Heiress (37 page)

Bennett drew in a breath, looked away.

“What is it?” She pressed a hand to her stomach. She should eat something, and soon.

“It’s Jack,” Bennett said quietly. “They’re interrogating Jack for Foster’s murder. They think it was he who went out the garden door.”

“No”

“He told them that he saw his father push you, that he heard your argument—”

How much had Jack heard? She tried to unsnarl their conversation, but it all ran together. “But you were there—you said you fought with Foster.”

“I did. But Jack must have been standing outside the door in the garden.” His voice turned low. “Jinx, I heard him tell the police at the scene that he wanted his father dead.”

Her world dropped from beneath her then, her knees simply surrendering, and she hit the floor hard, slapping her head against the brick wall.

“Jinx!”

She held her face in her hands, heard a moaning, and realized it came from herself. “No, no—”

She felt Bennett’s hands on her back, as if to pull her into an embrace, but she pushed on his chest, away from him. “How could you let this happen? You know he couldn’t have done this!”

He drew in a quick breath, searching her face. “What do you mean? He told me he hated Foster. And I wouldn’t have believed that Foster had the capability to hurt people like he did, but you knew his cruelty. Why wouldn’t his son be the same way?”

She slapped him. Hard, and it stung her hand. He recoiled, flinching.

“Get away from me. Just get away.”

He stared at her, unmoving. He didn’t even put his hand on the red bleeding into his cheek.

She drew in a trembling breath, couldn’t look at him. “He didn’t kill Foster. He could never kill anyone. He’s not that kind of man.”

“Is it so hard to believe that Foster’s son could turn out just like him? Open your eyes, Jinx—”

“No, you open your eyes, Bennett Worth. Is it so hard for you to recognize your own son?” Her voice turned rich and dark. “That’s why I know he could never kill a man—he is his father’s son.”

Only Bennett’s breath, wavering as he searched her face for the truth, betrayed the impact of her words.

He closed his eyes, his face tight with emotion. “No. That’s not true. You told me that he wasn’t my child. You said—”

“I lied! I lied so you would have a life. You’re right, Foster was unbearably cruel and he would have destroyed you. Destroyed me.”

“Destroyed the life you’d built, you mean.” Bennett backed away, his hand up. “I wanted you, Jinx. I sent you a note, told you I would wait. But you sent it back, torn into pieces.”

“No—no, I never received your note. I did come, but…Lewis was there.” Oh, how she remembered his eyes on her, on Bennett. “I feared for you.”

“You feared for you, Jinx. Yes, Foster would have tried to destroy us, but perhaps we would have found a new life. Maybe you wouldn’t have appeared every week on the society pages, perhaps you would have lived without an army of servants, but we would have been happy.”

She looked away from him.

He ran his hand through his hair then met her eyes. “The shyster was going to leave you, Jinx. He had a plan to take everything, and leave you penniless and marry some actress he was seeing. I met her Sunday afternoon at the Knickerbocker Theater. She—she attended with Foster.”

“A blond, tall and willowy?”

He looked at her, frowned. “You knew about her?”

“Her name is Flora St. John. Foster didn’t bother to hide it. Sometimes even brought her to the house. She’s one of Ziegfeld’s girls.” Jinx had stayed in her room, the laughter from next door seeping through the walls. “He wanted to hurt me.”

Bennett stared at her. “You knew and you didn’t care? I thought you loved him.”

She gave a harsh, ugly laugh. “Why would you ever think that?”

“Besides the fact that you didn’t want me? How about the fact that you had a daughter with him? Unless—”

“Don’t even say it. I’ve been faithful every day of my life.” She held his gaze, daring Bennett to argue.

“Then why, if you didn’t love him?”

“A woman’s duty is to her husband. Even if she despises him. Even if he comes home drunk and invades her room. Even if she screams and fights him.” She looked away then, refusing the tears. “Rosie was the only good thing to come from my marriage to Foster. She must never know the circumstances of her birth.”

Bennett’s face twitched with a sort of dark emotion. “I want to walk away from you, to hurt something or someone for the rage I feel, the frustration of knowing that everything I feared for the last seventeen years indeed came to pass. My child, the woman I love, trapped—by her own pride—in a marriage that destroyed her. After leaving you in Newport, I tried to forget you. I tried to fall in love, to find a wife, but I couldn’t dislodge you from my head, my heart. I dreamed of coming back to you, but every time I did, there you were, on Foster’s arm. It ate me up from the inside, and I tried to stop caring. I told myself that you deserved your wretched life, that I was better off for not being around you, not letting you inside to destroy me.”

His words were a knife, and she flinched. Indeed, she did deserve it. She’d created this world, clung to her empty life, her wretched marriage—her pride—and put herself in this prison.

Then he turned to her, touched his hand to her face. “But, Jinx, I love you. I’ve never stopped hoping that you might come to me, that you might someday love me.”

She caught her breath. Oh, she did love him. Had never stopped. She leaned into his touch, the words in her chest. “Bennett, I—”

“I went to Foster’s office two days before I came to see you, and he told me how he was going to leave you, and like an idiot, I actually pleaded with him not to. I told him that you had helped him build his life, his position, his power, and that he should be the husband he’d promised to be. And then, he accused me of being in love with you.”

She read his face, as probably did Foster, and saw the truth. “Oh Bennett.”

“And then he said that he always knew that you loved me too. That you hadn’t been faithful to him that summer at Newport, that he knew Jack wasn’t his. He looked too much like me, soft and bookish, not enough fire in him.”

She called that gentle and patient, a man of honor.

But, of course Foster would have seen Bennett in Jack. She’d been a fool to think he wouldn’t.

“That’s why I came to you—I feared what he might do to you. I’d hoped that you would be glad to see me. I guess I had some sort of idea that, after all this, you might be willing to ignore the scandal and follow your heart.”

“Yes, Bennett—”

“I’ve never stopped loving you, and because of that I’m going to fix this, Jinx. I’m going to fix this, and save our—my son—and then you’re going to be free.”

He got up, and before she could reach out for him, he knocked on the door to the interrogation cell. “Let me out of here.”

* * * * *

The house on Fifth Avenue still possessed the power to reduce Esme’s resolve to ash, to turn her into a debutante, bidden by her parents to marry a man she despised. She stood on the steps after the taxi left them off, remembering Oliver’s face as her father’s footmen threw him into the night, her father’s decree that she would marry Foster by the next night.

She had vowed never to return.

“Are you going to ring the bell?” Lilly said beside her. She had already lifted her hand twice, and Esme took a hold of it.

“Some things take some working up to,” she said, smoothing her jacket. She pressed the bell. It tolled deep inside the house and she glanced at Lilly, who smiled up at her, more excitement than trepidation in her eyes. And why not? She hadn’t left her home in the middle of the night, a fugitive from matrimony.

But Esme wasn’t that woman anymore.

The door opened and she stared up at Pierce Stewart, Oliver’s father, their butler. Nothing of recognition flickered in his eyes—not at first. Then, “Oh my, Miss Esme, you’ve returned.”

And just like that, life filled her lungs. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath. “Hello, Pierce. Is my father in?”

He raised an eyebrow as he moved away from the door to allow her inside. She pushed Lilly in front of her, watching her daughter’s reaction to the grand marble entrance, the arched ceilings, the parquet wood floor. Their entire first floor might fit, although snugly, inside just the entrance hall. Sunlight fell in dusty streams to the floor like spotlights. “I’ll inform him that you have arrived,” he said and moved down the hall to the drawing room.

“Miss Esme, is that really you?”

She turned at the voice, so familiar, so forgotten. “Bette. I can’t believe you’re still here.” Bette probably looked to her as she did to her former lady’s maid, the padding to her figure, the beginning of lines upon her face. Her dark hair showed just the finest hint of white, but she appeared capable and with an air that bespoke her promotion to head of the female staff.

“Aye, ma’am. Your mother kept me on even after…” She swallowed. “I became the housekeeper of the Fifth Avenue chateau only a few years ago.” Her gaze fell on Lilly, who had wandered away to examine a portrait of her grandparents hanging in the banquet hall.

“This is my daughter, Lillian Joy Hoyt.”

Lillian turned at her name, gave a curtsey that could have knocked Esme over with a breath. So her daughter had managed to retain some of her instruction.

“Your father is ready to see you,” Pierce said and stood aside.

She didn’t know why she expected him unchanged, tall and strong, with those eyes that could bring someone to their knees, confess their sins. He’d had dark, barely salted hair when she’d left, and the last thing she remembered was his strong hand on her arm right before she’d escaped his office.

Now, those hands curled into themselves on his lap, his shoulders bowed as he slouched in a wheelchair on the hearth before the fire. He wore a blanket over his knees, and a strap around his chest kept him from pitching completely forward. He stared into the fire, unseeing.

August Price had shriveled into a broken, elderly man.

She glanced at Pierce, who gave her a tight, slim smile. She reached out and took Lilly’s hand and entered the room.

“Father, it’s Esme.” No reaction as she slipped close to him, the ache inside almost devouring her. Why hadn’t she returned sooner? Letting go of Lilly’s hand, she crouched before the wheelchair. “I’m sorry I didn’t come home sooner, Father. But I’m here now. And I’ve brought you a granddaughter.” She glanced up at Lilly, who stared down at the old man with a sort of undisguised tragedy in her expression. Esme wanted to admonish her to wipe it away, but she considered that she too, wore such a look.

Why had she let her pride steal her inheritance, a grandfather for her child?

She tried to remove the heartache from her voice. “I married a wonderfully kind man. You may have heard of him—Daughtry Hoyt. He attended a few social events with you years ago. He owned a copper mine in Montana and he loved me very much. He died trying to help some of his miners caught in a cave-in.” Those words seemed closer, suddenly, the grief, for a moment, fresh in her throat.

“You would have liked him. He was very proud of me.” She swallowed, ran her gloved hand under her eye. “He gave me a daughter before he died—Lillian Joy. She’s thirteen-years- old, and just like you. Stubborn and smart and beautiful.” She eyed Lilly, who bit her bottom lip and turned away.

“I own the mine now, but I also own a number of newspapers. We have a daily and two weeklies.” She put her hand on his on his lap, found it small and frail. “I’m a publisher, just like you.”

Did his eyes flick over at her? She wanted to believe it, wanted to know that too, he’d squeezed her hand. Perhaps he did. Yes, his hand twitched, and there—again, a squeeze.

Esme touched it to her forehead, kissed the back of it.

“Oh, Father, I’m sorry it took me so long—”

“Esme?”

She turned. Her mother stood in the doorway, her hand pressed to her mouth. “I can’t believe it. You came home!” She seemed to collect herself then, or wanted to, but gave up and crossed the room, her face betraying her. “Esme.”

Phoebe, in a skirt and high-necked shirtwaist and leg o’mutton sleeves, had lost weight also, her bones delicate beneath Esme’s embrace. She smelled of powder and all the indulgences Esme had left behind. “I never thought I’d see you again.” She blinked fast, swallowed. Forced a smile. “And this lovely lady is—”

“Your granddaughter, Lilly Hoyt.”

“Lilly,” Phoebe said, holding out her hand. Lilly took it, the perfect debutante, and bowed her head.

“Such wonderful manners. I can see you are your mother’s daughter.”

Oh, sure she was.

Phoebe glanced at her husband, sitting in the chair. His blanket had become dislodged, falling off his knee. She fixed it then turned her back on him, looping her arm around Esme. “You look so fetching, daughter. You’ve come back to stay, I hope?”

Esme watched as Lilly roamed the room, stopping to take in an oil of Esme, painted, obviously from her debut photograph. It hung above her father’s desk. She’d never seen it before, and tried not to compare herself to the flawless perfection of a lady groomed for presentation into society.

“I don’t know. Lilly needs…” A father. A firm hand. Culture. “Schooling.”

Lilly glanced at her and scowled. Ah, there was the daughter Esme knew.

“Why didn’t you cable me when Father had his stroke? Why did you wait until now to ask me to come home?”

Phoebe frowned at her. “I didn’t cable you, Esme. I…should have, I know. But I—I had my reasons.”

“She was probably afraid of me. Probably afraid that I would hurt you again,” said a voice behind them.

Phoebe stiffened.

Esme stilled, her breath caught in her chest, her pulse swishing in her ears. She turned.

No.

He was an older, more confident version of himself: dark hair too long for his attire, a gray striped waistcoat, tie, a wool suit with matching trousers. A gold pocket watch hung from his belt loop to his vest pocket. All the same, she recognized the flicker of emotion, a longing she had never quite forgotten. Nor had she forgotten his brown eyes that now peered right through her, snatched out her heart, and left her bereft.