by Lisa Plumley
With that, Olivia said her goodbyes and sailed upstairs to The Lorndorff’s seldom-used top floor, mentally preparing herself for another busy, stultifying day of needlework, ladies’ group meetings, afternoon teas and outings to perform good works. On the staircase landing, she sighed.
Her dutiful daily routine was almost enough to make a lady wish for a dark, dangerous, seven-foot-tall, gun belt–wearing, train-commandeering, masculine mystery guest to come into her life and cause a stir—and a few pulse-pounding moments, too. But since that fanciful line of thinking would certainly go nowhere, Olivia would simply have to go on with living her own ordinary life…no matter how straitlaced and unsatisfying it might be.
Chapter Four
Olivia had stepped onto the hotel’s top-floor landing, headed for her living quarters in The Lorndorff’s cozy garret, when a rough male voice roared down the hallway.
“I told you to get out!”
Olivia froze, staring in the direction of that unexpected sound. Ordinarily, no one stayed in either of The Lorndorff’s optimistically named “luxury suites,” which were located on either side of the top floor hallway. In Morrow Creek, most people couldn’t afford such fancy accommodations. Her father had once muttered something about necessarily “reserving” one of those suites for his distant investors’ use, but Olivia hadn’t given much thought over the years to either those unknown investors or those suites. Those lavish, empty rooms were just doors she passed without noticing on her way to her own comfy rooms beneath the eaves at the far end of the hallway.
A resounding crash interrupted her musings.
Olivia looked up, saw what appeared to be a shattered vase of flowers lying in smithereens on the hall floor and hastened forward. As she did, someone backed out of one of the suites.
Annie. Olivia’s best friend stumbled backward, both arms held up in a defensive posture of appeasement. Her gaze stayed fixed on someone in the suite she was exiting. Her upswept blond hair was disheveled, her uniform’s apron askew, and as Annie glanced down at the broken glass, crumpled flowers and spilled water at her feet, Olivia discerned that she was crying, too.
“I said I didn’t want to be disturbed!” came that male voice again, its gravely ire twice as loud now. “Ever!”
“I’m sorry, sir. It’s just that I…” Obviously at a loss to cope with the situation, Annie hesitated. “I was told to pay special attention to your room while you’re here, Mr.—”
“Stop staring at me.”
The sudden hush in that unknown guest’s voice was twice as chilling as his outright shouting had been. Feeling gooseflesh prickle on her arms, Olivia hurried forward to help her friend.
“I wasn’t staring!” Annie protested, but a telltale redness stained her cheeks and made a lie of her words. So did the way she kept on staring, unblinking. “I only wanted to bring you—”
The suite’s door slammed shut, cutting off her words.
Booted footsteps stomped across the floorboards and then fell silent, muffled by wallboards and distance and the outraged pounding of Olivia’s heart as she contemplated the scene.
She had not been raised by her compassionate, fair-minded father to stand by while someone else behaved unkindly! Swiftly, Olivia charged forward, ready to do battle…
Only to reconsider as she caught closer sight of Annie. Her friend stared despairingly at the sodden flowers and broken vase at her feet. Her slumped shoulders and downturned mouth reminded Olivia that comforting her friend was more important than confronting a quarrelsome guest, however significant he might be to her father’s business interests. She could deal with Mr. Fancypants’s harrying behavior later. She would, too….
With a sigh, Annie dropped to the floor, plainly intent on cleaning up the mess their guest had made.
Oh, no. Not if Olivia arrived there first. She knelt, then began plunking glass shards into the single largest piece.
“Olivia!” At the sight of her, Annie burst into fresh tears. Looking annoyed, she dashed her palms over her eyes. “Why must I cry when I’m most angry?” she wailed. “I want to bash that rude beast with the remnants of this vase, not bawl over him! That man is the most horrible, the most domineering—”
“Don’t trouble yourself. I do the same thing.” Olivia gave Annie a comforting smile. She paused in her cleanup work long enough to squeeze her friend’s shoulder. “We’re women. We can’t help that the only acceptable means of expression available to us are crying, swooning and embroidering toss pillows.”
“Well, sometimes those pillows are very inspiring,” Annie said, brightening as they cleaned. “Pithy, but rousing.”
The suite’s door swung abruptly open, startling them both.
A huge figure appeared in the doorway. He towered over them, wearing black clothes, black boots and a broad-brimmed black hat, somehow appearing both wild and noble at the same time. The mingled scents of whiskey and tobacco smoke emanated from him, as though he’d passed the predawn hours drinking, smoking and contemplating which vase to throw next from his room. Looking up at him, Olivia had a confused impression of costly masculine suit fabrics, uncompromising authority, and unexpected…vulnerability?…before he unleashed another barrage.
He hurled something else. This time a covered tray of food. It clattered to the hallway floor in a fury of silver and cutlery and cold scrambled eggs. Then he glowered down at them.
“I heard you.” His gaze raked across them. “In my hotel, there will be no gossiping about me right under my nose!”
Olivia couldn’t move. She felt…mesmerized. Helpless. Also, vexed by her own peculiar reaction. She didn’t understand it.
What had he meant by my hotel? This wasn’t his hotel.
During the shocked silence that fell, Annie cast a fearful glance at the man’s face. A helpless chortle burst from her.
Olivia would have sworn it grew fifteen degrees warmer in the hotel hallway. The wrath emanating from their guest felt palpable. And dangerous. Making matters worse, Olivia couldn’t help staring at him, too, just like Annie was doing.
Because all at once, it was beyond obvious why Annie had felt compelled to laugh at this man’s terrible choice of words.
There will be no gossiping about me right under my nose!
His nose was, quite simply, huge and hooked and startlingly prominent. Olivia had never seen its like. She doubted anyone ever had. As she cast him a wary glance, she suddenly believed he’d chosen those words on purpose. He’d known full well their likely effect on Annie. As tests went, his was…casually cruel.
Realizing her mistake, Annie widened her eyes. Too late.
“I’ll see you dismissed for that,” he promised in the same eerily quiet voice he’d employed earlier. He didn’t so much as glance in Olivia’s direction. He simply slammed the door.
Left alone in the increasingly sloppy hallway, crouched awkwardly beside puddled water and scrambled eggs, Olivia and Annie frowned at each other. Annie’s lower lip began trembling. Her hands shook. A tear dropped on the teacup she picked up.
“Annie.” Olivia touched her arm. “My father won’t think of dismissing you. He won’t! He knows you need this job, and we need you, too! Without you, The Lorndorff won’t keep running.”
“No, Olivia. Even you can’t fix this.” Annie dried her tears on her sleeve, then kept on cleaning. “I laughed outright at a guest of the hotel! Mr. Mouton would be right to fire me.”
“Impossible. I won’t have it.” Decisively, Olivia stood.
So did Annie. “Oh, no! I recognize that impetuous look in your eyes.” She tugged on Olivia’s sleeve. “Please, Olivia! Don’t do anything crazy. Not on my account. I know how impulsive you can be. I know how you love a good fight, too. Remember that medicine-show man? You practically tarred and feathered him in the town square. The last thing we need—”
“Is a no-account cad making trouble for our staff,” Olivia concluded resolutely. She straightened her skirts and her posture, then rapped firmly o
n the suite’s door. “I’ll handle this.” She cast a sidelong glance at her friend. “Besides, that girl who lambasted that peddler all those years ago is long gone. My father told me that’s when he knew I’d been spending too much time at The Lorndorff, socializing with miners and miscreants and lumbermen. He knew he’d been remiss in letting me do so. Since then… Well, I’ve been a perfect lady.”
Annie pursed her lips doubtfully, but Olivia couldn’t let her friend’s skepticism affect her decision. She pounded again.
“Hello in there! Open this door at once!”
Annie widened her eyes. Her mouth formed a surprised O.
“I demand satisfaction!” Olivia announced next.
Annie gave a frantic giggle. She elbowed Olivia. “Doesn’t that mean you’re challenging him to a duel? Are you crazy?”
Olivia shrugged. “I can do this. I have nothing to lose.”
Annie took a step back, shaking her head. “Of course you have something to lose!” she said in a harsh whisper. “Everyone loves you! Half the men in this town want to marry you!”
But strangely enough, Olivia felt that she’d never said truer words. She really didn’t have much to lose. She wanted to help Annie, too. If that meant confronting a loudmouthed oaf…
She pounded harder on the door. “Listen to me and open this door! I can stay here all day, if that’s what’s necessary.”
It would be an improvement on my scheduled quilting bee, she added to herself silently, and the tea party that’s arranged for afterward. She felt entirely uncharitable for the thought.
The door opened. Olivia almost fell headlong into the suite. Instead, she wound up standing toe to toe with its occupant. His eyes were bleary and blue, his jaw stubbled with an incipient beard, his expression forbidding. He glared at her. Feeling wholly intimidated—and strangely exhilarated—Olivia nonetheless refused to back down. She couldn’t. She…liked this. A little. She liked the challenge of this. It enlivened her.
No. She had to persist because Annie was depending on her. Because Annie was…hightailing it down the hallway, her uniform’s bustle swaying with her rapid footsteps, a hasty “I’ll go fetch a mop and bucket!” on her lips, leaving Olivia all alone.
Alone with The Boston Beast. The Tycoon Terror. The Business Brute. How had he earned all those nicknames anyway?
Olivia swallowed hard. She sent her gaze up the man’s black boots and trousers, over his perfectly fitted vest and shirt, across his broad shoulders to his expensive-looking suit coat and then up to his rugged, rough-hewn face. It was almost obscured by the collar of his coat and his hat brim’s shadow.
Purposely, she thought, remembering his earlier words. It couldn’t have been an accident that he’d called attention to his nose just when Annie had been staring at it. However perverse it was, Olivia had the sensation he’d been daring them to laugh.
What kind of man dared people to laugh at him?
What kind of man could withstand it, if he succeeded?
Having made her assessment based on the available evidence, the information she’d been privy to downstairs and a great deal of intuition, Olivia lifted her chin. “Mr. Turner, I presume?”
His assent was nothing more than a tightening of his mouth. Olivia accepted it all the same. In for a penny, in for a pound.
“Somehow,” she mused, remembering the employees’ gossip at the front desk, “I thought you’d be tougher. And taller.”
*
Olivia stepped boldly past him, swept with her skirts rustling inside his darkened suite and surveyed the scene. Her hastily calculating glimpse told her that Mr. Turner was a light traveler and an even lighter sleeper. It told her that he did, indeed, carry a gun belt and two knives. It also told her that he despised sunshine. All the suite’s draperies were pulled tightly shut against the bright territorial dawn. It was…gloomy.
Although… Were those philosophy books spilling from his valise? And was that a biography of a European industrialist on his bureau? What kind of man traveled without much clothing—because her view informed her that he hadn’t brought much more than the custom-fitted duds on his back—but with a big pile of books? Did the dictatorial Mr. Turner actually read when he wasn’t upbraiding well-meaning people for disturbing him?
Suddenly, Olivia was dying to find out. It had been ages since she’d read a new book herself, owing to her vow to be more amenable, less headstrong and less academically minded. She still regretted that foolish vow. It was awfully difficult to keep when the book agent came to town. It would almost be worth getting to know this man, she mused absurdly, if only to have access to his book collection. But then all her thoughts fled as she sensed the hotel’s orneriest new guest following her into his private suite. Her goose bumps returned anew. Her heartbeat pounded. Her palms grew damp. Her throat grew tight.
Heavens. Now what?
She’d simply have to improvise, Olivia decided.
His voice boomed out. “Who are you?” he demanded.
How like him, Olivia considered, not to question her correct guess at his identity. He probably assumed everyone knew—and cared—who he was. The ever so important Mr. Turner.
His hubris was remarkable. But so was her determination.
She turned. She could not falter now. Annie was relying on her. So, brightly, Olivia said, “I am your new chambermaid!”
Chapter Five
Griffin was still mentally grumbling over his unwanted visitor’s earlier outrageous comment—I thought you’d be tougher. And taller—when she gave him a haughty look—the kind beautiful women specialized in—stepped into the center of his private suite of rooms and offered yet another ridiculous declaration.
“And you won’t be having Miss Holloway dismissed,” she went on briskly, “because I’ll be fulfilling her duties from now on.”
Griffin gave her his most coldhearted look—something that came much too easily to him now, the way money and deference and loneliness did. He hadn’t known that making people respect him would also make them keep their distance from him. He did now.
“What makes you think I won’t have you both dismissed?”
A careless wave. “You won’t.”
Her highfalutin tone suggested she was sure of it—sure of her inevitable rightness, the way Boston architects were sure that their newfangled bridges would span the river waters safely. Griffin wished he felt that certain of anything…anything except the inevitable snickering that came his way. He watched her study his suite, keeping his arms crossed, still feeling a little bit drunk on whiskey and self-pity and exhaustion.
He’d passed a largely sleepless night. He didn’t want his own company, much less hers. No matter how appealing she might be. And she was appealing, to be sure. Dispassionately, he examined her perfect profile, her delectable figure and her graceful, feminine movements. Then he disregarded them all.
Beauty left him cold. Understandably so.
Against his will, though, her gumption stirred him.
So did her curiosity about his books. He’d noticed her interest, of course. A drunk, blindfolded bat would have noticed it. It did not fit with the frivolous-looking rest of her. Neither did her avowed intention to be his chambermaid fit with her ruffled, floral-sprigged pastel dress and delicate hands. Those soft hands had never scrubbed floors.
But those obvious contradictions could wait. In his current dark state of mind, Griffin reckoned, they could wait forever.
“You are not a chambermaid,” he said with certainty, shaking himself into reason. “And you are not staying.”
He took her arm, intending to herd her to the door. In his grasp, she felt like a willowy, wiggly wisp of a thing. She looked like a black-haired, blue-eyed, fine-featured China doll come to life. She smelled of roses and toast and coffee, and the fragrance of his favorite brew made Griffin’s head swim.
At that moment, he heartily regretted pitching his breakfast into the hallway. But he’d needed to make his point somehow.
&
nbsp; A man began as he meant to go on. Griffin’s father had taught him that. If he wanted to be left alone, he needed to be…
Alone. Completely alone. With no one…and no coffee.
Unexpectedly troubled by that minor facet of his new solitary existence, Griffin faltered. Just for an instant.
His new “chambermaid” noticed his moment of weakness—and undoubtedly his grumbling belly—and handily exploited both.
She wrenched free. “But I have to stay! For one thing, you must regret not having breakfast. I can help you with that,” she exclaimed, her pert face coaxing him to agree. Likely, most people did. Even Griffin, with his longtime solitude having inured him to charm, felt pulled toward her somehow. “It’s a long journey from…well, everywhere to here,” she nattered on. “Morrow Creek is remote. From what I hear, train-car victuals don’t have much to recommend them. You must be starving.”
Her words called to mind…everything he wanted to forget. “No.” Tensely, Griffin stared at her. “I don’t need anything.”
“Nonsense. Everyone needs something! Even you,” she cajoled. Her dimples flashed. “Take me, for instance—”
“Are all The Lorndorff’s maids this chatty? Or just you?”
At his harsh interruption, she shut her mouth.
She looked wounded. Confused, too, as though most people loved hearing her ramble on nonsensically, the way she’d been doing—as though most people were immediately charmed by her and her beauty. Likely, they were charmed. Charmed and besotted and willing to set aside common sense for her company. Not for the first time, Griffin was reminded of the unfair privilege that the beautiful—and the consequently virtuous—enjoyed. They didn’t have to watch their words. Now, at long last, neither did he.
He was a success. That helped to balance the scales.
Before he could exercise his hard-won influence, though, his “chambermaid” found her voice.
“Chatty? Only when waylaid from their work by chatty guests.” She gave him an irksomely buoyant look. “Now. What would you like from the kitchen? I’ll see that it’s prepared to your liking. All you have to do is apologize to Miss Holloway.”
