The Wedding Dress(77)

“I came to help you.” He reached through the bars and traced his finger along the curve of her chin. “Ah, Emily, even in jail you’re beautiful. Especially when you’re mad.”

“Keep taunting me, Daniel Ludlow, and you’ll see a beauty mankind has never beheld. Can’t you get me out of here?”

“I’m trying. I visited your father’s office, but he’d already left for the day.”

“It’s Thursday. He goes to the club. I’m sure that’s where Mother’s gone. But the banks are closed and I’m not sure he keeps a thousand dollars on hand. Oh, Daniel, I can’t spend the night here.” Emily drew her hands from his and folded her arms under her cloak. “How did you know I was here? Is it all over Birmingham? Did I make the evening paper? There was a photographer outside the jail when I arrived. Oh my, it’s all so humiliating.”

“It’s not in the paper, Em, not as far as I can tell. I found out you were here through Father’s friend, Lieutenant Flannigan. He sent word and I came as soon as I could.”

“Lieutenant Flannigan sent word to you?”

“He thought I’d want to know.” Daniel looped his arms through the bars and grabbed hold of Emily. The strong press of his hands on her waist gave her comfort. She wasn’t alone now. “It’s not hard for anyone, even a man’s friends, to see when a fella’s in love.”

His confession tied up her heart with soft ribbons. “Don’t say that, Danny. Ours was a most sincere friendship, and I adore you, but when you left to play with the Barons, it was over. Your kind way of saying good-bye to me.”

“Kind way of saying good-bye? I had no intentions of choosing between baseball and you. How was I to know you’d engage yourself with that blowhard Saltonstall? Now if you’d read my letters—”

“I found your silly ole letters.” She was in jail, why not confess everything? “Father hid them in the stable.”

“Why would he do such a thing?” Daniel released her, stepping back.

“Never mind why. He just did. I started to read them but changed my mind. I’m engaged to another man, and I shouldn’t read my former beau’s letters. It wouldn’t be right. I wouldn’t appreciate Phillip—”

“Going around with another woman?”

Emily twisted sideways out of his hands, ignoring the shivers-of-truth crisscrossing her tired form. “There you go again, accusing the man I love.”

“I didn’t accuse him of a thing, Emily.”

She gripped the bars and stuck her chin through them, facing Daniel nose to nose. “Do you know something else?” She fisted his coat collar. “Do you?”

“Don’t ask the question if you don’t want to know the answer. We’ve been around this mountain once before, Emily.”

“For all that’s decent, Daniel Ludlow, tell me the answer.” She pulled his face into the bars. The cold steel pressed against his cheek, but he didn’t flinch or break free, holding his gaze steady on her face. “If I mean anything to you, if your lovesick confession carries any truth, then tell me what you know. You’re my friend, aren’t you?”

“I’ve seen him. With her.”

“Besides that day on the street, you mean.” Emily released his collar and Daniel rubbed his cheek. “He was with her? Emmeline?”

“At the Italian Garden, during the midnight supper.”

“She’s quite beautiful, isn’t she?” Emily turned toward the back of the tiny cell, feeling weak and dull, a lawbreaker, shamefully arrested. A poor, wretched sight compared to the striking Emmeline Graves.

“She’s nothing compared to you, Emily.”

She brushed the string of tears from her cheeks. “Can you believe he goes around with a girl who has nearly the same name as I do? Probably so as not to confuse us.”

“She doesn’t have your character. Look at you, in jail for sticking to your convictions.”

“Lot of good it will do.” Emily whirled around. “Taffy. Oh mercy, Daniel.” Back at the bars, she grabbed his collar again. “I’m so selfish . . . only worried about myself, but what will they do to Taffy? Please tell me she’s all right.”

“As far as I know, she’s fine. Flannigan said he was directed to merely send word for her to stay away from you.”

“Stay away from me? This makes no sense. None at all, Danny. Who would order such a thing?”

“Emily, you’re not so na?ve to the ways of this city, are you?”

“No, but—”

“Tell you what . . . Remember my chum, Ross? He’s writing for the Age-Herald, and I can ask him to check into your arrest.”

“Please, Danny, would you? Help me find my accuser.”

“Now how can I deny such a sincere plea?” He reached for her hands. His thick, floppy bangs curved over his forehead, drawing Emily into his blue eyes. “I miss you.”

“Danny, don’t. It will do us no good to remember what we were. We must go forward with who we are, who we’ll be. I do want to be friends.”

“But I love you.”

Emily drew her hands back. “Then you should’ve spoken to Father. If not before you left with the Barons, then the moment you returned home.”