All in Good Time (The Gilded Legacy)

by Maureen Lang

  Dessa nodded, though she couldn’t deny feeling her pulse speed. It was certainly a reasonable excuse, one she hadn’t considered. “I should have extended the invitation to her as well, then. Perhaps she would have enjoyed having someone else cook for both of them.”

  “No need to worry. Today’s job brought him a nice little bonus, and my compliments.” He glanced to the repaired window. “Is the work to your satisfaction?”

  “Yes,” she said, though she didn’t look at the window. She looked down the street instead, wondering if the glazier was close enough to hail back. She could ask him to return with his wife. Certainly she could keep the duck warm in the oven. . . .

  But instead of seeing the wagon, Dessa spotted another familiar carriage turning onto the street. Surely that was Mr. Hawkins’s coachman atop that black lacquered clarence? What in the world had brought him into this neighborhood?

  She smiled to herself. Perhaps it wasn’t anything in this world at all.

  “Oh, Mr. Foster, you’ll excuse me, won’t you? I believe we have another guest for dinner after all—one of the parties responsible for helping me to open Pierson House.”

  Mr. Foster’s gaze followed the direction of hers, though she noticed his scarred brow—the only apparent flaw on his otherwise handsome face—pulled downward into a frown.

  She offered a contrasting smile. “Perhaps it’s fortuitous that your glazier couldn’t stay. We have just the right number of plates already at the table.”

  “Indeed.”

  Henry looked down the street as his carriage turned the corner. If all appeared normal at Pierson House, he wouldn’t instruct Fallo to stop. How could he? How would he possibly explain a visit? He’d made it clear from the start that he had no real interest in Miss Caldwell or her mission. Stopping by for a neighborly visit was something Tobias would do. Not Henry.

  But Henry knew why he’d had his driver go this way and despised himself for his weakness. He simply wanted to see Dessa Caldwell; he’d be a fool to deny how often she came to mind. Seeing her hesitate in front of his bank today had dismantled any power to resist driving by.

  It did no good to tell himself men with a past did not pursue polite women who were looking for honesty and a sound reputation in the men they might consider fit to share a future with. His reputation, his fortune, his banking institution were all built upon a foundation of glass. One whisper about how it all began would see it shattered.

  Glancing out, the first thing that caught his eye was the carriage stopped in front of Pierson House: a black barouche with the hood drawn over the top, along with a pair of matched Friesians. If the carriage itself wasn’t identifiable, the horses were. Turk Foster was known to ride one of those long-maned horses throughout the city—rumor had it that was how he’d seduced more than a few young women. They’d been attracted first to his horse.

  Henry’s jaw tensed. What was Foster doing at Pierson House? Chasing after a runaway girl from his dance hall, or looking for a new recruit?

  Abandoning all thoughts of driving on, Henry tapped his walking stick on the roof of his carriage and Fallo slowed behind Foster’s barouche.

  “Why, Mr. Hawkins, how nice to see you!”

  At the unexpected hail, Henry’s driver stopped altogether. Henry hadn’t seen Dessa Caldwell on the other side of Foster’s carriage until now, but as he hurried to exit his own coach, his gaze fell briefly—disapprovingly—on the man behind her.

  Henry tipped his hat. “Good evening, Miss Caldwell. I . . . trust all is well with the sign I hung the other day?” He forced himself to look beyond her to the shingle still affixed to the house. “It’s been some time since I trusted my handiwork and had my man drive us by to be sure it was still in place.”

  To his astonishment, she left Foster’s side to thread his arm with her own. “It’s as sound as can be, and I’m so very grateful for your help. Do you know Mr. Turk Foster?”

  Henry offered his hand, though any warmth he might have felt a moment before quickly evaporated. Foster took it, appearing every bit as cool as Henry himself.

  “Won’t you stay for dinner, Mr. Hawkins? It’s the least I can do for your trouble. The dinner will be one of gratitude all the way around. To you for the sign, and to Mr. Foster for his help earlier today.”

  “What help was that?” He hoped his suspicion didn’t show through the inquiry.

  “One of the street kids threw a rock through her window,” Foster said as they walked up to the porch. “I happened to be passing by at the time and offered to have the window repaired.”

  Henry looked over at the window beside the sign he’d hung. It appeared intact, though now he noticed a few glistening shards on the ground beneath.

  “It was fortunate for Miss Caldwell that you happened by,” he said. If it was a coincidence. . . .

  Inside the house, Henry removed his hat and gloves as Foster did the same. Despite being convinced he had been right to drive this way—and right to stop, which had forced a dinner invitation from a woman whose goal in life seemed to be to feed anyone who came by—all Henry felt was irritation. For all the male visitors to this house, a casual observer might think the place fit right into the neighborhood.

  Another unwelcome thought crossed Henry’s mind as he followed the others to the dining room. Had Foster been approached to run in next year’s Senate race, as Lionel had indicated? If Foster had been foolish enough to agree, wouldn’t someone like Dessa Caldwell be just the right kind of wife to capture the votes Foster’s blemished reputation would scare away otherwise?

  “Oh, Mr. Hawkins!” Jane’s surprised voice reached him from the direction of the kitchen door. She held out her hand as she approached. “How wonderful to see you.”

  Henry accepted her handshake while Miss Caldwell spoke.

  “Jane, you already know Mr. Hawkins, but I didn’t get a chance to introduce you formally to Mr. Turk Foster. Mr. Foster, this is Jane Murphy, who lives here with me at Pierson House.”

  Henry recognized the interested glint in Foster’s eye, creating in Henry an unexpectedly strong sense of protection.

  “Dinner will be served shortly, gentlemen,” said Miss Caldwell as she left them to approach the kitchen. “Jane, perhaps you could show our guests to the table and have them choose where they’d like to sit.”

  Miss Caldwell disappeared behind the kitchen door.

  “So, Jane,” said Foster, “how is it that you’re familiar with the elusive Mr. Hawkins? Rumors have always proclaimed him to live in a rather small social circle. A circle of one, if I may say so without offense.” He bowed his head Henry’s way.

  “No offense taken,” Henry said, then stepped toward the dining room table with the sincere hope that Jane was too embarrassed to admit how they’d met. If Foster hadn’t read about the incident in the newspaper, there was no sense enlightening him. She should put all that behind her, where it was best left.

  “Mr. Hawkins and I met at his bank,” Jane said without a trace of the chagrin Henry had hoped for.

  “That’s right,” Henry said, and caught Jane’s eye with the slightest shake of his head. “Now then, Jane, where will you be sitting? I assume Miss Caldwell will want to take the place closest to the kitchen.”

  “Oh.” She looked momentarily confused, then motioned to the chair on the far side. “I’ll sit there.”

  Henry found his way to the end of the table, opposite where he knew Miss Caldwell would sit. Foster appeared to be contemplating something; otherwise Henry was quite sure they’d have had a race to the seat he now claimed.

  “At the bank . . . You’re too young to work there, too young to do business there.” Foster looked at Henry with a new light in his eye before turning that gaze back to Jane. “You must be the girl I read about, the one who came into the bank and threatened Mr. Hawkins with the false nitro?”

  Jane looked abashed at last. “Yes, I’m afraid so.” She moved closer to the kitchen door. “I believe I’m needed in the kitc
hen before we sit.”

  “So,” Foster said, his full attention on Henry now. “I thought there was something curious about that story. You called it a prank, but she clearly intended to rob you.”

  Henry placed his hands on the chair in front of him, staring at the table rather than at Foster. “It was a prank, nothing more.”

  “Only because she didn’t get away with it. And you let her go. Why? Because she’s a girl?”

  “She’s a child. Children make mistakes.”

  “I’d say she’s a bit more than that,” Foster said with a glance toward the kitchen door. Though he’d kept the comment to little more than a whisper, Henry heard the appreciative tone. Perhaps some of the girls on Foster’s stage were as young as Jane.

  “She has a home here,” Henry said, hoping the reminder would keep any thoughts of exploiting the girl far from Foster’s mind.

  He shrugged, then returned his gaze to Henry. This time Henry did not look away, though the other man’s scrutiny went on longer than he thought necessary. “Curious about your letting a would-be thief go, Hawkins. Knowing you by reputation, I’d have said you thought money far more important than forgiveness for a prank, even one from a girl.”

  Just then Miss Caldwell came through the swinging kitchen door, and Foster’s face changed from dubious to welcoming faster than Henry could take his next breath.

  Henry might have been out of practice at social gatherings, but he meant to participate in—and direct—this conversation. He smiled at Miss Caldwell. “I couldn’t help but notice the table is set as if you’d expected me. Am I taking someone’s place again?”

  Miss Caldwell laughed, a sound he found all too pleasant. “I’d invited the glazier who did the work on the window this afternoon, but Mr. Foster said he was unable to attend. So you see? With or without an earlier invitation, Mr. Hawkins, you were meant to sit at this table.”

  Henry kept his gaze ahead, afraid if he did so much as glance Foster’s way, he’d look like the strutting peacock he felt like inside.

  “Jane,” Henry said after they’d been seated, after Miss Caldwell’s prayer for the meal, and after she’d begun filling the plates, “have you decided yet whether or not you’ll return to school?” He wasn’t above revealing his familiarity with the girl to make it appear to Foster that Henry had more right to sit at this table than he.

  “Miss Caldwell and I have discussed it, but I have the rest of summer to decide.” She looked hopefully in Henry’s direction. “What do you think I should do, Mr. Hawkins? Go back to school, or get a job?”

  He was about to answer—school, most definitely—but he’d barely opened his mouth before Foster spoke up. “I can offer you a job starting tomorrow, over at my theater. The Verandah. Have you heard of it?”

  Jane shook her head slowly.

  “It’s the finest concert hall in Denver. I’ll admit there is some gaming that goes on, but I assure you—and you, Miss Caldwell—that it’s a fine, upstanding venue for variety theater. It’s really a happy place! People come every night of the week to laugh and enjoy music and escape the worries of their day.” He winked at Jane. “Have you ever wanted to be on the stage, Jane?”

  “I . . . hadn’t thought of it before. I can’t sing.” She glanced at Miss Caldwell. “At least not like Miss Caldwell. I’m good at math, though.”

  Foster laughed and looked to the head of the table. “You’re both welcome to my stage at any time.” Then, as if he’d guessed the offer wasn’t stirring interest, he raised his glass in a toast to Jane. “Mathematics, eh? I’ve always admired a smart girl. To perfect the old French proverb that says only men and queens can afford to be ugly, there is nothing more desirable than a girl who is both smart and beautiful.”

  Jane’s cheeks turned instantly pink, and Henry lifted a brow at the man’s easy charm. He was clearly everything Henry was not.

  The thought prompted him to glance Miss Caldwell’s way. Did she think Foster charming? How could she not?

  “I’m sure we can find suitable work for you, Jane,” Foster went on, “perhaps helping my assistant with the books. He’s always appearing overworked and would probably welcome the help of a pretty assistant.”

  As Jane’s brows rose with interest, Henry’s gathered in concern. If Miss Caldwell had any idea what Foster was proposing, she’d be protesting already. Get the girl in a place like that and she’d lose any chance in polite society—the kind of society Miss Caldwell would want her to be part of.

  “There is an academy over on Seventeenth Street that offers an extensive mathematics course,” Henry said. The school was looking to build a larger facility, which required more funds. An exploratory committee had contacted Henry some time ago, trying to sell him on the merits of their faculty. Unfortunately for them at the time, he’d refused to get involved. It was a school exclusively for girls. Until meeting Jane, he’d thought only boys needed the rigorous environment of such a school. “It’s called Wolfe Hall. They have scholarships available for young women such as you. Would you be interested?”

  “Oh yes, Mr. Hawkins!”

  With a mix of satisfaction and secret embarrassment, he turned his attention back to his meal. Scholarships, indeed. He had no idea if they offered such a thing. What he did know, however, was that he’d sooner spit into the wind than have the likes of Turk Foster snatch away a girl he’d already saved from jail once.

  Surely an anonymous scholarship fund for the girl could be arranged.

  Dessa sipped the water in her glass, looking at Mr. Hawkins over the brim and trying to hide her astonishment. Was this the same Mr. Hawkins sitting at this very table, the one who had previously offered little more than yes or no to any given question? He was a veritable chatterbox today.

  Surely it had been God Himself who’d sent Mr. Hawkins by this evening!

  Sometime later, when she saw both gentlemen to the door, after Mr. Foster had kissed her hand in a lingering way that pushed politeness to its rim, she watched Mr. Hawkins place his hat on his head and turn to the door for a silent departure.

  But then he turned back to her. “May I say, Miss Caldwell, that the stove has proven to be a fine investment for you?”

  Dessa couldn’t contain her broad smile. “Why, Mr. Hawkins, that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  She was amused at the curious look on Mr. Foster’s face as he followed Mr. Hawkins from her house. He was charming, indeed—but she didn’t deny that sharing a private exchange with Mr. Hawkins was more delightful than it should be for a woman intent on staying a spinster.

  18

  DESSA FILLED the trash bin with the remnants of breakfast: orange peels, the scrapings from her bowl of oatmeal, a few crumbs from the soda biscuits she’d baked. With the food trash separated from the rest, she took it all out to the two bins the garbage wagon would empty on Wednesday.

  Outside, she expected the air to be fresh—but as she approached the side of the carriage house where the bins were kept, she smelled something other than the clean air or the trash. She smelled smoke.

  Heart pounding, she looked back at the house but saw nothing suspicious, not even from upstairs, where Jane still slept. Turning around, she looked along the yards in both directions.

  Nothing.

  The smell seemed to be stronger as she approached the covered trash bins. Could someone have tossed in a match?

  Instead of lifting the lid on either the food or the regular waste bin, she felt the sides first. Neither was hot.

  Yet that smell . . . She looked at the carriage house. It was old and dilapidated, that was true. But the scent seemed stronger now that she was so near the building.

  Setting aside the buckets, Dessa approached the door she always had such trouble opening. It took several minutes to pry it loose, even as she tugged it back and forth. Once again it sprang open most unexpectedly.

  The scent of smoke was stronger than ever, though she saw nothing unusual. Stepping inside, she found her e
ye drawn to the blanket on the bed—more specifically, to a rather large and black circle burned right through to the hay mattress beneath.

  Rolling up the rest of the blanket and pressing on the marred center to be sure there were no flames left, she felt dampness instead. Someone had started this fire . . . but just as surely, someone had extinguished it.

  Dessa turned around to study the space. There was noplace to hide; she knew she was alone.

  Walking back to where the boards were loose, she pushed one. The plank slid easily out of the way, wide enough for her to slip her head outside. Two loose planks, side by side, would allow a person of some girth to pass through. Someone had been here! And this was how they were coming and going.

  There was no one in the area now, though. Turning back again, she searched for any sign of regular occupancy. There were no clothes, no leftover food, nothing but the burned blanket and a discarded bowl. She realized it was the same one that last time held nuts for that squirrel.

  “Oh, Lord,” she said aloud, “if someone wants a roof over their head, why won’t they come to my front door?”

  Determinedly, she left the carriage house to return to the kitchen, where she found the same hammer and supply of nails Mr. Ridgeway had used to hang the sign beside her dining room window. She would show this person, whoever it was, they needn’t resort to poaching. They were welcome inside.

  She pounded nails in the planks until they were firmly in place—a task that took far longer than she expected. Jane came in search of her and offered to help when Dessa found several more loose boards, all the way around the structure. Between the two of them they sealed sixteen planks—a few of them crookedly, but firmly all the same.

  “Now all we have to do is write a note.”