The Flapper's Scandalous Elopement Read online

  With this ring...

  They’re temporarily wed!

  Heiress Jane Dryer will do anything to escape her controlling father and the life of domestic drudgery he decrees—even elope with the handsome stranger she meets in a speakeasy! Wealthy railroad owner David Albright needs a temporary wife and Jane needs her independence, so the plan is to marry, then walk away. Only very soon, their fake marriage feels seductively real!

  Sisters of the Roaring Twenties

  Flappers finding love in Hollywood

  By day, the three Dryer sisters, Betty, Patsy and Jane, are dutiful and obedient daughters, doing chores insisted on by their tyrannical father.

  But what their father doesn’t know is that his daughters lead secret lives—as flappers who dance all night in Hollywood’s speakeasies!

  Their father insists they will marry wealthy men of his choosing, but these independent sisters are determined to find love on their own terms!

  Read Patsy’s story in

  The Flapper’s Fake Fiancé

  Read Betty’s story in

  The Flapper’s Baby Scandal

  Read Jane’s story in

  The Flapper’s Scandalous Elopement

  Author Note

  Welcome to the final book in the Sisters of the Roaring Twenties miniseries. Jane’s story starts in Los Angeles, then takes her along the newly built highway system known as Route 66 all the way to Chicago.

  The twenties brought many great inventions that became household basics due to electricity lighting up homes and cities across the nation. Washing machines, vacuum cleaners, irons, refrigerators, radios, even electric razors, and capturing images became popular with the invention of “instant” cameras using rolls of film instead of plates.

  Another major growth happened within the transportation industry during the 1920s. Automobiles became affordable, and passenger trains, city trollies, buses and bicycles offered more options than ever before. So did airplanes.

  I’ve traveled along a section of Route 66 and have to admit I’m a bit envious of Jane, who travels the entire route on her way to her happily-ever-after.

  I hope you enjoy her and David’s journey!

  LAURI ROBINSON

  The Flapper’s Scandalous Elopement

  A lover of fairy tales and history, Lauri Robinson can’t imagine a better profession than penning happily-ever-after stories about men and women in days gone past. Her favorite settings include World War II, the Roaring Twenties and the Old West. Lauri and her husband raised three sons in their rural Minnesota home and are now getting their just rewards by spoiling their grandchildren. Visit her at laurirobinson.blogspot.com, Facebook.com/lauri.robinson1 or Twitter.com/laurir.

  Books by Lauri Robinson

  Harlequin Historical

  Diary of a War Bride

  Sisters of the Roaring Twenties

  The Flapper’s Fake Fiancé

  The Flapper’s Baby Scandal

  The Flapper’s Scandalous Elopement

  Brides of the Roaring Twenties

  Baby on His Hollywood Doorstep

  Stolen Kiss with the Hollywood Starlet

  Oak Grove

  Mail-Order Brides of Oak Grove

  “Surprise Bride for the Cowboy”

  Winning the Mail-Order Bride

  In the Sheriff’s Protection

  Visit the Author Profile page

  at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  To Kathy, an amazing woman who loves to read. Truly an author’s best friend. Thanks, Kathy, so very much!

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from A Forbidden Liaison with Miss Grant by Marguerite Kaye

  Chapter One

  1928

  The Rooster’s Nest was as dull as an old woman clicking knitting needles. There were no clusters of spiffily dressed men and women spewing chin music and laughing, blocking the way to the powder room. No groups of men wearing work clothes and standing near the bar, telling stories they’d told before but still tossing their heads back with laughter. No couples dancing cheek to cheek, filling the dance floor beneath the bright lights with their stained-glass shades.

  Normally she’d be dancing, kicking up her heels and really cutting a rug; however, tonight Jane Dryer was sitting at the bar, tapping one foot to the beat of the music while sipping on a fruit juice cocktail. She let out a sigh while twirling her glass on the varnished wood of the long bar and scanned the room again, hoping the occupants had changed.

  They hadn’t. The same two couples sat at tables. One pair, the woman with red hair and the man with a tweed hat, looked like they were arguing, and the other couple, the one that kept leaning closer, whispering, looked shady enough they could be a gangster and his moll. The other tables and a couple of stools at the other end of the bar were occupied by men who, for the most part, were here for the drinking, not dancing or fun.

  They might participate if she asked, but not a one of them, with their shirtsleeves rolled up past their elbows, revealing dirty arms, was one she wanted to dance with. She had her standards.

  Actually, her sister Betty had set standards that they all three had to abide by during their nights out. Not just who they could dance with, but what they could drink so that none of them ended up blind, and which speakeasies they could visit so they didn’t end up in a raid.

  The trouble was, it wasn’t they anymore. For months, she and her sisters, Betty and Patsy, had changed into the flapper outfits they’d sewn in secret, climbed out the bathroom window and visited speakeasies nearly every night.

  It had been her idea several months ago for them to sneak out at night, escape the confines of their father’s house. Despite the fact they were all grown women—she was twenty-one, Patsy twenty and Betty twenty-two—they’d been treated like they were all under five, complete with a seven-thirty bedtime every night. They’d found freedom in sneaking out, and Betty had set down the rules they had to follow to make sure they didn’t get caught. They hadn’t.

  Gotten caught, that was, but her sisters were no longer with her on these nightly excursions. They were both married. Three months ago Patsy had married Lane Cox, the owner of the Los Angeles Gazette and the best reporter in the state. Patsy was a reporter now, too, and loving her new life.

  A month later, Betty had married Henry Randall, an FBI agent. They were going to have a baby next year, around May, six months from now. Betty was in her glory. She’d always been a mother hen and was already sewing baby clothes.

  Jane grinned. Betty would be a wonderful mother, and Jane was happy for her and for Patsy. She was just bored. And this place tonight made her even more bored.

  “Dull night.”

  The long fringe around the hem of her dark purple dress swished against her calf as she twisted her stool enough to glance over her shoulder at who’d spoken. She then glanced toward the piano and the empty seat behind it. So lost in boredom, she hadn’t realized the music had stopped.

  The piano player grasped ahold of the glass the bartender, who was as listless as the rest of the room tonight, slid across the bar.

  Twisting her stool back around so she was facing away from him, she took a sip of her drink. In the past she’d talked to the piano players, even sat next to them on their piano bench, but no longer. They couldn’t be trusted.

  “No one’s dancing,” he said. “Not even you.”

  “No one to dance with,” she said, without turning around. She knew what he looked like. He had a dimple in one cheek when he smiled, and he always rolled his sleeves up to the elbows when he played.

  “What about that guy?”

  Jane didn’t need to look at him to know he was suggesting the fella at the table near the hallway. She shook her head.

  “Why not?”

  “He works at the docks.” She’d never spoken to this piano player because, after the last one, she’d made herself a rule. No more piano players. No matter how nice looking or good smelling. This one wasn’t here all that often—he only played a few nights a week—and had only been doing that for a couple of months.

  “Why does it matter where he works? It’s only a dance.”

  She lifted her glass, took a sip. “Go stand next to him.”

  He chuckled. “That bad?”

  “It’s like dancing with a dead rockfish.” She shivered at the memory of the one time she had danced with that guy. The smell of rotten fish had been embedded in her nose for hours.

  The piano player chuckled again as he set his glass on the bar with a thud. “I’m done for the night, Murray.”

  “All right, Dave,” Murray, the bartender, answered. “See you tomorrow night.”

  “See you,” he told Murray, then tapped on her shoulder. “Have a good night.”

  She st
ill didn’t face him but nodded.

  “Will you be here tomorrow night?”

  She shrugged. She never told anyone her plans, another one of Betty’s rules that still stuck with her. Most of the rules she didn’t mind, and with Betty’s husband being an FBI agent, Jane was well aware of the dangers and consequences of not following several of them.

  “Hopefully, it’ll be more lively,” he said.

  Beneath the brim of her floppy black hat, she watched him leave. He was a real Joe Brooks—handsome, with his wavy brown hair and twinkling green eyes, and perfectly dressed from his white-and-black-striped shirt down to his black-and-white wing tip shoes. He really could make piano keys dance, too. She knew. She loved music and spent hours watching the musicians at each of the speakeasies. Piano music was her favorite, and she could listen to it all day, every day. Which was why she used to talk to the piano players, until one got to expecting her to talk to only him, and another one couldn’t keep his hands to himself.

  “Want another one?” Murray asked.

  She shook her head while twisting her stool back around to face the bar. “No.” There was no use hanging around here.

  Murray tapped the varnished wood top of the bar twice with his hand. She didn’t know why he did that, but he did; rather than nodding or answering, he’d just tap the bar. Even on nights when the place was hopping.

  She should have left while the music was still playing, providing a small amount of distraction. With so few people in the joint, someone might see her slip behind the curtain that hung along the back wall, hiding the door to the storeroom, which was also her exit route.

  Having almost been caught once, she was very careful about not being seen slipping behind the curtain. It was a good ten minutes before Murray walked down the hall to the john. She stood, and after a quick scan to make sure no one was watching, she walked over to the piano and ran a hand over its smooth top as she casually strolled past it. After another quick glance around the room, she shot over to the wall and behind the curtain.

  She opened the door to the storeroom and closed it just as quietly, then ran past boxes, crates and shelves full of bottles to the end wall, swung the shelf away from the wall and opened the hidden door behind it. As far as she knew, no one, not even Murray, knew about this door.

  After pulling the shelf back in place first, she shut the door and clicked on her flashlight in order to see as she locked the door. She’d promised Betty and Henry she’d never leave it unlocked and wouldn’t. The tunnel went all the way to their house. To their basement. A mob boss had built the house and tunnel several years ago, and when he’d been busted, the government had confiscated the house. Betty and Henry had purchased it after getting married. Father had tried to purchase it several times and questioned how Henry had managed to buy it. Because he worked for the government! He was an FBI agent. It didn’t take much to figure that one out. But Father was still miffed that he hadn’t been given the chance to buy it.

  That’s what her father cared about. Houses and money. Mostly money. He’d inherited a large amount of land from his grandfather and father, and created Hollywoodland, a place where only the rich and famous could afford to build a house. Father was obsessed with money, and with keeping it, to the point he’d made a list of rich men. Men he’d tried forcing Patsy and Betty to marry. Betty almost ended up marrying James Bauer, one of the men on Father’s list. Up until Henry had walked into the church and objected to the marriage of Betty and James.

  That had been amazing, and she’d been overjoyed for her sister, at how Betty had ended up marrying Henry instead of James that very day. Jane still was happy for her sister. She was also scared because she knew what had happened to Betty—being forced to marry a stranger just because he was rich—would soon happen to her.

  It was in the cards.

  Lane had been on Father’s list, but Patsy had already fallen in love with him by the time they got engaged. When that had happened Jane had hoped it meant things would be different, for her and Betty, but they hadn’t been. Within hours of Patsy’s wedding, Father was ordering Betty to marry James.

  The sigh that left her echoed through the dark tunnel, and she instantly shone the beam of the flashlight on the walls and ceiling, making sure she hadn’t stirred up any furry or winged inhabitants. She’d never seen any but always wondered if they were there, watching her with beady little eyes as she walked through the tunnel each night.

  That was eerie; however, she would come back tomorrow night. It wasn’t as if she had anything else to do. Now that her sisters were married, out of the house, she didn’t have anyone to talk to, anyone to laugh with, anyone to just be there with her.

  Not while she was cooking, cleaning, washing clothes or cleaning the newly built homes on the plots of land in the hills of the Santa Monica Mountains, overlooking the fast-growing movie studios. That’s how Father made his money. Money he wouldn’t share with anyone.

  She wasn’t complaining, just frustrated. Father had provided well for his family. They had a very nice house, plenty to eat, clothes and everything else, but he wanted his daughters to marry money so that when they moved out, they’d no longer need any of his money. That was the truth of it. He cared more about money than his family, and there wasn’t anything she could do about it. She’d end up marrying a man because of his money, and that curdled her stomach. Unlike Patsy, Jane hadn’t met anyone who would ever compel those feelings in her, and she most certainly had never met anyone who would object to her wedding like Henry had Betty’s.

  How could she? She was never allowed to go anywhere.

  She was doomed. Not only doomed—hopeless. Betty and Patsy were married, and though they were still her sisters and she loved them, she felt deserted.

  The ceiling of the wood-lined tunnel shook, telling her she was walking beneath one of the streets between the Rooster’s Nest and Betty’s house. The tunnel was over ten city blocks long, and some nights it gave her the heebie-jeebies, afraid it might collapse on her. However, walking or taking the trolley by herself was just as scary.

  None of that had been scary when it had been the three of them. They’d all three walked and taken the trolley to a variety of joints. She’d gone to a couple of other speakeasies since it had become just her sneaking out, but quickly discovered she didn’t like walking the streets and alleys alone. Didn’t like riding the trolley alone. She didn’t even like walking alone down here in the tunnel all that much.

  She ran the final few blocks and then locked the tunnel door once she was inside the basement of Betty’s house. Taking a moment to catch her breath, she hung the keys on their hook and then walked upstairs and out the kitchen door. Henry had put a special lock on that door, one that locked from the inside, without a key, so all she had to do was pull it shut, because Betty and Henry were always asleep or at least upstairs in bed when she left their house.

  Betty and Henry’s property butted up to Hollywoodland and was only a short distance from her house, but the dark road was still lonely and the wind rustling the weeds and trees made her jumpy. The night air was also chilly, so she ran again, up the road, through the trees and across her backyard. Then she grabbed ahold of the boards of the ivy-covered trellis, climbed to the second floor of the house and slipped in through the bathroom window.

  Once in her room, she quickly changed out of her flapper clothes, hid them in the trunk in her closet and climbed into bed before she dared let out a sigh of relief that she’d made it home once again without getting caught.

  Staring at the shadows the moon was casting upon the ceiling, she wondered if marrying a stranger would be better than this. It was awfully lonely with both of her sisters gone. Married. Happy.

  But she didn’t want to get married.

  She huffed out a breath.

  Patsy had always wanted to be a reporter, and she was now. Betty had gotten what she wanted, too. To have her own family, her own house.

  Jane rolled over on her side. She didn’t know what she wanted because she didn’t know what was out there. She read about all sorts of things in magazines, and wanted to see some of those things, do some of those things, and then she’d decide what she wanted.