“So, what do you think of our English flowers?” Chris asked, smirking around his cheroot.
A tuxedoed waiter came up and bowed, presenting a tray with their drinks. It was early yet to be smoking and drinking, just past one in the afternoon, but they weren’t alone in this large room full of leather and dark wood. A half dozen other members of the Carlton Club and their guests were likewise occupied.
Setting his own cheroot aside, William took his whiskey and settled back into the sumptuous leather of the club chair. “You seem to have only one kind.”
“Precisely my point, old bean.”
Chris had invited him to ride this morning, informing him with a cheeky grin that he wanted him to see the ‘finest roses in the Commonwealth’—and had proceeded to take him to Hyde Park, to witness a strange parade of young women, all of them dressed nearly identically, in black or dark grey riding habits and tall hats, most with veils, all of them riding with older men—their fathers, for the most part—also dressed nearly identically.
William hadn’t been impressed, but he suspected that was his friend’s point. Lately, Chris bemoaned his father’s insistence that he settle down and marry. The Brits seemed fairly well obsessed with marriage, in fact. Weddings occurred in California as well, of course, but there wasn’t the same sort of focus. William was four years older than Chris and an only child, but his father was perfectly happy that his only son wasn’t wed. He was more concerned to have him focused on business. It was William’s mother who wanted him to have a wife. She wanted grandchildren to spoil.
He didn’t mean to disappoint her, but she would need to be patient. He had no intention at all to settle down, not for a while yet.
“Your father can’t be swayed?” he asked now.
Chris shook his head. “He wanted me married three years ago, when I was twenty-five. He’d married at twenty-five, he says, and had more than enough time to adventure before that.” He chuckled and puffed at his Cuban. “My father hasn’t adventured a day in his life. Hunting grouse is his idea of adventure. But”—he leaned forward—“now his notice is on my sister, poor thing, and he’s got his hands full there. I might escape this Season, at least, with my freedom. Considering Nora’s progress so far, I might have a few Seasons before my father remembers I’m unattached.”
At her mention, a clear image of Chris’s sister rose up in William’s head. He’d been wrong to think he hadn’t been impressed at Hyde Park this morning. Lady Nora Tate had caught and held his eye. She’d worn the same riding habit as all the other young girls—hers in dark blue, which was unusual in that dull stream but hardly remarkable—but she’d been one of the few without a veil over her face, and he’d seen her clearly, long before she’d noticed him.
She was lovely. Really beautiful. Blonde and fair, with a light sprinkle of freckles over her nose and deep dimples when she smiled. Her eyes were blue, but the sun had slanted across her face as they’d spoken, and William had seen, in that light, an unusual tint to those orbs. Like the stone charm on his watch fob. Turquoise.
He’d heard her ribald remark to her brother as well, muttered but not whispered, and he’d been enchanted. The Brits were absurdly fussy about propriety, but an American woman of status would also have shocked to make such a comment. William had been charmed that it had even occurred to her, much less made it into words on her tongue, even if she had meant it not to be heard. That she’d failed was charming, too.
But she was eighteen, fourteen years his junior, and he wasn’t interested in children. And she was a proper young lady, in search of a titled English husband. He was an American not in search of a woman at all, beyond one to warm his chilly London hotel bed.
He finished his drink and set the empty glass aside. “Maybe I shouldn’t come to dinner tonight.”
“Bad form, Will. It would be a slight to the old man. He wants to toast your heroics and all that.”
Not heroics. The earthquake of 1906 had been catastrophic for San Francisco. Thousands dead, and tens of thousands injured, and most of the city reduced to rubble and ash. Everyone who’d survived the quake without injury had done their part to help those who’d been hurt and buried in the destruction. Plenty of strong men had been at that hotel site. Plenty of strong men had been everywhere, digging out survivors even while the fires still burned. William had simply been the one of those many who’d uncovered Christopher Tate. It was nothing more than chance—as was the deep friendship that had developed almost at once. They had much in common, despite the difference in their origins.
William didn’t relish the thought of Lord Tarrin fussing over him at dinner, but he understood the man’s impulse and wouldn’t disrespect him. “All right.”
“Excellent! I’ll bring the motorcar over to the Dohring at half six.”
Sometimes, he wasn’t sure he and the Brits spoke the same English. “That’s half past six, right?”
Christopher laughed. “Right. Let’s have another.” He raised his empty glass and summoned the waiter.
The Dohring Hotel had opened its doors only weeks before, and the walls were redolent with the intoxicating aroma of sawdust and fresh paint and wallpaper paste. Chris had sneered a bit when William had told him he’d taken a suite at this brand new hotel, but William liked it. Everywhere he went in London was hundreds of years old and smelled aged and vaguely musty to him. He liked the robust scent of newness. And the Dohring stood within clear sight of Buckingham Palace, so it could hardly be considered unrefined.
Feeling a bit loose in the joints after spending an indolent afternoon enjoying the rich libations on offer at Chris’s club, William ambled to the Dohring’s front desk.
“Ah, Mr. Frazier,” the well-suited hotel manager said as he approached. “I trust you’ve had a good afternoon?”
“I have, Mr. Burns, yes. Are there messages for me?”
Mr. Burns turned to the row of cubbies and pulled several papers from the one marked with William’s suite number. “Yes, there are. Shall I have a secretary sent up for replies?”
“No, thank you. I can handle it. He flipped through the papers—two sealed telegrams and two telephone messages. The telephone messages were from men his father wanted him to meet with, and the telegrams were from his father. Two of them. It took most of a day for a telegram to arrive from the States. He would wait to open them until he was in privacy, in case it was bad news. “How late can I send a telegram?”
“As late as you need to, Mr. Frazier.”
“Very good. Thank you.”
As he turned toward the elevator, Mr. Burns leaned forward. “Do you have plans for the evening, sir? Is there assistance we can offer?”
“I’m invited to dinner at a friend’s. Lord Tarrin.”
“Ah, most excellent. Shall I send up a valet, then? And will you need a car?”
William grinned. Hotel staff were always eager to please when you took one of their most expensive rooms, but the staff at the Dohring seemed to go out of their way to be helpful, almost obsequiously so. Maybe that was simply the newness of the place. They were creating their reputation.
“I can dress myself, thanks. And my friend is picking me up.”
Mr. Burns cast a critical eye over William’s bespoke, but basic, black suit, and gave the clear impression that he didn’t agree that William could dress himself. But he simply smiled. “Excellent. It should be white tie for dinner, sir. Please call down if there’s anything you need.”
Apparently, one of the tasks of London hotel management was guiding benighted Americans through the sartorial maze of London society. But since William wouldn’t have thought to wear white tie and tails to a dinner at home, he was glad for the tip. “I will. Thanks, Burns. You’re not bad.”
The hotel manager’s pleasant smile got lost in a grimace at that humble compliment, and William suppressed a grin. He couldn’t help poking occasionally at all the proper English nonsense. These people needed to learn to relax.
The telephone messages could wait; they were simply return calls for meetings he was attempting to make. William set them aside and picked up the silver letter opener. A goose of worry made his heart pick up its tempo as he pulled the earliest telegram from its envelope.
A WEEK WITHOUT WORD – STOP – NEED PROGRESS REPORT – STOP –
NOT THERE TO PLAY SON – STOP – YOUR FATHER
With a chuckle, William set the first telegram aside. His father had inherited his fortune, as William would, but he hadn’t been one of the idle rich. William’s grandfather had been a lowly laborer, a Scottish immigrant who could barely find enough work to keep himself fed and dry. Frustrated with his poverty back East, and with nothing to lose, he’d headed west, working his way on the wagon trail with raw muscle, a steady heart, and good aim.
Then he’d struck gold in the California Gold Rush and remembered what he’d seen crossing the prairie. He’d invested that magnificent windfall in the railroads, financing the construction of one of the premier transcontinental lines in the United States and its territories and eventually amassing a great fortune. William’s father, Henry, ran that business now, and he, too, was a visionary like his father had been. In addition to being one of the forces leading the charge to convert San Francisco from cable cars to rail-driven streetcars after the earthquake, he’d added a full-service luxury line to the Scot-Western Railroad, billing it as a cruise across the spectacular American land.
William was in England because his father thought he could bring that same aesthetic to Europe. For his own part, William disagreed. He thought the future was in speed, not luxury. People were interested in the destination, not the journey.
But he wasn’t a visionary. His eyes looked straight ahead, not up. The railroad didn’t especially interest him, either. His interest was in politics. He was good with words—it was why his father sent him to do his selling for him—and he enjoyed a lively argument. He could read his interlocutors and turn their ideas around on them. More than that, though, he thought the most important future wasn’t in business at all. It was in government. He wanted to change the world, not just move it. The twentieth century was here, and right up ahead, a new day was dawning.
In the meantime, he’d telegram his father and assure him that he would meet with the men his father wanted as business associates.
Opening the second telegram, also from his father, with a time stamp four hours after the first, William rolled his eyes. When Henry Frazier had his teeth in an idea, he was not a patient man.
SEND WORD SOON – STOP – DAD
Laughing aloud now, William opened the drawer of the writing desk and pulled out a page of hotel stationery and a fountain pen. He wrote out a quick reply: Arranging meetings now. Not playing. Will send word soon. Promise. Wm. He’d leave it with the telegraph operator before he left for dinner.
Chris was twenty minutes past prompt, and after a surprisingly long mile ride down Park Lane and a delay in the evening chaos near Mayfair, jockeying among pedestrians, carriages, trucks—lorries, as the Brits called them—and cars, they arrived at a stately mansion in Grosvenor Square. A footman came out to take Chris’s Daimler away, and the two friends went into the house.
William was surprised at the sound of many people; he’d expected an intimate dinner at home, maybe with a few friends, but he heard the rumble of a sizable crowd.
“I thought this was dinner,” he said as he handed his scarf to the butler or footman, whoever it was with his gloved hand out. William didn’t wear a hat if he could avoid it, and the servant seemed disappointed to have only his silk scarf to manage. He almost thought to apologize.
“It is. It’s Nora’s debut dinner. It’s her first Season, remember. This is her night.”
Young society girls had debuts in America, too, but those were grand balls in which several girls debuted at once, all in white gowns. A dinner seemed more sane than that.
“No need to announce us, Gaines,” Chris said and led him into a room off the front hall—a drawing room. William scanned the room and counted eighteen people—twenty, including him and Chris, equally sorted between men and women—everyone young except Lord Tarrin and one matronly woman. This was quite the ‘dinner.’
In the midst of them all, talking with a tall redheaded fellow and looking entirely and obviously bored, was Lady Nora. Even more beautiful than he’d thought.
Pale, smooth skin, long, lithe neck, slight tendrils loose from the elaborate gathering of her fair hair. She wore a gown of rose-colored silk and crème lace that showed her collarbones, most of her shoulders, and her slender arms, down to the long, crème gloves that rose over her elbows. The gown itself skimmed to the floor, hanging straight down. William had rejoiced when ladies’ fashion had given up the ridiculous vast skirts and bustles and showed them to be the delicate creatures they were. Nora Tate was a petite young lady. From across the room, she seemed almost small enough to hold in his hand.
He watched her chest rise with a bored, expressive sigh, and she looked away from her companion—and directly at William. She went still, and her eyes opened wide—for only a second’s surprise. Then she tilted her head and gave him a small smile. It wasn’t the barely tolerant clench of that morning, or the obviously practiced social smile right before she’d ridden away. William thought this one showed genuine pleasure. He offered her a smile and a nod in return, and her expression relaxed even more.
He felt a twitch in his gut and was exceedingly glad right then that Nora Tate was an eighteen-year-old aristocratic lady—virginal, naïve, and on the hunt for a husband. If she were ten years older and a widow, he might have found himself in some difficulty.
“Christopher!” A robust female voice cut through the murmur of several quiet conversations, and the matronly woman, slightly built but firmly corseted into an older style of dress, dark blue and high collared, bustled up to them.
“Hello, Auntie,” Chris said and kissed the woman’s cheek. “Allow me to introduce my dear friend, Mr. William Frazier, of California. William, meet my aunt, the Lady Martha Collington.”
William took Lady Collington’s gloved hand and bowed to press a kiss to her fingers. “It’s a pleasure, my lady.” They didn’t behave like this in California, but he wasn’t an oaf. He knew the niceties of London aristocracy. Most of them.
“Well, aren’t you gallant.” The wry tone in her voice made William grin. Aunt Martha had some sass in her tongue as well. “Oliver told me that we were entertaining our family hero this evening, and it’s very much an honor to meet you, but I must ask you not to overshadow my niece tonight.”
“I have no wish to do so, my lady. I’d prefer not to have attention on me at all.”
“That, my dear, is out of the question. Even were you not Christopher’s savior, you are an American, and a businessman, and that in itself is cause for note. You’re an exotic, Mr. Frazier. I ask only that you not make more of it than my brother will.”
“On my honor, my lady.”
Martha nudged Chris. “Oh, I like him. He cuts a dashing figure, doesn’t he. And his accent”—she gave William a look right on the edge of bawdy—“is quite appealing.”
Chris laughed. “I think you’re too old for him, Auntie.”
“Pity,” she sighed.
William laughed, too. He liked these Tate women. Indeed he did.
“Your staff is really quite exceptional, Tarrin,” the redheaded fellow—Richard, Duke of Chalford—asserted as three footmen served the entrée. “I commend you. I’m fairly certain my man is trying to organize my household—and I don’t mean sorting the silver!” He laughed like he’d told a great joke, and the dinner guests laughed with him. Most of them. William had noticed the tension in the jaw of the man laying a mutton cutlet on his plate, and he stayed quiet. Across the table from him, at Chalford’s side, Lady Nora barely suppressed a snarl. And Lord Tarrin seemed positively pained, though he did manage something akin to a smile.
“It’s Labour,” asserted another young lord, whose name William didn’t care to know. “They’ve been agitating since they lost the budget two years ago, and the vulgar fools are using Bertie’s death as an opportunity to make trouble.”
Bertie—King Edward VII. William was surprised that such uptight people would call their recently buried royal a name like that in public, but no one seemed to mind. Lord Tarrin was unhappy with the whole turn of the conversation. He tried several times to find a chance to cut into the talk, but the young men around him were engrossed.
So was Lady Nora. Her bright eyes fixed on each speaker and burned, soaking up their words. William saw that she, too, wanted to join in, but she didn’t. None of the ladies spoke.
And then she did. Her eyes landed on him, and she leapt into a narrow space between remarks. “How about you, Mr. Frazier? Do your politicians squabble and scheme like ours?”
A ripple ran around the table, as all the other young ladies turned to each other. At the corner of his eye, William saw Lord Tarrin set his head in his hand—for a second only, but the point was made.
William should have answered the question simply and turned the conversation away from her. He knew that these lords and ladies didn’t want to hear from her. In truth, it wasn’t much different in America. At least not on the East Coast. California was a different place, though, wild and raw. San Francisco had been founded by the Spaniards around the time that the British colonies to the east asserted their independence, but the city had flowered in the Gold Rush, built up with pioneer sweat and blood. It still had the rough spirit of the frontier.
It wasn’t so unusual for a woman to speak her mind in San Francisco. In fact, his mother was a warrior in the fight for women’s suffrage and had often shared a podium with Carrie Catt. Yet she still managed to be one of the luminaries of San Francisco society.
He smiled and answered her question. “I think all politicians squabble and scheme, Lady Nora. But California is a different place from London, or New York or Washington, for that matter, so I don’t know if I can speak for American politics.”
“Different in what way?” Chris asked that question, and William glanced at his friend, surprised. Lord Tarrin was surprised as well. And far from pleased.
“Well, it’s young. We’re not too far removed from the pioneers and prospectors who built it up. We remember the hard work.” He turned back to Lady Nora and smiled. “My father inherited his fortune, but my grandfather made it. He came from Scotland with nothing. He crossed the ocean, and then he crossed the country. All the way across three thousand miles of water and three thousand miles of land with nothing but a strong back and a stronger will. He made our family’s money digging into the ground with his hands. Then, when my father was young, my grandfather put him to work on the railroad line swinging a hammer, so he’d appreciate the toil that gave us all we had. My father did the same for me. So in California, there are those of us who remember where we came from and who made us.”
The table was absolutely silent, and William turned right and left, considering his audience and seeing a vast array of shocked faces—more than shocked. Appalled. Only two showed any other expression than contempt. Chris, whose amused smirk was at the others’ expense more than William’s, and Lady Nora, who seemed frankly dazzled.
“So you support Labour, then?” she asked, her voice soft with awe.
“Nora, sweetling,” Lady Collington muttered.
When Lady Nora seemed unmoved by her aunt’s gentle reproof, William answered her question. “I don’t know much about English politics, my lady, so I couldn’t say.” That was a lie, but he knew better than to come right out for Labour at this table. He was already waltzing over thin ice, having all but outright called the people sitting at this table with him, including his host, lazy and out of touch. Normally, he was far subtler than this, but Chalford had been a pompous ass throughout the meal, and William’s hackles were up. “But I support the workers. My father as well. When a union rep came to talk to our workers, my father made him welcome. They voted not to unionize because they didn’t need it.”
“Really,” Chalford sneered. “You Americans and your pioneer mania. You have no history. You’re all children, playing in the woods.”
Ass. William was a guest here who’d already overshot his welcome, and he’d broken his promise to Lady Collington not to draw too much notice to himself, so he ignored the barb. He kept his attention on the lovely face across the table. Her fair cheeks had taken on a rosy flush of excitement that crept toward her jaw.
“And women? Have women won the vote in California?”
“No, my lady, they haven’t.” She looked so suddenly crestfallen that he hastened to add, “But there’s a move to put an amendment to the state constitution on the ballot next year.”
“Will you vote in favor of that amendment, Mr. Frazier?”
“My dear friends,” Lord Tarrin finally cut in, his voice weary and tense. “I must ask that we end this wholly inappropriate talk. This is not the place. Think, please, of the ladies in the room.”
Lady Nora blinked and twitched, as if her father’s words had lashed her. She ducked her head and picked up her fork again.
Despite her father’s reproach and the silent censure around the table, William answered the question she’d asked. “Yes, my lady, I will.”
Pretty turquoise eyes peered gratefully up at him, and he was inordinately pleased to have eased her embarrassment and her mind. He wanted to tell her about his mother, but that bit of news might give her father a stroke.
Her abashed, suddenly bashful expression made her youth and innocence all the more clear. Lady Nora was not at all what he wanted, just as he was not at all what she needed. It was utterly absurd to think of her as anything but his friend’s young sister.
But William gazed upon the lovely, lively young lady across the table and thought he’d found himself in some difficulty already.