The Husband List (9 page)

“Open your mouth for me,” he said against her lips.

She did as asked, and he tasted her. She made a surprised little sound, but she didn’t push him away. In fact, she clutched at him. She tasted so sweet that he could have stayed until sundown.

The longer he kissed her, the more she relaxed into him, and the more he wanted her. He could imagine Caroline in his bed, night after night, year after year. But that privilege was also destined for the almost duke.

Jack backed off, and Caroline steadied herself against the tree trunk they’d somehow ended up leaning against.

He drew a ragged breath and tried to will his heart to stop pounding with absolute hunger.

“Well, then,” Caroline said after a drawn-out silence. She stepped away from the tree, straightened her hat, and brushed at her skirts. “Thank you very much for that. It was quite … pleasant.”

Pleasant? That had been pleasant? What a damnably weak, obnoxious word.

And then Jack realized that not only was Caroline failing to meet his eyes, she couldn’t look above his shoes.

Hah! She was as shaken as he.

“Now I’ll go find the twins,” she said. “I’m sure they’re out front in one of the boutiques. They’d much sooner be there than here on the lawns. I’ll see you around, Jack.”

Jack watched as she walked away in a not-so-straight line.

He’d see her around, all right. And he would kiss her again when he did.

SEVEN

Friday at not quite eleven on a purportedly sunny Providence morning, Jack squinted into bluish cigar smoke that hung like fog in Heinrich Krantz’s massive brewery office. Somewhere at the far end of the room sat Krantz and his three sons. And no doubt all four of them had cigars clamped between their molars. No one man could produce this level of smoke so early on in the day. But not even this haze could block the smell of hops, barley, and yeast brewing. The sour scent was perfume to Jack.

Next to Jack stood Gustav Muller, Jack’s brewmaster from Liberty Brewery, in Philadelphia. Wiry, temperamental Gus was also Jack’s brewing mentor and the reason Jack had taken to the beer industry with such passion. Gus knew beer better than anyone else, and Jack knew business well enough that he hadn’t been bested yet. He was sure that together they could wrap up the East Coast beer market as others were doing in the Midwest.

He’d asked Gus to join him this morning because the older man could speak the same language as Krantz in more ways than one. In exchange for Gus’s help in closing the deal, Jack had promised him a small ownership percentage in Krantz and Sons. Apparently, he’d chosen the right incentive. The brewmaster was ready to spring.

“Steady,” Jack said to Gus as they crossed the office’s threshold.

Jack and Gus approached a mahogany table that easily seated twenty and was positioned next to broad windows overlooking the brewery’s central courtyard. Krantz had built himself a redbrick castle of a business. He looked every inch the aging king in his crimson upholstered chair at the head of the table. His sons, in lesser thrones, were younger echoes of their portly, bearded father.

Jack and Gus reached the table. Jack waited for an invitation to sit.

And waited.

“What does an Irishman know about beer?” Krantz asked once he’d decided to set his cigar in the ashtray in front of him.

“I’m an American, sir,” Jack said. “And a New Yorker. Manhattan drinks more beer than Erlich, Ruppert, and their competitors … including me … can produce. And I’m proud to be drinking and brewing my share.”

“
Faugh!
Erlich!” Kranz spat. “
Verräter!
He cares more about his land and his mansions than his brew. He should be stripped of the title of brewery owner.”

“One day I intend to do that,” Jack said.

After a pause, Krantz laughed. The sound was rusty, probably from limited use.

“You think big,” he said.

“Yes.” Growing up with Da, it had never occurred to Jack that there was any other option.

“Sit down,” Krantz commanded.

Jack and Gus took their seats opposite the Krantz sons.

“You see those boys?” Krantz asked Jack, who nodded even though the “boys” in question had to be in their forties.

“If even one of them put in a minute more than I had asked, you would not be sitting here. But that one,” Krantz said, pointing at the son opposite Jack, “had to be a professor. And Friedrich in the middle, a poet.” He shook his head with disgust. “A
poet
.”

Krantz didn’t even mention the third son, who apparently had done worse than a poet in his father’s eyes. None of his sons looked to be disappointed with themselves, though.

Jack understood the need to move from beneath a parent’s shadow. He could have stuck with Da, but then he’d have never had the knowledge he could make it on his own. Easy words from a millionaire’s son, he supposed.

“The only thing they like that I do is cigars. And so I will sell this place, but only to someone who can prove they know
der arsch
from a drinkable lager,” Krantz said.

Jack didn’t need Gus to translate that.

“What will it take to prove it to you?” Jack asked.

The brewery owner pointed at Gus. “That is your brewmaster, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Send him away.”

This would be the easiest damn money Gus had ever made. He’d get his percentage for a trip from Philadelphia to Providence.

“Gus?” Jack asked.

To Gus’s credit, he didn’t hesitate. He simply rose and left. Gus trusted him, as he should. Jack would come through.

After Gus had departed, Jack asked, “And now that Gus is gone?”

“You will work for me,” Krantz said. “You will shovel
der dünger
in the delivery stables, build fires for the coopers, and then move on to the beer … when I decide you should.”

“You understand that I own three breweries?”

“But not mine.”

The man had a point.

“Until August, you will have my Mondays and Tuesdays,” Jack said. “The rest of the week I need to make money.”

Krantz laughed. “Good. Because if you succeed here, the price will be high.”

“You have no idea how high,” his son Friedrich added.

Jack suspected Friedrich wasn’t referring to money.

“Report to the stables at four-thirty Monday morning,” the elder Krantz said.

Four-thirty. Jack nearly winced. He’d forgotten how early the day started when delivering beer. Not that he’d ever done it, but he’d seen his brewery schedules often enough. He’d have to take the Sunday night boat to Providence instead of the Monday morning. But that, too, was a small inconvenience if it landed him this place.

“I’ll be there,” Jack said.

“Good luck,” Friedrich Krantz replied.

But Jack didn’t need luck. He had determination.

*   *   *

CAROLINE SLOGGED her way through hip-deep seawater at Bailey’s Beach. The sun shone down with a determined relentlessness and the pull of even the low, rolling ocean swells sucked the sand from beneath her slipper-shod feet. No matter how poised a young woman might be, no dignity could be maintained when wearing heavy navy blue wool while attempting to enjoy the waves.

She plucked her skirt away from the ankle-length white cotton drawers that covered black silk stockings encasing her legs. Clearly, the only swimming she was to enjoy was that of swimming in fabric. She almost wished she had used the headache excuse that Amelia and Helen had summoned. Mama didn’t think it was odd that the twins had matching headaches. Caroline doubted Mama would give her the same latitude.

Caroline glanced ahead to Harriet Vandermeulen, who was reaching shore well ahead of her. Not only was lucky Harriet allowed to wear knickerbockers while bicycling, but her bathing costume was a non-heat-trapping pearl gray and shorter in length.

“Wait for me,” Caroline called.

Harriet turned back and waved Caroline on. “No time! The noon flag is up, and the beach will soon be the gentlemen’s. Hurry!”

Caroline had heard it whispered that sometimes the men swam
au natural
on Fridays. She was probably doomed to perdition for being envious of their freedom, but that did not reduce her envy.

She picked up her pace, though. Caroline preferred the marble nudes she’d managed to catch glimpses of while in Paris at the Louvre Museum to the thought of seeing, say, Harriet’s brother in the same state. There were certain things a girl simply did not need to know.

Harriet looked back once more, giving Caroline a clearly challenging smile. “Come on! Last one off the beach must dance with Gordy Bullard twice at the next dance!”

The other girls on the beach giggled and began to hurry toward the triangular pavilion that held the families’ individual bathhouses. Clumsy Gordy had flattened more than a few toes already this summer.

Harriet shot across the sand. Her athletic gait suited her far better than the mincing steps she took when gentlemen were present. Right then, she was the rambunctious friend Caroline recalled—and missed—from childhood. They had all changed. Even Caroline had not been immune.

Grabbing on to some of that long-lost joy, Caroline lifted her skirt to nearly her knees and began to run.

“Unfair! We should have all started in the water,” she called.

But Harriet didn’t reply. She had reached the building. Breathless and laughing, Caroline pulled up to the rear of the group of young ladies. Harriet was waiting for her.

“Don’t leave without talking to me. We need a moment alone,” Harriet said in a quiet voice.

Caroline nodded and then made her way to her family’s bathhouse, so noted with Papa’s initials painted on the door. Ten minutes later, Caroline was dry and pounds lighter in organdy as opposed to wool. Annie, who was already becoming more adept at clothing changes, was busy draping the wet swim costume over a wooden rack for transport home when Caroline exited the bathhouse. She headed toward the drive leading back to Bellevue Avenue, where the carriages and drivers awaited. As did Harriet.

Though she was too bright and sunny to lurk, Harriet was doing a fine imitation of it. While all the other young ladies were waiting for their carriages to pull up along the drive, Harriet stuck close to the shrubbery. Gone was any hint of the hoyden in her. She looked quite angelic in her petal pink dress and hat with a fat clutch of silken white roses pinned to the ribbon at its crown.

Caroline joined Harriet next to a dark green rhododendron bush.

“I have a secret to share,” Harriet said. “Promise not to tell anyone.”

Caroline didn’t answer, hoping the conversation would stop there. She had secrets enough of her own to keep track of without adding in Harriet’s.

Harriet, however, forged on.

“I’m going to get married before Christmas,” she announced.

“That’s wonderful,” Caroline replied with what she hoped was an appropriate level of excitement. In public she tried to keep her current poor opinion of marriage to herself. “Who has proposed?”

“No one, yet. But I have decided on the date and I even know the man. I plan to marry Jack Culhane.”

Caroline was certain she couldn’t have heard that correctly. “Jack?”

“Yes.”

“The Jack who is my brother’s best friend?”

“Well, of course,” Harriet replied while adjusting her white silk gloves.

From the time they’d been little, Caroline had felt as though Harriet had somehow been able to sense—and grab—what Caroline most wanted. When it had been the pinto hobbyhorse in Caroline’s nursery, that had been one thing. Jack was another matter altogether. However, any reaction other than mild curiosity would only heighten Harriet’s fervor. She had always been fiercely competitive. Right until this moment, Caroline had liked that about her.

“I don’t believe Jack’s the marrying kind,” Caroline said with a slight shrug.

Harriet laughed. “
All
men are the marrying kind. Well, most. My Uncle Nathaniel is a confirmed bachelor, but Mother says he had his heart broken when quite young.” Her blue eyes widened. “Has Jack had his heart broken? Has Eddie said something to you?”

“Jack’s heart is intact,” Caroline replied. “Possibly even untouched. The only thing I’ve seen him in love with is beer.”

“Beer? Are you saying he overimbibes?”

“No, he owns breweries. He loves buying them and talking about them and plotting how to own more. You knew that, didn’t you?”

Harriet looked somewhat confused. “No, I don’t believe I did.” Then she brightened and said, “But it’s no matter. When he marries me, he won’t have to work anymore.”

“Harriet, he doesn’t have to work now. He
likes
to work,” Caroline replied.

Her friend laughed. “You’ve always had the oddest sense of humor.”

Caroline didn’t recall making a jest, but she had more pressing matters to pursue. “If you don’t know how important business is to Jack, how do you know him well enough to be certain you want to marry him?”

“I can learn the details after we’re married. I know he’s a hero. My mother showed me the article in the newspaper on Tuesday. That made her quite happy. But all I really need to know is that he’s the best candidate available for a winter wedding. And I will be married this year,” she said with a scary amount of determination.

Caroline was speechless. When, exactly, had Harriet turned into a Mama-in-training?

“Besides, Jack needs me,” Harriet said. “He has potential, but with his family roots, he’ll never quite be one of us unless married to one of us. So, it’s perfect.… He can benefit from my family’s social connections, and I will get my winter wedding.”

“This all sounds gloriously romantic,” Caroline replied, unable to rein in her sarcasm.

Harriet didn’t pick up on it, though. “Oh, it will be. I plan to reserve St. Thomas’s for the fifteenth of December. I shall carry white roses with holly. The church will be filled with pine boughs bound in white ribbons, and the snow will be fresh outside.”

“If there’s no snow, will the wedding be called off?”

Harriet laughed, but again Caroline hadn’t been joking.