“Belinda’s American. But it wasn’t just that. Nick was rather an irresponsible scapegrace—we all were back then, as you know. Nick was stone broke and thinking his only way out of the mess was to marry an heiress. So he hired Belinda to find him a wife and ended up by marrying her himself. I’m not sure if you know, but Belinda is quite a famous matchmaker.”
“I did know that. As I said, I read the society papers.” She began to laugh. “So now, Nick and Jack are not only friends, but also brothers-in-law. That must make for some rather wild family parties.”
“On the contrary, they’ve both settled down quite happily to matrimony. But when he was courting her, Nick had to prove to Belinda he wasn’t a lily of the field, so he decided to form a brewing company and make beer. His estate, Honeywood, grows hops, you see. My estate, Arcady, does the same, which is why he pulled me in to be his partner. We manage it together.”
“I see.” She lifted the bottle to her lips, took a swallow, made a face, and set the bottle aside.
He laughed. “Is it so terrible?”
Her answering look was apologetic. “I don’t much care for beer, so I’m not a fair judge. But it must be good.”
“If you don’t like beer, then how do you know?”
“She married Nick, didn’t she? So I’m assuming you two must have made a success of this brewery.”
“We have, actually. Nick wasn’t the only one whose life changed. So did mine. The brewery enabled me to pay off my debts. In addition, I started taking responsibility for my life. My father saw that I was serious about turning over a new leaf, and he began handing over management of the family’s investments to me, one by one. Along the way, I discovered—much to my surprise—that I had a genuine talent for business. Most peers don’t, my father included. He was happy and relieved to be able to hand all the family investments over to me. He’s quite proud of how I turned my life around, I think.”
“I don’t doubt it. You’re the apple of his eye.”
“No, I’m afraid my sister, Susan, holds that honor.” He leaned back with his beer and his sandwich, studied her for a moment, and decided to try again to satisfy his curiosity. “But don’t think I haven’t noticed this latest attempt to divert me, MissValinsky,” he said gently. “We were discussing you.”
“I suppose you want to know how I came to such a pass,” she murmured. “Taking my clothes off, I mean.”
“Only if you want to tell me.”
“I did it for the same reason most girls do. I needed money.”
“What about your family?” he asked and resumed eating.
“My family.” She smiled a little. “My father was a Lithuanian immigrant, a butcher by trade. He went west, and he ended up in Kansas City, where he set up his shop.”
This was the first time she’d ever mentioned a thing about her family—another topic she’d always been adept at avoiding. “And he met your mother there?”
“Not exactly. My mother was from Baltimore. MissElizabeth Breckenridge, of the Baltimore Breckenridges. Very wealthy and very high-society.”
He couldn’t help being a bit surprised, perhaps because Lola had been so positive in her assurance that marriages across class lines didn’t work. “A girl of good society married a butcher? She must have been very much in love.”
“Love?” Lola laughed, but she didn’t seem amused. “She married him before ever meeting him. He wanted a wife, you see, and in the frontier towns, there wasn’t much of a selection. So he did what many other men did. He advertised for a wife in the Eastern papers. My mother answered his advertisement. They corresponded for a few months, then she married him by proxy and came west to join him.”
“You read about such things in penny dreadfuls,” he murmured. “I didn’t think they happened in real life. Why did she do it?”
“She was very young, not even sixteen. When I try to imagine her motives, I think she must have been very romantic, very idealistic, and probably a reader of those penny dreadfuls you mention. Her own life must have seemed terribly boring by comparison to the wild western frontier.”
“In other words, she ran away from home?”
“I think she must have done, but I don’t know for sure. The truth is, I don’t remember her very well. She left when I was five.”
“Left?”
“She went back to her people.”
“What? She abandoned you?”
“I suppose reality wasn’t as romantic as the penny dreadfuls.” She shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “Anyway, her father was a very powerful man, and somehow, he got the marriage annulled, very discreetly, of course. Which means that I...” She paused and looked at him. “I’m a bastard child. Legally, anyway.”
“If you ever feared I’d judge you for that, your fear was misplaced,” he said gently. “I couldn’t care two pins.”
“Yes, well, my mother remarried, a very wealthy man of her own class, a Mr.Angus Hutchison, and she had five sons with him.”
