Glamorous Illusions (9 page)

CHAPTER 11

~Cora~

My half sisters, Vivian and Lillian, did not reappear until supper, nor did any of the Morgans. When they saw us coming across the bridge, they'd scurried indoors, apparently wishing to make themselves presentable before our introductions—which clearly hadn't bothered Felix. I supposed I ought to be grateful for the respite, the opportunity to freshen myself, but the anticipation was excruciating. I began a letter to my mother but, when I could come up with nothing but angry, bitter words, abandoned it. Then I tried to pray, asking for the right things to say when I met my sisters, but received only silence. Dimly, I understood that God was not likely to answer the pleas of a petulant, frustrated woman, but I wasn't ready to let it go.
Oh, Mama, how could you… How could you?

Giving up on any sense of peaceful solitude, I moved outdoors and down the path that led to the lake. Mr. Kensington spotted me before I could duck away, and he waved me over to meet his business partner, Mr. Morgan, a sprite of a man, all of five foot two and a hundred pounds.

“How do you do?” I repeated after him, giving his small hand a single shake and nodding slightly as my maid, Anna, had trained me to do.

“Please, my dear, join us for some lemonade,” Mr. Morgan said, gesturing toward a rocking chair next to my father on the small stone patio. The pleasantries soon over, the men moved back into conversation about the Montana Copper Mine, debating the skill of one manager over another. I tried to sit still, delicately sipping lemonade and staring at the lake, but my nervousness made me feel as if the lemons had become whole, the sour rind choking me. So I ended up merely holding the sweating crystal goblet and tried not to fidget.

Will and his uncle ambled by, strolling beside the lake, but they didn't come near. Perhaps they wanted to steer far away from the explosion that was bound to occur. I watched as Will bent and took hold of a flat rock, then skipped it across the still surface of the lake. Mr. Kensington and Mr. Morgan went on endlessly speaking of what was happening at the mine, the smelter, mostly ignoring me. For that I was relieved. I didn't have it in me to make conversation. Not when I was about to meet more of my family.

Family. I thought of my parents, in Minneapolis. Wondered how Papa was faring. I wished I was with them, with my grandparents, anyplace but here, regardless of how lovely it might be. The lush, verdant lawn and sparkling lake were a stark contrast to our hardscrabble farm, so riddled with brown, so lacking in life. Here, everything was green, from the grass beside the lake, to the small bend in the shoreline where lily pads grew, to the giant pines reflected in the water.

To our right, the river flowed, just past the footbridge we'd crossed. To our left was the widening lake, which, according to Anna, stretched for miles to the south, around a slow bend.

I fought the urge to rise and walk, to trace the water's edge and round the corner to see the rest of it, rather than sit here awaiting my fate like a fat hen facing a starving farmer's wife. Happily, these families had more than they'd ever need to eat—perhaps they'd forget about me. I smiled to myself and took my first full breath in what seemed hours.

“And who is this stunning creature?” said a tall, thin young man about Felix's age. I looked up, but with the sun behind him, he was little more than a silhouette.

A girl giggled at his side and hit him playfully on the arm. “You know very well who it is, brother.”

Mr. Kensington and Mr. Morgan rose. My father reached to help me up, but I ignored him, wanting to touch him as little as possible. I straightened my linen coat, knowing I'd become frightfully rumpled again, sitting there.

“Mr. Hugh Morgan and Miss Nell Morgan,” Mr. Kensington said, “allow me to introduce my daughter Miss Cora Kensington.”

I nodded. “How do you do?”

“We are well,” Hugh said, looking me over with more intensity than seemed proper. “And you?”

“I'm well, thank you,” I said, lying through my teeth. I'd been better the day I took to my bed with measles.

He was tall and slender, with foppish, wavy brown hair that swept rakishly close to one of his dark-brown eyes. Like Will's did, but more contrived. Unnatural.

His younger sister, Nell, was as round as he was slender, reaching my shoulder and sporting ringlets of brown curls around her red-apple cheeks. Dark lashes lined her sparkling eyes, and she grinned in delight at me. “Miss Kensington, I do believe you are the most interesting thing to happen to our traveling party yet.”

“Nell,” Mr. Morgan chastened with a low growl.

“Yes. I would imagine,” I said.

Hugh continued to look me over with calculating eyes. I felt like I was an insect under a magnifying glass, and he was trying to scorch me with the sun's rays. I ignored him, looking instead to the man who had to be his brother. He was rapidly striding our way.

Hugh turned and saw him too, as the patriarchs moved off toward a table where a steward poured from crystal decanters. Mr. Kensington mumbled an explanation over his shoulder about leaving us young people to get acquainted. Even though his presence continually agitated me, the thought of him leaving me alone with these strangers made me feel terrible. Undefended.

The eldest Morgan's approach did little to alleviate the sensation. He strode right up to me, arms folded, and looked me up and down. “So, the claim jumper has made it into the fold,” he jeered. “A tidy arrangement for you, miss.”

I frowned.
Claim jumper?
Surely I misheard him.
“I beg your pardon,” I said, reaching out a gloved hand. “My name is—”

“Cora Kensington,” he ground out. “If you think you can shimmy into our lives and claim a part of Vivian's inheritance, you have another thought coming.”

“First of all, my name is Cora Diehl,” I said. “And I assure you, I have no idea of what you speak.”

His eyes narrowed. “We're not simpletons, Miss
Diehl
. You wormed your way into our summer plans,” he said. “Everyone knows what you'll be after next.”

Nell nervously giggled and put a hand on his arm. “Andrew, really,” she tried. He shook it off.

“See here, Andrew,” Hugh said from his other side, “the girl just arrived. Could you not be a tad more gracious?”

“To an interloper?” Andrew asked, looking me over in derision as he straightened. “The
maid's
daughter?” The way he said
maid
had me itching to grab something breakable and throw it at him. “She'll cast a pall over our entire group. We may as well change our plans and remain here in seclusion for all the invitations we'll get!”

A collective gasp sounded over my left shoulder, and with cheeks aflame, I turned to see Felix, looking chagrined, with a young woman on either arm. My sisters.
Half sisters
, I reminded myself. Could our meeting be more humiliating?

“Remain here in Montana?” said the older one, so perfectly poised and dressed she reminded me of a model from
Harper's
Bazaar
. Straight shoulders curved down into a tiny waist and out again at her hips. She moved past me and took Andrew's arm. “What silly notion has taken you over now, Drew?”

“Forgive me, darling. Seeing her here…” His tone deepened as he looked at her, total adoration in his eyes. So the eldest Morgan was courting the eldest Kensington. Now things were making sense. Inwardly, I sighed. The families were far more melded than I had hoped. I'd thought perhaps the Morgans would at least accept my presence with less strain, that they might be a door by which I could enter their circle.
No such luck.

She turned toward me and offered me a limp hand and a steady gaze from her hazel eyes. “Cora,” she said firmly, “I am Vivian, your elder sister. Trust me, Andrew has his charms. He tends to be bit passionate. He'll warm to you in time. As we all will.” Her words were kind, but her eyes were cold.

I swallowed hard and took her stiff hand in mine, awkwardly giving it a little shake. She was as forthright and firm as our father, doing what was expected, but I got the feeling she couldn't stomach my presence any more than her beau did.

“And I'm Lillian,” said the other girl, far more friendly in her tone. She had blonde curls to match Nell Morgan's brown ringlets, but she was slender, with green eyes less muddy than her older sister's.
Our
older sister's. “Friends call me Lil.”

Did that include me? I didn't dare to be too presumptuous. “I'm most glad to make your acquaintance, Lillian.”

A shadow passed through the younger girl's eyes. Had I made the wrong decision, not wishing to assume she was inviting me to call her by her nickname? Felix laughed and clapped his hands. “Well, now that that awkward moment is over, shall we give our new friend and sister a bit of air? She looks like she might faint dead away.”

With a mixture of mutterings—some dismissive, some empathetic—the group separated and walked across the wide lawn to the main lodge, where a servant was ringing a dainty bell, calling us in to dinner. Hugh waited till most of the others moved ahead, giving me an intimate, predatory smile that sent a shiver down my back before he turned to follow our siblings.

Only Felix remained behind. He took my hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm as we climbed the hill. “Be careful with that one,” he whispered, nodding toward Hugh's back. “He fancies himself a ladies' man.”

“Yes, quite.” But as I figured it, I had something to fear in each of them. Even Felix. Surely he couldn't be as at ease with my presence as he pretended now… “Felix, you know I didn't seek out your father—”

“Our father,” he said, his blue eyes moving to the older man, who raised his crystal glass in our direction as we entered the dining room. Mr. Kensington probably thought our introductions had gone just fine. Could he not have stayed with me for just a few more minutes to ensure they did?

“Father told us exactly what happened,” Felix said.

“I didn't even know he existed a few days ago,” I said. My only chance with these people was for them to know
he
came to
me—
demanded…no,
forced
me to come, really. “I didn't seek him out. I didn't ask for anything.”

“I know.”

I paused then and decided there was little to lose in asking. “Then why must the others look upon me with such distaste?”

Felix hesitated and brought us to a stop. “Our social standing, and the political battles Father has weathered—have made us somewhat wary and clannish. It is difficult for many to join in, and here you are, blood kin…expected to be one of us. Give us some time, Cora. You'll come to see the good in each of them, just as we shall with you.”

I gave him a grateful smile. “I hope so. Or this summer shall feel like a decade.”

Supper was served on an overwhelming array of china and sterling silver, beginning with a clear consommé—
broth
, as Mr. Kensington corrected—that I feared would end up dripping all the way down the front of my new linen; more little green beans; sautéed mushrooms; and
beef en croûte
—tender cuts of the finest meat I'd ever eaten, wrapped in a perfectly browned pastry. Mr. Kensington belittled it, apologizing to Mr. Morgan for the plain broth, the ill-developed green beans, the mushrooms, and tough beef. I couldn't see the need for apologizing. Never had I had such sumptuous food. It was no wonder that little round Nell ate and ate—I'd do the same if my stomach wasn't in knots.

Father had seated me at his right hand, which drew more than a few looks from the Kensington and Morgan children. The conversation was cheery, but there was an underlying tension around the table. After we were seated, not one of the Kensington or Morgan children looked my way. Even Felix. My stomach clenched in anxiety. Was this to be my entire summer? Oh, how I longed to be with Mama and Papa.
Help me, Lord. Help me find my way.

As dinner progressed, the conversation moved from the lighthearted topic of the rising temperature of the lake to the more serious topic of the rising power of the men who labored in the mines, threatening to form unions.

“It's only a matter of time until they try to strike,” Andrew said, his eyes shifting to his father, then to Mr. Kensington. I could see that he itched to be in the office with the elder men, rather than on some “frivolous tour,” as he referred to it. Anna had told me he recently graduated with an MBA from Harvard, and clearly he thought he knew enough to take the helm of the Montana Copper Mine, if not of the company itself.

“A strike would be foolhardy,” Mr. Kensington said, leaning back in his chair. “But it wouldn't be the first effort we've weathered.”

“All a matter of waiting them out, isn't it, Wallace?” Mr. Morgan said with a conspiratorial smile. He cut a big bite of chicken and looked over at his children. “We can outlast them without even feeling it. Every time. Most of them are lucky to have two weeks' pay set aside. And for every one that would strike, there are ten men who'd like their job.”