by Rae Summers
They followed the crowd into a side street. The wails of police sirens at the front of the building was louder here. She drew a shaky breath of relief, adrenalin coursing through her and making her blood pump and her head clear. And that was when she remembered Tom. Where was he? Had he got out in time? Or had the police found him?
Surely as the owner of the night club, he could not hope to escape unscathed?
“This way.” Colin tucked her arm through his and they headed away from the club at a brisk pace, towards Fifth Avenue where they melted into the late evening crowd.
Tom had made no move. And she hadn’t needed to make a choice.
#
“Are you mad?” Tom stormed from his office and into the club, slamming the door behind him. But his voice was cold as ice and just as controlled. His staff, busy removing the fake wall panels, ducked away from his wrath, knowing all too well that ice burned far worse than fire.
On the bandstand the musicians paused in packing away their instruments to watch the showdown. Their only remaining audience were the cops who’d crashed the party.
The police captain, seated in one of the booths nursing a bourbon, looked up startled. “But I told you my superiors were getting suspicious and I needed to do a raid this week.”
“Not on a Saturday night! It’s bad for business.” Tom stood over the older man, fists on his hips. “So what do you plan to tell your superiors you found tonight?”
“Nothing. This looks like a completely above-board dance club. We did find a stash of hooch next door, but since the lease is in someone else’s name, we can hardly arrest you for that, can we?”
Tom suppressed a grim smile. Loopholes and graft made the law so easy to break. The fact that the entrance to this club ran beneath the warehouse where he stored his illegal booze made no difference.
“And what do you intend to do with what you found?”
“I have a plan. We’re going to pour a barrel down the drain and take some photographs as proof.” The captain preened at his own brilliance, but Tom was less than impressed.
“It had better be a barrel of water.”
“Of course.”
“I’m still halving your take this month for this stunt.” The captain had the grace to finally look abashed, but it wasn’t enough. Tom’s anger still burned hard and bright, fueled by the fact that the raid had cost him more than money. It had cost him an opportunity. “And you’re paying for that drink. That’s premium malt. Now get your goons out of here.”
After the police had gone, and the staff were done clearing up, Tom sat alone at the bar. Only a single light burned now, but the encroaching shadows were his friends.
Yet another night he couldn’t bear to go home to the smart uptown apartment he’d bought for his bride. He might as well move into the club until the bishop answered his petition.
A groan came from the back of the club, and he jumped to his feet, hand reaching for the holster beneath his jacket. Another groan was followed by a disheveled blonde head, and he relaxed, though he kept his hand on his piece.
“Where is everyone?” she slurred. The blonde whose name he couldn’t remember. Then seeing him, she pulled herself up against a table and draped herself over it in a position he could only assume was intended to be provocative. He rolled his eyes. A few hours ago he’d been willing to take her to bed. Now it was unthinkable.
“Get out,” he growled.
She looked hurt, but one glance at his hand on the holster and she didn’t argue. He hoped Samuel was still around to let her out, because Tom couldn’t be bothered to stir himself for a girl who was well and truly sauced.
He turned his back. The door to the front passage opened and shut in the distance. His hand slid into his jacket pocket, to the talisman he’d taken to keeping there, a reminder of the goodness and purity still in the world. A pair of silk stockings.
He knocked back the last of his drink and stretched, just as Samuel came in through the same door. “That the last of them?” the big man asked.
Tom poured two more tumblers of bourbon and slid one down the bar to his doorman. “God, I hope so. It’s been a long night.”
“Interesting visitor you had earlier. Not just any skirt. She’s high style, that one.” Samuel gulped his drink, ignoring Tom’s cool stare. Nothing fazed the implacable doorman. Which was exactly what made him so valuable.
“That swell o’ hers know you’re carrying a torch for her?”
“He’s not hers. And even if he were...”
And even if he were, it would make no difference. He’d blamed the raid for robbing him of the chance to talk to her, to dance with her, but the truth was, he’d spent the better part of the night hiding in his office. Seeing her again, breathing in her scent, had re-ignited emotions he didn’t want to feel. That kiss...He should never have kissed her. He’d wanted to punish her, but he was the one being punished.
Samuel laughed, winking knowingly. “And even if he were, you wouldn’t give a damn. She know you shackled?”
“She knows.” Tom set his glass down, face grim. “But I don’t plan on being married too much longer.”
Samuel’s eyes widened. “You gonna ice Bee?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Tom’s gaze slid over the empty bar and snagged on a fur stole hanging over the back of one of the booths. He grinned, frustration replaced by fierce joy in a moment. “I need you to find an address for me.”
Chapter Six
The parcel arrived while Jenny was at breakfast. Blessedly, the house was still quiet and she and Lucy were alone in the dining room.
Lucy clapped her hands together in excitement. “Maybe it’s from Colin.”
Jenny only shook her head. “He’s in the middle of the ocean at the moment.”
She untied the string and lifted the lid off the box.
“Isn’t that your stole?” Lucy leaned forward to take a closer look.
Jenny ran her hands through the soft sable. Her fingers found the edge of a card and she quickly replaced the lid on the box before her sister-in-law’s sharp eyes could spot it. “I left it in a restaurant the night Colin took me to dinner. They must have returned it.”
Lucy’s brow furrowed. “How did they know where to return it?”
“Good question.” Her throat closed. “I’ll put it away.”
Alone in her room, she re-opened the box and searched for the card.
Another dare. Friday 10am on the steps of the Public Library.
She traced her fingers over the large, scrawled letters. As gestures went, they didn’t get any bigger than this. He’d reached out across the divide. So what would her decision be?
Strength or weakness?
On Friday, Lucy and her mother planned a trip to Long Island to attend a luncheon. She could feign illness and meet Tom. Besides, how dangerous could a library be?
What was she thinking? She couldn’t slip away to meet a man.
A married man.
Dark spots swirled before her eyes, and she forced herself to breathe.
She thought about Bee. About the bobbed blonde, and all the other women she’d imagined Tom with since their ship had docked. And she didn’t care.
#
The cab dropped her in front of the library at five past ten. Her stomach was so tied in knots she wondered if she’d be sick, though there was nothing in her stomach to throw up. She’d barely managed tea at breakfast. It hadn’t been hard convincing her mother-in-law she was ill.
She paid the cabbie with shaking hands and turned to scan the steps leading up to the pillared portico. Bright sunlight blinded her and she had to shield her eyes against the glare.
What if he hadn’t come? What if she’d made a terrible fool of herself coming to meet a lover who wasn’t even here?
Because she wasn’t going to deny that he was anything else. She was done with lying, at least to herself.
There he was. Striding down the steps towards her, hat at a jaunty angle over his
eyes, and hands in his pockets, his gait easy and graceful as ever. He stopped before her.
“Good morning.”
He did that head-to-toe scan she was becoming familiar with, taking in everything from her cloche hat to her flushed cheeks, down her frilly and feminine dress of peach chiffon over satin to her ivory silk boudoir shoes. No matter how many times he’d looked at her that way, she still wasn’t accustomed to the resulting prickle across her skin.
“Hello,” she said, suddenly shy.
He grinned and held out his arm. “Your carriage awaits, m’lady.”
“We’re not staying here?” She cast a longing glance at the edifice looming over them, and the safety it offered.
He laughed. “No, that was only in case you needed an alibi.”
Thoughtful, or careful? She wasn’t sure which.
“I can’t go with you,” she said.
“Because I’m not good enough for you?”
“Of course not! I’m not such a snob.”
“Because of what I do, then?”
She shook her head slowly. “Even that I could live with.” She glanced down at his left hand, where he no longer wore his ring.
His gaze followed hers and he shrugged, careless. “We’re just two friends hanging out together. No big deal.”
Maybe not for him, but she couldn’t be just friends with this man. Not with the things she’d imagined. Her face heated.
“How about if I promise not to kiss you?”
She was sure her blush deepened.
He laid a hand over his heart. “I’m a man of my word. Don’t you trust me?”
She couldn’t help but laugh at his theatrics. “I trust you.” It was herself she didn’t trust. “Just friends?”
Tom nodded, triumphant, and led her to a sedan pulled up at the curb with its engine running, a sport tourer with dual panels of black and powder blue. When he opened the rear door, she hesitated only a fraction of a moment before climbing in. The presence of the chauffeur up front allayed a little of her apprehension, but she found it hard to settle back onto the leather upholstery with any comfort.
This shouldn’t be any more daunting than being trapped in a lift with him. The difference was the tension now humming between them, a tension that seemed to start in the apex of her thighs. She crossed her legs, not caring that the skirt of her dress rode up to reveal her knees.
“Pretty dress,” he remarked as he slid onto the seat beside her and shut them in.
“I decided I was done with mourning clothes.”
“Mourning isn’t the only thing you’ve left behind today, is it?” His grin was the closest to a smirk she’d ever seen. He was right. She’d left a few things behind today, common sense included. She hoped it returned soon.
“So where are we going?” She leaned back on the leather, feigning nonchalance as the automobile jolted over the rutted road. The ride wasn’t any smoother than the wagons of her youth, but it was a great deal noisier.
“Coney Island. I have a little business there.”
She’d heard of the pleasure park. Lucy had begged to go, but Mrs. March had steadfastly refused. The Nickel Empire, she’d called it, filled with riff-raff since the subway opened and enabled every New Yorker with a nickel to get there.
But what business would the owner of a high-class nightclub have in a place like that?
She looked out the sedan window, taking in the sights and sounds of parts of this teeming city she hadn’t yet encountered.
Noisy and filthy, Tom had once told her of New York. He’d been right. He’d been right too about the excitement. And opportunity...
She was fast discovering that young women in America had a great deal more freedom than women back home. They smoked and drank, drove cars, and danced all night in clubs and speakeasies with their boyfriends. As a respectable widow she hadn’t needed a chaperone back home, but this freedom was heady. She could definitely get used to this new life.
She smiled.
“What are you thinking?” Tom asked.
“I’m thinking I might like living in New York after all.”
“What does your young officer think about that?”
“He’s not mine.” She bit her lip. “He asked me to marry him that night in your club.”
She wondered if the tightening of his jaw was just her imagination, but then Tom smiled, smooth as ever. “And did you accept?”
“Of course not. I told you I don’t want to marry again.”
“You say that with less conviction than when I first met you.”
She considered his words. He might be right. Perhaps here in America, where vice had become a national pastime, her own vices no longer seemed so bad. “Ask me again in a few months.”
He smiled. “I might.”
She eyed him speculatively, and he met her gaze head on, a spark of mischief flaring in his eyes.
Jenny got nothing more than a glimpse of the attractions of Coney Island before the driver turned into a narrow alley behind a row of rundown buildings. “The back end of the Bowery,” Tom said. “You’re welcome to wait in the car until my business is done.”
She glanced at the deserted alley, took in the litter piled up against the walls and the stink of urine in the air. “I’ll come with you.” She felt safer with Tom beside her.
He held the automobile door open for her to step down, while the chauffeur stationed himself beside a nondescript door in the nondescript brick wall.
“In here.” Tom knocked an intricate pattern on the door. It opened, and they stepped inside.
As the door closed behind them and her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she saw they were inside a shuttered store that had clearly been a draper’s shop once upon a time. Now it was more of a storeroom, with crates and barrels all over the dusty floor. In the center of the room, two men in shirtsleeves played dice at a table. The third man, the one who’d let them in, remained on guard at the door. Jenny’s stomach fluttered in genuine trepidation.
“What do you have for me today?” Tom asked, pushing his hat back. He looked as cool and collected as if he were in his own club.
The dice players rose, almost bowing to Tom in an effort to please. “It’s a good haul, sir. A fresh shipment made it onto the New Jersey beach a few days ago. Beer from Mexico and rum from Cuba.”
“I’ll need a sample before I buy,” Tom said.
The taller man handed a pair of coffee mugs to Tom and poured samples. Tom tasted the beer first, then handed the mug to Jenny. She took a cautious sip. “It’s not as good as British ale,” she said, and Tom rewarded her with a wink.
Then they sampled the rum. She’d never tasted rum before, and she choked as it burned a fiery path down her throat. Her eyes watered.
“Good, isn’t it?” Tom grinned as he handed her the scarlet handkerchief from his top pocket.
Then the haggling began in earnest.
Once the deal was struck, Tom counted out cash from his attaché case. She’d never seen so much cash before, and from the glazed looks in the other men’s eyes, she was sure they hadn’t either. She’d bet her favorite pearl brooch they wished they’d bargained harder now.
She’d also have bet a whole lot more they wouldn’t have gotten a cent more than Tom was willing to pay. The man who’d charmed her on board the transatlantic voyage was gone. This Tom reminded her of the man she’d first met in the lift, hard-eyed and just a little terrifying. He was a tough negotiator, giving no quarter, but he didn’t frighten her. At least not in that way. She was way more afraid of herself when she was around him.
Returning to the alley, she and Tom watched as the men loaded unmarked boxes of beer into a hidden compartment in the floor of Tom’s automobile and stowed the rum, neatly labeled as root beer, beneath the leather-upholstered seats.
Once the vehicle was loaded, and his business associates had ducked back into the deserted store with their money, Tom turned to his chauffeur. “See it gets home safe. You can return to pick u
s up outside Feltman’s at three.”
Then they were alone in the alley.
“What would you like to do first?” Tom asked, linking his arm through hers and drawing her in to his side.
In spite of the unpleasant aromas all around, there was one overriding thing she wanted to do. “Eat,” she said. “I’m starved.”
Tom laughed.
They walked around the block to the Bowery, a wide, congested passage lined with penny arcades, game booths, arcades, and food stands. The aromas wafting here were a great deal more tempting.
“It’s still quiet, but it’ll get busier as the day goes on,” Tom said.
She couldn’t imagine it any busier than it was now. The crowds were already dense, the sounds deafening as barkers competed for the attention of passersby and the tinny sound of a nearby mechanical piano blared.
She’d never seen anything like it. Robert had taken her to Brighton once, and they’d walked on the shorefront and eaten candied apples and been on the rides, but that had been staid compared to this. The air in the Bowery, seedy as the place was compared with the New York she’d been exposed to before now, carried an electric excitement that thrilled.
Tom bought hot dogs, and they ate them as they wandered, looking at the shop windows and the amusements on offer. When she was done, licking her lips in satisfaction, he leaned in to dab the mustard from her chin with his handkerchief.
She lifted her gaze to meet his.
“You have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen,” he said, his voice low and reverent, sending a trill of pleasure down her spine. “And your hair...” He tangled a stray lock of her hair between his fingers.
She slid the scarlet silk handkerchief from his hand and pulled infinitesimally away as she wiped her chin. “I can do that for myself.”
“Yeah, but it wouldn’t be half the fun.”
“Are you flirting with me?” Not that she really needed to ask. After several weeks in America she was growing adept at reading the signs. Americans not only drank more than the English, they flirted more, too.