Love's Fortune (17 page)

Scarcely a ray of October light penetrated the gloom of Silas’s bedchamber. Damask drapes were drawn tight, and no lamp was lit. A low fire burned in the grate, sending an occasional spark into the shadows. James sat by the bed, head sunk in his hands. The labored rasp of Silas’s breathing ate away at what little composure he’d arrived with an hour earlier. For some reason the doctors had let him in, when they’d been guarded with visitors before. A bad sign. As if
they’d given up hope and it no longer mattered. Aside from the occasional intrusion of a nurse or Ellie and Eden, James had been entirely alone with him.

Deep in his gut was the certainty that the time had come for Silas to leave them. Yet James stumbled on the mere thought. Silas had always been there for him. Like Pittsburgh. James didn’t like to think of the course his life might have taken if there’d been no Ballantynes. No Orphan Home. No apprenticeship.

He’d always given Silas and Eden credit for what became of him. But lately, as if a light was dawning, he’d begun to think it was more God at work through the choices and actions of His people. Silas was the father he’d never had. Strong. Ever present. Silas never seemed to lose his balance, walking the tightrope of finance and industry with grace and skill, never compromising his beliefs or losing sight of a deeper purpose. James longed to be like him. But his faith was so small. His unbelief great.

A door opened softly then shut. He felt a hand on his hunched shoulder. Felt the gentle, reassuring warmth of outspread fingers through the heavy broadcloth of his coat.

Izannah? He looked up, surprise edging out grief.

Wren.

She stood just behind him, eyes on the still figure atop the bed, the faint rustle of her skirts rising above Silas’s ragged breathing.

James sat back and her hand fell away. He hadn’t seen her since they’d been out riding, yet they’d soon be thrust together at every turn—if Silas lived. He shut his eyes against the thought, only to open them to the sight of her on her knees.

Skirts burnished a deep plum in the firelight, she knelt by the bed, head bent, one hand outstretched to cover Silas’s
own as it lay limp atop the coverlet. James’s throat closed and his eyes burned as she breathed a heartrending prayer into the stillness. Awe washed through him. She hardly knew this grandfather of hers while he sat close as kin, so choked by emotion he felt paralyzed. He expected her to rise, but she stayed where she was for a very long time.

Humbled, James wanted to get down beside her. Wanted to feel his knees scrape the hard floor like when he’d been a boy. Often Eden Ballantyne had come round to the orphanage back then, kneeling like Wren, taking his small hands in her own when he was sick or in low spirits. He bent his head beneath the weight of the memory as Wren’s whispered prayer of moments before settled over him like a balm. He needed to get on his knees about a great many things. His grief over Bixby. Charlotte. His everlasting struggle with Bennett. The choices before him.

The figure atop the bed was all too still. Shaken, unable to keep himself in check, James went out, turning round once to linger on Silas’s profile. Peaceful. No sign of struggle. Only that agonized rattling in his chest that was a punishment to witness.

He passed into the hall, taking a seat on a settee. The doctors came and Wren emerged, sitting beside him when he’d expected her to go. Still feeling choked, he endured the pained silence, the width of her skirts like a third person between them.

“Are you . . . all right?” she asked him.

He fixed his damp gaze on an oil painting across the hall. “No.”

She looked to her lap, silent, and then reached for his fisted hand on the settee between them. Her touch was warm. Kind. Violating every tenet of custom and etiquette he knew. His
pulse quickened. Her callused fingers were like the strike of a match, lighting a fire he feared couldn’t be put out.

The familiar hum of the house went on all around them. Servants scurrying. Doors quietly closing. The ever-present kitchen smells rising to the far rafters. But all he was conscious of was the subtle pressure of her fingers against his own.

Her voice was low and melodic if grieved. “Once Grandfather passes . . . goes to glory . . . what will happen then?”

Goes to glory.
The heartfelt expression tugged at him, another reminder of how differently she thought about things. Cleanly. Honestly. Almost childlike in her simplicity.

“We’ll all be in full mourning for a year or better.”

He could feel her taking it in, all the ramifications. He wasn’t sure what mourning was like in Cane Run, but her thoughtful silence told him it was handled differently than here.

“A season seems frivolous at such a time,” she said.

“It might not come to pass.” Yet his own conflicted feelings left him hoping—praying—it would. He wanted the season to move forward. He wanted her to marry well. He wanted an end to the way she went to his head like wine.

“I don’t want anything to happen to Grandfather, but neither do I want to meet Pittsburgh.” Her voice fell to an agonized whisper. “I want you to promise me . . .” Her features turned so entreating he felt he held her future in his hands. “Promise me you’ll go slowly. I’ve never before had a suitor. Never been alone with a man nor been kissed . . .”

He nearly winced as she laid the matter bare between them. He looked at her then, taking liberties he had no right to. He grew lost in the gentle curve of her cheek, her thick lashes, the way her hair escaped its pins, trailing like blonde lace to her bent shoulders.

His breathing was nearly nonexistent now. He cast about for the right words, trying to tread carefully. “I’m a gentleman, remember, who’s been charged to introduce you to the same. Since I know so many in Pittsburgh, it stands to reason you’re in good hands.”

“I know all this is happening to marry me off, make a proper match. But I’m not accomplished, other than the violin. Andra says I’m rough spun, among other things.”

His jaw clenched. He forced his gaze to his boots. While Andra and Bennett schemed and maneuvered about her future, did they have to drag her through the mud of their prejudices and criticisms too?

“I can’t help but wonder . . .” Her voice cracked with vulnerability. “What if no man wants me or finds me pleasing?”

“Wren . . .” He swallowed past the hammering tightness in his chest, his precarious use of her given name. “Falling in love with you would be easy. You are a very beautiful woman, and a very charming one.”

She sat very still, his heartfelt words falling into the stillness between them. He couldn’t take them back. He didn’t want to. He’d exposed his heart when he’d merely meant to bolster her confidence. But it was out there—every tender word—lingering like a vow between them.

He was on the edge of his emotions. Feeling too deeply. Revealing too much. Standing up so quickly he felt light-headed, he excused himself, fixing his gaze on the stairwell banister down the hall just as Izannah cleared the top step.

Her surprise at finding them together was plain. She looked to him and then Wren, features pinched with worry and fatigue. He pushed past her without a word, wondering what they would say in his wake.

Wondering if Silas would make it through another night.

19

Dresses for breakfast and dinners and balls;

Dresses to sit in, and stand in, and walk in;

Dresses to dance in, and flirt in, and talk in;

Dresses in which to do nothing at all.

W
ILLIAM
A
LLEN
B
UTLER

Ordeal by fork.

There was simply no other way to describe it. But first . . . the entrance.

“You must walk in a measured gait at all times, looking neither to the right nor the left.” Catherine Criss’s voice filled the dining room’s cold space while Andra sat in somber observation at table’s end. “Remember, haste is incompatible with grace.”

Wren entered New Hope’s dining room, fighting the breathless feeling someone was sitting on her chest, and finally made it to the appointed chair where other perils awaited.

“Take care not to disturb the furniture when you sit down, and mind your skirts so that they fall gracefully around you.” The biting censure in Miss Criss’s voice was more daunting than the obstacle course before her. “Now remove your gloves and lay them atop your lap
before
unfolding your napkin.”

Wren did as she bade, flushing at the next dictum. “You are to make no remark upon the food set before you, not even in praise. Nor do you acknowledge the servants with so much as a word or glance.”

This was surely a pointed rebuke to her effusiveness, as her aunt called it. Making too much of every little thing. Gushing was vulgarity itself.

Andra cleared her throat. “One misstep will mark you as a social counterfeit, Rowena, a gaffe from which you will never recover.”

Wren nodded, careful to keep her eyes down demurely. Eye contact, like a curtsey or a bow, was meted out carefully, the slightest glance indicating the degree or warmth of a relationship . . . and there was no kind feeling around this immense table.

“Depending on the dinner party, you may or may not peruse a handwritten menu prior to being served.” Taking a seat beside her, Miss Criss turned the full force of her gaze Wren’s way. “The first course usually begins with what pairing?”

“Champagne and—” Wren struggled to keep the distaste from her tone. “Raw oysters.”

“Correct. After this, waiters will offer a choice of soup and sherry to be followed by fish and Chablis.”

The menu would be endless and extravagant, mostly in French, comprising course after course that could feed a great many hungry souls in the dingy alleys of Pittsburgh. Try as she might, Wren couldn’t help feeling a sickening sense of
excess even imagining it, like eating too much icing on an empty stomach. Nor could she distinguish all the silver.

“Take up your seafood fork.” The unrelenting pace of Miss Criss’s lessons the last fourteen days had worn Wren to a threepenny nail.

The seafood fork? Wren extended an unsure hand, torn between two nearly identical utensils.

“Remember, the slightest hesitation will betray you.”

She’d been betrayed.

“The seafood fork is the fourth fork to the right of the oval soup spoon,” Miss Criss interjected firmly.
“Always.”

Wren looked at the maze of cutlery before her and wanted to raise a white flag of surrender. “There is also the dessert fork, the ice cream fork, the pastry fork, the strawberry fork, the salad fork, and the lobster fork. And I’ve not even begun to name all the knives and spoons—”

“Rowena!” Andra’s raised voice fell harshly around them. “There’s time enough to tell which is which. Eight days, to be exact. For now, Mistress Endicott is in the hall. I’m anxious to see what miracles she’s worked with your dresses.”

Miracles? There was thinly veiled sarcasm in Andra’s tone. Before an answering dismay leapt to Wren’s face, she reined herself in, remembering restraint ruled the day.

A
mark of good breeding is the suppression of any undue
emotion, any true feeling to the outside world.

Hadn’t James Sackett taught her this? With his everlasting reserve and impeccable manners?

As soon as she thought it, she felt a check. She’d seen through his stoicism but twice, when he’d first smiled at her while out riding, and then again outside Grandfather’s sickroom. In the broken, heart-shattering stillness, she’d glimpsed a part of him that stayed hidden. As her hand reached for
his, his reserve had given way for a too-tender second and he’d nearly come undone.

He cared for Grandfather deeply. He’d cared for Georgiana and had lost her. She felt a catch in her throat, remembering, barely aware Andra and Miss Criss had left the room.

Sighing, she pressed clammy fingers to her temples as if to push the pain of her headache away. The added aggravation of an empty stomach made her light-headed. The egg she’d had upon rising and the broth she’d had at noon made little sense. She was expected to starve till the Mellons’ ball and then stuff herself during?

Bumping the table upon rising brought a near wince. The silver seemed to chime, calling out her foible, but only Mim appeared in the doorway, worry on her ruddy face. Making a beeline toward her, Mim made quick work of a napkin, revealing a warm biscuit slathered with butter and jam.

“Yer going to faint dead away—fall right into yer soup—yer first night out. I’ll nae let them starve ye to death!”

Taking the offering, Wren downed it in two bites, careful of crumbs. The scurry in the foyer was heightening as seamstresses and assistants hurried upstairs, arms full of dresses.

“As many dresses as forks,” Mim whispered in sympathy.

For now only one dress mattered—the gown for the opening ball. And from the exclamations floating down from the second floor, it was creating something of a stir.

By the time Wren reached the dressing room of her bedchamber, not a sound could be heard. Cautiously she peered round the doorframe. The women were huddled round a dress form where the altered gown was on display, blocking her view.

“I believe this is the very gown my mother was wearing
when she first came to Pittsburgh and met up with my father again.” Andra’s voice was oddly sentimental. “The occasion was a River Hill ball over fifty years ago.”

Brushing a biscuit crumb from her bodice, Wren joined them, her breath catching at the sight of so much antique silk. Every buttery line and pleat and pearl embellishment was a picture of elegance.

Mistress Endicott turned toward Wren. “I stayed true to the eighteenth-century design while embellishing with the choicest Rose Point lace from Brussels. The skirts have been cut away at the waist to retain the polonaise lines and allow for dancing. The finished alteration is far more fetching than I’d imagined. All that remains is the fitting.”

Everyone seemed to hold a collective breath as the assistants divested Wren of her day dress. Her throat knotted as Grandmother’s gown rustled and slipped into place, turning the moment more poignant.

Lord, let
all this fuss be worthwhile.

The shining cheval glass was reassurance the remade gown was equal to any occasion. Clad so, Wren felt nearly like a bride, her skin turning pink from so many admiring glances, many of which had only been critical before. Even Mim looked a bit overcome at the transformation.

What would it be like entering a strange ballroom on James’s arm? Privy to a great many appraising gazes? The prospect tore away her joy over Grandmother’s generosity. She feared she’d faint just like Mim had warned. Fall facedown in her soup in a roomful of strangers.

From the doorway a maid’s voice broke through the silence. “Your father has taken a turn, Miss Andra, and you’re needed at River Hill.”

The slightest hesitation—and then Andra left the room.
No one said a word, but it was obvious what each was thinking. The beautiful silk gown might soon return to the trunk in the attic, exchanged for mourning instead.

Malachi eyed the stone and glass orangery situated behind the nearly finished hulk of Cameron House. The detailed plans in his hands made little sense. He was a railroad man, not an architect, and had thought building a home would be as straightforward as laying track. Apparently that was not the case. The entire operation was being held up by a shipment of Italian marble. Every mantel in the twenty-five-room mansion was made of a different kind—and it seemed every marble sculptor in Italy had gone on strike.

Beside him, the lead architect squinted into the gloom of midafternoon, apology in his bearded face. “Every mantelpiece is grand in scale, and each caryatid is varied. The carvers insist on selecting each Carrara block so that no unsightly veins show. Such workmanship takes time, Mr. Cameron, as befits the Italian Renaissance design.”

Malachi nodded, not caring about such things, ruing he’d let the builders have so much sway. Bending his head, he scanned the plans once more as cold rain snuck past his upturned collar and wet his neck. All his hopes for seeing the house finished, and finished in a timely fashion, fled.

“You need a wife worthy of such a house.”

He turned toward his aunt’s familiar voice, ire in his tone. “I need a finished house with hearths intact before winter sets in. I’ll not freeze my bride to death.”

Mina merely chuckled and opened her parasol against the damp. “Why not occupy the orangery? Look at all those plants!” Together they looked toward exotic lemon trees,
oleanders from the Carolinas, and sago palms from the West Indies behind thick glass. “I’ve not seen so imposing a structure since I was last in London.”

Rolling up the plans in his hands, Malachi started away from the sound of sawing and hammering. “I’m in need of a walk.”

“I’ll join you.” Linking arms with him, she gave him her most engaging smile. “And how is my favorite nephew?”

“Your
only
nephew.”

“Which is why we must get you settled soon. I need great-nephews and great-nieces. We need to fill this grand house of yours with a family. Life and laughter.”

He scowled. “I’m tempted to leave for Edinburgh on the morrow. If I return in spring, maybe this monstrosity will be complete.”

“Stuff and nonsense! Edinburgh is out of the question, at least without a bride in tow.” She smiled again, making light of his complaint. “I’ve come to discuss your tailor.”