by Unknown
Finally, her lips smoothed in an easy smile. “Thank you,” she said. “But can we still hire a carriage?”
He nodded with a smile. “As you wish.”
Once tucked safely inside the cubicle, she relaxed, though still had trouble looking him in the eye.
“Well, let’s hear it,” he said, forcing her to meet his gaze.
“Hear what?”
“Your story. I want to know how life has truly been for you living in Boston, and how you ended up at The Museum.”
She chuckled and it sounded nervous. “The carriage ride isn’t long enough for that.”
“Sure it is,” he replied. “I told the driver to take us around Boston Commons.”
“You did?”
He nodded. “So, you’ve plenty of time to tell the tale.”
She played with the end of her braid, refusing to connect eyes with Dalton.
“Don’t tell me you feel awkward around me now?” he teased.
She glanced up abruptly. “Just a little nervous.”
He guffawed. “You feel nervous around me now that I know the truth, but you didn’t feel nervous around me at lunch when you thought I believed your ruse?”
She looked out the window and sighed. “I felt nervous around you then, too. In fact, I’ve always felt a little nervous around you.”
His good humor dissipated. “Why?” he asked, unsettled by the idea. “Have I ever said or done anything to make you uncomfortable?”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just…” her voice drifted out of the open window and faded.
“What?” he prompted.
Her bottom lip folded between her teeth and her gaze dropped to her lap. She covered the red of her cheeks with her palms. When she looked up again, her face was flushed with chagrin, her eyes unsure.
“I have a confession to make,” she said, and he braced himself.
“Go on.”
After a long pause, she took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. “When I lived in Virginia City, I fancied myself in love with you.”
He said nothing, having no words.
“It was nothing more than a child’s fancy,” she went on, “especially given our age difference but it still made me nervous around you. When I saw Juliet, I didn’t know you were in town with her. I wasn’t prepared to see you after so many years. It brought back many feelings and memories.”
Dalton wet his bottom lip and took a deep swallow. What was he supposed to say? He was flattered that she’d held him, a Madam’s son, in high enough regard to fancy. Most people in town, even in the west, distanced themselves from him and his mother, socially. He wished he could return the compliment and say he’d thought the same of her, but he hadn’t. How could he have? She’d been a child, making him incapable of thinking of her romantically.
There was far too much tension leaping up between them in the silence. He decided to lighten the mood with humor by tilting his head, smirking, and drawing out a long, “Awwwwwwwww.”
She batted his knee playfully. “Don’t be wicked! I’ve shared something extremely personal with you.”
He laughed and held his hands out wide. “What am I supposed to say? I’m flattered. I truly am, but no more nervousness between us, all right? We’re friends, aren’t we?”
Her head bobbed up and down and he could see the burden leave her body with a long exhalation. When their eyes met again, a soft smirk tugged on her lips and he felt her gaze roaming over his face. A surge of heat rippled through him, the same as it had the first time she’d acknowledged him with a bow at the play. It was intense. It was undeniable.
“You look so different now,” she said, approval in her tone.
“So do you,” he said, hoping to impart the same sentiment in his. “How did you end up at The Museum?”
She took a deep breath and told him of Eloisa’s invitation. “I was actually terrified to go, but I thought…well…I thought the girls would like me more if I went with them, but they only wanted me as a scapegoat if they got caught. I happened into an audition that night and they took me on as part of the troop.”
“You’re either insane or brave,” Dalton said, suppressing his smile. “Elijah Winthrop won’t take kindly to being made a fool if people discover the truth about your fearless rage against the cause of injustice.”
“Although a part of that is true, I’m afraid the real reason I auditioned is much more selfish.” She stopped fidgeting with her skirt and looked up. “I want to perform. Onstage, I feel like I’m doing what I was always meant to do.” She paused for a laugh. “I know it sounds silly, but I feel like I’m acting more off the stage than on. I feel closer to myself while onstage than I have for the past five years offstage.”
“So, the other day at the restaurant, all that hullabaloo - that was all an act?”
She nodded. “I detest what the Brahmins stand for and would never want to be a part of their society, and I’m not. They make sure I know I don’t belong, but I wanted you and your mother to believe that I did. I know Juliet is going to tell Jess about my life here, and I want her to tell all good things. Jess doesn’t need to know the truth when there’s nothing she can do to change it.”
He frowned. Marlena painted the picture of a woman trapped in a life she didn’t want. Very few people had fortitude to follow their hearts’ truest desires. It must’ve taken a great deal of courage for her to accept the role at The Museum. “Well, I hope you’re not acting now, with me.”
“No.” The word was breathed more than spoken, and Dalton felt drawn to the depth of her gaze. There was more to Marlena than he’d seen on and off stage so far, a depth he had a longing to explore. After a long pause, she cleared her throat and asked him about his life since they’d parted ways. “Do you still live in Virginia City with your mother?”
“No,” he answered. “I don’t really have a place to live, truth be told. I move around a lot and rent rooms wherever I go, or else I sleep out under the stars. I don’t mind the solitude, at least most of the time. It gives me time to read and think.”
“When did you stop working for your mother?”
He pursed his lips. “About four years ago.”
“And…what do you do now?”
He stroked his chin, wondering if she could handle the shock of the truth. “I’m a hired gun.”
The smile faded from her lips as her face filled with disapproval and disgust, but she said nothing. Even in the dim light of the carriage he could see her cheeks flush and the rapid flutter of her eyelashes before she looked away from him again. He sighed, feeling the weight of judgment. There was a reason he didn’t advertise his services, and it was written all over her face.
“I sense an opinion on the tip of your tongue,” he said. “Let’s hear it.”
“It’s none of my business,” she said, short and tight.
“Still, I’d like to hear what you think.”
She snorted. “People don’t really mean it when they say that. Nobody wants to hear what I think.”
“I’m telling you I do.”
Silence fell as she closed her eyes for a deep breath. “Fine, then. I’m appalled by the fact that you kill people for a living.”
“I protect people. If the people trying to harm them are killed in the process, then so be it.”
She sat back against the seat, tall and rigid. “Oh, well please, be so cavalier about it!”
He shrugged. “I’m good at what I do. Not one of my clients has ever been killed. Some call that a perfect record.”
“Shootists are men without morals or scruples of any kind,” she returned tightly. “They kill for the pleasure of it and don’t care one whit whether the person they’re killing is the real criminal or if the person paying them is.”
He studied her for a long moment. Her arms began to shake in spite of the warm night. “You know me better than to believe I’d kill for pleasure. Not all of this venom is directed at me, I presume.”
A wave of guilt
washed over her face, but it was quickly replaced by the stubborn set of her shoulders and slight lift of her chin. “My father was killed by a hired gun, paid for by my sister’s first husband, the same man who abused her and slit her throat, and had more hired guns keep her and me prisoner in his house for three years.” She shook her head with force. “Please tell me you can do better for your life than that, Dalton. For God’s sake, the work you did before was more honorable.”
She’d made a large leap in the wrong direction with her assumptions about him, and he felt his skin bristle in response. “You know, for someone who doesn’t want to be perceived as a Brahmin, you sure make it difficult to tell the difference. Are you always this judgmental?”
She pointed her index finger at him and sniggered. “You asked for my opinion. Besides, if I were a Brahmin, I would have smiled politely to your face and then crucified you behind your back. I can’t believe you would turn to that sort of work.”
He sat forward so their faces were inches apart. “I’m not like your sister’s first husband. And I’m not like the men he hired. I protect the innocent. Believe me, I’ve turned down many offers that would have made me rich but cost my peace of mind. My apologies if that doesn’t live up to your standards of honor, but it’s the only skill I have, and I’m damn good at it.”
A hot breath blew out of his mouth as he sat back against the carriage. He watched her eyes shift back and forth.
“That’s not true,” she declared quietly. “You have other skills. Honorable skills.”
He snorted and her eyebrows drew together severely.
“I’m being serious,” she said. “I still have in my possession a beautifully carved wooden horse.”
What was it with the women in his life? First his mother and now Marlena. Skills that couldn’t put food on the table were worthless. He blasted her with an icy glare. “There’s not much demand in Virginia City for wooden horses.”
She leveled her eyes at him. “Last I read they were building a railroad from California to Nevada for the sole purpose of carting in wood. People build houses and those houses need furnishings. There are all sorts of opportunities for a man who can work wood.”
The initial heat of his anger subsided because he had to admit she was right. He studied her face, not sure which thought intrigued him more. That she’d kept the horse, or that she considered his abilities a skill worth marketing. He fought the urge to laugh at her naiveté. To think he could just set up shop on Main Street and drum up business from the very people who knew him as a ruffian whoreson was laughable. No respectable family would employ him and they’d make damn sure their wives and daughters didn’t associate with him. He knew his place, and it wasn’t as a tradesman, no matter the amount of talent he possessed.
His greatest ease came with a knife and piece of wood in his hands. As a youth, it had helped curtail the rage he’d felt inside, hearing men rut and groan in his mother’s room. He’d chip away at anything organic, with the wood being the most forgiving. By the age of twelve, he’d made his first carving, an eagle in flight purchased by a wealthy man in San Antonio. At fifteen, he was making furniture for his mother. Working wood was his outlet, his escape, and he wasn’t willing to put it out into the world for public scrutiny. He’d been laughed at for many things; not knowing his father’s name; not knowing how to read as a youngster. He wouldn’t be laughed at for his carvings.
He shifted in his seat. “Can we please discuss something else?”
Her shoulders sagged and she glanced around the carriage. “So, where did you garner your love of Shakespeare?”
He chuckled hesitantly. “I’m…a little embarrassed to admit this, but I’d never even heard of Shakespeare until four years ago. Once I discovered him, though, I devoured everything he’d ever written.”
She smiled. “Who turned you onto him?”
“I was on a job trying to find this man who was a pretty nasty cur. He did some horrible things…things too cruel for your ears. Everyone called him Shakespeare. Course I’d expected that was his name, but when I found out he was really Chris Boon, I was all sorts of confused. Then, I found out they called him Shakespeare because he’d leave notes with every one of the people he killed, quoting lines from Shakespeare.”
“What happened to him, in the end?”
Dalton peered out of the window, seeing old memories. “He’s the only one who got away.”
The silence that fell was thick until Marlena kicked him lightly in the shin. He looked askance and she laughed.
“You mimicked the behavior of a murderer with me?” she asked with a twinkle in her eye.
He laughed along. “I thought I owed it to the bard to see his words used for good and not ill.”
They chuckled until the carriage rolled to a stop and he glanced out at her residence before meeting her gaze again. “I’ll see you soon.”
“You will?”
“Of course,” he answered. “You didn’t think this was goodbye, did you? Have you no desire to see more of your cousin before he departs for the west? For he has a desire to see more of you.”
She said nothing, only grinned mischievously. He hopped out of the carriage and held a hand out to assist her. Once her feet touched the ground, he brought her knuckles to his lips, letting them linger over her ungloved skin. The rise and fall of her chest began to quicken.
“Good night, Little Miss.”
“Grrrrrrr,” she growled with a laugh, before scampering off. He waited until she was safely up the tree, studying her limbs as she climbed, remembering their sleek lines in white hosen and her shapely derriere. It brought a smirk to his lips and he made his way back to the inn, all the while wondering what the hell he was getting himself into.
Chapter 8
Marlena attacked her lesson with vigor, but even the intensity couldn’t steal the smile from her face. Each time she remembered seeing Dalton’s shocked expression in the mirror the night before, she wanted to laugh, and she still could not believe she’d been bold enough to admit her childhood infatuation aloud. But what was likely most responsible for her silly grin was his parting words and the promise of meeting again. He hadn’t said when, but she knew he hadn’t much time left in Boston.
Sadness crept through her at the reminder he’d soon be gone, but she refused to yield to it. His presence was a balm on her painful longing for home and she would saturate herself in it as often as he allowed. It ceased to bother her that he’d mistaken her for a loose woman and had sought her out for a brief affair under that assumption. He was an old friend and she wouldn’t bother scrutinizing his behavior, not while she could revel in this brief respite of her nostalgia.
These thoughts and many more tumbled through her brain as she sang the Italian words before her on the music stand. She hit the highest note in her range, suspending it for the full required sixteen beats, imagining Dalton standing across from her, watching her sing. She closed her eyes and let the note trickle back down to an A-sharp before fading delicately away.
Steady applause caused her eyes to fly open, and they grew wider when she saw it came from Sarah.
“Bravo, Marlena,” she said with an excited grin. “I still have gooseflesh.” She rubbed her arms to demonstrate. “Keep singing like that and you will be famous before you know it.”
Marlena released an elated yelp and leapt into Sarah’s arms, laughing as she jumped up and down. Strange how she went from feeling utterly hopeless to feeling like things were finally falling into place.
“All right, all right,” Sarah said, pulling away.
Marlena stepped back and clasped her hands over her chest. “Do you really think I’ll be famous?”
Sarah tapped the air with her finger. “I said if you keep singing like that. Do something correctly once, and it may be a fluke. Do it repeatedly, and it is a skill. I’m quite pleased to see that you took my words to heart. Now, let’s try another aria, shall we, and prove this isn’t a fluke.”
Sarah p
ulled a piece of music and set it on Marlena’s music stand before setting a copy in front of the pianist. As the opening notes danced softly about the room, Marlena took a deep breath, filling her diaphragm. A knock sounded at the door and the music died as the butler entered.
“Begging your pardon, ma’am,” he addressed Sarah Jeanne. “But there is a gentleman in the parlor who wishes to see you and the young lady.”
A whirl of flutters went off in Marlena’s belly as her cheeks twitched around a grin, but Sarah’s eyes turned stormy. Her mouth was pursed into such a fine point that she looked like a woodpecker. The thought almost wrought a chuckle from Marlena, but she remained silent.
“Did he send a card?” she asked.
“No, ma’am.”
“Then, send him away. I will not indulge such insolence. What a presumptuous, ill-mannered fop to intrude without invitation or notice.”
Marlena stepped forward. “If I may?” She glanced nervously between the butler and Sarah. “I believe I know this man. Is he the same gentleman who called a few days ago, Winters?”
“Yes, Miss,” the butler said with a nod and Sarah gasped.
“You received a gentleman caller?”
Marlena held up a stalling hand. “It’s not what you think. He is my cousin, Dalton. He arrived from London and wanted to surprise me. He’s only here for a few weeks before he returns to New Mexico.”
“That does not excuse him from the rules of propriety.”
“He doesn’t know the rules of propriety,” Marlena inserted. “He has lived all of his life in the mountains and fields of the west.” She purposely left out “and brothels” but still took a deep swallow when Sarah scrutinized her. “He’s much like I was when I first arrived here. If not for all of your teachings I’d still be lost in all of the rules. He won’t have time to learn them in a fortnight. I hope your sensibilities will not be too offended by him, but I would love to spend time with him before he departs.”
She peered into Sarah’s eyes, pleading in silence until the woman’s frown relaxed and her shoulders returned to a more natural set.