“She’s both, just like we are.”
“Speak for yourself.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t consider you, above all, a saint, sir.”
He leaned back on the burgundy velvet squabs and rolled the gold head of his walking stick in his fingers. Tersely he said, “Neither do I. So beware.”
The gist of what he said hit her like a boxing glove. Her mouth parted in surprise, but she had no retort. What could she say to a man who had just proclaimed himself a sinner only? She sat back, uneasy, and watched him like a trapped rabbit. Relieved to find that unsettling gaze directed to the outside, where the omnibuses spilled out of Vanderbilt Avenue onto Forty-second Street, she breathed a sigh of relief and looked out the window at Commodore Vanderbilt’s folly.
The locals dubbed it “The Grand Swindle Depot” because it was so poorly planned that pedestrians were forced to find their way through a massive tangle of switching tracks, locomotives, and cross streets at the risk of life and limb. In spite of the criticism, it was still a handsome sight. NEW-YORK & HARLEM R.R. blazed across the three towers of the terminal on Forty-second Street, and the building’s Second-Empire-style architecture was considered by some the best in New York.
They pulled up to the carriage entrance and disembarked. Trevor showed a pass to one of the attendants, and they were then quickly escorted through the terminal to their platform. The trains awaited beneath steel-and-glass vaults behind the depot. It was easily the largest covered space in the country, and though she’d been there several times before, Grand Central never failed to impress her with its enormity.
At first Alana thought this trip would be much like the ones she’d taken on other excusions to Newport. But as she held on to her husband’s arm, she could see it was destined to be quite different. They were traveling on one of the Vanderbilt lines, yet not in a private compartment, as Alana usually went, but in Sheridan’s private Pullman car that was just now being hitched to the rest of the train. As Trevor oversaw the loading of their luggage and servants into adjoining cars, a polite elderly porter helped Alana up the steps of the gold and green Pullman. Once inside, she was aghast at the luxury. Deep maroon watered silk draped the span of windows across each side, tied at intervals with heavy gold cording. Velvet of the same deep purple-red hue covered the tufted sofas, arranged as if in a parlor. The woodwork was polished mahogany and brass, the black, gold, and green needlepoint carpeting tailor-made for the Pullman, its border incorporating Irish motife such as the harp and the shamrock and the Connacht shield that proclaimed the home province of the Sheridans. In the corner sat an ornate but friendly pot-bellied stove stoked up for the journey to Rhode Island.
Alana needed no encouragement to sit by the stove. The Pullman wasn’t cold, it had been too well-prepared for that, but the enormous wealth it boasted seemed to chill her to the bone. She looked around and thought of Sheridan’s massive mansion on Fifth Avenue. His home in Newport was supposedly as awe-inspiring, designed by Hunt entirely in marble. She again thought of her dream, and if before she’d felt suffocated by her wealthy background, now she was drowning in it.
Her husband entered the car and made himself comfortable on one of the sofas at the opposite end of the stove. It took another ten minutes for the train to lurch to a start, and during that time neither spoke a word. At the wedding she had felt his eyes upon her constantly. Now, in these close quarters, he treated her as if she were invisible.
A billowing cloud of steam rose from both sides of the car as the train pulled out of the station. Through it she could see people on the platform waving good-bye to loved ones in cars behind them. No one waved at the Sheridan Pullman. The train left the huge sooted glass vault, and suddenly they were in sunshine, heading north toward Yorkville.
Alana tore her gaze from the window, by some instinct sure Trevor had been watching her. But when she looked at him, his head was buried in the evening copy of the Chronicle as he analyzed the stock-market section. The front page, emblazoned with the details of their wedding, lay discarded on the needlepoint carpeting.
“Do we take the regular route to Newport, or can your money get us there faster?” It wasn’t the most gracious of questions, but for some irrational reason, the front page lying crumpled at his feet irked her.
Slowly he looked up from the paper. “Did you say something?”
The train gave a little jump, and her well-corseted breasts bounced with the movement. Though it was so quick she thought she might have imagined it, she swore his gaze flickered involuntarily to her chest. “I asked how long is the ride?” Hating herself for her self-consciousness, she crossed her arms over her bosom as if to ward him off.
“The usual time. Haven’t you ever been to Newport?” He looked away, dismissing her. She almost smiled. His accent had filtered in again. Every now and then the veneer cracked. Still, she wondered if she would ever entirely see that man he took such pains to hide.
“I thought with all your millions, you had a way of getting us there faster.” She dismissed him too and looked out the window.
“When there is a way that’s faster, you can be sure I’ll be one of the first to know about it.”
“And sell stock in it, and make another trillion zillion dollars,” she said under her breath.
He gave her a sharp look, then surprised her with a chuckle. “Have you a problem with that? It’s the American way, after all. And you, Miss Knickerbocker, an American of Americans, should be in favor of such things.”
She raised her eyebrows and looked at him. “On the contrary, I’ve heard earning money on the exchange is usually less than honest. Even my uncle said that most of it should be illegal, selling stock you don’t even own, printing stock that you know has no value—”
“So men should merely take their inheritance and live off that—is that what you suggest?”
She frowned, angered that he twisted her words. She was not the cold-hearted statue he believed her to be. “There’s no shame in family money honestly earned,” she said quietly.
His lips tightened in disgust. “I know this hypothesis might come as a shock to you, my girl, but what does one do if there is no family money?”
The derision in his voice cut her like a knife. She knew he hated her. He couldn’t have played with her life as he had if he had any regard for her feelings, but she’d thought he considered her better than a half-wit. “What do you think I am?” she whispered. “Unthinking? Unfeeling? Do you think I’m so shallow that I believe everyone is rich and privileged? Do you think the plight of the poor has escaped me? Or when faced with it, that I call out, ‘Then let them eat cake’?”
“You’ve never been poor. You’ve no right to judge me, to even speak of such matters.” He callously forced his attention back to his stock reports.
Wild, hot tears sprang to her eyes, a product of the long, trying, disheartening day. “It’s you who judge me, sir,” she said before standing and weaving her way to a sofa at the other end of the plush car. She looked out the window and saw that they were well past what used to be the shanty-town of Bloomingdale. Their route would take them along the former Bloomingdale Road to Harlem Heights, across to Kingsbridge, finally picking up the route of the old Boston Post Road.
She snapped open her steel-beaded purse and searched for a handkerchief. One would hardly know she was crying. Her tears came in silent restrained shudders—she’d been well schooled in hiding her pain.
She dabbed her cheeks. He said she had no right even to think of the poor, but she did think of the poor. There were advantages to being poor. Life was more simple. There were no pretentions, no hiding. If one was lucky enough to have friends, they accepted you the way you were and didn’t wait in the shadows to pounce on the slightest imagined irregularity.
She watched the barren landscape pass by—muddy, graded, treeless farmland that speculators were already sectioning off for town homes. The monotony of the view allowed her to escape into a favorite daydream
. She imagined life as another girl, one with far less money and far more friends. Her pleasures would be simple. They would have to be. In that kind of life, she’d have to make herself content with things like a warm fire and good company. And content she could have been.
She gazed at the little pot-bellied stove and thought of her shadow man. He was the kind to relish a good fire on a cold day, the kind to like a fire best with his lady by his side. She longed to be that lady, to simply sit with her dearest by the fire and enjoy his good company. If only she could picture the shadow man’s face. If only he had one.
She looked up and saw Sheridan. His expression was tense and defensive. He stood and walked toward her, intent upon the champagne bottle resting on the bar. He passed her as she discreetly wiped the tears from her eyes. She didn’t want him to see her cry. He should never again know she was that vulnerable.
Covertly she watched as he poured himself a glass of champagne and tossed it down, nearly in one gulp. Dissatisfied, he pulled a cut-crystal decanter from behind the bar and poured himself a healthy dose of the pale amber liquid. Still not saying a word, he tossed that down and poured another.
She watched him at the bar, and her irritation festered. She almost envied him. Being a woman, she wasn’t allowed the same escape he could seek in spirits. For her to pour herself a drink would be too bold, and inwardly she cursed the suffragists for aligning themselves with the temperance movement. But the more she thought, the more bold she became. This man had forced her to marry him, and she had no reason to impress or obey him. Their marriage was in name only. She was to take care of his sister’s social career and nothing else, so what would he care if she privately had a drink and drowned her sorrows as he was drowning his?
She stiffened her spine and made the decision. The ride to Newport was already proving overly long. He could go to the devil if he didn’t like it. His anger would be only a distraction.
He watched her as she stood and sauntered to the bar. She didn’t dare look at him with her red-rimmed eyes, but she cursed that piercing gaze that she felt follow her every movement.
“If you wanted champagne, I would have brought you some,” he commented dryly, looking down at her.
“I don’t want champagne, thank you.” She found a glass and lifted the stopper of the decanter he was drinking from.
“You don’t want that,” he stated abruptly, obvious disapproval on his face.
Her rebellious streak surfaced. The suffragettes were fighting for the right to vote, but she wished that they could fix it so that when a lady drank, she could do so without being thought an adventuress. “This shall do just fine for my needs.” She ignored his stormy expression and reached for the decanter.
Without warning, he took it from her grasp. “You won’t like this.” His brow darkened. “And is it your usual course to belly-up to the bar and pour yourself a drink?”
Her green eyes glittered with both mirth and fury. So he thought her a tippler. She almost wanted to laugh. Fine. Let him think so. “Worried?” she taunted. “After all, you don’t know much about me. I could have all sorts of vices.”
He ran his thumb over the lion’s head of his walking stick. She didn’t know why that action sent a thrill down her spine. “True. But then so could I.” That dark smile appeared again.
Instinct told her it was best to ignore him when he was in this confrontational mood. She reached for the decanter once more, but he pulled it away again. “I tell you, you can’t drink this.”
Her temper flared. He was such a hypocrite! Typical of his sex, he thought it fine to allow her some wine in Delmonico’s because it suited him to muddle her thoughts, but now she didn’t possess the right to have a drink on her own.
“If you sit down, I’ll pour you a glass of champagne.”
He sounded as if he were talking to a child. He would allow her, would he? Impetuously she said, “I’d like something stronger. I’ll have what you’re drinking.”
He opened his mouth to speak again, then suddenly thought better of it. Something began to amuse him. “You want this poitín? What’s in this decanter? Fine. You may have it.” He took her glass and poured, his brows rising with the level of liquor. Smugly he presented it to her. “Bottoms up,” he announced, a small smile lurking on his handsome lips.
“Bottoms up,” she repeated and took a huge, numbing sip.
The fires of hell flared in her throat. She wanted to cough, but she was so overcome by whatever it was she’d drunk, she couldn’t breathe. After a heart-stopping moment, she sucked in a breath, and her eyes teared. She began to cough at exactly the moment he began to laugh.
“Here, have another.” Trevor brought her the decanter and filled her glass to overflowing while she desperately tried to breathe. It would have been comical if she hadn’t been so angry. “What—are you trying to do—kill me?” She coughed, furious green sparks flaring in her eyes. “What—is this?” She held out the vile glassful of liquor.
“Good Irish whiskey, home-distilled in Bandit’s Roost, one of my very own haunts. Don’t tell me you don’t like it?”
“It’s poison!” she rasped.
“If you drink too much of it …”
“You drink this stuff, willingly?”
“It’s the only stuff tha’ can knock me flat on me ass.” He smiled wickedly. “’Ave anoother.” He reached for her glass, obviously enjoying himself, and at her expense.
She pulled her glass away. “I don’t want to be knocked on my—” her hand flew to her mouth, “bottom!” she finished, her cheeks growing warm.
“What are you? Fearful you might grow to like the stuff? Well, don’t worry. It’s cheap and plentiful where I get it, so enjoy.”
“Good heavens! No one could grow to like this nasty brew! It’s worse than hair tonic!”
“And how would you know? Is that what you Knickerbocker ladies do when you’re hard up for a drink—swill the hair tonic?” He put his head back and laughed.
He’d insulted her, and she should have been angry. But within the haze of that initial gulp of spirits, she found herself entranced, struck by how truly handsome he was when he was in good cheer. Mesmerized, she studied him. He had all of his brother Eagan’s rakishness, only Trevor’s was less obvious and to her infinitely more seductive.
Even the train worked against her at that moment. The smooth ride disappeared with a sudden lurch, a lurch that propelled her into his broad chest, her pliant bosom crushing against him. The laughter died on his lips. Their gazes locked in one electrifying second, then Alana felt the ground fall out from beneath her. Deep in those restless eyes, his invitation couldn’t be missed.
The worst of it was she wasn’t saying no.
They were so close, she could feel his breath against her hair. He was obviously trying to control some impulse and obviously failing. He lowered his head, and she wanted to cry out, to refuse this strange longing that seemed to be driving both of them, but she didn’t utter a word. This desire blossoming within her had been sleeping for years, and if she were truthful, the only time it had ever stirred was that night she’d first come face-to-face with this dark Irishman.
Like a salve for her burn, his lips came down on hers. It felt so good, she wanted to sigh her pleasure and relief, even as her mind drummed a warning. His arm slid down her waist, and he drew her nearer. He kissed her just as he had in church, but now there were no spectators to rush them, and he took his time, letting his mouth pull on hers until he went deeper and broke the barrier of her lips. His tongue was still a shock to her, and her instincts told her to pull back. But always the master of the situation, he put his hand beneath her chignon and stopped her. He drove further, and any thoughts of leaving him seemed to be gone from her head. Reason told her unequivocably to pull away, yet her hand moved up his starched white shirtfront and gently touched his cheek, clearly conveying her approval.
He seemed to like this almost too much, for his kiss became even more ferocious until she
was bent back against the bar, accepting thrust after thrust of his tongue with the delirium of an addict. His hands caressed her corseted rib cage, but longing for something more substantial to fill his palms, he pushed them up until he almost reached her bosom. When he’d just reached the bottoms of her breasts, a warning went off in her head, one loud enough for her to hear. Wild, irrational panic beat through her veins, and she ripped her lips from his.
Panting, she stared at him, unable to believe what he had almost done. They stood suspended in their embrace, the only movement the erotic rhythm of the train beneath their feet.
When he straightened, reality came down on her like a bucketful of water. She was arched against the bar like a trollop, her head wantonly lolled backward, her lips eager for another kiss. Horror filled her expression, not because he had kissed her but because she had wanted so desperately to be kissed. And by this man. A man who hated her.
He looked down at her, studying the self-loathing that played across her features. Misreading the reasons for it, he wiped his face of any emotion and retrieved his whiskey. Then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he said in a thick, earthy, contemptuous brogue, “So, Miss Kickabocker, is that what y’ foin ladies do when yer hard-up fer a man?”
She could have slapped him. Betrayal crossed her face, hurt too, but she quickly covered them both with a cold mask of ice. As if she were the Queen of England, she turned and regally walked back to the sofa, not saying a word, her cheeks and eyes saying too much.
She stared once more out the window, and a silence came down on the Pullman. Numb, horrified, and too proud to lick her wounds, she sat like a mannequin posed at a funeral. She tasted whiskey in her mouth, and the thought that the whiskey could have come from him only unraveled her further. A shaking hand ran over her lips as if to draw the taste away. It persisted, cruelly reminding her of that kiss.
They were in the countryside now, well past 125th Street. Some would have been cheered by the old colonial farms and neat white pickets that ran for miles. The two in the private Pullman that bulleted north along the tracks were not. He sat drinking silently in the corner. His wife stared sightlessly out the window, inconsolable with the knowledge that her new husband had the ability to make her feel things that could only cause catastrophe.
Lions and Lace Page 16
