Twisted River Page 12

  “Miss Archer?”

  Maggie blinked away sunspots to reveal Howard Reed, the assistant counsel to Mr. Frye’s lawyer. The young man tugged one shaky hand against his suit lapel while the other awkwardly smoothed his scalp. Probably no more than a few years older than herself and completely wet behind the ears, it would be difficult for her to imagine this man as ever capable enough to argue a case even after ten years in the courtroom.

  Luckily Mr. Reed’s superior, Gerard Huppert, had been most efficient in drawing up the marriage details Maggie and Hugo agreed upon on Monday in his study. So efficient was he that Mr. Huppert sent his assistant to Damaris’s apartment yesterday evening with the documents for Maggie to sign. For legal reasons, the marriage stipulations needed to be drawn as a prenuptial agreement, but Mr. Reed assured her she had no need to worry. Not convinced by the boy’s stuttering assurances, she read through every word of the document’s five pages of legal speak, although from what she could decipher everything appeared to be exactly as requested. Damaris had already witnessed for her brother earlier in the day, so Maggie was left asking Damaris’s half-blind neighbor to sign.

  “Mr. Reed,” Maggie smiled. “It is lovely to see you. If my hands were not otherwise occupied, I would offer you mine.”

  The young man’s face flushed the same as it had every time she spoke the previous evening. Exactly as so many men had been captured by her so many times. Until one finally captured me, she thought dismally.

  “No matter, Miss Archer,” Mr. Reed squeaked. “Might I assist with your luggage?”

  “That is hardly necessary. We both know why I’m here so let us skip the remaining formalities, why don’t we, and head to the judge?”

  He pulled at his tie then, as though the material were choking him. “Ah yes, the judge. Unfortunately, your appointment is not until one, and the hour now is not much past noon. Allow me to direct you to a waiting area.”

  Leading her to the left, he circled into an alcove, up an impressive curved staircase, then proceeded down another hallway before stopping at one of several stained oak doors. He gestured to an upholstered bench situated against the wall. “Please wait here, Miss Archer. Mr. Huppert needs to finalize an additional transaction with Mr. Frye, and then he will call you in.”

  “Transaction?” Maggie asked. “Isn’t everything in order? I thought the lot were signed yesterday.”

  Mr. Reed coughed. His eyes flitted to the office door and back again. “Of course, Miss Archer, they were, except for one other technicality to be addressed.”

  “Which technicality is that?”

  He again nodded to the bench. “Please, miss, do take a seat. Mr. Frye informed us that you are in a most delicate condition—”

  Maggie slapped her handbag against her thigh. “I’ll show you how delicate I am if you don’t answer my question. Which technicality?”

  He eyed the fist clamped around her handbag handle. “I assure you it will not affect his decision to marry you in the slightest.”

  “Because that certainly has me convinced.” Ignoring Mr. Reed’s feeble protests, Maggie shoved past him to throw open the office door.

  Inside the already cramped space sat a substantially sized desk surrounded by filing cabinets and bookcases, every one stacked full to overflowing. Several drawers couldn’t close fully. The desk itself, buried underneath a mountain of paperwork, left Maggie wondering how the man in the rumpled suit behind the desk could possibly be the same lawyer to draw up such detailed contracts.

  In one of two chairs opposite, Hugo Frye hunched over a thin stack of papers, one elbow propped up on the desk. His fingers tapped against his forehead, clearly itching to slide back through hair heavily slicked with brilliantine into a dark ochre sheen. A drop of the oil had fallen on the same charcoal suit he wore to Charles’s funeral, marring the left lapel.

  “Howard?” Mr. Huppert called, not bothering to raise his eyes from his paperwork. His assistant hovered in the doorway. “I thought I instructed you to keep Miss Archer occupied.”

  “I—I tried, sir,” Mr. Reed stammered. “She forced her way in.”

  “She’s here?” Hugo lowered his hand to regard Maggie with a heavy expression. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his cuff. “Oh, Miss Margaret. I’m so sorry. Is it time already?”

  “You have been here nearly two hours,” the lawyer commented as he casually licked his finger and flipped another page.

  “Is this about Donovan?” Maggie asked. “I already paid him for three months. What more could he need?”

  Mr. Huppert regarded her curiously. “Who’s Donovan? Is that your prior husband?”

  “Pardon me?” Maggie replied. “Why would you assume this isn’t my first marriage?”

  He shrugged and turned back to his work.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Huppert,” Hugo said. “Another minute and I’ll have this signed.” Jaw grinding, he placed pen tip to paper and ... paused. Black ink pooled upon the empty line. He dropped the pen and leaned both elbows on the desk to cover his eyes in defeat. “God help me, I can’t do it.”

  Mr. Huppert tapped his papers on the desk to align the edges before tossing the entire group onto an already teetering pile. He slid an unsigned marriage license closer to Mr. Frye, Hugo’s name written in tight script beside Maggie’s. “Well, you can’t very well sign this one until you sign that one. Marriages of that nature aren’t even allowed in Utah anymore.”

  Maggie lowered herself onto the chair beside Hugo and slid the mystery document closer. She needed only to read the title. “Divorce?” she gasped. “Whatever for? Isn’t your wife deceased?”

  Hugo shook his head miserably and buried his face deeper into his hands. Maggie’s heart beat clear up into her throat where it met with her anger. He was still married? How could he allow her to assume he was a widower? She had given him all her money to save his studio, offered him everything she had, and for what? So he could finally drop his first wife and take up with her instead? She should have left him to Donovan.

  “She’s not dead?” Maggie spat. “Then where is she?”

  “I don’t know.” He spoke into his fingers. “She left three years ago and I can’t find her. I don’t know what to do.”

  Oh, my, thought Maggie as her anger fizzled. It’s me who’s the fool, isn’t it?

  “Mr. Huppert?” she asked. “Would you mind affording a moment alone for my fiancé and I?” The lawyer raised a brow and she threw him her most convincing smile. “I promise all this will be resolved quickly.”

  “Eh, sure thing, doll. Though married or not, I’ll still expect payment.” Mr. Huppert snatched his jacket off the coat rack, pulling it on as he made his way to the door. “Excuse me, gotta bust on my assistant for incompetence.” He gripped a pale-faced Mr. Reed by the shoulder and yanked the door closed behind them.

  Maggie leaned back in her chair, absently rubbing a hand across her stomach. “So, Mr. Frye, any more skeletons you care to remove from the cupboard?”

  Rubbing his face, Hugo finally straightened up. “I assumed it would be easy, divorcing my wife. She found it effortless enough to leave; why couldn’t it be the same for me?”

  “It was easy enough to keep from your next wife. You would have me believe she died?”

  “No. I would have told you.” His gaze shifted back to the divorce document still awaiting his signature and released a weary sigh. “You’re right. I wouldn’t have. What husband wants to admit he failed?”

  There was such pain on his face, such heartbreak in his voice, that Maggie’s heart went out to him. She wasn’t familiar with him at all, this broken man who in a few short minutes would become her husband. She didn’t know his birth date or the names of his parents. She didn’t know how he felt when he held his children for the first time. All she saw was someone uncertain of the future and terrified of facing it alone. In that respect, they understood each other perfectly.

  “What happened to her?” Maggie asked softly.


  “I told you, she left. Didn’t even say goodbye. Two months after Isa was born, Damaris and I planned a trip to Seattle for the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. That was our specialty, world’s fairs. All that excitement meant people threw money at you for a portrait as a souvenir. Not to mention the panoramas we brought home. Local folks lined up in droves to buy them. I was right in my father’s footsteps, on my way to the top just like him.”

  Hugo sank into the chair and unable to stop himself, ran shaky fingers through his hair, grimacing when his hand came back as slick as fish scales. He retrieved a handkerchief from his jacket pocket to wipe away the mess, although there was no fixing the loose tufts of hair. “Emma told me she understood. ‘It will only be two months,’ she said. I didn’t know that was code for, ‘The minute you step through that door, I’ll hightail it out of town.’”

  “And she left no indication why?”

  “Falutin’ if I know. I guess she was unhappy.” Hugo paused and released a tremendous exhale. If it was possible, he sank even lower into the chair, his thumbs pressed to a forehead now resting a full foot below Maggie’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, I won’t lie to you again. I knew she was unhappy. All her friends knew. Even Damaris saw it. Three children under four years old, and Isa hardly slept and ate like a racehorse; of course Emma was overwhelmed. Damaris pushed me to it, but the truth is I was itching to escape sleepless nights as much as my wife. So when Emma told me to go, I listened.”

  Standing abruptly, he pushed his chair back and edged around a half-open filing cabinet to face the window with folded arms. His tight features reflected back in the glass juxtaposed upon the stone and brick buildings of the city. “Emma wept every day for two months, and I still went on that train. The night I left, she tucked the children into bed and disappeared. Thankfully, our neighbor, Mrs. Kincade, visited the following day; otherwise, I can’t bear to imagine what might have happened.”

  Oh, Mr. Frye, Maggie breathed. For those children to be so young and have their mother desert them, then to live for months without knowing what happened to their parents or if they would return ... the thought was utterly heartbreaking. True, Maggie’s own mother had been an unloving one, but Beatrix Archer for all her faults never abandoned them.

  Hugo turned, backing against the window ledge. “I always hoped she would come back, and we could start over. What if she does and I’m married to you?”

  “What if she does?” Maggie asked gently. “She abandoned you and your children. Is she really the type of mother you want for them?”

  “Are you?”

  She felt the accusation of his question pelt like icy sleet in the dead of winter. Her reputation preceded her and she made him aware of enough for him to know she was possibly the least worthy person to care for his children. For pity’s sake, she couldn’t even name her unborn baby’s father with absolute certainty.

  “No,” she whispered. “I’m not.”

  Hugo didn’t love her. He never would. But she wasn’t upset by that. In fact, she welcomed it. This was business, pure and simple, and the only way she could ever abide a marriage. No emotion. Nothing personal.

  “Beans and bacon.” Running all ten fingers through his hair, Hugo abandoned all pretense to appear presentable. He ruffled his hair until it stood on end in every direction imaginable and some that didn’t seem to be so before collapsing into the chair beside her. “Forgive me, Miss Archer. I’m a man who has suffered a great hurt and has done his fair share of hurting in return. Even so, I still believe in the ability to work through anything. I want Emma to come back if only so I can finally know why she didn’t.”

  Maggie clasped her hands tightly over her stomach, struggling to decipher her complicated emotions. She could scheme her way into his affections like she had done with so many men before, through deceit and a healthy dose of seduction. In his fragile state, she could slice through his insecurities like butter and remove all thought of Emma from his mind. Instead, she stared at her lap where in a few short months a rotund belly would protrude and said, “You don’t have to marry me.”

  “What?” Hugo gasped. “But your baby—”

  Hands pressed to her middle, Maggie offered him a simple smile. “I’ll be fine. I always am one way or another.”

  “I’m sure you will be.” Hugo lowered his eyes to the divorce papers, and his fingers edged towards the pen. “Only I’m a selfish man, Miss Archer. I’m out of money, and I still need someone to care for my children. Your idea was the most sensible one. I need to divorce my wife so I can marry someone else to care for them. Whether she’s you or not, it doesn’t change the fact of the matter.”

  “Maybe there’s another option. I’m waiting on my grievance claim to be resolved from Titanic. I’ve been told it could take years, but when it arrives, I’ll loan you money to hire an investigator to search for her.”

  “Don’t you think I’ve tried that?” Hugo huffed, tapping the edge of the pen against the desk. “I have. Three investigators if we’re counting. Even with all the money I paid, none of them could come up with so much as a whiff of Emma’s whereabouts. Not a glance. She must have changed her name, bought a wig, ate half a cow and gained forty pounds to be unrecognizable. She doesn’t want to be found.” He touched the pen tip to the empty line set before him. “If she wanted to be with me, she would be here.”

  With broad strokes, Hugo scratched his name and finalized his divorce at last. The pen fell to the desk with a thud that sounded in the small room. Maggie couldn’t steal her eyes away from his signature, two words so beautiful she wanted to cry. Selfish reasons or not, he forsook the possibility of a reunion with his beloved wife for a life with her. To help her baby, his own children, and himself.

  A clock chimed somewhere to her left, buried under papers a mile high as it clanged out the hour. Hugo’s head swiveled in its direction. “One o’clock. So, Miss Margaret, what do you say? Will you still marry me after this? A man divorces his wife and remarries within the hour? Most would brand me with a big red X.”

  Burying her emotion, Maggie replaced it with a sly smile. “Nonsense. I have a red X of my own. So you see, we’re a perfect match.”

  Hugo only managed a crooked smile in return. “I have a feeling there’s more about you I have yet to learn.”

  She stood, adjusting her hat as she picked up her traveling case. “Well, luckily for you we have seven years together. You may just learn a few things about me yet.” A laugh bubbled from her throat as she took in Hugo’s utterly ruined hair, brilliantine streaked locks standing straight up, flattened straight down, and curled every direction in between. Add an impish frown and a smear of dirt on his face—perhaps an adorable pair of knickerbockers—and Hugo was the spitting older version of his mischievous son.

  “One request?” she asked.

  Hugo raised a brow only a shade lighter than the hair above it. “What’s that?”

  “Wash that ridiculous mess out of your hair,” she laughed. “Whatever were you thinking?”

  He rose, removing her traveling case from her hands and reached to tip her hat brim away from her eyes. “I was thinking that I always look like I recently rolled out of bed. For once I wanted to appear respectable.”

  Her eyes traced the thin hazel line that surrounded his emerald irises. “I would rather my business partner be himself, respectable or no.” She reached up to scruff at his hair. “But I refuse to marry you wearing that muck. Agreed?”

  Finally, he grinned. “Agreed.”

  With a rattle of the knob, the door flung open and Mr. Huppert sauntered in, a cigarette propped behind his ear and a relative ashen scent entering with him. With a glance from them to the signed divorce document, he scooped everything off his desk and reversed for the door. “I don’t know how you convinced him, Miss Archer, but who cares. Let’s get you two hitched.”

  ~~~

  Maggie never pictured her wedding quite like this.

  She always assumed she would wear an elabor
ate, white, seven-layered gown, hand selected by her mother and pieced together by their personal seamstress, with a flowing veil and train behind her. There would be a ceremony in St. James’s Church in Fontaine and a formal reception attended by her father’s banking partners and her mother’s chattering friends. Instead, she wore black in a courthouse without either of her parents. There would be no formal reception; there would be no celebration of any sort.

  Deep inside, in some place she locked away even from herself, she was actually envious of her sister’s belief in love. Tena hoped for a real honest to goodness marriage with a man who would choose to love her, never lose her trust, and accept her for who she was. One who would provide her with the family they never had and the life they always wanted but been denied. If a man like that existed, Maggie thought, oh what an unusual man he would have to be. The kind of man Charles probably would have been.

  Except for today it was Charles’s family standing witness over Maggie’s marriage instead, and their joyful presence couldn’t erase the pain of Tena’s absence.

  Maggie’s eyes shifted to Hugo as he slid a ring on her left hand. Dark tendrils fell across his forehead, damp from rinsing his hair in the washroom sink immediately before the ceremony. He did exactly as she requested, removing every last trace of brilliantine, which left him a dripping disheveled mess.

  “Oh, Hugh, what a disaster,” Damaris grimaced when they walked through the judge’s chamber doors, but in that same moment two wild girls broke free of their aunt and leapt into their father’s arms.

  “Why are you wet?” Isa giggled.

  Hugo rubbed his damp hair against her cheek, eliciting another round of toddler laughter. “Miss Margaret made me take a bath.” He edged his lips close to his daughter’s ear, whispering loud enough for Maggie to hear. “She said I smell.”

  “Oh, Daddy, she did not,” Molly cajoled. “It’s not nice to lie.”