Daring to lift her chin a notch, she swallowed convulsively. “I came to tell you something.”
Seth’s body still throbbed with need, but he ignored it. He looked down at the fireplace, pushing aside the shocking thoughts that had crept into his mind.
“What did you come to tell me?” There was no expression in his tone. No emotion at all, but she saw a dark hollow form at the edge of his mouth, and his eyes narrowed.
Sophy tried a sip of the brandy. “I think that someone is stealing from you.” Seth’s lashes came up quickly and she found herself staring into his jewel-bright eyes. “I think the villain should be flushed out.”
He stood there, not saying anything, as she sought for the right words. Why, oh why, was this so difficult?
Gathering her courage, she drew a deep breath and plunged on. “Which is why I had Matt Tyson arrange for a transfer of funds to cover a non-existent insurance claim.”
Clear as a bell, her voice echoed in the sudden silence.
Seth didn’t move. He looked completely dumbfounded. Then, Sophy saw the truth of it hit him. His face went rigid, his mouth hardened, and she could see the pulse beat in his throat.
The silence lengthened, grew deafening.
Seth’s tongue was frozen in astonishment. He stood and stared down at her, a curious expression flickering over his handsome face. For an instant his eyes were twin blue flames, flaring the way a predator’s gaze flickers before the final leap.
Sophy’s eyes were huge and wary in the shadows, but they met his bravely. For a full twenty seconds they stood gazing at each other, before he rallied and broke the silence.
“Why have you done this?” he ventured, feeling his way so cautiously he might have been trying to walk on hot coals. Under the circumstances, his voice was dreadful in its calm.
Sophy abruptly turned her head away from his blazing eyes, her hair fanning over her face as she searched for words. How could she confess the truth? That the wife whom he had married entirely for her money had fallen in love with him? That she felt his pain as if it were her own?
Sophy groped for something to say. All coherence seemed to have fled from her thoughts, so she shrugged her shoulders with assumed nonchalance, and replaced the brandy glass on the mantel. She hoped her voice wouldn’t shake when she finally spoke the words she was desperately trying to frame in her mind.
She swung around to confront him. “I wish only to be your wife and make you happy. Seth...”
Sophy was suddenly crushed in Seth’s arms, as if he would envelop her slender frame in his. “Sophy! Sophy! You give me so much, and now this... without asking anything in return.”
His voice was thick. He, too, seemed to be having difficulty breathing. She stood on tiptoe to place a quick kiss on the pulse hammering in his throat.
“I am not so sure I will always be amenable. Father always said I was far too independent and cocky to be kept in line.”
She heard the breath hiss between his teeth, then his face was buried in her hair. “Sophy, I have no wish to completely rule your life, and if I try, resist me, fight me, do anything but give in to met.”
“I do not understand. I love you, Seth. You are my life, why should I...”
“I desire you more than any woman I have ever known, but, as I told you before, romance was knocked out of me in the war. If I could give you love, I would. I’d even write it into your damned contract.”
This was no claim but an offering.
“I think we will have go through our wedding bargain, and rewrite it, clause by clause.”
He answered the unspoken question. “Agreed.”
She felt his response to her closeness and pressed herself more firmly against him. She would accept what he offered. “Change number one. The nights are yours, but the days belong to me.”
Chapter Seven
S
ophy ran her eye over the superb selection of fabrics in the draper’s establishment. Fine silk, velvet, crepe, muslin, faille, poplin and moiré, tangled with braid, ribbons, tassels and lace.
The gleaming rainbow choice of colors was bemusing. Dazzling blues, greens, pinks and yellows contrasted sharply with gentle grays and lavender. The striking patterns, too, were overwhelming, with spots, stripes and exotic flower sprays all vying for attention.
She examined materials, shook out samples and looked carefully at the quality of a piece of black gauze. Her gaze lingered on a coral velvet, but went reluctantly on.
Red would suit you.
No, that was going too far. But not a drab, demure half mourning either.
She spied a flame red silk. It would be perfect made up in one of the elegant designs the French couturier, Mr. Worth, had sent to Madame Bertine. No, those modish styles revealed more than they concealed. It would drive Seth mad to see his wife in so daring a gown!
Sophy slowly put down the gauze. If she was going to leave off her black, she was going to do it properly. Seth Weston needed a bit of color and excitement in his life, and she, Sophy Weston, was going to provide it. Such a daring gown could be an effective secret weapon.
Hurriedly, before she could change her mind, Sophy pointed out the brilliant silk to the draper, who sent a junior employee rushing to fetch it down.
“A shrewd choice, madam,” he conceded, unrolling the bolt of fabric with a flourish, cascading the river of flagrant flame over the counter. “The very finest Weston’s silk, excellent quality, and just the shade to complement your complexion...”
His flow of sales talk was not needed. Sophy had already decided. She fingered the silk, her cheeks dimpling with elation. Unspoken, unspeakable thoughts raced through her mind.
Aunt Ella looked scandalized. “Sophy! You wouldn’t be wearing such a heathen color! And your father not dead above seven months! It’s unseemly!”
“Don’t feet, Aunt. It will make a lovely lining for a black silk crepe evening cape.” Sophy looked Aunt Ella straight in the eyes, but her lips curved in a conspiratorial smile.
Gathering up their parcels, the women made their way to the horse-drawn “railroad,” which carried passengers all the way from City Hall to a depot on Forty-Second Street. At several places along the length of the busy road were pickup points.
Here, the ticket collectors were busy, and newspaper boys stood screaming the headlines. A drop of moisture hit her cheek. It was going to rain again. Zinc-colored clouds, streaked with dark, clotted undersides, stretched across the sky. The tram was overdue.
Sophy saw a heavily built man stop to buy a paper. He had his back to her, but he looked familiar. Before she could identify him, someone bumped into him, and he moved off.
The boarding platform was crowded with men, women and children, pushing and shoving. Several times Sophy was edged toward the rails. She didn’t mind.
At all costs she wanted to catch the tram. She wanted to deliver her purchases to the seamstress, but, more important, she wanted to check whether there were any replies to some special letters Seth had dictated the night before. She was pleased Seth’s house was on Fifth Avenue. It was much more convenient than her father’s house in Yonkers.
Her head swam with the sights and smells of the morning’s excursion, and with her memories of the previous evening. They had sat in the library after dinner, Seth with a sheath of papers before him at the table, Sophy on the chair opposite with her notebook and pencil.
She had taken down his swift, clipped sentences until page after page was filled with her neat script. It seemed Seth was taking her seriously.
He was involving her in the business, making her feel useful. At times she suspected he was testing her, teasing her, with a jumble of information and unfamiliar terms, but she always understood.
Occasionally she stopped him with a question.
“After the stock was ruined that time, Seth, what percentage was salvaged?”
“Eighty.”
“Only eighty? Then there was a substantial loss on cotton consignments even before the cessation of trade with the South?”
His mouth curved ruefully. “Often happens. It’s practically impossible not to suffer some commodity damage in transit. The trick is to make it up in profits on the finished product.”
“Does anyone else besides Richard Carlton have access to the ledgers, like...well, Charles Lethbridge, for instance?”
“Yes. George Dunwoody.” Sophy put her head on one side and looked at him, wholly beautiful. “He manages the Paterson plant.” His mouth softened and the corners lifted slightly. “Well, let’s finish up. The nights are mine, remember?”
In the hustle and bustle of the Ladies’ Mile, Sophy remembered, and once again repeated to herself,
Half a loaf! Half a loaf. That I do have. Maybe I should be content.
Her lip crept between her teeth. She was damned if she would give up. She knew he was a man who could be taught how to love. He just needed a little practice.
Sophy heard the iron wheels of the tram rattle on the cobblestones. She craned to see how near it was. The horses were actually in her line of vision, when a man fell against her heavily.
The lead horse reared, nostrils flaring. She staggered wildly, and a woman screamed. There was the chink and rattle of brass and leather harness. Then someone grabbed at her and pulled her back, as the steel-clad hooves flashed past.
Weston’s Textiles inhabited an iron-fronted warehouse on Forty-First Street. The building was located a short distance beyond the main garment-manufacturing district, near where Broadway began to angle its way into Longacre Square.
Seth liked to be at the factory before eight o’clock when the new shift started. There was the material to be examined that had been dyed the previous day, as a final check for shade, before sending it on for further processing.
The path to the rear of the workshop nestled between two tall limestone structures. After the rain it was slippery, but he negotiated it with the minimum of effort, letting himself into the drafty complex.
The workroom was empty, except for Charles Lethbridge. White shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows exposing his freckled forearms, the designer was already busy sketching a pattern.
Bolts of cloth lined the walls like rows of orderly soldiers, while sample books, newspapers and magazines were spread haphazardly about the drafting table. Seth picked up some pencils, and dropped them into a glass jar.
His mouth quirked at the corners. “Your clutter reminds me of planning on a battlefield. All we need is the colonel to start our own campaign.”
“I could do with some inspiration,” Charles grunted, his sandy eyebrows crinkled in thought. “Stewart’s are flooding the market with French silks. Even with the services of a textile designer who studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Lyons, how can Weston’s compete?”
Seth eased himself onto a stiff-backed wooden chair. He reached out and picked up a sample book.
“Diversification. Extend our market. Mix and match our designs. Expand into the furnishing fabric trade, woven wallpapers, brocaded damask for curtains, matching brocatelle for furniture, et cetera. With the use of aniline dyes we can produce unusual color combinations.”
“How’s Sophy?” Charles added a pencil mark to a design.
“Fine.”
Charles thought about that for a moment, then added another couple of squiggles. “Got over her fright at the shipping yards, then?”
Seth put the sample book down on the cluttered bench. He leaned back in his chair, his face set in a dissatisfied frown. That niggle of worry returned. He wished he could confide in Sophy, but he didn’t want to frighten her.
The thought of her warmed him instantly. Sophy’s effervescence was contagious. His new wife was no meek and mild creature, obedient to his every wish. She was possessed of a passionate nature.
It shone in her eyes, in the unselfconscious way she moved her body, in her wide, delicious smile. In the way she welcomed him into her bed.
In some obscure way, he was pleased she was taking an interest in the business. Feisty, insolent, disobedient, she had bounced back with a vengeance! The realization brought an unexpected rush of pleasure. He pushed away his doubts.
“When I last saw her, she had an army of servants prepared for combat with buckets and mops. I judged it prudent to engage in a strategic retreat.”
“Sophy worrying about housework? With all of your money?” Charles looked up in amazement, and bit the end of his pencil.
“I think she felt provoked, and when women are provoked, they do strange things.” Seth gave an eloquent shrug. “Sophy does housework.”
Charles wasn’t sure, but he thought he was beginning to understand. “You haven’t been accused of neglecting your bride already, have you?” He surveyed his friend with dry amusement.
Seth paused for several minutes before speaking, rubbing his temple with his fingers. The barest hint of a smile touched the fullness of his lips.
“Sophy has an absurd notion that she wants to be seen as more than just a person who came with a dowry.”
Charles chucked, unruffled. “It was ever so with the female of the species, contrary creatures at best, and wives can be the very devil,” he said, his pencil moving, his head down.
Seth refused to be drawn. He knew Abigail Lethbridge to be a veritable waterworks if she failed to get her own way. He’d make damn sure Sophy didn’t follow suit. He watched the pencil stop on a line, and shrugged his shoulders.
“She also has it in her head that there is skulduggery afoot in the plant, and that, if I let her investigate the matter, she can expose the culprit.”
Charles looked up from his papers. For a moment the two men regarded each other.
“She’s smart.” Charles returned to his drawing. There was no hint of crisis there. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m inclined to let her have her way. There are trade-offs involved.” Seth had found a fascinating pattern of shadows on the floor. Sophy was a generous lover, and it would be a shame to crush so rare and delightful a creature. She might vex and irritate with her quaint ideas of independence, but she filled his mind at the oddest moments.
“There always are with women.” Seth said nothing and Charles continued. “How are you getting on with your own investigation?”
Seth rubbed his thigh, cursing the pain that flooded through his leg. “Uphill all the bloody way. I’m still no nearer finding where the money went. Why?”
Clear blue eyes bored into hazel.
Charles met the look without flinching. “Didn’t you say Sophy was interested in the stock market?”
“What are you suggesting?”
“Play by the familiar rules of war. Devise an initial strategy to stun the fellow’s responses. Defeat him in one decisive assault. He won’t be expecting a female. Use Sophy’s knowledge of Wall Street. Maybe that’s where your man has been putting his ill-gotten gains.”
“That’d be a bit flagrant, wouldn’t it? If it’d been me, I’d salt it away in a bank account somewhere.”
“Yes. Well, not everyone is as careful with their money as you, are they? Others might put it on the roll of the dice, hoping to make more.”
“The idea has merit. It’s worth a try.”
“Are you going to put in an appearance at Horace Greeley’s soiree this evening, then?” Charles asked conversationally.
Seth was instantly alert. “I have a great respect for Horace as editor of the
Tribune.
Some contentious issues have been triggered lately. This could be an opportunity for genuine debate on the issue of Reconstruction.”
“It could also be an opportunity for Sophy to check out the investment bankers. Catch the enemy sleeping and undefended, so to speak. I’ll check out the tables.” Charles permitted himself the smallest of smiles. “Be ready for Abigail.”
Seth let out an audible breath, and felt the tension leave his shoulder blades. “So what have you been doing?”
Charles recognized the signs. He put down his pencil, and turned his latest creation toward Seth.
“Like it?”
“Mmm. Nice light style. It could work on silk taffeta, if the pattern was created from a woven rib, and then overprinted after the cloth has been taken from the loom.”
Seth pulled a notebook from his pocket, immersed once more in business. “Get the artists to color-test a sample tomorrow.”
The big grandfather clock in the hall chimed six as Seth came down the staircase. He noticed the smell of fresh beeswax. There were flowers, too, in the brass urn at the foot of a bearded icon, which filled the alcove near the window.
Feeling inexplicably lighthearted, he crossed the small entresol, meaning to go into the drawing room, and had reached for the knob when the door opened and Sophy walked straight into him.