Chloe (29 page)

“I’ll get the hat boxes!” Bette squealed and scooped up, one in each hand, the gold straps to two round gold-and-white-striped boxes.

“Then I can get this,” Chloe said, lifting up her square brown-leather cosmetics and jewelry case. “And off we go.” She looked at Roarke, willing him to smile, say a word of welcome.

“This way,” Roarke grunted and turned. As the three of them trotted to keep up with him on the way to the car, she stifled her disappointment. What had she expected from Roarke—a warm welcome, a miracle?

“My, Jamie, you are getting strong,” Chloe praised as they waited by the car under a street lamp.

“And I didn’t drop the hat boxes,” Bette said, evidently unwilling to be overlooked.

“I know, and the wind was just whipping ’round us.” Chloe couldn’t believe she was actually talking to her daughter. Bette had always been tongue-tied around her. Was it because her grandmother wasn’t here or was it the presence of another child? Whatever it was, Chloe could hardly believe it. She hoped she wouldn’t say anything that would disrupt this new start.
I must tread very, very carefully.

Jamie helped Roarke store the luggage in the trunk. Then Roarke held open the door of his sleek black sedan for Chloe and she slipped in, remembering in a flash Roarke picking her up when she’d come home from Buffalo all those years ago. How she wished she had the nerve to mention this. Maybe if the children had not been along, she would have. Like two rambunctious puppies, Jamie and Bette clambered into the backseat with giggles and teasing.

Without a word, Roarke started the car and drove off, heading through the city streets toward the highway. For a while the children chattered and then as the darkened highway rolled past the car windows, the backseat fell silent. Chloe glanced back and saw that the children had curled up on the wide seat and fallen asleep. Now she could speak to Roarke.

But with each mile, the barrier between her and Roarke seemed to expand. The silence roared between them. Finally, she couldn’t stand it. “Tell me—” She stopped and swallowed to moisten her mouth. “How are things around home?”

“You mean after the bottom fell out?” Disgust edged his voice.

“Yes, how are your parents?”

“They’re worried. How else would they be? Father says the trouble has just begun.”

Chloe quailed under his disgruntled tone. “I . . . I can’t believe it myself. How does money just disappear like that?”

“A lot of people bought way too much stock on margin—on credit, that is—and all it took was some wiser investors taking a good look at the facts and dumping their stocks while they could still make a profit on them. And then insanity took over.”

She wanted to ask, “Did you lose money?” But she didn’t have the nerve. She gripped the edge of the soft leather seat with both hands.

“Your mother’s more upset by your father’s death than you might think.”

This announcement took her by surprise. “I would think . . .” She hesitated to say what she was thinking, but then what didn’t Roarke know about her parents? “I thought she’d be gloating. They always competed, argued over everything, and I thought she’d be happy that she outlived him.”

The faint light from the dash illumined the contours of Roarke’s face. And Chloe realized that she hadn’t taken much notice of Roarke’s scars this time. The darkness hid them now anyway. She could imagine if she wanted to that they didn’t exist, that the past didn’t separate them. “Sometimes,” he said, “we get what we want and then we realize we don’t want it.”

And sometimes we don’t get what we want and we want it all the more.
The unexpected joy of seeing Jamie and Bette made her reckless.
What have I got to lose?
“This reminds me of the night in ’18 when you picked me up when I came home from Buffalo.” She held her breath. Would he open up and really communicate?

Silence.

She tried again. “Is Kitty here or in New York?”

“Neither.” He glanced her way. “Didn’t you know she’d moved to California right after Jamie’s adoption was final?” Roarke’s tone was tart, as though this had angered him.

Chloe was too shocked to respond.
Kitty left without a word to me?

Another silence.

“How long will you be visiting with your parents?” she asked at last.

“I leave in two days,” he said with implacable certainty.

“I . . . I’m sorry to hear that. I was hoping . . .” Words failed her.

“You’ll be going back to Washington soon, won’t you?” His voice almost taunted her.

The hope of reaching Roarke faded. He’d probably guessed long ago how her father had been using her and despised her for her gullibility. Why did they speak to one another like polite strangers?
I know all about you, Roarke, and you know all about me. Why can’t we talk anymore?
She might as well face facts. “How is Miss Talbot?”

“I don’t know. She isn’t working for me any longer. She finally realized that I wasn’t going to marry her and quit me.”

Roarke’s bluntness surprised Chloe.

“How’s Drake Lovelady?” Roarke’s voice was more than gruff.

Were they indulging in tit for tat? “Fine. We postponed our wedding until things settle down a little.”

Roarke jerked, and Chloe remembered he hadn’t known of the engagement. She hadn’t meant to be so callous in telling him.

“I see,” was all he said.

The news that Chloe and Lovelady were engaged scalded Roarke’s frayed emotions.
It’s what I expected, isn’t it?
Roarke thought of Chloe’s father suffering heart failure over the loss of his fortune and of men whom he’d witnessed jumping off rooftops on Wall Street. Could one failure destroy the remainder of a life? That’s how it seemed to him, and evidently he wasn’t alone.

On the next afternoon after Jackson and the lawyer had departed for Washington, Chloe found her mother sitting in the formal parlor that never changed, staring into the small fire on the hearth. “Mother?”

“Is the lawyer gone?” Her mother surreptitiously dried her eyes.

Was she mourning her husband? “Yes.” Chloe sat down on the love seat opposite her mother. Facts and figures still whizzed around in her mind.

“How bad was it?” Lifting an English chintz teapot, Mother added tea to her cup and poured one for Chloe.

“Daddy lost everything and will still owe money after all his property is sold.” Chloe accepted the translucent cup and saucer and poured in rich cream and two cubes of sugar. Her father had managed to amass almost one hundred thousand dollars in his life and then had lost it all. What had possessed him to play that deep in the stock market?

“I thought he’d done something like that.” Mother sounded harsh but pleased. “I suppose you were glad to hear that
my
father protected this property from your father’s sticky fingers. Before we married, Father made Quentin sign away his right to hold title to my family’s property. Quentin could call Ivy Manor home, but that was all. The Carlyle land was to and always will remain in the hands of a Carlyle heir.”

This news had been as surprising to Chloe as her father’s losses. Chloe stirred her tea, making sure her teaspoon never touched her cup—another undeniable mark of a lady. “Was that the reason you deeded the property to me when I turned twenty-one?”
Why didn’t you ever tell me?

“Yes, I always thought your father would gamble everything away in the end, just like his father and grandfather had, and I was right.” Her mother sounded grimly satisfied.

Chloe couldn’t believe she was gloating in light of their losses. Didn’t she realize that her late husband’s money was what they lived on?
We can’t eat land, Mother.
“But he . . . we don’t have anything left but Ivy Manor.”

“My family has kept this land for over two hundred years, Chloe.” Mother straightened her shoulders as if her ancestors were crowded around them, watching. “We have held it through a revolution, financial panic, and war. I protected it from your father by deeding it to you. Anything in my name could have been seized to pay his debts, but nothing in your name can be touched. When you marry Drake, he will bring money with him and he will help you oversee the land that the croppers work. That will give us income.”

Chloe didn’t respond. She sipped the warm, sweet tea and drew what comfort from it she could. Her mother was confident Drake would be interested in handling the family business and that he still had money to bankroll their farming. Did he?

“I will insist that Drake sign the same prenuptial agreement that your father signed.” Her mother punctuated this with a decided nod. “Ivy Manor must remain solely in the hands of a Carlyle. That way Bette will retain it just as you have.”

As if on cue, Bette, still wearing her black school dress and black cotton stockings, walked in. “Grandmother, I finished my homework. Can I go outside now?”

“Your diction, please,” Chloe’s mother scolded primly.

“May I go outside, please?” Bette amended, not even acknowledging Chloe with a glance.

“I don’t know why you want to go out on a dreary day like this. And you probably want to run off to see that boy the McCaslins have taken in.”

“Yes, ma’am, I want to go there, please.”

Chloe smiled at Bette, but the child didn’t respond, just stood stick straight by her grandmother. Did Bette fear permission would be withheld?

“I don’t know what the McCaslins were thinking of, taking in somebody’s brat like that. But that Kitty has been a disappointment, not marrying and living way up in New York City. That’s what they get for letting her go off to college.”

“They couldn’t have kept Kitty home, Mother,” Chloe murmured, wondering why her mother could never say anything nice about anyone. “You know that.”

“I’ve always faulted Kitty McCaslin for introducing you to that Theran Black. Thank heavens you came to your senses and came home to have your daughter.” Her mother added more tea to her cup. “You’ve run wild living in Washington with your father, but you left your daughter here to be brought up like a Carlyle at Ivy Manor. That much you did right and I give you credit for it.” She bestowed one of her rare smiles on Chloe.

Her mother hated Theran, but he was Bette’s father. Chloe wanted to run out of the room, screaming.

“Now, Bette,” Mother’s tirade continued, “dress warm and tell Jerusha where you’ll be playing. And come home on time for supper.”

Bette turned away from her grandmother and glanced shyly at her mother, but said nothing. Did the child know not to speak to her in front of her grandmother?

Chloe stopped her as she started from the room. “Honey, I haven’t given you what I brought you from France.” She drew a fan from her dress pocket. “Here.”

Bette took it and moved the little hook so she could open the black paper fan. The fan had
“Gay Paree”
written on it in gold lettering and had a picture of the Eiffel Tower sketched in white behind the words. Bette’s eyes widened. “Thank you, Mother. I love it.”

“Let me see it,” Chloe’s mother commanded in her queenly way.

Bette displayed it proudly.

“A cheap paper fan,” her grandmother snapped. “Why didn’t you bring her something that would last—a porcelain doll or a miniature china tea set?”

Chloe flushed. Her mother’s words hit their mark. Chloe should have gotten her daughter something better, but the days in Paris had been filled with worry and sorrow. Chloe had bought the fan in one of the tourist shops on the quay right before departing. “I’m sorry, Bette.”

“I like it, Mother,” Bette murmured and fluttered the fan.

Chloe’s mother sniffed. “Just like your father,” she muttered loud enough for Chloe to overhear.

Bette left the parlor and Chloe heard her feet pelting down the hallway to the rear of the house.

Chloe stared at her mother, but made no effort at remonstrance. What good would it do? She set her cup and saucer on the sterling-silver tea tray without making the slightest sound.
And that proves I am a lady indeed. How much more of this can I stand?
“I have an errand to run. I’ll be back for the evening meal.”

In the front hall, Chloe put on a warm hat, cape, and gloves and stepped outside into the cold November afternoon. Roarke should still be at the McCaslins.
I am a fool. He’ll just insult me again.
She saw Bette already on the lane and ran to catch up with her. “Wait for me, honey!”

Bette halted and Chloe raced up the lane to her. Would she be able to recapture that tenuous connection with her daughter again? “I have a souvenir for Jamie, too.” Then Chloe hoped she hadn’t said the wrong thing. Would Bette be jealous?

“What did you get him? Or is it a secret?”

Chloe was relieved at Bette’s tone. Her daughter merely sounded interested. “I got him a book of picture postcards. Do you think he’ll like them?”
Maybe boys didn’t like such things.

“He’ll be able to show them in class. I bet nobody else will have stuff all the way from Paris, France. I’m going to show Teacher my fan tomorrow.” Bette patted her coat pocket.

Soon the two of them knocked on the McCaslin door. Comfortable Maisie opened it and drew them inside the warm house. “Our boy, Jamie, he waitin’ for you, Miss Bette.”

“We got a present for him,” Bette announced.

“You do? Then come right in the dinin’ room. He’s sittin’ there finishin’ up his homework.”

“I’m done with mine,” Bette bragged. She hurried ahead. “Jamie. Hey, Jamie.”

“I’m glad you come, Miss Chloe,” Maisie said in an undertone. “Mr. Roarke gone back to New York City a day early and his mama is that unhappy. Why did Miss Kitty have to go off to California? And what is Mr. Roarke doin’ in New York when he lost his job anyway?”

This news hit Chloe in her heart. She hadn’t guessed that Roarke had lost his job. She’d been too deep into her own troubles. But he’d been a broker. How many still had jobs?

For some reason this made Chloe recall that she still hadn’t let Drake know she was back in the States.
What am I waiting for?

“Chloe, dear.” Miss Estelle—still slender and reminding Chloe of Kitty—came down the stairs. “I thought I heard your voice. Thank you for coming. Do you have time for tea?”