Chapter 18

The City Hotel was grander than she had expected, but it was at a price she could afford, with her father’s money and her own. She was always careful with it, and knew that what she had would have to last her forever. She could expect no one’s help, and didn’t. And despite her fondness for fashion and expensive gowns, she wasn’t extravagant. But her suite of rooms at the hotel was beautiful, and the decorating excellent, and Claire said she had a very nice room too, on the top floor with the other maids.

Two hours after they’d arrived, as Claire was unpacking her many trunks, and seeing what needed pressing, and Angélique ordered a light meal, an enormous arrangement of flowers arrived for her. It looked like an entire rose garden. It was from Andrew, and the card said “Welcome to New York. I miss you already. Fondly, A.H.” They set it on a table, and Angélique was admiring it when an assistant manager came to tell her that Mr. Hanson was in the lobby and wished to come up.

“Send him up,” Angélique said, and gave the man some coins, and a moment later, Andrew strode into the room, looking energetic and happy to see her as he kissed her on the cheek. The time on the boat, with so much opportunity to be together, had brought them closer faster, and in greater intimacy than might have happened otherwise. She felt as though she had known him for months, or even years.

“How would you like to look around New York?” he offered. His carriage was downstairs. It was a beautiful fall afternoon, and he had decided not to go to work until the next day. “One more day of shirking my duties can’t hurt.” He looked young and mischievous as he said it.

“You’ll never become president this way,” she scolded him, but she was pleased, picked up a wrap, and followed him out of the suite. And a moment later they were rolling through the streets of New York in his very handsomely appointed carriage. It wasn’t showy, but it was extremely fine and appropriate for a man. And she enjoyed sitting next to him while he pointed out the sights, and instructed his coachman where to take them next. By late afternoon, she had seen all the important landmarks. They drove past Niblo’s Garden, with its theater, Vauxhall Gardens, the National Theater, and the Morris-Jumel mansion, the James Watson home, and Gracie Mansion, as well as Castle Garden, City Hall, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Mott and Prince streets. It was an extensive tour, and they were back at the hotel for a late tea.

They had it in the dining room, where they could watch guests and visitors going in and out, and she could observe what they were wearing, and the different styles of dress. Women seemed more conservatively dressed in New York than they were in Paris, although there were some beautiful coats and gowns, and a few very pretty hats, though none as elaborate or elegant as her own. Andrew loved the way she looked with every change. He had never known a woman as fashionable as she. His lost fiancée had been very plain compared to her, and far less sophisticated and interested in the world. He was beginning to feel that their broken engagement had been a blessing in disguise. He could never have guessed that Angélique would come along and steal his heart.

He left her to settle in that night, but invited her to supper and the theater at the Sans Souci the next day, the opera at the National Theater two days later, and for supper and dancing at Delmonico’s and Niblo’s Garden after that. She barely had time to catch her breath, between evenings with him, and discovering the city on her own by day.

By the end of two weeks, she hadn’t met any of his friends, and he openly admitted that he wanted her to himself, although they ran into his acquaintances at the theater and in restaurants and he introduced her proudly. His male friends were struck by her beauty, and even the women were impressed and liked her easy, sunny ways. She didn’t put on airs, and didn’t seem taken with herself. She was happy to meet them, and seemed ecstatic at Andrew’s side.

They looked at a few houses for her to move into, but she saw nothing she liked, and said she was happy at the hotel for now. And three weeks after they’d arrived, Andrew kissed her firmly and passionately one night. After six weeks constantly in each other’s company, he could no longer stop himself and settle for a kiss on the cheek. And she didn’t object, she was as in love with him as he was with her. It was the beginning of November by then, and he said he wanted to introduce her to his father, but he was very busy at the moment with some important deals, and traveling back and forth to Boston. Andrew was happy to spend all his time with her when he wasn’t working himself, and they spent Thanksgiving together at the hotel, since his father was away with friends. Andrew explained the holiday to her, and she liked the idea of a day, spent with friends and family, based on gratitude.

It was nearly Christmas, three months after they’d met, when they came back from a walk in the snow one afternoon, when he took both her hands in his to warm them, and then as she took off her hat and put down her fur muff in the parlor of her suite, he stunned her by dropping to one knee.

“Andrew, what are you doing?” she asked him gently, her eyes bright with all she felt for him, and her cheeks pink from the cold.

“Angélique Latham,” he said with tears of emotion shining in his eyes, “will you do me the honor of marrying me?” She hadn’t expected it, although anyone else would have, watching them. Marriage wasn’t the outcome she’d anticipated, and she had had no expectations or designs on him. She sincerely loved him, and tears filled her eyes then as she nodded.

“OhmyGod…yes…yes…oh my darling, I love you,” she said, as he stood up and took her in his arms and held her. All he could envision was their bright future together, and all their dreams come true. And as he held her, she knew that there were things she should say to him, but she didn’t want to lose him. She wondered if she should tell him about Paris, and Le Boudoir, but perhaps he didn’t need to know. She didn’t want to hurt him, nor lie to him, and she was troubled by it, and all she knew was how much she loved him and wanted to be his wife. She had never felt that way before. “I love you so much” was all she could say. He didn’t know about her being a nanny, or her brother abandoning her either. There was so much he didn’t know, and he accepted her as she was. How much more could she ask, and how could she risk losing him now if she told him everything? But what if he found out? New York seemed so far away from all that had happened to her in the past three years. She clung to him like a lost child, as he began to make plans for the future.

“We have to find a house,” he said, looking excited, “and I want to get married soon. We don’t have to wait.” And then he thought of something. “Should I write to your brother and ask him for your hand? I know you said you don’t get along, but I don’t want to offend him, or do something improperly.”

“He won’t be offended,” she said quietly, brought to earth by what Andrew said. “He won’t care. He hates me. You don’t need to ask anyone.”

“Should we invite him to the wedding, and your other brother?”

“Certainly not. If you do, I won’t come,” she teased him, and he laughed.

“I want you to meet my father as soon as he gets back from Boston. He’s been insanely busy for the past few months. I know he’ll love you,” Andrew said happily.

Three days later, he gave her an engagement ring that was far bigger than anything she’d expected, with an intricate setting and a large diamond in the center. She would have been happy with a tiny ring or none at all. It was Andrew that she loved, not what he could give her. She had never been as happy in her life, thinking of their future, and the days ahead of them. And now he wanted to introduce her to his friends as his future wife. But he thought it best to introduce her to his father first, who was a stickler about tradition and form and very old-fashioned. Andrew warned her that he was very conservative in his beliefs, but he was sure he would be enchanted by her. He knew that everyone would be, and he was most of all.

He wanted to plan for their wedding and didn’t see why they should wait long. They both knew what they wanted, and were of a reasonable age, and as he said it, she admitted to him that she was younger than she’d said at first. She said it seemed more respectable to her than her proper age. “I’m really twenty-one,” she said shyly. It was the only truth she was willing to admit to him of the lies she’d told. And he laughed at her confession and was pleased. He was thirty, and he thought their ages right together. He thought everything about their union was perfect, and he was certain his father would think so too. Angélique hoped that would be the case and was nervous about meeting him. Andrew made him sound daunting and a little stiff, but she was sure he loved his only son, and wanted him to be happy, and they were.

“Let’s get married in February, on Saint Valentine’s Day,” Andrew suggested, and she loved the idea too.

“It doesn’t give us much time to plan,” she said thoughtfully. “Do you want a big wedding?” She wasn’t sure how to arrange it, especially in New York. She could have done so in Paris or London, but not here. The city was too new to her.

“Not really,” he said honestly. “You have no friends here, and if you don’t want your family to come from England, it would feel wrong to have hundreds of my acquaintances whom you don’t know. Why don’t we try to keep it small?” And he didn’t say it, but since she was a recent widow, he didn’t think they should have a showy wedding, and he was sure his father would think so too. Andrew thought an intimate wedding would be more appropriate, with only his father and closest friends. He didn’t care how they got married, as long as they did, and the sooner the better. And he couldn’t wait to start a family with her, and she liked that idea too. All she wanted now was to be his wife and have his babies. And she wanted to write to the girls from Le Boudoir and tell them, so they wouldn’t expect her to come back and open the house again. She knew Fabienne would be happy for her. Angélique had written to her when she got to New York, and Fabienne had responded that she and Jacques had gotten married in October and a baby was already on the way. Their lives had changed so much.

She was planning to sell the furniture from Le Boudoir that she had put in storage. She didn’t want the furniture from her brothel in their new home. She had written to them as well and the storage company was going to sell it for her.

Angélique could hardly absorb it all as she and Andrew made plans, and he told her that they were having supper with his father the night before Christmas Eve, and he was very excited to meet her, and pleased for his son. From everything Andrew had described to him, she sounded like the perfect girl, and Andrew knew she was.

The night they went to supper with his father, she wore a simple black velvet gown, with just enough bosom showing, but not too much, her mother’s pearls, and a small tiara in her hair that had been her maternal grandmother’s when she was a young girl. It was something Angélique had always treasured and had only worn once before when she went to a ball in London with her father, and after that he got sick, they stopped going to town, and she never wore it again. It seemed appropriate to wear tonight, with the beautiful engagement ring Andrew had given her. His breath caught when he picked her up at the hotel. She looked exquisite, and he had never been so proud in his life. He couldn’t wait for his father to meet her.

Angélique was a little startled when the carriage pulled up to an enormous mansion on Pearl Street. She hadn’t expected it to be quite so grand, and was a little daunted for a moment, but she had been in bigger houses before, she reminded herself. And Belgrave, where she had grown up, was many times larger than this. She had never told Andrew anything about it, there was no reason to, since it was no longer hers and she couldn’t go there anymore. There was no point crying about the past with the future so bright.

Two footmen and a butler let them into the house, which reminded her of Belgrave again, but everything here seemed newer, and smaller of course, than their vast ancestral home in England. The front hall of Andrew’s father’s house was all done in marble, with an enormous chandelier of candles to light the room. She took off her wrap and left it with one of the footmen, as Andrew led her into the large drawing room, where his father was waiting for them. He had his back to them, and was looking out at the garden with a drink in his hand, wearing white tie and tails, as Andrew was. His father turned, and the two men exchanged a warm glance, and he then turned his gaze to his future daughter-in-law with a welcoming smile, and as he did, Angélique nearly fainted, and so did he, as they stared at each other in disbelief.

It was John Carson, the American financier, who had proposed to her only three months before at Le Boudoir, and whom she had refused. He had clearly used “Carson” as an alias for his visits to Le Boudoir, and not his real name. Neither of them said anything for a minute, as his face hardened and Angélique tried to cover her shock at seeing him and went deathly pale. It was a final cruel turn of fate in too many recent years of them. He had been deeply infatuated with her, and first offered to make her his mistress, and then was determined to marry her once he was widowed, despite her running a brothel. He had been willing to do almost anything to marry her and had been shocked and angry when she declined, and now she was marrying his son. It was almost too ironic to be true. He knew about her past in Paris, and she was terrified that he would tell Andrew now.

“I…how do you do…,” she said, curtsying to him in deep respect, with tears glittering in her eyes. She prayed that he would be able to get over what had happened, and accept her as Andrew’s future wife, but the look in his eyes was one of pure fury, and Andrew saw it too.

“Is something wrong?” he asked his father, glancing from him to Angélique, unable to understand the expression on his father’s face.

“Not at all,” John said to his son. “Happy to meet you,” he said to Angélique, finished his drink, and signaled a footman for another, and sat down in the drawing room with them with an unpleasant expression. All he wanted to do was get through the evening, and get her out of his house and his son’s life. There was no way he would allow Andrew to marry her, although he had been willing to himself, had wanted to very much, and had done everything he could to convince her. He hadn’t recovered from her refusal yet. And now this cruel turn of fate as they met again.

Supper was agonizingly painful and silent, as John continued to drink heavily, said not a word to her, never even glanced at her, and spoke to his son about business matters as though she wasn’t there. Andrew had no idea what was going on, but Angélique looked ill all night and barely ate. And as soon as the meal was over, his father stood up and asked to have a word with him alone. He walked into the library, and acted like a raging bull the moment Andrew closed the door and turned to him.

“What is going on?” He had never seen his father look that way before, like an animal in a cage.

“You cannot marry that woman!” his father shouted at him. “I won’t allow it! You must break it off at once!”

“Why? I don’t understand. You’ve been acting like a maniac all night.”

“I know things about her that you don’t. She’s a whore, Andrew, and nothing more. She’s after you for your money, and mine.” If that had been true, she would have accepted his offer in Paris, and she had turned him down flat, but the last thing he wanted was for his son to marry the woman he had wanted, and what’s more one who had been the madam of a Paris brothel. He considered himself old enough to make a choice like that, but not his son. Andrew’s mother had been a respectable woman, from one of the finest families in New York, no matter how much they had come to dislike each other. This girl was anything but respectable, no matter how distinguished she seemed. In John’s opinion, it was an act, convincing but certainly not enough to warrant her marrying his son. “I will do everything I can to stand in the way of your marriage, Andrew. You must stop this travesty at once.”

“It’s not a travesty, I love her. She’s a wonderful person. Have you ever met her before?”

“No!” his father shouted at him, lying to him, but he could hardly admit the truth, that he had met her in a bordel, and proposed to her himself. But he was worried now that Angélique would tell Andrew, if she told him the truth about the rest. It was a risk for him, a serious one. He would never want his son to know something like that about him. Had she agreed to marry him, he would have invented a proper history for her, just as she herself had done to marry his son. “You know nothing of her history. I do. I’ve never met her,” he lied again, “but I’ve heard about her from others. She’s quite famous in Paris. What did she tell you about herself?”

“That she has two brothers who don’t like her and whom she hates. Her parents are dead. She was married in Paris, her husband died, and she came here for a change of scene. And I met her on the ship. Why? What do you know different from that?” Andrew looked worried, but not very. He was far more upset by how badly his father had behaved, and what he was saying now, all of which sounded like lies to him. “Are you upset because she’s European, and not an American girl from a family you know?” He was such a snob that it was possible. Andrew felt sure his father would never have gotten involved with a European woman himself. Little did he know of what his father did.

“That has nothing to do with it, although you don’t need to go abroad to find a wife. There are plenty of nice girls here. She’ll destroy your political career and your chance to be important in politics. And I can tell you one thing—I will do everything in my power to prevent you marrying that girl!” He was still shouting, and his eyes and a vein in his forehead were bulging, he was so crazed. “Tell her to tell you the truth about herself, and let’s see if she does! I can assure you it has nothing to do with the story you know.” He was pacing the room as he spoke. Andrew hadn’t moved as he watched him.

“She’s an honest person, and I will ask her. We all have secrets we don’t want others to know. If she has any, I’m sure she’ll tell me the truth. But I’m thirty years old, Father. You can’t tell me who to marry, or forbid me to marry a woman I love. I won’t end up like you and Mother, hating each other for thirty years, lonely and miserable, because you married someone from the ‘right’ family. I’d rather be married to someone from the wrong family, than the wrong woman, which is what you did. And you can’t dictate to me how to live my life. I was just engaged to a girl you considered the right one, and she ran off with my best friend after cheating on me.” He was angry now too. He had never seen such appalling behavior from his father before, and he was deeply sorry for Angélique, who had lived through an evening of torture and been dignified and polite about it, although she looked like she was about to burst into tears.

“I’m sure this one will cheat on you too, very quickly. And my marriage to your mother and the reasons for it are none of your business.”

“I watched the two of you loathe each other all my life, barely able to stand being in the same room. I don’t want that for myself.” They both knew he was right, but John said nothing as he stared at his son miserably.

“Get rid of her,” he said bluntly. “You’ll regret it if you don’t. And I will never have her in my house again. If you stay with her out of some folly, or because she lies to you, don’t expect me to receive her or ever see her again.”

“I don’t know why she’d want to after the way you behaved tonight,” Andrew said, as he strode to the door and yanked it open. “Goodnight, Father. Thank you for supper.” And with that, he walked out and slammed the door behind him, as John looked at it, sank heavily into a chair, and suddenly felt a hundred years old. She had rejected him, and now she was marrying Andrew. He had wanted to own her, possess her, and give her everything he had. He had done everything he could to lure her and convince her. He had been obsessed with her, and still was, and now Andrew had won. And at that exact moment, he didn’t know who he hated more, Angélique or his son, for having her.