Any woman should be thrilled to see a man like Braxton Crandall sitting across the table from her. Not just for a dinner engagement such as this, but every day. The thought brought a stain of heat to Piper’s cheeks. She glanced down in hopes Braxton wouldn’t notice.
He had been a perfect gentleman since he came for her in his roadster. A sleek car with leather seats and a top that folded down. She liked the wind in her hair. Made her remember finally getting to the stables to ride earlier that day. Not for long, since she had to be ready for her meeting with Braxton.
She didn’t call it a date. She didn’t want to think of it as a date, but Braxton obviously did. He had brought flowers to her door. More roses. Red this time, instead of pink. As if their house wasn’t already glutted with flowers from the debutante ball. Piper wished them gone. And now she had more to wish gone. She should send the roses over to Leona’s house. After all, Piper wouldn’t be at the house to see them. She would be on the train to the mountains.
In three days she would be in Hyden, Kentucky, where the flowers would be blooming on the mountains instead of on every table in the house. Then again, Mary Breckinridge might have a fondness for cut flowers. Piper had before they became a symbol of her loss of freedom. She was circumventing that now. Grabbing a whole summer of freedom. A smile slipped across her face.
A smile Braxton returned. He must have thought she was smiling at something he said when, in fact, she had been woolgathering instead of giving his words about the menu’s fancy desserts much attention. He reached across the table to put his hand over hers. She didn’t guess his intent soon enough to slip her hands out of reach.
Not that she minded him touching her hand. That was casual enough. But she didn’t want to lead him on when she was leaving for the summer. So never mind the flowers and dinners. But a person couldn’t brush off a potential suitor that way. Especially a suitor so favored by her father. Besides, she wasn’t sure she wanted to completely sever their ties. When she came back from the mountains, she might be ready to settle down. And why not with someone like Braxton Crandall?
An image of Jamie Russell with his curly black hair and warm brown eyes peeked over Braxton’s shoulder. She should have delayed her mountain adventure and instead taken the train to Danville. There she could brazenly knock on his uncle’s door and confront Jamie.
Do you think I’m so shallow that the only thing that concerns me is money? The words blew through her head.
“Is something wrong?” Braxton squeezed her hand. “If you don’t like your entrée, you can order something different.”
“No, no. It’s delicious.” Piper glanced down at her plate where her chicken parmesan was untouched.
Braxton laughed. “I don’t know how you would know unless it’s from the memory of a previous dinner with a different guy.”
The smile lurking in his eyes made her feel too young and a little foolish. Plus, what he said was true. She had eaten here with Jamie a few years ago. An easy time, with laughter on both sides of the table. Had Jamie held her hand? She couldn’t remember. He had probably been too busy gesturing while telling some crazy story. His big dream was to be a writer.
“I might work in my father’s factory, but that doesn’t mean I can’t write stories in between selling washing machines,” he’d told her once. She wondered if he was writing stories now that his family’s business was gone.
She pushed the memory aside. Jamie was not here. Braxton was, and the food on her plate gave a perfect excuse to slip her hand away from Braxton’s and pick up her fork.
“It’s been forever since I’ve come here with anybody.” She forked a bite of the chicken. “I’ve been away to college.”
“Did you leave a brokenhearted suitor behind in the East?”
Piper swallowed and dabbed her lips with her napkin. “Dozens of them, I’m sure.”
That made him laugh again, but this time he seemed to be laughing with her instead of at her. “That wouldn’t surprise me.”
Whether that surprised him or not, what she was ready to tell him next surely would. She had no idea what his response might be. Anger? More laughter? Disbelief? Probably disbelief. For what girl would give up a potential future with a man like him?
She searched for the right words as she took a sip of tea.
He spoke first. “Your father tells me your schooling is finished.”
“Yes. It was a two-year course.”
“What did you study?”
“Literature and English. I could get a teaching position.”
“Is that what you want? I hear the pay is dreadfully low.”
“Everything isn’t about money.” She folded her napkin once and then again.
“Not everything,” he said. “But money does make life easier. Gives one the opportunity to take a beautiful woman out to dinner.”
She wondered how many beautiful women he had taken out to dinner. She certainly wasn’t going to ask. “I do appreciate the dinner and you being my escort at my debut.”
“Kindness had nothing to do with it.” He stared at her as if probing behind her polite words. “I’m not one to beat around the bush, Piper. I know you are aware of your father encouraging our match, but whether he had or not, I would still want to get to know you better.”
A blush warmed her cheeks again. As she sipped her tea, she felt like a silly schoolgirl. She put the glass down. “Again, I do appreciate that.”
“Oh dear.” He looked more amused than upset. “This sounds like the beginning of a ‘thanks, but no thanks’ speech.”
“Not at all. I’ve enjoyed the time we’ve been together, but I’m going away for the summer.”
He frowned a little. “Your father didn’t tell me that.”
“He didn’t know until this morning. An opportunity to do some charitable work with the frontier nurses in the Appalachian Mountains suddenly presented itself on Sunday at a tea my aunt hosted for Mary Breckinridge. Your sister was there.”
“Oh? She’s not heading to the mountains too, is she?”
“I don’t know. You’d have to ask her that.”
He leaned back in his chair and studied Piper as though she had changed into someone different right in front of his eyes. “So what will you do in the mountains?”
“Mrs. Breckinridge said I would be assisting the nurse midwives in myriad ways, such as taking care of their horses. The nurses ride up into the mountains to treat the mothers and children.”
“It does sound amazing.”
His voice lacked so much as a hint of amazement. At the same time, she didn’t hear any timbre of disappointment either. That seemed to indicate her father was exaggerating Braxton’s interest. She met his gaze. “Yes, doesn’t it? I had thought I’d have longer to prepare to go, but Mrs. Breckinridge is a woman of action. She said Thursday and I couldn’t say no.”
“Really? You seem fine at saying no.”
“I can’t recall a question you asked where I answered in the negative.” Piper pushed her plate away. Truda’s rooms weren’t far from the hotel. She could walk there. She picked up her gloves.
Braxton leaned across the table to once more put his hand over hers to keep her from putting on the gloves. “Forgive me if I upset you, Piper. I’m simply blindsided by this.”
Piper slid her hands away from his and clutched them together in her lap. “I fear my father has encouraged you to consider a potential arrangement between us more seriously than I am prepared to do at this time. I barely know you, Braxton.”
“That is true.” He pulled his hand back and picked up his knife to tap against the edge of his plate. “But it is also true that I had hoped to spend the summer getting to know you better to see if we might establish the proper connections between us.”
Proper connections? She must be sitting in on one of her father’s business meetings. She pushed aside her schoolgirl embarrassment. If he was going to speak plainly, then so would she. “Are you saying you are in love with me?”
He stopped tapping on the plate. A bemused smile turned up his lips. “You are direct, aren’t you? Did you learn that in the East?”
She ignored his question. “When you start talking about connections”—she paused a moment on that word before she went on—“it seems time to be direct.”
“All right then. While I can’t say I am in love with you, I can imagine loving you and the two of us sharing a good life together.” His gaze on her was steady. “All this type of considering would surely have been better spread across a summer of dates, but with only one night to declare my interest, things have to be rushed up a bit.”
“Too rushed.”
“Perhaps so. But I can’t promise to wait until fall to pursue my case again.” He paused a moment before continuing. “There are many attractive debutantes.”
“So there are. I may be the least attractive of the season, since I delayed my debut until I am older than most.”
“That actually made you more attractive to me. A mature woman not full of teenage giggles.”
“Mature woman.” Piper couldn’t keep from laughing. Not giggling, however. “You make me sound like my mother.”
“I like your mother.”
“So do I.” Piper let her smile slip away. This time she reached across to touch Braxton’s hand. “Look, Braxton, we haven’t signed any kind of contract.” She purposely used a word her father might use. “I have no hold on you. If you fall in love with the woman of your dreams before the summer is over, then I wish you nothing but happiness.”
“Should that happen, what will that leave for you?”
“An adventure.” Excitement bubbled up inside Piper at the thought. “I’ll have the experience of doing something. Something different.”
“But you may be passing up your chance for a secure future.”
“That could be.” Piper pulled her hand back and picked up her gloves. “But you can be assured that if I do marry, it will be for love and not simply security.”
“Have you noticed the newspaper pictures of soup lines and hungry children?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “A secure income that ensures a roof over one’s head and food on the table is not a bad thing.” His eyes went to her plate of food only half eaten.
“I can’t argue that, and seeing those pictures in the news does make me sad for our country.” She pushed back from the table. “Would you be so kind as to escort me home?”
He stood as well. “Again, I must ask you to forgive me. I have been less than gentlemanly in my conversation tonight. Won’t you sit back down so we can have dessert and end our evening on a sweeter note? The chocolate éclairs here are excellent.”
“Very well.” Piper sat back down. Her father would never forgive her if she stormed out of the hotel in a huff. Already the people at the tables around them were giving her looks. Looks that would turn into gossip on the morrow.
They chatted about books while they ate their desserts. Braxton described a play he’d recently seen in New York City. None of the words in the air between them mattered. But after he drove her home and walked her to the door, he departed from their meaningless chatter.
He took her hands and smiled down at her. “May I ask a special favor?”
“Certainly.” She was positive he was going to ask for a kiss, and what would it hurt to let him kiss her cheek? In a gentlemanly way. That kind of kiss never meant anything.
But he surprised her. “Will you write me?”
When she didn’t answer right away, he went on. “Only if you have the time and inclination.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be doing anything very interesting.”
“Let me be the judge of that.” He pulled a card out of his pocket. “My address.”
She stared at it, as though hoping to see what she should say next written there. “All right, but only if you’ll write back.” She smiled up at him. “Unless you are too busy going to debutante balls.”
He returned her smile. “I’ll scribble a few lines between dances.”
“Then I’ll scribble lines back between feeding horses.”
“You are a delightful girl.” He leaned down then and brushed his lips across hers. In a gentlemanly way.
He was an interesting man. It wouldn’t hurt to write him. At least once. When he didn’t write back between those dances, she could go on with her life and he with his.
Once inside, she started to peek out the window at him, but she pushed aside the urge and ran up the stairs to her room. Time to pack for her trip. No looking back now.