The Gilded Cage (36 page)

“We should never go there again,” Darcy put in.

“So Mrs. Vesey Montclair turned to Darcy and asked her if she would actually receive her mother should she leave a card at our hotel. And Darcy replied sweetly that she was going to call on Amelia first thing
without,
of course, mentioning that Amelia is now Mrs. Fitzchurch. Darcy almost killed poor Matilda. I swear, Columbine, the poor thing choked on her fish—I thought my own filet terribly bony—and Reverend Collier had to pound her on the back. Whereupon Mrs. Vesey Montclair's emerald brooch popped its clasp, flew across the porcelain dishes and landed a mean one on my left eye.” He turned back to Darcy. “Case closed.”

Darcy swatted him. Her quiet gray eyes were full of merriment. “I can see why you are opposed to marriage, Columbine,” she said. “How I wish sometimes that you had converted me. Or perhaps I should become an anarchist.”

“That blackguard Mr. Birch certainly tried to convert you,” Tavish said, scowling.

Columbine sat up. “If he's such a blackguard, Tavish, whyever did you send him to me?”

“Send him to you? I didn't.”

“But he said—”

“Oh, I might have mentioned you—perhaps at one time might have said, if you get to New York, look her up … something like that. Before I knew what he was, that is. I know how much you adore radicals,” Tavish said, grinning. “But you didn't get a letter of introduction, did you?”

Columbine shook her head. Lawrence had told her the letter had been lost in the haste of his journey. She had meant to write Tavish about it, but she had forgotten, and soon it seemed unimportant.

Darcy looked concerned. “Mr. Birch came here, Columbine?”

“Yes, a couple of months ago,” Columbine said neutrally. “He had some trouble in San Francisco, he said.”

“I'll say,” Tavish growled. “Some say he caused it.”

“There was no proof, Tavish,” Darcy said quietly.

“I know. But it was a bad business. I hope you didn't get entangled with the man, Columbine. Frankly, I don't trust him a bit.”

“Columbine probably saw through him in the first five minutes,” Darcy said decidedly. “She's such a good judge of character.”

“Mmmmm,” said the cowardly Columbine. She picked up the decanter. “More sherry?” she asked brightly.

Marguerite wore her white bengaline gown with Irish lace and no jewelry. She arranged her hair in a simple style. She had the cook make Edwin's favorite lunch. She was tender with him while he ate, solicitously asking him about the brokerage business, and only letting an occasional soft sigh escape her. When he had finished, he poured himself another glass of Bordeaux and pushed back his chair.

He patted his lap. “Come here, little one. Something is troubling you.”

Marguerite slipped off her brocade chair and went to sit on his knee. His arm curved around her waist. “Tell me,” Edwin said softly. He loved solving Marguerite's little problems. “It can't be so bad, can it?”

She leaned against his shoulder. “Oh, Edwin. I'm so happy, and yet I can't seem to stop weeping. I hardly know how to begin.”

“At the beginning, dear,” Edwin said. He thought he sounded wonderfully masterful. Like his father, nearly.

Tears sparkled on her thick black lashes. “I'm going to have your child, Edwin,” she whispered.

Edwin felt as though ice water had been poured over his head, having the dual effect of shocking him and freezing his brain. “What?” he asked stupidly.

“At first I wasn't certain. But now I am.” Marguerite peeked at Edwin. He looked awfully, well, stupid, with his mouth open like that. “Isn't it wonderful, darling?”

He pushed her off his lap so he could stand. That action, the first curt gesture he'd ever made toward her, started Marguerite's heart beating. She leaned against the table. The queasiness was constant with her now, and she desperately told herself she could not be sick, not now.

He fumbled in his pocket for a cigar. She closed her eyes. Not a cigar! She would lose her composure for certain.

“Please, Edwin,” she said weakly. “I must ask you not to smoke. I'll be ill.”

Automatically, Edwin returned the cigar to its case. “How could you do this!” he burst out, wheeling around to glare at her. “Father will never forgive this.”

A slight widening of the nostrils was the only sign that Marguerite was furious. She must not show it. She must salvage this, she must. She must not lose her temper. “He doesn't have to know, Edwin. We can marry.”

“We cannot marry in time, I would have to elope. Even if we
could
marry, it is impossible.”

“Even if we
could?
What are you saying, Edwin?” Real tears gathered in her eyes now. “I thought you loved me.”

“Marguerite,” he said desperately, “don't you understand? My family, my position? This is impossible.”

“Stop saying it's impossible! I'm afraid it
is
possible, Edwin, for I am standing here carrying your child. Despite your Eastern method of control,'” she added bitterly.

He stared at her. “Exactly. I timed myself, I controlled my fluids—”

She made a disgusted noise. “That's ridiculous. In the beginning, perhaps. But there were many times that—”

“There's someone else,” he said. “You have another lover. I can see it in your face. My God, I should have listened to my friends. I should never have trusted you.”

Her mouth was open. She wanted to fly at him in a rage. Her Edwin, her pale, elegant Edwin, was accusing her like this, like a bully, like a…
man?

“You are despicable,” she said.

“You see that Toby Wells almost every day. The driver told me.”

“What are you saying? You know I take music lessons from him.”

“Sometimes you stay for two hours or more—”

“Because what do I have to return to? An empty house with only an Irish maid to keep me company. You keep me here, I can never go out—”

“I demand an answer!” Edwin shouted. “Who is the father of that child?”

Marguerite stood rigid, her hands clasped into tiny fists at her sides. She wanted to fly at him, she wanted to scratch his eyes out, she wanted to murder him. But instead she turned her back and left the room.

She went to the library and sat on the sofa, her whole body shaking. She could hardly think or move. Where to turn? she wondered dizzily. Where to turn? She heard footsteps down the hall, heard the slam of the front door. Edwin was gone.

“What will I do?” she asked the empty room. Never in her worst nightmares had she imagined this.

Bridget knocked lightly on the door. Her blue eyes rounded in concern when she saw her young mistress. “Can I do something for you, ma'am?” she asked solicitiously.

Marguerite shook her head. “Just leave me alone, please.” But as Bridget nodded and turned, Marguerite spoke up. “No, Bridget, I'm going out. Will you put out my gray cloak, the one with the white velvet trim, and my new hat?”

A kind of calmness came over her as she dressed to go out. She knew the answer now. Edwin was terrified of his father. For all his talk of his independence, he still answered to Winthrop Stiers. How Toby had snickered whenever she blithely said that Edwin was his own man! She should have listened to Toby; he had tried to warn her about Edwin. But now even her best friend had turned his back. Toby was furious with her for humiliating him at the theater. She would have to solve her own problem.

Winthrop Stiers was the key, she thought as she hailed a hansom cab on Madison, for Edwin had taken the private carriage. She remembered clearly how Edwin had said that his sister-in-law Rosamond had won his father over. Well, she was prettier and more charming than Rosamond, Marguerite felt sure. And Rosamond, in her fifth year of marriage, had yet to produce a child. Winthrop Stiers was heavily disappointed, Edwin had said.

The carriage pulled up in front of the Stiers' quiet brownstone on Fifth and Thirty-Sixth street. This was the neighborhood of the Old Guard, those venerable New York families who refused to follow the steady drive uptown, as millionaires pushed farther and farther up Fifth Avenue with their palaces and their limestone castles. Here the money and the mood was quiet and restrained. Marguerite knew that these brownstones were vastly more confident than those grandiose piles, but she still would prefer to have a Renaissance palace like the one Alva Vanderbilt had commissioned than an ugly old brownstone. When she and Edwin married, perhaps his father would build them a new house farther up Fifth, near the Valentine Hartleys, the epitome of the smart younger set.

But still, even the brownstone cowed her a bit. She hesitated on the walk, looking at the curtained windows. A momentary still voice within her told her to stop and reconsider. But Marguerite was on fire from Edwin's reaction. She knew in the very depths of her that Edwin had not meant to be cruel; it was just that he was still a boy, unable to stand up for himself. She would have to arrange everything. She would have to do it, for Edwin would hem and haw and put her off for weeks, even while her belly grew rounder and she was bursting the seams of her dresses. And what else could she do? Where else could she turn?

That thought propelled up the stairs and made her hand strong as she let the knocker fall. She gave the butler her card, folding over the left corner to let him know she wanted to be received. She'd already written “an urgent matter concerning your son” on the back.

She was left to wait in the front parlor. Marguerite nervously noted how elegant the room was. She had read of the Vanderbilt drawing rooms in the Japanese or French mode, of jeweled butterflies sewn in the velvet curtains, of the carved wainscoting, the marble fireplaces, the ebony furniture inlaid with gold. But here the elegance of the furnishings lay in their rich, discreet velvets and fine woods. Family pictures were collected on a small table, and over the mantlepiece was a luminious landscape of a Hudson River school painter. There was a minimum of the jumble and display of most parlors, however, and something in the room seemed chilly to Marguerite, despite the cheer of a small fire. Perhaps it was the absence of books, or periodicals, or even a pair of glasses forgotten on a table. Nothing personal was in this room. Used to Columbine's clutter, and her own messes, Marguerite found it strange.

A throat cleared behind her, and she whirled around to find the butler had returned. She was afraid that he'd been sent to escort her out again, but he told her that Mr. Stiers would receive her in the library, and to please follow him.

She walked down a long red carpeted hall to a room at the back of the house. Her first impression on entering the room was of strong masculinity; she could smell cigars and leather and fine old brandy. Mr. Winthrop Stiers stood in the middle of the green Persian rug looking at her with a bland expression. He was almost seventy, she knew, but he still had the same elegance of form that Edwin had inherited. He waited until the butler had withdrawn and closed the door behind him. “Miss Corbeau,” he said neutrally.

“Mr. Stiers, you must forgive me for intruding like this. If it weren't a matter of the greatest urgency, I would not have disturbed you.”

He nodded slightly. “Please sit down.”

Marguerite sat in the straight-backed chair he indicated while he went back behind the desk. She wished they could have sat in the armchairs in front of the fire, but this would have to do. She knew she created a pretty impression in her white velvet hat trimmed with lilac grosgrain ribbons and violets. Even though her cheeks were pale, she told herself that it gave her an aristocratic look.

“You know my son?” he asked.

She nodded. “I became acquainted with your son several months ago, sir. We became … attached. He asked me to marry him some months ago.”

He nodded again, only slightly, but at least he gave no sign that this information distressed him.

“Edwin wants to tell you,” she said. “But he can't. It's that he wants to please you so much. He reveres you, Mr. Stiers. And I,” she said softly, her lashes trembling as she looked down at her prettily clasped hands, “revere him.”

“Shouldn't it be my son's place to tell me this, Miss Corbeau?”

“Of course. But I thought if I came to you, bold a step as it may be, and presented myself to you as your future daughter-in-law, we could be frank with one another. Edwin is proud, Mr. Stiers. He would think it an insult to explain his choice, to have to answer questions about my background. But I know there are things you must ask, and I wanted to give you the opportunity to do so. I am an orphan, but I come from a good family in France. My father was a very prosperous grain merchant. He was a gentleman, and I was educated to be a lady. My family emigrated five years ago, and unfortunately my parents died soon after arriving in America. I was raised by my aunt, who had fallen on hard circumstances. But still, she had a respectable house upstate. She died a year ago, and I moved to New York.” Marguerite prayed that none of these details would be checked. She would just have to risk it.

“I see,” he said. “Are you aware, Miss Corbeau, that Edwin is already an engaged man?”

Marguerite swallowed. “No,” she said confusedly, “no, I was not. Edwin never said—”

“It is not official as of yet. Certain arrangements still have to be made with the father of the lady. But it is a matter of time.” He reached for a silver box and extracted a cigar. Marguerite's stomach rolled over at the thought of the smell. He did not ask if she minded, and she could hardly ask him to abstain. She'd already spent all her courage to come to him at all. She leaned back.

“I think Edwin would have told me if he was serious about this,” she said slowly. “Perhaps it is you who want the engagement, Mr. Stiers, not your son.”

“Are you so sure of that, Miss Corbeau?” He clipped the end of the cigar and lit it, puffing slowly. “I must confess I am still puzzled as to why you have chosen to come to me. But you have, and you've said your piece, I assume, so can we consider the interview closed?”