Memory's Embrace (20 page)

Tess flung herself at him like a frightened, furious bird, clinging to his arm, saying his name over and over again.

And that made him madder still.

He landed a hard punch in the actor’s middle and savored the whooshing grunt of pain and surprise that followed.

Tess stepped between him and his prey and her hazel eyes were full of tears. Tears that cooled his temper.

“You beast,” she said.

And before he could answer, they were on either side of him, their arms folded, their indigo eyes bright with triumph. His brothers.

Keith swept off his bowler hat and smiled. He was conscious of Tess collecting her gasping swain and disappearing into the hotel, but, at the moment, he couldn’t pursue the matter.

“Hello, Keith,” said Adam, arms still folded, sending one look after the vanished Tess.

Keith’s grin widened and he risked a glance at Jeff, who stood at his other side, glowering. He had definitely taken his big brother pills.

Shit, Keith thought. But what he said was, “I’ve been looking all over for you guys!”

Chapter Twelve

D
URING THE NEXT TWO DAYS
, T
ESS PAUSED SEVERAL
times at the door of the Corbin suite, trying on each occasion to work up the nerve to knock. And on each occasion she failed.

Sometimes she heard yelling from within, sometimes laughter. Most often, it was the latter, accompanied by the distant click of billiard balls.

In between, she worked, painting her shop, studying the musty instruction books that Mr. Lathrop had left behind. At night when, for all her exhaustion, sleep proved elusive, she read Cedrick Golden’s play.

It was surprisingly good, so good that she showed it
to her mother, who, having been a gifted actress, was something of an authority on such things.

Olivia, much recovered and busily preparing to depart for St. Louis with her new husband, read the manuscript with absorption. “The role of Marietta Blake is perfect for you,” she observed pensively, late one afternoon when the two women were alone in the suite’s trunk-and valise-cluttered sitting room. “And, yes, even though it is a minor part, I can certainly see Rod as Colonel Wilmington.”

Olivia spoke fondly of Rod, always, as though he had sprung from her own loins, and why not? Though he was most often sardonic with Tess, delighting in reminding her that she had been born out of wedlock, he petted and fussed over his stepmother; one would never have dreamed that he bore her any ill will at all. And maybe he didn’t. It did appear that Rod was not the sort to carry grudges. After all, he had never mentioned the attack Keith Corbin had made upon him in front of the hotel.

“I don’t want to play Marietta Blake or anyone else,’ Tess said quietly. “I’m not an actress.”

“I am most relieved to hear you say that. The theater, for all its excitement, offers a very difficult life.”

Perched on the arm of her mother’s chair, Tess gnawed slightly at her lower lip, a habit Olivia hated and frowned at now. “Rod wants the part of the colonel. He wants it very much.”

“I know,” smiled Olivia. “I’ve heard him rehearsing the lines.”

“He’s not going to get it unless I play Marietta. Cedrick Golden as much as said so.”

“How unprofessional! If Rod is suited to the role, then he should have it—”

“Nevertheless—”

Olivia patted Tess’s hand. “You mustn’t allow yourself to be coerced, my dear. Not in any manner.”

Odd advice, coming from Olivia, reflected Tess. But as her time with her mother was limited, she didn’t mention it. “I won’t. I plan to open my shop, on schedule.”

“Good,” said Olivia, and then Asa came into the room and Tess might have been a vase on the mantelpiece or a tassle on a rug for all of her mother’s awareness of her.

She decided to wrestle her bicycle downstairs-even now, she would not use the elevator—and take a ride. Perhaps take a few pictures of her shop from the outside. The windows were clean now, as was the modest interior, and had been emblazoned with the magical words, “Tess Bishop, Prop.,” in flowing, golden script.

Tess did not know whether it was good luck or ill that she encountered Keith Corbin on the landing between the second and third floors.

“Hello, shoebutton,” he said idly. He wasn’t wearing his plain peddler’s clothes or his bowler hat, but a finely tailored suit of gray broadcloth, complete with a silken vest to match, and shiny black boots.

Tess felt a pang at seeing him again so unexpectedly, at realizing that he was not a peddler and never really had been.

She tossed her head, so that her hair swung back over her shoulders in a heavy curtain. She’d meant to put it up, but the decision to ride her bicycle had
pushed the idea right out of her head. “I’ve got a shop of my own now,” she said, for suddenly it was impor tant for him to know that she had prospects, too.

“And a lover?”

The question gave Tess pause; an alert, wary feeling leaped within her. “I beg your pardon?”

“Roderick—Waltam, wasn’t it? The actor?”

“Rod, a lover?” She had gasped the words, but, an instant later, she had recovered herself, squared her shoulders, lifted her chin to an imperious angle. “Hardly. Rod is my half-brother. And it was cruel of you, by the way, to attack him in that manner.”

A smile curved his lips. “In what manner should I have attacked him, shoebutton?”

Tess was blushing. Why, oh why, did she have to blush now? “Why, you should not have attacked him at all!”

“I didn’t know he was your brother,” Keith replied quietly, as though that explained everything, made up for his barbaric behavior. He approached and, without so much as a by-your-leave, took the handles of the bicycle from her, wheeling it through a doorway and into a hall. “Speaking of brothers,” he went on, as he reached the elevator doors and summoned the machine with a twist of a knob, “I understand that you met mine.”

Tess wanted to wrench her property away from him, but she knew a futile undertaking when she saw one. Usually. Her pulse was beating on her cheekbones, and her heart seemed determined to rise into her throat. “Yes,” she admitted, closing her eyes to remember how she had met them, and where.

“They’re gone now,” he said. The elevator, with its grillwork doors of black iron, came to a stop before them with an alarming lurch.

Tess was a little relieved. In their way, Keith’s brothers were as unsettling as that elevator. “Oh,” she said, wondering why he would trouble to tell her something that was really none of her concern, all things considered.

The doors of the monster creaked and slammed as they opened, but since Keith rolled her bicycle between them, her camera riding in the wicker basket, she had no alternative but to pass through. There was an operator inside the contraption and, because of his presence, neither Tess nor Keith spoke or even looked at each other until they had been delivered safely to the hotel’s busy lobby.

There, Keith assessed her with those azure eyes, those eyes that could uplift or wound, and said, “I’d like to see this shop of yours, shoebutton. May I?”

Tess knew that she should have said no, knew that it wasn’t wise to let this man know where she would be working, but she couldn’t have refused him for all the developing fluid in the world. It was no comfort at all that she recognized him for the one man who could overrule all her fine intentions and turn her into anything he wished to make of her. Be it harlot, mistress, or wife.

“It’s just down the road and around the corner,” she heard herself saying.

“Close enough to walk. Or ride your bicycle.” He glanced down at that apparatus with mingled fondness and amazement, but did not surrender it to her keeping. On the sidewalk, he walked beside it, being careful not to bump into passers-by.

“I won’t be staying here at the hotel,” Tess babbled out, not thinking. “There are rooms above the shop and I’ll live there.”

He stopped. A middle-aged matron in a fusty sateen dress gave him a killing glare and then swept around him and the bicycle with a whish of skirts. “Alone?” he demanded.

“Yes,” Tess replied loftily. “Alone.”

Keith considered this for a moment, still stopped, like a log upended in a stream, forcing the foot traffic to flow around him. Tess had, of course, no choice but to stop, too. A slow smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “Alone,” he repeated, and this time he did not sound appalled but intrigued.

“You needn’t think for one second, Mr. Corbin, that that is going to make any difference to you!”

He laughed and began rolling the bicycle along again. Tess was annoyed to realize that she had no idea what he was thinking.

It was both a relief and a problem to reach the door of the little shop. Tess’s hand trembled a bit as she grappled in her pocket for the outsized key and then worked the lock. While she was doing that, she was disturbingly conscious of Keith’s every movement. He was resting the bicycle against the storefront, removing the camera from the basket. Waiting for admission to a place he could so easily become master of, even though he had no right. No right!

The inside of the small establishment smelled pleasantly of pine soap and new paint. The walls were white, the shelves were sturdy, the heavy wooden counter had been polished to a proud shine. Even the little heatstove,
so dusty that first day, gleamed like the armor of some great knight. When winter came, it would be ready to warm all who ventured in.

Keith set Tess’s camera down on the counter and looked about him with a careful, pensive sort of interest. “It’s nice, shoebutton,” he said, after a very long time. “Really nice.”

Those words, as simple as they were, set Tess’s pride in the place alight. She glowed with excitement, and never mind if that excitement ached just a bit in the vicinity of her heart. “Come and see the cameras I’ve got!” she crowed, bursting through a curtained doorway and trusting Keith to follow.

Of course, he did.

“Can you operate all this stuff?” he frowned, taking in a virtual army of shadowy equipment.

The doubt in his voice hurt. “Of course I can. I’ve got books and more books to tell me how! Look—look at this camera! It takes stereoscopic pictures. You know, the kind that look so real—”

Keith smiled. “Yes. I’m familiar with the technique. My sister has a stereoscope and takes delight in boring us all with the three-dimensional ruins of Rome.”

Tess felt an unaccountable heat in her cheeks; maybe it was the closeness of Keith, the smallness of the developing room, the shadowy ambiance. She didn’t know.

Keith came closer, took her easily in his arms. “I’ve missed you more than I ever thought I could miss anyone,” he said, in a low, gruff voice.

Tess struggled to keep her wits about her and promptly lost. His mouth was descending toward hers,
to conquer, and she could make no move to resist. She couldn’t even
think
of a move to resist.

He kissed her and the floor seemed to roll beneath her feet like the deck of a ship on stormy seas. Her heart was beating in every part of her body, instead of just her chest, and the hard pressure of his body against her own soft one made her yearn to be possessed by him again.

Their tongues did tender battle as the kiss deepened and became something that mastered them both. Tess felt his fingers at the bottom of her prim cotton shirtwaist and welcomed their brazen heat. Her breasts grew heavy as he bared them, their nipples reaching for him, craving his greed.

Keith bent, nipped at one sweet peak, groaned hoarsely in his hunger.

Oh, Lord, thought Tess, in sweeping, glorious despondency, he’s going to take me, right here, right now …

Except that the little bell over the shop’s front door tinkled suddenly and a familiar feminine voice cried out, “Tess! Are you here? Oh, Tess, tell me you’re here!”

“Emma!” whispered Tess, flushing hotly, stepping back to right her camisole and button her shirtwaist.

“Damn,” muttered Keith, turning away to brace himself against a worktable with his hands. His breathing was deep and very ragged.

“I’m here, Emma! I’ll be right out!”

“I’m here, Emma!” mocked Keith in a sharp undertone. “I’ll be right out!”

“Shut up,” hissed Tess. And then she smoothed her
hair, her shirts, and her manner and swished out into the main part of her new shop.

Sure enough, Emma was standing there, looking forlorn and lost, her clothes rumpled from heaven knew how many wearings, her hair dank, her eyes hollow.

“Oh, Tess,” she cried, dropping the single valise she carried to the rough wooden floor. “I’ve killed my own papa! Mama wants nothing to do with me—can you blame her—and Mrs. Hollinghouse-Stone wouldn’t take me in so Derora just left me—just left me! It was only by the grace of God that I wandered past this shop and saw your name on the window—”

Tess was quick to enfold her friend in a comforting embrace. “Hush, now. Hush. Everything will be all right, I promise. We’ll go back to my hotel and you can have something to eat and a bath and a rest, and then you can tell me the whole story.”

Docile as a child, Emma nodded. “I’m so glad I found you. So glad.”

“I’ll take care of you, Emma,” Tess promised. And it was no idle vow; she knew that she would follow through willingly if things came to that pass. “Everything is going to be all right.”

It was then that Keith came through the curtain separating that part of the shop from the workroom. He looked grim and not a little annoyed, and Tess was in her turn annoyed with him. Couldn’t he see how Emma needed her help? Like all men, he was just concerned with his own interests.

Emma took one look at him and her brown, thickly lashed eyes widened. She gave a little scream and swooned to the floor.

“What the—” rasped Keith.

Tess was already kneeling on the rough boards, chafing her friend’s plump wrist. “You’d better go. Obviously you’ve upset her.”

“What did I do?”

Emma was moaning, tossing her head back and forth.

“Just go!” hissed Tess.

Keith shrugged angrily and walked out, the little bell ringing extra hard as he slammed the shop’s door behind him.

Getting Emma onto her feet and then to the Grand Hotel was no mean enterprise, but Tess managed it. Because she needed all her strength to usher her vaporous friend, she had to lock the bicycle inside the shop.