“What a lovely gown,” Mrs. Vanderslice said when they were seated.
“Thank you,” Elizabeth said. It fit rather well, too, she was happy to discover. The maid who helped her dress had loosened her corset laces slightly when the gown proved a bit big. Elizabeth blamed it on her recent hunger strike. “It’s so much nicer than our prison clothes.”
Mrs. Vanderslice blanched at this, but Anna giggled. “Oh, Mother, you would have fainted dead away if you’d seen me in my prison dress. The fabric looked like mattress ticking.”
“You girls have been through so much,” Mrs. Vanderslice said as the maid came in to serve them their soup. “I hope it hasn’t coarsened you.”
“It’s made me stronger,” Anna said. “I don’t think I’ll ever be afraid of anything again.”
David leaned sideways in his seat so he could see her around the mound of flowers. “I might just test you by releasing a mouse in your bedroom.”
Anna glared playfully at him, and his mother said, “David, don’t tease your sister.”
He leaned the other way so he could see Elizabeth. “And what about you, Miss Miles? Do you fear nothing now, too?”
“Oh no. In fact, being in the workhouse only increased my fear of mice, I’m sorry to say.”
David started to say something else, then sighed and rose from his chair.
“David, what are you—” his mother began, then stopped when he picked up the flower arrangement and moved it to the far end of the long table.
He resumed his seat. “There. Now I can see you. See you both,” he added diplomatically to Anna.
Elizabeth rewarded him with a smile, glad he’d given her an opening. “Which reminds me: I’m not used to receiving flowers from gentlemen I’ve never met. Who is this Mr. Thornton and why was he so helpful to us?” The more she knew about Thornton, the better.
“Oh my,” Mrs. Vanderslice said, “he’s no one you’d care to know, I’m sure.”
“Mrs. Bates thinks he killed his wife,” Anna whispered, probably so the maid wouldn’t hear, although Elizabeth was sure the maid knew anyway.
“I did get that idea,” Elizabeth said.
“To answer your question,” David said in a normal voice to let her know he was taking charge, “Oscar Thornton is a newcomer to the city. He made his fortune in nails or something like that. He bought a lot of them at a bargain price and sold them for a profit. Then he kept on buying and selling until he could set himself up in style here in the city.”
“He did this just with nails?” Elizabeth asked.
“Oh no. He’d buy anything he thought he could sell at a profit.”
“And when he came to the city, he met Marjorie Behrend,” Anna said.
“Mrs. Bates’s cousin,” Elizabeth remembered.
Mrs. Vanderslice sighed. “She was such a sweet girl.”
“But almost thirty and unmarried,” Anna added.
“And no dowry to speak of,” David said.
Elizabeth frowned. “But how on earth did she meet Mr. Thornton?”
The women wouldn’t meet her gaze, but David said, “He put it out that he was looking for a wife. He’d done pretty well for himself up North, but he wanted to do even better here. He figured he’d need society friends for that, so he wanted a wife who already had those connections.”
“Is that true? Did he really need connections?”
“It never hurts.” David laid down his spoon. “So Thornton courted Miss Behrend and married her because she came from an old family. But things didn’t work out the way he expected.”
Elizabeth already knew she wasn’t going to like the way this story ended. “Why not?”
“Because instead of including him in their invitations, people dropped her,” Anna said.
“He was too aggressive,” Mrs. Vanderslice said. “People found him . . .”
“Coarse,” Anna supplied.
“Abrasive,” David added.
Elizabeth had no trouble at all imagining Thornton wearing out his welcome with the upper classes. “How sad for his wife.”
“Sadder still when she died,” Anna said.
“She fell down the stairs,” Mrs. Vanderslice said sharply. “It was an accident.”
But Mrs. Bates didn’t believe that. “Was there any reason to believe otherwise?”
“Only if you knew Thornton,” David said. “And the families who wouldn’t receive him before shun him now. But it hasn’t stopped him from making money.”
“And now he wants to sell something to the army, I believe,” Elizabeth said.
David grinned at her. “How did you know that?”
Mostly because Thornton had bragged about it so much, but she said, “I heard you and Mr. Bates discussing it on the train today.”
“I hope we didn’t disturb you.”
“Not at all, but I couldn’t help overhearing. What is it he wants to sell?”
“Rifles. He called them Ross rifles, whatever that means. I’m not that interested in firearms myself. But Thornton says the Canadian troops use them, and he’s ready to sell some to our army.”
If only she knew more about how these things worked. She’d really like to throttle Thornton for what he’d done to Jake, but that wasn’t likely. She only knew how to swindle people, and she could do that pretty well. Taking him for another score could provide a little satisfaction. Too bad she didn’t dare get close enough to Thornton again to get her revenge. “I suppose the army will buy a lot of rifles now that we’re going to fight the Germans.”
“Yes, but I’ve promised Gideon I won’t help Thornton make the right contacts to sell his. Marjorie was a cousin to Mrs. Bates.”
“First cousin once removed,” Mrs. Vanderslice said.
The maid came out to remove their soup bowls. No one spoke until she returned to the kitchen.
Elizabeth turned back to David. “Didn’t you say Mr. Thornton will still be able to sell his rifles, though?”
“Oh yes. Someone will help him, but it won’t be me.”
“Even after what he did for us?” Anna asked.
David winced a little at that. “Yes. Mrs. Bates holds him responsible for Marjorie’s death, and she feels very strongly about it.”
“I don’t know much about business,” Elizabeth said, “but wouldn’t you stand to benefit if you helped Mr. Thornton?”
“Sometimes loyalty overrides profit, Miss Miles. I’m sure you can understand that.”
Elizabeth didn’t understand it at all, but she smiled sweetly as her mind raced. Maybe the Old Man would have some ideas. The maid returned to serve them the next course, and Elizabeth let Anna change the subject. She wanted to tell them how wonderful Elizabeth had been to her when they were in the workhouse, and Elizabeth could only protest modestly while David Vanderslice’s gazes grew more and more admiring.
After supper, they sat in the parlor for a while. Anna soon started nodding off, so they sent her on to bed. David moved over to take Anna’s place next to Elizabeth on the sofa. His gaze was still admiring.
“What do you think of our city, Miss Miles?”
“I haven’t seen enough of it yet to form an opinion,” she lied.
“I hope you’ll allow me to show you some of the sights.”