Page 118 of Two Wars and a Wedding

Holt gripped his cane and leaned forward in his chair. “You wanted an interview with Hold ’Em Holt? Here’s your chance.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

THE ANGEL OF THE SENECA SAVED MY LIFE THREE TIMES OVER:

Exclusive Interview With Hold ’Em Holt

—Miss Katherine Carson for the St. Louis Star Ledger, July 28, 1898

* * *

Central Park, New York

July 30, 1898

It was the sort of late-summer day that made New Yorkers flee the city for more salubrious climes.

Horse droppings steamed in the middle of Fifth Avenue. Motor cars burped exhaust. A vendor wanted to sell Betsy fried oysters; the smell clung unpleasantly to her brand-new walking dress. Inside the leafy oasis of Central Park, small children ran and screamed and were tutted at by pedestrians and tried to shove each other into the Conservatory Water.

There was a man standing by the edge of the water, a little apart from the madding crowd. He wore a lightweight summer suit and a straw boater, all quite new and quite neatly pressed. With it, he carried a walking stick, which he was using to fish out a rather bedraggled boat that appeared to have come to a bad end.

As Betsy watched, Holt neatly splinted the mast using his handkerchief, and handed the mended boat to the ungrateful owner, who immediately ran off, hollering.

Using another handkerchief to dry his hands—good heavens, did the man have an infinite supply of handkerchiefs?—he turned and saw Betsy.

Betsy had planned this moment. She’d prepared for this moment. She’d arranged this moment. But now that she was here she found she wasn’t prepared at all. She’d expected—oh, she didn’t know. The same man she’d known in Cuba. The mustache-draped man in his Rough Rider uniform, looking stern on the verandah of the Tampa Bay Hotel while Kit tried to wrangle an interview with him, or the bedraggled patient on his cot in the tent in Siboney, all tatters and hollow cheeks.

Or the man who’d kissed her on the deck of the Seneca, sunburned and steady.

Not this perfectly ordinary metropolitan gentleman with his straw hat and his Brooks Brothers suit.

“Hello,” he said.

And just like that, Betsy couldn’t remember what she’d meant to say, never mind that she’d been rehearsing it for the entire walk over.

The paper under her arm crinkled. Right. That was it. Betsy shook it open, holding it up so Holt could see the headline. “The Angel of the Seneca saved my life three times over, says famous lawman Hold ’Em Holt?”

Holt limped slowly over, leaning heavily on his stick. “I say it as it is.”

Betsy wasn’t letting him get away with that. “You don’t usually say it at all. And I still don’t understand how you came up with three times. Never mind. That’s not the point. I thought you didn’t give interviews.”

“I don’t. This is my first, last, and only.” The sun cast his face into shadow beneath his hat brim. “Your friend Kit told me you’d promised her a Yale-man cowboy Rough Rider. She said failing that, a Harvard cowboy Rough Rider would do. I was just trying to make good on your promise. Breach of contract, and all that.”

Betsy squinted at him, wishing she could see him better. Blasted sunshine. “You told me you hated being Hold ’Em Holt.”

“I did. I do. I couldn’t let them say what they were saying about you without saying something back.” Gentleman that he was, Holt moved to the side so that the sun wouldn’t fall in her eyes. Betsy followed him into the shade of the foliage that clustered around the clearing. “This was Hold ’Em Holt’s swan song. He doesn’t exist anymore. I followed your advice. I called the Harvard Law School. Ambrose Rutherford IV will be returning for his final year.”

Betsy felt a horrible sense of loss, which was silly. She knew it was silly. “So no more Holt.”

“No more Holt.”

Betsy tried to make a joke of it. “Does this mean I have to start calling you Ambrose?”

“I’d prefer you didn’t.”

Maybe he’d prefer she not call him anything at all. Maybe he’d recovered from his momentary madness on the Seneca and realized she was a bad lot.

“Mr. Rutherford, then.” Betsy took a deep breath and gripped her paper. Her hands felt very sweaty inside her charming new gloves. “Did you know, the most remarkable thing has happened? I’ve been summoned for an audience with President McKinley. He wants my opinion on what happened on the Seneca.”