by Nan Ryan
“Dane,” he corrected, and took her hand in both of his.
“Thank you, Dane.”
“You’re welcome, Elizabeth.” He moved a little closer. “Come to a wine supper with me tomorrow evening.”
“No, I’m sorry. I can’t.”
“Can’t? Or don’t want to?”
“Good night, Mr. Curtin.”
9
IN HER NARROW BED that night, sleep eluded Elizabeth. She found herself comparing the way she and her father lived to that of the Curtins. For the first time in ages she felt a measure of the old hatred and resentment that had once threatened to consume her.
Fighting those destructive feelings, wanting to leave the past buried and forgotten, she tried to fall asleep. But the thin mattress on which she lay was lumpy and worn and beneath her cheek the unbleached muslin pillowcase was rough and scratchy. Tossing restlessly, unable to get comfortable, Elizabeth sighed with frustration.
She missed—would always miss—the feel of the fine silky linens that had graced all the tall four-posters in the big white mansion high on the bluffs of the Mississippi.
That stately mansion built by her long-dead grandfather, Edgar Montbleau. The spacious mansion now owned and occupied by a rich Northern carpetbagger.
Yankees living in her home! Sleeping in her bed!
Elizabeth shut her eyes tightly, and her hands curled into fists, the nails cutting into her palms. She felt a heaviness in her chest, an overwhelming longing for the happy, tranquil days of her youth. Before the war. Before the Yankees.
There had been no Yankees in the white-columned mansion on that glorious early spring day in 1861 when she had returned home after completing her schooling in New York City.
Warm and sunny, the humid air sweetened with the scent of early-blooming roses, it had been a perfect day. She’d had no way of knowing that instead of it being the first of many such perfect days, it would be the last.
Elizabeth began to smile as she recalled with vivid clarity everything about that wonderful April day. The entire family and half the servants had been down on the private jetty when the sternwheeler, Eastern Princess, had rounded the last bend in the river. From the tall texas deck she had waved madly, her heart pounding with happiness and excitement.
It was like a holiday with old friends coming to call and lots of presents and hugs and kisses and a big midday meal with all her favorite foods. And then, that evening, had come the best part of all.
The guests had all gone and she had sat on the veranda steps in cool spring twilight while her distinguished gray-haired father dozed peacefully in his favorite white wicker chair and her beautiful red-haired mother rocked contentedly beside him, smiling serenely.
Her brothers, Dave and Tommy, grown up and handsome in their finest clothes, had burst out onto the veranda, scuffling and laughing. They quickly kissed their mother’s pale cheek and ruffled Elizabeth’s hair, then bounded down the steps and out to the waiting carriage, and were off to the latest gala party.
Elizabeth watched them drive away and smiled, knowing that in only one more year, when she turned sixteen, she, too, would be off to the gay parties.
But there were to be no more parties.
The very next day, Pierre Beauregard commanded the attack on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and the war started. The three Montbleau men immediately formed and armed a troop for the Confederate Army and rode away from home. Forever.
After six lonely months in the empty mansion on the bluffs, Elizabeth and her mother, Helene, went to Atlanta to wait out the war with her mother’s sister, Aunt Julie. It was there they got news of the boys’ deaths.
Tommy and Dave were killed within days of each other. Tommy, the youngest, was the first to die. He lost his life in a charge at the bloody battle of Gettysburg on July 1st, his twenty-first birthday. Tommy was luckier than Dave, he was killed instantly with a bullet through the heart.
Dave, down in Vicksburg, less than a hundred miles from his home, starved to death in the long, terrible siege. A big-framed man, he survived for several hard, hungry weeks, taking his place in the trenches, too weak to stand.
His commanding officer said when it was finally all over on that July 4th, 1863, Captain David Edgar Montbleau never saw the victors come marching into the city, never heard the Union band play “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
He had died at dawn that day.
Elizabeth consoled her mother when the boys were killed, one terrible blow coming right after the other. But there was only Aunt Julie to console Elizabeth when her beautiful mother, Helene, died. The regal, patient, loving Helene Montbleau literally worked herself to death in a sweltering Georgia field hospital outside Atlanta in the hot summer of ’64.
Fleeing Sherman’s invading troops, Elizabeth and Aunt Julie went south to a cousin in New Orleans. Aunt Julie stayed there, but Elizabeth was never happy in that Yankee-occupied city where life went on just as if there were not a bloody war taking place in the rest of the country.
When a band of war widows and sweethearts enlisted the help of anyone they could find to go upriver to northern Louisiana to work in an overcrowded Confederate field hospital, Elizabeth overruled her Aunt Julie and went with the valiant ladies. She wanted to help. To do her part.
So she went to Shreveport, Louisiana … and … and …
Elizabeth gritted her teeth in the darkness. She had tried, in vain, to blot out all that had happened in Shreveport. She would not think about it now. She willed herself to skip ahead, to dwell on the relief and happiness she’d felt when she was reunited with her father.
She had finally found him in an eastern hospital, badly wounded and permanently crippled. His dulled eyes lighted with hope when he saw her, and she knew as she gripped his frail hand that she would find a way to take care of him, just as he had always taken care of her.
Miss DuGuire, the headmistress of the girls’ school she had attended, immediately came to mind. Perhaps Miss DuGuire needed an instructress at the school.
The stocky, gray-haired spinster was glad to see Elizabeth. She was understanding, but apologetic. Enrollment at the Academy for Young Ladies had drastically fallen off since the days before the war. It had been necessary to let two of her teachers go—instructors who had been with her for more than a decade.
Seeing Elizabeth’s disappointment, the sympathetic headmistress said, “But don’t you worry, my dear. I’ll call in a favor. The headmaster over at Boltwood owes me one.” She smiled mischievously.
“Boltwood? Isn’t that a boys’ school, Miss DuGuire?”
“It is.” Miss DuGuire pursed her thin lips, then smiled and said, “But I happen to know that they need an instructor badly.”
“That may well be, but—”
“Elizabeth Montbleau, you are going to be the first female teacher at Boltwood! Leave everything to me.” The portly woman giggled like a young girl.
Elizabeth would never know what kind of favor Miss DuGuire called in, but that same afternoon a tall, painfully skinny man with a beaklike nose, small brown eyes, and a few wispy gray hairs forming a horseshoe around his gleaming pate, arrived at Miss DuGuire’s Academy off Madison Square.
Professor Charles F. Durwood III, Harvard graduate and confirmed bachelor, had been the headmaster of Boltwood for twenty-five years. Elizabeth found him to be shy, stuffy, and humorless when he interviewed her, so she couldn’t believe it when he formally offered her a position at the all-male Boltwood Academy.
Her salary, she felt certain, was much lower than that of the male professors, but she was grateful to Charles F. Durwood III. And to Miss DuGuire. The money she made teaching at Boltwood afforded her the small two-room apartment for her sickly father and herself.
Normally Elizabeth felt very grateful for what little they had. At least they were together and there was always food on the table and enough clothes to keep them warm and money to buy her father’s medicines.
She should be ashamed of herself. There was n
o excuse for feeling this anger and self-pity all because she had visited the luxurious home of the wealthy Curtin family.
Elizabeth sighed loudly and turned on her stomach. She punched her lumpy pillow, laid her head down, and closed her eyes.
And immediately came to the decision that with the extra money she would earn tutoring young Benjamin Curtin, she’d go right out to buy a pair of fine silk pillowcases edged in delicate Belgian lace.
For weeks, Elizabeth said no.
Every time Dane Curtin invited her to join him for dinner or the theater, she politely but firmly turned him down. Naturally her puzzling reluctance to go out with him made her all the more attractive. Dane made it a point to be at his brother’s Fifth Avenue mansion each time she came to tutor young Benjamin.
He teased and flirted and remained undaunted when she repeatedly turned down his invitations. He couldn’t believe it when finally she said yes.
It was on a splendid sunny afternoon. From an outdoor balcony Dane secretly spied on Elizabeth and Benjamin. Inside his nephew’s upstairs bedroom, teacher and pupil sat cross-legged on the floor and studied, as though they were best friends, as if Elizabeth was the same age as Benjamin.
Enchanted, Dane watched with envy as the flame-haired teacher encouraged and praised and showed her student an abundance of affection. Young Benjamin glowed from all the attention. His school marks had improved dramatically.
When the session ended, Dane came to his feet and made his presence known. He joined the pair in young Benjamin’s room, bent and gave his nephew a big hug, and complimented him on his work. He did it because he knew it pleased Elizabeth as much as it pleased Benjamin.
Elizabeth was smiling her approval when Dane straightened. He smiled, too, and said casually, “Have dinner with me tonight at Delmonico’s.”
Continuing to smile, she said, “All right.”
Dane’s green eyes widened with surprise. “Did I hear correctly?”
“Is eight agreeable?” Elizabeth said, gathering up her books. “I’d like to be home no later than ten o’clock.”
Elizabeth enjoyed the evening. Dinner at the fashionable restaurant was such a treat she couldn’t believe that the time had passed so quickly when Dane Curtin said, “We’d better be going if you’re to be home by ten.”
At her door behind the stables on Twenty-fourth Street, Dane said, “Tell me, Miss Montbleau, that we’ll be doing this again.” He kissed her cheek.
“We will, Mr. Curtin,” she replied. “I’d like that. I’d like that very much.”
He smiled, kissed her cheek again, and as she stood watching, he turned and walked slowly away. When he’d rounded the corner at the alley, he ran as fast as he could back to the waiting carriage.
“You know where to go, Darcey,” he said to the liveried driver atop the box.
Moments later Dane rang the bell of the most imposing dwelling on Fifth Avenue. A butler let him in and silently pointed a white-gloved finger toward the marble staircase. Dane bolted up the steps two at a time.
She was waiting in her upstairs bedroom, still dressed to go out for the evening. An expensive Paris gown of yellow silk was molded so tightly to her thick waist, the seams were pulling. The shiny yellow bodice strained across her enormous breasts and dipped low in the shadowed valley where beads of sweat were pooling.
Her naturally curly black hair had been fashioned atop her head but had begun to droop and straggle down her short neck and to frizz about her plump, pouting face.
Dane Curtin fought down his distaste and hurried forth to greet the twenty-three-year-old Marjorie Ann Bishop.
“Darling, I’m so sorry. I’m dreadfully late and I know how disappointed my angel must be.”
The woman’s small, plump hands went to her wide hips. “I am angry with you, Dane Curtin,” she whined. “I shall never speak to you again.”
Knowing exactly what he had to do to appease the overweight, spoiled, decidedly unattractive young woman, Dane Curtin fixed a picture of the beautiful flame-haired Elizabeth Montbleau solidly in his mind and rushed forward to take in his arms the sole heir to one of the largest banking fortunes in America.
Marjorie Ann Bishop’s mood began to soften the minute his arms came around her. Her breathing grew raspy and loud in his ear when she felt his hands on her bare back and shoulders. She whispered excitedly, as if she hadn’t told him a dozen times before, that her parents were still in Europe.
“Undress me, Dainee,” she murmured anxiously. “Rip my clothes off.”
A muscle in Dane Curtin’s jaw throbbed. God, if only he could turn his back and she’d quietly undress, get into bed, and turn out the lamp. But he knew better. Knew there wasn’t a chance of getting off that easily.
For just a second longer he pressed her dark head to his pleated shirtfront, drew a deep, spine-stiffening breath, and prepared himself to begin the charade that would keep her happy.
But first he asked if she had done her part. Had she been a good girl? Was she playing the game fairly? Was she wearing beneath the billowing yellow ball gown the adornments he had requested?
She was, she was, she breathlessly assured him. She had on even more than the last time. Some really fine ones she’d found in her mother’s bedroom wall safe!
That last statement helped a great deal. He was curious and that curiosity, along with the fresh vision of a red-haired charmer, would see him through.
Dane’s fingers slid up into Marjorie Ann’s dark frizzy tresses and closed around a handful of the coarse, curly hair. Immediately he tightened his grip and jerked her head back forcefully.
Quickly he closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at the rouged face and large red mouth. He bent to her, brutally kissed her, and felt her plump body sag against his.
Now they were ready.
He lifted his head, shoved her away, and ordered, “Get undressed! Take everything off!”
Almost swooning with excitement, Marjorie Ann Bishop said the same thing she always said, “No! I will not, sir! I am a lady and you can’t—”
“Then I shall tear them off,” he thundered, right on cue.
Marjorie Ann couldn’t keep from giggling happily when he reached out, grabbed the low, tight bodice of her yellow silk dress, and yanked it down to her waist.
When her heavy, naked breasts spilled out, Dane Curtin was not totally repelled because Marjorie Ann had well prepared herself for the evening’s exercise. Sparkling blue-white diamonds and blood-red rubies and glittering green emeralds—more than she’d ever worn before—adorned the stretched white flesh of her big-nippled breasts.
In minutes the pair were lying on the huge canopied satin-sheeted bed that sat atop a large pedestal. Directly across the spacious room was a white marble fireplace, blazing cheerfully, over which a ceiling-high mirror reflected every movement made on the white bed.
Both were naked. Both were excited. Both were ready to play.
The very pale, very plump Marjorie Ann Bishop lay on her back, propped up on the many satin-cased pillows. Her fleshy bare arms were folded beneath her dark head, her short pudgy legs were parted, dimpled knees bent, toes curling into the satin bedsheets.
All over her bare milky body were precious gems; gems it had taken her personal maid, Pearl, using theatrical spirit gum hours to glue on, one by one. They had started in the early afternoon. Marjorie Ann had taken a nice long bath in lilac-scented suds, then Pearl had dried her off, made her sit on a velvet vanity stool before the mirrored walls of her rose-hued dressing room, and set about her task.
It was slow, tedious work because Marjorie Ann fastidiously searched through the many fine gems laid out on their beds of black velvet. When she found one that suited her fancy, she lifted it between her short fingers, studied it, and decided at exactly which spot on her body she wanted to wear that particular diamond or ruby or emerald.
It had been after six that evening before all the carefully picked and counted jewels were in place.
Now lying sprawled out on her bed, shamelessly watching in the mirror across the room, Marjorie Ann smiled with pleasure as the delicious game she so enjoyed began.
The object was to have this naked blond Adonis search for—and find—every precious gem glued to her bare body. And she was ingenious at finding new spots on her generous anatomy to hide the glittering precious stones.
Once he located a diamond or an emerald or ruby, he was to patiently, carefully remove the sparkling bauble.
With his mouth.
When all the glittering diamonds and rubies and emeralds had been cautiously bitten or sucked from her tingling flesh and deposited back on their bed of black velvet, the game was near completion.
Some evenings her lover became so aroused in his search for treasure, he made fierce, driving love to her, bringing her to ecstasy again and again. Other nights Marjorie Ann had to content herself with the rapture she experienced during the jewel hunt and seizure.
Dane Curtin was feverishly aroused on this warm spring night. His burning desire, however, had nothing to do with the sighing, moaning woman squirming on the white satin bed.
While his lips and tongue toyed with a flawless blue diamond hidden behind Marjorie Ann’s left knee, he envisioned the beautiful, sedate red-haired teacher who had smiled so dazzlingly at him across the candlelighted table at Delmonico’s.
In his fantasy, Elizabeth Montbleau was lying naked on that linen-draped table at Delmonico’s with diamonds scattered over her flawless flesh, all sparkling in the candlelight.
The large blue-white diamond came loose. While it rolled down the underside of her flabby thigh, Dane Curtin anxiously mounted the panting Marjorie Ann, drove deeply into her, thrust fast and furiously a half dozen times before exploding in release.
His eyes closed, his neck bowed, he rasped hoarsely, “Teacher, teacher … oh, God, teacher.”
10
AFTER THAT FIRST PLEASANT evening at Delmonico’s, Elizabeth began seeing Dane Curtin regularly. She was flattered by his attention and she found that it was great fun to explore the big, exciting city on his arm.
