Dare to Love Again (The Heart of San Francisco Book #2): A Novel (7 page)

Two silver brows peaked high. “At Montgomery and Jackson—in the heart of Barbary?”

All Alli could do was nod, suddenly aware that Nick Barone was right—she was too stupid to teach in a school. A frail sob broke from her lips, and Miss Penny gave her a hug.

“There, there, young lady, the worst is over, so what say we calm you down with a cup of chamomile, all right?”

She nodded again, and the older woman ushered her inside, bolting the door before she steered her down the hall into the kitchen where their pet bull terrier Horatio lay asleep by the back door. His nasal snores coaxed a smile to Alli’s lips. The homey smell of fresh-baked bread calmed her as much as Miss Penny’s gentle hand on her back, steering her toward the potbelly stove. With a final quivering heave, Alli dropped into a nearby chair, clutching her shawl tightly around her. Brushing disheveled curls over Alli’s shoulder, Miss Penny gave her a gentle squeeze, then bustled over to the pantry. She dislodged the shells from the shotgun before tucking it high on a shelf.

“Goodness, Miss Penny, do you really know how to shoot?” Allison asked, fear giving way to fascination with this tiny woman whose gumption was as big as her heart.

Chuckling, Miss Penny bounded to the sink to pump water into a kettle. “You better hope so, young lady, or you wouldn’t
have been the only one shaking in her boots out there.” She set the kettle on the gas stove with a wink, then pulled two cups and saucers from massive white shelves lining one wall and plopped them on the large wooden table covered with flour and a ball of dough. “My nephew is the captain of detectives for this district, you know, and we went ’round and ’round about whether I’d be allowed to stay with my girls on the edge of the worst part of town. But when I refused to leave, he bought me a shotgun and taught me to shoot, which seemed to appease him somewhat.” Her lips skewed in a wry smile. “That and the fact I agreed to let one of his best detectives rent a room.”

She retrieved cream from the icebox and set it on the table along with sugar and two spoons, her smile dimming considerably. “This is not a neighborhood for the fainthearted, my dear, especially at night.” She paused to gently cup Alli’s chin with her hand. “Promise me, Allison, that you won’t wander out alone after dark anymore.” Moisture glossed her eyes. “I shudder to think what might have happened if I hadn’t opted for a few moments alone to bake bread while Mrs. Lemp gave the younger girls their baths.”

A knot near the size of the ball of dough dipped in Alli’s throat. “I promise, Miss Penny—from now on, home before dusk.” She paused. “But surely catching the cable car during the daylight hours can’t be all that dangerous, can it?”

Miss Penny sighed while she plucked pot holders from the counter to remove a loaf of bread from the oven. “Walking the Barbary Coast alone is always a risky venture for a woman, my dear, but definitely safer during the day.” A gleam lit her eye. “Especially with a hat pin the size of yours.” Her low chuckle made Alli smile. “Old Pug won’t be sitting easy for a while.”

“Good.” A tremor rippled through Alli as she leaned toward
the fire to ward off the chill of the night and the memory of the attack. Her eyes flicked up. “Miss Penny?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Would it be okay if we . . . ,” Alli gulped, “you know, kept this unfortunate incident between the two of us?”

Miss Penny turned, washing her hands at the sink before drying them with a towel. “Goodness, Allison, why? Your mother needs to be aware of the danger you were in tonight.”

“And I’ll tell her, I promise—soon. It’s just that . . .” She swallowed hard, eyes fixed on her bruised and dirty palms as they lay face up in her lap. “Mother has so much on her mind right now with the opening of the school, and she’s so excited that I’d hate to dampen it for her.” Her gaze lifted, along with her hope at the kind of independence Miss Penny had achieved as a woman in a world ruled by men. “And to be honest, Miss Penny, I long for the freedom to come and go as I please, to be able to teach young women to fend for themselves like I hope to do.” She drew in a stabilizing breath, praying Miss Penny would understand the need to survive and succeed on the Barbary Coast like so many of her students. “And I know this sounds silly, but for me, that means taking the cable car home whenever I work late instead of relying on Hadley.”

A smile tipped the edge of Miss Penny’s mouth. “It doesn’t sound silly at all,” she said softly. “I said much the same thing to my Harold once, not long after we married. I was a middle-class young woman who was fortunate enough to acquire a teaching degree, you see, and he wanted me to give it all up to be a lady of luxury.” Her smile was melancholy. “Which I did, of course, when my son was born, but I refused to give up my independence and adventurous spirit,” she said with a chuckle, “which I fear pained him a great deal.” The smile faded as her eyes trailed into
a faraway stare. “But God knew it would serve me well after he and my son—”

The whistle of the teapot interrupted her reverie, and she scrambled to retrieve their tea, but Allison didn’t miss the moisture in her eyes. Mother had told her that Miss Penny lost both her husband and son to diphtheria years prior, and Allison’s respect for this resilient woman had grown even deeper. She marveled at how Miss Penny had salvaged her own life by salvaging the lives of others.

Miss Penny glanced at the clock over her sink before she poured Alli a cup of tea. “Well, it’s getting late, so we’ll need to call Hadley to pick you up while I doctor your hands.”

Allison nervously picked at her nails, ignoring the sting of her palms. “Actually, Miss Penny, Hadley is with Mother, Cassie, and my sisters at a late dinner, so I’ll just call a tax—” The word froze on her tongue at the jiggle of a key in a lock.

“Ah—perfect timing!” Miss Penny said with a bright smile, setting the kettle back on the stove. “Nicholas can see you home on the cable car.”

Oh, Lord, no, please . . .
Allison’s eyelids sank closed
.

The front door opened and shut, and with the final click of a lock, heavy footsteps echoed in the foyer, rousing Horatio from his sleep. The terrier’s low growl rumbled through the kitchen, merging with a deep chuckle from down the hall. “Mmm . . . I smell bread.”

And I
smell trouble . . .
Bracing herself with a tight tug of her shawl, Allison sat up straight in the chair, hands shaking as she took a sip of her tea.

“Oh, Horatio, hush!” Miss Penny said with a chuckle, hurrying over to welcome Nick home. “Just in the nick of time, young man, pun intended.” She perched on tiptoe and pressed a kiss
to his bristled cheek while Horatio bared his teeth with another nasty snarl. “We have company.”

“Hello, Mr. Barone,” Allison managed, far fewer tremors in her tone than in the hands that quivered her cup. She forced a bright smile. “You’re working late.”

“It’s
Barone
, long
e
,” he said in a clipped tone, ignoring Horatio until the terrier toddled out of the room. “And I could say the same for you.” His eyes narrowed as they flicked to the clock and back. “Shouldn’t you be home in your mansion?”

“Now, now, Nicholas,” Miss Penny said with a pat of his hand, “be a good boy, or you’ll have the Hand of Hope School calling you Mr. Cranky Pants too.”

“But what is she doing here?” he asked with a scowl, directing his attention to Miss Penny as she doused a clean rag under the pump and rubbed it with carbolic soap.

She scuttled over to Allison with the rag, squinting to study her skinned palms. “Miss McClare had a little accident and scraped her hands, so I’m cleaning them up before you escort her home.” Ignoring his searing gaze, she swished impatient fingers toward a fresh-baked loaf of bread on the counter. “Have a slice of bread while you wait, so you’re not growling like a bear.”

Allison chanced a peek and wished she hadn’t. His jaw looked like rock peppered with dark bristle, making the slits of his eyes all the more ominous. “What kind of accident?”

“Just never you mind,” Miss Penny said, gently swabbing the dirt from Allison’s hands to reveal red palms scraped free of skin. “It’s been taken care of and it’s none of your business.”

———

“The devil it isn’t.” Nick hurled his coat over the hook by the door and strode toward the princess, a muscle pulsing in his cheek as he eyed the shawl she now pinched with bloodless
fingers. Beneath its gauzy weave, he spied a hint of skin peeking through what looked like a gape in the shoulder of her sleeve, and a flash of fury curdled his stomach. He took one look at the beautiful disarray of black curls tumbling down that remarkable shirtwaist stained with dirt, and his gut turned over. His gaze flicked up to a pale face that only emphasized startling green eyes, and the nervous tug of teeth on those full, pink lips told him this brainless beauty had done exactly what he warned her not to do. He bit back the outrage that teetered on the tip of his tongue and singed Miss McMule with a scathing glare. “I-repeat. What-kind-of-accident?”

Miss Penny released a heavy exhale, giving Miss McClare’s arm a final pat before she turned to face him, a plea for compassion glimmering in her eyes. “She’s had a traumatic night, Nicholas,” she said quietly. “She doesn’t need you to add to it.”

Normally he relented where Miss Penny was concerned, but the idea of anyone laying a foul hand on this stunning, albeit senseless, creature boiled his blood. The tic in his cheek joined forces with the one in his jaw. “Are you going to tell me what happened, or will I have to—”

“I was accosted, all right?” The creature literally groaned the words, fingers quivering as she brushed a glossy black curl away from her ashen face. The green eyes, usually shooting sparks where he was concerned, actually melted into glistening pools of apology that completely bewitched him. “I . . . owe you an apology, Mr. Barone,” she whispered, one of the rare times she actually pronounced his name correctly. “You were right—I am too stupid to teach . . .”

Miss Penny’s head whirled, her wide eyes inflicting the same level of guilt his grandmother had whenever he stepped out of line. “You actually
said
that?”

“No, it’s true, Miss Penny,” she continued in a rush, heating his face with an ardent defense he in no way deserved. “Mr. Barone tried to warn me, but I argued with him, stubborn to the core, doing exactly what he said I would do—part of the upper crust who thinks they can go off half-cocked doing whatever they bloomin’ well please.”

The gape of Miss Penny’s eyes matched that of her mouth. “Nicholas Barone!”

He slid a sweaty finger inside his collar to loosen the chokehold from Miss McClare’s praise, wishing she’d stop defending him and just whack him with a stick instead. “Look, I didn’t mean it exactly that way . . .”

“No, you didn’t,” Miss McClare said quietly, the candor in her tone disarming any temper she may have provoked in the past. Her eyes locked with his, completely void of any guile. “I’m learning, Mr. Barone—slowly, mind you, because I’m not all that bright,” she said with a hint of jest before those green eyes deepened with true sincerity, “that you’re just a very frank person who hates to see people so oblivious to harm.”

He blinked, wishing they could just go back to insults. He was pretty sure anger was a lot safer than this dizzy heat whirling inside, leaving him tongue-tied.

“Nicholas?” Miss Penny lifted her chin. “What do you say?”

He mauled the back of his neck. “Uh . . . okay, I guess.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Nicky,” she said with a fold of her arms, tone stern despite a bare hint of a smile. “You say, ‘Thank you, Miss McClare, and I’m sorry for being so brash.’ ”

He swallowed the foot in his mouth, eyes on Miss McClare as he inclined his head toward Miss Penny. “Yeah, what she said.” His momentary awkwardness gave way to a clench in his gut over the danger this woman encountered tonight, nearly becoming
another statistic. His face calcified along with his tone. “I’ll take you in to file a police report.”

“Oh, no, I can’t!” she cried, the distress in her face bleeding into her voice. “I mean I . . . I don’t want to alarm my mother, Mr. Barone, and I still have my purse and person intact, so I assure you, no harm’s been done.”

He made a rude point of scanning her slowly, from the haphazard tumble of curls and stained bodice, to the dust and dirt embedded in her form-fitting skirt. Anger hardened his gaze as it trailed back up to settle on a milky complexion now as ruddy as her chafed hands. “No harm done?” he repeated coolly, the spasm in his cheek a perfect complement to the twitch in his hands that wanted to tear her assailants apart, limb by limb. “You could have been violated, Miss McClare, or worse—”

“But I wasn’t,” she insisted in a rush, the blush in her cheeks now fading to chalk.

“No, you weren’t.” His lips cemented into a thin line. “But the next victim might not be so lucky when the scum you refuse to report try it again.”

Her face bleached as white as her rumpled white blouse.

“Really, Nicky, don’t you think we’ve had enough melodrama for tonight?” Miss Penny slipped a protective arm around Miss McClare’s shoulders.

He pierced Miss Penny with a hard stare. “You’re in agreement with this?”

She hovered over the woman with a firm jut of her chin. “Allison has her reasons for not divulging this just now, Nicholas, and we must respect her wishes. Besides, she promised not to attempt walking outside by herself after dark again and plans to inform her mother of this soon.”

His facial muscles went slack. “And you believe her? For blimey’s
sake, look at her, Miss Penny! The woman has as much common sense as one of those confounded dainty cups those blue bloods use to sip their blessed tea.”

“That is quite enough, Nicholas.” Miss Penny stared him down, hands lodged on Miss McClare’s shoulders like an undersized archangel ready to wage battle. “I will not stand here and allow you to berate a guest in my home. Please apologize.”

Shades of his grandmother revisited, unleashing a trail of heat up his neck that scorched all the way to his cheeks. Gram had been the one human being he’d respected and admired enough to curb his temper. His lips gummed tight.
No, make that two . . .