Free An Unexpected Suitor by Anna Schmidt Page A

said.
    Just then Ellie came down the stairs, a music book clutched in one arm. She glanced from Olga to Nola and said, “Shall I just begin playing or introduce the music?”
    “It’s background,” Nola reminded her, and Ellie nodded.
    “Right. Just strike up the band, then,” she said and headed for the piano.
    Now it was Olga’s turn to give Nola her full attention. “She is to perform?” Clearly she was offended by this change in assignments.
    “Yes, well, the job of greeting our guests was taken—and I must admit you are doing it beautifully, Countess,” she added hurriedly and realized it was exactly what Harry Starbuck would have said to soothe the actress’s ruffled ego. “Ellie—Eleanore—is simply going to provide a bit of soft classical music to further enhance the mood you have already begun to set for our patrons.”
    She saw Olga process this information even as Nola heard the impatient tapping of Rose Gillenwater’s leather shoe on the bare wood floor behind her. “Carry on, then,” she said with a weak smile at Olga as she once again closed the doors to her inner sanctum and turned to face yet another problem.
    “Actors, my dear?” Rose said the moment they were behind closed doors. She clicked her tongue against herteeth and shook her head slowly. “I can possibly understand employing such people since you are admittedly in a bind regarding keeping your tearoom in operation. But putting them up in your home? Has it come to this?”
    As the wife of Alistair Gillenwater, Starbuck’s business partner and a successful attorney as well as ’Sconset’s self-appointed keeper of the standard for decorum, Rose Gillenwater had a well-defined and equally well-known code of conduct she expected others to follow. Those who did not risked not only her disapproval but her considerable influence in the community to impact the individual’s social standing, and in Nola’s case, her business.
    But from the moment news of her father’s death at sea had reached them, Nola’s mother had drummed one lesson into her children’s heads—survival. “Whatever it takes as long as no one is harmed and you aren’t breaking the law,” she had lectured.
    And now as Nola faced Rose and her cohorts, she couldn’t help thinking that these women had never once had to even consider what they might do under adverse conditions. The greatest problem any one of them had ever had to face to Nola’s knowledge was whether or not the fabric they had ordered for a new gown had arrived.
    She remembered what Harry had told her about Ellie’s devastating loss and felt sympathy for the actress. The truth was that, in spite of her concern about the theater people coming to ’Sconset, more than once she had questioned the underlying prejudice with which many had treated the resident actors. And suddenly she had to fight her inclination to tell Mrs. Gillenwater that who she chose to hire—and house—was no one’s business but hers. Instead she drew in a breath and smiled. “Ladies, please,” she said, “let’ssit for a moment. Shall I ask Mrs. Lang to bring us some tea and a plate of her delicious cucumber sandwiches?”
    “We won’t be staying,” Rose replied haughtily even as the other two women nodded eagerly at the prospect of tea and treats. “Imagine my surprise earlier when I was calling on poor Mrs. Hogan down the lane and we observed this little band of minstrels approach your door. Well, I was quite certain that I would soon see them on their way to Ina Matthews’s boardinghouse. I never imagined…”
    “They have fallen on some difficulties that are not of their own making,” Nola explained. She mentioned the damaged cottages and the delay in getting materials. Encouraged by the sympathetic expressions on the faces of Mrs. Dobbs and Mrs. Bosworth, she continued. “And then, as you know the help I had hired for the season became unavailable.”
    Rose glared at her, unmoved. “I would remind you,