Texas Tiger TH3 (41 page)

No one had ever appreciated her mind before, and Georgina felt an extra jolt of electricity as Daniel pressed a kiss to her hair. And coming from a man as smart as Daniel, it was an extra special compliment. She just hoped she could live up to it.

As word spread through the crowd of what they meant to do, the anger of the mob shifted to a holiday jubilation. In a gesture of defiant insolence, hats appeared to adorn the heads of the donkeys and ponies pulling carts. Bright streamers of cloth were tied to wheelbarrows and wagons. Women dashed into their houses to pull on their gayest blouses and fasten ribbons in their hair before running out to cart an armload of linens or a box of clothes. Children carrying nothing at all responded to the gaiety with laughter and excited headstands and cheers of happiness as they traveled beside the ungainly procession working its way down the alley.

The men who had been sent to empty the house scratched their heads in puzzlement, but diligently continued their duties. Janice insisted that her elderly aunt sit with Betsy in one of the carts and sent it on its way while she helped fill others with the last of their precious possessions.

With his arm still around Georgina's shoulders, Daniel supervised the loading, yelling at Douglas and his friends when their overexuberance threatened to topple a wagon, assuring Audrey that she could take her cat, and casually keeping an eye on the crowd. It was that casual eye that warned Georgina, and she glanced around, finding Daniel's rifle leaning against the house, close at hand. He was expecting trouble.

"Can't we leave now?" Georgina whispered, nervously watching as the procession started off without them. "I'll need to be in front when they reach the house."

"We need to keep Janice and Audrey with us, and they won't leave until they've seen everything safely in the carts." Daniel's tone was preoccupied.

He was waiting for Egan. That knowledge sent Georgina into action. She wasn't standing here and watching Daniel fight with the bigger man when it was evident he was already dropping from exhaustion. Whatever damned possessions the Harrisons had left could take care of themselves.

Giving Daniel a look of irritation, Georgina removed herself from his hold and hurried to Janice. With a few whispered words she apprised the other woman of the situation. Janice sent a quick look to the quiet man staunchly guarding the crowd, nodded her head, and went after her sister.

By the time Georgina returned to Daniel's side, the sisters were smiling and waving their good-byes to their neighbors and running to catch up with the boys yelling and laughing at the front of the procession.

Daniel frowned, but Georgina returned a dazzling smile. "We're going to do it, Daniel," she informed him happily. "We're turning this whole town on its ear, and we'll do it smiling."

As Daniel watched the parade of gaily decorated carts and people chattering in half a dozen languages snaking their way out of the dingy alley into the broader thoroughfares of the town, he nodded agreement. There were better ways than violence, and his own Miss Merry would find them. He was damned proud of her.

As he hurried her down the alley to catch up with the others, he raised his head to catch sight of Egan standing in the shadows of a cross street. Daniel grinned, grabbed a ribbon from Georgina's hair, and stuck it like a banner into his rifle barrel. The other man scowled and turned away.

Chapter 32

The parade attracted considerable attention as it wended its way through city streets on the way to the better residential section of town. Janice and Audrey waved cheerfully to acquaintances among the clerks pouring from Mulloney's at day's end. Others among the crowd waved at friends and neighbors and relatives emerging from other stores along the streets. And carriages and horses lined up to take their owners home were caught in the traffic as the parade spilled through the crowded thoroughfares.

Georgina caught sight of one of Peter's younger brothers astride a horse trapped by the masses, and she waved gaily. He looked startled, then grinned so much like Daniel that she warmed to him instantly.

She poked Daniel and pointed. "That's your youngest brother, John. Wave."

Daniel turned to where she indicated and was startled to see a younger version of himself staring back. All the boy needed was a pair of spectacles and a bad haircut and he could almost be the eighteen-year-old Daniel had once been. The youngest in the family hadn't followed the Mulloney tradition for Irish good looks, then. With a rather foolish grin at that thought, Daniel waved as directed.

The boy looked mildly puzzled, but he nodded back, then eased himself through a break in the crowd and disappeared down a side street. Daniel watched him go with a feeling of disappointment that he would never have the chance to know the lad. It had never really bothered him before that he hadn't had an opportunity to know his brothers. He wouldn't dwell on it now, when it was too late. He turned his attention back to the disorderly parade.

The straggling procession of carts and poorly dressed people seemed to be growing in size. Neighbors joined neighbors as word spread, and there was an air of defiant celebration as they passed Mulloney's with ribbons flying. Daniel glanced up and caught the brief shadow of a man in an upper-story window, and he lifted a victorious fist with thumb upraised at his father This wasn't the significant moment he had hoped to share with the man, but it certainly was what he deserved.

As they moved into the quieter residential area, the party became a little more subdued. Many of them had never been here before, and they stared around at the immaculate grounds behind iron fences with awe. They passed respectfully around an elegant carriage containing an elderly lady, making a path for it to continue on its way undisturbed. The woman didn't even turn her head to acknowledge them.

Janice worked her way around the crowd to walk beside Georgina. "This idea is beginning to lose its appeal," she murmured. "We don't belong here."

"Just as I don't belong on your side of town?" Georgina challenged her. "Just as Betsy won't belong in Mulloney's when she grows up?"

"Betsy can be anything she wants to be when she grows up. I'll see to that," Janice replied boldly.

"Then you'd better start teaching her about this side of town. It has the same kind of people in it as your side; they're just dressed fancier and more of them speak English." Georgina waved at a startled Loyolla Banks as the mayor's wife stood on her porch to see what was happening. Loyolla only stared back.

"Your father will have us all arrested for trespassing."

Daniel stepped between the two women and took their arms as he pushed them toward the head of the procession. "Her father is in Chicago trying to borrow money, a little bird tells me."

Georgina threw him a suspicious look. "How do you know that?"

"The little bird works in the telegraph office." With a wink Daniel linked their arms and steered the parade up the driveway to the Hanover home.

Carts and wheelbarrows spilled over the lovingly groomed lawn as the newcomers stared up at the sprawling mansion with its hundreds of mullioned windowpanes glittering in the late afternoon sunshine. Screaming with laughter, children scrambled up the stately maples and pelted one another with pine cones gathered beneath the towering evergreens. Women stopped to stare at the wanton beauty of dozens of multicolored roses filling beds along the walls. The men assessed the number of lifetimes they would have to work at current wages to earn a structure only half as magnificent as this one.

Georgina scrubbed away a tear and marched up the front steps. She tried the door and finding it locked, she removed a key from her pocket and unlocked it. With a welcoming gesture she bade them enter.

The crowd held back. Noting the tremble of Georgina's lower lip, Daniel caught Audrey and Janice by the arms and led them up the stairs to join her. Their aunt followed with Douglas and Betsy.

"We need food and drink," Daniel whispered to Georgina. "What do you think they have in the kitchen?"

Georgina instantly beamed again. "Punch by the gallons. I'll see about food."

The Harrisons were staring in stunned awe at the gleaming foyer, their gazes sweeping from the crystal gaslights on the walls to the delicate Aubusson carpets covering polished oak floors. Even though he was familiar with the comfortable homes in the neighborhood in St. Louis where he had grown up, Daniel still found himself impressed with the extent of the riches displayed in Georgina's home. And he had brought her to live with him in an empty warehouse. He was just beginning to realize the enormity of his folly.

Terrified servants began scampering through the hall with buckets of punch and trays of crystal glasses and cups under Georgina's direction. Daniel imagined all that expensive glassware in the hands of children who had scarcely known anything better than a tin cup and shuddered. But it was doubtful that the Hanover household had anything so humble as tin cups, so he let them pass. He'd figure out how to pay for the damage later.

"Audrey, you and Douglas see everyone receives a cup. Janice and I better go back to the kitchen and see what we can do to help Georgie. Our guests deserve a little refreshment for their hard work, don't you think?"

Jarred from their stunned awe by this request that spoke to their inbred courtesy, the Harrisons immediately threw themselves into the spirit of the occasion. Within the half hour, the front lawn was filled with women sitting in spread skirts, men crouched and sitting crosslegged, and children capering over the grass, all snacking on tiny sandwiches and sipping at fruit punch while admiring the summer beauty of this parklike yard.

"Just imagine how many people we could crowd onto my father's front lawn," Daniel mused out loud as he sat on the front step, munching a sandwich much too delicate for his tastes. He peeled open the bread and tried to identify the pastel-colored paste, wrinkled his nose, and gallantly bit into it.

"The whole Independence Day parade." Georgina didn't dare look at Janice as she made this pronouncement. Ideas were spinning in her head so fast she didn't dare look at herself.

"We won't change anything," Janice replied gloomily. "We can't stay here. Someone will call the police sooner or later. Everyone will go home shortly, and we'll still be out of a house."

"As far as that goes, Mulloney will probably come to take possession of this place as soon as he finds out we're here, but at least we're here for the night. It's a pity we can't keep everyone here. I'd like to see him throw everybody out."

Even as Georgina said it, they could see people drifting out through the gates, seeking their homes before it grew too dark. It had been a spectacular gesture and a kind of holiday for otherwise humdrum lives, but it wasn't reality. Reality was waking up in the morning and wondering where the money was coming from for the next meal.

The Harrisons' store of possessions was unloaded and left in tidy piles on the porch where they wouldn't get wet if it stormed. What had made such a magnificent parade now seemed pitifully small and shabby in comparison to the grand structure around them, but no comments were made. Each person depositing another small piece of the past shook one of the small family's hands, made comforting gestures, and disappeared into the growing dusk.

"I've put Betsy and your aunt to bed in the nursery," Georgina said to Janice as she returned to join the dwindling party on the front stairs. "A maid is making up a guest room for you and Audrey. Douglas says he wants to sleep in the stable with the grooms. Do you think that's all right, or should I have a room made up for him?"

Janice blinked back a tear. Georgina's elegant gowns had always made her feel grand, larger than life. But standing here now, bedraggled and tired, her hair falling in dishevelment about her shoulders, she was just a woman, like any other, and Janice nodded wearily.

"The stable is fine. He'll think he died and went to heaven.
I
think we've died and gone to heaven. How will we ever live anywhere else after seeing this?" Janice gestured at the foyer they were entering.

"The same way I did." Georgina reached for Daniel's hand. "You go where your family is. That's the only place in the world that is real."

Janice shook her head scornfully. "Love doesn't put a roof over your head or food in your belly. You have a lot to learn, Mrs. Mulloney. But I thank you for your generosity, anyway. In the morning, we'll look for a boarding house."