No Mortal Reason (3 page)

“The bedroom is in here,” Mercy said, opening a door to reveal a sinfully large, comfortable-looking bed. “Oh, good. Your trunks and boxes have already been brought up.” She indicated a second door. “And this is the private bath. Tub and water closet.”

Diana said nothing. The suite was lovely. Perfect. And all wrong. If there had been a second bedroom, perhaps they might have brazened it out, but the only other place to sleep was a sofa much too short to accommodate someone of Ben’s height.

“Is there anything else I can—?”

This time it was Ben who cut Mercy off. “I believe a bit of rest is called for after our long journey.”

His firm, almost brusque manner put an end to the young woman’s chatter. After pointing out the annunciator, which could be used to communicate with the check-in desk, Mercy took her leave.

Dead quiet reigned in the parlor after she’d gone. Ben waited for Diana to speak first. Diana wanted him to explain himself without being asked.

After a moment, he knelt by the hearth and struck match to kindling. It
was
cold in the room and she appreciated his thoughtfulness, but she was far from ready to forgive his high-handed behavior.

Diana had been deceived too often in the past by those she should have been able to depend upon. The possibility that she had been wrong to put her faith in Ben Northcote not only shook her self-confidence, it sent a stab of fear deep into her heart. If she couldn’t rely on him, that meant she might
never
be able to trust her own judgment again.

“When I booked this suite,” Ben said quietly, “I still hoped you’d agree to wed before we left Denver.”

“You should have changed the reservation when we decided to wait.”

“I was wrong not to. I admit it.” He flashed a charming smile over his shoulder before he went back to poking at the fledgling fire. “But it is too late to make other arrangements now.”

She made a sound of exasperation. “Do you care nothing for my reputation?” Her late husband had not, but Diana had thought better of Ben.

“The Grants need never know we aren’t married yet.” Satisfied with his efforts, Ben rose from the hearth to face her. “I
am
thinking of your reputation, Diana. If we’d arrived together and taken separate rooms, your family would have been convinced you were a woman of loose morals.”

“Only if you’d been caught sneaking into my room,” she muttered.

His indulgent chuckle grated on already raw nerves. “Perhaps it would have been you caught sneaking into mine.” He reached for her but she evaded his grasp and backed away, one arm extended to fend him off.

“This is not a matter for levity.”

“Nor is it cause for harsh words between us. I do not want to quarrel with you, Diana.” Hands on hips, he stood with feet wide apart and surveyed the room. “This is not the first time we’ve shared a suite in a hotel. It did not trouble you overmuch on the last occasion, and back then there was, as yet, no talk of marriage. The only difference I can see now is that this hotel is owned by someone you may—or may not—want to acknowledge as kin.”

“Reminding me of my weakness where you are concerned is not the way to make amends. And this isn’t just about deceiving my family. You deceived
me
, Ben. All the way east, we talked about how the use of my married name would hide my connection to the Grants until I was ready to reveal that I was Elmira Grant’s daughter.
I
meant I’d be known as Mrs. Spaulding, a respectable widow. You intended from the beginning that I should be introduced to them as Mrs. Northcote.”

He didn’t deny her charge. He didn’t even try to claim he’d meant to tell her what he’d done but that the time had never seemed right. The truth, she suspected, was that he’d not had any intention of taking separate rooms here, married or not. He’d wanted her close at hand. That a part of her wanted that, too, did nothing to diminish her feeling that he’d taken away her right to choose.

“Diana, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“We . . . are . . . not . . . married.” She enunciated each word clearly. “You cannot arbitrarily make decisions for me.” But he
would
be able to after they were wed. Husbands gained a totally unwarranted measure of control over their wives as soon as they repeated their vows. She’d learned that lesson well during her years with Evan Spaulding. It did not bode well for their life together if Ben developed the habit of making decisions for her without bothering to consult her wishes.

“I have no desire to dictate to you,” Ben insisted. “I only want to take care of you. To protect you.”

She could feel the intensity of his gaze and hear the sincerity in his voice.

“I’ve come too close to losing you too many times. Is it so wrong to wish to keep you close until we’re safely back home?”

“So you deceived me for my own good?” Diana deplored the hitch in her voice. She would
not
cry.

“Perhaps this will appease you.” Ben produced a small box from the pocket of his trousers. “I bought it a few days after I first asked you to marry me.”

Helpless to stop the anticipatory flutter of her heart, Diana stepped closer. He opened the box, revealing a gold wedding band studded with small colorful gemstones.

“Tourmaline,” he said. “From mines in Paris.”

“Paris, France?”

“Paris, Maine. Take off your glove.”

She obeyed, too choked with emotion to speak. The wedding ring he’d chosen reminded her of all that was good between them. He was not Evan. She knew that. He hadn’t changed the reservation, true, but she’d been so indecisive about coming to the Hotel Grant that he’d probably expected her to decide against the visit altogether and stay on the train.

“It is the most beautiful ring I’ve ever seen,” Diana whispered.

 The stones fascinated her. The gems varied from opaque to transparent and their vibrant shades of blue, red, and green sparkled even in the watery afternoon sunlight of this overcast day. The center stone was multicolored, with a green outer layer surrounding a pink core.

“Wear it now,” Ben urged. “It will give credence to our charade.”

Diana felt as if she’d been hit in the face with a bucket of cold water. The joy went out of her heart, leaving a deep, empty space behind. She lifted her gaze from the ring to Ben’s face and had all she could do not to slap him.

He took in her expression and frowned in confusion. “Diana, I love you.”

“And you think that makes everything all right?” Evan had claimed to love her too. That hadn’t stopped him from repeatedly betraying her trust.

“I think your usual common sense has deserted you.” He sounded testy, as if her attitude was the one that was unreasonable. “Wear the ring.” Without a by-your-leave, he shoved it onto her finger.

Tears pricked the back of Diana’s eyes. She pulled away from Ben, hiding her face.

“I wish to be alone.”

If he stayed much longer, they’d both say things they’d regret, things they might not be able to take back.

“I’m not moving into another room.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Diana said wearily, sinking into a chair upholstered in cream-colored brocade. “I didn’t suppose you would go, even if I became hysterical and demanded it. And you know full well I don’t want to call that kind of attention to myself.”

“What
did
you mean, then?”

“That I need a bit of privacy. To think. To get over being so . . . annoyed with you.” How could he not understand? Having him place this ring on her finger during the wedding ceremony would have made her the happiest of women. To wear it now was wrong.

“All right,” he said, using an oh-so-reasonable tone of voice that she found most provoking. “Perhaps I’ll go for a walk.”

“An excellent idea,” Diana muttered, clinging to the remnants of her self-control by a thread. “Here’s a better one. See that mountain?” She indicated the view from the balcony. “Go climb it!”

Chapter Two

The lobby was once again deserted by the time Ben passed through it. Out of curiosity, and to keep himself from dwelling on the mistake he’d made by not warning Diana that he meant to register them as husband and wife, he stopped to look through the open pocket doors of the room Miss Grant had come out of earlier.

It was a large parlor and she had obviously been hard at work washing windows and polishing woodwork. Unfortunately, neither ammonia nor lemon-scented wax could quite hide an underlying mustiness. The stain on a patch of wallpaper below a bank of windows plainly showed where there had been a leak. Upon closer inspection, Ben saw that the black walnut chairs were of good quality but sadly dilapidated and that the carpet at the center of the room was not only threadbare, but moth-eaten.

A pity, he thought. It looked as if Hotel Grant had fallen on hard times. On the other hand, given the external repairs he’d seen on the way in and the newly installed elevator, perhaps their fortunes had recently taken a turn for the better.

Passing through an outer door, he stepped out onto the veranda and headed for the east end of the wide, wrap-around porch. The boardwalk he’d noticed earlier led into the trees. Little oil lamps, spaced out like street lights along one side, indicated that it was also meant to be used for promenades after dark.

Once he was in the woods, Ben felt a sense of peace descend upon him. Vibrant greens engulfed him, even though, here and there in shady spots, he occasionally glimpsed the rusty remnants of the winter’s heavy snows.

He walked slowly, enjoying the way the boardwalk meandered through a series of pleasant groves. One, bordered by a profusion of laurel bushes, contained a small model of a Greek temple, another a grouping of cast-iron planters in the shape of Grecian urns, and a third, though hardly by design, a pair of fallen trees. He did not venture close enough to identify the species, but as he walked he picked out chestnut, black walnut, and butternut trees, as well as hickory, hemlock, black cherry, and birch.

Ben paused at a lookout to study the view. At a distance stood a building that had been designed to resemble an Egyptian obelisk. His best guess was that it was a water tower, since it was situated on a high point of land. It was at that moment that Ben realized the rushing noise he heard in the background was the sound water made flowing over rock. Continuing along the boardwalk, he soon reached the secluded glade through which the brook in question bubbled. 

The boardwalk ended there, somewhat abruptly. Lumber lay piled along both banks of the stream, obviously intended for use in building a spring house. At present, however, the “fountain” consisted of a large wooden tub sitting in the stream bed and connected to a fissure in a nearby outcropping of rock by a length of pipe.

Curious, Ben stepped closer, avoiding muddy spots, and bent over the contraption. A quarter of the top of the tub was hinged, so that it could be flipped back to allow access to the water below. It was securely shut and fastened with a large padlock to discourage further investigation.

“You looking to take the waters?”

Ben turned slowly in the direction of the raspy voice and found a square-built, florid-faced individual regarding him with suspicion. Deeply incised wrinkles around the man’s eyes and his iron gray hair suggested he’d seen at least six decades come and go. He was dressed like a farmer or workman in an open-necked white shirt and blue denim trousers held up by braces, but he had a proprietary attitude. Ben had little doubt who he was. 

“Just curious,” he said. “I’m a guest here. My name is Benjamin Northcote.”

An eager look replaced the wariness in the pale, deep-set eyes. “Dr. Northcote!” The man splashed through the water from the other side of the brook, his feet protected by rubber boots, and scrambled up the near bank to stick out a slightly grimy hand with fingers the size of sausages. “Good to meet you. I’m Myron Grant.”

As they shook, Ben studied Grant more closely. In spite of the Scots surname, the Grants were clearly descended from the colonists who’d populated this area when it was still known as New Netherlands. He reminded Ben of the fat Dutch burghers he’d seen portrayed in late Renaissance paintings.

Pulling a key from the deep front pockets of his trousers, Grant bent to open the padlock and fling back the top of the tub. “I know it don’t look like much yet, but it’s an improvement over what used to be here. In my pa’s time, there was just an old barrel with the staves open and this stream here was surrounded by trees, stumps, and logs. Folks had to walk along a log to reach the fountain. First thing we did was put in a shower bath, over there in those bushes, but the ladies don’t like being out in the open like that, so we got plans to build a regular bathhouse, like the ones they got over to England. Real fancy.”

Ben bent close enough to see—and smell—the steady stream of odorous water running out of the end of the pipe into the open brook below. A ladle hung from the inside of the lid.

“Won’t be long before we’ll have a dipper boy working here, all ready to ladle up half pint tumblers of mineral water.” Grant stuck the ladle under the flow of water, filled it, and offered it to Ben. “We’re going to build a nice pavilion here, with a railing so the customers don’t get too close. Seen one of them at Saratoga Springs. You ever been there?”

“Yes. Some years back.” At Saratoga, known as “the queen of the spas,” there were more than twenty mineral springs and at least as many grand hotels.

“I mean to charge five cents a dipper and maybe I’ll bottle some to sell, if I can get the right kind of endorsements.”

Reluctantly, trying not to show any reaction to the smell of the stuff, Ben took the ladle. “Have you had a chemical analysis done of the water?”

Beaming, Grant rattled off the components as if he’d memorized them, as most likely he had: “Chloride of sodium, chloride of potassium, bicarbonate of soda, bicarbonate of ammonia, bicarbonate of magnesia, bicarbonate of iron, nitrate of potassa, alumina, sulphate of soda, sulphate of magnesia, sulphate of potassa, carbonate of lithia, organic matters, and carbonate of acid gas.”

He gave no proportions and Ben did not bother to ask for them. He had no intention of lending his name to any quack claim that drinking the foul-smelling stuff trickling out of this rusty pipe was a cure-all. Neither did he mean to taste it himself. The moment Grant turned his back to secure the lid on the tub, Ben flung the contents of the ladle into the bushes.