Once an Heiress (Gilded Promises)

by Renee Ryan

  The weight of her mortification should be heavier. Fitz had come looking for her not because he’d missed her or regretted his behavior of the past. No, he’d come for a necklace. For all intents and purposes, Fitz was her enemy.

  So how could she have clutched onto his hand as if her life had depended upon it? Could she have been more foolish?

  Gigi blamed her loss of sense on the music. Esmeralda’s extraordinary talent had captured her imagination. How could Gigi not have been moved, especially after Tasha’s horrible squawking moments before Esmeralda had taken the stage?

  Trepidation lifted ice from her belly and deposited it into her lungs.

  There was no room for nostalgia in her life. If only Fitz hadn’t reminded her of that time, years ago, when they’d argued over Carmen. He’d been so passionate in his hatred of the dramatic story, his face full of masculine opinion and emotion. Gigi had been drawn to him like a moth to flame. His had been her first kiss.

  She’d never told him that part.

  She never would, either. He would never believe her; his opinion of her was that low.

  Eyeing the bucket of buttons with dread, she reached in and pulled out a handful. She was ten minutes into sorting them by size, color, and shape when the door opened and one of the dancers entered the room. She would have tumbled over Gigi if she hadn’t moved out of the way just in time.

  “Oh, Sally. I apologize. I didn’t see you sitting there on the floor.”

  “No harm done.” She added a little hum in her throat to underscore her sincerity. Then, with the speed of a seasoned jacks player, she swept up the pile of yellow buttons inches from the dancer’s toes.

  “What is it, Jessica?” Mrs. Llewellyn asked from her perch on the other side of the room, her eyes scrutinizing the costume the girl wore. “Did you rip your skirt?”

  “No. I. Actually, I . . .” The dancer’s gaze chased about the room, landing nowhere in particular. “I was looking for Mr. Everett.”

  “Well, clearly, he’s not here.”

  “I see that now.” Seeming in no hurry to leave, the dancer stared down at her curled fingers, studying the nails as if the answer to a complicated problem resided there. “Do you happen to know where he is?”

  “I am not in the habit of monitoring the theater owner’s whereabouts. He is somewhere beyond this room.”

  Though Mrs. Llewellyn pointed this out gently, Jessica visibly cringed. “I didn’t mean any offense.”

  “Was there anything else?”

  “Not particularly.” Jessica lifted her thumb to her lips and began chewing in earnest. “I’ll search for him elsewhere.”

  She gave Gigi a pitiful nod before exiting the room with a slow, defeated shuffle of her feet.

  Knowing it was none of her business yet hating to see such dejection, Gigi followed the dancer out into the darkened hallway.

  “Jessica,” she called after the girl, who’d picked up her pace considerably once she’d left the wardrobe room. “Wait. Please. Slow down. I wish to speak with you a moment.”

  The dancer swung around, her eyes glittering with unshed tears.

  Gigi didn’t know the dancer well, but she knew desperation when she saw it. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  The girl’s large hazel eyes rounded. “You want to help me?”

  “I’d like to try.”

  Jessica lowered her head and took two, three breaths. “But you don’t even know me.”

  “I know you are a gifted dancer employed by the opera company.” Gigi put a hint of encouragement in her voice. “I also know that you are a hard worker. No matter how many run-throughs the director requests, you perform each step with as much passion as if it were the first. You try very hard to arrive on time, though you don’t always succeed, and that upsets you a great deal.”

  For a long moment, Jessica eyed Gigi. There was enough light to see her grin. “You are very observant.”

  Gigi tried not to sigh. She hadn’t always been aware of others or their individual needs. Her world had been very small and privileged, centered solely on her own wants. She’d attended church every Sunday, but there had been no real Christian charity in her heart beyond a sort of nebulous sense of right and wrong.

  “Tell me what’s happened to upset you.”

  Tears slipped from the girl’s eyes before she frantically swiped at them with the back of her hand. “You—you truly want to know?”

  Gigi clutched the girl’s sleeve, then dropped her hand almost as soon as she made contact. “I do, truly.”

  “It’s my neighbor, Mrs. Toscanini.”

  “Is she ill?”

  “No. Well, yes.” Now that she’d begun, the words tumbled out in a garbled rush of air. “She fell and broke her ankle a week ago, and because of her injury, she can’t get up and down the stairs no more, I mean, anymore, which is perfectly understandable but also upsetting. I presented my concerns, but she promised her ankle wouldn’t become a problem.”

  Gigi waited as the girl drew in a big gulp of air.

  “Now she claims her ankle is a problem. She watches Fern, you see, and I’m not convinced she’s the best choice, but what am I supposed to do? She’s the only help I have, not that it matters, anyways, because now she can’t keep her anymore and I have no one else to turn to.”

  Jessica paused to take another breath. This time, Gigi took advantage of the chance to interject a question. “Who is Fern?”

  “Fern is my daughter. I told you that.” Her brows pulled together. “I . . . didn’t I?”

  Actually, she hadn’t. But Gigi decided saying so would only upset the girl further. She studied Jessica, wondering her age. She couldn’t be more than seventeen, maybe sixteen. She didn’t wear a wedding band. Nor had she mentioned the child’s father. There was an unpleasant story there, Gigi thought. “How old is your daughter?”

  “She’s three and a very good child. She hardly ever cries or fusses.”

  As Jessica extolled her daughter’s virtues, Gigi heard the love in the dancer’s voice, a love so profound Gigi felt a jolt of something like longing. She’d always seen herself having a houseful of children.

  When Jessica wound down, Gigi offered up a solution. “Why don’t you bring Fern to the theater until you can find someone to watch her?”

  Jessica glanced over her shoulder, frowned when her gaze landed on Esmeralda. “I can’t.”

  “Of course you can.” The words did nothing to erase the stricken look on the girl’s face, so Gigi asked, “Why ever not?”

  Looking back at the stage, she sighed heavily. “Esmeralda wouldn’t like it.”

  “Leave Esmeralda to me.”

  Chewing on her fingernail again, the dancer looked at Gigi as if she’d lost her mind. Perhaps she had. Jessica was absolutely, completely correct. Esmeralda would not want a child running around the theater untended. Ironic, really, since she’d raised her own daughter backstage in countless theaters across Europe.

  “Suppose I did bring Fern to the theater, what would I do with her while I’m rehearsing?”

  “I’ll watch her.” The words flew out of Gigi’s mouth without pause, and she realized she actually wanted to care for the child. Sophie rarely needed her during the day. Gigi could make it work if she used the evenings to complete her other duties, mostly seeing to Sophie’s clothing.

  “You . . .” Jessica cocked her head. “You mean it?”

  Gigi nodded.

  “I could pay you.”

  Gigi started to wave off the offer but then remembered the pearls. Even if she saved every penny Esmeralda paid her as a domestic, and sorted every button in the state of New York, Gigi would still fall short of the money she needed to redeem the necklace.

  As much as she would like to serve Jessica out of the goodness of her heart, she simply couldn’t. “How much do you pay Mrs. Toscanini?”

  “Three dollars a week.”

  That seemed an outrageous sum. Gigi did a quick mental calculation
and came up with a number that would help get her to her goal without robbing Jessica of her hard-earned money. “I’ll do it for two.”

  After working out the particulars, the young dancer thanked Gigi, then ducked around the corner and went back to work.

  Gigi returned to the wardrobe room. It was with a lighter heart and a sense of hope that she tackled the intensely mind-numbing job of sorting buttons.

  Chapter Ten

  Several hours later, Gigi was once again tucked safely in the warmth of the town house on Riverside Drive. Standing beside Sophie in the young woman’s enormous closet, she studied the contents with the critical eye of someone who’d once prided herself in her own wardrobe.

  Esmeralda had spared no expense on her daughter’s attire. Despite her negative remarks about New York society, the mother wanted her only daughter to achieve success in her father’s exclusive, privileged world.

  Beauty was not enough to win approval. Sophie must learn to put on airs without seeming as though she were doing so. It all started with choosing the right gown. As the young woman hesitated in indecision, Gigi fought the reflex to choose Sophie’s gown for tonight’s dinner party at her half sister’s home.

  Sophie skimmed her fingertips down the skirt of a pale-pink silk dress with intricate embroidery on the bodice. It was a good choice, but not the best one. Gigi resisted the urge to say as much. She couldn’t continue picking out the young woman’s clothing. At some point, Sophie had to learn to dress appropriately for all occasions without Gigi’s help.

  “Well?” Gigi asked patiently. “Which one is it to be?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Gigi turned her head to look at the young woman. There was enough light in the spacious closet to illuminate Sophie’s apprehensive expression. Clearly, Gigi’s work with her was not yet complete. “Would you like me to pick?”

  “Yes, please.”

  She reached for a gown the color of the midnight sky under a full moon.

  “You think I should wear that one?” Sophie’s voice held unmistakable skepticism. “It’s not too . . . understated?”

  “Tonight, understated is exactly the right approach. You want to present the picture of innocence.”

  Dress in hand, Gigi indicated that the young woman should follow her back into the bedchamber.

  Once Sophie had stepped into the gown and moved to the full-length mirror, Gigi took her place behind her and began the laborious process of securing the long row of buttons at her back.

  Sophie was silent as Gigi worked her way from top to bottom. With each button she secured, Sophie’s confidence returned.

  “Tell me, Gigi”—she faltered only briefly—“I can call you Gigi when we’re alone, can’t I?”

  Gigi nodded. In truth, it was somewhat of a relief to hear her name on someone else’s lips, or rather someone other than Fitz. It made her connection with the disturbing man seem less intimate.

  “What sent you into hiding?”

  Gigi’s hands stilled.

  “Or should I ask who?”

  Gigi was too busy searching for a response—and too confused by the events of the past two days—to notice that Sophie had moved away from the mirror and was leading Gigi to a chair.

  “I can’t count the times you have listened to me. Let me do the same for you.” She pressed on Gigi’s shoulders until she sat, then Sophie kneeled before her. “Tell me what happened to make you go into service.”

  Gigi felt a prick of unease. She ignored it and, with a strangled laugh, glanced about the room. “I needed the job.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  Even if Gigi trusted herself to speak, there were too many sordid details to unpack in a single conversation. Would Sophie judge her? She judged her mother for her affair with Warren Griffin.

  It’s not the same. Nathanial hadn’t been married, as far as Gigi knew, and her time with him hadn’t produced a child. It could have ended that way.

  Nathanial had pushed for intimacy. Gigi’s desire to give him everything he wanted had overruled her good sense. She’d let her emotions guide her actions. Love, or what she’d thought was love, had made her uninhibited. No, it had made her reckless.

  Perhaps that was why she’d been sympathetic to young Jessica’s plight this afternoon. Gigi could have found herself abandoned with a child.

  She glanced over Sophie’s shoulder and connected her gaze with her own reflection. What Gigi saw wasn’t good, or wholesome, or forgivable. What she saw was a woman who’d paid the ultimate price for love, only to have her trust destroyed and her character spoiled.

  Sophie, on the other hand, may have been brought into the world by disreputable, unconventional means, but that didn’t make her any less upright. She was a faithful Christian woman who lived a blameless life.

  “I asked you a question, Gigi,” Sophie said as gently as if speaking to an injured child.

  Gigi didn’t want her pity. She knew the young woman meant well, but Gigi was fearful of relaxing her guard.

  Her past was not something she wanted to revisit. The gullible belief that she was the most important thing in a man’s eyes had been her disgrace. How foolish she’d been, falling for Nathanial’s false promises. He’d only wanted her money. Once he’d come to understand that her father had disowned her, he’d fled.

  “My story is nothing you haven’t heard before, certainly nothing original. It’s a tale as old and clichéd as one of your mother’s operas.”

  Sophie’s eyes widened. “I just had a terrible thought. Are you alone in the world? Are you without family?”

  Her previous employer had asked a similar question. At the time, Gigi had evaded in such a way as to give the impression that she was, indeed, alone in the world. It was a lie she couldn’t tell anymore. “No, I have family.”

  “Then why not go home?”

  You can never go home, an ugly voice in her head whispered. You have gone far past the point of forgiveness. You deserve censure not redemption.

  She shoved the disturbing thought aside. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I was disowned.” The truth shamed her.

  “Oh, my dear, dear friend. How completely awful.” Standing, Sophie pulled Gigi to her feet and wrapped her arms around her.

  Gigi accepted the comforting embrace, resisting the urge to cling. Tears pricked at the back of her eyes. Her loneliness fought a hard battle with her embarrassment.

  “Will you tell me what happened?” Sophie set Gigi away from her. “Will you tell me what terrible deed put you at odds with your own family?”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “You might be surprised.” Alert, watching, gaze filling with sympathy, Sophie softened her voice to a near whisper. “You’ll find no judgment from me, no condemnation. You can tell me anything.”

  “I . . . wouldn’t know where to start.” Layer upon layer of misery and remorse rushed like a river through her blood. “It’s complicated.”

  “Most tales such as these are.”

  Gigi had a sudden, deep driving desire to share her story with Sophie. But honesty required a level of vulnerability that no longer came naturally.

  “You’re going to be late.” Gigi knew her voice was too sharp, too defensive. She struggled to lighten it. “We’ll talk another time, when you aren’t rushing off to a dinner party.”

  “The cause was a man, wasn’t it?”

  Gigi took one long breath. “Yes.”

  The cost of confession was so great that the burning in her eyes became excruciating. She stiffened her spine, refusing the release of a single tear.

  “In whatever way he betrayed you—”

  “I didn’t say he betrayed me.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  As if sensing her distress, Othello rubbed against Gigi’s shin, a big, fat furry band of feline acceptance. Gigi picked him up and hugged the animal close, burying her nose in the thick, silky fur. He reward
ed her with a rumbling purr.

  “Whoever he was, he didn’t deserve you.”

  Gigi’s hands tightened ever so slightly around the cat. “That’s very kind of you to say.”

  “It’s the truth.” Sophie reached out and stroked Othello’s fur. “Whatever the dreadful man talked you into doing, I want you to remember that there is no sin too great for God’s forgiveness.”

  Gigi lifted her head, felt the burn of tears in her throat, and dropped her face back to the cat’s neck. “That’s a rather liberal interpretation of Scripture.”

  “Although I chose to paraphrase, the meaning behind my words is no less accurate.”

  The cat squirmed for release. Gigi set him carefully on the floor. “Let’s finish getting you dressed.”

  “Changing the subject, are we?”

  “We are, yes, most definitely we are.” She attempted a laugh.

  “Gigi, my dear, sweet friend. Pretending to be someone you’re not isn’t the answer. I should know better than most.”

  Tears starred the edges of Gigi’s vision.

  “Be truthful with yourself,” Sophie said. “Only then can true healing begin. This is advice I plan to apply to my own life. I suggest you join me in the endeavor. Now . . .” She turned to face the mirror. “Let’s get me dressed. I have a good feeling about tonight.”

  Fingers slightly shaking, Gigi went back to work on the endless row of buttons.

  “There is a man out there for each of us,” Sophie said, her eyes fervent and young, so young. “The most mundane details of our lives will matter to them, and they will stand by us, no matter what we face.”

  Gigi sighed, wishing the spark of hope had not just ignited in her heart.

  “My time for love has come and gone.” Gigi’s voice hitched over the words. “Please, don’t try to correct me on this. I . . .”

  Give her a reason. Any will do, even the truth.

  “I am too far from redemption to earn a good man’s love. But that doesn’t have to be the case for you, Sophie.” She thought of the promise she’d made Esmeralda. “I am here to help you avoid making the same mistakes I have.”

  Sophie held Gigi’s gaze in the mirror, studying her face longer than was comfortable, her eyes searching, boring in as if she could read the very secrets of Gigi’s soul. “No one is so far from righteousness that God can’t redeem them.”