Heiress (6 page)

“I’m here to see my father,” she said without introduction.

She’d place the man in his early twenties, eager and spare. Perhaps he’d been a newsie once, for he had a sharp look about him.

“He is in his office. I will announce you.”

“Please.” She smiled at him but didn’t sit as he knocked on her father’s door, peeked inside. In fact, she pushed right past him as her father, seated at his desk, his back to the paladin windows overlooking Chronicle Square, replied, “Who?”

“Me, Father. I need to talk to you.”

He’d always been larger to her than his actual stature, tall and wiry, with deep green eyes that could bore through a man and discover the truth. He’d put the
Chronicle
on the New York landscape by covering the sensational murder of a showgirl and had the audacity to point the finger at the son of a Tammany Hall politician while the police department named a young doorman for the crime. The jury found the doorman not guilty, but the press drove the true culprit from town, a departure the
Chronicle
decried as a travesty for all of New York.

August Price could reduce a reporter to garble, but she didn’t know a woman in town who didn’t look up with a smile when her father entered the room.

Including her.

“What are you doing here?” He wore a smile, but she didn’t hear it in his tone. He came around his desk, took her hands, kissed her cheek. “Is everything okay?”

He helped her into a chair then leaned against the desk. Folded his arms.

She could feel her words turning to glue in her chest. “I—I need to talk to you.”

“If it’s about last night, I know you were surprised. But Foster Worth is quite smitten with you. You will learn to love each other. It’s a good match, Esme.”

She opened her mouth. Licked her lips. Blew out a breath.

“What is it?”

Perhaps she only imagined the compassion in his tone, the way it softened, as if he might mean his words. Still, “Father, I don’t want to marry him.”

He drew in a breath, his shoulders rising. “Why not?”

“It’s not Foster, Father. He’s…suitable. But I don’t want to marry anyone.”

Her father raised an eyebrow. “Do you intend to live your life as a spinster? As a companion?”

“I want to work.”

He made a tight knot with his lips. Glanced at the door, perhaps to see if it was closed. “Where is your mother?”

“I don’t know.”

“You came here alone?”

“I needed to tell you something. I already know what I want to do. And actually, you do too.”

She heard her voice begin to rise, fought it as the words tumbled out. “I want to write, father. I want to be a journalist, like Nellie Bly.”

For a beat, her father didn’t move, didn’t breathe, as if still waiting for her words. Then, he laughed. A short burst that stripped from her the coiled breath inside. “Oh, Esme. What ideas you entertain.”

Ideas. “No, Father, you don’t understand. I…am writing. I have been writing.”

“I’m sure you have. I know how you enjoy your walks through the park.”

“Father, I’m Anonymous Witness!”

She didn’t mean to shout, but, oh—she pressed her hand to her mouth as her father stared at her, his face pinching.

“What?”

“I’m A.W. I’m the one writing the opinion pieces. Selling your paper.”

His smile had vanished. His jaw closed, he breathed out through his nose. “Go home, Esme.”

He leaned up from his perch on the edge of the desk.

“Father, don’t you understand? I can write! You even said last week that you wanted to know the identity of the journalist.”

“Not anymore.”

His tone cut out her breath. “I don’t understand. I thought you liked the articles.”

He sat down at his desk, looked at her. “Who is your source?”

“My source?”

“The person who’s been feeding you this information? I can find out—I’ll ask my editor who’s been delivering your letters to his desk.”

No. She shook her head. “No, I…Father, listen. Don’t you see? I could work for you. I could be a reporter, or a…I’d even work the society pages. You liked my reports on the balls and the matinees.”

“And turn us into the laughingstock, or worse, the Benedict Arnold of Mrs. Astor’s society? It’s one thing for them to believe the words…the jealous tirade of some society outsider. If they knew it was a debutante, they would turn their backs on our family. It’s bad enough that I know. Now get out. Go home, now.”

“But I thought you said…” She hung onto her voice before it deserted her. “You said that you expected big things from me.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You will marry Foster Worth, and you will represent the Price family in society. That is big enough.”

His words burned into her, churned her stomach. She stood up, her breath webbed in her chest. “No.”

He too, had risen, come around the desk. “What?”

“No, I won’t marry him. I won’t marry anyone. I don’t need you or your job—I’ll go work for Pulitzer! He already has Nellie Bly—”

The blow came fast, an open palm, landing on the side of her cheek. Flame exploded on her face, and she fell back, landed in the chair behind her. Her breath caught and she cried out.

Her father stared down upon her, unmoved. “You will marry Foster Worth. This summer, in Newport. And tonight, you will take every last book in your room, including the
Women’s Journal
that I know you’ve been hiding, and you will burn them.”

She pressed her hand to her hot cheek, feeling as if it might be split open. Tears slurred her vision.

“Go home, Esme. Don’t make me escort you out like a stray puppy.”

Somehow she pushed to her feet, gripping the back of the chair for balance. Her father returned to his chair, turned, and stared out the window overlooking the street.

She found her reticule, the one with a new story inside.

“By the way, I won’t publish anything written by A.W. again. Nor will any other paper in this town, I can promise you that.”

She wiped her soggy face. “Yes, Father.”

He stopped her just as she began to close the door. “Esme?”

She paused in the crack between his office and reception, her eyes closed.

“I’m only trying to protect you. You have no idea what kind of world is out there. Trust me, I only want the best for you.”

She wanted his words to balm her, but they only burned inside. “Yes, Father.”

He said nothing more as she let herself out. She didn’t look at the receptionist. The clack of the typewriters turned to bullets in the corridor. She gripped the railing as she descended the stairs, her legs numb. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think—

“Esme?”

The voice stopped her as she hit the landing, but she couldn’t turn toward it. He’d see her failures.

“Esme, what is it?”

Oliver cupped his hand beneath her elbow. She shook her head but he came around her, lifted her chin with his hand.

“Your face—did someone strike you?”

She put her hand to her mouth, but it trembled.

“Come with me.”

She let him lead her toward the cloakroom, into the vestibule off the main entrance. He turned on the overhead light, shut the door, and motioned her to sit on a stool. Coats hung from a rack, smelling of grease and the street, the cold. In the feeble glow of the electric light, Oliver seemed tired, his collar turned up, his dark hair tousled. He knelt before her and peered at her with those devastating brown eyes that always seemed to see more than she intended.

“Have you been up all night?”

“Byron wanted to develop his shots. I just turned in the ones he selected for the society page.”

He still wore his dress shirt, open now at the neck, and smelled faintly of chemicals. His hands as they took hers felt soft, freshly washed. “What happened?”

“I told my father.”

He froze, but he didn’t take his hands from hers. “About A.W.?”

She nodded, her throat again tightening, and looked away. Would she ever erase his face, the sharp laugh, the sting of his hand? “I thought that perhaps he’d see that—”

“That you don’t want to marry Foster Worth?”

Something in his tone made her meet his gaze. She nodded, and for a second a smile nipped at his face. Then, “What did he say?”

She slipped her hand to her face. His expression darkened. “He struck you.” He climbed to his feet.

“Oliver.”

“He struck you. A man never hits a woman, Esme. Ever.”

“He’s my father.”

“I’ll kill him.”

“He’s your boss.”

“Not anymore. Not—”

She grabbed his arm. “No. Leave it, Oliver. I—I do entertain too many ideas. I’m full of fancy. I thought I could be like…well, be a journalist. I thought that’s why I was born into the family I was—to help people. By writing. ”

He knelt before her again. “You can. You could write for the
Globe.
Or the
Sun,
or
Town Topics.”

“No. I was a fool to think I could be someone else.”

“You’re an amazing writer, Esme. I believe in you. Prove to him that you can write—better than any man in his city department.”

“He won’t care.”

“Make him care. Do something that will make him realize that he—”

“No.” She stared at him, the earnestness of his expression. An hour ago, she thought she possessed that also.

Instead, with her father’s words, his hand upon her face, she’d realized she’d simply been playing a game. She couldn’t make the world a better place. Couldn’t stand up to the forces of poverty and evil.

She couldn’t even stand up to her own father.

She stared at him, and as if something else possessed her, she reached out and touched his neck, tracing her finger into a scarred groove just below his collarbone. “I still remember when you got this.”

He seemed stripped, his eyes in hers.

“It was when you were twelve. You were running toward me, then suddenly you went down and landed right in the hedgerow. Came up with a stick in your chest.”

“I thought—I thought I heard someone calling for me.” He let his words hang there and she stilled. “I thought you were calling for me.”

She made to move her hand, but he caught it against his cheek. His voice dropped to a whisper. “Please don’t marry Foster Worth.”

Oh.

Then he leaned forward, stopping a breath away. He…did he want to kiss her? His breath was so close, she could taste it, feel the touch of his lips on hers. She met his eyes and saw in them something she hadn’t noticed before.

You can’t have both worlds, Esme. Choose one.

He searched her face, his gaze settling on her lips, and it ignited something unfamiliar clear through her. “Esme, I—”

“Esme?”

Her father’s voice echoed down the marble steps, into the corridor, the effect of a jolt upon her skin. She jerked back, away from Oliver. “I have to go. He was probably watching and saw that I didn’t go out the front door. He ordered me home.”

He took her hands, his gaze in hers. “Leave with me. Today, right now.”

“Oliver, what are you saying? I can’t—”

“Esme?” Footsteps now on the staircase above.

“I love you, Esme.” His words turned soft, urgent. “I have for years. And I’ll take care of you—I don’t know if I’ll ever be rich, but I promise you’ll never be hungry, and I swear no one will ever hurt you—”

“Esme?” Her father sounded as if he might be on the landing.

Oliver loved her? She stared at him, the way his hair fell into his eyes, his immense shoulders, so much history behind them.
You can’t have both
worlds, Esme. Choose one.

“I can’t, Oliver. I—”

“Do you love me? Because I think you do.”

“Esme? Are you still here?” The voice came past the coatroom and she stilled, her eyes caught in Oliver’s.

“I have to go.”

He closed his eyes.

“You don’t understand.”

“I think I do.”

“Please, Oliver. I—I don’t have a choice. What else can I do?”

“You can be the woman you were meant to be.”

She swallowed, his words stirring, tugging. And then she saw her life.

Living on the street, in those tenements, perhaps sharing a room portioned by a cloth, scrubbing her undergarments in a tub, fighting the rats for stale bread. Or perhaps they’d have a room, one sparsely furnished, with a rough-hewn table, a straw mattress on the floor, all the while scrabbling for stories together on the streets.

By the way, I won’t publish anything written by A.W. again. Nor will any other paper in this town, I can promise you that.

Her father would destroy her.

And Oliver.

“I am that woman I was meant to be.” She got up, and he drew in a breath. She blinked back the burn in her eyes, her throat.

Finally, he nodded, his face hard in the dim light. Footsteps returned, passed by. She listened to them move across the circular entryway.

Oliver took her hand. “Quickly now.”

He pulled her out of the room, across the corridor, and to the employee entrance. “Go out, take a right. Your carriage will be just down the street.”

“Oliver.”

He turned and caught her eyes. His smile seemed pressed out of a dark place inside, despite his gentle tone. “I will never forget how you pulled the stick out of my chest. Then bandaged it every day until it healed.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Any lower and it would have been fatal.”

He pushed her out the door. “Be well, Miss Price.”

Jinx could taste spring in the breeze that stirred through the elms, hemlock, cedars, blue spruce, and empress trees that lined the winding pathways of Central Park. Winter’s bite had lost its edge, despite the fresh dusting of snow, the below-freezing temperatures. Two more weeks and the season would turn toward new life, red and orange buds on the trees, and not long after that, the arrival of her debutante trousseau from Paris.

She drank in the blue skies, the snap of the air, the euphoria of flying as she glided over the Central Park pond.

“Jinx! Are you coming into the warming house?”

Alistair Whitney skated up beside her, turning backwards to grin at her. He wore a Russian shopka, his greatcoat collar turned up, a white silk scarf blowing in the breeze. A boy poised at the edge of manhood. After his graduation from prep school, he would attend West Point or Harvard, but like Jinx, he had surrendered to the pull of a Saturday afternoon with his chums.