Isaac’s wet clothes clung to him, reminding him again and again of the pain in Laura’s eyes. He fought against the memory, ripping off his jacket the moment he stepped inside his family’s home and then throwing it over the back of a chair—only to have it slide off into a heap on the floor.
He didn’t care about the mess or the letter from the office he’d tucked in his pocket. None of it mattered. Not now.
With long, swift strides, he made his way through the house, past his father’s office, and up the stairs to his room, where he shed the damp shirt. He wished he could tear the memory away as easily.
A rap on his door had him groaning deeply. He didn’t want to see anyone, and he certainly didn’t want anyone asking if anything was amiss.
“Isaac.” His mother’s voice sounded through the door.
He pressed his lips into a tight line and stood still in the center of his large bedroom, as though silence would make her go away.
“Are you ill?” She jiggled the handle on his door. “I saw you rush up here. Open the door. You don’t want me to be sick with worry, do you?”
“Everything is all right,” he said, keeping the pain from his voice the best he could.
The handle jiggled again, more urgently now. There was no fighting it. Her concern would have her plowing through the door if he did not admit her himself. He pulled on a dry shirt and opened the door. “I’m not ill.”
“Something is wrong.” She looked him over, her frantic eyes assessing him the same way his father appraised a new shoe design, critically and looking for flaws. “Are you working too hard?”
“No!” His voice came out sharp and terse. “I don’t do any real work. I pace around the factory. I sign a few papers. I try to make friends with Abel Fredricks but can’t even do that. Nothing about my work is taxing. Father treats me like a child. He—”
“Be careful.” Her tone changed from that of a fidgety woman to a loyal wife. “You sound ungrateful. Would you rather your father put you on the production floor? He could be paying you a few pennies an hour to stitch shoes together. Is that what you want?” He flinched like a rebuked child. “He wants to give you everything. Can’t you see that? He wants you to enjoy your life.” Her voice faltered. “Not everyone gets that.”
If Isaac’s frustration were not so great, his mother’s display of genuine emotion may have startled him. Was she thinking of Uncle Morton and his life cut short by war? As it was, he snapped back at her, “Why did the shoe factory split? What happened between Father and Bradshaw? I’ve asked before, and no one has ever given me a straight answer.”
It was the piece of the puzzle he needed, the one that had kept him from being able to show his face to Laura and declare himself the letter writer. Every oddity of his life, his father’s incessant demands that he while away his time—all of it seemed to go back to the factory split. He was ready for the truth. “If this is to be my factory someday, then I ought to know where it came from.”
“When you were young, you only wanted to play. And now you claim to want to work. Will you ever be content?”
“Why did they split?” he asked again, his voice a low growl. He wanted answers, and he wanted them now. He’d been patient for years, doing nothing but waiting for his chance at something. “Why does Father hate Bradshaw?”
“Bradshaw was your father’s friend. For years they were as close as brothers.” The creases near her eyes deepened, revealing a weariness, as though the memories were painful. “They both believed in their factory.”
“I know that much. I remember the two of them laughing; they were as close as Charles and me. Something changed. What happened?”
“Bradshaw lost his way. Business was all he cared about. It became everything to him. After—when things didn’t go well, it ruined him.”
“I still don’t understand.” Isaac gritted his teeth. These weren’t answers. “All Father cares about is business too. There must be more to it than that.”
“Your father cares about more than the factory.” She took a step into his room. “He cares about you, about me. He cares.”
“That doesn’t explain what happened.”
“Where is this coming from? Has someone been talking about your father or his business? Has Bradshaw gotten to you somehow?”
Her desperate eyes searched his. This conversation was unnerving her, stealing from her usual lighthearted approach to life. It took effort to swallow the questions he so badly wanted answered. But Isaac had already hurt one woman he cared about today. He couldn’t bear to hurt another.
“Charles is getting married,” he said, deflecting and falling back into line. Playing the part of the dutiful son. Was there no way to have answers and familial peace? “Everyone is leading their own lives. They’re buying houses, making business decisions. And I’m . . . bowling.”
“You’re restless.” Her face softened; the worry lines relaxed. “Of course you are. With everyone marrying, you must feel eager to settle down yourself.” She clasped her hands together. “We’ll have a dinner party. We’ll make it the talk of the town. We can fill this house with eligible women. Spend a little time with the right woman, and you’ll be as happy as Charles and all the others.”
He forced a smile. She was going to fix everything without fixing anything. They would be exactly where they were before, where they’d always been, with questions between them.
“A dinner party sounds nice,” he said for her sake, hoping the conversation would end and he could wallow in his misery alone.
“I’ll go right to work on it. Perhaps we can invite Abel Fredricks. I know your father wants the two of you to become better acquainted. You could kill two birds with one stone.”
Isaac stepped toward his mother as though he were herding sheep, steering her for the door. “Invite whomever you like.”
“It’ll be a fine party. It’ll be just what you need.”
“I’m sure it will,” he lied, feeling sick as he said it. “I’d best change and get ready for the evening.”
She left, and he was again alone with his thoughts and memories. Facing a mental crossroads, he fought with his sparse list of choices. He could go after Laura, but he had nothing to offer. He had possessions in excess but no means of income outside his father’s factory, and his father had told him long ago that Isaac would lose his position as future owner if he ever associated with Bradshaw. Besides, even if he went after her, when she saw his face and knew his name, she might hate him as passionately as their fathers hated each other.
What other choice was there? He could go to his mother’s party and find a woman to court, settle down, and be exactly who his parents always wanted him to be. Laura had found someone else; she wasn’t going to be alone, pining over him. He ought to do the same. Perhaps it was time he accepted his lot in life and stopped pretending there was something else out there for him.
The reality was that he was Isaac Campbell, son of William and Helen Campbell. A man with hours in his day to spare and a company that he would one day inherit. Women told him he was handsome and practically swooned in his presence. He ought to find a way to embrace what he had and stop dreaming about what would never be. The past made little sense to him, but did it have to make sense? His future was here, with his family, with his inherited hate for Bradshaw, and at this moment, the only demands that anyone had made of him were to befriend Abel Fredricks and attend a dinner party.
There was no other option. He would accept his fate and hope that the constant niggling desire for something else would eventually go away.
* * *
Laura blew her nose for the hundredth time and with a clean handkerchief wiped at her eyes. Her cheeks were extra red, and her eyes were puffy, but at least she did not look half as bedraggled as she had the day before when she’d first returned home from the Quarry Garden. The humiliation, the broken heart—she shuddered. It’d been awful.
A fresh bout of tears came the moment she let her mind wander back to the limestone setting. She wiped at the river of tears, but they continued to run in trails down her face. It seemed they were endless.
Mrs. Guskin had said nothing when Laura flew through the side door and ran for her room, but the look in Mrs. Guskin’s eyes had instantly gone from a pleasant greeting to deep concern. Laura wanted arms to fall into and a shoulder to cry on, but she did not know how to voice the pain that ravaged her. He’d rejected her. He hadn’t come, and though she wanted to believe he had a compelling explanation, it did not change the fact that she waited. For two hours. Her hopes had floated to the tip of the sky only to plummet whenever a man passed by without so much as stopping to greet her.
“He didn’t come.” She forced the sour words out of her mouth just loudly enough for Tybalt to hear. If only her bird could grow large enough that she could climb upon his back and fly away from everything. “I’m to go with Abel to dinner.” She sniffled in an unladylike fashion. “Everyone leaves,” she whispered through her tears, thinking of her mother’s death, of her father’s changed demeanor, and of her letter friend, who would remain a faceless memory. “Will Abel stay? If I am what he wants, will he stay?”
Tybalt stretched his wings out wide and pumped them twice before tucking them back by his sides.
“Laura Fredricks.” She said the name aloud, wanting to love the sound of it. Wanting to believe the future held promise. This was the only key she knew of, and so she must take it. She nodded and wiped at her face once more, determined this time to be done crying over a man who hadn’t shown. “Abel’s handsome, and he’s been kind. We will walk on the bustling streets together. I’ll be on his arm, and I’ll be free of this house for the evening. I’ll smile and flirt, and someday he may take me away for good.”
Tybalt squawked.
She slid a cracker through the cage to him. “Don’t worry. I will do my best to make him fall madly in love with me, but I will only marry him if he promises to be good to you.” She swallowed against the tightness in her throat. It all sounded good enough, but she knew little about making a man fall in love with her. She was quiet. She loved books and gardens and animals. She was a self-taught woman. These traits were natural. Being what Abel wanted, whatever that may be . . . she could only hope she was capable of becoming it. She would have to try. Becoming an old spinster in her father’s house was not an option. Anything at all was more appealing.
“No matter what, I won’t leave you.” She took another cracker from the tin box. “I wouldn’t do that.”
By the time Abel arrived, Laura had regained her composure and thickened her resolve, though her heart was still raw.
“He’s downstairs,” Mrs. Guskin said. “You were right. He’s a handsome man.”
Mrs. Guskin had been careful to give her space and had refrained from asking too many questions. An understanding existed between them, born of mutual respect and admiration and a keen sense of timing. The questions would come later, but not until Laura was ready. For now, Mrs. Guskin offered strong, quiet support.
“Go on and have the best time you can,” Mrs. Guskin said.
Laura nodded, then left the oasis of her room and descended the stairs toward Abel, who stood waiting at the bottom in a finely tailored suit. He’d put effort into his appearance. Surely it meant that this dinner mattered to him. She smiled. He cared enough to show up, and there was a chance he would care enough to stay. When he offered his arm, she took it, ready to be with someone who wanted to be with her.
“You look stunning,” he said as they stepped away from her home. “I’ve thought of you often since we went out last. The hours between then and now felt especially long. Twice as long as normal.”
“And how does time move now that you are with me?” She’d spent hours looking out her window, watching couples in the park stroll together like she now strolled with Abel. The women always laughed and clung to their companions’ arms. She did her best to mimic what she’d seen.
“I hope it moves slowly, only so I can enjoy it all.” He grinned, his row of white teeth catching the light of the evening sun. “Are you hoping the night drags on or rushes by?”
“I am hoping . . .” She paused, searching for the right and truthful answer. “No matter how fast it goes, I hope it takes us somewhere.”
“Well, my lady, your carriage to somewhere awaits.” He opened the door of his Nash touring car for her as though escorting a princess off to a ball. “We’ll fill ourselves with Italian pasta and then go wherever you like.”
“Thank you,” she said, doing her best to still her quivering nerves. Something about being in an automobile with a man made her nervous. Perhaps it was all the newspaper articles she’d read about automobiles changing the world of courtship. “I thought we were walking.”
“If we drive, then we can go somewhere else after we eat.”
“You’re right.” She forced a smile as she slid into the seat.
Abel didn’t seem to notice her jitters as they drove to the restaurant. The park, the zoo, her home—they disappeared. Even her abysmal afternoon at the Quarry Garden seemed to fade with each turn of the wheel. Like a nightmare that weakens with the rising sun, she could almost believe her hours of aimless waiting were nothing more than her imagination playing tricks on her. With every passing block, she relaxed a little more.
Abel stopped the car to wait for an old couple crossing the street. The woman had a bent back and slow shuffle. The man was tall and lean, except for his thickened waist. He walked slowly, his hand on her back.
Laura watched them with unfettered attention, loving the way they moved together in slow but perfect unison.
Abel mumbled under his breath about their slow pace. He started to drive before they were all the way across. Her heart reacted, beating faster and faster, and she gripped the handle of the door with all her might and pressed her eyes shut. Since her mother’s death, she’d often felt her heart jump and lurch in fear when an automobile crept too close to someone on the street.
She tried to ignore Abel’s frustration. After all, he’d not lost a parent in the way she had. She breathed easier when the couple were safely across the street. And as soon as the automobile was back up to speed, Abel smiled again.
“You must be hungry,” she said.
He turned and looked at her. “I’m eager to see your reaction to the pasta. It’s the best I’ve ever had. You’ll love it.”
She smiled back, forgetting the old couple and thinking only of her and Abel. This was real and important. As best she could, she engaged in conversation, nodding and smiling at all the right moments. Abel grinned back and even stretched his arm behind her like a movie star would in one of the moving pictures she’d snuck into on rare occasions with Mrs. Guskin.
Abel opened her door after parking the car, and once again she found herself on his arm, floating beside him. On the way to their table, the eyes of the other couples in the restaurant found her. She could feel their scrutiny. Did they know she felt unnatural in her short dress?
All through dinner couples whispered, but Abel paid them little notice. He smiled whenever someone caught his eye, but his attention remained fixed on her.
“Does everyone know you?” she asked as she leaned closer.
“I’m new in town, but rumors spread fast. There’s talk of my investments and business, but I think it’s you who has everyone looking.”
“Me? But why?”
“You’re the rarely seen daughter of Stanley Bradshaw, and now you have been spotted out twice with me. Can you blame them for wondering about us? They are no doubt curious how I came to be lucky enough to have such a rare beauty on my arm.”
“That’s silly.” She felt heat race to her cheeks. “I get out . . . I go to church every Sunday. I’m not some princess trapped in a castle.”
He threw her a crooked smile. “You’re the daughter of an incredibly successful factory owner. In Buffalo you may as well be a princess. And the way you’ve kept to yourself has only made you more intriguing. You’re elusive. They can’t help but wonder why.”
“What do they say? They must have some explanation they believe to be true.”
“Some say you still grieve your mother. Others say it’s because your father has someone lined up for you to marry and doesn’t want to risk you tarnishing yourself and ruining his business alliance.”
She felt her jaw drop open, horrified that such talk was about her.
“Others say you keep to yourself because you’ve some dark family secret or that you believe yourself superior to others.”
“I had no idea.” She put a hand to her chest. It had never occurred to her that her quiet life was the topic of gossip. Her father must not have known either, or he surely would not have stood for such talk. Would he?
“Wagging tongues need something to keep them busy. And it only adds to your charm. I wouldn’t worry about what others say. Besides, I’m glad to be the one who was able to lure the princess from her castle.”
His words startled her. He was describing what she’d always wanted, a man eager to rescue her, to take her away. Yet the victorious smile on his face left her rattled.
He wiped a napkin over his mouth and patted his stomach. “Have you ever tasted anything so good?”
She did her best not to care that her name was on strangers’ tongues or that the companion across from her looked like a man gloating after a victory. Fairy tales were full of stories of men setting off on quests for their fair maidens. And the endings were always happy. “It was delicious. You were right—I felt swept away to Italy.”
“Where would you want to go now? Anywhere in the world.”
Anywhere? She’d never been far. “I would go . . . to South Dakota.”
He laughed. “I wasn’t expecting that. I thought you’d want to see the pyramids in Egypt or something else spectacular. Why so far west?”
“My mother spent her childhood there. I remember her telling me about the quaint little town she was from. She would talk of the animals she had and of her family. I wish I could have known her then, and I would like to see the mines and the train tracks she spoke of. The way she talked about her hometown . . . it filled my imagination.” Suddenly afraid her answer was wrong and far too personal, she busied herself by smoothing the napkin in her lap. “I think the pyramids would also be exciting.”
“What was her name? I have only ever heard her referred to as the late Mrs. Bradshaw.”
She felt her eyes grow large and her heart skip a beat. He wanted to know about her mother, the subject she’d so often been told to avoid. If she was going to trust this man, and she wanted to, she may as well begin now. “Her name was Catherine. She came to New York to go to school and become a doctor like her father, but she met my father instead.”
“A love match?” His perfectly handsome grin was so big and broad that her worries from before went away.
“I believe so,” she said. “Either way, she never went back to South Dakota.”
“I am sorry for your loss.”
When she squirmed uneasily in her seat, he stood and held out his hand. “I can’t take you to South Dakota, at least not tonight, but I could take you for a stroll near the water. We could pretend it is the Mediterranean Sea.”
She took his hand. If he’d asked, she may have run away with him. “Forget going west. It is the Mediterranean I very much wish to see.”