Free Thurston House by Danielle Steel

words seemed to strike her like a whip, and she would seem to subside silently then into her own reminiscences. Orville himself was of an entirely different breed, obviously less aristocratic than his wife. He had a rough edge to him, with eyes narrowed constantly as though he had just thought of something important. And it was clear that the only thing important to Orville was business. His hair was as dark as Jeremiah's, his complexion almost swarthy. He explained that his grandparents had been from the south of France, and had first come to New Orleans before moving to Georgia. And he made no secret that they had had nothing when they'd come, nor had his father some thirty years later. It was Orville who made the family's first fortune, who profited from the industrialization of die South during and after the war. He had built himself a small empire, which he admitted was not yet as large as he wanted it to be, but would be one day, especially with the help of his son, Hubert, named after Orville's grandfather.
    But it was Jeremiah's impression that Hubert was not nearly as bright as his father. Instead, he had his mother's annoying whine and he seemed far more interested in spending his father's money than in making any of his own. He talked about a string of racehorses he had bought in Kentucky, and the brothel he liked best in New Orleans. All in all, it was a tedious evening for Jeremiah. And two of the other members of the consortium he would do business with were there too, quiet older men with strong opinions and uninteresting wives who talked to each other in hushed tones for most of the evening. Jeremiah noticed that they spoke little or not at all to Elizabeth Beauchamp, and she seemed to ignore them completely. It was easy to see that she thought them far beneath her, given her aristocratic beginnings on her Daddy's plantation.
    The other thing Jeremiah noticed in the course of the evening was that the Beauchamp family was singularly obsessed with everyone's fortune, how much who had and how they had made it. Elizabeth had lost everything she might have ever had during the war. Her father had shot himself after the destruction of his plantation, and her mother had died shortly after of grief, perhaps more for the fortune they had lost, Jeremiah thought, than for her husband.
    The Beauchamps apparently had a daughter, whom Orville claimed was a perfect jewel, but given what he'd seen, Jeremiah sincerely doubted it. She was at a grand ball somewhere that night, with every boy in Atlanta nipping at her heels, no doubt, the proud papa said, before adding, They should be ' the dress she has on cost me a fortune. Jeremiah smiled blankly at his words, tired of their obsession with money, and all he could think of as the evening droned on was that he wished he were with Amelia in Savannah, seeing her grandchild for the first time, and visiting her daughter. What a different and far more genteel atmosphere that would have been, and then he laughed at himself. It wasn't the gentility of the scene that appealed to him, but the chance to be near Amelia, to inhale her sensuous perfume, kiss her lips, and spend hours looking into her eyes. Just thinking of her brought a smile to his lips, which Elizabeth Beauchamp thought was meant just for her, and she patted his hand limply before getting up to lead the ladies into the other room, while the men smoked cigars and drank brandy. It was only then that the deal that had brought him to Atlanta was mentioned, and it was almost a relief to talk business after the incredibly boring evening.
    He was relieved when the first guests left shortly after eleven o'clock, and he was able to seek refuge in the excuse that he was exhausted from the long trip and anxious to return to the hotel to rest before they began negotiations the next morning. The Beauchamp carriage took him back to the hotel, and half an hour later he was standing on the terrace looking out over the city. He thought back