As he searched the room as inconspicuously as possible, another, more horrible scenario occurred to him.
They were really gone. Not outside and not in a private room. But gone.
Well, he’d asked for it, hadn’t he? Literally.
Adele emerged from the hallway with her head high and her disguising hat in place. He couldn’t see her face as she made her way through the crowd and to the front entrance, but he knew she was still angry. Adele didn’t like not getting what she wanted any more than he did.
Wolf took a brandy from a passing waiter, and downed it in one shot. He’d known all along that no one could be as innocent and pure as Molly had always pretended to be. He’d tried from the beginning to corrupt her, to introduce her to the pleasures that lay off the path.
How well he’d succeeded.
A seat was vacated at a nearby table where a rousing poker game was going on, and Wolf took it. Smiles faded as he glared at each and every one of his opponents.
He won the first hand, but there was no joy in it. The man next to him gathered the winnings and placed the money before Wolf, when it became obvious Wolf wasn’t going to do it himself.
The second hand was terrible, and Wolf folded early. While the hand was played out he glanced around the room, unconsciously and then consciously searching for Molly or Foster.
The third hand nearly gave him heart failure. A pair of queens, diamonds and hearts.
Before the hand was finished, Wolf tossed his cards into the center of the table and abandoned the game.
He made his way through the crowd, ignoring friendly greetings and vigorous challenges. The noises and the images around him blurred, turning Phil’s into a gray nightmare. Dammit, she was his wife.
Wolf was headed for the door with a single and unbending purpose.
“Good evening, Mr. Trevelyan,” Phil said formally as Wolf passed. “I do hope Mrs. Trevelyan reached her destination safely.”
Wolf stopped in mid-stride and spun around. “What do you mean?”
“She left here not long ago, and said she was going to walk.” Phil sounded rather horrified at the prospect. “I did offer to see her into a carriage, but she left rather quickly.”
“Alone?” Wolf asked with a lift of his eyebrows.
“Yes, sir. She seemed, if I may say so, rather anxious.”
“She would,” Wolf muttered.
“Excuse me, sir?” Phil leaned forward to hear more clearly.
“Never mind. Foster Williams wasn’t with her? I rather expected him to see her home.”
Phil shook his head slowly. “No, though I do believe he left just before Mrs. Trevelyan. Perhaps she did catch a ride with Mr. Williams, after all.”
“Perhaps.” Just like Molly, to be concerned about appearances.
Molly took a step back and the man stepped forward, bringing that horrid grin into the light.
“I’m not lost,” she said again, and a bit more forcefully. “My husband is right behind me.”
“I don’t think so, missy,” he said softly. “I’ve been watching you stumble along for the past three blocks, and as far as I can tell you are all alone.” His voice was menacing, and more than a little crazy.
Molly spun around and ran back in the direction she’d come from. If she could just make it back to Phil’s she’d be all right. Anger had carried her from the gambling hall, anger and a certainty that she couldn’t face Wolf again, couldn’t look into his eyes and see the same man she’d loved since she’d met him in the forest. She should have waited for her inconstant husband, rather than running away like a spoiled child.
If she could just make it to Phil’s, a hired carriage would take her to the hotel. She thought of this and nothing else as she listened to the plodding footsteps that were gaining on her steadily. Before she made it to the corner, an insistent hand grabbed her arm and stopped her in her tracks.
“Where are you going in such a hurry, missy?”
Molly tried to jerk away from the man, but he held her fast. When he forced her to turn and face him, she was assaulted by the strong odor of unwashed clothes and fetid breath that made her hold her own.
“Let me go,” she insisted softly.
“No.” He leaned close to her face, bringing an unkempt beard and that terrifying smile much too close.
There was a thwack at his back, and in spite of his refusal to release her, the man removed his hand from her arm quickly, jumping back and away, and Molly got her first view of her savior.
The woman was shorter than Molly, and appeared to be younger as well. Her clothes were plain, her straight hair hung loose, and she wielded a long broom with both hands.
“The lady asked you to let her go.”
She had a strong voice for one so small and delicate. Faced with the unusual weapon, the man who had accosted Molly slunk away, crossed a deserted street and disappeared in the shadows.
“Thank you,” Molly began, and the girl turned a disapproving face on her.
“What are you doing out here this time of night and all alone?” the girl snapped. “If I hadn’t been sitting at the window unable to sleep, there’s no telling what that man might have done.”
“You’re right, of course,” Molly said with a sigh. “I feel so foolish. You see, I lost my temper, and stormed off without thinking. I thought I could walk home.”
“And you got lost,” the girl finished, finally lowering her broom. She looked Molly up and down, disapproval in her eyes and in the shake of her head. “Well, why don’t you come on up to my room, and in the morning we’ll get you back to wherever it is you belong.”
“I couldn’t impose,” Molly began.
The girl turned away from Molly wearily, raising her eyebrows only slightly. “Do whatever you want. That bum is probably watching us right now, you know. He’ll run from a broomstick, and when the odds are against him even if we are only women, but he won’t hesitate to follow you if you leave here on your own. You can try to make it home tonight, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Molly fell into step behind her rescuer, who was moving rather quickly. “Thank you so much. My name’s Molly Trevelyan,” she said as she came alongside the girl.
“Bridget Brady.”
They stepped into a narrow building, and climbed steep, narrow stairs.
“Wolf will be worried,” Molly mumbled to herself as she followed Bridget up the steep staircase.
“Who’s that?” Bridget asked casually.
“My husband,” Molly said softly, and Bridget glanced over her shoulder.
“He’s the reason you’re out by yourself in this part of town at this time of night?”
“Yes,” Molly admitted as they turned on the landing and began to climb to the third floor. “Well, Wolf and my own stubbornness, if I’m to be truthful. I could have taken a carriage, but I just started walking.”
Bridget made a low sound.
“Why did you help me?” Molly asked as they reached the third floor.
Bridget turned to Molly after opening the door to her room. “We women have to stick together, don’t we?” With the light from a lamp that was burning near the open door, Molly saw a deep sadness in the young and brave Bridget’s eyes.
Bridget’s room was small, and the window that looked down on the street was still open to the night breeze. There was just the single room, with a small bed in one corner, and a stove in the other, and a ragged sofa in the middle of it all. Everything was clean, though, and an attempt had been made to brighten the small room with cheerful yellow check curtains that fluttered in the wind.
The small room reminded Molly of home.
“It’s not much,” Bridget said as she closed and locked the door behind Molly, “but no one will bother you here. In the morning it will be safe for you to be on the streets alone.”
“It’s very nice,” Molly said, and Bridget cut her a glance that clearly conveyed her disbelief. To emphasize her disbelief, Bridget looked pointedly at Molly’s
dress, the indecent gown that probably cost more than everything Bridget owned put together.
“Take the bed, if you’d like to lie down,” Bridget said sharply.
“I can’t possibly take your bed,” Molly said, clutching the lace shawl around her shoulders.
“It’s clean,” Bridget snapped.
“I’m sure it is.”
Bridget returned to the chair that was next to the open window, and presented Molly her back. “I can’t sleep, anyway,” she said softly.
Molly stood behind Bridget and looked past the girl’s dark head to the street below. She didn’t think she’d be able to sleep for a long time, herself.
She’d become accustomed to sleeping beside her husband, in his arms or curled against his side. If Bridget’s bed had been wide and deep and soft, sleep still would have been impossible.
Marriage to Wolf had never been ideal, but it had never even crossed her mind that he might be adulterous. Foolishly, she had ignored everything he’d told her about this marriage being a business deal, and she’d seen only what she wanted to see in Wolf and in herself.
“Why can’t you sleep?” Molly dragged a mismatched hard back chair across the room, and placed it by the window, where she could see Bridget’s delicate profile.
“You don’t want to hear about my troubles.” Bridget didn’t even look at Molly as she took her seat.
Molly followed Bridget’s riveted gaze into a night that was dark, into the black shadows that were broken only by the sporadic glare of a streetlamp.
Bridget was petite, and fragile in appearance, but Molly knew she had strength in those arms, and perhaps in her spirit as well.
No one should be so sad. Or so alone.
“I have a thought.” Molly leaned forward slightly. “You tell me why you can’t sleep, and when you’re done I’ll tell you why you’re going to have sleepless company tonight.”
Wolf took the familiar stairs two at a time, unable to stop, unable to try to keep his step soft. He’d never been a patient man, but this was unconscionable. Molly had left Phil’s hours ago. Hours.
He’d gone to the Waldorf first, and there he had waited, an hour, two, three. His imagination and his anger had kept him pacing the entire time. He’d tossed Molly’s precious books about the room, cursing her and Foster and himself — himself, most of all.
This was exactly what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? To prove that even Molly could be corrupted. That every human had a fatal weakness. That no one was perfect.
But dammit, why had she given in so easily?
Foster’s room was on the second floor of the exclusive gentlemen’s club, two doors down from Wolf’s own. Women were not allowed, but it was not unknown for a resident to sneak a female companion in late at night, and down the stairs early the next morning. Foster had done it before. So had Wolf, for that matter.
At the door, Wolf hesitated. It wouldn’t do for him to break in and kill them both, his wife and his best friend, but that was exactly the frame of mind he found himself in.
A soft, feminine giggle drifting to him from the other side of the door sent him over the edge, and Wolf put his shoulder to the locked door and forced it open.
The bedspread was on the floor, and the mound of white sheets on the bed moved furiously as Foster sat up and pale, feminine hands pulled those sheets over her head.
“You son of a bitch,” Wolf growled. “I’ll kill you for this.”
Foster’s eyes grew wide, and the sheet flipped back with a snap, revealing a head of dark hair that was most definitely not Molly’s.
“Wolf, darling?” Adele turned her head toward the broken door, and she smiled seductively. It was very clear that Adele thought he was here for her.
Already, the hallway was filling with residents he had awakened when he’d battered in the door. Old and young men. Wolf knew them all. He ignored each and every one of them, and disregarded the censuring words of one crotchety old man he’d awakened.
For the moment, all Wolf felt was relief. All this time he’d been imagining Molly in another man’s bed, and Foster had been here with Adele all along. Wolf felt almost comforted, and then panic took over, a panic as strong as the anger that had simmered as he’d waited for her.
“Where’s Molly?” He shut the damaged door as best he could, and leaned back against it.
“I don’t know.” Foster sighed and reached for the half empty bottle beside his bed. “I haven’t seen her since I left Phil’s.” A flash of realization transformed his face. “Don’t tell me you thought she was here.”
“She left right behind you.”
If not to follow Foster, then why? Phil had said she was walking, and suddenly Wolf realized that was exactly what had happened.
“Good God,” he muttered. “She’s lost.” Molly had the worst sense of direction, and she never would have found her way from Phil’s to the Waldorf.
“Don’t you want to know what happened?” Foster called as Wolf rushed from the room, past one frowning old man who remained in the hallway.
Beyond the bright curtains, the sun was coming up. Molly wasn’t tired at all, and evidently neither was Bridget.
They’d talked all night, about their problems and the men who were at the center of them all, and it had been strangely comforting, trading confessions with a complete stranger.
Well, Bridget had been a complete stranger a few hours ago, but not anymore. Last night Molly had felt so all alone, and now she had an ally. She was still hurt, but she knew that she’d done nothing wrong, except perhaps to overestimate her husband.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, placing a comforting hand on Bridget’s arm.
“What can I do?” Bridget didn’t whine or wail, but there was a desolate finality in her words. “I have no choice in the matter. I’ll likely never leave this room. For the rest of my life I’ll work in that factory, sewing until the day I die. And I’ll certainly never marry, because no man will ever have me, not after all this.”
Bridget’s words were hopeless, but her eyes were brighter than they’d been a few hours ago. Perhaps she, too, had been helped by the long night of talking.
Molly’s problems were insignificant compared to Bridget’s, and she had options the younger girl didn’t have. There was always Vanora Point to return to.
There was Vanora Point, and Kingsport, and her family and friends there. She could bake bread like her mother had for years, if she had to. Near home there was the comfort of the ocean and the forest.
None of it sounded inviting at the moment, but at least she had a place to go.
Options. They made every difference.
In spite of the long and harrowing night, Molly smiled. “I have an idea.”
Bridget turned to her in anticipation. “Are you going to leave him?”
Molly waved her hand in distraction. “Not that. I don’t know what I’m going to do about Wolf. I hope he didn’t get a wink of sleep last night, wondering where I was. He probably didn’t even miss me . . . but I’ll think about that later.”
She couldn’t bear to think about it now, Wolf and Adele and the horrid slamming of that door. Wolf might as well have slammed the door in her face.
With a shake of her head, Molly pushed her problems aside and took Bridget’s hand. “Will you come with me to the Waldorf?” She could almost manage a smile. “I’ve had the most wonderful idea.”
Chapter Fifteen
The sun was shining on them as they walked down Thirty-third Street, and Molly was relieved to see the Waldorf awning and entrance. She would never be able to think of the hotel as home, but after a long night it was a comforting sight, nonetheless.
Bridget slowed her step. “I’ll be going now. Remember what I said. Don’t let that husband of yours take you for granted.”
“It’s much too late for that, I’m afraid.”
Bridget had come to a complete stop on the sidewalk.
“Come on, Bridget.” Molly took the girl’
s arm and persuaded her to continue forward. “I have a surprise for you.”
Bridget balked again, and Molly had to stop. “I don’t want a reward. That’s not why I helped you.”
“I know that, and it’s not a reward,” Molly pleaded. “Really, it’s not.”
Molly had to give Bridget’s arm a tug to force the young girl to move forward again. For someone so petite, she was quite stubborn and strong, but Bridget eventually came along reluctantly.
They had almost reached the awning that covered the sidewalk in front of the Waldorf, when Molly heard her name being bellowed. That voice was unmistakable, and she lifted her head to see Wolf coming toward her, on foot and from the opposite direction.
His jacket was unbuttoned, and his tie was missing, and his normally flawless black hair was mussed. But it was the savage expression on his face that stopped Molly where she stood.
Wolf took three long strides, and then he was running toward her slowly as if those long strides were not adequate. Before Wolf reached her he seemed to grab hold of himself. He no longer ran, but the clenched fists at his sides told her he was controlling himself at great cost.
“Is that your husband?” Bridget whispered as they waited, a touch of awe in her voice.
“Yes, I’m afraid so. He doesn’t look very happy at the moment, does he?”
“No,” Bridget breathed the reluctant answer. “I really can’t stay.”
Molly refused to release Bridget’s arm.
“Where the hell have you been?” Wolf stopped several feet away.
“Where have you been?” Molly lifted her chin as she asked the question.
He lifted his eyebrows, taken aback at her insolence, apparently. “I’ve been looking for you. All night, Red. Where the hell have you been?”
“Can we finish this conversation inside? The doorman is staring.”
Molly passed Wolf without actually looking at him, and she wondered, with each and every step, if he would try to forcibly stop her.
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