He didn’t. Wolf turned and followed them into the hotel lobby. Molly turned to the stairs, and then made an abrupt about face. She nearly ran Wolf down trying to get to the desk, but managed not only to avoid running into him but also to slip past him before he could stop her.
“Good morning, Mrs. Trevelyan,” the clerk greeted politely, without even a raised eyebrow to indicate her unusual time of arrival or her disheveled appearance.
“Good morning. I was wondering if you would do me a tremendous favor.”
The clerk nodded crisply. Molly had already learned that — short of murder — the clerks and bellboys in the Waldorf could arrange anything, and they’d do it with great precision.
“The dressmaker that visits our suite on occasion, Mrs. Watkins. Could you please contact her and ask that she come to my suite at her earliest convenience? It’s rather an emergency.”
“Of course.”
“And I’ll need a railway ticket, but I’m not quite sure of the destination. Could you send someone to the suite, oh, shall we say after Mrs. Watkins departs?”
He nodded again.
“But first, we’re all terribly hungry. Could we have breakfast delivered to the suite as soon as possible?”
“Red,” Wolf growled, and she realized that, of course, he’d been listening closely to every word. “What the hell is going on?”
Molly glanced at Bridget. “Forgive him. His rudeness seems to come naturally, but he’s not always so crude.” Bridget stared at the floor, and the clerk pretended, quite well, that he hadn’t heard a word of their conversation.
Molly slipped away from the desk with Bridget on her arm and headed for the stairs.
“Train ticket?” Wolf said softly, and from directly behind her. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
Molly ignored him.
“And who is this woman?”
“See?” Molly glanced at Bridget. “He’s feeling better already. A moment ago it would have been ‘who the you-know-what is this woman?’ ”
“Red.” There was a warning in his voice, and Molly glanced over her shoulder. Wolf had thunder in his eyes, and his fists were still clenched.
“This is Miss Bridget Brady.” Molly whipped her head around so she didn’t have to look at Wolf. “I’ll be happy to tell you how we met, but not until I’ve had a chance to bathe and change clothes and we really should have breakfast first.”
Wolf took a very deep, very slow breath, but Molly didn’t turn to watch him exhale it.
Inside the suite, Wolf took a corner chair, thrust his legs forward, and crossed his arms across his chest. His silence was disconcerting, and with that scowl on his face he really did look quite beastly.
Bridget refused to be left alone with him, and Molly couldn’t blame her.
Molly bathed and changed into a suitable morning dress, with Bridget waiting and fidgeting on the edge of the bed while Wolf waited even less patiently in the other room. When Molly was refreshed and wearing a suitable and decent dress, Bridget tried to excuse herself once again. Molly wouldn’t let her go. Not yet.
Breakfast was delivered. Molly and Bridget both ate well, they were starving, but Wolf didn’t take anything but coffee.
When they were finished and feeling better, Molly forced herself to look squarely at Wolf. He glared at her through narrowed eyes, and looked as fierce as she’d ever seen him.
“Red, darling,” he said coldly. “Now.”
It all came back in a rush. Wolf and Adele, making plans Molly couldn’t bear to think about. Wolf calling the horrible woman darling. And he wanted an explanation.
“Don’t,” she said coldly, “call me darling.”
Wolf glanced at Molly’s new companion briefly.
“She knows all about it,” Molly said sharply.
He wanted to kiss her, he wanted to shake her. Instead of giving in to either impulse, Wolf remained in his chair. Motionless. “She knows all about what?”
“You and Adele,” Molly snapped. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out? Or did you expect that I’d be a quiet little mouse and let you have your infidelity without question?” Molly turned to Bridget. “What do you expect of a man who believes you married him for his money? Sometimes I think he believes I should simply be grateful that he married me and accept any slight without a word of protest.”
“Over here, Red,” Wolf instructed, and she turned her face to him once again. “What are you talking about?”
Molly lifted her chin. “I heard you. I went looking for you because I was upset, and I heard everything.”
“You heard me talking to Adele.”
She turned to Bridget Brady again. “See? Calm as can be. As if nothing happened.”
“Nothing did happen.”
Molly sighed deeply. “We’ll have to finish this conversation later. We’re upsetting Bridget.”
Bridget didn’t seem at all upset, but he’d never seen Molly so agitated.
“And how did you meet Miss Brady?” Wolf asked.
“After I left Phil’s, I got lost.”
“That’s a surprise,” Wolf muttered. Both women gave him a cutting glance.
Molly tried to be calm, but her eyes got wider, clearer. “This . . . this horrible man attacked me.”
Wolf came out of his chair, without intending to. “Are you hurt?”
“No. Bridget rescued me, with the help of her broom handle.”
“You should never have been out alone at night.” Wolf took a deep, calming breath and turned to Bridget. “You have my thanks, Miss Brady.”
“Sit down, Wolf,” Molly commanded. “If you hadn’t upset me, I never would have been in that predicament.”
“I didn’t —”
“We’ll discuss it later.”
Her crisp instruction cooled his blood, and Wolf sat. For the first time in hours a smile crossed his face.
“Bridget asked me to stay the night in her home, and this morning she was kind enough to walk me here.”
“So you wouldn’t get lost again.”
“Exactly.”
Wolf reached into his pocket and withdrew a wad of bills. “We are grateful, Miss Brady.”
“I don’t want your money.”
Bridget Brady refused his offer of reward with just a touch of distaste. What had Molly told her? There was no telling. Just a bit of the truth would turn any decent woman against him, he supposed.
When the dressmaker arrived, Molly effectively and coolly dismissed him. Wolf could not remember a time in his life when anyone had treated him as if he were insignificant.
It had been a hellishly long night. His bones ached, there was a pounding throb at one temple, and his heart had been through an exhaustive workout. As he’d searched the streets for Molly, he’d thought it would burst through his chest, and every time his imagination ran away with him he could feel every hard and quick beat.
Now that Molly was here where she belonged, his anger and frustration dissolved into a bone melting weariness. He leaned back in his chair and watched.
“Mrs. Watkins, this is my good friend Mrs. Brady, and she’s in desperate need of your talents.”
Bridget shook her head and tugged at Molly’s sleeve, but it was a useless gesture. Wolf recognized that futility immediately, but it took the younger girl a moment.
“Mrs. Brady has recently been widowed,” Molly confided. Bridget’s eyes widened, and Wolf knew something was wrong. “She needs, for personal reasons, to leave New York immediately, but her entire wardrobe was destroyed in a horrid fire.”
Mrs. Watkins nodded her head sympathetically. “I heard about that tragedy.”
Well, there had evidently been a fire somewhere, Wolf surmised. He almost laughed, but it would have ruined whatever Molly had planned.
“My friend must have three good black dresses, and she must have them today.”
Mrs. Watkins looked skeptical.
“Ready-made will suit,” Molly conceded, “I suppose. Oh,
and,” Molly leaned close and whispered an aside to Mrs. Watkins. The dressmaker glanced briefly, and with great sympathy, to Bridget Brady.
“Should I put these on your bill?” Mrs. Watkins asked as she walked to the door.
“No.” Molly went to the desk, and withdrew from the bottom drawer . . . a shoe. Several bills were withdrawn from the toe and placed in the dressmaker’s hand.
Bridget didn’t protest until Mrs. Watkins was gone. “I can’t accept any of this.”
“You can,” Molly said with assurance. “Where do you want to go. South? West?”
“It’s a lie,” Bridget protested.
“Yes,” Molly conceded. “But it’s a good lie.”
Molly tried to avoid looking at her husband as she made all the preparations for Bridget’s journey. Bridget protested, but Molly had been able to convince her, at last, that this little lie would be best for the baby.
A new life. It was the least she could do for the poor girl. After all, Molly reminded herself. It could have happened to her.
Some wealthy and charming man had promised to marry Bridget, but when she’d discovered that she was with child, the coward had deserted her, leaving her with a low paying job in a factory sewing ready-made garments, a small rented room, and a baby on the way.
With a little of Molly’s winnings and a good story, Bridget and her child could start fresh, out West, Bridget had decided.
Wolf had finally come to understand what Molly was trying to do, evidently, and while he watched closely, he said little. There had been a moment, when Molly had mentioned the baby, that a light of understanding had come over his face. And something else. Something akin to pain.
Wolf had adamantly refused to allow her to leave the hotel alone, and so together Molly and her husband had put Bridget on the train. Dressed all in black, and with her dark brown hair secured severely at the nape of her neck, Bridget Brady had appeared every bit the grieving widow. The fact that she was just a little terrified didn’t hurt the pretense.
As bad as Bridget’s situation was, it wasn’t as scary as the unknown. Molly recognized that fact, as she squeezed her new friend’s hand and whispered words of encouragement.
It was late afternoon before the two of them returned to the Waldorf, and the fact that she’d spent a sleepless, and for the most part horrible, night was catching up with Molly. Every bone in her body was weary.
The trip from the depot had been horribly silent and tense. All Molly wanted was to crawl into bed and sleep for a week. But of course, Wolf would demand that they finish their conversation, and perhaps it was best to get it over with.
Inside the suite, Molly lowered herself into the most comfortable chair in the room. She closed her eyes, just for a moment, and almost drifted off before Wolf placed his own chair directly in front of hers and claimed her attention by placing his hands on her knees.
“I looked for you all night,” he said. “I walked every route I could think of from Phil’s to the hotel.” He looked every bit as tired as she felt, and Molly almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
“I missed my turn,” she explained.
“Dammit, Red, why didn’t you wait for me?”
She could lie, she could tell only what she wanted Wolf to know . . . or she could tell him the truth, and all of it. If they had no honesty between them, if their marriage was based on nothing but lies on both sides, they had something less than a loveless marriage. They had nothing. For Molly, the truth was the only way.
“I suppose I should start at the beginning.”
“Please do,” Wolf said impatiently.
After a deep, calming breath, Molly told it all, beginning with the moment Wolf had left her sitting alone to go search out another game. Amazingly enough, he listened without interruption, up until the moment when Foster grabbed her.
“He did what?”
“I was trying to walk away, to find you, and he stopped me rather forcefully. If you didn’t insist that I wear those indecent gowns, he wouldn’t have had much to paw, but as it was . . . . ”
“He touched you?”
“I thought I made that rather clear,” Molly said sensibly.
The thunder she’d seen in Wolf’s eyes that morning was back, and that little tic in his jaw started jumping.
“And then he made the most vile suggestion. He said that you had shared women before, and apparently he thought that debauchery would continue with me. So I kicked him, and pushed him down, and then I went to look for you.” Molly gave him a chastising glare. “I was very upset. You should have been there.”
Wolf said nothing in defense of himself, but leaned back and appeared to relax.
“After a while I saw you, heading toward the back rooms, and I followed you.”
“Red . . . . ” he began, apparently deciding the time to try to excuse his actions had finally arrived.
“Let me finish,” she insisted. “I heard everything you said to that woman, Adele. It’s bad enough that you insist you only married me to provide heirs and to get those persistent mothers off your back, but to share that with someone else . . . to tell her . . . . ”
“The truth?” Wolf finished.
Molly didn’t want to believe that was the truth, but Wolf had never told her any differently. “That’s not the worst of it. I can’t believe that you had a . . . a relationship with that woman while she was married, and that you actually plan to continue that . . . that . . . . ”
“Affair.”
Her face burned, and Molly knew she was blushing brightly. “Yes,” she whispered. “I couldn’t stay after hearing that. It hurt, Wolf, more than you know. And I was angry. And I didn’t want to stand there and listen to any more, particularly after you slammed the door shut.”
Now it was his turn, and Molly waited expectantly.
“Actually,” he muttered after a moment of contemplation, “It was Adele who slammed the door.”
“I really don’t —”
“And if you’d stuck around a minute or two you could have lambasted me then and there, when I left the room.”
“It really doesn’t —”
“I have not been unfaithful to you, Red.”
It wasn’t much. There was no promise that he never would be, just an assurance that so far he had not strayed.
“But, when I go back to Vanora Point —”
“We’ll deal with that when the time comes,” Wolf said sharply.
The time would come, Molly knew, and soon. Face to face, she couldn’t believe that Wolf would send her away and go to another woman, but he didn’t deny that was his plan.
She believed him, though, that he had been faithful to her thus far, and that was a great relief. But he wouldn’t promise her anything more. Not tomorrow and certainly not forever.
“I’m exhausted.” Molly stood abruptly. “I’ve got to get some sleep.”
“Me, too.”
Wolf followed her into the bedroom.
“Did you really look for me all night?” Molly asked as she began to work the buttons of her pale green gown.
“Yes, dammit,” Wolf snapped. “Don’t you ever do that to me again.”
He undressed, displaying as little energy as Molly felt, and together they fell into the bed. Wolf covered Molly with the thick bedspread, and drew her body against his. Some of Molly’s anger melted away in his arms, even though she knew she shouldn’t be swayed by the comfort of Wolf’s arms around her.
She’d never realized that the softness of a bed and warm arms could be such a comfort. Her very bones melted against the mattress, against Wolf in spite of what he’d done. After a sleepless night, this was heaven.
What now? When they woke, would Wolf expect the days to continue as they had since their arrival in New York? She loved him, still, but could she trust him with her heart?
She was almost asleep when he stirred, restless even though he was every bit as exhausted as she was.
“What you did for that girl, it was very n
ice.” Wolf’s soft voice surprised her. Molly stirred a little, thinking of turning her back to her restive husband, but Wolf’s arms tightened around her.
Realizing the futility of trying to move away from Wolf, she sighed and ceased her attempt to move away.
“She saved me last night.”
“I know,” he whispered.
“And besides . . . . ” Should she tell him everything? The only way to make this work was to hold nothing back. “I kept thinking, as Bridget told me her story, that it could have been me. If you had continued to pursue me, and if you hadn’t married me, sooner or later . . . . ”
Wolf lifted her chin so she was forced to look at him. “Tell me, Red, do you really think I’d stoop so low?”
Molly considered the question for a minute or so, as Wolf stared into her eyes. She didn’t know what kind of answer he expected.
“Yes,” she whispered.
He didn’t defend himself, but released her chin and pulled her close, so that her face was nestled against his chest and his breath was warm in her hair.
Chapter Sixteen
Molly had still been asleep when he’d left the suite, after sleeping all afternoon and through the night. He’d slept hard himself, after that long night searching the streets for his wife.
He’d wanted to wake her, to make love to her before he left to do what he had to do, but she’d looked so peaceful, he hadn’t had the heart to disturb her.
It was still early and Foster was sure to be asleep. Wolf climbed the stairs without the rage that had propelled him on his last venture into this club, but with a single purpose that was just as strong.
Foster’s door had not yet been repaired, and Wolf pushed it open to find his old friend sound asleep.
“Good morning,” Wolf said loudly, and Foster shot up with both hands at his head.
“Softly,” Foster instructed as he allowed his eyes to drift closed.
“I owe you an apology.” Wolf slammed the damaged door behind him, and Foster flinched.
“And a new door,” Foster whispered.
“Of course.”
Big Bad Wolf Page 18
