Miss Caroline Barkley felt like a grown up lady standing on the platform at the train station and wearing the fancy travel dress her Aunt Audra helped her pick out. She thought she was behaving like a lady, too, by not making faces at her mother's fussing over her, adjusting her hat, making sure she had a handkerchief, tucking away a stray curl. She's like a mother hen, clucking at her chick, Carrie thought to herself, and repeatedly assured her mother that everything was fine.
Her father stood off to the side, holding her little sister on his hip. He had kissed her on the cheek, told her to behave, and quietly handed her some cash to spend on her adventure in San Francisco. Aunt Sarah had come to the station, too, had said goodbye to her own daughter and stood next to Nick. Carrie noticed that her cousin didn't get fussed over by her mother. Sarah simply embraced Leah, kissed her cheek, and told her to enjoy herself.
Leah did not escape unscathed, however. While she didn't get the same admonishments as Carrie, Emily had fussed with Leah's hat, too, and brushed the dust off her new travel dress before she gave her niece a kiss and a hug.
As the train pulled into the station and its passengers disembarked, Carrie worried for a moment that her mother might be nervous enough to change her mind and not let her leave. But Aunt Audra, cool as a cucumber, lead the girls to the first class car. As she mounted the steps, Carrie turned around to wave to her parents. Her father smiled and waved back, then placed his arm around her mother. Carrie never noticed before how tiny her mother was next to her father. Her mother smiled and waved, too, but Carrie thought her eyes looked shiny, like they had tears in them.
Nick had great fun teasing Emily on the ride back to the ranch for worrying and fussing as much as she did since she'd been the one who fought to send Carrie to San Francisco. Sarah suggested that perhaps someone in the family needed to worry and fuss. But Emily didn't respond to the teasing or to Sarah's statement; she was overcome by a sadness she had never felt before and she pulled Julia tighter into her lap.
"Nick, remember when Carrie was Julia's age?"
"Hmm? Yeah?' He looked over at her.
"It wasn't that long ago, you know," she said, and she kissed the top of the little girl's head, remembering. More than just about anything else, Nick hated it when Emily was sad and he feared that was what was happening now.
"So, Julia," Nick said, "have you given any thought to college?" Julia looked at her father, wondering what he was talking about and so said nothing. "What do you think you want to be when you grow up, Punkin?"
"I'm gonna help you run the ranch, Papa." She said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"That's my girl!" he remarked.
~BBB~
Audra could hear her four nieces in the guestroom from her own guestroom down the hall. She'd been feeling content, peaceful, for the first time in a long time and glad to have such a happy purpose as chaperone to her brothers' daughters. After she'd written her son to assure him she was safe and she loved him very much, a new calm had settled into her heart and soul. As she unpacked her trunks, she listened to the sounds of the city outside. It was nice to get away from the ranch but it was just as nice, she thought, to know she could return any time she wanted to. Nick and Heath and their families had made that very plain to her.
Her gentle thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door and she was surprised to find Jarrod standing there.
"Audra, when you have a moment, I'd like to speak with you privately."
"Of course, Jarrod. We can talk right now if you like."
"Very well, why don't we go to my study?"
Audra followed her brother down the stairs and around the corner into a spacious, wood-paneled study. Jarrod's serious demeanor and his request to talk gave her a sense of foreboding and she could feel herself becoming tense. It was a familiar feeling and she realized she hadn't felt that kind of tension for weeks, not since, well, since she'd left Seattle. And Charles.
Jane followed from the hallway and sat off to the side while Jarrod sat down next to Audra on the settee.
"Honey, have you given any thought to what you want to do? he asked.
"About Charles?" Jarrod nodded his head slightly, his gaze was intense but full of concern, a look she'd seen from him many times before, a look she found comforting. "I suppose I've left him now." It suddenly occurred to her that Charles could sue for divorce on the grounds of abandonment and she looked back at Jarrod, waiting for him to tell her this was why he wanted to talk, that Charles was doing just that.
"Audra, I took the liberty of hiring the Pinkertons to look into Charles." There was a pause. "Are you aware that he keeps a mistress in New York City?"
Audra hung her head. "No. That is, I thought it was a possibility but, no."
"Her name is Marie Gilchrist, and Charles keeps her in an apartment on Fifth Avenue. Has for six years." Six years, she thought, and not long after, Charles, Junior was sent away to school back east.
Audra looked over at Jane whose face held a grim expression.
"In addition," Jarrod continued, "he's been having an affair with a Mrs. Esther Mason in Seattle for a number of years."
Audra's reaction was abrupt and dramatic and she looked at Jarrod. "Esther? Charles and Esther?" Once she had recovered from the shock of this news and the implications it held for her, Audra started to cry. Esther was one of the women Audra had hoped to befriend a few years before but she backed away after Charles said terrible things about her.
"You know this Esther Mason, then?" Jarrod asked.
Audra nodded her head. "I tried to be friends with her but Charles . . . and, oh my goodness . . . Esther?"
Jarrod put his arm around his sobbing sister and let her cry it out. Jane got up, poured a sherry, and offered it to her. After a few sips, Audra composed herself.
"Charles said such awful things about her when I tried to be friends with her and, and, and since then she's not been kind to me. Not kind at all!" Audra thought a moment. "Does Frank know?" Frank was Esther's husband and business associate, sometimes business rival, of Charles'.
"I don't know that, Honey," Jarrod said.
"What we're trying to say, Audra," said Jane, "is, you have strong grounds for divorce."
"But before you make a decision about proceeding with a divorce," Jarrod added, "remember that Charles, Junior is still a minor child and, as such, belongs to Charles." He continued. "The courts are beginning to acknowledge the child's best interest in cases of divorce but it could still be difficult for you to gain custody unless we get the right judge."
"He's fifteen. Can't he appeal to the judge as to who he wants to have custody of him?" Audra asked.
"Again," Jarrod said, "that depends on the judge. A divorce hearing would have to take place in the state in which you reside and I'm afraid I don't know any of the judges in Seattle."
Jane spoke. "Audra, you do not have to make any decisions now but do please consider divorce. No matter who has legal custody, Charles, Junior can remain at school until he reaches his majority at eighteen and then the question of custody is moot.
"If you wish to avoid a major scandal, an option would be to request a quiet divorce from Charles," Jarrod said, "and if he denies you a fair divorce, we let him know that we know all about his dalliances. One more thing," Jarrod looked at his sister, trying to gauge if she could hear one more thing, "nothing is confirmed – yet – but we have reason to believe his business practices are, shall we say, unorthodox."
"In other words, blackmail him," Audra said flatly.
"Yes, I suppose that's what it is," Jarrod answered. "We will do whatever we need to do to get you away from him with the least amount of trauma and the best outcome we can but you have to be want it, too."
Audra's head swirled with the news of a kept mistress and an affair with a social acquaintance. She never thought of herself as a person who would get a divorce, it was so . . . dirty. At the same time, she felt herself getting angry: angry about the betrayal, angry at being torn down and beaten, angry at allowing herself to get torn down, and, most of all, she was angry that her marriage had made her son unhappy.
She stood up, looked at her brother and his wife and said, "I want to divorce him but I want to think about it first."
Jarrod stood and faced her. He lifted her chin with his finger and said, "Audra, everything's going to be all right." Jarrod hugged her and she knew he was telling the truth.