“And you didn’t get in trouble for leaving the seminary?”
He shook his head. “The church doesn’t want a priest who isn’t a good fit. I’m only sorry it took me so long to figure out. I want to get married someday, but I’ll wait until I know it’s right, because there won’t be any going back on those vows. They will be carved in stone to last for all time.”
He loved the way she watched him with a mix of curiosity and admiration in her expression. Who could have imagined a Blackstone would ever look at him with admiration? He liked being worthy of her respect. She was so alluring that it made his blood pump faster, and he glanced around the room to distract himself. The colors were warm, woodland shades of maroon, sage, and brown, but they suited her.
Only one thing looked out of place. A framed print over the dining room sideboard looked like it had come from a child’s book. He stood to examine a picture from the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale that showed an older boy with his arm sheltering Gretel as he led her out of the darkened forest.
“Jasper and I fought endless battles over that picture,” Gwen said. “It was always my favorite picture when I was growing up, but he thought I needed to outgrow it. He said it reflected my unhealthy obsession with having an older brother. Maybe it does, but I don’t care. I wasn’t even born when Willy died, but I loved the idea of an older brother. Someone who would always look out for me.”
The longing in her voice hurt. Maybe this explained why she’d been so eager to believe Mick’s rabble-rousing nephew might be her long-lost brother. Patrick would give anything if he could deliver William Blackstone back to her, but that boy had been in a pauper’s grave for thirty years.
She placed a hand on his arm, her touch as light as a butterfly’s wing. “I’m sorry I dragged you out here so late in the evening.” Her voice was gently feminine, and he wanted to drown in it.
“You needed someone to lean on. I’m glad it could be me.”
The amber light overhead illuminated her face with a warm glow. The way she gazed up at him triggered all sorts of inappropriate cravings.
“You would have been a wonderful priest,” she said. The admiration in her gaze made him feel ten feet tall.
He leaned forward, lowering his head until his nose almost touched hers. “Mrs. K . . . I would have been a terrible priest.” Priests shouldn’t have this overwhelming attraction to a woman in need of comfort.
With the tip of his fingers, he tucked a stray lock of her silky hair behind the shell of her ear. It was a shocking intimacy, but she didn’t pull away. She leaned into his hand, and it was all the permission he needed.
He lowered his head and kissed her. She kissed him in return, and soon her arms entwined behind his back. It went on and on until he needed to come up for air.
“Well, this is a bit of a surprise,” he said.
“Not to me.”
Raw hunger overcame him, and he swooped down to kiss her again. She met him measure for measure. He hadn’t expected this—the buzz, the spark, the intensity that flared to life as he held her.
“Don’t go,” she whispered, low, soft, and velvety. “Stay until the last streetcar.”
He glanced at the clock on the mantel. They had an hour until the streetcars stopped running for the night. He closed his eyes and savored the way she leaned against him for support. “I’m not going anywhere, Mrs. K.”
He wanted her to be the one. It felt right. A tiny piece of him shouted that she was too far above him and this could only lead to trouble, but he silenced the voice. They were a match, and he’d be a fool to deny it.
16
To Patrick’s amazement, Gwen started visiting his apartment each evening. At first, she used the excuse that she wanted to observe his mother’s progress, but soon she simply came to spend time with him.
He looked forward to her visits all day. Each time she arrived at his apartment, she got a quick update on his mother’s health, and then they hurried out onto the fire escape to be alone. In between kisses, they talked about everything. They debated whether Charles Dickens was better than Mark Twain. He explained why Catholics say the rosary, and she talked about her hope of one day becoming a professor of botany if she could ever tear herself away from home long enough to earn a doctorate.
“I even know what I’d like to study,” she said one evening while watching the sunset from the fire escape. “I have a theory that old seeds can still sprout under the right conditions, and I’d like to see if I can accomplish it. There is a monastery in Spain that found seeds from an extinct date palm that are at least three hundred years old. I’ve asked them to send me some, but so far they have refused.” She glanced at him, curiosity in her face. “I don’t suppose you have any special pull, do you?”
He swallowed back a laugh. After abandoning his priestly vocation, he was the last person likely to have sway with those Spanish monks. “I’ve got no connections. Have you tried buying them?”
“I’ve offered them a king’s ransom, and they said no. That was last year. This year I asked a biology professor to appeal to them on humanitarian reasons. Healers have used date palms since antiquity for their medicinal properties. The seeds the monks have are from an extinct palm, so we might glean new medicines from them. I expect to hear back from them soon.”
The mention of the college’s medical research prompted him to ask what was in the lifesaving serum given to his mother.
“Do you know what white blood cells are?” Gwen asked.
“There are only two kinds of blood in the world,” he replied. “Red like mine and blue like yours.”
There was a time when pointing out their disparity in wealth was a touchy subject, but not anymore. They’d grown so close over the past few weeks that he teased her without restraint.
“Blood has different types of cells,” she explained. “Most are red, but about one percent of our blood cells are white. They are part of our immune system and fight infection. The serum is developed from the white blood cells of horses that have been exposed to a mild form of tetanus.”
He was aghast. “You gave my mother horse blood?”
She nodded and told him how the college owned a research lab and a stable of horses in Queens. The horses were given a tiny injection of tetanus bacteria, and in time their blood developed antibodies to the disease. The blood was then harvested, spun to separate the white blood cells, and then developed into a serum. It sounded like a mad scientific experiment, but Patrick thanked God for it and would add those horses to the list of things he prayed for each night.
The only niggling detail of this dazzling relationship with Gwen that bothered him was where they met each evening. Huddling on the fire escape wasn’t the proper place to court a woman, making him wonder if she was ashamed of him. She had yet to step out in public with him where others could see them together. There were going to be snooty people who slammed their doors in Gwen’s face if they learned she was consorting with an Irishman, and he needed to know if she was up for that. He was searching for a wife and couldn’t lay his heart on the line if this was no more than a fling for her.
They’d been out on the fire escape for almost an hour, and Patrick had been trying to work up the courage to ask her to go with him to a baseball game, but it was hard. If she said no, they’d have to stop these daily meetings, and he didn’t want to give them up.