Bicycle Built for Two (21 page)

Blast Gil MacIntosh, anyhow. And Kate
Finney. She’d waltzed into his life like an opera dancer from a bad
musical and managed to turn it upside down and inside out without
even trying. Alex had the unpleasant notion that Kate would be
happy if she’d never met him.

As for Alex, he’d be happy not to have met
her, too, but he had met her, and now he was stuck. Not only had he
taken over the medical care of Kate’s mother, but he was interested
in helping Bill Finney prosper in his investment experiments, and
he also intended to take the entire family out to the English
family farm as soon as he could possibly arrange to do so.

And then there was the problem of Kate
herself. Alex didn’t know how he felt about Kate, but he feared the
worst. The worst wasn’t his sexual interest in her, either. Dash
it, he was a man, after all. Any man would lust for Kate once he
saw her. Alex feared his interest in the feisty Miss Finney ran
deeper than mere carnal attraction.

“Aw, nuts,” he grumbled, unconsciously
borrowing a slang expression from Kate. He’d talk to his mother
about his state of befuddlement. Ma was a wise woman, and Alex
never felt shy about asking her personal questions.

Besides, Ma had been poor once. She’d told
him so. Surely, she’d have some good advice.

He didn’t even notice his approach to the
Congress Hotel until the doorman said, “Uh, Mr. English, are you
feeling quite the thing?”

Caught by surprise, Alex stopped and stared
at the man. “Beg pardon?”

“I beg your pardon, sir.” The doorman looked
uncomfortable. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I—uh—well—you didn’t look
quite well.”

“Oh.” Alex understood at last that the
doorman’s question had been meant kindly. Until quite recently—say,
the past twenty minutes or so—Alex had believed himself to be a
rather more kindly specimen of humankind than most. He was ashamed
when he couldn’t recall the last time he’d actually paid attention
to this man, this— Bother. What was his name? Ah, yes. Kaufman.
“I’m fine, thanks. Ah, thank you for your concern.”

Alex saw relief descend upon the doorman,
and he felt like a rat. Did people actually treat the Kaufmans of
the world so badly that this particular Kaufman worried about
keeping his job when he asked about a man’s health? The notion,
which Alex feared was true, bothered him a lot.

What really bothered him, however, was his
reaction to the thought of marrying Kate Finney. Was he honestly so
arrogant that he would refuse to marry a woman just because she’d
been born poor? He’d come to like Kate. A lot. He certainly desired
her. While he’d originally believed her to be a woman of low moral
tone, he knew better now.

Bother. He needed to get Kate and her mother
to the farm; he needed to see how they acted around his mother and
his sister. The thought of Mary Jo made his insides give a twinge.
Would Mary Jo behave herself with the two Finney ladies? Would she
believe herself to be better than they because they were from the
bad side of the city?

If she did, Alex would speak to her. By
hand, by Gad, if he had to. Mary Jo wasn’t too dashed old to be
spanked. He wouldn’t allow anyone, not even his own sister, to
behave less than impeccably to Mrs. Finney and Kate.

Good Gad, there he went again. He was so
confused. Thank the good Lord for his mother. Ma would know what to
do. Alex could hardly wait to hear what she had to say on the
matter, because solving the Kate Finney problem was totally beyond
him without help.

It was a glum and exceedingly frustrated Alex
English who entered his expensive, luxurious, brand-new hotel room
that night.

Chapter Ten

Madame looked hard at Kate. “He’s taking you
where?”

Striving for a nonchalance she was far from
feeling, Kate said, “He’s taking Ma and me to his farm tomorrow
morning. He thinks the country air will be good for her, and the
doctors agree.”

“Ah. He’s concerned for your mother’s
health. Of course.”

Kate, who’d been staring in the mirror and
applying greasepaint to her pallid cheeks in her daily effort to
make herself look more like a Gypsy, frowned at Madame’s
reflection. “Yeah. You have a problem with that? I think it’s nice
of him.”

Madame’s eyebrows waggled. Kate hoped to
heaven the woman couldn’t really read people’s thoughts, because
her own mind seemed determined to dwell on last night’s kiss. “Darn
it, Madame, there’s nothing wrong with this trip!”

“I said nothing.” Madame popped a chunk of
cheese into her mouth and chewed.

Her grin irritated Kate. “You didn’t have to
say anything. You look like a darned house cat who’s just caught a
big, fat mouse.”

Madame chuckled and swallowed. “No, no,
Kate. I’m only concerned for your heart.”

“My heart’s just fine, thanks.”

“Hmmm.” A hot pepper followed the piece of
cheese.

Kate knew she’d uttered a huge lie, and she
feared that Madame knew it, too. Her heart was a mess, thanks to
Alex English. Why had he interfered in her life, anyhow? First he’d
threatened her livelihood, then he’d usurped her mother and
brother, and now he was threatening her virtue. Oh, it wasn’t fair!
If she’d been alone, she might have banged her head against the
table a few times in an effort to drive out the confusion dwelling
therein.

“Darn it,” she muttered. “He’s being nice to
my mother. That’s the only thing that matters.”

“Ah.”

Squinting into the mirror, Kate saw Madame
nod. No grin this time. Still, Kate sensed amusement from that
quarter. Nuts. Deciding there wasn’t anything she could do about
Madame, Kate quit trying and resumed applying dark greasepaint to
her cheeks. She was really on edge this morning, longing to see
Alex, yet afraid of seeing him, too.

He hadn’t been at the hospital when she’d
visited her mother this morning, probably because he was at the
police station, filing charges against her father. The back of
Kate’s neck burned when she remembered last night’s awful scene.
She hadn’t told her mother about it, because Ma would only have
felt bad and worried, and she didn’t need more worry. She’d had
more than her share of worries in her life already.

Ma had looked better this morning, though,
which was the important thing. She’d mentioned the proposed trip to
the country three times in ten minutes, and Kate had tried hard to
be happy with her. She’d failed. She should be happy. It was a good
thing that Ma was going to get out of the city and breathe some
fresh country air for a couple of days.

Drat it, why couldn’t she keep her
priorities straight anymore? Kate thought grimly that she knew the
answer to that one, no matter how little she wanted to admit it.
She was beginning to care a great deal for Alex English, and she
didn’t want to. The fact that she seemed to have no control over
her emotions when it came to him bothered her a lot. Kate had made
it a policy never to allow her emotions to interfere with her
goals. It troubled her that her policy didn’t seem to be working
any longer.

Lifting her chin to observe her fading
bruises and to determine if she still needed that black band around
her neck, she thought bitterly that, until Alex English waltzed
into her life, she’d been just fine. Oh, sure, she’d been poor, but
she’d been working like the very devil to better herself and her
family. It was also true that before she met Alex her father had
been a constant threat, both to her and to her mother. But Kate was
used to those problems. She knew how to deal with them. She’d armed
herself long since to do battle with the life she understood.

She didn’t understand Alex or his life one
iota, yet he seemed determined to drag her into it, whether she
wanted him to or not. It was all so confusing.

“It’ll be all right, Katie,” Madame said
after Kate decided she no longer needed makeup or the black band.
Her words startled Kate, who glanced at the spiritualist’s
reflection in the mirror.

Madame was looking particularly mysterious
at the moment, even though she was chewing. “Will it?”

“Yes. No worries. Everything be fine.”

“Good. I’m glad.” She’d be even gladder if
she had a modicum of confidence in Madame’s predictions.

# # #

Alex was still reeling from the battle he
and Kate had waged on Friday night when he set out with Frank on
Saturday morning to pick her up at her lodgings. She’d put up a
nonsensical fuss about this part of the weekend’s agenda. He’d only
prevailed by telling her that if she dragged her suitcase to her
mother’s hospital room, he wouldn’t take her to the country with
them. He was certain she hadn’t believed him, but she’d given in
when he then told her he didn’t intend to make a scene on the
sidewalk, and if she wanted to continue arguing about it, she’d
have to talk to herself because he was leaving.

God almighty, the woman drove him crazy. He
couldn’t understand why he cared so much about her.

As soon as Frank drove the team around the
corner and the carriage approached the butcher shop, Alex glanced
out the window and felt his lips tighten. Kate stood on the
trash-strewn, unpaved sidewalk, a shabby carpetbag beside her. Both
the bag and the girl were waiting for him.

Dashed woman hadn’t even stayed in her room
long enough for him to carry her bag down those dismal stairs. The
memory of her flat caused a shudder to pass through him. He hated
the thought of Kate living over that cursed butcher shop.

Alex was frowning out the window when he saw
Kate reach down to lift up the bag. In defiance of a lifetime’s
worth of lessons in manners and deportment imparted by his parents,
he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Leave it there!”

She jerked upright as if she’d been pinched
and frowned back at him. Furious with her, with himself, and with
the forces that had shaped Kate Finney’s life, Alex didn’t even
lower the steps of the carriage when Frank pulled up in front of
her. He jumped down, still shouting. “Dash it, let me pick up your
dashed bag!”

“It’s not that heavy,” she said
sullenly.

“I don’t care how heavy it is. I’ll put it
on the baggage rack.”

“Fine.” She heaved a huge sigh to let him
know how silly she thought he was being.

Alex gritted his teeth, lifted the bag,
glanced up to see Frank staring down at him with a good deal of
surprise, and wondered what was wrong with him—Alex, not Frank.
Frank was the one who should be handling the luggage. It was his
job. Yet Alex had leapt out of the carriage like a man possessed
and grabbed Kate’s carpetbag as if it contained pieces of gold.
Frank was right: He must be losing his mind.

Consoling himself with the certain knowledge
that no man could survive a long acquaintanceship with Kate Finney
with his sanity intact, he set the bag in the luggage compartment
and tied down the canvas flap. He stopped being surprised to find
Kate waiting for him to help her into the carriage as soon as he
remembered he hadn’t let the steps down. He flipped them down now,
and took Kate’s arm before she could scramble inside without his
assistance. She didn’t pull away from him, which he couldn’t help
but consider some sort of victory on his part, although he didn’t
expect it to last.

Banging on the carriage ceiling, he said,
“Hospital, Frank.” Then he sat back and studied Kate, who occupied
the bench seat across from him.

Pale face. Pretty brown hair drawn back into
a severe bun. Ridiculously small hat with a pink flower attached to
it. Well-tailored pink traveling suit that Alex suspected she’d
made herself. Old boots, patched and polished and laced with new
shoestrings. White gloves.

White gloves?

Yes, by Gad. White gloves. Glory be, the
woman was actually wearing gloves for once. Small handbag that
she’d made and embroidered herself unless Alex was much mistaken.
She looked perfectly respectable and trim. She was, in fact, a
living, breathing miracle sitting there across from him.

“Quit staring at me.”

Startled, Alex realized he had actually been
staring. He tore his gaze away from her and directed it out the
window. “Sorry.”

“Hmph.”

Frustrated and impatient, he snapped,
“Listen, Kate, will you please climb down from your high horse for
a minute?”

As he might have
expected—actually, as he had expected—she bridled.
“
My
high horse?
What about
your
high horse? Darn it, I wasn’t being silly when I suggested
meeting you at the hospital! It made perfect sense, and it would
have saved a lot of time.”

“It made no sense at all, you mean, and the
amount of time it would have saved would have been minuscule at
best. At worst, you would have strained something, carrying such a
load so far, and spoiled the weekend for everyone. How did you
expect to get a bag containing clothes for you and your mother to
the hospital without help, pray tell?”

“Who said I’d be doing it without help?”

“You did!”

“I did not!”

“Dash it, you—” Realizing he’d started
shouting again, Alex cleared his throat and forced himself to
moderate his sound level. “At all odds, you didn’t let on to me
that you had someone would could help you.”

“Oh? So, do you think I should tell you
everything that goes on in my life?”

Unable to refrain from rolling his eyes,
Alex said, “For heaven’s sake, no, I don’t think you should tell me
everything. However, when it comes to excursions in which I’m
involved, then yes, I not only think you should have explained your
mode of transport to me, but I also believe that you were remiss in
not doing so.”

“Nuts.”

“It’s not nuts.”

“Hmph. Either one of my brothers would have
been happy to help me help Ma. You know darned well that I have two
brothers.”