She had come down this staircase a thousand times in the past, but tonight the walk seemed longer. She smiled to herself, remembering how in younger years she’d seldom walked down the stairs at all. The wide, smooth banister was an excellent slide. Poor Aunt Tabitha was mortified the first time she caught her niece in mid-flight.
Childish pranks were behind her now. Pandora would no more think of sliding down a banister than she would consider performing her mental “parlor tricks” for the guests this evening. She was a young lady now, about to become the wife of a respected doctor. She knew Jacob expected her to make the transition gracefully.
Pandora held out a gloved hand and slipped it smoothly into the warmth of Jacob’s palm. He looked solemn, but she noted with relief that there was no disapproval in his tawny brown eyes. She thought that he might think the gown too extravagant or her hairstyle too extreme. The heat of his gaze sent a jolt through her. There was no mistaking his look of raw desire. In that instant, it struck her that Jacob would soon demand more from her than an occasional chaste kiss. Her face flamed at the thought.
“My dear, you are magnificent,” he whispered, bowing rather stiffly as he brought her gloved hand to his lips.
She leaned toward him, about to whisper that she needed to talk to him privately, when the band struck up a lively rendition of “Happy Birthday” and the guests crowded round, singing and raising their champagne glasses in a toast to the lady of the hour.
Soon Proteus, assisted by two other servants, wheeled in a six-tier birthday cake, festooned with sugared pink rose-buds and crystalized violets. Pandora blew out the candles to thunderous applause. The moment the cake-cutting ceremony was done, the string quartet began the birthday waltz.
“Shall we, my dear?” Jacob asked formally, offering his betrothed his hand.
“By all means,” Pandora replied.
None of the guests joined in. Pandora and Jacob had the entire floor of the Gold Room to themselves. Jacob might not be of much use at parties, as he’d told Angelica earlier, but on a dance floor he could do no wrong. He swept Pandora round and round, making her head spin and her train swing in a graceful arc from her wrist.
When the piece was nearing its finish, Horace Sherwood raised his arms, signaling for attention. All heads turned to him.
“Friends, we’ve all wished Pandora proper health and prosperity in honor of her special day. But tonight there is another reason for your congratulations. It is with a great deal of pleasure this evening that I announce my niece’s engagement to Dr. Jacob Saenger.”
A round of applause filled the Gold Room. When the noise quieted, Mr. Sherwood invited all the guests to join him in a toast to the engaged couple. The music ended and the tinkle of crystal goblets took its place.
Pandora finished the waltz, breathless and beaming. If Jacob made love half as well as he danced, she was bound to be a happy woman. She laughed gaily at the thought.
“What do you find so amusing?” Jacob asked.
Pandora felt herself actually blushing, something she never did. “I’ll tell you on our wedding night,” she whispered back to him.
He shook his head. “Ah, so many secrets. I hardly know how we’ll fit them all into that one night.”
Pandora answered shyly, “We don’t have to, Jacob. We’ll have a whole lifetime together.”
Suddenly, inexplicably, her words brought a deep sadness over Pandora. Her smile faded and she gripped Jacob’s arm.
“What’s wrong, Pandora? Are you ill?” Unconscious of his automatic reaction, Jacob gently gripped her wrist between his thumb and forefinger, testing her racing pulse.
“I’m fine, Jacob. It’s only…”
“What, my dear?”
“I only wish we were getting married right away. I suddenly don’t feel right about waiting.”
“Pandora, we’ve discussed all this before,” Jacob reminded her. “I thought you wanted it this way. It will be good for you to have one last vacation before you’re tied down as a doctor’s wife. And in the next few months I can establish myself and move into my new office. By the time we’re wed, everything will be in order.” He paused for a moment, looking uncertain before he went on. “I’ve had a letter from Dr. Pinel in Paris. He’s agreed to see you. I think it would be wise.”
Pandora ignored Jacob’s statement concerning the French specialist and remarked instead on his earlier statements. “I know we planned it this way, Jacob. This feeling, it’s just something that came over me moments ago. I suppose it’s all the excitement tonight. And the storm. You know how the weather affects me.”
“Relax, my dear. No hurricane flags have been hoisted. This is just an early nor’easter.”
“I know, Jacob, thanks for reassuring me.”
Just when Pandora was about to tell him of her earlier vision, they were swept apart—Pandora to the dance floor on the arm of one of her uncle’s friends and Jacob to the far side of the parlor where Mrs. Landes wanted to discuss her latest malady.
For the rest of the evening, they only glimpsed each other across the crowded room. Whenever Pandora spotted Jacob, Angelica was with him. That was a relief. At least he wasn’t being bored to death by patients seeking free advice. Pandora made a mental note to thank her cousin later.
But her cousin’s gratitude was hardly what Angelica was seeking. So what if Pandora had the gown from Worth and the spotlight and all the attention tonight. Angelica smiled. For the moment at least, she had Jacob.
“You’re going to be awfully lonely while Pandora’s in Europe, Jacob,” Angelica said while her cousin’s fiance whirled her about the dance floor. “If you ever want company, someone to talk to, please feel free to call on me. After all, Pandora and I are just like sisters. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”
Jacob smiled at the lovely young woman in his arms. She was as sweet as she was beautiful. Most girls in her position would have felt envy and resentment, but not Angelica. He would, indeed, take her up on her offer. The months that Pandora would be away were sure to drag for him, and Pandora couldn’t object to his taking her young cousin to the theater or out for a drive now and again.
“That’s nice of you, Angelica.”
She smiled, the picture of innocence and youth. “Nice has nothing to do with it, Jacob. I’m very fond of you. I always have been. I’m glad you’re going to be part of this family soon.”
Jacob was touched. “Those feelings are returned, I assure you, Angel.”
Moments after the quiet conversation between Jacob and Angelica on the dance floor, Pandora finally extracted herself from her guests long enough to make her way to her fiance’s side. She slipped her arm through his, successfully dismissing Angelica without a word.
“Do you think we can slip away soon?” Pandora asked. “I’d like to ride down to the beach. The waves sound monstrous.”
Jacob frowned. How like Pandora to want to sneak away from her own party to go to the beach. He’d never understood the strange attraction storms held for her. He knew foul weather terrified her. She’d lost both her parents in a hurricane and very nearly lost her own life. Still, the roaring surf and high winds also held a strange appeal, drawing her like a moth to the flame.
“Pandora, I don’t see any way that we can slip out with no one noticing. After all, you’re the guest of honor.”
“Oh, please, Jacob,” she begged. “I’ve had enough congratulations to last me a lifetime. My head is pounding. I need some fresh air. You wander over to the side entrance. I’ll go out the back and meet you in the garden.”
Jacob shook his head, shocked that she would suggest such a scheme. “Certainly not, Pandora. Besides, it’s time for me to meet with your uncle in the library for the traditional father-son chat.”
With or without Jacob, Pandora needed some air. She worked her way toward the back of the house. She was nearly at the door separating the dining room from the butler’s pantry when she heard her aunt announ
ce, “Angelica’s had a fine idea. Pandora, where are you? Since this is such a special night in your life, we want you to look into the future and tell us what you see.”
Pandora tried to dart into the butler’s pantry, but she wasn’t quick enough. Aunt Tabitha spotted her.
“Oh, there you are! Come now, dear. We’re all dying to know your future.”
Pandora was led, against her will, through the dining room and back into the Gold Room. Finally, feeling foolish and trapped, she stood upon the musicians’ stage with all the guests looking on. Only Jacob and her uncle were missing, sequestered in the library over brandy and man-talk. Pandora was glad. She didn’t want her fiancé to witness this embarrassing scene.
“Now, close your eyes, dear, and concentrate. Tell us all what you see in the future for yourself and Jacob,” Tabitha instructed.
“Yes, Pandora,” Angelica added, “tell us everything.”
The last thing Pandora saw before she closed her own eyes—wanting to be done with this parlor game as quickly as possible—was Angelica’s smiling face. Her expression sent a shiver through Pandora’s whole body, chilling her very soul.
She closed her eyes quickly to escape her cousin’s haughty gaze. Usually, when Pandora willed it so, she could summon her visions of the future instantly. She fully expected to see an older version of herself and Jacob with silver frosting his sandy-brown hair. She would not have been surprised to see several children playing about a white frame house with gingerbread trim. Any or all of these visions would have been pleasing, satisfying, acceptable.
What she saw instead struck terror in her heart. Pandora began to gasp for breath. She went hot all over, then cold. The very walls of the room seemed to be pressing in on her. She had to get out!
“Please,” she whispered, “oh, please, no…”
A moment later, she fled, shoving startled guests out of her way. She ran toward the back of the house, sobbing Jacob’s name, but he was nowhere to be seen.
“Oh, dear.” Tabitha Sherwood fumbled for words, distraught that her guests were now whispering about Pandora’s odd behavior. “Just let her go,” she told them. “Jacob’s the only one who can soothe her when she’s this upset. It’s bridal jitters, you know. All young women have these spells.”
The guests refilled their glasses and milled about, gossiping quietly about the strange girl and her soon-to-be-long-suffering husband.
Even as her aunt was making excuses for her, Pandora burst into the stable. “Hitch my team!” she shrieked at old Tombee the stableboy.
Frightened by her harsh tone and tears, Tombee quickly followed her orders.
In no time, Pandora was in her surrey, racing through the rain toward the sound of the surf as if the devil himself were chasing her. As she drew ever nearer, the pounding of the angry waves seemed to merge with the thundering beat of her heart. She felt as if her life depended upon getting away, reaching the beach.
She never remembered actually arriving. Nor could she recall hitching her team or climbing down from the surrey. Somewhere along the way, she lost both her satin slippers. It didn’t matter.
Only when she was on the beach, with the cool, wet sand beneath her feet, tasting the salt spray and feeling the pounding pulse of the waves, did she come back to her senses. For a time she stood at the high water line, her arms flung wide, her hair whipping her tear-stained cheeks. She swayed with the wind, celebrating her feeling of freedom.
Then, in a moment of sheer desperation, she sank to the sand, sobbing her heart out.
Chapter Two
Ward Gabriel pulled on his oiled cape against the rain. He’d made up his mind at last. Since he wasn’t getting any work done, he might as well go to Abbie Allen’s. He’d grown more restless and more convinced that what he really needed was a woman. He wanted someone warm and willing to hold, to fondle, someone to ease the ache from deep in his gut.
Switching off the electric light over his desk, he plunged the room into darkness except for the glow of the embers on the hearth. He headed for the door, ready to leave, when something outside the window caught his eye, making him pause and turn for a closer look.
The stormy beach was bathed in shifting patterns of black and silver as heavy, low-flying clouds allowed the moon to shine through from time to time. At first he thought he’d only glimpsed a moving shadow. But then the moon streamed through once again and he saw her distinctly—there was a woman out on the beach.
He was too surprised to react immediately. He stood watching as she swayed in an odd sort of dance, the wind whipping her clothes to tatters that flailed wildly about her.
It was near midnight, high tide, and storming. The woman was all alone. That suggested one thing—suicide. More than one hapless human had become disenchanted with life and ended it all by taking a midnight stroll into the Gulf of Mexico. Only last week a man had put an end to his earthly troubles in this manner. His body had washed up three days later.
“Well, not on my stretch of beach,” Ward raged.
Running for the door, he flew down the long flight of stairs, then felt his boots bite into the soft sand. “Wait!” he yelled. But the wind tossed his words back into his face.
She moved closer to the water, tempting it to claim her. His heart was thundering in his chest as he fought the sifting sand and the fierce wind to reach her before she could reach the waves. Then, just as it seemed that she would sink into the water and out of sight, Ward saw her crumple to the sand in a faint.
“Drunk!” he muttered under his breath. Disgusted that she’d put him through such torment, he almost turned back. Let her sleep it off where she was. But he was here now, he might as well get her in out of the storm, he reasoned.
With a huff of annoyance he bent over the limp figure and scooped her up into his arms. To his surprise, he realized that she was no homeless drifter off the docks—the sort who usually did themselves in out of sheer hopelessness. On the contrary, even in the darkness he could see that she was expensively dressed. The crystals on her gown gleamed in the moonlight and the long train was heavy with sea water and sand.
To his surprise, she was not dead weight as he’d expected. The moment he picked her up, she slipped her arms around his neck. When he looked down, he could see that her eyes were wide open and staring into his.
“It must have been some damn party,” he commented in a gruff voice.
“It was, but you missed it, Ward Gabriel.”
Ward stopped in his tracks, staring down at the woman in his arms, but unable to see her face clearly. The clouds had put out the moon’s light again. Still, he knew that deep, throaty voice. He knew it well.
Then in a flash, it came to him. “Pandora? What the hell are you doing out here?”
“It’s my birthday, remember?” She laughed softly, humorlessly. “I can do whatever I like.”
“I doubt your uncle or your fiancé would agree.”
Pandora shivered against him. She was wet and cold and the blowing sand felt like tiny needles pricking her arms, shoulders, and face. She could think of nothing except how good it would feel to be warm and dry again, and how safe she felt in Ward Gabriel’s arms.
“You knew about my engagement. That’s why you didn’t come tonight,” she accused.
Ward bristled. “That had nothing to do with it. I had to work.”
“Whatever you say.” Pandora was suddenly weary, emotionally exhausted. She leaned her head down on Ward’s broad shoulder and closed her eyes.
“I’ll have you inside in a minute. Just hang on, Pandora.”
She did exactly that, feeling a strange warmth flood through her as she clung to his neck and breathed in his musky male scent.
Pandora roused herself only when Ward carried her into his cozy cottage. A low fire of driftwood glowed on the hearth, the flames rainbow colors from the sea salt in the wood. He set her down and she hurried over to warm herself.
She’d never
seen Ward’s house before. While he put on a fresh pot of coffee, her gaze went exploring. The whole place looked like a beachcomber’s hut. The mantel over the fireplace was a heavy driftwood log, probably a part of some long-sunk sailing vessel. Arranged there in no special order around a ship’s clock were seashells, old bottles of amber and green glass, and beautifully colored corals. On a far wall, the sun-bleached jawbone of a shark gaped widely at her, its silvery black teeth razor-sharp and gleaming in the firelight. The furniture was of simple design, probably made by some local craftsman. Bright Mexican serapes and Navajo rugs thrown here and there added splashes of color to the room. In a curio case near the windows, more shells were displayed along with several antique coins—doubloons and pieces of eight. No curtains covered the windows, only a drape of fishnet, hung with corks and colored glass floats. A beachcomber’s clutter of treasures, to be sure, she told herself. But the paintings on his walls were valuable and framed in ornate gilt.
Ward Gabriel obviously was a collector of eclectic tastes. Pandora found that appealing. She felt suddenly very much at home here and, as always, perfectly comfortable with Ward himself. It almost seemed she had known him forever. Since that hot day at the grove when she’d interrupted his tryst, they’d been a part of each other’s lives. Ward was different from anyone else she knew. He never laughed at her bizarre fantasies or seemed shocked by her desire to become an artist. He simply seemed to accept her as she was, no matter what she said or did.
Pandora had been acquainted with Ward Gabriel for years, but she realized now that she knew very little about him. She thought over what she had heard from her aunt and uncle. Ward’s parents—both dead now—had come from New England during the Reconstruction years. His father had been a successful shipbuilder in Bath, Maine, but his wife’s poor health had forced them to a warmer climate. Mrs. Gabriel had died only hours after giving birth to twin sons. Ward’s brother had not survived long enough to be named. Most of Ward’s formative years had been spent in the best boarding schools in the East and in Europe. When he returned to Galveston, Ward sold his interest in his father’s company, went to work for her uncle, and invested his wealth in some mysterious venture in Mexico.
Forever, For Love Page 3
