A Reluctant Belle

by Beth White

  And Joelle would flinch every time, though she never told anybody how much it hurt. Nobody but God, anyway.

  And God always reminded her of her mother’s gentle words. Let them feel your love.

  All right then. She sat up and looked around for someone more uncomfortable than herself.

  Downing his punch in one long slug, Schuyler tuned an ear to Delfina Fabio’s Italian-accented and highly creative English syntax. He didn’t know when he’d met a more irritating woman in his life. His effort to ensure that the singer came to visit Daughtry House seemed to have resulted mainly in her determination to make him her next American conquest. Every time he moved away from her, she shimmied closer, all but drowning him in some expensive Parisian scent. His head was beginning to pound from the effort to hold his breath and keep his eyes focused on something besides her nearly naked bosom.

  And Joelle clearly couldn’t care less. Leaving her in conversation with Mrs. Forrest and the preacher, he’d assumed she’d be able to hold her own until he returned. But a little while ago he’d caught a glimpse of her creeping around the edges of the room as if she were trying to escape. Then she disappeared.

  Now he couldn’t find her anywhere. Alarmed, he climbed two steps of the staircase behind him in order to gain a broader view.

  Delfina followed, her head tipped in a coquettish fashion. “Mr. Beaumont, I am think you either try to take me upstairs to the bedrooms, or there is something interesting of the other side in the room.”

  “I assure you, I am not—” He looked at her and found her smile rather more amused than lascivious. “Oh. You’re teasing.”

  She giggled. “Happy I am to discover you have the sense of humor. Most American young men would rather bed me than listen to me.”

  Though he appreciated her frankness, Schuyler couldn’t think of two things that interested him less. As he tried to formulate a diplomatic reply, a crowd of men across the room shifted with a roar of approval, and he saw what had created such a stir. Joelle—looking, he was chagrined to note, competent, happy, and absurdly beautiful—leaned over an elaborately carved billiards table, aiming a cue at a white ball. Her apparent opponent, the execrable Andrew Jefcoat, stood behind her, keeping himself upright by leaning on his cue stick.

  Schuyler scowled. This was . . . this was—not acceptable! He had sacrificed a significant amount of time and mental strain this evening for Joelle’s benefit, and she had taken the opportunity to shark one of his best friends. Jefcoat would have no way of knowing Joelle had grown up playing the game under the tutelage of one of the master billiards players in the South. Her father the Colonel had had her own cue made when she was still small enough to need to stand on a box to reach over the table. She had memorized Michael Phelan’s Billiards without a Master by the time she was ten. Nobody within a hundred miles of Lee County would take her on.

  “Excuse me,” he muttered to Delfina. “There is a situation I must attend to.” Stepping past her, he shoved his way through the crowd. On the way, he passed the preacher, in earnest conversation with Delfina’s mustachioed German manager. Schuyler halted. “What were you thinking? You let her go off by herself!”

  “Who?” Reese looked irritable at the interruption.

  “Joelle! Did you know she’s in the corner, playing billiards with a half-drunk farmer?”

  “Billiards? She was sitting right—” Reese looked around. “Where did she go?”

  “Never mind.” Schuyler continued his charge across the room, leaving Reese to follow if he chose. “Joelle! What do you think you’re doing?”

  Joelle looked up, startled, and as she did so the cue slipped and scratched the green baize surface of the table. She stared at the marred fabric in horror, then jerked upright. Her blue eyes spat fury. “Look what you made me do!”

  “I’ll pay for it.” He snatched the cue out of her hand. “Jefcoat, how much have you lost?”

  Jefcoat blinked owlishly. “Forty-five or so. She’s pretty good, you know. I think she’s got sixty-nine points already.”

  “I’m surprised it’s not more than that. Here.” Schuyler pulled out his wallet, peeled off a couple of notes, and stuffed them into Jefcoat’s breast pocket. “That should cover it. Go find something else to do. You’re too drunk to play anybody with skill.” Ignoring Jefcoat’s protest, he took Joelle by the arm. “Come with me,” he said grimly and towed her toward the door.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you!” She dug in her heels. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “Me? Ladies don’t play billiards in public! Didn’t your mother—or at the very least your grandmother or ThomasAnne, or somebody with some common sense at that boarding school—teach you that?” Realizing he was shouting, and that people were looking at them, he let go of her arm. Leaning in, he moderated his tone with an effort. “Joelle, if you want to make a favorable impression for the hotel, you’ve got to think. Here in Memphis you can’t behave like we do in the country, where everybody knows everybody else. Besides that, it’s not fair for you to take advantage of poor Jefcoat. He’s three sheets to the wind and would never be a match for you. His family doesn’t have much money, and he can’t afford—” The expression on her face stopped him. “I mean, you wouldn’t know that, and . . . Joelle, please don’t cry.”

  She blotted under her nose with the back of her hand. “You have just humiliated me in front of a hundred strangers. I’ll cry if I want to.” She heaved a shuddering breath. “Let me tell you something, you unmitigated arrogant beast. Andrew was standing against a wall without a soul to talk to. I recognized him as your friend and asked him if he’d like to join me in a glass of lemonade. Lemonade, do you hear me? Which we drank. Then he noticed the billiards table and asked me if I knew how to play. He seemed so shy, I could neither tell him ‘ladies don’t play billiards,’ nor that I’d beat him like a drum in a military band within the space of five minutes. So we got up a game. I tried to lose, Schuyler! I tried! But when everybody started watching, something took over and I just couldn’t do that to my father’s memory. In spite of everything, Papa taught me that game, and it’s the one good memory of him I have.” She was openly sobbing now. “So excuse me if I go to the ladies’ room and cry in private.” She wheeled and stumbled away.

  He let her go and met the wide-eyed gaze of Gil Reese.

  What had he just done?

  four

  THERE WAS NO PLACE TO GO.

  Blinded by tears, Joelle was about to duck into a closet off the vestibule and indulge in a bout of weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, when Delfina rescued her.

  The singer’s perfume preceded the comforting arm she slipped about Joelle’s waist. “Ah, cara, the man they are stupid, is it not? But you must never let him see you crumple this way. Come to my room. We shall put the tincture of roses on your eyes and show who is the strong one after all!”

  Joelle found herself whisked upstairs to a gold-and-turquoise brocade-appointed bedroom that could have graced a European palace. Delfina pushed her into a little dressing chair stationed at a mirrored table, handed her a soft, lacy handkerchief, and knelt to kindly pat her knee.

  “I’m sorry,” Joelle muttered. “I was only trying to be kind, and he took me so off-guard.”

  “Yes, yes, but it is because he loves you that he acts so, so . . . pazzo.”

  Joelle hiccupped on a laugh. “Pazzo—crazy indeed. But you completely misunderstand. Schuyler does not love me. He thinks I’m the crazy one!”

  “If you say so.” Delfina shrugged. “In whatever case, you must be very careful with the tears. Useful they can be, of a certain, but not when one is truly exercised! Mama mia! Do not ever let a man think he give you real reason to cry.”

  “But I’m angry! I cry when I’m angry.”

  Delfina got to her feet and turned to rummage in the table’s lap drawer. “Now that is a practical emotion. But if I may give a bit of advice from the acting school? Anger is best to present itself in cold, dignified—h
ow do you say?—altezzo.”

  “Hauteur?” Joelle sighed, twisting the handkerchief. “Delfina, I’m afraid I’m a terrible actress. I don’t know that I have a haughty bone in my body.”

  “Then you must think of something that make you feel that way.” Producing a small stoppered bottle, Delfina poured a little of the contents on the handkerchief and handed it back to Joelle. “Close your eyes and rest here for a few minutes. I leave you alone. When you feel better, you come down and show the hauteur to everyone—especially the beautiful crazy boy who make you so angry.”

  Delfina disappeared as if she were the incarnation of the fairy godmother Joelle had wished for earlier, leaving only the scent of roses and strong Parisian perfume in her wake.

  Joelle sat stewing. She did not want to think. Thinking brought on poor decisions such as the one she had just committed. How could she not know ladies didn’t play billiards at a party? Probably someone had said so at some point, when she was reading a book or thinking of something more interesting. Which brought her circling back to the original point.

  Thinking was dangerous, and taking action was dangerous. Except for the opera, which she had truly enjoyed, the whole evening had been one disaster after another. She hadn’t even thought to invite Delfina to come to visit the hotel. Perhaps—

  No. What she had better do was find Gil and make him take her home. Well, to Grandmama’s house. She could write a thank-you note to Delfina later, when she’d had time to recover from her embarrassment.

  Dabbing her eyes with the rosewater-soaked handkerchief, she rose and straightened her dress. She couldn’t even face herself in the mirror.

  Exiting the bedroom, she emerged on the landing and stood for a moment looking down on the party in the sitting room below. The general blur of color and motion reminded her of the kaleidoscope Papa had brought back from a trip to New York one summer. The billiards game in the corner had continued without her, Andrew Jefcoat having found a new opponent. There were, she noted with a shudder, no women in the group of onlookers circling the table.

  Then she heard someone playing a piano and located a modified grand in a focal point near a curtained window. Delfina stood in its crook, the epitome of an artist prepared to engage an audience. She opened her mouth, and the rich voice rolled out a long, joyous opening “Ah!” then continued, “Je veux vivre, dans ce rêve qui m’enivre . . .”

  I want to live in this dream that intoxicates me again this day! Sweet flame, I keep you in my soul like a treasure . . .

  Transfixed, Joelle moved to the balcony railing and gripped it with both hands. She’d never seen a production of Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette, but she’d once heard a senior student at boarding school butcher this aria in a recital. She’d asked her music teacher to lend her the music and privately played through it, imagining how it might be sung by a real soprano. Now she was hearing it.

  Halfway through the song, she realized she was the only person looking at Delfina. Everyone else in the room directed a smiling gaze at a tall, lanky black-haired gentleman bearing a bouquet of roses up the curving staircase toward her. Gil. What was he doing? Oh, dear Gussie, now everyone was looking at her.

  Gil kept advancing, up one step, then another, until he stood beside her, proffering the roses. “For you, Joelle,” he said softly as Delfina kept singing. “I only wish they were as beautiful and innocent as you.” His expression told her he knew she hadn’t meant to make a spectacle of herself at the billiards table and that he would never argue with her in front of others. “This is the last time I’m going to ask you if you’ll marry me. If you say no, I’ll never bother you again. But if you say yes, and make me the happiest of men, I’ll promise to treasure you as you deserve. You don’t have to answer now. But I couldn’t resist this opportunity to show you how much I love you.”

  Joelle looked at Gil, an explosion of unidentifiable emotions cascading from her aching head to her bruised heart and back again. She had thought about saying yes to him, more than once over the last month or so. Watching Selah and Levi together—and realizing she was no longer going to have her best friend’s constant companionship—inevitably brought on a certain melancholy as she lay awake at night. If she married Gil, at least she’d have someone to talk to, on the rare occasions when she needed a confidant, and she could have tremendous influence for good as a minister’s wife. Now, at this moment, she realized she loved Gil’s humility, his tenderness, and the sweet, sweet words he spoke.

  Against her will, her gaze searched the room for the one person she desired to witness this extraordinary display of devotion. He wasn’t anywhere in sight.

  Well, good riddance.

  Resigned, she forced a smile for Gil. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

  Jouncing along in the carriage beside Gil on the way home, as emotion gave way to intellect, Joelle began to have some second thoughts. “Gil, were you offended by my behavior tonight? With the billiards game? You never mentioned it.”

  He sighed, taking her hand. “I was just worried. You know I love you and want to take care of you, and you have this tendency to wander about, saying and doing things without considering the consequences.”

  Well, that much was true. Maybe she did need him, to keep her from wandering into explosive devices like Schuyler Beaumont.

  Gil, on the other hand, would be getting the bad side of the bargain. “Why do you want to marry me?” she blurted. “If I’m so much trouble, I mean.”

  “Why? Because you’re—you’re—” She could hear him gulp in the darkness of the carriage. “You obviously don’t look in a mirror very often. Which—now that I think about it, that’s a very good trait!” He sounded cheerful to have thought of something that wouldn’t sound shallow. “You’re modest and thrifty, as well as pretty! I know how much you love God’s Word. You’re devoted to your family, and I’ve seen you defend your poor cousin ThomasAnne. And as I said, I admire your service to your slaves—I mean employees—teaching them to read, although I think you’ll likely have to give that up when we get married, because you’ll be much too busy with church work—”

  “Gil.” He talked a lot, when he got going. “Thank you, but I didn’t want a laundry list of my attributes. I simply wanted to know how you feel.”

  “How I feel? I believe I said I love you. Twice.”

  She bit her lip. “Never mind.”

  They completed the remainder of the trip in awkward silence.

  She looked up at him as he handed her down onto the drive path of her grandparents’ house on Adams Avenue. “Gil, before you talk to my grandfather, I want to ask you something else.”

  “Before I—what do you mean ‘talk to your grandfather’?”

  “Well, you’ll have to ask him for my hand, of course.”

  “Why? You’re a grown woman.”

  In other words, an old maid. On the shelf. Most girls married before turning twenty, and Joelle had long passed that. She sighed. “He’ll expect it.” Grandpapa was very old-fashioned.

  Gil audibly gulped. “All right. What did you want to ask me?”

  “Never mind. It’s not important.” She was too tired and overwrought for any more intellectual conversation. “Well, there is a lot to talk about, but let’s get this part of it over with.” Grandmama was the one who was going to give her trouble.

  “Are you sure?” Now he sounded uncertain.

  “Just pay the cab and let’s go inside.”

  They found her grandparents in the first-floor salon with Doc Kidd and ThomasAnne. The two women shared a settee near the open window, where lacy curtains fluttered in a desultory breeze. Gaslight from the wall sconces cast harsh shadows on Grandmama’s craggy, aristocratic features but somehow turned ThomasAnne into an even more muted watercolor painting than usual. Doc was engaged with Grandpapa on the other side of the room, the two physicians nursing brandy snifters and carrying on a lively conversation, probably about catheters or cadavers or some such.

  ThomasAnne jumped
to her feet, clearly relieved at the arrival of another target for Grandmama’s critical tongue. “Joelle! You’re back! See, Aunt Winnie, I told you—”

  “Yes, yes, I have eyes in my head, girl.” Grandmama waved ThomasAnne back to her seat but continued to glare at Joelle. “Your grandfather was about to go out searching for you, and wouldn’t that be a fine disaster if he should come to grief in some lowbrow neighborhood?”

  Oddly heartened by this familiar harangue, Joelle laughed. “Grandmama, the Peabody is barely two blocks away, and nobody remotely lowbrow could afford to live in its vicinity. As you can see, Gil and I are perfectly fine.”

  With a loud “Hmph,” Grandmama transferred her cobra-esque stare on poor Gil, promptly reducing him to a stammering mass of red-faced apologies.

  “I told her we shouldn’t—that is, it seemed perfectly innocent. I’ve always wanted to meet General Forrest and his wife. And Joelle would have been fine if Schuyler Beaumont hadn’t—”

  “Schuyler?” Grandmama pounced at mention of her favorite. “Then he was at the Peabody? Why didn’t he come to see me?”

  “I’m sure I don’t—”

  “Grandmama!” Interrupting Gil’s spiral into incoherence, Joelle sank into the closest chair. The headache was turning into a migraine, and bedtime seemed nowhere in sight. “Schuyler begged me to give you his regards and to tell you that he will come to call. Gil, why don’t you ask Grandpapa for a short audience?”

  Grandmama, who was nobody’s fool, pounced. “Audience? Do you mean audience audience?”

  ThomasAnne looked confused. “What is an audience audience?”

  “Gil.” Joelle gave him a nudge. “Grandpapa is right over there.”

  He gulped. “Oh. Yes.” He turned and stumbled away, muttering, “She already said yes. It’s not as if he can—but what if he doesn’t . . .”

  “Did you already say yes?” Grandmama looked amused.

  “Say yes to what?” ThomasAnne looked from Joelle to Grandmama and back.