Claim: A Novel of Colorado (The Homeward Trilogy)
Page 23
“More than you know,” he growled, looking as if he planned to take her in his arms and kiss her, right there in the middle of town.
She laughed under her breath. “Come, beloved,” she said, hooking her arm through his. “Let’s go find our boy and buy some supplies. We have a journey ahead of us.”
“In more ways than one,” he said with a groan.
o
Moira choked down half her egg and a bit of toast and forced herself to drink the last drops of juice. Even the thought of the bitter coffee turned her stomach, so she never lifted the cup, no longer steaming, to her lips. For propriety’s sake, she sat there for a few minutes longer, nibbling at her toast and pretending to chew. But between the idea that man might still be lingering about, watching her, and the telegram that she assumed was from home, and the note, clearly addressed by Mrs. Knapp’s looping, long script, her mind was on anything but food.
She rose at last, careful to arrange her skirts before doing so, and was walking through the lobby, when Ben Bonser and his wife, Abby, approached her. She smiled in relief to see their friendly faces, accepting Abby’s hands and then Ben’s.
“You are looking rested,” Abby said in admiration, stepping back and looking her up and down.
“Am I? Well, it is a relief to be off that train.” Despite the stress of the morning, she had managed to sleep last night.
“We were wondering if you might join us for dinner tonight,” Benjamin said. “There are a couple of friends I’d like you to meet.”
“I just may,” Moira said. Company for dinner was a fine idea, especially if she was being watched … and if she was not yet welcome at the Knapps’. “Abby, you must give me the name of your favorite dress shop in town.”
“Ahh, Madame Bouverie’s boutique is lovely.”
“Hmm, I’ve had an unfortunate experience there,” Moira demurred. That was where Gavin had taken her to fit her for gowns as Moira Colorado. “Is there another?”
“Truly?” Abby said in dismay. “I’ve never heard a poor word about her work. Well then,” she went on, brightening at her second choice. “Go to Madame Champlain’s on Eighteenth and Broadway.”
“Thank you,” she said, turning, “And Benjamin, I’m certain you understand my plight as a woman traveling alone. I am in need of an escort. Do you know of a service here in town?”
The small man’s eyebrows shot up and then lowered as he nodded in understanding. He locked his hands behind his back and looked down at the floor, thinking. “Quite, quite.” He lifted his head after a moment. “Have the concierge call for the Brown Cab Company and explain your situation. They serve only the finest in the city. I’m certain you can have your driver accompany you anywhere you wish to go.”
“That’s a good idea. Thank you. So I shall see you two here in the lobby this evening?”
“Eight o’clock?” Abby asked.
“That will be lovely.”
They parted ways, and Moira made her way to the hotel lift. An operator closed the doors behind her, flipped a fifth-floor marker, and threw the switch. After a slight lurch, they moved up the cable, reached their destination, and the operator opened the doors and gestured to the empty hallway before them.
Her room was only seven rooms down. Yet she hesitated.
“Miss? Do you need an escort?” the operator asked her.
“No, no, thank you,” she said, moving at once. As soon as she heard the gates close behind her, she fought the urge to run. She scurried to her door, slipped the key into the lock, and turned it. She slammed the heavy lacquered door behind her, wincing at the sound, but glad to have it closed and bolted. Her eyes flitted about the room. Empty, as expected. Slowly, her heartbeat returned to normal.
She went to her bed, already made up by the maids, and lay down for a few moments, her telegram and note clutched to her chest. Then she sat up and opened the telegram first.
Miss Moira St. Clair, New York City
Please notify us of your arrival STOP Anxious to know of your safety STOP Would like to know anticipated return STOP
Daniel Adams
Moira’s eyes ran over the words again, reading between the phrases. So he knew now that she was gone. That he didn’t hold her future in his hand. No man would ever do that again, she reminded herself. Only God, God could hold her future.
What do you think of this, God? Does this mean he cares? Or that he merely feels responsible for me?
She was glad that Daniel was feeling some discomfort, even pain, at her departure. Feeling a measure of what she had felt when he left her. It was good for them to have some separation, distance, to sort it all out. She sighed. At the same time, she longed for him, wishing he was here, to hold her in his big, warm arms and cradle her to his chest. Why did love have to be so tangled and difficult?
Wearily, she swiped her finger under the flap of Mrs. Knapp’s envelope and slid the heavy card out.
Dear Miss St. Clair,
I trust you have arrived safely and are settling into your lovely hotel. I must beg you to wait to visit, as I am ill and have taken to my bed. It is nothing serious, but I am too ill to receive company. Might you come next week? Please send word back at your convenience. It distresses me to delay our meeting, my dear. But I will be more myself after I convalesce, I’m certain of it.
Francine Knapp
The delay in meeting Gavin’s parents was both a frustration and a relief for Moira. On one hand, she was eager to see them, discover their commonalities with a man she once loved, and forge a relationship of some sort—if not for her, then for her baby. On the other hand, the whole idea of it would take every ounce of acting ability she had within, for she would have to pretend confidence where she had none left. Gavin had seen to that. My parents would never approve of our union. I am meant for someone … more. He’d always considered her lacking, even before he remade her into Moira Colorado. She had loved him. But he had not truly loved her in return.
Moira swallowed hard, staring into the mirror, then slipped her gloves on, picked up a light, lacy shawl for her shoulders, and went to the door. She paused there a moment, worried that the tall brown-haired man might be outside. She shook her head in frustration with herself—Moira St. Clair will fear no one any longer! God is beside her!—and moved out into the hallway, turning to lock the door. She refused to search the passageway. If he was there, she would face him. Besides, she thought, a loud scream should bring others running.
With the door locked, she turned and lifted her chin, then strode confidently toward the elevator. She heard no footsteps behind her and the way before her was empty, as it had been that morning. Perhaps the man was nothing more than another from the train. She was being silly, leaping to such conclusions. Surely the man who had dared to try to get to her on the train had given up. What would he have to gain, pursuing her here? But still, she sifted through her memories, trying to place where else she’d seen him.
She rang the bell and tapped her foot, waiting for the lift to arrive. It hadn’t been just on the train; she was sure of it. And he’d had an old poster.…
After a few minutes, the lift came to a squeaking halt, bouncing a bit before her within its cage. The operator opened a door, then the metal bars of the outer gate. He smiled. “Where to, ma’am? The lobby?”
“Yes, please,” she said. She stepped to the back of the car and waited for him to close both the gates and the door, then set a switch.
“Please hold the rail, ma’am,” he said over his shoulder.
Moira had just grabbed hold when he flipped a lever and the lift began its descent with a lurch. Her free hand went to her belly and she fought the urge to cry out in surprise. It hadn’t been quite so rough the first few times. Perhaps she simply was suffering from a general case of nerves.
They reached the bottom and Moira emerged into the busy lobby. Elegant couples strode by, all intent upon their own meetings and plans for the day. Spotting the concierge at his desk, Moira moved across th
e polished floors and waited behind several others for her turn.
Within twenty minutes, the concierge had motioned for a bellman, who bent down to listen to him speak into his ear, and Moira left the hotel behind the young man. Outside the bellman whistled for a Brown Cab, one of several carriages who waited in line around the corner from the front of the hotel. The cabbie pulled up on the reins of his white horse, tied them around a metal horn before him, and then quickly lumbered down to the front walk. He pulled off his hat and gave her a short bow. “Billy Samson, at your service, ma’am.”
“Mr. Samson,” the bellman said with a superior sniff, “this is Miss Moira St. Clair, a distinguished guest of this hotel. She is in need not only of transit from here to several shops and back, but she is also in need of an escort. Miss St. Clair is a celebrity of an international nature and might draw some undue attention should she be recognized. Are you up to the task of watching over her?”
“Indeed,” Billy said, casting her a wry look, never once looking at her veil, only her eyes and down in a quick assessment. “She’s but a wisp of a thing. How hard can it be to keep her safe? I could put her on my shoulder and carry her out of any mess she might get into.”
“Mr. Samson,” the bellman said, as sternly as a headmaster to an errant student, although the cabbie was clearly older than him by ten or more years. “Miss St. Clair deserves only your most utter respect. Am I guaranteed that you will give her that?”
The cabbie’s expression fell. “Of course, sir. I’ll treat her as fine as my grandmother’s china.” He was certainly large and willing.
Moira hid a small smile, thinking that he would do. The bellman slid Moira a look, asking her if she was all right with this one. Moira smiled and placed a coin in his palm. “Mr. Samson will take good care of me, I’m certain of it,” she said, slipping past him. She took Billy’s hand and climbed into the carriage, then swept her skirts to one side in order to sit. It was good she was going to a dressmaker. If she didn’t get some new gowns, she’d soon be popping buttons, given her bulging belly.
Billy shut the small gate and winked at her, then turned to nod at the bellman. A moment later, Billy was before her in the driver’s seat. “Where to, Miss St. Clair? It’s a beautiful day. Care for a turn around the park?”
Moira glanced down a side street and glimpsed the expanse of green. “No, thank you, Billy. Please take me directly to Madame Champlain’s. I’m in need of a few gowns.”
“Right away, miss,” he said, moving out into the flow of traffic, between a large armored bank wagon and a string of carriages of various sizes. The street was a cacophony of sounds—horses’ snickers and whinnies, street hawkers’ cries selling fish and nuts and bread, drivers’ shouts to beware! and get out of the way! and coming through!
Moira sank back into her seat and tried to absorb all she was seeing. When she was younger, the constant movement, the tide of humanity, the pulse of so many in such a small space thrilled her. Today it merely felt overwhelming. She lifted a hand to her temples, a headache threatening from the wings.
“I’ll have you there in a jiffy,” Billy said over his shoulder, apparently catching her move with a quick glimpse she missed, or the gift of a second sight.
She smiled and glanced down at her lap, then to the side, watching people as they passed. A young couple, obviously in love, a mother and grandmother dragging tired children behind them, and numerous men in top hats, striding purposefully along, apparently on their lunch break or returning from it to one of the thousands of offices around them.
Moira looked up. Buildings here rose to eight or nine stories tall, casting the street in shadows during all but the hours of eleven to one. She shivered, suddenly longing for the wide, open fields of the Circle M and the mountains in the near distance. She shook her head. What use was such a fanciful thought? She was here, in New York. And she would make the most of every moment she had.
Billy turned a corner and then another, then pulled up on the reins, saying lowly, “Whoa,” to his horse. He clambered out of his seat, opened the small door beside her, and offered his hand. “Miss?”
Moira stared at the huge store before her. It was not the small, intimate affair that Madame Bouverie’s had been. This was a large building, with dozens of headless mannequins wearing dresses in every color imaginable.
“It’s a fine sight, isn’t it?” asked Billy. “The ladies all swoon at such a thing. The back rooms are filled with a hundred seamstresses, ready to make a replacement for those that are purchased today or to tailor anything you purchase.” He studied her a moment. “Would you rather go to another shop?”
“No, no,” she said, finally rising and accepting his hand. She climbed down the step and let go when she was on the walk. “You’ll wait for me here?”
“I won’t leave this spot. Unless you wish for me to accompany you in there,” he said, frowning.
Moira smiled. “I doubt they allow men inside. Out here will be fine, Billy.”
She turned and strode to the door. A young woman opened it for her. “Welcome to Madame Champlain’s,” she said in a thick French accent.
o
In two hours’ time, Moira had been given tea and delicate sandwiches and had tried on more than twenty gowns. She quietly mentioned her pregnancy to the female tailor assigned to her, and the young woman neither glanced at her ringless finger or mentioned it again—she merely steered her toward one fine gown and then another. The dresses, with full, gathered skirts and Empire waists, would disguise her burgeoning belly and yet flatter her slender arms and narrow shoulders. After fitting her for each of the five she eventually chose—and carefully averting her eyes from the scars on Moira’s leg, shoulder, neck, and head, then helping her dress again—the seamstress guided her toward a rack with several corsets, especially made for pregnant women.
Moira shook her head. “I think not,” she said. She couldn’t imagine compressing her baby, making the child fight for breath. On the ranch, no one wore such things. Her own mother, in Philadelphia, had scorned the use of corsets, especially for anyone pregnant. The seamstress frowned in disapproval.
Moira glanced back at the rack. Undoubtedly, the gowns would look better on her with a corset beneath, but she would wear her own underclothes, regardless of what the young woman thought. “No,” she said firmly.
After making arrangements for the shop to send the gowns to the hotel, Moira moved out of the store and through the massive doors to the busy street again.
Billy started when he saw her, immediately pulling the grain bag from his horse’s head and moving to set it in the back. “Find what you were looking for, miss?”
“Yes,” she said in delight. “Five of them. It will be lovely to receive them.”
“Indeed, indeed,” the man said, helping her into the carriage. “Where to now, miss?”
“Oh, uh,” she paused, then slipped open her purse to pull out a piece of paper. The seamstress had given her the name of the finest wig shop in the city. She handed it to Billy, hoping he knew how to read. He nodded and handed it back to her. “Right away, miss.”
They were pulling out into the flow of traffic again when Moira’s eyes locked on a man in the shadows across the street. A large red coach drove between them then, and when it passed, the man was gone.
But it had been the brown-haired man from the hotel lobby. And the train. She was sure of it. She turned in her seat and searched the far walk in vain. There were simply too many people, too many wagons and coaches and men on horses.…
“Everything all right, miss?”
Moira sat back in her seat again with a sigh. “I appear to have someone following me,” she said to his back.
He straightened and glanced over his shoulder. “Want me to set him straight, miss?”
“No. He disappears as fast as he appears. But I’ve seen him several times.”
“Do you know who he is?”
“No,” she muttered, “I have no idea.”
“No,” she said. “We shall see to this next errand. After that, perhaps I’ll take you up on that turn around the park. I am in need of a dose of … nature, I believe.”
“As you wish, miss.”
o
Moira unwound her veils with some trepidation. The older gentleman ignored the scars above her ear, much as the seamstress had ignored the scars on her leg and shoulder. Why is it that I can let these people see them, but not Odessa, or … Daniel? If only they could look upon my scars with the same distance.
She closed her eyes for a moment, missing Daniel so much it shot a physical pain through her. She opened her eyes and stared at Mr. Tennesen, fighting to keep her composure. She tried to swallow but found her mouth too dry. Mr. Tennesen was focused solely upon his business. With swift hands that belied his age, he tucked the remains of her shorn hair in a net, then reached for the first wig. “Now this, this is the fine auburn you chose.” He settled the front of the wig on her forehead, then swiftly tugged it down the back. He moved to settle the long curls about her shoulders. “My, you were right, Miss St. Clair. The color is beautiful on you.” His eyes widened as he stared into her face. “I’ve never seen eyes as beautiful as yours. Truly.” Part of the wig swept up in a knot, part of it remained down. “You see how nicely that covers your neck and ear?” he asked.
He was referring, of course, to her scars. She nodded. There was something comforting, familiar in the dark red hair. It was as if she were again on the stage, and a costumer was giving her various options for her character. She blinked several times, staring at her visage, the relief of being hidden, even more so than when she was in her veils. But it felt … wrong, somehow. False. Truly like a costume. And wasn’t she ready to be embraced as Moira St. Clair, now? At least to a certain extent?
“Might we try that one?” she asked, pointing to a subtler blonde wig that closely matched her natural hair color.
“But of course,” Mr. Tennesen said, reaching for the next. He pulled it atop her head, settled the coils around her shoulders and stepped back, head cocked, to study her image along with her. Chin in hand, he lifted a brow and nodded. “It is a lovely match.”