Tiffany Girl (17 page)

She didn’t move.

Swallowing, he flicked the ruffles aside, but they only revealed more ruffles. How many petticoats was she wearing? He sat back on his heels, resting his hands against his thighs, his pulse acting as if he’d just run the entire perimeter of Central Park.

“How did you get home?” he asked.

“Walked.” Her head remained down, her eyes closed.

“From Fourth Avenue?”

No answer.

“In the middle of the night?”

No answer.

“Alone?”

No answer.

His jaw began to tick. “Why didn’t you hail a driver?”

Still, no answer. But if she’d walked all that way, her boots would be encased in ice. As exhausted as she was, he didn’t trust her to do more than tumble into bed, boots and all. And if her toes were in danger of frostbite, what he did—or didn’t do—could mean the difference in losing toes or keeping them.

Groping beneath her petticoats, he pretended he was searching for something under his bed, but when he latched onto a tiny booted ankle, he had no illusions as to what it was he had ahold of. He pulled it from its shelter.

A film of ice covered a long row of minuscule black leather buttons. Buttons he’d never be able to undo with his fingers.

“Sit tight,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

Jogging to his room, he tried to keep his footfalls soft lest he wake the other boarders. He opened his desk drawer, fumbled around for a box at the very back, opened it, extracted a buttonhook from his mother’s things, then grabbed two towels off his washstand.

Miss Jayne had vacated the chair while he was gone and curled up on the floor, her hands acting as a cushion for her head.

Tossing the towels in front of the fire, he went on another hunt for her foot, uncovered it, and worked on the ice and buttons until he could finally wiggle off the boot. He gave himself only a moment to register the pink-and-white-striped stockings before trying to tug them down, but they wouldn’t budge. He wasn’t about to reach up under there and remove her garter. Despite her fond belief that the Klausmeyers’ boarders were one big happy family, he and she were decidedly not brother and sister.

He rose onto all fours and jostled her shoulder. “Wake up, Miss Jayne. Your stocking is soaked and you need to remove it.”

She shrugged him off.

He shook her again. “Wake up. Only long enough to remove your stocking. I’ll take care of the rest.”

With a grumpy huff, she reached down.

Spinning around, he waited, then heard a whimper and looked back over his shoulder. With a grimace, she was grasping her bare foot, her petticoats spilling about her.

“It hurts?” he asked.

Biting her lip, she nodded.

Shooing her hands away, he pressed her arch against his thigh and covered as much of her foot as he could with his hands. “It’s good that it hurts. And the skin is red instead of white, soft instead of hard, which is also good.”

“The fire.” She gave it a longing glance. “Can we get closer to the fire?”

He shook his head. “That will make it worse. We need to warm you by slow degrees. I have some towels on the hearth, though. When I’ve warmed your foot as much as I can with my hands, then we’ll wrap it with a towel.”

He repositioned his hands.

“Don’t look.” Another grimace of pain flickered across her face. “I have ugly toes.”

“Too late, I’m afraid. I’ve already seen the middle one is a bit curved and is much longer than all the others.” He shook his head. “Hope I don’t have nightmares.”

Her lips twitched, then a slow smile began to smooth out her features. A smile that accentuated her cheeks and drew attention to the Cupid’s bow of her lips. “Maybe it’ll get frostbite and fall off.”

“Now there’s a thought. Shall I leave it stranded so it continues to freeze?”

“Yes, if you don’t mind.”

He found a reluctant smile tug at his own lips, though he didn’t give into it. Still, he was careful to keep the offending appendage protected within his warmth. “I aim to please.”

“Do you?” She cocked her head, more fully awake now. “Then why won’t you join us in the parlor after dinner?”

He returned his attention to her foot. It wasn’t just her toes that were unorthodox. She had huge feet for a woman her size. Even so, they were nicely formed, had a high arch, and were surprisingly soft for a working girl.

“What kept you at work so late?” he asked.

“A portion of a stained-glass window had to be redone, so I stayed late.”

Lifting her foot from his thigh, he cupped it in one hand and covered her toes with the other. “Redone? What happened? Did something break?”

“No, thank goodness.” Her voice dropped, along with her gaze.

Reaching for one of the towels, he wrapped her foot inside it, then held out his hand. “Next.”

She pushed herself to a sitting position. “I can do it.”

He handed her the buttonhook. “I’d have thought Tiffany would run a cleaner operation than that. Doesn’t sound very efficient or cost-effective if his windows have to be redone.”

Whatever ice had covered this boot had now melted, but she couldn’t get the buttons to work. Confiscating the buttonhook, he took over.

“It wasn’t Mr. Tiffany’s fault,” she said. “It was mine. I bumped into one of the windows we were making, knocked off a bunch of pieces, and had to stick them all back on.”

“And that took until three in the morning?”

“It was a bit like Humpty Dumpty.” Withdrawing her foot from his grasp, she placed one hand on the heel of her boot and the other at the toe, then worked off the shoe. “At least Aggie stayed to help me or I’d still be there.”

“Aggie?”

“Miss Wilhemson. A friend of mine and one of the Tiffany Girls I work with.” She lifted her index finger and twirled it in a spinning motion.

He turned his back and waited while she removed her stocking. Its pink-and-white-striped mate lay crumpled on the floor next to a pink garter with a giant decorative bow. He slammed his eyes shut and forced his mind to the topic at hand. He couldn’t believe she’d knocked over one of Tiffany’s windows. She was lucky she still had a job. At least, he assumed she still had one.

When all had settled behind him, he looked over his shoulder. She sat grasping her foot and squeezing her toes, her features scrunched up.

“Don’t do that.”

“It itches and burns and feels like a thousand tiny needles are poking my skin.”

“That’s
good. That means you’ll keep all your toes whether you want them or not.” He knelt before her, then pressed her foot against his trouser leg. “Did he fire you?”

“No, thank goodness.”

“But you had to stay and work until it was finished?”

“I wasn’t required to stay. I did that on my own.” She propped her hands behind her on the floor and leaned back, some of the tension falling from her expression.

“Why?” he asked.

“Why? You mean, why did I stay?”

“I mean, why did you stay so long that you risked bodily injury walking home alone at night, not to mention frostbite?”

“I wasn’t in any danger of being accosted. Who in their right mind would be out in this mess?”

“Quite so,” he mumbled, picking up her foot and warming it within his hands. “Nevertheless, you shouldn’t do it again. You don’t have to prove yourself simply because you’re a woman.”

She straightened, her relaxed posture disappearing. “I wasn’t trying to prove anything.”

“No? You work until three in the morning and walk home alone in a snowstorm and you weren’t trying to prove anything?” He lifted a brow. “Either you’re extremely foolish or you’re lying.”

She jerked her foot from his grasp.

He reached for the second towel, opened it, and waited.

“I can do that,” she snapped.

“Not as easily as I can.”

“I said, I can do it.”

“Trying to prove something?”

She whipped the towel from his grasp and swaddled her foot in a haphazard fashion.

“What were you doing up so late, anyway?”

Good question
, he thought. Ice and snow struck the windows with a rapid
klink-klink-klink
.

She lifted her gaze. “You weren’t actually waiting for me, were you?”

“Certainly not.” He stood.

Her eyes widened. “You were. You . . . you were worried about me, weren’t you?”

“Of course not. I simply had a lot on my mind, couldn’t sleep, and heard you come in.”

There it was again. Cheeks that lifted and bow-shaped lips that stretched into a rather becoming smile. She looked him over from top to bottom. “I see. Nice nightclothes.”

Heat rushed into his face. “I changed before I left my room.”

Her brows lifted. “Into jacket, tie, suspenders, socks, and shoes? All in the time it took for me to cross the threshold?”

Leaning down, he snatched up her stockings, garter, and gloves, wadded them up, and handed them to her. “You’d best get out of those wet clothes before you catch pneumonia.”

Her eyes lit, but for once she didn’t say anything.

Helping her up, he grabbed her boots, then assisted her to her door as she struggled to walk with towel-wrapped feet. “Good night, Miss Jayne.”

“Good night, Mr. Wilder.” She took the boots, then stopped him with a hand to his arm. “And thank you. I mean it. I truly do appreciate you assisting me and . . . well, being awake when I arrived home.”

With a curt nod, he returned to his room, closed the door, and rested his head against it. He could hear her moving around. The cat stirred, then came and wove between his legs. Reaching down, he lifted it to his chest and rubbed behind its ears until all had settled in the room next to his.

It was almost dawn, however, before he managed to fall asleep.

WORLD’S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION, BIRD’S-EYE VIEW 
¹³

“ ‘Mr. Tiffany is going to send two of his girls, but we don’t yet know if Miss Jayne will be one of them.’ ”

CHAPTER

20

I
f you could snap your fingers and appear somewhere else, where would you be?” Mrs. Dinwiddie put her card next to her soup bowl and looked at Mr. Wilder in expectation.

Flossie bit back her satisfaction. She’d get him out of his room—figuratively, if nothing else.

“My room,” he said.

Flossie narrowed her eyes.

“Nonsense.” Mrs. Dinwiddie, bless her soul, waved her soup spoon in an
I don’t think so
gesture. “You’re a writer, Mr. Wilder. Use your imagination.”

“I’m a newspaper reporter. I don’t make things up.”

Mr. Nettels snorted.

Mr. Wilder gave him a piercing glare.

“Nevertheless,” Mrs. Dinwiddie continued, “try to enter into the spirit of the game. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?”

He looked to the corner of the room as if weighing his options before returning his attention to Mrs. Dinwiddie. “I suppose I’d go to the Chicago World’s Fair—once it opens, of course.”

The elderly woman’s face lit, creases rippling out on either side of her smile. “What a marvelous choice. I’d love to go as
well. Mr. Tiffany is going to send two of his girls, but we don’t yet know if Miss Jayne will be one of them, do we, Miss Jayne?”