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“Hello, Spence.”
He ignored Mary Alice and studied Phoebe. The way she stood hunched and partially turned away added credence to what he’d overheard while descending in the cage—to what a number of Newland’s customers had probably heard.
First, he’d been wrong about Gil. Now he learned Phoebe had a disreputable past. The headache raged on.
Mary Alice batted sympathetic eyelids at him. “I’m so sorry you heard that, Spence.”
Right.
“I should go.” Her task complete, she escaped the devastation she’d wrought.
Three women paused on the nearby staircase to take in the show. Spence grasped Phoebe’s arm and dragged her toward the back of the store and away from gawkers—witnesses to her shame. He’d expected a fight from her but didn’t get one.
Once they were outside, he led her at a slower pace down the street and toward the river. Neither of them said a word as they paused on the bank and watched water flow past a thin layer of ice along the edge.
A train whistle wailed. The sound enhanced the fire in his head but brought Maura to mind. What that child would face through the fiendish actions of her parents and Mary Alice!
“Why a train?”
“What?”
“Why would you tell your daughter a father would arrive on a train?”
In a voice barely audible, she said, “Maura asked over and over about where fathers came from. I grew impatient with her questions and told her trains were where princes and princesses met. It was the first thing that occurred to me, because it’s how I met her father. It sounds silly, but...”
“I suppose you think it was a happy memory.” How could a relationship with a married man be happy? It went against everything Spence believed in.
“There is little happiness in that memory. I wish I had never boarded that train. I wish I’d never met Douglas.” She covered her face and her shoulders heaved several times, as though she tried to contain her emotions. Then she dropped her arms to her sides. “That isn’t true. If I had never met him, I wouldn’t have Maura, and she’s the joy of my life.”
Spence had walked out of the store without an overcoat, and the cold penetrated his suit. As much as he wanted to go back inside, he wanted more to hear her account of what had happened. He wanted to believe he hadn’t been as wrong about her as he had Gil.
“It won’t be long before Mary Alice’s story will be common knowledge, and your daughter will suffer. What will you tell her?”
Phoebe glared at him. “Don’t you really want me to tell you Mary Alice lied?”
“I know she didn’t lie. I saw it on your face.” He fought to control his frustration. “I’m concerned about Maura. What will you tell her about her father?”
“I will tell her the truth.” Her gaze bore into him. “I was never married to Douglas.”
Her eyes expanded like a fist opening after it punched him in the gut.
Spence knew it was coming, pushed her into admitting it, but yes, he had wished he was mistaken in what he’d heard or that Mary Alice had lied.
Apparently not.
***
PHOEBE HAD LONGED TO keep her sin—though unintentional—forever between herself, her mother, and God.
She waited for Spence’s condemnation, but he only stared at her. She whispered, “Don’t look at me that way.”
He turned his head and watched the river again, his profile bold, chin strong. “What you said... It caught me by surprise.”
Phoebe set her jaw. She had asked forgiveness for her part. Why should she continue to go through life ashamed when her fault was in trusting that a man had integrity? Why should she let Spence think the worst of her without explanation?
“When I was seventeen, I traveled by train for a performance. With few unoccupied seats in the car, Douglas asked to sit next me. We talked the entire trip.” Despite the desire to remain detached from the memories of a first love, her voice drifted into a mellow, wistful tone. “He was charming, funny, handsome. We continued to see one another, and after two months, we said our vows before a judge.”
“But you said...”
“He tricked me into believing we were married.”
A low moan escaped Spence’s throat.
“We moved into a comfortable house a few miles outside of St. Louis. Even though he was gone quite often, I was a happy bride. The day I learned about Maura, I couldn’t wait to tell him.” Phoebe wiped hot tears from her eyes with the heel of her hand. “He was furious and called me names I never dreamed a man would say to me. That’s when he told me we weren’t legally married. ‘How can we be,’ he said, ‘when I’m already married?’”
She waited for Spence to say something. Anything. When he didn’t, she swallowed as if a block of ice had lodged in her throat. “After he stomped out the door, I didn’t know what to do, so I followed him into the city. That’s when I learned he spoke the truth. I saw his wife. I saw two small children.”
Spence still stood rigid, not responding. Could he not accept her innocence? Could he not see the pain she had experienced?
“I was young and thought he was the sun, moon, and stars rolled up in one glorious person.” Then the clouds rolled in and obscured her view of romantic love. “In my inexperience with men, I made the biggest mistake of my life.”
He turned cold eyes on her. Gone was the smile she’d become accustomed to seeing. “After the way he treated you, you continue to call yourself Mrs. Crain.”
She rubbed her arms. “Crain was the name on our marriage certificate—as false as everything else. What was I supposed to do to protect my child?”
“You never confronted him? Publicly shamed him?”
“And forever brand my daughter with a contemptible label?”
With that, he lost the hostility and hung his head. “You’re right. Maura doesn’t deserve the shame.”
And she did?
“Is he really dead?”
Phoebe nodded. “A riding accident three weeks before Maura was born. I read it in the newspaper.”
He stood in silence for a moment before asking, “Why didn’t you return to performing?”
“I did the other night, remember? Look what happened.” She scoffed at her foolishness in thinking she could go back to her career. “I’ve scraped by all this time terrified of someone discovering the truth. Because I thought I could resume my old life, my daughter will suffer. My mother will suffer.”
Spence had called her as frosty as a windowpane, and with good reason. She felt no less frosty now. “How could someone like you understand what it’s like to lose everything to a young man with the resources and willingness to break a woman’s heart as a prank? Douglas wasn’t the only one of his friends who found it amusing to turn a woman’s world upside down and inside out. It was a game they played.”
Spence stepped back as if she had slapped him. “That’s why you were cold toward me. Even after these past weeks, you saw no difference in us?”
“Douglas treated me like a princess...until he’d finished with me.”
“One of the things drummed into me from an early age is that all women are worthy of respect and courteous treatment. I’ve taken that teaching to heart. I am nothing”—his hand cut through the air—“like the man who deceived you.”
Long, powerful strides carried him away.
Phoebe remained at the river, December’s cold chilling the dampness on her face. Visions of all Spence had done for her rolled through her mind: driving her to the orphanage, building the dollhouse, providing her with a job, speaking with sensitivity to Maura. Douglas wouldn’t have hesitated to do those things if he thought it was to his advantage.
What made Spencer Newland the Third different?
Somehow, he had broken through her barrier of distrust. Somehow, he was different. She believed it, yet she couldn’t find the voice to assure him of her change of heart until he was gone.
“I know you’re nothing like Douglas.” The whispered response drifted away on the water’s current.
