Fortune is a Woman by Elizabeth Adler Read Free Book Online

time it will be the son you want."
    "It will be," he said, confident that fate would not dare to deal Harmon Harrison a bad card a second time.
    Francie and Dolores were sent to the ranch again for six months of blissful solitude and peace, but the time passed too quickly, and plump as a fatted calf, Dolores was once again installed in her downstairs suite and Francie was banished to the third-floor nursery.
    Behind three-year-old Francie's doll-like prettiness lay a very sharp mind. Dolores had taught her the alphabet on their stay at the ranch and she could already string together letters and read some of the words in her little rag storybooks. She could count to ten and she could lace her own boots, though she did not always get them on the right feet. Her eyes were the deep sparkling blue of her mother's, her small face was heart-shaped, and her long white-blond hair was rolled in rags nightly and brushed out into fat ringlets again each morning by Clara, the young nursemaid. But her father only saw her when Clara took her downstairs at six o'clock to say good night.
    She would be freshly bathed, her curls would shine, and she'd wear a starched cotton frock with row upon row of lace ruffles. Dolores would take her in her arms and hug and kiss her and then the child would approach her father's chair. "Good night, Papa," she would say in her clear piping little voice, dropping a wobbly curtsy.
    "Good night, Francesca," he would reply, glancing up briefly from the evening edition of the San Francisco Chronicle. And then the nursemaid would take her hand and lead her from the vast opulent room back to the safety of the nursery.

CHAPTER 4
    From the day her brother was born Francie's life changed. Her father ordered her to be removed immediately to a small room on the fourth floor back, right by the servants' stairs, while the pretty nursery was repainted and decorated with new curtains and rugs and a wonderful new crib fashioned from solid silver.
    Francie saw the baby in the crib when he was brought down to the drawing room for the christening party and her eyes grew round with amazement as she looked at the yards of cream lace draping the gleaming silver, at the proud blue ribbon on top and the tiny pink-faced baby crying lustily from his swaths of silk.
    Somehow, after the nursery was finished, she was never returned there and the baby, Harmon Harrison, Jr., or Harry, as his father called his son, reigned over it in solitude—except for the half dozen nurses and under-nurses and nurserymaids hired to pamper and fuss over him, while Francie kept her little room at the top of the servants' staircase.
    The room faced north and was small and dark but she didn't mind too much because the window overlooked the stables and she could watch the horses being groomed, ready to be hitched to the carriages, and listen to the servants gossiping in the courtyard as they hung out washing or smoked an illicit cigarette.
    When Clara, her young nursemaid, found her hanging halfway out the window, she was shocked into action.
    "I must protest about the little girl being kept in that back room, sir," she said, bearding the master in his den.
    "And why is that?" he asked distantly, barely glancing up from his desk.
    "Why, it's too small. It's dark and pokey and just today she almost fell out of that window. That's a servant's room," she said with all the pride of position where a nurse was considered above the servants, "and it's not a fit place for the daughter of the house."
    "I will be the judge of that," Harmon replied icily. "I will instruct Maitland to pay your wages to the end of the month and you will leave immediately."
    "Leave?" Clara was stunned. "But I... I can't leave.... Who will look after Francie?"
    "I think the servants are quite capable of dealing with a three-year-old child. I've discovered lately that she has become far too impudent under your care. Please close the door quietly on your way out."
    Francie waved good-bye