Love's Fortune (32 page)

The only acceptable way out of your
debut is illness, mourning, or the announcement of your engagement
.

Thankful for the shadows, Wren bit the inside of her cheek. The Guarneri’s tone was impossibly sweet. Stringed instruments so stirred her that she found it hard to keep herself in check. That would be her excuse if Malachi noticed any show of emotion. No one need know the struggle in her spirit over James’s severing words.

There
’s no future to be had with me.

In hindsight she understood. He was a hunted man. A haunted man. Like Papa had been. The cold truth left her heart in scattered bits. She could not save him. She could simply try to allay some of the danger by doing away with the season. Malachi was inching nearer to offering her a way of escape. And in that escape, unbeknownst to him, lay helping James.

As Miss Lind’s first song ended, Malachi poured her a glass of champagne. Its heady effervescence seemed to race through her veins, melting away the last shred of her resistance and his restraint. They left the front of the box to sit
on a loveseat half hidden by a curtain, away from too many lorgnettes and prying eyes.

His hazel gaze darkened with intensity. “I think you first bewitched me along the road that autumn day.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “In the gloaming, when you mistook me for a servant?”

In hindsight it was amusing and set them to laughing.

“I never expected to see a Ballantyne walking from town, clutching a fiddle of incalculable worth,” he murmured. “Few would believe it. You’re such a humble lass.”

“Not a proper Pittsburgh one, truly.”

He took the empty glass from her hand and set it on the table. “If I’d wanted a proper Pittsburgh belle, I would have wed one. If you haven’t realized it by now, Rowena, it doesn’t matter to me that you eat your ice cream with a lobster fork and hum hymns when you’re especially nervous. I think it’s rather charming. No one will care about that when you become Mrs. Cameron.” His gaze swerved to the Mellon box. “And no one will ever dare cut you.”

The forceful words were spoken like a vow, making the feel of his arms about her less startling. He was nothing like James, the scent and feel of him unfamiliar, almost feral. His bearded jaw found the soft curve of her neck, and she let her arms go around him in an uneasy embrace.

“I can give you the world, Rowena. Let me give you the world.”

She started to speak but he silenced her, his kisses insistent if untried, and so unsatisfying she wanted to weep. Did he not notice, or care, that she did not kiss him back?

When the music resumed, Mim returned with their wraps, taking a chair by the door. The final piece was Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March.” Images of a life to come winnowed
through Wren’s mind like a scythe through grain. A grand house in Pittsburgh. Philadelphia. Edinburgh. Endless miles of rail to unseen places. She was farther from Kentucky than she’d ever been.

How had it all come to this? In love with a man she couldn’t have . . . on the verge of giving herself to another? Her hope that James would love her was best set aside, secreted like a foolish, shameful thing. Malachi was the man who would help her forget, whom she might come to care for in time. Whose offer of marriage would free James from the season and any accompanying danger.

For James she would do this . . . her Jamie.

When the last note faded, Malachi turned to her. “Answer me, Rowena. Will you marry me? Be my bride?”

She looked up at him and set aside her final qualm. “Yes.”

34

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.

M
ARK
T
WAIN

In the half light of early morning, James sat in River Hill’s book-lined study and listened to the big house come awake. Usually when he stayed the night he rode into town with the judge, but this morning Jack had insisted he remain behind. He was hearing an important case that would test the efficacy of the newly enacted Fugitive Slave Act, and Pittsburgh was on tenterhooks, the mood surly.

“Given the grim news in New Orleans and the fact reporters are camped about the courthouse awaiting word of you and your thoughts about the murder, I’d advise you remain here, James.”

The judge was no stranger to trouble himself. Threats had been made over the years about his abolitionist leanings, but none had materialized, perhaps given the Turlocks’ fearsome
reputation and the simple fact that Jack knew how to turn the law in his favor.

Jack went out, his horse’s retreating hoofbeats lingering long in the winter air, finally giving way to the rambunctious bustle of the boys as they rushed downstairs for breakfast. Ellie had come in earlier with a tray of coffee, trying to coax James into eating, but the hollowness in his belly had little to do with hunger.

The
Gazette
lay open on the judge’s desk, the lead headline tearing at James a dozen different ways.

B
ALLANTYNE
-C
AMERON
M
ERGER
: R
AILROAD
M
AGNATE
TO
W
ED
P
ITTSBURGH
B
ELLE
.

The stunning loss of his friend and fellow pilot in New Orleans, his fury over the Madder affair, his concern Dean wouldn’t make it safely upriver, gnawed at James night and day yet paled in comparison to this morning’s news.

Even the normally stoic judge had been surprised, remarking how odd it was that an engagement would be announced in such businesslike terms. “No doubt a play on the railroad and a reminder of Malachi’s recent acquisition in the East.”

Ellie had taken a chair and read the column silently, looking up long enough to say quietly, “I suppose your acting as Wren’s escort is done, James. And well done it is.”

There was no pleasure in her praise, the small anguish he’d known with Georgiana swallowed up in a larger, more lasting misery. Ellie had left him alone soon after the judge had gone, as if sensing the subject was a sore one. But there was little time to smooth his tangled thoughts. In a few minutes Izannah pattered down the hall, her light step all too recognizable.

“James?” At the door she stood, her concerned gaze fastening on him in such a way he knew his outward calm wasn’t convincing. “Is anything wrong?”

He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t even get to his feet as any gentleman would.

She shut the door, moving to the desk to set down a box of steel pen nibs and paper. It was then she took in the
Gazette
. Her mouth went slack, the tired lines in her face deepening. He’d never seen her so stricken. “Last night the Jenny Lind concert . . . this morning marriage?” Her disbelieving gaze found his. “Did you know about this?”

The accusation in her eyes was worse than any wound. “I wasn’t there. I didn’t know.” But he’d sensed it like a storm brewing over the face of the river. He’d felt it coming, but he’d been powerless to stop it.

“Wren—and Malachi?” Her voice shook. “But she doesn’t love him. She’s simply going through with the season—with marriage—because she feels it is her duty.”

“Isn’t it?” he said a bit too sharply.

She turned the paper facedown as if she couldn’t bear the sight of it. “Wren cannot marry a man who—” Biting her lip, she worked to keep herself in check, but she was failing miserably, as was he. “She cannot marry a man who courts her while inquiring about another.”

“Meaning?”

“I was flattered at Christmas when Malachi asked me if I was being courted, if my heart was taken.” She touched her brow, voice cracking with vulnerability. “I didn’t realize he was pursuing Wren. The papers have linked her with many admirers, not only him. When he asked me what he did, I thought—hoped—”

His heart hitched at the sorrow in her expression—the blighted hope. Anguish tied another knot inside him. Malachi had been unsure of Wren. That was why he’d spoken to Izannah. Hedging his bets in case Wren refused him. Having
entered the social season, he was determined to emerge with a bride. Which one was of little consequence, though in society’s eyes, a Ballantyne trumped a Turlock every time. The thought was harsh, but he understood his friend all too well. Malachi wanted the matter settled so he could return to the railroad.

“James, you know Wren as well as I do. She’s simply not suited to his sort of life. She finds no joy in wealth and all its trappings. Her tastes are simple. She loves people, music. She hates pretense. They’re worlds apart.” Izannah paused, her color high. “But that’s not all. You care for Wren like I care for Malachi. Though you’ll never admit it, I know you well enough to sense what you try to keep hidden, what you yourself deny. She belongs to you, James, not Malachi.”

He set his jaw, the fervor of her words chipping away at his resolve. “Feelings aside, first and foremost she’s a Ballantyne.”

“So?” she flung back at him. “Do you think that matters to Wren? Though she hasn’t told me she cares for you, I know she does. Her every feeling is written on her face as much as yours are buried, hidden.”

“You know nothing of the sort, Izannah. Stop making wild assumptions—”

“James!” She tossed up a hand, her impassioned plea more of a shout. “She’s a woman in love with you who’s about to make a terrible mistake!”

“Ease off, Izannah. It’s too late. The engagement has become public.”

“Really? Because some two-bit headline is shouting the news?” She reached for the
Gazette
, flung it into the fire, and turned her back on him, shoulders slumped.

He watched the paper curl and blacken along with his last hopes. “All that matters is there’s to be a wedding between
two consenting adults, regardless of how any third parties feel about the matter. Malachi has proposed and Wren has accepted. The bond between them might grow, given time.”

“Might?” She turned back to him, incredulous, tears streaming down her face. “And might your feelings for her wane over time, James? Or riddle you with regret the rest of your life?”

He looked away from her, caught in a tide of emotion he couldn’t stay on top of. The pain inside him was too unforgiving, too raw to be submerged beneath form and custom and stiff restraint.

“The Lord knows I have my own regrets.” Her voice faded to a thread of misery. “Namely my failed season . . . and now this.”

He passed a hand over his eyes, the stinging saltiness grounding him. “Last fall at Lake Lanark, Malachi asked who I thought was worthy of pursuing. He said he’d returned to Pittsburgh for a bride. I told him you’d make a worthy wife, that he need not look any further.” He confessed what he hadn’t meant to share and watched a surprised awareness flood her eyes. “I hoped he would forego the season and call on you instead.”

“Oh, James . . .”

“I never imagined he’d consider Wren for the very reasons you mentioned. But things went awry.”

She leaned into the nearest chair, her hands splayed along its embroidered back. “Forget about my prospects. What about yours? This has to do with Georgiana, doesn’t it? Are you going to let her death haunt you the rest of your life?”

“Georgiana’s death has little to do with it. She never truly cared for me. She broke our engagement after Bennett told her about my past, remember. He went to Georgiana shortly before her death with the intent of turning her against me.”

“That doesn’t have any bearing on the present, surely.”

“Have you forgotten, Izannah?” He swallowed, resurrecting details he’d tried to forget. “Your grandmother found me in the gutter behind Teague’s Tavern when my mother died. She was said to be the most notorious prostitute in Pittsburgh. No one seems to remember how old I was. They simply recall that Wade Turlock was my father, if an unwilling one.”

“I haven’t forgotten. But it doesn’t matter. Not to me. Not to Wren—”

“It mattered to Georgiana, enough that she decided to break our engagement. It matters to the Ballantynes.”

“Listen to me, James.” She was her father’s daughter now, his mettle in her straightened shoulders, the solid timbre of her voice. “We’re talking about Wren. She’s not a woman rule-bound like Aunt Andra, letting society dictate her every action or etiquette her very existence. Nor is she like Bennett, bent on ruining anyone who gets in his way. If you’d given Wren any ground, any indication of your feelings—”

“I’m meant to be alone, Izannah. I’m reconciled to that. Even you can’t deny I’m in over my head as an abolitionist.” He looked to the closed door, needing distance. Pittsburgh seemed almost a refuge in light of the present moment. “I’m leaving for the city.”

“What? Not Pittsburgh, surely. You need to go east, go abroad—”

“I’ll not hide, Izannah. Let Madder and his ilk do what they want with me. I’ll not bow to their threats or cower in a corner.”

“Then you’re as good as dead, James!” She caught his coat sleeve as he passed, but he kept walking. “Take heed for our sake if not your own!”

He went out, so weary in body and spirit it felt more mid
night than morning. She didn’t follow. But he heard the sound of her weeping as he pushed past the front door.

The relief Wren had expected to feel upon accepting Malachi’s proposal turned to dust at the
Gazette
’s bold headline.

B
ALLANTYNE
-C
AMERON
M
ERGER
.

Was that all their union was? Something to be acquired and trumpeted? Some trophy? She didn’t bother to read the effusive column. Farther down the page was another grisly account of the New Orleans murder with a detailed sketch of the levee. Investigators were combing the city and every river town along the lower Mississippi for the criminals, offering a substantial bounty funded by the Ballantynes.

Pulse rising, she turned the
Gazette
over. She couldn’t stop wondering where James was, if he’d heard of the engagement. The news had broken at New Hope that morning with the arrival of the papers. Someone had made free in the night with what Wren longed to keep quiet. She’d wanted to send a note to James first, let him know his duties as her escort were done. She needed time to get used to her and Malachi’s new tie. Time to get her breath. But it was not to be.

The gushing Andra had done at breakfast violated every rule of etiquette invented as she inspected the Cameron ring. Crusted with diamonds and sapphires, it sat heavy on Wren’s hand and bore the Cameron crest. Grandfather and Grandmother’s enthusiasm was heartfelt but more subdued, and then came Bennett, who rode over at noon to congratulate her.

He was cordial if cold, his harsh treatment of her in the music room seemingly forgotten. “And when will the nuptials be?”

Numb, she tried to smile, to act the bride. So like Charlotte.
“Malachi wants to wed as soon as possible—once Papa returns.”