Unveiled (18 page)

“You don’t understand.” Eunice wrenched her handkerchief and stared at her nephew. “Christopher, do you know what this means? We’re ruined, absolutely ruined.”

“Fan.” Christopher turned to Katie, his eyes blazing. “You’re coming with me. I’m getting to the bottom of this. Now.”

Before Katie could say a word, Christopher hauled her toward the conservatory at the side of the hotel. Slamming the door behind him, he faced her with his hands on his hips, his breath slowing as if he was forcing his temper under control. His jaw was tight, and there was something besides anger in his expression that Katie couldn’t immediately identify.

“I want to know the truth,” he said quietly, his voice deadly. “All of it.”

Katie nodded, fighting the tears that stung the back of her throat. She had known this day would come, that she couldn’t get away with impersonating Fan forever, but somehow she didn’t think it would be like this. Struggling to find the right words, she poured it all out quickly.

“My real name is Kate O’Connor. I’m not rich, I’m not from the Main Line, I live in the Irish ward with my family.”

He stared at her, as if trying to make sense of what she was saying. She could see the disillusionment in his eyes. “The Irish ward…No wonder everything seemed so new to you—it was! If you’re saying what I think you are, you’ve never been a part of this society.” When Katie nodded, he continued in the same odd voice. “How did all this happen?”

Katie still couldn’t bring herself to tell him everything, but she decided to tell him the main facts, especially those he could easily verify. “I applied for a position as a ladies’ maid with Ella Pemberton this summer, and she mistook me for Fan. I tried to tell her the truth, but she just wouldn’t listen.”

“So you lied.” He sounded incredulous. “You took advantage of a senile old woman and lived as Fan, never stopping to think what would happen to her if the truth came out. Why? Why did you do it? You were the one woman I’d thought was real and honest, yet you used Ella to gain entry into society…. My God, I don’t even know you!”

“It wasn’t like that!” Katie tried to take his hand, to make him listen, but he pulled away from her in disgust. “You can ask Eileen. I did try to tell her, but it was no use. It’s true, I enjoyed acting as Fan. Is that so hard to understand?” Her voice choked. “Christopher, I had nothing. No money, no clothes, nothing but a lifetime of hard work. And here, like the leprechaun’s pot of gold, I had everything given to me. More gowns than I could imagine. Plenty of food. A nice room. And best of all, I was admitted to a world that before I could only glimpse. Can you imagine what that was like?”

She could see a small bit of the anger leave him, but his eyes were still like ice. “That doesn’t excuse what you did. Ella Pemberton didn’t ask for this betrayal.”

“That’s not fair!” Katie wiped at her cheeks with her fists, hating the stinging tears that sprang to her eyes. “I never meant to hurt Ella. It was partially for her sake that I went along with everything. Christopher, you didn’t see her. She was so thrilled to have Fan back, so happy. She told me that before I came, all she could think about was dying. How could I have told her that my existence was only a figment of her imagination?”

“You still could have told
me
the truth,” Christopher said, his tone fierce. “I would have kept your secret. You married me, slept in my arms last night…. Was all that just part of the plan, too?”

“And what would have happened then?” Katie looked at him defiantly. “Are you saying that you would have still married me? Me, Katie O’Connor, who is a nobody?” She laughed bitterly. “I don’t know everything about your world, but I’ve learned that much. There’s no way you would have wanted me.”

“I couldn’t have married you.” There was a strange tone in his voice and he looked at her with a mixture of rejection and longing. “No matter what I would have wanted, I couldn’t have married you.”

“Why?” Katie stared at him, her eyes wide with pain. “Because I wasn’t good enough? Because my bloodlines weren’t Fan Pemberton’s, because my family doesn’t own real estate? Tell me, dammit, I want to bear it from you.”

“I couldn’t have married you because I haven’t any money!”

Katie’s mouth opened in astonishment as Christopher dropped onto a garden bench, then sank his face into his hands. No money? Her mind whirled in a torrent of confusion. But he was Christopher Scott, of the Philadelphia Scotts, of the Main Line, whose family made their fortune in soaps and perfumes. What he’d just told her made absolutely no sense, but from his stricken posture, she knew he was saying what he believed to be the truth.

Katie suddenly recalled Eunice’s words moments before when Fan had shown up. She’d said something very similar, about them being ruined, about a dowry….

“Christopher,” Katie said softly. “What did Eunice mean? Why don’t you have any money?”

Without lifting his face from his hands, he spoke quietly. “My family lost everything in the 1873 panic. We were heavily invested in railroad stocks, and if you know anything of what happened, they aren’t worth the paper they were printed on. I was on the verge of losing everything. I tried to borrow, to gamble, but there was no hope. My only option was to marry for money.”

“But the courtship, the dinners, the flowers…”

“We sold our paintings,” Christopher said bluntly, looking directly at her for the first time. “Aunt Eunice auctioned off our collection of portraits. That provided enough money for the summer.”

Katie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “So you thought that Fan Pemberton, with her soiled past, would have welcomed you, and you would have the money you needed. It was all perfect, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, goddammit!” Christopher rose to his feet and glared at her. He seemed as angry with himself as with her. “I didn’t want to do this! And I didn’t choose Fan until I got here. Until I met you. I thought I was so damned lucky, that I found a woman that I wanted as well as one who had money. But I didn’t count on being deceived! I’m married to you, and I suddenly realize that I know nothing about you—”

“And what of you?” Katie cried, fighting the pain that threatened to humiliate her. “You lied, too! You let me think you were rich, that you hadn’t a care in the world! Well, it seems Christopher Scott had a few little secrets, too!”

“Enough!” Christopher bellowed. “I can’t hear any more of this! I need to think about it and decide what I want to do. And I suggest you do the same.” He looked at her as if she was beneath contempt. “Now, if you don’t mind, I prefer that you leave. I don’t want to go back to the hotel room and be reminded of last night. I’m sure it won’t bother you.”

Katie turned on her heel and left, letting the sobs overwhelm her. He wanted to think about it; she knew what that meant. He was contemplating divorce.

And there was nothing she could do to stop him.

“…and I can’t believe you were all taken in by this…this imposter! Why, she doesn’t look anything like me! Didn’t anyone think to check her credentials? My God, any tramp off the street could walk in here and you would take her into your bosoms without so much as a fare-thee-well!”

“Oh, Fan, shut up.” Grace plunked down into a seat and stared at her daughter. Fan returned the petulant look, but stopped her tirade long enough to shove several rich cakes into her mouth. “You know,” Grace said tiredly, watching her daughter with distaste, “you’ve created a bit of a problem, though I doubt that overly concerns you. Fan Pemberton now stands to have two scandals. I don’t think the society papers will forgive that.”

Fan’s mouth dropped and she quickly reached for a glass of wine to wash down the cakes. “I can’t believe this.” She wiped her lips with her sleeve and glared at her mother. “I come back after all this time to find myself replaced by some—what did she say she was? A ladies’ companion. She’s slept in my room at Aunt Ella’s, been introduced everywhere as me, married with my name, and all you can care about is the scandal?”

“It is a consideration,” George Pemberton broke in while the others nodded in agreement. “It is a problem not just for us, but for the Scotts.” He glanced sympathetically at Eunice, who still stared at the real Fan Pemberton in confusion. “It’s not that we aren’t concerned about you, Fan. And of course, we’re all happy you’re home. But we have to be careful how we handle things. Many a publicity rag would love this story, and there are others who would take advantage of our dilemma and use it against us. I, for one, have too many business deals pending with society’s elite to risk involvement in any more scandals.”

“And I’m trying to get into the Wissahickon Club,” Stephen Pemberton remarked. “There is a lot of competition for membership. If word leaks out…”

“Everyone has a lot at stake. We do, after all, have two Fan Pembertons. We can’t let that continue.”

“You’re damned right!” Fan said bluntly, seating herself beside George with an outraged glare. “That tramp has enjoyed herself enough! There’s no way this farce will continue!”

“The other question is, how do we tell Ella?” The murmurs in the room died as George glanced suggestively toward the door where the matriarch had exited. “God only knows what this will do to her. We all know how attached she’s become to the girl.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Fan snapped. “I’m back! Ella will be happy when she discovers the truth!”

Everyone’s eyes went to Fan. The traveling garment she wore, still stained from the trip, was a garish and cheap yellow-and-black-striped affair with black lace at her face and throat. Black kohl lined her eyes, and the suggestion of rouge tinged her cheeks. She boldly tapped a fan against the side of the table, heedless of her crossed legs or exposed ankles.

Everyone’s eyes met, and there wasn’t the slightest disagreement that Ella would not be pleased to see that the real Fan was back. Katie O’Connor may not have had breeding or money, but she had been kind to the older woman, and had been a friend. Moreover, she was a lady, which Fan for all the privileges she had enjoyed, was not.

“By the way, Fan, no one has had the opportunity to ask you yet just why you came back.” Grace’s voice was thick with insinuation as she eyed her daughter thoughtfully. “I understood you had found true love.”

Fan flushed, then returned her mother’s stare with a look that wasn’t exactly kind. “Things didn’t work out, that’s all. I thought it best to come home.”

“I see.” Grace nodded, obviously seeing a lot more. “So out of the goodness of your heart, and your suddenly remembered familial duty, you rushed back—”

“We ran out of money.” Fan slammed the table and got to her feet. “You want to know? I’ll tell you. Frank ran out of luck in Frisco. We lost Big. I took to waiting tables in the saloon while he tried to rustle up some cash. It was useless. Frank isn’t a miner or a rancher, and I don’t intend to waste the rest of my life being pinched by some randy cowboy who’s had three beers.”

“Frances!” Eunice said, appalled. “You worked as a waitress? In a saloon?”

Grace waved a hand. “Go on.”

“What else is there to say? I got on the next train for home, and here I am.” She grinned, seeing the shocked faces around her. “I thought this is where I should be. Especially since I’m in the family way. That’s right; you’re all going to have another little Pemberton.”

“My God, Grace, fetch my smelling salts.” Anita Pemberton, one of the younger nieces, fanned herself breathlessly and stared at the young woman before her as if seeing a demon.

Grace snorted. “There’s no time for that. Is that all, Fan? Or is there any other sordid little fact that escaped you?”

“That’s it.” Fan shrugged. “I’ve said my piece, though God knows, I hated to come back to this place. Frisco is my kind of town, not this crummy little backwater or stuffy Philadelphia. But it seems my reappearance is well timed, that’s for sure.”

“Frances.” George spoke softly, though his voice was thick with disdain. “Am I to understand that you would prefer living in California? And that if it wasn’t for the money, you would go back there?”

Fan stared at him for a moment, then nodded, obviously confused. “That’s right, I hate it here. I always did.”

“Well, what if you could go back?”

“Oh, no.” Fan rose, suddenly aware of what they were all thinking. “No. You’re not sending me back and keeping that slut here in my place. You can’t make me—”

“Don’t be so sure, Fan,” Grace broke in, her voice stern. “This really is the best solution. No one outside the family has seen you yet. Fortunately you arrived after the other guests left. Kate can go on as Fan Pemberton while you can live in San Francisco as anyone you wish. No one else has to know anything.”

“No. Absolutely not,” Fan said stubbornly. “I won’t let her—”

“We’ll cut you off without a cent,” George said quietly. The other Pembertons nodded in agreement as Fan glanced quickly around the room. There was no support anywhere. “Think about it, Fan. You’ll have nothing. No money. No clothes. No friends. Why, you might even have to wait tables here for a living.”

Fan glared in hatred at them all, then slammed her fan down on the table and stormed for the door.

“You won’t get away with this! I swear….”

Grace smiled softly as the door slammed shut. “I think we may have just solved our problem.”

From the hotel sitting room, Ella Pemberton stood at the window and watched as the footman hailed a carriage. A dark-haired woman dressed in a cheap yellow gown stepped into the cab. She seemed none too happy, and when she glanced back at the window, her expression showed her outrage.