Always in My Dreams (38 page)

Jay Mac and Moira paused on the threshold of the room. They exchanged glances. Moira would have discreetly stepped back into the hallway. Jay Mac elected to loudly and pointedly clear his throat. Moira scolded him, saying his name softly.

Walker heard the throat clearing. Skye heard her mother's admonishment. It was Skye who pulled back, at once relieved and uncomfortable when Walker wouldn't release her completely.

"Just how well are you acquainted with my daughter?" Jay Mac asked.

"Papa, please," Skye said. She spoke to her father, but her eyes beseeched her mother.

"Jay Mac," Moira said gently. "Perhaps we should—"

"I will
not
be shooed or shushed," he said flatly. "I want an answer, Mr. Caide. What are your intentions concerning my daughter?"

"Papa!"

"Jay Mac!"

Over both objections, Walker said simply, "I intend to marry her."

Skye stepped out of the circle of his arms. She was finding it difficult to breathe. There was a tightness in her chest and a knot in her stomach. "You don't have to say that just because he saw us kissing. Jay Mac's not that old-fashioned."

"I am so," Jay Mac insisted. "Tell them, Moira."

Walker raked his hair with his fingers. "I'm not saying it because of what your father saw, but because of what he asked. Those
are
my intentions."

"Were you going to tell me?" she demanded. An uncomfortable pressure was building at the back of her throat. It was easy for Skye to imagine disgracing herself by being sick in front of everyone.

"I am telling you."

"Then let me tell you my intentions, Mr. Caide. I have no plans to marry anyone. Not ever." Having said that, Skye hurried out of the room. Her parents parted long enough to let her through then closed ranks again.

"I can't send you after her this time," Jay Mac told Walker. "She's gone to her room."

"That wouldn't stop me if I wanted to follow her."

Jay Mac considered that. This young man wasn't afraid of him at all. Jay Mac wasn't certain that Walker Caide even respected him. It was an unusual situation for Jay Mac. It didn't make him angry, however. It made him curious. "Mrs. Worth and I came to tell you that dinner is being served. Are you going to join us?"

It was a question now, not an assumption. It changed Walker's mind. "I believe I will, thank you."

Moira threw up her hands. She had been certain until just a moment ago that Walker was going to leave. "I'm sure I don't understand either one of you."

* * *

Skye was brushing her hair with hard, punishing strokes when her mother entered her room. "Has he gone?"

"Soon, I think. Your father and Walker are having a drink in the library. I didn't want to be part of that."

She noticed her mother had referred to Walker by his Christian name. That suggested a certain familiarity, at the very least a warming to him that Skye didn't find particularly comforting. "I won't have them planning my life for me," she said. "I watched Jay Mac do it with my sisters. I won't have him do it to me."

"You give your father too much credit," Moira said. "All of you do. He couldn't stop Mary Francis from joining an order. He couldn't keep Michael from working at the
Chronicle.
Rennie worked at Northeast in spite of Jay Mac's wishes, and Maggie's going to be a doctor. Those were not your father's plans for them. They did those things in spite of Jay Mac."

"They did those things
to
spite him." Skye couldn't believe her own temerity. She put down her brush. Her hand was shaking and her throat ached again. She had never felt so much like crying and she was certain her mother had never felt so much like slapping her. "I'm sorry, Mama, but I didn't want it to be such a fight with him. I thought he would make an exception for me. I haven't ever wanted to be anything important."

"Oh, Skye," Moira said sadly. She stood behind her daughter at the vanity and studied Skye's reflection. Her fingers sifted through Skye's hair, absently stroking and braiding. "Is that really what you think?"

Skye's shrug was uncertain. "I can't be like my sisters."

"I know."

"I have my own ideas about what I want to do with my life."

Moira nodded. Her smile was as gentle as her fingers in Skye's hair.

"No one asked what I thought about getting married," she said.

"I think your father and Walker know the answer to that now."

Her mother's dry tone gave Skye pause. "Did I make a scene? I hadn't meant to do that. Sometimes I simply can't think clearly around him."

"Are you talking about your father or Mr. Caide?"

"I was talking about Walker, but sometimes it's the same with Jay Mac. I'm so busy anticipating what he'll say or do that I hardly know what I'm saying myself."

Moira's fingers hesitated. "Have you ever considered that perhaps what you're really not doing is listening to him?"

"What are you saying, Mama?"

"I'm saying that sometimes when you girls are doing things to spite your father, you're only spiting yourselves." Moira's hands dropped away from Skye's hair. She patted her daughter's shoulder. "It's just something to think about."

Skye stared at her own reflection, her expression doubtful.

Moira was on the point of leaving when she paused on the threshold. "I liked Mr. Caide very much, Skye."

"Mother."

"Sure, and it's not me he's asking to marry, but I liked him just the same."

Skye turned on her stool. "Yes, but what do you
know
about him?"

"Not as much as you, I'm sure," Moira said. "He told us about his parents being missionaries. I'm afraid I found that so fascinating that the conversation didn't move much beyond it. Your father couldn't wait to get him alone."

"To finish the inquisition," said Skye.

Moira smiled. "More likely to begin it."

* * *

It was late by the time Walker Caide arrived at the St. Mark Hotel. Moira had suggested he might find the accommodations there comfortable. He didn't mention that he had stayed at the St. Mark before. Except for an awkward beginning, Skye's mother had been a gracious hostess and she wanted to be helpful. He didn't take that pleasure from her.

Walker registered at the front desk. The lobby was all but deserted. A couple came in from the street wearing evening clothes. They were smiling, exchanging warm glances. Their figures were reflected in the dark polished wood that paneled the entrance. They stopped at the desk to collect their key then disappeared up the wide carpeted staircase. Walker waited a full minute to give them enough time to get to their room. He had no desire to catch them out in the stairwell or in a hallway. They wouldn't have noticed him if he had, but he couldn't have helped but notice them. He was feeling a little raw, a little restless, and the after dinner drinks he'd shared with Jay Mac had intensified the feelings, not dulled them.

His room was on the third floor. It was small, about a third of the size of the suite he generally shared with Parnell when they came to the city. He tossed his valise on a chair and lit the bedside lamp. A noise outside drew him to the room's sole window. He had a view of Broadway below. Although the lobby of the St. Mark was quiet, the thoroughfare wasn't. Carriages were moving at a brisk pace, outdistancing the milk wagons and farmers' carts. A group of men stepped out of a restaurant. They were wearing identical black coats and derbies, white scarves and gloves. Two of them carried ebony canes. The very look of them defined respectability and importance, yet Walker wasn't surprised when they walked off in the direction of a seedier section of town.

Turning away, he unpacked his clothes and prepared for bed. He did it because it was late and not because he was tired. When he crawled into bed, he found it was every bit as lonely as he'd thought it would be. He reached for the lamp and turned back the wick.

Gaslight from the street filtered into his room. Shadows overlaid the patterned wallpaper, lending it a grayish hue. Walker listened to the activity on Broadway, the sounds of people moving with purpose and direction. Wagon wheels clicked steadily. Occasionally there was a shout or the bellow of hearty laughter Mostly the mix of voices was a tranquil, even hum by the time it reached his ears. Without his being aware of it, the nighttime cadence of the busy city lulled him to sleep.

Walker had learned how to sleep deeply and wake instantly. When a singular sound separated itself from the background noise, Walker sat up immediately and listened, each of his senses heightened by the interruption. It came again, a scratching sound of metal against metal. It was irregular, starting and pausing and starting again.

He cocked his head to isolate the origin of the sound and realized it was coming from the door. Walker stood and shrugged into his robe. The light in his room was sufficient for him to find his way to the door without bumping into anything. His passage was silent.

At the door, he stopped and listened again. He could identify the sound now. Someone was trying to jiggle his key out of the lock. He hunkered down so that his eyes were level with the keyhole. He could see the key wobbling in the lock as it was pushed from the hallway side of the door. Walker actually considered helping the intruder. He could tap the key and let it fall on the floor, where it could easily be pulled into the corridor. He decided against it, preferring instead to learn something about the burglar's patience.

It took the intruder a full minute to push the key onto the floor. He could have been surprised at any time by someone stepping into the hallway from one of the other rooms or the stairwell, but if he was distracted by that possibility, he didn't show it. He was persistent, if amateurish.

Walker almost jumped when the key finally fell. It landed loudly on the hardwood floor. The sound must have surprised the intruder as well, because the entire door rattled in its frame as the man fell against it. After those noises it became quiet again. Walker could imagine what was going on on the other side of the door, the urge the other man would have felt to quell his own panic, the furtive looking around, wondering if he was going to be discovered.

Walker waited. Had the burglar given up?

No. Walker saw a small metal rod being pushed under the door. It took him a moment to realize the object was a button hook. Rather ingenious, that. It took the intruder several tries to catch the tip of the black skeleton key, but once he had it, he pulled it under the door easily. Walker moved back from the door then and waited.

The key turned again, this time from the hallway, and the lock was released. The door was opened slowly and cautiously.

"Sweet Jesus," he said, raking back his tawny, sleep-pressed hair. The silhouette framed in his doorway was very familiar. "I should have known it was you." He pulled Skye into the room quickly and shut the door. The scream that had been rising in her throat was stifled by his hand across her mouth. "I'm the one who should be raising hell here." He eased his grip when he felt her relax. It wasn't an accident that his hand rested near her neck. He felt like strangling her.

"You scared me!" she said accusingly.

Incredulous, he asked, "I scared
you?
What happened to knocking on a person's door?"

Skye drew herself up stiffly. "It's the middle of the night. I thought you'd be sleeping."

Walker let her go. "Your logic not only eludes, it frightens me. But then, to your way of thinking, that probably serves me right."

"Exactly."

He nearly groaned. He shook his head instead. The movement only partially cleared it. Walker pulled on the belt of his robe and lighted the bedside lamp. Skye had already taken off her coat. She hung it beside his just inside the door and was removing her fur-fringed hat. Her bright hair was pulled back loosely, secured by a black grosgrain ribbon. The arrangement was soft and flattering. Her eyes looked impossibly large, the centers of them so dark and wide that they were more black than green. She was wearing a hunter green gown with the tight sleeves cut high on her shoulders and the neckline closing at the base of her throat. Tiny jet buttons fastened the tailored bodice. She was nervously fingering one of them now, trying to gauge his reaction.

Walker pointed to the room's sole chair. "Sit." His tone did not invite argument. He disappeared into the dressing room and returned wearing a pair of black trousers and a wrinkled white shirt that he didn't bother to tuck in. Skye's flush told him that she realized he had been quite naked under his dressing gown. "Does anyone know where you are?"

"Who would I tell?" she asked.

The entire neighborhood, he thought. This was just the sort of thing the gossips would relish. "How did you get out?"

"I walked out. The house only looks like a fortress. There aren't any guards at the doors."

"There should be," he said. "Your father should hire a dozen, just for you." He sighed. It probably had been tried already. "Why are you here?"

"I wanted to talk to you."

"I think I understood that. How did you find me?"

"I asked my mother where you were staying. She told me she had suggested that you come here. It wasn't so difficult after that. I distracted the clerk at the front desk while I looked over the registry. Your name was right there beside room 309. When the clerk was busy with someone else, I came up."