The Savage Heart (11 page)

Her eyes blazed at him. “No, you will not! I don't take expensive presents from men, not even from you, and certainly not an article of clothing!”

“Oh, grow up,” he fumed. “Here I'm your cousin. There's nothing untoward about buying clothes for family.”

Family. She lowered her eyes to the sidewalk and glowered at it. Family. What else did she expect to be to him?

“Besides,” Matt said, noting her expression and forcing himself not to react to it, “this is business. The matter of Collier's murderer, remember?” He stared straight ahead. “There's a shop nearby. I did some work for the owner. You'll like her. I expect she'll have something you'll find quite nice.”

She clutched her purse. She had very little money of her own, but she had plenty of pride. “I'll buy some fabric and a pattern and sew my own.”

“Not to wear to this do, you won't,” he replied. “In Chicago people are too aware of what one wears in general. At charity functions they go far beyond that, Tess, to sheer snobbery about apparel.”

She glanced at his expensive suit and overcoat and hat. “So I see.”

He met her gaze. “You wanted to fit in. This is how you do it.”

“I'll try not to embarrass you.”

“Thank you,” he said dryly. “I'll try to return the favor.”

As if he could embarrass anyone, with his innate dignity and clothes sense and elegance, she thought. But she didn't say it. He was volatile enough already.

Her thoughts returned to Nan and at last she voiced her worst fear. “What if she did it?”

“Then she'll be convicted. But we'll do what we can for her, just the same.”

“Thank you, Matt,” she said after a long pause.

He stopped at a streetlight and turned her toward the storefront of a very elegant women's clothier.

“You're not serious!” she exclaimed when she looked at the mannequins in the display window. “Heavens, Matt, those gowns would cost a month's salary…maybe half a year's!”

“You get what you pay for,” he said without blinking an eye. “Come on.”

He propelled her into the exclusive shop. An elegant woman in a becoming day dress with her hair elaborately coiffured turned from the counter to greet them.

“May I be of service, Monsieur Davis?” she asked, glancing critically at Tess's figure.

“This is my cousin,” Matt told her without preamble. “She needs a ball gown.”

“I am Madame Dubois,” she introduced herself with a smile. “I think I have just the thing.
Un moment,
” she said, and darted to the back of the shop.

She returned, to Tess's surprise, with the most delicious white taffeta gown she'd ever seen, its sleeves and skirt tied with ribbons in softest blue and pink, edged in lace.

“It takes the breath away,
n'est-ce pas?
It was made up for a customer who gained too much weight and could not wear it when it was finished.” She smiled wickedly. “But she will enjoy the
bébé
more than the gown, I daresay. Here. Please to try it on,
mademoiselle.
There, in the back.”

She led Tess to a changing room, closed the door and left her.

It took several minutes to remove her outer garments so that she could slip into the elegant dress. She fastened it with trembling hands, astonished at the beautiful fit.

Madame Dubois appeared just in time to fasten the last hooks in back. “You will require some assistance to close the fastenings, but surely there are other women handy, yes?”

“Yes. I live in a boardinghouse,” Tess replied. “It fits so nicely! Does it look all right?” she added, tugging at the bodice. “I mean, is it not a little too low in front?”

“With a bust like yours,
mademoiselle,
it is perfect,” she replied, smiling at the picture Tess, with her blonde fairness, made in the delicious confection. She shook her head. “You will not know yourself. Come. Let us show
monsieur
…”

“Oh, no, please.” Tess put her hands over her bodice.

“Ah, I see, it embarrasses you to have your cousin see you thus. The gown will be for an admirer. I will not tell him,” she whispered. “It will be our secret. I will leave you to dress,
mademoiselle,
but first let us remove the gown so that I may pack it for you in a box. But at once, when
you arrive home, it must hang, so, for the wrinkles to fall out. You understand?”

“Yes,” Tess said. She was excited not only by the feel of the gown but by its exquisite lines. She had to have it, even if it cost her a year's wages. She felt beautiful in it.

Matt was waiting patiently when she left the dressing room. Her hair was faintly disheveled, but her wide hat covered most of the damage.

“Here,” he said, handing her the dress box. “Can you carry it?”

“Oh, yes.” Her gloved hand tightened on the handle possessively. “It's the most gorgeous thing!”

“I have also included a pair of opera gloves, my dear,” Madame Dubois told her. “But you must have shoes to match…”

“I'm sure I have some at home,” Tess said with her scant remaining pride.

“Very well, then. I wish you a lovely evening!”

“Thank you.” Tess smiled at her and went through the door Matt was holding for her.

Once outside, he took her arm again and marched her down to a shoe store. He wasn't satisfied until she had dainty satin pumps to match the gown, and afterward they stopped at a millinery shop, where he bought her a small satin bag as well and one of the popular egret combs to complement her hairstyle.

“You've spent far too much money on me,” she complained when they reached the boardinghouse in a hired carriage with her purchases.

“You could hardly go to the ball in rags, Cinderella,” he told her.

She didn't look at him. “My slippers aren't made of glass, and I won't turn into a mouse at midnight.”

“The carriage horses turn into mice,” he pointed out.

He carried her parcels into the boardinghouse and up to her room, past a curious Mrs. Mulhaney.

“It's a ball gown,” Tess told her excitedly. “My cousin Matt is taking me to a charity ball!”

“Well, it's about time you had a real social life,” Mrs. Mulhaney replied curtly. “Nothing but work and that women's group!”

“I agree entirely,” Matt said.

He dumped the parcels on Tess's bed, tipped his hat, and went back downstairs. He wasn't through for the day, even if Tess was.

 

F
OR THE NEXT FEW DAYS
, she dreamed about accompanying Matt. It might be a necessary step in their plan to save Nan, but Tess couldn't help but be enthusiastic about her first ball. She hung the gown in her closet, and every so often she opened the door just to touch it and wonder at its beauty. She'd never dared hope she might get to go to a real ball—with Matt.

Back in Montana such things had seemed vaguely like fiction to her. Indeed, she'd read the fairy tale
Cinderella
and often had wondered what it would be like to have a ball gown and a handsome escort for the evening, and
to go to a really fancy ball. There were barn dances in Montana, but that was a far cry from a real ball.

She counted the days until the event, working hard at the hospital and trying not to remember that it was only part of a job for Matt to escort her.

Inevitably the Saturday of the great event arrived. Tess had Mrs. Mulhaney help with fastening the gown. The older woman was fascinated by its beauty and shocked by its low-cut bodice.

“You must have a wrap, my dear,” she said. “I have one that I insist you borrow. It's mink. It will be just the thing to complement that gown!”

“Mink! But I couldn't!” Tess protested.

Mrs. Mulhaney patted her arm gently. “Men never think of these things. It's quite cold, and the gown has only a hint of sleeves. I'll fetch it for you.”

She went out, closing the door behind her. Tess patted her hair into place and pushed the egret comb that Matt had bought her into a particularly deep wave. She hardly recognized the pretty and very exclusive-looking woman in her mirror. Her fairness would enhance Matt's dark skin. She hoped he wouldn't find fault with her.

Mrs. Mulhaney placed the wrap around her shoulders and looked at her critically. “You look lovely. The pearls are perfect,” she added, noting their faint pink hue as they lay above her collarbone.

“They were my grandmother's,” Tess said, touching them with her white-gloved hand. “I'm very proud of them.”

“I don't doubt it. You have fun.”

“I hope to,” she said. “Thank you very much for loaning me the wrap. I'll take great care of it.”

“I know you will.”

Mrs. Mulhaney waved Tess down the staircase, where Matt was pacing impatiently.

“I'm not late,” she told him in a faintly haughty tone.

He turned and looked up at her on the staircase. Every comment he'd thought to make stuck in the back of his throat. He stared at her with black, turbulent eyes and said nothing while she slowly came down the rest of the way. Matt thought that he'd never seen anything quite so beautiful in all his life. He wanted to pick her up and carry her away, far away, so that no other man would see her. He took a deep breath, amazed to discover that he was capable of feeling such devastating jealousy.

The look in Matt's eyes made Tess so nervous that she almost tripped on the last step. She caught herself on the banister and eased her foot down onto the level floor.

“I don't have a proper wrap,” she said, pulling the fur even tighter over the low bodice that she was reluctant to let him see. “So Mrs. Mulhaney loaned me this.”

“You look beautiful,” he said in a husky, deep tone. His face was unusually hard, and his eyes held an odd glitter.

Tess stared back at him hungrily. It was the first time he'd looked at her in exactly that way, and her toes seemed to curl inside her shoes. He made her feel like the Cinderella of her dreams.

But seconds later, the spell was broken when he abruptly and curtly said, “Shall we go?”

He took her arm and escorted her out. He was wearing evening clothes, a beautifully tailored black coat with
tails and black pants, crisp white shirt and bow tie. In his left hand he held a silk top hat and silver-headed cane. He looked impossibly handsome and elegant.

When they were in the hired carriage riding toward the hotel where the ball was to be held, he stared at her in the dim, flickering light of streetlamps.

His steady gaze made her nervous and she shifted.

“I didn't know that you were lacking a dressy coat. I assumed that you had one, God knows why.”

“There's been no reason to…” She cleared her throat. “I shouldn't have occasion to wear one after tonight. I don't go out to such formal affairs…as you very well know.”

He glanced out the window at the passing buildings. He didn't dare look at her too much, he told himself, or he was going to lose his precarious control. The sight of her in evening clothes, with her hair elegantly done, was almost his undoing. She'd always been pretty, even in a faded dress, but tonight she was so elegant that she made him violently possessive. It was as if she belonged in cultured society even more than he did. Combined with his own inner turmoil about his ancestry, her elegance only punctuated the differences between them and set her at a greater distance. He felt more guilty than ever about his long-held secret. He had the right to be possessive of her, but she didn't know and he couldn't tell her.

Tess was determined to have a wonderful time, despite Matt's cool indifference. Surely at least one man present would ask her to dance. Then Matt could do what he pleased—or ignore her, which he certainly seemed inclined
to do. Her heart felt as if it were broken. She couldn't possibly let him see how his aloof manner was hurting her.

The hotel was emblazoned in lights, and couples in elegant clothing wandered into it in pairs. They came in sleek carriages with uniformed drivers, drawn by beautifully liveried horses, and at least two arrived by motorcar. Tess had never seen so many wealthy people in one place in all her life—in fact, she had no idea there were so many wealthy people in the world. She was awestruck by the experience.

Matt, holding her arm as they advanced into the hotel, whispered harshly, “Don't gape. They're just people.”

“I've never seen any people like this,” she said, with fascination plain in her eyes as she looked around her.

“Of course not,” he said caustically. “One doesn't expect high fashion on an Indian reservation.”

She stepped on his foot quite deliberately and smiled coolly when he winced.

“Suppose you just leave me here, cousin dear, and I'll find someone to stand with?” she asked with venomous sweetness. “I'm sure you'll be relieved not to have to keep me company!”

A maid took her wrap, leaving her uncomfortably revealed. Matt's eyes focused on the low-cut gown, the creamy tops of her breasts revealed in the most provocative way. He caught his breath audibly. He couldn't believe the gown was that modern. He'd never have let her buy it if he'd had any idea how she'd look in it. She was like
a princess, and he was suddenly so violently aroused that his whole body throbbed.

He started to speak just as a handsome young man swept between them and bent over Tess's hand, which he lifted to his lips. He'd been a recent patient at the hospital, where he'd flirted outrageously with her. They'd become friends, of a surface sort. His name was Michael Boson, and he was a wealthy young man.

“I've been waiting all my life for you,” he said with breathless abandon. “Dance with me until the wee hours, and then we'll sail away to the moon on a carpet of stardust!”

Tess, relieved to have been saved from the sudden fury in Matt's black eyes, chuckled and tapped him with her lacy fan. “What a glib tongue,” she teased. “I don't believe a word you say.”

“Heartless girl, and you nursed me through pneumonia, too.” He turned when he saw Matt. “Is this he?” Michael asked with a lifted brow, his gaze roaming over Matt's tall physique. “I might have known. He even looks like an assassin. I daresay he's armed.”

“Michael, will you stop?” she pleaded.

“Michael Boson, at your service,” the young man said with a wicked grin. “You're Cousin Matt, the detective. I recognize you from Tess's description. Your cousin nursed me at the hospital and then cruelly turned her back on me because I'm four years younger than she. I hardly think age is an impediment to a great love affair, myself, but she
has reservations. Don't you, chick?” he added with a grin in her direction.

“Yes, this is my cousin, Matt Davis,” she introduced them, and then laid her hand on Michael's sleeve, grateful beyond measure for his unexpected rescue. She couldn't quite meet Matt's eyes. “Dance me away, Michael. Matt didn't mind bringing me, but I'd hate for him to have to spend the evening being bored stiff with me.”

“It will be a great pleasure for me to spare him the inconvenience. Don't you worry, Cousin Matt, I'll take wonderful care of her, and you're invited to the wedding!”

He carried her off before Matt could reply. Tess laughed as she went into his arms on the dance floor. She hesitated, though, when he launched into a dance that she couldn't do.

“I don't know this dance. Or any dance that's at all complicated. I'm sorry,” she said. “Could you teach me a step or two?”

“Heavens, girl, where have you been all your life?” he asked, dumbfounded.

“Living out west with my father, who was a doctor,” she said. “We had barn dances, but nothing so elegant as this.”

He grinned. “This is a waltz. It's not difficult. Here. I'll show you the basics. It goes like this…”

Matt, watching them with cold eyes, wanted to go right over there and tear Tess out of the younger man's arms. That low-cut gown was already giving him fits.

He became aware of someone nearby and turned his
head. Diamond Jim Kilgallen, with a lighted cigar in his hand, gave him a steady appraisal from deep-set gray eyes. The man had jet-black hair, like Matt's own, but his was wavy. His skin was olive tan, although not as dark as Matt's. He had a broad, leonine face and he wore a thin mustache. His tuxedo was expensive, like his shoes. Matt had never seen him at such a distance before, and he knew at once that he wouldn't deceive this man with any pretext of contributing to charity.

“I know of you,” Diamond Jim said after a minute, moving a little closer. “You're Davis.” Matt nodded.

“Know who I am?”

Matt nodded again.

Diamond Jim chuckled. “And I thought I was a man of few words,” he said ruefully. “Do you talk?”

“On occasion.”

“Hmmm. No accent. They say you're everything from a Russian duke to a Gypsy.” His eyes narrowed. “But you're not. You remind me of my grandfather. He was Cree.”

Matt lifted an eyebrow. “I'm not Cree.”

“No, but you're Indian,” Diamond Jim said with quiet confidence. “A man with courage and keen intelligence, if what I hear about you is true.”

“You'll hear other things, perhaps quite different things, if you listen long enough,” Matt said casually.

Diamond Jim nodded slowly. “About the bowie knife, I imagine.”

Matt chuckled. “I don't carry it much these days. My reputation opens enough doors without visible threats.”

“It does,” he agreed. His gray eyes narrowed to slits. “Your cousin over there is good friends with Nan Collier. I hear you both went to see her in jail and that you're trying to help get her out.”

“Yes,” Matt said. “She's in a lot of trouble. Not only because her marriage was rocky but because the murderer was so obviously female.”

“The scissors.”

“That's right.”

Diamond Jim lifted his cigar to his lips and thought for a minute. “Damn.”

“There's something more.”

“Something bad, from the way you sound.”

Matt didn't know how far to trust this man. Nan Collier was obviously in love with him, but how this gambler felt about her was dubious. He didn't seem a man who had a high opinion of women, and Matt knew from the talk that Diamond Jim liked women. He had plenty of them, almost every one more elegant and educated and pretty than poor little Nan.

“Go ahead,” Diamond Jim said when Matt hesitated. “Spill it.”

“She's pregnant.”

Jim looked away, but not before his rage was visible. He took another puff on the cigar. “That son of a bitch,” he said under his breath.

“Excuse me?”

“Collier,” he bit off. “Somebody should have killed him years ago! If she's pregnant, it's because he forced her! She hated his touch!”

Aware of curious glances, Matt moved between the man and nearby onlookers.

The evidence was pointing more and more to some strong feelings for Nan on Jim's part. Matt took a chance. “It isn't her husband's baby.”

The expression that statement provoked was a revelation. The gray eyes that had been glittering like a knife blade grew suddenly soft. The hard face relaxed. A faint, reluctant smile drew up the hard lips. “She said that?” Jim asked, his voice quiet, awed. “She told you it wasn't her husband's?”

“She told Tess,” Matt corrected. “Tess told me.”

Jim stuck a beautifully manicured hand in his pocket and stared into space with that secretive smile still on his lips.

“She feels that it will make things harder,” Matt said.

Diamond Jim's head turned back. “Not if they think it was her husband's,” he said immediately. “No jury could convict a pregnant woman. My God, a lynch mob would form at the courthouse door, and not a single juror would go home alive!”

“You're probably right. But she shouldn't have to be in jail for a crime she didn't commit.”

Diamond Jim's piercing eyes held Matt's. “I know she didn't do it. But how do you know?”

“Years of practice with guilty criminals,” Matt said simply. “You get an instinct about people.”

“In my business, too,” the other man said. He grinned. “Of course, from your point of view, I'm the criminal.”

“Criminal, hell, you're a local landmark. Visitors point you out along with the lake.”

“Well, I stop short at killing innocent people. Speaking of which,” he added, flinging cigar ash into a cuspidor, “how are we going to prove that Nan's innocent?”

Matt stuck both hands in his pockets. “I don't know yet. I'm working on it. I have operatives asking probing questions around her neighborhood.”

“Nice of you.”

“No, it wasn't,” Matt said honestly, glancing toward Tess, who seemed to be having too good a time with her youthful dance partner. “I was forced into it. She—” he indicated a laughing Tess with utter disgust “—was going door to door in the apartment house. I was afraid she'd run into some man who wouldn't take no for an answer.”

This produced a curious glance. “Pretty girl. Too bad you're related.”

“We aren't,” Matt said curtly. “It saved explanations when she came up here. Her father died. She had no one else. I'm a long-standing friend of the family.”

“I'll bet that's a story worth hearing.”

“I'm Sioux,” he said. “I don't think another person in Chicago except Tess knows it.”

A look passed between them. Diamond Jim turned his
attention to his cigar. “I'm a clam,” he said after a minute. “I keep what I know to myself.”

Matt didn't speak. His eyes narrowed more as he watched Tess on the dance floor.

Diamond Jim offered a cigar case.

Matt stared at it.

“No insult intended.”

It took Matt a few seconds to realize what he meant. Cigar stores habitually boasted a wooden Indian at the door. When it hit him, Matt burst out laughing.

Diamond Jim chuckled. “Good to know your face isn't painted on. Have a cigar.”

“Thanks. I'm partial to a good one.”

“These are from Havana. Only the best.” He offered a light, and Matt bent his head to fire up the stogie.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Oh, I don't want any fistfights in here,” Diamond Jim replied with a grin. “If your hands are kept busy, it's less likely that you'll lay out that gentleman who's dancing with your…cousin.”

Matt scowled. “What do you mean?”

“You should have seen your face when you were watching her,” came the dry reply. “I gather that you think any familiarity with her is a bad idea.”

He averted his gaze. “She's white.”

“So are you,” Jim said quietly, meeting the other man's eyes. “It isn't always a matter of blood. You've lived white for a long time. Tell me that you could go back to living the old life…”

Matt puffed on the cigar. “If I'd stayed where I was, I'd probably have been killed.” He stared across the room at Tess. “It might have been the best thing, too.”

“Bull.”

Matt sighed. “Hell.”

Diamond Jim nodded to a passing woman, elegant and sophisticated with eyes far too wise. She gave him a long look, but he didn't return it.