Chapter 17
“Mr. Stein,” Maggie greeted him faintly as Theo kept strolling toward her, his languorous gaze full of amazement, as well as an obvious masculine admiration that made her blush.
He looked the same as he had back in New York—handsome in a languid way, his dark hair rumpled and left a little too long, his equally dark eyes liquid and heavy-lidded, his lithe frame encased in a summer suit of cream flannel, his straw boater held carelessly in one hand.
He looked like the debonair gentleman about town, and his presence made Maggie’s heart skip an unruly beat, even as she felt herself tense in alarm.
What if he was still angry about her part in the whole wretched affair, back in New York?
“What a surprise to see you here,” she managed in a wavery voice.
“Not half as much as it is a surprise to me!” Theo exclaimed with a rich laugh, his gaze sweeping over her again in blatant assessment. “But surely you can call me Theo? We’ve been through a lot together, haven’t we?”
There was a hint of playfulness in his voice that Maggie did not know what to make of.
The last time she’d seen him, he’d been threatening to have her arrested, and his house had been burning down around them.
And while, when she’d first called on Mrs. Stein, she’d been curious as to whether he’d come to Chicago, she hadn’t actually thought, never mind hoped, that she’d see him again.
Had she?
“Indeed we have,” she replied, her voice shaking only a little at this admission. “Did your mother mention she had seen me?”
“My mother?” He sounded flummoxed. “No, why should she?”
“Oh…” There was no real reason, Maggie supposed, why Mrs. Stein would discuss with her son the former employee who was designing her a hat, except that Mrs. Stein had warned Maggie off Theo back in New York, and so the omission felt deliberate, and perhaps, in Mrs. Stein’s view, necessary.
“She came into Field’s, where I work,” Maggie explained stiltedly.
“And we took tea together. I thought she might have said.”
“Tea!” Theo replied with another laugh. “Well, then, I suppose she’s not too much in a wax about your part in that whole debacle back in New York! We lost the whole downstairs of the house, did you know?”
“I read it in the papers,” Maggie whispered. She looked down at her feet, hating having to relive that dreadful episode. Did Theo blame her, despite his laughing tone? She couldn’t tell.
“Hey,” he said quietly, and Maggie stiffened as she felt his finger touch her chin to tilt it gently upwards.
Reluctantly, she lifted her gaze and saw him smiling down at her, his eyes crinkled at the corners.
“I know I was pretty cross with you that evening, but I came to realize, just as my mother did, that you had so little to do with it. How you got caught up in a gang like the Whyos is anyone’s guess, but I don’t blame you, and neither does Ma. ”
“Thank you,” Maggie whispered, as grateful as she was unsettled for his understanding. She took a step back, so he was forced to drop his finger from her chin.
His gaze swept up and down her again in that appreciative way and then he said abruptly, “Have dinner with me tonight.”
“What?” Maggie gaped at him, hardly able to credit the invitation. Their social statuses were wildly far apart, and she was meant to be a married woman, not, of course, that Theo Stein knew that, but still, the invitation was both unexpected and painfully inappropriate.
“At Palmer House,” he continued. “It’s the only decent restaurant in this town.”
And in the nicest and most expensive hotel as well, Maggie thought.
She had walked past the elegant building on the corner of State and Monroe Streets but never set foot in its hallowed grounds.
And she couldn’t now. Eating in such a public place with Theo Stein was sure to backfire on her in one way or another, and cause gossip, if not outright scandal.
“I’m sorry, but I cannot accept such an invitation,” she said stiffly. “But when you see your mother, could you—”
“Oh, come now, I’m not taking no for an answer,” Theo told her, and he reached for her hand in a way that felt far too familiar, loosely linking her gloved fingers with his.
“I’m famished, and I bet you are, too. And Palmer House does a nice brisket of beef, as well as spiced oysters that aren’t the worst I’ve ever had.
” He tugged her a few steps toward him, smiling in a way that made Maggie realize he knew just how outrageous he was being—and how much it unsettled her.
“Have you ever had oysters, Maggie O’Halloran? ”
“No, I never thought I’d like them.” She tried to pull her hand away, but he held it fast.
“You owe me,” he told her, his tone turning serious, although his eyes still danced with amusement.
“After all that palaver back in New York. I want a reasonable explanation as well as a meal out of it all. Come on now.” He tugged her hand again, forcing her to take a few more stumbling steps toward him.
“Really, sir, you are being far too forward,” Maggie snapped, her temper flaring at his presumption. “You would not speak to a lady of your own station in such a fashion as this. I would kindly ask you that you afford me the same respect.”
“Oh, oh!” He squeezed her hand before dropping it, seeming more amused than ever.
“The kitten has claws, I see. Very well, mademoiselle.” He bowed with great flourish.
“With the greatest possible respect, may I kindly request the delight of your company for supper this evening? I promise to behave like the most exquisite gentleman.” Still bowing, he glanced up at her, his dark eyes bright with mischief, a smile quirking one corner of his mobile mouth.
Maggie shook her head, caught between annoyance and a reluctant, exasperated amusement at his irrepressible good humor. And, she acknowledged, a temptation to accept, because a meal at Palmer House with a handsome man was a pleasure she was reluctant to deny herself, even if she knew she should.
“Well?” Theo asked, straightening. “What do you say?”
“Very well,” she said at last, the words coming with less reluctance than she meant for them to, and Theo let out a crowing sound of triumph. “But not for very long,” she warned. “I have to get back.”
“Get back where?” Theo asked as he took her elbow, ever the gentleman, and escorted her down the street to hail a hansom cab.
“I want to hear everything,” he added as he helped her into the cab and they started north, toward the hotel.
“What happened after the fire, how you came to be in Chicago, everything.” He said the word with such relish that Maggie blushed again, and she turned to face the window to hide her hot cheeks.
Everything about this encounter was unexpected and unsettling.
“After the fire,” she explained after a moment, her voice hesitant and stilted, “I went to find my brother. I had cause to believe he was in danger from… from the Whyos.” Theo nodded, seeming rapt, and she continued, her voice growing stronger.
“We laid low for a while, both because of the gang and I… I was afraid I would be implicated in the fire.” She pressed one hand to her hot cheek, regret lancing through her as she remembered that terrible and tragic time.
“I am so terribly sorry for what happened,” she finished in close to a whisper. “I hope you believe that.”
“I always believed it,” Theo told her, and he took her hand from her cheek and held it clasped between his.
Maggie knew she should pull away, but it felt so nice to be comforted as well as admired, especially after the way Brendan had been ignoring her as of late.
Her wounded heart—and, she knew, her pride—healed under Theo’s concerned and interested gaze, his warm palms pressed against hers.
“So what happened then?” he asked, still holding her hand in his.
“Then… then we decided to travel to Chicago,” Maggie continued after a pause.
She told herself she should pull her hand away, but she didn’t.
She felt as if she should mention Brendan, but she didn’t know how to manage it since she hadn’t included him from the beginning, and it felt almost…
almost as if he didn’t exist. But, she realized, she hadn’t wanted to mention Brendan to Theo, a fact that was revealing in itself and one she chose not to consider at this present moment.
“Why Chicago?” Theo asked curiously. He finally released her hand, and Maggie laced her fingers together tightly in her lap, embarrassed that she hadn’t had the conviction or the strength to pull away first.
“My father sent us a letter from here,” she explained. “We’d thought to meet him back in New York, but he’d moved on. We’re hoping to find him here.”
“Your father?” Theo repeated, and Maggie was suddenly struck by how little he knew about her.
Nothing, really, beyond the fact that she’d been a maid to his mother.
Why on earth, she wondered, was she sitting in a hansom cab with him, about to dine together at one of the city’s best hotels?
She looked away, embarrassed and discomfited by her swirling thoughts, and Theo reached for her hand again.
“You’re regretting accepting my dinner invitation,” he said quietly, her hand clasped in his.
“And thinking I don’t know the first thing about you, or you about me. ”
Maggie swallowed, half-amazed that he’d read her so perfectly. “We are more or less strangers to one another,” she said after a moment, her face still turned to the window.
“More… or less?” he asked lightly. “By the end of tonight, I hope very much it will be less.”