“I wouldn’t know where to start,” he admitted. “Would it be a waste to fix this up when we can’t stay?”
“Nonsense! I’ve always wanted to fix up my own place. Even if we don’t live here all the time, my parents won’t mind if we take seasonal trips here. Father and Jeremiah come to their home here for months at a time. Mother wrote to me about it.”
“Do what you want with it.” Clark yanked off his glove so he could touch the wall. Everything in it belonged to him, and it had all along. All of it, his.
“I’ll use some of my money, but you’ll have to add some.” Amethyst opened the right-hand door and peered into the room. “What a gorgeous front parlor. A bit faded, but we can have the settees reupholstered. We’ll have to open the windows to air out the must, too.” She hurried back to him with her hands outstretched. “It’s almost suppertime. Let’s buy new clothes and go out to a restaurant. A real restaurant and not that shack in the rubble where my parents choose to live.”
“We can bring food back here….” Clark’s voice trailed off. They didn’t need to save their money in hopes of being able to eat the following day, or even the following week. They could purchase new clothes and eat at a restaurant. “I’ve never eaten at one of those places, just saloons and inns.”
“You’ve got plenty of money,” Eric said. “Take the girl out for a grand time. Court her proper.”
Clark glanced at the ghost. “I’m not courting her.”
“Eric’s here? He better be telling you to have fun. We can get the rest of the inventions later, right, Eric?” She looked at the front door, even though he stood near the staircase. “We’re Treasures. We deserve to party. I hope they have a nightclub here.”
Clark squeezed her in a hug. His shoulders ached from driving the steamcycle all day, but it might help to…relax. The last time he’d relaxed had been with Mabel when they’d gone to what remained of the dried-up stream in Tangled Wire. “No, you’re a Treasure. I’m a Grisham.”
Amethyst leaned against the counter at Pastorella Boutique. “It was positively dreadful! The steamcoach caught fire—I told my Clarky not to buy one from that shop—and it ruined our trunks. Positively ruined everything.” She pursed her lips. “What can be purchased immediately while we have attire custom made?”
Clark kept his face expressionless as the shopkeeper peered over her gold-framed spectacles at them. Amethyst had felt the need to conjure a story about why they needed to buy clothes and not have them tailored or designed. He would’ve preferred asking for outfits without explanation, but if it embarrassed her, her story wouldn’t hurt.
“We’ll find something to fit you both.” The shopkeeper pushed back her chair and rose. “If you’ll follow me, please. Sir, our men’s department will find you a suit while, ma’am, our ladies area will help you try on dresses.”
Clark slid his hands into his pockets to keep from cracking his knuckles. Gentlemen didn’t mutilate their fingers like that. What if they saw he was a fraud by the way he acted?
The poor sometimes became the wealthy. A ranch could take off, a new invention might make it big, a hunk of gold might be discovered in a stream. He’d never pondered those lucky fellows before, but they had to feel as he did, sweat on his skin and his eyes bugging.
The men’s section dwelled on the left side of the establishment. Bolts of fabric in colors he knew well and some he’d only glimpsed on well-to-dos covered shelves along the walls. Velveteen settees adorned the center of the room, with dressing screens across, and tables covered in tape measures and pin cushions.
A tailor in a pinstripe suit bowed low to Clark. “Welcome to Pastorella Boutique. What might you require this afternoon?” His thick brown mustache bobbed over his lips as he spoke.
Clark coughed to keep his voice from squeaking. “I need a suit…to wear now.”
“And another to be made specifically for your body?”
Georgette had required his measurements at the seamstress in her town. They’d sent him two suits, with the promise of more on the way in a variety of fabrics and colors. “The one will be fine.”
“You have money.” Eric shimmered into existence beside the dressing screen painted with fish. “Order what you want. Enjoy it.”
Clark didn’t need hundreds of suits. A serviceable pair of work pants and— “Do you only have suits?”
The tailor laughed. “I can make you anything you desire. This is the city, my boy. You’re not from here, are you?”
“No.” Clark wiped his face with his handkerchief. The man would wonder why he was so hot when fans purred around the room to keep the temperature cool.
“What is it you like?” The tailor lifted a tape measure off his neck. “We can set you up with a suit today and anything else for next week.”
Next week. How long would they be staying? Eric’s inventions could wait a little longer. His father was encouraging him to party. Maybe not party, but at least be happy.
“I would love a pair of Hedlund pants. You might not see many in the city, but they’re useful for ranches. They’re wider at the hips and thighs for movement, and then button from the knee to ankle. Great for boots and not getting caught in equipment, or in a steamcycle.”
“I know exactly what you mean. What color?”
“Black.”
Eric floated closer. “If I could, I would buy you one in every color. Get a few pairs. There’s more than enough funds.”
He shouldn’t waste it. But… “Could you do three pairs? Black, brown, and blue? I’ve always wanted blue pants.”
“Blue pants require a smart vest to go along with them. Black, with two rows of brass buttons. I can do a shirt as well.” The tailor winked. “I grew up on a ranch in the prairies. I know how to make serviceable attire. Lots of pockets in the vest and reinforced elbows on the shirt. Not a blouse, nothing frilly. Buttons from elbow to wrist and some extra on the collar to keep them in place. Sound right?”
Clark wiped his forehead again. “Sounds amazing.”
“Would bullet holders be appropriate for the vest?”
Eric laughed. “You’ll be happy with your girl’s choice of a boutique, eh?”
“That would be great.” Clark gulped. He had to have enough money to cover the cost, or Eric wouldn’t be so instigating. Hopefully. “How much will this be?”
“We can put it on your tab.” The tailor lifted Clark’s arms straight across to measure over his shoulders.
“I do have some money with me.”
“We’ll see. I’ll take your measurements and we’ll find you a suitable suit for today.” He snickered. “Suitable suit. I love myself.”
Clark laughed with him. The normal routine for acquiring clothing involved picking off a dead body or scraping enough coins together for a pre-made item in a general store.
The tailor chose a black suit lined in blue silk. “Since you love blue.” The white blouse beneath it lacked frills and fit well beneath an indigo vest.
Clark set the box with his clothing folded within tissue paper on the front counter. The tailor had provided a slip detailing the item for the shopkeeper to charge. She glanced at it before opening a leather-bound ledger.
“Name?”
“Clark…Grisham.” He glanced at Eric hovering by the entrance.
“Have you got a tab?”
“I’d like to pay with cash for now.” No matter how unseemly that was for a gentleman.
She nodded without looking up. “I can start you a tab.”
“I already have a tab, although it’s old,” Eric said. “Let her know she can revive that.”
“My father has a tab here.” Clark coughed to clear his throat. “Eric Grisham. It hasn’t been used in almost twenty-years.”
She lifted her eyebrows, waxed into two skinny worm-like lines. Bloody gears, why had he said that? She might recognize Eric Grisham, the inventor. News would spread that his son had returned and the Treasures would know. Senator Horan would know. The army might h
ear, but at least they couldn’t connect scrawny Clark from the mine with an inventor’s heir.
“Do you want to start one for yourself?” she asked in her monotone.
She didn’t know Eric Grisham, then, or she didn’t care. “You can just use my father’s. I still want to pay with cash.”
“I’ll mark that a purchase was made in his name. That’ll be fifty-four dollars.”
Clark’s fingers trembled as he counted the bills from his jacket pocket and slid them across the counter. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Your…friend is still with Susie. You may sit by the door to wait.”
“Can I see her?” The woman’s room had to have dressing screens and settees like his.
“Only husbands are allowed in with their wives, and that’s only if no one else is in there.” A question hung between them. If he claimed her as his wife, he could go in to see her.
“She’s my intended.” He shouldn’t lie if they hadn’t decided on it beforehand. She might make a comment that would prove the falsehood. Clark sat on the loveseat beside the door with the box beside him.
“Cigar?” the shopkeeper asked.
“No, thanks.” He watched men and women stroll by out the window. In that section of the city, steamcoaches rattled by and steamcycles zoomed, rather than the familiar clip-clop of horses. The men wore suits and top hats, the women wide skirts and bustles.
“I wish I could’ve brought you and your mother here.” Eric sighed. “You could’ve attended the best private school. She could’ve worn jewels.”
Clark squeezed his eyes shut. Would he have wanted that life? School had never been for him, but his mother would’ve been breathtaking in a pearl necklace or diamond tiara.
“Clark!” Amethyst whirled out from the curtain separating the woman’s room from the entranceway. A seamstress followed with a dress box and a hat box. “Wait until you see my gown. I was looking at a beautiful green, but your tailor called over that you’d gone with blue. My blue is going to match yours.” He rose as she approached, grabbing his hands and tipping her face upwards, eyes bright. “We’ll be a stunning couple. I hope the photographers are out tonight.”
“Sixty-eight dollars,” the shopkeeper read off the slip the seamstress handed her. “Mr. Grisham, will that be on your tab or cash as well?”
“We can put it on my father’s tab.” Amethyst squeezed Clark’s hands. “I do that all the time in the city.”
“I’ll pay,” Clark interjected. “A gentleman always treats his lady.” Would it be appropriate to kiss her in front of the two women? He pecked her forehead before stepping to the counter, pulling out his bills. “Where would you like to do dinner?”
Amethyst dipped the sponge into the soapy water and slapped it onto Clark’s shoulder, droplets spraying across the porcelain tub. He cringed as a few hit his ear.
“You, madam, are the worst bather I’ve ever met.” He cupped his hand into the warm water and splashed it onto her chest where she stood behind him, once safe and dry on the floorboards. As she yelped, water soaked through her white silk chemise.
“I am certain no one has ever bathed you before.” She scrubbed at his shoulder extra hard. “If you like, I can hire a maid to help out next time.” She leaned forward so that her nipples, taut from the water, poked against his back through her chemise. “If I’m such a bad helper, that is.” Her lower lip stuck out in a pout worked on him—a frown creased his forehead.
“You belong in here with me.” His voice emerged from his throat in a growl that sent the fine hairs rising across her arms. She should have laughed, tossed her braid over her shoulder, and made a remark about being too proud for such a suggestion. The old Amethyst would have done that, and had him crawling to her.
This new Amethyst bit her lip, dropped the sponge into his lap, and lifted the undergarment over her head. As it drifted to the floor, he lunged to his knees and grabbed her around the waist.
“Clark!” She laughed, couldn’t resist, and closed her eyes as he wrestled her into the tub with him. Candles flickered from around the washroom. They’d seemed more romantic than the gas lamps. Somewhere in the house, a clock chimed the hour. They would need to go out, but as she nestled her head beneath his chin, his arms still around her and the water lapping her shoulders, nothing had ever felt more divine.
The clubs could hang. Dinner could hang as well.
“So.” His lips touched her hair. “You were saying no one has ever bathed me before. My mother did when I was a little one, but I’m sure it wasn’t half so fine as you with that sponge. I reckon she never got a drop in my ears.”
The water would cool, the soap would dissipate, and they would still be sitting against the porcelain, only warm from their body heat. Amethyst sighed, opening her eyes. Since when had she become practical?
“I’m glad you’re here to show me how to properly clean,” he continued. “I’d hate to have dirt under my fingernails. It isn’t as if I never freshened up for your mother.”
“I’ll make you into the grandest gentleman.” Amethyst shifted around to kneel beside him.
“Can I suck on your toes instead?” He wiggled his eyebrows, and her stomach sank again as if to make her into wax.
She gulped. “The grandest gentleman in all of Amston.”
He frowned again, with soap bubbles stuck in his wild hair.
“You can’t mean to say you don’t even know the name of your own country.” She smeared the sponge over his chest and lifted his arm to do the curls beneath. “There is more than just the west. Hedlund is just a territory, my dear.” She could have been her uncle with that stern voice.
“I know there’s more. There’s the east, too.” He bit her neck, and the sponge slipped from her fingers to splash them both. “The east brought me you.”
Her toes curled. “I was bathing you, wasn’t I? Yes, I bought the perfect shampoos and oils. You won’t even recognize yourself.”
Amethyst lifted her hair, turned her head, and pursed her lips to study her reflection in the gilded washroom mirror. She could only do so much with her yellow curls on her own—people really couldn’t expect more from her without a handmaiden. The skinny blue ribbon had the perfect amount of innocence as it peaked from within her thin braid. She’d pinned it close to her scalp to let her other curls bounce down her back. It would all have to do.
Amethyst pushed up on her breasts to make the tops appear fuller. She’d worn her hair in that ribbon-braid for the Hallows Eve banquet two, no, three years ago. She’d been an assassin, dressed in a skintight black suit with gold stitching on the corseted bodice, and she’d carried a marbled dagger with her. What fun it had been to hook men through the cravat with the point of her faux blade and drag them close for a kiss!
Clark’s reflection appeared near hers in the mirror and her breath stilled when she tried to inhale. Her stomach clenched, and blood drained from her head.
He looked delicious. His roguish self might make her drool, and rip his clothes off, and nibble across the light fur on his chest, but this Clark, in a suit, like a gentleman…
She turned, her fingernails dragging across the wall. He shifted his stance while running his hands over the front of his jacket.
“I’ve never worn anything this nice.” He laughed, and the sound sent her legs wobbling. “I swear, this is—”
“A dream?” She slid across the floor to cup his face between her hands. If he stroked her, she wouldn’t want to go out. The dressing would have been for naught.
His yellow hair, pulled back in the queue, made his blue eyes seem brighter. The jacket fit his broad shoulders like a hug. She’d never seen a man wear anything that well. Perhaps she’d always longed for someone with muscles, someone who could protect her.
“I was going to say this is a new man, but from how you’re looking at me, I hope I am still me.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “I’m rambling, huh?”
“You’re perfect,” she murmured.
“Dinner and dancing. Not a night club. We’ll do that tomorrow night.” Amethyst straightened his collar and smoothed the lapels on his suit coat. “We need special clothes for that. These are more….” In the light from the street lamps outside the mansion, her cheeks flushed. “I feel regal with you like this. A night club is for booze and flirting.”
“If you say so.” He couldn’t stop smiling. When had he last been this happy? Staying with the Treasures had brought relief and being with Amethyst meant comfort, but the last time he’d been happy had been with Mabel, chasing barrel hoops down the center of the street. Happiness meant forgetting about being tired or hungry or poor; it was living in the moment with a dear friend.
Clark cupped Amethyst’s cheeks and lowered his lips to press against hers. “Lead the way, my lady.”
She slipped her arm through his and headed down the street. Gas lamps glowed along the street atop poles. Steamcoaches soared by, and another couple strolled on the opposite sidewalk with a little boy skipping ahead.
“It would be best if we aren’t Treasures.” Her heels clicked against the cement underfoot. “Father will hear we’re in town and they’ll wonder why we aren’t with dear Donald. He’ll also wonder where we’re staying. You had a good idea not putting the clothes on Father’s tab.”
“I did it because I wanted to buy you something.” He slid one of her curls, coiled atop her head, through his fingers. “I’ve never courted a girl before.” Being with a girl meant camaraderie—a gang member stood up for other gang members—or a quick tumble with a rubber.
“Are we really courting? I can show you how to do it right.”
Leave it to Amethyst to come up with a statement like that. “I’ll learn along the way.”
“But there has to be carriage rides in the park and parties with friends. We have to be seen, so people know we’re together.”
“Or,” he lowered his voice, “I push you against that street lamp, yank up your skirt, and teach you how to muffle a scream.”
Treasure, Darkly (Treasure Chronicles Book 1) Page 19