“Dinner is usually at six,” he told her as they approached the hotel porch. “I’ll come for you at a quarter to.”
“Is that why you suggested I bring my best dress?” she asked as they started up the steps. “To show me off to your captain?”
He darted ahead and held open the door for her. “Not to show you off but to show up everyone else in the room. You have a presence, Kate. Use it to your advantage.”
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes, as if she doubted that. Then she jerked to a stop on the floor and turned in a circle, gawking like the visitors she hosted.
It was an impressive place. He couldn’t argue that. They had walked into a rotunda more than forty feet wide, with hallways leading off in various directions. Fine woodwork covered the pillars holding up the second story and edged the stairs and landing.
To one side, through open doors, he spotted leather-bound chairs and brass spittoons that proclaimed the gentlemen’s parlor, while more dainty chairs dotted the room on the other side of the rotunda for the ladies. In between, along one wall, framed pictures and a long table displayed curiosities of the park, while straight ahead, past the clerk’s station, stretched a dining room nearly as big as the first floor of the Geyser Gateway, with tables draped in white linen.
The young clerk behind his mahogany desk waved a hand at them. “You must be Mrs. Tremaine,” he warbled.
Looking more than a little stunned, Kate wandered up to him. “Yes.”
“A pleasure to have you with us,” he assured her, green eyes bright in his square face. “I’ve been instructed to put you in the Presidential Suite.”
She looked to Will, then back at the clerk, and her usual aplomb fell over her. “A typical room will do,” she informed him.
“I’m afraid they’re all full,” he said, offering her the brass key with a regretful smile.
“So late in the season?” she asked with a frown.
“We’re nearly always full,” he said blithely. “All four hundred rooms. The price of having the best hotel in the park.”
Her face darkened.
Will reached around her to accept the key. “Which way?”
“Down the north corridor, the corner rooms, with a commanding view of the terraces.” A dimple popped into view beside the clerk’s mouth. “I took the liberty of having her bags delivered.”
Will stepped aside so Kate could head for her room.
The wide corridor was well lit with lamps suspended on brass chains from the ceiling. Kate stared up at them. “So, it’s true. They have electricity.”
“Only in the public areas,” Will assured her, glancing at the brass plates on the doors that proclaimed each room’s number. Her key’s number matched the one on the double doors at the end of the corridor, which gave way to a parlor as big as his would-be cabin, with a massive brass bedstead visible through the door on the left.
She sank onto the horsehair-covered sofa, shoulders slumping. “I can never compete with this.”
“You don’t have to,” Will told her, turning from the view of the terraces out the curtained windows. “Not everyone can afford to stay in a place like this, certainly not in the Presidential Suite.”
She snorted. “Presidential Suite. They make it sound as if the president himself actually stayed here. This hotel was only half finished when the previous president, President Arthur, rode through the park after I first arrived.”
“That’s the difference between this place and the Geyser Gateway,” Will told her. “It’s all flash in a pan. Your hotel is genuine.”
She glanced up at him. “You really think people will favor the Geyser Gateway?”
“You’re closer to the bulk of the major sights,” Will reminded her. “You’re reasonably priced. And you have Alberta’s pie.”
Her smile was soft. “True. No one’s ever refused a piece of Alberta’s pie.”
“Then don’t worry. Just be yourself around Captain Harris, and he’ll approve that lease next spring, no question.”
She rose, chin coming up. “I’ll do it. But I don’t want another one-year lease. A ten-year renewal would give me and Danny the security we need. That’s what I’ll push for tonight. Thank you, Will, for the opportunity.”
She came to him and pressed a kiss to his cheek. He felt as if her touch reached down inside him to the honor he’d tried so hard to nurture, set it blossoming like a flower in the sun.
Would she still think so highly of him when he told her the truth? He hadn’t been willing to burden her on the way north, knowing what she might face. If she returned triumphant, as he expected, he would tell her on the way back to the Geyser Gateway.
And pray she would still smile so softly at him.
22
Kate had never considered herself a woman who charmed men into doing her bidding. But then, she’d rarely been put in a position where she had to try. She hadn’t had to work to attract Toby. He had never met a stranger—only friends. It wasn’t appropriate for a businesswoman to charm her guests. Her approach had always been franker, but after Toby’s death she’d become downright cautious. Still, if Will thought her mere presence at dinner might convince Captain Harris to recommend the Geyser Gateway for a ten-year lease, she was willing to give it all she had.
She’d brought the dress she’d worn the night they’d dined with Lieutenant Kingman. Riding for miles in a saddlebag, no matter how carefully packed, hadn’t helped it or the petticoat she’d wear under it. But there was a bell pull in
