Morrigan's Cross
Page 21

“So, you can be a smart-ass. This once, I’ll accept that. Let’s get moving.” She walked to the elevator, pushed its button.
“Is it the fashion for women of this time to be aggressive and sharp-tongued, or is it only you?”
She glanced back at him over her shoulder. “I’m the only one you have to worry about right now.” She stepped into the elevator, held the door. “Coming?”
She’d worked out a basic strategy. First, she was going to have to spring for a cab. Whatever the conversation, however strangely Hoyt might behave, a New York City cabbie would have seen and heard it all before.
Added to that, her courage wasn’t quite back up to the level to let her ride the subway again.
As she’d anticipated, the minute they were out of the building, Hoyt stopped. And stared. He looked everywhere, up, down, right, left. He studied the traffic, the pedestrians, the buildings.
No one would pay any attention to him, and if they did, they’d mark him as a tourist.
When he opened his mouth to speak, she tapped a finger on her lips. “You’re going to have a million questions. So why don’t you just line them up and file them? We’ll get to them all eventually. For now, I’m going to hail us a cab. Once we’re inside, try not to say anything too outrageous.”
Questions might have been scrambling in his mind like ants, but he cloaked himself in dignity. “I’m not a fool. I know very well I’m out of place here.”
No, he wasn’t a fool, Glenna thought as she stepped to the curb, held up a hand. And he was no coward either. She’d expected him to gawk, but with having the rush and noise and crowds of the city thrust on him, she’d also expected to see some fear, and there was none. Just curiosity, a dose of fascination and a bit of disapproval.
“I don’t like the way the air smells.”
She nudged him back when he joined her at the curb. “You get used to it.” When a cab cruised up to the curb, she whispered to Hoyt as she opened the door. “Get in the way I do, and just sit back and enjoy the ride.”
Inside, she reached over him to pull the door shut and gave the cabbie her address. When the cabbie shot back out into traffic, Hoyt’s eyes widened.
“I don’t know that much about it,” she said under the Indian music pumping from the cabbie’s radio. “It’s a cab, a kind of car. It runs on a combustible engine, fueled by gasoline, and oil.”
She did her best to explain traffic lights, crosswalks, skyscrapers, department stores and whatever else came to mind. She realized it was like seeing the city for the first time herself, and began to enjoy it.
He listened. She could all but see him absorbing and tucking all the information, the sights, the sounds, the smells, away in some internal data bank.
“There are so many.” He said it quietly, and the troubled tone had her looking over at him. “So many people,” he repeated, staring out the side window. “And unaware of what’s coming. How will we save so many?”
It struck her then, a sharp, weighted spear in the belly. So many people, yes. And this was just part of one city in just one state. “We can’t. Not all. You never can.” She reached for his hand, gripped it tight. “So you don’t think of the many, or you’ll go crazy. We just take it one at a time.”
She took out the fare when the cab pulled over—which made her think of finances, and how she’d handle that little problem over the next few months. She reached for Hoyt’s hand again when they were on the sidewalk.
“This is my building. If we see anyone inside, just smile and look charming. They’ll just think I’m bringing home a lover.”
Shock rippled over his face. “Do you?”
“Now and again.” She unlocked the door, then squeezed with him into the tiny anteroom to call for the elevator. With an even tighter squeeze, they started up.
“Do all buildings have these... ”
“Elevators. No, but a lot of them do.” When they reached her apartment, she pulled open the iron gate, stepped inside.
It was a small space, but the light was excellent. Her walls were covered with her paintings and her photographs, and were painted the green of minced onions to reflect the light. Rugs she’d woven herself dotted the floor with bold tones and patterns.
It was tidy, which suited her nature. Her convertible bed was made up as a sofa for the day, plumped with pillows. The kitchen alcove sparkled from a recent scrubbing.
“You live alone. With no one to help you.”
“I can’t afford help, and I like living alone. Staff and servants take money, and I don’t have enough of it.”
“Have you no men in your family, no stipend or allowance?”
“No allowance since I was ten,” she said dryly. “I work. Women work just as men do. Ideally, we don’t depend on a man to take care of us, financially or otherwise.”
She tossed her purse aside. “I make my living such as it is selling paintings and photographs. Painting, for the most part for greeting cards like notes, letters, messages people send each other.”
“Ah, you’re an artist.”
“That’s right,” she agreed, amused that her choice of employment, at least, seemed to meet with his approval. “The greeting cards, those pay the rent. But I sell some of the artwork outright now and then. I like working for myself, too. I make my own schedule, which is lucky for you. I don’t have anyone to answer to, so I can take time to do, well, what has to be done.”
“My mother is an artist, in her way. Her tapestries are beautiful.” He stepped up to a painting of a mermaid, rising up out of a churning sea. There was power in the face, a kind of knowledge that he took as inherently female. “This is your work?”
“Yes.”
“It shows skill, and that magic that moves into color and shape.”
More than approval, she decided. Admiration now, and she let it warm her. “Thanks. Normally, that kind of thumbnail review would make my day. It’s just that it’s a very strange day. I need to change my clothes.”
He nodded absently, moved to another painting.
Behind him, Glenna cocked her head, then shrugged. She went to the old armoire she used as a closet, chose what she wanted, then carried it into the bathroom.
She was used to men paying a little more attention, she realized as she stripped out of the dress. To the way she looked, the way she moved. It was lowering to be so easily dismissed, even if he did have more important things on his mind.