“As you wish, fair maiden.” Being around British accents had improved his faux one considerably. He added a flourishing bow. Hope laughed, the lilting sound following him into the kitchen where he made short work of brewing tea and plating their treat. He carried the tray and placed it on the small table, serving Hope before seating himself in his favorite chair with a groan. The heavyset drunk’s elbow had been pointier than he realized and would no doubt evidence itself in a bruise on his rib cage the next morning.
“Mmm. These are delicious.” Hope chewed, closing her eyes as if to savor the taste.
He bit into one, the sweet yeasty taste denting the hunger gnawing at his stomach. “You’ve had dinner, I hope, young lady.” He angled a look of mock sternness at the still-chewing Hope.
“Of course. Yesterday’s leftovers. The ones you didn’t eat.” She matched him in stern looks, though his possessed more jesting than substance. “The gentleman you work for must feed you awfully well. Either that, or you need less nourishment than a sparrow.”
“I eat plenty.” That is, when he attended a party that had a decent spread or finagled a sandwich from Conway’s housekeeper. The savings he’d acquired were the start of their future and he’d not dip into them any more than necessary for Hope’s welfare and rents on the apartment. Until he received payment from Conway, at least, and found himself holding more bills than he’d ever seen in all his lifetime. There would be plenty of time for feasting then.
“Will you miss it? All the grand parties and fine people, once your work is over?” She sipped her tea, light from their single lamp casting a serene glow over her fine features.
He snorted. “Not for one second. Those folks are some of the most brainless, shallow creatures I hope I ever have the good fortune to encounter. Food’s decent though. Doesn’t beat your chicken dumplings of course.” He finished one sweet roll and reached for a second. If he went to bed as hungry as he was right now, he’d not get a lick of sleep.
“Even the ladies?” With a wheel of her chair, she moved closer to his side.
The chunk of roll lodged in his throat. He coughed, gulping down the last of his tea to wash it down.
“Everything all right, Dew?” Her gaze probed him, piercing, even by candlelight.
He cleared his throat. “Eating too fast, I guess. Don’t take lessons in manners from your brother, missy. Even if he has been rubbing elbows with the high and mighty.” He chuckled at his own lousy joke.
“Even the ladies, Dew?” This time, her tone came more insistent.
“Huh?” He took a smaller bite of roll.
“You didn’t answer my question. I want to know what the ladies are like. Picture them, if I can.” She leaned back in that expectant way, as she’d done as a child every night before he began a bedtime story. This time though, he sensed womanly curiosity had eclipsed childishness.
“Well, they dress not so very differently from you—”
She gave him a slap on the arm, though a smile remained on her lips. “They do not. Come on. Think!”
Something he’d been doing far too much of. Especially when it concerned the only lady whose dress color he remembered, whose every move played and replayed through his mind like a show whose performers never seemed to rest. It only took another second for his senses to flood, overflowing with remembrance of roses.
“They dress nice, all right. In colors of every shade of the rainbow. They have a way of talking that you might think grand, but if you listen to what they actually say, you’d get better sense out of the beggar on our street corner, old Toothless Tom.”
“Are all of them like that?” She pulled the threadbare blanket up to wrap around her thin shoulders.
Roses. Roses and smiles. Flashing emerald eyes and sweetness. Flying brown curls, swirling in the wind…
“There is one. She looks grander and more beautiful than all the rest but has more sense than all their heads put together. She has eyes like emeralds and wears dresses to match.” His eyes slid shut, the vision of her dancing across his memory like a swirl of skyborne butterflies. “And when she talks, it makes you want to lean closer and hear what she has to say because you just know it’s going to be something that you won’t hear from any of the others.”
Hope loosed a contented sigh, as if he’d told her the most vividly imagined bedtime story ever thought up. “She sounds wonderful. I wish I could meet her. It would be like meeting a princess.”
He stood, pulled from the reverie by the sound of bells from a far-off church striking nine. “She is, Hope.” He maneuvered his sister’s chair in the direction of their bedroom. “A princess. Unlike anyone I’ve ever met.”
Like any first-time guest to the area, Tony must be taken to view the Falls. It would be unpatriotic of them to neglect a visit, or so said Aunt Osbourne. And because one didn’t do anything without making a party of it, Gordon had been invited, as well as Mr. Conway. When the planned-for day arrived, another guest joined them. One who wore the mantle of gentleman-at-leisure as if it chafed worse than the scratchiest wool.
Adele stole a glance at Drew as they stopped beside the Whirlpool Rapids. He stood, hands in his pockets, apart from the rest of the party, jaw firm and gaze trained on a point off in the distance.
“Why was he invited?” She glanced at Mr. Conway, whose arm linked with hers.
“Why not? Thought it’d do him good to have another look-see before the big day. An inspiration, of sorts.”
Adele nodded, not certain she agreed. Though she’d professed confidence in Drew in front of Tony, it still seemed rather like taking prisoners on a tour of the execution hall before the day of reckoning.
Were those the thoughts in Drew’s mind as he stood in front of the rapids now, the rush of the actual Falls a low rumble in the background?
“Makes you dizzy to look at it, doesn’t it?” Though how Gordon Kirby knew, Adele couldn’t tell. He hadn’t removed his gaze from Millie’s face all afternoon.
“Oh yes.” Beauty was a funny thing. When realized by another, it bloomed and blossomed for all to see, making gangly Millie almost graceful, standing beside Gordon’s well-honed frame. “Dizzy is the word.” Since Millie studied Gordon’s patterned waistcoat as she spoke, Adele could not agree more. Some young men had the sad proclivity to take their tailor’s suggestions to the extreme.
“Doesn’t make me dizzy.” Next to Dorothea, Tony shifted in the grass, squinting at the Whirlpool as it circled and swirled. “It’s fascinating.”
“Well, you’re not a genteel lady, are you? So you shouldn’t attempt to disprove the opinions of one.” A testy edge hovered in Gordon’s voice as he placed a hand on Millie’s elbow.
“Come now, everyone. Shall we proceed closer?” Her aunt engaged Tony’s arm, as everyone milled down the bank to a better viewing area.
“Should we join them?” Mr. Conway leaned toward her, watching the group’s progress down the bank.
“Go ahead. My feet are sore from all the walking about. I’ll wait here.” Adele kept her tone offhand.
“Then I’ll wait with you.” He smiled. “Lend you my arm to lean upon.”
“No, really. Besides—” she hoped her answering smile proved genuine, “—I think Millie and Mr. Kirby need a better chaperone than her mother is providing. I’d go myself if my feet didn’t ache so.” If she bothered to examine her real motives, she’d welcome a moment’s freedom that had nothing to do with the mild ache in her arches.
“If you say so.” The politeness in his tone came off a bit forced. “I’ll go for a moment.”
His retreating form ambled down to the rest of the group. Adele fixed her gaze on the Whirlpool, visible through the foliage and trees lining the path. Water swirled in a circular motion at a dizzying speed, frothing and fizzing as it spun. Round and round and round. Never pausing, always whirling.
All too often of late, she’d felt as the rapids must. Caught in a cycle she couldn’t climb out of, sucked down farther and farther
, battered and tossed about like a child’s toy.
A gust of wind whipped the strings of her bonnet and layers of her skirts. A sudden queasiness churned in her stomach, as the sight of the Whirlpool went from a piece of natural beauty to a merry-go-round that wouldn’t stop long enough to let her off.
Footsteps crunched behind her, their approach making her spin. Drew stood, almost at her side, hands behind his back. The wind tousled his dark hair, each waft of breeze fingering the strands. Sunlight slanted over his chiseled features, his broad shoulders covered by a gray suit coat, the cuffs of which were beginning to show signs of fraying.
“I was watching you from over there.”
Watching her? Mr. Conway too, no doubt. Did the sight nauseate him? A desperate woman trying to appear lighthearted for motives that were anything but. “And?”
“And I thought to myself, why is she wearing such a troubled look on a day when everyone else seems carefree?” Drew studied her, as if attempting to peer into her mind and unravel the tangled threads of her every thought.
It disconcerted, the way these two men stared at her. Mr. Conway, as if she were a work of art, sculpted to beautify. Drew, as if she were a difficult Latin passage that must be delved into and pored over. Whether one was preferable to the other, she couldn’t cipher out. Most times, both sent heat rising in her cheeks.
“I was thinking the same thing about you.” Turnabout was fair play, after all.
The rush of fast-moving water mingled with high-pitched chatter from fellow sightseers—loud but not loud enough to drown out Drew’s next words. “Well then. How about you tell me what you were thinking and I’ll do the same.” Though his expression remained serious, a tease glimmered in his chocolate eyes, eyes with as much variance and depth as the Whirlpool in front of them.
“Why don’t you let me make the rules of the game? I’ll listen, while you tell me your thoughts.” A tiny grin formed on her lips.
“Do well-brought-up English girls always make their own rules?” He arched a brow.
“No. But I’m embracing American freedom and becoming as saucy and stubborn as the rest of you Yankee lot.” The grin stretched, like a mischievous little girl’s.
“So you weren’t saucy and stubborn before arriving here?” His tone declared he didn’t believe her one bit.
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“I would. But because I’ve discovered I’m no match for your newfound American get up and go, I’ll play along.” He turned his gaze toward the river, the twitter of birdsong filling the silence between them before he spoke. “I was thinking about my sister. How she’d love to see the Falls. I feel selfish sometimes, as if it’s wrong of me somehow to leave the apartment every day and glimpse sunshine and people and blue sky when she can’t.”
She swallowed. “So you weren’t thinking of your performance?”
“No. Not much anyway.”
He was too fearless for his own good. Bravery had its limits, and looking at the Whirlpool raging like a wild animal made her painfully aware that Drew Dawson pushed against those very limits with a determination that could take him to the point of no return if he didn’t take care. Which of course, he did not.
“Give it up,” she whispered, the ease of minutes ago broken the moment she gave the words voice. She sensed it in the set of Drew’s jaw, in the determination turning his eyes grim and shadowed. Determined men were not to be pressured.
But for the little sister who’d cried when a wheelchair had become her lot and relied on her brother for every aspect of her livelihood, Adele would speak her piece.
“Cancel this foolishness now, before it’s too late. Don’t you see what would happen if something goes wrong? Your life is at risk here.” Facing him, she raised her chin a notch. She’d remonstrated with her father in much the same way, long ago. He’d never listened, bent on greater risk and daring.
Drew’s motives were different. Perhaps he could be made to see reason.
But Drew didn’t look at her, his gaze straight ahead, as if he heard her but saw only the frothing water.
“It’s not a thing to be gambled. Life isn’t a game of chance, where everything lost can someday be regained. One slip, and that’s it.” Her breathing shallowed, heart drumming in her ears, its cadence as loud as the Whirlpool’s swirl.
He met her stare, eyes framed with creases and brewing with finality and…acceptance. “First of all, that’s not ‘it.’ God will go before me on that tightrope, same as He went before David when he faced the mighty giant. If I die, I know where I’m going, and I’m trusting in His will to be done, here on earth and in my life.”
“But what of your sister? Think of what her life would be if something were to happen.” She’d done nothing but rationalize her life and motives since arriving in America. But this, his words, she couldn’t rationalize. Misplaced was the only word to describe this man’s trust in God. How could he be so sure?
Drew couldn’t. And that’s what scared her.
He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, drawing in an audible breath. “I do think about that. Constantly. Yes, I’ll admit, it scares me. But my purpose is set. I’m not backing down from the first chance I’ve had to give my sister the life she deserves, even if it means risking my own.” His eyes pierced hers, telling her what he’d not spoken.
You can’t change my mind.
It stung. But she’d been jabbed with the same prick by both her father and Tony.
And right now, more than anything, she wanted their easy camaraderie again. Wanted it more than fighting with a man whose mind she couldn’t change. At least today.
A sudden idea came to her, as rapidly as if flung to her by the Whirlpool. “Can I…would you let me meet your sister?”
Astonishment evidenced in his features, first in the widening of his eyes, second in the reappearance of his smile. “You’d want to?”
“Absolutely. Would you let me?”
“Of course.” His shoulders relaxed, then stiffened again. “But…”
“But what?”
“You’ve got to understand. I may look like I belong among your sort, but where I live, it’s nothing like you’ve ever seen before. I’m used to it. But I’d want to assure your safety, make sure you were prepared.”
She laid a hand on his arm, the strength found there overwhelming her afresh. If any man could see to her welfare, make her trust him with everything, it would be this one, even if they didn’t always agree. “I’m not as fragile as I look, Mr. Dawson. I want to meet your sister. And I don’t care if she lives in a hogshead or at Buckingham Palace. Let’s plan for tomorrow afternoon.”
He swallowed, as if fighting back a rise of emotion. “You don’t waste time, do you? But won’t your relatives wonder where you are?”
She gave an impish grin. “The wonderful thing about the Osbournes is that they are so busy worrying about, and caring for, and running after their own daughters, that I have as much freedom as I could want. Not to mention I can easily bribe the coachman into keeping quiet about where we’ve spent the afternoon. I’ve discovered he’s partial to expensive champagne and needs a bit extra to cover his bills.”
“I won’t have you lie.” He gave her a hard look. “You know what we’ve decided about that.” A young couple with eyes for only each other practically bumped into them on the path toward the Whirlpool.
“Oh, I won’t. I’ll just hope they won’t ask. There’s no wrong in visiting a lonely young woman.” Lifting her chin, she matched his stubborn stare. “I won’t be deterred. Not when I’ve made up my mind.” She softened the firmness of her words with an upward curve of her lips.
Whether he’d stepped closer or she had, she couldn’t tell. But the fact remained that they now stood, facing each other. If either of them so much as took two steps closer, they’d be standing nose to nose.
“You want me to tell you something?”
“Yes?” She gazed up at him. His scent carried on the wind, a m
ixture of peppermint and soap, intrigue and familiarity.
A smolder, like twin live coals, darkened his eyes, as if he too realized their close proximity. Then an almost shy grin lifted the edges of his mouth. “You have a very pretty smile, Miss Adele Linley.”
Her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth, as if unable to comply with the fumblings of her brain and form words. Her breath hitched, the cadence of her heart rising.
No praise, no matter how lavish, bestowed on her by Franklin Conway had ever produced this reaction. Not once. What transpired within her now was new and sudden and altogether frightening.
Did the emotions coursing through her have a name? If so, she couldn’t decipher one.
But a smile, a simple compliment, should not have this effect.
Not when the cards life dealt decreed she must soon form an attachment to another man.
She didn’t flinch. Not when the carriage turned its wheels from a world of privilege to one of privation. Not when beggars thronged the conveyance, tagging along as if the coachman were the Pied Piper. Not when the smells Drew had learned to ignore came in through the half-open window—garbage, waste, and the cloying odor of hardship.
A rush of pride swelled Drew’s chest. He’d walked to the corner and joined her—and Delany—in the carriage once out of sight of the Osbournes. He didn’t want her first sight of his world to frighten her, especially since she had taken the risk to enter it.
Of course, nothing would scare Jim Delany. Drew didn’t quite understand how he’d come to accompany them but didn’t much care. At any rate, should a band of robbers descend upon them, one look at the rock-hard expression on the Texan’s face would lay them flat as surely as ten well-placed blows. Delany had spent the first part of the carriage ride reluctantly answering Adele’s questions about how he’d come to work in Buffalo. A business partnership with his furniture-maker cousin had been the reason for his leaving Texas, though he’d had to take the job at the Osbournes due to tight finances. After ten years working as both a waiter and barkeep in a San Antonio hotel that had seen its fair share of gunfights and outlaws, Drew suspected Delany just wanted a life with a little less excitement, though the burly Texan wasn’t about to admit it.
My Heart Belongs in Niagara Falls, New York Page 12
