Honor (12 page)

Abruptly he rose, untied his dressing gown, and let it fall open. He was a slender, broad-shouldered man, but his illness had left him too thin. Except in one respect. Honor stared out of astonished eyes.

She extended her hand to touch him, but he stayed her curious fingers. “I wish only to please you,” he said. “Undress. Now.”

Honor rose, removed her peignoir, and pushed the nightgown off her shoulders. She had thought she would be embarrassed, standing naked before a man for the first time in her life, but she loved him so much that all she felt was pride that she could cause such hunger in his eyes.

She slipped into bed, savoring the contrast of cool sheets against hot skin. Robert let his robe drop and slid in beside her.

He explored every plane and hollow of her body with deliberate, maddening slowness. When she tried to reciprocate, he always stayed her hand. “You must let me worship you.”

“But I want to give you pleasure, too.”

“You do, just by being my wife.”

Honor was so ready for him that she barely felt any pain as she welcomed him into her body. When he began to move within her, he murmured, “Mine,” with every thrust, until the word became a drumbeat keeping time with Honor’s rising passion.

When her climax sent her exploding into thousands of shards of light, she screamed Robert’s name, and he threw back his head and crowed in triumph. She was his, forever and ever.

Later, after he made love to her again and still refused to let her make love to him in return, Honor lay there in the growing darkness and wondered why she felt both possessed and a possession.

Chapter Seven

New York City

Honor stood before the closed door, stared at the name Jedediah Crawley, Esq., painted in bold black letters on frosted glass, and tugged at her locket nervously. He had to hire her.

In the three months that she and Robert had been living in New York City, Honor had lost count of the number of law firms she had gone to seeking a position. Armed with ample self-confidence and letters of reference from Cleavon Frame and several other prominent Boston attorneys and judges, who had written them as a favor to Theo, Honor stormed the legal bastions of the city. She soon discovered that all of them, from the largest firms with dozens of attorneys to the smallest one-man firm, had raised the drawbridge against her.

She took a deep breath, opened the door, and went inside.

Honor liked Jedediah Crawley the moment his receptionist showed her into his small, cluttered office. A barrel-chested man with a booming voice as wide as his smile and a bone-crushing handshake, he reminded her of her father. “Sit down, Mrs. Davis, sit down,” he said. “I always have time for a fellow Bostonian.”

When they were both seated, he said, “So you’re Sydney Tree’s niece. I left Sid’s company shortly after you came to live with Theodate, but I remember you.” He shook his head. “The company was never the same once Sid died, never the same. Just as profitable, but never the same. How is Theodate?”

“She still misses Uncle Oak, but otherwise she’s fine.” Wes saw to that.

He nodded. “She’s quite a woman, your aunt, quite a woman. If Sid hadn’t gotten her first, I would have asked her to marry me.”

Honor smiled. “All men want to many Theo.”

“Indeed. She’s that kind of woman.” The niceties dispensed with, Crawley said, “Now, I’m assuming you’re here for some legal advice, Mrs. Davis, so how may I help you?”

Honor leaned forward in her chair. “Actually, I’m here seeking employment, Mr. Crawley.”

“Employment?” His smile widened. “Anything for Sid’s niece, anything. Are you a typewriter? A stenographer?”

“Neither. Like you, I’m a lawyer.”

The shock pushed him back in his chair, his bulk causing it to groan and squeak. “A lawyer?”

Honor nodded, and before he could say another word, she recited her qualifications, as she had a hundred times before since coming to New York City, and spread out her credentials and letters of reference on his desk.

Unlike most of the attorneys she had approached, Jedediah Crawley at least gave her the courtesy of reading her credentials. “This recommendation from Cleavon Frame is most impressive, Mrs. Davis, most impressive. He was just a young pup starting out when I left Boston.”

Honor sat there stiffly, not daring to move a muscle for fear of betraying her expectations.

Crawley heaved his bulk out of his chair and walked over to a window overlooking Wall Street, where he stared out into space for what seemed like an eternity.

Finally he turned. “Didn’t anyone ever warn you?”

“Many tried,” she said, knowing exactly what he was talking about, “but I’m a thickheaded Putnam. I refused to believe no law firm would hire me.”

Crawley’s face registered such sadness that Honor felt tears sting her eyes. “I’m afraid they were right.”

She sat there, watching her dream go up in smoke.

“Do you know that there are no women practicing law in all of New York City?” he said. “No women at all. The city bar association won’t even admit them.”

“So I discovered when I applied,” Honor said. “I was hoping to be the first.”

She knew that without admission to the city bar association and to the gentlemen’s clubs that catered to the legal establishment, she would be deprived of vital contacts needed to succeed.

“I’m told you’d have better luck if you went out west, to Wyoming or Idaho,” Crawley said helpfully. “They need lawyers so badly, they don’t care if you are a woman.”

She thought of Robert and his dreams of working for a wealthy financier. “I’m afraid that’s impossible right now.”

Crawley lowered his bulk back into his chair. “I wish I could help you, Mrs. Davis, but I can’t.”

Honor rose, trying to keep the desperation out of her voice. “Could you at least hire me as a clerk, to do research for you? Take depositions? Write briefs? Anything?”

Regret filled his eyes. “I’m sorry, but I’ve already got one clerk.” He cast an embarrassed glance around his own small office. “There’s only me, you see, only me.” He paused, then named several other firms.

“I’ve tried all of them,” Honor replied, collecting her credentials and slipping the worthless pieces of paper back into her valise. “And the answer was always the same.”

Crawley nodded sympathetically. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Davis. I truly am.”

Honor wished him a good day and left with her tattered self-confidence and dashed hopes.

She was too despondent to go home to an empty apartment right away, so she took a streetcar to the red brick Criminal Courts Building on the corner of White and Centre streets to observe a trial.

Hurrying down Centre Street, she looked up to see a convicted prisoner being escorted across the Bridge of Sighs, which spanned Franklin Street and connected the court building to the adjacent Tombs jail, and she shuddered, not envying the man his destination—a narrow windowless cell. She knew just how hopeless he must have felt.

The moment Honor stepped inside the building’s huge central rotunda, she remembered the first time Robert had come here. He had wrinkled his nose in distaste and questioned her sanity in wanting to work here. Tier upon tier of dim mezzanines and corridors rose from the rotunda all the way up to a great soot-encrusted glass roof that let in watery, soiled light. The thick air was rancid with garlic, cigar smoke, sweat, and the odor of the prisoners’ lunch. Perhaps her husband was right.

She stepped over to the side to avoid being trampled by a policeman hustling his prisoner past, and observed the ebb and flow of humanity. She watched mustachioed Italians, men with their eyes and jaws bandaged, Chinese in their long pigtails and blue smocks, black-bearded rabbis, grim-faced policemen, and lawyers chomping on thick, odiferous cigars. She listened to lawyers’ runners extolling the virtues and successes of their masters, and she wished she could afford one to drum up business for her. She overheard a judge and an attorney agreeing to meet at “Pont’s”—Pontin’s Restaurant on Franklin Street, and she knew that she would never be welcome there.

She was just about to leave the building when she noticed a family standing out of the way on the other side of the rotunda. A neatly dressed young man in his early twenties knelt talking to a little blonde girl, while a pretty young woman kept dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief, her face the picture of fear and resignation that Honor recognized so well. She wished she could offer them her services, but she knew that at this stage of the legal process, they already had counsel. She hoped their lawyer was a damn sight better than her father’s had been. Finally the man stood up and hugged the woman fiercely. Then a policeman led him away.

Honor stood frozen to the spot, her thoughts suddenly flying back to her own father’s trial. He had knelt before her just as this man did, while his despondent wife cried silently. Then a policeman had led him away.

When her thoughts returned to the present, determination added spring to her step, and she strode through the rotunda and out the door.

To hell with them all. Somehow, some way, she would practice law.

When Honor arrived at her third-floor apartment at the Osborne, she found Robert seated in the parlor, reading the
World.
The moment he saw her, he set the newspaper aside. “Any luck today?”

Honor pulled out the hatpin, took off her hat, and threw it in disgust down on the nearest chair. “No luck.”

Robert went to her and put his hands on her shoulders, his eyes soft with sympathy. “Don’t give up hope.”

She rested her head against his shoulder. “No matter how cruel and thoughtless the world is, I know I can always count on you to comfort me and give me strength.”

He had been her anchor ever since they arrived in New York City in early July, right after their blissful honeymoon at High Water. He found this spacious, comfortable seven-room apartment on the West Side, and when Honor expressed reservations about its expense, he insisted it would repay them tenfold by becoming their oasis in an often unfeeling city. The ensuing weeks of rejection and bitter disappointment had proven him right. Shutting the door on the outside world and entering these welcoming, familiar rooms, Honor knew her spirit would replenish itself.

Robert smiled with suppressed excitement. “Well, I have some news that will make you happy.” He paused for effect. “I’ve got a job.”

Honor gave a shriek of elation, flung herself into his arms again, and kissed him. “Oh, Robert, that’s wonderful! Who hired you? What will you be doing? When—”

He stopped her stream of questions by lifting her off her feet and spinning her around until they were both laughing and breathless with dizziness. When they stopped, he said, “A law firm called Fitch, Martin and Fogg on Wall Street hired me this morning.”

Honor brushed his mouth lightly with her own. “Oh, Robert, I am so happy for you! You’ve worked so hard for this. You deserve it.” She took his hand and led him over to the sofa. “Come sit down and tell me all about it.”

Robert sat down and turned his body toward her, his face glowing with excitement. “Fogg himself interviewed me, and at first I thought he was going to tell me he only hired Harvard or Yale men. But once he read those letters from your aunt’s lawyer friends, I could tell he wanted me.”

So if Fogg was one of the firm’s founders, it was a new firm. Founders of old, established firms like Boston’s Cutter, Bailey and Rye were long dead, though their names would remain firmly affixed forever.

“Fogg specializes in corporate law, so as his clerk, I’ll learn a lot from him.” He rose and paced back and forth, his restless energy filling the room. “This is only the beginning for me, Honor.”

She tugged at her locket and looked away. “At least someone was willing to hire you. I’m usually laughed out the door because I’m a woman.”

He stopped his pacing. “You knew you’d face incredible obstacles when you decided to become a lawyer.”

She smiled dryly. “That I did.” She rose. “And I’ve decided that since no law firm will hire me, I’ll just have to establish my own practice.”

Robert rubbed his jaw. “Have you thought this through?”

The doubt in his voice took her aback. “I once told you that if I couldn’t find a position with a law firm, I would go into private practice.”

He went to her and took her hands. “Don’t be angry with me. I wasn’t doubting you. It’s just that there are so many law firms in this city, you’ll be a little fish in a big pond filled with sharks. I wonder if you won’t be swallowed up.”

Honor pulled away. “You’ve always been so encouraging. Why the sudden change?”

“I’m merely being realistic. I don’t want to see you hurt.” He sighed. “Plus there’s the expense of renting an office and hiring someone to help you. We can’t afford that just now.”

“I’m sure we can. There’s the money Aunt Theo gave us for a wedding gift.” An account that Honor had opened in both their names. “Even after we pay our rent and expenses, there’s still a goodly amount left over.”

“That has to last us until I become established and we can replenish it. No lawyer ever got rich writing wills.”