Arizona Gold (29 page)

Wed for love of country, Thea quickly realizes her marriage has become so much more…

Heirloom

© 2014 Eleanora Brownleigh

Emerald-eyed Thea is a consummate professional. Whether charming locals in a Mexican villa or impressing aristocracy in a European salon, Thea has one thing in mind—completing her assignment. As an American spy, every move she makes is for the love of her country.

When a new mission leads her to become the blushing bride of a dashing aristocrat, no one guesses that it is not a love match, but instead the start of a perilous assignment. But as they are swept up in the danger surrounding them, Thea realizes that her husband is no longer just a partner—he’s become a lot more.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Heirloom:

“Do you understand why we need you?”

There was no chance of mistaking the man seated behind the plain oak desk. His bluff, sanguine appearance was known all over the world, but this afternoon his usually hearty, genial voice was lowered to nearly a whisper, and his piercing gaze behind pince-nez spectacles was fixed on the young woman seated across from him on the hard, unattractive sofa upholstered in a dismal purple plush.

“The final decision is yours, of course,” he went on as she made no immediate reply. “We certainly don’t want to coerce you into this.”

“Don’t worry,” she assured him, smiling. “I plan to think this thing through
very
carefully. It isn’t every day that a New York interior decorator and antique dealer is asked by her President to go to Mexico and—how can I put it?—‘look in’ on the German Embassy.”

Theodosia Harper rose from the sofa and crossed the floor, moving normally despite the motion of the train. They were in the President’s private railroad car, speeding across the green, open plains of the Illinois-Missouri border toward St. Louis. It was a scalding hot, early September day and the shades in the car were drawn against the sun, leaving them in a state of semi-gloom. Which, Thea couldn’t help thinking as she cautiously raised a shade to gaze out at the farmland they were hurtling through, wasn’t such an awful thing considering the Spartan, utilitarian way the entire car was furnished. No rare tapestries or gold-leaf ceilings or antique furniture here. The American people wanted their President to live comfortably and well, but without any of the luxuries his millionaire friends and advisors travelled in.

“I should have known something special was up the moment Colonel Miles turned up in my office,” she said humorously, not bothering to turn around. “Actually, he walked in at the perfect moment. I was just back from Europe and about to be buried under all my paperwork. When a dealer buys antiques abroad, she has to be very sure that all her letters of authentication are in order unless she wants to spend a lot of time with the men from Customs. When the colonel walked in, I’d just about had it and I begged him to take me away. I guess I got my wish.

Two months away from her twenty-sixth birthday, Thea Harper was well-educated, witty, attractive, and as tall as most men. Her glossy brown hair was swept up into a Gibson Girl knot and her figure was superbly suited for the clothes she purchased from Paquin, Poiret, and Lucile. There was a sort of breezy ebullience about her, which, combined with a basic kindness, inspired newly made millionaires’ wives, who were either reduced to shaking nerves by the supercilious young male decorators who looked down their noses at them or struck dumb at the idea of patronizing the great firm of Duveen’s even though they could easily afford it, to make Thea their confidant while she sold them antiques or gave them advice about decorating their new mansions.

Her firm, “Theodosia Harper: Antiques and Interiors,” was just two years old, but had already created a hallmark for those who wanted coolly elegant but comfortable homes full of soft colors, good books, delicate bibelots, fine paintings, and no concessions to the heavy draperies, Turkish carpets and overstuffed Belter furniture most of her clients had grown up with.

Her suite of offices in a modern Fifth Avenue office building was its own best advertisement. Located a few blocks south of the Waldorf-Astoria, her out-of-town clients could walk over for their initial appointment with her after a late breakfast. Coming off the elevator and stepping through the double doors for the first time, they were greeted by Thea’s secretary, who had her own small alcove with an oval satinwood desk, and were ushered into the reception room where, according to plan, Thea always gave prospective clients a few minutes alone to admire the decor before being shown into her office.

The large Limoges cache-pot filled with a lush arrangement of pale pink peonies, columbine, tulips, and statice made of silk, satin, and velvet that Fromentin in Paris had designed for her was the favorite. More than one lady had hurried across the off-white, powder blue, and taupe Chinese carpet to the Chinese Chippendale table with the English Chippendale gilt-frame mirror hanging above it to sniff the opulent bouquet before realizing it was false. After that embarrassing mistake, they usually went to the delicate Sheraton mahogany inlaid occasional tables where the real bouquets—arranged for Thea by Sarah Tucker and Alice Babcock at The Fernery, the fashionable florist shop and tea room on Thirty-third Street—were displayed, before sitting down on the black and gold stenciled Sheraton settee upholstered in taupe silk.

It was such a relaxing atmosphere that, by the time they entered her office and saw the haute-couture clad young woman sitting in the oval back George III armchair behind the Adam style mahogany inlaid writing table, they were certain that all their decorating problems would be solved.

When she had opened her firm, Thea made two rules and stuck to them. Never take on a client she didn’t like and, although her fees did run very high, never overcharge. In terms of personality and payment it would have been very easy to take outrageous advantage of these women (other decorators certainly did) but Thea was above that sort of behavior. She was open and honest with them on all subjects except one. After all, it was really no one’s business that every so often she did a favor for the President of the United States. The first favor had started her on her own business and somehow, in a series of complicated twists and turns, the latest request had brought her here.

Colonel Hugh Miles was the second-in-command of Military Intelligence, and when he’d walked into Thea’s office ten days ago, she should have immediately suspected he was in New York to do more than take her to lunch at the Waldorf after she’d helped him select a piece of porcelain from her collection for his wife’s birthday.

“Has some prominent Republican friend of the President’s unknowingly picked up a stolen Titian or some hot jewels in Paris or Amsterdam?” she inquired jokingly after they greeted one another and he was ensconced in the chair where her clients usually sat. “If the President needs me in Washington for a few days to smooth things over and facilitate the return, tell him I’ll be glad to do it.”

“No new clients then?”

Thea pushed aside the sheafs of paper that were covering her desk and held up several letters tied with green ribbon. “Would you care to pick one for me? So far, I have an offer to do an apartment here in town, a house in Albany, a small mansion in Wilmington, and a sweet inquiry from a woman outside of Oklahoma City who wants to know how much I’d charge to redecorate her ranch house. Honest,” she said, seeing Miles’ startled expression. “She read all about me in the ‘Women of Interest’ series in
Harper’s Bazaar
. Unless you, on behalf of T.R., can offer me something else, I may just accept.” She made a sweeping motion at her desk. “Did you ever see such a mess? I got off the
La Savoie
on Monday afternoon and haven’t seen the wood on this desk since.”

Miles seemed to have acquired a sudden interest in the assortment of blue and white Oriental porcelains she kept in the glass fronted vitrine on the other side of the room. “Are you really interested in getting away for a while? I think we might be able to oblige you.”

“Well, a couple of days in Washington is better than nothing. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t been so successful in returning that diamond tiara in Budapest two years ago. Now the President thinks I’m the only one who can straighten out his friends’ mishaps.” She gave him a conspirator’s smile. “What happened this time? Don’t tell me someone ‘accidentally’ purchased the Mona Lisa.”

But it hadn’t been like that at all, and now she stood silently by the train window thinking everything over—all the possibilities, all the consequences.

Hugh Miles hadn’t told her much of anything except that the President wanted her to take a trip to Mexico. She would need her best clothes and be prepared to remain away indefinitely.

After that basic bit, of information had been delivered, he only wanted to know if she could conclude her business in time to go to Washington with him the following Wednesday so they could join Roosevelt on the Presidential train on Thursday morning.

For a second, Thea stared wordlessly at him across the flawless expanse of white damask tablecloth in the Waldorf. “But today is Friday. I have to put all my paperwork in order, close up my office and apartment, pack—not to mention little things like answering my mail and placating a couple of beaus who intend to take me to some Broadway opening nights over the next couple of weeks.”

Miles waved away a waiter who was hovering obsequiously nearby. “Anyone serious?”

“What?
No
.”

His normally reserved, hawklike face relaxed. “Well, then. Thea, I know we’re not giving you very much notice, but we really need your help in this.”

Thea raised her eyebrows questioningly, took a sip of ice water, opened the elaborate, gold tasseled menu, and scanned the dessert selection before lifting her gaze to the colonel. “Tell me,” she said in a deliberately casual voice, “what kind of weather can I expect in Mexico at this time of year?”

It was an impossible task to contemplate, and yet, in the space of four-and-a-half days, she had put her life in a state of near suspension. Potential clients were gently refused, the apartment at 34 Gramercy Park was returned to the dust covers it had been placed under when she’d left for Europe in June. Morgan Guaranty would pay all incoming bills for her, her secretary would come to the office every day to answer the phone and collect the mail.

On Saturday night she went to the opening of
Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch
starring Madge Carr Cook—the only social engagement she hadn’t cancelled. To her married friends who were already planning their fall dinner parties, and to the young men who wanted to take her to the theatre, she followed Miles’ advice and told them she had to make an unexpected business trip out of town.

“It isn’t far from the truth,” he’d said when she asked. “I understand there are a lot of antiques in Mexico.”

It had gone almost
too
smoothly. On Wednesday night she’d found herself in Washington in the new Shoreham Hotel with an uncountable pile of luggage, two letters of credit (one personal, one business), no more information on what she was expected to do than when Colonel Miles had entered her office, and the odd feeling that a chapter of her life had been sealed off and would never be the same again.

It wasn’t until Thea, the President, Colonel Miles and a Mr. Simpson from the State Department were in the private car and well on their way out of Washington, that she was told what they were considering and how she could be of help to them. They had retired to their rooms to pack and rest, leaving her and Roosevelt alone for one last conference and her answer.

“You haven’t told me with whom I’ll be working,” she said, still looking out the window. “From what you’ve told me, it doesn’t sound like something one person could handle.”

“It isn’t,” he agreed. “You will travel with one other person and, of course, you’ll have a contact at our Embassy in Mexico City. Major John Donovan will meet you in San Antonio and fill you in on the final details.”

“Such as the name of my travelling companion?” Thea asked. And if it’s some dried-up old duenna, you can put me and my luggage off the train right here and now, she added to herself.

“Yes.” There was a subdued chuckle. “A good way of putting it. Travelling companion. You have the same way with words as you do with decorating, my dear.”

“Thank you, Mr. President.”

“Although I cannot name a name as yet, I can tell you that your…helpmeet will be male.”

Thea wasn’t sure if it was the train that lurched suddenly or her heart. Was she crazy? Were they
all
crazy? What was she doing here anyway?
The very idea.
Run on down to Mexico like a good girl, Thea, and eavesdrop in the German Embassy. And, oh, by the way, we’re pairing you off with a man, only we can’t tell you his name yet. Would Ida Tarbell love to get her hands on this!

But through her rush of disbelief, anger and shock, whimsy was starting to poke its way to the surface and her natural curiosity was sparked. Young? Old? Dishonorable? Well-bred? What? Thea was a normal woman with a healthy regard toward men and she was intrigued by the mechanics of the male-female relationship. The natural distaste she’d felt at the thought of snooping on people—even if they
were
Germans—receded into the background.

“Well, Theodosia, we’ll be in St. Louis in another hour or two. Have you made your decision?”

“What happens to me when we reach St. Louis?” Thea knew she was being exasperating, but she liked things spelled out in black and white. Muddy philosophies and half-truths didn’t suit her and certainly didn’t belong on an assignment like this.

“You will be escorted off the train by Colonel Miles and taken to the Jefferson Hotel. Mrs. Miles is already there, and the three of you will have a few days to enjoy the Exposition and do some sightseeing and shopping. When word is received that everything in San Antonio has been finalized, you’ll be put on the Katy and Major Donovan will meet you at the other end. That will be your jumping-off spot.”