A Light For My Love (19 page)

Susan Price stood by, wringing her hands
helplessly. Her eyes were huge, and the color drained out of her
already pale face. "I tried to stop him, but when we went to the
back parlor after dinner, he saw his chair was missing and, well—"
Susan gestured toward Cap.

"It's all right, Susan. Cap, please don't be
upset," China began, facing him.

The old man bawled on, his craggy face as
creased and weathered as a walnut shell. His pipe bobbed up and
down with each angry word. "Upset! Where do I find my favorite
chair? In that fancy parlor you don't let anyone sit in, so I guess
I can bid it a fare-thee-well, now can't I?" He bent a severe look
on her, waving a gnarled hand at her gown. "And what the hell kind
of dress is that for a decent woman to wear? Your titties will be
falling out of that thing like peaches from a leaky bushel
basket."

"Cap!" China gasped at the vulgar rebuke,
accentuating the reason for his objection to the dress. Susan
uttered a little shriek, then clapped her hand over her mouth.

Her nerves already on edge, China was in no
mood for his tantrum. "Just you never mind about my gown. As for
your chair, we only borrowed it for this evening. You knew
that—Jake explained that to you, didn't he?" He'd said he would; if
he hadn't, she'd brain him.

At this question, Cap's jaw dropped and his
petulance evaporated, replaced by guilty chagrin. He scratched his
scalp through his thin white hair.

"Well, by God, I guess he did. I suppose I
must have forgotten about it."

She pursed her mouth and gave him a look as
stern as he'd given her earlier, but said nothing.

He patted her hand clumsily. "You won't hold
it against me, will you, Missy? You can't blame a man for getting
old and forgetful." He glanced away, his blue eyes faded. "At least
I hope you don't, because there's not a damned thing I can do about
it."

His expression was contrite, but it was his
words that made her eyes sting suddenly. She couldn't be angry with
him. She clasped his frail arm inside the heavy sweater. "Don't
worry about it, Cap. It's all right. Now why don't you go with
Susan to the back parlor? You can sit on the sofa just for tonight,
can't you? I promise Jake will put your chair back before he goes
to bed."

"Aye, girl." He turned to leave, then stopped
to give her gown another once-over and shook his head. "I'll tell
you something, though. If I was your father, I'd blister your fanny
for wearing a dress like that. I don't care if you're a grown
woman. You wouldn't sit down for a week." He grinned at her then,
his pipe shifting in his teeth. "But if I was forty years younger,
I'd give that young buck in there a good run for his money. And I'd
win." He tipped her a wink.

China laughed in genuine amusement and
fondness. Cap was a dear old devil. She watched Susan lead him
away, then turned back to the dining room. Taking a deep breath,
she touched a hand to her hair and pulled open the doors.

The low murmuring ceased, and again she was
the focus of all eyes. "Well!" she said brightly, trying to
camouflage the awkwardness she felt. "If everyone has finished,
shall we retire to the parlor?"

There was a lot of shuffling and scraping of
chair legs on the bare hardwood floor as the guests hauled
themselves to their feet. Jake walked over to her and took her
elbow.

"Is everything okay?" he asked in a casual
but confidential tone.

"Yes," she replied, acutely conscious of his
warm hand on her arm. "Cap was being, well, Cap. He was upset about
his chair."

Jake flashed her a crooked grin. "It sounded
like he was more upset about peaches in a bushel basket." He
squeezed her elbow before releasing it, then walked past her to the
hallway.

That boor! China fumed, wishing she could
have kicked his shins. She followed his broad-shouldered back with
her eyes, boiling with outrage and embarrassment. God, did that
mean everyone had heard Cap's scolding?

"China, whoever was that musty old crosspatch
who came to the door? Is he one of your paying guests?" Lavinia
Buchanan asked as she brushed crumbs from her black silk lap.

The insult was unmistakable. "Captain
Meredith is a member of the family," she replied tightly.

"
Mon Dieu
," China heard Julia
Stanhope's affected murmur behind her. "If I had family like that,
I'd lock him in the cellar."

CHAPTER SEVEN

The evening wore on in the firelit parlor,
with brandy and port for all. After China played several piano
selections, the men convened around the mantel to discuss business,
while the ladies gathered on her assembled brocade love seats and
chairs to engage in lighter conversation.

For China, the fine glow that had embraced
her earlier in the evening had dimmed, although she wasn’t certain
why. Sipping her wine, she felt oddly disconnected, a foreign
observer outside the group. Though lacking the lively exchanges
about literature and music that she’d so enjoyed, the discourse
among these women was typical of what she remembered from parties
long past: which debutantes had become engaged and which of those
matches were ill-advised, the suspiciously frequent number of trips
made to Portland by the mayor’s sister-n-law (“Well, you know it
must have something to do with a man”), the gruesome, whispered
details of Mrs. Warner’s
eighth
lying-in, the outrageous
price of Swiss chocolate.

Although she nodded and made appropriate
responses, with dull surprise China realized how insignificant it
all seemed to her now, and how frivolous and cruel these women
could be. After losing the captain and her brothers, after tending
men in the carriage house who'd been drugged and beaten in saloons
and dark, fetid alleys, she could hardly care about the best way to
remove a wine stain from a velvet ball gown.

Was this how she'd been discussed after being
ostracized? Probably, she thought, based on Lavinia Buchanan's
report of what she'd heard.

China still yearned for the ceremonies and
celebrations of life—an elegant table with fine china and silver,
good food, and beautiful clothes. But at this moment the table in
her mind's eye stood with only two place settings because there was
no one in this room she'd care to share it with
except . . .

Resolutely, she pushed the thought from her
mind.

*~*~*

Jake nursed his first brandy, while the men
around him partook more freely. The heat from the fireplace made
him wish he could loosen his tie and open his collar, but he knew
it would be at least a couple of hours before he could get out of
these uncomfortable clothes. Still, the expense and preparation for
this party had proven worthwhile. He had meetings scheduled with
two of the three men, Emory Stanhope excepted, who was becoming
soddenly drunk. Jake glanced across the room at the knot of women
and decided that if he were married to Julia Stanhope, he'd
probably be drunk a lot of the time himself.

His gaze drifted a bit to the left, where
cool and lovely and slightly remote China perched on a chair. She
was a charming and gracious hostess, there was no question about
that. To the casual observer she appeared to be listening to
Julia's affected bleating, but Jake sensed her thoughts were on
something else entirely. What she saw in those women, he couldn't
guess. Hollis's wife seemed all right, but those other two—though
their clothes were nicer, they had fewer manners than some of the
saloon girls he'd known in his time.

Their husbands were a little better, but
still caught up in the snares of social position and rank. He
couldn't imagine sitting down to have a beer and swap stories with
any of them. They were all too stiff and self-important for that
kind of informality. But that wasn't why they were here,
anyway.

Watching China, he saw the way her hand
curved around her wineglass and imagined it lying palm up in his
own while he lifted it to his mouth and pressed a kiss into its
warm softness. Just then she turned her eyes on him and laid her
open hand on her lap, as though she shared the same thought.

"Still with us, Chastain?" Peter Hollis
nudged him.

With effort Jake pulled his attention back to
the group. "Sorry, what did you say?"

"We were discussing the new president,
Benjamin Harrison. He's promised to impose a tariff to protect
American manufacturing interests against foreign imports. Do you
think you'll be affected by that?"

Stanhope broke in, his voice overloud and
somewhat blurry around the edges. Perspiration gleamed on his
forehead and upper lip. "By God, I don't give a damn what he does.
It's good enough to have a Republican back in the White House after
Cleveland."

One of the things Jake had learned from his
father was to avoid discussing religion or politics.

Pop hadn't told him that outright. Instead
he'd set the example by getting into roaring arguments with the
patrons at the Blue Mermaid and the neighbors on Tenth Street,
haranguing people until they began to avoid him.

Jake resisted the urge to put two fingers
inside his collar to ease the tightness. "Since I've spent so much
time out of the country the last few years, I really haven't
followed politics here."

"Just as well, Chastaine, just as well,"
Stanhope said over a soft belch, and looked at his wife. "Time,
politicians, and the ladies have turned my hair gray. Gr—granted,
the ladies were a good deal more fun."

China's head came up at the burst of laughter
that rose from the men's group. Jake seemed to be having a good
time, she thought grumpily, at least more so than she was. Lavinia
had wrested the conversation away from Julia, and now China and
Elizabeth Hollis were hostages of a monologue that might very well
have no end.

At that moment the front doorbell rang, and
she jumped as though she'd been prodded with a hot wire. Oh, God,
she'd almost forgotten. Although uncertain about the wisdom of the
plan she'd devised, she was grateful to escape Lavinia's
domination, and she rose from her chair.

"Well, who in the world could that be at this
hour?" Lavinia demanded, apparently quite annoyed at being
interrupted. She read the clock on the library table. "It's
nine-thirty."

China's gaze slid nervously to Jake, who sent
her a quizzical look. She quickly looked away. "Please do continue,
Lavinia. I'll see to it." She rose from her chair and left the
parlor, her hands pressed to her skirts to muffle their
rustling.

Through the glass in the double front doors
she saw the silhouette of a man's shoulders. She reached for the
knob and turned it to let in Dalton Williams.

"Dalton," she murmured. "How good to see
you."

"Hello, China." After a stunned, admiring
glimpse at her gown, he gave her a brief smile. "You look—very
nice."

"Thank you. I'm glad you were able to come
by," she replied.

Another burst of laughter came from the front
parlor. "Does Chastaine know?" he asked.

She shook her head. "It didn't seem like a
good idea to tell him."

Dalton remained right next to the door,
looking decidedly uncomfortable, which was unusual for him. He'd
been in the house only one other time, and that had been the first
day she ever laid eyes on him. In the two years since, they'd
always met in the carriage house. The lifestyle of the privileged
was even more alien to him than it was to Jake. He lived in a
furnished room over Columbia Cigar and Tobacco Store, which, of
course, China had never seen. But in a rare moment of
self-disclosure Dalton had once told her that he'd never known his
father and that his consumptive mother, to support herself and her
son, had done "whatever she had to" until her death at age
twenty-four, leaving behind nine-year-old Dalton. After three years
of living in the streets and at the back doors of restaurant
kitchens in New York, he'd gone to sea as a cabin boy.

Tonight he wore a tired-looking dark suit
that China was sure he'd either borrowed or bought secondhand for
this occasion. She couldn't expect a man whose chief activities
took him into saloons, brothels, and alleys to own formal evening
clothes. But still, his attire tonight was a noticeable step up
from his typical uniform of pea coat and dungarees. His fine,
unruly brown hair was sternly repressed with hair tonic, and his
tie, China noted wryly, was knotted correctly.

"Shall we meet the other guests?" she
asked.

"All right," he said. He looked around the
hall with a wide-eyed glance, and she heard him take a deep,
steadying breath as she led him into the front parlor. From the
corner of her eye, she saw Jake stiffen as soon as they set foot in
the room. Oh, please don't let him make a scene, she prayed.
Everyone else was alert at their entrance—Dalton electrified a room
with his presence.

Jake stepped forward, suddenly seeming even
taller than usual, his thick, pale hair reflecting the firelight.
His eyes were as dark as emeralds, fixed on Dalton, his expression
blank.

"China," he said, his voice smooth and
controlled, "who is your guest?"

An icy lump formed in the pit of her stomach.
She'd thought her plan brilliant when she conceived of it. Now she
wasn't so sure. "Captain Jake Chastaine, this is Dalton Williams,"
she said, going through the motions of proper etiquette even
though, in fact, she knew each man recognized the other. A tense,
silent moment followed. Neither offered a handshake.

The two glared at each other with barely
disguised hostility, and she pulled Dalton away to meet the rest of
the group.

She hurriedly introduced him to the others,
who surveyed him with mystification until China added, "Dalton
oversees one of the charities I've been busy with."

"Really? Well, I'm involved with a few
charities myself," Julia beamed. "Mostly I've been working with St.
Mary's Hospital Committee"—here her horsey grin turned into a bit
of a scowl—"although those blasted nuns are so bossy, it's a
trial." She leaned forward and remarked confidentially, "They're
Catholic, you know."