Authors: Sweet Talking Man
Betina Krahn (41 page)
“Connor Barrow,” Beatrice supplied his name.
“See if there’s a Connor Barrow in one of the men’s cells.”
Goldie contacted a Mary Jean, who contacted a fellow named Boxer in the nearest men’s holding cell. Boxer called up and down the alleys, trying to locate him. And after what seemed like an eternity, word came back that he was indeed in the jail, in a cell block on the next level down.
Beatrice’s heart began to beat normally again. At least he was alive. She gave the woman responsible for getting the information a grateful smile.
“Thank you.”
“In here,” the woman said, glancing around them, “we’re all sisters.”
The return of light was of little help the next morning. The effects of the beer and the brawl had mostly worn off and it was a drooping and subdued bunch who now waited for release. They were allowed morning relief and were given cups of jailhouse coffee and chunks of bread, but there all attempts at humane treatment ended. The jailers refused to listen to Beatrice’s demands that they send for her lawyer and they went about their grim business as if she hadn’t even spoken.
Then mid-afternoon, the jailers came through, calling names, and Beatrice and Lacey were among the first. They were led out to the main sergeant’s desk where prisoners were being processed and released.
There stood Alice and Priscilla. They rushed to hug Beatrice.
“We would have had you out last night, but they made everyone wait until morning,” Alice told Beatrice.
“Are you all right, Aunt Bebe?” Priscilla asked urgently. “Those beastly men didn’t beat you or mistreat you?”
“I’m fine, Prissy.” She stroked her niece’s anxious face, then turned to Alice. “But, Connor—he’s here somewhere—we have to—”
“Already done,” Priscilla said with a smile, nodding toward a door on the far side of the station house. Detective Blackwell was just leading Connor out of the detention area. “We gave James our volunteer list and he’s helping arrange everyone’s re—” She halted, staring in surprise at the person exiting just behind Connor. It was Jeffrey Granton.
Connor had a bruise or two and his cut lip had been reopened; otherwise, he looked hale and well. When he spotted Beatrice he rushed toward her, then slowed as he looked her over with his heart in his eyes.
“Bebe.” He opened his arms and in a heartbeat she was in them and hugging him so tightly he groaned. After a long moment, she looked up with wet eyes and met his kiss … full on the mouth … there, in front of God and everyone.
It was like coming home. She gave herself over to it … allowed it to sink into the deepest recesses of her heart and her being … surrendered that last, guarded bit of control … and let love take her wherever it wanted.
“Are you all right?” she said, touching his lip and then the dried gash on his forehead. “I was so worried.”
He grinned, even though it hurt like the very devil. “I’m fine. In fact”—he took a deep breath—“I don’t think I’ve ever felt better.”
“Connor, I’m so sorry. I never imagined it would be so rough and dangerous. I saw you fall and couldn’t get to you—”
“You don’t have to be sorry.” He put his finger against her lips. “Maybe a clout on the head is what I’ve needed
to help me see things clearer. I’ve had a long night to think about it, and I realized that I have everything I want right here in my arms … right now. Losing this election may be the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Are you sure? Connor, you didn’t even get to vote.”
“True.” He chuckled. “But I have it on good authority that Dipper and Shorty each voted several times. I’ll just consider one of their votes mine.”
Priscilla came face-to-face with Jeffrey for the first time since their parting, that day in the dormitory. He had his battered coat over his arm, a bruise on his cheek, and a tear in the knee of his trousers.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, glancing past him to the jail door he had just exited. “And what happened to you?”
“I was there to see how the election was going. When I saw Cousin Connor go down … well … nobody treats a Barrow that way.”
“Jeff, here, got in a few good punches,” Connor put in with a smile, and Jeffrey straightened, clearly pleased. “Call it one last fling … before he leaves for France.”
“France?” Priscilla said, surprised.
“My father is shipping me off for a grand tour. Starting in Paris.”
For a moment, Priscilla and Jeffrey came eye to eye, wary and yet hungry for some resolution of the conflict between them. After a meaningful pause, Priscilla lifted her chin and produced a taut but genuine smile.
“I hope you’ll have a wonderful trip, Jeffrey. I really do.”
With a visible relaxation of tension, he returned her smile. “Thank you, Priscilla.” He squared his shoulders as if a weight had just rolled from them. “I’ll send you a picture postcard from Paris.”
“That would be nice,” she said with a nod.
As Jeffrey tipped his hat to Beatrice and Connor, and struck off down the street, Priscilla turned back to her aunt and cleared her throat. “Are we ready to go? The carriage is outside and I have a ton of work to do. I suppose I’m going to have to be the one to clean up that mess at Woodhull House and shut down our campaign headquarters.” She gave a long-suffering sigh. “A woman’s work is never done.”
“Unless …” Detective Blackwell put in, watching Priscilla with a twinkle in his eye, “Mr. Barrow would like to keep it open. He’s probably got a great head start on the
next
election.”
Connor groaned and clapped Blackwell on the shoulder. “By all means, close it down.” He looked at Bebe. “Who knows where I’ll be in two years. I could just be the head of the largest and most profitable bank in the city. Or I might be a husband.” He gave Bebe a squeeze. “I might even be a
father
.”
“Let’s go home.” Beatrice beamed up at him. “And tonight we’ll have the biggest, best
loser’s
dinner ever.”
“Sounds wonderful to me,” he said.
And as they stepped outside, into the glorious autumn sunshine, they were both determined, for the first time, to let life take them where it wanted.
BY THE TIME
they reached the carriage, they spotted a small crowd of people headed their way, with a dark-clad figure hobbling along at their head. They paused long enough to realize that it was Hurst Barrow, leaning heavily on his walking stick and waving a newspaper with his free hand. They looked at each other, puzzled,
and turned from the coach to meet him. As the group drew closer, they could see the infamous Artie Higgins and at least a dozen other news reporters firing questions at the old man … whom they left in the dust the instant they spotted Connor.
“What do you think, Congressman?” one shouted as he ran toward them.
“How does it feel?” another wanted to know, rushing up to him.
“How does what feel?” Connor asked, pulling Bebe protectively against his side.
“Don’t you lot say a word!” the old man bellowed. “I want to tell him!”
Connor looked over the reporters’ heads to where his grandfather was barreling through the group to reach him. “What is it?” he asked, as the old man caught his breath. “What’s happened?”
“You won!” Hurst panted out, brandishing the newspaper as proof. “Look for yourself. You won!”
“I did?” Connor said, grabbing the paper and opening it to bold headlines declaring that he had won by a mere handful of votes. Tammany Hall was furious, charging every sort of malfeasance imaginable and demanding a recount. “How the devil did that happen?”
“There he is! Hey, gov!” came a familiar voice, approaching from the other direction. They discovered Dipper and Shorty hurrying up with Dipper’s cousin, Mary Kate, swaying along behind. “Did ye hear? Ye won!”
Connor shook his head in disbelief. “I just heard! I can’t imagine how.”
“It was yer volunteers, Congressman.” Mary Kate sauntered up and struck a pose, straightening her spine and raising her shoulders to make the most of her world-class
cleavage. “Some of us just know how to get out the vote.”
Connor stared at the gleam in Mary Kate’s eye then looked to Bebe, who bit her lip, but then burst into a grin anyway.
As the reporters’ pencils poised to take down his every word, Connor looked down at Bebe with a wondering smile. “If I really have won … and I’ll wait for all of the results of all of the challenges to be certain … then I’m pleased that the people have placed such trust in me. And I’ll do my best to be worthy of the opportunity they have given me to serve and to lead.”
Life, apparently, was taking them to Washington. Together. Bebe’s eyes were shining, but he remembered too well that it was dangerous to make assumptions about her.
“And I want to say one more thing.” He turned to her and took both of her hands. “Beatrice Von Furstenberg, you’re the most outrageous, stubborn, courageous, scandalous, and flat-out dangerous woman I’ve ever known. And I won’t rest until you agree to marry me.”
She laughed, surprised. Then she realized. “You’re serious.”
“Absolutely.”
“Well …” Her eyes twinkled. “I suppose I could be persuaded …”
PILOGUE
New York, Present day
“
ARE YOU SURE
it’s up here, Nana?” Courtney Barrow waved away a billow of dust and picked up the battered lamp shade she had knocked down onto the attic floor. Then she planted her hands on her hips and looked around her at the collected domestic surplus of six generations. “I never would have asked if I had known it would cause this much trouble.”
“What trouble?” Colleen flashed her granddaughter a grin and wiped a wisp of graying hair back from her moist forehead. “I’m sure I saw it up here last year when we were moving things up from the spare bedroom. Now where did we put … oh … over there.” She pointed to a stack of chests, crates, and barrels stuffed back under the eaves.
They located, between the chests and the wall, several large, ornate pictures stacked together on their sides. Colleen squinted into the gloom, trying to make out if the picture she recalled was among them.
“I think that’s it.” She pointed to a sizable frame bearing fading gilt.
Together, they pulled it out and carried it over to the attic window. Colleen wiped the dusty glass with the heel of her hand. The dark-clad figures of a man and a woman stared back at them. At ease. Domestic and yet somehow dignified. The woman was seated in a Victorian-style chair and the man stood beside her with his hand on her shoulder.
“Happy-looking pair, weren’t they?” Courtney said dryly.
“Well, you can’t always tell by looking,” Colleen said.
“Oh, yes you can.” Courtney gave her grandmother an authoritative look. “They were Victorians. The men waxed their mustaches and sniffed women’s gloves for turn-ons, and the women wore fifty-pound bustles and fainted at the thought of somebody seeing their ankles. This pair probably did it … how many kids did you say they had?”
“Four.”
“Okay, they did it four times. Maybe
five,
for good measure.”
Colleen laughed and shook her head. “You kids … you think you have a lock on love and passion.”
“So that’s Beatrice,” Courtney said, staring at the woman’s light eyes and Gibson-girl coif. “Lord—look at her waist. Must have been a heck of a corset. Women used to have ribs removed so they would have waists that small.” She curled her nose. “Whatever would possess a woman to do that to herself?”
Colleen looked at the row of gold rings up the rim of her granddaughter’s ear and bit her tongue.
“And that was the congressman,” Colleen said, tapping the glass above the man’s face. “He only served two
terms, then went back into the family business. Banking. Handsome devil, wasn’t he?” She smiled in admiration.
“Yeah. Probably had his share of honeys on the side. The old Victorian double standard. It’s
her
I’m interested in.” Courtney wiped more of the dust and cobwebs away. “I was so excited when I found her name on an old membership roster of the NAWSA. A real family connection to my thesis work on the history of the women’s suffrage movement.”
“Here—let’s take this downstairs and clean it up,” Colleen said and shifted it to take more of the weight. But as she carried it toward the stairs, she brushed the back of it against an old bed frame and heard a rip.
They stopped and looked, but there didn’t seem to be any damage until they reached the better light of the upper hallway. The heavy brown paper glued over the back of the picture was ripped and inside it, they saw something that looked like newsprint.
It was only when they turned the picture upside down on the dining-room table to assess the damage, that they realized the paper inside the back wasn’t just stuffing … it was tied with a faded ribbon … something put there to be preserved.
Gingerly they removed what appeared to be a packet of news clippings. And as they unfolded and read the brittle newsprint, their jaws dropped.
BARROW FLIRTS WITH WOMEN’S RIGHTS.
BARROW MAKES GOOD ON PROMISE:
BANK FOR WOMEN CHARTERED!
SCANDAL ROCKS CONSOLIDATED—
WOMAN PRESIDENT FACES MORALS CHARGE!
CONGRESSMAN DEFENDS ‘JEZEBEL’—
IT WAS ‘RESCUE WORK’ IN A BROTHEL!
BARROW OFF BALLOT—
BREAK WITH TAMMANY OVER WOMEN’S RIGHTS!
BARROW BACK ON BALLOT
BARROW WINS CONGRESSIONAL SEAT!
VON FURSTENBERG-BARROW NUPTIALS
.
After an hour of poring over their discovery, Courtney sat back and looked with fresh respect at the pair in the picture that was now faceup on the table.
“He was a feminist and she was … a wild woman.” She looked at her grandmother with surprise. “She ran her own company and either romped around in a brothel or tried to ‘rescue’ prostitutes, depending on which account you want to believe.” She smiled and shook her head. “I guess you can’t
always
tell by looking.”
Colleen’s eyes sparkled.
“Imagine that.”
A muffled electronic chirp came from the overstuffed backpack propped in a nearby chair. Courtney lunged for it, unearthed a cell phone, and punched a key to answer the call.
“Courtney Barrow,” she said in clipped tones. The voice on the other end of the line brought her to her feet in an instant. “Just a minute, Nana,” she said aside to Colleen, “I have to take this call.” As she hurried out into the entry hall, her voice softened markedly.
From the quiet dining room Colleen caught a single word.
Jeffrey.
Smiling, she rose and carried the portrait to the grand buffet set against the wall. Propping it up amongst the
silver serving pieces, she was arrested by something about the painting and paused, staring intently at the honored pair. Then she glanced through the door at her granddaughter’s flushed and glowing face and back to the serene and loving countenances in the painting.
“Some things,” she said with a wry laugh, “never change.”