“Oh goodness, no,” Pauline said. “Papa had one of the houseboys carry the creature out to the country and bring Margaret back a kitten. A much more suitable pet.”
Adriane smiled at Pauline, and as they turned back toward the house, one of the servants came out to light the gas lights along the pathways. The black boy stopped beside Pauline with his gaze on the ground. “Miss Pauline, the Missus says to tell you and the other missy that the guests is beginning to gets here.”
“Thank you, Samuel.” The boy went on about his work, and Pauline and Adriane walked a bit more quickly on toward the house where light and the beginning strains of music were spilling out the double doors. As they started up the steps to go inside, Pauline laid her hand on Adriane’s arm and stopped her a moment.
“So you do understand?” Pauline asked. “I mean, we do love Margaret dearly, but I fear living in the North has caused her to pick up some of the Yankees’ lack of civility. You won’t allow her careless talk to bother you, will you?”
“Of course not,” Adriane said, although she was beginning to doubt she understood anything and especially this family.
Pauline rewarded her answer with a warm smile. “Our Stanley is a very fortunate man.”
As they moved on up the steps toward the wide double doors, the sound of distant thunder followed them. Pauline glanced up at the spreading clouds again.
“Father will be furious if it rains. He rather expects the weather to cooperate with his plans, and strangely enough, it usually does. I can’t remember a storm ever spoiling our summer gala. Stanley says Father tells the Lord what kind of weather he wants, and the good Lord’s afraid not to comply.” Pauline laughed a little then as, the clouds forgotten, she led the way into the house.
13
The party was every bit as tedious as Adriane had expected. She tried to fade into the background and eavesdrop on the political discussions as she’d done so easily in the days before she became Stanley Jimson’s intended, but now eyes and sometimes whispers were always following her, especially tonight.
Perhaps Meta Jimson had been right. Perhaps she was too conspicuous in the silvery blue dress. Men she’d never seen before kept appearing at her side to tell her how lovely she was. Then they stared at her with dazzled expressions and were completely unable to carry on any sort of sensible conversation.
At first she’d been worried about Stan’s reaction to all these admirers, but as the evening progressed and he kept positively beaming at her, she realized he was enjoying the men’s bedazzlement much more than she was. Adriane began to feel as if she were no more than another amazing decoration the Jimsons had found for their summer gala, second only to the mountain of exotic fruits in the middle of the banquet table.
Her smile grew stiff and tired as she tried to think of acceptable responses to the inane talk of the men on her dance card. So when her scheduled partner was slow to claim her for the upcoming dance, she slipped through the French doors out into the garden where she embraced the slight chill in the air. Although the rain had held off, clouds hid the stars and lightning continued to flash in the distance.
Adriane rubbed her cheeks to wipe away every trace of smile from her face as she sat down on a deeply shadowed bench not far from the steps without worrying about whether her skirts were nicely arranged or not. Perhaps she could stay hidden there the rest of the evening. While it might be more interesting to be hiding behind a chair in the library where Coleman Jimson and his cronies were talking, this pocket of darkness was the next best thing.
She peeked around the thick evergreen tree behind her toward the house. The musicians were playing again, and couples were sweeping by the windows in a new redowa. Adriane watched for Stan, who was being careful to dance with a different lady each song, but she couldn’t spot him. She decided to dare a few more minutes of solitude.
When two people began talking on the other side of the trees behind her, she pulled in her breath and sat as quietly as possible. She smiled a little, wondering if she was about to overhear one of the famous Jimson garden proposals, but as the voices continued, her smile drained away. There was nothing loving about these familiar voices.
“I’m warning you, Margaret,” Stanley was saying. “Don’t try to fill Adriane’s head with your foolish lies.”
“Lies?” Margaret said with a short, unpleasant laugh. “I don’t lie, dear brother. That’s one family trait I was not blessed with, I’m afraid.”
“You missed out on a lot of family traits.”
“Yes, praise the Lord,” Margaret said. “But surely it can’t matter what I tell Adriane if she loves you.”
“You don’t have to sound as if you don’t think that could be possible. She is marrying me.”
“So you say.” Margaret managed to inject a heavy sound of doubt into her words.
“She practically begged me to propose.”
Stanley sounded smug, and Adriane couldn’t say he was lying. She thought back to the awkward carriage proposal and wished she’d never heard any sort of proposal from him.
“Do you love her?” Margaret was asking on the other side of the trees.
“Of course,” Stan answered easily. “Adriane is beautiful and quite charming.”
“Charming?” Margaret interrupted. “Mother seems to think she’s brash and independent and not at all suitable.”
“She is a bit different from other girls I’ve known.”
“Are you sure you’ll be able to handle her, Stanley?”
Stan’s voice was cold when he answered. “I’ve yet to meet a woman I couldn’t handle.”
“Really?” Again Margaret barked her short laugh. “How about me?”
“Have you forgotten your cat?” Stanley’s voice sounded almost casual, but even without seeing his face, Adriane knew the words were intended to wound his sister.
“I’d think that would be something you’d pray I had forgotten.” All hint of laughter was gone from her voice now.
“Oh no, my dear sister, far from it. I want you to remember forever how I strung up your stupid cat. Muffin, wasn’t it?”
Adriane wanted to run back into the house to escape the hatred in their voices, but instead she sat motionless, hardly daring to breathe for fear they’d discover her eavesdropping on them.
“You can’t hurt me anymore, Stanley,” Margaret said after a moment. “Or control what I say.”
“Perhaps not, but it might be well for you to keep in mind that Father wants me to marry Adriane.”
“Why? She’s not rich, is she?”
“Hardly,” Stan said with a short laugh. “Her father is a great man with words but a fool with money.”
Adriane started up on the bench as if to defend her father, but then what could she say? Stan spoke the truth.
“Then why is Father so in favor of the match?” Margaret was asking.
“You saw her. He’d like to have her for himself. Since he can’t, he plans to have her vicariously through me.”
“How can you even insinuate such a thing? Father would never be such a cad.”
“No? You remember as well as I seeing Mother nudge our dear Papa awake with a gun to his head.” Stanley sounded like the memory amused him.
“That was years ago, and besides, that had nothing at all to do with women. Mother was angry because Father had cut off your curls and high time. You were nearly six.”
“That was not the first time,” Stan said slyly. “Or the last.”
“How could you know such a thing?” Margaret sounded disbelieving.
“Mother tells me things.” Stan laughed softly. “Sometimes I wonder how our dear Papa has managed to live through so many dangerous nights.”
Behind them the doors of the house opened, and music and noise spilled out as a young man led a giggling belle down the steps to the garden. Stanley and Margaret quickly moved away down the path. Adriane barely waited for the whispering couple to pass her before she jumped to her feet and fled up the ste
ps and back into the house. A lively polka was in progress, and she could only hope all eyes were on the dancers. She pushed the smile back onto her face as she searched through the guests for her father or Lucilla. She would feign illness and ask to be taken home.
“But my dear,” one of Lucilla’s friends finally told her. “You know how Lucilla can’t bear such an awful crush of people, so when your father retired to the library with some of the men, she decided to go home alone.”
“I see.” Adriane forced a smile as she moved past the woman.
Across the room Margaret came in from the garden alone and peered about until her eyes caught on Adriane. With a determined look on her face, she started across the floor toward Adriane. She’d not gone two steps when a man grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the dance floor. At first Margaret appeared reluctant, but the man was insistent. Margaret gave in with a smile and joined the dancers. Adriane sent up a silent prayer of thanks for the reprieve. She couldn’t talk to Margaret. Not until she had time to think.
But the reprieve wouldn’t last. The music would end and Stanley would come in from the garden to claim Adriane for their dance. She’d have to smile at him and pretend that she could continue this farce. The very thought of his voice in her ears or his hands touching her as they danced made her throat tighten and her breath come hard. She couldn’t do it. Not tonight. She had to get away from this house, from these people. In the morning light she might be able to bear it, but now the darkness was closing around her. She had to escape.
When Adriane spotted Pauline watching the dancers not far from the front entrance hallway, she hurried over to her. “Pauline, I do hope your mother will forgive me, but my father’s fiancée is not feeling well and we must leave. You will convey my farewells to your mother and Stanley, won’t you?”
“Oh my dear, I’m so sorry. But I’m sure Stanley will want to accompany you.” Pauline looked around with a little frown. “Where is he?”
“I’m not sure. Perhaps he is with your father and their friends in the library.” Adriane managed a small smile. “You know men. They must have their pipes and cigars.”
“And their politics,” Pauline agreed.
“It would not be wise to interrupt them. Lucilla and I will be fine. Now please do forgive me, but I shouldn’t keep Lucilla waiting. I will explain everything to Stanley tomorrow.” As the music ended, Adriane touched her cheek quickly to Pauline’s and moved away before the woman could voice more delaying protests. From the corner of her eye, Adriane could see Margaret pushing her way across the room toward them.
Adriane fled from the house without taking time to even collect her wrap. She told herself she should want to talk to Margaret. And perhaps she would. Tomorrow.
Carriages were crammed all along the street in front of the house as the drivers and horses waited patiently for the party to be over. One carriage was moving away, but Adriane couldn’t see it well enough to tell if it was Lucilla’s. Behind her the door opened again, and Adriane stepped into the shadows. Margaret’s thick body was outlined in the light spilling from the house as she stared after the departing carriage for a moment before going back inside.
Adriane waited in the shadows until the music starting up again drifted out the open windows. Then she began walking down the line of carriages as if the very next one was the one she sought. She kept her head high as if it were perfectly normal for a young lady to be wandering alone among the rows of carriages without an escort.
When she got to the end of the carriages, she just kept walking. The gas lamps had been lit long ago, and the streets were not dark. She could walk the few blocks home. Perhaps if good fortune smiled on her, everyone who might recognize her was still at the party, and there would be no one to see or report her outrageous behavior to her father or the Jimsons.
She had gone only a short way down the street when a small carriage pulled to a stop directly beside her and Blake Garrett jumped down in front of her.
“Adriane.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her around to face him. “It is you. For a moment I thought you might be Cinderella searching for her coach.”
“Mr. Garrett,” she murmured as if they’d just chanced to meet on the street in the middle of the afternoon. “I did not see you at the party.”
“Trouble with the press delayed me,” he said. “It appears you are not at the party either. What in the world are you doing out here alone?”
“I felt ill.” Adriane touched her forehead and tried to look faint. She didn’t have to try very hard. “I came out to catch my father’s fiancée’s carriage to ride home with her, but she was already gone. So I decided to walk.”
“Young Jimson allowed this?” Blake sounded incredulous.
Adriane dropped her eyes to the street. “I didn’t want to trouble him. This gala is so important to him and his family.” She was entirely too aware of his hand on her arm.
“Surely not as important as you,” Blake said. “Don’t you know it could be dangerous out here on the street? You haven’t forgotten there is a killer loose in the city, have you?”
“It’s only a few blocks to my house. I’m sure I’ll be quite safe.” Adriane tried to step back away from Blake.
Blake held her arm tighter and stared down at her. “My dear lady, if you think I’m going to allow you to wander off in the darkness alone, you have another think coming. It appears you are in need of rescue once again.”
Adriane looked around her. Outside the scattered pools of light from the streetlamps, it was very dark. She shivered not entirely from the cool evening air, and Blake stripped off his cloak to drape it about her.
“I fear you are right, Mr. Garrett.” Adriane lost all resistance to his help as she pulled the cloak carrying his warmth and manly odor close around her. It was ridiculous to take such comfort in the feel of the cloth. “And once more I’m grateful. Please, if it would not be too much of an inconvenience, I beg you to escort me home.”
“You don’t want to go back to the party and wait for Stanley?” Blake’s eyes burned into hers.
“If that would suit you better.” She forced herself to say the words, although it was the last thing in the world she wanted to do. “I suppose it is unfair of me to ask you to forgo the party to see me home.”
“Who gives a whit about the party?” Blake said as he put his hand under her elbow. “Come.”
He helped her into the carriage, then spoke with the driver before he climbed in beside her. The carriage seat was so small Adriane couldn’t keep her skirts from spilling over on his legs.
When she tried to pull the flowing material back, he touched her hand and said, “Don’t concern yourself.” Then he lightly stroked the silky fabric. “It’s almost as if I am being wrapped in moonlight. Hardly something I could mind, now is it, Adriane?” His eyes came up to her face. “It is all right if I call you Adriane, isn’t it? I feel as if I know you so well.”
Adriane looked down at her hands. “You really don’t know me at all, Mr. Garrett. I’m not always so muddled that I need rescuing.”
“I have no doubt that’s true, but any gentleman would be honored to rescue such a beautiful princess.”
Adriane sighed. “Do you know how many times I’ve been told I was beautiful tonight?”
“No more than were true, I’m sure,” Blake said with a smile in his voice. “But obviously more than you could bear. Forgive me. As a man of letters, I should be more original, but I was never much of a poet.”
“Cinderella was almost poetic.” Adriane tried to smile but didn’t quite succeed. She felt a bit like Cinderella, except that instead of discovering her true love at the ball, she had opened the wrong closet door to let a pile of family skeletons fall out on top of her.
“Merely inspired by the way you were hurrying panic-stricken down the street.” He was quiet a moment before he went on. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
His voice was so soft and kind that for an insane moment she wanted to
lean her head on his shoulder and tell him everything. How she didn’t think she could bear marrying Stanley Jimson. How she was afraid to be part of a family that could hide so much hatred for one another. How if she didn’t go through with the wedding, her father would be ruined.
She stared at Blake Garrett’s face in the dim light filtering through the carriage’s windows and reminded herself that this man would be happy to see the Tribune and her father fall. It was foolish of her to want to tell him her troubles. It was best to stick with her first lie.
“I told you already. I felt ill.”
“You don’t impress me as someone given to the vapors.”
She dropped her eyes back to her hands in her lap. “As I said, you don’t really know me that well.”
He put his fingers under her chin and gently lifted her face back up until she was looking at him again. “But I want to know you better if you’ll only let me,” he said after a moment.
His touch on her chin set off a fire inside her, and instead of pulling away from his hand the way she knew she should, she only waited and even hoped for what might happen next. Slowly he dropped his head toward hers and gently covered her lips with his.
His lips were soft, warm, and insistent, and her lips responded shamelessly as they had never responded to Stan’s cool kisses. His hand stroked down her neck and found her shoulder under his cloak. He began to pull her closer to him, and her arms seemed to rise of their own volition to wrap around his neck. She buried her fingers in his dark wavy hair, and suddenly his lips on hers demanded more.
Her own lips answered, and if the carriage hadn’t suddenly stopped, jolting her out of whatever spell his touch had put her under, she wasn’t sure what might have happened. She pulled away from him and tried to jerk the door open.
He grabbed her and pinned her gently against the seat. “Don’t run from me, Adriane.” His eyes burned into her.
“I can’t do this.” Her heart was beating madly and her breath was coming in gasps. Worse than any of that, she thought she might burst into tears because she so missed the warmth of his arms around her.
Words Spoken True: A Novel Page 14
