The Lady and the Robber Baron Read online

  “How are you feeling, ma petite?”

  “Like I’ve honeymooned with a legion of praetorians.”

  “Are you trying to excite me?”

  Jennifer smiled. “Make you jealous, maybe.”

  “Too bad you’re a woman. You would make a charming companion for this old man.” She was a delightful-looking female creature. Her creamy white skin, enormous violet-blue eyes, and silver-streaked ash-blond hair set her apart from other women. Even without her sleek young goddess’s form, she could stop traffic at Times Square.

  “You’ve had days, Christopher,” she said. “What did you find out?” She knew him well enough to know that he had immediately begun contacting his powerful friends.

  “I hate to spoil your breakfast.”

  “I’m not that fragile, even now,” she said, taking a big bite of a biscuit between mouthsful of Newgate’s delicately herbed omelette. The coffee was rich and black, and she had laced it liberally with sugar and heavy cream. “Tell me, Christopher.”

  He held the crystal butter dish in place for her while she stabbed at the pale yellow mound. Then he pursed his thin lips. “I could not find out much, but even that was helpful. By piecing together the scraps, I came to the conclusion that your husband’s enemies are out to destroy you. Latitia Laurey is busily telling her friends that Chane Kincaid has already thrown you over and is in love with her. They are having a party to announce their new and very public alliance, which may include business as well.”

  Jennifer’s smile faded into sadness.

  “The party will be on Saturday night,” he continued, “for a few close friends and wealthy investors who might be willing to invest in Kincaid’s railroad venture.”

  “But in reality,” she said, putting down her fork, “it’s to announce that his marriage to me was a short-lived mistake and that he has now come to his senses.” Jennifer felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. A knot formed there, threatening to push her breakfast back up. She knew Chane had every right to survive this. She didn’t blame him, but it hurt that he had turned to Latitia so soon.

  “What are you going to do, mon ange?”

  Jennifer shook her head. “Nothing. It’s over. I’ll do as the doctor says until I can dance again—”

  “You’ll just give up?” he demanded, interrupting.

  “Chane won’t see me. He won’t even talk to me.”

  Christopher gave a very Gallic shrug. “Kincaid lives in his head. When a man lives in his head, it has a tendency to get out of order without his realizing it. Like,” Christopher waved his hand, groping for words to explain, “my cluttered desk. For a long time I am comfortable with the clutter, then one day I realize I no longer know where my most important papers are.”

  “Is that why I didn’t realize how much I cared for Chane until it was too late?”

  “You live in your body. When a dancer lives in her body, as you do, it has little accidents without her noticing. One day you look down and see a bruise.”

  “I can’t believe Chane would give a party now. He was too wounded to even consider such a thing.” She sat a moment in silence. “Oh no!”

  “What?” Christopher asked, frowning.

  “This was supposed to be our party…to announce our marriage to his friends. I remember when he told Mrs. Lillian to send out the invitations…”

  Christopher waited.

  “It was our party,” she repeated. “You told me that an affair of the heart isn’t over until the woman says it’s over. Do you think that’s really true?” she asked, fixing him with a piercing stare.

  “Of course.”

  “Then I’m going.”

  “Is that wise?” he asked, putting down his fork. “I mean, your condition. You’re still weak.”

  “Christopher, I’ve babied myself and wallowed in misery for days, but I feel fine now,” she said dismissively. “A little blood may unnerve a man, but I’m a woman.”

  Upstairs, Jennifer chose a blue gown Newton had had delivered from her house only yesterday. She arranged her hair and dressed with great care.

  When she was finished, she stopped before the mirror and gazed at her reflection. Something had changed in her. Hope had returned. As soon as she’d realized that Chane hadn’t planned the party to accommodate Latitia, she’d begun to feel more hopeful. Perhaps Christopher was right. Perhaps women did decide matters of the heart. At any rate, she was going to test it.

  Christopher’s carriage delivered Jennifer to the steps of the Bricewood. Faces turned and mouths dropped open. The usual heavy buzz of numerous conversations stopped. She realized that everyone in the hotel must know what had happened. She didn’t know who would have told them, but with Derek, Latitia, Frederick, and Simone privy to her business, it could have been anyone.

  In the pindrop silence, except for the click of her heels, Jennifer swept through the lobby. She found Steve Hammond in his first-floor office next to Chane’s empty one. Steve almost knocked his swivel chair over backward as he rose hastily to his feet.

  “Good afternoon,” she said, smiling.

  Steve’s mouth dropped open. Jennifer stood before him in a lovely blue gown and bonnet, her beautiful eyes gleaming with determination, her pale face lit with a transcendent glow. To his amazement, she reached over gently and nudged his chin up with a warm hand, smiling into his eyes as if she were accustomed to men’s mouths dropping open at the sight of her, and as if she had every right to be here, as if she owned the place, or would in a matter of minutes.

  “How have you been, Steve?”

  Steve considered her coming here such a serious blunder on her part that his mind went numb. Her smile set off every alarm in his body. “Uh…fine, yourself?”

  “Couldn’t be better,” Jennifer said. “How is Mrs. Lillian?”

  “Uh…fine, fine.”

  “And Chane?” she asked sweetly. “How is my husband?”

  Steve’s eyebrows shot up, and he forced them down before she did it for him. Her eyes smiled with innocent sweetness. Her face glowed.

  “Uh…fine, fine.” Steve felt foolish. He had said fine so many times, he felt out of control. “How…may I help you?” he asked.

  “How sweet of you to ask,” Jennifer purred. “As a matter of fact, Steve, there is one tiny little thing you can do for me.”

  “Would you care to sit down?” He waved a nervous hand at the wing chair across from his desk.

  “Why, thank you. I’d like that very much.” She still smiled that terrifying, honeyed smile. Beads of moisture broke on his brow.

  “Would you like something to drink? Tea?”

  “I had a lovely lunch with a dear friend. Are you comfortable, Steve? You look…odd.” Her dulcet tone was solicitous, unnerving. Her only wish seemed to be to make him comfortable, but the more insistent she became, the more distressed he felt.

  “Oh, no, no. I’m fine.” Steve heard himself saying that damned word again and loosened his ascot. Heat flushed into his face. He felt like a schoolboy.

  “Steve,” she said, smiling happily, as if about to confide a wonderful secret. “I need to do some shopping this afternoon. As you know, I’m temporarily short of funds. I was wondering if you might give me a letter of credit…”

  “I’m sure you know I cannot authorize expenditures without Mr. Kincaid’s approval.”

  Smiling, Jennifer leaned forward and pushed the telephone toward him. “Of course,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “Call him.”

  His forehead burned. Steve reached for his handkerchief. Embarrassment almost overwhelmed him. He couldn’t see himself calling Chane with her sitting there smiling at him. He also couldn’t see himself asking her to leave the room while he called her husband.

  Jennifer lifted a pendant watch and glanced at the timepiece, then back at Steve. He cleared his throat, reached for the telephone, and cranked the handle. The operator came on the line. “Ring Mr. Kincaid, please.”

  Steve tried to organize
his mind, but Chane’s voice on the other end of the line startled him so, he almost dropped the telephone.

  “Hi, uh, Mr. Kincaid, uh…” Steve said, feeling doomed. Chane would know already that something was amiss. Steve never called him Mr. Kincaid. Steve tugged at his ascot again. Jennifer’s chin lifted and her lovely eyes narrowed on him. Steve’s mind stopped working. “Mrs. Kincaid is here, in my office…” he blurted.

  “Mother?”

  “No, umm…your wife.”

  Silence stretched out between them. Finally, Chane asked, “What does she want?”

  “A letter of credit.”

  “Give her whatever she wants.”

  “Up to?”

  “Whatever she wants. And then get rid of her.”

  “Well,” Jennifer asked. “What did he say?”

  Steve hesitated. His own experience with women precluded him from telling her. She might go buy herself a ballet company or a hotel when all she’d wanted was a new hat. Chane had money, but there was no sense giving any more of it than necessary to Jennifer. And with the railroad venture, they needed to spend every dime wisely. But Chane was a man of his word, and fairly helpless before Jennie. In the process of marrying her, he had pledged to provide for her. Steve knew her indiscretion would not invalidate Chane’s promise, at least not in his eyes. “He said I should go along and pay for your purchases.”

  “How sweet of him,” Jennifer said, playing the role she’d decided upon before she realized how difficult it was going to be. “So utterly like him.”

  Steve nodded his agreement.

  Jennifer rose gracefully from her chair. “Shall we go?”

  Steve rose with her and stiffly held out his arm for her. He was so polite and proper—and nervous. Jennifer felt sorry for him.

  Steve was struggling with two equally strong emotions—loyalty to Chane and a desire to help her in any way he could. With her before him, glowing with an inner fervor and vitality that he had never seen in another woman, he realized he wanted Chane to forgive her. In spite of all the evidence to the contrary, he wanted them back together.

  But he was smart enough to know that that was not about to happen. Chane had been burned before. “No one gets two shots at me,” Chane had once said grimly. “One per customer.” That would be especially true for Jennie.

  Jennifer frowned. “He was with a woman when you called him, wasn’t he?”

  “What?” Steve asked, startled.

  “He was with Latitia Laurey, wasn’t he?”

  Steve licked suddenly dry lips. He had no idea who Chane had been with, but the look of fury on Jennifer’s face numbed his usually quick mind.

  Chane put the telephone down and sagged back in his chair. Just as he did, Latitia tapped lightly on his study door and stepped into the room.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting,” she said softly. Her voice was low and dark.

  Latitia ran two of her father’s companies and did a very credible job of it. She was respected for her business acumen and her ability to get things done. In a man’s world, those were not small accomplishments.

  But here, in his house, she became softer and more feminine, and he couldn’t tell if it was an act or something that just came over her when she was around him. His ego liked to think that his masculinity dominated her so completely that she just automatically became submissive around him, but he was enough of a skeptic to doubt that.

  She’d stopped by with the excuse that she wanted to help Mrs. Lillian with the party arrangements, but he knew that she wanted to continue their relationship where it had ended when he met Jennie. Part of him wanted to comply, but he felt too sick at heart. Fortunately, she hadn’t pressed it.

  He had forgotten about the party until yesterday. Mrs. Lillian had suddenly remembered that she’d sent out the invitations while he was in New Jersey, and, with all the subsequent excitement, she’d forgotten to cancel them. The party that was supposed to announce his marriage to Jennie would now be used to pay back his social obligations and court investors for his grandfather’s railroad.

  Latitia was watching him closely. He realized that she wanted him to make some sort of admission that he’d been wrong to marry Jennie, and he wasn’t going to do that. At least not in words. She also wanted him to get a divorce and marry her, and he wasn’t about to do that, either.

  Despair rose up in him as he realized that somehow he had to get away from both Jennie and Latitia. Their needs were squeezing the life out of him. He felt suffocated. He had felt like this when he was five and his seven-year-old sister, Nell, had died of scarlet fever. He’d spent the next year thinking he saw her or heard her. Every time he did, he ached inside. After a time he grew tired and irritable from it. If he’d been a crier, he would have stayed in bed and cried, but in his father’s household no male child cried or stayed in bed.

  He hadn’t talked to anyone about it, so no one had told him the feelings he’d felt then were grief, but now he knew. It hurt so bad, he wanted to double forward.

  “God, you look awful, darling,” she said softly, reaching out to touch his cheek.

  “You’re too young and pretty to act like my mother.”

  “Oh, am I?” She made a small, dark sound and stepped close to him, sliding her arms up around his neck. She pressed her breasts against his chest and her hips against his. In spite of the numbness around his heart, his body remembered what to do. A pulse started in his loins, and it felt good. She lifted her lips to be kissed.

  Chane hesitated. Technically, he was still married to Jennie. Something hardened in him. Like hell he was. He put his arms around Latitia and pulled her close. “What are you doing here?” he asked softly.

  Latitia gazed up at him with dark, solemn eyes. She wasn’t like other women. “Here?” she asked, emphasizing the question by pressing her pubic bone against him.

  It felt good to be treated like a man. He’d been treated like a fool long enough. The expression in her eyes was entirely wicked. Most women smiled too much. Latitia did not. That was one of the things he liked about her. She almost never smiled. She was like a man in that way, probably because she had been raised by her grandfather.

  “I know you’re technically still married to that woman, but we’ve never been one to stand on technicalities,” she said, kissing the left corner of his mouth, then the right. Her breath was hot, her lips smooth and warm. Slowly she moved to the center of his mouth, and her tongue flicked out. A spear of heat plunged to his loins, and he was instantly grateful to her. At least he still had this.

  “Excuse me,” a familiar voice said.

  Chane’s head jerked up. Jennie stood in the doorway, hands on hips, eyes blazing.

  “If you do not leave this instant, I will throw you out that window,” Jennie said through gritted teeth.

  Latitia released Chane and faced Jennie. “Please try,” she said, her low-pitched voice tight with challenge. She smiled suddenly, and Chane realized that it was the wickedest smile he had ever seen.

  Jennie started forward, and Chane grabbed Latitia by the arm and walked her toward the other door. “She’s leaving.”

  “No, I’m not. I’ll tear her to pieces,” Latitia said, trying to jerk free of him.

  “Not here,” Chane gritted.

  Furious, but unwilling to alienate him, Latitia allowed herself to be escorted to the back door.

  Chane closed the door and then turned back to Jennie, who looked furious enough to tear him apart as well. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “You have no rights here, Jennie. Our marriage, or whatever that was, is over.”

  The fight suddenly went out of her. Confusion washed over her lovely face. “I don’t know,” she said, turning suddenly. “I don’t know. I guess I thought that you might have actually loved me, but…obviously I was wrong.”

  “You betrayed me,” Chane rasped, grabbing her arm and glaring into her eyes.

  Jennie returned his look for a second, stared down at his hand on her arm,
and waited. Furious himself, Chane let go of her arm, and she stalked out the door. Shaken, Chane walked to the nearest chair and slumped into it. He fully intended to survive this, but every contact with Jennie left him feeling gutted. Somehow he had to get away from her.

  Suddenly, the solution came to him. He would go to Colorado and oversee the building of the railroad himself. That would solve all his problems with both women, and make his grandfather happy as well.

  Jennifer rode the elevator down one floor and asked the attendant to let her out. She walked around a corner to a window seat and sat down. She was sick and furious and ready to kill, but she forced herself to breathe evenly. When her hands stopped shaking, she stood up and rang for the elevator.

  Steve Hammond was still in his office. He looked at her oddly, as if he wanted very much to ask her what had happened, but she ignored the look.

  Steve guided her through the lobby and toward Chane’s carriage, which had been brought around front. He settled her into the luxurious seat, and she forced herself back into the part she’d decided to play.

  Steve stole a look at Jennifer Van Vleet. Her cheeks were unnaturally pink, almost as rich as the maroon velvet on the seats.

  “Have you done this before, Steve?”

  “Well, never for his wife.” He tugged at his ascot, which felt suddenly tight. “Where do you want to go?”

  She had never been a shopper. She generally ignored the need for clothes until she was on the verge of being disreputable. “The Ladies’ Mile.”

  Steve wanted to groan. This could take all afternoon. The Ladies’ Mile was a stretch of shops that seemed to go on forever. He directed the driver and settled back in his seat. The carriage rolled forward.

  The Boutique de la Mode was next door to Tiffany’s Jewelry and Notions, on Union Square, where Fifth Avenue met Broadway at Fourteenth Street. Owner-couturier Gabrielle d’Orsay provided exquisite copies of the latest Worth originals and Paris designs—gowns featured on the pages of Journal des Demoiselles and the envy of housewives all over the United States and its territories. Madame d’Orsay, a slender, chic, middle-aged Parisienne, catered to the wealthy.