by Zoë Archer
“So, you plan on getting married?” He thought he heard her voice grow tight, but he couldn’t be sure. He glanced over at her, and she was studying her own cup of coffee as though it held the answer to a riddle.
“Someday,” he answered. He tried picturing his future bride, a woman he hadn’t met yet but knew he would want, and came up with nothing. She’d always been a notion, not a real person. He thought quickly of the girl in New York, of sitting on a park bench the following morning while tugging on his boots and knowing that he didn’t have the taste for meaningless romps. But what was the alternative? Marriage. To an unknown wife.
Instead of picturing this wife, he followed that lovely curve of Olivia’s neck, the dark masses of her hair pinned into soft whorls and interwoven with silk roses, and the neat scrollwork of her ear. “Someday,” he repeated, “but not yet. I’ve got other plans until then.”
Chapter Nine
The evening, to the degree that Charlotte’s plans were concerned, had been a success. The guests had enjoyed Will’s company considerably, and found his profession of cattle herding to be refreshingly rustic, charmingly authentic, a safe novelty that could not damage their insular world. The truth—he was assisting Olivia at the brewery while searching for his relatives—was peculiar enough to provoke little comment. Word was sure to reach George Pryce that Olivia had no plan to crawl away with her tail between her legs, and she had Will at her back in case anything grew dangerous.
So she and Will ought to have been quite pleased with the course of the night’s activities as they entered her home on Princes Square. Yet neither of them acted very pleased. In fact, their mood, as they gave Mordon their hats and wraps, bordered nearly on funereal.
“Are you planning on retiring?” Olivia asked, lingering in the foyer.
Will shook his head. “Feelin’ a bit antsy, so maybe I’ll head over to that library of yours and find somethin’ to read.”
She looked at him in the gaslight, piercingly handsome and young in his stark evening clothes. Roddam & Sons had done an excellent job in their tailoring—the suit of clothes fit Will amazingly, emphasizing the broadness of his shoulders, his height and the leanness of his musculature—yet he still seemed ill at ease in his finery. Perhaps if she hadn’t come to know him as well as she did, she would not have seen his discomfort, but she could sense that feeling of displacement emanating from him.
She was supposed to say good night and climb the stairs, letting him sit alone in her library. Her mind turned back to the conversation she’d had with Charlotte once the ladies had left the dining room. Her hostess had taken her aside as the other female guest made their way to the first floor.
“Will seems to be doing quite well,” Charlotte had said quietly.
“He has a natural ability to make friends,” Olivia answered. “I know I count myself as one of them.”
In the glow of the gaslamps, Charlotte had looked almost mournful. “Remember my warning to you, Olivia. I see the way you look at each other. It’s unmistakable.”
Olivia had not been able to contradict Charlotte, as much as she wanted to. Lord, was she so transparent? Were they?
“Taking him as a lover would be socially devastating,” Charlotte had continued.
“Perhaps I want more from him than just an affair,” Olivia had replied.
“I like Mr. Coffin very much,” Charlotte said. “I know you do not want to believe this, and I wish I didn’t have to say so, but an affair is all that your attraction can ever amount to. There is simply no possibility that it can lead to anything more lasting. But even then, the damage to your reputation would be permanent.” She sighed and smoothed Olivia’s hair, an old gesture of comfort. “Come,” Charlotte said, looping her arm through Olivia’s and leading her upstairs, “the guests are waiting.”
With Charlotte’s words echoing in her head, Olive knew full well what she ought to do—go to bed immediately, and alone.
“Do you feel like a bit of music?” she heard herself ask suddenly.
Will’s unusually somber face broke into a grin. “Sure do,” he said.
Taking up a lamp, Olivia led him to the music room on the ground floor. Unlike the rest of the house, here Olivia had been given free rein in her decorative tastes. It was furnished much more simply than the other rooms. The walls were papered in floral designs from William Morris, and the furniture was carved by local craftsmen in a plain style which David had never liked. He had called it crude, but she loved the refined understatement of woodwork without embellishment. There were a few sofas and chairs scattered throughout the small room, and even a piano at the far end.
She hadn’t shown the room to Will earlier; it was a rather personal place, decorated as it was in a style uniquely her own. Perhaps he would have found such a simple room strange or awkward compared to the rest of the elegant townhouse. Few people of her acquaintance knew about the music room. That had been a deliberate decision on her part. If anyone could appreciate such a place, however, it would be Will. She looked at him, almost shyly, to see his response.
“I’ll be,” Will breathed in open admiration as Olivia, relieved and pleased, gently set the lamp down on the piano. He gently ran his hands over the satiny dark surface of the lid. Such a contrast between the refined musical instrument, imported and continental, intended for elegant little spaces, and Will, lanky, rugged, meant for a landscape as open and rough as he was. Yet there was something in his appreciation of the piano that was fitting, his unexpected appreciation for the beautiful.
“It comes from Vienna,” she explained, delighted with his pleasure. “Shall I play for you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Will agreed immediately, coming around to pull the bench out for her.
She sat, adjusting the rustling fabric of her bustle and skirts, before skimming the tops of the piano keys lightly with her fingers. Early in her marriage, she would play for David after dinner, and he would sit in one of the armchairs, listening and watching. Then he began bringing his newspapers with him into the music room, and eventually she stopped playing. How long had it been since she’d played for anyone besides herself? Years. Many years.
But she could feel Will’s interest as he leaned against the piano. She practiced a few scales to warm up her fingers before beginning with some Chopin, Nocturne in C minor, a piece she had learned at school. The room filled with the precise, refined notes, and after she felt comfortable in the routine of the piece, she chanced a look at Will’s face.
He was staring at her hands, intent, watching the positioning of her fingers as they moved over the keys. His eyebrows had drawn down in concentration and she almost believed that he was memorizing the piece as she played. But that was impossible.
She tried to keep her fingers from becoming clumsy under his scrutiny, yet she was acutely conscious of his focus. Her hands, her arms, felt exposed—naked, almost—beneath his attentive eyes, though she wore a heavy diamond bracelet on one wrist. A flush began to spread across her chest and up into her face. Her hands did stumble then, and she placed them in her lap.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, “it’s been a while since I’ve had an audience.”
Whatever spell had fallen across Will broke instantly and he smiled warmly, leaning an elbow on the piano. “That was surely the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard, Liv. Can’t you keep playin’? If me watchin’ bothers you, I can stare at the potted plant. See?” He demonstrated by gaping at the fern sitting in the étagère as though it were a horseless carriage.
Olivia laughed. “You can watch me if you like.” She rearranged her hands over the keys, then began to play one of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, letting herself enjoy the music as well as having an appreciative, attentive audience.
She didn’t want to admit how much she basked in his attention, how having him watch her as he did now, with his forearms braced on the lid of the piano and his gaze on her alone, filled her with an unaccountable gratification. He was handsome, yes; what wo
man did not enjoy being the object of a good-looking man’s interest? But it was more than that. She felt so much more comfortable with Will now than she’d had at Charlotte’s dinner party. In truth, she felt freer, more herself, than she had been in a goodly while.
She poured that feeling into the piano, letting the music express what she knew words could not. From Beethoven she ran into a Mozart piano sonata in G major, finding herself smiling and nodding over the keys, bent over them in a way her piano instructor would never have approved, though it felt so good.
When the Mozart came to an end, she rested her hands on the keyboard.
“Have I bored you, yet?” she asked, only partly in jest.
But Will looked serious. He reached down and laid his hands over hers. She felt the heat of his skin against hers. “I could stand here all night and listen to you,” he said with a shake of his head. “Between the music and the woman, I’m up to my Stetson in beauty.”
She found herself blushing again, as flustered as if she were still in boarding school. All knowledge of music fled under the onslaught of his natural charm, which was that much more remarkable because it was uncontrived, spontaneous. When he took his hands away, she missed his touch acutely.
“Would you mind,” he said, after a pause, “if I give it a whirl?”
She glanced up, eyebrows arched in surprise. “The piano?”
He looked boyishly flustered, the faintest hint of red blossoming along the high planes of his cheekbones and along the bridge of his nose. “Forget it. I’m bein’ stupid.”
“No, no,” she said quickly, rising up so fast she nearly knocked over the bench. “Please.” She gestured to the seat.
With a slight self-conscious grimace, Will came around the piano and sat down. He tugged free the tails of his evening coat and let them drape down to the floor. Interlacing his fingers, he stretched his arms out in front and Olivia heard a popping from his knuckles. When she made a face, he smiled, sheepish. “Sorry. The boys in the bunkhouse used to say my crackin’ knuckles could be heard from the Dakota Badlands to the Gulf of Mexico.”
For a few moments, he studied the keys, as though reading a map to a foreign country. And then, without flourish, he began to play.
It was a simple, rollicking tune, boisterous, with a pace suitable for galloping across the floor, and Olivia began to laugh with the exuberant joy of it. There was nothing elegant or refined about the tune, but it was, to her mind, as wild and Western as the man who played it.
“You are a veritable font of talents,” she said to him as he played.
“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed with a wink and a grin. As he moved into the next song, a lilting country ballad, he said, “There ain’t much work in the winter for cowpunchers, so I played piano in saloons and sometimes for the theatrical troupes that’d come through town. Y’know, melodramas.” And here he played a comically exaggerated, threatening tune befitting a mustache-twirling villain, as he wiggled his eyebrows. She laughed again.
“How you amaze me, Will Coffin,” she said, admiring and humbled that one man could be so protean.
“This is surely finer than any of the beat-up wooden boxes I played in Leadville.” He smiled and continued to play. “Take a seat, Liv. I ain’t used to having stand up audiences.”
Instead of pulling up a chair, as she ought to, Olivia found herself sitting next to Will on the bench. If he was surprised, he didn’t show it, but she astonished herself. Even through the yards of silk in her skirt, she felt his legs underneath the piano, working the pedals, and high-leaping currents set off inside her chest as his arm would brush against her as he moved along the keyboard.
“This tune’s called ‘My Grandfather’s Clock,’” he explained as he played a fast, comic song. “The boys always got a big kick out of this one. I won’t frighten you to death with my singin’. Usually there were girls who sang.”
Olivia had a fairly good idea what kind of girls those singers were, but she decided not to comment. Will played more another quick, silly tune.
“This one’s ‘Oh, Dem Golden Slippers,’” he said. “After a few rounds, everybody got up and did a little cakewalk dance to it. Except me, since I had to play.”
“What is that one called?” Olivia asked after he trotted out the next funny song.
He grinned at her. “‘Smick, Smack, Smuck.’”
“How racy,” she laughed. “I should slap your face.”
“Wait ‘til you hear the words,” he said with a leer. Then he played a slower, sadder piece, gently longing and melodic.
“Whenever the miners or cowboys got homesick,” he said, “they all asked for this one: ‘I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen.’ Especially the Irish men.”
But nothing he had played prepared her for the tune he played next. It was deceptively simple, low and keen, with rolling notes that blended together to form an undulating current of heartbreaking wistfulness that pierced straight to her heart. For this song, he bent deep in concentration over the keys, almost frowning, as this music, fierce and slow, billowed forth from what had at one time been a perfectly ordinary piano but had somehow, under his fingers, transformed into the reverberations of her own heart.
Then silence as the song ended. Olivia blinked back tears she did not know were gathering in her eyes. “What,” she said, then cleared her throat, “what was the name of that song?”
“I don’t know,” Will said quietly. “I haven’t thought of a name for it, yet.”
She could not help it. She gaped. “You wrote that?”
He looked at her, nodded. “Can’t read music, though. It’s just somethin’ I’ve been workin’ out in my head for a while. Sounds pretty good on this fine piano of yours.”
“It isn’t the piano.” They sat close together, turned into each other, so that the distance separating them was narrow. Her gaze moved over his face. She continued to be amazed that one man could possess such masculine beauty, and she saw such profundity in the tropic warmth of his blue eyes, she nearly drowned. “It’s you. You’ve created the most beautiful music I have ever heard, Will. And you had that inside of you...I don’t...” Her eyes automatically lowered to his mouth. “I don’t know what to make of you.”
“I’m just a man, Liv,” he said, his voice husky. The keen handsomeness of his face grew sharper with unmistakable desire, as his own gaze traveled along her face, down her neck, over the bare expanse of her shoulders and chest. Wherever his eyes moved, she felt her skin heat in response.
“I know…” she breathed, but then her breath deserted her as he leaned closer, bringing his rough, hot palm up to cup the back of her neck.
The heat of his hand traveled all the way down into the liquid core of her, and she nearly gasped aloud at the contact. She let him draw her closer, or she leaned in herself—she couldn’t tell where his will and her own began—but she knew with certainty that she had to feel his mouth. He tilted her head to accommodate him and then she felt his lips move against hers.
There was, perhaps, half a second of tentative exploration, before he growled with certainty and opened his mouth, moved himself into her, and they both became fevered, straining into each other, commingling tongues and inhaling each other’s breath in quick, hungry gulps. She gripped his biceps tightly, his muscles bunching through layers of linen, wool, and the skin of her own hands. He threaded his fingers into her hair, gently massaging her scalp, and his other hand came around to cup just beneath her breast.
She hated that her corset kept a rigid wall of bone and fabric between them. God, why was she wearing so many clothes? When every part of her body needed to feel what her mouth was feeling, the febrile coalescence of her flesh with his. Such a hot explosion between them, as though it had been building for hundreds of years, finally given release.
Had it only been last night that they had kissed for the first time? It couldn’t be possible. Several lifetimes had passed in the space of a night and a day.
He groaned and shifted t
hem around so she could sit on his lap. She brought her arms up and around his shoulders—there was no padding in his coat, the breadth of the jacket was purely him—and pressed against the unyielding mass of his chest. Desire threatened to overwhelm her, but she had moved past caring. Her world had reduced to him, his mouth, his hands, his muttered benedictions as he tried to gather her in all at once.
She didn’t mind at all when, swearing, he reached under the front of her bodice to touch her. The nimble fingers she had watched moments before on the piano keys now played down the soft skin of her breast to find the hardened tip of her nipple. She arched up, rocked with acute, devouring pleasure, trying to offer herself up to him, to these feelings. As she did, her elbows hit the piano keys.
A sharp, jarring burst of unmusical noise sent Will stumbling backwards, knocking over the piano bench. She actually had to catch herself on the front of the piano to keep from toppling forward. She hoisted herself up as she watched him struggle to collect himself. He was panting, as though he had run a long distance, and she could tell from the tenting of his woolen trousers that he was as aroused as she. He looked around wildly, like a feral animal herded indoors.
“Will—” She reached for him.
“I...” he said, dragging his hands through his hair. “I have to get a drink.”
And then she heard the sharp raps of his boot heels on the floor, followed by the sound of the front door opening and slamming shut.
Will was out on the street before he knew it, walking under the haze of streetlights, as fogged as the night that surrounded him. He had no idea where he was going, but he kept heading south, until he hit a huge expanse of land. This was the place Olivia called Hyde Park, but he hadn’t had a chance to see it until now. No one seemed to be out except himself, and he moved through this giant stretch of green, trying to take some comfort in its open spaces.
