Leslie LaFoy (17 page)

In the mirror, he saw the door open. It wasn't Lindsay who stood on the other side, but Mrs. Beechum.

“Miss Lindsay asked me to tell you that she'll be along directly to tend to your head.”

Jackson smiled wryly. “Did she ask you to extend her apologies for not being able to do it right now?”

“Of course, sir,” the housekeeper answered.

Jackson turned and faced her, his arms folded across his chest. “Tell me something, Mrs. Beechum, is there anything in this world she
doesn't
apologize for?”

The woman quietly replied, “You've noticed.”

“It's rather hard not to, ma'am. With her, every other sentence either begins or ends with the words ‘I'm sorry’ Why does she do that?”

Mrs. Beechum contemplated the floor for a second and then lifted her face to meet his gaze squarely. “Lydia MacPhaull—her mother—was somewhat difficult to please. She had very high and exacting expectations.”

“Of Lindsay.”

“Especially of Miss Lindsay, sir. And especially so after the senior Mr. MacPhaull left home.”

If he was reading between the lines correctly, Billy's wife had made the daughter pay for the father's sin. It wasn't right and it wasn't fair. And it had been damn small of Billy to have let it happen. “What about Henry and Agatha?” he asked. “Did Mrs. MacPhaull hold them to the same standards?”

“Unlike Miss Lindsay, they seemed to have no difficulty in being and doing as their mother wanted. But Miss Lindsay is cut from a different kind of cloth, sir. Which of course made constantly failing all that much more difficult for her.”

“Billy should have taken her with him when he left.”

“I've always been of that opinion.”

He started, not realizing that he'd spoken the thought aloud. At least he'd managed to commit the error with someone who shared his view on the matter. He wondered how Lindsay felt about it. Had she wanted to go with her father? Had she missed him? Or had staying with her mother been of her own choice?

“Is there anything I can get or do for you until Miss Lindsay gets here, Mr. Stennett?”

“I'm fine, Mrs. Beechum. Thank you for offering.”

“Very good, sir.”

He mentally subtracted the years. Lindsay had been eight when Billy had walked out of her life. How long had she endured, alone, with her mother's animosity? “Mrs. Beechum?” he called just before the door closed. The housekeeper looked around the edge, her brow arched. “How long has Mrs. MacPhaull been gone?”

“Three years, sir. It will be four this fall.”

He suspected, just from the way she said it, that the woman could have told him the exact number of days, hours, and minutes. “Thank you.”

She nodded and quietly closed the door. Jackson resumed his mental calculations. Billy had been gone seventeen years. His wife had been dead for the last three of them. Which made it fourteen years that Lindsay had lived apologizing. Maybe more.

Jackson rubbed his fingertips hard against his brow. Billy had tossed the financial mess into his lap knowing that he'd do right by the children Billy had never mentioned having. And Jackson would do what was expected of him. But Lindsay had risked her own life to save his and that debt couldn't be settled by handing her money or property deeds. It went deeper than that. He didn't have a whole lot of time before he went home, but maybe he could use what he did have to undo some of the damage that Lindsay had suffered at the hands of her parents. It was a tall order he was setting for himself. And there was a distinct possibility that Lindsay might not appreciate his efforts. But he knew that if he didn't try, he wasn't any bigger a man than Billy had been.

• • •

L
INDSAY PAUSED IN FRONT
of the hall mirror, the heavily laden tray carefully balanced in her hands. She'd done the best she could to wash the grime from her face. Time hadn't permitted her do much more than finger-comb her hair and use the few remaining pins to pull it all back off her face. Her dress was a disaster, destined for the ragbag.

She pasted a soft smile on her face, thinking it would outshine her otherwise bedraggled appearance. It didn't. She rolled her eyes, sighed, and gave up the attempt. Hopefully Jackson Stennett would be too concerned with his own condition to notice hers, and too much of a gentleman to comment on it if he did. It was the best she could hope for. Her mother would be appalled that she was even taking the chance; a lady never allowed a man to see her as anything less than feminine perfection.

With a deep breath, Lindsay lifted the tray and turned to the closed door across the hall. Her hands full, and the tray too awkward to shift, she was forced to knock by tapping the toe of her shoe against the lower edge of the panel.

“One second,” he called from the other side.

Lindsay's heart began to race. She called herself a fool and was drawing a steadying breath when Jack opened the door. Her breath caught, almost choking her. He stood before her smiling, his eyes bright, and his shirt closed by a single button midway down his chest. Even smoke-shaded, the linen contrasted sharply with the bronze and darkly furred expanse of skin. She swallowed hard, and mindful that she was gawking, deliberately met his gaze, lifted the tray and said, “I brought hot water and soap.” Pleased with the composure she heard in her voice, she added, “I thought that we'd get your wound cleansed before Dr. Bernard gets here. It will make his work easier.”

Stepping aside to allow her to enter, he asked, “Have the crises of the cat, the cooks, and the newspapermen been averted?”

“For the moment,” Lindsay supplied, carrying the tray to the window table. “The reporters will be back with their questions this afternoon.” She looked back as she set down
the tray. Jack was studying the doorway as though trying to decide whether to leave the door open or close it.

“If you'd be so kind as to leave it open,” she said, “and then come over here and have a seat; you're too tall for me to work with you standing up.”

He slid a glance at her, his smile quirked and his eyes twinkling. Her pulse quickened another degree. Pushing the door almost, but not quite closed, he came toward her, asking, “How is it that a woman who tucks her skirts up one minute can be concerned about open doors and propriety the next?”

“Necessity of the moment can be granted forgiveness,” she answered, angling a chair for him. “Deliberate flaunting and shortsightedness don't merit such latitude.”

He tried to nod, but the pain in his head flared with the effort. Without another word he walked to the chair and sat obediently. Lindsay carefully removed the scrap of petticoat from around his head, then tried to gingerly peel back the wad of fabric she'd pressed over the wound itself. He sucked a breath through his teeth and Lindsay winced.

“I'm so sorry,” she whispered, just before she yanked the bandage off with one swift motion. He made a strangled sound deep in his throat and gripped the arms of the chair so tightly his fingertips went white. Lindsay wanted to put her arms around his shoulders and hold him, to assure him that the worst was over. She took a step back. The distance didn't help; her mind filled with an image of Jackson Stennett wrapped in her arms, his head nestled against her shoulder as he feathered kisses along the side of her neck. Her breath caught and heat suffused her cheeks.

“Please don't tell me how awful it looks. I have a weak stomach.”

Lindsay blinked and the vision vanished. “I wasn't going to,” she hurriedly said, busying with the medicinal items on the tray. “In fact, I was going to say that I've seen worse paper cuts.”

He turned sideways in the chair so that he had a full view of her. “You'd out and out lie to me?” he asked, grinning.

He had a smile that could melt ice at fifty paces. Her
knees were decidedly shaky. “Yes,” she said, looking away from that very dangerous sparkle in his eyes, “but only to make you feel better.” She focused intently on laying out the items she needed. A soft cloth, cinnamon soap, clean compresses. Would she need the razor?

“Lindsay?”

The softness of his voice was compelling. She met his gaze. His eyes were dark and somber and she felt herself being drawn into the depths of them. She stopped breathing.

“Thank you for coming in after me, for dragging me out.”

It would be so easy. All she would have to do is lean forward and down a little bit. His lips would be soft, the kiss simple and light and delicious. “It was an impulse,” she said, desperately going back to the organizing of her supplies. “I've always had difficulty controlling them. In hindsight, I could have saved myself a great deal of money and frustration if I'd have left you in there. It wouldn't have been nearly as satisfying as pushing you in front of a carriage, but…” She shrugged and poured the hot water from the little pitcher into the bowl.

“Would you have really rolled me down the stairs and dragged me into the street by my pant legs?”

“Of course I would have.” She soaked the cloth and then took up the bar of cinnamon soap.

“It wouldn't have been very ladylike of you.”

She could feel his smile bathing her.
Keep busy, Lindsay. Don't give your mind the chance to wander.
She lathered the cloth, saying, “And not a soul in the entire city would have been the least bit surprised to hear that I'd done it.” She laid aside the soap and squeezed the excess moisture from the cloth. With no other choice, she faced him. “How many fingers am I holding up?” she asked, trying to take command of the situation.

“Two,” he answered, his smile broadening. “And just so you know … Everyone always holds up two.”

She motioned for him to turn in the chair so that she could work on the back of his head. As he complied, she observed, “I take it that you've been rendered unconscious before?”

“Yeah. And often enough that it's a wonder I have any sense left at all.”

She arched a brow and said dryly, “I think that's a debatable conclusion.”

He chuckled and then groaned.

“Are you all right, Jack?”

“It hurts to laugh.”

“Then don't,” she instructed blithely. “And brace yourself. I'm going to start.” She tenderly dabbed at the gash along the base of his skull. As much to distract herself as him, Lindsay said, “Dr. Bernard will be here any minute now. You know what he's going to say, don't you?” She didn't give him a chance to guess. “He's going to say that you should take to your bed and not tax yourself for the next several days.”

“Well,” he said, his words sounding as though they were being forced through clenched teeth, “Dr. Bernard hasn't invited your brother and his wife to dinner tonight. And Dr. Bernard hasn't threatened your sister with destitution if she doesn't make an appearance at the table, too.”

“Henry declined the invitation. That was his second note of the day.”

“Oh, really? What was his excuse?”

“He and Edith have tickets to a play this evening. They happen to have tomorrow evening free, though.” She rinsed the cloth in the bowl, squeezed it out, and then poured fresh water over it.

“What about Agatha?”

“Henry and Edith had an extra ticket,” Lindsay explained as she rinsed the antiseptic soap from his wound. “Henry said they've invited her to go with them. She'll accept, of course. Agatha loves the theater.” She tossed the rag into the bowl with a soft sigh. “I don't see that there's anything we can do to force them to come to dinner this evening.”

“Considering the general chaos going on in the house and the hellacious headache I have, it's probably best to postpone it all a day anyway. Are you done with your doctoring back there?”

“I still have to put iodine on the wound.”

He came out of the chair in one swift, determined motion and then turned to face her squarely, his grin wide. “Let Doc do that. I'd feel a lot less guilty about hitting him than I would you.”

She laughed, realizing even as she did that she'd laughed and smiled more in the last two days than she had in the last two years. Maybe longer. Considering the upheaval going on in her life, it was a decidedly odd way to behave. But there was something about Jackson's way that made her feel good, made her feel as though her problems weren't nearly as looming as they had been before he'd walked into Richard Patterson's office. It was all an illusion, she reminded herself, sobering. If anything, the troubles besetting her had been made even greater by Jackson Sten-nett's arrival.
The power of a handsome face and a disarming smile
, she silently warned.

“What's wrong, Lindsay? What are you thinking about?”

She started. In an effort to disguise the involuntary movement, she began to organize the tray again. Unwilling to be candid with him, she fell back on the tried and true. “That I'm very sorry.”

“About what?” he asked, settling down on the arm of the chair, his arms folded over his chest.

She shrugged and gave him the most obvious reasons. “Your injury, the chaos in the house, the fact that your plans have fallen apart.”

“Did
you
crack me in the back of the head?”

She knew where this was going and it rankled to face the fact that Jackson Stennett was right about anything. Having to admit it aloud …

“Answer me, Lindsay.”

If he thought he could back her into a corner and force her to meekly admit that he was right and she was wrong, then he had a lesson to learn. She lifted her chin and said, “I should have foreseen that you could have been injured in the fire. I should have kept you from going any farther than Jeb and Lucy's.”

He seemed to chew on the inside of his lip for a mo-
ment. “You might have tried, but I'd have done it anyway. And why are you apologizing for being kind to people who have lost everything they own and have nowhere to go?”

Having seen the tack of his course, she was ready with an answer. “I could have found rooms at a boardinghouse for Jeb and Lucy and the baby, for Mrs. Kowalski and her cat.”

“You don't have the money to pay for their lodging and neither do they,” he countered just as quickly. “Your only other choice was to leave them standing in the street. I'd have been real disappointed in you if you had. You're a better person than that.”