Chapter 7
“Oh!”
Maggie pressed one hand to her hard-beating heart as her gaze inadvertently swept from Brendan’s face to his bare chest, droplets of water still clinging to his damp skin.
She felt herself flush; she’d never seen him in such a state of undress before, despite their uncomfortably close quarters.
The sight of it now was strangely overwhelming.
“I’m sorry,” Brendan told her as he took a shirt from the hook on the wall. “I went up the back stairs, and I didn’t think you’d returned home yet. I had to wash the stink off me outside at the pump.”
“It’s… it’s all right,” Maggie stammered, turning away to give them both some privacy.
Her cheeks felt hot and she had to keep herself from pressing her palms to them.
It was deeply unsettling, to be so close to a man.
To imagine him washing, or dressing, or…
anything intimate. Even though they’d been sharing a room these last weeks, they’d never been as close—as intimate—as this.
Her mind raced and she did her best to quell the thoughts and images tumbling through it.
“How was your first day of work?” Brendan asked.
He sounded remarkably composed, which made her feel a little ridiculous to be so affected.
Why was she blushing like a maiden aunt?
She heard the snick of his shirt being pulled across his back and stared determinedly out the window at the dry and dusty street, a few raggedy-looking children bowling hoops down the twilit sidewalk.
“It was… long,” she admitted. “With a good number of discerning ladies who wished to try on every single hat that we had.”
“Ah.” Brendan’s voice was filled with wry amusement, and with relief Maggie hoped they were past the tense argument of last night, although, admittedly, this moment was just as uncomfortable, albeit in a different way. “And did they purchase any?”
“Sometimes,” she replied, her head still averted. “But how was your day?”
“It was long, too.” He chuckled softly, the sound one of amusement but also strangely tender. “You can turn around now, Maggie. I’m decent.”
“Oh.” Still blushing, she turned to face him.
His shirt was buttoned up, but as his skin had still been damp when he’d put it on, it clung in certain places that Maggie tried not to notice. His wet hair was brushed back from his freshly shaven face, and he smelled of soap.
“Someone at work told me how dangerous work at the meatpacking plants could be,” she told him stiltedly. “With men getting their fingers sliced clean off.” She almost reached for his hand to examine it, and then checked herself. “I hope you weren’t in any such danger?”
“Only from passing out from the stink,” he remarked with a rueful laugh.
“It’s quite a place, what with the blood and guts and the pickling solution that smells strong enough to knock a man out.
And the whole place is terribly filthy… makes me wonder if I’ll be able to enjoy a steak ever again.
” He gave a small, accepting sigh. “But it’s a job, so…
” He shrugged and she nodded jerkily, still unsettlingly discomfited by the sight of him.
Why, she wondered, did he seem so much more than he usually did right now? So much more masculine, in a way she couldn’t explain?
“Maggie…” Brendan said in a low voice, his tone turning serious, “I wanted to apologize, for yesterday.”
She stared at him in confusion. “What… why…?”
“I think I came across in—in a way I didn’t mean to.
Too high-handed and stubborn and set in my ways.
” He shook his head, regretful. “You’re right, you know, I do admire your ambition, and I wouldn’t want to stifle it in any way.
I’m pleased for you, that you have this job at Field’s.
Our argument, at least on my side… it wasn’t even about that.
I have ambitions of my own, you know—modest ones, it’s true, compared to yours, ones of a shop, a hearth…
a family.” He paused before continuing resolutely, “But not wanting to live off your pay wasn’t so much about you as it was about me.
About needing to stand on my own two feet just as you long to do, because right now…
” He sighed, swallowing hard. “That feels like the only thing I have.”
“Oh, Brendan, I understand that.” She clasped her hands together tightly, her wedding ring biting into her finger.
She’d taken it off for work, and only just remembered to put it on when she’d come into the boarding house.
“I really do appreciate all you’ve given up for Danny and me, and I’m so very sorry that you had to. That’s a regret I’ll always have.”
“I don’t want you to regret any choice I’ve made,” Brendan told her firmly. “I made every single one out of my own free will, and I’m not sorry for any of them. At least you and Danny are safe. That’s all that matters.”
“Still.” She swallowed hard. “And with this job you have… it’s only that I hate the thought of you working in such awful conditions.”
“Do you?” He sounded surprised as well as curious, and he took a meaningful step toward her, his tone dropping even lower as he gazed at her intently. “Why is that, do you suppose?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” she cried, discomfited by the sudden turn in the conversation, the way he looked at her as if he expected a certain answer. “I’d hate to think of anyone in such a situation…” she blustered and saw him flinch a little.
“Am I really just anyone to you?” he asked. “Like a stranger on the street?”
She stared at him in confused misery, knowing what he wanted and almost wanting to give it to him, because he deserved more from her than she’d ever been willing to offer.
She knew that, and yet she still held back.
It had become an instant now, an anchor, the thing that made her who she was and reminded her of who she could become.
“I know you don’t love me,” Brendan stated quietly, shocking her with the stark honesty of those simple words. “Not as I love you.”
I love you. The words reverberated through her and made her feel strange and quivery inside.
He’d never said he’d loved her before, although Maggie knew he did, for he’d shown her in so many small and wonderful ways.
Yet the simplicity of his statement, the utter sincerity of it, now rocked her to her core.
“Brendan…” she whispered, shaking her head as she tried to blink back her tears. She hated to think of him feeling so rejected, as if she didn’t consider him worthy of her love. “It’s… it’s not like that, I promise you…”
He frowned, his eyes flaring with wary confusion. “Isn’t it?”
“No…” She drew a ragged breath, compelled to an honesty that felt deeply exposing and yet necessary.
“Brendan… if… if I were to love any man, it… it would be you.” She swallowed hard, embarrassed to have admitted so much, and yet how could she have not, when he had been so honest himself?
It didn’t change anything, in any case. Not for her.
“If?” Brendan repeated, shaking his head, seeming bemused as well as wondering. “And why can’t you? Or won’t you?”
“Because I don’t want to tie myself to any man in any marriage,” Maggie burst out.
“I’ve seen what happens, what always happens, and I want more for my life than an apron and a stove and half a dozen bawling babies.
” The words came out spiked with bitterness, which she regretted, and yet she knew she spoke the truth, from her hard-beating heart.
“I know that sounds unnatural,” she admitted painfully, “and maybe even wrong, but I saw my mother waste away and plenty of other women get completely worn out, losing their lives to a kitchen and a man, to children and drudgery and disappointment and disease, and I… I didn’t come all this way, and try so hard, for that…
with anyone.” She paused before finishing with pain-filled finality, “Even you.”
Brendan was silent as Maggie stared down at the ground, unwilling to meet his eye. She felt as if what she’d said wasn’t just unnatural but selfish, even cruel, and she knew most men, and women too, would think as much. Maybe she did as well, at least in part, and yet she meant it.
“And if that is truly what keeps you from letting yourself love me,” Brendan said finally, his voice low, “why did you not think to speak about any of it with me before making such a momentous decision?”
Maggie shook her head, impatient now as she wiped her eyes. “And what would there have been to say?”
“You could have spoken of your concerns, of your fears,” Brendan told her, his voice rising, his face now flushed, “and we could have discussed them together. Do you think I want to tie you to a stove, Maggie, or have you see our children as nothing but a burden?”
Our children. The words caused a shudder of—something—to go through her, along with the shock that blazed within her at his sudden anger as she was by the thought that it was something they could have discussed and decided together.
Such a notion had, she realized with a pang of guilty regret, never even occurred to her.
And yet… she thought of how proud and possessive Brendan had been when they’d just been pretending to be husband and wife.
How he’d spoken for her on the train, and to their landlady, about seeing to their home life.
How these last few weeks, she hadn’t been able to escape the feeling—the fear—that he wanted to keep her dependent on him, contented in the kitchen and the parlor, rather than out in the world, making her own way.
And why shouldn’t he? It was what every man wanted, what every husband expected. The whole world thought so, and Brendan did too, whether he was willing to admit it or not. It was ingrained into him, into every man, and it slipped out in a dozen different ways he never even noticed.
“Well?” Brendan demanded. He still sounded angry.
“It didn’t… it didn’t seem to me to be a discussion that could be had,” Maggie admitted in a whisper. “Or one that offered any solution that would be satisfactory to us both.”
“And you decided that, did you? All on your own?” He shook his head, derisive now. “I don’t even know whether to believe you, Maggie.”
“Believe me?” she exclaimed, and now she sounded angry, as well. “Why wouldn’t I be telling the truth?”
“I mean,” Brendan retorted, his voice full of fury but his face full of hurt, “that I don’t know whether I should believe that you truly could love me.
That you would love me, if you let yourself.
” He stepped toward her, taking her by the shoulders so she gasped.
His grasp was firm as he drew her to him, so their bodies brushed, and heat flared deep inside her.
His expression was fierce, his hazel eyes lit from within, as he stared down at her hard.
“Could you…” he whispered, and as Maggie gazed up at him helplessly, she wondered, with a thrill she could not suppress, if he was about to kiss her.
Brendan continued to stare at her, his fingers digging into her shoulders, his expression still so fierce, while Maggie stared back, speechless. She wanted him to kiss her, she realized. She wanted it very much.
“I think you could,” Brendan murmured with something like wonder as he continued to scan her face and saw the undeniable truth of her feelings reflected there. “I look at you now and I think you could.” And then he drew her to him, their lips a hairsbreadth apart as Maggie’s eyes fluttered closed.
She couldn’t fight this. She didn’t want to, even if she knew in her heart nothing had changed for her. Nothing could, because no matter what Brendan said, she knew reality would be different. With the world they lived in and all its expectations, it would have to be.
But she still wanted him to kiss her.
And he almost did, his lips very nearly brushing hers, when there was a sudden hammering at their door, and they both stiffened and then sprang apart. Brendan was breathing fast and Maggie felt dizzy.
“Maggie!” Danny exclaimed. “Maggie! You’ll never believe it, but at work today in Jackson Park someone said they knew Da!”