American Pie (12 page)

He fell into step beside her. "Stubbornness aside, I truly don't believe Stefan seeks another fight. Although if that's what it takes, I'm willing to have another round."

Lucie darted a blushing look at him from beneath the brim of her straw boater. He was so handsome he took her breath away. "Please don't fight again, Mr. Kelly." She didn't think Stefan would suddenly appear but the possibility worried her. "You must know Stefan would be very angry if he knew we were walking together." Guilt attacked her pleasure in seeing him and actually speaking to him.

Stopping, Jamie touched her shoulders, forcing her to look at him directly. A shock of warmth burned under his finger-tips, scalding through her sleeves and into the skin beneath. Her heart lurched and pounded wildly.

"Luciemay I call you Lucie?the truth is, running into you was no accident." He drew a long breath. "I know I shouldn't seek you out, and I deeply regret any distress my presence may cause you." His dark eyes peered into hers. "I also know it isn't proper to say this, but I can't forget you. I think of you constantly and I'd like to know you. If my interest is objectionable, if you find me offensive, you have only to nod and I won't bother you or your brother again." She stared into his eyes as the lovely rolled r s caressed her ear. "Lucie?" he inquired softly. "Shall I leave you?"

She closed her eyes and swallowed, scarcely able to think past the thrilling touch of his hands framing her shoulders. The warmth of his fingertips radiated through her body and erupted in an inner earthquake. "No," she answered in a strangled whisper, staring at his mouth and wondering how it was possible for such a light touch to cause such turmoil. It was almost a relief when he dropped his arms. Almost.

"Praise the saints! I was so afraid you would send me away, or that you didn't feel"

"I feel terrible about defying Stefan," she said, guilt and distress darkening her eyes. "I hate deceiving him. But"

The trailing sentences spoke volumes to them both. "When you stopped coming to the site, I was so worried," Jamie confessed, his gaze shamelessly caressing her lips, her eyes, the heavy coil of chestnut hair. "I wondered where you were and what you were doing, and if you ever spared a small thought for me."

"I do think about you," she confessed in a voice so low he had to lean forward to hear. His nearness increased the pleasant barbershop smell of bay rum and Madagascar hair oil. A tiny shiver traced down Lucie's spine and she hastily resumed walking, resisting the urge to press her gloves to the fiery heat in her cheeks. She drew a deep breath and summoned a cheerful tone. "But even if Stefan had not forbidden me to return to the site, I couldn't go anymore. I have a job now."

"That's wonderful!" But his enthusiasm waned as she told him about the laundry room at the Roper mansion. At the entrance to Elizabeth Street Jamie gazed up toward the voices murmuring on the rooftops and scowled. "I hate the thought of you washing other people's dirty laundry."

Lucie laughed. "I'm not a countess, Mr. Kelly. I'm not afraid to dirty my hands. And I don't shrink from hard work. Truly, I don't mind. Laundry is something I can do and do well. There's no shame in it."

"I didn't mean to imply there was," he apologized hastily, bending to peer beneath her hat brim. "I just wish it wasn't necessary for you to work at all."

It was a lovely idea but not very practical. When she expressed the thought, Jamie smiled. "I suppose not," he admitted. "But no man likes to see a woman going off to work. It's job enough to care for a home." A thoughtful expression creased his brow. "But you do that, too, don't you?" Then he laughed. "Actually, I think women are the stronger of the sexes. You do whatever is necessary and without complaint." He grinned and his eyes twinkled. "Tell me, do you really enjoy washing other people's laundry? Or are you making the best of it?"

Lucie returned his smile, thinking how much she liked him. "The truth?" she pretended to consider. "There are things I'd rather do. But since I have a laundry job, it's best to put a bright face on it."

"What would you rather do?"

Her steps slowed as they turned into Elizabeth Street and passed beneath a broken street lamp. She didn't want these enchanted minutes to end. "It would be nice to work in one of the emporiums and sell lovely things. But I don't have the training for that. Or teaching would be lovely. Perhaps at the Settlement House." She slid a teasing look in his direction, amazed by how easy it was to talk to him. "Or maybe I'd enjoy business." This last was pure invention, created out of the turmoil of being near him.

He feigned a horrified look. "No, not business! Are you one of thosewhat do they call them?suffergettes?"

Lucie laughed. "And if I were, Mr. Kelly? Would you still wish to walk out with me?"

His grin flashed a row of even white teeth. "You astound me, lass. Hardly have you placed your feet on American soil before you're speaking of business. It's enough to rattle the poor brain of a conventional man."

Although she enjoyed his teasing enormously, and his intense interest in everything she said made her feel warm all over, she wanted to know more about him and their time together was slipping through the glass. "Actually I can't imagine myself conducting business," she admitted, smiling. She didn't tell him she still figured her market money on her fingers. "How are you faring, Mr. Kelly?"

"Jamie."

"Jamie," she repeated, tasting his name on her lips and feeling another rush of heat flare across her cheeks.

"I'm treading water, I fear, not progressing an inch. But a man has to begin somewhere." He shrugged and followed her between the buildings into the darkened courtyard. They lingered beside the dripping pump as lamps went on behind the windows.

"Do you have a dream?" Lucie asked shyly. He stood near enough that she could smell the scent of his bay rum. The realization that they leaned toward each other, heads almost touching, brought another blush to her throat. Then she smiled. "Of course you do. Everyone in America has a dream."

Jamie returned her smile and drew a line in the dirt with the toe of his boot. "Someday I want to build buildings so wonderful no one will knock them down and put others in their place." Raising his head, he looked at the tenement.

"And I want to build houses affordable to people like you and me, clean houses with adequate ventilation and airy sunny rooms."

Lucie stared at him with admiration, restraining an urge to touch his sleeve. "That's a wonderful dream!"

"All that's needed is a wee bit of Irish luck." Another smile curved his lips. "And a lot of money."

It was difficult to look away from his mouth; he had a beautiful firm mouth and she decided the sensuality in the curve suggested a poetic bent that fit nicely with his dream. But gazing at his lips made Lucie feel hot and strange inside. She swallowed and turned her face aside, hoping he could not read her mind, or hear the pounding of her heart.

"I must go inside, Mr.Jamie." The words emerged with reluctance, but she cast an anxious glance toward the dark opening between the buildings. "Stefan could return at any moment"

"I like you, Lucie Kolska," Jamie said softly. The deepening night blurred his features, but she could feel the intensity of his eyes on her face, responded to the unsettling sense of urgency drawing them together. "I'd like to see you again."

Uncertainty darkened her gaze. It was wrong to defy Stefan's wishes. So alien to her nature.

"Please."

She looked into Jamie Kelly's warm eyes and her heart constricted. How could something so utterly right be wrong? But she knew she should refuse, and when she thought of Stefan she experienced a scalding rush of guilt But she also felt the magnetic heat of Jamie Kelly's nearness and heard the thumping of her racing heart. She saw the admiration in his eyes, felt a tingle when he looked at her. Something larger than logic overwhelmed her senses.

She ducked her head and studied her hands twisting across the front of her skirts. "I if I should accidentally encounter you again next Tuesday evening"

A joyful shout broke from his lips, then he hastily looked over his shoulder and gave her an apologetic grin. "Until then," he said, backing toward the exit between the buildings.

Reason urged him along lest he bump into Stefan. But her rebellious heart wanted him to linger.

"Until then," she whispered, feeling the weight of guilt pressing against her conscience.

She stood beside the pump, placing her fingertips on the handle still warm from his hand and she watched him back away from her. At the opening he paused, and they looked at each other across the dirt floor of the courtyard.

When she realized he would not leave until she did, Lucie made herself turn away and lifted her skirts. Almost floating, her feet scarcely touching the stairs, she hurried up the staircase and into her rooms. Without pausing to remove her hat or light the lamp, she hastened to the window overlooking the street and leaned out for a last glimpse of him.

She saw him immediately, but he didn't know she watched. He tossed his cap in the air with a shout, then caught the pole of the street lamp in one hand and swung around it.

His exuberance brought a smile to Lucie's lips and she watched with laughing eyes as he retrieved his cap, settled it at a cocky angle, then, whistling, he pushed his hands in his pockets and walked toward Canal Street.

Then, because she could not bear to face Stefan knowing she intended to deceive him, she swiftly washed and dressed for bed, then rolled into her mattress and pretended to be asleep when she heard the door open, hoping Stefan couldn't hear the jubilant pounding of her heart.

"It's hotter'n a ride in Hades!" Mrs. Greene's booming complaint stirred the steam in front of the shirts boiling on the laundry room range top. Fanning her face with her apron, she emerged from a cloud of white haze and surveyed her domain with a critical eye. "Hilda, how many times I got to tell you?" she bawled. " One part oxalic acid and two parts Prussian blue! Lucie, from now on you mix the bluing."

Lucie adjusted the sleeve of a maid's uniform on the small bosom board and cast Hilda a sympathetic smile. Then she wet her finger, touched the surface of the iron to check if it was still hot, and applied herself to pressing the sleeve.

Mrs. Greene loomed over her with a scowl. "Where's your mind, Lucie Kolska? That ain't the proper iron. For sleeves you want a polishing iron, not a coarse iron." She spread chapped red hands and rolled her eyes toward heaven. "Why, Lord? Why is it you seen fit to burden me with a room full of pumblechooks?"

"Good heavens." Lucie raised the iron and blinked at it. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Greene, I don't know that I was thinking."

"It's Tuesday."

"Beg pardon?" Lucie asked with a start.

"Every Tuesday you get all dreamy airy like you was thinking about lollygagging. You got a young man, Lucie Kolska?" Mrs. Greene demanded. She studied Lucie's flaming cheeks and heaved a sigh. "Lord help us. Ain't nothing worse than trying to coax a day's work out of a love-struck biddy." She fisted her large hands on massive hips. "Well, when you going to marry that young man? That'll take care of any love problems."