Heiress (41 page)

And she kissed him like a woman who’d known two worlds, one of decorum, the other of survival. He tasted of coffee, smelled of the night air, and a husky masculine tang.

Oliver.

He pulled away from her, nuzzling her neck, kissing her cheek, then pressing his forehead to hers. “You’ve changed.”

She smiled. “I have changed.”

“I love you, Esme. Oh, I never stopped. I looked for you every day, around every corner, hoping. Believing that someday you’d come back to me. And I’d be right here, waiting, just like I promised.” He kissed her again, then, gentler, lingering. Finally, he pulled away. “Forgive me for not coming after you? For letting you leave and only listening to my wounded heart?”

She ran her gloved hand to his sandpaper cheek. Oh, she’d loved these whiskers, the way his beard darkened after a long day. “You believed in me, Oliver, and that’s what I took with me to Montana.”

He pressed his forehead to hers again. “We have an article to get to press.”

* * * * *

Jinx had spent her life wheedling into places that forbade her entrance. Hadn’t she married Foster Worth and edged the Worth and Price families into the elite station of Mrs. Astor’s 400? Hadn’t she trumpeted into Newport society, outwitting Alva Belmont at her own motor carriage event, catapulting her own motoring ball into the venue of must-attend events?

Yet, Jinx had to admit to a curl of heat in her stomach as she stepped out of her Rolls Royce onto the sidewalk outside the Halls of Justice—the Tombs, where Bennett sat in his pre-trial hearing on the second floor in the Court of Special Sessions. Too easily she conjured the stink she’d managed to scrub from her skin, the haunting song from her block mates. Too easily she heard the indictments as she instructed her driver to stay, and climbed the stairs into the building.

Please, bless me, Lord.

She walked down the marble-floored hallway, the pictures of past court justices, a copy of the Ten Commandments, the closed beechwood doors of the Police Court session, to the second floor.

She’d pulled out a new dress for the day, a V-necked Carmeuse day dress in a deep green, edged in orange trim and braids. It would make the papers…if her appearance didn’t manage it. She wouldn’t wear black quite yet. Perhaps never. The shorter hem showed her flesh-colored silk stockings and black and green silk-heeled shoes.

Although, yes, she’d had her lady’s maid secure her new under-bodice corset just a bit tighter. It kept her posture straighter, her insides from whirring as she marched up the second-story steps.

An officer stood guard outside the Court of Special Sessions. She drew in her breath, walked past him, put her hand on the door.

“Excuse me, ma’am, but this is a closed session.”

She stopped, looked up at him the way she might one of her footman. “I’m sure it is. But not to me.” She turned back to the door.

“Ma’am—”

But she pushed open the door and entered the courtroom.

She’d seen it in her head for the past four hours, as she edited her words, bathed, ate her breakfast, attired herself, and prepared for the scandal that would follow this morning’s truth, so expected the murmurs, the stir at her entrance.

The judge looked up from the bench as she marched down the aisle. Sturdy yet small, the judge wore a speckling of white amidst his graying hair. He narrowed his eyes at her. “This is a closed session.”

“Not to me,” Jinx said.

Bennett and Mr. Loren, the Worth family lawyer, sat at the defendant’s table. A prosecutor stood at the other table.

She glanced at Bennett, who stared at her as if she had entered the courtroom in her bathing costume. His eyes widened, although his handsome face bore a grizzled shadow. His suit appeared rumpled, and she had no doubt he smelled like something that crawled out from behind the alley. She shot him a slim smile then turned back to the judge.

“I have something to say.”

“I’m sorry, but we’re not calling witnesses,” said the prosecutor.

“You don’t have to call me, I’m already here.” She’d finally reached the gateway at the end of the aisle. “Your honor, Bennett Worth lied.”

The judge stared at her. She heard her name hissed out of Bennett but she ignored him. She could barely hear him above the whoosh of her heartbeat anyway.

“He lied in his confession about killing Foster Worth.”

“Jinx!” He didn’t bother to hiss this time.

She put out her hand like she would to one of her servants.

“Why would Mr. Worth lie about such a heinous crime, Mrs. Worth?” The judge leaned forward.

“Your honor, this witness was held in suspicion of her husband’s murder—” the prosecutor started.

“Which I didn’t do either. Because…” She took a breath. “I was with Mr. Worth. And he—he was with me. So, see, neither of us could have killed Foster.”

The judge glanced at Bennett, who had cupped his hand over his eyes.

“Is this true, Mr. Bennett?”

He looked up at Jinx, frustration in his eyes. She could nearly see him doing the math—if he denied her words, then suspicion would fall back upon her. His shoulders rose, fell. “Yes. Right before Foster was shot, I was in Mrs. Worth’s chamber.”

The judge raised an eyebrow, looked back at Jinx.

She smiled. “We were talking.” But, just because she’d come here to be scandalous, to allay any hint of deceit, to deflect the attention from Bennett’s guilt and onto the flurry of a scandal, she added an exaggerated wink.

She might have imagined it, but the judge seemed to redden.

“About what?” This from the prosecutor who had come out from behind his bench. He reminded her of Foster, dark eyes, intimidating. She drew in a breath.

“About our son.”

Beside her, Bennett lay his head on the table, onto his folded arms.

The judge’s voice turned low. “Your son?”

Behind her, she heard the door open, close, as if one of the reporters might have rushed out to make the morning papers. So, just so they got it correct, she drew in a long breath. “Yes. Jonathon August Worth is Bennett’s son, not Foster’s.”

Bennett raised his head and his eyes were flames burning into her skin.

“Did Foster know of your indiscretion?”

She shook her head. “It was our secret. Until Sunday night. Then, Foster invited Bennett to our home. According to Bennett, Foster was going to leave me for a dancer he’d met in the
Follies.
Bennett came to my chamber to inquire after my well-being. And discuss our son.”

She delivered that last line without a hiccup. But she’d practiced it so many times, it seemed nearly natural.

They had discussed Jack, just not exactly at that time. But without the immensity of the secret, of the potential scandal, Jinx guessed the judge would never believe her story. Indeed, the truth seemed, once voiced in the wood-paneled chambers of Special Sessions, to be suddenly bold, even indictable. She took another step toward the bench. “So, you see, Your Honor, when Bennett discovered that Jack might be a suspect, he panicked and confessed to a crime of which he is innocent. He didn’t want our son to go to jail for a crime he also did not commit.”

Through her periphery, she saw Bennett stare at her, wide-eyed, shaking his head.

The judge looked at Bennett then back to Jinx. She managed a smile, managed to hold her chin up, despite the heat on her face. Perhaps that would work in her favor. Perhaps, as people remembered this moment, they’d remember that Jinx may have been a fallen woman, but she crashed with dignity.

“Have you seen today’s paper, Mrs. Worth?” The judge held up the
New
York Chronicle.
Even from her vantage point, she could read the top headline: Actress Alleges Affair with Murder Victim.

Jinx stared at the headline, little explosions bursting in her head, her chest. “No,” she said, although her voice suggested otherwise. “Is it about Foster?”

“And a little missy down at the
Ziegfeld Follies
. It seems your husband was equally…adulterous.”

She tried not to flinch at that word, but her chin dipped, just a little.

The judge stared at the article while her heart thundered in her chest. Her hands sweat inside her gloves and she needed more breath than her corset allowed.

“The article suggests a motive from someone in Mr. Foster Worth’s employ; that she had a secret admirer who had planned revenge for an assault on the woman.” He looked up at Jinx, who had stilled.

So, she wasn’t the only one who Foster bullied.

“Do you know anything about this?”

Jinx pressed her open palm over her corset, ducked her head. Bennett had his hands in a clench on the table, his eyes closed.

“In light of this new information, I don’t believe Mr. Worth’s confession, nor am I reasonably convinced the prosecution has enough evidence to bind Mr. Worth over for indictment by the grand jury.” He looked at Bennett while Jinx swallowed her heart back into her chest. “You are free to go.”

She turned, caught in Bennett’s expression what appeared to be confusion, even frustration as he looked at her then past her.

“Mother.”

She stiffened, turned.

Jack stood in the aisle, his shoulders rising and falling, stricken.

Rosie stood behind him, her mouth in a grim, tight line. She shook her head.

“You don’t understand, Jack. I…” Oh, how did she not make this worse? She couldn’t tell him that she’d snuck into Foster’s bed, that she didn’t realize it was Bennett. She glanced at Bennett.

Because that, she knew long ago, wasn’t the truth, either.

No more secrets. She walked up to him, lowered her voice just for him. “I love Bennett. I always have. And he should have been your father.”

With those words, she could breathe. The suddenness of it shook her. No longer the coil of agony in her chest, tighter each year as Jack grew, as she read about Bennett’s trips to New York. With the truth, it simply sprang free. Fresh air, into her lungs, her soul.

She turned to Bennett, who had followed her up the aisle.

He wore a devastating, breathtaking smile, and nodded.

“My entire life is a lie.” Jack’s voice emerged low, dangerous.

Jinx turned back to him. “Jack, listen to me—”

“Stay away from me. Stay away.” He shrugged out of his sister’s grip and fled the courtroom.

She met her daughter’s eyes.

Rosie shook her head. “I’ll go after him.”

Jinx watched her go, a different kind of pain in her chest.

Then Bennett was there, turning her into his embrace. He caught her face in his hands, stared down at her with something of disbelief. “Oh Jinx, you do know how to land on the front page, don’t you?”

She couldn’t respond before he kissed her, right there in the courtroom, his lips sweet, his touch so gentle she wanted to cry.

That, too, made the papers.

Esme woke to the rumble of the elevated train outside the window of her father’s former
Chronicle
office. It seemed to roar through the room, shaking her out of the sweet, exhausted darkness and into a shaft of bright sunlight that blinded her, made her shield her eyes with her hands. She peeked out between her fingers.

Oliver stood staring out the window, his wide back to her, his shirtsleeves rolled up past his elbows, his black hair a wreck after hours of inserting into the
Chronicle
the front page article on Flora. The sun streamed past him, over the wide mahogany desk, onto the parquet floor, and he resembled a Caesar surveying his world. My, he had broad shoulders, sinewed forearms, his body lean and strong. Indeed, he’d grown into a man during her absence.

“Did I fall asleep? The last thing I remember, the presses were running.”

“I couldn’t tell if it was the sound of the presses or your snoring that was louder.” Oliver turned, his face dark with whiskers, tease in his eyes.

Esme peeled herself up from his leather sofa, her cheek sweaty and lined. She ran her fingers through her hair, shaking it out.

Oliver watched with a smile that made her warm to her bones. “I lived for the day I might see you in the morning.”

She gave him a look then smoothed out her suit. “My daughter will be worried about me.”

His smile dimmed. “I forgot you had married. And that you had a daughter.”

“You would have liked Daughtry Hoyt. He was a good man. He reminded me of you. But now, you remind me of him.”

“I’m not sure—”

“He was the son of a Crow woman and a miner who became a gentleman. But he died trying to save the miners who worked for him. Believe me, it’s a compliment.”

He narrowed his eyes then finally nodded. “Your daughter is lovely, Esme.”

“She has her father’s features, dark and dangerous. She grew up in the West, knows how to shoot a gun, can herd buffalo, and I will just bet that Abel, our hired man, taught her to chew tobacco. So, you can save my feelings. She’s not the deb I was, nor will she ever be.”

Oliver came over to her, and lifted her chin with his hand. “No one will ever be the deb you were, Esme. But if you’ll recall, that didn’t exactly work in my favor. I much prefer this woman who had to parse every word, bossed around my linotype machinists, fed paper into the presses, and passed out bundles to the newsies. That’s the woman I knew you were, that’s the woman I fell in love with.” He pressed a sweet kiss to her lips, and it awoke something still asleep inside her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, wove her fingers into his dark, silky hair. Let herself surrender to his touch.

Oliver.

He drew back. “I want to show you something.” He got up, took her hands, and drew her to the window. Below, the city had already awakened, fruit and bread vendors in the square, pigeons creating a scandal between their feet. Traffic—horse-drawn trolleys, motorcars, pedestrians—crossed Chronicle Square. Around them, taller buildings loomed. And, on the corners, newsies peddled the
Chronicle.

“I love to watch them, to see people buy the paper, read the front-page articles.” He slipped his hand into hers, warm and strong. “Your article.”

“Our article,” she said.

He glanced at her, raised an eyebrow, then picked up the paper from his desk. “Your article.” He handed it to her.