Enchanted Afternoon, page 23
In the jocks’ room and chute alley, where the horses and riders waited, he had gleaned more than copper penny tips and leftover crumbs. He learned how to handicap, and how to bet. It was more than a matter of studying the sheets and logs posted, giving the odds and statistics. It was a delicate mingling of science, art and instinct, and he became skilled at it before he was old enough to raise a beard.
He learned to spot when a horse was on, reading its brightness and attitude. He learned to know when a jock was going to throw a race. He learned to measure his confidence and to hedge his bets, and he learned when to take his winnings and walk away.
One thing he had never learned, though, was how to be a fashionable racing patron. This became clear to him when Helena marched into his quarters, carrying a large carpetbag.
“I’m going with you,” she announced.
He bristled immediately. “I can do this on my own.”
“You need me. And I deserve to be there.”
He studied the mutinous set of her chin, and felt a little tug of admiration for her. After what she’d endured from Barnes, she was reluctant to hand everything over to a man. Her stubborn expression did nothing to lessen the impact of her beauty, however. With the morning light gilding her hair, her eyes a vivid green contrast to the silky cream of her skin, she looked like something out of a dream. Each time he looked at her, he recalled in aching detail the way he used to hold her willow-slender body against his, and the way tender, searching kisses had led to deeper intimacies that made his dreams pale in comparison. What an uncomfortable mix of emotions he felt for this woman. The passion and affection were inevitable, but they were tempered by bitterness and regret. He wondered how they were going to go on from here.
“For one thing,” she said, “you’ll need proper clothing. You simply must dress like a winner if you’re going to bet like a winner.”
“And how does a winner dress?”
She opened the carpetbag to reveal a collection of men’s clothes. “I thought you’d never ask.”
“Where the devil did you get this?”
“Brooks Brothers of New York City. They specialize in ready-to-wear. I had Nellie send a wire ordering a few things, and they rushed the order. They thought this was for Troy—I’m sure he will get the bill for it. You’re about the same size. Isn’t that uncanny?”
Not really, he thought. Discomfited, he drew out a white coat with a pretentious heraldic insignia on the upper pocket and a navy waistcoat made of a finely worsted fabric that slipped through his hands. “I’m not putting this on.”
“You’ll look marvelous.”
“I don’t want to look marvelous.”
“I’ve never seen you dressed like a gentleman. You could be so handsome if you tried.”
“I don’t want to be handsome.”
“But you can’t help it.” She pushed the garments toward him. “Stop complaining. You’re more of a baby than William.”
“Do you dress him up like an organ grinder’s monkey, too?”
“Every Sunday, for church.” A shadow fell over her face.
“Helena? What is it?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly. Too quickly.
Without taking his eyes from her troubled face, he took the clothing from her and set it aside. “Tell me.”
“Sunday services are not quite the same since…Oh, bother it. Would you please dress like a gentleman just this once?”
He saw it then, her need. So simple, so small. And yet so big and all-consuming that it rose before him like an unscalable mountain. Why had he never seen that before? On the surface, the annulment of her marriage was a simple thing. Mistakes were made, remedies acknowledged. Papers were signed. But now she had to deal with the aftermath. With that one dark and fleeting look, he understood the situation from her perspective. Despite what had happened, she had to go back into her world. She had to hold up her head and face the people who had known her as a different person. She had to be the person she was now.
And she didn’t want to do it with a man who looked like a ragpicker.
“Leave the damned clothes,” he said. “The first race isn’t until four o’clock.”
* * *
“I shouldn’t be wearing the gray.” Just out of the bath, Helena stood in her sheerest chemise and drawers. She eyed the dress hanging on the front of her armoire while the other ladies gathered around to help her get ready. “I’m still in mourning.”
Daisy smoothed her hands down the luminous dove-gray sleeves of the pique silk gown, trimmed with cream-colored piping. “Of course you are, sugar. But it’s summer. You’re going to the races. Your daddy wouldn’t want you going out there looking like an old black crow.”
Nellie regarded the black crepe bonnet as though it were a dead bird. “This is ugly and in bad taste. You would do well to discard it.”
“I owe my father the tribute of a proper mourning.”
“Let that tribute be made of the memories in your heart, dear. Not the gloominess of your gown.”
“This is surely the prettiest dress I’ve ever seen,” Sarah said, holding it against Helena. Taking her by the shoulders, she turned her toward the mirror. “This will do just fine.”
Helena assessed the image in the glass as though looking at a stranger. Where was the laughing girl in the shocking French gowns, the silk dancing slippers? Where was the belle of Georgetown? Where was the Helena who had looked into the blue eyes of an eccentric young man and seen the whole world in their depths?
She recalled her insistence that Michael dress properly for the races. She, too, must look the part. “All right,” she said. “The gray, then.”
The music of feminine chatter crescendoed as they happily descended upon her. Cream silk stockings, corset and crinolines went on in a ceremony that was still familiar to her.
As Helena was being primped and preened, Nellie went to the window and looked out. “I wonder how Prince Charming’s coming along.”
Helena escaped Sarah’s comb and Alice’s artful tying of bows and joined Nellie at the window. Beside her, Josephine looked out, too. “Who are those people?” she asked, watching three men coming up the drive in a smart two-horse dearborn carriage with curtained sides.
“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men?” asked Alice.
Practically bouncing with excitement, William hailed them on the drive and pointed the way to the carriage house. Helena couldn’t suppress a smile. To her son, this was all a grand adventure. He had no idea her fortunes hung in the balance.
“I think it’s that bartender from the Steeplechase Club.”
“Appears to be.” Nellie confirmed it. “It’s George Long, Regis Ransom and Isaac Reynolds. Regis used to be quite the man about town, strutting around in suits from Savile Row.”
Sarah laughed. “I think the professor had to call for reinforcements.”
Helena turned away, troubled by a nervous flurry in her stomach. “This is a bad idea.”
“Getting rich in one afternoon?”
“No. You know what I mean. Going to the races with him. He’s never been good for me.” She was deeply uncomfortable with the idea of relying on Michael’s expertise. This was to be her time of independence, her moment to stand on her own, yet already she was putting her faith in a man. Not just any man, but Michael Rowan.
“We need his knowledge and expertise,” Nellie said. “There’s no shame in seeking help when you need it. It’s simply wise business.”
“Something tells me it’s an invitation to trouble. When Michael is involved, that’s usually the case.”
“He got your marriage annulled,” Alice pointed out.
“All right, he’s been good for me one time.”
“He’s about to do you another favor,” said Sarah.
“But I’m beginning to wonder if I should let him.” She bit her lip, turned away from the window and looked around at her ladies. Their smiling faces turned to her like blossoms to the sun. Only they were infinitely more beautiful to her than flowers. When had she started to think of them as her ladies? Right from the start, she realized. They were living, breathing proof that her cause was good. Her life here made more sense than it ever had before. But this plan was putting it all at risk.
“What do you suppose they’re doing over there?” asked Daisy, arranging the cream lace jabot around her throat. “Why does he need all that help?”
“Like father like son,” Nellie said. “It would take three assistants to get William dressed properly, too.”
Alice and Sarah exchanged a glance.
“He doesn’t know,” Helena confessed, her cheeks heating. “William doesn’t know. I made Michael promise not to tell him until—unless—we know what the future will bring.”
“He won’t hear no tales from us,” Daisy assured her.
“No use getting the boy’s hopes up,” Alice agreed.
“Why not?” asked Josephine. “Hope is a good thing.”
Sarah looked at her. “Not if you hope for something that might break your heart.” She straightened the fashionable peplum of the racing jacket. “You look perfect. Pretty as a picture.”
Alice nodded. “I would love for you to sit for a portrait one day.”
Helena walked to the door, then paced up and down. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. I vowed to be an independent woman, yet as soon as I needed something, I turned to a man.”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” Nellie said.
“I should be ashamed.”
“Another way,” Nellie added, “is to think of it like this. You have a problem, and you’re smart enough to know where to look for the solution.”
“Smart.” Helen hissed the word like an oath. “If I was smart, I wouldn’t be in this situation to begin with. I would never have married Troy. Never.”
“It’s going to be all right,” Nellie insisted.
“You think you’re the only one got things to regret?” Daisy asked. “Everybody got that. So what you going to do? Answer me that. What you going to do?”
She looked around the room at her friends, all of them damaged and angry and funny and sad and, most of all, filled with hope. Suddenly it was easy to smile at them.
* * *
Michael scowled at his image in the shaving mirror, which was fast fogging up with the steam rising from the cramped bathtub. His friends and William were gathered in the loft, helping him get ready, though their help was intrusive and annoying.
“It’s disgraceful. You have neither a beard nor are you clean-shaven,” said Regis, the fussy arbiter of taste and style. He took a seat on a low stool by the tub and slapped the razor back and forth across the strop.
“That’s because I don’t like beards and I don’t like shaving. When it gets to be a bother, I shave.”
Behind him, Isaac snipped away at his hair with a pair of rusty shears. George was sitting by the window, smoking a cheroot and whittling at a piece of antler.
“What the devil are you doing with my hair?” Michael asked.
“Just hold still, honey,” Isaac said. “I’ll be finished by and by. When was the last time you visited the barber?”
“Why would I ever visit a barber?”
Regis chuckled. “I don’t believe he’s ever been.”
“You’ve never been to a barber?” William asked.
“Is that so strange?”
Isaac, Regis and George exchanged a look. William snickered. “How do you keep your hair cut, then?”
“With scissors. When my hair gets too long, I take the scissors and cut it.”
William drew a lock of his own copper-colored hair down over his forehead. His eyes rolled up, practically crossing as he tried to see. “That’s a good idea. I’m going to cut my own hair from now on.”
Tilting back his head as Regis applied the razor, Michael felt a rush of gratitude he didn’t deserve. There was something about the boy. He found it tremendously satisfying when William looked up to him, emulated him, tried to be with him constantly.
A son. I have a son. The thought came to him at odd moments, like untimely sunshine through dark clouds. The idea made him feel dizzy and disoriented, the way he’d felt when he had experimented with a human-size centrifugal that spun him around until he forgot who he was. A son.
He had been watching the boy for days, and he could see his own childhood in William. He could see the burning brightness of innocent interest about the world, could hear the wonder in the young boy’s voice as William described the way a dragonfly hovered over the grass or the sound of an echo in a cave. Michael had been a poor boy. He’d watched his mother starve and freeze to death, but for all that, he had been filled with the same sort of marvel and curiosity he saw in William.
He knew what he wanted, and finally he was beginning to understand how to achieve it. He wanted William to know who his father was. A simple concept, yet difficult to achieve, given Helena’s doubts. She didn’t want to tell William because she didn’t trust Michael to stay. She was too fragile to put her faith in any man. She had to recover from the Troy Barnes ordeal, had to relearn trust at her own pace, in her own time, on her own terms. Michael vowed he would be there when she was ready. But the fact that he and Troy were brothers hung like a pall over his hopes.
He’d puzzled over the problem since their quarrel about telling William. Bit by bit, the solution was revealing itself to him. Before he could be a part of William’s life, he had to earn Helena’s trust. He had to prove himself worthy, but could he?
Nine years ago, he had not been good enough for her or for her family, and he’d walked away. What was different now? Why could he succeed with her now when he hadn’t before?
He was going to have to turn himself into the sort of man he should have been long ago. What an idiot he’d been, pretending he had to leave her so she could marry “up.” The real reason he had left her was that he was afraid he would fail. She was the only person he had ever dared to love, and he didn’t trust himself to do it right. So he took the coward’s way out. He left. As she’d said, he was good at leaving.
The real test would be to see if he was any good at staying.
He stood up in the steel tub, slung a towel around his waist and stepped out of the bath. “You want to finish my sarsaparilla and potato chips?” he asked.
William took a swig straight from the bottle. He sat on the workbench, swinging his legs back and forth while watching the proceedings like a spectator at a magic lantern show.
Regis produced something that resembled a crop-spraying pump. Before Michael could duck for cover, he pumped away, engulfing Michael in a fog of scent.
“Me too! Me too!” William jumped down and threw himself into the fog.
Michael choked, rubbed his watering eyes. “What the hell is that?”
“What the hell is that?” echoed William, delighted to be swearing.
“Bay rum,” said Regis.
“It’s poison.” Michael batted at the cloud of fragrance.
“The ladies love it.”
Michael waved a hand in front of his face. “Maybe it’ll keep the horse flies off.”
Isaac brought over the clothes from Brooks Brothers. “You better get a move on. Don’t want to miss the start of the races.”
Like the ceremonial dressing of a knight of yore, they put him together, piece by piece. Each item passed from Isaac to William to George to Regis, as though to receive each man’s approval and benediction for the ordeal to come. Only instead of chain mail, breastplate and gauntlets, this garb consisted of tennis socks, drawers, undervest. Yet his attendants treated the situation with the gravity of a solemn ceremony.
And perhaps that wasn’t so far off the mark, Michael thought, and a certain solemnity to the proceedings was appropriate. Helena’s world hung in the balance. His success or failure today would determine whether it rose or fell.
He was a knight errant, off on a quest for his ladylove, a quest sung by the troubadours and told around the cover fires of evening. And he was doing so in white pajamas. He glared down at the cream-colored pants, the white spats, the insanely, glaringly white shirt. “This is absurd. No one will take me seriously if I show up at the betting office looking like Wee Willie Winkie.”
“I take you serious, Professor,” William said loyally.
“You’re not finished.” Regis clicked his tongue at him. “Hold out your arms.” Regis proved himself quick with needle and thread, tailoring the trousers and jacket so that the fit was perfect. He fit Michael with a waistcoat in navy blue, buttoning it down the front. The blue was a bit better. Not so glaring. But the frock coat was also white, as was the band around the brim of his summer-weight straw hat.
William stood back and planted his hands on his hips. “You look different, Professor. You look good.”
“Dapper,” Regis said, clasping his hands in elation. “You look positively dapper.”
“I’ve always wanted to be dapper,” Michael said wryly. “It has been my main goal in life.”
“Speaking of goals,” Regis said. “You’d best get a move on. Come on, Isaac. Let’s go get the cart ready.”
George held out the bit of antler, which he’d carved into the shape of a horseshoe. “It’s very powerful,” he said.
Michael slipped it into his pocket. “Thank you. I’ll take luck where I can find it.”
Isaac paused, fished something out of his pocket. “You take this along for luck, too, you hear? It’s a pair of Swiss opera glasses I won off some swell in a card game.” He stuck the small brass binoculars in Michael’s pocket.
“Thanks, Isaac. I’ll bring it back to you.”
“You do your betting right, you can buy me a new one.”
“And take this for luck, also,” William piped up. He dug deep in the pocket of his dungarees and produced a tiny velvet parcel. The fabric was instantly familiar and recognizable. Tiffany blue. Was the boy a customer of Tiffany’s?
William reverently opened the drawstring of the bag, emptied the contents into the palm of his grubby hand, then proudly held it out to Michael. “It’s the third-best thing I own,” he said with hushed reverence. “I think it might be real lucky.”
