Every Perfect Gift (25 page)

Ethan smiled. As personally repugnant as Horace Blakely had become to him over the past few months, he had to admit the man had no peer when it came to making money. Ergo, there was no reason why he shouldn’t contribute, albeit unwittingly, to Sophie’s bottom line.

He poured another cup of coffee from the silver carafe O’Brien had brought and opened the latest issue of the
Gazette
. He perused front-page stories about Race Day and about last month’s America’s Cup yacht race in which the
Mayflower
defeated the British challenger,
Galatea
. Sophie R. Caldwell was nobody’s fool. The people of Hickory Ridge might be more interested in local affairs, but for many of Blue Smoke’s moneyed guests, yacht races—especially the America’s Cup—amounted almost to a religion. Every guest was sure to buy a copy of this edition.

He turned the page. A pen-and-ink illustration of a kind-faced woman in a pert, flowered hat was accompanied by a large headline. “Ask the Answer Lady.”

Dear Answer Lady: My mother passed on unexpectedly last month, and Pa has already taken himself a new wife. They’re too old to bring more children
into the world, so I do not understand the big hurry. This woman is after nothing but Pa’s hundred acres and his mule, plus my ma’s good teacups, which she used only for company. How can I get him to come to his senses?

Ethan frowned. As serious as Sophie was about her newspaper, an advice column must be a desperate attempt to earn more money. He set the paper aside.

Once, long ago, he had been too young and powerless to help those who mattered the most. That was over and done with, buried deep in his heart. Nothing could change the past. But he was no longer alone, young, and afraid. He could help Sophie Caldwell, and he would, no matter the cost.

Perhaps then, at last, he would feel washed clean.

Redeemed.

TWENTY

The woman at Sophie’s door removed her rain-splotched hat and shook out her hair. Numb with shock and disbelief, Sophie stared at her. She was the same person who had appeared months before at the
Gazette
, only to run away with scarcely a word.

Sophie opened her mouth to speak but had no voice. Was the woman’s claim true, or was this some cruel hoax?

The woman gestured toward the room. “May I come in?”

“Sophie?” Gillie draped herself in the quilt from Sophie’s bed. “What’s the matter? Who’s there?”

“I . . . Come in.”

The woman swept into the room, her damp skirts dragging across the worn carpet. She spun around, taking in the furnishings, then lifted the curtain and let it fall. “Why, the old Verandah hasn’t changed a bit since I lived here. My room was number nine, just across the hall. Of course I didn’t stay here long. I married Nate Chastain and got out of this place—not a moment too soon, let me tell you.”

Sophie blinked. This was the woman who had wed dear Mr. Chastain and then abandoned him?

The woman grabbed both of Sophie’s hands and drew her close. “Dear little Sophie, if only you knew how long I have waited
for this moment. There were days when I despaired of ever seeing you again.”

Sophie looked into the woman’s face, an older version of her own—the same green eyes framed with brows that swept upward like dark wings, the same cheekbones and forehead. It was easy to believe this stranger could be her mother. For years she had imagined this moment, prayed for it, longed for it. Now she felt completely detached, as if she were encased in ice.

“Don’t you remember me at all, Sophie?” the woman asked. “I know you were just a baby when I . . . but don’t you remember the songs I used to sing to you? Remember when we sat on the lawn counting fireflies? Remember the stories I used to tell you about the princess from Africa?”

Sophie’s heart jolted. She did recall a fragment of just such a story—the same one she had spun for Ada Caldwell one bright October afternoon. The childhood memory rushed over her like a chill wind.
“Onct they was a princess, lived all the way in Africa. One day a ship came and the princess was kidnapped. They took her to a big white house on a island. The sand was white as sugar . . . They was a big storm . . .”

Her eyes filled, and the woman embraced her. “I knew you would remember. I knew it.”

Gillie gathered her wet clothes and touched Sophie’s shoulder. “Are Merribelle and Mabel at work today?”

Sophie nodded.

“I’ll slip into their room across the hall.”

Sophie clasped Gillie’s hand. “Please stay.”

“We’ll sort it out later, I promise.” Gillie left and closed the door softly behind her.

The woman perched on the edge of the bed. “I suppose you have questions.”

Now that the shock had abated, a thread of anger wove its
way through Sophie’s heart. How dare this woman disappear for her entire life, subject her to the hurts and indignities of being an orphan, and then waltz in here as though she’d only been away on some casual errand?

“It might be nice if I knew your name.”

“It’s Rosaleen. Dupree. Chastain—though Mr. Chastain and I have been divorced for years.”

“Where is my father?”

Rosaleen shrugged. “Anybody’s guess. He . . . I thought he loved me, but I was mistaken. The moment I told him I was with child, he flew the coop.” She fluttered her fingers, mimicking a bird in flight. “Never saw or heard from him again. Take my advice, Sophie. Never depend on any man. Especially a Frenchman. They are constitutionally incapable of telling the truth.”

“So you dropped me at the orphanage and never looked back?”

“It wasn’t that simple. I was young. I had no money and no skills. I couldn’t find work as a dressmaker or a milliner or a shop-girl. The war had begun, so most of the menfolk had enlisted and went off to fight the Yankees.” Rosaleen took a handkerchief from her reticule and dabbed at her eyes. “It wasn’t as if I could find someone else to marry me and provide for us. By the time you were three, we were near to starving. Then my sister Nola married a man from North Carolina and offered to take you with her. I thought it was the best thing. But I never heard from her again. And I never dreamed she’d give you away. I missed you every day of my life.”

Sophie’s throat throbbed with unshed tears. “I thought you were dead.”

“I can understand your bitterness. But this isn’t the first time I’ve looked for you. Ten years ago I hired a detective to find out what had happened to you. I came here to search for you, but by that time the orphanage had closed and you were gone.”

Sophie went numb. Was this the woman Wyatt had hired Pinkerton’s to find?

The visitor smoothed her skirts. “Eventually I ran out of money. I went back to New Orleans and tried to make peace with the notion that you were gone forever. And then last year during the world exposition, I saw a lovely young woman coming out of the exhibits building with a handsome man I supposed might be her husband, though he seemed much too old for her. And somehow—call it a mother’s instinct—I knew it was you.”

Sophie closed her eyes, remembering the crisp January afternoon in New Orleans when Wyatt accompanied her to the Exposition exhibits while Ada and the children rested at the hotel. She had always imagined that the bond between mother and child was unbreakable, that she possessed some kind of special antennae that would allow her to recognize her mother if ever their paths should cross. But she had brushed shoulders with Rosaleen Dupree that day, walked right past her and hadn’t felt a thing.

Rosaleen went to the window and pressed her palms to the rain-smeared glass. “You were so beautiful it nearly stopped my heart. I couldn’t lose you again. But I couldn’t simply walk up to you and announce myself. So I followed you to the hotel and watched while your escort retrieved your keys. Then all I had to do was sweet-talk the desk clerk into letting me take a look at the guest book, and I saw your signature. Miss Sophie Robillard Caldwell.”

She looked at Sophie, her eyes full of regret, a sardonic smile playing on her full lips. “Sweet-talking gentlemen seems to be the one thing I am good at.”

Sophie’s anger cooled. What a sad and wasted life this woman had led. Perhaps it was better that she had grown up apart from Rosaleen’s influence. But where did they go from here? What did Rosaleen expect would happen now? Sophie was grown, with a
business and a life of her own. It was far too late to undo past wrongs, to make up for everything they had missed.

“That day you came to the
Gazette
office—”

“I had to be sure it was you. I wanted to tell you then, but I lost my nerve. I was afraid of being turned away.” Rosaleen lifted one shoulder. “Not that I deserve anything else.”

Sophie felt the sting of tears building behind her eyes. Why hadn’t Rosaleen stayed away? That would have been kinder than opening wounds that could never be healed. She met the older woman’s eyes. “I’m not sure what you want from me.”

“I only wanted to . . . see you once more. To explain myself in the hope that you can forgive me.”

“That’s a tall order after all this time.”

“I know it is. And I know it must have been hard, thinking you were all alone, wondering about who your parents and grandparents were. Where you came from.” Rosaleen opened her worn tapestry bag and handed Sophie a small journal, its leather covering cracked with age. “It’s all in here.”

Sophie stared at it as if it were a live thing. After a lifetime of wondering and wishing, here at last was the truth.

“It belonged to your great-grandmother Elena Worthington. She was born in 1740. But our story goes back even further than that.”

Sophie sank onto the bed and ran her fingers over the journal. Outside, rainwater poured from the eaves and splashed onto the boardwalk, nearly drowning out the sounds of the restless crowd still gathered below.

Rosaleen sat down beside her. “There was a ship called the
Henrietta Marie
that traveled here from Africa, bringing slaves to the plantations in Jamaica. It sank off the coast of Key West after dropping off its human cargo in Kingston. One of them was a young African princess who had been sold into slavery after being captured by a rival tribe. They say she was so beautiful that a
plantation owner took her for his own wife, and she went to live with him in a huge house perched in the green hills above the sea. From her window she could see plants and birds and the fields of sugar cane stretching as far as the eye could see. I can imagine how she longed for freedom and her home.”

“Sophie?” The door opened and Lucy came in with a tea tray. “I brought—oh. Forgive me. I didn’t know you had a visitor.”

She set down the tray and her eyes went wide. “Rosaleen? Is that you?”

“Hello, Lucy.” Rosaleen studied the hotelier. “Last time I saw you, you were just a slip of a girl. I thought you went to Wyoming.”

“Montana.” Lucy frowned. “Didn’t you get my wire? I told you the Verandah is full.”

“Oh, I’m not staying. I only came to see Sophie.”

“It’s all right, Lucy,” Sophie said. “Thanks for the tea.” Lucy nodded to Sophie and withdrew.

Rosaleen resumed speaking. In the small, close room, with rain beating against the windowpanes, her voice was hypnotic. Sophie listened to the story with the hunger and rapture of a small child, the tea all but forgotten.

“Where was I? Oh. The princess had a daughter named Emily, who married a Spaniard, and then her daughter married—” Rosaleen got to her feet. “Well, it’s all there; you can read it for yourself. That’s all I came for, really. I was never able to give you any sort of gift when you were a child. I hoped at least to give you the gift of knowing where you came from.”

Sophie swallowed. “Thank you.”

“I’d best be going.”

“You can’t go out in this storm.”

Rosaleen laughed. “Honey, compared to the storms I’ve been through in this life, a little rain is nothing.” She retrieved her umbrella.

“But you can’t just disappear again. I . . . I might have questions. I might want to see you again.”

“I’d like that.” Rosaleen took out a pencil and scribbled on a calling card. “Here’s my address. If you’re ever in New Orleans again, please come and see me.” She pressed a warm palm to Sophie’s cheek. “You are more beautiful than I dreamed. And more forgiving than I deserve.”

Sophie’s throat went tight with emotion. Rosaleen Dupree wasn’t perfect. Far from it. And it was too late to recover everything her decision had cost them both. Still, she hadn’t given up her quest to find her child. That counted for something. “If you ever need anything—”

Rosaleen released Sophie, her mood suddenly lighter, her green eyes dancing. “Now that you mention it, I am short of cash. The trip up here took nearly everything I had.”

Sophie opened the drawer where she stashed the extra money Wyatt had given her on the day he took her to the train station in Fort Worth. She’d been saving it for emergencies. But her mother—her mother!—needed it now. She pressed the bills into Rosaleen’s hand. “This isn’t a fortune, but it should be enough to get you home.”

Rosaleen folded the bills without counting them and tucked them into her bodice. “I’ll be seeing you, Sophie.”

She pinned on her hat and left, picking her way down the crowded staircase. Sophie leaned against the door frame, too stunned to think.