All in Good Time (The Gilded Legacy)

by Maureen Lang

  Mr. Foster seemed in no hurry to answer Mr. Hawkins’s inquiry. He was staring at Dessa with an easy smile lingering on his face. “And you once said you didn’t have anything to wear to the opera. See how easily such challenges are overcome when you want them to be? You look beautiful, of course, as I knew you would.”

  Dessa did not reply; she gave him her profile by looking out the window instead, clutching tighter at her shawl.

  Mr. Foster laughed again, this time softly. “She looks so innocent sitting over there, doesn’t she, Hawkins? But she’s got a secret that could send the whole city up in flames. And it would all be her fault. Not so innocent after all, is she?”

  Dessa tried to swallow, but her throat was so dry the action sent pinpricks up and down the inside of her neck. Not only did he know; he was going to use the information to hurt her or the girls. Why did that shock her? Did she still think there was some goodness in him, despite his attempt to destroy Mr. Hawkins’s reputation? Had she truly believed he’d treat her any differently—even though, as Belva said, he liked her?

  “Miss Caldwell has done nothing wrong,” Mr. Hawkins said, inspiring Dessa to cast a grateful glance his way. But was he sure about that? He sounded as if he were . . . yet what Mr. Foster said was likely true. She looked out the window again, knowing that only a few blocks away, Hop Alley was simmering. Because of her.

  “What they planned to do to that girl is evil.” Her words were quiet but no less deliberate. She would stand by those words, no matter what. She just wasn’t sure everyone would agree with her. Perhaps Mr. Foster didn’t.

  “We can work out a peaceful conclusion,” Mr. Hawkins said. “Money has a way of solving many problems.”

  Mr. Foster slid his gaze from Dessa to eye Mr. Hawkins sideways. “You’ve got trouble enough coming your way, Hawkins. Don’t think you’ll be any help in this.”

  “What is it you want, Foster?” Mr. Hawkins asked. Dessa thought he sounded almost . . . nervous.

  “Now isn’t that an interesting question?” Mr. Foster was clearly enjoying himself. “What do any of us want, except to live a peaceful, happy, productive life? Love, security, provisions, and a roof. Add a satisfying feeling of accomplishment, and we might as well believe we’ve found our own slice of heaven.”

  He lounged in the seat as if he were perfectly content, despite the fact that the carriage was not moving. Dessa wondered what had happened to Mr. Hawkins’s driver and how long they would be detained. But mostly she wondered what Mr. Hawkins had already voiced: what did Mr. Foster want?

  “Miss Caldwell is content with far less than most of the women I know,” Mr. Foster said, looking at her. “And you have a mission. You’ve found your slice of heaven in the most unlikely of places: in Denver’s—perhaps the country’s—most disreputable district.”

  “I want to know what you plan to do with the information about the girls in my care. I promised to keep them safe, and I mean to do so.”

  He grinned at her. “Looks to me as if you could use my help.” He suddenly sat up straighter, then leaned across the small space toward Dessa so that she received a whiff of the cherry laurel he must have used on his skin. “If you really want to make a difference in the Fourth Ward, Miss Caldwell, you’re going to need me. Not him.”

  “Do you mean to help me, then?” she asked, though she had no real belief that he would.

  He sat back again. “That depends, for one thing, on what you do when I tell you a little something about this man you’re so eager to dress up for. He’s got a secret too.”

  Such words confused Dessa; what could Mr. Hawkins possibly want kept a secret? He lived a life apparently as close to a monk’s as Dessa had ever seen. He worked and went home, then rose and did it again. Having seen him in social settings, she guessed he probably wouldn’t even mind taking a vow of silence.

  “Look, I’ve got a deal for the two of you,” Foster said, all business now. “Hawkins, you let me in on your little soiree tonight, pretend you believe I’m on the up and up. And, Miss Caldwell, your job is to pretend you think I’m worthy of somebody like you. If only for a limited time.”

  Mr. Hawkins and Dessa exchanged a glance.

  “Been talking to Lionel Metcalf lately, Foster?” Mr. Hawkins continued to look at Dessa instead of Foster. “It must be true that Mr. Foster wants a place in next year’s election, and he thinks he needs our help to lay the groundwork.”

  Mr. Foster held up a finger and thumb, cocking an imaginary gun in Mr. Hawkins’s direction. “Your aim is straight, Hawkins. And who better to help me than the stiffest banker in town and the most saintly woman? With your help I’ll get votes from all the wards, not just the Fourth. Enough to send me straight to Washington.”

  35

  “I SUPPOSE I should expect blackmail from someone like you,” Henry said. His entire body felt weighted, as if the very air around him had taken on a new heaviness that pressed into him inch by inch.

  “Blackmail!” Foster repeated. “Hardly. This is what’s called a business deal. Same thing you do at your bank every day of the week.”

  Henry wasn’t sure which he hated more: feeling helpless against the power Foster obviously held over them, or the fact that Dessa was present to witness his forthcoming shame.

  There was only one thing to be done: release the power Foster held, at least over Henry. He’d planned to make his confession to Dessa tonight anyway, hadn’t he? If she by some miracle would have him once she knew the truth, it wouldn’t matter what the rest of his investors thought. And if she wouldn’t have him . . . well, even less did the censure of others matter then. He would have to start over, but he wasn’t too old to do that. His own father had handed over the rigors of the smithy to start a mercantile when he was even older than Henry. Henry could do the same.

  “The secret you hold over me means nothing, Foster. What does matter is your offer to help Miss Caldwell. As I said already, she’s done nothing wrong. But if you can avoid trouble with the Chinese, it’s no less than your duty. She owes you nothing in return for what common decency demands you do. Perhaps if you show some of that, you might honestly earn a few of those votes you’re after.”

  “And who’s going to tell the public at large if I do the right thing? You?” He shifted his gaze to Dessa. “Both of you?”

  “If you can keep the girls I’m hiding safe,” Dessa said, “I have no reason not to tell everyone that you helped. If it’s the truth.”

  “It’s no good,” Henry said. “We just went to considerable trouble to distance Pierson House from this man. Now we’re supposed to forget all that and pretend he’s a friend?”

  “That’s why it’s fortunate for me that I have reason to hope for cooperation from both of you,” Foster said. “One without the other might not be enough, once you tell everyone all I’ve ever done was sincerely want to help Pierson House.”

  “If you think for one moment that Miss Caldwell is going to pretend you’re worthy of her personal consideration—”

  Foster still looked far too confident. He raised a hand to rest it amicably on Henry’s shoulder and offered him a smile. “Henry—you’ll have to grow accustomed to me calling you that, since we’re about to face the world as allies in my upcoming campaign. So, Henry, let’s first discuss how Miss Caldwell should present herself. As your love interest, or mine? Shall we leave it up to her, once she knows you’re not all you claim to be? While I, on the other hand, have never claimed to be anything but what I am?”

  Henry didn’t want to look at Dessa’s face, but couldn’t help stealing another quick glance. As often as he’d mulled over telling her the truth, never once had he felt confident enough to predict how she might react.

  He knew that moment was at hand—he just couldn’t look at her until the truth was out.

  Why did Mr. Hawkins seem so reluctant to look at her? Dessa was sure whatever Mr. Foster had to say about him couldn’t impugn Mr. Hawkins’s integrity. There was a reason his bank was am
ong the most trusted in the city. He had a place in Denver’s growth and development because of his honesty and competent use of the funds entrusted to him. Never had she been more sure that someone deserved such an important position.

  “Mr. Hawkins?” She said his name gently, filled with all the hope she so easily felt when it came to his character. He’d defended her so boldly; now it was time he defended himself.

  “Ask him where he got the seed money for his first business.” Mr. Foster’s voice was fairly a hiss. “That would be the mercantile he started as a foundation for his bank. Oh, he was smart, all right. He offered people goods and gave them credit so they could afford those goods. A perfect business plan, so that by the time he sold off the dry goods and turned all his attention to credit and money, he’d already earned the trust of the entire city. Only how did you manage to procure all those items for your mercantile to begin with, Henry? Not from your parents, who owned a far less successful shop of their own. A simple little place over in Leadville, providing not much more than miners’ equipment. So where did you get the money, eh? From some generous benefactor, perhaps? Or was that benefactor nothing more than someone you made up to cover a crime?”

  “That’s very old history, Foster,” said Mr. Hawkins quietly.

  “But such an interesting history, Henry!” He folded his arms and grinned at Dessa again. “Did you know this gentleman was quite the campus man back at Chicago’s Northwestern University? He excelled in all his subjects, was respected by his professors, admired by his peers—in fact, he had all the best friends one could hope for. He was even engaged to the prettiest girl in Chicago. Henry Hawkins had, everyone said, the very brightest of futures.”

  Dessa shouldn’t be surprised by any of that, not even that he’d been engaged to the prettiest girl. But what had happened to her?

  “He didn’t go back to Leadville, though,” Mr. Foster continued as if he were telling a bedtime story. “Who could blame him, when Denver was destined to be the Queen City of the West. But though he fulfilled—surpassed—those hopes for success in business, personal success seemed to have been left behind in Chicago. He’s lived like a hermit all these years. Now why, I wonder? When he’d been so different in his college days?”

  Dessa lifted a brow with interest, only to have Mr. Foster shake his head and go on. “You might assume he suffered a broken heart, since he returned alone from Chicago. But all accounts were that he was the one who broke off the engagement. Quite suddenly, too. Left the girl not only with her heart broken, but with the shame of having learned her brother was a thief.”

  Dessa looked at Mr. Hawkins. “Her brother . . . a thief?”

  Mr. Foster spoke before Mr. Hawkins could. “An embezzler. Everyone found out he was pilfering funds from wealthy estates, money meant to go to legal heirs. A few thousand here, a few thousand there. Who would notice? Certainly not the bereaved heirs.”

  He now turned to Mr. Hawkins. “What I don’t understand, Henry, is if that brother shared his ill-gotten goods with you, why was he the only one to go to jail? He protected you, yet you didn’t marry his sister. Was it fear of getting caught? Is that why you hightailed it out of Chicago and set up your business so far away? But why didn’t her brother accuse you? Why did he spare you—especially if you ran out on his sister?”

  Mr. Hawkins pressed his lips together, looking somewhat annoyed. “That’s what comes of only having bits and pieces of the story, Foster. I had nothing to do with that crime.”

  “Then where did the money come from?”

  Although Mr. Foster had asked the question, Dessa might have asked it as well. She wanted to know—even if it wasn’t really any of her business. Somehow, she wanted it to be. She wanted to know everything about him, including his past.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Mr. Hawkins said. But when he shifted his position, his eyes caught Dessa’s. “I have no intention of discussing this with Mr. Foster. He’s correct that I lied about the source of my investment money. Suffice it to say that if this news becomes public knowledge, my business would suffer. Bankers must be, above all else, trustworthy. One is not apt to keep the confidence of others after being branded a liar.”

  “But if there is some explanation?” Dessa asked hopefully.

  “Not one that would satisfy the public, I’m afraid,” Mr. Hawkins said stiffly.

  Mr. Foster emitted something along the lines of a huff. “Must be worse than I thought. Here I believed somebody else did the dirty work, and our boy Henry here was just lucky to reap the benefit. You sure you don’t want to tell us, Henry? What I’m thinking is probably worse.”

  “I don’t care what you think.”

  “But you care what she thinks.”

  Mr. Hawkins looked at Dessa again. “That’s between Miss Caldwell and me. I’m not about to discuss this in front of you, Foster.”

  Mr. Foster shrugged. “I guess our new friendship needs time to bud. But the fact is, if I spread this news around town, you’re ruined. I can have letters sent to your investors demanding they inquire about the mysterious origin of your investment. I can take out newspaper advertisements telling the general public there is a cloud over Hawkins National, and there isn’t one thing you can do about it because the truth—even sketchy—is on my side. Is that what you want? Or do you just want to get me elected instead?”

  Mr. Hawkins did nothing, said nothing.

  “Why do you want to go to Washington, Mr. Foster?” Dessa asked. “You have a robust business here in Denver. Isn’t that enough?”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But no. My life here is too easy. I’ve grown to miss the chances, the challenges.”

  “But isn’t there a reason you want to go to Washington? To help this nation grow?”

  “Well, sure.”

  “What happens if society demands places like yours be shut down?”

  “Maybe that’s the best reason of all for me to go to Washington. To make sure the laws don’t interfere with places like mine.”

  “You’ll have to represent what the people want, Mr. Foster. Not your own interests.”

  He thumped his knees as if he’d never been happier. “Now that’s what I like so much about you, Miss Caldwell. You think the best of everybody. Even the quacks who get elected.”

  “Maybe if you’d shut up,” Mr. Hawkins said, “you might have been able to hope for our support. Especially if you agreed to help Miss Caldwell with her problem. But knowing you plan to work toward the kind of society found in the Fourth Ward doesn’t exactly endear you to either one of us. So forget it, Foster. We’re not going to be blackmailed. We’ll bring in the authorities to help Dessa, and I don’t care what you do about the information you have regarding my past.”

  Mr. Hawkins reached for the handle, twisting it to open the coach door. He didn’t need to say a word for Dessa to know that Mr. Foster was being asked to leave.

  “You’ll regret this, Hawkins.”

  Just as Mr. Foster looked ready to exit, Dessa heard herself speak.

  “Wait.”

  Henry looked at Dessa with amazement. Surely she didn’t plan to cave in to Foster’s demands?

  “How can you help the girls I’m hiding?”

  Foster’s smile was no less triumphant than it should have been over Dessa’s simple inquiry. Even as Henry had to fight himself not to smash his fist into Foster’s grimy smile, he knew she was probably right to ask. His only offer had been to go to the authorities—something she’d probably already considered doing herself. Even she must have known how fruitless that would be.

  Foster settled back in his seat again. “If you’ve heard the name Yin Tung, then you know he’s the key. I happen to have a way of reaching him, of negotiating a peaceful solution.”

  “I suppose that would take money,” Dessa said slowly.

  “To spare you, my dear Miss Caldwell, no price would be too high.”

  She looked neither flattered nor impressed, which gave Henry some comfort.<
br />
  “If you have a way of contacting this person,” Henry said, “you can leave the cost to me.”

  Foster grinned but shook his head. “No, Henry. I want her indebted to me, not to you. You must have guessed that much already.”

  “Doing the right thing shouldn’t require anyone to be in debt to you, Foster.”

  “Given whatever it is you’re hiding, I’m not sure you have the right to lecture anybody on what’s right.” Foster looked back at Dessa. “Are we in agreement, then? I’ll have to send someone to Yin Tung right away. We don’t have any time to lose. They want the girl back, and all they know is that she’s probably being hidden by a white family.”

  To Henry’s relief, Dessa did not answer right away. She even looked at him, as if seeking his approval—or at least his opinion. How he wanted to talk her out of this. It was a deal with the devil. But what did he have to offer instead?

  He looked at Foster. “What do you expect from Miss Caldwell in return?”

  Foster acknowledged his question with a slow smile aimed at Dessa, one that Henry suspected was supposed to be seductive. Perhaps it was.

  But no. She didn’t receive it with a smile of her own, thank God. In fact, she still looked as concerned as she had a moment ago. Was she willing to sacrifice herself for the girls she wanted to protect? Why did he even consider such a question? There was no doubt that she was willing to do all she could to help them.

  Foster cleared his throat and had the good sense to look momentarily embarrassed. “All I want is a chance to have people on both sides of town consider me as more than a gambler and proprietor of vice. I want them to think I’m respectable. To do that, I’m going to need somebody respectable to act like they believe in me first. Somebody people might listen to.”

  “Having me introduce you—even as my friend—to the polite side of the city isn’t going to do any good if you don’t follow it up with the right kind of behavior,” Dessa said. “Are you willing to act like a gentleman?”