled themselves out of poverty—because she was arrogant and insolent to her employer.
Because she’d kissed his hand.
Surely dying was easier than enduring such humiliation.
She didn’t reach her room before the floodgates opened and tears spilled down her face. Sobbing, she dropped onto a chair in the kitchen and rested her head on her folded arms. Life had been going so well for her. She had graduated from college; she, a female, had a better education than anyone in her family. She was engaged to a handsome and talented man, engaged before her sister. She would receive the goldfinch to pass along to her children. Yes, Father had sent her into service, but she loved the girls and the Chambers family had told her again and again she was indispensable. When Gerald and Katherine Chambers died, Mrs. Cromwell begged Marigold to stay. The lawyer and banker sent her letters begging her to stay. She was needed, important.
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