Chapter 14 #3
“The aristocracy of New York are blinded and sympathetically bankrupt. Someone must act. I’ve viewed a different world along Fifth Avenue above the thirties and other places in the city.
The tumbledown shacks and sprawling dwellings that house hundreds.
Rookeries everyone calls them, huge barracks-like structures where landlords cram in as many of the working poor as could pay a few dollars rent.
Everywhere half-dressed urchins line the streets, starved and helpless to survive crime and disease.
The women stare vacantly, widowed, beaten or abandoned by their husbands, and then crushed by the monster of poverty.
Work or bread is the cry. Hope is futile.
The response is a demand for patience, and the customary diatribes about the evils of too much charity.
If I can aid one woman, I’ve saved her and her children. ”
“You have saved your daughter, Joseph and many in the Fitzgerald Orphanage. You are unique among women.”
His cobalt eyes brimmed with approval, making her spirit soar. He was silent for a moment, and then said, “While you’re off to save the world, I thought you might help me with a problem.”
“A problem?”
With his arms behind his back, he meandered farther into the gardens, swiveled sharply, looking straight at her. “I’m in need of your advice.”
“Advice?”
Zachary tilted his head. His mouth flexed faintly as the serenade of crickets vibrated. “I need advice on courting a woman. She’s a little obstinate, even pig-headed.”
“And you feel I’m an expert with mulish women?”
“As a gentleman, I have no sense in dealing with the fairer sex.”
Elizabeth blushed and glanced at him suspiciously for any sign of mockery.
He didn’t appear to be ironic in tone, and the way he looked at her make her feel rather silly and weak inside, full of giddy pleasure at the compliment of asking her counsel.
She took a seat on the bench, looked up at him expectantly, weighing his improper request. “Mr. Rourke, I don’t believe I understood you correctly. ”
He looked straight into her eyes. “You understand.”
“But surely…your intentions…that is a private matter. I don’t believe you desire me to make your courtship my affair.”
“I’d be obliged if you would make it your affair. I’m a rough frontiersman and not well-versed in how it is that ladies wish to be wooed. I don’t want to make any blunders.” He smiled on the side of his mouth.
She cleared her throat before continuing. “I doubt there’s a woman alive you couldn’t have if you put your mind to it.”
“You exaggerate my abilities.”
His smile reached her with devastating effect. Oh, his melting smile. “You are mocking me.”
His smile vanished. He turned his head, looking out past the barrier of flowers to the tops of the trees and over the back wall of the gardens. When he turned back again, his eyes were genuine and warm. “I would never mock you.”
His earnest concentration was unsettling. It was like being watched by a blue agate Greek statue come alive in the shadows of a marble hall. “You need to build a connection with the lady, get to know her on a deeper level before committing to a relationship.”
“You mean taking her to the zoo to view the monkeys?”
Elizabeth caught the flash of amusement as her laughter pealed across the gardens. “I hardly think that is a way to woo the lady on your first meeting.” She pasted on a serious expression. “Have you been formally introduced to the lady?”
He nodded his handsome head. “And then some.”
“A gentleman’s habits and conduct are closely observed. He must be punctual, respectful, and courteous to a lady. The lady always must be accompanied by a chaperone.”
“You don’t have a chaperone.”
“May I point out you came upon me. Regardless, I consider you a friend.”
“A friend?”
He seemed put out when she had called him a friend. “Flowers, candy or music are acceptable gifts. More substantial gifts might imply improper intentions.”
“So, a pet parrot might not be considered acceptable?”
Elizabeth burst out laughing and then comported herself. “A lady must be particular during the early days of courtship. Your habits must awaken her vigilant attention before it is too late.”
Elizabeth straightened her spine. “Should he be sloppy, seek vulgar amusements or expensive pleasures or display frivolity of mind, the young lady should eschew that gentleman’s acquaintance.”
“Do I have any of those faults?”
Elizabeth huffed. Oh, how he stood there, watching her, his expression making it clear his rightful place in the universe. “You are seeking compliments.”
“If she has kissed me, does that mean she has assured me of reciprocation of her attachment?”
Her jaw dropped. This was madness. The cad. “You have kissed her?”
“Would it be impolitic of me to admit that?”
Her breath burned in her throat. He had kissed Elizabeth and another. The man was without scruples. “You are very smug for someone who needs tutoring in the art of courtship.” Oh, to take perverse delight in piercing his enjoyment.
He chuckled as though he played a game. “I apologize. Do go on.”
A warning voice told her to finish the tutoring and leave. “Mr. Rourke,” she said, giving a sharp tap to the bench with her fingertip. “After being raised in the south, I cannot imagine a gentleman such as yourself is not perfectly conversant with the courting of young ladies.”
He gritted out a scornful laugh, raking his hands through his ebony hair. He took two steps toward her and then stopped. “What makes you think I would be? I’ve been living in crude conditions out west for a long time and have forgotten rudimentary customs.”
Elizabeth reared back. “You cannot imagine—I don’t mean it as an insult. It’s that you are an extraordinary handsome gentleman…”
He looked at her with intense interest and she colored.
“I didn’t think she had a care how I looked.”
“I doubt that many ladies have quite the same blindness as your intended.”
Despite his irreverence to her, he was glorious as he stood in his potent silence, contemplating her, a brooding Archangel Michael brushed by dark, invisible wings.
“The matter is of utmost importance to me, and I don’t have any idea how to begin.”
Elizabeth attempted to put a note of sympathy in her voice. “Is she unaware of your intentions?”
“Blinded. She’s been through a lot—and I wouldn’t press myself on her.”
Elizabeth had a sudden, wrenching weakness at the back of her throat.
This wasn’t a normal conversation, but their relationship had been anything but normal.
He had helped her in the past and had kept her secret.
She shoved a curl that had escaped from her coiffure behind her ear, rankled she had to help him secure a lady.
Was she the insulted one? Was she jealous?
Self-conscious, she glanced down at her fluttering fingers. “I gather she is an heiress?” Elizabeth collected the courage to look up.
“I don’t know if she would accept me. But in the future, I’ll be able to care for her.”
A powerful silence stretched between them, a dazzling mystery, full of uneasy imaginings. Elizabeth swallowed. “Perhaps I could arrange a meeting by hosting a tea?”
“Ah, a tea. Listening to mundane gossip at a tea would be like sticking embroidery needles in my eyes.”
To laugh at the horrid picture he painted, and so accurate of her mother’s teas. She gave a frustrated shake of her head, realizing she was second best, and her voice fell to a whisper. “Who is the lady in question?”
He looked into her eyes then with an intimacy and connection that Elizabeth felt all the way down to her toes.
If only, she sighed, a foible she had been careful not to indulge in all her life.
Oh, if only…