Sitting alone in her quiet parlor in the middle of the night, Honor studied the owl Robert had carved, a symbol of happier times. She set it down. Those times were gone.
For the first time in months, she thought of Priscilla Shanks, the young Lowell woman Robert had seduced and abandoned. She wondered why she hadn’t seen this major flaw in his character, his predilection to escape unpleasant situations by running away instead of facing them. She supposed she had been blinded by love.
The coward hadn’t even had the decency to leave her a note. He had just bolted. Disappeared. She wasn’t going to waste her time wondering where.
He had left without knowing that she was going to leave him. He had robbed her of even that pleasure.
She returned to the sofa and picked up the owl again. “Oh, yes, you loved me, all right, you craven bastard. The only person you’ve ever loved is yourself, and I was too blind to see it.” She chucked the owl into a nearby wastebasket. Her wedding ring followed. “My eyes are wide open now.”
Creaming her face before retiring and finding two white hairs among the black, Honor thought of Nevada LaRouche. She had sensed the tension in him tonight, so at odds with his usual easygoing manner. All during their conversation in his study, she’d had the impression he was keeping some strong emotion in check.
She wiped off the cream, noticing the dark circles beneath her eyes. Now that her husband no longer worked for Delancy and LaRouche, Honor wouldn’t be seeing Nevada LaRouche again.
The startling thought that she would miss him sprang unbidden into her mind. He had tended her after her beating and had removed the mirrors from her room. He had celebrated her victory in the Graham divorce trial. He could have had Robert arrested for his crime, but he hadn’t. Each time Honor tried to dismiss him as an unscrupulous financier, like the man who had caused her father’s downfall, he redeemed himself with a selfless act of kindness. She was beginning to suspect his motives.
“What does he want from you?” she asked her reflection in the dresser mirror.
Not finding the answer, she rose and went to bed.
Honor didn’t realize how much she missed Tilly until the following morning, when she awoke and her daily cup of coffee wasn’t forthcoming. She padded on bare feet into the kitchen, stared at the black cast-iron monster known as a stove, and decided that its mysteries were far beyond her.
After bathing and dressing, she went out to eat, since the alternative was starvation. When she returned to the Osborne, the doorman informed her that a Nevada LaRouche had called and left his card. On the back he had written, “Sorry to have missed you. Please call on me this afternoon and stay for dinner.”
Still feeling ashamed of what her husband had done, she ignored LaRouche’s invitation.
On Monday Honor learned the true extent of Robert’s treachery when she stopped at the First Manhattan Bank before going to her office.
A clerk regretfully informed her that her husband had withdrawn all their funds and closed the account several days ago.
For the first time in Honor’s life, she fainted.
Chapter Fifteen
“You avoiding me?” The deceptively quiet drawl filled Honor’s office.
She glanced up from her pile of paperwork to find Nevada LaRouche filling her office doorway. Frustration simmered just beneath his calm, steady surface like a kettle ready to boil. She nonchalantly turned her attention back to her work. “I’ve been very busy, and I am still very busy, so if you’ll excuse me…”
He closed the door on Elroy’s curious gaze and crossed the room to her desk. He leaned over, forcing her to look up at him. “In the last two weeks I’ve called at your apartment four times. Each time the doorman said you weren’t home. I’ve invited you to dinner six times. You’ve declined. I’ve stopped by your office every morning. This is the first time you’ve been in.” He paused. “Why are you avoiding me?”
His face was so close to hers that if Honor had leaned forward just a little, she could have kissed him. That realization made her sit back in her chair. “I haven’t been avoiding you. I’ve been looking for a new place to live.”
He gave her a curious look. “You don’t like living at the Osborne?”
Honor rose and decided that lies would only lead to more questions from this maddeningly persistent man, so she swallowed her Putnam pride and said, “The Osborne is fine, but I can no longer afford it. You see, when Robert left, he took all our money with him.”
The remaining one thousand dollars of Aunt Theo’s wedding gift, another five hundred in legal fees that both he and Honor had earned—Robert had taken every red cent and left her with nothing.
The anger in LaRouche’s eyes dimmed in sympathy for her, then flared fierce and bright. “The bastard!”
A bastard she had once loved.
“So with both the home rent and the office rent due and with Elroy’s wages to be paid, I’m afraid I haven’t had the time for social niceties, Mr. LaRouche.”
“I can understand that.” He stroked his long mustache and cleared his throat. “I know you’re a proud woman, ma’am, but I’d be more than happy to stake you until you get on your feet. Just a loan, you understand.”
An embarrassed warmth flooded Honor’s cheeks. “I appreciate the offer, but my aunt in Boston has sent me enough to tide me over, and as soon as several clients pay their bills, I’ll be solvent again.”
“Then will you have dinner with me?”
Honor’s gaze slid back to her desk. “I don’t think that would be wise.”
“Why not?” He frowned thoughtfully. “If I have done something to offend you, tell me right now and let’s clear the air.”
Her head came up and she stared at him. “You’ve done nothing to offend me. If anything, you’ve always been too generous.” She rose, walked over to the window, and stared down at the pedestrians, hanging on to their hats and leaning into the brisk October wind as it heedlessly whistled down Broadway. Now was as good a time as any to tell him.
“There’s something you should know,” she said. “When I was in Boston, I decided to leave my husband.”
He said nothing for what seemed like an eternity. Finally he cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to hear that.” But he didn’t sound sorry or even surprised.
Honor turned and smiled wanly. “Unfortunately he beat me to it. However, in the eyes of the law, I am still a married woman. Even though I feel less and less married with each passing day, I don’t think it would be…seemly for me to be seen in the company of a bachelor gentleman like you. I have to guard my reputation. People would talk, and I might lose clients.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. Well, I wouldn’t want to be the cause of your losing clients, but there’s no harm in two friends sharing a meal, is there?”
So he considered her a friend. “No, but—”
“Mrs. Davis, please don’t turn me down again.” He crossed the room to stand before her. “I haven’t enjoyed an intelligent woman’s company as much as yours since my Sybilla died and the doc left for England.” He bowed his head and added softly, “I find that I sorely miss it.”
The pain and loneliness in his bald admission caught her by surprise. She wasn’t prepared for the warm rush of sympathy. She forgot that he had helped the Delancys to break the law and had no doubt broken countless laws himself. She ignored the fact that he had patronized a brothel called Ivory’s and kept a mistress named Lillie Troy. She overlooked her own wariness of him. All she saw standing before her was a proud, lonely man begging for her company.
What could be the harm? With Robert gone, she filled every second of her evenings with work to stave off her own loneliness. Yet there always came that time between activity and sleep when it stood before her, demanding to be acknowledged.
“Very well,” she said, wondering why the room suddenly felt too warm. “I will accept a friend’s dinner invitation.”
He raised his head and stared at her as if he couldn’t believe she had finally agreed. “Delmonico’s?”
She shook her head. “Too many lawyers dine there.”
“Sherry’s?” he said, mentioning another popular restaurant.
She wrinkled her nose in distaste.
“The Waldorf?” The hotel renowned for its Peacock Alley, where New York’s Four Hundred strutted on public display.
“Much too public.”
LaRouche grew very still. “If you want someplace private, that leaves Delancy’s.”
Nevada’s home. Dining alone with him in his home. By eliminating the other possibilities, she had all but suggested it herself, and he knew it.
Honor Elliott Davis, you must be out of your mind.
“Delancy’s it is. For dinner and conversation.” Nothing else. He would surely understand that.
“Dinner and conversation.” He bowed his head slightly with a certain courtly grace. “I’ll have my carriage call for you at half past six.” The remoteness in his eyes failed to hide the glimmer of anticipation.
“I’ll be ready.”
Her contract with the devil signed and sealed, Honor wished him a good day and watched him stride out of her office, pausing to smile at her before he left.
Honor, resplendent in a new dinner gown of emerald velvet that provided a dramatic and stunning foil for her earbobs, found Nevada LaRouche waiting beneath the mansion’s porte cochere to hand her down from the carriage. The moment his strong, lean fingers closed over her gloved hand, Honor realized that she should not have come tonight.
“Quickly!” LaRouche said, suppressing a shiver as a gust of chilly autumn air elbowed its way between the carriage and the front door. He ushered Honor into the warm foyer, where he removed her black velvet cape as impersonally as a butler. She made some banal comment about the coolness of the evening to hide her growing unease.
He, however, remained as polished as silver. He bowed, flicked an appreciative glance at her dress, and said, “Pretty,” without heat or innuendo. Before she had a chance to thank him, he slipped his hand beneath her elbow. “We’ll have supper in the library.”
Honor’s heart sank. The thought of a mile-long mahogany dining room table and elaborate centerpieces separating them held a certain appeal.
The small table set for two stood before the library fireplace where logs crackled and burned, more to create a reassuring coziness than to ward off the chill. Amid the precise arrangement of china, silver, and crystal stood not an elaborate pyramid of pears for Honor to hide behind, but a simple vase artlessly stuffed with bright golden marigolds. The flowers reminded her of that spring day in the Public Garden when Robert had picked tulips for her and won her heart.
Overcome with emotion, she fought back tears as LaRouche held her chair for her. “The flowers are lovely.”
“They’re from the little garden out back,” he replied, tugging on the bellpull. He didn’t need to say that he had picked them himself, yanking them out of the ground with a man’s impatience and lack of finesse. “I’ve never been one for hothouse flowers. Seems unnatural seeing roses in the fall and winter.”
He took his seat and ran one finger up and down the stem of his crystal wineglass as if searching for something to say. “Your practice seems to be doing real well.”
“I’ve gotten half a dozen new clients since the Grahams’ divorce,” she replied. “Success does breed success.”
There came a discreet knock, followed by the butler and a footman bearing a soup tureen. While the footman ladled fragrant, steaming soup and the butler poured white wine for the master’s approval, Honor sat quietly and wondered why LaRouche suddenly made her feel like a doe being stalked by a wolf.
She scoffed at her own analogy. She was not a frightened, quivering deer but a strong-willed woman rarely intimidated by men. Then why did she suddenly perceive this man as threatening? He certainly gave her no cause to feel that way. Tonight he embodied politeness.
Her host pronounced the wine perfect and indicated to the butler that he should pour Honor a glass. Their duties completed, the servants discreetly disappeared, and LaRouche said, “I don’t know why he does that. The wine always tastes fine to me.”
Most of the men Honor knew would have died before appearing unsophisticated, but not Nevada LaRouche. She said, “It’s customary.”
He raised his glass in a toast. “To strange customs and your success.”
She clinked her glass against his. “To yours as well.” She sipped the wine, savoring the fruity bouquet and crisp, light taste.
He picked up his soup spoon. “The chef makes a real good oxtail soup.”
Honor tasted the rich beef broth. “Delicious.”
They ate in silence. As Honor sipped her soup and wine, a pleasant, contented warmth enveloped her. Surrounded by hundreds of books that smelled richly of paper and morocco leather bindings, listening to the logs snap and hiss as a shower of sparks flew up the chimney, tasting such delicious food and drink, she felt cosseted. Pampered. Soothed. She suppressed a smile.
His sharp eyes missed nothing. “What is it?”
“I’m afraid I’m not the stimulating company you expected tonight.”
“It’s early yet. We haven’t even finished the soup.” He grinned disarmingly and leaned toward her. “By the time we reach the roast beef, I expect we’ll be talking each other’s ears off.”