From This Moment (26 page)

Sensing her scrutiny, he hastily straightened in his chair. “Well, don’t look at me,” he said. “I would be a terrible husband. Everything Laura said about me was right. My lack of attention, my erratic character, my inability to focus. It wouldn’t have been so hurtful if it hadn’t been true. I’m getting better about things as I get older.” He flashed one of those reckless smiles, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I figure when I’m forty, I will have settled down enough to be a tolerable husband.”

He retreated behind a stiff formality as he shrugged into his jacket. He was once again a polite but distant man as he took his leave.

She would be a fool to ignore his warnings. Romulus had been fending off women for the past decade and showed no sign of a chink in his armor. She didn’t want to be one of those pathetic women trailing after him and begging for a scrap of affection, but she couldn’t ignore the truth, either.

She had fallen in love with Romulus White, and she did not know if he was capable of returning the sentiment.

The next two days were the most stressful of Romulus’s career. Avalanches of bills were coming due, and he had no way to pay them.

To make it worse, Evelyn needed money. He’d learned of the problem this morning when he’d visited her house to check on Clyde and ask if there was anything she needed. She had been mortified when she’d asked him for a loan.

“There is a clinic in the Adirondacks that will take Clyde,” she said. “They have excellent doctors and can provide him with his best chance to heal. I’m afraid it’s terribly expensive.”

And the previous week Evelyn had used all her ready cash to help her housekeeper. Apparently, the housekeeper had been
estranged from her parents for years, but they were beginning to soften. When the parents suggested they’d like to meet the children, Evelyn had gladly purchased three train tickets to Richmond and bought new clothing for the children. Who could have guessed that in a few days Evelyn’s entire world would be upended?

“I’m so sorry, Romulus,” she said, her eyes downcast and chin trembling. “I will pay you back as soon as I can liquidate some investments next month.”

Of course Romulus gave her the money. He took an advance at the bank, which only loaned him the money on the condition that it be repaid within one week. And the only way he could do that was to start selling his shares in
Scientific World
.

It was like selling a piece of his soul, but he would sign the papers tonight. A New York investment firm had been trying to diversify into publishing for years and had jumped at the chance to buy a few of Romulus’s shares. He’d felt honor-bound to tell them of the injunction, but they were willing to proceed with the sale at a slightly reduced price. Romulus had no option but to accept.

The evening was cool, and Romulus braced himself as he walked into the Parker House Hotel, where one of the finest restaurants in the city took up most of the ground floor. The moment he had always feared had arrived. He would rather cut off his right hand than lose control of the magazine, but Clyde and Evelyn needed money fast, and Romulus had only one way of getting it.

The three men representing the New York investors were jovial as they joined Romulus at a table near the back of the restaurant. Parker House only allowed men in the main dining room, and the atmosphere was relaxed as liquor flowed, cigars were lit, and hearty steak dinners were set before them. It tasted
like sawdust in his mouth. As expected, the investors all made chitchat about politics and baseball as they dined. That was the way business was done, with glad-handing and small talk before the serious negotiating began.

Romulus played along, but beneath the table his hands clenched into fists. Every moment of this meal was excruciating. He just wanted to sign the paperwork, take his bank check, and bolt from the room, but that would reveal his desperation.

After consulting the account books this afternoon, he had decided exactly how much money he needed. Forty employees were to be paid on Friday, rent on the building was due, and he had less than a week to repay the bank. It was impossible to know how much he’d have to fork over in lawyer fees to battle the injunction, but it wasn’t going to be cheap. Even so, he could pay it all if he sold ten percent of his stake in the magazine.

The New York investors weren’t interested in ten percent. “Such a small investment isn’t worth our attention,” the lead banker said. “We are not interested in anything less than a thirty-percent stake.”

Romulus owned half the magazine. If he gave the investors what they wanted, he would be down to twenty percent. Perspiration rolled down the side of his neck. He swallowed hard. Once he signed those papers, he would be only a minority shareholder in the magazine he’d founded. These New York investors would have more say in
Scientific World
than he. He could retain his title of publisher, but he would lose control of the magazine.

And Clyde had lost an engineering degree because of a sacrifice he’d made ten years ago to help Romulus out of a tight spot. He’d always said he owed Clyde more than he could ever repay. It was time to make good on that assertion.

His hand shook as he signed the papers.

Evelyn asked Roy Tanner to find the softest, best-sprung carriage in all of Boston. She didn’t care how much it cost, she couldn’t stand the thought of Clyde being jostled about in a cheap rented hack, the damaged, delicate tissues deep in his ears being bumped and abused for the three-mile journey to the train station.

Clyde hadn’t complained, but he’d been in agony during the carriage ride home from the hospital that first night. Every rut in the road caused him to break out in perspiration and his knuckles to go white as he squeezed his fists. Clyde was used to discomfort. He’d lived in a tent during Wyoming winters and did heavy labor while on construction sites.

No, Clyde never complained. She complained plenty. When he left her for months on end to live at faraway engineering sites, she complained of abandonment. When the baby came early, she complained that he hadn’t been there to comfort her. When Romulus wanted to expand the page count of the magazine, she complained that they couldn’t afford the risk because Clyde had lost his job again.

It was time for her to be a better wife. For the first time in their marriage, Clyde was floundering, and she needed to come alongside him on this difficult journey. And if getting a ridiculously plush landau with elliptical springs for the smoothest ride would make Clyde more comfortable, she’d turn the city upside-down until she found one.

It had taken the combined will of both her and Romulus to convince Clyde to go to the health clinic. It went against his nature to walk away from a job, and he didn’t understand the need for it. Rest was rest. He insisted it would be cheaper and easier to simply stay in Boston.

Romulus had told him there was value in removing himself from the barrage of stresses and temptations Clyde would be exposed to in Boston. When he still wasn’t convinced, Evelyn wrote her plea in plain, eloquent language.
We need time alone together. We both need time to heal
.

Clyde finally agreed.

Romulus carried their bags and secured them to the back of the carriage. Clyde needed help getting into the landau, and she knew he wouldn’t want her to see his weakness. She dashed back to the house on the pretense of fetching something so Romulus could help him board in private.

When all was ready, she returned to the street and tried to summon a brave face to say goodbye to Romulus. “I’m sorry to be abandoning you while the magazine is in such a mess.”

“Not to worry,” he said with a wink. His face was typically carefree and confident. “It’s high time I learned to manage my own calendar.”

But she was walking out on so much more than managing his schedule. There was the injunction, the looming court hearing, and the problems with issuing refunds to the advertisers who had paid in advance. She excelled in managing daily operations, while Romulus struggled with such details. Even so, in her pocket she felt the weight of a roll of bills Romulus had loaned her to pay the fees at the clinic. Dearest, wonderful Romulus, always coming to her rescue, and now she was abandoning him in his hour of need. She scrambled to tell him everything he would need to know in the coming weeks.

“If you need to consult previous financial statements, I’ve stored them in the filing cabinets on the third floor. I usually work with Reginald Pitkin at the bank to issue payroll checks. He’ll be the best person to consult if you need—”

“I don’t need anything,” he assured with tender compassion in his dark eyes. “Go take care of your husband. We’ll be fine.”

A sheen of tears blurred her vision, and it took a moment to blink them away. Romulus moved to open the carriage door for her, but she shook her head. “I’ll be walking to the train station,” she said. “The roads in this part of town are a disgrace, and the city won’t repair them since everything will be ripped up for the subway. I’ll walk ahead of the carriage and alert the driver of the spots to avoid.”

Romulus nodded and pulled her into a hug. She squeezed him tightly, fighting to hold on to her unraveling strength. The weeks ahead would be filled with challenges she had no experience handling, and she was going to miss Romulus and his bottomless well of good cheer.

“Take care, Evelyn,” he whispered. “Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

She extracted herself from his embrace. With a nod to the carriage driver, she and Clyde set off on their journey, moving at a snail’s pace to keep the ride as smooth as possible.

Evelyn walked ahead of the carriage. She guided the horse around bumps in the road and every few yards stooped over to toss aside sticks and debris that might jostle the wheels. She wept the entire walk to the train station.

13

R
omulus fired his lawyer and hired a new one first thing on Monday morning. Grover Linde specialized in the First Amendment and was the best lawyer in Boston for leading a battle over freedom of the press. Grover had won two earlier cases in which the government had tried and failed to stop the publication of controversial subjects. Unfortunately, Grover and his legal team were in court all week and would have limited time to devote to
Scientific World’s
case.

His new lawyer was confident he could win the case. Grover said that six years ago the city had attempted to ban a labor union from publishing news about organizing a strike. The government had been soundly defeated, and the records of the case were stored in City Hall’s archives.

Romulus intended to lean on Stella for help wading through old archival records, since it was likely the same arguments would be used in the case against
Scientific World
. She knew the filing system at City Hall as well as anyone, and she owed him a favor. It might be best to simply follow his new lawyer’s advice and patiently wait for the lawyers to handle the work, but
that was impossible. Romulus needed something to focus on to stop his thoughts from straying back to Clyde and Evelyn, who had been plunged into an ordeal neither of them were equipped to cope with. He longed to help, but this was a journey they would have to navigate on their own.

So the chance to bury his head in
Scientific World’s
court case was a welcome diversion. Thus, he found himself strolling toward City Hall with Stella West on his arm.

He liked walking beside her. She turned the head of every warm-blooded male on the street, and he was narcissistic enough to enjoy soaking up the effect she had on people. Wearing a silk shantung walking gown of royal blue and black stripes, Stella might possibly be the most fashionable woman in the city, but it was the confident way she sauntered down the street that was the most attractive thing about her. Stella didn’t walk. She glided, she sashayed, she strutted. Even the way she ascended the stairs to City Hall, confidently entering the building where she’d been fired a mere two weeks earlier, was attractive.

He could see why she’d been the toast of London. She had confidence and a wit that was diamond bright, and yet when she entered the archives, she headed straight for the awkward man hunched behind the counter and chatted with him like they were old friends.