Notorious in the West

by Lisa Plumley

  “Look.” Griffin nudged her shoulder. “They’re dancing.”

  She did look, down the aisle. “They’re dance-hall girls!”

  “So? No one is likely to confuse you for a dancing girl.”

  But Olivia wasn’t convinced. “I’ve worked very hard to become a woman my father can be proud of,” she said. “As far as I know, Henry Mouton never wished he’d sired a painted lady.”

  Griffin shrugged. “You never know until you try.”

  “I know.” Heavens. Now her fingers were tapping along to the tune, too! Determinedly shoving them under her skirts—where they could keep good company with her similarly shrouded tapping toes, Olivia redirected her attention to the dais. “I won’t try.”

  She could have sworn that Griffin appeared disappointed.

  But that was simply too bad, Olivia decided. She had a reputation to uphold. She couldn’t do that by giving in to every untoward desire she ever had. She couldn’t do that by dancing…no matter how enjoyable and memorable it would have been.

  *

  In a sense, Olivia’s fortitude was rewarded in the end. Because after the musicale was finished, when she and Griffin were jovially chatting in the town hall with her friends and neighbors, something unexpected happened. All at once, amid the glowing lamplight and the hearty laughter, Griffin went still.

  Olivia noticed him glance to one corner of the hall, but she didn’t think much of it at first. Partly because she was in midconversation with Annie. Partly because Griffin had been occasionally examining the town hall all night. She’d originally—and dispiritedly—thought he was becoming bored by Morrow Creek’s rusticated entertainments. Then she’d looked into his solemn eyes and rapt expression and realized the truth.

  He was doing it. Just like her, he was savoring. He was storing up the experience of being at the musicale with her. In that moment. While it was still happening. Before it slipped away.

  Not that Griffin was rude about it. Olivia doubted anyone else noticed his gaze moving, from time to time, to the hand-lettered signs and the chattering townspeople and the humble decorations overhead. But she noticed. She noticed, and it made her feel sad. Why could she not help Griffin feel secure?

  The notion should have made her laugh. On the face of it, a man like him did not need her help feeling secure. Griffin was successful, wealthy and admired by industry. He was, by all accounts, a man to be respected for his accomplishments. But Olivia knew him for more than The Beast he was supposed to be.

  She knew him. She cared for him. She might even love him.

  Maybe that was why Annie’s next question caught Olivia off guard. Her longtime friend, having noticed Griffin’s inattentiveness, seized that moment to waylay Olivia.

  “So,” Annie said, darting a furtive glance at Griffin, “do you think you’ll be able to change his mind? How close are you?”

  “How close am I?” Tardily, Olivia realized that Annie must be referring to her plan to convince Griffin to relinquish control of The Lorndorff. She waved off her friend’s concern. “Honestly, I haven’t given it much thought lately.”

  “Well, you must be making progress.” Annie stepped back as Griffin absently excused himself and then strode away, further enabling their gossipy conversation. “I heard,” she went on, “that Mr. Turner invited your father to manage the hotel again.”

  “He asked him to.” Olivia had learned as much from her father. “My father refused. He doesn’t want to settle for ‘half measures.’ He thinks he can hold out. He thinks he can convince another investor to buy out Mr. Turner and solve the problem entirely.” She sighed. “I think that will simply introduce another troublesome element to an already unwieldy situation. Given a large enough stake in The Lorndorff, another investor would be equally likely to force out my father…and he’d be an unknown quantity, besides. I say it’s too risky overall.”

  “Hmm?” Annie frowned. “What has gotten into you? All of a sudden, you talk like a book. A business book, to be precise.”

  Olivia felt abashed. “Perhaps I’ve been spending too much time in Mr. Turner’s company.” Kissing him. And relishing a great deal of insightful conversation with him. Not that any of those opinions had been other than her own. “I’m sorry.” She sipped her punch, then smiled at Annie. “Is that a new dress?”

  “It is!” Annie gushed, making a slight turn to display her fashionable bustle. “I’ve been working on it for ages. In fact, I was hoping to catch the eye of a certain gentleman tonight.”

  “Hmm. Mr. Grant, perhaps?” Olivia suggested, much too innocently. She’d noticed Annie noticing Griffin’s associate.

  “That citified know-it-all? No, not him!” Annie declared, much too vehemently. She stood on tiptoe, then gazed avidly across the town hall. “Why? Have you seen him here?”

  Olivia suppressed a grin. “He was jigging with the dance-hall girls in the leftmost aisle a while ago. Since then—”

  Annie gave her a playful swat. “He was not jigging!”

  I almost was. “Well, it wouldn’t be wholly untoward…”

  “Yes, it would!” Annie rolled her eyes. “Dance-hall girls?”

  “Well, if it wasn’t a dance-hall girl who was dancing,” Olivia tried. “Then maybe…?” She was desperate to learn how Annie might react to a hypothetical scenario. Say, if she were to indulge her yen to dance in the aisle to toe-tapping fiddle music. But she never had a chance. Because in the next moment, Annie stared. “Is that Mr. Turner?” she asked, pointing.

  At the same moment, the crowd parted obligingly. In the resulting gap, Griffin strode nearer, wearing his black clothes, black boots and black hat…and carrying a young boy in his arms.

  The child looked three or four years of age. With his small face streaked with tears, the tousle-haired boy clung monkeylike to Griffin’s shoulders, clearly unwilling to be parted from him.

  “Ladies.” As though there were nothing unusual about a famously hard-hearted beast of an industrialist cradling a child in his arms, Griffin nodded politely at Olivia and Annie. “I’m sorry to leave you so abruptly. I saw this tyke crying in the corner. Nobody else seemed to have noticed the little scamp.”

  At Griffin’s attentiveness, Olivia couldn’t help remembering his nonchalant statement days ago. There’s something about growing up hand to mouth, in danger of getting beaten, that makes a man notice the details of things. Sometimes, she guessed, those details weren’t dire. But they were no less important to attend to. Especially when they involved a child.

  Still, she couldn’t believe he’d voluntarily cradled a lost child. Most men held children about as expertly as they did brooms. But as with sweeping, Griffin seemed to come by this skill naturally. Beside her, Annie could do no more than stare, along with the townspeople standing by. Olivia merely looked at Griffin, saw him making a funny face while murmuring silly nonsense to comfort the child and felt her heart open wide.

  Something about seeing this tender, protective side of Griffin made him irresistible. He was…downright nurturing.

  “If he agreed to quit bawling,” Griffin announced, peering kindly into the boy’s little face, “I promised him a pony.”

  “Griffin!” Olivia objected. “That’s far too lavish.”

  “Mr. Turner!” Annie echoed in a similarly censorious tone. Then her gaze turned devious. “I like ponies. I mean, if you’re faced with an abundance of the critters and require volunteers…”

  “Annie!” Olivia shook her head at her friend. “No.”

  But Griffin was unperturbed by their wrangling. He only jostled the boy good-naturedly in his arms, then asked, “Will the two of you help me find his mother? He says his name is Jonas.”

  “Will we earn a pony if we do?” Annie asked cagily.

  Olivia frowned at her. “Of course we’ll help you,” she assured Griffin. “Let’s begin with the perimeter of the room.”

  “Perimeter?” In frustration, Annie stopped with her hands on her hips. “Can you please speak no
rmally? I didn’t read a million books when I was small,” she reminded Olivia with a nonplussed look, “so I can’t keep up with all your fancy talk.”

  “I’m sorry.” Olivia gestured helpfully. “Let’s look in the aisles on the outsides of the room first. That’s all I mean.”

  “Then why didn’t you say so?” Annie gave a disgruntled head shake as they trailed Griffin and his newly devoted friend, Jonas. “You’re still doing it, you know,” Annie complained. “Talking like a book. Like you used to talk, years ago.”

  Feeling a glimmer of warning at that, Olivia shrugged.

  “I guess lost children bring out my studious side,” she hedged, unwilling to admit that it wasn’t a single incident that was making her revert to her old rebellious and hoydenish ways. It was Griffin. Increasingly, she wanted the same freedom in the rest of her life as she found when she was with him. It was getting harder and harder to refrain from impropriety altogether—harder to remember why she’d ever wanted to behave herself in the first place. “Come on,” Olivia said to Annie, tugging her arm. “I see Mrs. McCabe, the schoolmarm. She knows everyone’s children, whether they’re of school age or not.”

  As they picked up speed, still following Griffin and Jonas, Olivia cast that adorable duo a second, contemplative glance. Now the boy was whispering something to Griffin, elaborately cupping his ear in the dramatic fashion children had, and Griffin was laughing at the confidence they’d shared. In response, Jonas beamed. His childish chuckle sounded out.

  Someday, Olivia couldn’t help thinking, that could be their child being held in Griffin’s arms. That could be her future, shared with a man who rescued lost children, understood philosophical theories and volunteered to dance scandalously in the aisles to fiddle music. In so many ways, it was ideal.

  Unless…

  Abruptly, Olivia stopped, peering at Griffin as Jonas’s mother caught up to the pair. She watched as the woman thanked Griffin effusively, then hugged Jonas to her while conversing animatedly with Griffin. Belatedly, Olivia recognized her as one of the most decorous, well-respected, God-fearing women in Morrow Creek. Undoubtedly, she’d never experienced a moment’s temptation to dance to the musicale’s boisterous fiddle music.

  Possibly, it occurred to Olivia, Griffin hadn’t, either.

  Was he…testing her?

  The idea suddenly seemed all too plausible. Certainly, Griffin appeared to enjoy the lengthy talks he and Olivia shared about egalitarianism, absolute idealism, naturalism and other philosophical theories, as well as about novels they’d read and places they’d like to visit. But those conversations occurred in private, in his hotel suite. What if Griffin, like most other men, was more concerned with what occurred in public?

  What if he was concerned with having a wife who could behave herself in public?

  If he was, the dreamy domestic scenario Olivia had just been imagining could not possibly come true. Marriageable women did not, as a rule, behave like dance-hall girls, Olivia knew. Neither did respectable women like Jonas’s mother. Once upon a time, Olivia would have been happy to omit herself from their numbers. Once upon a time, she’d been proud of her adolescent freethinking and unruly conduct. But now things were different.

  The things she wanted from her life were different.

  Griffin had seemed sincere when he’d urged Olivia to dance to the fiddle music earlier, she mused. He had recognized her love of it. He’d even seemed to share it. His toes had tapped a time or two, as well. But what if he didn’t approve as wholeheartedly as he seemed to? What if he’d been pushing to learn exactly how unconventional she really was?

  What if Griffin was predicating his willingness to commit further on her willingness to comport herself appropriately?

  Concerned, Olivia studied him a bit longer. Then, as Annie identified Mr. Grant on the other side of the room and beelined toward her—purportedly—least favorite Boston businessman, Olivia made her decision. If Griffin was testing her, she meant to pass with flying colors. She wanted Griffin to think well of her. She wanted him to think of her as more than a counterfeit chambermaid, an amenable tour guide to Morrow Creek and a sometime conversational partner. She wanted him to think of her as a woman. A desirable woman. A woman whose most attractive qualities were impossible to overlook…as he seemed to have done so far.

  If she could ensure that their togetherness would grow, simply at the price of sticking to her usual upright behavior, then that was what she’d do, Olivia vowed. She would refuse to dance. She would try harder at sewing. She would keep her most divergent opinions to herself. She would be the most respectable woman she could possibly be, and she’d prove her marriageability to Griffin in the process…no matter how much fiddle music might play or how many temptations might fall in her path in the meantime.

  Chapter Twelve

  A half hour early for the Morrow Creek handicrafts show, Griffin ducked into the designated venue—a two-story brick house located at the far end of the town’s main street—with his mind on Olivia. He’d agreed to meet her for another of his getting-to-know-Morrow-Creek sessions, but the intent of those sessions felt largely superfluous by now. Griffin had already met and—with surprising ease—befriended most of the town’s residents. He guessed that ease came hand in hand with the residents’ lack of familiarity with the Turners of Boston. Here, Edward Turner’s nefarious business tactics and coldhearted abandonment of his family were as irrelevant as the travails of streetcar travel and the touring playhouse schedules at the Howard Athenaeum. No one in Morrow Creek looked at Griffin’s face and saw in it the curse of the Turner men. No one saw pitiable Hook Turner.

  They only saw him, Griffin, alone. And the woman who had instigated that welcome change was waiting for him to meet her.

  If not for Olivia, Griffin knew, he’d never have realized the fresh chance awaiting him in Morrow Creek. If not for her, he’d likely still be sequestered in his suite at The Lorndorff, lost in self-pity and whiskey and darkness, wondering why success, money and hard-earned respect had not made him happy.

  Today, he felt happy. Walking through the show-hosting household’s spacious hallways and past its finely decorated rooms, Griffin surveyed the hustle and bustle of preparations for the show and knew that his newfound happiness owed itself to Olivia. He may have failed to seduce her into letting her feet dance them both into carefree enjoyment of the musicale’s fiddle music a few days ago, but today would be different, he vowed.

  Today he had a surprise that even Olivia, with all her grit and tenacity and dedication, would not be able to resist.

  First, though, he had volunteered to help Olivia set up the displays for the handicrafts show. Spying the set of rooms where he’d been told she would be, Griffin felt his heart race faster.

  Grinning at his own sap-headed sense of romanticism, he picked up speed. His boot heels rang against the polished oak floorboards. His coat billowed behind him, lending him an imposing appearance as he strode onward. Catching a glimpse of himself in the hallway’s gilt-edged mirror, Griffin hesitated.

  He stopped.

  For the first time in years, he took a good look at himself. He wasn’t sure he liked what he saw. Not because of his nose—although that detestable feature was still fully accounted for—but because of his forbidding black clothes. Above his inky collar, dark coat, midnight vest and plain black trousers, his own rugged countenance frowned back at him, framed by the wide brim of his equally dark hat and the omnipresent tangle of his tied-back dark hair. Even his thick, dark eyebrows looked menacing.

  Damnation. How was he supposed to endear himself to a lighthearted and fun-loving woman like Olivia when he most resembled a hulking, oversize, expensively dressed undertaker?

  Newly mortified by the thought, Griffin turned. He peered at his profile as best he could, noting his perfectly turned-out collar, his jet cufflinks and his rough, masculine stance. He did appear threatening. No wonder, it occurred to him, Olivia had not wanted to cut loose and dance at the musi
cale.

  She hadn’t wanted to dance with him.

  Confounded, Griffin delivered his image a scowl. Until now, he’d largely strived for invisibility. But here in Morrow Creek, with Olivia, such measures might not be necessary. Here in Morrow Creek, he might get away with a more female-friendly set of clothing. He might even dare to try not tugging his hat low.

  The very idea left him chockablock with trepidation. Did he dare? For the sake of winning Olivia, did he dare to step fully into the light and risk letting everyone see him without his armor of dark clothes and face-hiding hat? Getting new suits of clothes would be easy enough, Griffin mused. Palmer could issue an order to his tailors in Boston and have custom garments delivered on the train within weeks. Maybe in medium gray…

  “Griffin! There you are.” Olivia approached him with a smile on her face. She held out her arms, took both his hands in hers then squeezed. “If I could, I would spend time just staring at you, too,” she teased with an affectionate nod at the mirror. “You have an arresting array of features, Mr. Turner.”

  Griffin wanted to believe that she truly liked the way he looked. Hard experience—and his own mind—told him she could not.

  All the same, he felt his whole heart give way at her touch. He couldn’t help grinning. Olivia made him feel…joyful. Absurdly so. Doubtless he was making himself a fool, even then.

  “You have an arresting way of fibbing outright. My features are nothing but problematic, and both of us know it.”

  “Pshaw.” Eyes sparkling, Olivia levered upward. She gave his cheek a hasty, private kiss. “They are yours, so I love them.”

  Caught by that, Griffin inhaled. Did she…? Could she…?

  He wished he did not want her approval so much.

  But he did. Worse, it felt tantalizingly close.

  Feeling overcome, Griffin cleared his throat. Pointedly, he glanced around the hallway. From other areas of the house came the sounds of things being moved, of conversations going on, of workers performing last-minute tasks to prepare for the handicrafts show. “What do you want me to do first?”