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The ticket was first class.
Dolly couldn’t imagine anyone riding to Sandusky in first class, unless they were the sort of person who rode everywhere in first class. Of course, she supposed, Oscar van Rhijn had been that sort of man once. Before he’d met her. And there was no point in not believing he’d bought her a first class ticket, because she was here, in the first class car, ticket in hand. Although that didn’t really make it easier to believe. She could barely believe that he’d bought her a ticket at all. She sat in her seat, looking out the window as the buildings of New York slid past the window as much to keep herself from looking in her purse as anything.
If the first class ticket was difficult to believe, the hundred dollar bill was impossible. It was real, though. She’d held it in her hand and looked at it before tucking it safely away. It was all real. The question was, what was she supposed to do with it?
Around her the other first class passengers chatted amongst themselves or read their papers, completely oblivious to the fact there was an intruder in their ranks. They had never realized she didn’t belong, all of the wealthy people with their grandeur, until it was too late. She had been trained to blend in for nearly as long as she could remember. The man who had won her from her father had trained her to pick pockets at first, then used her as a spy in wealthy houses that he would later rob. Crowther had built on that, teaching her to be as home at the tables of high society as the people who owned them. She had become one of those exotic lizards one heard about that could change its color to match its surroundings. She could blend in anywhere.
So where was she going to blend in now? Sandusky? Or someplace else? She could get off the train early and go to Chicago or Cincinnati. But what would she do there?
What would she do anywhere?
She frowned out the window. She’d rarely ever needed to make her own decisions before, to choose her own path. There had always been someone to tell her what to do. When there hadn’t been, when she’d been left to her own devices, decisions had needed to be made quickly to ensure her survival. There had been the Hay Market. She’d done what she needed to do then. What did she need to do now, now that she had a hundred dollars in her purse?
At the end of the day the basics stayed the same: food, shelter, and clothes. But now she didn’t need to rely on someone who owned her for those. If she went all the way to Sandusky, she would have Cissy, assuming her sister would speak to her. They hadn’t been very devoted correspondents. If she stopped somewhere else, she’d have to find a hotel or a boarding house. Then again, with a hundred dollars, she could rent some rooms and make a show of respectability.
Perhaps if she made a show of respectability long enough, she could actually be respectable. A hundred dollars wouldn’t last long if it were her only source of income. A year, perhaps, or two if she was very frugal. But if she bought the right clothes, she could get work as a shop girl somewhere — a millinery shop, perhaps, or even a jewellery shop — and earn an honest living.
Honest. Something else she’d never been. Even the idea of working in a shop would require some subterfuge, but she was young enough that she could weave some suitable excuse for not having any references. Or perhaps she could be a private secretary for one of Ohio’s business men, or a female companion for a spinster sister. Something of that sort. After all, there were rich men in Ohio. There were rich men everywhere these days, even Sandusky, surely. Her lips twitched up at the edges. Perhaps she could catch herself a rich husband.
The thought brought to mind a pair of expressive brown eyes and a charming smile. She wasn’t certain she wanted a husband by this point. All of the men she’d known had wanted nothing except to own her, in some way…except for one.
Her smile faded, the memories needling at her. Crowther had used her to rob half a dozen men, but she’d never felt bad about it before. Their victims had always been tiresome men, either arrogant show offs, trying to sell her on the great things they could accomplish with her fictional fortune, or they’d been sycophantic and clinging, trying to convince her that they were devoted to her beauty rather than her money. In many ways Oscar van Rhijn had done both, but at the same time, he’d done neither.
You bring out the best in him.
It was a strange thought, and at first she’d thought his cousin simply a bit daft, but over time she’d realized it was true. Instead of talking about what her money could do, he’d used his money to do things she’d approve of. What sort of man impressed a woman by donating to a charity in her name? And she had no doubt that, in the end, he’d have defied his mother and attended his aunt’s wedding without her being there (well, maybe there was a little doubt), but would he have walked her down the aisle? He had been after her money, there was no question, but as the months went by she’d had an increasing sense that he genuinely, desperately wanted her to genuinely like him.
Even Crowther’s smug words as he showed her the signed check…
He said this money would make you both happy, if you can believe that.
He clearly hadn’t believed it, but she did. She really did. It occurred to her with a start, sitting there, surrounded by people who actually belonged, that he had actually cared about her. That, as with all of the people he cared for, he wanted her to be happy. He’d wanted her to be happy with him. Even after she’d helped rob him, and after that scene in the Hay Market when he’d told her he hated her. Despite the fierce, almost desperate anger at the outset, the moment when he’d genuinely frightened her, there had been no heat in those later words, only a tired sense of betrayal and loss. Almost grief.
I was ready to share my life with you.
How many times had she wished it was true? That she were a secret heiress and that they could get married? She’d never thought that way with the others. The thought of marrying the arrogant blowhards made her feel ill, and marrying the sycophants would have been stifling. Oscar, though…she was convinced that for all of his flaws, he would have been the best husband that he could manage, and that he would have done everything possible to make her happy. To make them happy.
If she could find another man like that, then perhaps…
But how many were there, really, and what were the odds she would find them? No, marriage was not a goal. If the right man happened along, then she would reconsider, but until then she’d been given a chance to improve her life…for the first time, to choose who she would be.
You were so elegant…
She looked at her reflection in the window and raised her chin. She had been elegant before, she could be elegant again. She would never be an heiress, but with a hundred dollars and someone who believed in her, even someone miles away…
She would start where she could — a shop girl, a secretary, something respectable and visible — and from there, she would be the woman he’d wanted her to be.