Honor (38 page)

Sympathetic anger flashed in Catherine’s eyes. “How infuriating! When I wanted to become a doctor, you can’t imagine the stupid, illogical arguments that were used to try to discourage me.”

Honor felt another surge of kinship with this woman. “They were probably the same ones used to try to discourage me from becoming a lawyer.”

“My favorite was the theory that such taxing mental activity would wear a woman out physically.”

“I was told by law professors and fellow students—all male, of course—that the rigors of arguing cases in the courtroom would cause me to die at an early age.”

Catherine gave a derisive bark of laughter. “Women are physically able to work twelve hours a day in a sweatshop or as servants, but they’re not strong enough to practice medicine or law.”

“Then one day I showed my male colleagues an obituary for a male lawyer who died when he was only twenty-nine.” Honor smiled. “I guess the rigors of the courtroom proved too much for him as well.”

She looked at Nevada. “Thank God that not all men are so narrow-minded.” He smiled and raised her hand to his lips.

Honor said to Catherine, “I’ve read in the newspapers about your dealings with Anthony Comstock, but I’d like you to tell me how you became one of his targets.”

Catherine’s gentle gaze hardened as she lowered her voice, creating an air of intimacy. “I was a doctor who treated tenement women. I saw firsthand how repeated childbearing kept them impoverished. I knew how they could prevent unwanted pregnancies, and I told them.

“One day Comstock sent one of his henchmen to my office posing as a concerned husband who wanted to limit the size of his family.” She rolled her eyes. “He said he worked as a clerk and didn’t make much money, so having a child every year was becoming too much of a burden. He wanted me to tell him how to keep his wife from having any more children.

“Comstock was waiting outside. If I had given his crony the desired information, they would have arrested me. But my intuition warned me there was just something not quite right about him, so I sent the man packing.”

“Bastard,” Damon muttered, his gray eyes turning as cold as pewter at the memory.

Catherine added, “Then Comstock went around to my patients in the tenements demanding to know if I had ever told them how to keep from having babies.” Her expression softened. “They all denied that I had ever given them such information.”

“They obviously appreciated how much you were trying to help them improve their lives,” Honor said, touched by the loyalty Catherine inspired.

“Later, Comstock stood outside of my office for hours, harassing my patients.” Her serene face twisted in anger. “He did later have me arrested for supposedly performing an abortion on a young prostitute.”

Damon’s expression turned as black as a thundercloud.

Nevada said, “The police actually barged into the house here during a ball and arrested the doc.”

Honor raised her brows in astonishment; “In the middle of a ball? In front of a houseful of guests?”

Damon nodded. “I could have killed Comstock with my bare hands for that.” And he meant it.

Catherine knotted her fingers together in her lap, obviously distressed by the memories, but determined to continue. “Those charges were dropped when another doctor, a friend of mine named Kim Flanders, came forward and confessed to having performed the abortion, so I was freed. But Comstock later had me arrested a second time. He got a search warrant and found-anti-conception literature that I had received through the mail.”

Honor shook her head regretfully. “If that information hadn’t been sent through the mail, they wouldn’t have had a case against you.”

Damon downed the rest of his bourbon in one swallow, and his expression darkened further. “That’s why we fled the country. Comstock had too much evidence against Catherine, and my lawyer couldn’t guarantee that he could win her case.” He stared at Honor defiantly. “Breaking the law was preferable to my wife going to prison.”

Honor put on her expressionless lawyer’s face so she wouldn’t reveal her annoyance. “You should have stayed and found a better lawyer, one more experienced in criminal cases. He could have found ways to keep Catherine from even going to trial for months, possibly years.”

Enunciating every word slowly, Damon said, “I couldn’t take the chance.”

Honor said, “How did you manage to evade Comstock? Surely he had you watched while you were out on bail.”

“We fooled the old buzzard,” Damon replied. “I knew Comstock was watching the house, so on the night we were planning to leave, two friends of ours led him on a wild-goose chase. They took our carriage to Grand Central, so Comstock assumed we were leaving town by train and followed it. When he got there and accosted them, he discovered that ‘the Delancys’ were really a doctor friend of Catherine’s and her maid cradling a ham in her arms as if it were our child. By the time Comstock realized he had been tricked, we were on the
Copper Queen
heading for England.”

“An ingenious ruse,” Honor said. She had to admire the man’s guile.

“The end justified the means,” Damon said. He looked at Honor. “I’ve thought about this long and carefully, and I’d like someone else to represent my wife.”

Honor swallowed hard to hide her disappointment. “I understand.”

“I hope you won’t take offense,” he said.

“I’m disappointed, but I know you’re doing what you think is best for your wife.”

“I disagree with my husband’s decision,” Catherine said. “Unfortunately, I can’t make him change his mind.”

“I don’t want to be the cause of any friction between you,” Honor said.

Damon just smiled. “Do you know of another lawyer who might take the case?”

“There’s an attorney in Philadelphia named Philip Lyons who has a reputation for winning cases,” she replied. “I can see if he’s available, if you like.”

“I’d appreciate it,” Damon said.

Honor added hopefully, “I know I could learn a great deal from a lawyer of his stature, so I’d like to assist him with Catherine’s case, if you have no objections.”

“I have no objections,” Damon said, “but Lyons may. I leave his choice of an assistant up to him.”

So he didn’t even trust her to assist in his wife’s defense. Honor bit down her resentment and wished the evening would end.

By the time Nevada could bear to pry himself out of Honor’s soft, warm arms and return home through hushed, deserted streets, it was three o’clock. Only Damon remained awake at this hour of the night, sprawled in one corner of the chesterfield sofa and so lost in thought that he started when Nevada entered the parlor.

Damon’s bloodshot gaze took in Nevada’s rumpled frock coat, tousled hair, and satisfied expression. He grinned. “Why didn’t you stay with her until morning?”

Nevada took off his coat, flung it across a nearby chair, and grinned back at his friend. He yanked off his tie and rolled up his shirtsleeves. “Much as I hated to leave her, she needs her rest.”

“She won’t get any if you’re around.” Damon raised his glass. “Make yourself comfortable.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” Nevada poured himself a bourbon, then seated himself across from his friend.

Damon dragged his hand through his hair. “Christ, am I glad to be out of that cold, wet, miserable country.”

Nevada cradled his glass in one hand. “I take it you didn’t cotton to England.” Aside from frequent cablegrams concerning the firm, Damon had left the letter-writing to his wife, and Catherine had purposely spared Nevada most of the hardships they endured as expatriates.

Damon snorted in derision. “You could say that, old friend. Everything was always cold and damp, even the food. And the people…” He looked at Nevada. “Do you know that a duchess once asked me how large my plantation was and how many Negro slaves I owned?”

Nevada stared at him, dumbfounded.

“Stupid woman. And her husband, the duke, wanted to know if red Indians had ever attacked my home!”

After Nevada finished laughing, he said, “Well, they did once, in Arizona.”

Damon grinned. “That’s what I told him. You should’ve seen his face.” Then his smile died. He shook his head and added bitterly, “I didn’t know the right people, so it was damned hard doing business there.”

Nevada sobered. “It must have been hell for you.”

“It was.” Damon emptied his glass, and his expression softened. “If it hadn’t been for Catherine, I would have gone mad. I knew she was homesick and always blaming herself for forcing us into exile, but, she refused to lose hope. Every day she said to me, ‘It will get better,’ but it never did.”

Nevada thought of Honor. “A good woman sure lightens the load.”

Damon rose, refilled his glass, and returned to the sofa. His voice turned ragged when he said, “Then Willie died.”

There was such an unbearable darkness in Damon’s eyes that Nevada had to look away. When Nevada had learned that Sybilla was carrying his child, the pain of promise unfulfilled had seared his soul, but his own pain must have been as fleeting as the touch of a feather compared to what Damon had suffered and was suffering still.

Damon’s eyes glazed, and, he stared at something only he could see. “One day he was laughing and playing tricks on his papa, and then he was gone. After he died, it rained for twelve days. I never wanted the sun to shine again.”

Nevada glanced up to find Catherine standing in the doorway. How long she had been there and how much she had heard, he didn’t know.

Her eyes hot and dry, her face tight with the strain of always remaining strong, she walked over to the sofa and placed a hand on her husband’s shoulder. Damon looked at her, and something terrible and heartbreaking passed between them. He rose and slipped his arm around her waist, leaning against her like a sad old man. Without so much as a good night to Nevada, they went up to bed.

Nevada stared into the depths of his bourbon, suddenly wishing Honor were here. He needed her smile, her warmth, her life.

Philip Lyons had better be good, he thought, draining his glass and rising. Damn good.

Chapter Nineteen

“You must forgive my husband,” Catherine said to Honor two days later, when the women were having luncheon together, seated across from each other at one end of the long mahogany table in the Delancys’ dining room. Her eyes sparkled with wry humor. “I’m afraid his tendency to protect me can make him insufferable.”

Honor sensed that Catherine preferred honesty to the graceful social lie, so she said, “I have noticed.”

Catherine laughed. “You speak your mind.”

“And you really listen to what others have to say,” Honor said. “I can see why your patients are so loyal.” Indeed, the woman’s warm and genuine interest in people made Honor feel as though she had known Catherine Delancy all her life.

Catherine beamed, obviously pleased.

Honor had accepted Catherine’s invitation because she wanted to discover the real woman beyond the persecuted female doctor presented in the sensational newspaper accounts and the saint so glowingly described by everyone else. Without Damon around to dominate with his forceful personality, Honor found that the intelligent, humorous Catherine could hold her own.

Today she looked less tired than when she had first stepped off the
Copper Queen,
and she had relieved the stark black of her mourning clothes with a white shirtwaist sporting a flattering fine red stripe.

Honor picked at her salad. “How did you and Damon meet?”

“I first saw Damon ice-skating with a lady friend in Central Park,” Catherine replied, “but we didn’t actually meet until his horse threw him in the middle of a busy street near my office. He fractured his clavicle—his collarbone—and I set it for him.” A mischievous smile played about her mouth. “I’ve never had a surlier patient. He was unbelievably rude and arrogant, accusing me of overcharging him, then refusing to pay my fee.”

Honor sipped her cold Chablis. “Not an auspicious way to begin a relationship, was it?”

“Indeed.” Catherine’s smile faded. “My husband is a difficult man. Since we’re both so headstrong and stubborn, our courtship and marriage have been tumultuous, to say the least. There have been times…” She shook her head, her gaze clouding at some remembered incident. “Yet we always resolve our differences because we love each other.”

“Nevada has never struck me as particularly difficult,” Honor said. “Remote, with a certain untamed quality, but not difficult.” Except when he kept secrets.

Catherine fell silent for a moment as if contemplating some point she wanted to make. Then she said, “If Damon is a hurricane, all thunder and roaring wind, then Nevada is the eye of the storm.”

Honor considered that metaphor and smiled. “The eye of a storm…calm in the midst of turmoil. Yes, that does describe him.”

Catherine toyed with the stem of her wineglass. “Women as unconventional as we are can only be content with unconventional men who accept us for what we are. Yet because they are different as well, we can’t expect them to act like ordinary men.” She sighed. “Sometimes their differences can be aggravating, but that is the price we pay for loving them.”

Honor ate the rest of her salad in silence as she thought about Catherine’s assertion. She couldn’t expect an extraordinary man like Nevada to behave like Wesley Saltonsall or Amos Grant. Indeed, she didn’t want him to. His upbringing in a brothel and life on his own in the lawless, violent West had shaped him as much as Honor’s tragic loss of her father and privileged life with Aunt Theo had shaped her. But as Catherine had said, the women they loved paid a price.