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“No.”

“Then do we have a deal?”

“I’ll have to work around my regular shifts.” No matter how long it took to write Miss Pearce’s book, she didn’t want to throw away the job she’d worked so hard to secure, especially if there was a position in Metro on the line.

“When do you work?” asked Miss Pearce.

“Wednesday through Sunday. I start at twelve thirty in the afternoon and end at eight thirty, although there are a lot of days when I’ll stay on to finish a story.”

“I am usually occupied during the week, but you may come on Saturday mornings before work,” said Miss Pearce.

“Well, I suppose that settles it. When would you like to begin?”

Miss Pearce shrugged. “Why not now? It is, after all, Saturday morning. Unless you have somewhere you need to be.”

Never having written a biography before, Theresa felt a little thrown into the deep end, but then hadn’t that been her entire journalism career to date? It wasn’t as though she had shown up her first day at the Herald Times knowing how to write a good obituary.

“All right.” She picked up her pencil and opened her notebook to a fresh page. “Where would you like to begin?”

“Where do you usually begin when you write your obituaries?” asked Miss Pearce.

“With the basics. Where someone was born. Where they grew up. If I may, you don’t sound as though you’re from Pasadena.”

The older woman laughed, a light tinkling sound like glasses being clinked together in a toast. “I should hope not. I was born and raised in London, and I did not come to California until I was twenty-two years old, arrogant and proud as a peacock. I suppose that is where the real story starts.”

chapter three ADELE

October 1903

After a great amount of groaning and screeching, the huge iron train that had been Adele’s home since St. Louis shuddered to a stop. A great well of resignation rose up in her chest. After weeks of travel, she had finally arrived in the one place she wished very much not to be.

Pasadena.

With a cocked brow, she watched her traveling companions—Mrs. Gorman and her eighteen-year-old daughter, Miss Gorman—bustle about, fretting about forgetting a tapestry needle or a small pair of snips for the ubiquitous needlepoint that had sat on their laps. What Mama had been thinking in procuring the flighty, overexcitable Mrs. Gorman as an appropriate chaperone for Adele on the seemingly interminable journey from New York City to Pasadena, she would never know.

Mrs. Barnes, who has been kind to your father and me during our residence in Pasadena, has recommended that you travel with Mrs. Gorman of Washington Square. The lady will be traveling with her daughter, Miss Cynthia Gorman, to visit Mrs. Barnes at the end of October, and she has already replied to Mrs. Barnes that she would be happy to take you into her care when you disembark from your crossing. I understand Mrs. Gorman is a respected member of New York society and is the sort of woman you should endeavor to know when you are in America.

Now, thinking of her mother’s letter informing her of her travel arrangements, Adele could only raise a brow at the idea that the Gormans were what passed for good society in this country.

“Oh, Miss Pearce,” Mrs. Gorman said in her strange, flat accent as she snapped closed her sewing box. “You must be excited to see your mama and papa after such a long time away.”

Adele offered her traveling companion the barest of smiles. “Delighted.”

Uncertainty flickered across Mrs. Gorman’s eyes at Adele’s tone, but before the lady could say anything, Miss Gorman cried, “Mama, where is my hat? I can’t possibly disembark without my hat.”

“Oh, Cynthia, when will you stop losing things?” Mrs. Gorman chided.

“Oh, here it is,” Miss Gorman said, blushing as she found the hat in question hidden under a light blue shawl.

“Well, put it on. It would not do to keep Mrs. Barnes waiting,” Mrs. Gorman said. “You, too, Miss Pearce.”

Adele rose, letting the skirt of her dark green wool traveling costume fall into place before adjusting her black velvet collar and cuffs so they lay perfectly. Now that the train was stationary, the heat of the outdoors seemed to bleed into their compartment, a brilliant sun shining through the windows. A part of her regretted her choice of dress, but she had neither the time nor the inclination to change. It was imperative that Adele look her very best to show Mama that her standards had not slipped in the ten months they had been apart.

Moving deliberately, she pulled on her gloves before lifting her green-and-black hat from the rack above her seat. Looking in the little mirror of the compartment, she placed the hat deliberately on the crown of her head and secured it in place with a pearl-topped pin.

“You look very smart, my dear,” said Mrs. Gorman.

“Thank you,” Adele said primly, retrieving her train case from the seat next to her. She was vaguely aware that the rest of her luggage that one of Aunt Hyacinth’s maids had carefully packed in tissue in London would be transported to the Hotel Green, where her parents were staying. How it managed to make the trip from London to Pasadena was of little concern to her. She was far more preoccupied with what would greet her when she stepped off the train.