Chapter 5
“Where shall we begin?” Alec asked in a playfully serious voice. “Flirting should come easily, as Aunt Maude suggested. It should be the natural result of conversation between two people who find each other desirable. It’s meant to attract—without becoming too intense.”
My cheeks were so hot, I was afraid they would give away my embarrassment. I found him very attractive—but there was nothing natural about what I was doing right now.
“Are you uncomfortable on my arm, Keira?” he asked me, easing away.
I nodded—and then shook my head—and then nodded again.
Alec laughed, but his eyes were thoughtful. “You are quite charming with your bright pink cheeks.”
Was he flirting again? Or was he being sincere?
“If I make you uncomfortable, please tell me.” He grew serious. “I never want you to feel uncomfortable with me.”
I kept my arm in his and he walked me around the gallery, past all the pictures that had stared down at me the day before.
“Flirting should be interspersed through general conversation,” he said next. “So, what shall we talk about?”
“The house?” I asked.
“Yes, of course.” He smiled. “I had almost forgotten we were taking a tour.”
He didn’t sound at all like he was unhappy giving me his time and attention. Was he just pretending, for my benefit?
“My aunt and uncle built this home three years ago,” he said.
“Before that, they lived on Madison Avenue, but Aunt Maude wanted a better position in society—as you’ve come to realize—and she had this home built.
It is one of the most expensive houses in New York City.
Most of the rooms were imported from Europe, as were most of the furnishings.
From palaces, castles, and chateaus. There might be more royal furniture in this home than in Versailles. ”
He chuckled and I smiled, but I could not comprehend such wealth.
“Shall we go downstairs?” he asked as we came to the staircase.
I nodded and asked, “How long have you lived here?”
“Since I moved to New York two years ago.”
“You’re not from here?”
“I’m from Boston. Uncle Edmund was my mother’s brother.
They were both raised in a wealthy home in Boston—my grandfather was a merchant.
Edmund took the family money and invested it in real estate and hotels.
My mother married my father, a minister.
It was a love match, but my grandfather was very upset, and he disowned her.
I am their only child and because Edmund and Maude had no children, I became my uncle’s heir.
He sent me to Harvard and as soon as I graduated, I was called here to apprentice with Uncle Edmund.
When he passed away last year of a heart attack, I stepped in and took over. ”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not as sorry as I am.” His light-hearted banter had ended, and I suspected he had forgotten we were supposed to be flirting.
“You’re not happy with the business?” I asked.
He turned at the bottom of the steps toward the front of the house. The main entrance was just as large as the gallery above and if I tilted my head up, I could see all the way to the stained-glass ceiling.
“I would be ungrateful if I said I wasn’t happy.”
“No—you would be honest, and there’s nothing wrong with honesty.”
Alec looked down at me and I was at a loss for more words. His blue eyes were so intense and full of emotions I couldn’t identify. I’d never met anyone like him. Kind, thoughtful, intelligent—yet mysterious and filled with depth.
“This is the front parlor,” Alec said as we walked into another oversized room with delicate furniture and expensive-looking wall coverings. “It opens to the music room behind it and the back parlor beyond that. When all three rooms are open, they make a large ballroom.”
“Does Aunt Maude host balls?”
“Every year at Christmas.”
Christmas. Just two months away. Would she expect me to attend? My legs felt weak at the thought.
We walked from the front parlor through the music room and into the back parlor.
“What do you do with the business?” I asked, curious about the life he led beyond these walls.
“I am the president of the eight hotels we own. There are three here in the city, one in Newport, two on Coney Island, one in Philadelphia, and one in Boston. I oversee all the major decisions regarding them and supervise the renovations being done to the resort in Newport. It’s the most luxurious of our properties and the one that provides our largest income. ”
Eight hotels? I couldn’t fathom that kind of responsibility. “If you aren’t happy with the business,” I said, picking up our earlier conversation, “what would you rather do?”
“It doesn’t matter what I’d rather do,” he said, a little stiff, though not unkind. “My path was set for me when I was young, and I haven’t had the luxury of dreaming.”
Alec and I were more alike than I’d realized.
We turned left in the back parlor and walked into a massive dining room along the backside of the house.
The table was so large, I couldn’t count the number of chairs around it without stopping.
Above our heads, a mural had been painted on the ceiling with cherubs, clouds, and something like a Greek god shooting lightning out of his finger.
Large windows lined this room from floor to ceiling.
We walked through it silently and then he opened the door, and we reentered the front hall again. “What shall we talk about next?” he asked. “I’m supposed to be teaching you how to flirt, remember?”
“Perhaps I already know how to flirt,” I said with a little smile and a lifting of my eyelashes in his direction. I’d seen Fiona do it a dozen times and had tried to perfect it—though I felt foolish now.
He paused as his face grew serious again. “Perhaps you do, Miss O’Day.”
We looked at each other for a heartbeat and then he motioned for me to enter a room on the right. “Shall we continue to practice in my favorite room of the house?”
It was a library.
I paused just inside the enormous room, trying to take in the sheer number of books before me.
There were thousands of them, on floor-to-ceiling shelves, surrounding a huge fireplace that dominated the center of the outside wall.
There were little nooks and crannies with window seats, comfortable chairs, tables, and potted plants.
And ladders, on both sides of the room, to get to the books on the upper shelves.
A hush fell over me.
People had libraries in their homes?
“If I hadn’t had a life laid out for me,” Alec said quietly, “I would become a scholar and perhaps a professor and spend all my time in a library.”
He had an intelligent light in his eyes—I had noticed it right away. He’d been to Harvard. His father was a minister. He ran a large company and wanted to be a professor. His apparent brilliance was yet another thing that intimidated me and enthralled me all at the same time.
I, on the other hand, had only been educated by mission workers who had come to Five Points to teach the children basic letters and numbers. I knew enough to get by—but had never read a whole book.
Alec walked a few feet, looking at the books, and then turned to me and said, “What about you? If you weren’t going to be a duchess.” He smiled—but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “What did you hope to be, Keira?”
I felt vulnerable under his blue-eyed gaze, in an unfamiliar gown, in a room I had not even realized some people owned. How could I explain to him that I had never had the luxury of hoping to be something I wasn’t—yet dreams had beckoned me, nonetheless?
I’d never shared my dream with anyone, for fear they’d laugh at me and steal the only joy I possessed. Somehow, I sensed—hoped—Alec wouldn’t laugh.
“I dream of going west,” I said quietly.
“West?”
“Beyond the Mississippi.” I wasn’t sure what was beyond the Mississippi—only freedom. “All I want is a cabin somewhere, near a stream and far away from New York City. With one enormous chair, where I can sit and sew to get by. It would be lovely.”
He studied me for a moment, in that quiet way of his, and my heart felt like it quit beating. Would he laugh at me?
“I could see you in a cabin, by a stream, sewing.”
“Could you?” My heart fluttered to life again. He was the first person who had envisioned it with me—and somehow that made it feel more real—more attainable.
“Would there be a library in your cabin?” he asked.
I smiled. Before now, I had never dreamed of a library in my cabin—but I nodded. “Aye.”
“I like your dream, Keira.”
“And I like yours, Mr.—”
“Alec.”
Both of us were silent and I felt shy again, so I turned to the books and ran my fingers along the spines.
For the first time in years, my nails were clean.
A clock chimed somewhere in the house and Alec looked toward the door. “I should get to the office. They’ll wonder what’s keeping me.”
I hated that our time together was at an end.
He walked across the room and joined me.
“Well?” I asked, lifting my chin, acting bolder than I felt. “How did me first lesson in flirtin’ go?”
He grinned. “I think you’re a natural.” He offered me his arm to leave the library. “You’re one of the most charming young women I’ve ever met and if it was up to me, I wouldn’t change a thing about you.”
I looked up at him, to see if he was serious—but I saw the hint of teasing in his gaze and knew he was only practicing with me again.
But I had no idea what to say.
The dressmaker stayed for hours and brought with her dozens of readymade dresses that were fitted for me.
I hardly said a word as Aunt Maude made several selections.
I lost count of how many gowns were left and how many were being ordered.
There would be custom-made undergarments, shawls, hats, and more.
Aunt Maude said we would go shopping for reticules, shoes, umbrellas, and ribbons.
And all of it would be mine.