The Confidential Life of Eugenia Cooper (35 page)

Gennie thought of Anna next door. How would she manage to cause this stubborn man to change his thinking?
Lord
, she prayed,
I know You can do what I cannot, and changing Daniel Beck is something I certainly cannot do.

But sticking close by him until she had a better plan was something she
could
do.

“Well, Tova,” she said, “what’s on the schedule for tonight? I’d like to be sure my ensemble is appropriate.”

“The Millers are hosting a ball,” she said.

“Likely a thinly veiled excuse for a suffragette rally,” Daniel said.

“Actually, the invitation says to dress as an invention,” Tova said.

“An invention?” Daniel shook his head. “What sort of frippery is that?”

“It sounds like an interesting challenge.” Gennie grinned as she looked up at the ceiling.

Later in the privacy of her bedchamber, Gennie examined gown after gown until she found the one that best fit the invention she’d chosen. Only one item remained, and she enlisted Elias to comb the massive attic for just the right accessory.

When the knock came at her door, Gennie found uncharacteristic butterflies dancing in her stomach. She’d attended countless balls, soirees, and galas; tonight’s event, a simple costume ball in a Denver home, should have been just another evening out.

“Mr. Beck’s waiting.” Tova slipped the door open a notch, then sucked in a deep breath. “Oh my,” she said.

Gennie’s heart sank. “I knew it. I look a fool.” She reached for the glittering diamonds at her ears. “Tell Mr. Beck I’m staying in tonight.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” came a booming voice from downstairs.

She gave Tova a beseeching look.

“Go now,” Tova said. “You’ll be the belle of the ball.”

“The belle of the ball?” Gennie chuckled. “I hardly think so.”

“Go,” Tova repeated, “and enjoy yourself. Charlotte and I will have—”

“You’re beautiful!” Charlotte slid around Tova and skidded to a stop inches from the toe of Gennie’s slippered foot.

“Slow down, Charlotte,” Gennie said. She took a deep breath and moved toward the door.

“You could learn a lesson from the speed at which my daughter moves,” Daniel called as he stood in the foyer. He turned to Elias, who kept a safe distance at the parlor door. “I fail to understand what a woman does that takes…” Noting Elias’s sudden change of expression, Daniel stopped. “What’s wrong with you, Elias?”

His friend seemed unable to do anything but point toward the stairs. Daniel turned to follow Elias’s stunned gaze.

Gennie made her way down the staircase. At least, he thought the vision in shimmering gold was his governess.

“She’s a sight.” Elias crossed the foyer to nudge Daniel. “Didn’t expect that, now, did you?”

“What do you think?” she asked when she reached the bottom of the stairs.

Her hair had been piled atop her head in a fashionable style, then decorated with glittering gems. A second look told him those gems matched the ones attached to her dress at intervals. They also matched the crystals on the trio of chandeliers that once hung in his dining room.

As she moved from the stairs, her costume caught the new chandelier’s light and sent prisms of color bouncing around the room. “Daniel?”

“I’m not sure what it is,” Daniel said, his mouth suddenly dry. “I mean, I’m not sure what this represents.”

“Daniel, you’re not making any sense.” Elias chuckled. “Not that I blame you.”

Gennie’s expression fell. “You don’t like it, do you?”

She turned to go back up the stairs, but Daniel caught her by the wrist. A wrist encircled by a string of crystals that matched the ones at her ears and neck. “We’re late,” he said, his voice belying the fact she’d taken his breath away.

Gennie stepped out into the night air, and Daniel followed like a hapless pup. As he landed in the carriage beside her, he managed to form a question. “Gennie,” he said carefully, “exactly what invention does your costume represent?”

“I might ask you the same.” She looked him up and down. “I fail to see you’ve donned anything other than your customary evening suit. Where’s your costume?”

Daniel leaned back and called to Isak to commence the drive to the Miller home. “My costume?” He gestured to his chest. “I’m wearing it, Gennie.”

She gave him a sideways look. “What invention could you possibly be?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” He put on his best grin. “I’m man, of course.”

Her laughter filled the carriage. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Gennie,” he said with mock horror. “Do you not think man is God’s best invention?”

To her credit, the governess appeared to be considering it. “I suppose I never thought of it that way,” she finally said as the carriage rolled out of the gates.

Reaching across the distance between them, Daniel lifted a curl of hair from her shoulder and watched the attached crystal catch the lamplight. “Your turn.”

“My invention is fire.” She lifted a crystal at her neck. “Can you feature it?”

He could. Easily. And likely would for quite some time.

Indeed, she and Daniel Beck were quite different.

And yet when Gennie stepped into the Millers’ ballroom on Daniel’s arm, those differences faded away. For a man of decidedly frontier tastes, he was an accomplished dancer, gliding her around the room with such skill that she felt she might leave her dancing slippers behind and float away, her golden skirts billowing in the breeze.

While his costume was interesting and cheating in equal measure, Gennie found herself smiling at the thought of his daring choice. When Anna joined her, she almost felt guilty for the grin she wore.

“We must find a way for him to dance with you, Anna,” she said to her friend, who wore a costume with numerous circles attached.

“Perhaps dressing as the wheel was not my best choice,” Anna said. “I’ll certainly not capture Daniel’s attention in the same manner as your gown of fire.”

Gennie shook her head and glanced across the room at Daniel, who seemed embroiled in an intense conversation with several business types. “He’ll come to his senses, Anna.”

“I’m not so sure,” she said. “I think he took leave of them the minute you arrived.”

Gennie denied it, of course, and added a promise to discuss Anna at length with Daniel on their drive home. This became difficult, however, when Daniel changed the subject each time she mentioned his neighbor’s name.

Finally, she’d had enough. “Daniel, I must know what you find so uninteresting about Anna Finch. I think she’s quite lovely.”

“Yes, she’s very lovely,” he said as the carriage passed beneath a gaslight. “But what man would think of the wheel when he’s faced with fire?” He leaned back and closed his eyes. “Explain this to me, Governess, for I am merely a man.”

She could only laugh, though it appeared her plan to draw attention to Anna was in grave danger.

The following night, they attended an oratory lecture at the opera house. Halfway through the insufferable speaker’s monologue, Daniel started snoring and had to be jabbed awake. Daniel repaid the favor several days later when an ambassador from a Central American country droned on in stilted English, and Gennie was forced to find respite behind her fan.

By the end of the week, their strained silence at home had given way to the easy camaraderie they’d shared on other occasions. Her only disappointment came in her failed attempts at bringing Daniel together with Anna. With her time in Denver drawing to a close, Gennie had almost decided that only a miracle would accomplish the feat. Anna, it seemed, had given up entirely.

“Tonight will be different,” Gennie said as she finished pinning her hair and rose to take a look at the newly altered ball gown. The dress shimmered in a blue that Tova said complimented her eyes.

“You look lovely.” Charlotte settled on the seat beside Gennie at the vanity.

“Thank you. Would you like your hair done up like mine?”

“Yes, please,” the girl said. Half an hour later, Charlotte Beck looked ready to go to the ball as well.

“Your ball gown for the night is a nightgown,” Gennie told her, “and you’ll only be dreaming of dances with handsome princes. Someday, however, you will be the belle of the ball.”

“Promise?”

“I do.”

When Gennie swept down the stairs, she found Daniel gawking. “So Tova’s repairs meet your approval?”

It seemed he could only nod as he handed her into their carriage, and they headed out into the night.

As yet another attempt to fuse the futures of Anna Finch and Daniel Beck failed, she wondered whether it was at all possible. Every time Anna drew near, he seemed to suddenly feel the urge to dance with Gennie.

How could he resist escorting Gennie around the dance floor when she was easily the loveliest woman in the room? Along with her beauty, she had tamed his daughter and gone far toward preparing her to meet the earl.

If only he were as prepared.

But that was a thought for another day. Tonight he held Gennie Cooper in his arms, and all of Denver society was reduced to merely watching.

He had not kissed her since their near-picnic, and keeping that record was an ongoing exercise in restraint. While he could not say he loved her, Daniel was painfully aware of just how very much he was smitten.

As he handed her into the buggy for the trip home, he made the mistake of looking into her eyes. For a moment, he recalled the day they met in Fisher’s Dry Goods Store. “You never did wear that buckskin jacket,” he said as he took his place beside her.

She gave him a sideways look, then giggled. “I don’t suppose the mayor and his wife would have understood if I’d worn it tonight.”

“Perhaps not,” Daniel said, “but I would have.”

“Oh?”

He leaned in, powerless to stop what he’d ignored for far too long. “Gennie, I promised you a Wild West adventure, and I fear I’ve let you down.”

Her laughter held more than a little nervousness. “Didn’t Miss Finch look lovely tonight?”

“She always does,” he said. “But then, her father sees to that.” He paused to gather his wits only to realize he’d lost them altogether. “Gennie, I don’t want to talk about Anna Finch tonight.”

“But she’s ever so clever, and—”

He placed a finger over her lips. “Shh,” he said. “Don’t talk.”

There was nothing left to do but kiss her.

“I’ll be leaving soon,” she said a moment later.

Daniel sat back and shook his head. “I’ve kissed my share of women, but this is the first time one of them said that afterward.”

Gennie looked away. “Two weeks and a day. That’s when my train leaves for New York.”

“I see.”

Her fingers captured his. “I’ll never forget you, Daniel.”

“No,” he said, “it is I who will not forget you.”

“I need to tell you who I am.”

Daniel gestured for her to wait. They were only minutes from home.

Home. The big house had come to feel that way since Gennie Cooper arrived, and not just because she’d done what he’d been unable to: get rid of that awful jeweled bird Tova loved so much.

“Leave us, Isak,” he said when the buggy halted in the drive. When the boy had gone into the carriage house, Daniel turned to Gennie. “All right. Go ahead.”

She leaned back against the cushions and looked up into the night sky. “It’s a long story.”

“And one you do not have to tell.” He sat back too and stared up at God’s creation overhead. “I’m content with today. We don’t need anything else, do we?”

“I suppose not.” The evening breeze carried her soft comment along with the fresh scent of impending rain.

He looked over at her. “That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement.”

Gennie shifted to look at him. “I’ve been thinking, Daniel. Denver, Leadville, it’s all been something special. Charlotte has come to be like my own, and I’m not sure how that happened. It seems like just yesterday she was robbing me at the train station.”

Daniel sat bolt upright. “She robbed you at the train station? Why am I just now hearing of this?”

She waved away the question. “She was a motherless girl seeking attention.”

He took immediate exception to the statement. “What does that mean? She had me. Are you saying I was somehow deficient as a parent?” He remembered her letter. “Indeed, that is exactly what you told me, isn’t it?”

“Daniel.” Her fingers found his shoulder and then, by degrees, his jaw line. “A father is a precious part of a little girl’s world, and I was wrong to insinuate you had failed in that area. But a girl needs a woman’s influence.” She sat back and let her hand fall into her lap. “Now Miss Finch, she would be—”

“Enough. Why do you insist on trying to throw me together with Anna Finch?” He swiveled to face her. “Can’t you see it’s you I’ve wanted since the first time I saw you at the dry goods store?”

His admission stunned them both. Daniel sat back and found Orion again, looking into the celestial heavens rather than at the heavenly creature beside him. He’d just bared his heart to a woman who not only had a train ticket to New York in two weeks, but also was practically betrothed to another.

What sort of idiot had he become since he’d fallen for the woman in boots and buckskins?