Christmas in the City - Jill Barnett Page 0,16

lower his mouth to hers. And natural to taste her when she gasped. But what happened after that was as unnatural as she was unconventional.

Daniel Lincoln Stewart heard bells.

She dreamed that night that he hadn't stopped kissing her in the park. She dreamed that he hadn't looked at her so strangely. She knew that look. The archangels had looked at her with the same dazed and befuddled eyes when she had knocked them off that ladder. It was as if they couldn't believe she actually existed.

And she almost had to wonder if that kiss had existed. It was the closest thing to Heaven she'd found on Earth. She stretched and threw back the bedcovers, swinging her bare legs over the side of the bed, dangling them.

She still slept in the silk shirt, with the tails that barely brushed her knees. But she wasn't cold, even if frost did edge the windows. There was a fire in the fireplace, compliments of Peg, the same maid who had brought her hot chocolate and loaned her the skates.

Morning light streamed through the bedroom windows. She stood up and pulled back the drape. On the street below carriages moved past—a world outside where yesterday's snow was fast becoming today's pile of gray-brown ice.

She wondered what Daniel was doing now. Probably off to make more money. She shook her head. The man knew how much money he made by the minute.

From this same window she had watched him leave early this morning, before she crawled back into bed and had some odd dream of Daniel, dressed as a nursery rhyme king, sitting in an office in some city tower and counting all his gold. Four and twenty blackbirds wearing hats that looked like giant pie crusts were guarding the doors.

She frowned, then shook her head slightly.

A sharp rap rattled the door. She jumped back in the bed and pulled up the covers. "Yes?"

The door opened slowly and Peg smiled. "Miss Lillian. Your trunks have arrived."

"My trunks?" she repeated stupidly.

Peg nodded.

Lilli leaned to the left of the bed and looked past Peg and out into the hall where trunks and bandboxes, hatboxes, and cases sat in what appeared to be in the number of legions.

Peg stepped back. "Your things. Mr. Stewart said they would arrive this morning."

"He did?"

Peg crossed the room toward the dressing room. "I'll run your bath, Miss Lillian, and you can relax while Gage and I bring everything inside."

Lilli took the fastest bath in history. She asked Peg for some time alone, and as soon as the girl had left, she flew into the bedroom, rebuttoning her shirt. She just stood there looking at the incredible number of boxes and trunks, the stacks of packages. She was certain there was enough in this room to clothe all of New York City.

A little while later she was convinced he had bought out all of New York City. Inside a trunk marked redfern were walking suits in the finest cashmere, some trimmed with curly lamb or fur, day suits in figured silk with trims of imported lace and bead-work. Boxes wrapped in silver tissue held tea and dinner dresses of silk grosgrain and brocade, sateen and nun's veiling.

Another huge trunk that opened like a closet held cloaks with matching fur hats and muffs, drawers filled with neatly folded silk chemises and kid gloves in every color of nature's palette, and more corsets and underwear than she ever cared to see.

There were at least thirty hatboxes stacked along the wall and almost as many shoeboxes next to velvet drawstring bags with purses to match each pair of shoes. In another corner was a tower of large lace and ribbon-trimmed boxes stamped the house of worth.

Lilli grabbed the top one and carried it over to the bed, then crawled up and sat crosslegged. She untied the ribbon and lifted the lid, then broke the seal and pushed the tissue aside.

Her heart stopped for just one precious breath.

Inside was an evening gown of snow-white velvet with a skirt of matching cobweb lace. The velvet was soft and white as a cloud, and the lace on the skirt had a pattern more intricate than the stars in the sky. It was the loveliest thing she had ever seen.

Holding her breath, she pulled out the gown and held it up, looking at it for the longest time. There were little silver threads in the lace that caught the light from the fire and sparkled as bright as the silver lining