Honor (18 page)

She smiled, thinking how much Aunt Theo would adore the artistry and craftsmanship of the stained glass. “That’s lovely.”

“I’ve always thought it right pretty myself,” LaRouche said in his soft drawl. “The rest of the guests are in the drawing room.”

Three men rose the moment they entered the room, and their wives turned interested faces on the newcomers.

LaRouche said, “I’d like you all to meet Robert Davis, the company’s newest lawyer, and his wife, Honor, who is the only lady lawyer in New York City.”

Her secret was out. Amid the murmurs of polite surprise and admiration rippling among the guests, Honor caught a sniff or two of disapproval. She was not surprised.

She kept her face blank but shot Robert an apologetic look. His expression remained impassive. Honor concentrated on the introductions.

A short, swarthy man with a clipped English accent and his shy, forgettable wife were the Herrons, visiting from London. The large woman with the haughty air turned out to be Maria Morelli, the temperamental opera singer, and her companion, a florid, middle-aged man who couldn’t take his adoring eyes off her, was named Jeffrey Something-or-other. But the guests who most intrigued Honor were the tallest man in the room and his diminutive, redheaded wife.

With wild dark-brown hair down to his broad shoulders and a full beard down to his chest, Gordon Graham reminded Honor of a fierce lion. Though he bared his teeth in a smile when introduced, his dark eyes glittered with disapproval. One huge paw rested on his wife Genevra’s shoulder as if to restrain her should she try to flee. The woman looked as terrified and resigned as Honor’s father the day before he was to go to the gallows.

Introductions made, their host said, “Maybe you’d care to see your rooms and rest up before dinner?”

Robert thanked him, and he and Honor followed a servant upstairs to a large, spacious room decorated in warm tones of pale yellow.

When Honor was alone with her husband, she said, “I’m quite relieved that Mr. LaRouche told everyone that I am a lawyer. I know you didn’t want anyone to know just yet, but I was tired of pretending.”

“I only didn’t want Fogg and the others to know,” Robert said with an offhand shrug. “LaRouche’s not like them. He doesn’t care that you’re a lawyer.”

That surprised her. “I’m relieved to hear it.”

Robert went to one of the windows and drew open the curtains. “Sweet Jesus, will you look at this view? You can see the river and the land on the opposite side.” He turned. “Did you notice that I’m the only employee he invited up here?”

“Mr. Herron and that Graham man don’t work for him?”

Robert shook his head and smiled. “Just me. That’s got to mean he has big plans for me.”

Honor felt sick to her stomach as she wondered what those “big plans” could be.

At dinner, when Honor saw LaRouche had seated Robert in a place of honor at his left, she decided to use this social occasion to glean more information about their host and turned her attention to her own dinner partners, the Englishman Mr. Herron on her left and Gordon Graham on her right.

As the soup course was being served, Honor said to Herron, “How do you happen to know Mr. LaRouche?”

“We have mutual friends in London,” he replied, “Damon Delancy and his wife, Dr. Catherine.”

She sipped a spoonful of the delicious beef consommé. “I had heard they were living in London.” Evading the law. “Does Dr. Delancy still practice medicine?”

Herron dabbed at his lips with his napkin. “She works for a dispensary in the city’s East End. Are you familiar with London, Mrs. Davis?” When Honor replied that she wasn’t, he continued, “The East End is a very poor section, and medical care is a luxury its inhabitants can ill afford. Catherine and the other dispensary doctors go out into the slums and care for those who need it without cost.”

Elroy had said she was a saint.

“How…selfless of her,” Honor said.

To her right, Graham muttered, “Foolhardy, if you ask me.”

Honor turned toward him. “Why would you think that, Mr. Graham?”

He looked at her, his dark eyes glittering with that disapproval Honor had sensed earlier. “Slums are dangerous places for women alone.” He looked meaningfully at his wife seated between Robert and the opera singer’s companion. “I know I wouldn’t want my wife going into dangerous places at all hours of the night. A woman could get beaten…or worse.”

She could be murdered, like Dr. Sybilla Wolcott.

Honor darted a glance at Nevada LaRouche, but he was deep in conversation with Maria Morelli and hadn’t heard Graham’s remark.

Genevra Graham looked at her husband with a sparkle of defiance in her hazel eyes. “That may be true, but you know as well as I do, Gordon, that if it hadn’t been for Dr. Delancy and Dr. Wolcott, our son wouldn’t be alive today.” Her defiant gaze faltered and slid away, and she muttered, “Nor would I, for that matter,” almost as an afterthought.

Intrigued, Honor leaned forward. “May I ask how Dr. Delancy saved your lives?”

“I was having a particularly difficult delivery,” Genevra Graham explained, her cheeks coloring at mentioning such a delicate subject at the dinner table. “Catherine’s friend Sybilla performed a rare, dangerous operation that saved us both.” She resumed eating her soup, effectively closing the conversation. Honor noticed that her fingers trembled.

Mr. Herron said, “Dr. Catherine tried to open a private practice in London, but very few would go to a woman doctor, so she went to work for the dispensary.” He turned to Honor. “You must have faced similar prejudice, Mrs. Davis, being the only woman lawyer in New York City.”

Honor thought of the men in law school who had put ink on her chair and all the lawyers who had refused to hire her, and she suddenly felt a kinship with a woman she had never met.

She sat back so the footman could remove her soup bowl. “I think that for all their difficulties, women doctors are accepted more readily than female lawyers.”

Conversation around her suddenly ceased. Honor became aware that eight pairs of eyes were riveted on her.

Nevada LaRouche said, “Why would you say that, Mrs. Davis?”

Honor met his clear blue gaze with a challenging one of her own. “People believe that caring for the sick, whether as a nurse or doctor, is a basic part of a woman’s gentle, nurturing nature, so they are willing to accept it more readily. But if women are allowed in the courtroom, they threaten the legal power men have held for themselves for centuries.”

Gordon Graham looked at Honor, the disapproval in his eyes turning to frank dislike. “Women don’t need power. They’ve got their fathers and husbands to protect them and give them everything they need.”

His wife made no comment, but her lips tightened.

“I quite agree,” Maria Morelli said in her rich, melodic voice. “A woman, she loses her womanliness when she tries to be like a man, no?”

Honor looked past Mr. Herron at the opera singer. “But you yourself are an independent woman, Miss Morelli. You earn a living by performing on the stage. You travel around the country.”

“That is true, but I am always a woman before I am a singer. The man, he always comes first with Maria Morelli.” She placed a dramatic hand on her ample, quivering bosom. “I would give up singing tomorrow to please the man I love.” She beamed at her companion. “That’s so, eh?”

Jeffrey Something-or-other beamed back. “Very true,
ma bella.
But I would never be so selfish as to deprive the world of your beautiful voice.”

Honor looked at Robert, hoping he would support her, but he merely continued eating without saying a word. Too proud to prompt him, Honor hid her disappointment by sipping her wine, all too aware of Nevada LaRouche’s eyes on her.

Their host looked around the table. “Well, having known some remarkable women in my life, I say that if a woman wants to be a doctor or a lawyer, no one should stop her.”

Honor gave him a look of surprise tempered with suspicion and skepticism. No matter how enlightened Nevada LaRouche professed to be about women, Honor still didn’t trust him.

She raised her wineglass. “You are a prince among men, Mr. LaRouche.”

He caught the edge of sarcasm in her voice, for he frowned, his blue eyes turning to ice and promising retribution.

Honor turned her attention back to her plate and spent the rest of the evening engaging in bland, uncontroversial conversation with the other guests and deliberately avoiding Nevada LaRouche.

Chapter Ten

The following morning Honor rose quietly at first light, dressed quickly in her blue striped shirtwaist and a plain skirt, brushed out her hair so that it flowed down over her shoulders, and left the bedroom to the melodic accompaniment of Robert’s snores.

After walking through the hushed house without meeting so much as a servant, she let herself out through the front door and found herself in an eerie, fog-enshrouded world that smelled wonderfully of damp grass and bark, where even a sigh reverberated loudly, and she could barely see six feet in front of her. Honor shivered, pulling her cashmere shawl closer about her to ward off the predawn chill, and strode away from the house. The wet grass seeped through her thin kid slippers and dampened her skirt’s hem, but she didn’t turn back, finding the silence and solitude and unremitting grayness comforting after her foolish behavior at dinner last night.

What had possessed her to insult Nevada LaRouche? He was their host and her husband’s employer. He held Robert’s future in the palm of his hand.

Even if you don’t trust him, she told herself, you’ve got to swallow your animosity and be polite. For Robert’s sake.

Luckily for her, Robert hadn’t overheard her sarcastic toast to LaRouche. When they retired for the evening, he had praised her for being a credit to him. Sitting at the dressing table and creaming her face, she had told him that she was disappointed in him for not defending her at dinner.

He had kissed the nape of her neck until she went all soft and shivery, then said, “You defend yourself better than I or anyone else ever could,” and later redeemed himself by making wild, passionate love to her.

She found a narrow, well-worn dirt path leading across the lawn and into a lightly wooded area beyond, so she took it. As she walked farther and farther away from the main house, more trees materialized out of the mist and were swiftly swallowed up behind her as she hurried past them.

Honor hadn’t been walking more than ten minutes when she heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps behind her. Heart pounding wildly, she whirled around and came face-to-face with Nevada LaRouche.

He stood in the middle of the path, a tall, forbidding figure silhouetted against a solid wall of gray mist.

“Mrs. Davis.” Even his soft drawl sounded loud and forceful when trapped by the surrounding fog.

“Mr. LaRouche.” Honor attempted a smile and failed. “What are you doing out so early in the morning?”

Noticing the man’s tousled hair and the light golden stubble on his lean jaw, Honor assumed that he, too, had dressed hastily.

The grayness of the predawn fog turned his blue eyes to ice. “I wanted a chance to talk to you. In private.”

“So when you saw me leave the house, you decided to follow me.”

“Something like that.”

“You must be an early riser.”

“When I have a lot on my mind.”

Though she already knew the answer, Honor said, “What do you wish to speak to me about?”

The surrounding fog and trees enclosed them like the four walls of a small room. He took a step forward and hooked his thumbs in his belt. “When you’re around me, you act as ornery as a cow pony with a burr under its saddle. I’d like to know why.”

Honor pulled her shawl closer about her and decided to lie yet again for Robert’s sake. She forced her expression to remain impassive. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have been politeness itself to you.”

“Politeness?” He smiled, a wolfish baring of too many white teeth. “Ma’am, if that’s what you call polite, I’d hate to see you when you’re ornery.” He studied her with a disconcerting frankness. “You don’t like me very much, do you?”

Honor raised her brows. “You are certainly direct, sir.”

“I believe in laying all my cards on the table.”

“How do you expect me to answer such a question? I would hardly be stupid enough to admit a dislike for my husband’s employer, now, would I?”

“So you do dislike me.”

“Don’t be exasperating. I don’t know you well enough to form an opinion.”

He raised one brow. “You strike me as a woman of strong opinions, one who doesn’t sashay around.”

“You’re right. I don’t. I, too, like to lay all my cards on the table.” Honor took a deep breath. “It’s not that I dislike you. I simply don’t trust men like you.”

He didn’t take offense. “Is that because of what happened to your father?”

The blood rushed to Honor’s cheeks so fast that she felt momentarily dizzy. She tugged at her locket so hard that the cord finally snapped. “Damn!” she swore softly as her treasured memento fell to the ground.

Before Honor could take another breath, LaRouche swooped down and picked up the locket in his long fingers. “It’s wet,” he said, taking a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his coat and gently wiping the gold engraved face before handing it back to Honor. “You should put that on a chain.”