Always in My Dreams (5 page)

"I need to look after these men, don't you think?" he asked her.

Since both Black Cap and Yellow Cap seemed to be perfectly unconscious, Skye could only imagine what his "looking after" might entail. "You're going to kill them?" she asked. "Right here in the park?" She thought she heard him chuckle. The low, husky, back-of-the-throat sound sent a shiver up her spine, yet she recognized it wasn't fear that she felt, but something just as elemental and infinitely more intimate.

"I'm going to tie them up."

Remembering what Black Cap had pulled out of his pocket after reaching inside, Skye held her breath as the stranger's hand slipped into his own overcoat. A normal rhythm resumed when he held out a length of rope and dangled it in front of her. "You were prepared," she said.

"I've learned to be."

She wondered what sort of man he was that he had anticipated a walk in the park would be so fraught with danger. It occurred to Skye that she didn't even know which side of the law he was on. "Why were they after you?" she asked.

"Sure, and I'm thinkin' it's none of your concern," he said, echoing her earlier words as well as her accent.

This time she heard the smile in his voice even if she couldn't see it. He was amused by her and that didn't set well with Skye. "I could scream," she told him, "and bring down the beat cops on your head."

"You could," he said. He knelt beside Black Cap, drew out a knife, and cut off a length of rope. In short order he had the man securely trussed, his hands behind his back and one of his own gloves stuffed in his mouth.

Skye couldn't say why she was still standing around, except perhaps because it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her. It was practice of sorts, she supposed, for being an adventuress.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw that Yellow Cap was stirring. She started to call out a warning, then realized it was unnecessary. Once again the stranger seemed to have anticipated trouble. He turned on his haunches, saw Yellow Cap's struggle, and neatly clipped him on the chin with his fist. Yellow Cap's jaw cracked and his head struck the frozen ground with a thud. Skye winced.

"So you
can
fight with your fists," she said when she'd recovered her voice. "Just like a Dublin street brawler."

The stranger merely shrugged and began tying up Yellow Cap. When he was done, he dragged the unconscious man toward Skye's hiding place.

She retreated quickly. "What are you doing?" she demanded. She wished her voice could have shown more anger and less fear.

"I'm moving him off the path," he said calmly. Even the exertion of dragging Yellow Cap's considerable bulk to the hiding place hadn't winded him. He came within a few feet of Skye but he didn't once turn in her direction. After leaning Yellow Cap against the rough trunk of an evergreen, he shifted his attention to Black Cap and repeated the procedure. He completed his activity by kicking up snow where it had been pressed flat from dragging the bodies. In less than a minute he had obscured the trail to the bodies.

When he was standing on the path again, he glanced once in Skye's direction. "You'd better go before they come around and you're discovered with them."

Skye hesitated, waiting for the stranger to move on.

"I assure you they won't be half so gallant as I am about a lady's welfare."

She blushed and her husky brogue deepened. "You do me credit, sir, callin' me a lady, but I'm not so fine as all that."

The stranger was quiet a moment, considering. "Then perhaps you'd agree to go somewhere with me. There'd be money in it for you."

"You mistook my meanin', sir; I said I wasn't so fine as a lady, but that doesn't mean I'm a whore."

The stranger was stunned into silence, and then he chuckled quietly. "And
you
mistook
my
meaning. You could help me if—" He stopped. There was a shout of rowdy laughter somewhere along the path behind him. More than one person was part of the vocal fray. Someone called a name. A woman giggled in response. A joke was finished and there was more laughter.

"Go on," Skye urged him when the stranger hesitated, looking in her direction. "Get out of here." She would have repeated herself, but he needed no second urging. He vanished almost in front of her eyes.

Skye came out of her hiding place just as Daniel and his friends came upon the grove of pines.

"Skye!" Daniel said, halting in his tracks. "I thought you'd gone home."

"And I see you lost no time in chasing after me," she said. She glared at his friends. They didn't have the same grace as Daniel to look sheepish. Her eyes touched everyone in the crowd. Louisa Edison and Alice Hobbs were gaping at her. Thomas Newman's laughter was trapped at the back of his throat. Charlie was staring at the ground. Richard Mill and Amy Scott seemed to wish themselves elsewhere.

Skye was suddenly fiercely angry. Angry at Louisa and Alice for staring at her as if she'd grown a third eye. Angry at Thomas for not sharing his laughter. Angry at Charlie and Richard and Amy for being embarrassed. But most of all, Skye was angry with Daniel for not supporting her. She was a lady, and she had never given them any reason to think otherwise.

The words simply came tumbling out. "What if it had been the baby, Daniel?" she asked. "What if something had happened to the baby?"

There was a collective gasp from Amy, Alice, and Louisa. The men were staring at Daniel, their looks registering something between horror and admiration.

Skye turned her back on them all and marched away.

Chapter 2

"Skye! Wait for me!" Daniel looked at his speechless friends and made a quick apology. "She's making it up," he said. "Just to give you what you want to hear. I swear it!" He took off running. "Skye!"

She didn't turn her head, but she didn't increase her speed to avoid him either. "Did you make excuses for me?" she asked, when he came abreast. "Perhaps you told them I'm a little out of sorts because of the baby."

Daniel grabbed her elbow but she shook him off. "You're being unreasonable. Why you purposely want to feed their silly speculations, I don't know. You're determined to make yourself an outcast."

Skye's hands clenched inside the ermine muff. She bent her head against the wind as they left the park. "I've always been an outcast, Daniel. Tonight's merely the first time it's been so openly discussed." She spoke so softly that Daniel had to bend forward to hear her. "There's nothing for me in the city; there never has been. I don't know how I always knew that, but I did. I've never wanted anything so much as to get away from here."

Daniel stepped to the edge of the sidewalk and waved down a handsome cab. He gave the driver Skye's address. "What about school?" he asked, as they climbed aboard.

She shrugged. "I don't want to go back for the spring term."

"But-"

Skye turned to Daniel and gave him a frank stare. "Don't you think Jay Mac already suspects that's the case?"

"It hadn't occurred to me."

She gave a short, humorless laugh. "That's because you don't know him as I do. He's not only realized I intend to fight him about returning to school, he thinks he's a step ahead of me. That's what his amazing offer was about this evening."

"You mean he dangled this in front of you in the hopes you'll choose going back to school over being a housekeeper?"

Skye snorted indelicately. "You really don't understand how he thinks, do you?"

"I suppose I don't."

Removing one of her hands from her muff, Skye patted Daniel's arm. "It's all right. He's my father, after all, and I've had years of opportunity watching him work on my older sisters. He has the best of intentions, you understand. He wants to be certain we're always well cared for."

Daniel sighed. He raised one leg and rested it casually on the seat opposite him while he slouched restfully beside his friend. "Do you know what, Skye? I think I'm glad I bungled that first kiss with you. I'm not sure I'd want John MacKenzie Worth for my father-in-law."

Skye leaned into Daniel, laying her head against his shoulder. "You wouldn't, Daniel," she said feelingly. "You really wouldn't."

He laughed at her heartfelt comment. "You don't think you'd be worth it?"

"Oh, God. I
know
I'm not." She glanced up at him. "You saw what happened this evening. I can't leave well enough alone. If people give me an opening to make a public fool of myself, I not only take the opportunity, I
thank
them for it."

Daniel grinned. "You're worth it," he said. "I'm the one not up to snuff." Before she could contradict what he knew to be the truth, he said, "I still don't understand your father's plan."

"The story about the engine and the inventor... that's just smoke and mirrors."

"Smoke and mirrors..."

"Sleight of hand," she explained. "A magician's trick to hide what's really going on."

"And what's really going on is..."

"Is Jay Mac wants me to experience complete boredom. He supposes that after a few weeks or months as a housekeeper for some fusty old man, I'll be begging him to allow me to finish school."

"So the adventure he's offering you is all a lie."

Skye nodded. "Precisely. Jay Mac's lies don't get much bigger."

Daniel noticed that Skye was smiling. "You don't seem angry about it. I wouldn't have thought you'd like being manipulated like this."

"I don't. But if I look on the bright side, I can be glad Jay Mac tried to bribe me with something I find appealing. It means in his own way he understands what I want. He wasn't nearly so accommodating with my sisters."

The swaying motion of the hansom quieted as the cab slowed in front of the Worth mansion. Daniel helped Skye out of the cab and escorted her through the iron gate to the front door. "Will you take your father's offer, then?" he asked.

"Probably. I wasn't certain I would when he brought it up, but after this evening... well, it's better that I go off somewhere to have the baby."

"Skye!"

She graced him with her mischievous, dimpled smile. "I can't behave myself," she said. "It's not in my nature." Standing on tiptoe, she rested her hands on Daniel's shoulders and kissed him on the cheek. "Go pursue Evelyn Hardy," she told him. "She'll make you happier than I ever could."

A moment later Daniel was alone on the stone steps of the mansion, bathed in the yellow light coming from the towering arched windows. What Skye had said about Evelyn wasn't true, he thought. If it were, he wouldn't feel so ineffably sad.

Hunching his shoulders against the wind, Daniel ducked his head. The hansom cab was waiting to take him home.

* * *

Moira looked up from her needlepoint as Skye passed the parlor entrance. "You're home early," she said.

Skye backed up a few steps and remained framed by the dark wood of the doorway. "It was uncomfortably cold for skating," she lied, removing her hat and muff. She tucked both of them under her arm. "Where's Jay Mac?"

"In his study. Where's Daniel?"

"I sent him home."

"He's a nice young man."

Not wanting to give her mother any reason to hope, Skye nodded absently. "Has Jay Mac talked any more about his idea?" she asked.

"Almost nonstop since you left," Moira said. Her smile was indulgent. "I banished him to the study."

"What do you think?"

Moira didn't hesitate. The lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth deepened as she said sternly, "I think it's as foolish an idea as Jay Mac ever gets in his head."

Skye laughed. "We agree, then. What do you think I should do?"

"Whatever will make you happy."

Moira's answer gave Skye pause. She leaned against the doorframe and tucked a tendril of bright-red hair behind her ear. Her green eyes darkened with speculation. "You don't think I'm happy?" she asked.

The lines of Moira's face smoothed as she stopped working on her embroidery. "I think you're making yourself miserable working at being so happy. Sure, and it shouldn't be so hard."

Skye's mouth sagged a little as her mother neatly summed up what she had been feeling for months, perhaps years. "Then you wouldn't mind if I didn't return to college?"