City of Ash (10 page)

“I’ve spoken to your manager and taken up a third share in the costs this season. He seemed happy enough. I shall be happy to invest in your future, Mrs. Wilkes, as long as we continue this … understanding. Is that acceptable to you?”

I hadn’t expected it to be so boldly stated, but you know, it was best just to look at it head-on so there would be no misunderstandings. “Yes. It’s acceptable.”

“Good. I won’t be here tomorrow night; I’ve other obligations.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. I settled on “I’ll miss you.”

He laughed shortly, reaching to the dresser, to the box of candied fruit I hadn’t yet had time to open. He threw it to the bed; it landed just to the right of my hip. “Appease yourself with comfits, Mrs. Wilkes. These are very fine.”

Then he left. I lay back with a sigh and was relieved that I would have a break from him tomorrow. The sex was as tiresome as sex had ever been, though he seemed to like it, and I supposed that was the point.

I stretched, my hand came into contact with the box of sweets, and I took it up and untied the ribbon, lifting the lid to find glacéed fruit, luscious figs, and dense and glistening cherries and apricots. I picked up one of the apricots, and it was plump and sleek, sticky with syrup, sheering smooth as butter when I bit into it. I nearly swooned at the taste of it; I’d never eaten anything so good, not ever. God, those apricots alone were almost a good enough reason to spread my legs for Nathan Langley.

Almost. I thought of Stella Bernardi, stirring the louche of her absinthe with a languidly elegant hand. She would be gone within months, or I missed my guess completely. And then it would be my turn at last. All I must do was continue to keep Nathan Langley happy. And perhaps it would not be so very long
either. Perhaps … I tried to remember if I had told Stella what I’d done to Arabella before her, how I’d fed Bella’s vanity with dissatisfaction, and then I realized that even if I had, Stella had enough vanity of her own not to remember it. After all, she’d been manipulating me even then. How clever she thought herself! She would never suspect that she could be prey to any one of my tricks. Which, of course, made her especially vulnerable.

I lifted my arm, appraising the small bruise upon my wrist where Nathan had held me too hard. It was not so bad, and it would fade quickly. And it was worth it. It was all worth it now. My dreams were coming true at last.

Geneva

F
rye’s Opera House was the most opulent theater in town, with its great domed roof, green plush seats, and gas-flame chandeliers. It was not as elegant as McVicker’s Theater in Chicago, but even I was impressed by its grandeur. Nathan and I were there to watch
East Lynne
, a play I’d already seen a dozen times or more, but which I loved—as did everyone else. Even Mrs. Wilcox attended. The famous Mrs. Ethel Brown played the Lady Isabel Severn Mount, and Seattle was like every city in its need to be recognized for having the taste to appreciate such a lauded talent.

At the intermission, Nathan and I went into the salon for refreshments. I saw Mrs. Wilcox across the room, but I had learned my lesson, and I did not venture near. When Nathan
returned with lemonade, he brought also another couple trailing in his wake.

“Darling, may I introduce Robert Stebbing and his wife,” my husband said as he handed me a cup of rather warm lemonade. He gave me the look that meant these people were important to him. “Mr. Stebbing is on the city council.”

“How pleased I am to meet you both,” I said.

Robert Stebbing nodded stiffly; he was rather an officious little man with dark and receding hair and a receding chin as well. His wife, however, was slim and lovely, and she wore a gown with a mulberry stripe that immediately marked her as one of the more fashionable in the city. I was ready to like her, but as she stepped forward I saw the look in her eyes that said she had been trapped into this introduction, and I was disappointed once again, swept through by loneliness. Four months in Seattle, and I had not yet found a single woman I could call a friend, and it looked as if Catherine Stebbing would not be changing that.

We exchanged boring small talk until Nathan said, “Tell me, Stebbing, what role is the city council playing in this push to statehood?”

Stebbing turned to him. “Have you an interest in politics, Langley?”

“I dabble,” Nathan said humbly. “I find I’m fascinated by a city where such things are not hopelessly corrupt.”

How easily he spoke, how well he managed them, while I felt uncharacteristically ill at ease.

Stebbing said, “I welcome it. Too many don’t find it at all interesting, you know. But a fledgling government always has need of men with certain … resources.”

Nathan said, “If there’s any way I could be of service …”

Mr. Stebbing looked thoughtful. He turned to his wife and said, “My dear, we really must invite the Langleys to our ball.”

“A ball?” Nathan asked politely.

Reluctantly, Mrs. Stebbing nodded. “Next week. It’s a small thing, really, in celebration of spring. Of course I’ll send an invitation ’round. I do hope you can make time in your schedule on such short notice.”

Her tone said that she wished no such thing, but I was willing
to take any tidbit, no matter how small. “Oh, I’m certain we can fit it in.”

Her answering smile was sour. “How wonderful.”

That night in the carriage, Nathan said, “You must try to do better, Ginny.”

“I
am
trying,” I said. “But they all look at me as if I’m the devil himself. Mrs. Wilcox’s cut—”

“Try harder. Perhaps you should pay a call on her.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Nathan. She wouldn’t admit me. It would only be one more humiliation. Haven’t I been humiliated enough?”

“We’ve all had to make sacrifices. It wouldn’t hurt for you to be more repentant.”

“More repentant? What should I do? Genuflect in the streets?” I stared out the carriage window at the passing streetlamps and whispered miserably, “I’ve done everything I can to appear contrite. It’s not enough for them.”

“To
appear
contrite,” he repeated. “Perhaps that’s the problem. Perhaps we all recognize that you don’t truly mean it.”

Bitterly, I said, “I do mean it. But they would not be happy until I was whipped and pilloried before their eyes.”

He was quiet. The carriage jostled over the roads, the lights passed over his face and then fell into darkness, and I could not see his expression.

“These people … They don’t want to like me, and so they won’t. I haven’t met anyone who even cares to make the attempt.”

“Remember who you are, Geneva,” he said impatiently. “Use your charm.”

“They seem immune to it. Perhaps they’ll never forgive me. What would you do then, Nathan?”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, shall we?” he said.

T
he invitation to the Stebbings’ spring ball came the next afternoon. Two days later, Nathan told me that the territorial governor had telegraphed his intention to be in Seattle on that date, and that he would also be at the Stebbings’ ball. Suddenly the occasion was much more than a simple supper with
dancing to follow, and my behavior was to be more important than ever—if that were possible.

The night of the ball, I was nervous; not only was the territorial governor to be there, but also the Dennys. They had refused my dinner invitation, but I had not yet seen them in company, and I still had some hope that they might find me acceptable. I dressed with considerable care, trying to look dignified without looking severe, in a washed silk gown of deep topaz.

The carriage ride was silent, but when we pulled to a stop before the Stebbings’, Nathan said, “Remember what you must do, Geneva.”

As if I didn’t think about it nearly every moment.

We were ushered quickly in, not the last to arrive, but still later than most. Governor Semple held court in the parlor. He was just now surrounded by several people, Mr. Stebbing among them. Nathan made no attempt to have me introduced to the governor but got me a glass of sherry and became immediately embroiled in some conversation about city politics. I listened until there was no more sherry in my glass, and then I caught sight of Mrs. Stebbing speaking with a woman who I thought might be Mrs. Denny. I put the glass aside and started in that direction, but a man I’d never seen before stepped in my way so suddenly I nearly fell into him. He caught my arm to steady me.

“Please excuse me!” he said with a jovial smile. His dark hair was cut short; a bushy mustache covered his upper lip. “Tell me I didn’t step on you.”

“Not at all,” I told him.

“Thank God for that. I was searching for my wife when the tide apparently shifted. Now, I fear, she’s lost.”

“One would think it not easy to do in a house so small,” I said.

“Small, yes, but every inch seems to be filled.” He gave me a slight bow. “I don’t think we’ve met. Let me amend the error. James Reading.”

I offered my hand. “Geneva Langley.”

He looked surprised. “Ah! So you’re the beauteous Mrs. Langley. The talk of the town, I hear.”

“I hope to live long enough that such a thing is no longer true.”

“I hope you come from a long-lived line then,” he said. His smile was charming, broad and even.

I laughed; he was the closest thing I’d yet found to someone of my own kind. “Where do you come from, Mr. Reading? Please tell me you’re not just a visitor here.”

“My wife and I are residents, much to my dismay. Came up from San Francisco three years ago.”

“Three years? How have you managed to survive so long?”

“Bourbon, mostly,” he said, and then, when I laughed again, “society tolerates me well enough. It helps that I’m with the water company. No one wants to die of thirst.”

“I don’t believe that’s possible to do in this town. Surely all one has to do is go outside and open one’s mouth.”

Just then a little woman in russet pushed up beside us, wrapping her hands around Mr. Reading’s arm. “Mr. Reading, there you are! I’d quite lost you in the crowd.” Her fine dark eyes shifted to me. “Tell me you haven’t been boring this lovely lady.”

“On the contrary!” I exclaimed.

Mr. Reading said, “Mrs. Langley has been keeping me entertained while I searched for you. Mrs. Langley, this is my wife, Martha Reading.”

Mrs. Reading gave me a friendly look. “I’m certain she’s too well bred to complain of you. Please, Mrs. Langley, you really must feel free to scold him for all his theater talk. He’s really most single-minded.”

“We have not yet broached the topic of the theater, madam,” Mr. Reading said with mock outrage. “But I assume you share my love of it, Mrs. Langley, given the talk.”

“Oh yes. I would go every night if I could. Do you attend often, Mr. Reading? Are you a critic? Apart from your water duties?”

“A critic? Good Lord, no, no. An actor, morelike.”

“A
temporary
actor,” Mrs. Reading corrected. “James has taken up with the Willis troupe at the Palace just now. He’s hired them to act with him in
Julius Caesar.
”

I said, “I’m afraid I don’t understand. You hired them to act with you?”

Mr. Reading nodded. “To tutor me in acting. I’d always fancied the stage, but unfortunately, the siren call of business—and my father—was too difficult to ignore. The Willis troupe has been kind to give me an opportunity to fulfill a lifelong dream.”

“For a fee,” Mrs. Reading put in.

“Well, yes, yes. But they’ve been most obliging. I shall be playing Brutus at the Palace in a few weeks. I would be most gratified if you would come, Mrs. Langley.”

I’d never heard of such a thing. Even in Chicago, no one I knew had gone slumming with an acting troupe. I admired Mr. Reading immensely for it and was intrigued as well. “I would be delighted to attend, Mr. Reading.”

Mrs. Reading said, “How nice for you, James! But you mustn’t be too kind, Mrs. Langley. I fear only that would dissuade him from continuing on.”

I laughed. “I feel I should praise you for the attempt alone.”

“As long as you’re honest, ma’am. God knows there’s little enough of that in the world. Now that you’ve seen fit to grace our little town, Mrs. Langley, I do hope you mean to turn it on its ear.”

I shook my head reluctantly. “I’ve been warned I should not.”

He leaned close, lowering his voice to whisper, “One should not allow dragons like Mrs. Wilcox to get the best of one, you know.”

“Unfortunately that seems a difficult undertaking. I am a stranger here, and I wish not to be. It means I must follow more shoulds than I like.”

Mrs. Reading sighed. “It is a pity Mrs. Wilcox has so much influence.
I
find you delightful.”

“Tell me, Mrs. Langley—is it true what they say, that you kept a quite famous salon in Chicago?” Mr. Reading asked.

Wistfully, I said, “It was very well attended.”

“Do you intend to continue it here?”

“No, I think not. Much as I wish it otherwise.”

“You should not let them stop you,” he said. “They control too much of the city as it is.”

Mrs. Reading leaned forward, her plump face etched with compassion. “He’s right, I’m afraid. Do you know, Mrs. Langley—and
I mean this in the best possible way, you understand—I believe it would be best if you not try to placate those who cannot be pleased and simply … be as you are.”