Lady X's Cowboy (16 page)

Again, knowing chuckles.  “I say,” Gough’s associate drawled softly, “Tiverton and I are going over to St. Johns Wood, later tonight.  Gough’s a spoilsport, but perhaps you’d like to join us?”

“What’s in St. Johns Wood?” Will asked.

Most of the men exchanged meaningful looks.  “The young ladies we protect.  They usually have some friends stop by, as well, when we come for visits.”

“They don’t sing duets at the piano, I’m guessin’,” Will said.

The men burst out laughing.  “That’s not the instrument these hussies play,” Tiverton snorted.  “But, by God, they should open their own conservatory!”

“Come join us, Coffin.  We promise these girls can offer you a finer ride than any mustang.  They’re quite experienced.”

Will didn’t hesitate before answering, “No, thanks.”

Leaning back in his chair, the reporter asked with a smirk, “Lady Xavier have you on a short leash, Coffin?  Not that I would mind being on her leash.  Running that brewery of hers, she’s bound to be a little more...knowledgeable than most ladies.”

If he were in any bunkhouse back home, he would have jumped up and punched the reporter, but Will didn’t think assaulting the people of Olivia’s social circle would help her preserve her reputation.  So, clamping down on his temper, he said evenly, “She doesn’t have me on any kind of leash.  I just don’t feel like that sort of company.”

“You’re being a spoilsport, Coffin,” Tiverton chided him.

“I don’t cotton to treatin’ women like jackstraws, droppin’ one and pickin’ up another,” Will drawled.  “Especially if one of them’s my wife.”

Everyone glared at each other across the table, the mood of camaraderie stretched thin.

“Perhaps when you get some free time, Coffin, you can take a look at my stable,” Gough said.  “I purchased a few fine horses from Tattersall’s, and I would be appreciative to get an experienced horseman’s opinion.”

Gough was a good host, steering the conversation towards something Will could speak on at length without wanting to hit someone.  The men around the table began to settle down, smoothing their feathers, and soon everyone but Will was chatting without much thought about what had just happened.

He wasn’t sure he much cared for England.  People here seemed to say one thing and then do another, wearing different masks and keeping their intentions hidden.  Plain dealing was the most respected way to conduct yourself where he came from, whether it had to do with business or life at home.  If he ever found his kinfolk, what kind of people would they be?  Like the people tonight, starched, moneyed and double-dealing?  Or maybe he came from the silent men who stood behind the guests’ chairs and cleared away the dishes.  He wasn’t the first man from the West to have no sense of his own history, but he was taking a big gamble trying to find it. 

Would it matter to Olivia, when the truth was revealed? 

“Let’s join the ladies, gentlemen,” Gough eventually suggested, and Will gratefully got to his feet and followed the men upstairs to the drawing room.  On his way, he caught sight of himself in a mirror and felt as though he was staring at a stranger.  In his expensive, custom-made evening clothes, he looked like he was trying to pretend he was one of the cattle barons, or Denver’s swaggering millionaires.  He liked the suit fine—it was the nicest set of clothes he’d ever owned, and by far the costliest—but it felt like a costume. 

Yet wearing this costume was the only way he could fit into Olivia’s world.

He was frowning by the time he got to the drawing room, thinking about this, but his frown disappeared immediately when he saw Olivia.  She was sitting with Charlotte and Lenore Davis, talking seriously.  She happened to glance up as he entered the room, and suddenly stopped talking.  And the smile she gave him...it could have kept him warm on the longest winter night in the Rockies.  He knew those nights well, when the snow just kept on coming down and the wind shrieked and hollered through the mountain passes as though it were a living thing being murdered.  Holed up in some bunkhouse somewhere, he had often wished he’d had a woman to keep company with.  Not just for bodily pleasures, but just to have comforting presence near him.  Someone he could while away the dark hours with—talking, reading aloud or even just sitting without saying anything at all.  Of course, back then, he hadn’t been able to think of a single woman he’d want to spend that much time with.  But here was Olivia, whose smile shimmered through him like sunlight on snow.

“Did you enjoy yourself with the men?” she asked when he came to stand beside her.

“Passably,” he answered.

“I hope I prepared you enough.”  She rose.  “But I simply don’t know what men talk about when they are alone.”

Will had no intention of telling her exactly what had been spoken, so he said vaguely, “Talk of some men named Gladstone and Parnell.”  A servant offered him a cup of coffee from a silver tray, and he took it.  Strange.  People handing him things, dishing up his food, even helping him put on his clothes earlier tonight as if he was some giant baby who couldn’t manage the jobs on his own. 

He and Olivia stood off to the side of the room, watching the husbands reunite with their wives and the visible change in their behavior from the dining room.  Everywhere there was pretty painted china and expensive, glittering objects, women in bright silk dresses laughing, and the polished sheen of a comfortable, decorative existence.  Most cattle barons aspired to this kind of thing, wishing and buying their way towards a European pedigree, but it seemed kind of flat and stale to Will. 

“This how you usually spend your nights?” he asked Olivia quietly.

“I used to,” she answered.  “When David was alive, he wanted to host many dinner parties.  They were good for business.  But since his death...”  Her voice trailed away as she observed the knotty dance of manners being executed in the Goughs’ drawing room.  “I find my appetite for such diversions to be waning considerably.”

“I don’t like makin’ the women leave the room after supper.”  When she looked at him questioningly, he continued, “When I get married, I don’t want my wife runnin’ away.  I want us to be able to talk about whatever we want, right in front of each other.”

“So, you plan on getting married?”  He thought he heard her voice grow tight, but he couldn’t be sure.  He glanced over at her, and she was studying her own cup of coffee as though it held the answer to a riddle.

“Someday,” he answered.  He tried picturing his future bride, a woman he hadn’t met yet but knew he would want, and came up with nothing.  She’d always been a notion, not a real person.  He thought quickly of the girl in New York, of sitting on a park bench the following morning while tugging on his boots and knowing that he didn’t have the taste for meaningless romps.  But what was the alternative?  Marriage.  To an unknown wife.

Instead of picturing this wife, he followed that lovely curve of Olivia’s neck, the dark masses of her hair pinned into soft whorls and interwoven with silk roses, and the neat scrollwork of her ear.  “Someday,” he repeated, “but not yet.  I’ve got other plans until then.”

Chapter Nine

The evening, to the degree that Charlotte’s plans were concerned, had been a success.  The guests had enjoyed Will’s company considerably, and found his profession of cattle herding to be refreshingly rustic, charmingly authentic, a safe novelty that could not damage their insular world.  The truth—he was assisting Olivia at the brewery while searching for his relatives—was peculiar enough to provoke little comment.  Word was sure to reach George Pryce that Olivia had no plan to crawl away with her tail between her legs, and she had Will at her back in case anything grew dangerous. 

So she and Will ought to have been quite pleased with the course of the night’s activities as they entered her home on Princes Square.  Yet neither of them acted very pleased.  In fact, their mood, as they gave Mordon their hats and wraps, bordered nearly on funereal.  

“Are you planning on retiring?” Olivia asked, lingering in the foyer. 

Will shook his head.  “Feelin’ a bit antsy, so maybe I’ll head over to that library of yours and find somethin’ to read.”

She looked at him in the gaslight, piercingly handsome and young in his stark evening clothes.  Roddam & Sons had done an excellent job in their tailoring—the suit of clothes fit Will amazingly, emphasizing the broadness of his shoulders, his height and the leanness of his musculature—yet he still seemed ill at ease in his finery.  Perhaps if she hadn’t come to know him as well as she did, she would not have seen his discomfort, but she could sense that feeling of displacement emanating from him.

She was supposed to say good night and climb the stairs, letting him sit alone in her library.  Her mind turned back to the conversation she’d had with Charlotte once the ladies had left the dining room.  Her hostess had taken her aside as the other female guest made their way to the first floor.

“Will seems to be doing quite well,” Charlotte had said quietly.

“He has a natural ability to make friends,” Olivia answered.  “I know I count myself as one of them.”

In the glow of the gaslamps, Charlotte had looked almost mournful.  “Remember my warning to you, Olivia.  I see the way you look at each other.  It’s unmistakable.”

Olivia had not been able to contradict Charlotte, as much as she wanted to.  Lord, was she so transparent?  Were
they
?

“Taking him as a lover would be socially devastating,” Charlotte had continued.

“Perhaps I want more from him than just an affair,” Olivia had replied.

“I like Mr. Coffin very much,” Charlotte said.  “I know you do not want to believe this, and I wish I didn’t have to say so, but an affair is all that your attraction can ever amount to.  There is simply no possibility that it can lead to anything more lasting.  But even then, the damage to your reputation would be permanent.”  She sighed and smoothed Olivia’s hair, an old gesture of comfort.  “Come,” Charlotte said, looping her arm through Olivia’s and leading her upstairs, “the guests are waiting.”

With Charlotte’s words echoing in her head, Olive knew full well what she ought to do—go to bed immediately, and alone.

“Do you feel like a bit of music?” she heard herself ask suddenly.

Will’s unusually somber face broke into a grin.  “Sure do,” he said.

Taking up a lamp, Olivia led him to the music room on the ground floor.  Unlike the rest of the house, here Olivia had been given free rein in her decorative tastes.  It was furnished much more simply than the other rooms.  The walls were papered in floral designs from William Morris, and the furniture was carved by local craftsmen in a plain style which David had never liked.  He had called it crude, but she loved the refined understatement of woodwork without embellishment.  There were a few sofas and chairs scattered throughout the small room, and even a piano at the far end.

She hadn’t shown the room to Will earlier; it was a rather personal place, decorated as it was in a style uniquely her own.  Perhaps he would have found such a simple room strange or awkward compared to the rest of the elegant townhouse.  Few people of her acquaintance knew about the music room.  That had been a deliberate decision on her part.  If anyone could appreciate such a place, however, it would be Will.  She looked at him, almost shyly, to see his response.

“I’ll be,” Will breathed in open admiration as Olivia, relieved and pleased, gently set the lamp down on the piano.  He gently ran his hands over the satiny dark surface of the lid.  Such a contrast between the refined musical instrument, imported and continental, intended for elegant little spaces, and Will, lanky, rugged, meant for a landscape as open and rough as he was.  Yet there was something in his appreciation of the piano that was fitting, his unexpected appreciation for the beautiful.

“It comes from Vienna,” she explained, delighted with his pleasure.  “Shall I play for you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Will agreed immediately, coming around to pull the bench out for her.

She sat, adjusting the rustling fabric of her bustle and skirts, before skimming the tops of the piano keys lightly with her fingers.  Early in her marriage, she would play for David after dinner, and he would sit in one of the armchairs, listening and watching.  Then he began bringing his newspapers with him into the music room, and eventually she stopped playing.  How long had it been since she’d played for anyone besides herself?  Years.  Many years.

But she could feel Will’s interest as he leaned against the piano.  She practiced a few scales to warm up her fingers before beginning with some Chopin, Nocturne in C minor, a piece she had learned at school.  The room filled with the precise, refined notes, and after she felt comfortable in the routine of the piece, she chanced a look at Will’s face.

He was staring at her hands, intent, watching the positioning of her fingers as they moved over the keys.  His eyebrows had drawn down in concentration and she almost believed that he was memorizing the piece as she played.  But that was impossible. 

She tried to keep her fingers from becoming clumsy under his scrutiny, yet she was acutely conscious of his focus.  Her hands, her arms, felt exposed—naked, almost—beneath his attentive eyes, though she wore a heavy diamond bracelet on one wrist.  A flush began to spread across her chest and up into her face.  Her hands did stumble then, and she placed them in her lap.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, “it’s been a while since I’ve had an audience.”

Whatever spell had fallen across Will broke instantly and he smiled warmly, leaning an elbow on the piano.  “That was surely the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard, Liv.  Can’t you keep playin’?  If me watchin’ bothers you, I can stare at the potted plant.  See?”  He demonstrated by gaping at the fern sitting in the étagère as though it were a horseless carriage.

Olivia laughed.  “You can watch me if you like.”  She rearranged her hands over the keys, then began to play one of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, letting herself enjoy the music as well as having an appreciative, attentive audience.