The Lady of Bolton Hill (5 page)

And then the Greek goddess brought a stunned halt to the conversation. “What about Daniel Tremain?” she asked. “More than any other man I’ve ever seen, I daresay he is the mystery I would most like to unravel. Piece by mesmerizing piece.”

Apparently, even the mention of Daniel’s name was enough to stop all conversation. After a moment, Florence Wagner regained her breath. “Elizabeth Ginallette, you know that man is not suitable company. It is easy to see how young, foolish girls may find him attractive, but there is a reason he never attends social functions such as these. That man is as dangerous as a rattlesnake.”

Miss Ginallette persisted. “I heard he donated a fortune to build the new Opera House. A man who funds such things can’t be all bad, can he?”

“He may throw his money around, but that doesn’t make him a gentleman,” Mrs. Wagner warned. The stiffness in the woman’s voice rubbed Clara the wrong way. Was it merely that Daniel had come from poverty, while these esteemed young ladies came from generations of blood bluer than a summer sky? Daniel had worked harder than any man she ever knew, including Clyde and her father, and it was not right that a woman of privilege would cast aspersions on him because he was not born in the right part of town.

“I knew Daniel Tremain before I left for London,” Clara said. “He was a brilliant young man and never the least bit ungentlemanly.” All the women swiveled their heads to stare at her.

“You’ve actually
spoken
with him?” Miss Ginallette asked. The awe in her voice sounded as though Clara had made contact with a deity.

“Yes, of course,” Clara said. “I considered him a friend.” It seemed such a paltry word—Daniel had cried in her arms the night his father was buried.

“I saw him at his sister’s wedding last year,” one of the ladies said, “but no one I know actually worked up the nerve to speak with him. He was wickedly attractive but seemed so frighteningly remote.”

Mr. Wagner, the mayor of Baltimore, joined in the conversation. In contrast to his tiny wife, Mayor Wagner was a huge man whose wide belly was decorated with a thick gold watch chain. “That’s because his entire life has been spent in a laboratory scheming ways to make a fortune and ruin Forsythe Industries,” he said. “Tremain never comes out of his fortress unless he can lob a bomb at someone, preferably Alfred Forsythe. Then he disappears back into his lair to plot some other form of world domination.”

“World domination?” Clara could not hide the skepticism in her voice. “That seems a little high-flying for this corner of Baltimore.”

The mayor’s eyes turned flinty. “You must understand, Miss Endicott, our way of life is now entirely dependent upon the smooth operation of the railroads. Tremain doesn’t own many railroads yet, but he’s in the process of acquiring them. And those he does not own, he already controls by granting or withholding access to the technology that makes railway transportation affordable. He is a robber baron with a stranglehold on the industry and is perfectly willing to use it to punish competitors he dislikes.”

Clara’s gaze darted around the lavish interior of the mayor’s home, filled to capacity with the town’s leading entrepreneurs and trendsetters. Everyone she had met in this room had been born into a world of silken sheets and had breakfast trays delivered at the dawn of each day. What would people like this understand of abject poverty? “Perhaps if Daniel Tremain were welcomed into gatherings such as these, he might not seem so intimidating,” Clara said.

Mrs. Wagner raised her chin but lowered her voice. “It has been many years since you left Baltimore, so you may not be familiar with what has transpired since you’ve been gone. Daniel Tremain is as warm and compassionate as a spider. Gold-leaf invitations could be hand-delivered to the man, and he’d toss them into the trash bin.”

“Not true,” the Greek goddess said. “Every time I’ve gone to a performance at the new Opera House, I have seen him in attendance. He always sits in the very back row.”

“Yes, and he arrives and leaves alone,” Mrs. Wagner said dispassionately. “Heaven forbid he should stay five minutes after a performance and actually
speak
to someone.”

Clara stood a little straighter. “I don’t believe a lack of social graces automatically correlates to evil-minded intentions.”

“Of course not,” the mayor agreed. “But if you lived in this city last year, you would have had a front-row seat to watch Tremain’s spitefulness in action. Alfred Forsythe spent a fortune building a college for this town. He bought the land, paid for the construction of classrooms and dormitories. It was to be called Forsythe College and would have been a fine addition to this city. Just before they began hiring a faculty for the college, Tremain stepped in to scuttle the whole project. He found some old title that said the land had been ceded to an Indian tribe back in the 1790s. That tribe had long since disappeared from the area, but Tremain hired a lawyer and argued the case in court. The judge ruled that until the descendants of the original title holders could be found, nothing could happen to that land. No college, no sale, nothing. Those buildings sit empty today because Daniel Tremain will stop at nothing to ruin Alfred Forsythe.”

A quick glance at the faces of the other women confirmed what the mayor had said, and Clara fought the urge to wilt. Daniel’s very name seemed to inspire hostility, but Clara no longer knew Daniel well enough to defend him. The aloof stranger they described bore no resemblance to the young man she had once idolized.

In the years since those days, Clara had met famous composers, known literary success as a journalist, and traveled the world. And yet, those stolen hours with Daniel remained her most cherished memories of sheer, unmitigated happiness.

A
s Clara wandered the hill outside the new Opera House, she had to admit, everything about Baltimore’s new music facility was vastly superior to the old Music Conservatory in Bolton Hill. She’d suffered a terrible wave of nostalgia when she heard that the beloved old building had been shuttered and had fallen into disrepair. “It was a firetrap and should have been torn down years ago,” her father had told her. The new Opera House had room for a proper performance auditorium, complete with space for a backstage and a modern lighting system. The auditorium had more than tripled in size and was filled with comfortable seating. The outdoor amphitheatre was used not only for music but for plays and political gatherings, as well.

Today, the amphitheatre was the site of a Fourth of July celebration. The morning was already warm, but at least her bonnet shaded her from the worst of the direct summer sun. She stood near the back of the crowd and listened to a quartet perform until the nearby church bells tolled the noon hour. The crowd began filing inside the Opera House, where the main feature, a performance of patriotic music supplied by the U.S. Marine Band, would soon commence.

Once inside the auditorium, Clara took a seat in the center section. She could not prevent her gaze from straying to the back row, where Daniel Tremain supposedly haunted the music hall for each performance. She scanned the silhouettes seated near the back of the audience, but none of the people filling the seats looked remotely familiar. He wasn’t here—she would have recognized him instantly. Even though twelve years had passed, Daniel’s image was still emblazoned on her memory.

Clara shifted to arrange the folds of her skirt as the familiar sounds of musicians tuning and warming up their instruments began to punctuate the air. When the conductor entered the hall and the sounds of tuning tapered to a close, Clara swiveled around one final time to peek at the back row of the auditorium.

Daniel! Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of him. How foolish she had been, thinking he would look the same. She’d thought he might be a little taller and a little broader across the shoulders. That he might look a tad older, but he would still be essentially the same person she had known before.

She was wrong on all counts.

Daniel Tremain was simply staggering. He leaned negligently against the back wall of the auditorium, and the masculine confidence in his stance gave the impression of barely leashed power. Yes, he was tall and his shoulders had broadened to match his impressive height, but it was the intensity carved onto every plane of that severe face that arrested her attention. His hair was jet-black, and dark brows slanted over his eyes as he watched the band, his arms folded across his chest. She immediately understood how Daniel could have caused such commotion among the young ladies of Baltimore. In a room full of tame house cats, he was a panther.

Clara jerked her head around and stared at the band. Daniel’s physical transformation was astounding, so shocking as to make her wonder if what Florence Wagner had said about the changes in Daniel’s character could possibly be true.

A smattering of applause sounded as the conductor stepped to the podium. Before beginning the first tune, he bid the audience to stand while he recited a short prayer for the nation’s president and for the fallen heroes who had given their lives for this country. Clara bowed her head as the words washed over her. Although her expulsion from England had been painful and humiliating, she was glad to be back in her home country, where she was free to celebrate this simple, most American of holidays.

A rasping sound of fabric came from the row behind her as someone leaned forward to whisper directly in her ear. “I certainly hope someone sends up a prayer on behalf of that pitiful bonnet. It really is terrible, Clara.”

She would know that voice anywhere. It had the melting quality of warm caramel and it brought back every sensation of the sheer, uninhibited delight of being in Daniel Tremain’s presence. By the time she whirled around, Daniel had already shifted his weight back to stand at respectful attention while the prayer continued, his face the epitome of pious concentration as he watched the conductor at the front of the stage.

“Daniel, what are you doing here?” she asked in an urgent whisper. She had never seen him dressed so finely before. A custom-tailored navy frock coat fit his broad shoulders perfectly, and the silk tie and vest made him look as polished as any aristocrat she had seen in the mansions of London. Daniel’s face was recklessly handsome, with high cheekbones and a long blade of a nose that gave him a fierce, hawkish look. A slight scar split an eyebrow, and the lid on one eye hung a little lower than the other, but that was the only sign of his blindness in that eye.

Daniel’s face was completely impassive as he continued to watch the band, but he leaned forward and whispered in her ear, “Came to see if you found any sense of fashion over in London.” His gaze flicked back to her bonnet. “Tragic, Clara.”

The laugh bubbled up so quickly that when she tried to stop it, an ungainly snort emerged. The people in the seats surrounding her cast disapproving glances her way, and Clara felt a flush creep up her cheeks. When the prayer was over, the audience resumed their seats while the director tapped his baton and proceeded with the first song, a traditional fanfare of trumpets mixed with a dash of percussion. Clara knew the piece would last at least five minutes, but she could not endure another
five seconds
without speaking to Daniel.

She whirled back around and caught a glimmer of the old roguish humor in Daniel’s eye. “Come on, let’s get out of here,” he said.

She followed Daniel out of the Opera House. She’d always been on the petite side, but now Daniel towered above her and the top of her head barely reached his shoulder. Sunlight streamed through the old sycamore trees that sheltered the top of the outdoor amphitheatre, now empty of visitors. Daniel’s hand guided her to the low stone wall that divided the amphitheatre from the gardens outside of the Opera House. How wonderfully strange this felt. Was Daniel the big, bad wolf described by the matrons of Baltimore? Or beneath the fine frock coat of the fully grown man, was he still her oldest, most cherished friend?

“I must congratulate you on the splendid Opera House,” Clara said. “I heard you had a lot to do with getting it built, and it is quite an improvement over the old Music Conservatory.” Clara sank onto the low wall while Daniel remained standing beside her, resting his booted foot on the wall as he leaned over her.

“It is certainly more modern than that ramshackle old firetrap,” Daniel said. “Besides, I wanted my sisters to have an appreciation for music, and Katie was terrified of the Conservatory. She was convinced ghosts were living up in the turret on the north side.”

“And how is Katie?”

“She’s competing in a cycling race as we speak. Last summer I was foolish enough to purchase one of the newfangled bicycles from Paris for her, thinking it might keep her amused within our own neighborhood. Now she’s off most weekends with the Baltimore Cycling Club and who knows where else. She’ll be lucky to see her seventeenth birthday if she keeps trying her hand at every sport known to mankind.”

“And Rachel and Lorna?”

“Both safely married and no longer my responsibility. Thank heaven. I keep hoping some naive young man who can be bribed to take Kate off my hands will stumble into my life.”

She smiled up at him. “What a liar you are. You try to sound so fierce, but your face positively radiates when you speak about your sisters.”

“Nonsense. That’s the look of howling anxiety from raising girls. No one should be foolish enough to embark on such an endeavor.”

“Foolish or not, you are to be commended for the way you raised your sisters,” she said. Her gaze flicked to the fine silk of his vest and the heavy gold watch chain hanging at his waist. “What a shame you had such spotty luck in business, though.”

“Clara, the only real tragedy is that awful scrap of fabric on your head.”

She threw up her hands in exasperation. “Daniel Tremain! Never once, in all the years we have known each other, have you ever said a single nice thing about any bonnet I have worn.”

“That’s because they’ve all been atrocious.” With his serious face and bland delivery, it was easy to see how people would think Daniel cold and blunt . . . but Clara had endured too many years of Daniel’s teasing to mistake the humor lurking in those pale gray eyes.

She untied the ribbon beneath her head, lifted off the offending garment, and then smoothed her hair into place. “Is it all bonnets you dislike? Or just mine?”

“All bonnets, because a woman’s hair is one of her best features and should not be hidden.
Your
bonnets are especially loathsome because you have particularly beautiful hair.”

Clara looked up in surprise. It was true that she was shamefully proud of her hair, but Daniel had never,
never
complimented her on her looks before. And it was more than his words, it was the way he was looking at her, with admiration and almost a hint of tenderness. He swiveled and took a seat beside her on the stone wall. “So tell me, Miss Endicott, what caused a promising young writer to become diverted into the world of muckraking journalism?”

“If you think I’m going to take offense at the word
muckraker
, you are destined for disappointment.”

“No. I’m simply dying of curiosity to know how the timid girl who left Baltimore ended up a convicted felon in London.” Humor danced behind his eyes. “That really takes some doing, Clara.”

She flashed him a grin. “What good adventure story doesn’t have a stint in prison?” How odd that only this morning she had still been mourning the demise of her career in London, but somehow when she was sitting with Daniel Tremain, it no longer seemed so tragic.

“No sidestepping. Tell me how it happened,” Daniel prodded.

She traced her fingernail along the moss that grew on the wall while she struggled to find the words. “When I went to London, I thought I might publish poems or essays, like Margaret Fuller or Henry David Thoreau. But everything I was writing seemed so pale and vapid. Then I met a doctor who was treating children who had been injured in the coal mines.” Daniel listened intently as she recounted the next few years, how she had to earn the coal workers’ trust, watch the children entering and leaving the mines. “I never intended to write those sorts of explosive articles, but once I knew what was happening, I could not keep silent. As soon as I became a journalist I felt as though the pieces had clicked into place. I was good at it, and I believed I was making use of the talents God intended for me to use. Of course that didn’t stop me from making a complete and total disaster of everything.”

Daniel lifted an eyebrow and slanted her one of those curious half-grinning, half-reproving looks. “Clara, I hope you aren’t going to subject me to one of your blistering rounds of insecurity. After all these years, has nothing changed?”

“Not really,” she confessed. And there under the shade of the sycamore tree, Clara poured out all the anxieties and regrets of her final year in London. To whom other than Daniel could she speak so freely? During her years in London she had fabricated an image of sophisticated self-confidence that fooled most people, but Daniel had known her when she was a raw, awkward teenager without artifice. Twelve years had passed, and by all rights he should be a stranger to her, yet he was a familiar stranger with whom she felt absolutely safe sharing her terrible failings as a journalist. Pouring out her shortcomings was like ridding herself of a pestilence that had been weighing her down for months.

Through it all, Daniel listened to her without comment or condemnation. He merely watched her with that speculative, captivating gaze that made her feel she was the object of his complete and total attention. After she had finally cataloged her every fault, Daniel posed the oddest of questions.

“Clara, give me the name of one other woman in the English-speaking world who has done more than you to end the scourge of child labor.”