Midnight Star (Star Quartet 2)
“Actually, Mr. Del mentioned something of the sort this morning. He’s ready to try anything, Miss Chauncey.” Mary began fidgeting with Chauncey’s hairbrush. “He’s guessed that there’s something you’re keeping from him. He just kind of sighed when I finished telling about the Penworthys. He didn’t push me, but he knows there’s something you’re not telling him.”
“I know. Whatever else he is, he isn’t a fool.”
“You know, Miss Chauncey, whoever the fellow is, he’ll probably try again.”
“Yes, I know. I’ll not step a foot out of the house without my derringer. Perhaps,” she added with false brightness, “I can catch him myself.”
Mary fell silent and began to unpack Chauncey’s trunk. “Mrs. Newton came by yesterday afternoon,” she said. “Such a nice lady, but you know, she asked me all sorts of questions about you. When I looked a bit put off, she told me that that little twit Penelope Stevenson was still holding a grudge toward you. She told me she wanted to spike their guns. You know, tell everyone where you’re from in England and who your parents were.”
That aroused Chauncey from her gloom. “Let them all go to the devil,” she said.
“Perhaps so,” Mary said stiffly, “but you don’t want Mr. Del hurt by any talk.”
“Here you go again! Of course I want him hurt, dammit!”
“Don’t use bad words, young lady!”
“For God’s sake, Miss Mary, you’re younger than I!”
“And just maybe I see things more clearly than you do!”
“Ha! Do you know that your Mr. Del fought a duel over his damned mistress?”
“Well, he wasn’t a married man when he did. Lord
knows,” she added on a chuckle, “Mr. Del isn’t a celibate!”
Chauncey closed her eyes for a long, pained moment. Mary had defected to the enemy camp. She’d never felt so alone. She jumped off the bed. “I want a bath.”
A half-hour later, Chauncey was seated in front of her dressing table staring vacantly into the mirror as Mary brushed out her hair. She jumped at the sound of Mary’s voice.
“What are you going to do now?”
“Always carry my derringer about, as I told you.”
“That isn’t what I meant, Miss Chauncey, and you know it!”
“Perhaps I shouldn’t tell you. After all, you’re so in love with Mr. Del, or is it Lucas the pirate?” She sounded nasty and mean and sarcastic, but couldn’t help it.
“I’ll tell what I would do,” Mary said, unmoved. “I’d talk straight to my husband. I’d tell him the truth, all of it.”
“Lovely idea! I can just picture it now. I’d be on the next ship back to England and he’d be free as a bird!”
“What is this about a ship back to England?”
Both women froze at the sound of Delaney’s voice.
“Good morning, Mary, Chauncey. Or should I say afternoon?” He strode over to Chauncey and gave her a fond kiss on her cheek. “You’re not planning to leave me, are you?”
“I thought you’d gone,” Chauncey said, “for the day.”
He raised a brow. “I leave you? This is our honeymoon. Besides, it’s raining buckets. Mary, leave her hair down. Lin’s kept your breakfast warm for you. Are you about ready?”
Over a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and crunchy toast, Delaney told her about a meeting that evening at the Pacific Club. “Horace isn’t going to let me get off, I fear,” Delaney said. “They want someone as honest as a virgin for senator. Perhaps,” he added, his expressive eyes twinkling, “they’ll find a dank skeleton somewhere lurking in my checkered past. Then I’d be off the hook. Maybe I should invent one.”
“But you want this, don’t you?” Chauncey asked slowly. “You want to be in politics.”
She watched his strong fingers curl about his coffee cup. “Yes, I suppose I do. You’re getting to know me too well, love. But I don’t want to end up in Washington. I want to do something here in California. I’ve been a part of several committees and found it most exhilarating. I would like to be one of the men to set up these committees, select the members, and see that a decent job is done. Paul Donner died a couple of months ago. What I would like to propose to Horace and the other gentlemen is that I run for the state legislature.”