“Five little children.
Lying in their beds.
All of them so hungry
They can’t lift up their heads.
Oh! I wisht I was a single girl again!”
She sang a few more verses, repeated the introduction, and then fell still. The audience of diners erupted into applause, some of them with tears still wet on their cheeks. This time, when she arose from her bow, she grinned like a child, and pointing at her husband, said merrily, “Now, for a real treat, ladies and gentlemen, my husband will sing you a tune!”
Gray roared with laughter, and dragged Josh to his feet. Then he, with a rueful grin, strolled to the stage. He looked down at his wife and whispered, just loud enough for everyone to hear and laugh at, “Later, my dear,” in the best traditionof stage villainy. Then he spoke to the fiddler, nodded, and sang the cowboy plaint: “Streets of Laredo,” all the verses, in a true, deep voice, and soon had the audience swaying in accompaniment. But he refused all cries for encores when he was done. Instead, he put his hands on his lean hips and called, “Little brother?”
Gray arose. “Have no fear, friends,” he said to the others in the restaurant, “the talent stops here. I can’t sing a note, even in the bathtub on a Saturday night. But I purely love to dance! How about some of dem ‘Golden Slippers?’?” he asked the band.
When they struck the opening notes, he offered his hand to Hannah, and as she arose, he announced to them all, “Will you join us?” before he took her to the dance floor and proceeded to whirl her about in lively, graceful fashion, until her hair came down from its pins and she was breathless with delight and laughter.
“You’re going to be limping for a week,” his brother warned him, as they passed each other on the dance floor.
But before Hannah could insist on sitting down again, Gray answered, “Nope. There’s a dry wind from the West tonight and that favors me, and my—ah, limb.”
“Oh hush,” Lucy cautioned her husband, as they spun away. “Forget about his leg, and just look into his eyes. Why, he’d dance with her tonight until he had to walk on stumps. Don’t you remember why?” she asked, pouting.
“Of course, but we found better ways to do it,” Josh said with a smile, pulling her closer, forgetting to be a protective older brother, just as she’d wished him to.
Although Lucy might have loved to chat with Hannah, they’d little chance to gossip or talk about the theater, the children, business, or anything else. For when the food wasn’t arriving at the table with clockwork regularity each time they cleared a platter, the music had them spinning about the dance floor. When the night was done, the two couples stood in front of the restaurant as boys raced to bring them their carriages.
“Next time,” Lucy Dylan promised Hannah. “Next time, we will talk and talk.”
“Next time,” Gray said to Hannah as they drove away. “Next time, I think I won’t share you with anyone.”
But though he said it with fervor, he said nothing else until he’d tied his team and taken her up the long stair to her rooms again. Even then he remained silent, and as she searched for something to say to explain why she couldn’t invite himin, even though she knew she was no girl, and was a widow, to boot, with no chaperon, he raised a hand and placed it gently aside her cheek. It was such a wide, long-fingered hand, it covered over half her head, so he balanced it by placing his other hand on the other side. Then, holding her face lightly, he tilted her head up and brought his lips down to hers, and kissed her with exquisite expertise, thoroughness, and ease.
It was a long, searching kiss. He didn’t touch her otherwise, although it seemed to her that she’d never been so completely loved. And flattered that he wanted only her lips as much as she felt protected by his hands, she leaned into him, pressed against him, parted her lips beneath his, and let herself, for once, forget everything but his warm, wine-scented, all- encompassing kiss.
He kissed her deeply, willing himself to remember to forget the rest of her that was pressing so close to him, not so much as a fingertip away; the rest that was as delicious as her lips, until he lost himself completely in the kiss and could plan and plot no more.
It seemed to Hannah that he’d been almost casual when he’d begun, but he was breathing as rapidly as she was when he raised his mouth again.
He didn’t move his lips far, only far enough to whisper, “May I see you next Sunday? So we can really scout out some places for Peggy and Royal this time?”
“Yes,” she breathed.
“And may I take you with me to Delmonico’s Sunday night so I can walk in with the most beautiful woman in New York City on my arm?” he asked, lowering his mouth to press a tiny suggestion of a kiss on the tip of her nose.
“Yes,” she said, or nodded, she no longer knew.
“And will you come to dinner with me Wednesday? Because on Wednesday nights,” he said, bringing his lips to her forehead, “I purely miss Wyoming most, I don’t know why, but I do. Will you, please?” he asked, as his lips skimmed down her cheekbone.
“Yes,” she said, closing her eyes and ears to all the inner voices shouting no!
He looked down at her closed eyes and parted lips and hesitated. But he knew three was his lucky number, and so didn’t push it and ask what lay foremost on his mind and heart tonight. It was too soon anyway. He wouldn’t be rash. He’d decided he needed at least a week to set the stage. Instead, he only gave her twomore devouring kisses, and left, while he could, without suffering more of what was becoming real physical pain. It seemed, he thought, as he took the stairs down again, that dancing with her had only set his bad leg to aching. But kissing her caused him a riot of discomfort, and not only, he thought wryly as he reached the cold night air and tried to straighten his shoulders, in his heart.
The office behind the frosted-glass door with the golden letters proclaiming “Harper Enterprises, Inc.” had three rooms, which was impressive in such an expensive district. The front room was Hannah’s domain, for it was there she sat and posed behind her desk in order to act the part of Mr. Harper’s efficient secretary. The room beyond that had a desk, plump leather chairs, a couch, and a wide window overlooking Twelfth Street. It was there that Mr. Harper, surrounded by framed photographs of famous and poised performers enlivened by their inked—sometimes in a suspiciously similar hand—promises of eternal thanks and devotion to Mr. Harper, interviewed prospective investors. The third room, bare of everything but chairs and a table, was for lesser beings. It was the room where the work of the theater was done, and auditions could be held.
Kyle had come out of his room and had been saying something for sometime, Hannah realized.
“I do beg your pardon,” she said with a guilty start, “I was just, ah, wondering when real rehearsals will begin.”
