“I know. Your father used Excalibur to slay the headless horseman under your bed. You’d come into the print shop night after night.” I smile at the memory, though one look at Nathan’s startled face chases my smile away. “I’m sorry.”
“Please don’t be. I guess I’m still getting used to the idea that you already know me.”
Our feet dangle over the water, which breaks in a froth of bubbles around our rock. Bear returns from where she had gone to quench her thirst and plants herself on Nathan’s other side. Draping an arm around her, he watches the stream in the same steady way he regards the world, absorbing much, giving away little.
He hooks his long fingers around the edge of our rock, stretching his back. The stream whooshes and clucks. “Well, now that you know so many of my secrets, maybe you can tell me some of yours.” His eyes widen a fraction.
“My whole life is a secret.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
The daylight draws him in sharp lines. For so many years, his face was little more than a fuzzy image, despite him being as familiar as my own cloak. Is it possible to have the kind of life his family offered me? Not just working with them, but livingamong them, in the spaces that show? Interracial marriage is illegal, but no one can legislate family, friendship, or love.
When I don’t answer, he gives me half a smile. “I really just want to know, since you are an experienced hatter, what do you think of my Homburg?” Removing the hat, he flips it back and forth in front of him.
“You mean your humbug? It’s like a giant frown on the crown.”
“Then I shall continue wearing mine with pride.”
“At least put a feather in it. Lizzie will appreciate that.”
He sets his hat back on his head, and the brim slumps into an extra-deep frown. “I’m not interested in impressing Lizzie.”
My suddenly fidgety hands pick up his book. Faded silver lettering on the leather cover readsModern Horse Racing. “Where did you get this?”
“Used bookshop down the street.”
“Are you reading this for her?”
“Yes, I am reading this... for her. Not Lizzie.” The grumpy set of his jaw has loosened, and his throat moves. “Jo, you’ve known me all your life. Do you think”—he swallows—“do you think you could ever care for someone like me?”
My skin tingles, and my pulse clamors in my ears. As I watch his eyelashes bow, the messy deck of my emotions squares itself and turns up a heart. I realize I am holding my breath. “Besotted.”
“Besotted?”
“My favorite word. I lied, before.”
The voice I have heard all my life whispers right by my ear. “Jo.” And I no longer need to wonder how it would feel to kiss him.
Forty-One
This time, when the portal to Billy’s cathouse heaves open, Madam Delilah lets me in without inquiry. Perhaps it is because I’m in the company of Noemi, who, with her lightning-bolt scowl, looks in no mood to suffer fools. After a perfunctory “Good evening, ma’am,” Noemi hooks her arm through mine and marches us past the watchful square eyes of the Jesse James dice on the door. Madam Delilah’s shocked face seems to droop under the weight of her cosmetic paste, like an old sock that is dangerously close to slipping off.
“Does she know?” I whisper, hearing the woman’s boots scrabbling down the hallway after us.
“She thinks the church sends me,” Noemi whispers in my ear. “Let me do the talking.”
My stomach clenches at the ripe scent of the overly perfumed hallways, and my heartbeat picks up its feet. If the patrons here are curious about our arrival, I don’t notice, as anger swells inside me. The only thing that stays me fromstorming the corridors is Noemi, whose firm hand keeps me by her side.
In room 9, Billy Riggs sits at his desk, a cigar drooping from his mouth as he writes in a ledger. His hat hangs on the wall, and his coppery hair is tied back by a black ribbon. Sleeve garters keep his cuffs from smearing the ink. Four white men stand around the table, their expressions caught between sheepish and surprised. Billy blinks at Noemi. “Is it Sunday already?”
Noemi growls, but before she can speak, Billy closes his ledger. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment, gentlemen, Madam Delilah will get you watered, on the house.”
Casting us annoyed looks, the men file out and Madam Delilah closes the door behind them. Billy rounds his desk and leans his backside against it. “Let me guess, you’re not here to place illegal bets.”
Noemi lights in. “I never agreed with your depraved lifestyle. I did my honest best to overlook the perversions in your soul, knowing judgment is not mine to pass. But when you start taking swings at folks I know,goodfolks, you have gone too far. Your creepy clothes-hanger almost done in Old Gin.” She pushes up the sleeves of her dress, as if she is getting ready to take a swing herself.
Billy puts up a hand, his open cuff blooming like a lily around his crooked wrist. “What do you mean, ‘done in Old Gin’? I only told Knucks to scare him a bit. Then Knucks comes back a bloody mess and bolts the door on his room. Thinks that old man put a curse on him. I might have to hire someone new, and it’s not easy to find a good menace, you know?”
