Mittman, Stephanie (8 page)

In
the meantime he had something he was sure she would like just as much.
Especially now that he'd been up to his room and seen her fondness for lace.

He
took out the carefully wrapped package from the sack, neatened the ties on it
to more properly present it, and bowed slightly at the waist. "For you,
madam."

Charlotte
fingered the strings, savoring the moment as if she'd never before received a
present. Delicate fingers toyed with the crisp brown wrapper until Ash feared
the gift would disintegrate with age.

"Charlotte,
we've work to do," Cabot reminded her. "Unless he's brought gifts for
all the jurors, I think he'll be relying on us to save his hide."

"You
just have to spoil her moment, don't you?" Ash didn't mean for the words
to come out, but once they had, he realized that it was something Cabot did
with great regularity.

Charlotte
looked tentative now, fingering the package more gingerly than before, as if it
might be the last he ever brought. Just as disconcerted with the idea as she
was, Ash cleared his throat. "Open it," he encouraged.

Without
further ado Charlotte pulled at the strings and removed the wrappings. Her
intake of breath was all the thanks Ash required and then some. Small,
well-manicured fingers caressed the white silk reverently, then traced the lacy
insets, one row after the other, with awe. She held it up by the shoulders
against herself and
stood
on tiptoe to get a glimpse in the mirror. Then
she turned to face the rest of them with a smile on her face that could have
led sailors safely into port in the dark.

"Do
you suppose it would fit Mother?" Cabot asked, tilting his head and
looking from his wife to Kathryn. "She's nearly as small as you."

"What?"
The smile was gone from Charlotte's face. Replacing it was a nervous gnawing at
the edge of her bottom lip, which seemed fuller every time Ash bothered to look
at it.

"It
doesn't have to fit Mother," Ash said. "It's for Charlotte, who it
suits rather well, I think."

"Shows
how little time you spend around here," Cabot said. "Not that it
isn't a lovely... whatever... but it's much too frivolous for a woman of
Charlotte's position and taste. Why, can you imagine a courtroom taking a woman
seriously in
that?"

Ash
bit his tongue to stop himself from reminding Cabot that a courtroom took a man
in a chair with wheels rather seriously and he doubted that a woman in lace
would fare much worse. "There's always the weekend," he said instead.
"You do let her have the weekends off, don't you? Church and all that? Wouldn't
look good if she didn't get out to pray."

Charlotte
took one last wistful look in the big gilt mirror, which was hung too high for
her to see anything but her very sad face. Then she folded the blouse and held
it out to Kathryn, blinking furiously as she did.

"Cabot's
right. I thank you for thinking of me, Ashford, but a woman can't be all frills
and lace one day and starch and wool the next. I've a reputation I'm proud of,
and my image is a part of it."

"Isn't
there somewhere you could wear it?" Ash asked, rolling his eyes toward the
stairwell.

"No,"
she said with a sigh that would have broken a lesser man's heart, but seemed to
go unnoticed by her husband. "It would be a shame to hide so lovely a
blouse in my armoire. You enjoy it, Kathryn."

"It's
a pity," Kathryn said as she took the blouse and, just as Charlotte had
done, covered her chest with it. "But I don't suppose anyone would take
you seriously if you wore it."

Ash
wasn't so sure that was so. He stared at his sister-in-law, knowing that
beneath the navy boiled-wool jacket and under the starched white shirt, covered
by the serge skirt and above the no-nonsense boots, there was at least one band
of lace on her stockings. And, if his room was any indication, yards more of it
intimately caressing her body.

And
there was no question about it. He was taking her seriously.
Damned
seriously.

It
had taken Cabot only a day to break down and enjoy one of the cigars that Ash
had brought him. His face was nearly lost behind a cloud of smoke that
Charlotte swore he was purposely blowing in her direction. Burning the soles of
her shoes couldn't smell any worse, but she smiled at him as though swallowing
in gobs of putrid air didn't bother her at all. She even took a few deep
breaths before sitting back smugly in the wing chair in Cabot's office. It
would take more than one rotten cigar to make her cough and wheeze and complain
as if she were some delicate little flower that was being choked by an infernal
weed.

Cabot
extended the wooden box and gestured for her to help herself. Without taking
his gaze from her, he tilted his head back and blew a steady stream of smoke
toward the plaster acanthus leaves that ringed the ceiling, watching her,
daring her to take the cigar.

"Or
would you rather wear a frilly blouse and sit demurely in a drawing room with
some embroidery?" He continued to hold the box out with his left hand
while he tapped off the ashes of his cigar with his right.

"It
was a beautiful blouse," she said, wishing she didn't sound quite as
wistful as she did. "I'd have worn it to Judge Pollack's chambers the day
we were married if I'd had it then."

"And
gone down to assist me in the Ehrlich case afterward? I think not," he
said, and smoke came from his nostrils as he snorted at her.

It
had been a foolish, wayward thought. Not her dream at all. Her dreams had
always been different from other girls'. Whereas Abigail wanted to play house,
Charlotte wanted to play court. While Marjorie always pretended to be the
bride, Charlotte was always the judge.

Cabot
left the cigar box at the edge of the desk in front of her, and with his left
hand he thrummed the pads of his fingers against the heavy mahogany desk,
waiting.

"You're
angry about the shirtwaist," he said, allowing for her to deny it.

"Disappointed.
But you're right, of course." Wasn't he always? Wasn't that his most
admirable quality? And his most exasperating? "My image would indeed be
compromised by such a..."

Words
failed her. Lovely was too mild. Elegant too cold.
Exquisite.

"—ridiculous-looking
thing," Cabot finished for her. "No doubt Mother will like it,
though. She has a weakness for that sort of thing."

"And
you, Cabot?" Ash stood in the doorway. He crossed his arms, and leaned
against the door frame. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled high on his forearms,
his tan skin contrasting sharply with his wilted white shirt.

Charlotte
could nearly smell the sea just looking at him. "What is it
you
have
a weakness for?"

Cabot
looked at his brother, startled by the question. She could see he was thinking
about it, running his tongue against his teeth, squinting his eyes slightly.
His lips parted as if he were ready to reveal some private truth, but then he
waved away the question with his hand. "We've a case to prepare. Go busy
yourself while Charlotte and I get to work."

Ash
winced. "There's got to be something I can do to help. I realize I'm no
lawyer, but it is my ass... ashes... on the line."

"You
can answer the door," Cabot said, gesturing toward the hall where someone
was employing the brass knocker Charlotte had all but fondled that first time
she'd come to see Cabot to beg him for a job. Oh, but she'd been full of
herself back then, not even out of school and already sure she would be the
best woman lawyer west of the Mississippi if only Cabot would allow her to
clerk for him. Pigheaded and single minded, her grandmother had called her,
demanding to know what was wrong with marriage and babies.

As
if there were any security in that. Hadn't her own father swindled her mother
out of her inheritance and then vanished into the night? And hadn't her mother
been reduced to cleaning other women's houses and cooking other families' meals
while Charlotte's grandmother flitted merrily around Europe? Her grandmother
hadn't been there to see the woman lose her pride, her hope, and finally her
health.

Well,
at least the old woman had come back to take care of Charlotte after Mina
Reynolds had given up and died.

"It's
Greenbough," she told Cabot, looking out the window and watching Ash's
partner shift his weight nervously from one foot to the other.

"Do
you want to do the interview?" There was a smirk on Cabot's face that said
he knew she did, how very much she did.

She
shrugged as if it made no difference while her heart pounded so hard inside her
chest, she thought the watch on her shirtwaist might just take flight. "If
you like," she said, relieved when her voice sounded like her own and not
some banshee's. The truth was, the law gave her a rush like nothing else did, a
heady wild feeling of power and strength to which a woman hardly had a right.
Well, they had a right to the feeling, but no avenue, no opportunity, to
experience it.

"Go
straight for the jugular, Charlie," he said, backing his invalid chair
away from the desk slightly. "Only, don't give him an inkling it's his own
blood dripping on the floor."

"I
know my business," she snapped at him, stretching up on her toes to check
her appearance in the high mirror that faced her husband's desk.

"Yours
and everyone else's." He pointed a finger at her in warning. "And
plenty that doesn't even concern you and me."

He
was never going to let that case of Virginia Halton's go. But then, neither was
she. Dr. Mollenoff called it a matter of life and death, and she couldn't agree
more. That Cabot didn't see it that way was his problem, not hers, she told
herself.

She
extended her hand to Sam Greenbough as he came into the suite of rooms, and
pointed him toward a chair in her office, hoping to stop him before he could
get a foot into Cabot's.

"Sam!"
Cabot bellowed from his doorway with an enthusiasm Charlotte was sure he didn't
feel. "You take it easy on my wife, now, you hear? She's still learning
the ropes, so cut her a bit of slack. Just tell her everything you know and
count on her forgetting half of it!"

Charlotte
knew he was merely trying to give Sam a false sense of security so that he'd
let down his guard and she might learn something helpful that he'd otherwise
not reveal. No doubt that was why Cabot was allowing her to conduct the
interview. Just the same, it grated, and she found that she couldn't bring
herself to meet Ashford's eyes as she slipped by to trade places with him, her
skirts swishing against his trousers as she did.

***

"Do
you mean to sit there and tell me"—Ash could hear her clearly, right
through the wall—"you're trying to tell me, in all seriousness, that you
have no recollection to whom you sold one thousand pounds of coffee only three
months ago?"

Cabot's
beard had gone slightly gray while Ash had been away. Now the salt-and-pepper
hairs around his mouth were split by a wide smile that revealed his brother's
clean white teeth.

"I
don't see what that has to do with anything," Green-bough answered her.
"And even if I did, I couldn't help you. All the books were burned in the
fire."

Cabot
leaned his head toward the wall as if to hear better. Ash could see that he was
holding his breath.

"Was
your memory burned in the fire too? Because I find it hard to believe that a
transaction of such magnitude—"

"I
said I don't remember." Ash didn't like the tone his partner was taking
with Charlotte. He rose from his chair but Cabot signaled him back down.

"It's
a simple matter, Mr. Greenbough," Charlotte said evenly. It seemed the
more agitated Sam got, the more civil and calm Charlotte stayed. "There
are a limited number of coffee merchants in the Bay Area. Perhaps if I provided
you with a list, it would jog your memory."

"What
difference does it make who I sold them to?" Sam demanded.

Ash
was wondering the same thing. He wanted Cabot to prove that Sam had set the
fire, not mismanaged the business. Still the fact that his partner was being so
evasive led Ash to believe that Charlotte, the lady lawyer, was onto something.

"Indeed,"
she agreed, and he imagined her hazel eyes dancing. "What difference
does
it make—
if
you did what you said?"

The
woman was as brilliant as she was beautiful. His brother was one lucky man.

That
thought, so ironic, coupled with the fleeting idea that if he could find
himself a woman like Charlotte, Ash might just settle down once and for all,
made him laugh right out loud.

"You
hear him laughing?" Greenbough asked Charlotte. "Everything's one big
joke to you, isn't it?" Sam shouted through the wall. "No respect for
anything."

"What
did you ever do to that guy?" Cabot asked, then put up his hand to stop
Ash from telling him. "I don't want to know any more than I suspect."

"If
that chip on his shoulder was any bigger, his knuckles would be scraping the
sidewalk," Ash told him. Was it his fault that Sam's wife thought Ash
could sell sand in the desert and that Sam couldn't give away boats on the bay?
Or that she was probably right?