Boston, Massachusetts
May 1901
You’ll be the most beautiful bride Boston has ever seen, Miss Maffey.”
Sarah twisted to see the back of her wedding dress in the full-length mirror. Although the saleswoman, Mrs. Robertson, was prone to flattery, she wasn’t entirely wrong…about the dress at least. It was a masterful creation of creamy satin, lace applique, and decorative pleating worthy of the exorbitant price tag.
“Here.” Mrs. Robertson held out a wide-brimmed hat trimmed in matching lace and sporting an enormous tulle rose on the side. “Put this on for the complete picture.”
Sarah fit the hat over her brown hair, a smile spreading across her face. “It’s quite lovely.”
“Yes. Such a shame Miss Hensley isn’t here to see it.”
Sarah frowned. It was rather odd of Trudy to miss the last dress fitting when, as maid of honor, she’d been to all the previous appointments. “I’ll have my driver take me by her house on the way home so I can show her.”
“So you don’t need any further alterations, miss?” Mrs. Robertson held out a hand and helped Sarah descend from the fitting room dais.
“No. This is perfect.” Sarah removed the hat and returned it. “Please have everything boxed up and carried out to the car.”
“I’m so glad you’re satisfied. I’ll send Eliza in to help you remove the dress.”
Sarah pressed her hands against her waist. “I almost hate to take it off. I feel quite pretty in it.”
Mrs. Robertson’s kind smile warmed Sarah. “You’re beautiful in it, Miss Maffey, because you’re a beautiful person. I know you don’t want to hear me say it again, but thank you for your kindness to my Jenny. She’s still talking about the delicious lemon tarts you made special for her.”
Sarah ducked her head, embarrassment heating her cheeks. “It was nothing.”
The dressmaker placed the hat on a nearby chair then stepped forward to take both of Sarah’s hands. “No, Miss Maffey, it was a gift of your time, talent, and mostly your attention. Not many great ladies bother to notice those less fortunate. My Jenny may never walk, but her spirit soared when you came to visit. My entire family will never forget it.”
Such a small thing to engender so much gratitude…and vexation. Eugene had lectured her for five minutes about coddling the lower class, while Trudy—where was she?—stood beside him, nodding her approval. They grumbled like Sarah had served hundred-dollar bills instead of pastries.
She shook off the memory. “It was my pleasure. I love lemon tarts myself, so it was a joy to make them and share with friends.”
Mrs. Robertson squeezed Sarah’s hands then whirled around and grabbed the bridal hat on her way out of the fitting room. “Eliza, come help Miss Maffey, please.”
Thirty minutes later, dress box tucked under her arm, Sarah knocked on the door of the Hensleys’ red-bricked brownstone. No one answered, but she heard voices overhead and leaned back enough to see that Trudy’s bedroom window was open. Was the slugabed just now waking up? It was eleven o’clock in the morning. Sarah opened the door, sneaking in like she’d done a hundred times before, to creep up the stairs and surprise her friend.
She was about to turn the doorknob when she heard a man’s voice inside Trudy’s room. A voice that sounded like—could it be?—Eugene! Sarah snatched her hand off the brass knob, her breathing shallow and rapid. Her fiancé and best friend alone together…in a bedroom!
A shudder rippled down her spine. Her lungs filled with shock, leaving too little room for air. Images of them laughing, standing side by side, and sharing whispers filled her mind. She’d thought it wonderful that the two people she loved most got along so well. Had she been a fool? Had they been lovers all along?
Sarah pressed a fist against her lips to keep from crying out and leaned closer to the door, inexorably drawn to discover the worst.
Eugene’s voice came through the wood, muffled but distinguishable. “…got it in her head to move from Boston. Some nonsense about fresh air.”
Nonsense? Was he talking about her idea to put their names into the Oklahoma Land Lottery? He’d called it a brilliant idea. Agreed it would be good for them to make their own way instead of relying so heavily on their parents. Said he couldn’t wait to build their little castle on the plains.
Why would he lie to her?
“What did you say?” Sarah pictured her best friend—her former best friend—with both hands pressed against her ample chest, blue eyes wide. Was Trudy’s blond hair pinned up…or falling about her shoulders?
“Exactly what you said I should—whatever it took to keep her happy.”
“That’s good, Gene. Flattery is your best friend right now.”
Sarah’s stomach hardened beneath her corset. Trudy wasn’t some innocent taken in by a handsome face. She was orchestrating this betrayal.
“Where does Sarah want you to go?” Even through the wood, the calculating tone in Trudy’s voice was clear.
“Does it matter?” Eugene sounded more like a nine-year-old brat than a twenty-five-year-old banker. “My tailor is here. My club is here. You are here.”
Tailor first, club second, then his—what?—mistress? If Sarah wasn’t so heartbroken, she’d find his priority order comical.
“What are you going to do?”
Sarah bent nearer, her ear touching the white-painted wood.
“Same thing I’ve been doing these past six months. I’ll pander to her vanity until we’re officially married and her inheritance is under my control. Then you and I can finally be free of her.”
Everything inside Sarah stopped—her heart, her lungs, the blood pumping in her veins—then roared back to life, pulsing pain and outrage through her body.
“Oh, Gene. You’re so smart.” There was a rustling that, in Sarah’s imagination, sounded like bedcovers, but could be stiff petticoats under a skirt. “I’m so lucky to be your mistress.”
The scandalous confirmation snapped the dreadful curiosity rooting Sarah’s feet to the floor. She reeled around to flee, not caring that the dress box under her arm smacked against the wall, alerting the traitors to her presence.
A moment later, Trudy’s bedroom door slammed open.
Proof was worse than imagination. Eugene was shirtless, his dark chest hairs tangled across his pasty skin like the underside of a beginner’s embroidery project. Trudy, her hair mussed, clutched a bedsheet beneath bare shoulders.
In a haze of bitterness and grief, Sarah ran down the steps and out the door, ignoring calls for her to stop, be reasonable, and not make a fuss.
A fuss!
They wanted to downgrade this…this treachery to a fuss?
Sarah thrust the wedding dress box into Jenson’s hands and picked up her skirts to scramble into the Stanley Steamer. “Take me home. Hurry!”
“Yes, miss.” He handed her back the box then climbed into the seat beside her. He reached below his seat to press gauges and levers, bringing the steam engine to life, and pulled into traffic.
Sarah clutched the box against her chest like a shield, tears streaming down her cheeks. Humiliation squeezed her heart with merciless fingers. She choked on the sobs juddering inside her chest.
Trudy and Eugene. For as long as she lived, Sarah would picture them deshabillé. A bitter laugh ripped open her tight throat. Mother once said five years of French lessons would come in handy someday. Yes, quite handy…to refer to something base and vile and crushing.
Sarah swiped at the tears heating her cheeks, transferring the evidence of her misery to her butter-colored kid gloves. Wet splotches stained the pink satin bow tied around her dress box. She ducked her chin, reviling herself for displaying her mortification the entire six blocks between the Hensleys’ brownstone in Louisburg Square and the Maffey mansion on Cambridge Street.
The moment Jenson stopped next to the sandstone portico and set the brake, Sarah jumped from the automobile and rushed inside. She threw the box on the parquet floor in her haste to find her father.
“Daddy? Where are you?” She ran toward his study.
“I’m in here, princess.”
The endearment threatened to break her tenuous hold on the tears.
The mahogany doors to his study were wide open. As she rounded into the tobacco-scented room, she saw her father set the phone handset into its cradle. She tripped on the edge of the Persian rug, catching herself by bracing both hands against his massive desk. “Who—who was that?”
Daddy smoothed his salt-and-pepper goatee. “Eugene.”
She wouldn’t cry. Not again. Not at the mere mention of the reprobate’s name. “What did he want?”
“To warn me that you might be a tad upset when you got home. It appears he spoke truth.” The clipped diction expressed his displeasure. His blue eyes scanned her from head to waist, indicating it was with her.
She latched on to what Eugene had said. “A tad upset? I find my fiancé half-naked in my best friend’s bedroom, and he thinks I’ll only be a tad upset?”
“Be reasonable, Sarah.”
Her knees buckled and she grabbed onto the desk again before she fell down. “What are you saying? That it’s reasonable for the man I’m about to marry to be unfaithful?”
Daddy huffed. “When did you become so dramatic? Of course it was wrong for Eugene to choose your friend as his paramour and not to exercise discretion, but honestly, princess. A man needs an outlet.”
The room rippled. She couldn’t breathe. If she didn’t sit, she’d fall down. She waved a hand behind her back until she felt an armrest and sank into the leather chair. “He…she…they’re after my inheritance.”
Daddy rested his interlocked hands on the desktop. “You’re Sarah Maffey. Every man in Boston is after your inheritance.”
Rage swirled in her chest. At Eugene and Trudy. At her father. At every man in Boston. “Then I’ll move to Oklahoma.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
His huff drove the knife further into her chest. Why wasn’t he exasperated with Eugene? Why her? She was his daughter!
Her spine stiffened. “I’m not being ridiculous. I’ve been researching all about homesteading.” In preparation for moving there with Eugene, but that hardly mattered now. “Did you know there’s a company in New York that will sell you a house as a kit? Everything is pre-cut. All you have to do is assemble it.”
“And then what will you do? Entertain Indians and soldiers?” His mockery fueled her anger and resolve. “If you decide not to marry Eugene—although I don’t see that you’ll do better—I will support you. But I’ll never release your inheritance if you run off half-demented to Oklahoma.”
Weightlessness took over every limb—as though she had landed so hard, she’d bounced and now hung suspended in midair. Over the haze of hurt. Above the confusion. “I have the ten thousand dollars Mother left me. I’m sure that would go a long way in Oklahoma. There’s to be a land lottery in August. If I win, I can claim a full forty acres. If I don’t win, I’m sure someone will be willing to sell me their plot. I hear that’s quite a common practice.”
The more she thought about it, the better she liked the idea. Forty acres without a single Boston man in sight? Perfect!
Her breathing settled into an even rhythm. “I’m not a complete stranger to homesteading.” Mother’s parents had claimed land in Montana Territory, striking gold and turning into millionaires almost overnight. They’d returned to Boston for Grandfather’s health, but Grandmother still told stories of their homesteading days. “Three months is plenty of time for Grandmother Novak to teach me how to stake a claim.”
“A little money and a smidgeon of research are poor substitutes for common sense.” Father reached his hand across his desk. “Stop bluffing, princess. A woman alone would never succeed at homesteading.”
Ignoring his proffered hand, Sarah rose from the chair and willed her legs to hold. Was she bluffing? No…no, she wasn’t. She would do it!
“We’ll see about that.”