Page 82 of The Queen of Roses

He’d shaken his head but had gone back to his newspaper without another word of protest.

“I think it is wonderful for a lady to have something entirely her own—both a purpose and a property,” said Mrs. Barnes.

“Is keeping her husband’s house not enough?” asked Mama.

“But that is precisely it, Mrs. Pearce,” said Mrs. Barnes, her eyes flashing in the way Adele knew meant she was gearing up for a philosophical debate. “It is her husband’s house. Not her own.”

Adele was about to intercede when, at that very moment, there came through the closed dining room windows the distinct sound of a motor roaring to a stop at the front of the house. Adele set down her spoon with a frown. “Is that a motorcar?”

“It does sound like one,” said James.

Sure enough, the engine sputtered to a stop.

“Dirty, noisy things,” muttered Mama, but Adele hardly noticed. Her ears were trained on the sound of the front door opening.

A few moments later, Guy breezed into the dining room, his hair a little rumpled. He was still wearing the suit he had left in that morning, and there were rings around his eyes where goggles had pressed hard into his skin.

“Hello, hello!” he called with a forced brightness, striding to the head of the table and dropping into a chair. “I apologize for being late. I was held up at the Colorado Grand.”

Adele fixed a careful smile on her face and said, “I thought you would be disappointed if I kept our guests waiting, dearest, but we have only just started.”

“That’s fine, fine,” said Guy, reaching for his wineglass and taking a deep drink. “Can family ever really be guests?”

“Indeed. Would you care to dress for dinner, my dear?” she asked with subtle pointedness.

Guy looked down at his gray suit as though seeing it for the first time. “No, I’m happy wearing this.”

Mama gave a little cough of disapproval at Guy’s flagrant disregard for convention in not changing into evening clothes. If Adele had thought that Mama would be grateful to Guy for marrying Adele with no dowry and taking on the care of the entire Pearce family, she had learned soon after their wedding how wrong she’d been. Instead, Mama’s close scrutiny and persistent criticism of Adele’s behavior seemed to have evolved to include Guy as well. How convenient was it that, now that the Pearces’ fortunes were once again secured, Mama’s natural snobbery had returned.

“Mrs. Jarrett, if you will please ask Cook to send up Mr. Whitley’s soup?” asked Adele, ignoring her mother.

The housekeeper slipped silently out of the dining room. Trust Mrs. Jarrett though she might, Adele had no doubt that Guy’s late arrival and lack of proper evening clothes would be the talk of the downstairs servants within the hour.

“Was that the sound of a motorcar we heard in the drive?” asked Mrs. Barnes.

“It was!” Guy exclaimed, a glimmer in his eye. “Arrived on the train from St. Louis this morning.”

“You purchased a motorcar?” Adele asked, stunned.

“An Aerocar Model A,” he said proudly. “Drives like a dream.”

“I should love to ride in a motorcar,” said Miss Barnes.

Adele glanced at the young woman, not liking the keen expression she was casting Guy’s way one bit.

“Well, then I shall have to take you for a drive,” Guy said.

“Guy, I was not aware that you wished to purchase a motorcar,” Adele said, before Miss Barnes fainted from the force of her handsome husband’s attention.

“They’re the way of the future,” Guy said, taking another gulp of wine.

“They certainly are modern,” said James diplomatically.

“All of that noise!” said Mama. “They are a nuisance, aren’t they, Benjamin?”

“I don’t know,” said Papa in his reedy voice. “If I was a younger man…”

“It is a good thing you are not,” said Mama.