Cincinnati-NYE 1921
Some houses were designed not for the loveliness of line nor ease of living, but simply to proclaim to passersby that people of wealth inhabited the walls within. Clara's eyes once more swept across the façade of Romola's father's new home. The house didn't make sense to her. Goodness, the house must contain at least thirty rooms. It looked like someone had walked into the office of a not particularly talented architect and when confronted with a book of house styles and options had simply ordered all of them.
Not even the Commodore's house of horrors declared from the street in quite so forceful a fashion that the people who lived there were possessed of far more money than taste. Much like the Commodore's mansion, though, it made a shiver go down Clara's spine. The pediments lining the top of the house looked like a monster's jagged teeth and the uneven dark windows made her feel like the house was watching their approach.
It was a house that didn't welcome guests so much as it threatened to devour them.
When they were getting into the car Richard had moved to sit in the front (echoes, Clara remembered, of last New Year's Eve when she'd crammed in the back of the taxicab with Jimmy and Angela while Richard rode up front. Angela. A wave of guilt and grief threatened to overtake, and Clara pushed the thoughts aside), which would have put Dennis in the back with her, Rose, and Romola.
The train trip with Dennis had been enough for Clara. She'd laced her fingers through Richard's and refused to let go until he climbed in the back with her and the girls. Anyway, she thought she'd enjoy being pressed against her husband more than Rose would enjoy being pressed against Dennis.
Her father would be within those walls tonight, Clara thought and pushed a little closer to Richard without realizing it. She'd looked for him at the hotel, but her father and Margaret hadn't been among the groups in the lobby of the Cincinnatian.
Romola had chewed her lipstick off during the ten-minute car ride. Clara wasn't the only daughter nervous about a paternal reunion. The difference was, Clara knew, that Romola still desperately wanted her father to love her. Clara believed her need to seek her father's approval died when she was strapped down in a bathtub while ice-cold water poured over her. When he handed her what she assumed was a copy of Richard's dog tags and told her husband lay with Jimmy in a ditch and then left her in that place screaming. Clara's jaw clamped so tightly her teeth hurt.
Circumstances dictated that Richard's right arm was around her, and she felt him tighten his grasp. She knew this party-any party-was a cause of great stress to him, and she didn't want to make it worse. She didn't want him spending the evening worrying if his crazy wife was going to have another meltdown.
She'd never wanted to be anyone's crazy wife.
Arnold wanted to assemble his little party so that he could walk into this Remus's soiree looking like a sultan surrounded by his court. Carolyn smoothed the skirt of her gold beaded dress as she watched everyone climb from the automobiles. Gracious, but Charlie did look delectable in his fancy clothes. Somehow the careful tailoring of the jacket made Meyer's shoulders look even broader than usual. Mr. Harrow was as carefully pressed and groomed as always, as if the poor man was trying to lessen the impact of that mask by otherwise being as unobjectionable as possible. James Darmody unnerved her as always. Handsome, charming, perfectly polite whenever he'd been around her, and yet something about him made her wary. Even the way he stood lurking behind the others. He was acting as Meyer and Charlie's bodyguard, of course, but Peter never loitered in such a way. Mr. Harrow all but melted into the shadows when he accompanied them.
Lady Rose's husband abandoned the women to Mr. Harrow and was headed straight towards Meyer. Carolyn's eyes narrowed. The man had all but danced around Meyer on the train. Arnold's attention was still taken by Mr. Levitz. Luckily, Elsie and Draper had decamped for the Daugherty family home as soon as they disembarked the train and taken the Mayor with them.
The remaining women looked like exactly what they were, a pretty band of society girls. Well, no one would describe them as girls for much longer. They must be headed into their mid-twenties, Carolyn thought. Still, no one could deny they were a lovely lot, with the pretty teeth and glowing skin that spoke of childhoods filled with dentists and plenty of good food.
Arnold's group of young people-never their own children, gracious no, Arnold had no interest in that-varied wildly in their behavior to her. Clara was far from the worse. She was bossy and took over without realizing it, but she wasn't dismissive and rude, the way Elsie and some of the others were.
Carolyn could see that Clara was also anxious tonight. And Romola, who seemed an overall far more vulnerable person than either of her friends, looked like she was ready to crawl out of her skin. To her, Nucky Thompson and George Remus were men she occasionally heard her husband mention or rage about. Those men were their fathers.
Still, they looked so delectable. Clara's dress. It was certainly an announcement she was no longer a demure debutante. And they were all wearing colors-Clara's black, Lady Rose's purple, Romola's dark pink, although current fashion dictated that most of the women, including Carolyn, would wear shades of gold and silver. They had to have done it on purpose, Carolyn thought. For whatever reason, they planned on standing out among the masses of molls and society misses making up this party.
Carolyn might not have had their advantages growing up, but her time as a showgirl had taught her one thing.
"Excuse me, let me arrange us for our entrance," Carolyn said and began arranging the others to frame the three young women in the center, with Arnold directly behind them.
It annoyed her that Arnold's smile of approval meant so much to her.
"I never woulda thought Clara hid good tits in them rags of hers," Charlie said as pulled his lighter from his pocket. "Never woulda thought she'd show 'em off like that either."
"Hard to miss them in that get up," Meyer responded drily.
"There you are, Meyer."
Charlie scowled at the sound of the Irish brogue. Jesus, the man was like a case of the clap! Get it once, be bothered forever!
"Carolyn wants us to go in," Charlie said, not willing to hear the man drool over Meyer again.
"You do whatever the boss's missus asks?" Dennis asked, and the man's smirk made Charlie's knuckles itch. The only cure would be smashing them into Malley's self-satisfied face.
Clara supposed she should thank her father for his careful training because it was the only thing that kept her jaw from unhinging in shock when they entered the party. Just from the heavy smell of the air, Clara knew the Remuses had bought out every orchid in the country. Women dressed in Grecian gowns wore turbans so high it made them all taller than Richard or Jimmy and carried silver platters heaped with hors oeuvres.
It was hard to believe that pretty Romola came from such a square oaf of a man, Clara thought, watching their host light Draper Daugherty's cigar. But not with a lighter or match. Clara blinked. Richard tensed next to her.
"And youse are always saying how I burn money, Mey," Charlie muttered behind her.
So her eyes weren't deceiving her. As she watched, Remus rolled up another hundred dollar bill, set it ablaze, and lit more cigars.
Romola gasped. Clara reached over and snatched her hand. "Don't let on," Clara whispered, making sure her own face was serene.
One hundred dollar bills, Clara thought. The man had burnt through a week's worth of Richard's wages in minutes. She'd have to write eight books to make that much.
No receiving line, no one had even come to greet their party, which included Remus's daughter, because they were too occupied with this...debauchery. Clara's fingers twitched within Romola's. How dare they treat Romola like this?
A woman with hard, small eyes stood in a dress better suited to a debutante than someone who must at least be Carolyn's age. Next to her stood a young girl in a diaphanous white gown that revealed more of her body than Clara thought appropriate for someone who clearly belonged in a schoolroom. Must be Remus's new stepdaughter, Ruth. The one whom he gave his money and attention to while ignoring Romola.
That dress, though. Clara blushed a little. Yes, of course, more of her body was on display, but she was a grown-up. Married! Goodness, her own father had some lapses in taste but not even he...
The woman glared at them for a moment. Oh, absolutely not, Clara thought and without thinking pulled Rose and Romola along with her. "Oh, you must be the current Mrs. Remus! Romola has told us ever so much about you, hasn't she, Lady Rose?"
"Lady Rose Malley, Clara Harrow, may I present my father's newest wife?" Romola said, her voice as sweet and soft as always.
Only Rose, Clara, and Imogene herself heard the edge on the word. "Newest?" Imogene said with a harsh laugh. "Last."
"Well, perhaps we can agree on latest," Clara said with a smile. "I'm quite sure Mrs. Remus-the first-thought she'd be last."
George Remus was a dreadful bore, Arnold thought, along with being a pompous ass. It would be quite a diversion to see the man tortured at his own party by his daughter's friends.
Another diversion was brewing. The door burst open again as an additional group entered.
The group from Atlantic City. Before Clara could process her feelings at seeing her father again, the man next to him almost made her gasp out loud.
Standing at her father's side, even closer to him than Margaret was, was a young man with fair hair and a familiar build.
"I thought it was Jimmy," Rose breathed out next to her.
For one heart-stopping moment so had Clara. At a second glance, she saw she was wrong. But oh, oh he looked so much like him. Not quite as handsome, Clara thought loyally. The man's bones were thicker and yet his features were sharper. He looked rather like-
"Bud Matheson. We call him Leprechaun Jimmy," Charlie said behind her in what for him was a whisper, and Clara could hear Charlie's pride at the nickname.
People wrote, of course they did. Not everyone knew of the estrangement between Clara and Nucky. And it was those who did know who enjoyed writing the most.
From the letters, she had assumed Matheson was a new political mentee, just one of her father's other fawning sycophants.
It was a bad assumption, Clara realized. The oh-so-showy dinner jacket, the odd bulge against the back shoulder...
The man was a gangster. Matheson. An Irish gangster.
Her father couldn't wait for Teddy to grow up. He had quite literally imported a new Jimmy.
No, even better than Jimmy, Clara realized. This man didn't carry the weight of her father's original sin. Every time he looked at this imposter he wasn't confronted by his own unforgivable egress against a child who trusted him.
The rage she had spent months banking down flamed anew. How dare he. It wasn't enough he had replaced her mother with Margaret, or she and Jimmy with Margaret's children. It wasn't enough that he had tossed her into an institution, planned to kill Jimmy, to kill Richard...
Clara bristled. It was a struggle, but she kept her face calm, even forced it into a welcoming smile as she flew towards the party from Atlantic City. Nucky stepped back from her path as she felt Richard fall in behind her and felt a pang of regret that he didn't know her plan. Jimmy would know in an instant what she was up to, she knew. It was her father's fault Jimmy was out by the damn car instead of at the party with them.
She threw her arms around Margaret. It was true, Clara thought, she was relieved to see Margaret. But also...
"Please go along?" Clara whispered into her ear. "I'll owe you."
Margaret's hands squeezed her upper arms.
"Rose, Romola, this is my stepmother. Margaret, this is Mrs. Remus, Romola's father's last wife!"
"It's so lovely to meet you, Mrs. Thompson," Romola said. "Clara has told us so many wonderful things about you."
"Yes, I've never heard of anyone speak of their father's new wife in such glowing terms," Rose said, flicking her eyes over to Imogene ever so subtly.
"Goodness, you should have seen some of the other contenders! Some of them weren't quite suited for polite company," Clara said, the bright smile never leaving her face.
Nucky kept the smile on his face as well. But it was a smile Clara was all too familiar with, one that was appeared to convey affability when its true purpose was to conceal rage.
Let him rage, Clara thought.
"But of course I had a broken engagement of my own. And thank goodness, because that marriage would have been an utter debacle. In the end, though, my father and I made the same decision. To marry well above our station," she continued as she walked backward until she reached Richard and looked up at him with an expression she didn't have to fake.
Try not to welcome Richard now, Clara thought. Argue with me now, in front of your business associates, in front of this boy you bought to replace Jimmy.
"Well, my daughter is always good with words," Nucky said.
Matheson stepped out from Nucky's party. "Ah, so this is Nucky's daughter I've heard so much about."
Clara felt the man's eyes go down her cleavage and regretted her new dress for the first time. There was no way for her to refuse him her hand with everyone watching, although every part of her was screaming to get as far away from him as she possibly could.
Richard's hand closed around her waist. It was comforting, of course, but at the same time...
He never touched her like that in public.
Matheson's hand was cold and damp and it took all her self-control to keep from snatching hers back as the fingers closed around hers in a way that made her fear she'd ever get her hand back.
"And your husband. Barrow, isn't it?"
"Richard. Harrow," Richard answered and Clara shifted back even closer to him.
"What a catch you landed Mr. Harrow, and right under Nucky's nose," Matheson replied, his eyes traveling up and down Clara's form again while not letting go of her hand even as she tried to pull it back.
Categorizing people made them easier to understand, to predict, to know how to respond to. There was something of Jimmy's troll from Chicago, perhaps of Meyer and Charlie's little street urchin, Benny, but...
Clara shivered and felt the stiffness of Richard's arm around her. Her eyes swept through the men gathered around her. Meyer, Charlie, her father, AR...even Richard. They were all what some might term dangerous, but Matheson-
There was nothing in all her experiences that allowed her to understand the sharp fear she felt in Bud Matheson's presence.
Dressing rooms belonged on the main floor in a house this large, Clara thought, desperate to focus on normal things. How tacky to make them walk upstairs in their wraps.
Romola dawdled in front of the mirror, so Clara slowed and let the other women leave without them.
"Are you all right?" Clara asked, her voice low when the ladies' maid walked to the back of the room to straighten the row of coats.
"Do you see this house? That vulgar display with the cigars?" Romola asked. "This isn't my father. Or, it's not the father I knew. And that woman, that girl..."
"A horrid brat, Romola. She's not good enough to be a stand-in for you."
"But she is, though, isn't she?" Romola asked. "What's almost worst is the idea of that woman being here in my mother's place."
Clara let out a slow breath. "It's what men do, isn't it? They adore a fresh start. I told my father that over the summer. Margaret, her children...it's our family remade. But he doesn't have to deal with my mother's...illnesses, nor the inconvenience of Jimmy and I as adults."
Romola caught Clara's eye in the mirror. "Rose doesn't understand, does she? Any of it?"
Clara shook her head. "No. Her father would never do any of the things our fathers did. My father did."
"And her father oversees the county flower show when ours are...you are the writer," Romola grinned suddenly. "Does the word bootlegger even properly express what they are?"
"No," Clara answered. "They were perhaps not the most legimate of lawyers or country treasurers..."
Romola and Clara smiled at each other in the mirror. All those girls from all those very proper families at Foxcroft, and then there was them. The daughter of a notorious lawyer and a notably crooked local politician.
"But you made the better marriage. Rose and Dennis...that's not a happy match," Romola said softly. Clara didn't answer. "Clara. Rose is miserable. Who wouldn't be? Dennis was charm until he got what he wanted. Rose's money, her status."
Clara knew although she'd tried not to see. She'd known almost since the moment Rose and Dennis moved to New York. Dennis was not the man she and Rose had thought he was, back when they were all young and dashing and in uniform.
The memory of Rose upsetting Richard during dinner on the train the night before came back to Clara. The way Richard acted, like once was more he was uncertain about taking the mask off in front of her. In front of Tommy.
"Has Rose said anything about Richard?" Clara asked, looking directly at Romola.
"Only about how he was...well, how he was last summer."
"Someone said something to him on the train, and I was afraid it might have been Rose."
Romola thought for a moment before speaking. "Rose told me Elsie Daugherty said something about him. Something...unkind. Last night, after dinner."
Clara was silent, but Romola had seen that facial expression before. When Romola had returned to their dormitory crying because Anne van der Percy had said Romola couldn't sit at their table because she wasn't one of their kind. Clara had been silent that night, but when Anne was caught cheating and made to confess her sin in front of the entire student body at Wednesday morning chapel Clara had simply looked over at Romola and smiled.
God help Elsie Daugherty.
"But you are happy?" Romola asked, thinking about the other thing Rose had told her while Clara was off with her husband taking Jimmy Darmody's little boy to the zoo.
Clara toyed with her lipstick. "With Richard? I am, Romola. I mean-this isn't the marriage I pictured, with him or with anyone. Tommy, Rothstein, Jimmy, all of it. But I can't imagine being in it with anyone else, you know? I watched Elsie Daugherty on the train, and I thought, that's who I would have been. Married to some insufferable bore, forced to shuffle between his family estates, made to kowtow to my in-laws. I would have hated it."
"Well," Romola said with a slow smile, "perhaps being married into the Daugherty family explains her charming personality. Imogene made sure to tell me the Attorney General is hidden in one of the rooms. I assumed she thought it would impress me." Both women rearranged their handbags for a moment, dreading going back out to the party. "And there are no aftereffects from the summer?"
"Ah, Rose really has been talking. I...I feel like someone is watching me in our bedroom. I'll be fine, and then it's as if I feel someone's eyes on my skin. " Clara looked down at her hands, unwilling to even make eye contact with Romola in the mirror. "And the worst part is I know Richard thinks its something to do with him, that..."
"No, I see," Romola said quietly. "But it's not."
"No, it's so much worse when it happens and he's not home. Romola, I, what if I'm like my mother, what if I lose the ability to determine what's real and what's not, what if I'm like my mother..."
"Clara, no," Romola grabbed Clara's hands. "It's just the aftereffects of this summer. That's all. You'll be fine."
Rose waited for them on the landing, watching the party spin on below.
"I was just thinking," Rose said as they approached. "We did it."
"We did what?" Clara asked.
"We grew up. Those nights at school that felt impossible. And we don't have the lives our parents' planned for us. Clara writes and has her Mr. Harrow, Romola, you have your music, and I escaped being married off to the younger son of some country squire. I'm here, with both of you."
"And that ain't nothing, ladies," Romola said, affecting an accent better suited to a western saloon.
"No," Clara said. "It definitely ain't nothing."
Jimmy lit a cigarette, watching the figures in the window. That fucking Luciano had taken great pleasure in telling him "the invite didn't say nothing about the hired help. Stay outside and watch the cars."
Watch the cars.
Watch them all, even Richard, go into the party like they were all characters in one of Fitzgerald's damn stories while once more he was left outside like an unwanted stray. Which was he'd ever been, really.
Al no longer had to stand outside. Charlie was once more inside where it mattered wearing a goddamn diamond pinky ring-tackiest shit ever, in Jimmy's considered opinion-while he stood outside like a damn lackey. Like he hadn't run a whole city.
"Hello, Darmody," a familiar voice with an Irish accent said. "You also draw car duty?"
Sleater. His fucking little trick with the Irish Whiskey had cost Jimmy dearly over the summer, and that was one debt Jimmy planned on repaying.
"What the hell are you doing?" Jimmy asked.
"My job. The one that used to be yours, and apparently is again."
Jimmy didn't say anything.
"We ought to have played it like Harrow. A princess is apparently a golden ticket."
Apparently, Jimmy thought.
"I saw them, you know, last March. Right after I started working for Thompson. Clara always seemed like such a-"
"Careful what you say next," Jimmy said. "But yeah, I know what she seemed like."
"She slipped out of the Ritz, met him in an alley," Sleater grinned at him. "Jesus, I thought she was just slumming."
"Thought you could use it to your advantage?" Jimmy said, still trying to get a read on the man.
"Didn't work out like that. Never would have guessed he was just going to come get her."
Jimmy ran his tongue along his teeth. "Matheson is your man, right? Friend from the old country?"
Owen's jaw twitched ever so subtly. "Matheson is his own man."
Richard's hand closed around the bourbon gratefully. If nothing else, it was something to do with his fingers. It wasn't that he wanted his fingers to move when he was nervous, it was that unless he was holding something they moved without his conscious assent. Even standing in the back of the group he felt the other party goers' eyes on him and it felt like the stiff collar of his shirt was tightening around his throat.
This party was making him nervous. If he could he'd go outside and switch places with Jimmy. Jimmy would know what to do. He'd know what to do when Clara-
Richard never knew what to do when Clara started one of her ploys. Jimmy always knew what to do. Luciano often could catch her throws. Rose and Romola played along tonight like they were reading off the same script.
But his wife was adept at playing a game that he had no way of understanding.
Like her dress, the one Rothstein had paid for. Clara had a lot of dresses. None looked like this. It meant something. He didn't know what.
Just like he didn't know what to make of a party where the host lit the guests cigars with hundred dollar bills.
But he wouldn't want to leave her at the party with Matheson circling. Without thinking he patted his side, taking comfort in the familiar heft of the Colt secured in his jacket lining. He'd heard of Matheson, from Rothstein, from Meyer. He'd known that Meyer didn't like the man.
It had been Meyer that told him that Nucky was having money troubles. From Jimmy, Richard had some sense of how intense Nucky's system of graft, where practically everyone who lived, worked, or did business with Atlantic City was required to pay, worked. But in the wake of the conspiracy, even the graft wasn't enough apparently.
Even if Nucky had kept Clara's inheritance from her grandfather. Clara had traded it for their freedom, his freedom, but he knew it bothered her simply because she never talked about it.
When Matheson approached Clara he'd wanted to grab her and pull her away, keep her from Matheson's sight. His hand tightened around the glass.
There had been a lieutenant, during the war. At his last base near the Belgium border. Richard had spent most of his time in a lookout, but still, he heard stories. About what happened to a stray dog that wandered into a trench. Stories about what the man did to Germans who were supposed to be treated as prisoners of war.
About what happened to some of the younger recruits at night.
Richard hadn't been surprised when one night, not long before he was hurt, to return to base and hear the lieutenant had been killed by accidental friendly fire.
Nucky was still Clara's father, even after what he had done over the summer. But Nucky hadn't been able to control Jimmy, or his own brother, or even Clara. How did the man think he'd be able to control something like Bud Matheson?
Clara came back down the stairs with Rose and Romola and headed towards him. He automatically held the drink up for her when she made her way to him.
"At least this debacle is serving good bourbon," she said with a smile and squeezed his other hand.
"There's a fucking looker," Luciano muttered in front of them, and Richard bristled at the thought the man was talking about Clara.
"Came with Cantor, the lucky Yid," Meyer answered.
"Nice to see you, neighbor," a voice said next to them. "See you took my advice about the getup."
"Goodness, what are you doing here!" Clara exclaimed, handing the glass back to her husband.
"I'm the sultan's sacrifice, dontcha know!" Ivy said, posing with a hand on her hip to show off her silver Grecian gown.
"She's your neighbor?" Meyer asked Richard directly.
"Yes," Richard answered. "She lives. In the apartment beneath. Us."
The corners of Meyer's mouth twitched, Richard noticed. Like the man was trying to keep what he was thinking off his face.
"Rothstein's her landlord," Meyer said, almost to himself.
Richard's fingers began to move
"She the broad Clara's always shopping with?" Charlie asked. "Her new rags making more sense now."
"Mr. Harrow, gentleman," Margaret Thompson said as she approached.
"Mrs. Thompson," Richard replied. "How are. The children?"
Margaret smiled tightly. "Growing. Tommy must be the same."
Clara turned back to introduce Margaret to Ivy.
"Margaret, meet..."
"Eddie's calling, see you later!" Ivy was off in a flash of silver spangles.
"Clara, might we speak in private?"
Clara looked up at Richard and squeezed his hand before Margaret pulled her away.
Rose used the moment to slip outside unseen. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms in an attempt to warm them. Jimmy stood alone near the Packards that had brought them from the Cincinnatian Hotel, cigarette in hand. Her heart fluttered a little in her chest.
It was so, so foolish. At the height of her great love affair with Dennis she'd done what she must to be with him, but she didn't remember this. Not this rush, this almost magnetic pull she wasn't able to ignore.
When had it started? When she stopped Jimmy from following Clara and Richard into the house, and was touched by his shock that Clara could need Richard but not him? On the car ride to Cape May when they spoke of everything from marriage to waking up haunted by the images of war?
Rose sometimes thought that even if she lived to be as old as her grandmother the last thing she'd see when she closed her eyes was blood seeping across Belgian soil.
Jimmy stood with another man, one who looked vaguely familiar. When he saw her he said something to the man and then walked toward where she stood in the shadow.
"I was hoping you'd come."
"I couldn't not," Rose answered honestly and reached for Jimmy before he could even reach for her.
"I wanted to make sure you are well," Margaret said when they found a velveted draped alcove to secret themselves in.
"Wonderfully so," Clara responded, deciding it was a true enough answer. "And you?"
Those that wrote also told Clara Nucky had resumed residence on the eighth floor of Ritz. Not Margaret and the children, just Nucky.
Margaret started to speak and then stopped.
The specter of Matheson loomed over Clara's thoughts. It was imperative, she decided, for the safety of her own family that she know.
And it was perhaps also an attempt to satisfy her curiosity.
"It is not well, is it?" Clara had seen Margaret make that face before when she was trying not to cry. "My father, Margaret, you don't have to tell me-"
"I did something Enoch will never forgive. I gave all his money to the Church."
The breath hissed out of her. It didn't happen often, but Clara was at a complete loss for words. "Margaret, why? How?"
"He had signed all the land over to me before the trial, in case the worse occurred. But Clara. There was so much sin, so much wrongness. How could I not try to make amends? For all the things your father did, for all the things I tacitly approved?."
Part of her wanted to laugh. After all of it, all of it, Margaret had given away her father's fortune to the Church. The irony was almost delicious.
Except her grandfather's money went to buy that land.
Except in her father's desperation, he had partnered with Matheson.
Clara knew her father well. Better, now, than before. He had planned to kill Jimmy. He left her in that place, telling her Richard was already dead. Because Jimmy had been so close to winning, so close to taking the things her father actually held dear. His money. His power. His position.
His city.
Nucky Thompson was never more dangerous than he was when he was trapped.
"I've wanted to speak to you all night," Romola said when she found Richard sitting alone on one of the round conversation settees Romola always found hideous but, considering the number she'd seen so far Imogene was apparently quite fond of. Whoever embossed the velvet of the upholstery had more enthusiasm than skill, and it looked like the brand new chair was rotting from within.
Imogene's taste was all in her mouth.
"Miss Remus," Richard said as he began to stand.
Romola waved him and off and sat next to him. Lord, did Imogene pick the furniture for elephants? Three people could easily fit in one section.
"Please call me Romola." She thought he tried to smile at her before looking back at his hands. "I have such an advantage, I fear. Clara is an excellent letter writer and you appeared for the first time when she wrote on her train ride home from the convention. And you've been in almost every letter since. I already feel like I know you."
Richard was still studying his hands intently. "I didn't. Know. She wrote. About me."
No wonder Clara had been the one to initiate their first kiss, Romola thought. "Often. One day I realized just how much you were in Clara's letters and wrote to Rose asking had she noticed the same. That same day I received a letter from Rose asking me if I thought Clara was falling for you. It was such a marked change from how she'd written about Darcy."
"He wasn't. Good to her," Richard replied.
"No, nor was he good for her. You were. You are," Romola answered. "She said so tonight, but it's there in her letters, in how she is. I saw it in May at Dorothy's wedding. She seemed so much more herself then she had since she left for Europe during the war."
Clara never spoke about the war, Richard thought.
But neither did he.
"And you didn't know each other then, correct? It seems like you have known Jimmy and Clara forever but you met him in Chicago after the war?"
"I was never. In England. During the war," Richard replied. "How would. I have met. Clara? And I. Met Jimmy. In Chicago. Lady Rose. Asked me the same. Do you think-"
Romola bit her lip, and then castigated herself. She simply must stop chewing her lipstick off. He thought Clara had stayed in England. And now she and Rose had insulted him.
"Forgive me, Richard. I wasn't there. And Clara. I know, from life with my own father, that there are many things Clara can't say in letters." The war didn't matter, Romola thought. Whatever truth Rose thought she knew didn't matter, not now. "The important thing is Clara's had you this last year. I'm not sure she would have made it through without you."
Richard shook his head. "You are. Her friend. You know she's. Not doing well. And it's because of. Me. Nucky did that."
Romola shook her head. "I've known Clara since she was thirteen. From the moment he forced her into that engagement, she and Mr. Thompson were destined for this. He thought he could force her into doing his will. Fathers...they underestimate their daughters."
She had been ordered not to attend. Until that moment, she had absolutely no interest in attending a New Year's Eve party hosted by a divorced bootlegger and the fast bit of baggage he'd taken as a second wife.
Even as a child, though, she hadn't been able to abide being forbidden from doing anything.
Besides, was she supposed to spend another evening in that mausoleum known as Rookwood? Playing cribbage with her mother-in-law, whom doubtlessly she'd offend anyway, while Nick was out God knows where as 1922 rang in?
It seemed a great lark, destined to anger both her mother-in-law and husband while providing her with an excellent story to tell at Georgetown dinner parties when Congress resumed.
The moment the chauffeur pulled past the lions guarding the drive (terribly large and just as terribly carved) Alice began to reconsider.
Walking inside didn't calm her fears. A large, square man with too much face for his head approached her.
"George Remus is thrilled Alice Longworth came to his party," the man said.
"And where is Mr. Remus?"
"I am he," the man said proudly. "Remus would like to offer Mrs. Longworth anything she would wishes."
Alice wished mightily that she had come up with some excuse to spend New Year's in New York. Right then she saw a blonde wearing an absolutely delicious-if decidedly scandalous-black dress who looked mildly familiar.
"Hallo," Alice waved, "so nice to see you again."
The blonde looked momentarily confused before she smiled and rushed to Alice's side. "Mrs. Longworth, how lovely to see you! Here, let me walk you up to leave your wrap."
"I'm Clara Harrow," the blonde said as they walked up the stairs. "My father is Nucky Thompson of New Jersey. We met at a couple of conventions in Chicago?"
Oh, that odious little local politician with the outsize political reach. His daughter, though...
"You danced with Quentin," Alice breathed out.
"I did. I was so sorry to hear about his death," Clara said, smoothing her skirt. "And about your father's as well, of course."
It was so rare someone just said it. Quentin was dead. Her baby brother who snuck his pony into the White House elevator to cheer up a sick sibling, who cried when she married Nick and who thought apple pie with cheese could fix almost any problem.
Dead. Dead in his airplane on Bastile Day over some part of France she'd never heard of before the day the telegram came.
"You lose someone?" Alice asked after they finished in the dressing room.
"No. I was lucky. My father's ward-he's like my brother-he was badly injured. As was my husband. But they survived."
"Who else is here I might know?" Alice asked.
"Harry Daugherty is closeted in some side room, but Draper and Elsie are out and about," Clara said. Alice noticed Clara watching for a reaction. Alice's distaste for Daugherty was well known. "My friend Lady Rose Malley-her grandmother is Mrs. Levitz?-is here somewhere."
"Are you and Elsie not friends?" Alice asked.
Clara was silent and then turned to scan the room before nodding towards three men standing together. "My husband is the tall one. He also works for Arnold Rothstein."
Alice didn't miss the challenge in the younger woman's voice. One man was short with the shoulders of a particularly strong bull. The other two men had dark hair. One turned, and Alice felt a strong punch of desire. He went beyond male handsomeness into beauty.
She wanted to taste.
The tall one was standing half in shadow, and was also quite nice looking. Even if men of his age-he must barely be older than Quentin, Alice thought with a pang-rarely wore mustaches now.
And then he turned.
Clara's eyes were boring into her and Alice realized the girl hadn't lied when she said her husband had been badly injured. Alice had heard of the masked veterans, of course, she just hadn't seen one.
"Most women would have left," Alice said before thinking.
"We met after the war," Clara said, the challenge clear in her voice.
Alice loved gossip, and suddenly she remembered a particularly juicy story. Of the politician's daughter who was safely engaged to another political family-the dreaded Blaines-when she cast off the engagement and ran off...
"You married your father's driver!"
"He was not!" Clara answered hotly.
The black dress. The husband. Arnold Rothstein.
Here was a rebellion even Alice could admire.
"Elsie Daugherty said something about your husband?" Alice asked.
"Where he could hear her," Clara replied.
"What a little bitch. Draper didn't even serve."
Clara nodded.
"Don't worry, we'll fix her. Elsie's dearest desire is to be a member of the every other Wednesday afternoon club. She's up for membership. She'll be denied. I'm sure we can ruin her vapid little life in other ways."
Alice was rewarded with a smile. "Of course, I'll expect a favor in return."
Clara's eyes dimmed a little.
"I'd like to meet your other friend."
Alice watched as Clara made eye contact with her husband. It was enough to make him say something to the very pretty man who proceeded to cross the floor towards them.
The swagger made Alice want him more.
"Mrs. Longwoth, may I present Charles Luciano, a dear friend," Clara said with a warning note in her voice.
"How do you do?" The man said carefully.
Alice would bet money Clara had taught him that.
"Better now," Alice answered.
A quick trip to the powder room had been a necessity, but Rose knew she needed to make her way upstairs and let the lady's maid put her back together before she rejoined the party.
"Rose," a voice called from above. Romola waved from an interior balcony.
Hopefully, the quick wash in the powder room had been sufficient, Rose thought as she climbed the stairs.
"You look mussed. The Charleston is murder on hairstyles," Romola said.
"Yes," Rose answered noncommittally.
Romola's hands were clasped together tightly and the color was bright on her face. "I think you are correct. It's so fantastical, Rose, that I keep thinking I'm delusional for believing you. But..."
"Of course I'm right! I was his nurse, Romola! I didn't think of it when Clara first wrote of him, but when she spoke of him at Dorothy's wedding, and then when I saw him in August..." Someone finally knew, Rose thought, and felt overwhelming relief. She thought she'd made peace with it, until she went to Atlantic City.
Until suddenly the weight of the secret was unbearable.
Romola smiled sadly. "It doesn't matter. We can't say anything to them."
Rose gasped. "What? Why? Don't you think they have a right to know?"
"I care far less about their right to know than I do their happiness. Clara's fragile, from what her father did to her. She thinks she's losing her mind. That she's like her mother. If we tell her, she's going to doubt her hold on reality even more. And from speaking with Richard...he obviously wants to put the war behind him. And who can blame him?"
"No, Romola, it's their lives-"
"If Mr. Thompson had succeeded in forcing Clara into marrying Darcy, then we would need to tell them. If they remained separated after...well, after whatever caused Clara to end things with him last summer, then I'd want to risk telling her. But Rose, why now? They have each other. What good would telling them do?"
Rose turned and looked down from the Juliet balcony. People had been careless with their wine and now the white linen covering the tables bore large red stains. Like blood soaking through bedlinen, through bandages, through her apron...
Romola didn't know, Rose thought fiercely. She'd been safely at home the nights Rose had futilely tried to save soldiers who were little more than boys while a war swirled around her. Romola had been playing her piano while Clara had crawled through a war zone with a knife clenched between her teeth. When Rose had pulled off Clara's gas mask and seen the redness of her skin and the covering Clara's eyes and known Clara'd been gassed before she managed to pull her mask. Romola had been safe and warm while Rose bathed Clara's eyes and wrapped the muslin around her head and praying Clara wouldn't go blind, or worse.
Romola didn't know that Rose had lied. That at the time it felt like the right thing like it would help Clara heal...
And once she realized she was wrong, she didn't know how to tell her best friend she had lied to help her.
Now Romola wanted her to keep lying. To hide something so fundamental. With a sigh, she realized it wasn't the only fundamental thing she was hiding from Clara.
Rose longed for the simple intensity of their schoolgirl friendship. Before all these complications stood between them.
"There is something we can do for her, though," Romola continued.
"What's that?" Rose asked.
"What she'd do for us. Your grandmother is friends with Alice Longworth? She's here How do you think Princess Alice will respond to a little story about how fathers think they have the right to control their daughters at any cost?"
Suddenly she wanted to laugh. "Romola! You are the last person-"
"Yes, well. We all grow up."
Every detail of Remus's party is pulled from Ghosts of Eden Park
Somewhat lost to history is the ironclad hold Ohio held over the Republican party for DECADES. It's no coincidence that Roosevelt married Alice off to the Cincianattian Nick Longworth. He was trying to consolidate his own power base.
Alice Roosevelt really did hate Harry Daugherty.
Sources claim Harry Daugherty really did hide in a side room during Remus's party.
However, it's creative license that Alice attended. The Remuses invited the Longworths and their social set, but none of these families attended. However, Alice was a influence on the creation of Clara, so at some point those two political princesses were going to have to meet.
Naturally, I also have found no proof that AR, Charlie, or Meyer attended Remus's party. But of course, they weren't all partying at Nucky Johnson's NYE 1922 either so...creative license.
Quentin Roosevelt, Alice's younger brother, really did die in WWI. He was Jimmy and Clara's age
Clara's scandalous dress