Blue Waltz (18 page)

"Hello," he said simply, reluctantly, she thought.

"Hello, to you, too." Belle offered him a wry smile from her place in front of the fence, her long skirt covering her shoes.

"I understand you were looking for me."

"Yes."

Then silence.

"What for?" he prompted.

"Oh, that. It was nothing. You're a busy man. You really should get back to your office. Papers to sign. Appointments to keep. You know the sort of thing. I'll just see you later."

Stephen eyed her curiously. "Why do I get the feeling something is going on here that I'm unaware of?"

Belle rolled her eyes and snorted in a way that she hoped implied he must be imagining things.

"Belle, why are you standing there?" he persisted.

She searched her mind for an answer. "I'm admiring the scenery," she offered at length. She straightened and smiled, then gazed off into the bustling street with purpose.

"Admiring the scenery? The scenery is behind you in the Common, not in the street."

"Go figure," she offered with a shrug of shoulders, though she didn't dare try to turn around.

"This is ridiculous, Belle. Either come inside with me or let me see you home. You can't just stand here."

ft was all she could do not to say, "Try me." But she managed to hold back and said instead, "I'm fine, really. You go on without me."

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"Belle," he said, his voice a warning, "what is going on here?"

Belle cringed not only at his tone, but at the sight of him, as well. He stood before her, more handsome than any man had a right to be, so tall and elegant, regal really, making her feel more awkward and clumsy than usual. He was a swan. She was an ugly duckling, waddling through life, mucking things up at every opportunity. Her embarrassment grew tenfold.

She started to look away.

"Belle," he demanded softly. "What is going on?" He hesitated, reaching out and gently taking hold of her chin. "Why did you come for me?"

Her heart leaped. Her mind stilled with the simple touch of his hand. So soft. So gentle. Yet so secure, making her feel as if she could never get lost. "I love it when you touch me," she breathed.

She felt his gentle grip stiffen against her skin. After a moment, he dropped his hand away.

She could have died a thousand deaths. "God," she groaned. "I try to say the right things, really I do. But somehow, other things, not-so-right things, come out instead." She glanced up at him. "I'm sorry," she offered, then sighed. "That seems to be the way with us. Too many sorrys."

"Oh, Belle . . ." he said, though that was all. Just an "Oh, Belle," hanging in the air, a thousand possible meanings rushing through her mind. Without thinking, she started to turn away, forgetting her foot.

"Aggh!"

"What is it?"

The look in his eyes was her undoing. Her pride be damned. For all she made him angry, she knew he would help her. "Before you go," she said with a self-deprecat-

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ing laugh, "could you help me? I seem to have gotten myself in a bit of a bind."

A look of confusion passed over his features. She gestured toward her feet. After a curious look, he leaned over and peered behind her. "Belle, your foot is in the fence!"

"Really," she snapped sarcastically, mortification making her response overly sharp.

His all too familiar scowl darkened perceptibly. "How in the world did you manage this?"

"Well, you see, I was standing here, minding my own business, of course—"

"Of course," he interjected dryly.

"Your sarcasm isn't appreciated."

"Neither was yours. Furthermore, I wasn't being sarcastic."

"As I was trying to say," she said in exaggerated tones, "a huge clanging red wagon with brass wheels raced through the street."

"A fire engine," Stephen explained automatically as he hunched before her foot.

"Really?" she asked, intrigued. "How does it work?"

"Your foot, Belle."

"Ah, yes. My silly old foot." She grimaced involuntarily when Stephen tried to free her.

He stopped immediately at the sound. "Have you hurt yourself?"

"No, no." she equivocated. "Just sore." She wasn't about to explain that it was the pressure on her bad leg when he tried to free the good one that made her grimace. In fact, she hadn't let out a peep to anyone, because she had hated to admit that she couldn't get her leg out of this idiotic predicament. It was her good leg that was caught, and every time she tried to put her full weight

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on her bad leg to pull her good one out, pain seared up her body. This is ridiculous, she thought. At the rate she was going, she would have been there for days due to foolish old pride. But pride, she had learned, could be a lifeline. Not so unlike Stephen that night at the Abbots' as he had stared at that thick cut of beef.

She started to comment, but then thought better of it. She knew without a doubt that the last thing Stephen St. James would want to be compared to was her.

"You still haven't told me what you were doing," he said as he studied the situation.

"Oh, yes, the fire engine." She looked down the street to where the huge flatbed wagon had disappeared, "Everyone on the walkway just stopped. Lots of men."

Stephen tensed.

"And I couldn't see over them." She shrugged her shoulders. "So I stepped up on the rung here in hopes of seeing what all the commotion was about. Alas, my foot slipped, unfortunately backwards. And here I am. But I did manage to get a glimpse of that fire engine."

Stephen cursed under his breath.

"I heard that."

"You're lucky you didn't hear something a whole lot worse."

"You must be the testiest man in Boston."

His only response was an ominous look, before he said, "Look," while pointing down the street.

Belle swung her head around to do as he said, and when she did, Stephen forced her foot through the fencing. When she found herself free, she stared for a moment before she launched herself into Stephen's arms. "You did it! I thought I'd be there all night," she replied, laughing her relief up to the skies.

Stephen looked down at her, the bright winter sun

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highlighting her cheekbones, and couldn't keep his smile away. Unexpectedly, despite his better intentions, he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to feel her lips beneath his. He wanted to touch her and hold her with an intensity that amazed him, then left his body throbbing with desire.

And there, in the streets of a town whose history included a husband who was sent to the pillory for doing nothing more than kissing his wife at his own front door, they stood, silently, unmindful of the people all around. Stephen reached out very slowly and touched her cheek. He didn't care about propriety. He didn't care that friends and acquaintances alike undoubtedly passed by on the street. The touch was like fire, burning him to the quick.

"There is an outside possibility," she said, her glance drifting to his lips, "that I am actually growing to like you."

His hand froze, and he forced her to meet his gaze. "Would that be so terrible?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"Why?"

Taking a deep breath, she answered. "Because I like people who aren't like you."

Her words, as well as a wagonmaster who rolled by shouting obscenities at a pedestrian who had obviously gotten in his way, broke the spell. Stephen dropped his hand back to his side. "Which is?"

Red flooded her cheeks. She shook her head as if shaking cobwebs out of her mind. After a moment, with a jerk, though without another word, she turned away and headed down the walkway toward home.

With a start, Stephen fell in step beside her. "Which is?" he demanded once again, his voice unrelenting.

"Forget it, Stephen."

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"I will not forget it." He knew he should flee. He knew he shouldn't care, but he desperately wanted to know—needed to know. "What kind of a person do you think I am?"

"You," she began with a sigh, "are stiff and inflexible, and undoubtedly have your entire life planned out from now until you die."

Stephen's stride became rigid.

"See," she said, glancing over at him as they walked side by side. "Getting all stiff and insulted on me."

"I am not stiff and insulted," he replied, his voice like steel.

Belle snorted in a most unladylike fashion. "And I'm not female or wearing a dress."

Despite thirty-seven years of having seen a great many things in his life both here and abroad, Stephen's eyes opened wide with surprise before he groaned and shook his head. "The things you say, Mrs. Braxton. Not wearing a dress. I can't begin to understand you."

"I was simply making a point. And you don't understand me because you are narrow-minded and would never dream of doing or saying something not altogether proper."

He remembered having nearly kissed her right there in the busy streets. "That's not true."

Belle took a deep breath and stopped abruptly, wheeling around to face Stephen, who nearly tripped over himself when she stopped. She shook her head as she looked up at him. "Face it, Stevie, you're stodgy, dull as dishwater."

Stephen's lips pressed into a hard line as he stared down at her. "My name is not Stevie," he could only manage.

"Proof in point."

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"No, Mrs. Braxton. That is beside the point. Stevie or Stephen, I am not stodgy."

Just then the bells from Arlington Street Church began to toll loud and clear, crisp. The sound seemed to startle her. She snapped her mouth shut on whatever she had been about to say, before lifting her face toward the sound.

For the moment, she appeared to forget Stephen altogether as she closed her eyes and simply listened, taking in the distant clangs like a connoisseur savoring a fine wine. Stephen watched as a kind of peace settled over her —the sound, like a wine, filling her with a temporary ease. Not until the bells quieted did she take a long deep breath before letting it out slowly. "If you're not stodgy," she said, her eyes still closed, "then prove it ... by climbing the belfry of Arlington Street Church and ringing the bells."

Stephen stood nonplussed. "Ring the bells?" he finally said, his voice tight.

"Yes, but you'd have to do it at an odd time, like . . . eighteen minutes after three for it to mean anything."

"Ring the bells?" he repeated. "At eighteen minutes after three! Such an act would only prove that I am capable of being irresponsible."

Belle opened her eyes. She stared at him, her blue eyes imploring him to something—something he couldn't fathom.

When he failed to respond, she sighed and nodded her head as if his silence was answer enough, then she gathered her long skirts then headed off into the park. "See?" she called back to him with husky satisfaction. "You are a stodgy old thing."

CHAPTER 13

The next morning, Belle sat on the front steps of Stephen's home, her elbows planted on her knees, her breath billowing in white puffs in the early morning air. She had been reluctant to knock on the door or ring the bell for fear of either being sent on her way or infuriating Stephen even further by her continually unladylike behavior. Even she knew a lady never called on a gentleman, though before today she hadn't cared.

But today she needed to care. How else would she finally be able to be kind to him and repay her debt?

Belle kicked herself for yesterday. She had tried to be pleasant to the man, but had ended by calling him stodgy. Good Lord, she had mucked her good deed up quite nicely. But today she would make amends. She was going to be kind, by God, if it was the last thing she did.

Upon waking that morning, she had developed a plan to accidentally bump into Stephen on his way to the office. But after walking up and down the street for a good thirty minutes without a single glimpse of him, Belle had plopped herself down on his front steps with an impatient sigh. Stephen St. James wasn't making it easy to be nice.

The cold from the hard granite was beginning to seep through her thick coat, skirt, and petticoats, making her bones ache. But sooner or later, he had to come out of that house. Hopefully, it would be sooner rather than later.

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Just then, the front door opened. Before she could turn around, she heard the hard step of boot on granite come to an abrupt halt. Only a heartbeat later, the door slammed shut.

Slowly, almost reluctantly, she turned around to find him standing at the top of the steps, his back to the closed front door.

Stephen, so darkly handsome that he took her breath away.

"Mrs. Braxton," he said simply, with a curt nod.

She smiled, almost shyly. "Good morning."

"Is it?" He looked out into the overcast skies, his countenance just as dark.

Her heart sank. For a moment she concentrated on his wool coat, before she slowly closed her eyes. Unwelcome feelings, dangerously close to disappointment, stung at her lids. He was angrier than she had suspected he would be. "I see you're in a worse mood than usual," she said before she could stop herself.

He turned back to her with an arctic stare. "I suppose I would have been disappointed had I met with anything other than that sharp tongue of yours."

"I was trying to be nice. You're the one who started it."

"Me?"

"Yes, you with your caustically thrown out, 'Is it?'"

"Of course. How foolish of me. Somehow everything always ends up as my fault."

Her shoulders slumped. "What's wrong, Stephen?" she asked with a defeated sigh.

He almost said that she was what was wrong, but stopped himself just in time. He came down the steps with an arrogant swagger until he was standing below her.

"What can I do for you, Mrs. Braxton? You obviously

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aren't here to admire the scenery." He seemed to consider. "Though with you, one never knows."

"No need to get nasty, Mr. St. James. Especially when I came over to apologize."