Glamorous Illusions (5 page)

“Oh, Mama,” I said, looking back to the window, the valley road still and empty except for Mr. Kensington's buggy, tiny in the distance. I twirled the rag inside the teacup that was already clean.

“Your papa, he wanted you to think of him as your father, through and through. He didn't see any need to—”

“No need? To break the news that the most powerful man in the state was my father by blood?”

“Well, I'm not certain he's the
most
powerful.”

I lowered my voice for fear Papa would hear me. “Did Papa think I'd never find out?”

She sighed and turned back to the sink. “He hoped not.” Her voice cracked. “We both hoped Wallace would forget. That he'd see it was easier if he just left you, us, to live our lives. Only the yearly birthday presents made us think he had not.”

She looked to me, deep care in her eyes. “Your papa loves you, Cora. You must believe it. And I think Wallace truly believes this is the best thing for you.” She paused and turned toward me, taking my hands. “While it will be undoubtedly difficult, Cora, I believe it's an answer to our prayers. Don't you see? How else can we get your papa the care he needs?”

I bit back one angry retort after another. The Lord was answering my prayers by destroying my life, taking me from the people I loved? By striking down my papa so this pretender could come and claim me?

But then I remembered. My prayer for Him to make a way for us. It wasn't the way I'd imagined, but I couldn't deny that a way had been made. I sighed and closed my eyes. “I know Papa loves me, Mama. And I love him all the more for loving me as his own.”

She stared out the window. “I'd made a mess of things. Made awful, sinful choices. And God redeemed it all. Redeemed me and my life. I've been happy here, with you and your papa. Despite the struggle and disappointments, our love has made it all worthwhile. Our parting will only be for a while. For you to see what's possible on your own, unhindered by your responsibilities to us and this farm. Your future won't be as you imagined it, but there are good things ahead for you too, child. I know it.”

I clung to the hope and promise in her words as I fretted over what was ahead, thinking about meeting half siblings for the first time, strangers.

Would they welcome me? Begrudgingly let me in? Hate me? I was just glad Mrs. Kensington was dead and gone before I, her husband's illegitimate daughter, came to join the clan. Maybe in her absence, the children wouldn't feel quite so threatened…

The cup cracked in my hand, a jagged edge splitting it in two. My mother and I stared at it for a long moment.

“One less thing to pack,” she said, offering a resigned smile before turning away.

CHAPTER 7

~Wallace~

The doctors decided it was best if Alan didn't know what had transpired until he was well enough to tolerate it. The poor man would probably not understand for weeks that his daughter had been spirited off.

Wallace paced and pulled the watch from his small vest pocket, checking the time again, trying to hide his agitation. Five minutes until the conductor called for them to board. He'd never missed a train yet, and today would not be his first. He was eager to get back to where he belonged, in Butte, see to his business before they met the family at the lake. He'd spent too long away as it was.

At last Cora emerged from the private car, wiping the tears from her cheeks, blowing her nose in a handkerchief.
So she's bidden Alan farewell.
Alma followed her out. They were ten steps away, on the other side of the platform, holding hands and weeping. Shortly, Alma would accompany her husband to Minneapolis. The woman still looked good to him, two decades after he'd sent her away. Still trim, and with that warm smile that lit up her brown eyes.
Another man's wife now
, he reminded myself. He tried to train his eyes on their daughter instead. She was plainly flustered and upset, and he'd heaped a new grief upon her, wrenching her away like this. But there was no way around it. The time was now. He felt it in his bones. And when he felt something in his bones, nothing could keep him from acting.

He'd thought about coming for her before. To at least propose the option of meeting her siblings so they could get to know one another. But once the tour plans were settled, he'd scanned the maps and the train schedules, tinkering with the idea of seeing to his other investments on the eastern slope—and coming to call. Alan's failing health had galvanized him. Cora was better off with the Kensingtons now, a new era upon her. She'd take the tour, find healing in the distraction, then finish her education. Under his tutelage, she'd come into her own. Into her destiny as a Kensington.

And if his surveyors had been right in their analysis of this region, he'd gain more than just his daughter…

He stole a glance in her direction, saw that a couple of ranch hands on the far side of the platform did the same. She was beautiful, with hair the color of ripened wheat, fair and shining in the sun, and glacial blue eyes so eerily like his own. He'd always imagined her having Alma's dark hair and eyes. But instead, they were his exact shade of blue. Felix had inherited them too. If any of his other children doubted Cora's paternity, that alone would put the matter to rest.

Wallace would see that she discarded her drab brown dress and bought some proper gowns and traveling suits in Butte. If he brought her to the lodge in what she wore now, everyone would immediately look down on her. Not that they wouldn't anyway. Winning the family over would be like pulling copper from the big hill without a shovel. But just as he'd brought the state its first proper smelter, he'd find a way to help Cora find her place with the family.

She was kin. His child. What was he to do? Sit back, allow her to struggle, when his other three had every single thing they ever dreamed of? He swore under his breath, laughing at the memory of her spirited responses the day before. Maybe she'd even teach her half siblings a thing or two.

He checked his watch again and cleared his throat. Alma glanced his way, reached up to touch Cora's cheek, and gave her a brave smile. Cora embraced her mother once more and then bustled past him, never meeting his eye as she boarded the train. Alma stepped toward him. “Watch over her, Wallace, won't you?”

He nodded gravely. “I will. What she has ahead of her will be the most difficult and wondrous experience of her entire life.”

Alma's brown eyes studied his. Her mouth was drawn. Alan and Alma's train began to move; Wallace heard the whistle blow for his, the conductor crying, “All 'board!” But he stayed with Alma. “She'll be safe, Wallace?” she asked, starting to walk alongside the slowly chugging train.

“She will be well protected. Trust me.” He took her hand and helped her step onto the stairwell platform. She stood there for a moment, gazing at him, and then over at his train car, their daughter framed in the window. Then Alma turned and climbed the steps in a way that took him back twenty years to when she climbed into the coach that took her away, when her belly was just beginning to swell with child.
When I knew I loved her, but had to give her to another man.
For the sake of his marriage. His other children. For Cora's sake too.

Hat in hand, he watched until their train grew small in the distance.

The conductor let out a low blow of the whistle as their train began to move in the direction of Butte. Wallace took hold of the handle and climbed up and in. Cora had found their seats, right by the window in the first-class car.

Wallace sat down across from her, his hands folded over the end of his cane, between his knees. The cane was more for show than need, but Wallace thought it lent a rather distinguished air. Cora's eyes followed her mother's train, the caboose now sliding out of view.

He'd done it.
Collected my lost girl.
He shook off the guilt that tried to settle over his shoulders, seeing the pain in her eyes, around her mouth. She'd be reunited with Alan and Alma soon enough. It was time she learned about and embraced her Kensington side and all that meant for her.

They didn't speak. He figured it'd be best if she addressed him first. He'd said enough. She undoubtedly needed time to unravel all she'd discovered. He closed his eyes as the hours went on, lulled by the swaying motion of the car and the rhythmic sound of wheels crossing one segment of track and then another and another. He dozed, feeling every one of his sixty-odd years as the pressure of the last days edged away.

He woke to a servant setting a table between his seat and Cora's, then jumped when he saw her empty seat. His heart skipped a beat, and he looked quickly around the car, putting aside the silly thought that she'd leapt from the train.
She's merely gone to the ladies' lounge to freshen up before luncheon.

The servant slid an impeccably white linen tablecloth across the small table, then, drawing from a cart, set it with sterling silver and crystal goblets. Even a small vase with a rose. The train line was clearly trying to better its image. Usually one got no such service except on one of the bigger lines. Dimly, he remembered his late wife telling him something of the sort—that the line had plans to upgrade its first-class cars. That'd been a year ago or so, not long before she died.

The servant unfolded a napkin and set it across his lap.

Cora arrived then, and the servant moved to pull out her chair. Wallace rose, but Cora did not look at him until seated, her own napkin across her lap. She took a drink of water from the goblet and declined the wine from the decanter when Wallace raised it in silent offering. “Your other children…” she began, eyes on the goblet as if she could see her siblings' faces in it. She raised her eyes to meet his. “They will loathe me.”

He considered her words. “The wind will be against you for a time. But stick with it, and you will win them over.”

She raised an eyebrow. “So you believe that I can enter their circle—a girl raised on a dirt-poor farm miles from the nearest city—and we will be one big, happy family?”

“Perhaps not happy. But it shall be tolerable, in time. I hope you shall invest yourself in the opportunity, regardless of how your siblings treat you. To see England, France…Austria, Italy. To complete your education, enter the social circles that are your birthright…Is it not every young woman's dream?”

She took another long drink of water and sat back as the servant brought them china plates laden with fried chicken, steaming mashed potatoes and gravy, and “
haricots verts
,” the man said.

Uppity name for little green beans
, Wallace thought.

He never suffered such foolishness lightly. His staff knew to never refer to a foreign word if there was a perfectly good one in English.
Consommé
was
broth
, in his house. One needn't put on airs just because one was wealthy. But with Cora being so fragile, so tender, he elected to hold his tongue for now. He didn't wish to upset her with anything further, no matter how small.

He hoped that bringing lowborn, sensible Cora into the mix might break his heirs out of some of their less admirable traits. He loathed the lack of a work ethic in Felix, Vivian's overdeveloped sense of pride, and Lillian's spoiled entitlement. Perhaps in the arrival of a new sibling, there'd be a sense of competition that would sharpen them all in some ways and mute the less desirable aspects.

“Most young women I know dream of little more than marriage and children,” she said, so softly that he barely heard her. The question had lingered so long he had almost forgotten asking it. She chewed her bite of chicken as if she lacked the strength to swallow.

“Do you leave behind a young man?” he asked, studying her. Perhaps he'd received less than complete reports.

She shook her head, eyes on her plate. “I've never been courted.”

He took a bite, considering how to respond. “That shall not be the case for long, my dear. You are a fine young woman, inside and out.”

She met his gaze then, finally swallowing. A blush rose at her jawline—from what? His endearment? Or because he had given her a compliment? Soon afterward, she sent away her plate, apparently too upset to eat any more while Wallace finished every bite. It surprised him, knowing how little she'd had growing up. And now she pushed away a free meal? Well he remembered the days when he was lucky to get a full meal on his plate.

~Cora~

There was so much I wanted to ask him. About my mother. About their relationship. About his other family, his children. About what it was like when he first got to Montana, in the territorial days. About his stint as a US senator. But it all swirled around my head so fast that I couldn't grab hold of one strand long enough to pull it from the ball.

Thoughts of Mama and Papa made me feel even more dizzy. Would I ever see Papa again? That thought weighed upon me more than any other. He'd looked so frail, his eyes sunken into his head, that it still sent a chill down my spine. Yet Mama had insisted this was God's provision.

God's provision? I scoffed at the thought. How could this pompous man across from me be sent by God?

“You're undoubtedly curious about the tour,” he said as the train neared Butte's station later that evening.

I blinked twice, thinking I'd like to know more about it, yes, but there were a hundred other things—

“We'll stay here in Butte for a bit. Tomorrow morning, you shall be seen by the family physician. Then your maid, Anna, will see to your wardrobe.”

I glanced down at my plain brown dress. I supposed I did appear as one of his lesser servants. But a physician? “I'm not ill.”