Summer Lightning (8 page)

“But of course they are. It stands out all over them.”

“You can’t know that for sure.”

It had been like a halo shining around the two of them. A brightness that hovered a few inches above the heads of the dazzling blonde and the younger waiter. The closer they’d been to one another the brighter it had grown.

“Any woman,” she said, settling for a mundane explanation, “who just received a cup of coffee over what was obviously a brand-new mantle and who didn’t instantly crush the offender must be in love.”

“Maybe she didn’t want to cause a scene,” Jeff said and immediately reversed himself. “No, Sabrina
likes
scenes. The louder and more public the better.”

“Love has the power to change people.”

“Well, maybe you’re right,” he admitted. “Maybe she has settled down with a waiter. That would explain the cheaper rooms. But she was still flirting with me ... wasn’t she?”

“I imagine it must be something she can’t help. Some girls are just born knowing how to flirt.” Edith wondered what it would be like to squeeze—ever so lightly of course—the firm muscle beneath his sleeve. But her upbringing forbade any such act.

When they reached the hotel, Edith said, “Thank you again for lunch. Please don’t forget to give me Mrs. Waters’ address so I can write to her.”

“I’ll bring it to you in a few minutes.”

She nodded and headed toward the mahogany-railed staircase that swept up from the lobby. Passing two dignified older women on the stairs, she nodded and smiled. In return, she received a set of glances so frosty that the humid summer air seemed to harden into a winter’s chill. They seemed almost to switch their skirts out of range of some contamination.

Pausing on the stair, Edith turned to watch the ladies descending, a puzzled frown puckering her brow. Had she accidentally offended them? How, when she’d hardly stepped out of her room? Perhaps her singing in the night had disturbed more people that Mr. Dane had told her about.

From here, she could see him at the desk. Suddenly, he pounded his fist against the blotter. A faint ring sounded among the thudding, as the blows moved the summoning bell. Wondering, Edith started down the stair.

Jeff met her halfway across the lobby. His tanned face showed red as an Indian’s, his brown eyes hard as horse chestnuts. “Come on,” he said in a grinding whisper. He took her arm and turned her again toward the stairs.

“What is it, Mr. Dane?”

“The management has asked us to leave.”

* * * *

“Damn and blast them to hell,” Jeff said, striding along the hall. He still towed her along by the arm, though he seemed to have forgotten about her. “It’s a fine thing when a man can’t even do right by a fellow creature without a bunch of prudish old women . . . that Dilworthy ... he
saw
the state you were in last night! What could any decent man do but make sure you were all right?”

He
stopped outside her door. Edith felt as though she’d been dragged along behind a runaway train. He
held out his hand for her key. “Pack up your things, Miss Parker. I’ll get my grip and we’ll shake off the dust of this place in two hoots.”

“Surely there’s no reason to leave so abruptly, Mr. Dane,” Edith said, digging in her bag for the key. They were the first words she’d been able to slip in.

“I don’t stay where I’m not wanted, Miss Parker. They’ve made their feelings clear on the subject.”

“But all I have to do is explain . . .”

“I’m not having my business told to a bunch of busybodies just to stay
here
another night. It’s not worth it.”

Mr. Maginn had been threatening but he hadn’t stormed as impressively as this. Jefferson’s responsive face had become stony, only his hot eyes showing his anger. His voice was tight and hard as he thoroughly castigated everyone in the hotel, excepting only the young hallboy and herself.

Yet she wasn’t afraid as she had been frightened of Mr. Maginn. She knew instinctively that Mr. Dane would never harm her. “So, what hotel will we go to next?”

“We’re not.” He took the key out of her hands, turned it quickly in the keyhole and pushed open her door. “I’ve got Waters’ word that he’ll take the meat. So we’re going home.”

“All right.” The way Mr. Dane combined the two of them into an “us” warmed her as though she had entered a room and everyone had turned to welcome her. “I haven’t a bag to pack my new clothes in. Do you think you could advance me a few dollars?” Asking him for more money brought a hot blush into her cheeks.

“I forgot.” The anger seemed to die down in his eyes. “I’ll run out and buy you one. Get your stuff together to be ready to go when I come back.”

“Thank you, Mr. Dane. Shall I pack for you?”

“I’ll take care of it. I don’t travel with much.”

In her room, Edith wasn’t sure she’d made it clear that Mr. Dane was to be repaid for the valise. She considered going down to catch him, but the idea of passing before all those critical eyes turned her knees to water. Coward though she might be, Edith shrank from that ordeal.

After laying out her new clothes neatly on the bed, Edith remembered she had not yet written to thank Mrs. Waters and her mother for their charity. Fruitlessly opening and closing the desk drawers, Edith realized that there was not a scrap of paper to be had in the room. And the only pen she found had a broken nib.

Twice she walked to the door. Twice she turned back. Orpheus gave an inquisitive chirp. “I know,” she said, shutting her eyes. “I’m as spineless as a jellyfish. It’s not as though they’re going to eat me, and I must write Mrs. Waters. I can’t be so basely ungrateful as not to reply to her kindness.”

The hall of the castle was lit only by flickering torches. The shadows fought the light as Lady Jessica crept down the stairs into the great cold halt. The secret papers were in the mighty hewn oak table that Sir Ivor used when holding his corrupt Court of Justice. She halted on the rough steps as two guards, their swords clanking against mailed legs, passed below her. Lady Jessica longed for the safety of her tower room. But
no ...
Lord Jeffrey’s life depended on those papers! She would not fail him.

“Pardon me,” Edith said, her voice tiny.

The clerk did not move. He thrust letters into the guests’ boxes with unnecessary violence.

“Might I trouble you  . . .”

Shoving in the final letter, the clerk turned. On seeing her, his bony nose wrinkled. “What do you want?”

“You’re the man who was on duty last night?”

“Yes, young woman, I am. Really, haven’t you caused enough trouble? Are we to have a scene?”

She recognized him now. Not so much by his sour face but by the faint, smudgy glow about him. Concentrating, she saw that someone loved him devotedly, though the reason was not easy to see. He didn’t deserve to hear what she had to say. Edith fought to keep the words back, but they could not be denied.

“What’s your name?”

“Dilworthy, as if that’s any of your business, young woman. Now, please . . .” He shooed her away with a flapping hand as though she’d been a stray cat. “Your ‘friend’ will be back soon and then you and he can do as the management of the St. Simeon has asked. This is a respectable . . .”

“Listen to me, August. It’s important.”

“Threats don’t mean . . . how did you know that?”

Edith leaned forward to give her words more emphasis. “Does someone meet you every morning when you go home?”

“Kindly tell me how you know my name.”

“Is there someone like that? Always there when you come home and at other times too? Does she take care of you in little ways that maybe you don’t notice? Clean laundry, your favorite kind of cookie . . .”

The fussy little man primmed his mouth as though wild horses wouldn’t make him speak. Then he said, “My landlady’s daughter makes me breakfast.”

“That would be ... ?”

His small eyes grew narrower still. “Are you some kind of fake spiritualist? This is worse than I thought. Immorality is one thing; blasphemy is another. I’m going to call a policeman, young woman. Trying to flimflam decent . . .”

“Listen to me,” she said again.

Reaching out, she placed her hands over his. As the connection was made, Edith saw everything very clearly. The girl loved him but was beginning to despair, certain the object of her worship would never look at her. If the situation didn’t change, August would lose her, growing ever more bitter until his soul could never be untwisted.

“It’s very important, August. Tomorrow when you go home, you’ve got to notice her. Ask her about her interests, find out what she likes to do. Be good to her.”

The desk clerk stared past her shoulder as though he’d gone absentminded. “I’ve heard her mother call her Katrine. When I left for work today, Katrine gave me a bun warm from the oven for my dinner pail.”

The glow around the clerk had brightened noticeably. If it went on like this, soon other people would see it. Edith hoped they’d be kind. Some people would find ridiculously humorous the thought of this bellicose little man being involved in a romance.

Mr. Dilworthy was still too dazed to comment when she asked for writing paper. Going back to her room, Edith felt she’d done some good. She sat down to compose a suitable note of thanks to Mrs. Waters and her mother.

When she heard a knock, she called for the person to enter and went on writing. After a moment, the knock sounded again. “Come in,” she said again, more loudly, turning in her chair.

Another knock. Sighing, Edith got up and went to the door. Jefferson grinned at her when she opened it. “I didn’t want to barge in and get bawled out again.”

“I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I can only repeat . . .”

“Come on, Miss Parker. It was a joke.”

“Oh.” Obligingly, she smiled.

Jeff saw she had no idea how to respond to his teasing. She was grateful to him for his aid and the job he offered her. The advantage was entirely on his side. He had to remember to play fair. Yet all the while, the sweet, furtive dimple that came and went at the corner of her lush mouth tempted him to kiss her. He backed off, fast.

“Here’s a couple of grips, Miss Parker,” he said, holding up the leather cases. “Let me know when you’re ready to go. I’d like to catch the eight o’clock train. It’s a sleeper.”

“I only expected
one
case, Mr. Dane. And I will certainly pay you for it.”

“‘Course you will,” he said, humoring her. “And I got two so you wouldn’t have to cram all that stuff in one. Oh, and here’s Mrs. Waters’ address. It’s over on Forest Park. Nice houses in that part of town.”

“Yes, I know.” They had often fueled her dreams, especially the ones like medieval castles with stonework and oriel windows. “I’ll finish writing at once, then pack. I shall be ready shortly.”

Jeff went into his room and shut the door, though he knew she still stood in her own doorway. Looking at his reflection in his shaving mirror, he said straight out, “It’s bad enough you’ve ruined her reputation in this hotel ... I catch you spoiling it in Richey and I’ll ride you out of town on a rail. Down boy!”

He thought about the three women waiting for him. Decent, hard-working women—at least two of them real lookers. If he didn’t marry one of them, he’d be the laughing stock of the town, as it had been obvious for some time what he’d been thinking of. And as for them . . . "It’s not every man who has the potential to ruin four women’s reputations at once.”

The problem with him, he knew, was that he was a romantic. Gwen used to tease him about it, saying that he’d read one too many Sir Walter Scott novels as a boy. And he had.

There was something about all that chivalry that made a man feel good about his sex. He had, after all, saved Miss Parker, if not from black-hearted evil, at least from the terrors of destitution. Naturally, he’d think about doing more than saving her. After all, even in the old days, the boys in the tin suits didn’t rescue princesses for the heck of it. The princesses usually wound up showing their gratitude.

Jeff fired his hairbrushes into his valise. No sooner did he drive out the thought of making love to Miss Parker than it came back, more vividly. On this trip he’d spend a lot of time in the smoking car, exclusively a men’s province. As she’d never just take fifty dollars without earning it, he couldn’t leave her here. The best thing to do, therefore, was to go through with hiring her, but remember to stay away from her.

That should be easy, he told himself, taking a last look around to see if he’d left anything. After all, he’d never clapped eyes on her before yesterday. She hadn’t cast a spell over him. His thoughts, feelings and actions were still under his complete control. And it wasn’t as though she were standing outside his door, pleading for his touch.

“I’m ready if you are,” she said, standing outside his door. She let fall the hand she’d raised to knock. Meekly, she let him take her cases and followed behind him, carrying Orpheus’ shrouded cage, as he set off down the stairs.

His thoughts were obviously occupying him to the exclusion of all else. She did not break in on them. Perhaps being thrown out of his favorite hotel had cast a damper over his spirits. She could sympathize. Even in her fantasies, she’d never been thrown out of a place, scorned by society.

Lady Jessica walked with her head held high, disdaining to notice the jeering populace. On a platform, the stake rose high and austere above the piled kindling. As she ascended the steps, she turned scornful eyes toward the judge who had condemned her. Sir Ivor dropped his eyes beneath her proud glance. He had called on her in the dungeon, offering her life in exchange for her virtue. “Better the stake!” she’d cried. “If you martyr me, I shall be a saint in heaven. And Lord Jeffrey will surety avenge my death with your own!”

Meeting the eyes of the executioner at the foot of the stake, Jessica stared in wonder. Though the greasy cloth that hid his features burned a pair of brilliant eyes . . .

Edith didn’t even notice the whispers of the hotel guests as she walked out behind Jeff. She was far away.

Chapter 6

Dawn turned the sky pink as the long train pulled up to the brick depot in Richey. The uniformed porter helped Edith down the iron steps. Steam puffed around her as she looked at what she could see of the town. It had a respectable, conventional look, with well-kept storefronts and a sprinkling of narrow houses. A few people were astir, and lights in windows told of more citizens awakening with the day.