Aching for Always

by Gwyn Cready

  “Good Lord,” Hugh said, maneuvering his finger along the narrow space between the fabric and his Adam’s apple. “It is like a noose. Is it meant to be a punishment of some sort?”

  “Every picture I’ve found seems to show men wearing one. So, no, not unless the lot of them are criminals.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me in the least.” Hugh stretched his neck in either direction. “Nathaniel, you’ve done an excellent job with the food and clothes, as have you, Fiona, with the money and shoes.” He eyed the lethal-looking pattens she sported, with heels as high as a loaf of bread. “But we need a little more on Brand. See what more you can find out about his schedule and work habits.”

  Fiona nodded.

  “And, Nathaniel, hit the cot. You’ve been up all night sewing. We’ll need you fresh for later. I’m going to figure out the habits of the tower dwellers. There’s got to be a way in. What is it, Fiona?” He saw her eyes flicker up the alleyway.

  “I thought I saw a flash of something. Probably just a bird. Let’s head in. I’m getting cold.”

  * * *

  When they went back inside the shop, Joss padded the rest of the way down the alley. She was just nearing the entrance when a weird throb went through her and she stopped.

  She froze. Remnants of yesterday’s inexplicable events? No sparks had appeared, but she’d felt the same odd lurching in her gut—like the urgent pound-pound-pound of a boat speeding through the waves. With some trepidation, she stepped back to see if it would happen again. The street shook like it was under artillery fire, and flashes of images went through her mind’s eye. She jumped back to safety. She was not imagining it. Where she had seen the sparks accumulate on the invisible dome the day before, there was still a force of some kind.

  A pedestrian chatting on his cell approached her. She pulled out her phone, as if she were checking for messages, to watch him pass. Ten feet before he reached her, she saw his face contract for an instant, as if he’d been bitten by a mosquito. He kept walking, though, and when he was just a few steps past her, he flinched again. He turned around, confused, but saw nothing and continued on his way.

  She wasn’t the only one who was feeling this.

  She put her hand out carefully, wondering if she could find the perimeter of this odd, invisible dome. And, indeed, a few inches beyond her she found a wall of moving air. She inched forward. There was a faint humming that increased the closer she brought her head, ramping quickly to a stronger screech. She closed her eyes and brought her face into it.

  Immediately, the images returned. Vivid and confusing, one replaced another in the tiniest fraction of a second—a huge rocky mount against a raging sea, a baby crying, an ancient pistol firing in the dark and Joss herself from the evening before, at the head of the alley, walking through a shower of sparks to—

  “Can I help you?”

  Joss leapt about a foot. It was the blond woman, regarding her closely. She must have slipped outside without Joss seeing. The woman was even more gorgeous up close, with gold cat eyes, long legs and a body that could stop a Superman preview at Comic-Con. She had a British accent, too, though not nearly as warm as Tom James’s. More Sienna Miller than Maggie Smith.

  “I was, um, listening. I thought I heard a wolf howling. Strangest thing.”

  “A wolf? Here?” The woman put her hands on her hips. With her spike heels, her eyes were about a foot over Joss’s head.

  Joss chuckled nervously. “I guess it was just me. Say, I was wondering if I could see Mr. James. I’m having a certain tailoring issue with my skirt.” She shook the hanger as if presenting evidence.

  The woman’s gaze went from the hanger to Joss’s hips with an expression that suggested taking the skirt in wasn’t going to be the fix.

  “He’s not here, and we don’t do that sort of work anymore. New owners.”

  Joss considered. Pushing too hard would raise a flag—and a place that could toss up an invisible dome was not exactly one to be trifled with. On the other hand, she really didn’t care for Sienna’s attitude.

  “I see. Well, you don’t mind if I pick up the blazer and slacks I left here, do you?” she said, summoning an instant lie.

  The woman rocked on her Space Needle heels. She didn’t believe Joss any more than Joss had believed her.

  “The stock is gone,” the woman said. “I apologize. Everything was gone when we bought the business. Did the former owner not leave you a forwarding address?”

  “No. But that’s okay. I’ll just grab a cop,” Joss said, carefully emphasizing the last word. “A lot of times they know the emergency numbers to call for this sort of thing.”

  “A cop?”

  “Yeah, you know”—Joss pointed a finger and cocked her thumb—“bang-bang?”

  The woman’s eyes flared, and she reached for something at her back.

  The door opened so hard the knob made contact with the brick. Tom James or whatever his name was gave the woman a meaningful look. “Fiona,” he said sharply. “That will be enough.”

  Fiona, eh? That was the name of a double-crossing whore if she’d ever heard one. The woman probably cheated at checkers, too. Joss gave her a smile.

  Fiona’s hand returned to her hip and she flounced off.

  “What can I do for you?”

  Joss looked up into James’s face. He was a good four inches taller than Rogan and ruggedly handsome, where Rogan’s looks were Wall Street-by-way-of-Andover classic. Specks of green, gray and sky blue swam in James’s eyes like a northern sea, and he regarded her with what could only be described as careful interest.

  “I-I—” She held up the hanger, feeling her breath catch. “A skirt. I have a skirt.”

  He looked at the garment, his scarred brow lifting in an arch. “A brushed brocade. I saw something like this in Malay once. Very handsome. Would you like to come in?” He tilted his head toward the shop.

  The interior was spotless and precisely laid out, two square rooms separated by an entry hall in which an ancient counter stood. There were baskets of notions along its length, and a brass cash register that might have made change for Woodrow Wilson. To her right, bolts of cloth lined the walls: wools in browns, blacks and grays; cottons in whites, pinks and blues; silks in myriad patterns and a rainbow of colors. To her left, in the room that was barely visible behind a half-drawn curtain, she spotted a short raised platform in front of a large half circle of mirrors. It was a fitting room, and yet nothing suggested that any in-process work was going on here. Somewhere in the back of the house, a man and a woman—Fiona, by the sound of it—conversed.

  “Now, what can I do for you?” James asked.

  If he recognized her, he didn’t show it.

  “I, ah . . . I think I might have fallen out there.” She gestured toward the alley.

  “What? Just now?” He frowned.

  “No, last night.”

  “Oh. But you are well?”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “’Tis lucky.” He neatened the bits and pieces on the counter.

  This was irritating. “Yes. Yes, it is, but—”

  “Why, my uncle slipped in the rain in Covent Garden after a spot of winkles and buttermilk. Never walked again.”

  She blinked. “It wasn’t like that.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” He extracted a measuring tape from the shelf behind him. “A lady can’t be too careful—or my uncle, come to think of it.”

  Okay, now it was a point of pride. He’d held her in his arms. No man should forget that. And no man should be reluctant to claim the honor.

  “But it wasn’t so much the fall that interested me,” she said, “as the rescuer.”

  The tape slipped but he caught it. “Rescuer?”

  Okay, she hadn’t dated a lot in college. She’d been too busy trying to keep her head above the water with her studies and on-the-job training. But she hadn’t been a hermit. She knew full well that when she’d switched herself into “connect” mode, she’d gotten
results. A free drink, help from the smart guy in accounting, a flat-tire change. Surely she couldn’t have lost all of that after two years of being buried in cash flow statements.

  “Yes,” she said. “Someone helped me. I really, really wanted to thank him.” She might be rusty at the calibration, but she knew the amount of suggestion she’d put into those last two words should have been enough to score her an immediate confession if not a case of Veuve Clicquot and the keys to his condo. She waited for the flood of explanation.

  “I’m sure he knows you’re grateful. People are intuitive that way—especially rescuers.”

  Jeez, this guy was tighter than a pair of Ricky Martin’s pants. She took a look around. No sparkles, no fireworks, no sealed buckets of cocaine. Nothing to suggest nefarious activity at all unless you counted the fact that a least three people were working at a tailor shop that looked like it hadn’t had a customer since sometime last summer.

  The crush’s embers were dying in this acknowledgment-less vacuum. Unless she was willing to say, “Look, pal, if you think I’d ever forget those forearms of yours, you’re insane,” there didn’t seem to be anything more she could do. He wanted to keep his secret, and even the possibility of being the object of Joss O’Malley’s crush was not enough to change his mind. Irksome, indeed, but it didn’t give her a lot of choices. She ducked her head toward the door. “Well, thanks, I guess.”

  He made a polite noise. “The skirt?”

  “The skirt? Oh! The skirt. Right.” Now she was stuck. She certainly didn’t want to leave her wedding skirt with this ring of weird, nonworking tailors, even if their leader had eyes like a geothermal lake and smelled of a brisk ocean breeze.

  Think, Joss, think. You need a reason why you brought the skirt in but now want to take it home. You need a reason and it’s . . . it’s . . . She could barely come up with a sound with those glittering eyes upon her, let alone a good lie.

  “I-I—”

  “Aye?”

  Was he mocking her? Oh, crap. There was no way out. “I need to get it hemmed,” she said, peeved with her lack of ingenuity. “You do hem, don’t you?”

  “Of course. We’re a tailor shop.” He took the skirt and examined it. “How many inches do you want to have it taken up?”

  No inches. The skirt was perfect, absolutely perfect. In the old days, before her father had drained the family wealth trying to shore up his company, it might have been a couture dress from a Paris designer with a trip on the corporate jet for every fitting. But her friend Richard had found this for her in his Eons vintage clothing shop and had hand sewn a lining into it that had come, he said, from the same bolt of fabric that supplied Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday. Of course, Richard was a huge Audrey Hepburn fan and had been known to exaggerate when it came to his favorite heroine, but the point was, with the skirt, her mother’s gorgeous Dior blouse and a bouquet of gardenias, Joss would be an elegant shell pink execu-bride, rocking both the spirit of her mom and the world’s most elegant actress, and what could augur a better future than that?

  “A tenth of an inch,” she said. Oh, God, what had she done? The nonworking tailors would take her skirt. She’d never get it back. She’d be standing in the Founders Room wearing a pair of Old Navy cargo pants.

  “A tenth of an inch?” he repeated.

  “Yes.”

  His brows went up. “I . . . I’m sure we can do it, but—”

  “But you really can’t,” she said, grabbing it back. “I understand. It’s short notice.”

  “It is?”

  “Yes. The wedding’s in less than a week—next Tuesday, to be exact—and there’s the bachelorette party tomorrow and a party for the family at the History Center on Thursday. Way too much for me to think that I’d even have time to pick it up, let alone that you’d have time to do it.”

  He retrieved the skirt gently. “We can do it. But I wonder if you should consider a different color? Pales, I believe, should be reserved for the bride.”

  She pressed her lips together. “I am the bride.”

  Something shifted in his eyes. Was it surprise? Disappointment? Don’t be ridiculous. But there was no denying the change.

  “You are the bride?” His eyes trailed down to her hand.

  For once the ring felt like an embarrassment. She shoved her hand casually in her pocket. “I am.”

  “Many felicitations.” He made a quaint, old-fashioned bow. “A wedding skirt, then . . .” His attention went from the garment to a calendar on the wall showing a bride and groom, then back to the garment. He scratched his jawbone, obviously confused. All at once a look of horror came over his face. “I beg your pardon. Is this an undergarment of some sort?”

  “No, it’s not an undergarment,” she said, annoyed. The skirt had cost her three hundred dollars. New, it would have been twice that.

  “This is the dress, then? In its entirety?”

  “Yes.”

  His concern grew.

  “There’s a top, too,” she added.

  He laughed, and for the first time Joss caught an unveiled glimpse of the man from the night before.

  “Aye”—the green in his multicolored eyes turned light and frothy—“I had imagined there might be.”

  His tone made Joss wonder whether he also imagined the lack of a top, and bubbles of adolescent helium flooded her veins.

  “My hesitation,” he said, “is with the outfit as a whole.”

  Oh boy. She hoped he wasn’t another one of those mutton-sleeved, Little Bo Peep wedding dress pushers—or, worse, a fan of architectural, this-will-be-out-of-date-before-you-finish-the-honeymoon–type gowns. “Oh?”

  “I see you elsewise. Are you perhaps familiar with the goddess Nike?”

  Nike? Where was this conversation going? She cocked her head and made the curvy symbol with her finger. “Like ‘Swoosh’?”

  He hesitated. “‘Swoosh’?”

  “You know, the little . . .” She pointed to her feet, but no spark of recognition appeared in his eyes. Maybe they didn’t have Nike in England? “Never mind. What about her?”

  “Nike, the goddess, is oft depicted with wings spread in flight. She is the goddess of battle and victory. Aphrodite is more beautiful, but to a discerning eye, Nike is far more engaging, for she has the flush of exertion on her skin.”

  His eyes met hers, and the helium bubbles rose to a simmer.

  “I was fortunate to be given the opportunity to visit the home of the Earl of Hartlet,” he said. “My family was not wealthy and such an excursion was rare indeed. The earl had a beautiful hall of sculpture. One in particular caught my eye. I am not a connoisseur of the arts, having neither the time nor fortune to be so, but I am a man, and the image of that work has lingered with me.”

  He drew a pad and pencil from below the shelf and began to sketch.

  “Her feet and arms were missing, which gives her a bit of the appearance of a prisoner, but—oh!—what a prisoner. Her head is high, and her eyes, determined. She is captured at the moment of flight, lifting like an angel from the earth. She wears a dress—a chiton, I believe it is called—that falls in graceful waves from her shoulders.”

  His able pencil strokes showed a woman in a Grecian gown, one leg behind the other as if she were running, the movement rendered in streams of fabric that sailed into the imagined wind behind her.

  “And here,” he went on, drawing a cross-body slash from each shoulder to the opposite side of the waist, “was the harness by which the fabric was held.”

  Joss stared, entranced. It was both feminine and vaguely warrior-like. “Wow.”

  “That,” he said, meeting her eyes, “is how I see you.”

  “Me?” It seemed a wildly seductive thing to say, but there wasn’t a trace of irony on his face. It was just an honest compliment.

  “Have I offended you?”

  “No,” she said. “Not at all. It’s just—I don’t know—that seems sort of not like me.”

  “Truly?” He so
unded surprised. “I have only met you, of course, but there is a certain vitality that is unmistakable. Does not a generous portion of courage come with it?”

  “I . . .”

  “Come. Let me show you.”

  “Here? You have a gown?”

  He laughed. “Aye, I suppose you could call it that.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Meanwhile, men continued to try to win the hand of the beautiful mapmaker. One day a dark, handsome man came into her shop. He didn’t want to court her. He admired her maps. He asked her about the places she drew. He looked at copies of the maps she’d drawn and made her tell the stories of the men who had asked for them to be made. He wanted to take her to places beyond her shop. He told her he came from a land far away.

  —The Tale of the Beautiful Mapmaker

  The man led Joss into the fitting room, removed her coat and nudged her onto the raised platform. The light was soft and flattering, and, unlike the unforgiving mirrors in most department store dressing rooms, the mirrors here, flecked with age, seemed to reflect back an almost idealized version of herself. Joss could imagine a lot of people plunging into something they shouldn’t have in this room.

  He gazed at the bolts of fabric. “I know I saw something . . .”

  After some sorting, he said, “Here,” and withdrew half a dozen rolls of silk. Two were in jewel tones, another in black, two in white and one in a shimmery taupe. He held the white out for her inspection. The fabric slipped through her fingers like petals.

  “Beautiful.” Her eyes went immediately to the taupe. It was the color of café au lait, opulent and rich. Moreover, since black was out for a wedding and white was too sweet for Joss’s tastes, taupe was the only choice simple and elegant enough to suit her tastes.

  “I like this one,” she said.

  He drew out a length of fabric. “May I?”

  She nodded, and he draped the expanse over her shoulder. She inhaled. It was beautiful, like something a Hollywood siren of the thirties would wear. She pictured Carole Lombard on Clark Gable’s arm.