Morning Song (10 page)

"Quit talking and breathe."

Jessie gave up. At the moment she didn't have the strength to fight him, didn't even particularly want to fight him. Instead she went limp, obediently allowing her head to droop almost to the ground, her hair puddling on the cobblestones in front of the bench. The unruly mass of curls covered the toes of his polished boots like a mahogany blanket. The sight was curiously disturbing, and as she saw it Jessie came to life again, jerking her head up as far as she could, trying once more to break free.

"I said breathe!"

His hand on the back of her neck pushed her head down again. Clearly he meant to hold her there until she did as he said. Furious, Jessie quit worrying about her hair touching his boots, 80

indeed quit thinking about anything except how much she detested this autocratic man whose prisoner she seemed to be. She did as he said, taking deep gulps of the crisp night air. In a matter of minutes she was feeling better. Well enough, at least, to wish him at the devil. Of all people to witness her humiliation, why, oh, why had it had to be he?

I'm fine now, Mr. Edwards. You can let me up." Her voice was chillier than the night.

He removed his hand. Jessie sat up, shaking her head so that she could see through the tangle of curls. The last of the pins went flying, and her hair spilled down her back in a riotous mass that reached past her hips. The stays did not feel quite so suffocatingly tight now. To her relief, she was able to breathe normally. She sat still for a moment, fingers curling around the cool iron fronds at the edge of the seat, thankful for the shadowy darkness that concealed her expression from him. She felt bitterly ashamed. She had made a complete fool of herself tonight, first by even imagining that Mitch might be interested in a great gawk like herself, and second by wearing her heart on her sleeve. To top off her folly, she had been absurdly hurt when she had learned the awful truth and had let this man whom she detested see her pain. Now she had to think of something to say to save face, in front of him. How much of what had occurred to overset her did he know? Could she perhaps convince him that she was suffering from nothing more than a passing attack of illness?

"I should never have eaten those chitlins," she said in as light a tone as she could muster, darting him a quick, assessing look as she spoke. His mouth curled.

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"Come now, Miss Lindsay, you take me for a flat. I was blowing a cloud on the porch when you came sliding out the window. I threw my cigar away and came up behind you to escort you back inside, and I was privileged to hear every disgraceful word that puppy said. If you like, I'll call him out for you."

He sounded perfectly serious. Jessie's eyes widened as she looked up at him. Of course, as her stepmother's prospective husband, he was the nearest thing to a male protector she possessed. Unbelievable as it seemed, it was now his prerogative, indeed his obligation, to defend her honor. But her honor had not been damaged, only her heart. Did men really shoot each other over such incidents? At the thought of Stuart Edwards blowing a hole through Mitch—that the outcome might conceivably go the other way never even occurred to her—she hurriedly shook her head.

"No. Oh, no. Thank you."

"As you wish." He fished a flat cigar case from his pocket, opened it, extracted one of his everlasting cheroots, then pocketed the case again. Lighting one of the squared ends, he took a deep drag. The tip glowed brightly, the strong scent of burning tobacco filled the air, and then he pulled the thing from his mouth.

"The boy's a bigmouthed fool, and the girl he was talking to is an empty-headed flibbertigibbet. You're being absurd if you let yourself be hurt by anything either of them has to say."

"I wasn't hurt." Pride stung, Jessie protested a little too quickly. He considered her for a moment without speaking, shrugged, and stuck the cheroot back in his mouth. "Of course you weren't. My mistake."

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Her protest had been nothing short of idiotic, Jessie knew. Having witnessed her physical symptoms, he knew just how hurt she'd been.

"All right, maybe I was. A little. Anyone would have been." He pulled the cheroot from his mouth. "It always hurts when we care about people who don't care about us."

Jessie snorted. "How would you know? Ladies fall all over themselves to get to you. I bet they've been making cakes of themselves over you since you were first breeched." He grinned unexpectedly. It was a wry, oddly disarming grin, and Jessie was surprised at the charm of it. "Not quite that long. As a matter of fact, when I was a boy of about fifteen—a little younger than you are, but not much—I fell head over heels in love with an elegant young lady from a fine old family. I used to see her about the streets as she'd go marketing with her mammy, and I'd follow her. She looked at me once or twice, and smiled, and batted her eyes as young ladies do. I was sure we were madly in love. Then I overheard her laughing with her mammy about that dirty bowery boy who followed her everywhere. I slunk off like a whipped pup. I can still remember how much that hurt. But as you see, I survived, and quite handily too." It was nice of him to share that long-ago humiliation with her, though Jessie doubted that it was true. First, it was inconceivable to her that any female in her right mind would give a man who looked like Stuart Edwards the cold shoulder. Even as a boy he must have been extraordinarily attractive. Second . . .

"That's a lovely story, but you're bamming me, I know. How could any girl mistake an Edwards for a dirty bowery boy?" For the barest moment, he looked almost startled. Then he laughed, and took another drag on the cheroot. "I have no idea 83

how she could have made such a mistake, but she did, I promise you. Perhaps in my jaunts about the streets I got a little dirtier than she might have expected an Edwards to be." His hand holding the cheroot dropped to his side, and he turned so that he stood with his shoulder to her, looking back toward the house. His expression was thoughtful. After a moment he glanced her way again.

"You're going to have to go back in, you know." It was said mildly, but the very image he conjured up made Jessie shudder.

"Oh, no. I can't."

"You have to. Otherwise people will talk about you, and that's never pleasant for a young lady. You were having such a good time dancing, and then you disappeared. How does that look?

Your beau might even have enough brains to put two and two together and figure out that you overheard him talking to that fish-faced young lady. You surely don't want him to know that he hurt you enough to make you run away?"

"No!" The idea of that was even worse than the idea of facing the ballroom full of people again. Then the rest of his words registered. Despite her misery Jessie had to grin, though it was a trifle wobbly. "Do you truly think Jeanine Scott is fish-faced?"

"Absolutely. And believe me, I've had enough experience with ladies to know fish-faced when I see it."

"Oh, I believe you!" Her grin firmed, and as it did, some of her heartache eased. Though he was probably saying it just to be kind, of course. Still, it was what she needed to hear.

"Do you, now? And you're laughing at me to boot. Come on, then; on that cheerful note it's time to take you back inside." He threw his cheroot away and held out his hand to her. Jessie looked at that long-fingered hand and felt her stomach turn over. 84

The idea of going back inside—back to where people were spreading lies about her and laughing behind their hands and pitying her—made her feel physically ill.

"Please, can't we just go home?"

She asked the question in a tiny, shamed voice that said volumes about how hard it was for her to admit to such weakness. Her eyes rose to his beseechingly. If she hadn't bit down hard on her lower lip, it would have trembled.

"Jessica." He said her name in a way that was both impatient and impossibly gentle.

She just looked at him without speaking. With a lithe movement he hunkered down in front of her and took her hand in both of his. His hands were large, far larger than hers, and strong, and warm. Jessie hadn't realized how cold her hands were until she felt the warmth of his.

"What do you want me to do? Go in there and fetch Celia away from the party while you hide out here, then bundle the both of you home?"

"Please don't—tell Celia." It was a wretched whisper. His mouth tightened, and Jessie thought for a dreadful instant that she had made him angry with her. It was surprising how much she suddenly disliked the idea of making him angry. For a few minutes, out here in the dark, they'd almost become . . . friends.

"If I fetch her away from the party, I'll have to tell her something."

"Couldn't you just say that I was ill?" Not that Celia would care, Jessie knew. Celia would be livid at having her engagement party interrupted—and Jessie would pay for the interruption later.

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"Celia's your stepmother, Jessie. She's the best one to help you deal with all this. Not me."

"Please don't tell her. Please." Her hand twisted in his, closed urgently around his fingers. He looked down at their entwined hands, then stood up suddenly, freeing himself.

"All right. I won't tell her. Though I think it's a mistake."

"Thank you." Relieved, she smiled at him. He looked down at her again, his hands thrust into his pockets, his expression impossible to read.

"But my silence is going to cost you. If you want me to keep secrets from my wife-to-be, you're going to have to do something for me in return."

"What?"

"Walk back in there like the fighter I know you to be, and pretend to be having a good time until Celia's ready to leave. It'll be hard, but you can do it. And it's for your own good. You don't want that boy you fancy to guess you've been out here sniveling in the dark because he's not interested, do you?"

"No!" The very notion was hideous.

"Well, then, do we have a deal?"

"Yes." But Jessie's eyes flickered, and she chewed the inside of her cheek as she considered the enormity of what she was about to do. To go back inside and pretend that the world was just as it had been fifteen minutes ago would be the hardest thing she had ever done in her life. To face Jeanine Scott, and Mitch . . .

"Mr. Edwards?" Her voice was tiny. He regarded her with eyebrows raised inquiringly. She rushed on before she completely lost her nerve. "When we go in, may I—may I stay with you? I don't really know any of them, and it's so awful, and I look awful and I know it, and—and I don't want anyone 86

thinking he has to dance with me." Her voice trailed off, and she looked miserably at the cobblestones. "If you want to dance with Celia, or anyone, of course I don't mean you can't, but—but the rest of the time." As she finished this garbled speech, her face felt as hot as if she'd stood in front of a roaring fire for an hour. Jessie knew that if there had been enough light to allow him to see properly, her cheeks would have looked as red as the stones at her feet.

She thought that if he laughed she would die, but to her relief he didn't even smile.

"Don't worry, Jessie, I'll look after you," he promised gently, and held out his hand.

Jessie hesitated only a few seconds before she put hers into it and allowed him to pull her to her feet.

X

Hold on a minute. We're forgetting something. You can't go back in there with your hair like that. God
only knows what they'll imagine
you've been doing."

He had drawn her into the full spill of moonlight before

suddenly frowning at her. At his words Jessie tugged her hand from his and raised both of them, self-consciously, to the wayward bulk of her hair.

"Where are your pins?" He sounded resigned.

"Here's one—and another. . . ." Jessie found several still valiantly clinging to long-since-liberated curls and pulled them out. "But I don't have a mirror, or a brush." 87

"Give them to me." He held out his hand. Jessie dropped the half-dozen hand-whittled hairpins she had recovered into his palm.

"Is that all?"

"It's all I can find."

"They'll have to do, then. Turn around, and I'll
see what I can contrive."

"You?" The single word was tinged with disbelief.

"At least I can see what I'm doing. Besides, this won't be the first time I've pinned up a lady's hair. Turn around." As Jessie was slow to respond, he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to suit him. His palms were warm and abrasive against her bare skin. The masculine strength of his hands sent a little shiver down her spine. The feeling was not unpleasant, but nevertheless she pulled away. "Hold still, damn it."

From the way he talked, his mouth was full of hairpins. Both his hands were occupied in gathering up the masses of her hair. It was long as a horse's tail and twice as thick, strong curly hair that had a mind of its own and adapted only with great reluctance to the demands of fashion.

Jessie held very still as he ran his fingers through her curls to work out the worst of the tangles, then pulled her hair straight back from her scalp, twisting it into a long rope. With what she considered surprising deftness for a man, he coiled it on top of her head.

"Hold this," he directed, taking her hand and laying it flat on top of the coil. Then, when she did as he directed, he strategically inserted what few hairpins remained.

"Ouch!" One stabbed into her scalp, and she jumped. 88

"I said hold still! You'll make the whole thing fall." Jessie held still. "All right, you can let go." Cautiously Jessie let her hand fall to her side, certain that at least half her hair would follow. But to her amazement the coil stayed in place, and felt at least as secure as the topknot had earlier.

"Thank you," she said, sounding surprised as she turned to face him. "Wherever did you learn to do that?"

"I've groomed a few fillies in my time." He grinned wickedly, his expression such that Jessie was not sure whether he meant horses or females. While she looked at him suspiciously, he offered her his arm. The gesture was more automatic than gallant, but still . . . No gentlemen had ever offered his arm to Jessie before. Hesitantly, she placed her hand in the crook of his elbow. Her fingers tingled with the feel of smooth superfine overlying hard muscles, but he was already walking her back toward the house as though nothing was out of the ordinary. Of course, he must walk with ladies this way all the time.