by Delia Parr
As Harrison escorted her into the massive ballroom in the Grand Hotel, she was surprised by the sea of people who filled the room to capacity. At her height, she could not even see if there were any decorations, but the elaborate candle chandeliers added a touch of elegance to the event. Above the din of gay conversation, she could barely detect the strains of music coming from an unseen orchestra. She was relieved when Harrison told her there would not be any dancing tonight and saw for herself there was literally no room for a dance floor tonight.
She leaned toward Harrison, but did not lower her voice for fear he would not be able to hear her. “I’m sorry I had to spend so much time with Irene again before we left today, but it’s probably just as well that we’re rather late. If we’d gotten here an hour ago like we planned, we’d probably be so far inside this room we’d never be able to leave until half of these people did.”
He chuckled and tucked her arm closer to his side. “I’ll try to keep a good hold on you, but don’t be surprised if we end up getting separated. Like I warned you, you can see that it’s a coarser crowd than you’re accustomed to and it will only get worse as the night progresses. Do you remember where to meet me if that happens?”
“Downstairs in the foyer by the back pillar at eleven o’clock,” she replied, grateful that he had made contingency plans in advance in case they lost one another so they would be able to return to Graymoor Gardens to watch the fireworks display with the staff at midnight. In a crowd this large, she was confident she would not encounter Eric or Vienna. She probably would not even be able to see them if they were only ten feet away.
When Harrison paused and looked around, as if trying to decide where to take her, she glanced around, too, and tried not to gape. Since this was an annual fund-raising event to support a number of the city-sponsored charities, rather than a formal ball, people from all walks of life who had the funds to purchase a ticket were in attendance. At previous events, she had seen ostentatious displays of wealth, which were noticeably absent tonight. She was glad she was not wearing any jewelry other than her opal wedding ring, and she had not worn one of her fancier snoods, either.
Still, she had never seen such garish costumes or scandalously low-cut gowns in one place at the same time as she saw now, and she felt her cheeks actually get hot.
“This way,” he urged and led her through the crowd, which parted reluctantly to let them pass. They managed to jostle their way through a thick cloud of heavy perfume that filled the air. She was actually feeling a bit light-headed by the time they worked their way to the group of people he wanted them to join in the far corner of the room.
Grateful that the pale ivory gown she wore had survived the crush of people when they arrived, she held on to his hand and steadied herself before she let go. She took a short breath to test the air, then drew in several deep breaths to clear her lungs before she greeted everyone. She was pleased to already know a few of the people there, but Harrison introduced her to the rest so quickly she never caught half of their names.
While he stepped away to chat with several of the men, Mrs. Wilshire studied her closely from head to toe. “You’re almost as pale as that stunning gown you’re wearing.”
“It’s all the perfume. I’m more accustomed to lighter scents,” she explained and wondered if anyone could even detect the scent of summer roses she wore again tonight.
The woman standing next to Mrs. Wilshire, whose name Annabelle had already forgotten, smiled as if she and Annabelle were privy to a secret they shared. “Most women seem to be quite sensitive to all sorts of smells and aromas . . . at certain points in their lives.”
Darcy French, a young matron dressed in a silk gown made of a hideous shade of chartreuse, nodded as if she, too, shared that secret and stared at Annabelle’s stomach. “I hope you don’t have to leave early tonight. I was so disappointed at the Sullivans’ ball that I didn’t have an opportunity to meet you or spend any time with you.”
Another new acquaintance, Eliza somebody, who was obviously carrying a child, grinned. “We women do need our rest.”
Annabelle blinked hard and finally realized they were all making veiled references to the gossip Vienna Biddle and her friends had spread about Annabelle being with child, and she chided herself for adding fuel to that gossip by leaving the Sullivan ball early, which everyone must have attributed to her alleged delicate condition.
“In point of fact, I need very little rest,” she suggested. Gratified by the surprise on each of the women’s faces, she proceeded to describe her typical day, which began just before dawn and ended late at night, a routine she hoped would erode the idea she was suffering from some of the typical ailments that assail women who are carrying a child.
She spent even more time, however, describing the volunteer work she had begun at the Refuge, and by the time she finished, two of the women had pledged donations from their husbands.
“Did I hear the word donations?” Harrison teased as he returned to her side and took her hand.
“You did indeed,” Mrs. Wilshire offered. “Your wife can be quite persuasive, which you know, of course.”
He squeezed Annabelle’s hand and smiled. “Yes, I do.”
“I believe the donations will be enough to purchase cloth for the women at the Refuge who can use it to make clothing. They’ll be so grateful,” Annabelle informed him, fully aware that the women who had pledged the donations needed little persuasion at all, since they were clearly out to impress her husband with their generosity.
The next hour passed quickly and pleasantly, but Annabelle was both hungry and thirsty when Harrison bid his friends a prosperous new year and left with her in search of refreshments, which had been set out on the far side of the room. Crossing through the crowd, however, proved to be more difficult now, and he kept a tight hold on her hand.
The revelry had increased to such a pitch he had to zigzag to bypass some groups that were extremely addled or others that were too busy celebrating to stop to let them pass by. Although he kept her protected on one side, she felt crushed on the other, and she was glad she had not carried a reticule tonight, because she would have lost hold of it.
She was tempted to ask him if they could simply leave and go back to Graymoor Gardens, but she did not even bother to try. Even if he could hear her, which she doubted, she did not want to leave early for fear someone would notice and add to the gossip already swirling around both of their names.
They were halfway across the room, as best she could judge, when an argument between two men escalated into fisticuffs. Unfortunately, the men were standing right in front of Annabelle and Harrison when they faced off. One man backed into them and broke the hold Harrison had on her hand, and she nearly lost her balance in her effort to distance herself from the combatants.
Within seconds, other men rushed to quell the fight, and she was swept away by the people who pulled back to avoid being hurt. She caught a glimpse of Harrison as he struggled to rescue her, but lost sight of him completely when he was pushed farther away from her in the opposite direction.
With her heart pounding and her feet nearly numb from being stomped on, she edged away, hoping to find her way to the refreshments, where Harrison would hopefully be waiting for her. Even if he weren’t, she had no reason to panic, since she knew he would eventually be waiting for her downstairs.
She spent the next half an hour working her way through the crowd and had to stop several times when her gown got snagged and she had to free it from beneath a man’s foot. At one point, she simply stopped to catch her breath, but nearly gagged when she inhaled air that was unbelievably heavy with perfume. When she finally was able to breathe normally again, she spied Vienna Biddle and several of her friends chatting together with a group of people standing not five feet in front of her and gasped.
After turning her back to them, she held her place and was about to give up any hope she could escape without being sighted when she spied an extremely tall, very roun
d gentleman, who was probably sixty years old and working his way toward her.
Since he seemed to be headed where she wanted to go, she waited until he was standing in front of her before she smiled up at him. “It seems I’ve gotten myself lost in this crowd. Would you be so kind as to help me find my way back to my husband?”
Grinning, he offered her his arm. “Ma’am, I’ll take you anywhere you’d like to go.”
Confident that she could now slip by Vienna and the others, she stepped to the side of him that would keep Vienna from seeing her because of his massive size. In the end, her plan worked perfectly, though she had not counted on passing close enough to Vienna or her friends to be able to hear their conversation.
Once she was safely past them all, her cheeks were burning and her heart was racing. Imagining what gossipmongers were saying was altogether different from actually hearing them. She had never heard anyone refer to her in terms she thought were reserved for sinful women who sold their bodies in the many brothels in the city, and it hurt her. Deeply.
But they inflicted the greatest hurt when they referred to Harrison as a fool because he had allowed her to trick him into getting her pregnant, which forced him to marry her. His final comeuppance, according to Vienna, was the fact that Annabelle had been spotted in the city getting into a hack with another man. Even worse, Annabelle was allegedly using the excuse of volunteering at the Refuge when she was instead meeting with her lover, who was also the father of her unborn child.
By the time her gallant escort led her to the edge of the crowd and left her there to wait for her husband, she was trembling so hard she did not care that she was standing at the entrance to the ballroom instead of the refreshment area. Instinctively, she sought the only refuge she could think of and rushed down the stairs to wait for Harrison in the foyer by the back pillar.
Although the ballroom itself was impossibly crowded, she only passed two couples arriving late to the event on her way downstairs. The foyer itself was empty, and she practically ran to the shadows behind the last pillar. Breathing hard, she leaned back against the cold marble pillar. Even though her heart eventually stopped racing and her breathing returned to normal again, her emotions were still in turmoil.
She was more outraged than she thought humanly possible, yet she was also completely devastated that anyone would talk about her or Harrison so wickedly. After leaning her head back against the pillar, she closed her eyes and prayed that Harrison would come downstairs soon so he could take her home, even though it was probably still half an hour until eleven o’clock.
In the next heartbeat, she heard footsteps approaching and sighed with relief. After quickly fixing her skirts, she stepped out from behind the pillar, but froze the moment she saw that the man who was approaching her was not her husband at all.
He was, however, the husband she thought she had once loved and the very same husband who had set her aside in favor of another.
Chapter Twenty-Four
If there was something more horrendous than a nightmare, Annabelle was not aware of it. But she knew she was looking at it when she saw Eric Bradley walking toward her.
As always, he was impeccably dressed in a tailored set of clothes that fit his slender frame perfectly. The smile he was wearing—that she once thought was so charming—now appeared to be as false as his traitorous heart, assuming he had ever loved her as he once claimed.
Annabelle prayed with all of her might that she could stand up to him and send him away before Harrison came for her. When he stopped an arm’s length away from her and folded his hands over his chest, making him look every inch of a bully, she stiffened her back. “What are you doing here?”
“Like so many others, I’m here to celebrate the beginning of the new year at a soiree that has proved to be much more interesting than I ever expected it to be,” he replied before he ran his gaze over every inch of her so intensely she felt prickles of shame in every pore of her skin.
“That’s not what I meant. How did you know that I’d be here, downstairs in the foyer?” she snapped.
“Quite by accident. A very fortunate accident,” he added, “considering the crowd of people upstairs. I’ve been searching for you ever since I spotted you at the Sullivan ball. When I finally spied you leaving the festivities a few moments ago, I simply followed you. At a respectable distance, I assure you. There’s quite enough gossip tonight about the new Mrs. Graymoor as it is.” He shook his head. “I must say I’m surprised at how well you’ve done for yourself. Graymoor is one of the wealthiest men on the eastern seaboard.”
She took a step forward, squared her shoulders, and tilted up her chin to let him know he did not intimidate her. “You couldn’t possibly be more surprised than I was nine months ago when you handed me divorce papers dated many months earlier and told me you’d already married a woman of more ‘substance,’ ” she said as coldly as she knew how. “If she’s here with you tonight, perhaps you can introduce us. I’m quite certain we have much to say to one another.”
When he blanched and dropped his arms to his side, she pressed her case, even though her legs were shaking so badly she had to lock her knees to steady herself. “I didn’t think you had the courage to tell her about me. It seems that cowardice is but one of your many character flaws I discovered much too late.”
He snorted. “For all the gumption you seem to have acquired recently, it’s obvious you haven’t been completely honest with your new spouse, either. But you needn’t bother to introduce me to him. I took the liberty of doing that myself a short while ago.”
“You didn’t—”
“No, I didn’t tell him that I found my way to your bed long before he did, if only to gain access to the funds I needed to pursue someone else. If I had, I might have also asked him if he found it more pleasurable than I did, but I thought I’d save that topic of discussion for later if you’re not as cooperative as I expect you to be.”
She flinched as if he had slapped her across her face. Because her mother had been so ill, she had spent day and night caring for her during the first week of her marriage, except for the night when Eric consummated their marriage and left for New York City the following morning. His hurtful words now unleashed memories of that very awkward night and his obvious disappointment in her.
Anxious to send him away, she gathered up all the gumption she had left. “If you’re worried that I’ll tell your wife she married a man who has kept his first marriage and divorce a secret from her, then you can rest assured I have no such intention and will cooperate with you in that regard. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve never even met.”
He nodded. “That suits my ultimate purpose in seeking you out rather well.”
She glared at him. “What ‘ultimate purpose’ could you possibly have? And don’t dawdle with any of your fancy legal words. Harrison will be here any moment to take me home.”
Eric took a small piece of folded paper from his pocket and put it into her hand. “I’ve taken a room at a small hotel near here under a different name and written it down for you. We need to talk privately, and when we do, we’ll need much more time than we have right now.” He moved so close to her she had to take a step back. “Be there at eleven o’clock on Thursday morning.”
Shocked that he had any other purpose than making certain she would keep their marriage and divorce a secret, she swallowed hard. “I can’t possibly meet you there or anywhere else.”
When she tried to hand the paper back to him, he pushed her hand away. “Find a way to be there. If you don’t, I assure you that when I meet with your husband and his cousin, Philip, at two o’clock that same afternoon, I’ll have much more to discuss with him beyond the donation I’m considering making on my wife’s behalf,” he snapped and walked off.
Trembling, she stared at his back as he made his way to the bottom of the staircase and scarcely drew a breath until he started to mount the stairs. Once he disappeared from view, she folded the paper he had given to h
er several times, not even bothering to read it. She tucked the note into the bodice of her gown, but shuddered to think something he had touched was now pressed against her skin.
With her whole world imploding, she stepped back into the shadows behind the pillar and leaned against it for support. Her mind raced with all sorts of questions about Eric’s intentions, and she pressed the palms of her hands against the cold marble for support.
Since he had made it clear he had found her less than desirable in the marriage bed, she highly doubted he wanted to be alone with her in a hotel room for some sort of tawdry assignation. But Annabelle quivered from head to toe just thinking about it. The fact that he had married a very well-to-do heiress made her dismiss the notion that he intended to extort her, which was a flawed plan on two points.
First, she had no access to Harrison’s fortune, other than using accounts in any number of stores and shops. Second, she could easily reject any demand he might make and threaten to tell his wife the truth.
She pushed away from the pillar and stiffened her back. Meeting Eric at a hotel was well beyond anything she was prepared to do. She was also terrified to think of the gossip that would erupt if anyone saw her going into the hotel without her husband.
She desperately needed to talk to someone about the dilemma she faced, but the only person who might possibly understand her predicament was Harrison. Despite the fact that they had grown to be closer friends over the past two weeks, he was the one person she could not possibly tell at all, since he had no idea she had ever been married before—let alone to Eric Bradley—or that their marriage had ended in divorce.
She stopped abruptly and clapped her hand to her heart. Eric did not know the true nature of her marriage to Harrison, but if he ever found out that she and Harrison were husband and wife in name only and soon to be divorced, he would find a way to use that to his advantage. She was fairly confident he could not possibly know that now, but she vowed to do everything in her power to keep Eric away from Harrison before she knew exactly what he wanted.