Unveiled
Authors: Colleen Quinn
Tags: #Romance, #General, #Cape May (N.J.), #Historical, #Fiction
Unveiled
COLLEEN QUINN
Copyright © 2012, Colleen Quinn
For Cathy
Special thanks to Gail Fortune, for her enthusiasm, and to the wonderful people of Cape May at the Linda Lee house, the Queen Victoria, and the Mainstay Inn, who shared their homes with me and invited me back another time.
CONTENTS
“
A
re you absolutely certain? In essence then, I am bankrupt?” Christopher Scott asked as his legal adviser peered up from behind silver-rimmed spectacles. The older man laid down his pencil and closed his ledger with a sigh.
“I’m afraid so, my son. The panic has hit many families hard, as you know. Unfortunately your family’s investments have suffered greatly, especially the railroads. Then there are the bills from the estate, taxes, salaries, and upkeep. You are in the red, and with prices deflated, I don’t see that situation improving any time soon.”
“I see.” Christopher digested this information. Ruffling his fingers through the thick black hair that fell charmingly into his face, he gave a grin that the gamblers at the nearby hell halls would have instantly recognized. “So what do you suggest?”
“I would propose you begin searching for employment.” The austere, thin-lipped attorney rose to his feet and placed the ledger in his valise. Christopher and his aunt exchanged a glance, then the young man broke into laughter, rose from his seat, and pounded the accountant on his back.
“Good, that’s very good. Come now, James, it can’t be as bad as all that? What about my South African mines? The silver? The textile mills?”
“I’m sorry.” The man paused on the way out, then glanced enviously at the rich room with its green velvet drapes, the Brussels rug, the dark cherry furnishings, and the crystal chandelier. Portraits of elite Philadelphians gazed from the wall, and objets d’art graced the tables. “Perhaps you might consider selling off your assets. That may hold you for a time, but you really need a more permanent solution. I wish I had something better to offer you, but I don’t. The facts speak for themselves.”
He closed his case with a snide snicker, then followed the butler to the door. Returning a moment later, the butler filled a brandy glass and, without expression, placed it on the table before disappearing.
“I would suggest you drink it,” his aunt said sharply. “You will undoubtedly be needing it to get through the next hour.”
Sending his aunt a look betraying his lack of appreciation, Christopher gulped the brandy, waiting for the numbing warmth to overcome him. A handsome man, barely thirty years old, he had the self-assured, careless look of one who had never had to face reality. It wasn’t that he was unintelligent or incapable. It was just that he’d lived a charmed life, and didn’t regret it for a moment.
Tonight, the drink didn’t help. Christopher doubted that there was enough brandy in the world to help him cope with what he had learned.
“How the hell could this happen?” he demanded, rising to his feet and pacing the floor. “How could it all be gone? Hundreds of thousands of dollars, dollars that my father made selling that damned soap, how could it have evaporated like one of his bubbles?”
“It happened the way it always happens,” Aunt Eunice said dryly, refilling the glass and drinking it herself. “The older entrepreneur dies, leaving a fortune to his dissolute son, who gambles and runs the estate into the ground. It is an old plot; one need look no farther than the nearest penny dreadful to review it.”
“Very funny,” Christopher said sarcastically. “I didn’t do all this. No one, no matter how dissolute, as you put it, could have run through that kind of money in five years. It would take a lifetime of gambling, drinking, and wenching to lose my father’s fortune. Christ, I can’t believe it.”
“You must believe it.” Eunice said sternly. “It’s time you grew up and faced facts. My brother was very successful, it is true. Soaps and perfumes. He understood what women were looking for in cleaning products, and supplied them. Made quite a fortune once the little rose-shaped soaps caught on. For a few pennies, even a serving woman could afford them.”
Christopher nodded. “Who would have known that the economy would turn sour? All of the profits of the business were channeled into investments. Father realized that the soap business was too fickle for long-term security, so he bought solid stocks and bonds, thinking to provide for us for years to come.” He smiled sardonically at the irony of that. “He might as well have spent it wenching, for all the good it did.”
“Do not speak ill of the dead,” Eunice said sharply, her webbed face taking on an even leaner cast. “You should be making plans. Your decisions will affect more than just yourself, as you know.”
Christopher stared thoughtfully at his aunt. Though she would die rather than admit it, he was all she had left. And she was a responsibility he couldn’t neglect. Aunt Eunice, for all her forthright speech, had a heart of gold. It was she who had interfered when his father was too harsh or impatient with his devil-may-care attitude. She’d made sure that he had the best schooling, and that he’d applied himself when he would have settled for average grades. Long before his mother died, Aunt Eunice had treated him with all of the stern affection she would have given her own child, if she’d had one.
And now she needed him. He knew that she was frightened. She had been poor once, just like his father, desperately poor. He couldn’t imagine what her existence must have been like, for she simply shuddered when anyone talked about it, and changed the subject. No, if it was only himself, he could survive. But Aunt Eunice deserved better than an almshouse.
“You’re right,” Christopher said slowly, not revealing his thoughts. “We do have others to think about. We have a large staff to consider, the butler, the scullery maid, the cook, and the chambermaid. Then there’s the stable boy, the gardener, and the grounds keeper. I can’t just throw everyone out into the street.”
“No, I suppose not.” Eunice glanced at the young man and there was almost a sympathetic look on her face. “Then you are thinking of selling the estate?”
“I can’t,” Christopher said with a sigh. “The house is badly in need of repair. We wouldn’t get a dime on the dollar of what it’s really worth. Besides, I just can’t do that to my father. If he were alive, it would kill him all over again.”
Eunice nodded. John Scott had loved this house, with its clean Colonial lines and its red-brick facing and marble steps. It was the realization of a dream, the immigrant gazing from the roads of Philadelphia at the wealthy Walnut Street mansions. He had been determined to belong to that society, and had struggled from his ignoble beginning as a dockworker to accomplish that feat.
“What do you think?”
Eunice peered at her nephew and saw that he wasn’t joking, he was genuinely soliciting her opinion. She stared at him thoughtfully, weighing the options, her shrewd mind working frantically. Finally she drew a deep breath. “I think there’s only one way out. Marriage.”
“What!” Christopher laughed. When Eunice’s face did not change, his laughter slowly died, only to be replaced by genuine puzzlement. “Surely you are joking.”
“Not at all,” Eunice said briskly. “You are of age, and expected to marry. Why, the mothers of every eligible chit in the city see you as a catch. A man of your class is expected to marry a woman of equal upbringing, a woman who happens to be…well-off.”
“But marriage!”
“I don’t think you have much other choice. You are well educated, but like most academics, you are unfit to do anything. You have no knowledge of accounting, you deplore banking, you know nothing of the law or medicine. The entrepreneurial spirit has certainly skipped a generation, and I fail to see you as a sweatshop worker. In short, if you wish to maintain your present life at the least inconvenience to yourself, I would suggest you consider it.”
Christopher paled. “What about a bank loan? Surely we could borrow against what the house is worth. That should hold us for some time.”
“You could remortgage,” Aunt Eunice agreed. “But the debt will have to be paid back and, in the long term, will not provide an answer. No, I think you have your possibilities. Sell the estate, or marry an heiress.” At Christopher’s glum face, the elderly woman smiled. “It won’t be so awful. After all, you aren’t a bad-looking man. Those light skirts have been chasing you for years. Perhaps, with the right coaxing, you might be able to convince a girl that you are not loathsome.”
“But that is so…unromantic,” Christopher said bluntly.
Aunt Eunice chuckled. “So is starving, my boy. Face it, you are not cut out to be poor. You like nice clothes, good food, the best drink, and your games. Being poor isn’t fun, Christopher. Poor people live on street corners, huddle over barrels of coal in the winter to stay warm, eat scraps, and die young. I was poor once. There is nothing noble about it.” Aunt Eunice saw his expression and smiled grimly. “Marry for money, nephew. It is your only answer.”
Christopher shot her a look, then took back the brandy glass. There were times when drink was the only answer. This appeared to be one of them.
“Ah. It’s you. The madam is expecting you.” A woman with a thick brogue and a face so well scrubbed that it seemed permanently red, opened the door and scowled.
Katie entered the hallway of the magnificent Victorian cottage, her cold fingers numbly clutching a worn carpetbag. Barely twenty-five, she looked much younger than that, with her dark black hair, her nose sprinkled with freckles, and her small pink mouth. Her blue eyes usually danced with pure mischief, but today they were cast shyly downward. Unfashionably dressed in a bleak gray muslin that still bore hoops, she looked exactly like what she was: a young Irish girl who had saved her last few pennies to make the long trip from Philadelphia to the quaint little seaside village of Cape May.
“I suppose you’re here about the advertisement,” the woman grumbled.
“Yes.” Katie unfolded a yellowed newspaper clipping that she’d carefully cut from the
Public Ledger
and handed it to the dour-faced woman along with her papers. She’d read the clipping so many times she knew it by heart, and she was certain she fit the qualifications as a lady’s companion.
She had to have this job, she thought desperately as the woman examined the papers. There were others depending on her, particularly a little boy with soft blond hair and a smile that squeezed her heart. God, how she loved him. She was almost afraid to admit that love, for it was the same fickle emotion that had brought her shame. John Sweeney, with his Irish grin and his carefree ways, had won her heart. He’d said that he loved her, that he would never leave…but he did. And Philadelphia, for all its grand hotels and streets, was too small for an unwed woman and her child. She held her head high, refusing to allow that thought to continue. She had to survive.