Read Waltzing In Ragtime Online
Authors: Eileen Charbonneau
Waltzing In Ragtime (17 page)
“The Whittaker woman, doing Hart’s wash half naked, all cozy and snowed in! Now if Cal and me talk to the papers … the ones who didn’t get her story of rescue and deliverance, about what really went on —”
“Shut up!”
McPeal smiled, leaned forward. Ah. A kinswoman, this woman who belonged to Hart? How mad was he over it? Enough to maim the lover, perhaps? Slowly? Still no hint of his client’s features, but the tone of his anger was somehow familiar. Didn’t
he like young, virgin China girls, this Mr. Hopkins, when he was going under another name? They were often like this, these gentlemen. Hypocrites about the women inside their own class.
he like young, virgin China girls, this Mr. Hopkins, when he was going under another name? They were often like this, these gentlemen. Hypocrites about the women inside their own class.
Hopkins recovered his icy calm. “Who would believe you?”
“You did,” even the idiot brother observed. “Who is she? Your sister? Cousin? We got what’s juicy enough for them papers she don’t work for, Cal says. Don’t have to hold up in court.”
Remember, McPeal told himself, without his brother lording over him, this one did quite well.
The man in the shadows shifted in his chair. “What do you know of the park territory?” he asked.
“Know that place as good as any government man save Hart. Know one thing he don’t, too. A winter passage. A back way, around Indian Falls, to Hart’s altitude, to his station in that blamed tree. That’s how we surprised the little missus at her wash. Few more minutes, we’d of —”
“So you could get in, once he’s returned?”
“Not this winter! Even to break his neck and fuck the shit out of his woman both!”
The wooden chair his client sat in creaked. “I require only half of your proposal.”
McPeal leaned more forward still. “The game is changing,” he observed aloud.
“How much did you and your brother want to shut your story up?” Hopkins asked. Wait. This was going too fast, McPeal decided. He was the middleman. He’d do the asking.
Ezra looked around the still room. He took a deep breath. “Five hundred.”
“I’ll give you two thousand.”
“What?”
“Now. Two more when it’s done. Done my way.”
McPeal scraped the side of his jaw slowly with his iron fist. “I don’t think Mr. Hopkins is talking character assassination anymore, Ezra. How are you and your brother at the real kind? You can get to Hart when he’s alone at his post. Can you kill him?”
“Kill? Needed to kill a couple women after — But that’s
women. Hart’s … well, Hart’s strong, and crafty-like. I don’t know.”
women. Hart’s … well, Hart’s strong, and crafty-like. I don’t know.”
McPeal leaned toward the shadow of his client. He didn’t want to lose him. And he wanted Hart. Badly. “Why not do it here, sir? I might take it on myself, as a special favor, to a valued customer? A repeating customer? One who likes interesting games with China girls?”
His client bristled. McPeal smiled. Yes, he never forgot a voice peaked in its rage.
“No. Not here. It must be at his post. An accident, happening because of his stupidity. You understand, McPeal. To ease her grief, the foolish girl. My cousin. She loves him, you see. Unfortunate. But nothing else will do.”
“Consider it done, Mr. Hopkins, sir. Come on, Ezra.”
“But, Cal didn’t say —”
“Leave Cal to me. You did very well.”
Matthew pushed his spectacles up against his face and scanned the bottles in Mrs. Cole’s top cupboard. Extract of vanilla. Might make the boy sick. Rum, there. No, that was just flavoring.The cook tugged at his coattails. “Come down from there, Matthew!” she chided. “You’ll get your finery mussed!”
He closed the cupboard’s glass doors, then sat on the counter, his legs dangling, making her smile. She was thinking of Leland, Matthew realized. He used to invade her cupboards, too. He pulled off his spectacles.
“It’s time for me to talk with Selby, Mrs. Cole. I’m looking for something alcoholic.”
Her voice hushed reverently. “Would sherry do, sir?”
“Sure.” He jumped to the floor.
“It’s here, waiting for the fish.” She set two glasses on the long table, and curtsied. Why is she doing that, he wondered. I thought we were friends. Must be the damned clothes, all choking, formal, black. He was weary of his betwixt position in the Whittaker household, neither a servant nor a guest, but something of both.
In a moment the new footman was standing at attention before him. Selby’s time here had already done him some good.
He had more heft, and was cleaner. The first was thanks to Mrs. Cole’s cooking, the last his affection for ’Lana’s maid. His face was open, innocent, freckled, though his hair was dark. Had he ever been that young?
He had more heft, and was cleaner. The first was thanks to Mrs. Cole’s cooking, the last his affection for ’Lana’s maid. His face was open, innocent, freckled, though his hair was dark. Had he ever been that young?
“You married, Selby?”
The boy blanched red. “No, sir.”
“And you’ve taken to Patsy?”
“Oh, aye.”
“Were she to need a husband — say she were going to have a baby and the father ran off … are you that big a man? Could you care for her and another man’s child?”
The new footman’s eyes registered shock. Damn. Matthew didn’t know any other way to say it, other than straight out. He was wondering if the boy could speak at all when he did.
“Wouldn’t be his no more, would it, sir? Not if he gave a jewel like Patsy up. I’d be the daddy, wouldn’t I then? Mr. Hart, is this all what if? I mean, is Patsy —”
The footman had so far exceeded what Matthew Hart would settle for, that he struggled to keep his face stern. “You’ll do your courting after, you hear? You don’t take her until she’s ready, I don’t care what any blasted paper says, or any idiot notion you have about your rights as a husband. And you’ll do no tomcatting after. You ever hurt her you’ll have me to answer to, you understand that?”
“Yes, sir. Mr. Hart?”
“What?”
“You think she’ll have me, then?”
Matthew smiled. “Ask her.”
“Aye. Well, then. I’d best be about it. Hadn’t I?”
Matthew pushed a glass of sherry in the boy’s direction. “One swallow,” he advised. The footman gulped down the prescribed amount, then almost knocked over Mrs. Cole on his way out. Matthew steadied her tilt with a touch of his hand. How he would miss her gruff tenderness, her scent of gladiolus and flour.
“Where’s Patsy?” he asked her expectant eyes.
“Steaming the last wrinkles from Miss Olana’s gown.” She nodded her head toward the laundry room.
“Ah. Then it should come, right about …” A shriek. “Now,” he finished, grinning.
Patsy burst through the doors, catching up Mrs. Cole in a wild dance. Matthew backed himself against the cupboard. She approached, took up his hand. He kissed her cheek. He liked the close look at her shining face his small intimacy afforded. He liked the scent of starch and sweat about her, and the glow in her face now that her sickness was past. He hoped Selby would prove worthy of her and her child. Patsy pressed his hand beneath her still small waist so that he could feel the bulge.
“I hope I can do as much for you yourself some day, sir,” she whispered, then sailed out of the kitchen. Matthew’s fingers warmed with the feel of the life within her.
“Why, that little mouse! What notions!” the cook exclaimed.
“I’ll count myself lucky to have Patsy standing by in my need, ma’am.” Matthew Hart raised his glass to her. “Done, Mrs. Cole,” he said.
She pulled the steaming platter from the oven and poured the remaining sherry over its contents. “Done, sir,” she agreed.
The wine cellar was extensive, cool, reminding Matthew of the way a pine forest closes in after a misty late summer rain.
“I must show you my prize winners, Matt!” James Whittaker’s walk took on a younger man’s jauntiness. He found the section of bottles, pulled one from the shelf. “Champagne,” he explained. “The finest to welcome my daughter home! I’m opening ten magnums — to demonstrate how honored is tonight’s occasion!”
Matthew gazed down the rows of bottles. “Looks like you bought the crop, sir.”
James Whittaker thumbed his vest pockets, laughing. “Enough for my lifetime, perhaps. I’m planning on many more happy events.”
Matthew shook his head, in frank awe of the rich thinking they could plan happiness. Then something happened. To the very air. The coolness of the cellar evaporated. His own voice turned grating as it spoke of the scene going on behind his eyes.
“What … if you needed them in an emergency?”
“The champagne?”
“Yes. Say, to save the house.”
“Save the house? From what?”
Stop it, he willed his own voice. “Oh, fire?”
“Magnums of the best champagne are the last things I’d use to put a fire out!” James Whittaker laughed.
“Yes, the last. Mr. Whittaker?”
“Matt?”
“I feel … terrible.”
Matthew watched the man’s hand reach out. “Lean on me, son” he said, his voice far away. Matthew closed his eyes. Then they were sitting on cold stone steps. The older man loosened Matthew’s tie, pulled his collar open. “There you are, your color’s coming back.”
The ranger tried laughing away his embarrassment. “It’s hard on a man, being a slave of fashion,” he said.
James Whittaker took his shoulder. “You gave me a start!”
Stronger. A vision of chaos. Matthew watched James Whittaker’s movements, listened to his speech vaguely, as if he were underwater. “Come, we’ll be needing fortification before my daughter sends us both twirling,” he was saying, pulling a key from his vest, opening a glass cabinet full of glistening bottles. Didn’t the man hear it — the sound that existed in the two worlds, splintering both? The fluted glasses and the magnum of champagne slipped from James Whittaker’s hands, hit the floor, exploded. The cabinet shook, began to topple. Its owner stared up at it, terror freezing even his eyes.
Earthquake.
Matthew Hart’s worlds united with piercing clarity. Now. He sprang, caught the man’s legs. He heard the crash as they landed on the stone floor, under the curved arch.“Tohiuhal”
he called to the spirit of his grandfather, a Cherokee plead for serenity.
The roar subsided. He raised his head slowly from the floor sizzling in a sea of champagne and shattered glass.
“’Lana?” he whispered.
Her father’s voice came out of the darkness. “Go on, see to her,” it said, “I can manage.”
Matthew met Selby on the stairs, a lantern in his hand. “Take that down to Mr. Whittaker,” he urged, passing him.
He bounded up each stairway, sensing her higher. His eyes caught a swirl of white by the grace of the moon’s light, rushing toward his rooms on the third floor. He yanked Olana into the doorway, tucked her in beneath his heart as if the ground was still shaking.
Her hands clutched his shoulders, traveled down his arms. “A tremor, Matthew. We get them all the time!” Her voice was high-pitched, giddy. “Strong, but … Why, our daily almanacs read, ‘Occasional shakes, followed by light showers of bricks and plastering!’
Oh Matthew, I was so afraid you … you were —”
Oh Matthew, I was so afraid you … you were —”
They laughed together. He realized she was still in her underclothes, and without a corset. Her hair flowed over her shoulders, down her back, its red glints fiery in the moonlight. Her hands traveled down his shoulders, his champagne-soaked clothes. She smelled of the same starch Patsy did, and of lilies.
“Stop that, I’m all right.” When he took her wrists, her eyes focused on his. Wide, dark eyes, the lashes moist. Her breaths, lengthening now, tantalized his chin, his neck, made him feel his own pulse in his head. She rose to her toes, pressing her softly swaddled leg through his.
The sleeve of her camisole slipped off her shoulder. He heard it — expectant, like the air around them. He drew it lower, kissing a path from that shoulder to her ear, taking pleasure in her gasps, in the feel of her breasts rising, warm. She could have died, those breasts alabaster and cold, in the cave where he found her. She could have been ravaged, gutted, in the tree. The sea could have burst through the floorboards, swallowed her, tonight. What in hell was all the holding back about?
The sight of her made his joints ache. Her toes were glowing in the moonlight. He wanted to start with her toes.
“God almighty, ’Lana.” He turned her gently into the shadows of the doorway. Her smile broadened, and he saw her eyes spark with remembrance of their time in the woods.
She lifted his coat from his shoulders. It fell to the floor. Her thumbs found their way through his hair to stroke the scarred, leathery remains of his ear lobes, the part of himself so ugly he hid. She stroked feeling into them as she kissed his mouth, tasting of the raspberry tart she was eating when the tremor came.
“’Lana, I’ve got to have you. I’ve got to have you now.”
“Yes,” she gasped out in between her soft cries.
He couldn’t make her that promise from their night in the woods. Because he wouldn’t stay without, content in watching her rise to her own pleasures. She was a virgin and so this first time would hurt her, somehow. Did she know that? He had to tell her, but he didn’t know how. It was something he’d never asked his
grandmother, when he was young. Or Lottie, because he had no interest in any beauty but her own teaching, experienced kind. But he would be hurting Olana, somehow. Men in the Klondike bragged about piercing open virgins, making them bleed, scream. He didn’t want to hurt her. He wanted her open, aching, welcoming so he could release inside that wet, red, life source’s caress. He’d never mistreated a woman in his life but he wanted her, now.
grandmother, when he was young. Or Lottie, because he had no interest in any beauty but her own teaching, experienced kind. But he would be hurting Olana, somehow. Men in the Klondike bragged about piercing open virgins, making them bleed, scream. He didn’t want to hurt her. He wanted her open, aching, welcoming so he could release inside that wet, red, life source’s caress. He’d never mistreated a woman in his life but he wanted her, now.
His hands traced her spine, widened out around her buttocks before he kissed her deep, pressed her against the door, letting her feel the strength of his passion between her thighs. They might not make it to the bed.
“Olana! Where are you? You’ll catch your death!”
Her mother’s voice evaporated his ardor. It was close, perhaps two doors down, and searching. He couldn’t move. Olana said “Shit,” breaking it into two syllables like he did, but with her soft, ladylike tone intact. Matthew had barely managed to cover her shoulders with his retrieved coat before he felt her mother’s icy stare at the back of his head.
“The danger is quite past, Mr. Hart.”
He turned, careful to keep Olana before him, like an offering. He couldn’t find his voice. Her mother’s frown deepened.
“Give her the robe, Patsy, she’s shaking.”
“I’m not cold, Mother,” Olana said. “Mr. Hart has provided, see?” She embraced the empty sleeves of his coat. It wasn’t just him, Matthew realized. She’d been agonizingly frustrated too, but was in a better humor about it.
Patsy hid her smile as she draped her mistress’s robe over his arm, as if he was her assistant. Then she sniffed the air. “Why Mr. Hart, your coat is wet! And smells like a distillery!”
He smiled with one side of his mouth. “I guess it won’t do?”
“I should say not, sir!”
He and Patsy replaced his coat with Olana’s robe as Dora Whittaker looked on, astonished. They worked carefully, so he’d see only flashes of white were he looking, which he wasn’t. Patsy placed Olana’s hair gently over the robe’s lace collar.
Dora Whittaker pushed the maid aside. “Mr. Hart, what exactly were you —”
Her husband, smelling the same as he and with a fresh magnum of champagne under his arm, interrupted her.
“My darlings!” he hugged Olana and smacked a kiss on his wife’s cheek. When she bristled, he patted her rear. “I’m raising tonight’s champagne allowance to twenty bottles — no, make it two dozen!”
Olana stepped forward. “Papa! Might we still go on?”
“Go on with the celebration of my daughter’s return, her restoration —” he looked at her blushing face more intently and smiled, “Nay, the enhancement of her beauty after her ordeal? Haul out the gaslamps, the candles if we must! San Franciscans will not be thwarted by a little rocking!”
“Have you gone quite mad?” his wife demanded.
He laughed. “Forgive an old fool, my darling,” he pleaded. “I’m so happy to be here — happy to be anywhere!” He rested his hand on the ranger’s shoulder. “This lad may not be quick with numbers but he’s quick on his feet!” The smile left his face suddenly. “I couldn’t move, Matt. And I thank all that’s holy that you could.”
Both women’s fingers touched their faces in the same spot, just under their right cheeks, as they looked from one man to the other. Matthew saw a resemblance between Olana and her mother, and finally had something that endeared Dora Whittaker to him.
The library was cool and dark, its knowledge ever more enticing. Why hadn’t he put himself in here at every possible moment, once she was well? Why hadn’t he told her to go back to her room, put her hair up? Here, in her father’s house, he’d almost stolen her flower. Here where the very walls told him he had no right to her.
Was it the tremors? He was ashamed of his fear of them. He
had to get out of this city that shook him senseless. Matthew Hart shoved the envelope into his vest pocket.
had to get out of this city that shook him senseless. Matthew Hart shoved the envelope into his vest pocket.
“Aren’t you going to count it?”
“No.”
“Some would call that a bad business sense.”
“Others, trust.”
He’d twice refused any more than their agreed price. Now James Whittaker’s words were threatening the return of his solitude. “I wish you’d stay on. You seemed to have eased all the aches and pains of this house. Even enough of Dora’s that she’s begun a renewed interest in … ah, life.”
“Then I’d better quit before one of you starts feeling poorly.”
“Seriously, Matt. I could start you at the mill.”
“You’re not indebted to me, sir.”
“This has nothing to do with tonight. I’ve watched you with people. You have a way of making your will known, carried out.”
The younger man winced, remembering the gentle curve of Olana’s hips beneath the thin muslin of her chemise. “Considering what my will is, I wouldn’t think you’d want that, sir.”
“Well,” James Whittaker was forced to smile, “maybe a bit of your forthrightness — if not your opinions — will rub off on the others. As for your ideas …”
The back of her neck now, its downy hairs wet against his tongue. “Ideas, sir?”
“Perhaps I’d consider them. In time. On a small scale.”
The timbering, you great fool, Matthew reminded himself. The man is talking about the trees. Was he finally succeeding in what Mr. Parker had sent him to do? Concentrate. Matthew took in a deep breath, past her scent of lilies at twilight. “I hope you will. And I’d be glad to consult with you on it. But I already have a position.”
“I could make it worth your while.”
“No sir, you couldn’t.”
“Honest to the end. Very well. Here,” he pulled another envelope from his vest.
“I’m not taking any —”
“This isn’t money, son. It’s the acreage your Mr. Parker wants.”
“What?”
“The additional land. I bought it. For you to do with as you will. You have three months to decide. You may transfer it out of your name on March twenty-fifth. If you wish to start one of your new ideas, there’s your playground. I’ll back the enterprise.”
“Enterprise?”
“One of your tree farms. If it’s successful, we can join forces, work together. Your status will be quite different in this household.”
“But sir, we need that land for the park.”
“That’s your superior talking. I’m giving you an opportunity. A position of power, influence.”
“You’re giving me an impossible choice. That land is a forest, sir, a connected world. It’s not suited for tree farming, or —”
“Suit it. Mold it to your vision of the future!”
“You don’t understand, sir. It already is my vision of the future.”
James Whittaker sighed. “You have three months, Matt. And I have a daughter waiting. Impatiently, I think. And a rival who is ahead of you on every count except winning her heart. My wife is back in my arms at night. I understand the importance of your advantage, believe me. Take the time to think. To, I hope, get your affairs in order. Now. I have only one more order before you’re free to return to your trees.”
A shy tap at the door and the ranger forgot his trees. Olana Whittaker’s gown was the deepest red he’d ever seen. Her skin shone like porcelain above it. Her hair was swept up and dressed with a single white silk lily. There was only one way he’d seen her lovelier.
“Wear out her shoes,” James Whittaker whispered before he put his daughter on Matthew’s arm.
Olana’s face pinched in distress as they reached the ballroom floor. Now what? Had he put something on backwards? “Matthew, what did Papa say? You look like your world’s been shattered!”
“’Lana, I —”
She laughed. “Come, it won’t be so bad! I promise not to step on your feet. Wait. Oh, Matthew, I’m sorry. I never thought to ask!”
The guests were looking only their way. “Ask what?”
The musicians struck up a Straus waltz. Matthew took her waist. Olana lifted the train of her gown. They sailed off around the room’s periphery. “Why, Mr. Hart,” she gasped as he swept her into the air. “You can!”
“Can what?”
“Dance!”
He frowned. “This is walking. The fandango, that’s dancing.”
Hours more. A few hours more. Surely he could endure it all for a few hours more. The ballroom’s varied polished woods glowed softly in the candlelight. But the room’s beauty was diminished by the cacophony of sound, overripe color, talk. At the center of it all was ’Lana, smiling, radiant. This was her world, one in which he’d never have a place.
Was that what was bothering him most of all? Of course not. Still, his eyes tried to memorize her, a swirling image to call up when the intimate ones tormented him. Then she looked over her partner’s back and spoiled it with a smile that was his alone.
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