Beneath a Golden Veil

by Melanie Dobson

  But what if they sent her back to Virginia in his place?

  The vase shook when she shuddered.

  It would be worth everything, she told herself, if this boy could be free. Redemption, in a sense, for what she had lost.

  Thank God she hadn’t told Ross about her past before he had left Sacramento. She couldn’t allow herself to think he might have used it against her, but if Fanny found out, she might have used the information to her advantage.

  She would have to find a way to obtain freedom for this boy while keeping her secret intact.

  She pumped water into a pitcher at the sink and added it to the vase before speaking again. “Will you register them for me?”

  Stephan nodded.

  “They can stay—as long as they obey the rules.”

  “Of course.” Stephan stepped toward the door. “We’ll find a way to help the boy.”

  After she finished arranging the flowers, Isabelle fled into the rooms vacated by Fanny and Ross. There were no more guests to register for the hotel, and dinner guests wouldn’t begin arriving until five.

  Sitting on the rocking chair, she swayed back and forth, looking out at the herbs growing in the courtyard between the buildings. And the aching began to bleed out of the recesses inside her.

  She’d tried so hard to escape the memories when she’d left the Duvall house. The memories returned to her some nights, in her nightmares, but it was daylight now, and they still returned with a vengeance, the realities of what happened years ago pressing against her chest, feeling as if they might suffocate her.

  The hatred in her heart was still there, with a vengefulness that she’d never imagined. The guilt and shame—though Aunt Emeline told her over and over that she had done nothing wrong.

  But her aunt didn’t know everything. She didn’t know about the baby Isabelle had brought into the world but couldn’t keep alive. The baby her milk should have sustained.

  She rocked back and forth again, and tears filled her eyes, unbidden.

  Victor was a wicked man. She knew that now. With Uncle William and Aunt Emeline’s help, she’d learned what was right and loving and good in a family. But the most painful memories from Virginia weren’t the ones of Victor. The hardest ones were of the morning she’d lost her son.

  The day of his death and the ones that followed bled together in a collective blur. She’d experienced true happiness for the first time in her life when she held her child in her arms. For the first time, she too had family, like the Paynes. Someone to belong to. Someone to love her in return.

  But she’d been too young to care for him.

  Incompetent.

  That was the word Mrs. Duvall used as the carriage bumped along the road that warm spring day. It was a word that had stitched itself to her heart and her mind. Any tugging on the thread ripped at her very core.

  On that terrible journey, her mistress had given her something for her pain, something that plunged her into a dark sleep. When she woke again, she was in a soft bed in Baltimore. Mrs. Duvall was gone, Aunt Emeline sitting at her side.

  Blinking, she glanced around her room. Stephan had already moved her trunk down from the top floor to the foot of the double bed. Inside, buried under clothes and a coverlet, she found the baby blanket she’d crocheted before her son was born—an ivory-and-teal pattern from yarn left over from a blanket she’d made for Mrs. Duvall when the woman thought she was expecting.

  Isabelle lifted the blanket and nuzzled her cheek against it. This memento was all she had left of her beautiful boy.

  Someone knocked on her door, and she tucked the blanket back into her trunk before closing the lid. Then she wiped her eyes with a handkerchief.

  She had to hide again behind the façade that had become so familiar in Uncle William and Aunt Emeline’s care. Not that they required her to pretend; they just saw her as someone she was not. As the woman she—and they—wanted her to be. A woman she needed to become.

  When she opened the door, she found Mr. Payne’s boy waiting for her. In his hands was the stem of a rose—a delicate peach-colored flower that was just daring to unfold.

  But she never bought roses from the floral garden. They reminded her too much of Victor Duvall.

  She eyed it skeptically. “Where did you get that?”

  “From a man selling them outside.” He held the stem out to her. “Thank you for letting us stay.”

  “I’m glad you’re here,” she said, taking the rose from him. The fragrance was as delicate as the color. The aroma of beauty and spring.

  He held out his hand. “My name’s Isaac.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Isaac.” She reached out her hand to shake his. “My name is Isabelle Labrie.”

  “You have an awfully pretty name.”

  She smiled. “I’m glad you approve of it.”

  “And you serve the best lemonade I’ve ever tasted.”

  She tilted her head. “Do you need something?”

  “Just to say thank you.” He paused, and she waited for him to give the real reason for his visit. “And to let you know that Master Payne is a fine man. He treats his slaves right.”

  She nodded warily, not about to argue the evils of slavery with a child, especially if he thought his master was kind. When the time was right, she and Stephan would offer him the freedom to become his own master. To treat himself with even more respect than his owner did.

  “He better keep treating you well.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And if you need anything”—she tapped on the door—“you know where to find me.”

  He smiled. “And if you ever need anything, you know where to find me too.”

  “That’s right, I do.”

  Sadness flooded her heart again as she collapsed down on the bed, clutching the rose in her hand. If her son had lived, he would have been about Isaac’s age.

  Chapter 27

  Sacramento City

  June 1854

  Lobster salad topped the dinner menu, followed by turnip soup, warm dinner rolls, cantaloupe slices garnished with sprigs of mint, and coconut cake for dessert. The Golden Hotel food was better than any Alden had tasted since leaving Scott’s Grove, and breakfast and dinner were both included with the price of a room.

  An accomplished pianist entertained them with Mozart’s works as Miss Labrie fluttered around the dining room like an elegant butterfly, welcoming her guests, pouring wine, offering Chilean coffee to accompany dessert.

  Gentlemen—including the mayor of Sacramento City—filled the twelve tables, accompanied by several ladies dressed as fashionably as their matron. Isaac was the only child in the restaurant, and the only Negro seated for the meal. The patrons politely ignored him.

  Miss Labrie smiled at each guest who came through the door—smiled at Isaac, even—but she never once smiled at him.

  Clearly, he’d offended her, but he couldn’t recall what he might have done to deserve her contempt.

  “Bonsoir, Monsieur Walsh,” Miss Labrie sang as she welcomed a man standing at the arched entrance. The tables were filled, but she still waved him through the door. “We will find the perfect place for you.”

  Moments later, Stephan carried a small table and chair out from the kitchen and set them beside the piano. Miss Labrie covered the table with a white cloth and filled a goblet with wine.

  “We’ve missed seeing you,” she said to her new customer, her smile gracious again.

  Mr. Walsh smoothed out his mustache with the tip of his finger before taking a sip of the wine. “I decided to return to the goldfields for a season.”

  “Did you have any luck?” she asked as Stephan brought the tableware and silver for his place setting.

  “I always have luck.” He took another sip. “But I have missed your restaurant very much. There is no decent food to be found in the foothills.”

  “I’m glad you’ve returned safely home.”

  He set the goblet back on the table. “Has your Mr.
Kirtland returned as well?”

  Alden saw the flicker of sadness in Miss Labrie’s eyes. Or was it frustration?

  Mr. Walsh didn’t seem to notice.

  “Why are you staring?” Isaac whispered.

  When he looked back at his companion, he missed the answer to Mr. Walsh’s question. “I was observing. Not staring.”

  And wondering. Why was a woman so beautiful and intelligent still unmarried in a land filled with wealthy, lonely men? Perhaps it was because she was intelligent. She could keep the profits made from her hotel, no husband threatening to take it from her.

  Then again, perhaps she was planning to marry this Mr. Kirtland when he returned.

  “Do you think Persila is all right?” Isaac asked.

  “I hope so.” Alden took another bite of the creamy coconut cake. He’d been inquiring around the city to see if any of the hotels had registered a Mr. and Mrs. Webb, but he’d yet to find them here.

  “I wanted to tell her that I’ve bathed twice now.”

  Alden smiled, looking back at Isaac. “She’d be quite pleased to hear that.”

  Stephan stepped up to their table with a pot of coffee. The thin man, clothed in a black swallow-tailed coat and white gloves, reminded him of Thomas. “How are you both faring?”

  “Very well,” Alden replied, his stomach mercifully full. After five months on the ship, he would be forever grateful for a good meal.

  Stephan poured them both a cup of coffee. “Are you traveling to the interior soon?”

  Alden shook his head. “Not unless I have to.”

  “What are your plans?”

  “I need to find work here in the city. At least for a month or two.”

  “We had a recent vacancy here,” Stephan said. “I could ask Miss Labrie if she’d consider hiring you.”

  Alden forced a smile. “She’d never agree to that.”

  Stephan returned his smile. “I wouldn’t be so certain.”

  Miss Labrie’s private sitting area was on the first floor of the hotel, beside the restaurant. Inside was a high-backed settee, polished table, and three upholstered chairs. Along the papered wall was a small library of books in a glass case.

  Two doors led into the room—the one from the dining room and the other, he assumed, into Miss Labrie’s bedchamber.

  An hour after breakfast, the woman entered through the restaurant door. She carried a bone china teapot in one hand, and in her other hand, her fingers laced between the handles of two matching teacups.

  She wasn’t surprised to see him—Stephan had arranged the meeting—but she was clearly not happy about spending time with him.

  She held up the pot of tea. “Would you like some?”

  “Yes, please.” Alden unhooked one of the cups from her finger and placed it on the table. She poured the tea into both cups, then stirred a spoonful of honey into hers. She didn’t offer him anything to sweeten his tea, and he didn’t dare ask.

  He took a sip and almost choked on the bitter, earthy flavor. It tasted like dried tobacco leaves.

  “It’s a Chinese tea,” she explained.

  “It probably tastes better with sugar.”

  She ignored his slight. “I’m told you need a job.”

  “I’m looking for temporary work. I have an apprenticeship with Judah Fallow when he returns to town.”

  Her gaze remained on her teacup. “Does Judah know you own a slave?”

  “He knows that I attended law school,” he said, setting his half-full teacup back on the table. “He asked me to work for him.”

  “He may change his mind once he finds out about Isaac. He’s known in Sacramento for being a staunch abolitionist.”

  “It seems the abolition laws are a bit muddled here.”

  Her arms stiffened, the teacup perched on her lips for a moment before she lowered it. “A muddled law doesn’t make something right.”

  Sitting back in his chair, he realized his offense to her was a misunderstanding. She seemed to abhor slavery as much as he did, and she believed him to be the exact person they both despised. No wonder she was hostile to him. He wished he could tell her the truth, but as long as free blacks were in danger here, he had to guard Isaac.

  He leaned toward her again, anxious to change the topic. “Your steward said you might have some work.”

  She took another sip of tea. “Sometimes I need to order supplies in San Francisco. Stephan was traveling there for me after—” She stopped herself. “There are rumors about free blacks being kidnapped in the city and sold into slavery. I can’t risk having him travel anymore.”

  “I can travel to San Francisco for you,” he offered. “And I can help make repairs around the hotel and retrieve shipments down at the wharf as well.”

  She studied the teacup in her hands. “Whoever I hire will also need to help Stephan and Janette in the kitchen.”

  He couldn’t help but smile. What would his mother think, knowing he’d earned his way around Cape Horn working in the galley? And now this woman was offering him the opportunity to earn his keep by working in a kitchen as well. Work, he’d realized, that could be even more grueling than his time in the fields.

  She glanced briefly up at him. “You’ve probably never even been inside a kitchen, have you?”

  “Actually, Isaac and I are both well acquainted with kitchen work.”

  Her eyebrows slid up. “You want me to hire him too?”

  “We work as a team,” he replied. “And it will keep him out of trouble.”

  She considered his proposition. “I suppose I have enough work for both of you, but I won’t pay you for Isaac’s work.”

  “That’s hardly fair—”

  “I will keep seventy-five percent of both your earnings for room and board, and I will pay Isaac the additional twenty-five percent directly for his work.” She paused, looking up at him again. “If he wants to buy his freedom with the money, he shall.”

  The gold in her eyes gleamed in the light, and for a moment, he thought he might have seen those eyes before. In Massachusetts, perhaps? Or was it back in Virginia, when he was a boy?

  Miss Labrie refocused on her teacup. Even though she talked confidently to him, she didn’t like to meet his gaze.

  He cleared his throat. “Isaac’s well-being is my business.”

  “If I hire you, he becomes my business too.”

  Silence draped between them for several moments, and then he finally agreed to her terms. “We will work for you until Judah returns.”

  “You may need a position after he returns as well.”

  “I suppose I’ll determine that later this summer.”

  She glanced up at the clock on the wall. It read nine o’clock. “I need you to go to San Francisco this afternoon.”

  “Will Isaac come with me?”

  She shook her head. “I’ll need his help here.”

  “I’ll rely on you to treat him right.”

  She stood up. “I treat all my employees well.”

  Chapter 28

  Sacramento City

  July 1854

  The sun in California was just as heinous as it had been in Panama. Victor sold his coat to a man traveling to New York, but he’d kept the hat. Anything to keep the blasted afternoon rays off his head.

  He was close now to finding Isaac; he could feel it in his bones. Soon he would retrieve the boy, and then they would return to Virginia. Triumphant.

  He couldn’t wait to see Eliza’s face. He’d have to sketch the image of his wife, her eyes bloated with shock.

  Or perhaps he would try his luck at the diggings here first. He’d learned plenty from Levi and others on the ship. Isaac could squeeze into places that no grown man could. He could make them rich.

  Then he would return to Virginia even wealthier than John Payne. He wouldn’t even need Eliza anymore. Or men like Levi, who tried to cheat him.

  He’d purchased a vial of opium along with a bottle of brandy for his acquaintance back in Panama City. Th
en he’d gained passage for himself through the Golden Gate.

  After San Francisco, he’d taken a paddle wheeler up the winding Sacramento River until he arrived in this city that stunk of soot and saltpeter, but as he moved away from the wharf, the walk through the city began to energize him, the knowing his search was about to end. He carried the letter from Mr. Fallow that was addressed to Alden, stopping several workers in town to show the address. He finally found the law office a miserable twelve blocks away.

  “I’ve just come from Virginia,” he explained to a scrawny-looking clerk inside. “I need to find Mr. Fallow.”

  “Mr. Fallow is a popular man,” the clerk muttered.

  Victor licked the crease of his lips, stepping forward. “Has someone else been looking for him?”

  The man’s eyes narrowed under his spectacles, and he hesitated before answering Victor’s question—a telltale sign that he was about to lie. “Plenty of people around here need an attorney.”

  Victor swallowed hard, grinding his fists together to contain his frustration. “I’m looking for one man in particular,” he said pointedly. “His name is Alden Payne, and he’s traveling here from Boston to work for Mr. Fallow, accompanied by a slave.”

  The man shrugged. “Mr. Fallow will return in a few weeks. Perhaps he will have seen your friend.”

  The clerk was clearly lying to him. Either Alden and Isaac had already joined this Mr. Fallow or they remained in Sacramento, waiting for his return.

  “If Mr. Payne hasn’t arrived yet, he will be here soon,” Victor said. “It’s urgent that I speak with him.”

  The man looked back down at the book on the desk, completely uncooperative. “If your Mr. Payne visits, I will pass along a message.”

  “There’s no need to inform him, but once I find a tolerable hotel, I’ll bring you the address so you can notify me.”

  The clerk looked up again. “If you’re looking for a place to stay, there’s a new establishment in town, catering specifically to gentlemen like yourself.”