Page 110 of The Queen of Roses

“What does the stock exchange in New York have to do with us?” she asked.

“Nothing and everything. I have investors from across the country,” he said. “Many I’ve never even met.”

She frowned. “People you’ve never met? Then how did they know to invest with you?”

“They’ve heard about all the opportunity to make money in California. They want in on the hotel business.”

“But isn’t that risky? If you don’t have relationships with these businessmen—”

“This is not something you need to worry your pretty little head about, Adele.” His words might have been jolly, but she could hear an edge close to the surface.

“This Mr. Earl said he had gone to the hotel and tried to make an appointment with you, but he never seemed to be able to find you,” she said.

“He sounds like an impatient sort,” said Guy dismissively.

“Yes, he did. He was very impatient when he said you had stopped making payments.”

Guy cut her a look. “Stopped making payments? He said that?”

“Yes.” She watched her husband, who said nothing. “Guy, why would a member of one of the consortiums that invested in your hotel say that?”

Guy let out a condescending little laugh. “The man clearly doesn’t have an ounce of nerve.”

“He seemed to display ample nerve when he came to our house and threatened me.”

“The next time someone comes to the house—if someone comes—you can send them straight to my office at the Andalusian.”

“Guy,” she said, placing a hand on his knee to stop him as he started to stand, “is everything as it should be?”

He jerked back a little. “How could you ask that? Don’t you live in the biggest house on South Orange Grove Boulevard? Don’t you have new dresses every season and enough jewels to rival a duchess? Don’t I pay every single one of your mother’s bills the week they arrive?”

“I am not questioning whether you have provided adequately for Mama and me,” she said softly.

Her comfort, however, seemed to have no effect, because he lashed out. “You have no idea what it is like to be the one everyone comes to with their hand out. I was supporting three households when your father died, Adele. Three.”

“Three?” she asked, confused.

“The Gables, your parents’ home, and Rosewood House.”

Heat flared up the back of her neck. Rosewood House was hers, but there was no denying that it was paid for by Guy’s benevolence. She was no better than Mama, expecting him to pay for everything, from the renovations to Macalister’s salary.

“Now, if you would be so kind, I would like to go to bed. I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow, doing the work that allows you to spend fifty dollars on roses every month,” said Guy.

Adele knew better than to protest the unjustness of his complaining about her bills when he had never once given her a budget or an allowance. Instead, she said good night and made her way back to her bedroom, shutting the door between them.

chapter forty-two ADELE

Adele had been raised to believe that a husband’s role was to take care of his wife in all things, including their finances, and from the first day of their marriage, Guy had insisted that she not worry about the household accounts. She ordered linens and groceries, but she had very little insight into their actual expenditure on a day-to-day basis. Yet the morning after their conversation, Adele could not shake the nagging feeling that Guy was not being entirely forthcoming with her.

It lay, she realized, in his complaint about running three households. Could it be that it was not merely convenience that had prompted him to make the unhappy choice to force Mama’s move to the Gables? Either way, shouldn’t Adele know something of how much it cost to run their lives?

She knew Guy kept the household ledgers in his study. The study she never entered without his express permission.

The morning after their late-night conversation, she walked by his study door, stopping for a moment. She almost reached out to open it when a maid came around the corner. She hurried away despite the fact that it was ridiculous to feel guilty about lingering in front of a door in her own house. Nevertheless, she stayed away for the rest of the day.

The following day, she took herself off to Rosewood House, resolving to forget the household ledgers altogether. Yet, on the third afternoon after her conversation with Guy, when he was at work and Mama was resting in her room, Adele screwed up her courage, reached for the handle of the study’s door, and twisted.

The room was cool and dark, the curtains drawn against the high sun. She closed the door quietly behind her, breathing in the scent of her husband’s cigars that lingered with the lemon and beeswax furniture polish the maids used. There was a small cart with stoppered decanters at the ready on it, and a green tufted leather sofa stretched in front of the fireplace framed in art tiles. Shelves lined the wall she now stood against, filled with histories of the West, land surveys, and other books Guy must have felt it necessary to surround himself with, although she had never once seen him pull one off the shelf.