by Susan Wiggs
His bald statement shook her. “I understand now,” she quietly confessed. “I did a terrible thing, pretending to be an heiress at that cursed party. You are part of my punishment.”
He ran a splayed hand through his hair. “Look, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. Can we just please—Can we try to get through this thing with Costello? When it’s over, we’ll go our separate ways. It’ll be like none of this ever happened.”
She stared at him for a long time. In the amber lamplight, his wavy, glossy hair, his eyes of the purest blue, his face so elegant and fine masked his true character. What an idiot she had been to equate physical perfection with goodness. There was more good in plain, dull Barry Lynch’s left elbow than there was in all six well-built feet of Dylan Kennedy.
“How did you get to be so cold?” she asked, genuinely intrigued. “Do you have no heart at all, or did someone steal yours, too, long ago?”
He made a hissing sound as if she had burned him, and just for a moment, anger blazed undisguised in his eyes. “What the hell sort of question is that?”
“It was two questions. And I’m still waiting for an answer.”
“I don’t have to explain anything to you.”
“No, you don’t.” Intrigued by this chink in his smooth, confident armor, she leaned back on the chaise. “You’re too cowardly.”
“My earliest memory,” he said after a long silence, “is of being in a train station. I was only a little kid at the time. My mother dumped me like a stray cat in a drowning bag.”
Kathleen felt a lurch of queasiness. She pictured him as a little boy. He would have been beautiful then, as well, with that coloring and those eyes. “Ah, Dylan, I can’t imagine how you must have felt.”
“I started fooling around, walking on the backs of the benches in the waiting room, jumping up and down the stairs to pass the time. No one cared what I did so long as I stayed out of their way. There was a fellow with a mouth organ and a little dancing dog. I watched him for a while.” He stood up and paced, raking his hand through his hair.
Kathleen cursed her own quick temper. She had bullied him into dredging up these memories, not realizing the pain that came with them. She wanted to tell him to stop, yet at the same time felt compelled to share his heartbreak.
“Folks would toss him a penny as they passed by,” he continued, “and I asked him why they did that. He said people liked things they didn’t see every day, like a dancing dog. So I decided to show them something they didn’t see every day.”
She leaned forward, her heart in her throat. “What did you do?”
“I climbed a steel pole and walked along a beam that stretched across all the platforms. Folks threw pennies to me after that. Turned out I had a talent for doing tricks, dangerous stuff. The sort of thing you’re not supposed to let a kid do. But there was no one around to stop me.” With his jaw clenched hard, he stared into a distance she could not see. She felt the pain of that child with no mam to scold him and keep him out of danger. He rubbed his hand on his cheeks as if to loosen the tension in his jaw. “I saved up those pennies, got a little more sophisticated with my act and bought a suit of clothes like I’d seen on a rich boy at the train station. That’s when I started pretending.”
“Pretending what?”
“Whatever I thought folks needed to see or hear. I was on my way to Boston and I’d lost my ticket. I claimed I’d been pickpocketed and needed shelter for the night. People believed whatever I told them. I figured out that if you play your part well enough, people will believe what they want to believe.” He hesitated and then said in a flat, harsh voice, “I don’t remember my name.”
“Oh, Dylan—”
Before she knew what was happening, he pulled her against him and put his face very close to hers so that she could feel the warmth of his breath. “Don’t,” she said, but he ignored her. He kissed her lightly, briefly, a subtle reminder of the sort of kisses that had made her burn with pleasure.
“I don’t have the first idea what love is, Kathleen,” he said. “At least I’m honest about that. But I do know there was nothing false about the things we did when we first came to this train car. What we felt was genuine. It’s the finest sort of pleasure, Kathleen, and I’ve missed it.”
She struggled in his embrace and tried to resist her own foolish desire. “Well, you’ll have to keep on missing it. I’m sorry for your troubles, Dylan, or whatever your name is. I’m sorry you had to come up through the world the way you did, with no family, no one to love you and guide you. But I do have a family, and they taught me what love is, and I’ll settle for no less for myself.”
He wouldn’t release her, but made a trail of little nibbling kisses from her ear to her collarbone, pausing at the side of her neck to suck at the delicate skin there until she gasped. “I can’t love you,” he said simply. “I don’t know how. But I can make you feel things beyond your wildest dreams, Kathleen. You know damned well I can. Because you do the same to me.”
She wasn’t certain why she stopped protesting. It was as if that part of her common sense flew out the window, leaving nothing but weak, wanting flesh in its place. And in spite of everything, she did want him, and all the things he made her feel, even if she knew in her heart that the shallow, superficial passion was as fleeting as a warm day in autumn.
He undressed her slowly. She had a hundred chances to protest, but she wanted this. Wanted the closeness, the intimacy. The illusion of love. When he carried her to the sleeping berth and sank into her, she cried out in mindless joy.
There was a fierce urgency to his lovemaking, which added to the illusion that he adored and valued her. He was a master of pretense, and like the weakest of gulls, she found herself believing in the tenderness of his caresses, the depth of his kisses, the mindless endearments he whispered in her ear as he gave all his passion to her.
Neither of them spoke afterward, nor made a move to put out the lamp before it sputtered and died on its own, its fuel burned away to nothing. Kathleen lay in the circle of his arms, listening to the steady beat of his pulse. In a small, shadowy corner of her heart, she admitted that his story had moved her. She could do nothing about the lost little boy, abandoned in a train station. But she could hold and touch the man he had become, and hope that some strange magic could reach across the years, take that lost boy by the hand and bring him to a better place.
* * *
“You look perfect,” Dylan said the next morning. “Absolutely perfect.”
Standing on a hastily built walkway near the Board of Trade, Kathleen barely acknowledged his words. They were not a compliment. She had a role to play, and impersonating the perfect tycoon’s mistress was part of her act.
“You remember what to say?” she asked.
“We’ve only gone over it a hundred times. Why are you so nervous?” he inquired.
“I’m not like you, Dylan. I have not spent my life fooling people.”
He looked at her for a long moment. “No. You’ve spent your life fooling yourself.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I was just remembering what you were nattering away about last night. I’m damned glad you got that out of your system.”
“Got what out of my system?”
“All that nonsense about love.”
THE BIG TOUCH
Doubtless the pleasure is as great Of being cheated as to cheat.
Samuel Butler
SEVENTEEN
9:00 a.m.
Though the slapdash quarters of the Chicago Board of Trade were temporary, the traders observed protocol, opening the day’s business with the usual humble plea to God, followed by a frenzy of capitalistic greed. Runners in red caps and jackets circulated through the trading pits, bringing messages from the floor to the posters stationed at large slate boards. Prices were posted in chalk and changed as they rose and fell. Floor traders observed them keenly and made their trades
accordingly.
Dylan entered the hive of activity with Kathleen. It was unorthodox for a woman to be present at the Board of Trade, but the occasional female observer would raise only a few eyebrows. After the upheaval of the fire, anything was possible.
“I’ve always wondered what this would be like,” she whispered.
“I suppose you’re about to find out. This had better work,” he said between his teeth. “It was a hell of a lot of trouble to set up.”
She cut a glance at him. “You should love this, Dylan. It’s full of risk and dishonesty. Your specialties.”
“If that’s supposed to insult me, you’ve missed your mark,” he said, taking her elbow and guiding her along the aisle. But in a dark, private part of his heart, he felt a sinking disappointment. She knew him better than anyone ever had, and that was her opinion of him. Since they’d awakened that morning she had hardly spoken to him. She refused to speak of their lovemaking and refused to repeat the episode. She considered herself no better than the women he manipulated in order to get his way. He supposed he could explain to her what he had done in order to borrow the horses. It wasn’t what she thought. For once, nothing had happened, and the irony was, Kathleen wouldn’t believe him. He’d only given Mrs. Sacks a few compliments and kisses—in gentlemanly fashion, on the hand. He couldn’t help it if the old bag used perfume as if it were rainwater and she was a thirsting crop. He couldn’t help it if Kathleen believed the worst when she’d smelled that flowery essence on him.
Some lives might be just fine after you’ve blown through them. Others will burn away to nothing.
Which are you, Kathleen? Will you be fine once I’m gone? He didn’t ask it aloud because he was one to abide by his own rule. He never asked a question unless he wanted to know the answer.
She lowered the brim of her bonnet over her brow, probably hoping to appear unobtrusive. But with her blazing-red hair and trim figure, that was unlikely. “Let’s go get the trading chits.”
“And then what?”
“Then you go down to the pit and wait.”
“Wait for the price to rise.”
“That’s correct. Then you sell.”
“Sounds simple enough.”
“Just don’t sell too soon. Wait until you see me signal. I’ll be in the gallery there.” She indicated a set of raised wooden bleachers already crowded with farmers and money men, and a few women.
“What will the signal be?”
She laughed, though her mirth had a bitter edge. “Don’t you know? I shall drop a hankie like a lady to her champion.”
“And how will you know the perfect time to sell?”
“You’ll just have to trust me.”
After they checked in, he clutched the fistful of trading chits in one hand. With the other he caught her against him, gratified by her surprised gasp, a tantalizing echo of a sound she sometimes made while making love. Before she could get mad, he planted a firm resounding kiss on her mouth. They drew disapproving glares from black-clad businessmen bustling past. Dylan didn’t care as he grinned down at her. “For luck,” he said.
9:40 a.m.
Vincent Costello arrived before the trading began. Shadowed as he often was these days by a nervous, disapproving Barry Lynch, he stopped at the contracts bureau to register. Barry shot a glance at Kathleen, and Dylan held his breath. She had persuaded the clerk to keep mum about the stolen money, assuring him that it would be repaid after today.
Dylan could feel Kathleen’s eyes on him, beaming across from the observation gallery. She was a born worrier, that one. She believed that if Costello realized Dylan had come to trade, the swindler would know something was up.
She didn’t understand—he wanted Costello to see him. Vince was competitive. Dylan’s presence would only make him more aggressive in his transactions. The only secret was that Dylan had come not to buy, but to sell. He turned to Kathleen and gave her a wink. Up in the gallery, amid men clad in black suits or denim trousers, she stood out like a flower, and as it often did, his heart caught at the sight of her.
He couldn’t figure out why she meant so much to him. It wasn’t just that she was pretty—though she was—because he had been with pretty women before. Yet there was something especially affecting about Kathleen. It wasn’t just her slender figure, her red hair, her large clear eyes or the way she smiled. Maybe it was the way she had listened to him speak of the past and the way she wept for the lost boy he had once been. Time and again he willed his heart to free itself from her spell, but he couldn’t. Damn the woman. She captivated him, made him want to be with her every day and night without end.
Which was a pity. Because in a very short while he was going to leave her.
Standing at the rail and looking down at him, she had the aspect of an angel, and he knew he was not mistaken. Oh, he had teased and derided her about pretending to be an heiress. He’d tried to convince her that she was as larcenous as he. But he knew it wasn’t so. Kathleen O’Leary had a deep core of goodness. She loved her family. She worked hard. She knew what was important in her life.
Dylan pressed his fingers to his mouth and threw her a kiss. She tried to look disapproving, but instead, a delighted smile played about her mouth. It would be hard to leave this woman. But he would, of course. He simply did not know how to stay.
Besides, he told himself as Costello made his way across the floor, staying in one place was not the paradise it was cracked up to be. He knew that. Within a short time, he and Kathleen would be bickering like children about whether or not she should buy a certain frock or if he should go to a card game on a Sunday or who stole the covers from whom on a cold winter night.
But the trouble was, he liked bickering with her.
Determined not to dwell on it, he went down to the pits.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Costello demanded, thrusting his bulk in Dylan’s path.
Dylan gave no indication of his purpose as he greeted his nemesis with a congenial grin. “You know me, Vince. I’m a gambler at heart.” For good measure, he tucked a thumb inside his frock coat where he held his sell orders. A knot of traders scurried past, jostling him. He didn’t know anyone but Vince here. If they were all like Costello, they were all thieves.
“How’d you get a seat on the Board of Trade?” Costello demanded.
“How did you come up with the cash? You must feel so blessed,” Dylan shot back.
“I—”
A long, shrill bell sounded.
Dylan’s grin widened. “You’ll have to excuse me, Vince. I’ve got orders.”
He knew he’d said the right thing when Costello broke away and pushed into the midst of the traders and runners. Dylan paused to catch Kathleen’s eye one more time. And this time she amazed him. This time she threw out the kiss.
10:05 a.m.
Kathleen barely glanced at Father Michael as he pushed his way through the rickety bleachers toward her. She was too riveted by the wild spectacle below to do more than give him a brief nod of greeting.
“It’s begun, then,” the priest said, peering down at the frenetic traders.
She shifted nervously, pressed by the farmer from Peoria who stood next to her. He smelled of hayseed and pipe tobacco, and he’d tried to get friendly with her but she had quickly rebuffed him. She did not want to be distracted. Even if her entire future was not riding on the outcome of the trading today, she would have found the activity fascinating.
Father Michael nudged her. “Does Dylan have the right papers, then?”
“He does, Father.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “There’s an entire bargeload of grain on its way, and no one knows about it.”
“But he’s not selling,” the priest objected. “He’s just standing there while everyone else is buying like mad.”
“He is waiting for my signal.” She showed him the handkerchief wadded in her hand. “When I drop this he’ll start selling. I’m waiting for Bull to deliver the telegram with the correct pri
ce discovery.”
“The calculation that there will be an abundant harvest.”
“That’s correct.”
Redcaps and recorders hurried and pushed back and forth across the floor. Relay men shouted price changes from one to another. The activity reminded Kathleen of a bucket brigade. Only instead of water, they were passing along price information.
“Heaven above,” Father Michael said. “Look what’s happening to the price of wheat.”
Kathleen studied the boards in awe. Thanks to Costello’s aggressive buying, the price rose steeply and showed no sign of slowing down. Convinced that Costello was on to something, others joined in the bidding frenzy. The price rose at an accelerated rate, and the beating of her heart did likewise. No one noticed that Dylan had not actually bid yet.
“They’re going too high,” the priest said. “Surely a bushel of wheat isn’t worth what they’re paying.”
“It always happens this way. When a trader sees someone trying to corner the market, he assumes the reason is that there’s big money to be made, so he gets in on it.”
“So now they’re all bidding for the grain.”
“That’s what is making the price go up.”
A recorder frantically wiped and rewrote the price several more times. Kathleen forgot to breathe. She hadn’t been so nervous since those knives had come whizzing at her from Dylan’s hand.
When? she asked herself. When to sell?
Now she understood the thinking of experienced traders. They kept pushing for another quarter-cent, another half…
Father Michael touched her sleeve. “Perhaps you should drop that handkerchief now, my girl. I can’t imagine the price going any hi—”
The recorder raised the price per bushel again.
Father Michael cleared his throat. “Maybe I had just better—”
“Yes,” she said, watching Costello gather in chits at a frantic pace.
“—pray,” he concluded.
“It’s what you’re best at, Father.”
Then Dylan shot her a look. Urgency and exasperation sharpened his features. He, too, was getting unnerved by the pace of the trading. She glared back at him. As an experienced showman and swindler he ought to understand the importance of timing.