The Right Man

by Anne Stuart

  When she suggested she might like a few moments of quiet prayer Tallulah’s father and fiancé looked at her as if she was possessed. “No need for such nonsense,” Ridley dismissed it in his gruff voice. “You’ll have plenty of time for that once you’re married.”

  “You’re not going to become some kind of religious fanatic, are you?” Neddie demanded.

  “Wanting to pray would make me a religious fanatic?”

  “Please!” Ridley said. “Religion is a personal matter, not for public discussion. For heaven’s sake spare us your insights.”

  So much for spiritual help, Susan thought. The rehearsal went on and on and on, the old stone church filled with chattering people she had to pretend to know. Fortunately Mary kept close, whispering identifications in her ear, and Susan managed to keep a straight face when she’d meet someone she’d heretofore known as a stately dowager.

  The dead ones were the hardest. Susan’s mother had been instilled with proper social etiquette, and when an Abbott family friend or distant relative had died she had considered it her duty to attend the funeral, and quite often she’d taken her daughter with her, training Susan in the fine art of social niceties. There were at least a dozen hale, hearty, jovial members of the massive wedding party whom Susan had seen buried, and kissing their warm cheeks, smiling at them while she knew their eventual fate, was completely unnerving.

  There were ten bridesmaids, all chattering in highpitched voices, but for some reason her godmother, Louisa, wasn’t among them. There were ten ushers, their deeper voices echoing in counterpoint in the old stone church. The priest, Father Montgomery, was a stately old man whose mellow tones could barely be heard above the babble, and the organist forgot to show up. Someone else pitched in with a mistakeridden version of the bridal march, and Susan had no choice but to let Ridley drag her up the aisle on her tottery high heels, following the bevy of chattering debutantes, to hand her over to Neddie.

  Jack stood next to him, and Susan stared up in utter horror, ignoring her fiancé. “You’re the best man?”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Tallulah,” Neddie snapped. “You know perfectly well Freddy is the best man. McGowan is just filling in until he gets here.”

  “Kind of you,” she murmured dazedly.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Ridley announced. “The rest of the family is expecting us back at the house for the rehearsal dinner.”

  The bridesmaids bumped into each other. Ridley tripped as he practiced moving back to the front pew. The ushers kept losing their places, and Neddie stepped on her foot when they practiced kneeling at the altar.

  But worst of all, Jack McGowan refused to mimic the best man’s part in the ceremony. “I forgot the ring,” he said, his hands shoved carelessly in his pockets.

  Neddie growled, but Father Montgomery simply laughed. “It’s lucky you’re only standing in, young man, or we would have a disaster on our hands.”

  “People can get married without a ring,” Neddie rumbled. “I don’t intend to let anything get in the way of this ceremony.” He smiled his flashing smile, and it seemed as if no one else heard the threat in his voice.

  By the time they all piled back into the various cars, the noise level had risen to an even shriller pitch, and Susan’s head was aching so badly she wanted to scream. On the way over to the church she’d been crammed into a huge black sedan, wedged between bridesmaids. Neddie was in the midst of hustling her toward that same sedan when she spied a wonderful-looking hot rod belonging to one of the younger ushers.

  Mary was already ensconced in the back seat of the convertible, squeezed between two of the ushers, looking absolutely delighted. “Come with us, Lou!” she called. “You need the wind in your hair.”

  Neddie’s fingers dug painfully into her arm, but there was no way he could stop her without making a scene. “I’d love to,” she called, pulling away from him and running across the neatly manicured lawn. She climbed into the front seat, flashing her sister a brilliant smile. At the moment nothing mattered more than simply getting away from Neddie’s oppressive presence.

  “You used to love fast cars. You wanna drive, Lou?” the young man behind the wheel asked, and for a moment Susan was sorely tempted. But she’d never learned to operate a standard shift, and God only knew what kind of clutch and choke these old cars had.

  “You drive,” she said airily. “I’ll enjoy the ride.”

  The young man took off with a squeal of tires, throwing Susan back against the seat, and she heard Mary shriek with laughter.

  “What are you looking for?” the driver shouted over the rushing wind.

  Susan stopped rummaging around her. Of course there’d be no seat belt. And there was nothing to worry about—in 1999 Mary was still alive and Tallulah had survived long enough to marry Neddie. “I dropped a...a bobby pin,” she said, feeling very clever.

  “You don’t use bobby pins, Lou!” Mary called from the back seat. “Hey, Todd, why don’t we drive to Eddie’s and get some ice cream?”

  “Aren’t we supposed to be back for the dinner?”

  “They’ll start without us. I need ice cream,” she shouted.

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Susan sat very still in the front seat. “Todd?” she said.

  He was a gorgeous young man, healthy, full of high spirits and gentle humor, and Susan had a sudden dreadful feeling she knew exactly who he was. Her mother had told her about their beloved cousin Todd, who’d died in a car accident when he was in his early twenties. The young man beside her drove fast and well, and his smile was full of charm as he switched on the car radio and filled the air with music.

  She leaned over and turned the sound down. “Todd,” she said again, her voice urgent.

  “What, Lou?” He caught the seriousness of her voice, and he slowed the car a bit.

  “Drive carefully.”

  He grinned. “Don’t worry, cuz. I’m not going to crack us up the night before your wedding. Trust me. I can’t imagine why you’re so eager to marry someone like old Neddie, but it’s your choice. I won’t do anything to stop you.”

  “Oh, feel free,” she said airily.

  “I wouldn’t want to interfere with fate.” He pulled up to a drive-in ice-cream stand with a flourish.

  She remembered his grave in the family plot near her grandfather’s. He’d died in the early 1950s, his car going off a bridge in Princeton when he was an undergraduate. “I would,” she said firmly. “Too many people die in car accidents. Slow down.”

  “I’m parked, Lou!”

  “I mean in general,” she said. “Especially on bridges. Promise me.”

  He grinned at her, a charming, youthful grin. “You’re nuts, you know that?”

  “Promise me. As a wedding present.”

  He shook his head with a rueful laugh. “I promise, Lou. I’ll drive like a parson.”

  It was the best she could hope for. She could still see the marble headstone, one Abbott amidst so many other Abbotts, and then a sudden realization struck her.

  Tallulah’s grave wasn’t in that large, dignified family plot. Her parents were there, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents and great-grandparents and even beyond. Susan had been there just last year, as Greataunt Tessie had been interred.

  But there was no stone marking Tallulah Abbott’s final resting place.

  Without thinking she turned to Mary. “Where did they bury Tallulah?”

  For a moment a shocked silence filled the car. Then Todd laughed. “Beneath Neddie, I expect. But you’re going to have to wait a few decades.”

  Susan managed an airy laugh, and the tension was broken. “Sorry, I must have been daydreaming. Thinking about death, I’m afraid.”

  “You’re supposed to be thinking about the future,” Mary said sternly.

  “Well, eventually that’ll be the future. Where do you want to be buried?”

  “Ewwww,” Mary said with a grimace. “Listen, the family plot by St. Anne’s is big enough f
or every Abbott whoever lived. We’ll all be there.”

  Except Tallulah.

  “Let’s concentrate on what’s important,” one of boys in the back said. “Ice cream.”

  “You’ll have chocolate, right, Lou?” Mary prompted her. “You’ve always been crazy about chocolate.”

  Susan hated chocolate. Her mother had always insisted she had to be a changeling—no Abbott woman had ever failed to be a total chocoholic. Though in fact, that was exactly what she was at the moment. A changeling.

  “I think I’ll have black raspberry instead,” she said. “After all, I’m starting a new life tomorrow, I might as well begin now by trying new things.”

  “Will wonders never cease? Tallulah Abbott turning down chocolate!” The older boy in the back, a young man named Wilson, collapsed in mock surprise.

  Susan grinned at him. Wilson grew up to father one of her best friends, and he’d always been one of her favorite people. “Life is full of surprises, Wilson,” she said. “You couldn’t even begin to guess.”

  The party was in full swing by the time they made it back to the Abbott mansion. Elda and Ridley had seen to everything—the catering trucks were parked off to one side, and several uniformed young men were parking the myriad of classic vehicles. Except they weren’t classic—most of them were brand-spanking-new, the product of postwar production.

  Susan looked about her dazedly as she climbed the wide front steps “How many people are here?”

  “You know Elda.” Mary was by her side. “She loves to put on a party. Let’s just hope everyone’s in a good mood and we don’t have any disasters.”

  “I think that’s too much to hope for,” Susan muttered, taking a deep breath and stepping into the noisy crowd.

  It was. The wicked trio, Elda, Ridley and Neddie were holding court, each with their own coterie, and all three fixed Susan with a steely glare when she made her belated entrance. Fortunately the party was so crowded there was no way any of them could get close enough to make their displeasure known, and she simply smiled, said all the right things to perfect strangers and moved on out to the formal gardens. Long tables had been set up out there, covered in white linen and silver chafing dishes. Even eating al fresco the Abbotts did things in a grand manner. Most of the younger people were outside, and even though no one loosened a tie or slipped off a high-heeled shoe, they seemed relatively at ease.

  The back gardens abutted on a thick forest that in fifty years would be upscale condos. Right now it was an artfully wild tangle of growth, marking the border where the Abbotts could no longer control things, though there were paths leading through the woods, and several couples were already taking advantage of them. It was a warmish night, though Susan couldn’t rid herself of that lingering chill that had plagued her for what seemed like forever. She ought to go back in the house and see if she could find a cardigan or something, but then she’d run the risk of running into her fiancé and her parents, and a little chill was worth a few minutes’ peace.

  There were a few children around—a couple of preadolescent girls trying hard to be grown-up, a towheaded toddler, just barely walking, wandering around with her harassed mother trailing behind her. The noise by the outside bar was getting louder, the laughter growing, as the early evening darkened around them.

  Fortunately Mary had raised her with all the necessary social skills of an earlier generation. She was entirely capable of holding long conversations with total strangers she supposedly had known her entire life, asking the right questions, nodding sagely, smiling, smiling. She wanted to get away from them all. If one more slightly inebriated young man came up to her and offered to steal her away from Neddie, if one more young woman sighed over how lucky she was to have won someone who was handsome, wealthy and charming, she would scream.

  Cousin Ginny, chasing her rambunctious baby, passed by. “I just wanted to tell you how lucky you are,” she said breathlessly, as her little one toddled on by. “Neddie’s absolutely wonderful. I’m hoping he can get your cousin Doug a job.”

  Mary had already primed her on this one—Doug was a drinker, Ginny his long-suffering wife, and between the two of them they didn’t have a cent. Only baby Krissie wandering around, grabbing food off the table and chortling.

  “I’m sure he will,” Susan said. “Excuse me, Ginny, I’ll be right back.” And she practically sprinted toward the edge of the garden, or as close to sprinting as she could go in the high-heeled, opentoed shoes she was wearing.

  The crowds thinned out by the edge of the woods, and she paused, taking a deep breath. The terrace was packed with people, and she could see Neddie now, looking around him impatiently. She was too far away to see his expression, but his body language was easy enough to read. He was looking for his errant bride, and he wasn’t pleased with her.

  She wasn’t in the mood to be manhandled, lectured or even glowered at. There was no one nearby, and she simply melted into the woods before anyone could notice she was gone.

  Or so she hoped. It was still and quiet in the forest. In the distance she could hear music and the chattering voices. A band had set up on the west side of the lawn—Mary was right in that Elda spared no expense when she entertained. But the tall trees and shrubbery muffled the noise, and as the darkness descended she could see a few fireflies flickering about.

  She couldn’t very well sit in her damned fussy frock, so she leaned against a thick tree and closed her eyes, breathing in the cool air, the deceptive stillness, with that foreign world she’d landed in remote and set apart. If she tried very hard she could almost feel as if she were home again.

  She lost track of time, her eyes closed, dreaming, when she suddenly realized she wasn’t alone in her little clearing in the woods. Someone was watching her.

  If she ignored him maybe he’d go away. It couldn’t be Neddie—he’d barge up and grab her, not keep his distance. And it couldn’t be Ridley—he’d be whining. As far as she could figure out, there was only one person in 1949 Matchfield, Connecticut, who’d be interested enough to follow her. And he was standing too damned close.

  She opened her eyes, staring up into Jack’s somber ones. “Are you stalking me?”

  “Stalking?” he echoed, perplexed.

  They didn’t have stalkers in the past? “Never mind,” she said. “What did you want? I was looking for a little peace and quiet, not cozy conversation.”

  It was darker now, the lights from the patio a distant glow. The music was growing louder, and people were dancing.

  “The conversation I had in mind isn’t particularly cozy,” he said.

  “What now? More dire warnings? Why don’t you pull out all the stops and tell me Jimmy would be spinning in his grave if he knew I was going to marry Neddie Marsden? You’ve tried everything else.”

  “You think he’d approve?”

  “Of course not. But Jimmy’s dead, we both know that. And I can’t live my life the way he would have wanted.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “And how do you suggest I do that?”

  “You could come away with me instead of marrying that bastard.”

  She slapped him. Hard, across the face, hurting her hand, the sound of it shocking. And then she stood frozen, disbelieving that she had done such a thing.

  He didn’t react. “You’ve seen too many Hollywood movies, Lou,” he said in a caustic voice.

  “I—I’m sorry...”

  “No, don’t apologize. It ruins the entire effect,” he drawled. “Outraged womanhood and all that. How come a proposal deserves a slap, though? Outside of the fact that it’s the night before your wedding to someone else.”

  “It wasn’t a proposal and you know it.”

  “Sounded like one to me.”

  “So you followed me into the woods during my rehearsal dinner to propose...something. Any particular reason? Were you suddenly overcome by passion? You realized you’ve loved me forever and you can’t see me throwing my life away on the wrong man?”
<
br />   He said nothing, the mark of her hand standing out against his tanned face.

  “What, no passionate declarations of love?” she mocked him. “Of course not. You see, I know why you’re doing this, Jack. It was Jimmy’s idea, right? It just took you four years to get around to it,” she said bitterly. She was beyond thinking clearly, beyond wondering how she knew things only Tallulah would know. Somehow during the past forty-eight hours she and Lou had become one, and Lou’s emotions and memories had become hers. The man in front of her, the man she wanted to kill, was the man she was in love with, and always had been.

  “It was Jimmy’s idea,” Jack said finally. “He must have known there was a good chance he wouldn’t come back. He wrote and asked me to look after you.”

  “Well, I’d say you failed, big-time,” she shot back. “You blew your brother’s last request, hotshot. I’m being forced to marry a bullying criminal, and there’s not a damned thing anyone can do about it. And your noble sacrifice is too damned little, too damned late.”

  To her amazement he didn’t look particularly chastened. As a matter of fact, he smiled at her, with something like relief. “That’s the Lou I remember,” he said. “For four years you’ve been walking around like a zombie. I don’t think you let a curse word past your lips in all that time. Welcome back.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “You want to hit me again?” he taunted.

  “Yes!” She moved toward him, like a fool, not realizing his intention. He caught her upraised hand and pulled her into his arms, her body slamming up against his. This time when he kissed her she kissed him back, surrendering with a quiet moan of longing and despair.

  It went on forever. His big hands threaded through her carefully arranged hair, pulling it free, and he kissed her mouth, her throat, the corners of her eyes.

  “Run away with me, Lou,” he whispered against her skin. “We can make a good team. We’re both too old to believe in true love anymore....”

  She kicked him. Hard, in the shins, her uncomfortable shoes finally good for something.