To Dream Again

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  ***

  Nathaniel turned down Whitechapel High Street just as the church clock chimed half past six, tense in body and tired in spirit. He'd spent the afternoon calling on their other vendors, and he'd found the Halston Tin story repeated over and over. Suppliers who'd had no problem extending them credit a week ago were suddenly refusing to do so. He was more certain than ever that Adrian was responsible, and he had never felt more frustrated in his life.

  Beckett was at his usual post on the corner. Nathaniel stopped for a moment. "How's your leg, Henry?"

  The old man bent down and rubbed his knee where it joined the wooden peg. "Achin", guv'nor, and that's a fact," he replied mournfully.

  "Isn't that ointment helping?"

  "Aye," the old man replied, with the usual melancholy sigh. "But not tonight. There be a mighty storm comin'."

  Nathaniel glanced up at the black, starless sky as another gust of wind whipped a lock of hair across his brow. "I think you're right. Don't be caught out here when it starts."

  "I was just packing up the cart to 'ead for me lodgings, guv'nor."

  Nathaniel nodded, bid the coster good night, and turned toward the factory. He opened the front door, wondering what the hell to tell Mara, but he came to a halt in the doorway, all his worries forgotten at the sight that met his eyes. Everything had been shut down for the day, but no one had left. Instead, he saw the men clearing away equipment and moving tables toward the center of the room. The women were hanging brightly colored streamers and chatting like an excited flock of magpies.

  Nathaniel saw Michael leaning over one of the tables and fiddling with his gramophone, a beautiful girl beside him, tendrils of dark hair peeking from beneath the kerchief she wore, and a picnic basket in her arms. She had to be Rebecca, Michael's bride-to-be. Mrs. O'Brien stood near the couple, removing baskets piled with food and cases of beer and lemonade from a wheelbarrow and arranging them on another table.

  His gaze scanned the room until he caught sight of Mara, and he smiled, watching her. She was about a dozen feet away, up on the ladder they'd installed that led up onto the mezzanine, tying a huge red bow around the rail and trying to form it just right.

  Billy spied him standing in the doorway, "'e's 'ere!" the boy shouted and raced across the floor, dashing around the tables and people that blocked his path, to throw himself at Nathaniel.

  Heads turned to look at him as he automatically wrapped an arm around Billy's shoulders and continued to stare at the sight before him, completely astonished. He looked up at Mara on the ladder, who was looking down at him, smiling. "Surprise!" she called down to him.

  He lifted his hand and gestured to the chaos. "What is all this?"

  He watched her climb down from the ladder, and he managed to catch a pleasing glimpse of a stocking-clad leg below the hem of her black skirt, a leg as shapely as he'd imagined, before she jumped off the ladder's last step. Her skirt swirled down over her high-button shoes, and Nathaniel felt a twinge of disappointment, wondering if she intended to climb ladders again anytime soon.

  "It's a party," Billy told him. "We're celebratin'."

  "We are?" He looked at Mara, still quite confused.

  She nodded, her eyes sparkling with mischief as she approached them.

  "What are we celebrating?" he asked as Billy pulled him by the hand, leading him toward the center of the room.

  Mara followed. "Michael moved the first train off the line today."

  They halted in front of one of the tables, and Nathaniel looked down at the very first piece of concrete evidence that his dream was coming true. Painted dark green, with red trim and brass wheels, the locomotive sat atop a velvet-covered platform. A white card had been centered at the edge of the platform, nestled amid the red velvet. Written on it in Mara's perfect handwriting were the words, "Chase-Elliot Toy Makers, London, 1889."

  "I ordered a brass plate," she explained, pointing at the card. "Until it comes, this will have to do."

  "It's wonderful," he said, unable to quite believe it. "Thank you."

  "Don't become too stirred up over it," Michael told him across the table. "We don't know if the thing even runs yet. We can't test it until the paint dries."

  He grinned at the other man. "It better work, or I'll have to have a long talk with my engineer."

  Again he looked down at the locomotive, and a sweet mixture of joy and triumph flooded through him. His optimism began to return. Somehow, they would push through this. Tomorrow, he would begin finding alternate suppliers. Adrian couldn't bribe everybody. What happened today would happen again, and Nathaniel knew he had to have other suppliers ready to step in.

  He looked up at the crowd of people who had gathered around the table. "I don't know what to say. I'm truly overwhelmed."

  "Save the speeches," Michael advised. "Let's eat."

  Everyone laughed, and the crowd began to gravitate toward the tables laden with food. Michael introduced him to Rebecca before they, too, walked away, sitting down at one of the tables to eat the kosher dinner she had brought.

  Billy tugged at his shirtsleeve. "C'mon, Nathaniel. I'm hungry."

  Nathaniel laughed. "You're always hungry," he answered and pointed to the food. "Go on, Scrapper. We'll be along."

  Billy didn't need any further encouragement. He whirled around and ran to Mrs. O'Brien, asking her to fill a plate for him. The landlady happily complied, and Mara and Nathaniel watched his eyes grow round with delight as she piled a variety of tidbits onto his plate.

  "It takes very little to make that boy happy," Mara murmured.

  Nathaniel glanced at her. She was watching Billy, a tender smile on her face. She should have children of her own again, he thought, loving her with all his heart. The past months had brought about many changes in her. She was becoming softer, sweeter. She was as strong-minded as ever, but he knew the fear and bitterness that had been so prevalent when they'd first met were slowly fading away.

  His gaze moved to the prim line of her collar and he thought of the night he'd unfastened the button at her throat and massaged her neck. He remembered again the soft warmth of her skin beneath his fingers, felt again the yielding in her tense muscles, and savored again the sheer pleasure of watching her enjoy the massage.

  As if she sensed him watching her, she turned to look up at him. He said nothing, but she must have seen something in his expression because her smile faded. Her cheeks suddenly grew pink, and she ducked her head, clasping her hands behind her back and shifting her weight from side to side.

  He wanted her, all of her, not just as a business partner, but as the woman he woke up with every morning. He wanted her, not just for one night, but for all of his life. "Was all this your idea?" he asked, feeling the need to say something.

  "Yes. Everyone has been working very hard, and I felt that we all deserved a party." She looked up, and a tiny frown of concern knit her brows. "I'm afraid it was rather frivolous of me, wasn't it?"

  "Very. I shall have to keep an eye on you."

  "It will pay off in the long run," she said as if to console herself, and her frown disappeared. "After all, positive morale of the workers is important, don't you think?"

  "Definitely," Nathaniel agreed, trying not to grin.

  "I received a very good price on the food from Mrs. O'Brien," she went on. "And I bought all the streamers secondhand in Petticoat Lane."

  Nathaniel listened, loving the way she rationalized an expense she considered frivolous and reassured herself that she'd gotten a bargain. She was changing, but Nathaniel hoped she didn't change too much. He loved her just the way she was.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  He made her waltz with him, right there on the production floor, in front of everyone. "You danced very well," he told her as they walked up the stairs of Mrs. O'Brien's lodging house a few hours later. "You didn't stumble once, and you actually let me lead."

  "I wish you hadn't done that," she mumbled, stepping onto the landing and into the pool of mo
onlight that spilled through the window at the end of the corridor. "They'll talk about us."

  She walked the few steps to her door, and he came to a halt behind her as she fumbled in her reticule for her key.

  "Mara, I hate to be the one to break the news to you, but they're talking about us anyway."

  "They're not!" She shoved the key into the lock and turned her head to glance over one shoulder at him, giving a soft sigh. "Oh, dear."

  "It's your fault. If you wouldn't wear your heart on your sleeve..."

  "What?" She gasped. "Of all the ridiculous—" She broke off, seeing his grin. "You're teasing me again," she said, but he noticed the uncertainty in her voice, and he leaned closer.

  "I wish you would," he murmured, placing his hands on her shoulders.

  She took a sharp intake of breath. "Would what?"

  He could smell the lilac scent of her hair, feel the softness of it beneath his jaw. "Wear your heart on your sleeve. Give me some idea that I'm not completely out of my head."

  "You are out of your head," she retorted, not quite managing to put the proper amount of disdain in her voice. She leaned forward to grasp the door latch, trying almost desperately to free herself from his grip.

  But he refused to release her. His hands tightened on her shoulders for an instant, then he turned her slowly around.

  He looked into her face, loving the vulnerable tremble of her lower lip, the sign that betrayed her feelings no matter how hard she tried to hide them from him. He lifted his hands to cup her face. "I love you."

  She shook her head within his hands. "No, you don't."

  "Yes, I do. I want to hold you, protect you, cherish you. Forever."

  He felt the change in her like the whisper of a chill wind, saw the slight twist of disbelief that touched the corner of her mouth. He could almost hear what she was thinking. Had James said these things to her?

  Damn the armor she could put on at will. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and kiss away that cynical smile. He wanted to hold her and touch her, make her soft and breathless and fluttery, make her forget James Elliot and all his broken promises. But he couldn't destroy a ghost. He drew a deep breath, and his hands fell away. "You don't believe me."

  "No." A flat, unemotional, honest answer.

  "Why is it so difficult for you to believe that I love you?"

  "What do you know about love?" she demanded. "You've never been in love." She looked up at him, and he saw something in her face, something apprehensive and unsure. "Have you?"

  "Yes," he answered swiftly. "Twice."

  "Oh, forgive me, I didn't know you were such an authority on the matter." The caustic comment was meant to sound indifferent, but it didn't. It sounded jealous, and both of them knew it. He grinned down at her. She pressed her lips tightly together and fell silent.

  "The first time was Rosalyn Underwood," he said, leaning one shoulder against the wall. "Beautiful girl. She had red hair and green eyes. We were married," he went on, watching the rapid changes flit across her face. Disbelief, astonishment, dismay. "We had six children. Three boys and three girls. I owned a toy factory and was very successful, we had a lovely house in the country, and we loved each other madly."

  She opened her mouth, then closed it again with a sound of agitation.

  "In my dreams," he added. "I was fourteen, she was twelve."

  She punched him, a light, frustrated jab in the shoulder. "I asked a serious question. I'd hoped for a serious answer."

  "I am serious. I was in love with her, as passionately in love as a stuttering adolescent schoolboy can be. I don't think she knew I was alive." He sighed. "Still...I couldn't help myself."

  "And the second time?" Her voice was cool, but there was a quavering edge in it that told him more clearly than any words her indifference was pretense.

  "Ah, the second time." He paused, thinking about the second time, long enough ago that the pain was gone, and only the distant pleasure remained, like warm coals after the fire had gone out. "Mai Lin."

  Her name sounded almost unfamiliar now as he spoke it aloud.

  "Who?"

  "Mai Lin. She was Chinese." He met Mara's eyes. "She was my mistress for three years, from the time I was nineteen until I was twenty-two."

  "Oh." She seemed at a loss for words, and he recalled the day he'd given her the abacus, the day she'd assumed mistress was what he wanted her to be. "What happened?" she finally asked.

  "When I went to America, Mai Lin stayed behind. I asked her to come with me. I asked her to marry me. She refused."

  "I don't believe it!"

  "I'm flattered," he said, "but it's true. She said no."

  "Why?"

  "Several reasons. She didn't want to leave London. She said someday I would regret marrying her, that my brother would shun me and we'd never be able to make peace—as if I cared what Adrian thought!" He paused for a long moment, then he said, "But the real reason was that she just didn't love me, and she said I would never be happy with less. She was right, I suppose."

  "Where is she now?"

  "I don't know. Probably still living in Limehouse. I

  haven't seen her since I came back, Mara." He smiled down at her. "Just in case you were wondering."

  "I wasn't," she said, so indignantly that he knew it was a lie.

  He moved to stand in front of her again and left Mai Lin in the past. "It seems I have a serious character flaw," he confessed. "I seem to have this habit of falling in love with women who don't love me back." He reached out and ran one finger lightly down her cheek and across her lips. "But I keep hoping."

  "Don't," she said, her voice a fierce whisper. "Don't."

  He stroked her jaw, felt the tiny muscle there flex beneath the tip of his finger. "I love you."

  "Stop saying that!" She stepped backward through the doorway into her flat and balled her hands into fists, staring up at him, her whole body trembling. "You're not in love with me! You just think you are, with all your poetic, romantic notions. You don't love me."

  She slammed the door in his face.

  He was an absurd man. Charming, daft, absurd. She didn't want him to say things like that, with all that promise in his voice. She didn't want him to touch her like that, with all that open tenderness that left her standing raw and defenseless amid the pieces of her armor. She sank down into a chair, buried her face in her hands, and sat in the dark, listening to his footsteps as he went up the stairs, trying to turn her heart into ice.

  She strained to remember all the times James had told her how much he loved her, all the times he'd made promises, all the times she'd felt the pain of betrayal and the wrench of loneliness. But just now, those memories refused to come, refused to fuel her bitterness.

  All she could seem to remember at this moment was

  Nathaniel. He came before her eyes, all tawny gold, so joyously alive, a shaft of sunlight piercing the dark prison where her heart was locked away, revealing her— what had he called it?—her dark, secret self.

  Despite her denials, to him and to herself, she loved him, and that was her greatest fear: to love him, to fill her empty heart and her lonely soul with him, and to have it not be enough, to watch him walk away from her and take his light and laughter with him, leaving her alone again. She didn't want to be alone again, with only her dark, secret self for company.

  ***

  Nathaniel heard the footsteps outside his door, and he lifted his head sharply, listening. The latch rattled, and he straightened in his chair, hopeful, tense, waiting.

  Slowly, the door creaked open.

  He'd drawn the shutters when he'd come in, and the room was dark except for the glowing coals in the grate, but Nathaniel knew it was her. Accustomed to the darkness, he could see her slender form as she entered the room and closed the door behind her. He could hear the soft sound of her breathing, he could smell lilacs and feel the sharp quickening of his own senses.

  "'She walks in beauty, like the night.'"

 
His voice, sudden in the silence, startled her, and she jumped backward, her back hitting the closed door with a thump. "Nathaniel?"

  "Yes." He said nothing more.

  Her eyes adjusted to the darkness and found him. He was sitting in a chair across the room, his shirt a pale patch of white against the leather back of the chair. He made no move, and the silence lengthened.

  "I decided I wasn't sleepy," she murmured, suddenly feeling ridiculous. What was she doing here? But she knew the reason.

  A peculiar sound escaped him, a laugh and yet not. "I understand."

  "You aren't sleepy either?"

  "No."

  Another silence. "Perhaps you might play your violin, then?" she suggested, ashamed that she sounded so timid.

  "No." A few seconds passed. Then he spoke again. "Why did you come up here, Mara?"

  Did you mean it when you said you love me? The question hovered on the tip of her tongue, unspoken. Suddenly uncertain, afraid of rejection, she stood there with her back against the door, wishing he would take the lead, wishing he would show her what he wanted her to do. If only he would come to her, hold her, if only he would smile and tell her again that he loved her, everything would be all right. But he made no move at all. He sat, rigid in his chair, watching her and saying nothing, and she realized he was waiting.

  Waiting for her to come to him. She turned her head away. She looked at the floor, the ceiling, anywhere but at the man watching her.

  Why couldn't she just say it? Why couldn't she just walk over to him and wrap her arms around him and say the words? Nathaniel, I love you, I trust you, I need you so. Love me.

  She finally looked at him again. He was still waiting.

  Slowly, she began to walk toward him. If only she could say the right thing, do the right thing, he would make love to her. Somehow, the door would open, and all the feelings locked inside her would come tumbling out, released from the prison she had made so long ago.