They reached the log near the bonfire where Persia had left her skates. She sat down, and Zack knelt before her in the hard-packed snow.
“Here, let me help you,” he offered.
Gently, he took her foot in his hand. Even through the leather of her boot, she could feel the warmth of his touch. He caressed her ankle, toe, and instep before carefully fitting the metal footplate with its wooden runner to the sole. Still holding her, he tied the leather thongs tightly in place.
She would have blushed had she known what Zachariah Hazzard was thinking at the moment. He was trying to imagine how her bare foot would feel in his ungloved hand… how she would react if he suddenly stripped off her boots and stockings and ran his hot tongue between the toes and over the sensitive arch. The thought pumped new desire through his body. But the desire this time was not for his own pleasure. Suddenly, he wanted desperately to please this lovely, trusting woman.
“Aye, you’re a dainty one, Persia love.”
She covered a pleased smile with her hand. He was a gallant liar! Never had anyone called her dainty. But the way he said it and the look he gave her made her feel as if she were exactly that. And compared to Zachariah’s height and breadth, she was a mere feminine slip of a being.
Zack borrowed skates from a young man just coming off the ice and quickly strapped them on. Then, offering his hand to Persia, he said, “Shall we have a turn at it?”
She stumbled slightly as they plowed through the deep snow to the edge of the pond. But once she put blade to ice, it was as if she had wings. Her strong ankles held her erect, and she moved with speed and grace. Zack matched her expertise, all the while holding her in the skaters’ embrace, his left arm about her waist and his right clasping hers.
Persia experienced new thrills tingling through her. Never before had she skated with a male partner. Until tonight, she had spent her time at the pond racing the boys or taking her place on one of the teams for a raucuous game of ice ball, to her mother’s extreme horror. Persia had always felt competent on skates. Tonight she felt graceful and feminine for the first time. She leaned on Zack’s strong, supporting arm and let him guide her as if they were on a ballroom floor.
“Are you up to a bit of show for the folks?” he said close to her ear over the whisper of their skates scoring the ice.
She nodded and a gleam caught in her bright eyes from the lights overhead.
Immediately, Zack whipped her away from him with a quick tug on her waist. Still holding her other hand, he skated in position while she zoomed backward, making a circle around him. Figure eights, spirals, and sweeps. They covered the pond, forcing the less accomplished skaters out of their path. Persia felt breathless, and her cheeks glowed with cold and delight. She thought she could skate all night and well past the dawn with Zack beside her.
She stared up at him, hardly able to believe her good fortune. Always, Europa was the one who attracted male attention; Persia was only tossed the crumbs reserved for younger sisters. But here was a man who seemed to feel differently, who looked at her as if she were the only woman in the world, who kissed her with unmistakable passion.
Where had he come from? And how had she managed to attract him so quickly and surely? Trying to find answers seemed a fruitless task at this point. All she knew was that this was a man she could love and belong to for the rest of her life. And wonder of wonders, he seemed every bit as attracted to her as she was to him.
They skated on, oblivious to all the others about them, caught up in a crystal world inhabited only by the two of them and their sudden, unfathomable attachment for each other.
There were few at the pond who failed to take note of the charming and graceful pair. But some watched more closely than others.
Victoria Whiddington, seated next to her husband in their sleigh, set aside her cup of steaming tea laced strongly with lemon and honey to keep the cold from her throat. A frown marred her exquisite features.
“Who is that man with Persia?” she demanded.
Captain Whiddington cleared his throat, aware of feeling a curious hostility toward the young man who skated every bit as well as the pretty girl in his arms, and who stared at her with undisguised desire etched into the hard planes of his bearded face.
“I can’t make him out from here, Victoria. I’m sure he’s one of the boys she used to beat when they raced. He has undoubtedly noticed tonight for the first time that she’s quite an attractive creature.”
“Well, I’d rather she were still racing him!”
The captain took his wife’s hand and patted it under- standingly. “We can’t keep her a little girl forever, my dear. She’s a beautiful, spirited young woman.”
“Young is what bothers me, Captain. Our Persia is too young to be in a man’s arms that way. And he’s no boy!”
“They’re only skating, Victoria.”
“For now, at least,” she replied in a weary voice. “But so it begins, and where will it lead?”
Just then Europa hurried up, interrupting their conversation. Her face was flushed with fury as much as with the cold. How dare Persia upstage her this way?
“Mother, she’s making a spectacle of herself again. I’m so embarrassed I could die,” Europa wailed. “Everyone is staring! Do make her come off the ice.”
Asa Whiddington said exactly the wrong thing. “They’re staring in admiration, Europa. Your sister and her young man cut a fine figure together.”
Ignoring her father, Europa once again pleaded with her mother. “Do you know that man is a sailor fresh home from sea? He tried to impose his attentions on me earlier this evening, but I could see he was no fit escort, much less a skating partner. He couldn’t have me, so he went after poor naive Persia instead. And now there she is—even after I warned her to keep her distance from him—languishing in the man’s arms as if they were sweethearts.”
“Europa!” her mother cried. “That will be quite enough! Do you want everyone to hear you? I won’t survive this evening if both my daughters forget they are ladies.”
Europa sank down into the chair she had been using on the ice to keep her balance, her lovely face a mask of misery. She had managed to fall eight times this evening. But all she had to show for it were bruises. Not once had anyone interesting come to her aid. And now her little sister was taking the spotlight with a devastatingly mysterious stranger. Granted, she had tossed him off earlier, but she certainly hadn’t meant for him to land in Persia’s waiting arms.
The night was nearing disaster proportions. It was almost more than a body could endure! Europa’s mind turned to scheming. Surely there was some way she could salvage the evening and turn it to her advantage.
“Captain and Mrs. Whiddington!” A voice cracked with age and dripping with accusation announced the arrival of Quoddy Cove’s self-appointed moralizer and purveyor of gossip.
“Oh, God, preserve us!” Asa moaned under his breath before his wife could shush him.
“Birdie, dear, what are you doing out on such a cold night?” said Victoria. “Do come and have a cup of tea with us before you’re chilled through.”
An ancient crone all swathed in black motioned the two servants carrying her chair to set her down. She snarled at one and cracked the other across his shoulders with her cane when one leg of the chair sank into a soft patch of snow, nearly tipping her over. Then she clutched at her heart, feigning the fatal attack half the town would have welcomed.
“Ah, Victoria, decent help these days is impossible to find. Get away from me, the both of you!” she screeched at her pair of menservants.
“I believe that was entirely an accident, Miss Blackwell,” Asa said in defense of the men.
“Ayah,” she replied sarcastically. “And I suppose it was an accident, too, the last time they tipped my chair and I nearly tumbled down the stairwell to my death!” She stabbed the air with a bony finger, squinting hard at Asa. “Nay! They’re out to do me in, I tell you. If only my
dear brother were here to protect me. But, alas, he feels it his due to serve God even at the expense of being here to take care of this poor, ailing wretch who gave up her whole life to raise him. Mind you, I’m not faulting Cyrus. A fine man!” Her wrinkled features contorted into a self-satisfied smile, threatening to crack her face like old plaster. “A missionary, you know.”
Asa offered her a weary nod. Who didn’t know? Birdie Blackwell never started or ended one of her tiresome bouts of gossip without reference to her saintly brother. Somehow Asa found this transformation of the man hard to explain and harder to visualize. The Reverend Cyrus Blackwell remained in his memory as a troublesome and sometimes vicious youngster who had stolen merchandise from his father’s general store on Main Street and tortured the town’s population of cats, dogs, and birds. There was even some talk that as a young man he had torched the home of a woman who refused him. The girl and her aging mother had died in the flames. The fire was never explained. Soon afterward, Cyrus Blackwell left the area to enter the seminary. Since that time, he had never returned to Quoddy Cove. But even if the man were innocent of that crime, with a sister like Birdie, Asa could understand why he stayed away.
“Now, mind you, I’m not one to cast dispersions,” Birdie went on, “but you know how the people hereabouts will talk. If Miss Persia were mine to bring up, I’d haul her off the pond this minute, take her home for a good strapping, and lock her in her room with only her Bible for company until she’s old enough to know how to act properly in public.”
Victoria, who had been thinking that just such a course of action might be wise, took exception to someone else voicing such an opinion.
“Birdie dear, they’re only skating, and in broad view of everyone in town. I can’t see that it’s so scandalous.”
Miss Blackwell made a disapproving, clicking sound with her whale-ivory teeth. “Of course you’re her mother, Victoria, but no daughter of mine would make such a display of herself with a man. Mark my words, the girl wants discipline—a strong hand, well placed. Or the next thing you know, she’ll be sneaking out to meet men and doing you know what behind your backs.”
Europa snickered softly. Her father gave her a scathing look. His temper was nearing its limits.
“Please explain exactly what you assume our Persia will be doing in the event she decides to start sneaking out, as you put it, Miss Blackwell. I’d like to hear it in so many words!”
“Captain!” Victoria gasped softly, placing a restraining hand on her husband’s arm. Miss Birdie Blackwell, the town gossip, was not one to be goaded without retaliating in the meanest fashion.
“That sort of thing doesn’t need explaining to any man, Asa Whiddington! How dare you try to embarrass a poor spinster lady who’s dedicated her whole life only to God and her dear, devout brother?” She shook a warning finger at the captain once more. “You just mind that red-haired wanton you’ve raised up. I’m warning you, she’s one of the devil’s own!”
Before Asa Whiddington could calm himself enough to frame a suitable reply, Birdie Blackwell summoned her servants with an angry howl and was off to sow her seeds of discontent elsewhere.
“The bloody old bitch!” Asa mumbled, clenching his fingers, which he very much wished were around the woman’s wrinkled throat.
“Asa, please,” Victoria whispered. “Europa will hear you.”
But their elder daughter was no longer beside them.
Zack whirled Persia about and soon had her in his arms, facing him as if she were a dancing partner. Immediately, she saw his intent. He moved them into the figures of an ice waltz that set her skirts swaying and her head reeling. So precise were his movements that she could almost imagine the accompanying music as their blades sliced neat patterns in the coldness beneath their skates.
“Watch yourself,” he warned, steering her away from an area marked with a hand-painted sign that read THIN ICE.
“I’ve heard of ladies wearing through their dancing slippers in an evening, Zack, but I may be the first to wear out a pair of skates.”
“Do you want to stop?”
Persia threw back her head so suddenly that her hood fell away, releasing her shining, fire-colored hair to whip in the cold wind. “Never!” she cried. “I want to go on and on. I’ve never felt so wonderful!”
His hand tightened on her waist and he drew her closer, whispering into her free-blowing hair, “You certainly do, Persia, more wonderful than you can imagine.”
At that moment, a scream pierced the night air. Zack whirled them to an ice-shaving stop, his brown eyes giving up their lock on his partner to scan the pond. Shouts went up from the shore, and in a moment he saw what had happened. Leaving Persia where she stood, he put wings to his skates, flying over the ice toward the warning sign they had passed moments before.
“Help! Please, save me!” came the strangled cry.
A woman had fallen through. Zack could see her arms waving. She went under—once, twice, a third time. People were rushing out onto the ice. He had to reach her and try to pull her out of the frigid water before the crowd converged around the broken place in the ice. Otherwise, their massed weight might cause a larger break and draw dozens of would-be rescuers down into the icy depths. A real disaster was in the making, and only Zachariah could avert it.
“Try to grab hold of the ice!” he yelled. “I’m coming!”
“I can’t. Help me, oh, please, I…”
The weak voice trailed off. Zack saw a gloved hand clutching the edge. Slowly, it slipped away, leaving long scratch marks in the death-white ice. He plunged forward, diving for the edge.
Persia waited only a stunned moment after Zack left her. She recognized the first cry for help and knew who had fallen through the ice. A coldness gripped her heart like none a Maine winter could produce. Europa’s life was in the hands of the man she had called “riffraff”—the man she herself loved, Persia realized suddenly. And he might well lose his own life attempting to save her sister.
Skating quickly after Zack, Persia arrived at the broken ice only an instant after he reached the jagged edge of the hole. She saw her drowning, half-frozen sister go under once more and then watched, stricken, as Zack plunged into the black water.
Persia’s heart was pounding. She could barely hear anything for the rush of blood in her ears. The shouts of the others on the pond came only as a dull roar from far away. She must remain calm, do whatever she could to help. That was difficult, however, with the dark patch of water yawning empty before her. Both Europa and Zack were under the surface now. If they stayed down much longer, neither of them would survive. But she couldn’t think about that.
Acting with a calm reason she was far from feeling, Persia lay down on her stomach on the ice, reaching as far out over the opening as she could. She scanned the black surface with keen eyes, alert to any movement. The reflection of the northern lights played over the water, mocking her with its beauty. Now other skaters moved closer in, ringing the broken ice to light the area with their flickering lanterns. Persia was uncomfortably aware of the cold dampness seeping through her woolen gown, but she held her prone position, ready to lend a saving hand to Zack and to her sister the moment they surfaced… if they surfaced.
Suddenly, the water stirred. At first, Persia thought her hopes were causing her eyes to play tricks on her. Then Zack’s head burst above the water. He spewed icy spray and shook the clinging ice crystals from his hair. A moment later, he hoisted Europa up. Her face was blue and still.
“Give us a hand here,” he called through chattering teeth.
The hand he requested was there already. He caught it, not even realizing it belonged to Persia. Together they eased Europa up over the edge of the ice. Others were there to pick the unconscious woman up and to help Zack out of the water. Persia whisked off her cape and covered his shoulders. Already Europa was wrapped in a heavy carriage robe from the Whiddington sleigh.
In moments, Persia, Zack, and
Europa were in the back of the sleigh, speeding up the trail toward the house on Gay Street. Persia chafed her sister’s icy wrists while Zack held the blanket securely around Europa’s trembling shoulders with a strong arm.
“Faster, Fletcher, faster!” Asa Whiddington urged.
“You saved me. How can I ever repay you?” Europa’s voice, although shaky, held an undercurrent unmistakably dripping with feminine allure.
“I just thank God you’re alive, Miss Europa,” Zack replied.
The horses roared to a halt outside the house. Scooping Europa up in his arms Zack made for the front door, leaving Persia to see herself out of the sleigh and into the house. She refused to acknowledge the little stab of jealousy his actions caused. After all, her sister was in serious condition. Europa must be everyone’s first concern.
But she couldn’t ignore the pain a half hour later when she entered the sitting room, bringing a tray of hot broth and tea. Europa, warmed to glowing health and swathed in a lush velvet robe of emerald green, looked fetchingly petite and vulnerable reclining on the chaise lounge. Because of an error in Mrs. Whiddington’s planning, the usual decorum of the carefully run household had broken down and Europa and Zack had been left alone momentarily. Persia walked in just in time to catch her sister taking advantage of the private interlude by bestowing a kiss of gratitude squarely on Zack’s mouth.
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” Persia said, flustered and furious, sure that she was blushing all over.
Zack quickly pulled away but avoided meeting her eyes.
“Your sister’s much better,” he said.
“So I see.” Persia knew her voice sounded cold, but she couldn’t help herself.
“Persia dear,” Europa cooed, “how sweet of you to bring us tea. Poor Zack has had quite a night of it—first being monopolized by you all evening and then having to risk his life to save me. Why, the dear man is an exhausted saint!”
Hot Winds From Bombay Page 5
