by Lisa Plumley
“I don’t like the sound of this, either.”
“—and he became convinced that you’d leave Morrow Creek before you’d enacted a successful engagement.” Palmer gave Griffin a direct look. “So he bet against you. Gleefully, in fact. Essentially, I believe his words were, ‘Turner’ll run off lickety-split after Miss Mouton shoots ’im down, too.’” Palmer grinned. “You can imagine for yourself the smug tone.”
“But we were friends!” Griffin protested. “I liked him.”
“Jimmy liked you, too,” his associate told him. “But he also likes money—and with your chowderheaded takeover of The Lorndorff in the works, Jimmy was afraid for his job. He wasn’t sure what would happen. He didn’t think Miss Mouton could persuade you to give up your plans and surrender the hotel—”
“I already have!” Griffin broke in, indignant on her behalf. He couldn’t believe her own friends had so little faith in her ability. “I left a note for Henry Mouton. I signed over the deed to The Lorndorff. It’s his from now on, free and clear.”
Palmer raised his eyebrows. “Well. Jimmy didn’t know that.”
“He didn’t know a lot of things,” Griffin grumbled. “If I had proposed to Miss Mouton—” She would have accepted, he thought, remembering the loving way Olivia had looked at him...and he was instantly thrown back into his current predicament.
He had to get out of town. Now.
Otherwise, he might weaken and go back to her.
“If you had proposed...?” Palmer aped him cheerfully. “Then?”
Griffin stood. “I hope you laid in a heap of cash on the side that wanted me to leave before I proposed,” he said, “because I’m clearing out of here today, one way or the other.”
“Hmm.” Idly, Palmer stared out the window. “How does leaving in an undertaker’s wagon suit you?” he asked.
Griffin made a face. “You’re still soused. You’re not even making sense anymore. This whole imbroglio is probably—”
“No.” His associate pointed out the window. “Look.”
Griffin did look. He saw that Morrow Creek residents had begun assembling near the railway depot. They were drifting en masse toward his train car. “Mmm. They don’t look very happy.”
“They’re not very happy. I think they’re an angry mob.”
Griffin scoffed. But then he took another look. The peculiar tableau before him divided into two fairly distinct sides. One was composed of male Morrow Creek residents. The other was composed—largely, at least—of female Morrow Creek residents. “Is that the suffragist, Mrs. Murphy?” he asked.
Palmer confirmed that he thought it was. “At the lead.”
“But why are they here?” Griffin aimed a baffled look at his friend. “Are they here to make sure I’ve gone? Or to make me stay? I thought the men were betting I was leaving town.”
“They have been. But all the women have been betting you’d stay.” Palmer looked at their accumulated numbers with something akin to admiration. “I’ll wager they’re a sight better than the men at coordinating a joint effort to keep you here—at least long enough for you to propose to Miss Mouton, that is.”
That explained a great deal about Griffin’s difficulty leaving town this morning. Miss Hartford, the railway depot clerk, had likely bet on his staying and proposing. The clerk at the stagecoach office had been a woman, too, he recalled. Only...
“The stableman, Gus, isn’t a woman,” Griffin said, feeling weirdly pleased to have jabbed a hole in Palmer’s cockamamie theory. “Why would he want me to stay in town and propose?”
“He’s fond of Miss Daisy Walsh, who’s staying with the Coopers above the livery stable.” Palmer gave him a disbelieving look. “Owen Cooper won the bride raffle a while ago, and—well, the upshot is, Daisy Walsh wagered for you to stay.” He shook his head. “Don’t you listen to any of the town gossip at all?”
“I’ve been busy.” Distractedly, Griffin peered through the train-car window. He ran his hand through his long hair, feeling uncomfortably exposed. He wished he still had his hat. He’d lost it forever—along with his heart, to Olivia—on the day of the baseball game. “None of those people appear ready to accept defeat,” he told Palmer, absurdly. “I have to do something.”
Palmer agreed with a nod. “Annie told me all about the women’s point of view. Evidently, no one’s more adept than Mrs. Murphy at inspiring the womenfolk on behalf of a good cause.”
Griffin knew that already, given the well-known fable of her contraband baseballs. “My...courtship...of Miss Mouton is not ‘a good cause’!” He could scarcely believe this was happening. He had woefully underestimated both the depth of his feelings for Olivia and his urgency to protect her from himself. He eyed the still-assembling mob. “Someone brought a picnic lunch!”
“And a banjo,” Palmer added, brightening. “Listen.”
Griffin groaned, fully at his wit’s end. Banjo music was playing outside now. Perversely, he would have preferred raucous fiddles. “What kind of town is this anyway?”
“A close-knit one, I reckon.”
“You ‘reckon’?” Griffin exhaled. “Damnation. You’re a lost cause, too.” He gestured outside. “Go ahead. Pick a side.”
“I might. I could probably make a pretty penny.” Blithely, Palmer squinted out the window. He pursed his mouth in thought. “Whatever you do, at least half the town will be happy.”
“No. This is madness!”
His friend shrugged. “I guess that’s love for you.”
His sappy tone did not make Griffin feel better.
Neither did what he said next.
“It could be worse,” Palmer mused aloud. “Miss Mouton could be out there herself, waving greenbacks and taking bets.”
Appalled, Griffin swerved his gaze out the window, suddenly fearful he’d see exactly that. He wasn’t sure he could withstand it. To know that their time together had been a joke to her...
“It wasn’t like that between us!” he yelled. “It was—”
“Yes?” Palmer asked in a silky tone. “Go on....”
Frustrated, Griffin stared him down. “It was special,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh, I understand,” Palmer disagreed calmly. “I understand that you appear to have thanked Miss Mouton for your ‘special’ relationship by giving her father a hotel.”
Griffin frowned. That remark made his generous resolution of the situation sound so...dastardly. In reality, it had been practical. So, mulishly, Griffin refused to comment. Palmer’s gross misunderstanding of the situation didn’t warrant it.
“It seems to me,” Palmer plowed on relentlessly anyway, “that that strategy is something your curmudgeonly former self would have considered sufficient.” He raised his eyebrows. “It’s not, however, a response befitting the man you are today.”
Griffin arrowed him a deadly recalcitrant glance. Olivia had, technically, gotten what she wanted, he knew. She’d won the game she’d set out to play with him by impersonating a chambermaid—by trying to make him relinquish The Lorndorff.
“Bribing someone with a hotel to assuage your guilty conscience is not an action that’s in keeping with the man you are today,” Palmer repeated laboriously, unaffected by Griffin’s ire, “after being with Miss Mouton for all these weeks.”
Bribing? Guilty conscience? Infuriated, Griffin paced.
No one else would have dared speak to him this way. If he knew what was good for him, Palmer Grant wouldn’t have, either.
“I know where I’ve been these past weeks,” Griffin bit out, unwilling to discuss any of this. “And with whom. And I know where I am now—which is facing an angry mob!”
“Well, it will only be half an angry mob, eventually,” Palmer pointed out. “Once you make your decision, that is. An
d evidently, you don’t know where you’ve been these past weeks. Or you haven’t been paying attention during them.” He gave Griffin an exasperated look. “Can you truly not see the changes in yourself?” He raised his arms in vexation. “By now, you should have threatened to wallop me at least three times. You should have fired me once, maligned the reputations of my grandfathers twice and then stormed off to drink some whiskey.”
“I might yet,” Griffin growled. “Wait and see.”
But his associate only laughed. “You are different, Griffin! You are different because of Olivia.” At his casual use of her first name, Palmer softened his tone further. “Don’t let her slip away from you. You will regret it forever if you do.”
Obstinately, aggrievedly, Griffin contemplated that.
“You might have said the same thing of Mary,” he said.
At that, silence fell in the train car. At least it did, as much as was possible between the increasing shouting coming from outside and the banjo music wafting on the breeze.
“I left Mary behind,” Griffin went on roughly. “I left all hope of marriage and happiness behind with her! You didn’t—”
All at once, the truth struck him. Confused, Griffin frowned. “You didn’t say a thing,” he told Palmer. “Why not?”
His friend gave him a wry look. “Mary was not Olivia.”
He didn’t need to say anything more. The truth was too evident. It was too raw, too real...and suddenly, too hopeless.
“I’ve ruined this!” Griffin said. “I can’t fix it now.”
Palmer gave an annoyingly equable look. “Well, you can’t fix it by staying here, that’s for certain.”
“I can’t fix it by leaving, either.” Distraught, Griffin paced faster. He wanted to smash something. To drink to forget. To blame this on Palmer...on anyone. But he didn’t. He truly was changed by Olivia. “Those women outside will blockade me.”
“Maybe,” Palmer agreed, appearing on the verge of chortling. “But I meant you can’t fix this situation by staying here, in your train car. You have to go to her. Now.”
Griffin stopped. “Maybe Olivia wouldn’t have accepted if I’d proposed to her,” he confessed. Maybe part of him had been afraid of that happening all along. “She’s refused everyone else.” Sardonically, he cracked a smile. “Leave it to me to fall for the one woman who’s the hardest to woo. Maybe in the world.”
“You always did enjoy a challenge.”
Argh. What Griffin enjoyed was Olivia—seeing her smile, hearing her debate Descartes’s theories with him, feeling her touch. Somehow, he had to set things right. But first...
“Did you bring any spare hats?” he asked.
Palmer appeared perplexed. “You only ever wear the one.”
“Then you didn’t. Just say so, will you?”
“I didn’t bring any spare hats.”
But he needed a hat to confront this issue, Griffin knew. He needed protection to go to Olivia—to beg her forgiveness and ask her to be his. He might even need a hat to sneak past the waiting crowd. A few of them appeared none too pleased with him.
He wouldn’t be surprised if they broke out pitchforks. He couldn’t believe Palmer was willingly marrying one of them.
“Don’t tell me you’re worried about your...” Palmer broke off, gesturing toward Griffin’s hideous nose. “Now. Are you?”
A little. “For all I know, those townspeople haven’t come to settle their bets at all,” Griffin protested. “For all I know, they’ve come to try to chase away The Boston Beast.”
Palmer’s guffaw didn’t help matters. Then... “No,” his associate assured him in an even tone. “They haven’t.”
Doubly vexed, Griffin shot another speculative glance at the gathered crowd. Each side milled around in talkative clumps. They appeared to be electing representatives now. Most likely, he reasoned, the people of Morrow Creek were preparing to have their irksome wagers settled, for once and for all.
From one side, Grace Murphy stepped forward.
From the other, Olivia Mouton did.
Boggling at her, Griffin felt his heart turn over. His belly performed a somersault, too. He couldn’t tell if Olivia loved him, if she hated him...if she’d merely come to collect on the nonproposal side of the town’s bet. All he knew was that Olivia looked wise and determined and unstoppably desirable.
All he knew was that, for better or worse, he was going to her. “Cross your fingers,” Griffin said, then he headed outside.
Chapter Twenty
Olivia couldn’t believe so many of her friends and neighbors had come to the railway station to witness her possible defeat. Likely, a few of them—the men whose marriage proposals she’d turned down over the years, for instance—were deliberately rooting for a setback for her. Doubtless, they wanted beautiful Olivia Mouton to be refused the only proposal she’d—ironically—ever truly desired. They wanted to see her humbled. They wanted to see her stripped of an advantage that Olivia knew today more than ever was wholly ineffectual.
At least it was when it really counted.
Beauty faded. Remedy bottles grew dusty. They smashed or stopped selling or simply quit convincing enough folks of their efficacy. Someday soon, Olivia knew, that medicine-show man’s Milky White Complexion Beautifier and Youthful Enhancement Tonic would fade from memory. A new elixir would replace it.
Her only hope, now as ever—even when she hadn’t realized it—was to rely on the parts of her that couldn’t be lithographed or sketched or photographed, Olivia knew. Her only hope was to be herself, fully herself...and to take her chances that when things truly mattered, she would be enough. For anything.
Considering that as she stepped forward to the front of the collected crowd, Olivia wished mightily that her wise thoughts came packaged with additional bravery. She also wished that her wise thoughts had the capacity to stop a lady from rethinking her choice of attire and hairstyle for the afternoon. Even now, Olivia gave her upswept hair a tentative pat. She fluffed her skirts, checked her high-buttoned bodice then exhaled deeply.
Nervously, she aimed a hesitant glance at Annie. From her friend, she’d learned of the goofy betting scheme that Jimmy the bellman had hatched. From her friend, she’d learned of the plans the members of the ladies’ auxiliary league had made to waylay Griffin, should he ever try to leave town. Now Annie nodded.
She also gave an audacious “go ahead!” signal, making the women’s side of the betting pool surge forward in anticipation.
Hoping she wouldn’t disappoint their hopes for a proposal, Olivia gathered her courage. She took another step forward.
At the same time, the door to Griffin’s private train car opened. Griffin himself appeared in the doorway. He looked tall and broad shouldered and undeniably grim, and Olivia had the distinct sensation that her heart skipped a beat at the sight of him. He looked so...forbidding, she thought. Also, so alone.
Maybe, it occurred to her, he perversely liked it that way?
The gentlemen’s side of the betting pool appeared to agree with that supposition. As one, they murmured and moved forward.
Keeping ahead of them, Olivia raised her chin. It wouldn’t do to falter now. She’d come here to get her man. That was exactly what she intended to do. No matter how foolish she had to make herself look to do so. Just then, she didn’t care a whit.
Also just then, Griffin descended the train-car steps. His visage did not become any softer. Absurdly, Olivia was reminded of the very first descriptions of Griffin she’d heard from Jimmy and the hotel desk clerk, the day after Griffin had arrived.
I heard he’s the terror of Boston, they’d said, with eyes like the devil and a fancy dark coat that drags along on the ground when he stomps by. About seven feet tall, with a fully loaded gun belt and knives strapped to both legs. Dressed all in black. C
ouldn’t scarcely see his face, ’specially with all that hair.
All those descriptors were still apt. Realizing it, Olivia quailed. Griffin might not have precisely reached seven feet, but it felt as though he did—and all his ability to intimidate was fully evident today. If she managed to successfully stage a public showdown with him, Olivia realized, her old quarrelsome encounter with the medicine-show man would crumble to pieces.
In its place, a new legend would rise—one where Olivia Mouton actually had the gumption to demand a proposal from a man whose approach made fully grown railway men and cowboys blanch.
Behind her, Olivia’s supposed backers on the nonproposal side of the betting pool stopped in their tracks. Not a man among them wanted to antagonize Griffin. She was on her own.
Bravely, Olivia took another step. She squared her shoulders. She watched as Griffin strode toward the crowd.
He might have emerged, it occurred to her, simply to settle their wagers. For all she knew, Griffin had laid bets himself.
Olivia didn’t want to think which side he might have gambled on. If he was really as bad as he’d claimed, he’d have had no compunction about profiting from such a situation—about letting her believe he’d been wooing her for real...when all along he’d actually been scheming to win a devious series of bets.
On the other hand, the fact that Griffin had given The Lorndorff outright to her father was strong evidence of Griffin’s sincerity. Olivia had learned of that surprise from her father. Although everyone in town had seemed duly impressed with her “victory” over the out-of-town industrialist who’d shaken up Morrow Creek with his mysterious arrival, Olivia had been unable to take much pleasure in her supposed triumph.
She’d been too busy trying to formulate what to say when this situation arose—as, inevitably, given her own unstoppable sense of determination, she’d thought it would.
She’d had a whale of a speech prepared, too, Olivia reflected. It had been full of vivid metaphors and passionate analogies and irrefutable logical arguments. It had been touched by emotion and leavened by whimsy. It had been magnificent.