“Miss Houston,” Susan said. “Miss Jean Taggert is downstairs with her father and all their belongings in a wagon, and they want to speak to you.”
“I’ll be right down,” she called, reluctantly getting out of bed, wishing that Kane had stayed with her. He was already at work by the time Houston was dressed.
Downstairs, she led Jean into the small drawing room. “I’m so glad you’ve decided to accept my offer,” Houston began. “I really do need a housekeeper.”
Jean waved her hand. “You don’t need to continue the lie. I know why you’re offering me the job, and I know more than you do that you’ll have to teach me everything, and that I’ll be more of a hindrance than of any use. But more important than my pride is getting my family out of the coal mines. Rafe blackmailed Ian into leaving, and my father has blackmailed me. I’ve come to ask for more charity than you’ve already offered. I’ll work myself into a stupor for you, if you’ll let my father live here with me.”
“Of course,” Houston said quickly. “And, Jean, you’re family, you don’t really have to be my housekeeper. You can live here as a guest, with no duties or obligations except to enjoy yourself.”
Jean smiled. “I’d go crazy in two weeks If my father is welcome, then I’ll stay.”
“Only if you sit at the table with us for meals. It’s a big table and almost empty. Now, may I meet your father?”
When Houston saw Sherwin Taggert, she knew why Jean wanted to get him out of the mines. Sherwin was dying. Houston was sure that Jean knew it, and that her father did also, but it was also apparent that no one was going to mention the fact.
Houston found Sherwin to be a gentle, polite man and, within minutes, he had the rest of the staff running to make him comfortable. There was some argument as to where the elder Taggert would stay, but Jean won when she put her father in the downstairs housekeeper’s rooms with a door leading outside to the gardens and placed near the stairs that led to the upstairs room Jean chose.
At luncheon, Kane stayed in his office, but Edan joined the growing group who sat down to meals. Ian relaxed visibly when he saw his uncle and Jean, and the meal became very pleasant. Sherwin told a funny story of a happening in the mine and, while everyone was laughing, Kane came into the room. Houston introduced him to his relatives, and he looked about for a seat. Since Jean was seated next to Edan, Kane stood still for a moment until Houston motioned for a footman to pull out the chair at the head of the table.
Through the rest of the meal, Kane sat quietly, saying very little but watching everyone, and especially watching the way Houston ate. She ate slowly, prolonging the meal and giving Kane plenty of time to see which fork she was using.
Toward the end of the meal, Houston tamed to Ian. “I have some good news for you. Yesterday, I sent a telegram to a friend of my father who lives in Denver and asked him if he’d like to move to Chandler and be your teacher. Mr. Chesterton is a retired British explorer. He’s been all over the world, up the Nile, to the pyramids, to Tibet; I doubt if there’s anywhere he hasn’t been. And this morning, he agreed to come here. I think he’ll make you a marvelous teacher, don’t you?”
Ian could only stare at her. “Africa?” he said at last.
“That among others.” She pushed back her chair. “Now, who’d like to play baseball? I have equipment, a playing field chalked out on the north lawn, and a book of instructions. Unfortunately, I have no idea what a word of it means.”
“I think Ian could show you some of the basics,” Sherwin said, eyes twinkling. “And I imagine that Edan knows a few rules, too.”
“You’ll join us, Edan?” Houston asked.
“I’d love to.”
“And you Jean?”
“Since I have no idea how to even begin running a house like this, I may as well make myself useless on a baseball diamond.”
“And Kane?” Houston asked her husband as he began to pull back from the group. He wore a puzzled expression.
“I have some work to do, and, Edan, I need you to help me.”
“I guess that leaves me out of baseball,” Edan said, rising. “I’ll see you at dinner.”
Once in Kane’s office, Edan watched his friend pace the floor and look out his window at the others on the baseball field. Edan wondered if Houston had purposely put the diamond outside Kane’s office. Twice, Edan had to repeat questions before Kane answered them.
“She’s really pretty, isn’t she?” Kane asked.
“Who?” Edan asked, pretending ignorance as he looked through the morning’s batch of telegrams, studying the offers for land, factories, stocks, whatever Kane was buying or selling at the moment.
“Houston, of course. Damn! Look at that Ian. Playing! At his age, I was working fourteen hours a day.”
“And so was he,” Edan said. “And so was I. Which is why he’s playing now,” he said as he dropped the telegrams on the desk. “Everything here can wait for a few hours. I think I’ll go out and enjoy the sunshine, and listen to something else besides money.”
He paused at the door. “You coming?”
“No,” Kane said, his eyes on the papers. “Somebody better stay here and . . . ” He looked up. “Hell, yes, I’m comin’. How far can a body hit that ball with that bat? I’ll put a hundred on it that I can beat you and anybody else out there.”
“You’re on,” Edan said, leading the way out the door.
Kane took to baseball like a child to candy. It took three swings before he first hit the ball—and no one had the nerve to tell him of the three-strikes-and-you’re-out rule—but when he hit it, the ball flew through the air and smashed a second-story window. He was disgustingly pleased with himself and from then on proceeded to give everyone advice.
Once, Kane and Ian almost went after each other with bats, but Houston managed to separate them before it became bloody. To her consternation, both men turned on her and told her to mind her own business. She retreated to Sherwin’s side.
“Ian will feel at home now,” Sherwin said. “He and Rafe argued all the time. He misses the discussions.”
Houston groaned. “Discussions are what Kane calls them, too. You don’t think they’ll hurt each other, do you?”
“I think your Kane has too much sense to let it go that far. It’s your turn to bat, Houston.”
Houston didn’t care for trying to hit the ball that came flying at her, but she very much enjoyed it when Kane put his arms around her and snuggled up against her to show her how to hold the bat. Ian shouted that Kane was giving the opposing team an unfair advantage and, while Kane was shouting at his young cousin, Houston slammed the ball past second base.
“Run!” Jean shouted. “Run, Houston, run.”
Houston took off as fast as she could, holding her skirt up almost to her knees. Edan, on first, just stood there grinning at her with delight, but Kane tore across the field, grabbed the ball and went running for Houston. She looked up, saw him coming and thought that, if he hit her, she’d never survive the impact. She started running faster, hearing in the background everyone shouting at Kane to stop before he hurt Houston.
He caught her at home base, grabbing her by the ankles and slamming her face down into the dirt. But she stretched out her arm and touched the plate.
“Safe!” Sherwin yelled.
Kane jumped up and started yelling at his smaller uncle and Ian, on the same team as Kane, joined in the shouting. Sherwin just stood there quite calmly.
Jean helped Houston up and examined her for cuts and bruises. Houston looked fondly at her shouting husband and said, “He does like to win, doesn’t he?”
“Not any more than you do,” Jean said, looking at a huge tear in Houston’s skirt, and the dirt on her face.
Houston touched her husband’s arm. “Dear, since we’ve beaten you so badly today, perhaps we could stop now for refreshments, and you can try again tomorrow.”
For a moment, Kane’s face darkened, then he laughed, grabbed her in his arms and twirled her a
round. “I’ve beat ever’ man on Wall Street at one time or another, but you, lady, I ain’t never beat at nothin’.”
“Stop bragging and let’s get something to eat,” Edan said. He turned to Jean and held out his arm. “May I?”
The two couples walked toward the house together, Sherwin and Ian behind.
Chapter 21
It was as if the baseball game broke the ice with the entire family. Kane stopped staying in his office during meals, and Ian stopped being quiet. Kane told Ian he was a dreamer and didn’t know anything about the real world. Ian, who considered Kane’s words a dare, suggested—in language that made Houston threaten to make him leave the table—that Kane show him some of the “real” world.
Kane began to introduce Ian to the world of business, showing him stock-market reports and teaching him how to read a contract. In only days, Ian was talking in terms of thousands of dollars being paid for land in cities he’d only read about.
One day, Houston saw Sherwin doodling on a scrap of paper. Later, she saw that it was a very accurate rendition of one of the Colorado mockingbirds. She ordered, from Sayles, a large, portable watercolor kit and presented it to Sherwin with an elaborate lie, saying that she’d found it in the attics, and did he know anyone who’d want it? She was afraid of the Taggert pride and thought he might refuse the paints.
Sherwin had laughed so knowingly that Houston’d blushed. He’d accepted the paints and kissed her on the cheek. After that, he spent most of his time in the garden painting whatever took his fancy.
Twice, Houston visited Blair at the new Westfield Infirmary for Women, staying for hours and getting to know her sister again after all the years of separation. And one day, Leander called her to ask about hiring servants for Blair and him. Lee was cautious and hesitant about talking to her, and she remembered the time he’d tried to speak to her in the church when the engagement had been announced, and how rude she’d been.
“Lee,” she began, “I’m glad the way things worked out. I’m really happy with Kane.”
He was slow to answer, “I never meant to hurt you, Houston.”
She smiled into the telephone. “I was the one who insisted that Blair trade places with me. Maybe I knew that the two of you were better as a couple than we were. Shall we forget it and be friends?”
“That would be my fondest wish. And, Houston, that man you married is a good one.”
“Yes, he is, but what makes you say so?”
“I have to go, and thanks for the advice on the housekeeper. Blair’s even worse than I am at these things. I’ll probably see you in church on Sunday. ’Bye.”
She frowned at the telephone in puzzlement, then shrugged and went back to the library.
It was three weeks after they were married that Houston told Kane that she was now ready to decorate his office. She had thought perhaps he might object, but she wasn’t prepared for the violence of his objections. In expressing his opinion of her tampering with his private space he used words she’d never heard before—but it didn’t take much intelligence to understand them.
Edan and Ian stood in the background and watched with interest to see who was going to win this battle.
Houston had no idea how to handle this, but she was determined. “I am going to clean and put proper furniture in this room. Either you let me do it now, when you can supervise and voice your approval, or I’ll do it when you’re asleep.”
Kane leaned over her in a threatening manner and Houston bent backward, but she didn’t relent.
Kane slammed from the room so hard the door nearly came loose from its hinges. “Damned women!” he shouted. “Can’t let any man alone, always changing everything, can’t stand for a man to be happy.”
As Houston turned to look at Edan and Ian, they both gave her weak smiles and left the room.
Houston’d, had an idea that the room was dirty and messy, but when she got into it, she found it to be a pigsty. It took six people an hour and a half to clean all of it, including the marble lions’ heads on the fireplace. When it was clean, Houston had the footmen remove Kane’s cheap oak desk and replace it with a partners’ desk, William Kent style, built in 1740. There were three chair openings in the big, dark desk, two for the partners, one for a visitor. She placed two comfortable leather chairs at the desk and, for Kane, an enormous chair upholstered in red leather. When she’d first seen this chair in the attic, she had known where it was meant to go, and who was to sit in it.
When the desk was in place, Houston sent all the servants away except Susan, and they started sorting out the contents of the cabinets. She knew it would be useless to try to file the documents that were jammed in every available place, so she had Susan bring hot irons and they ironed the wadded papers and placed them neatly in the desk drawers.
Flanking the fireplace were two glass-doored wall cabinets, both filled with papers and, in one of them, four whiskey bottles and six glasses that hadn’t been washed within the last four years.
“Boil these,” Houston said, holding them out as far as she could. “And see that Mr. Taggert has fresh glasses in here every morning.”
In the glass cabinets she placed a collection of small brass statues of Venus.
“Mr. Kane will like those,” Susan giggled, looking at the exquisite, plump, nude women.
“I think they were bought with him in mind.”
On the north wall were two cabinets concealed in the panelling, and Houston gasped when she opened the first one. Mixed in with the papers were stacks of money, some tied together, some wadded into balls, some loose that floated to the floor when the door was opened.
With a sigh, Houston began to sort it out. “Tell Albert to call the hardware store and have them send me a cashbox immediately, and get another couple of hot irons and we’ll see if we can get this to lie flat.”
With her eyes wide in astonishment, Susan went to do as she was bid.
When Kane saw his office, he looked at it for a long time, noting the draperies of deep blue brocade, the collection of statues of pretty women, and the red chair. He sat in the chair. “At least you didn’t paint the room pink,” he said. “Now, will you let me get back to work?”
Houston smiled as she passed him and kissed him on the forehead. “I knew you’d be pleased. Whether you admit it or not, you like pretty things.”
He caught her hand. “I guess I do,” he said as he looked up at her.
Houston left the room feeling as if she were floating, and grinned all through her fitting at her dressmaker’s.
Two days later, they gave their first dinner party and it was a major success. Houston invited only some of her friends whom Kane had already met so he’d feel comfortable, and Kane turned out to be a charming host. He poured champagne for the ladies and escorted everyone on a grand tour of his house.
It was only later, during the entertainment, that Houston wanted to disappear. She’d hired a travelling clairvoyant to come after dinner and perform. Kane fidgeted in his chair for the first ten minutes, then started talking to Edan, who sat next to him, about a piece of land he wanted to buy. Houston nudged him once and he turned to her and said, much too loudly, that he thought the man was a fraud and he refused to sit there another minute.
In front of everyone, he got up and left the room. Houston, her back rigid, signalled, to the psychic to continue.
Later, after their guests had departed, Houston found her husband at the bottom of the garden. She followed winding dirt paths downward to the flat, grassy bottom. The steep hill, the house on top of it, was at her back, while before her stretched a secret, magic place of shadowy trees and plants, with only the sound of birds around them.
“I didn’t like that man, Houston,” Kane said, not turning from where he stood leaning against a tree, smoking a cigar. “There’s no such thing as magic, and I couldn’t sit there and pretend there is.”
She put her fingers to his lips to stop his words, then slipped her arms around his neck. He bent to kis
s her, bending her entire body to fit with his.
“How’d a lady like you get hitched up with a stableboy like me?”
“Just lucky, I guess,” she answered before kissing him again.
One of the things that Houston liked best about Kane was his lack of knowledge about what was right and what was improper. There were people not far from them, servants who could easily decide to take an evening stroll, gardeners who could come searching for a forgotten tool—but none of this bothered Kane.
“You wear too damn many clothes,” he said as he began unbuttoning her dress, slipping the satin off her shoulders as he progressed.
When she was standing in her underwear, her dress a heap at her feet, he slipped his arm under her knees and carried her across the lawn, through a tangle of flowers to a marble pavilion containing a statue of Diana, goddess of the hunt.
He placed her on the grass at the foot of the goddess and carefully removed her clothing, piece by piece, kissing each part of her body as it was exposed.
Houston was sure she’d never felt so good in her life, and her passion was very slow to build since she wanted to prolong this time together forever.
He stroked and caressed her body until she was dizzy. The world seemed to be spinning and twirling about, and her fingers began to tingle.
When at last he moved on top of her, he was smiling, as if he knew what her thoughts were. She clung to him, pulling him closer and closer until they were one person.
He continued to move slowly, prolonging her ecstasy, slowly bringing her to new heights of passion.
“Kane,” she whispered repeatedly, “Kane.”
When at last he exploded within her, she shivered, her whole body shuddering with the force of her own release.
He lay on top of her, bronze skin in the moonlight, sweat glistening on his skin, and held her close to him. “What have you done to me, woman?” she thought she heard him whisper.
Slowly, he moved off her. “Warm enough? You want to go inside?”
“Never,” she said, snuggling against him, the mountain air cool on her damp skin. She looked up at the statue above them. “You know, don’t you, that Diana is the Virgin Goddess? Do you think she’ll resent our intrusion?”