At All Costs Page 3

Chapter Three

  Turned out Joseph was right. Conrad Brooks had a difficult time saying no to his daughter. And so he said yes, he would pay for the household staff that Joseph so irresponsibly and deviously hired.

  “But you tell him (Conrad had a hard time calling Joseph by name) this is the last time I am going to let him use you to get through to me. And if he tries it again, I’ll fire him on the spot.” To emphasize what he said, Conrad slapped his ample belly with both hands, something he had a habit of doing.

  “Furthermore, the money is going to go to you, and not to him. Understand?”

  Alice nodded. “I understand.”

  “Good.” He slapped his belly again.

  Conrad had vehemently opposed Alice’s marriage to Joseph.

  “He’s your third cousin, for the love of God,” Conrad said at the time. “You both have the same great-great grandmother, God rest her soul, whoever she was. If you should have a baby, God forbid, it probably would be as dumb as a tree stump and have three ears.”

  Alice knew when her father invoked God three times in three consecutive sentences that he was serious. Nonetheless, she argued that lots of third cousins have married, and they have perfectly normal children. Conrad responded with his real reason for opposing the marriage.

  “He’s in it for the money, Alice, my money. He knows you’re my only heir, and that you will be very rich the day I die. He’s a weasel, sweetheart. And I know a weasel when I see one.”

  But in the end, Conrad relented. “You are so beautiful, Alice, like your mother. That long, dark hair. That same face. When I look at you, I see your mother. And if you want to marry him, I won’t stand in your way.”

  Alice had to admit, to herself at least, that she did have some misgivings about Joseph. There were times she thought her father might be right, that Joseph was a gold digger. His expressions of love for her sometimes seemed forced and artificial. And he talked – too often she thought – about her father’s wealth.

  But three of her closest friends had married that spring, and Alice got caught up in all the swirling romance. After all, Joseph was quite good looking, with that wavy dark hair, those gold-flecked hazel eyes and that bright smile. He was funny. Had a good sense of humor. Tall and muscular. Nice body. All in all, he would be good enough, she told herself.

  ●●●

  Meanwhile, Brock and Emma were trying to get settled in this very different country they were in.

  “I like it. So far,” Brock said. “Americans are more down to earth than the English. I like that about them. Yes, they have their snobby upper crust, just like England. But the common man here is more common than the commoners back home.”

  Emma looked at him. “What?”

  “Well, I mean, the commoners in the U.K. tend to put on airs, in their manners of speech and so forth. The commoners here tend to just be themselves. Wouldn’t you say?”

  “I really don’t know. I haven’t met many of them. But I don’t think the commoners in Britain put on airs, as you say. To me they seemed to be pretty … common. Of course, their manners of speech are different from the commoners here. We are two totally different countries with a more or less common language. In England, for instance, we call them commoners. In the U.S., they call them the middle class. That does not make one set of commoners any better or snobbier than the other.”

  “Well, I can see we are not going to reach any common ground on this matter,” Brock said with a broad smile. “But tell me, are you adapting well to your new homeland?”

  “Not so much as you, I think.”

  “Why is that?”

  Even though they were in their bedroom in late evening, the door was shut and the Hunters had gone to bed, Emma lowered her voice.

  “Well, for one thing, I am chained to Mrs. Hunter all day and half the night, it seems. By the way, she insists I call her ‘Lady Alice.’”

  “But isn’t that what the job of a maid is supposed to be, to tend to the lady of the house?”

  “Oh, I’m not talking about my duties so much. Besides the housekeeping and cooking, I also am her seamstress and her lady’s maid, you know, the personal matters, dressing and so forth. Mrs. Hunter goes to the market every day to purchase the following day’s meals, and I walk along behind her and carry her packages. We never chat along the way, nothing like that.

  “But I don’t mind all that at all. I particularly like going to the market. It’s a chance to get out of the house and get a little fresh air. A sort of break, you might say.

  “No, what I don’t like is … well, I don’t like the way Mrs. Hunter treats me.”

  “Really?”

  “It’s not at all like it was when I was the Duchess’ maid at the manor in Norfolk. The Duke of Sedgwick, the Duchess, even their grown children, Lady Mary-Anne and the Marquis –” She coughed. “Pardon me. Anyway, they all treated me with respect. Not as an equal, but as a human being. I loved working for them. Oh, I know it’s not like that in every manor, of course. But it should be, and why can’t it be? I do miss England terribly.” Emma shook her head, and a sadness crept across her face.

  “So, you’re saying Mrs. Hunter does not treat you with respect?”

  Emma drew in a deep breath and spoke in a whisper.

  “Much of the time she speaks to me in a clipped voice, as if she is impatient with me for some reason. And if she happens to be in a good mood, her tone is much like one would speak to a slow child. Either way, it is unpleasant, to say the least.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear that, Emma. Perhaps I should speak with Mr. Hunter.”

  “Oh, no, no. That would do nothing but create more grief. No, I will handle this. I think of Mrs. Hunter as a lump of clay. She just needs someone to mold her into a work of art. In time, perhaps I can do that.”

  Brock wrapped his wife in his arms and kissed her. “You are a work of art, milady. You are my very pretty, dainty wife, as beautiful as a doll made of Dresden porcelain.”

  “Oh my, how can such a big ox as you take my breath away like that?”

  “It takes practice,” he said. Emma giggled and punched him in the arm.

  “But what about you? Tell me more about your work with Mr. Hunter. How are you getting along with him?”

  Brock rubbed his clean-shaven jaw. “Well, it’s all right, I think. Certainly different from bare-knuckle boxing, that’s for sure.” Emma giggled again.

  “Well, I’ll begin by telling you what I don’t particularly like about my job. As you know, every day I help Joseph with his morning routine of shaving and dressing.” He paused. “I am used to knocking other men down, not helping them shave and get dressed every morning. That was a gut punch to my manhood at first, but I’m sort of getting used to it now.

  “All the rest of it is pretty nice. He’s teaching me how to ‘refine my speech and movements.’ You knew that. I thought it was silly at first. Refine my speech and movements? What am I going to become? A ballet dancer? A belly dancer? But what I haven’t told you is that I now see this as a necessity for my new role.”

  “Your new role?”

  “Yes. Emma, I haven’t mentioned this, but I don’t think we should stay here for very long while all we’re doing is earning room and board with a few pennies thrown in every week. And no one is going to hire a thug like me to be their gentleman’s gentleman. So, I have to learn everything I can from Joseph while we’re still here.”

  “You want to be a gentleman’s gentleman?”

  “I know it sounds crazy, but yes! Emma, I can’t, and I won’t, box anymore. I know you don’t like it. And so, I’m not going to do it, ever again. That’s a promise.

  “I would much rather, at least for the time being, accompany Joseph to and from work every day. I would rather keep running errands and do anything else he needs done.

  “And then, of course, my favorite part, because I get to work with you in the evenings, is helping you in serving at the table, pulling out chairs, putting napkins on
laps, pouring the wines.

  “All in all, it’s a sweet deal right now, kind of a paid apprenticeship, you might say. I love this country!”

  ●●●

  Alice was the happiest she had ever been in her life. Even happier than she was on her wedding day. Happier than the day Joseph brought Emma and Brock into their household. Or the day her beloved father agreed to pay for her staff.

  Very soon, she thought, as she slipped into bed for the night, she and Joseph would have a much bigger staff. They would live in a much bigger house, a manor, in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in New York. And she would be one of the wealthiest and most admired ladies in New York society, perhaps even in the country.

  She knew there was no hope, of course, that she and Joseph could ever ascend to Caroline Astor’s “400,” because that list of New York notables consisted only of “old money” names, and the Conrad Brooks family did not qualify.

  Besides, Conrad had no interest in such things. He was interested in making money, not in making a display of arrogance. Alice admired her father for that, but she also dreamed of establishing her own “list” someday.

  In any event, she was certain everything would happen as she dreamed it would. And she had scarcely laid her head on her pillow before she was sleeping the sleep of a woman who had everything.

  ●●●

  Emma was having a hard time going to sleep. She had been encouraged by Brock’s enthusiasm over Joseph’s willingness to turn Brock into a gentleman’s gentleman. Brock seemed so excited.

  But I wonder sometimes whether I know my husband better than he knows himself. A gentleman’s gentleman? How can you make a rose out of a turnip?

  Brock “The Bull” Ackerman. He was so proud of that moniker. Emma turned her head and gazed at her husband. Even as he lay sleeping, he was an imposing figure.

  Bull Ackerman was born to fight, people who watched him in the ring would say. The Bull. Too small to be a building, too big to be a man. I heard it said a thousand times.

  Brock’s idea of handling a problem was always to respond with violence. What would happen if someone made a disparaging remark about Joseph in Brock’s presence? Before Brock could stop to think for a second, his powerful fist would automatically do the thinking for him.

  Brock almost killed the British soldier who tried to grope Emma. But both were tagged as criminals, and they had to flee the country.

  What if something like that happened again? We could run, but we couldn’t hide, because there would be no place else for us to go.

  But there was something else troubling her as well, something she had kept from Brock, someone she hoped he would never hear about, but someone she could not get out of her mind.

  The Marquis of Sedgwick, Lord Anthony Stone.

  For Emma’s last two years in England, before she and Brock had to leave England, she was the maid for Lord Anthony’s mother. Emma was immediately attracted to Anthony when she went to work at the manor, and he was equally attracted to her.

  He was so handsome, so charming. At first, we just flirted with each other. But soon it became serious. Me, a married woman, having an affair with the Duke’s son. We would meet in the wine cellar. He told me he loved me. He promised me everything. I was ashamed of myself. But I couldn’t stop. I can’t explain it. I just couldn’t stop.

  He wanted to run off with me to America. I told him that could never happen. There would be such a scandal. His family would be ruined. His father would deny him his inheritance. But he said he didn’t care, as long as he had me.

  Then I told him my husband would kill him. I never heard from him again.

  A day or two later I left the manor. And Brock and I boarded that awful boat for America.

  I love Brock. I do. I know he loves me. I know he will protect me. He is a good man. He treats me like a princess.

  But is that enough?

  I still daydream about Anthony.

  ●●●

  Brock was not asleep.

  He wanted to believe everything he said to Emma before they went to bed. He wanted to believe that he wanted to be a gentleman’s gentleman.

  The truth, however, was that he had never been a “gentle man” in his life. He wasn’t at all sure he could make the huge leap from someone who regularly beat up other men to someone who made sure they were well shaven each morning and properly dressed for the day’s events.

  But more than anything, he wanted to make Emma happy. He knew he had outdone himself when he married Emma. Why she agreed to marry him, he didn’t know. But marry him she did. So, he wanted to be as fine a husband as he could possibly be. If that meant he had to be a gentleman’s gentleman, then so be it.

  But by all that is holy, it’s going to be a hard road.

  ●●●

  Nor was Joseph asleep.

  He waited until he was sure Alice was asleep before he slid out of bed, put on his bathrobe and went out on the back porch to smoke a cigar.

  Despite Joseph’s witticisms and his well-regarded sense of humor, no one, with the possible exceptions of Alice and her father, realized they were merely cover-ups for the incessant anger Joseph carried around with him.

  It would be a serious understatement to say Joseph was not pleased with how things were going at work. His father-in-law seemed to be getting worse than ever. The previous day, in the presence of half a dozen potential clients and a few employees, Conrad noted a minor error Joseph had made in a document.

  “How,” Conrad said to Joseph, “did you ever survive infancy?”

  Joseph was so humiliated and angry he could have spit square-tapered nails.

  Conrad also was pulling even tighter on his purse strings, especially after he discovered Emma and Brock were now a part of Joseph’s household.

  But worst of all, Conrad had even started talking lately about making a distant relative his heir, with the stipulation he keeps Joseph on his payroll and gives Alice a small household allowance.

  Joseph decided he would not tell Alice about that bit of earthshaking news until he could figure out a way to blow up Conrad’s plan, should his father-in-law decide to go through with it.

  Meanwhile, Joseph’s deep anger was turning into a volcanic hatred of Conrad Brooks.

  I didn’t marry Alice Brooks and put up with her loathsome father for naught. I’ll find a way to get what is my due, no matter what it takes. The fuse has been lit.

  He took a long drag on his cigar and blew the smoke into the night air.