Again the Magic (Wallflowers 0.5)(33)

“Only a friend?”

Ten minutes ago, Aline would have replied with an unhesitating yes. Now in light of Adam’s marriage proposal, she considered the question thoughtfully. “He wants to marry me,” she admitted.

McKenna’s expression was perfectly bland, though there was an odd flicker in his eyes. “And will you?”

Aline stared at him as he stood before her, half in shadow, half in light, and she felt a change coming over her body, skin tingling beneath the covering of blue silk, the tips of her br**sts turning hard. Warmth moved over the surface of her chest and stomach as if someone were breathing against her. “Probably,” she heard herself whisper.

McKenna came to her, reaching a hand down in a silent gesture of command. She let him pull her up, and felt his long fingers encircle her gloved wrist just beneath the ring of entwined white rosebuds. Her wrist remained pliable and unresisting in his grasp. She felt her heart contract briefly as his thumb slipped into the cup of her palm. Their hands were sheathed in two thickness of gloves, and yet the mere pressure of his fingers against her was enough to send her pulse hurtling.

“McKenna,” she asked quietly, “why did you give me no warning before you came back to Stony Cross so suddenly?”

“I didn’t think it would matter to you if I came or not.”

The obvious lie was delivered smoothly. Anyone would have believed him, except her. Not matter? she thought, suspended between anguish and miserable laughter. How many rain-swept days and lonely nights she had spent longing for him. In the fever-induced delirium that had brought her to the threshold of death, she had spoken his name, begged for him, dreamed that he held her while she slept. “Of course it matters,” she said with forced lightness, pushing aside the memories. “We were friends once, after all.”

“Friends,” he repeated without inflection.

Cautiously Aline eased her wrist away from his hold. “Why, yes. Very good friends. And I so often wondered what became of you, after you left.”

“Now you know.” His face was hard and smooth. “I wondered as well…what happened to you after I was sent to Bristol? I’ve heard mention of an illness—”

“Let’s not talk about my past,” Aline interrupted with a quick, self-deprecating laugh. “It is quite dull, I assure you. I am far more interested in hearing about you. Tell me everything. Start with the moment you first set foot in New York.”

The artful flattery of her gaze seemed to amuse McKenna, as if he understood somehow that she had decided to keep him at a distance by flirting with him, thereby averting the possibility of discussing anything meaningful. “It’s not ballroom conversation.”

“Ah. Then is it parlor conversation? Cardroom conversation? No? Heavens, it must be lurid indeed. Let’s walk outside somewhere. To the stables. The horses will be quite entertained by your story, and they hardly ever gossip.”

“Can you leave your guests?”

“Oh, Westcliff is an adept host—he’ll make do.”

“What about a chaperone?” he asked, though he was already guiding her to the side entrance of the ballroom.

Her smile turned wry. “Women my age don’t require chaperones, McKenna.”

He slid an unnervingly thorough glance over her. “You may need one yet.”

They walked through the outside gardens to the back entrance of the stables. The estate manor had been laid out in the European fashion, with the stables forming one of the wings that enclosed the courtyard in front. It was jokingly remarked that Lord Westcliff’s horses lived in a grander fashion than most people, and there was more than a little truth in it. The stone-flagged central court of the stables contained a large marble drinking fountain for the horses. Archways led to the harness room, rows of five dozen stalls, and a carriage room that smelled strongly of brass polish, leather, and wax. The stables had changed little in the years since McKenna had left Stony Cross Park. Aline wondered if he took pleasure in the familiarity of the place.

They stopped in the harness room, the walls hung with saddles, bridles, halters, breastplates, and leathers. Wooden boxes filled with grooming implements were aligned neatly on shelves. The smell of horses and leather made the air sweetly pungent.

McKenna wandered to a saddle and smoothed his fingertips over the well-worn surface. His dark head bent, and he suddenly seemed lost in memory.

Aline waited until his gaze returned to her. “How did you get your start in New York?” she asked. “I would have thought you’d find something to do with horses. Why on earth did you become a boatman?”

“Moving cargo at the docks was the first job I could find. When I wasn’t loading boats, I learned how to hold my own in a fistfight. Most of the time the dockers had to brawl over who was going to get the work.” He paused, and added frankly, “I learned in no time to bully my way into getting what I wanted. Eventually I was able to buy a small sailboat with a shallow draft, and I became the fastest ferryman going to and from Staten Island.”

Aline listened carefully, trying to understand the gradual process by which the cavalier boy had become the hard-driven man standing before her. “Did someone act as a mentor to you?” she asked.

“No, I had no mentor.” He ran his fingers over the line of a tightly braided crop. “I thought of myself as a servant for a long time—I never thought I would be more than I was right then. But after a while I realized that the other ferrymen had ambitions far beyond mine. They told me stories about men like John Jacob Astor—have you heard of him?”