Martin looked miserable.
Sharley was ashamed of herself. “I’m sorry, Uncle Martin. I know you’re trying to help.”
“If you’d only talk to him, Sharley—”
“Does that mean you couldn’t convince him to make the first move, so you’re back to trying to persuade me? Uncle Martin, when it comes right down to it, Spence is the one who walked out on me. I gave him the opportunity to explain yesterday, but he didn’t seem to want it.”
Martin opened his mouth and then shut it again, looking like a helpless goldfish.
Sharley put her arms around him and buried her head in the shoulder of his faded old flannel shirt. “I’m sorry to sound like such a bear.” Her voice was muffled. “All the things you and Charlotte have done for me, and this is the way I reward you.” She swallowed hard. “It’s not that I’m refusing to talk to him, you know — but I suspect Spence isn’t exactly eager to talk to me, either. Is he?”
“Stupid young fool,” Martin said under his breath.
“Well, there you have it, don’t you?” Sharley dashed moisture from the corner of her eyes and tried to smile. “Which one of us are you calling a stupid young fool, by the way?”
Martin took a deep breath. “Sharley…”
Libby returned to the kitchen. “One of them has to have artificial sweetener,” she was muttering under her breath as she began rummaging through a drawer. “She’s spooning up ice cream as if it’s nothing at all, but she can’t stand a bit of sugar in her coffee.”
Sharley smiled a little. “It’s not like you to be so impatient with Aunt Charlotte’s guests, Libby.”
The housekeeper darted a look at her. “Oh, it’s not the sweetener. It’s the way they’re talking about you that annoys me. Mrs. Hudson can’t see through that fake sympathy to the catty gossip underneath, that’s the real pity. She ought to just throw them out.”
Sharley sighed. “They’re her friends, and I can’t blame them for being curious. But it’s going to be a very long spring break, I’m afraid.”
“Maybe you ought to go to the Bahamas anyway,” Libby said as she dumped artificial sweetener into a crystal bowl. “Why shouldn’t you enjoy your time off, wedding or no wedding?” The swinging door dropped shut behind her.
“What a singular honeymoon that would be,” Sharley murmured. The idea had a certain farcical appeal, she had to admit. But by the time she made her tea and went back to her room to take up her telephone list again, she had forgotten the whole crazy notion.
Martin, however, had obviously passed the idea on to Charlotte, for she brought it up over dinner. “It’s a very sensible plan, Sharley,” she said as she drank her consommé.
“To go on my honeymoon by myself? Aunt Charlotte…”
“Why not? It’s too late to cancel the reservations, so you may as well get some good of it. Besides, it’s not as if Spence had anything to do with the arrangements; the resort was a gift to you from Martin and me.”
“It was a gift to us,” Sharley murmured. “I hardly think—”
Charlotte went straight on. “Why waste a good vacation?”
“Are you implying I should pick up the first handsome man I see on the beach? Honestly, Aunt Charlotte.”
Charlotte sat up even straighter, and her voice was like ice. “Of course not.”
Sharley bit her lip. “I beg your pardon.”
Charlotte unbent slightly, but the atmosphere remained on the cool side despite Martin’s efforts. Sharley was almost glad to be able to excuse herself just after the main course, reminding Charlotte of her commitment to help serve desserts at the scholarship fund-raiser.
“And to think I’m actually glad to be going out in public,” she muttered to herself. Well, she had to face it sometime — and considering the prompt response of the bridge ladies, it was going to be sooner rather than later. It was astounding how fast gossip travelled in a town this size. She’d just keep her chin up and smile, that was all.
But she couldn’t help thinking it was too bad she and Spence hadn’t at least agreed on a story which would allow them both to keep their dignity. She didn’t intend to lie about it, exactly — but it would be so very much better not to have the details slung all over Hammond’s Point.
After all, both of us still have to live here.
The reception wasn’t as bad as she had expected; though there were plenty of sympathetic and curious comments, only one woman came straight out and asked why Sharley’s engagement had come to such a crashing end.
Almost automatically, Sharley gave the same answer she had used on the telephone all day. “Spence and I have concluded that we are not well-suited after all.”
“Now, really,” the woman urged. “There obviously is more to it than that.”
Sharley looked straight through her. “How kind of you to be so concerned,” she said coolly.
Amy Howell appeared beside her at that moment, coffee cup in hand. “Now that the crowd has died down, we can talk over lesson plans for next week, Sharley.” She smiled sweetly at the inquisitive woman, who sniffed and moved off.
“Thank you,” Sharley murmured. “That was almost as effective as giving her a kick.”
“Which I wouldn’t have minded doing. How do you feel?”
There was no need to ask if Amy had heard the news. And no need to tell social fibs, either, Sharley thought in relief. When Amy asked how someone was, she really wanted to know. “As if a grand piano just fell out of nowhere and hit me in the head.”
Amy’s hand came to rest for just a moment atop Sharley’s, with a comforting squeeze.
“Did you know about her?” Sharley asked. “Wendy, I mean, when you asked yesterday if it bothered me that she’s Spence’s secretary.”
Amy shook her head. “Not a hint, I swear. I just always thought that having a woman like Wendy around was looking for trouble. Heavens, I sound like a Puritan, don’t I? The women’s movement would read me out of the organization.” She sipped her coffee. “Are you going to be in school Monday?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Amy shrugged. “I didn’t know if your nerves would stand the stress, on top of everything else.”
“Frankly, I’m looking forward to the stress. I can’t afford to let my thoughts wander with the kids around, so I’ll have to put this out of my mind. It’s spring break I’m not looking forward to.”
“Well, if you get too frazzled, just run up the white flag. I’ll take your kids into my room for math games or something and give you a break.”
“You’re a love, Amy.”
“And as far as spring break is concerned, it’s not too late to come along on our skiing trip.”
Sharley swallowed hard. “That’s very thoughtful, but—”
“Not really. We’re driving to Colorado, and we’ve rented a condo. We can fit one more in with no trouble. Just bring a sleeping bag.”
“Thanks, but I don’t think so, Amy. The last thing I need is to spend the rest of the school year with a twisted-up knee from going down a ski slope wrong.”
Amy moved aside so an elderly man could step up to the table. Sharley cut a slice from the kiwi tart he pointed to, slid it onto a plate, and handed it to him with a smile.
Amy shrugged. “At least a twisted knee would give you a good excuse to hang around the whirlpool.”
Sharley didn’t hear the rest. As the man turned away with his kiwi tart, she saw Spence appear in the doorway, and her body tightened as if someone had slid a knife between her ribs.
He looked taller, somehow, in his dark suit. Sharley had grown used to seeing him in sports coats and blazers and sweaters, not pinstripes, and the contrast made her feel somehow as if she hadn’t seen him at all in a long, long time. The charcoal suit made his eyes even deeper and more lustrous.
Or were those changes caused not by the color of his clothes but the woman who stood beside him? Wendy Taylor, with one small hand clutching Spence’s sleeve, the other tight on a tiny black velvet even
ing bag which matched her dainty cocktail dress, and looking straight at Sharley — not in triumph, but almost as if she felt sympathetic…
Sharley’s anger seemed to start at the tip of her toes and burn its way upward cell by cell. Couldn’t he even have the decency to wait a few days to flaunt Wendy? Just a few days, till the grapevine found something else to exclaim over? Only Sharley and Spence and Wendy knew what had really happened. Only they ever needed to know — unless it was Spence’s intention to feed the gossip...
She looked down at the array of desserts on the table before her. Her fingers were actually shaking with the desire to pick up the nearest one — the sweet, sticky remains of Libby’s raspberry gateau — and grind it into Spence’s face.
“Well, if you change your mind about the skiing trip,” Amy said, “just let me know. We don’t mind a last-minute decision.”
Amy’s words seemed to be coming from a long way off. Sharley shook her head. “I’ve already decided what to do over spring break.” Her voice was clear and vibrant, and no one within ten feet of the dessert table could help but hear. “I’m going to the Bahamas anyway.”
A collective gasp rippled through the room, followed by a momentary silence.
Amy said skeptically, “Alone?”
“Of course, I’m going alone,” Sharley said. She looked directly at Spence and raised her chin a fraction of an inch. “Frankly, my dear, compared to what I’d originally planned, being alone will be a blessing.”
CHAPTER THREE
The idea was crazy, of course, and Sharley had no intention of actually doing any such thing. A jilted bride going on a honeymoon by herself? It was ridiculous. If it hadn’t been for that sympathetic look of Wendy’s — that glance which had said so clearly, I’ve got him and you don’t, and I’m sorry for you! — Sharley would have kept her peace and minded her manners and not said anything at all.
Still, as the week wore on, she found herself thinking more and more often about getting away. It would be very soothing to go where no one knew about Spence, where no one would question why Sharley was no longer half of a pair. And by the time she came home, perhaps the gossips of Hammond’s Point would have moved on to some other juicy tidbit.
One of those urges to pack up and leave hit her on Sunday morning, when the announcement was made in church. It was just a simple statement, one more reminder in a long list, made without emphasis by the clergyman who would have performed the ceremony. “The wedding of Sharley Collins and Spence Greenfield, planned for next Saturday, will not take place,” he said calmly, and moved straight on to the ladies’ auxiliary meeting.
The murmur of surprise which rippled through the sanctuary startled Sharley, who would have sworn that no one in Hammond’s Point could have possibly failed to hear the news by now. What startled her even more was her own reaction. Her palms began to sweat, her heartbeat accelerated, and she felt as if she was smothering. She was suffering a classic panic attack, as though the announcement was news to her, too. Somehow the pastor’s calm statement seemed to make painful reality of something which until then had been too much a nightmare to be faced at all.
But that was not the only thing which made her long to get away. On Tuesday after school, Charlotte took a good look at Sharley’s nails and exclaimed, “Good heavens, you’re not biting them again, are you?”
Sharley explained how the combination of tempera paint and clay had worked its way so deeply under her nails during art class that day that the only option was to cut them short. But for a moment she wasn’t sure whether Charlotte really believed her, and that annoyed her even more. If she’d actually been biting her nails again, Sharley would have admitted it. It wasn’t a crime, after all.
On Wednesday, one of the innocents in her classroom asked whether “forbidden fruit” was apples or pears or grapes, and when Sharley pressed for the reason for the question, the child said, “My mommy said you’re not getting married because your boyfriend couldn’t stay away from forbidden fruit. It can’t be bananas, because Mommy likes for me to eat them. Is it oranges? She says I should only have one orange a day.” She looked puzzled. “Did he eat too many oranges? Is that why you won’t marry him?”
Yes, Sharley thought wearily, going away for a while would be a very good idea.
But the crowning touch came on Thursday. After school let out, she stopped at the hardware store, one of the half-dozen places where she and Spence had so happily registered their gift list. Now she had to cancel those requests and arrange for the gifts to be credited to the sender and returned to the shelves. She had already taken care of those same details at the department stores and the kitchenware place, but she had left the hardware store for last, because she knew it would be the most difficult to face. In fact, she paused outside the door and swallowed hard, trying to work up her courage to even go inside.
The choice of china and crystal and silver had, in the end, been Sharley’s. Spence had looked at patterns with almost-infinite patience, but finally he had declared that it didn’t matter to him whether he ate from bone china or paper, since he intended to stare at his bride instead of the dishes anyway. Sharley had looked into his eyes and felt a familiar little sensation at the pit of her stomach — the same weightless feeling one got at the top of the first peak of a roller-coaster — and she had fallen a little more in love with him...
So she had selected the china and the pots and pans. But at the hardware store Spence had been different. He had soberly studied the merits of cordless screwdrivers versus the ordinary hand-powered kind, and ended up putting both on his wish list. He had tried out each hammer, drill, and saw in stock. He had been intrigued with an incredible array of gadgets. And, when he insisted on testing every snow shovel in the place, and finally selected one with a bent handle which was supposed to lessen back strain, Sharley couldn’t keep silent any longer. “We don’t even need a snow shovel, much less one with a fancy handle,” she had pointed out. “The handyman takes care of clearing the sidewalks and the drive.”
“Ah,” Spence said without a flicker of a smile. “But what if he gets sick? I wouldn’t want you to hurt your back while you dig your way to school.”
Sharley punched him in the arm before she saw the teasing sparkle in his eyes, and Spence retaliated, kissing her unmercifully right there in the aisle between rakes and axes, until she was gasping for breath.
It was a good thing that tidbit hadn’t come to Aunt Charlotte’s ears, Sharley thought, with a conspiratorial smile. She would have given Spence a good trimming over his lack of manners, kissing Sharley in public like that...
Her smile died, and Sharley straightened her shoulders and reminded herself that standing around and mooning about the past would not make things get better. So she pulled the door open—
And walked straight into Spence.
The impact rocked her off balance, and Spence dropped the bag he was carrying in order to steady her. For a moment she was almost in his arms, his hands gripping her elbows, her face pressed against the rough tweed of his coat. Automatically, she closed her eyes and inhaled, and the scent of his aftershave hit her brain with a rush that made her dizzy. It had always been her favorite brand, but when Spence wore it the chemistry changed somehow, till it wasn’t merely a scent any more but a sensation.
She looked up at him. Her eyes were precisely on a level with his chin, and she knew from experience that if she stood on her toes and leaned against him, she could just barely brush her lips against the deep cleft in his chin. The first time she had ever done that, he had looked startled — and then he had bent his head and kissed her till she was so breathless that the whole world had looked blue...
And why she should be thinking about that was beyond her.
Almost as if he had read her mind, Spence set her firmly back on her feet and released her.
He looked as if he’d been carved out of a rock. There was no warmth in his eyes, no hint of humor at the corners of his mouth, where she had thought a
smile always lurked. She bit her lip. She had never seen this cold, hard man before. If the episode in the gardener’s cottage had done this to him—
But what made her think that the change in him was an emotional reaction to losing the woman he loved? It could just as easily be fury with himself for messing up a perfect opportunity to marry a fortune, or anger at his own carelessness in getting caught. Perhaps Wendy was making demands on him. Or maybe Martin had finally made up his mind that Hudson Products could do without Spence Greenfield... But there wasn’t any polite way to ask.
“If you came to cancel the gift registry,” he said, “don’t bother. I’ve already done it.”
Sharley nodded, hardly hearing him, thinking that she couldn’t stand not knowing. “Has Uncle Martin fired you?”
Spence’s eyes narrowed to gun-metal gray slits. “No, he hasn’t. Not yet, at any rate. Your vengeance knows no bounds, does it, Sharley?”
A Singular Honeymoon Page 4
