Betina Krahn Page 17

  Fisher clapped his hands and called for attention so that Mrs. Bonaparte could announce: “We are off to a wonderful start this evening. The Children’s Home Society is grateful to announce a gift of fifteen thousand dollars from Miss Diamond Wingate.” Whatever was announced afterward was largely lost in the reaction of the crowd to such a princely sum. Exclamations of surprise and awe swept the room as eyes widened and necks craned for a glimpse of her.

  “There she is!” Evelyn Vassar had just threaded her way into the ballroom with some of her lady friends to hear the announcements. Catching sight of Diamond at the side of the crowd and pointing her out to the others, she applauded and nodded to Diamond enthusiastically.

  “Did they say what I thought they said?” Morgan demanded of Diamond. “Fifteen thousand dollars? My God, giving them that much money only encourages them to be wasteful and inefficient. It only fosters pauperism.”

  “A laudable contribution,” Louis intoned, ignoring Morgan. “But one must not put all of one’s charitable eggs in one basket. There are other charities—fine organizations that also deserve attention and patronage, my dear.”

  “Oh, I have plans to donate to others,” she said. “Including the mission.”

  “You do?” Louis relaxed visibly. “Well, of course, I know you are quite devoted to our cause. And just how much, may I ask, do you intend to donate?”

  “Well, I believe that depends,” she said, flicking a glance at Bear.

  “On what, my dearest angel?” Louis was poised on the edge of his nerves, body taut, eyes shining, hands wringing in anticipation. But a burst of applause from the crowd drew her attention back to the gallery.

  Her response was eclipsed by yet another announcement: “And a wonderful donation to the Firemen’s Fund of ten thousand dollars, which they can surely use after the Hampden fires. A gift from Miss Diamond Wingate.”

  “Ten thousand?” Louis’s face developed unbecoming red blotches.

  “For fighting fires?” Morgan whispered furiously. “That’s the city’s responsibility, not yours!”

  “They had no funds for equipment or the new station they needed in Hampden and the east end,” she said, stepping backward and looking about for an avenue of escape. There were people on their left, people on their right, and a wall directly behind them. She cast a longing glance toward the doors.

  “But, ten thousand dollars,” Paine said, wetting his dry lips. “All because a few ramshackle buildings burned? You could burn down half of the east end and rebuild it for that kind of money.”

  Bear watched her weathering their collective scolding and was torn between his anger at them and his anger at her. The conflict produced opposing impulses to step in and set the self-serving bastards back on their heels and to stay out of it and let her sink into the hole she had so willfully dug for herself.

  Diamond Wingate was far from helpless, he told himself. She had more than enough resources, determination, and internal steel to deal with the constant demands of her fortune and other people’s reaction to it. She didn’t need his help. Then she looked up, and he glimpsed the struggle visible in her irresistible blue eyes. He sucked in a breath and couldn’t seem to expel it.

  “… have chosen this fortuitous evening to announce a major gift to the new Johns Hopkins Hospital,” William Fisher was proclaiming in a booming voice that Bear would have ignored, if dread hadn’t been so visible on Diamond’s face. “Miss Diamond Wingate has pledged the magnificent sum of one hundred thousand dollars to establish a wing devoted to the needs of children!”

  “One hun—” Morgan’s mouth worked silently and he grabbed his chest.

  “A hundred thousand?” Louis looked as if he’d been poleaxed. “Why that is beyond generosity—beyond the bounds of charity—beyond all reason!”

  “Hoping to buy yourself a bigger halo, Diamond Mine?” Paine said sharply. “I have it on good authority that they only come in one size.”

  “I—I hadn’t realized they would announce the hospital donation tonight,” she stammered, shrinking visibly from the boisterous reaction of the crowd and the unprecedented hostility of her three fiancés. “I had only just decided to donate it … to celebrate my birthday.”

  At the mention of her birthday, veins appeared in Morgan’s temples. “You might have spoken with me about this, Diamond. I cannot believe you would be so irresponsible as to give that much money to a hospital.”

  “How could you take it upon yourself”—Louis demanded, his countenance aflame—“to dispose of such a vast sum without consulting me?”

  “What are you trying to do, Diamond Mine?” Paine put in, hovering irritably over her shoulder. “Give my father a heart attack?”

  Bear watched people turning to congratulate or gawk at Diamond and spotted Evelyn Vassar, nearby, applauding decorously and mouthing the words: “Bravo, my dear!” When he looked back, Diamond was registering the curiosity and judgment in the looks turned their way and growing ever more frantic.

  “What I am trying to do is help the children of Baltimore live healthier lives,” she declared quietly, glancing about and praying no one outside that circle of five could hear. But her defense of what they clearly considered to be an “excess” only spurred them on to greater outrage.

  “I insist, Diamond, that you cease making donations of this magnitude.” Morgan’s words were all too audible. Heads turned and necks craned. “In fact, I believe you should cease making donations of any magnitude!”

  She gasped, recoiled physically, and banged into Louis.

  “Don’t be absurd, Kenwood,” the little missionary snapped, then turned on her himself. “Diamond, you know how I feel about the university’s exorbitant spending on that ‘hospital.’ The wretched, smelly thing will get built with or without your help. There are far more worthy endeavors for your money than—”

  “Spare us the holy harangue, Pierpont,” Paine said irritably, reaching in to claim her hands. “Diamond, you know how my father despises universities—those peacocks at Johns Hopkins most of all. He will be furious. You’ll have to take it all back.”

  “You’re over the line, Webster,” Morgan declared angrily. “This is none of your precious family’s concern.”

  “It certainly isn’t,” Louis interrupted, stinging visibly from Paine’s remark. “A family ought to pluck the beam from their own eye before telling others how to behave. And you, Morgan—what do you think you’re doing, telling her what to do with her money?”

  Bear saw the guests around them drinking in the tension and the reasons for it. His fists clenched. The fiancés’ gentlemanly truce had dissolved into a verbal combat that revealed their basest motives toward Diamond. After tonight she should have no illusions about how callously they had abused her friendship and no qualms about squashing their matrimonial expectations.

  Then, just as it seemed that things couldn’t get much worse …

  “I have every right,” Morgan declared recklessly, “to insist that my future wife consult me in the disposition of our soon-to-be marital assets.”

  The pronouncement had the impact of a small dynamite discharge at close range. Diamond grabbed her throat with a strangling sound; Louis pressed his handkerchief to his mouth in horror; and Paine reached for the hip flask hidden in his trouser pocket.

  “Your future wife?” Louis’s blotches returned with a vengeance. “How dare you say such a thing in public without—”

  “It’s time, Diamond,” Morgan declared, seizing her free hand. “We’ve waited long enough. Your birthday is only a few days away.”

  “Birthday?” Paine said with alarm, pulling her around to face him. “Tell him, Diamond Mine, who will be announcing an engagement on your birthday.”

  She opened her mouth but it was Louis’s voice that issued forth.

  “Diamond and I, of course.” Louis tried to claim her arm from Paine, but had to settle for hooking her elbow. “We intend to announce our upcoming vows on my dearest’s birthday.”


  “You? Marry Diamond?” Disbelief briefly outstripped Morgan’s outrage.

  Louis turned to her. “Tell them, dearest. Tell them we intend to marry before the summer is out and to turn Gracemont into our first orphan asylum.”

  Her eyes filled with horror. “Orphan asylum?”

  “Diamond,” Morgan prodded, “tell them!”

  “Speak up, dearest!” Louis demanded.

  “Set them straight, Diamond Mine, or I shall have to,” Paine threatened.

  The humiliation of being made the object of a public quarrel by men she once counted as dear friends had reduced her to anguished silence. Bear had seen sheep caught by wolves that were shown more mercy. His blood pounded in his head, his hands ached from being clenched, his arms burned with the need for action. Then Morgan reached for her wrist, intending to assert his claim physically, and the last rational restraints inside Bear snapped.

  “Sorry to disappoint you, gentlemen,” he heard his own voice, harsh with anger, booming over the scene. “But she’s not marrying any of you!”

  Diamond’s contentious fiancés froze, then slowly turned their glares from each other to him.

  “She is marrying me.”

  The silence that followed his pronouncement was deafening. Hardly a breath was taken in or released in the ballroom as the echoes of his words reached the distant corners.

  “You?” Morgan said in a rasp.

  “Me.” he affirmed loudly. “As soon as is humanly possible.”

  What the hell was he doing? part of him protested. He must be crazy—she had driven him right around the bend. Then he lowered his gaze to her upraised face and felt a convulsive thud in his chest. Those blue eyes … so irresistibly clear and deceptively deep—an incomprehensible urge to possess and protect them gripped him.

  It hit him like a thunderbolt: he wanted her. Signed and sealed. Lock, stock, and barrel. He didn’t want just an option, he wanted ownership. With his next heartbeat, he understood that his impulsive claim was not just the answer to her problems, it was also the answer to his.

  Around them, Baltimore society stood in shock, absorbing the reality of a confrontation four long years in the making. Passions, pride, and matrimonial ambition had driven many a young man to the brink of open conflict, but until now none had ever plunged over the edge.

  Mindful of Diamond’s generosity and having seen over the years her passion for discretion and decorum, the doyens of local society didn’t know whether to view it as a scandal that should be laid at her own feet, or as outrage perpetrated against her by men who knew better than to air such matrimonial grievances in public.

  “My goodness!” came a familiar female voice. “What a surprise—a truly wonderful surprise! Our dear Diamond is finally engaged to marry!” When Diamond tore her gaze from Bear McQuaid, she came eye to eye with a beaming Evelyn Stanhope Vassar, who began applauding for all she was worth.

  Society’s direction was decided as Evelyn was joined by a few perceptive friends, and was soon followed by every woman in the room who was the anxious mother of an eligible female.

  “Diamond,” Morgan was saying feverishly, “tell them it’s not true!”

  Bear reached for her and her gaze lowered to his big, work-hardened palm. It looked like the Promised Land.

  An engagement—a public and unquestionably authentic betrothal—was her only hope of escaping this debacle with any sort of reputation left. Her mind raced. Who better than an outsider … a handsome, memorable Westerner who was eager to leave Baltimore and return to his home out West? A long engagement … McQuaid would return to Montana … she could be the pining fiancée … eventually the jilted female … who never quite recovered from the heartbreak of her one true love …

  “It’s true,” she said breathlessly. “We do intend to marry.”

  It was only when he had drawn her from her failed fiancés’ clutches and put an arm around her waist, that she looked up and saw a small, fierce flame in his eyes. She was going to pay dearly this time. Her knees weakened and she sagged slightly against him. Whatever the price, she would gladly pay it.

  As the opportunity-emboldened mothers of Baltimore flocked to wish her and her new fiancé well, her three contentious jilts were forced aside and withdrew, deflated by their sudden and disastrous change of fortunes. In the ensuing confusion, she caught glimpses of them fleeing the room in high dudgeon and felt conflicting pangs of loss and relief.

  Hardwell and Hannah came rushing upstairs from the drawing room, their faces flushed and their eyes shining. They peeled her from Bear’s grasp long enough for congratulatory hugs.

  “Can’t say I’m surprised,” Hardwell announced, sticking out his chest and beaming. “These two had eyes for each other from the minute they met!”

  Hannah dabbed at her eyes and sniffed a little, but her response was immensely practical. “We’ll have a wedding to prepare—how exciting!”

  “Feel free to call on me,” Evelyn Vassar said, putting an arm around Hannah. “I’d love nothing better than to help with the dear girl’s nuptials.” She turned to Bear and Diamond. “And when may we expect the happy event?”

  Without a heartbeat’s pause, Bear declared: “Next week.”

  Diamond, who had been moving and responding in a haze of relief at her deliverance, was jolted forcefully back to the present.

  “What?”

  “The end of the week. Saturday sounds good.” He clamped an arm around the back of her waist as if afraid she might bolt for the door. “You know I have to be back in Montana shortly—and I won’t be able to return for some time.”

  “I’m willing to wait,” she said a bit too hastily, praying that he would read the message in her eyes.

  “But I’m not.” His determined smile said he read her objection well enough, but intended to ignore it. “I can’t wait to make you Mrs. McQuaid.”

  Before she could sputter a protest, he grabbed her around the waist, hoisted her up, and swung her around and around. The laughter his impulsive behavior caused was entirely good-natured … which was the only thing that kept her from slapping him silly the minute her feet touched the floor.

  “I suppose”—she put a hand to her reeling head—“we can discuss it.”

  THIRTEEN

  “What the devil got into you in there, McQuaid?” she demanded raggedly, pulling him toward the darkest corner of the moonlit garden.

  It had been more than an hour since their surprise announcement in the ballroom and she was still reeling from the excitement it had unleashed. Her feet were killing her, her hands had been squeezed, pressed, patted, and drooled on by half of Baltimore, and her face ached from besotted smiling at a man who took perverse pleasure in taunting her with his new “husbandly” authority.

  “Telling everyone that we’re to be married next Saturday … have you gone stark raving mad?”

  “Is that any way to talk to the man who just saved your matrimonial hide?” he responded, pulling her off the secluded garden path and planting himself in front of her.

  He was so close that she had to bend backward to glare at him. His face was cast in shadows by the overhead branches, but she could see his eyes clearly enough to make out the glint in them. Something—his sensual presence or the intimacy of the darkness around them or the memory of having been alone with him in the dark before—caused a softening in her response.

  “I owe you for that. And I intend to see you amply paid, but—”

  “I intend to see me amply paid, too,” he said with an intensity that brooked no interruptions. “I have saved your rosy butt for the last time, Diamond Wingate. I’m calling in my markers. All of them.”

  The time she had dreaded had come. “Fine.” She swallowed hard. “Name your price.”

  “I believe I already have.” Though she couldn’t quite see, she had the worrisome sense that he was smiling. “You’re marrying me next Saturday.”

  “That’s not the least bit funny, McQuaid,” she said with a
tinge of panic. As she pulled away, his hands closed on her shoulders to prevent her escape. Her heart thudded. “See here … I appreciate what you did in there … more than I can say. You saved my reputation, my social standing, and just possibly my entire future. But I’ve told you … I don’t intend to marry … on Saturday or ever.”

  “They say the road to hell is paved with failed intentions,” he said with alarming calm. “You just agreed to marry me in front of half of Baltimore.”

  “I was desperate. And coerced. Rather rudely, I might add.”

  “Coerced?” He gave a short, sardonic laugh. “I offered you a way out, an honorable escape from an intolerable situation. And you took it. You agreed of your own free will.” He took her by the shoulders and she could feel his stare penetrating her, invading her thoughts and feelings. “Can you honestly say that you find the prospect of marriage with me disgusting?”

  She didn’t answer, except in her thoughts. Not fair.

  “Revolting?”

  Still no response. He knew better.

  “Intolerable?”

  The heat of his hands and the warmth of his body began to invade her garments, setting her skin tingling. Marriage with sun-bronzed, smooth-talking, sweet-kissing Bear McQuaid. Looking at him across the breakfast table each morning, listening to his outrageous stories, watching him walk up stairs in his tight-fitting trousers and Western boots … lying in bed at night beside him … For one brief instant the prospect held as many intriguing possibilities as potential hazards. Then the drift of her thoughts alarmed her, as did the softening of her objections.