TWENTY-THREE
Grace
Almost the moment I left Patrick and started back to the house with Aidan, my guilt and fear returned. It wasn’t just that I’d betrayed both Lucy and Derry, it was that I didn’t understand why I’d dissuaded Patrick from proposing. I had agreed with Mama that I’d needed to push him. And yet, when the time had come, what had I said? “You mustn’t think of such things now.”
I only felt worse when Aidan said, “That was some kiss, Gracie. I hope Patrick proposed before he took such liberties.”
“As if it matters to you.”
I thought Aidan would make some cutting remark, but instead he stopped. “You know it does.”
I wished I could say, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I want to love Patrick, yet . . . But the years when I could speak to Aidan about anything were gone. “Really? Lately, I wonder.”
He winced, and I felt terrible. But before I could apologize, he said in that devil-may-care tone I’d grown to hate, “It’s only a few blocks home. You can make it on your own, can’t you? I’ve just remembered I have an engagement.”
Whatever apology I might have made was replaced by irritation. “Yes, by all means. Go hurl yourself off a bridge for all I care.”
“Perhaps I will, just to spite you.”
“At least you’ll be too numb to feel the impact.”
He laughed, but it was humorless. He touched the tip of his hat and bowed slightly. “I love you, too, Gracie.”
I watched him walk off. I couldn’t face going home to Mama and Grandma. Not just yet. Then I realized Rose’s house was very close.
I didn’t give myself time to think better of it. I hurried there, forgetting that it was her mother’s calling day until I saw the carriages waiting out front. Rose would be too busy with visitors for me. I knocked on the door anyway and asked to speak to Rose privately, and in a few moments, she came to the door. “What is it, Grace? You know it’s Mama’s calling day.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. But I need to talk to you.”
Her expression turned from curiosity to concern. “What is it? What happened?”
I motioned for her to join me on the stoop. When she did, my words rushed out. “I told Patrick that Derry’s in a gang.”
“What? Why would you do such a thing?”
“Because he is. He and Oscar both. They’re in a gang called Finn’s Warriors, and, Rose, they were in this fight and I watched Derry kill this boy and then he kissed me and—”
“What? Stop! Stop right there.” Rose glanced back at the house and then led me away, onto the sidewalk. “What do you mean, he kissed you?”
I let out my breath in exasperation. “I tell you that he and Oscar are in a gang and they’ve killed people, and you ask me about a kiss?”
“Because that’s why you’re here. Because he kissed you, and you liked it.”
My mouth fell open. Trust Rose to see the truth. “He killed a boy. I watched him do it. In a gang fight.”
“Why does that surprise you?” she asked. “He’s a stableboy, Grace, or have you forgotten? And he’s Irish. It would be stranger if he wasn’t in a gang. He’s no more appropriate for you than for Lucy—and if she finds out you’ve kissed him, you’ll lose Patrick.”
I sagged against the cast-iron fence. “I know.”
“Would you care?”
“Yes, I would care! I don’t understand myself. Today when I was with Patrick . . . he was going to propose, Rose, and I stopped him. I told him we had time. But I don’t have time. I want to marry him. I want to stop feeling this way—”
“What way is that?” Rose asked.
It was so hard to admit. “When Derry kissed me, I . . . I kissed him back.”
“Has Patrick kissed you yet?”
“Yes, but what has that to do with it?”
Rose leaned against the railing beside me. “You’re just slumming with Derry, and you know it. There’s nothing wrong with it. We’ve all done it. Believe me, I would kiss Oscar, too, given the chance. But I wouldn’t run off with him or marry him or anything like that. It’s not you kissing Derry that has me worried. It’s that he belongs to Lucy, and now you’ve gone and told her brother that her beau’s a gang boy. . . . You’d better hope she doesn’t ever discover it was you.”
My guilt returned, worse than ever.
“Now, me, I’ve kissed . . . oh, I don’t know. There was Michael O’Shaughnessy and Bobby Olson and Timothy Lederer—”
“You kissed Tim Lederer? You never told me that!”
“Well, it was months ago, and you were all involved with your family and everything, and it isn’t as if it matters. It was just the one time. Let me see . . . there was that boy in Charleston and another in Boston—”
“Rose—”
“Listen to me, Grace. A kiss is a kiss is a kiss. I’ve liked all of them. But I’m not a fool, and neither are you. How did Patrick’s kiss make you feel?”
“Loved. Like the world could swallow me, and he would never let me go. I wanted more.”
“And Derry’s?”
On fire. As if I were falling into something dangerous and exciting. As if I were meant to be in his arms. “Dangerous.”
“Because he’s forbidden,” she said with authority. “And he is forbidden. It doesn’t matter what you feel for him, Grace. He doesn’t matter. He can’t. Your mother would be beside herself. You’d never be able to go out into society again. Everyone would cut you. Is that what you want?”
I shook my head.
“You see? It’s a fun game, but Patrick is the one you’re meant for, Grace. You know it as well as I. It’s all right to have kissed the stableboy, but now you must let him go.”
She laid it out so clearly. It was only a kiss, a small indiscretion, and now it was over. It was right to tell Patrick about him, for Lucy’s sake as well as for my own. And now Patrick would take care of things, and I would never see Derry again.
I ignored the pinch of my heart at the thought and hugged Rose. “I knew you would help.”
She hugged me back. “You would have figured it out on your own. I don’t blame you, Grace. Derry is gorgeous. But then, so is Patrick. Just promise me that the next time he starts to propose, you let him finish.”
“I will,” I promised.
“And I’ll try to find someone to throw into Lucy’s path. She’ll forget Derry as soon as she falls in love again, you know.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. And I didn’t let myself think about the look in Lucy’s eyes when she spoke of Derry and how well I understood it. Rose was right. Some things were never meant to be.