Louisa and the Missing Heiress Read Online Free Page B

a ship’s anchor in stormy port—“my wife has so happily anticipated this little reunion.”
    Preston Wortham, when he wasn’t baiting his foes, had a deep, fine voice and the face and stature of a theater hero, one who could play a Roman caesar or French cavalier and make all the ladies of the audience go home madly in love with him. What he did not have was name or reputation or honest employment . . . so when handsome Mr. Wortham had proposed to and married plain but wealthy Dorothy Brownly, everyone assumed the obvious, even innocent Dorothy, who had commented several times, with an absolute lack of rancor, that “Poor Preston will be much more settled and calm once the family agrees upon the terms of his quarterly allotment.” Wives often jest that their husbands are a kind of child, and to Dorothy this was not a jest but a fact, and a fact that suited her, since she had a maternal nature.
    Two winters previous, Preston Wortham had been my dance partner, before he had wrangled his introduction to Dot. My feelings for him were purely friendly, but I must confess I enjoyed his beautiful dancing. Yet I fear Preston had feelings for me at that time: In a moment of weakness he professed his admiration but admitted he sought to marry for advantage. “If only you had a bit of money, my dear Miss Alcott,” he had sighed.
    “If I had it in any quantity, Mr. Wortham, I would buy a trip to Florence, not a husband,” I had assured him. And then, because I sensed a certain fragility of character in him, I whispered, “Go slowly and carefully, Mr. Wortham. This business of heiresses can be complicated.”
    The clock chimed four-thirty. I sighed and stirred, tapping my foot more quickly under the concealing hem of my brown linsey-woolsey skirts. Where was our hostess? Surely she could have tried on every hat in Boston by now. Had she forgotten? Dot had never been the quickest mind—she had wept over fractions and torn her hair over South American rivers—but to completely forget her own welcome-home tea party!
    I looked outside the room into the hall. The huge, ornate coat tree was close enough to the parlor that every time I looked in that direction and saw Mr. Wortham’s velvet coat hanging there on its hook, I had the eerie sense that someone was standing there, watching. Something strange, hostile, dangerous, floated through that house where newlyweds should have been so happy.
    Much as I wished to see Dot, I decided it was time to leave. Abba was waiting for me at home with a basket of clothing to clean and mend for the women’s shelter and other tasks with which society could not be bothered. Mr. Wortham was standing at the bay window, looking out into the street. I went to him.
    “I do hope Dot is all right. This is not like her.”
    “I fear a year in Europe may have changed her,” he said. “It is liberating to travel, you know.” But he was frowning and his dark eyes seemed darker than usual.
    “I can only imagine. But do give her my regards. Mother invites you to dinner next Sunday . . . if you can stand one of Father’s vegetarian meals. It will be carrots cooked six different ways, but it would be nice if you could come. Mother hasn’t seen Dot since we were both still in the schoolroom.”
    Sylvia joined us at the window, since the terrible siblings had launched a new conversation on the uselessness of charity for immigrants. “How will they learn to support themselves if we give them handouts? Those Irish should not have so many babies,” Edith lectured. “Unwed mothers! I never!”
    I grimaced, knowing that much of this tirade was for my benefit, since my family spent much of its resources supporting the charities of Boston. “You come for dinner, too, Sylvia. Father would love to see you. He has questions for you, I suspect.”
    “The conversation will be worth a meal of carrots.” Mr. Wortham bent to place a kiss on my hand, in the Continental manner. “We will come. Dot will