William pushed the papers aside and rubbed his hands over his eyes. He was stymied. Building a tunnel under the English Channel seemed so obvious an improvement to him. In fact, there was a protocol in place between England and France for exactly such a project, and in 1881, they’d even begun excavation. But that project had failed, largely due to the same ridiculous, entrenched obstacles William encountered now. They had nothing to do with the potential of the venture and everything to do with distrust. And with the absurd, endemic English devotion to the past.
Atop all the other unreasonable reasons he’d been told no at every turn was his particular obstacle: no one liked the notion of a ‘Yank’ coming into England and proposing they change the way they did things. But he had the technology. His father’s greatest accomplishment wasn’t elevating the luxury of rail travel, though it was his most profitable innovation to date. Profitable as that was, Henry Frazier would not be remembered for the quality of his premium trains. He would be remembered for inventing and patenting an excavation method that made tunneling faster and safer.
No one had ever dug a thirty-mile underwater tunnel before, but every innovation had a first time, and William knew how to get this done.
If only he could convince these stodgy Brits.
His father had been excited by the idea, but now, after weeks of failure, he was agitating for William to come home. He’d been in London now for three months. The Season was over, and the lords and ladies had returned to their country estates. The streets and parks were quieter, and there seemed to have been a collective sigh among the working people of London. The tempo of the city had calmed.
There was still plenty of business to be done here in this capital of world commerce, but the financiers, engineers, and architects had seen all they wanted to see of William Frazier, the arrogant Yank.
William wasn’t ready to return to America yet, and his reluctance had to do with far more than work. Six weeks had passed since the night he’d sat with Lady Nora in a stranger’s rose garden. Three weeks had passed since he’d run into her at the theatre. She had not left his mind in all that time—or in the weeks before. From the moment he’d lifted her up from the grass in her father’s garden, the hapless Lady Nora had captivated him entirely.
His attempts to erase her influence on him had all been for naught. Nights with talented lovelies sent up by Mr. Burns, his brief dalliance with the spectacular widow Mrs. Sweeney, before she’d moved on to Italy—he’d enjoyed the company of these women, but his enjoyment had been fleeting, while his preoccupation with Nora was not.
Fifteen years had passed since he’d first been with a woman. In all that time, he’d enjoyed the fairer sex to his heart’s content, but he’d never met one of their number he’d considered for a life mate—because he hadn’t been looking. Not that he was opposed to marriage—in fact, he’d expected that in a few years, he’d put some focus on the endeavor and actually seek out a woman of his own age, pleasing enough to look at, with similar interests and worldview, a respectable intellect, and a sense of humor, and finally get on with the business of giving his mother grandchildren.
Instead, he seemed to have inadvertently fallen in love with a naïf. A woman so young she was barely a woman at all. A woman who’d had no experiences of note, who lived in a world that made no room for him—or her, for that matter.
But she had a similar worldview. She had a more than respectable intellect. And, though her frustration and sadness had clouded it somewhat, she had a sharp humor as well. As for her appearance—well. His eyes had never seen a woman more beautiful.
He couldn’t have her, and yet he couldn’t leave the land she stood on. He hadn’t even kissed her, he’d barely touched her, and yet, like a schoolboy with a crush, he felt sure he was in love with her. Sentiment had erased most of the wisdom he’d acquired in fifteen years of enjoying the pleasures of the flesh.
Now she was gone, back to the country, and he couldn’t even see her, but still he wanted to stay. So he focused on her brother, his true friend. Despite the end of the Season and of opportunities for Chris to show off his American friend, the two met with fair regularity, once or twice each week, but something had shifted between them since his sister had left. Not a schism, certainly, or even a chill. But every now and again, he’d catch his friend contemplating him, like he’d seen a hint of something and was trying to understand it. William hadn’t worked out the cause. They’d hardly said five sentences altogether on the topic of his sister in the past few weeks, and Chris wasn’t particularly interested in his work. William couldn’t fathom what else might have piqued his friend’s curiosity.
He carefully slotted into their folders the documents he’d been reviewing and returned them to the desk at the Archives.
The clerk took the folders from him with a nod. “Will there be anything else, sir?” The young man had been helping him all afternoon.
“Yes, actually. Do you have geological studies from 1866? William Low and Sir John Hawkshaw both commissioned studies around Kent in that year. Would those have been filed in London?”
“I believe so, yes. If you’ll wait, I’ll locate those documents.”
“Thank you.”
The clerk went into the cavernous stacks behind him. William turned and leaned on the desk, propping his elbows at his sides. The room before him, full of dark tables and chairs, was largely empty and smelled of wood polish, dust, and rotting paper—a vastly more pleasant aroma than most of London, which suffocated under a impenetrable miasma of coal fog, especially on a day like this, overcast and damp. All color seemed to have been leached from the world. He understood why those who could leave the city did.
He could go home, to the beautiful San Francisco Bay, where the morning fog was sea-fresh and the sun broke through most afternoons. He should go home. Soon, his father would demand it. There was no reason to stay; his business interest was a failure, and his personal interest was folly. Moreover, he was lonely and homesick.
And yet, he stayed.
Late that afternoon, armed with information that stretched back to 1800, William left the Archives. The day’s misty rain had stopped, and an occasional beam of faded sunlight broke through the clouds. Traffic on the street was bedlam, here at the end of the working day, so he decided to walk back to the hotel—or at least part of the way, until the crush of humanity thinned out a bit and there was a chance a taxi would move faster than his feet could carry him.
While he walked, he let the facts and figures, names and places roll through his mind until they found their fit. He kept only enough attention on his pedestrian progress to avoid colliding with fellow travelers, or stepping out in front of a car or carriage. He’d gone several blocks and had just stepped up from a cross street onto one of the many blocks in London lined with boutique shops—dressmakers and milliners, shoemakers and tailors. The sweet shop on the corner advertised clotted cream. William stopped abruptly before that shop because a skinny woman had also stopped short, right ahead of him.
“Excuse me,” he muttered, still watching his new research roll through his mind. He meant to step around her and continue on down the street, but she stood in a way that seemed unusual, and he set aside his musings and focused. She wore a crumpled straw hat, a worn dun coat too heavy for the day, and a threadbare black skirt—the London uniform of the working-class woman out for errands. This wasn’t a neighborhood a woman like that could afford to shop in, but she could very well have worked in the back of any one of these shops. Or she might have been enjoying the arrangements in the windows.
His grandfather had often told a story about his first years in America, when he’d had nothing but the barest scraps to survive on. He’d eased the ache in his belly and in his heart by going to streets like this. He’d study the suits in the windows and memorize the fashion, so he’d know how to dress when he made his fortune. He’d study the dresses and jewels so he’d know how to treat his woman. He’d stood near the baker’s and inhaled the aroma of fresh breads until his belly forgot that it was empty.
This woman stood square with the sweet shop, facing the window with its elaborate display of candies and cakes, and William smiled, imagining the great John Frazier filling his belly with fantasy. He opened his mouth to offer to bring her into the shop and buy something for her and her family, but at just that moment, she turned her head suddenly, away from him, looking down the street. She pulled something from her coat and shouted “VOTES FOR WOMEN!”—and sent the brick in her hands through the sweet shop window. All along the block, female voices echoed her shout, and crashes resounded like rolling thunder. It seemed every shop on the block had been attacked.
Her tasked completed, the woman turned toward William, who stepped immediately from her path and let her run. She veered down the side street, holding her straw hat atop her head.
The sweet shop owner burst through the door. “GET ‘EM! GET ‘EM!” he shouted, and William then saw that men all around were chasing after the women who’d broken the windows. Traffic on the street had stopped; drivers had jumped from their vehicles—motored or horse-drawn—to join in the fray.
To chase down women? Women? Over broken windows?
Across the street, a mob of men had gotten hold of one of the window-breakers, and they were beating her. William saw a burly man who’d been driving a delivery truck—William had waved his thanks at the man when he’d stopped his turn to let him cross the street—cock his arm back and let loose an explosive punch.
Five men had a woman on the ground—on a London street in broad daylight—and they were beating her. Over a broken window.
No—over her cause. It wasn’t the windows that had incited this riot. It was women daring to challenge the social order. Daring to challenge men. This was about putting all women in their place. He’d heard his mother’s lectures enough to have learned their message thoroughly.
A few other men were trying to pull the brutes off, without success. William ran to help. He’d spent his formative years in roughneck railroad camps, and he knew where to find a brawl in San Francisco. He could handle himself in a fight. He tore off his jacket and loosened his tie, tossing them away before he jabbed his arm into the scrum and hooked it around the neck of the delivery driver. He dragged the oaf back, clear of the pile, and the other men trying to aid the poor woman used the break he’d created to pull off more of her assailants.
Though he wanted to pummel this man for his savagery, there was no time for fisticuffs, so he instead kept him in the headlock until he was passive, nearly unconscious. Then he cast him aside and ran to get the last man off the woman—she was an older woman, too. Perhaps fifty years old. But she fought like a mountain lion, all claws and screeching.
William grabbed the man and yanked him back. He was slight, and William’s greater strength sent him reeling several steps backward, pinwheeling his arms so he wouldn’t fall. When he howled and charged at him instead, William put him down with a single right cross. The man tried to rise, and William fell on him, full of rage, and rained blows at his head until the man’s unconscious body rocked limply with each one. Panting, his hand aching, he came back to himself and stood to survey the scene.
All of her assailants had been handled. The woman rested against the wall of a glove shop, sitting on a scattered sea of broken glass. Her skirt was hiked up, showing torn stockings and bloodied legs. Blood spilled from her nose and from a gash across her eyebrow, and dripped onto a large brooch she had pinned to her coat—a white rose. Made, he thought, of cotton.
When William crouched before her, she flinched back, but she took his offered handkerchief and wiped the blood from her face.
“I’m sorry,” he said, apologizing for all of mankind at once.
The woman shrugged and waved his words away. “’S’what you do, ain’t it? When we don’t do what we’re told. You whip your horses, kick your dogs, and punch your women. Big strong men you are.”
“Right. Up you go, you old hag. Time to take a ride.” A uniformed police officer pushed between William and the woman and snatched her by the collar of her coat. Part of the collar tore away, and she fell back to the ground, so he grabbed her by her hair instead. She screeched and fought, and the officer hit her with his stick.
“Stop! What are you doing?!” William shoved the officer without thinking and took protective hold of the dazed woman, putting himself between her and this new, more dangerous assailant.
“I’m apprehending a criminal, is what I’m doing, and I’ll ask you once to step aside and let me do my job, or I’ll haul you in as well.”
“She’s hurt already. She’s been beaten.”
“She vandalized a business.”
“You don’t know that! You English believe in innocent until proven guilty, don’t you?”
The bobby glanced at the man still lying in the street, struggling to sit up, then turned back to William and sneered at him. “You want to learn our legal system, Yank? Happy to oblige.”
William saw the nightstick coming, but, still holding the woman, he couldn’t evade its blow.
Chris leaned jauntily against the marble wall of the station house, his wide smirk beaming out amused concern. “If you wanted a brawl, you had only to ask. I’d’ve found you a proper one. Queensbury rules and all.” He frowned and reached toward William’s forehead, where a prodigious lump currently resided. “You all right, old bean?”
William knocked his hand away. “I’ll be fine.” His head thumped and his neck ached. His hand throbbed stiffly. His pride was singed, and his righteous fury flamed, but he’d be fine. “Thank you for the rescue.”
“Say nothing of it. You’ve done the same for me.”
Yes, he had. In San Francisco, Chris had enthusiastically celebrated his recovery from his earthquake injuries and found himself several scrapes among the rabble in the rubble along the waterfront. William had had spells like that in his youth as well, when wild recklessness seemed the height of living. But he was a bit older now, a bit farther along the road to a settled life. Now, when he wound up riding in a paddy wagon, it was for the cause of chivalry. Apparently.
As they headed to the door, the room spun and the floor bucked, and Chris suddenly had his arm hooked around William’s waist. “Careful, Will. You look like you ought not be alone. Why not come back with me to the house for a quiet night? The cook’s up, and she’ll make us a late repast. I’ll have a room made up for you.”
Exhausted and vaguely ill, William nodded.
William slept a deep, yet restive sleep that night in one of the many bedrooms of Tate House and stumbled down to breakfast feeling disoriented and unwell—and still tired enough to sleep another night through.
The disorientation persisted as he made his way to the dining room. It seemed that when Chris occupied the house alone, he did so with a skeleton staff and allowed them to close up most of the rooms. Covered furniture filled most open spaces, lurking like misshapen ghosts in silent rooms. Only the library, the dining room, and the kitchen remained in use on the main floor, and a single bedroom on the floor above—until last night, when another had hastily been made ready for him.
The night before skulked in a hazy corner of William’s memory, as if he’d drunk himself into a stupor, but he was sure he hadn’t. The bobby had hit him hard enough to jumble his senses around—a much less enjoyable way to lose an evening. But he remembered that a chilly, heavy rain had begun just as they’d arrive at the house. He and Chris had sat in the library before a cozy fire, eating a simple meal and talking. How he’d gotten to bed, though, he couldn’t recall.
Before he entered the dining room, he dug into his mind and made himself remember as well as he could. He did recall talking rather a lot—Chris peppering him with questions that he’d answered. About the riot and arrest. About politics in general, and women’s suffrage in particular. About his family. About his business. The more William remembered about their conversation, the more it seemed an interview, and he’d been more expansive in his answers than he normally would have been.
Chris was already at the table when William went in. A full breakfast was laid out on the sideboard, but his stomach rebelled at the sight and scent of food, so he went to the urn, prepared to resign himself to—oh, thank God. It was coffee.
“You have coffee!”
“Of course. I’m not a bumpkin. My father, on the other hand … Will, you look a sight. If you’d like, I’ll have the doctor come round and take a look at that lump.”
With the rich aroma of black coffee already settling his head and his stomach, William sat at the table. “Thank you, but it’s not necessary. The nightstick knocked some things loose, but I’ll take a day or two off and be fine.”
“It’s not often that a gent with the means to take the Buckingham Suite at the Dohring gets roughed up by a bobby on the street. I can’t wait to tell the boys at the club. I’ll be a hero for knowing you!” He laughed and folded up the day’s first edition of the Times. “I think I’ll leave out the part where you defended the honor of a suffragette. They might not allow you round anymore—or me, for that matter.”
William grimaced as the memories of the riot flowered into fullness. He sipped his coffee and said nothing.
“You really support those women? Throwing bricks and all?”
“I support their cause, yes. And I don’t think a woman who breaks a window deserves to be beaten by a mob.” He took another sip and added, “My mother is a suffragist.”
“So you said last night.” Chris grinned. “I believe it of your mother. Angelica Frazier is a force of nature. With her on the stump, American women are sure to succeed. She reminded me of—”
He stopped abruptly, but William filled in the rest. “Your sister.” He’d already considered whether that might have been why Nora had captured his interest so wholly and quickly: she reminded him of a woman he admired for innumerable reasons that had nothing to do with their blood relationship.
“Yes. My sister. A more contrarian nymph has never trod upon English soil. Her very first word was ‘No,’ and she applied it liberally and imperiously. When she first learned to say her own name, she called herself ‘Nono,’ and believe me, she named herself better than our parents did. Her second word was ‘why.’ She’s been arguing and demanding answers ever since. She’s a hopeless cause.”
Smiling at the bittersweet thought of a tiny Nora making big demands, William finished his coffee. His head still throbbed, and all the things he could see had frayed edges, but he made his sore eyes settle and hold on his friend, who was clearly working his way toward something.
Chris set his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “You’re a champion of hopeless causes, aren’t you, my friend?”
“What do you mean?”
“How well do you know my sister?”
William sat up straight and tried to force his mind to clear. Was there hostility in his friend’s tone? Did he know that William had, all unintentionally but more than once, hurt Lady Nora? What had he said last night, in the haze of his rattled head?
“You know how well I know her. You’ve been with me every time I’ve seen her.”
“I’m not asking if you’ve prowled about where you oughtn’t with my sister, Will. If I believed that, you would still be in a cell, and I’d be studying up on the rules of dueling. I trust in your honor. I’m asking—never mind being coy. Is there something between you? Do you admire her?”
Without the mental faculties in his bruised brain to parse out a political answer, William answered the only way he could: honestly. “I can answer the second question more easily than the first. Yes, I admire her very much. But no, I don’t think there’s anything between us. I don’t see how there could be.”
“Do you admire her enough to seek her hand?”
“Chris, what are you after with this?”
“Answer the question, Will.”
He sighed and offered the truth again. “Yes. I do. And what good does that answer do you? We’re not a good match—for one thing, I’m nearly twice her age. For another thing, I’ll be returning to California soon. My project is a bust. Which leads me to another—I’m a Yankee from common stock. I work for a living.”
“Yes, but you don’t need to. And my sister is categorically incapable of acting like a proper lady.” Chris stood and took both their cups to the sideboard and refilled them. When he returned to his seat, he said, “See here, Will. Let me tell you a story. My father is a fine man, but he’s an old fool. He took our family tragedy hard and let Nora raise herself. He indulged her every whim and fancy, and all her fancies were boyish things. She wanted to crawl around in the muck and catch frogs and climb trees. Her governess tried to teach her to garden, but she was only interested in digging holes. When she got a bit older, she wanted to shoot and ride. Then she wanted to read and know everything, and she pestered everyone she met, asking the most ridiculous questions. Father indulged it all. He encouraged it. He dealt with the loss of my mother and brothers by giving my sister everything she wanted.
“I was nearly grown when our family was gutted, but he spooled out a long tether for me, as well. I couldn’t wait to be free of that house, where ghosts followed my father around everywhere he went. I did all my playing abroad, and I played hard. But I also fought a war. I saw what was happening at home, but I did nothing to change it. Nora was happy. And she was delightful. I couldn’t see taking that away from her, especially after I came home from South Africa. Happiness is fleeting, Will. You don’t brush it away when it perches on your hand.
“Then, Father woke up one day and saw what his surviving children had become, and he tried to take those ten years back. He’s been trying ever since. I had it easy—no one censures a young lord for carousing. I’ll find my bride when I’m ready, and we’ll give him his heirs, and all will be well. But Nora—she woke up on the same day and was wrestled into a corset. She hasn’t taken a full breath since. But it was too late. She’ll never be what he wants her to be.”
William’s head throbbed too loudly to sort out the sense of that monologue. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that, if you care about my sweet sister enough to marry her, I trust you to take care of her. I know she cares about you—I saw how hurt she was at the theatre last month, when we came upon you and your breathtaking companion. I’ve never thought a marriage would make her happy. But here you are, full to bursting with chivalry and heroism and honor, and even in accord with her idealism about the world. She looks at you like she can’t believe you’re not a dream. If you want her, and if I’m right that she wants you, you have my blessing—more importantly, you’ll have my help.”
“But I have no title. And I live in California.”
“There’s no chance Nora will marry a lord. I’ve heard of the kinds of things they say about her. They say the poor sod who takes her better breed her quickly before her looks go and she’s nothing more than a shrew to lock away in the country. They say they’ll bind and gag her so she won’t try to harangue them in bed. They call her Kate. That last, they’ve even said to my face. Do you understand the ‘jest’?”
Anger thumped at the base of his skull, making a staccato rhythm with the sore throb in his brain. “Shakespeare. The Taming of the Shrew.”
“Precisely. Do you think I want my beautiful sister bound eternally to any one of those fools? At any cost, I’ll not let it happen, no matter what my father says or wants. In England, her only hope is to marry a respected commoner at home. So the fact of your common birth isn’t a hindrance. Your wealth is a far greater boon.”
“And the six thousand miles between my home and hers?”
“Not ideal, I’ll warrant. But you’re a great railroad man, and steamer ships cross the Atlantic in a week. You’ll bring her home. Often.”
“Chris, your father—”
“Will absolutely refuse. Of course he will, were you to ask straightaway. But I have a plan to bring him round, and if it works, it will also hold your father off from calling you home too soon. You know that the family home is in Kent, yes?”
William nodded.
“You’ve seen a map of England, I assume? You know where Kent is?”
He’d been studying maps until his eyes crossed. “Just southeast of London.”
“And all the way to the coast. Our house is called Tarrindale Hall. Will, my friend, Tarrindale is a seaside village. On a clear day, from the top of the cliffs, you can see France. Across the Channel.”
Even William’s fogged mind understood Chris’s intimation. “I thought you didn’t agree that a tunnel will work.”
“Oh, I don’t. It’s folly, and it will never happen. Ever. Certainly not with a Yank at the helm. But think of the time you could spend in Tarrindale whilst you come to that inevitable conclusion. Time to court Nora, and my father as well.”
He didn’t want to give his father false expectations about the project, which seemed, by all indications, a bust. But it was true that he wouldn’t have exhausted the possibilities until he’d researched the site itself completely. Besides, he still believed his idea was a good one, no matter what his friend thought. “And you’re sure?”
“It comes to this. Do you think you could make her happy, truly happy, and let her live as she wants? Do you think you could love Nora for who she is?”
William finished his second cup of coffee before he answered. He felt much better than he had when he’d stumbled down the stairs—much better than he had in weeks, in fact, throbbing headache and sore temple notwithstanding.
He felt for Lady Nora things he hadn’t felt before, but until this precise moment, he’d never entertained the possibility that he might have her to call his own, not even when she’d directly asked about his interest. He’d allowed his fascination to vex him, but he’d believed without doubt that it was pure fantasy. There’d been some safety in that—without any chance of success, he hadn’t had to consider the practicalities. Now, before he answered, he faced them. They hardly knew each other. She was much younger than he. Their differences might overbalance their affinities.
He thought he might love her already, but that was a flight of fancy, was it not? In the bright light of opportunity, he could see his feeling as infatuation—for what else could it really be?
Yet what Chris was offering was time to explore that attraction, that infatuation, and discover how deep it ran. He offered the chance to court her—something William had never done with any woman. He could woo her.
He set his cup aside and grinned at his friend. “Yes, I do.”
Chris’s answering grin brightened the whole room. “Then I look forward to calling you brother.”