Chapter Thirty-Six
Rector’s is in the full throes of afternoon high tea, and almost every head in the crowded space turns as I waltz in, sheathed in a snug-fitting bodice of pale rose silk, a layered skirt frothing out from my narrow waist with a row of pearl buttons lining the length of my derriere.
My dark hair is swept up and tucked into a pink hat with one long ostrich plume.
But my favorite detail about my attire, the detail I selected with the most care, is the gauzy netting that falls down the front of the hat to throw the top half of my famous face into shadow.
I think it gives me not only an air of chic sophistication but also privacy.
I need not reveal my feelings to Mr. Thorne should I decide I don’t wish to.
For some reason I have not fully puzzled out, this option gives me a much-needed bit of comfort going into today’s meeting.
“It’s Miss Talbot!”
“Is it really her?”
“I told you she comes in here!”
Whispers behind gloved hands, curious stares, but I keep my gaze straight ahead and walk steadily through the fray. I don’t pause until I’ve arrived before the gentleman at the linen-draped table set for two in the back of the crowded restaurant.
He hops up from his chair, his back going straighter than a general’s, his eyes fixing attentively on me.
I stand a few steps from the table. Mr. Hal Thorne is not what I was expecting.
Knowing what I do about his sanctimonious family and having heard from Penny what a killjoy he can be alongside Mr. Comstock, I didn’t expect him to be so, well, attractive.
Or well-built. He is tall, well over six feet, but unlike Stanny, who always reminded me of a bear, Mr. Thorne is slim, his entire appearance impossibly elegant.
My veil affords me the discreet opportunity to take a quick study of his full appearance.
He has nothing in his appearance of the dour spoilsport—in fact Mr. Thorne appears youthful and quite dapper.
He’s dressed in a fashionable three-piece suit that fits well around his slender frame.
A black top hat rests on the unoccupied chair across the table, his glass-topped cane tipped against it.
He has full lips and a clean-shaven face, without a hint of a shadow.
Mr. Thorne parts those lips now in a smile of greeting, an expression that strikes me as a bit timid.
And then he speaks, and his velvety voice is soft as a whisper in the noisy restaurant.
“Miss Talbot, at last.” His words are so quiet that I have no choice but to take a step closer as he adds: “Up close, oh my. Even better than I had imagined.”
This makes my cheeks fill with heat, and I’m thankful yet again for the netting that obscures my face. “Mr. Thorne, it’s lovely to meet you.”
“And you. Please, will you sit?”
I accept his help into the offered chair, and he flies to take the seat opposite me but not without throwing a look around the entire restaurant as if to query whether all who are staring—and they are all staring—are seeing this play out.
I try to ignore the inquisitive eyes as I unfold a white linen napkin and drape it across my lap.
“Thank you for the flowers,” I say, launching straight in, in an attempt to keep up a facade of cool and breezy sophistication.
“Oh, I hope you enjoyed them.” Mr. Thorne’s eyes tilt down to the table, a bit bashful.
Just then the tuxedoed waiter approaches, and Mr. Thorne orders a full tea service.
“Jasmine for you, Miss Talbot, yes?” I nod, wondering how this stranger could possibly know my tea preference.
Mr. Thorne makes sure to ask for extra cakes and cookies.
“I hear you are a great enjoyer of sweets, Miss Talbot.”
“How do you know all of this?” I ask.
Mr. Thorne beams. “Miss Talbot, I always arrive to my meetings prepared.”
I can’t help but grin at Mr. Thorne’s frank eagerness to please.
It’s refreshing, especially when I know that his pedigree and wealth give him plenty of boasting rights.
Hal Thorne is the only son of the Pittsburgh Thornes, and as such, he’s the scion of a railroad empire, plus coal mines, a transcontinental freight operation, and properties making up a fortune that exceeds forty million dollars.
This according to my own personal sleuth, Penny.
With his own father dead and just one sister, married and living abroad, Hal Thorne is now the patriarch of the Thorne holdings in his late twenties.
And yet, I note to myself how his unlined face appears entirely boyish.
Is that the face of a man who has never had to fret or worry?
Not just his face—when the waiter arrives and Mr. Thorne hastens to pour me my tea, I see his hands are marble white and smooth, the hands of a man who has never done hard physical labor.
His demeanor is pleasant, and his chatter comes easily and affably, so I find myself settling in to enjoy the sumptuous spread he’s arranged.
“I must say how grateful I am that you agreed to meet me,” Mr. Thorne says, stirring his own tea once he’s served mine.
“I’ve come to your show any night I can make it.
I think my tally is at fifty-one performances as of this week. ”
“Mr. Thorne!” I exclaim, clutching my teacup. “Then surely you must hold the record. Why, I think I’ve only sung in sixty so far.”
“Sixty-three last night,” he corrects me, his face entirely guileless.
I tilt back in my chair. “Is that right?”
He nods. “I checked with the box office, and they confirmed that I’ve seen more of your performances than any other gentleman.”
I shift in my seat, rearranging my silk skirts, not entirely sure how to respond to this, or to the frank directness of his pale-eyed gaze. But he fills the silence, leaning over the table. “I am nothing, Miss Talbot, if not a loyal man.”
Just then the waiter reappears, this time delivering a tower of white porcelain plates loaded with tasty-looking treats.
I am glad to have the distraction. “Oh, look,” I say approvingly, studying the tiered feast. Even with my nerves, I’m suddenly quite hungry for the strawberries covered in chocolate, the finger sandwiches with smoked salmon and cream cheese, the miniature lemon tarts, and the macaron cookies that I know will melt on my tongue.
Mr. Thorne thanks the waiter and dismisses the fellow, offering to serve me a plate himself. “May I?”
“Please,” I say, and gladly accept the heaping dish.
“You are from Pittsburgh, are you not?” he asks as he helps himself to the smoked salmon.
Given everything else he seems to know about me, I’m not surprised he’s unearthed this fact.
I swallow my bite of the lemon tart, the flavors rich and floral on my tongue, and answer that I am.
But I say nothing of my meeting with his mother on a cold Christmas Day—a memory that feels like a lifetime ago.
That forbidden castle must have been his childhood home.
“You know that I am, as well?” Mr. Thorne asks.
“I do know that,” I admit.
“And like me, also, you lost your father at a young age, Miss Talbot.”
I nod, lowering my eyes.
“And you moved to Manhattan with your mother?”
“Yes,” I say, taking a small nibble of a pale pink macaron.
“May I meet her?”
I pause my chewing, blinking my eyes open to meet my companion’s stare. “Pardon?”
“May I meet Mrs. Talbot, your mother?”
I swallow, look down at my plate. I haven’t told Mamma where I am, or with whom I’m dining. I know how my mother would react—the memory of Mrs. Thorne is enough to make her scowl, all these years later. The snobbery of that woman. The cold, hard hypocrisy of her high-and-mighty self-righteousness!
And yet Mr. Thorne appears to have nothing of his mother’s cold snobbery. Why, he is perfectly cordial. Even solicitous, I might say.
But he has seen my hesitation. “Miss Talbot, I am a frank man. In my line of work, one must be, or one would not survive from sunrise to sunset.”
His line of work? So then, does he work for his family business in railroads?
Or coal? I had presumed Mr. Thorne to be a passive heir, gifted with such wealth that he never need toil a day in his life.
But my wondering is interrupted as he carries on: “I shall speak plainly, Miss Talbot, if I may. I wish to court you. With your permission, of course. But I cannot do so without first paying my respects to your mother, so that I may express my admiration to her for raising such a daughter as yourself, and humbly requesting her blessing that I may call on you.”
My mouth falls open before I remember myself and pull my features back into a look of some composure.
But I’m finding it hard to stanch my grin.
This whole thing is so proper! The flowers, the invitation to tea.
Now this formal request to call on Mamma.
Why, Art did no such thing. And Stanny, well, nothing about his predation was proper.
It’s in this moment that I realize: I find Mr. Thorne to be adorable.
In truth, I’m not at all certain whether I’m interested in him in any sort of romantic way.
But he’s a gentleman. Almost as though he hails from a different era when men were gallant and respectful, entirely unlike the rapacious and self-serving swashbucklers of today’s Manhattan.
His refreshing candor prompts me to respond with a frankness of my own. “I must confess, Mr. Thorne, it’s a bit complicated.” I lift the delicate veil that’s been hanging over my features and meet his earnest gaze. “Our mothers are already acquainted.”
“They are?” His smooth face crumples in thought. “But I never forget a face, or a name. Surely if Mother had spoken to me of a Mrs. Talbot in Pittsburgh, I would recall.”
My gaze slants downward. “I’m not entirely certain that your mother would recall the introduction, Mr. Thorne.
” She did, after all, tell us that we were just the latest beggars to show up at her doorstep on a busy day of bothersome petitions.
I leave that bit out. “But my mother certainly remembers the encounter. We visited your home on Christmas Day, years ago. Shortly after my father died. Before…before all this.” I gesture around the rarefied space that surrounds us, the potted palms, the tinkling silver, the well-heeled patrons enjoying their teas and canapés.
“We barely had any food to eat when we knocked on your door.”
“Ah.” Mr. Thorne’s eyes hold mine. He nods once. “I see.”
I look down at the spread between us, chewing on my lower lip, no longer feeling hungry. Feeling, instead, how it was to be shooed off the doorstep and out onto the dark, cold street. More so than any indignity I felt, it’s the recollection of Mamma’s shame that burns like a coal, still, in my gut.
Mr. Thorne’s voice is velvet as he asks, “Was Mother…was she charitable, at least?”
“Your mother did give us some money. Five dollars.”
Mr. Thorne makes a noise as though he’s clearing his throat, but I continue. “It was the money with which we booked our travel to Philadelphia, in fact. And that is no small thing. But the meeting itself was not…Mamma does not remember the exchange with great fondness.”
“I knew it, Miss Talbot.”
“Knew what?” I meet his gaze once more.
“I knew that you and I were connected in some way,” he says. “I felt it deep in my heart. My mother’s cold hauteur is what drove you and your own mother to begin your journey. A journey that would bring you here. No, but you must let me put this to rights.”
“There is nothing to be settled, Mr. Thorne,” I hasten to reply, shifting in my seat.
But he shakes his head. “I must apologize,” he says.
“Mother’s demeanor at times, well, trust me, no one knows what she can be like better than I do.
I completely understand your misgivings.
But I beg you: give me the chance to rectify this.
You see, I would bring you home—I would bring you anywhere—and seat you in the place of honor. ”
“Mr. Thorne, really, I don’t wish for you to feel in any way that—”
“Then please, just grant me one request. Would you do me one small mercy?”
“What is that?” I ask.
“Please, allow me to take you out one more time.”
“Oh, well.”
“Perhaps something a little less formal,” he says, waving a hand through the air. “A costume party. Do you enjoy costume parties? The Hoffman House, this Saturday evening. You may bring as many friends as you like. How does that sound?”
It sounds just fine. Swell, even. I can bring Penny. I know she’ll be excited to dress up and join me at the Hoffman. And so, seeing no reason to object, I agree to meet Mr. Thorne one more time.