Words Spoken True (12 page)

“I was old enough,” Blake said. “And young enough to think it would be the opportunity of a lifetime for a reporter.”

“And did you find that to be true?” She kept her eyes on his face.

“The stories I sent back gained me some notice, and since I was lucky enough to live through the war, I suppose it was.”

“Aaron was not so lucky.” Grace turned her eyes back down toward the sidewalk. “I, of course, was reluctant to see him march off in his royal blue colors with the Louisville Legion, but at the same time, I don’t think I could have felt any prouder. He was stepping up for his country. For his family.” The woman’s small sigh was a whisper of sadness. “I have since come to realize that the heart-swelling response to the playing of a patriotic tune can be most dangerous and one politicians are not hesitant to use in order to gain their ends.”

“Was Mr. Compton killed in one of the battles?”

“No. Nothing so glorious. Disease. His health had never been very strong.” She shook her head a little as if to clear it of worrisome memories. “At any rate, I knew then I could never be disloyal to the memory of what we had shared by remarrying. So there would be no children. I opened a girls’ school, which with my enlightened views did not find a welcome place in this city, but it did bring me Adriane. She was fifteen at the time and so totally fresh and open, unmarred by the accepted social restrictions usually taught little girls from an early age.”

“Hadn’t she been to school before then?”

“Just the school of her father’s library of books and the newspaper office. She learned to read before the age of five. She was never sure how, but could remember Wade reading the newspaper to her. Even as a little child, she must have had an extraordinary gift for words. A certain unusual maturity if you will.” Grace walked a few steps in silence before she went on. “Whatever it was, her stepmother could never accept Adriane as she was. I think she was a bit frightened of such a child, and she punished what she feared.”

“Her father allowed that?” Blake said.

“He did what he could, often taking Adriane to the shop with him where Beck watched out for her. Dear Beck.” Grace smiled. “He became an adoring uncle of sorts to Adriane, and I, eventually when our paths crossed, an equally adoring aunt.”

“And her teacher as well.”

“I suppose so, although it was always debatable which of us taught the other the most new things. When she first came to me, her mind was filled with the most amazing facts. She knew the schedules and records of dozens of steamboats. She knew the names and political leanings of most of the senators and representatives in Washington and the names of the mayors in all the bigger cities. But only the most basic math.”

“She’s a very interesting young woman,” Blake said as they neared the end of the first block from his offices.

“Do you think so?” Grace glanced sideways up at him, but gave him no time to answer her inquiry as she went on. “Do you know the Jimsons?”

Blake’s voice hardened a bit. “I know them.”

“It’s odd how having a fortune, no matter how that fortune might have been obtained, can make a man seem respectable to his fellow citizens.”

“What do you mean?”

“My father was associated in business with Coleman Jimson once. I was young at the time, too young to understand exactly what happened, but I do know the man stole my father’s business.” Grace paused a moment. “And destroyed his will to live. Father shot himself in what they kindly called a hunting accident not very long afterward and Mother had to take in boarders to survive. I learned to make hats.”

“Your father is not the only person Jimson has destroyed on his way to the top, but you can rest assured that his road to the state senate will not be clear,” Blake said. “I have been gathering information and will soon be ready to reveal to the voters exactly the sort of man he is.”

“You’d best be very ready, Mr. Garrett.” Grace gave Blake an appraising look. “Coleman Jimson is not an adversary to take on lightly.”

“I’m keenly aware of that.” Blake’s jaw tightened.

“Yes, I can see you are.” Grace turned her eyes away from him and stared straight ahead as she continued. “I’ve never told any of this to Adriane. There hardly seemed any reason to. It all happened so long ago. And as much as I dislike Coleman Jimson, at least one can understand the basic greed ruling him. Stanley is not so easily understood, but the young man worries me.”

“In what way?”

“I’m not sure. He has money, position. He could have married any girl in the city, and yet he chooses Adriane who has no connections, no family wealth.”

“Perhaps he loves her. She is a beautiful woman.” A vision of Adriane floated into his mind.

“I suppose that is possible, but from what I hear about town, I can’t see young Stanley going against the social conventions for love. He would want a proper wife. And though her beauty is hardly in doubt, there are times when Adriane—as you have discovered—does not bother to practice sweetness and light. I have difficulty believing Stanley is not a man who would prefer sweetness and light. I sense some sort of deal going on here.”

“Surely Adriane’s father would not bargain her hand in marriage.”

“Not unless he thought it was for her own good, and you can see why he might think such a match with Stanley Jimson would be to Adriane’s advantage. The worst part of it is that Adriane thinks she can handle Stanley. She thinks he is weak.”

“And you do not?”

“Again I’m not sure. I don’t really know Stanley, only what I’ve heard from my hat customers. You know how some ladies do enjoy repeating tidbits of stories and rumors they’ve heard in the parlors, especially when it’s about one of the better known families in the city.”

“What stories?” Blake asked. Maybe he could add to his arsenal of weapons against Coleman Jimson.

“Nothing I could substantiate since one can’t really give such stories much credence. But of one thing I am absolutely sure.” Her voice got a bit stronger and took on the tone of the teacher she had once been as she went on. “Stanley is not a good match for Adriane.”

“I can agree with you there,” Blake said. “Although of course, I’m barely acquainted with Adriane.”

“Acquainted enough, I daresay.” Grace sent another sideways glance up at him. “However, at last, I come to my favor, Mr. Garrett. I’ll only be in town a few weeks. Since Adriane knows I disapprove of this union, it’s doubtful she will write me anything about it. So I was wondering if I might count on you to keep me informed if the date is moved up or anything untoward befalls.”

“Of course, madam.”

“And I know it’s more than I have a right to ask.” The little woman touched his arm and stopped walking. She stared up at him intently. “But I beg you to watch out for her. She needs a friend right now, and I rather feel I’m deserting her in her hour of greatest need, but I must return to Boston. I have commitments.”

“I fear the lady doesn’t want me as a friend. She avoids me at all costs.” Blake saw no reason to sashay around the truth.

“Then you have to find a way to make her talk to you. Your newspapers are warring. Make that war more personal so she’ll have to respond.”

“Are you suggesting I intentionally make her angry with me?” Blake raised his eyebrows as he looked down at the woman.

Her eyes twinkled a little as she answered him. “Last time the two of you had a duel of words, it ended with you kissing her hand. Who knows how the next duel might end?”

“You’re taking a lot for granted, madam,” Blake said.

“So I am, Mr. Garrett, and I will pray that yours and Adriane’s paths will often cross.” She looked up at him with guileless sincerity. “Do you believe in prayer?”

“I don’t spend much time on my knees,” Blake admitted.

“There are many postures of prayer. But never fear, I will pray doubly hard for your endeavors in the weeks ahead.” Her mouth twisted in an amused little smile as she reached out to squeeze his hand. “I will send you my address when I return to Boston.”

As the slight woman walked swiftly away, head high, others on the street gave way to her determined progress. Blake shook his head and turned back toward the
Herald
’s offices. With women like Grace Compton leading the charge, who knew what women would be asking for next?

She’d certainly asked enough of him, although making Adriane angry should be easy enough. But he didn’t want her to stay angry. Perhaps some kind of trick might not be out of line.

All at once he remembered an old New Orleans paper he had come across when he was gathering the river slasher articles. He’d read it because it detailed a murder as well. Nothing like the Louisville murders, but it had made sensational headlines in New Orleans. He would press the wrinkles out of the paper and send it by messenger to Adriane as if it had just arrived on one of the steamboats from New Orleans. Then just to be sure she realized the story was suspect, he’d credit a record-breaking run to one of the slowest, leakiest steamboats in the harbor, the
Douchester
. That should get a response.

Perhaps she would even storm into the
Herald
offices to demand he apologize for his subterfuge. Which he would readily do. Then if the moment was right, he could offer more than an apology. He could offer her a way to escape Stanley Jimson. He could almost feel her head against his shoulder, her soft hair brushing his lips. He’d be more than willing to go down on his knees if he thought prayer could make that happen.

He let out a short laugh at the idea of praying Adriane into his arms. His father had been a praying man and what had it got him? A bullet in the street for printing the truth. Blake pulled open the door and went back inside his building. The clank and rumble of the press greeted him like an old friend as he made his way back to his desk to find the old New Orleans paper. What was it someone had told him once? That sometimes a man had to give his prayers legs.

A
driane had been dreading the Jimsons’ summer ball for days. The annual event on the second Saturday in June was as expected in Louisville as the summer heat. The party known for its elaborate spread of food, fine music, and ostentatious decorations drew guests from far and wide with so many beautifully bedecked belles in attendance that it was rumored more than half of all Louisville marriages could trace their roots back to the ball.

Last summer, Adriane had made a long enough appearance to get an acceptable list of names for an enthusiastic report of the event in the
Tribune
. This year, as almost one of the family, she was expected to lend her support by being present hours earlier than necessary.

So now she sat with Stan, three of his sisters, and his mother in the parlor amid the smilax-bedecked mirrors and doorways as they awaited their guests. Adriane tried to console herself with the thought that there should be plenty of political talk at the party later. She’d be sure to overhear something she could use in a Colonel Storey letter.

Adriane slowly waved her fan back and forth in front of her face and managed to swallow yet another yawn as one of the sisters repeated an inane comment one of her children had made the previous day, or so the nanny had reported. Even Meta Jimson seemed bored by her daughter’s recital. Over the top of her own fan, Mrs. Jimson’s eyes kept flipping from Stanley to Adriane.

No one expected Adriane to talk, which was a relief. For about the tenth time Adriane smoothed the folds of her silvery blue dress, yet another one Nora had finished in record time. Adriane had picked the fabric chiefly because it was so different, and now here among the more ordinary yellow, pink, and cream dresses of Stan’s sisters, she wondered if once again she’d chosen poorly. Perhaps it would serve her better to strive for the ordinary.

She certainly hadn’t liked it when she’d come down the stairs to check on how the paper was coming before she left and Beck had barred her from the pressroom as he’d looked at her in wonder.

“You make a vision in that dress, Addie. One that don’t belong in here.”

She’d looked down at the flowing yards of fabric that seemed to pick up and reflect the sunlight streaming in the window next to the front door and knew he was right even if she didn’t want him to be. Then Duff, pounding in from outside with some bit of news, had stopped in his tracks at the sight of her.

“Is that you, Miss Adriane?” He whipped off his hat and stared at her with wide eyes. “You look like a princess out of a storybook.”

The way they had stared at her as if she were not only someone they didn’t know but someone they were afraid to meet had been much more distressing to Adriane than the look of disapproval in Meta Jimson’s eyes. The woman’s lips curled down now as she said, “That’s a most unusual color for a dress, Adriane.”

“Yes, it is,” Adriane agreed mildly.

“But it is lovely, isn’t it, Mother?” Stan spoke up quickly, his eyes lingering a long moment on Adriane.

“Very lovely if one doesn’t mind being so conspicuous.” Mrs. Jimson sniffed with disapproval and turned her eyes from Adriane to Stanley. “Fetch me another cushion, Stanley dearest. All this sitting is straining my back.”

Stan had already fetched her a glass of tea, a fresh handkerchief, and a low stool to prop up her feet under her dark purple silk dress. Each time Stanley jumped to satisfy one of his mother’s whims, she smiled a little at Adriane as if she were winning some kind of point. Adriane wanted to tell the old dragon she didn’t care if Stan did handstands in the middle of the floor for his mother. In fact it might even be amusing. Heaven only knew something amusing needed to happen before they all fell out of their chairs with boredom. Another of the sisters began talking about the trouble she was having with her cook. The woman just could not learn to make a proper meringue dessert and couldn’t Papa possibly give her a new cook.

Adriane turned her mind away from the conversation before she could think too much about what she would do when “Papa” started giving her and Stanley cooks. Adriane hadn’t thought at all about what would happen after the wedding since that seemed hurdle enough to face, but now it dawned on her slowly and not very pleasantly that she would be expected to have slaves as servants.

She suppressed a sigh. Here was yet something else about which she and Stan would have to come to an understanding. Her eyes drifted over to Stan. He hadn’t been very understanding about anything of late. They had argued three times during the last week. Twice about how Adriane needed to take more care styling her hair before they went to socials, and once about Blake Garrett pulling Adriane from the path of the carriage horses.

The morning following her visit to Grace, Stanley had stormed into the newspaper offices, almost shouting about how she’d been seen in Blake Garrett’s arms out on the streets.

Adriane had pulled him back into the hall before her father could wonder at the commotion and come out of his office. In the process she smeared ink on Stan’s sleeve. For a moment she was uncertain which upset him the most—the thought of her in Blake Garrett’s arms or the ink stain on his sleeve.

As she rubbed ineffectively at the ink with her handkerchief, she did her best to calm his anger. “I was careless, Stan, and stepped into the street without paying proper attention. Mr. Garrett was good enough to pull me out of the way of a carriage.”

“I suppose he just happened to be on the walkway beside you,” Stan said with a sneer of disbelief.

“I have no idea where he was. I didn’t see him until he pulled me back up on the walk before I could be run down.” Adriane concentrated on breathing in and out slowly. It would do little good for her to let her temper rise to match his.

“Even if that’s so, it hardly explains why he had to hold you while two carriages passed by.” Stan’s voice was still too loud.

“I felt faint,” Adriane said.

“Faint? You’ve never felt faint in your life, Adriane Darcy.” Stan glared at her.

“I’ve never before been nearly run down by a team of spirited horses. The sight of hooves slashing the air above one’s head is a bit unsettling.” Adriane kept her voice calm. “And while I might have preferred to be rescued by someone other than Mr. Garrett, I can hardly claim to be sorry I was rescued, can I?”

“I suppose not,” he conceded. “But you shouldn’t have even been in that part of town unescorted. You need to remember your position.”

“My position, yes,” she echoed his words as despair swept through her the way it did every time she thought of what that position was. She pushed out one of her practiced smiles in an attempt to appease him. If she could mollify him, perhaps he would be on his way to whatever he did during the daytime hours when he wasn’t escorting her to socials. She realized she didn’t know what that was, and moreover, she didn’t care. She simply wanted him gone so she could return to her work in the pressroom and forget for a few hours the untenable position she was in.

But he wasn’t through. “And I do have to insist you not be seen speaking to that man Garrett ever again.”

She managed to suppress her resentment at his demanding tone as she chose her words carefully. “That might prove difficult, since he does seem to be at every event we attend lately. I don’t know how he could have been in Louisville for months without our paths crossing and now I see him everywhere I go.”

“I daresay it’s by design.” Stan’s face grew darker.

“I can’t imagine what you mean, Stan.” Adriane started to lay her hand on his arm again, but he flinched away before she could touch him. She looked at her ink-stained hand, then dropped it to her side. “Mr. Garrett is quite aware of our engagement.”

“Perhaps he has other reasons,” Stanley said with an odd, distracted look. So distracted that he left without kissing Adriane’s cheek or giving her any sort of farewell.

Adriane hadn’t worried about it then as she returned to the pressroom and the story he’d interrupted, but now remembering it, she looked over at Stanley. Before he asked for her hand in marriage, she would have said she knew him as well as any person in the world. Since then, he was continually surprising her.

Even today he was surprising her. He was handsomely dressed as always in a dark coat with his collar stiff and pristinely white, but his cheeks were flushed and his eyes were strangely animated as if he knew some sort of secret that no one could know but him. The most surprising thing about him was the way he looked when he satisfied his mother’s many whims. Even as he fetched and carried without complaint, his every movement carried a hint of defiance, and he practically radiated with that defiance whenever he looked at Adriane sitting there in their midst in her exotic gown.

A commotion in the hallway cut short the idle chatter among the sisters. A woman’s voice, strong and confident, carried into the parlor. “Dear Alec, what are you doing still here? Papa promised me he was going to give you your papers.”

“Now, Miss Margaret, don’t go fretting over me. Massah Coleman says he can’t get along without me.” The black butler’s voice was soft and friendly as he greeted Stan’s sister who had come down from the North to the summer ball.

“We’ll see about that. A promise is a promise.” Her voice was strident.

Inside the parlor, Meta Jimson stiffened and stopped fanning for a moment as she and Stan exchanged an uneasy look. Two of the sisters appeared totally unnerved, and even Pauline, the oldest, looked up from her needlework with a concerned frown etching lines between her eyes.

Stan recovered first. He stood and managed a smile as he said, “That’s our dear Margaret. Isn’t it wonderful she could make it down to our little party this year?”

The sisters all pushed their smiles back into their proper places as they bobbed their heads in agreement. Even Mrs. Jimson pushed out a smile as she looked toward Adriane. “I’m sure she made the special effort because she’s so anxious to meet dear Adriane.”

Before Adriane had time to decide whether that remark was supposed to frighten her, the sister from Ohio swept into the room, looking a bit formidable in her plain, dark brown traveling costume among their ball gowns. She was nearly as tall as Stanley, and though she was not exactly fat, the trunk of her body was uniformly thick and appeared totally free of the constraints of a corset of any type.

She wasn’t pretty. Her dark hair was yanked back in a tight bun with no hint of curl at her temples to soften the severity of the style. Her nose was too large and her chin too jutting, but her face was interesting. The woman’s eyes practically slammed into Adriane as soon as she entered the room, and Adriane rose from her chair to meet this new, very different sister.

“My heavens, Stanley, she’s beautiful. How in the world did you get her to say she’d marry you?” the woman said.

The color drained from Stan’s cheeks and then rushed back redder than ever. Adriane almost felt sorry for him as he sputtered for something to say.

His mother came to his rescue. “Don’t be rude, Margaret. Come kiss your mother and then Stanley will properly introduce you to his intended.”

Margaret obediently pecked her mother on the cheek before turning to offer her own cheek to Stan. “Do forgive me, brother, but I was assuming you had warned your fiancée about my unladylike habit of saying what I think.” Her eyes gleamed with the pleasure his discomfort was giving her, but the sparkle faded as she turned to Adriane again.

Their eyes locked as they sized one another up. After a moment, the sister’s appraising look changed and seemed to become almost sad as she reached out to grasp Adriane’s hands in hers. “So you’re Adriane Darcy.”

Stan watched his sister warily as he said, “Soon to be Adriane Jimson.”

“I’ve heard so much about you.” Margaret kept talking as if Stan had not spoken. “And I’m Margaret Jimson Black. I rather doubt you’ve heard anything about me.” Her eyes slid sideways toward Stan, then back to Adriane.

Adriane searched for something to say that might relieve the strange tension in the room. “Of course I have, and I’ve looked so forward to meeting you. Stan told me you have four sons. Are they with you?”

“Heaven forbid, no,” Margaret said. “They travel poorly, and since I must go back tomorrow, it didn’t seem worth the aggravation to drag them along, especially since Papa’s summer gala is hardly a fitting place for youngsters. Their heads would be quite turned by all the pretty belles, and I intend to keep them in the schoolroom and nursery a few more years yet.”