Hooked (8 page)

“Yes, the gentlemen.” Meg gave an airy wave of her hand—quite a dramatic show of savior-faire. “They're for the hotel. You see, I'm in charge of the lobby, Mr. Wilberforce. It's mine to do with as I please. Thus, the cigars for the gentlemen and the tea and scones for the ladies.”

“I see.” For some strange reason, Gage was relieved.

Farley returned, and Meg said nothing further on the subject.

“Would you like me to put the twelve seventy-five on the hotel account, Miss Brooks?”

“Yes, please.”

Farley wrote up the order in a book, then handed Miss Brooks her parcel as the door opened and a ruddy-cheeked young man wearing an open down the middle calf-length coat came into the store.

His ears didn't lay flat against his head, although they didn't stick out so far they were the first thing a
person noticed about him. What Gage zeroed in on was his bold as brass fine attire. He wore his hat at a jaunty angle that didn't suit him; the shoulders of his coat were padded; watch charms hung from the chain looped in his checkered vest.

A definite highbrow. Was he the winner of last year's contest?

“There you are, Margaret,” he called. “I've been looking all over for you.”

Clearly Meg Brooks hadn't wanted to be found. Dread shone in her eyes and she colored fiercely. Facing him, her greeting contained the doom of a felon facing a firing squad. “Hello, Harold.”

“I need to talk to you about your grandmother. She's done it again.”

Gage noted the man's Adam's apple bobbed quite noticeably when he became excited.

Meg stood straighter, as if taking on a defensive pose.

Turning to Harold, she said, “Harold, I think you should wait for me outside and I'll talk with you there.”

“But, Margaret, she's gone and pasted flyers on the front of the Blue Flame Saloon that say women should be allowed to go inside for spirits. Lynell Pickering told me she did it last night under the cover of darkness.” Young Harold ruefully shook his head. “I can't explain away that kind of behavior to my father. I know it's not your fault, but she's your grandmother.”

“Yes, I know she's my grandmother,” Meg challenged. “And whatever she's done . . . well, she's done. That's all. She must have really thought it was a good idea.”

Gage smiled. Bully for Meg. Bully for the grandmother,
Mrs. Rothman. He'd liked her when she checked him into the hotel. As a matter of fact, he thought her bicycle chain made quite a statement. There was no reason a decent woman shouldn't be allowed into a saloon if she wanted to sip on some suds.

But Harold was an imbecile for calling Meg on it in the company of others.

Tamping the urge to revert to his true personality and back the squealer into a corner, Gage had to say in his foppish voice, “Jiminy Christmas, Master Harold, you look too young to be patronizing a beer hall.”

Brows raised, Harold gazed at Gage with a puzzled crease in his forehead. “Who're you?”

“Vernon Wilberforce.” Gage didn't hold out his hand. Even Wilberforce had his limits.

Harold scrunched his pug nose. “Margaret, do you know this man?”

“Yes I do, Harold. He's a guest at the hotel.”

“Oh.” Drawing himself taller, he tried to look as intimidating as possible for a pencil in a suit. “Are you finished in here, Margaret?”

“Yes,” came her soft reply. “But wait for me outside.
Please.”

With a parting look at Gage, Harold left the store.

Meg remained silent a moment; then she picked up the string-tied package. “Good-bye, Mr. Farley.” She glanced at Gage. “Good-bye, Mr. Wilberforce. I'm sure we'll be running into each other now that you'll be in town. If you need anyone to show you around, please feel free to call on me.”

“I'll keep that in mind.”

“I live on Elm Street,” she hastily added and retreated a step.

“I'll remember that.”

“Second house from the corner.”

“A good location.”

“The house with the Old Gold trim,” she elaborated further.

Gage wanted to grin. He liked her candor just about as much as he would have liked to call on her. But he wouldn't. Couldn't.

“Well then . . . I suppose I should go.” Moving toward the window, she stood there a moment, the sun reflecting through the glass to light her profile and hair in golden hues. The red ribbon bow pinned to the ornaments in her hat shimmered scarlet. A curl fell softly against her cheek, shining like a new penny.

Her hand grasped the doorknob. She gave Gage a smile of departure. Then she was gone.

Farley stayed behind the counter and shook his head with a chuckle.

Gage said nothing. He hated to admit it, but he was still focused on the image of her profile as she turned toward that window and the sunlight caught on her face.

“She's an eager woman,” Farley commented.

“Good grief, I detected that.”

“She's got good intentions.”

Farley took the money Gage had placed on the counter.

Gage didn't readily leave. He selected one of his newly purchased cigars and gestured to the clerk. “Mind?”

“No, no. Light up.”

Farley even struck a match for him.

As Gage lounged next to the counter taking a few
puffs, he asked in what he hoped sounded offhanded, “Are you entered in the fly-fishing competition?”

“I am this year. Wasn't last.”

Lucky for Gage, Farley elaborated without prompting. “There was a bit of a to-do over last year's contest. Rumors and accusations of stocking the tributary off the lake. The fellow who engaged that spot for himself won. But nothing's ever been proven. He's an upstanding citizen from a highly respectable family here in town. Besides which, witnesses saw him reel all those fish in. So who's to say? Just because a fellow wins doesn't mean he cheated to do so. All the same, I'm glad I didn't enter because I would have been madder than a wet hen by the controversy surrounding the outcome.”

Gage politely listened while he smoked, taking mental notes, gathering information like eggs in a basket.

“Harmony's contest is well-known in the fishing circles,” Farley continued. “With a purse of one thousand dollars, you could say that ours is the best of the best. So when a title of great prominence is at stake in the fishing world, I suppose a man will do anything to attain that kind of glory. And money. Too bad. But again, I'm not saying he cheated. In fact, I happen to like last year's winner.”

“Is he entering again this year?”

“No.” Farley shook his head and toyed with a gold cigar band that laid on the countertop. “He's too busy spending all that cash he won. I suppose it's a shame, but I expect there's going to be some tongue-wagging. It'll all be stirred up again.”

As Gage exhaled a curl of smoke, he asked in a leisurely manner, “Does his family live in town?”

“You were talking to one of them today.”

Gage knew it. Harold the Horse's Ass.

Farley tossed the band into the wastebasket and then straightened. “Nice young fellow. He's off in some fancy Eastern college now,” Farley said, then shook his head with a tsk. “Shame about everything. Yep. Wayne . . .”

Keeping an unaffected air, Gage took a puff.

“Wayne Brooks—Meg's brother.”

It was then that Gage's cool faltered and he nearly choked on his smoke.

4

A
t 6:45, Meg looked out the window for the last time; then she swore to herself that she wouldn't go toward it again. She found it very discouraging to pace away her Friday and Saturday evenings in front of the window waiting for Mr. Wilberforce to come calling.

Perhaps he hadn't taken the hint. Perhaps she shouldn't have given him a hint. Margaret wouldn't have. Meg had.

Regardless, how could Mr. Wilberforce have taken her seriously with Harold Adams talking to her as if she were an infant? Meg had told Harold she wasn't receiving visitors on Friday and Saturday night because she would be “indisposed”—another word learned from her mother when Mother didn't want her lady friends to come over unexpectedly.

Resigned to the fact that Mr. Wilberforce wasn't coming, Meg went upstairs to put on her nightgown and robe.

She paused by Grandma Nettie's door, which was cracked open, light spilling into the hallway.

“Come in, Margaret, I want to talk to you about the saloon.”

Meg wasn't upset about that. What had bothered her more was Harold insisting he show her the damage done to the Blue Flame. Meg had seen for herself the flyers pasted on the front of the building. If Harold thought
that
was a big deal—Grandma Nettie chaining herself to the White House would be a capital offense.

Chief Officer Algie Conlin of the Harmony Police Department had come over this morning to write Grandma a citation. Mr. Pickering of the Blue Flame wasn't pressing charges. He simply wanted the mess cleaned up and since her grandmother had refused, she had to pay a fine and the cost of hiring somebody to take the papers down.

Grandma Nettie sat on the sateen bed quilt, and she patted a spot beside her. “Sit down, dear.”

Meg walked into the bedroom that belonged to her parents and lowered herself on the edge of the bed.

Grandma still wore the oyster-colored blouse waist and crow-black silk skirt she'd had on at the hotel. “You're upset with me because of the saloon.”

“I told you, it's not that, Grandma. I don't like how Harold thought it so awful he had to broadcast the news right in front of Mr. Wilberforce.”

Grandma pulled several of the pins from her gray hair and unwound her thick bun. “If Harold feels it necessary to call you out in public because of something I did, then he needs a dosing of sulphur and molasses.”

“I'd be happy to give it to him.”

“Margaret,” Grandma Nettie said, taking Meg's hand. “I'm likely to have considerably more notoriety in the future.”

“What are you planning?”

“More flyers. Only this time I won't paste them up. I'll pass them out on the streets to my sisters.” Grandma Nettie's expressive face changed; a bright spark of purpose held her features captive. “As long as women accept the position assigned to them, their emancipation is impossible. I have to make them understand that having the vote is the best way to be heard.”

She took Meg's other hand into hers. “You could be quite an asset to the sisters, Margaret. Let me know if you're interested.”

“I can't . . . ladies don't do such things.”

Meg liked the feel of Grandma Nettie's silky thin skin next to her own. She laid her head on her shoulder and snuggled against the woman beside her. Meg loved her Grandma Nettie dearly. She did things Meg used to do on a smaller scale. Oh, not fighting for the suffragette cause; but hoydenish things. Trifling behavior that Mrs. Wolcott told her was above her now that she had converted to true refinement.

Whispering into the crook of her grandmother's neck, her Colgate's cashmere perfume smelling comforting to Meg, she whispered, “Grandma, I think that you're the bravest person I know.”

“Oh, Margaret.” Her arm came around Meg and the two women embraced.

In that shared moment, Meg was so proud of her grandma, she wished that she had the courage to defy decorum again, too. Because the real Meg Brooks was suffocating under a self-imposed exile.

*  *  *

An hour later, Meg went downstairs. She should have taken up needle and thread and repaired her petticoat but she didn't relish the thought of sewing. She simply had no patience for it. So she'd stuffed the damaged underwear beneath her bedstead. After all, she did have four more.

At eight, the clock chimed.

Meg sat sideways in one of the velvet drawing room chairs, teasing the silk fringe on the padded arm with her fingertip as she kept her nose in a book. She wore her house gown—a threadbare old thing whose pale blue crepe de chine had lost its luster long ago.