The Lady and the Robber Baron Read online

  Finally, the elevator clanked to a halt. The attendant opened the door, and Monroe waved Jennifer out ahead of him. He took her elbow and guided her to a door marked MANAGER. He opened it and stepped back to motion her inside. The room was small and cluttered, not exactly what she had expected for Kincaid. Perhaps it was an anteroom.

  She stepped inside, and Monroe closed the door and locked it. “Wanna drink?” he asked, loosening his cravat.

  “No, thank you,” she said, feeling slightly alarmed that he had locked the door.

  “Take off your coat. I’ll be a minute.”

  “I’ll keep it on, thank you.”

  Monroe opened a drawer of the desk and lifted out a bottle. He poured amber liquid into a dirty water glass and held it out to her. “Sure you won’t join me?”

  “Positive.”

  “Suit yourself.” He took a sip and sighed. “Now, tell me about yourself. What’s your specialty?”

  “I’m a ballerina.”

  “That’s a new one. Ballerina, huh?” He finished his drink, put the glass down, and rubbed his pale hands together. “You gonna take ’em all off in the Baron Room or the Grand Salon?” he asked.

  Jennifer’s heart started to pound as she realized her mistake. This wasn’t Kincaid’s office at all. “I’m here to see Mr. Kincaid,” she reminded him, willing herself into an icy calm.

  “Mr. Kincaid’s busy. Anyway, this is my bailiwick. I’m the theater manager. I’m the one you have to deal with.”

  “No. There’s been some mistake.”

  She turned and started for the door, but Monroe grabbed her by the back of her coat and jerked her around.

  Her pulse racing, she swung her elbow like a fist and hit him as hard as she could in the soft part of his stomach. As he doubled forward, she lifted a knee into his face. The effect was muted by her gown, petticoats, and coat, but it was enough to infuriate him. He cursed and grabbed her by the hair, pulling her down with him as he fell. Fortunately, he fell hardest and first, and she used his bulk to soften her own landing. Before he could recover, she leaped up and ran for the door, grateful that the physical demands of her calling gave her the agility to defend herself, even against a man as big as Monroe.

  “You like it rough, do you?” he growled. Jennifer reached the door and jerked hard on the handle, but it did not open. Monroe grabbed her and pushed her toward a lumpy horsehair sofa against the wall. Jennifer screamed and lashed out, trying to kick him, but her legs got tangled in her gown and coat.

  Staggering toward the couch, she screamed again. “Shut up!” Monroe bellowed, with a glancing blow to the side of her head.

  She got one foot loose and kicked him in the shin. He cursed and forced her down onto the couch, his weight pressing her into the lumpy mattress. She screamed again. He hit her across the mouth, and they both fell silent for a moment, eyeing one another and panting. Over the sound of their heavy breathing, she thought she heard a key rattle in the lock. Monroe must have heard it, too, for he looked toward the door. Suddenly, it swung open.

  “What’s going on here?”

  Jennifer blinked in disbelief. The handsome stranger from the carriage completely filled the doorway.

  Monroe’s face turned gray with fear as he scrambled to his feet. Jennifer struggled into a sitting position. Her rescuer stepped into the room and eyed her briefly, taking in everything with a glance—the tangled state of her gown, the hat that had fallen off, probably even noting the fear and anger on her face.

  His expression hardened into fury, and he lunged forward and slammed a fist into Monroe’s soft, doughy face. As Monroe staggered toward the wall behind him, the man followed, hitting him twice more before he banged hard into the wall and slowly slid down it. Jennifer couldn’t tell if Monroe was faking or if he was just too smart to get up again.

  The man walked over and took her by the arm, lifting her up into a standing position. “Are you hurt?”

  Jennifer shook her head. He smiled in relief, his green eyes shining like sea glass in a sunny pool. She’d never thought green a particularly warm color, but, when he smiled, something primitive and vital shot through her.

  Jennifer’s mind reeled in confusion. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “Do you just follow me around, standing ready to save me?”

  The man laughed. “Something like that. Aren’t you glad to see me?”

  “Wonderfully glad. But—”

  “I work here.”

  “Doing what?”

  “This and that.”

  He took her gently by the arm and helped her to her feet. “You look even more beautiful in the daylight,” he said, his voice dropping into that huskiness she remembered so well. He pulled her close to him. “You’re shaking,” he whispered. “I should have killed him,” he said grimly, “but you’re safe now.”

  “I am?”

  He grinned. “Yes. Don’t you feel safe?”

  Jennifer stepped out of his embrace and patted at her hair, which felt in disarray. “My mother taught me not to feel safe unless I was reasonably sure it was justified,” she said, smiling.

  He grinned. “Would you accept a compromise? I think I can guarantee your safety from everyone but me,” he said, his eyes twinkling with amusement.

  Jennifer laughed. “And,” she asked, “you are?”

  “Chantry Kincaid the Third. Please call me Chane. And I believe we have an appointment.” A smile etched grooves on either side of his mouth, leaving a deep dimple in his right cheek and shadows in the hollows of his wide jaws.

  Jennifer blinked in growing horror. Her mind struggled to take in the full meaning of what he had said. This man who had saved her twice had just introduced himself as Kincaid, the man who…Her mind refused to finish the thought. She didn’t know whether to bolt out the door and run for her life or just sit down on the floor and cry.

  Fortunately, the jangling of a telephone saved her and distracted him. He strode to the telephone and barked into the mouthpiece, “Hello,” his tone impatient and husky, more a command than a question. “No, Steve, you’re not interrupting me. How on earth did you track me down here?”

  He laughed at whatever was said. One heavily arched black eyebrow shot up and then lowered. He laughed again. “No,” he said more quietly. “I don’t want to see or speak with Laurey. Stall him.” He listened for a moment, then chuckled. “Tell him I’m meeting with contractors this afternoon. That should give him something to worry about.” Pure mischief sparkled in his eyes. He winked at Jennifer, obviously enjoying himself.

  Jennifer felt a flush spreading over her entire body. She had no idea how to react. And for the first time in a long time she had no idea what part she was supposed to be playing.

  “Oh,” he said into the phone, as if it were an afterthought. “Yes, you can do something for me. Send two men from security here to pick up Monroe. Then get Tom Wilcox to find out who hired Monroe. I want to see that man in my office in an hour.”

  He hung up the telephone and looked intently at Jennifer. “We’ll give Monroe what he deserves.” Shaking his head, he sat down beside her. “Now, Miss Van Vleet, tell me about yourself.”

  It was an effort to keep from asking him how he knew her name. But, of course, he’d been at the theater last night. Everyone in the audience knew her name, and they had an appointment.

  “Don’t you know how famous you are in New York?” he asked, seeing her confusion. “You don’t get out much, do you?”

  Chantry Kincaid felt her presence the length and breadth of his body. She had blushed, and somehow this made her even more pleasing to look at. In the light of day, her eyes really were purple and her mouth really was as soft and kissable as it had felt last night. She had skin as creamy as carnations, with just a hint of warm plum in her cheeks echoing the amethyst fire in her momentarily confused eyes.

  “Does it show?” she asked ruefully.

  “A little,” he said, smiling again. “But we’ll change that. Starting with di
nner, tonight.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Your mum doesn’t allow you out after dark?”

  She didn’t tell him her “mum” was dead. Was he callously tactless, or hadn’t he put her together with her parents yet? She certainly couldn’t tell him that she suspected him of having them murdered.

  “I…work.”

  “Not tonight you don’t. Remember, the theater burned down last night. I’ll pick you up at seven,” he said with finality, taking her arm and leading her toward the door.

  “I came here to discuss my contract.”

  “I only discuss contracts with beautiful women over dinner,” he said firmly.

  This man really did think he owned the world, Jennifer thought, anger beginning to rise in her. Well, she was not the rest of the world!

  “Then pretend I’m a man. I demand the right to discuss my contract now, this moment.”

  “Okay. The answer is no.”

  “You don’t know the question.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” His tone was firm and final.

  Her anger boiled, but it only added to her frustration. She was so confused she couldn’t think of anything to do or say. She needed time to think, time to figure out how she felt about Kincaid being the stranger who had saved her last night and again today. Once she figured that out, everything else would fall into place.

  “All right. I’ll have dinner with you, but only to discuss my contract.”

  “Thank you. I’m honored,” he said, bowing low before her.

  Jennifer felt a momentary jolt of fear. But then she calmed down as she realized that she was doing exactly what Peter was asking of her. She was wooing Chantry Kincaid III in the best way she knew.

  Chapter Five

  Chane walked Jennifer to the lobby, where her brother was waiting. The young man glowered at him, and Chane realized that Peter Van Vleet might not consider him a friend. With regret, Chane watched the two of them leave the Bricewood.

  “Mr. Kincaid.” A voice at his side interrupted his thoughts.

  “Yes?”

  “There’s a note for you.”

  Chane took the note and read it. It was from his grandfather. “Call for my carriage,” he said, folding the note and putting it into his pocket.

  Chane strode to his office to tell his lawyer and business confidant Steve Hammond how he wanted to handle the details of Monroe’s dismissal. By the time he returned, the carriage was waiting. He climbed inside, rapped on the underside of the mahogany roof to let his driver know he was ready, and settled back against the richly upholstered seat. He was curious and a little concerned. The last time his grandfather had sent for him, he’d found himself knee-deep in the intrigues of high finance and a railroad war.

  This peremptory summons had to be business. Number One considered social life a waste of time, even with his grandchildren.

  His father, Chantry Kincaid II, called Chantry Two by friends and family when they needed to distinguish between the generations, was nothing like Number One. He, too, was wealthy and worked too hard, but he nevertheless managed to make time for a modest family and social life.

  His father said Number One looked down on him for that failing. Number One didn’t think he personally had any weaknesses, but he saw fault all around him. He took great pleasure in the fact that he was eighty-five years old now and as sharp-witted as he’d ever been, while the Commodore at eight-four was bedridden. Laurey’s granddaughter Latitia ran most of the Commodore’s businesses, though he didn’t acknowledge it publicly.

  Number One’s wealth and reputation could be traced back to the early 1800s, when he had first become associated with Laurey. Their first joint venture had been starting a small construction company to help build the Erie Canal in 1817, when they were both in their early twenties.

  By 1825, when the canal was finished, their Erie Estuary Company had somehow increased its net worth to well over a million dollars. Muckrakers claimed that Laurey and Kincaid had milked off that much by making illegal contracts to deliver goods that were never actually delivered. Government purchasing agents and equally crooked building inspectors filled their own pockets in the process. Everyone benefited except the state of New York, which paid the bills.

  Using the million dollars they got from that venture, Laurey and Number One opened a hole-in-the-wall bank in 1832. Laurey was a handsome young man accustomed to living the good life. The second son of an English lord, Number One knew very well that he’d have to work for everything he got. And work he did, hard and diligently. Under his aegis, the bank prospered. If Number One’s version of the story was to be believed, Laurey began relying on him more and more to take care of the business while he indulged himself in fast women, good liquor, and slow horses.

  New York was experiencing an unprecedented period of growth, with investors coming from Europe in droves seeking profitable opportunities in the rapidly expanding markets of the New World. Number One funneled his proceeds from the bank into other fast-growing industries.

  He was fully ready in the 1860s when the city commissioned the building of a new courthouse, to be situated behind City Hall, its cost not to exceed $250,000. Number One formed a conglomerate of construction companies and entered the low bid. In 1872, when the new courthouse was finished, the elder Kincaid had somehow acquired a large portion of the eight million dollars that the finished structure “cost.” One newspaper reporter claimed that between Number One, Tammany Hall and it’s venal leader William Marcy “Boss” Tweed, and crooked city purchasing agents, the city had lost its shirt. No one speculated how much of it had gone into Number One’s pockets, but if there was any truth to the story, the amount must have been sizable.

  In the 1870s the city of New York decided to build an elevated railway system to connect all parts of the island so every place in Manhattan was within easy reach. Seeing his opportunity, Number One decided to take over the bank. This way, he wouldn’t have to share the coming profits with Laurey, who he felt wasn’t pulling his own weight.

  No one knew exactly how it happened, but Laurey’s personal fortunes diminished to the point where he was forced to sell the bank and other assets. Kincaid, thanks to his recent profits, was able to buy out his partner. When Laurey heard about the El, he sobered up and realized that the bank he’d just sold was in a position to make many millions of dollars from the city.

  The Commodore tried to get Number One to void the sale, offering a full partnership in the assets he had left, but Kincaid categorically refused. Laurey then filed suit in court to void the sale, charging that Number One had taken advantage of him. In particular, he charged that Kincaid knew about the city’s intent to build the elevated railway system at the time of the sale and he had kept it secret.

  Kincaid fought the Commodore and won—although some said it was because he’d bought more jurors than the Commodore could afford. But the real reason the Commodore lost was because everyone of any consequence in New York had known the city was going to build the El. Laurey was out, and Number One became the sole owner of the bank just in time to turn the biggest profits of his career.

  Laurey managed to cut himself in on the El profits by forming another conglomerate to compete with Number One. So the hard feelings between the two men escalated. Number One claimed that Laurey’s competition had probably cost him millions of dollars.

  The El took ten years to build and cost the city another fortune—far more than it should have. By the time it was finished, the two robber barons had turned a dying friendship into a bitter enmity. They now spent a good part of their time and energy trying to ruin one another.

  If they’d been younger and had had more energy, Chane might have worried about them. But despite Number One’s protestations to the contrary, his grandfather was falling apart almost as fast as the Commodore. Chane didn’t see his grandfather often, but the reports he got through the family were that Number One was suffering from the ravages of old age. He had complained that his plumbi
ng had gone out first, and then everything else had started to crumble. “Nature has a mean streak a mile wide when it comes to old men,” he’d said. “No wonder we all die mad as hell.”

  The carriage rocked to a halt at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Thirty-seventh Street, in front of his grandfather’s enormous two-story, granite house, dubbed the “Mausoleum” by the Kincaid children. As an architect himself, Chane appreciated the intricacies of its Romantic Classicism, but the windows were so small and so far apart that the house was indeed as dark inside as any mausoleum. He remembered telling ghost stories in the turret to his brothers and sisters.

  His grandfather was a true robber baron—a wealthy, powerful man whose methods were reputed to be less than scrupulous. He was regularly labeled a blackguard, a thief, a cheat, and a liar by the muckraking press. When Chane was young, he’d asked his father what “robber baron” meant. Chantry Two had assured him that any man who could earn a million dollars had more enemies than friends, and that his grandfather was no exception. Chane had grown up suspicious of his grandfather, and yet, the old man had been good to him more than once. He’d taught him to peel an orange and to trust his own judgment above everyone else’s.

  Suddenly loath to find out why his grandfather had summoned him, Chane leaned out of his carriage and glanced at the row of tall, narrow windows on the first floor.

  Another carriage was pulling up from the opposite direction, and Chane recognized it as his father’s. Anxious to know what was happening, Chane leaped out of his carriage just as his father was running up the front steps.

  “Dad! Wait up!” Chane called out.

  His father whirled around, startled. “Chane! What are you doing here?” he asked, grabbing onto his hat against a sudden gust of cold wind.

  “Grandfather sent for me. What’s going on?”