Glittering Promises (16 page)

Wallace gave him a sharp look and then gazed out to the valley again. “Let the chips fall where they may—that’s what I say.”

“Those chips might well cost you your daughter.” Morgan paused and returned Wallace’s frown. “Now hear me out. If you let this go…if it doesn’t turn out as you wish, it will haunt you for the remaining years of your life. And as your friend, I’d hate to see you suffer through that.”

Wallace let out a dismissive sound. “You make me out like a pussyfooted, tender old man, Morgan. You know me better than that.”

“Exactly,” said his oldest friend, settling back in his chair and gazing outward. Wallace knew that he wouldn’t say more. It was precisely what he liked about Morgan. He was a man of few words, and yet when he chose to speak, each syllable was full of wisdom.

The man’s sons had fallen about as far from the tree as possible. Perhaps it had to do with being raised as sons of wealth, but they neither appeared nor acted anything like their father—with his steady grace, his kindness. And yet it was good that Andrew was so strong and forthright, given Vivian’s stubborn spirit. While the two had been at odds of late, friction was bound to happen. In time, such friction created well-worn grooves, helping a couple fit together better. Hadn’t it happened in his own marriage?

His mind cascaded back to those heady first days when wealth, true wealth, settled in and about him. They’d been in the house for five years, had hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank, business was booming, and he and Georgina were still in that filing stage, working on their grooves, until one hardship seemed so nearly impossible to get past that they avoided each other for months.

And then Alma had come to work at the house.

Kind and sweet, direct in her gaze and yet respectful, she seemed to see through him from the first day onward. In her eyes, he felt known. Understood. Appreciated as a man. The very smell of her when she entered a room seemed to draw him, call him.

What was worse, she seemed equally drawn to him.

He ignored it for weeks, months. But after one particularly hateful argument with his wife, he’d gone to his library and settled into the chair to drink himself into oblivion. A footman came in at sunset to light a fire in the hearth, stacking the logs high as Wallace favored. And long after his bottle was empty and the fire had burned down to glowing embers, Alma came in to put away some borrowed tomes. He watched her, so intent that he lifted an empty crystal glass to his lips like an old drunkard, before he realized he’d long-since enjoyed his last sip. She didn’t see him at first, sitting in his leather chair in the corner’s shadows, and he watched her for a long, lovely minute as she quickly and efficiently shelved the books in just the right spots.

She was clearly as intelligent as she was pretty.

When she finally saw him, she was nearly beside him. She gasped and put a hand to her throat, then quickly bobbed a curtsy and took a respectful step backward. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Kensington. I would’ve waited had I known you were here.”

She stepped away, intent on escape, but Wallace leaned forward and grasped her hand. “I’m glad you didn’t,” he said, covering her hand with a more gentle touch. “How I’ve longed for but a moment with you.”

“Mr. Kensington,” she’d said, pulling her hand away and shaking her head. Poor dear, she’d trembled. And he’d been a lout, pursuing her as he had. But in months, she was his. And gradually she loved him as he so desperately loved her. In many ways, she was far better suited to him than his wife had ever been. It was tortuous, knowing he loved her but could not keep her, especially when she became pregnant… It had never been fair to her. And then it had not been fair to Cora. He’d been a cad. But he’d done his best to do right by them…

Wallace blew out a thick cloud of smoke and rubbed his temples. It would have been best to do what he knew was right from the get-go. To honor his vows to his wife. To steer clear of the winsome housemaid with the direct gaze, a look in the eyes like he had not enjoyed since his days of building his fortune… But he hadn’t had the strength to do it. He’d been weak, in the end. And for his weakness, everyone had paid a steep price. Alma. Georgina. Cora.

Before the day he sent Alma off on the train with Alan, he’d never known the meaning of a broken heart. Ever after, he had. And now, with Cora so near, and yet still not trusting him, there were echoes of that sorrow radiating through his chest. It was different now, as an old man. It was not a lover’s love, but a far more melancholic tenderness, a father’s fear that a beloved child might slip away.

“You are deep in thought,” Morgan grunted.

“That I am,” Wallace said, taking another drag on his cigar. “That I am.”

CHAPTER 12

~Cora~

“So, tell me, my friend,” Eleonora Masoni said, sitting down beside me, “how you find our Italia.”

“I find it lovely,” I said before sipping from my sweating glass of water as she poured her own. After enduring a couple of hours of mind-numbing instruction with my father about the nuances of hydraulic drills, I’d finally escaped to sit under a wide umbrella, shaded from the hot afternoon sun. Most of the rest of the group was out enjoying a game of badminton. Only Vivian was absent, claiming a headache after breakfast and returning to her room. “Of all the countries I’ve seen along our tour, I must confess that Italia keeps delighting me at every turn.”

“It is a fine country to call home,” Signora Masoni said with a smile.

I let my eyes slide to Will as he hit the birdie and felt Signora Masoni’s gaze follow mine. “You’ve done a lovely job with your estate, Signora. I am impressed with how hard you work. I saw you out in the vineyard again this morning.”

She gave me a casual shrug. “Please. Call me Eleonora. And I enjoy it. It’s far better than staying inside and seeing to accounting and whatnot,” she said, leaning forward on the table and gesturing with her chin to the main room, where she’d seen me and my father huddled over paperwork.

“Would it surprise you to know that I once worked long hours in my own fields, back in Montana?” I asked gently.

She sipped from her glass and studied me with her big brown eyes. Then she smiled, and her eyes lit up with recognition. “How could I have not known it?” she asked, smacking her forehead and then gesturing widely to me, then over to the group. “You…you are the grand tourists our papers follow! How could I have not known you from the start?”

“Indeed,” I said, heaving a sigh. I’d hoped only to speak of a shared history, not my newest history.

Excitement lit Eleonora’s eyes, and her hands moved to a staccato tempo now. “All my country… Ahh, Signorina Kensington—”

“Cora, please.”

“Cora, all my country speaks of you! And the awful man who tried to get you in Venezia!” She shook her head and frowned. I could see her bright eyes piecing together the facts. “Is this why the papers have been silent about your progress of late? Why your Will has brought you to the countryside? To be safe?”

“That is one reason, yes. And why we are so grateful for your hospitality.”

“It is my honor to be your lowborn hostess,” she said, resting a hand on her bosom. She gave me a conspiratorial grin. “Imagine me running across you in Turino! It was meant to be, our friendship.”

I smiled and let her shock fade a bit. “But I was going to tell you, Eleonora… I grew up working in the fields in Montana. It was hard work but good work. Honest work.”

“Yes, yes,” she said, studying me now as if I were a puzzle to figure out. “There is something about cultivating the land, coaxing it, wooing it to give you what you want, that is most satisfactory.”

“Agreed,” I said, looking out. “And on land like this…you get to see it season after season.” It was my turn to shake my head. “I’m afraid my father’s land was not so bountiful.”

She frowned in confusion. “Did you try grapes?”

“Grapes? No, it is not the right land for grapes.”

Her eyes lit up. “But it was! Bountiful, no? Not on the top, perhaps,” she said, putting her hand out like a plank, then sliding another beneath. “But down below.” She cocked an eyebrow and nodded, waiting for me to see.

I smiled. She was right, of course. The acres surrounding Dunnigan were going to produce a crop beyond anything any farmer had ever imagined. But hefting it from the depths was different than watching it sprout and grow and mature. It just…was.

“Sometimes,” she said softly, “God answers our prayers in ways we did not expect. But it still is an answer to your father’s prayer, and your father’s father’s, yes?”

My eyes met hers. “Yes,” I said.

“There is much land here, Cora,” she said, taking a sip and waving outward, “if that is what you miss. You are an heiress!” She splayed her fingers. “You can purchase what you want and play the farmer all you wish, and all will be well, yes?”

Her eyes slid to the group playing badminton out on the lawn. To Will. “So, my friend,” she said leaning toward me to whisper, “are the stories true? Did your handsome Will steal your heart from that French nobleman? And did you truly never know you were a Kensington until this summer?”

My head started to slowly throb. I wondered for a moment if I’d caught Vivian’s headache. Eleonora’s smile faded. “I am sorry. Forgive me. I pry. And I know that is not the American way.” She made a little movement to indicate a lock and key on her pretty lips.

“It is all right.” I gave her a little shrug of my shoulders. “It is natural to wonder, after all that’s been written… And you’re right. We Americans like to hold our secrets close,” I said, touching my chest.

“But you long to share them just as we Italians do, do you not?” she asked. “It is much better to share what is on your heart. Otherwise, it grows heavy, so full is it.” She settled back in her chair and sipped from her glass, as if she were ready for me to tell all and yet cared not if I said a word. As if she was opening the door if I wished to walk through it. And suddenly I wanted to.

For some reason I didn’t want to discuss Will with her. At all. But I longed to talk over what was happening between my father and me. I glanced over my shoulder to make certain we were still alone on the veranda. “You saw us working together, inside. But Father and I are like…oil and water.”

“Ahh,” she said, lifting a brow and nodding. “My father and I…we were the same. Oil and water. We had to learn to be kind to each other. We loved each other, you see.” She looked out to the valley, then back to me. “I think God designed families in such a way. Some in each one set there to push out our borders,” she said, making the gesture of drawing a boundary line. “And yet those people force us to see how far we ourselves are willing to go in order to stay together, no?” She studied me.

“Yes,” I said, nodding. Suddenly my story was building within my chest, and I felt as if I might burst if I didn’t share it. “My father has borders, as you say, that he fiercely defends. And his borders around me seem to be continually changing… I think a part of him wants to free me. Grace me. But another part of him wishes to control me. Manage me. And I am not to be managed.” I set down my glass harder than I’d intended.

My hostess gave me a small smile. “So American women are as independent as they say,” she said. “You sound like a suffragette.”

I stared at her, blinking slowly. Was that who I was, what I wanted? And yet, what did the suffragettes long for? A voice of their own. A say in their own destiny. Autonomy. “Just because God created us female, does it mean we don’t have a mind capable of making good choices? Following our own paths, as God guides us?” I found myself rising, then pacing. “Perhaps I am. A suffragette,” I said, trying out the word in my mouth. It felt good. Liberating to state it rather than simply think it. As if I held up a sign against all the injustices I’d felt since my father had first driven up our farm road at the beginning of summer and changed my life forever. And yet, hadn’t he also freed me to do bigger, grander things than I’d ever dreamed? Hadn’t he led me to my sisters, my brother? To Will?

Will reached wildly to return Antonio’s lob of the badminton birdie that came over the net and failed. Still he laughed. If my father had never come looking for me, I would never have met him. Or my siblings. Or even Pierre. My borders, as Eleonora had said, might never have been pushed outward. I would not have ever seen Europe. Perhaps never left Montana. Ever, in my entire life. And my future, my parents’ future… Undoubtedly, I’d been blessed too, through all of this.

“The cause of the suffragettes is far from Italia, indeed,” said Eleonora, jolting me back to the present. I’d been so lost in my own thoughts, a part of me had forgotten she was even with me. “Men of this country would have heart attacks and die if their women refused to stay at home and do exactly as they said.”

“It is difficult for most of the men in our country as well. To imagine such a thing…women with minds of their own. Decisions of their own.”

“And what does your Will say about such things?” my hostess asked, lightly eyeing Will and Antonio.

I gazed over at them in rapt appreciation and cocked a brow. “Honestly, I’m unsure. He seems to favor my strength. My determination.” Hadn’t he compared me to the
Awakening Slave
? “But he also struggles with my position.”

“He is a good man,” she said, looking away to the opposite horizon, then back to me with a smile. “You are fortunate to find him.”

I realized that I’d been going on for far too long about myself. “What of you?” I asked. “Surely a woman as lovely as you won’t be alone for long.”

Her dark eyes shifted back to me. “We shall see.” She took a deep breath through her nose and let it out slowly through her lush lips. She was truly beautiful. Exotic, in a way. Olive skin. Long, thick lashes rimming dark eyes that tilted down a bit at the corners.

I waited, not wanting to pry. And then I remembered what she’d said. It had been practically an invitation to inquire, hadn’t it? “Was your marriage so very awful that you do not wish to try again?” I ventured.

Her eyes drifted to the side, making her appear even more sorrowful. “Ahh, he was nothing but an old, cranky man. It was…
advantageous
, as you say, for me to marry him. My father gained, my husband gained. The only one who lost was me.”