Bitterness wove through the woman’s laugh. “I suppose New York sounds more sophisticated than Boone County.”
Isabelle clung to a thread of hope. It was all a misunderstanding. “The Mr.Kirtland who owned this hotel was definitely from New York.”
The woman shrugged. “My Ross always liked to make up a good story.”
Had it really all been a story? The hotel Ross said he’d owned in New York. The parents who were deceased. The sister who sent him letters at least once a month.
“Perhaps there are two men in California with the same name,” Isabelle said, trying to explain this more to herself than to the woman across from her. Ross had fervently declared his love for her, said they would marry this spring. He never would have done that if he had a wife back east.
The woman leaned across the desk toward her, a locket dangling around her neck. She opened the clasp, and inside was a miniature daguerreotype of her and Ross. His handsome face was resolute.
“This was taken on our wedding day,” the woman said.
Isabelle didn’t reply.
“Is this the man who owned the hotel?”
Isabelle swallowed hard, her face warm again. “It is.”
She dropped the carpetbag onto the floor. “Then I’ve found him at last.”
Isabelle stared at her in shock. How could Ross have done this to her? To both of them?
After closing her locket, the woman collapsed on a cane chair near the front door. There was a hole in the toe of her boot, and her skirt was stained. “The whole room is rocking,” she declared.
Isabelle wanted to run upstairs and hide, but instead she went into the kitchen and mixed the woman a drink with bicarbonate of soda, crushed sugar, and a dose of quinine to help calm her stomach and ward off disease.
“What is your name?” Isabelle asked, her voice shaky when she returned.
“Fanny. Fanny Kirtland.”
The name of the letter writer, the woman Ross had declared to be his sister.
Isabelle tried to steady her voice. “How long have you and Ross been married?”
“Four years, though he left for California about two months after we married to make a home for us out here,” she explained. “He said he would send for me, but he never did so I decided to come on my own and surprise him.”
Isabelle forced a smile. “I’m certain he will be surprised.”
Fanny looked at the Irish lace over the front window, then up at the lime and pink medallions above the chandelier.
“Is Ross’s house nearby?” she asked.
Isabelle shook her head. “He lived in the back rooms of the hotel when he owned it.”
“I suppose I shall have to stay in those rooms, then.”
Isabelle hesitated. She had been living in those rooms since Ross left the city.
“Ross can pay my bill when he returns.”
Isabelle wanted to turn the woman away, tell her to take the steamboat back to San Francisco and catch a clipper returning to the East Coast, but she would never turn a woman onto the streets of Sacramento City alone. Hers was the only establishment in town fit for a lady.
“I could help here until Ross returns,” Fanny said, and Isabelle could hear the desperation in her voice.
“Do you know how to bake?”
“No—but I can learn.”
