Perhaps it was time to tell her how he felt about women in general. Set her straight.
“Eleanor, I don’t like intelligent women.”
She released a sputtering laugh. “And that’s supposed to affect me, how?”
He ignored the comment. “Intelligence is a useless quality in females. Wasted on them. It makes them almost equals, and that’s a totally foreign concept to me.” After all, he had yet to find a woman worthy in that respect.
She stared at him, incredulous. “Why am I not surprised?”
He shrugged. “It’s what I believe.”
“And you find me intelligent?” she asked with feigned surprise and exaggerated pleasure.
God, but she was an annoying woman. “It’s not a compliment.”
“Oh, but it is to me.” Her eyes filled with a laughter that irked him.
“You would be just the kind of woman who would think so,” he answered.
“And what kind of woman would that be?” she volleyed.
She was beyond annoying. And totally unfeminine. Any other woman who had stood before him, covered with soot from head to toe, would have dashed away, embarrassed to be seen. “A woman who would not know when she’s being rebuked.”
Eleanor broadened her stance and crossed her arms over her chest. “For a man who seems reasonably intelligent, despite your many obvious flaws, you are clearly the most antiquated male on the face of the earth.”
He cleared his throat, sensing he’d been outdone. This was a prime example of why intelligent women frustrated the hell out of him.
When they spoke derisively, they seemed to think they made perfect sense, but half the time he didn’t understand what they were saying, and the other half of the time that derision was always aimed at him, and he didn’t feel he deserved it.
They were a puzzle wrapped inside an enigma, and he had neither the time nor the inclination to decode them or discover what went on in their heads.
He returned to the subject at hand. “Now, about Victor. I suppose you will natter at me until you get some answers?”
She gave him a cool smile. “I suppose I shall have to, in my utterly inferior feminine way,” she added, her voice dripping with disdain.
He eyed her. “Sarcasm is another quality I do not find attractive.”
To his surprise, she threw back her head and laughed. “Mr. Templeton,” she began, still smiling, “it is not, nor has it ever been, my intention to make myself attractive for you.”
Dante frowned. God, but this woman could drive him crazy. Why didn’t she react like a normal woman? Why didn’t she beg him to tell her how she could please him? Why didn’t she mewl and fawn like all the other women he knew? No woman had ever rejected him. For God’s sake, even the nuns bowed and scraped before him. Well, with the exception of Sister Mary Francis, of course.
With a quiet curse, he dug into his pocket for his handkerchief and handed it to her. “Here. After you have cleaned up, meet me in the office.”
She brushed his handkerchief aside. “I will go there with you now, otherwise you will undoubtedly disappear like a wisp of smoke before I return.”
He stifled an exasperated sigh, then followed her toward the office.
A half hour later, they were heading back toward the front door.
“Thank you for filling me in on Victor’s background. I suppose it answers some of my questions,” she finished crisply. Her skirt swished about her ankles as she walked and the heels of her shoes clicked lightly on the hardwood floor. It was a sound that brought Dante pleasure, and he resented her for it.
“It’s hard for youngsters to trust adults when they have disappointed them in the past. Coming from wealth and privilege, Victor had learned that more often than not, his parents’ promises meant nothing. They were a couple who should never have had a child at all.”
She nibbled daintily on her full bottom lip as she listened to him. He envisioned her nibbling on his earlobe, and he nearly cursed aloud. Why had he thought such a thing? Even at her best, the woman wasn’t terribly attractive, and now she still looked like she’d been rolling around in the fireplace.
“What do you mean?”
He fought the urge to snap at her as they continued to walk toward the door. “What isn’t in that report is the fact that Maris and Quentin Squire, Victor’s parents, were so totally devoted to each other, they felt a child would only be a nuisance in their lives. Victor suffered for it.”
Eleanor smiled briefly and glanced away, but not before Dante saw the vulnerable look in her big, intelligent brown eyes.
“Isn’t it ironic,” she mused, “that those who don’t want children have no trouble conceiving them, while some who would give their own lives for a child cannot seem to manage it?”
It was a rhetorical question, he knew, but he also remembered Sister Mary Frank telling him that Eleanor had lost a child. He felt a wave of sympathy for her, and that upset him because he wanted to fuel his hatred. But he could not.
“Still,” she continued, “that doesn’t entitle him to bully other children.”
“It’s the only way he can cope with his life, as he now sees it.”
“To tease, badger, and intimidate others?” she answered, her voice prickly.
“Yes.” His answer was sharper than he intended.
They walked out of the orphanage into the sunlight and she turned toward him. “I don’t find that an option.”
The sunlight caught a tendril of her hair, and it glinted with a fire of gold. God, but he wondered what all that magnificence would look like ribboned across a pillow. His pillow? Good God, no. He nearly choked on the thought. If, somehow, he ever got this woman into his bed, she would undoubtedly cut off his balls and stuff them down his throat.
He suddenly realized she had spoken to him. “What?”
“I said,” she began with a bite of impatience, “he must learn to cope with the world as it is, don’t you think?”
He just wanted to get away from her. Even soot-covered and ill-tempered, she wreaked havoc on his senses. “Do you never tire of asking questions, madam?”
She put her fists on her hips, accentuating her full bosom. “I wouldn’t have to repeat them if you would answer them,” she retorted.
“And I have answered them to my satisfaction.”
“But you have not answered them to mine,” she retorted.
“That is your problem, then, isn’t it?” He gave her a quick nod, and hurried down the steps, grateful to get away from her.
He strode around to the back of the building and saw Victor waiting for him. Dante had promised to help him chop and pile wood for the fireplaces.
Victor stood, a beaming smile on his face. He almost appeared angelic, with his curly white-blond hair and the deep dimples that dented each rosy cheek.
Dante returned the smile and rolled up his sleeves. “I hear you had a little run-in with Mrs. Rayburn.”
Victor’s smile disappeared. “Who told you that?”
Dante lifted an eyebrow. “I met her in the hallway before she had a chance to clean up.”
Victor frowned and hunched his shoulders. “No doubt she said it was my fault.”
“Wasn’t it?” Dante waited to hear the boy’s excuse.
Myriad emotions darted over Victor’s face. “I s’pose it won’t do any good to lie,” he mumbled.
“It never does,” Dante answered.
Victor sat down hard on a stump and studied the ground. “I don’t know why I did it. She’s just so…so crabby-looking sometimes, I just can’t help it.”
Dante bit the insides of his cheeks. Yes, he thought, she was often that. “And what caused you to spread molasses on the piano stool?”
Victor’s frown deepened. “She scolded me for talking.”
“What about the time you put water under the piano stool?”
Victor kicked at a stone, sending it flying. “We were singing a stupid song.”
Dante studied the boy, fe
eling a sympathy no one else would understand. “She called you a delinquent.”
“What’s that?” Victor asked, his gaze returning to Dante.
“It’s someone who does not exhibit acceptable behavior,” Dante explained.
Victor’s eyes welled with tears, and he swiped at them with an angry hand. “I don’t know why I do bad things. It’s just that…sometimes I feel like I’m going to fly to pieces if I don’t scream, and since I can’t scream, I guess maybe I take it out on everyone else.”
“Who are you mad at, Victor?” Dante kept his voice quiet. Calm.
Victor answered him with a sullen shrug. “I’m not mad.”
Dante took a chance. “Are you angry at your parents?”
“I’m not mad!” the boy all but screamed.
Dante released a sigh. “You’re angry about something, Victor.”
The boy’s head came up with a jerk, and he glared at Dante, his eyes angry. “Well, it’s not Mama and Papa. They never hurt me.”
But they constantly ignored you, Dante thought. “No, but they died,” he murmured quietly.
Victor’s shoulders shook briefly. “They didn’t die on purpose.”
“But they left you alone, didn’t they? You had to come here, and for that, you can’t forgive them, can you?”
Victor looked up, his face streaked with tears. “Why did they have to die? Why?”
Dante took him into his arms and let the boy sob. Unlike Victor, he had no memory of a mother or a father, but when he learned he and Damien were orphans, children unwanted by either parent, his own rage had been as strong.
“I don’t know,” he answered with honesty. But at that moment he felt a bond with the boy that was so powerful, he knew he had to do something about it.
Eleanor watched him leave, frustrated and angry that he had no plans to alter Victor’s behavior. The man was still insidious and rude. Perhaps that was why he couldn’t see how damaging Victor’s attitude and actions were—because Victor was a mirror image of himself.
She returned inside and cleaned herself up, washing her face and smoothing back her hair. Perhaps as Victor grew older, he would learn that his own personal history was not an excuse for bad behavior. She was judging him harshly, and it wasn’t fair. He was just a sad, lonely, frustrated little boy.
Oh, how she hated it when the arrogant Dante Templeton was right.
The clock in the corridor struck four, and she hurried to gather up her things. Not that she was anxious to get home, quite the opposite. It was just that now she would have to do the chores Willa had expected her to get done this morning.
As she made her way to the exit again, Sister Mary Francis stopped her.
“Come into my office, Eleanor. I have something important to tell you.”
A few minutes later, Eleanor left the office, elated. A job! A job actually teaching the orphans to play the piano. And why not? Many of them had very good musical ability, she had noticed.
But the orphanage had no money, she had countered. How could they possibly pay her?
The Sister had assured her that there were special funds available for such projects.
Eleanor was aware that taking on more at the orphanage meant working harder at home. She would have to get up earlier than she already was and stay up later than she used to just to finish the chores Willa expected her to do, but that was fine. She would save every penny and get out of her current situation. Somehow.
She left the orphanage, lost in thought, making her way through the North End, down alleys she had taken countless times before. She was perhaps halfway through Copp’s Hill Burying Ground when suddenly, out of nowhere, she was jostled.
“Wh—” Steadying herself, she looked up to find a ragged young boy racing down the path ahead of her, weaving in and out of the headstones. She was straightening her cape when she realized that her purse was gone.
“Stop!” she shouted. “You there, stop this minute!” She picked up her skirt and ran after him, stopping at the cemetery exit when she realized it was useless to try to catch him. She caught her breath and uttered a mild curse. Every cent she owned was in her handbag. Like a fool, she carried it around with her for fear of—she didn’t know what. She’d become accustomed to carrying around her cash when she lived at the boarding house and hadn’t thought to do otherwise.
“Are you all right, madam?”
Eleanor turned. A carriage had drawn up beside her. A nice-looking man with a healthy reddish-brown mustache watched her, concern etched on his face.
She expelled a sigh of frustration and motioned across the street where the boy was still running. “That boy,” she said, still short of breath, “just stole my purse.”
In a flash, the horses were at a near gallop, racing toward the culprit.
Eleanor watched in awe as the gentleman caught up with the boy, grabbed him by the coat, and retrieved her handbag. He bent down and said something to the lad, shaking him until he got a positive nod, then released him and the boy sped off.
He returned, left the carriage, and, with a flourishing bow, handed her the purse. “Sylvester Conway, madam. It was my pleasure.”
Eleanor gripped the purse close to her chest. “Eleanor Rayburn. And…thank you so very much.”
He bowed again. “May I offer you a ride home?”
“Oh, no, I’m fine—”
“Please,” he interrupted, opening the carriage door.
She eyed it. It would be good to get home. She had a mountain of chores to do. Acquiescing, she stepped into the carriage, and gave him Calvin’s Pinckney Street address.
They made small talk as they left the North End and skirted the waterfront. As they rounded The Commons on their way to Beacon Hill, Eleanor learned that he was widowed, too. They had little time to talk of anything else before the carriage rolled up in front of Calvin’s home.
Sylvester came around and helped her exit. “I hope this isn’t too soon, but may I call on you?”
Eleanor truly wasn’t up to it. She wasn’t interested, really. And after all, she had precious little time on her hands, and what time she found, she would use to find new students to teach.
He obviously noticed her hesitation. “Perhaps it is too soon.”
Eleanor glanced away, uncomfortable under his gaze. “Yes, perhaps it is.”
He gently touched her arm. “Fortunately, I didn’t become a success because I was easily put off.” He turned toward the carriage. “I will call on you one day soon.”
“I really don’t think—”
“Count on it, madam.” He snapped the reins and drove away.
She entered the house and was on her way upstairs when Willa met her on the landing, her eyes bright and her movements animated. “Do you know who that was?”
Eleanor blinked quickly as she hung her cape on the coat tree. “Of course. His name is—”
“Sylvester Conway,” Willa offered, hurrying to the window and peering out into the street. “The Sylvester Conway of Conway Shipping Lines! He’s worth millions,” Willa informed her.
She followed Eleanor into the parlor. “Why did he bring you home?”
Eleanor explained about her stolen handbag.
Willa was like a hungry wolf. “Is he going to call on you again?”
“He wanted to, but I—”
“You didn’t refuse, did you? Do you realize what a man like that can do for you? Why…why…” she sputtered, “he might even ask you to marry him.”
Eleanor rolled her eyes.
Willa’s gaze narrowed. “You didn’t tell him no, did you?”
Eleanor poured herself a cup of tea. “I told him no, but he—”
“You said no?” Willa screeched. She strode about the parlor, swinging her arms and ranting. “You fool! He could be our ticket to everything we’ve ever wanted.”
Eleanor felt remarkably calm. “He has nothing I want, Willa.”
“You? Who’s talking about you? I mean Calvin. And me. With his conne
ctions, we could get into the best clubs. The finest resorts where only the rich and influential go. If he were Calvin’s brother-in-law, nothing could stop our rise to the top of this pitiful dung heap.”
Eleanor took Willa’s list of chores from the ostentatious Rococo Revival table. “I’ve gotten a job at the orphanage, teaching piano to some of the children. With the students who come here, and the other work, I hardly have a spare minute to think about Sylvester Conway, much less have time for him to call on me.”
Willa snatched the list. “Make time. It’s very important. To all of us. Here,” she said, drawing a line through one of the chores. “This doesn’t have to be done today. This doesn’t either,” she added, scratching out another duty. “In fact, while you’re living in this house, your most important duty will be to charm and beguile Sylvester Conway.”
She glanced at Eleanor’s drab gown and snorted. “And fix yourself up,” she commanded. “If you must continue to wear those dreary mourning gowns, at least do something interesting with your hair.”
When she left the room, Eleanor drew in a breath and released it slowly. She would rather do the chores, rising early and retiring late, than entertain a man—any man—in Calvin’s parlor.
Seven
Eleanor checked her appearance in the mirror, not entirely satisfied, but unwilling to do anything about it. Sylvester had been true to his word and had stopped to see her within the week. He had been calling on her for a month.
Lydia’s face appeared next to hers in the mirror. “Getting all dressed up for Sylvester?”
Eleanor frowned at her. “Mr. Conway, to you, dear.”
Lydia ignored the correction. “You don’t like him very much, do you?”
The child was too insightful for her own good. “Why would you say that?”
“Because you always have this kind of look on your face whenever his name is mentioned.” She raised her eyebrows and sighed dramatically.
Eleanor smiled, then whispered, “Personally, I think your mother is more smitten with him than I am.”
Lydia shrugged. “It’s only because he has so much money. But,” she repeated, “you don’t like him so much.”
Instead of arguing with the truth, she said, “Does it really show?”
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