Wicked Wyoming Nights (24 page)

“I guess the little lady has set us right,” Croley said quietly, smiling at Eliza in a way that made her skin creep. “Let this be a lesson to you.”

Eliza was bored now that she and Ira were living above the new saloon. At first she was delighted to have a room of her own with space for all her clothes and a large copper bath, but she soon found she had nothing to do. Ira had sold all their animals. There was no cow to milk, no rooms to clean, and no meals to cook. After a life of hard work, she felt at loose ends with no more to do than study her music, be fitted for a new dress, or read and do needlework.

They had turned the old saloon into a dining room, and Croley had discovered he needed someone who could do more with food than his Mexican cook. Eliza told him about Lucy, and much to Lavinia’s fury, Croley had hired her away with orders to do better than the competition or find herself out in the street. Lucy told him she was ready to take herself off that very minute if he didn’t change his tune, then had proceeded to turn out the best food in Buffalo. Some of the cowboys complained it wasn’t what they were used to—Lucy was from New York and didn’t cook things long enough or in enough grease for their tastes—but they kept coming back. Even the town merchants began to find their way to the dining room at lunch time.

Eliza and Ira’s meals were served in their rooms, but Ira preferred to eat downstairs with the guests, and Eliza dined alone most evenings. She invited Ella as often as she dared, and even coaxed Mrs. Burton and Melissa into being her guests for one memorable dinner, but day after day she was alone until it was time to go downstairs and sing:

Today her uncle had deserted her after breakfast, going out with the slightly mysterious injunction “Don’t look for me until late. Croley and I have business to see to.”

About mid-morning a knock sounded at the door, and Eliza jumped up eagerly, willing to welcome almost anybody just to have company.

“Cord!” she exclaimed, unable, to hide her happiness at seeing him.

“May I come in?” His arms were full of packages wrapped in brown paper, and only his face showed above the stack.

“Of course,” she bubbled, trying to hide her excitement. “When did you get back?”

“Last night. We got into Sheridan on the evening train, but I couldn’t wait until morning. Anyway, the boys are used to riding these hills at night.” A ghost of a wry smile danced in his eyes, reminding Eliza of the rustling that kept an undercurrent of uneasiness forever simmering near the surface.

“Where can I put these?” he asked, indicating the packages.

“Anywhere. On the table, I guess. Who are they for?”

“You. Whom did you expect?”

“Me!” she squeaked in a mixture of astonishment and delight. “Whatever did you do that for?”

“Well, you couldn’t get to Chicago, and I saw so many things I thought you would like. I couldn’t buy them all, but the boys thought I tried.” He chuckled.

“You shouldn’t have done it. How am I going to explain it to Uncle Ira?”

“Tell him I gave them to you. Where is he anyway?”

“He’s gone off. He didn’t say where—and you know I can’t tell him that.”

“Then don’t tell him. Keep it a secret.”

“I really shouldn’t accept them, and I wouldn’t if you could take them back.”

“But I can’t,” he said, smiling.

“No, not even Uncle could expect you to travel all the way back to Chicago. Oh, dear, what can I do?”

“If you don’t take them, I guess I’ll have to give them to Lavinia.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“Well,
I
can’t use the stuff, and if I was to give it to Ella Baylis, Ed would probably come after me with a shotgun.”

Eliza giggled in spite of herself.

“Lavinia’s girls never get anything this nice,” he said.

“Are you trying to force me into accepting these presents by threatening to give them to that terrible woman?”

“I was getting desperate,” he drawled, taking on the accent and demeanor of one straight out of the hills. “I was willing to try just about anything to get you to take a peek. You don’t have to keep anything if you don’t like it, mind you. Just look at it so you’ll know what it was. That’s to keep from hurting my feelings too bad. I suppose I could give them to Ginny, or Sam’s wife if I was very careful to explain first, but I’d rather you took them.”

“All right,” agreed Eliza, not immune to Cord’s wiles or the pleasure of having a towering stack of presents all her own. She’d always gotten a couple of small gifts at Christmas, maybe one on her birthday, but never anything like this.

“Let me show you what I found,” Cord offered, nearly as excited as Eliza. “I didn’t know anything about women’s things, so I had to ask the lady in the store to show me what I ought to get. I think she took me for a great booby from the territories.” Eliza looked at Cord’s well-formed shoulders and handsome, sunburned features, and doubted any woman would much care where he came from.

Cord opened one of the smaller boxes to reveal a selection of Pear’s Soaps, each cake molded in a different shape and smelling delightfully of it’s own exotic fragrance. “She assured me every lady ought to have a whole box, as well as these little bottles. Apparently, Eastern women set great store by smelling pretty.” The second box contained several bottles of bath oil.

“I hope you like this,” Cord said, opening still another box and lifting out a muff of rich, dark-brown fur. “I told that gal I could get you one of bear, wolf, or coyote just for the asking, but she seemed to think you wouldn’t have it unless it came off the back of these mink critters.”

“It’s beautiful,” sighed Eliza.

“I have to admit it is a mite prettier than coyote. And this thing is supposed to go with it,” Cord said, extracting a mink tippet. Though I can’t see why you would want to wear a chain of critters holding on to each other by their tails.”

“It’s gorgeous,” Eliza cried, wondering if she’d ever get the courage to wear them.

“Well, as long as you like it,” Cord noted doubtfully, already digging into another box. There was much more: rich velvet for a new gown, yards of exquisite lace, a hat that would be the envy of any woman who saw it, and high-heeled boots of glossy black leather. “The saleslady tried to sell me a corset, but I told her there was nothing about you that needing squeezing or hiding. She didn’t seem to believe me, but if the fat women I saw in that store are the kind they grow in Chicago, I can see why. Squeezing is not going to turn them anything but purple.”

“What am I going to do with all of this?” exclaimed Eliza, overcome.

“Wear it, I hope. After hauling it a thousand miles, I’d hate to think it was going to sit in a box under your bed. There’s still one or two more here somewhere,” Cord said, rooting around in the litter of open boxes and scattered tissue paper. “Here, I knew I’d find it.” He held up a very small glass bottle filled with amber liquid.

“What’s that?” inquired Eliza.

“Perfume. The gal said no lady would be without at least one bottle. When she told me the price, I could see why you had to do with just one. Seems to me after all that soap and bath oil, you’d smell ripe as a skunk in season. You just take a tiny dab and put it behind your ear.”

Eliza moistened the tip of her finger, but even before the droplet touched her skin, she inhaled its heavenly odor and tremors of pleasure danced all over her body.

“This is the last one, unless I lost something in this pile.”

“No,” Eliza protested. “I couldn’t possibly accept another thing. You’ve given me far too much already.”

“You’ve got to take it. There’s nobody else I can give it to.”

“No.”

“It’s just a little thing,” he coaxed.

“Well …”

“I asked what was proper to give a lady friend in the way of jewels, and she seemed to think it wasn’t proper to give her anything. Seems they don’t trust their womenfolk much in Chicago, but she finally agreed some little thing wouldn’t be too awful. I took a fancy to these, and she allowed that
maybe
I could buy them for you if I knew you awfully well. I told her I did, and that must have embarrassed her because she blushed.” Cord abruptly abandoned his role of the genial yokel. “I know I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help myself.” Eliza went pale when he showed her a pair of delicate, pearl-drop earrings.

“I could never wear them,” she exclaimed, almost snatching them from Cord’s hands and rushing to the mirror to put them on. Cord wisely forbore to ask
why
she couldn’t wear something which obviously gave her so much pleasure.

“How could you afford all this?” she asked turning to face him. “You must have sold your steers for millions.”

“Not that much,” Cord said, taking her in his arms, “but I did get a good price. Most of the money won’t be mine for long, but right now I feel as rich as a king.”

“You’d have to be to spend so much on me.”

“This is nothing compared to what I’m going to give you when we’re married. Have you ever seen Chicago?” Eliza shook her head. “Well, I hadn’t paid much attention to it before, but it’s got hundreds of stores full of the most amazing things. You could spend weeks and not go into the same place twice.” Eliza found it hard to imagine an Eden such as that could exist.

“I’ll take you there one day. We’ll go into every store, and you can have anything you want.”

“Silly, you’d find yourself out of money in no time. I don’t know much about fancy shopping, but if these are the kinds of things they have for sale, I wouldn’t ever want to stop!”

Abruptly, Cord swept her into a crushing embrace, and Eliza surrendered utterly to the delight of being in his strong arms once again.

“I’ve missed you these past weeks,” he murmured in her ear. “Every time I bought a present for you, it was a reminder of our separation.”

“I missed you too. I feel safe when you’re here. With you in Chicago I felt all alone, and even a little scared.”

“Is anything wrong?” he asked anxiously.

“It’s not that” she assured him with a weak smile. “I guess I’ve just gotten used to knowing you were here.” As he buried her in another embrace, Lucy came in to set the table.

“Oh, it’s you,” Eliza gasped, pale with shock.

“You should be glad it’s not your uncle,” Lucy declared.

“You won’t tell him?” Eliza asked anxiously.

“Of course not,” Lucy replied indignantly. “I don’t like his fits and starts any more than you do.”

“What are you doing here?” Cord demanded, all the amiability fading from his face. “I didn’t know anybody got up before noon at Lavinia’s.”

“I live here now. I’m the cook,” Lucy informed him proudly.

“And I suppose the specialty of the day is tarts and tenderloins?”

“I helped the girls dress,” Lucy stated indignantly. “I didn’t accompany them downstairs.”

“Mr. Stedman won’t mention it again,” Eliza interrupted, trying to placate the two, who were beginning to circle like tomcats. “I’m perfectly sure you weren’t affected by anything that happened in that place.”

“I give thanks every day you took me out of there. My poor Joe would bawl himself sick if he knew the miseries I’ve had to bear.” Lucy showed every sign of doing a bit of crying herself.

“I trust it wasn’t
poor
Joe who taught you to walk into rooms without knocking,” Cord said. That remark caused Lucy to forget any idea she had of shedding tears, and she turned her glittering black eyes on Cord, fixing him with an angry glare.

“It’s okay for me to come and go,” she said, pounding herself on her ample chest. “But for you to be in a lady’s rooms when she is alone is disgraceful.”

“We do things differently out here in Wyoming” Cord pointed out.

“Do you make babies any different?”

Eliza flamed scarlet.

“No, I don’t suppose we do” Cord admitted in a shaking voice, “but we’re not doing that.”

“No one ever is, at first,” Lucy said, shaking her finger at him. “But things start to get hot when young people are left alone, and before you know it the girl’s stomach is out to here and the father is after the boy with a shotgun.”

“I promise you I won’t do anything to hurt Miss Smallwood.”

“Words,” snorted Lucy. “They come easy.”

“Please, Lucy,” Eliza pleaded.

“But you have no mamma or papa to take care of you. As for your uncle—a steer would be of more use to you than he is.”

“Miss Smallwood’s honor is in no danger.”

“I know it’s not, you Wyoming wolf, because I will see to it. You know what you should do?” she said, abruptly descending from her high plane. “You should marry Miss Eliza. She’s pretty, and she can cook as good as me. Where are you going to find another one like this?”

“I don’t know,” said Cord with a glint in his eye. “She’s getting a little old, and—”

“Old!” squeaked Eliza.

“—then there’s the question of a dowry. I was thinking about someone like Melissa Burton.”

Lucy spat out one of the words she had learned at Lavinia’s.

“That one is a fool for all her learning. And as for the mother …” Words failed her.