And it seemed very foolish to let the exquisite negligees hang neglected in the closet. She selected a creamy creation of Chinese silk, and felt sinful as she noted how bewitchingly it clung to her figure.
She threw back the spread on the bed and stacked the two pillows together at her head. Then she turned on the bedlight and curled up luxuriously with Shameless Sinner. She had read the first page in the book store in Random. She sighed happily as she turned to page two:
“So?” He leaned over the back of her chair and smiled down at her. His hands gripped the wooden arms, and his face was very close to Nancy’s. His eyes were deep gray, flecked with dancing points of light.
Nancy stared up into his face without responding. Her lips quivered, and her heart seemed to frenziedly seek to break from its frail shell.
His strong hands moved from the arms of her chair and grasped her wrists while his eyes burned into hers intensely. She shivered as his grip upon her wrists tightened and relaxed.
“You’re very sure?” he queried softly.
Nancy nodded assent. “Yes,” she breathed passionately. “Very sure.”
“No regrets?”
“No,” she whispered feverishly. “No regrets.”
His eyes were boring into hers hypnotically. She felt her body go limp as the dark pupils dilated and seemed to drain her strength so she was powerless to move. Time stood still as she was conscious only of the exultant beat of her heart. His lips brushed lightly across her forehead, and she closed her eyes. Then his lips were crushingly upon her own which parted avidly.
She felt ageless and wanton. Her body was aflame with desire which called to his for assuagement.
She slid from the chair and was received into his embrace as he fell to his knees before her. Her eyes remained closed as his lips caressed her neck and her throat. She turned limply that his seeking fingers might find the zipper beneath her arm.
There may be those who scoff at young passion. Those who know nothing of the delectable path over which youth flees to a fuller recognition of love’s insatiable demands, and love’s blissful recompense. There will be drab souls who will cry aloud in prudish horror that ……
Vergie sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. She moved her limbs restlessly and fought back panic. Then she opened her eyes and read on with fierce concentration.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE WRITER
“Good evening. Where’s Tuck?” Mrs. Tucker looked up with mild displeasure as Nip burst into the living room.
“She’s up in her room. Where she’s been most of the day.”
“Oh!” Nip wilted a trifle. “Is she sick?” she asked.
“A body is as a body does,” Mrs. Tucker announced with increasing severity. “Goodness knows what time you and Mr. Porter brought her home last night. I declare, it must have been after ten before I closed my eyes … and not a hide nor hair of you to be seen.”
“Ummm,” Nip murmured. “Didn’t Tuck tell you we just rode around a little?” she asked.
“She simply moans every time I ask her about last night. It must have been a long ride,” Mrs. Tucker went on.
“Not so long,” Nip said. “I’ll go up to her room.” She ran up the stairs lightly and entered Tuck’s room to find her lying on her bed, fully clothed, staring at the ceiling.
“What ho!” Nip said, closing the door. “You look like the last rose of summer.”
Tuck rolled over and regarded her stonily. “What are you so gay about?”
“Why not? Why mourn over the snows of yesteryear? Or the drinks of last night?”
“Tell my belly that,” Tuck muttered. “I’m not doing any mourning, but I’m in a hell of a shape.”
“Too bad,” Nip said. She sat on the edge of the bed and chuckled. “Your sins will find you out,” she commented sternly. “You simply overshot your limit last night.”
“Just what did happen?” Tuck asked.
“Plenty. You were quite the life of the party until you passed out. How far do you remember?”
“I remember starting the poker game,” Tuck confessed. “Things got hazy after that. I don’t seem to remember anything else until I got out of the car here at the house.”
“At two a. m.,” Nip chuckled. “And your darling mother told me very severely that she was sure it was later than ten o’clock.”
“How did it all end?”
“You’re practically a virgin,” Nip assured her. “Technically, at least. Lee turned out to be a pig. Bill had to bust the bedroom door, and Lee drew a knife, and Blanche got a slice on the arm, and Bill beat the very stuffing out of Lee.” Nip paused while Tuck slowly rose on one elbow and stared at her in horrified amazement.
“Really? You’re not making it all up?”
“Not a smidgen. Those are just the high points,” Nip assured her. “It turned out to be quite an orgy. Pete passed out on the floor, and I vomited all over the front lawn.”
“What about Blanche?”
“It’s funny about her,” Nip said. “I don’t think she had much fun. She and Bill stayed sober and looked after us, I guess. I asked Bill about her this afternoon, and he said she had left town early this morning.
“But she just got here a couple of days ago.”
“Maybe she didn’t like her sample of St. Augustine night life,” Nip chuckled. “Bill was awful funny about it. I think he was kind of disgusted with us. He changed the subject every time I asked him anything about Blanche.”
“She was nice,” Tuck said after a short silence.
“Yeah. But sort of pokey and slow,” Nip said.
“Well …” Tuck drew in a deep breath and sat up. “I suppose I’ll live through it. I’ve been afraid of that all day.”
“Listen!” Nip said hastily. “I’ve got some news that’ll knock you for a goal. Did you read today’s paper?”
“Lord no. Bill and Pete didn’t write us up, did they?”
“No such luck. No. I’m talking about an Associated Press dispatch from Jacksonville. You know Valerie Ware? The one that writes those hot books? She was in Jacksonville this morning. There was a picture of her getting on the train. She’s supposed to be travelling incognito … and she’s coming down somewhere in Florida to get local color for a new book.”
“What of it?” Tuck asked.
“What of it?” Nip stared at her open-mouthed. “Suppose she decided to stop off here for her local color?”
“Oh! But what makes you think she would?” Tuck asked. “She’s probably gone on to Palm Beach or Miami.”
“But she might stop here,” Nip said. “There’s lots of local color here.”
“I never saw any of it,” Tuck murmured. “Nothing ever happens in this sticky town. I bet Valerie Ware wouldn’t even hesitate here.”
“That party last night would have been a honey for one of her books,” Nip breathed ecstatically.
“She’d probably have been bored to death.”
“I bet she wouldn’t. Say! you ought to see her picture. You know how we’ve always imagined her? Gosh, she’s not like that at all. I guess she was pretty much disguised on the train, but she sure did look funny. Come on down. You’ll get a laugh out of her picture.”
“All right,” Tuck said. She got up from the bed and walked to her mirror to straighten her hair. “Headache’s about gone,” she announced, “but I certainly do look like a grand old ruin.”
“You just imagine that,” Nip said. “You’re none the worse for wear. Come on.” She linked her arm in Tuck’s and they went downstairs together.
“Where’s today’s paper, mom?” Tuck asked as they entered the parlor.
“There. On the chair,” she said without looking up from her crocheting.
“Bring it out on the porch,” Nip murmured. “I’ll turn on the porch light.”
“It’s on the inside,” she said when they sat down together.
She spread out the paper and opened it eagerly. “I thought it was right here,” she
said with a puzzled frown. She turned through the sheets swiftly, and then looked at the date.
“This is today’s paper,” she said. “But I don’t see it.”
“Maybe you were just seeing things from hitting the Scotch too heavily last night,” Tuck suggested.
“No. I know it was right here on the second page.” Nip spread out the paper again. “Right down here,” she said slowly.
Then she uttered a sudden exclamation. “It’s been clipped out! No wonder I couldn’t find it.”
“I’ll go ask mom,” Tuck offered.
She returned after a moment and shrugged her shoulders. “I guess it doesn’t matter,” she said. “Mom says our new roomer asked her if it was all right to cut out something she was interested in. She must have done it.”
“Your new roomer?”
“Yeah. Didn’t I tell you? Mom let the southeast room today. A frumpy looking female rented it. I can’t imagine her clipping out anything about Valerie Ware. She doesn’t look as though she ever read anything but the editorial page.”
Nip had stiffened while receiving this information. “What’s her name?” she asked.
“Whitten, I think. Something like that. Whitby … Whidby, that’s it. Virginia Whidby. Or, Vergie Whidby, I think mom said.”
“Is she a stranger? When’d she get here? Is she going to stay long? How old is she? Tell me what she looks like.”
“Wait a minute. What do you care? She’s an old maid. Looks like a school teacher, or something.”
“Listen!” Nip’s grip on Tuck’s arm tightened. “Maybe it’s her,” she whispered tensely.
“Who?” Tuck stared at her in blank amazement.
“Valerie Ware.”
“Gosh no,” Tuck chuckled. “You ought to see her. Not a chance.”
“What’s she doing here?” Nip insisted.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Tuck said: “Sort of vacation, I guess. I just saw her at dinner and I was too darned sick to pay much attention to her. She went up to her room after dinner. Said something about doing a little writing.”
“Writing?”
“Yeah. Mom said she rented a typewriter this afternoon.”
“A typewriter?” Nip echoed.
“Sure. But don’t get any ideas. You’d only have to get one peek at her to know damned well she didn’t write Penthouse Passion or Elixir of Sin.”
“Is that so?” Nip asked. She got up and dragged Tuck off the porch with her. “Come on,” she said. “I want to show you that picture. I’ll bet a million dollars she’s just gotten herself up to look like that to fool everybody.”
A portion of her excitement was transmitted to Tuck as they hurried to a news stand three blocks away.
“Gee,” she said, “wouldn’t it be something if it was her? Right in our house. I bet what she could tell us about life would be plenty.”
“Umm-hmm!” Nip agreed. “Let’s hurry.”
“We just want to borrow one of your papers a minute,” she told the proprietor of the stand.
Her hands trembled as she drew Tuck aside and opened the paper. “There,” she said. “See it?”
Tuck stared over her shoulder at the picture. A photo shot by a news photographer just as Valerie Ware boarded the train. The picture was somewhat blurred, but it showed the dark glasses plainly, and the dark travelling suit.
“It’s her!” she whispered tensely. “By golly, it’s her, Nip.” In her excitement she spluttered ungrammatical slang. “Mom said she was wearing dark glasses when she came, and that looks just like her dress. She must have picked it up out of the rag bag somewhere. It looks as though it had been discarded years ago.”
“Oh! Let’s go where we can talk.” Nip thrust the paper back at the man “Thank you so much,” she said.
“Wait a minute,” Tuck interposed. “Let me see the paper again.”
She took it and opened it to the other side of the picture. “Let’s check up,” she said to Nip. “We don’t want any mistakes. Maybe there was something on the other side of the page that she wanted to clip out and save.”
“Naw,” Nip said. “See? Just a silly bunch of statistics about something or other. No one in their right mind would ever want to cut that out.”
“No, I guess not,” Tuck admitted. She handed the paper back to the man and they turned back to Tuck’s home.
“What shall we do?” Nip asked.
“I’m still afraid to believe it’s really true,” Tuck said.
“That picture looks like her all right. But it was awful dim. You really couldn’t see her face at all. And it’s so darned hard to believe Miss Whidby could be Valerie Ware. You should see her, Nip.”
“That just goes to prove it all the more,” Nip said. “Don’t you see? She’s gotten herself up to look as little as possible like she really is. Anybody that writes those books knows her way around all right. You won’t catch her asleep at the switch.”
“What do you think we ought to do?” Tuck asked as they regained her porch.
“It’s going to be worlds of fun,” Nip said. “But we’d better try to find out for sure first. Then maybe she’ll let us read the new book she writes, after we get to know her. I bet she’s a good sport. She must know everything.”
“I’ll say. I bet she’s had hundreds of men. She knows how to handle them, all right. I bet she just wanders around and finds a new man in every city. Then she has an affair with him and … writes another book.”
“Uh-huh. She’s been married three times, you know. You remember that write-up about her in the book review we read. She knows all the answers all right,” said Nip.
“I’m still a little bit leary about her,” Tuck said. “Remember, you haven’t seen her yet. Wouldn’t it be awful if we made a mistake?”
“We haven’t,” Nip told her. “Sherlock Holmes had nothing on us.”
“Listen,” Tuck said. “Let’s go up and see her now. We can make some excuse. We won’t say anything till we’re sure. But we ought to be able to tell for sure by keeping our eyes open.”
“Come on!” Nip jumped up, then paused. “How about your hangover?” she asked. “Maybe you don’t feel like it.”
“That’s all gone,” Tuck laughed. “I’m so excited I’ve forgotten all about hangovers.”
“You don’t suppose she’ll think we’re butting in?” Nip said as they approached Vergie’s door.
“If she’s Valerie Ware, I don’t think she’ll mind. And if she’s not Valerie Ware, we don’t give a whoop whether she minds or not.”
Tuck stopped before the door and knocked. There was a moment’s silence, then they heard a voice ask them to enter.
Tuck opened the door and stepped inside with her most ingratiating smile. Nip was craning her neck behind her, and they both gasped when they saw Vergie curled up on the bed clothed in the luxurious negligee.
“What is it?” Vergie asked. She slipped Shameless Sinner under her pillow and felt peculiarly like a small child caught in the jam pot.
“Oh … uh … I … I just came up to visit you and get acquainted,” Tuck faltered. She advanced a few steps into the room and dragged Nip after her.
“This is … this is Nip. My twin. I … I think mom told you about her. Miss Whidby, Nip,” she ended.
Nip advanced with outstretched hand and glowing eyes. “Gee, I’m awfully glad to meet you,” Nip said.
“Thank you,” Vergie said.
A little silence fell over the room. Vergie was ill at ease in her finery, and the two girls stood with mouth agape, looking at her and staring about the room.
The covered typewriter and the stack of manuscript paper was mute evidence that their guess had been correct. The impressively new luggage in the corner, the girl herself who lay on the bed and stared at them enigmatically. They missed nothing with their darting glances.
Tuck, particularly, was fascinated by the metamorphosis of the Vergie Whidby she had met at dinner into this radiant personality which confronted her. Ni
p had not seen her in her disguise, Tuck remembered, so she was not so much struck by the change.
“Won’t you sit down?” Vergie asked finally. She tried to smile and appear gracious, though she wondered why Tuck stared at her so disconcertingly.
“Yes. Thank you,” Tuck said. She sat on the extreme edge of a rocker and leaned forward. “How long are you going to stay in St. Augustine?”
“About a month, I think,” Vergie said.
“Oh! Will a month be long enough?” Nip asked.
“Yes. I think a month will do very nicely,” Vergie replied.
“Well I … what I meant,” Nip faltered, “is … uh … you write, don’t you?”
“What? Oh yes,” Vergie said. “Just a little. I … I like to set down impressions wherever I go.”
“Of course,” the two girls breathed simultaneously.
Nip had not sat down. She moved forward carelessly to the table and fingered the two books lying there. She turned to Tuck:
“Look,” she exclaimed. “Penthouse Passion and Elixir of Sin! The two books we were just cra-a-zy over.”
“Oh yes. By Valerie Ware,” Tuck amplified with a sly glance at Vergie. She surprised a faint blush on her cheeks, and was not surprised to see her move nervously.
“I think she’s a marvelous writer,” she went on. “She knows her stuff about men, women, and sex. And she doesn’t mind putting it down in black and white.”
“Gee, you’re lucky to be able to have them without hiding them,” Nip said. “Mom won’t let me have one in the house. She’s so afraid I’ll find out something about sex.”
“You were reading when we came in, weren’t you?” Tuck asked Vergie.
“Yes,” she admitted. “I was reading this.” She drew the copy of Shameless Sinner from under her pillow and held it up for them to see. There was an air of understanding and comradeship about these girls which drew her to them.
“That’s Valerie Ware’s newest book, isn’t it?” Nip exclaimed. “I thought it wasn’t published yet. The girl at the circulating library told me she wouldn’t have it till the fifteenth.”
“But of course Miss … Whidby … gets her copy earlier,” Tuck told her. “You know …? Being … well, the publishers send her a copy early you know,” she stumbled. “Don’t they?” She appealed to Vergie.
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