The Davenports(43)

John pulled the vehicle to the side. They bounced wildly until it rolled to a stop. He turned to her, increasing the pressure of his leg against hers. “This is fantastic news!” He brought an arm over the back of the seat. It was close enough to feel like an embrace.

She saw his excitement dim. “I’ll miss you,” he said simply.

His statement, the slightly embarrassed way he looked at her with his heart-melting dimple flashing in and out of sight, made her flustered. She scoffed. “You can hardly expect me to believe that. You will be too busy to notice I’m gone.”

John placed a finger under her chin. She felt the chafed, calloused skin against hers and held on to that moment. He looked into her eyes. “I’ve always had tender feelings toward you,” he said.

“No,” she replied, in an uncertain tone. Amy-Rose turned to look over the hood of the car, anywhere but his smooth face, the eyes that felt like they were searching her own.

“You don’t believe me,” he said. “I can see how you think that. But I remember how you always carried spiders outside instead of killing them. When we were younger, you and Olivia made dresses out of a silk sheet set you two found in a linen closet. You got in so much trouble.” He leaned back in his seat, eyes narrowed as a heat rose from her neck to her cheekbones. “You are the only person who can convince Helen to do anything. Your freckles and the way you touch the tip of your tongue to your top lip when you’re thinking, all of it—”

She immediately stopped and he laughed. Did she do that so often?

“So,” he continued, “when I say I’m going to miss you being around, I mean it.”

Amy-Rose met John’s eyes. There was a yearning look there that set her skin ablaze. His full lips were slightly parted, and she remembered the way he smelled, the way they’d kissed.

“I had feelings for you too.”

“Had?”

“Yes,” she confirmed.

“Amy-Rose, I don’t think you understand. My feelings aren’t past tense.”

He inched forward, waiting for her signal to stop. When she gave none, he closed the space between them. She gasped when his mouth met hers. John’s lips were soft against her, gentle. His hands left her skin tingling where they traced her jaw and held the nape of her neck, lighting up the nerves in her spine. A horn frightened them apart. They both looked for another vehicle, hearts racing and breaths coming in ragged bursts. There wasn’t one.

“I think that was you,” Amy-Rose said, laughing.

John pressed her hand to his chest. His heart beat as madly as hers. “I mean it,” he repeated. He released her hand slowly, as if he didn’t want to let go, and pulled the automobile back onto the road. She didn’t want to let go either. She wanted to enjoy him while she could.

An image of them together, like this, crossed her mind again.

It would not last, she told herself, as hope began to stir.





CHAPTER 20


    Olivia



“Miss Olivia, they sent over two.” Hetty held a round napkin holder in each hand.

Olivia looked at the silver rings, one with a leaf pattern, the other pearls. In a few days, her parents’ friends and the city elite would pack into the ballroom to celebrate the Davenports’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. The silver celebration. With Olivia’s help, Mrs. Davenport would turn the cavernous ballroom into an intimate wonderland. Olivia marveled at all the details her mother juggled, hoping to one day run a household as smoothly.

Ruby leaned over her shoulder. “Neither of these are what you picked.”

“I know, and there’s no time to place another order.” Olivia groaned. “The one on the left.” She signaled a footman forward. “When the men arrive to set up the tables, will you instruct them to move the piano to the corner by the windows?” She kneaded the tense muscles in her neck. The party couldn’t arrive soon enough.

“You’re doing an excellent job,” Ruby said, giving her a sympathetic smile. “Your mother wouldn’t have given you so much responsibility if she didn’t believe you could do it.”

Olivia looped her arm through her friend’s. She hoped so. She’d been so nervous, she’d hardly eaten all week. “Thank you,” she said. She studied Ruby’s profile. “How are you doing?”

Ruby shrugged. “My parents have been busy, both working to get as many people invested in my father’s candidacy as they can. When I’m not with you or Mr. Barton,” she said, tugging Olivia through the ballroom to the foyer where Helen and their mothers waited, “I’m with them. Papa thinks he has a real chance, and people really believe in him.” Pride brightened Ruby’s features.

“And what do you think?”

“He says the effective force for change in the city are the people themselves.”

Olivia pulled free of Ruby’s grasp. Mr. Tremaine’s words, from the unlikely source of Ruby’s lips, rattled deep in Olivia’s bones. Of course, he was right. No one would know what the city needs better than those who walked its streets every day. Although she questioned the value of what she brought to the Cause, she knew the men and women who attended the meetings at Samson House to hear news from the South, exchange ideas, and advocate for Chicago were already moving toward more inclusive legislature. “You didn’t really answer the question,” she said gently.