Her Defiant Heart (33 page)

"I don't believe it for a second." Mrs. B. pushed her glasses back to the bridge of her nose. "This one is cryptic.
'Princess. All things required moved to new location. Arrangements in order. See Smith. Next? Butler.'
What do you suppose that all means? I've been trying to decide about this pair for weeks now."

Christian set down his coffee cup and put his empty tray aside. "Let me see that one," he said. Mrs. B. gave him the paper, and he skimmed it a few moments before he found the ad buried in the middle of the second column. "It is fairly obscure," he agreed, puzzling over it. No, he was thinking.
No!
Princess? It was simply some sort of queer coincidence. It was because he was so damned
aware
of her that he thought of Jenny in connection to this. "You say you've been wondering about the Princess and Butler for a while now?"

"Yes." She took back the paper. "They've been writing back and forth since—I'm not sure—I think it's been since just after Christmas."

"Ah," he said, raising both brows and pointing an accusing finger at her. "Then you've been smuggling this paper in longer than I thought. A turncoat in my own home."

"Actually I had sworn off the paper, but it's difficult to give up, especially when others enjoy it so. Jenny started bringing it back in. She finds it as amusing as I do."

"Then you sometimes read it together?"

She nodded. "My eyes tire easily and the print's so small, you see. It's a good way to pass the time, creating stories about the people."

"Hmm. And do you have one about the Princess?"

"Why do you call her
the
Princess?" she asked, drawing off her spectacles and collapsing the thin wire stems. "It's just Princess. That's all Butler ever calls her. Jenny does the same thing. Odd, isn't it? I never think of calling her that."

If Christian had been swallowing anything but air he would have choked. He still had to clear his throat before he could speak. Jenny had been the Princess on the lunatic ward. He had spoken without thinking. "I wasn't aware of it."

"That's what Jenny said too." Mrs. Brandywine placed her glasses on the table and rubbed her eyes, missing Christian's startled look. "I think Princess started sending messages first," she said. "They were all strange. I suppose that's what makes them so interesting. I shouldn't be surprised if Jenny and I are not the only ones trying to decipher what they mean."

Christian slid off the bed and stood up, taking his tray. "It's a peculiar pastime. Perhaps you should take up knitting."

Mrs. Brandywine laid her head back against the pillows. Yawning sleepily, she shooed Christian away. "Go on with you. You're the second one today to suggest that."

Christian went. There was no need to ask who the other person was. Apparently there were some issues where he and Jenny Holland were of a singular mind.

* * *

Christian did not return to the
Chronicle
after lunch. Instead he went to the old site of Phineas T. Barnum's Museum on Broadway and Ann. Newly completed and fashioned in the modern French style, the white-marbled building housed all the energies of the
New York Herald.

He hadn't given a thought to the possibility he would be recognized, but that was indeed the case. There was an awed hush that came over each center of activity he passed on his way to the manager's office. Word traveled from mail clerks to printers to copy editors to reporters, and by the time Christian reached his destination, Frank Vollrath had his door open and a chair cleared for his guest.

Frank held out his hand to Christian. "I hope you aren't here to see Old Man Bennett. He hasn't set foot in this office for months now. Turning everything over to his son."

"Lord, no. I told everyone I met that I wanted to see some back copies of the paper. They kept pointing me here."

Frank chuckled, tugging at his untidy eyebrows. "They probably think you're a spy." He ushered Christian in. "Give me a minute. I'll send someone for the issues. How many and how far back?"

"One copy of each edition you've published since Christmas." Christian noted that if Frank thought it was an odd request from the publisher of a rival newspaper, he didn't show it.

"All right." Frank's voice bellowed into the outer room as he rapped out Christian's request. One young man leaped away from his desk and practically tripped over his own feet in his rush to get the papers. Frank turned back to Christian. "New kid," he said, rolling his eyes. "They're so damn eager they get in the way. You want to take the papers with you or read them here? I can find someplace private for you."

"I'll take them." He accepted Frank's offer of a cup of coffee while he waited. "Tell me something, Frank. If I wanted to put an ad in
The Heralds
personal columns, who would I see?"

"Hell, see my city editor," he joked. "If
you
placed an ad with us, that would be big news. Aren't you getting enough coverage in our social columns?"

"Very amusing," Christian said dryly. "Why don't you come work for the
Chronicle?"

"Just so you can fire me? No. Besides, serving under your command in '64 was enough."

"You were a lousy soldier," Christian said matter-of-factly. "Now, about those personal ads?"

"Second floor. There's always someone at the desk during business hours to take the ad down. It can also be done by mail. We have half a dozen clerks who do nothing but sort mail for the personals."

"Do you keep a record of who places the announcements?"

Frank shook his head. "Part of the appeal is anonymity if that's what the person wants." He held up his hands innocently. "No questions from us. Strictly cash transactions, no credit or billing."

"But if someone came in here personally to send a notice through your paper, there'd be a clerk in the ad office who would take care of them, right? I mean, someone on
The Herald
has to read the announcement and set the price, don't they?"

"True, and I think I know what you're getting at, but I'm going to tell you right now that if you're hoping to identify someone coming in here, your chances are very slim. The clerks are overworked and fairly jaded about what they do. They don't read the ads so much anymore for content. They count up the words, give the cost, take the money, and say, 'Who's next?' The sheer volume of people in and out of that office every day, most of them new faces, would make it difficult for them to single out any one person."

Frank saw Christian's disappointment before it was veiled behind his hooded lids. He looked past his visitor's shoulder and crooked his finger at the young man who had just appeared in the doorway. "Give them to Mr. Marshall," he said.

Christian took the stack of neatly bundled papers and laid them on the floor by his chair. He waited for the young man to leave before he spoke again. "What if it's someone who places a notice more than once?"

"Do you mean if it runs for several days?"

"No, I'm talking about the person who keeps up a dialogue with someone else using the
Herald
as the medium."

Frank's thick mustache skewed to one side as he became thoughtful. "Your chances for identification improve, of course, but I think you'll find that most people who carry on a conversation through our paper deal with us by mail. I have to tell you, Christian, you've aroused my curiosity. Can you tell me what you're looking for? Or whom?"

"Just some information," he said carelessly.

"Are you thinking of competing for our ad business over at the
Chronicle?"

"I might be," he said, enjoying seeing Frank's eyes widen in astonishment. He picked up the stack of papers by the twine handle and stood. "Give Bennett my regards."

"Father or son?"

"Either one. But make sure you tell the old man I said I preferred the architecture on this lot before Barnum's Museum burnt down."

"Hell, that'd get me fired."

Christian's smile was sly. "I know."

* * *

"Did you go out this afternoon, m'dear?" asked Mrs. Brandywine.

Jenny nodded, fussing with Mrs. B.'s pillows. "How did you know?"

"There's still a bloom in your cheeks. I can always tell when you've been out. I'm glad to see you're doing it more often. It's good for you." She sighed longingly and pushed away the lap tray with her dinner only half eaten. "Tell me what it's like outside. Where you go... what you do."

"Oh, stop it, Mrs. B." Jenny laughed, covering her uneasiness. She was not about to explain that she had been to the
Herald
this afternoon, or that she placed what she hoped would be her last announcement to Reilly. "One would think you've spent the whole of your life in this bed. Take a look out the window. You can see for yourself that it's flurrying again and that in another five minutes or so it will be pitch black out."

The housekeeper's smile was as wistful as a young girl's. "The ball will be up in the Park," she said.

"The what?"

"The ball will be up in the park," she repeated, frowning as she studied Jenny's blank expression. "Sometimes I don't think you are from around here. The park is
Central
Park, and everyone knows when the ball's up it means that the pond at Fifty-ninth Street and the lake north of the Mall are frozen over."

"Oh." She removed Mrs. Brandywine's tray, picked up a brush, and began running it through the older woman's pale hair. "Apparently everyone does not know it. I was born here, and I've never heard the expression before."

"But you've been ice-skating there," the housekeeper prompted.

"Well, no. But I've been skating before. Lots of times. When I was in..." She caught herself in time to keep from blurting out where she had learned to skate. "When I was interested in that sort of thing," she said, affecting a playful, lofty tone, "I was told I had quite a flair for it."

Mrs. B. laughed. "Then you should go to the lake sometime. Mary Margaret and Carrie do. It would be good for you to join them."

"I don't have money for skates," she said, hoping that would end the subject.

"You can rent them."

"I don't have money to rent them." She tugged a little harder than she meant to on Mrs. B.'s hair, and the housekeeper winced. "I'm sorry," Jenny said quickly. She set down the brush and began plaiting Mrs. B.'s waist-length hair. Jenny realized the only way to keep Mrs. Brandywine from probing into her personal affairs was to lead the conversation where she wanted it to go.

"You know, Mrs. B.," she said thoughtfully, "I've been wondering about something Mr. Marshall said today."

"What's that?"

"About sketching during the war. Even if he was only drawing pictures for the military, he must have had some talent. I mean, there had to be a reason they gave him that position."

Mrs. Brandywine was rendered speechless for a moment, her gray eyes half as wide as silver dollars. Finally she sputtered, "Do you mean to tell me you've been living under his roof for all this time and you don't know who Christian Marshall is?"

"He's the owner and publisher of the
Chronicle
," she said.

"Oh, my dear, dear child." Mrs. Brandywine threw up her hands and raised her eyes heavenward. "Hasn't anyone told you... mentioned at least... oh, but of course they wouldn't, would they? It's been so long since he
has,
you see. Still, most of us can remember what it was like before. How he would work! Disappearing into that studio for hours on end... making us all think we'd seen the last of him... it was really quite something."

Jenny was as bewildered as she had been before Mrs. Brandywine spoke. "I don't understand."

Mrs. B.'s hands fluttered back to her lap and smoothed the lawn fabric of her nightgown. "Mr. Marshall's an artist, Jenny. An exceptional one, if the truth be known." Her mouth momentarily flattened into a thin line. "And it used to be widely known. Such promise that boy had! Still has, I should think, if he would pick up a brush again. Won't, though. As far as I know, he hasn't been in his studio in months. And he was absent for months before that time. I keep it tidied for him, hoping that I will go in there and find something moved or smell the noxious odor of paint, but that never happens. I suspect it never will."

"An artist," Jenny said softly, thinking of Christian's beautifully shaped hands, the lean fingers, the touch that was reverent, exploring, and set her skin tingling with heat. Then she thought of his eyes, the cool, aquamarine eyes that could be remote, shuttered, yet somehow alert and watchful. He was always assessing. What did he see with those eyes now? she wondered.

"Not just an artist," Mrs. B. said, warming to her subject. "Before the war, he designed Colonel McAllister's country home in Washington Heights and Newling's palace in the Adirondacks. Joliet's restaurant on Broadway is his work and so is the St. Mark Hotel. And he hadn't reached his twenty-sixth year when those plans were laid."

"He does none of it any longer?" asked Jenny. "No painting? No designing?"

"Nothing."

Jenny was silent as she considered that. "I saw sketches," she said finally, her brows drawn together. "I had forgotten until now. There was a leather notebook in the pocket of Mr. Marshall's coat. Remember? I was wearing his coat when I first came here. I found the notebook during the journey. There were sketches in it... of me. They were hideous." She shuddered as a chill skittered down her spine. "Or rather I was hideous. I had no trouble recognizing myself." Jenny's laugh was self-mocking. "I was half out of my mind with cold and fever by then, and do you know I was still vain enough to throw that book away? I couldn't bear that there should be a record of how I looked."