“Last Saturday night’s.”
“And whose was that?”
Caroline tightened her grip on her handbag to keep from wrapping her hands around her cousin’s neck. This thing of having family, of answering to other people, was getting on her nerves. It was all so strange. And inconvenient.
Still, Caroline had no one but herself to blame for her uncomfortable circumstances tonight. This wasn’t what her father had had in mind when he insisted she travel to Los Angeles and move in with her aunt a month ago.
“The Latham party,” Caroline said. “We met there.”
“Oh, yes, the Lathams,” Sophie said. “That’s where you showed off your—what is that thing again?”
The thing that had nearly sent Aunt Eleanor into a faint.
“Graphology,” Caroline said. She’d repeated the word dozens of times since arriving in Los Angeles.
“Oh, yes. Quite…interesting,” Sophie said. “Aunt Eleanor was…”
“Surprised?”
Sophie managed a polite laugh. “Yes, something like that.”
Despite Aunt Eleanor’s embarrassment, Caroline had been the hit of the party. The craft of analyzing handwriting was a novelty here, but Caroline had studied it from masters in France and Germany, where the skill was taken more seriously. After only a few minutes of studying a handwriting sample Caroline could interpret the character of the writer. Only a few people in this part of the world could do that.
“Did your father know about your…talent?” Sophie asked.
“Of course,” Caroline said. “He encouraged me.”
Caroline wished her father were here with her now. Instead he was happy and contented in Europe—where Caroline wished she were—while she’d been exiled to the States.
To find a husband, of all things.
She’d been annoyed with him for weeks but now she just missed him. He meant well. After all, at twenty-four years of age Caroline was more than old enough to be married. That’s why she’d agreed to come, why she hadn’t protested this husband-hunting expedition, why she let Aunt Eleanor parade her from party to party.
Besides, Aunt Eleanor wasn’t as smart as her father and didn’t know her as well, so she wouldn’t catch on to Caroline’s real intentions until it was too late. She didn’t want or need a husband. She had plans of her own.
Caroline gazed out the window of the hansom, forced to admit that those plans weren’t turning out as well as she’d like. She’d been a little surprised by the reception she’d gotten two weeks ago at the Pinkerton Detective Agency—even after she’d dropped her father’s name.
They recognized Jacob Jackson Sommerfield as the renowned detective on the Continent, the man who’d solved some of Europe’s most intricate, puzzling crimes. But how, exactly, did that apply to his daughter?
No one at the Pinkerton Detective Agency knew what a graphologist was. She’d explained it, presented her references, even offered a demonstration, but they simply weren’t interested.
Undaunted, Caroline had trotted out her skills at all the parties she’d attended these last weeks. Parlor tricks were hardly what Caroline had intended when she’d studied the craft, but it looked as if they had finally paid off. She’d been approached by a Mr. Richard Paxton on behalf of his employer, who had offered her a job. A real job.
The clip-clop of the horses’ hooves ceased and the hansom swayed to a stop. Sophie peered out the window. The glow of the streetlamps reflected on her face and Caroline saw her eyebrows bob.
“Good gracious, Caroline, you didn’t tell me your friend was rich.”
“Rich?” She leaned closer to the window.
“Yes, rich. This is West Adams Boulevard. It’s become as famous as San Francisco’s Nob Hill and New York’s Fifth Avenue. Haven’t you heard of this place before?”
She’d heard. The elite of the nation had considered Los Angeles a vacation spot, then moved here permanently once they’d recognized the area’s potential wealth. These affluent people built their mansions in the West Adams district, setting standards and creating the finest homes found in the city.
“Goodness,” Sophie said. “Just look at this house.”
Caroline gazed out the hansom at the beveled and stained glass windows of the magnificent three-story house. It was a huge square brownstone with circular turrets on each corner. Palms, shrubs and hedges flourished behind a scrolled wrought-iron and stone fence.
When Richard Paxton had instructed her to meet with his employer at his home tonight, she’d had no idea the man was wealthy—at least, not this wealthy.
Visions of an aging, cranky old man came to Caroline’s mind. A curmudgeon too set in his ways to see her during normal business hours, in his office.
“Oh, and look, Caroline. They’re having a party,” Sophie said.
The house was lit from top to bottom. Faint music drifted out into the street. Dancers glided past the glowing windows on the second floor. On the balcony a man in a tuxedo stood with a woman in an exquisite gown.
“Are you properly dressed?” Sophie asked, concern in her voice.
Caroline looked down at her blue dress. It was the height of fashion, since her father provided a generous allowance, but far from appropriate for a party on West Adams Boulevard.
Caroline reined in her panicky thoughts. “I’m here for a jo—to see a sick friend, not attend the party.”
Sophie nodded. “Well, I suppose…”
“Don’t tell Aunt Eleanor about this,” Caroline said. “I wouldn’t want her to get the wrong idea.”
“I see your point.” Sophie smiled. “All right, I won’t say a word.”
Carrying her small satchel Caroline climbed out of the hansom, paid the driver and stood on the walkway until the cab moved on. It irked her a bit that Richard Paxton had put her in this position—or rather, that his employer had put her in this position.
But a job was a job. Mr. Paxton had assured her that she was just what his employer needed. He’d been adamant.
So who knew where tonight’s meeting might lead? Caroline squared her shoulders. She didn’t care. As long as it wasn’t marriage.
He considered shooting himself in the foot, just as an excuse to leave his own party.
Stephen Monterey watched his elegantly attired guests dancing in the ballroom under the half-dozen crystal chandeliers, laughing, sipping champagne. They were having a wonderful time, or as good a time as polite society allowed itself to have. His aunt Delfina would be pleased. Apparently Stephen was the only one who was bored.
Or the only one who had important matters waiting for him.
The face of Russell Pickette sprang into Stephen’s mind, making him angry all over again. Damn that Pickette. The lying son of a bitch had brought a halt to a profitable business deal. He’d brought up old memories, too, ones Stephen couldn’t quite shake.
Stephen glanced at the mantel clock, anxious for his birthday party to conclude, the guests to leave, things to get back to normal. Turning thirty-two was nothing to celebrate. Just another day. Certainly not worth the time it took to dress in a tuxedo, suffer through a formal dinner, open gifts he didn’t want, attempt to make small talk with guests he hardly knew.
“Stephen? Stephen, dear?”
His aunt chugged toward him, her face drawn in its perpetual lines of worry. She wore the maroon gown he’d had to help her pick out, the diamond tiara he’d assured her wasn’t too