Lacey’s throat choked tight and she threw back her coverlet. She stood up slowly, hardly aware of the oversize man’s shirt and rolled-up trousers that hung loosely on her childish frame as her attention was caught by the muted notes of a song coming from the saloon below.
She stepped down onto the barroom floor and walked toward the piano, where a gray-haired, heavily mustached fellow continued his enthusiastic playing.
Unconscious of the attention she drew from the saloon patrons, Lacey joined in, singing hoarsely, “Oh, Susannah, don’t you cry for me…”
So intense was her recollection of the many times she had sung that song to raise her grandfather’s spirits after another day’s fruitless prospecting, that she did not notice the two men at the end of the bar who exchanged anxious glances at the sight of her. She did not see them slip out the doorway into the alley, nor did she see them meet up with the fellow obviously waiting for them there. She had no way of knowing that fellow harangued the two men for their ineptitude before slapping money into their hands and giving them new orders that they dared not ignore.
Lacey remained beside the piano as the old fellow banged out another boisterous tune. She was unaware of the danger that still threatened her until Scully slid a protective arm around her shoulders and turned her back toward the safety of the upstairs room.
Chapter One
New York City
1882
Yes, her hands were trembling.
Lacey stared at her hands, at the long slender fingers with well-tended nails, and at the smooth skin and soft palms reflecting the total absence of physical labor. They were “a lady’s hands,” which she realized was part of the reason for their shaking.
Lacey did not need to look at her reflection in the dressing table mirror to know that the image there further perpetuated that description of herself. She was no longer eight years old. The neat pigtails she had worn when she first arrived at Mrs. Grivens’s Finishing School had given way to a graceful upsweep of hair that was still a brilliant platinum in color; her childish features had matured into a finely sculpted countenance in which clear, blue eyes hid uncertainty behind a downward sweep of surprisingly dark lashes; and her slender, adolescent proportions had developed feminine curves that went undisguised by the ladylike cut of her simple, gray traveling dress.
Lacey glanced toward the hallway door at the sound of a soft knocking. It opened at her response to reveal a small, dark-haired girl who rushed sobbing into her arms.
“I don’t want you to go, Lacey.” Tears streamed from her eyes as fourteen-year-old Marjorie Parsons drew back and rasped, “I’ll be so lonesome here when you’re gone.”
Her reassuring smile aimed as much at boosting her own confidence as it did comforting the motherless girl who had become almost a sister to her, Lacey replied, “I can’t stay in school forever, Marjorie. Everyone graduates when they’re eighteen years old—even me.”
“Maybe so.” Marjorie brushed away her tears and continued almost pleadingly, “But Mrs. Grivens would gladly let you stay on as an instructor if you wanted to. Everybody knows that.”
An instructor.
Lacey was almost amused by those words. She could read, write and cipher. She could “play the piano with considerable finesse,” “embroider beautifully,” was well versed in the rules of etiquette, knew the proper protocol and manner to address any member of a titled aristocracy and had committed to memory the correct placement of every piece of silverware that could possibly be needed at a formal dinner party. Those accomplishments aside, she was at a complete loss when it came to cooking or maintaining a household without a battery of servants. She was also totally ignorant as to how a “young lady” was supposed to earn a decent living in a society where the only choices open to her were a good marriage or sensible spinsterhood.
Yes, she’d be good at teaching young women to be as clueless as she.
“Please tell Mrs. Grivens you’ll stay.”
“I can’t do that. Uncle Scully sent me tickets for my transportation home. He’s expecting me, and I owe him that.”
She did not bother to tell Marjorie she had decided that the chaperone Uncle Scully had arranged to accompany her was unnecessary, or that she had cancelled the arrangements he had made and cashed in the extra ticket he had provided so she might return the funds to him when she arrived. Yes, she owed him that…and so much more.
Lacey blinked back unexpected tears, then continued kindly, “I’m not like you, Marjorie. I have…obligations. I don’t have a wealthy father ready to introduce me to society so I can get properly married after I graduate.”
“Pooh! Papa would introduce you to society, too, if you wanted. I’d make him do it. And you’re so pretty that you’d find a husband in no time.”
“That wouldn’t work for me, Marjorie.”
Marjorie stared at her, uncomprehending.
“It’s time for me to pay Uncle Scully back for financing my schooling and supporting me all these years.” She smiled sadly. “He must be pretty old by now. I know he never married. He probably needs somebody to take care of him.”
“But he never came out to see you—not once!”
“He wrote to me faithfully and made sure I always had whatever I needed.” Lacey felt no need to explain that Uncle Scully’s letters had rarely arrived more often than six months apart, or that while being friendly and expressing concern that her needs were met when he wrote, Uncle Scully had shared little of the private information that would have made him seem more like family.
“He didn’t visit you on your birthday, or at Christmas.”
“But he never forgot me.” Lacey did not feel she needed to add that she would have preferred a visit to the sometimes elaborate presents that had arrived without exception on the holidays.
“He didn’t even send you a likeness of him to remember him by!”
“That’s because I didn’t need a likeness.” She did not choose to clarify that her actual memory of Jake Scully had dimmed over the years—that all she could truly remember was that he had been tall and well dressed, and that with a single glance of his sober, gray eyes, he had made her feel safe from the gunshots that had robbed her of the life she had known.
Lacey added solemnly, “I owe Uncle Scully more than I can ever repay.”
“But you shouldn’t waste your life caring for an old man when you’re so young.”
“I owe it to him, Marjorie.” Lacey silently added that she owed her grandfather a debt, too—to return to the place that gentle, decent man had loved so she could clarify memories that had become confused and distorted by the violence of that night long ago and put an end to the nightmares that still haunted her.
Lacey turned at the sound of a summons at the door. She pulled it open to see little Amy Harding standing solemnly in the hallway.
“The carriage is here, Lacey.” Amy’s eyes were moist. “Mrs. Grivens said to hurry or you’ll miss your train.”
Lacey was conscious of the footsteps following her as she carried her suitcase down the staircase toward the front doorway.
Tears, hugs and sincere, loving words behind her, Lacey stepped up into the waiting carriage. She looked back as the conveyance jerked into motion and she waved at the solemn group gathered in the doorway of the boarding school.
The carriage turned the street corner, and Lacey took a breath, wiped away a tear and determinedly faced forward. She had told Marjorie the truth. She needed to go “home” because she had obligations she could not ignore.