Kane obviously had no idea who that was.
“We heard her sing in Dallas.”
“Oh,” he said, disappointed. “An opera singer. What’s that got to do with Jace likin’ Nellie?”
“By tradition, opera singers are Rubenesque, and from what Jace has told us, he grew up surrounded by his mother’s friends.”
Kane had some trouble understanding what his wife was saying, but then he smiled. “Oh, I see. You mean Jace has always been around fat ladies.”
Houston’s eyes narrowed. “Any woman with a voice so blessed as to be a coloratura soprano does not deserve to be dismissed as a ‘fat lady.’ ”
Kane continued smiling. “To each his own, I guess. But f…” He stopped. “Plump or not, it looks like Jace ain’t exactly havin’ an easy path down the road to gettin’ the woman he wants. You better go talk to him.”
Houston watched her cousin by marriage disappear down a path. “I was thinking the same thing.”
Kane gave a snort of laughter. “Now things’ll get straightened out.”
Houston didn’t answer as she went outside into the garden.
“Hello, Jocelyn,” she said softly, and then she smiled at him when he turned toward her. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he looked as though he hadn’t shaved this morning. In the right clothes, she thought, he’d look like a pirate.
“How’s Nellie?” she asked.
Jace jammed his hands in his trouser pockets and turned away. “I don’t know. She won’t see me.”
“Did you quarrel?”
“Yes. I think so.” He gave a sigh, then sat down heavily on a stone bench. “Houston, that is the strangest family I have ever seen.”
She sat down beside him and waited for him to continue.
Jace leaned back against a tree and stretched out his long legs. “When I met Charles Grayson, all he could talk about was his beautiful daughter. From the way he talked I got the impression he knew about my family’s money and wanted to marry off some ugly daughter to me. I don’t know why, maybe I was intrigued, but I went to his house to meet this daughter. I went an hour early, when I knew Charles wouldn’t be home.”
Jace closed his eyes for a moment. “Nellie was everything her father said she was. She is beautiful, kind, and I could see in her eyes that there was so much inside her. From that first night I wanted to take her away with me and show her the world.”
“But her family stopped you,” Houston said.
Jace’s face showed his puzzlement. “I don’t understand them. It seems that I can have the younger sister if I want her, but not Nellie.”
He stood, and his face grew angry. “Three days ago I went to see Nellie, and she was afraid of her family seeing me. I had to hide in the pantry like the grocery boy who isn’t supposed to be there. That…that sister of hers came in and told Nellie one lie after another about me, saying I was after her father’s money—as if the man had any.”
Houston suppressed a smile over the vanity of rich men. “What do you plan to do now?”
Jace let his hands drop to his sides; his shoulders slumped. “I don’t know. Nellie won’t see me. I’ve sent flowers, two letters, I even sent her a puppy, but everything was returned to me with no explanation, nothing.” He looked at Houston. “Is there a Western way of courting that I don’t know about? The last time I courted a woman I sent her flowers, we walked out together, one day I asked her to marry me, and she said yes. I don’t remember courtship being so difficult.”
Houston patted the seat by her, and Jace sat down again. “Since I talked to you about the Harvest Ball I’ve talked to some people about Nellie. Tell me, is Charles Grayson an ungenerous man?”
Jace rolled his eyes. “He could give Scrooge lessons. He pays his employees as little as possible and docks their wages for every minute they’re late. I can hardly bear to stay in the office. Three days ago he got a contract out of Denver—I don’t know how, since he expects to make vast profits on every deal—but he did, and he fired two freight drivers because he said the other drivers could work longer hours. He’s a mean, miserly man, and if it weren’t for Nellie I wouldn’t have anything to do with him.”
“That explains why he expects Nellie to do the work of a household full of servants. He works Nellie harder than his employees, and he pays her even less than he does them.”
Jace was quiet for a moment. “Grayson wouldn’t want to lose an employee who worked hard and took none of his money.”
“Exactly.”
Jace leaned his head back against a tree. “I guess I’ve been so enraptured with Nellie that I never really looked at her family. That younger daughter is a real bitch. Oh, sorry.”
“Quite all right, since I happen to agree, but she’s quite pretty, and lately quite popular. For the last few days she’s been in great demand at every social function.”