Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [138]
He thrust the photographs into his desk drawer and locked it. Then he called down to the darkroom and told them to destroy the plates immediately. Slamming into his private elevator, he cursed its slowness as it descended sedately to the ground floor. The doorman saluted, but Harry didn’t even see him as he strode across the street in the direction of Union Square.
It was a dark, wintry evening and the lamps were already lit. A fire glowed in the grate of Francie’s private sitting room, where Ollie lay on the hearthrug, his arm around the dogs, listening intently while Francie told him again all about Hong Kong. She had been back over a year, but he still couldn’t hear enough of it. “I’m coming with you next time,” he told her authoritatively. “You promised. Besides, I want to see for myself.”
“Of course you will. Only now it’s bathtime, so let’s go.” She added, “And I just happen to know that Annie has made brownies this afternoon. Your favorite.”
He grinned cheekily at her and her heart turned over. He was almost six years old now, tall for his age with a lanky thinness that belied his appetite for Annie’s baking. His gray eyes were as direct and candid as his father’s and there was a joyous quality about him that charmed all who knew him. Still, she reminded herself quickly, he was no paragon of virtue, he was an ordinary boy who hated to take baths and tried to avoid his chores. He often came home from school with grazed knees and occasionally bruised fists, and he squandered his few cents’ weekly pocket money on marbles and tin soldiers and Hershey bars. And he was the apple of the boarders’ eyes as well as her own.
Francie’s mind returned to Hong Kong as she ran his bath, and to the letter from Edward Stratton tucked safely in her pocket. It was exactly a year and three months since they had met. He had bombarded her with letters and cablegrams and even international telephone calls all the way from London, but she had steadfastly refused to see him. Now he had refused to be put off any longer. He was on board a liner to New York and in a few weeks he would be here in San Francisco.
“I insist on seeing you, Francesca,” he had written. “Even if you say no, I shall waylay you. Why are you being so stubborn? You know as well as I it was no shipboard romance, and I intend to ask you to marry me again, and this time I will not take no—or any other excuse—for an answer.”
“Sounds very forceful,” Annie had commented when she showed her the letter. “Sounds like a man who knows what he wants and intends to get it.” She’d glanced shrewdly at Francie and added, “And if I were you, love, I’d jump at the chance to marry him. You and Ollie would have a wonderful life, and why shouldn’t you? You’ve done nothing wrong.
“There’s no reason for him ever to know what really happened. I’ll tell him you were married to my brother and who’s to disprove it? Your marriage certificate was destroyed in the earthquake, along with everybody else’s.” Annie shook her head regretfully. “You’re a fool, Francesca Harrison, if you don’t say yes.”
Francie thought longingly of Edward. She wanted so much to see his dear face, hear his voice, touch his hand. She wanted to marry him more than anything on earth, but she couldn’t deceive him. “I’ll see him,” she agreed at last, “but I must tell him the truth and let him decide. You just can’t base a marriage on a pack of lies.”
Annie sighed exasperatedly. “You’re a fool,” she said bluntly. “Do it first and then tell him. Once he marries you he’ll never want to let you go.”
Ollie was bathed and in his pajamas when the doorbell rang and Annie went to answer it. The man standing on the doorstep said arrogantly, “I’m here to see Francesca Harrison.”
Annie stared at him, puzzled; she knew his face but she couldn’t put a name to it. “Hurry up, woman,” he snarled, and suddenly she knew. “There’s no Francesca