Silken Promises

by Lisa Bingham

  He’d be getting a piece of her mind concerning his neglect of his sister.

  Chapter 3

  Light was barely beginning to crease the sky the next morning when Jacob stomped into the Honeycomb Hotel and made his way up the stairs. For better or for worse, the time had come for him to collect Miss McFee.

  Stopping in front of her door, he uttered a silent “Heaven help us all,” then rapped twice on the panels. “You’d better be ready,” he called as he unlocked the latch and threw open the door.

  Fiona gasped and whirled to face him, clasping a rough shirt to her bosom.

  “Good. You’re dressed.”

  In fact, she wasn’t. Not quite. She’d donned a pair of leather boots, cotton hose, and a skirt that was a little too short, judging by the amount of leg he saw. Above that, she wore little more than her underthings: a lace-edged camisole, a sturdy black corset, and a flour-sack corset cover.

  “How dare ye! This is my room. How dare ye be enterin’ it without my leave!”

  “Let’s go.”

  “But I’m not finished here yet! I’ve got me hair t’ braid, and—”

  “You look good enough to me.” Suddenly aware of the golden hair spilling wantonly about her face and the bare shoulders gleaming velvetlike in the early morning light, he added, “For now, at least. Put your shirt on and we’ll be going.”

  Fiona stared at him as if he’d spoken a foreign language.

  “Put your shirt on, Fiona,” he stated more firmly. “We’ve got to be leaving this place.”

  “Why?”

  Why? Why? Because he said so, damn it.

  The words raced through his head, but he didn’t utter them aloud, knowing that nothing would cause Fiona to dig her heels in quicker than to issue a dare. Even so, it was time she discovered who was to be boss in this escapade.

  Her chin tilted stubbornly. “I’ll not be puttin’ me shirt on ‘til ye tell me what yer intendin’ t’ do.”

  “Fine. Have it your way.” He caught Fiona’s wrist and dragged her to the door. She balked, but she was no match for his own strength of will.

  As he pulled her into the hall, she squealed, holding her shirtwaist to her bosom. “Where are ye taking me?”

  “I thought I explained to you yesterday that we’re going to make a real lady of you, Fiona. Judging by what I’ve seen so far, there’s not a moment to waste.”

  After absorbing the blunt remark, she opened her mouth—no doubt to utter some scathing retort—but wisely reconsidered and used the time it took to travel downstairs to wriggle one-handed into her clothes. Jacob relented enough to pause at the main portal so that she could fasten the garment, then took her arm and pulled her outside.

  “Blast it all, Jacob Grey! I’m not a pushcart t’ be steered about, mind ye,” she protested.

  He ignored her, asking instead, “When was the last time you took a bath, Fiona?”

  He saw the way she stiffened. How could he miss the reaction? Especially when it caused her breasts to press against the well-worn fabric of her blouse.

  “I’ll have ye know I might not have more than a dozen coins to rub together, but I wash myself on a regular basis!”

  “With what? Lye?”

  “I get it free at the laundry, I’ll have ye know. It does the job.”

  “It smells to high heaven. Especially in this heat.”

  She yanked free and, her hands propped on her hips, stood in the middle of the crowded walk, the tide of humanity swirling about them as if they were mere flotsam in a stream. He couldn’t ignore the way her eyes sparkled and her skin adopted a becoming flush.

  “When I agreed t’ help, there was no mention made of any insulting remarks t’ be coming with the position.”

  He didn’t even pause but took her wrist again and tugged her after him. “Sheath your claws, Fiona. I merely meant that if we’re to pass you off as a wealthy widow, we’re going to have to start from the skin out. There are ways a man knows he’s in the presence of a true lady. First, she’s got to smell like one.”

  He took her to the Grand Estate Hotel on Michigan Avenue. As soon as Fiona had divined their destination, her steps slowed and her heart began a slow, thrumming beat. The Grand Estate. The first time she and her father had been to Chicago, she’d been about nine. Squeezing her hand, he’d led her to the opposite corner of Michigan Avenue so that she could watch the beautiful people who came and went through the revolving wooden door with its etched-glass insets. She’d stared in wonder, never having seen anything so wonderful, so elegant, as that stately sandstone facade. And the people! Women with feathers on their hats and bustled gowns dripping with ribbons. Men with bowlers, closely shaven beards, and black superfine suits.

  “Jacob.” She tried to protest, tried to wrench free from his hold, but he’d been hauling her the length of several city blocks and wasn’t about to be stopped now.

  “You’ll be staying at the Grand Estate where I can get you cleaned up a bit.”

  “But I—”

  “Don’t worry about your things at the Honeycomb. Your room is paid up until the end of the month.”

  Her things. Her things. Who cared about a paltry collection of mismatched belongings when he was about to take her through the front door of the Grand Estate—when she was wearing her work clothing and a dusty pair of boots, and her hair was spilling over her shoulders?

  “I want you to—”

  “No!”

  Finally, a scant dozen yards from the front entrance, she tugged free.

  “Fiona, what the hell—”

  “I can’t go in there!”

  “Why in the blazes not?”

  She stared at him in astonishment. Why had God made men so dense?

  “Jacob Grey, that is the Grand Estate.” She pointed distinctly at the building, then dropped her hand when the gesture caused people upon the brick walk to stare.

  Jacob sighed and cast his gaze skyward as if his patience were severely taxed. “I’m quite aware of that fact. I made the arrangements for your suite.”

  A suite. Dear sweet Mary and all the Saints, he’d arranged for a suite! Her mouth fell open. She couldn’t help it—she really couldn’t—but snapped her jaws closed again when she realized she must look like a gasping fish.

  “I can’t go in there,” she whispered, overtly conscious of the great chasm to be found between the classes, even here in the land of promise.

  “It’s been paid for already. I told you that someone else would be taking care of the bills.”

  “I’m not talking about bills!” She shot a nervous glance about her, feeling the curious stares by the well-dressed passersby as keenly as a marking brand. “Jacob… I can’t go in there… like this.” She made a vague sweeping gesture to her simple blouse and skirt. When he continued to regard her blankly, she ground her teeth together. “If I go in that place with ye, looking like I do, they will think I’m a… a…”

  “A what?”

  He didn’t know. He truly didn’t know. How could a man spend so much time brushing elbows with an assortment of lawbreakers and remain so completely unaware of a few basic realities of life?

  “Gaze about ye, man! Do y’ see anyone dressed in anythin’ but silks and satins?” she blurted. “Lord Almighty, even the servants here have got more finery than I do. If I go waltzin’ through the lobby an’ up t’ one o’ them rooms, they’ll be thinkin’ I’m yer fancy piece, they will.”

  His brows creased and he leaned forward as if he’d heard her incorrectly. “Fancy…”

  “Piece. Fancy piece! A prossy.” When he continued to squint at her she said, “A trollop, fer the love o’ Mike.”

  A slow dawning spread over his face, softening the normally somber cast of his blunt features. “No one could possibly think that I would pay you money so that you and I… that we…”

  She stamped her feet, her lips pursing. “Damn ye, I warned ye about the insults
.”

  “Fiona, you’re far from the sort of woman I would consider for such an afternoon of entertainment.”

  “Well, they won’t be knowin’ that, will they?”

  At long last, her arguments bored through that thick skull of his. He frowned and eyed the smattering of hotel patrons as they went about their business, obviously noting for the first time that there was a distinct difference between the clientele’s appearance and their own.

  “Come with me.”

  He took her hand again. This time, instead of dragging her along like a toy on a string, he laced his fingers with hers and drew her around the block to a rear alley. They wound their way between drays unloading crates of exotic fruits, vegetables, iced fish, and flowers, and emerged at the entrance to the kitchen.

  The door had been flung open in the muggy heat and the most tantalizing aromas permeated the air. Fiona would have been content to stop, close her eyes, and smell those exotic scents for the better part of the day, but Jacob didn’t even allow her to pause.

  Leading her inside, he ignored the curious glances they received, taking her directly to the servants’ staircase.

  “Good afternoon,” he offered, touching his finger to his brow when a pair of startled chambermaids scrambled to get out of their way.

  As they climbed the worn treads, Fiona bent close, whispering, “They’re staring at me.”

  “What makes you think they aren’t staring at me?”

  She snorted at that unlikely idea. “Ye’ve got quite an opinion of yerself, don’t ye?”

  “No more than you seem to have.”

  She glared but refused to accept the bait he dangled, saying instead, “Ye might have avoided the gentry, but the hired help will still think I’m a fallen woman.”

  “Never you mind, Fiona. If by the end of six weeks you can play the lady as well as you play cards, they’ll simply think you’re eccentric.”

  “Eccentric, my arse. No one would ever be that daft.”

  His manner became serious, warning her in a way that caused her toes to curl in her boots. “They’d better, Fiona. Or we’ll both be in a world of trouble.”

  Jacob directed Fiona to the landing on the third floor, then down a hall of gold-flocked paper. The walls were edged with a richly oiled oak wainscoting that reflected the bottom portions of their bodies as they walked past. A woolen runner stretched the length of the corridor, the intricate, intertwining colors of yellow, ocher, and brown appearing like crushed autumn leaves scattered beneath their feet. Mindful of her dusty boots, Fiona tried her best to walk on the extreme edge of the rug where it met the polished floorboards. But Jacob continued to tow her resolutely along, like a tug drawing a barge upstream, and she had no choice but to follow.

  “You’ll stay here,” he said, stopping to withdraw a key from his vest pocket.

  Fiona glanced about her, mindful of a man and woman who had exited their own room down the hall, beautiful people in beautiful clothes who stared at Fiona and Jacob in their simple street garb. The woman even went so far as to carefully hold her skirts aside so that her hems wouldn’t brush Fiona’s as she walked past.

  Fiona felt a stinging heat seep into her cheeks. She’d lived on the streets long enough to recognize a tacit insult when she saw one.

  “What’s the matter?”

  She started, knowing that Jacob had noted her discomfort. She couldn’t bring herself to answer immediately, but when he continued to wait for a reply, she said, “I don’t belong here.”

  “You will.”

  “No. People are born to places like these. If not, they can never truly belong.”

  He became quiet, still, as if this man, this lawman, knew that she felt a little too inferior, a little too rumpled, a little too alone.

  He shifted closer—not in a way that threatened, but that somehow reassured. “You remind me of my sister, Lettie, sometimes,” he remarked, hesitantly reaching out to tuck a thumb under her chin and tilting her face to the sunlight streaming through the window at the far end of the hall. “She used to give me fits, always getting into trouble, wearing her heart on her sleeve.”

  She stiffened. “I don’t wear my heart on my bloody sleeve, lawman!”

  At that remark, his brows rose as if he supremely doubted such a statement, but he didn’t refute her comment. “Whatever you say, Fiona.”

  He twisted the cut-crystal doorknob and flung the door wide. “Welcome to your new home—at least your new home for a while.”

  “Dear Sweet Mary,” Fiona whispered aloud.

  Opulence. The room glittered with opulence, elegance, and a shimmering silver-studded stream of sunlight. Fiona was scarcely able to take all the sights in at once. And the colors! How had anyone ever conceived such a rich palette of colors?

  “I take it your new quarters are satisfactory?”

  “The Pope himself could live here—and quite happily, too.”

  She caught Jacob’s quick smile but ignored it. Perhaps her enthusiasm betrayed her simple upbringing, but she couldn’t dampen her excitement. The hotel suite beckoned to her, called to her in enchanted whispers, promised hours of untold delight. As she stepped onto the gray- and rose-patterned carpet, she felt a pang of unadulterated joy, an emotion so pure and strong it made her wonder if a person could go blind after catching a glimpse of such delightful surroundings.

  The walls had been covered with a pink and black watered silk, interspersed with pastel flower studies. The furniture was fashioned of a rich mahogany that had been elaborately carved and upholstered in a burgundy sateen. There were graceful chairs and broad settees, a swooning couch, low marble-topped tables crowded with plants, dainty footstools, and an upright secretary carved in the shape of a ship’s mast.

  “This is where I’m t’ stay? Ye aren’t just pulling my leg, are ye?”

  “No, Fiona. This is where you’ll stay. After all, your surroundings should be appropriate for a wealthy British widow, don’t you think?”

  She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. A burgeoning exhilaration wriggled into her blood as she tiptoed over the rug as if it were a layer of goose down, so soft, so decadent, so genteel.

  “Faith and begora, but a woman could grow accustomed t’ this,” she said with a sigh, the brogue thickening at her delight and excitement. Her fingers ran across the support of a chair, caressing the satiny texture of the wood, then spreading wide to test the cool sheen of the fabric cushion. “’Tis a room for a queen.”

  A cool shiver touched her spine at that thought. This entire situation weighed heavily to her advantage: a pardon, this room, new clothes. A voice within her kept muttering: Trap, trap!

  Her gaze shot his way. Perhaps Jacob hadn’t told her everything Perhaps there was more to this bargain than he’d been willing to offer. “What will ye be askin’ for next, Grey?” she asked, searching his features to judge whether he was secretly laughing.

  His brow creased and she gestured wide to the room about her. “Ye can’t possibly be meanin’ t’ give me this and the pardons, too. There’s somethin’ ye haven’t told me yet.”

  “You are incredibly suspicious.”

  “I’ve a right t’ be.”

  He sighed in frustration and strode toward her, taking her by the shoulders. Her eyes clashed with his, and something happened. A stinging excitement shot through her veins.

  Jacob’s lashes narrowed ever so slightly, his gaze dark and steady and filled with purpose. A hush settled over the room, that lovely, elegant room.

  “Life has been a struggle for you, hasn’t it, Fiona?”

  Her gaze dropped then, fastening upon the scratched silver of his belt buckle, and she wondered where he’d hidden the silver of his star. The one she’d grown used to seeing pinned to the lapel of his vest.

  “I’ve survived.”

  “At what cost?”

  She lifted her chin to a proud angle. “I’m not a case for charity, mind ye.”
<
br />   “No, but you’re past the age where you should have left your father to his own resources. You should have married by now and had children of your own.”

  His words stung more than he would ever know. “I’m happy,” was the only response she could push through a throat tight with barely submerged regrets.

  He followed the line of her jaw with his thumb. “Are you really?”

  “No life is without its problems and its disappointments, Jacob Grey.” Wanting to inflict an equal measure of hurt to this man who appeared so strong, so impenetrable, she added, “Even yers.”

  The strange bond that had formed in the last few minutes shivered, then dissolved as suddenly as it had come. Noises intruded: the clink of cutlery from the dining hall far below, the rattle of traffic, a shout, a muffled laugh.

  Jacob drew his hands away, palms out, as if to show that her skin had suddenly become distasteful. In an instant, the gentle, sympathetic man she had so briefly encountered disappeared, leaving the professional lawman she was accustomed to encountering. “Come with me, Fiona,” he ordered, striding to the far side of the chamber to throw open a connecting door. “This is where you will sleep, bathe, and dress.”

  Approaching him, she peered into the spacious room with its tall iron bedstead, mahogany wardrobe, and highboy.

  “I know what a bedroom is for,” she offered sardonically, but Jacob didn’t even bat an eye.

  “Let’s hope you do.” He marched inside to open another door, revealing a completely outfitted bathing room. “I also hope you know what you’re to do in here.”

  She shot him a stern frown for his impertinence, but he was brushing past her and closing the draperies. In seconds, he’d cut out all but a sliver of light. Then he proceeded to do the same to the windows in the sitting room, leaving the warm, musky gloom of an artificial dusk to slip into the corners. With it came a rich heat caused by the damming of the window’s meager breeze.

  Fiona marched indignantly forward, intent upon drawing the window coverings again. “What did ye do that for? A body can barely breathe in here as it is.”