Chapter Seven
Hannah was completely prepared for the outing.
She had a firm, cool smile in place, and carried a book, a shawl, and a purse full of odd bits of things to sort through so as to look occupied if the scenery and the book paled.
She was also wearing her best day dress, a fetching one made of heavy brown and lilac satin, crossed high at the neck and trimmed with intricate pale lavender silk fringe.
She only wore it, she assured herself as she adjusted her charmingly tilted lilac and feather-strewn hat, because it also had only the merest hint of bustle, and so would be the most comfortable to sit in for hours.
She’d have bodily comfort, at least, she thought as she took one last glance in the glass, congratulating herself on the expression of polite disinterest she’d perfected the night before.
That expression was so at variance with her exclamations of delight and words of praise when she turned from the mirror to see how Peggy had dressed, that for a moment Peggy was worried that she looked a fright.
Her own gown of yellow and cream satin was in charming taste and good style—if Peggy had other doubts about herself, she was at least sure of her fashion sense and her ability to wield a needle to copy any of the masters of fashion.
Otherwise, why would Kyle have hired her in the first place?
Or so she reassured herself as she kept her suddenly worried eyes on Hannah’s uncharacteristically unsmiling mouth.
Because for all that now Hannah was saying lovely things about the way she’d swept up her sandy hair and crowned it with an impudent matching hat, her face was set still and hard as she said them.
“Thank you, but I’m worrying because…och, you look so…grim, Hannah dearest,” Peggy faltered.
“A touch of a headache, nothing more,” Hannah replied.
“Why then, we’ll make it another day, to be sure, there’s no need to suffer for me…” Peggy exclaimed, though her heart was sinking, for she’d been up half the night entreating all the saints for good weather.
“Nonsense!” Hannah snapped, deep into her role, but her head did ache, since she’d been up half the night praying for an early blizzard. “The fresh air will clear my head.”
And looking so unapproachable that Peggy didn’t dare dispute her, Hannah sailed from the room, promenaded down the hall, and descended the stair led by her uplifted nose, her head held so high she almost caught her foot in her skirt and tumbled the rest of the way down.
Even that wouldn’t change her expression, she decided, placing a trembling hand more firmly on the stair rail, for it was her only protection.
So, with a prayer of thanks for her upbringing in the theater, she marched into the lobby armed with the best pose to affect, trying to look like a grande dame from A Lord’s Lady, never knowing that since her face was shaped for smiles and not icy disdain, she looked more like a mannequin than a haughty dowager.
She was angry with the jolt of unbidden pleasure she felt the moment she saw that familiar tall, bright-haired figure in the cluster of people waiting in the lobby.
Then she forced herself to remember how swiftly he’d taken a yes from another after all her noes; how it hadn’t mattered to him which lady had said yes.
Oh, Peggy would have her eyes opened today, she silently promised with grim spite that helped her pin an insincere smile on her compressed lips, vowing nothing would remove it short of a major disaster.
Another major disaster, she corrected herself, her heart skipping as he stepped forward and smiled at her.
He was wearing proper casual clothes, checked trousers, and a tightly fitted Norfolk jacket, though the hat in his hands was a Stetson. But all she’d eyes for was his tanned face, so she averted her gaze and fussed with her gloves so she wouldn’t be forced to stare at those well-shaped, lying lips.
“I don’t blame you for being vexed, ma’am,” Gray said at once, with unmistakable laughter in his voice, “but I’m not a man to let my chance go by. The second I heard you were going to be chaperon today, I started polishing my best boots.”
She gasped and her eyes flew wide.
“How dare you!” she hissed in a heated whisper, after glancing back to see that Peggy had been halted in conversation with a tall, raw-boned fellow.
Gray’s eyebrow raised.
“I knew you didn’t want to walk out with me,” he said slowly, puzzlement and what looked very much like hurt growing in his clear blue eyes, “but I didn’t know you’d go into such a taking.
My mistake, ma’am,” he said, putting on his hat.
“But,” he added, all amusement fled from his voice and face now, “if you’d be so kind.
I’d like to know just what I did to get you so angry—for another time, or another lady—if not just for my vanity’s sake, I guess. ”
“Surely,” she whispered in an embarrassed rush, gesturing with a tilted head toward Peggy, “even you know that this is scarcely the time to discuss it. And since I doubt we’ll ever have another time, I can only suggest you think about it.
Oh!” she said, stamping one foot at his look of complete confusion, “How could you? How can you? Even here in the West, surely there must be some glimmering of civilized behavior. To ask two ladies out with you, and accept the first one to agree, and then to appear delighted that you’ve got the other as well…
and then, to top it all, to volunteer to disappoint one when the other is reluctant to go along with your nefarious schemings.
You…you, sir,” she said, pulling herself up so that she addressed his cravat directly, “are beyond vile. You make Bluebeard seem constant!”
“Hannah,” Peggy said excitedly from somewhere near her shoulder, because Hannah suddenly found her vision narrowed to a thin tunnel of light sufficient only to show her the contents of the overloaded purse she was fumbling in for a handkerchief, “this is Mr. Royal Atkins, the gentleman I was speaking of.”
“Ma’am,” the tall, raw-boned fellow Hannah’s gaze flew to said in a deep smooth voice, “I thank you kindly for coming along today. No way Miss Peggy would’ve budged without you.
Here’s my friend. Gray Dylan, he’d be pleased to come along, too, so’s you won’t feel out of place.
I know him forever, ma’am,” Royal added anxiously, seeing Hannah’s arrested expression.
“He’s my boss and my friend, and true as the day is long. I promise you. Honest.”
“ ‘Beyond vile,’ ” Gray mused half to himself.
“Must be around the corner from atrocious and at the intersection of hideous, or in an even lower rent district. I’m afraid Miz Roberts wouldn’t want to be caught dead in a boneyard with me, Royal.
Looks like you three will have to go on by yourselves. ”
Peggy looked frightened. Royal’s long face fell. And Gray Dylan, Hannah noted with a mixture of shame and chagrin, looked not half so unhappy as he sounded or she felt.
But floundering in embarrassment helped her find hidden resources. She discovered that she’d been raised to the occasion.
“A foolish mistake, a mere misapprehension of mine. Pray forgive me, Mr. Dylan,” she said, lifting her head, this time trying the Grand Duchess of Ruritania from The False Count and getting it exactly right.
“And if it is not too late to change my mind, I should be delighted if you would accompany us.”
They all smiled; some in relief, some in relieved confusion, and one in genuine amusement, for she’d done it so perfectly, she’d even left in the heavy Baltic accent.
The trap Royal had rented for the occasion was a shining black surrey, scrupulously clean, with the scent of new leather still so strong, it even rose above the smell of the horses pulling it.
It was a mild day, and the top was taken down so that the four passengers were covered by only a brilliantly clear Colorado blue sky.
The ladies unfurled their parasols, and the surrey pulled away.
Royal held the reins, Peggy sat stiffly erect on the seat beside him, and Gray and Hannah sat directly behind the pair.
If it hadn’t been before, propriety was served with a vengeance now, for though never properly introduced by a third party when they’d first met, none of the parties within the coach could have so much as scratched their nose without a passerby seeing it now.
Certainly no one could have guessed that the two ladies were from an acting company, and the gentlemen were two wealthy bachelors out on a spree.
But even so, no one in the coach seemed able to forget it.
Hannah’s apology had been made and accepted.
But she was even more warmly forgiven after she’d whispered, red-faced—the grand duchess having departed for parts unknown as Gray helped her to her high seat—“I didn’t realize…
you see, Peggy kept telling me about a western gentleman who came backstage every night, asking her out… so you see…”
Still, Gray’s reply, made under a quirked mustache, “Lovely opinion you have of me,” didn’t make future conversation any easier, the more so when the only thing Hannah could think to answer was “But men who come backstage, after all…”
That made her rethink the wisdom of going out with men who come backstage after all, and Gray, for all his flippancy, couldn’t think of a way to deny that truth, and regretting his words, decided to wait it out until the conversation took a turn that truth needn’t follow.