Chapter 20 Bottoms Up #2
Cora scans the room for Dagmar—although, would she make this situation better or worse?
She thrusts her glass forward as evidence, sending half of it sloshing to the floor. “This, here, is the finest in town. In
my opinion.”
Cal’s eyebrow quirks. “If it’s so fine, you might want to do better at preserving it.”
She places the glass on the bar top, nearly trips.
“Fancy sitting down, Miss Ritter?”
She scoffs. “And where would I sit?”
Cal Archer gestures downward. That smirk again.
There is indeed a stool sandwiched between them.
Her cheeks redden. “If you insist.”
She steals another look at the reporter, noticing that he’s doing a fairly pitiful job of hiding a laugh. He’s looking particularly
handsome at this moment, she must admit. Tie loosened, suit jacket off, shirtsleeves rolled just so. A slim vest, no hat.
“I always assumed you had brown hair,” she blurts. She managed to hold on to her accent at least.
“Thinking of me when I’m not around?” Mr. Archer smiles. “How thoughtful you are.”
“Do you want to buy me another?” She nods to the taps.
“Is that a good idea?” His eyes, still twinkling. Blue eyes, tousled blond hair.
Cora squints. Really, was he always this attractive?
She knows the answer, though—feels it flush across her skin.
“Then again, who am I to pass up the chance to converse with the esteemed Cora Ritter of Württemberg?”
He flags down the barkeep, then turns, refocusing on her.
“Want to tell me why you’re really here?” he asks.
“Oh, please. Anything I say, you’ll print in . . .” She waves her hands, momentarily and mortifyingly forgetting the name.
“. . . that paper.”
“I’ll have you know I’m more than just ‘that paper.’” He slides a drink her way with a wink. “Anything you say tonight is
off the record. You have my word.”
“Off the record?” Cora takes a sip, picturing Alice in her study, dismissing Cora’s entire future with a simple wave of her hand. “Just been a bad day, I suppose. Got some bad news . . . about Württemberg. My future plans. It seems my cousin . . .”
Cora stops. She’s probably breaking at least five different rules of propriety, being here in this bar with a man she’s neither
engaged nor married to, pretending to be someone she isn’t, talking about someone she shouldn’t. But now that she’s started,
she desperately wants to unload to someone—and who better than this charming (no, no, not charming, worldly) reporter? The only person in this city who’s ever seemed to care about what she has to say? Who is so interested in what
she might contribute that he’s pursued her around Manhattan? Who’s currently looking at her as if he’s desperate for her to
let him in?
She simply needs to spin the lies this time, in order to confess the truth.
“I am to be married this spring,” she begins.
“Ah.” Cal’s smile hardens. “When?”
“Easter weekend.”
“That’s soon.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Tell me, is he an upstanding man? A gentleman?”
“You’ve met him.” She takes another sip. “The young man in Central Park. When we ran into each other several weeks ago.”
“Ah yes. Mr. Peyton.” Cal turns abruptly, calling, “Barkeep? I’m gonna need a whiskey.”
He sighs, stiff smile still fastened on tight. “I suppose congratulations are in order.”
“I suppose.”
Cal’s gaze roams across her features. “If you aren’t yet in a blushing bride state of mind, maybe . . . there is time to reconsider? Postpone for a while? Can’t imagine you’re in the right headspace to make such a decision, with everything that’s going on. In Württemberg.”
“No, unfortunately, this needs to happen,” she counters. “Immediately. My cousin . . . well, she is a very demanding person.”
“The grand duchess?” Cal supplies. “Demanding?”
“You have no idea.”
“Enlighten me.” Cal leans against the bar. “Here I thought you two were peas in a pod.”
Cora lets out a bitter laugh, studying the swirling gold liquid in her glass. Good God, she cannot cry in front of this man.
She blinks the swell back. “She considers it my duty . . . to Württemberg . . . to do whatever she asks, whenever she asks, including going forth with this wedding. Thing is . . .”
Cora hastily raises the pint to her lips, the ale a strange sort of temerity fuel.
“I wanted to come to America, you understand, to assist my family. To be on the front lines of . . . soliciting help for our
great nation. But I worry that I’m . . .”
Cora pauses, recalibrating. “My late father, you see, the current king’s exchequer, was an overly trusting man. He understood
that Württemberg has suffered greatly for years, that King Charles has stood by idly for far too long as outside forces took
advantage and pillaged our homeland. My father had agreed with Prince Wilhelm and the other nationalists calling for change.
” She pauses. “And yet he still fiercely believed that his king would do the honorable thing. My father blindly deferred to him, trusting him, doing his bidding, until his dying day, just like a fool.”
Cora stares once more into her frothy, fast dwindling glass.
“I suppose I worry that I’m more like him than I ever realized.”
If Cora’s ad hoc, thinly veiled soul-baring is giving Cal any pause, he doesn’t let on. The man appears wholly engaged, even
empathetic, those blue eyes considering her, nonjudgmental. “Is that so?”
“Maybe I am no more than my cousin’s pawn. My personal interests, welfare, barely considered, if at all. Maybe the grand duchess
values her mission more than anything else, anyone else, and in serving her so unquestioningly, I’m only ruining my life in the process.” She looks away, cheeks burning. “Please
understand, I do admire my cousin greatly. Really hoped I could learn from her—be like her, rather. Emulate her. You understand what I mean. She’s so regal, elegant—”
He murmurs, “You are more like her than you both realize, I’m afraid.”
Cora finds the compliment vaguely disappointing, which emboldens her. “Are you trying to call me pretty, Mr. Archer?”
“As a reporter, that’s a hard fact to deny. But no, I wasn’t calling you pretty,” he repeats with disdain. He downs his whiskey,
eyes never leaving hers. “Resilient was perhaps the word I was looking for. Resourceful, and ever so refreshing.” His eyes lose their playful sparkle, turn serious.
“Possibly even exceptional.”
As she struggles to recall how and when Cal Archer would have ever spoken at length to the “grand duchess” in order to glean
their similarities, he leans closer.
And all thoughts scatter from her mind.
“Your cousin would be a fool herself not to be proud of you,” he murmurs. “Though I must come clean. The only reason I’m admitting
all this”—he gently taps her head—“is that I don’t think you’re writing anything down in there either.”
The rest of the night is dark and murky, most of the evening’s details opaque . . . although fragments flash across her mind
like summer lightning:
Dagmar dragging her out of the beer saloon.
The sick-inducing cab ride home.
Singing up the stairwell together.
Béatrice scolding them both as she shuttled them off to sleep.
Cora sits up fast in bed, morning light searing through the curtains.
Another flash, of Cal Archer smiling, leaning over her in that Bowery bar. A sharp throbbing blooms in her head, descends
into her chest, and laces all the way down, deep past her abdomen.
She bites her lip.
Good God.
Does she have feelings for this man? And far more importantly . . .
What in the Sam Hill did she confess to him last night?