She would indeed like it and said so. “Where shall we meet?”
Both of his eyebrows shot up, and his eyes widened, but only for a fleeting second. Had she not been regarding him closely, she would have missed his reflex action.
“May I call for you at your home? Say, about seven?”
She wrote the address of the parsonage on a piece of paper and handed it to him. “That’s fine. How will you dress?”
“Ordinarily, I’d wear a tuxedo, but I’m afraid a dark, navy-blue suit will have to do.”
Her smile, manufactured and as brilliant as she could make it, camouflaged all that she felt. Her mind traveled back to the high school prom that she missed because Kellie stole her date—a boy who would have worn a tuxedo to pair with her white silk evening gown, her first grown-up dress. All theses years later, she still waited for a date with a special man to whom she was also special. If she stayed at home alone on Christmas Eve, she wouldn’t feel any worse than she felt right then. Dinner and dancing with a traveling salesman? Or to stay at home and watch Kellie flaunt her popularity. What the hell! It was better than nothing.
“I’ll look forward to it,” she said with as much grace as she could muster.
“So will I, Miss Graham.”
On Christmas Eve, Lacette hurried home from work, showered, gave herself a manicure and relaxed on her bed while her nails dried. “Come in,” she said in response to the knock that told her she would have to deal with Kellie.
“Hi, Lace. I’m strapped for something to wear. Mind if I borrow your red sequined dress with the slit up the right leg?” Kellie sat on the edge of the bed, ran her hand over the yellow-satin spread and smiled her most charming smile.
She had never worn that dress, and Kellie knew it, because Kellie misplaced their tickets to the Kennedy Center concert to which she had planned to wear it, and the whole family had stayed home.
“Sorry, Kellie, but I’m wearing it.”
Kellie jumped up from the bed and stared at Lacette. “You’re wearing it? When?”
“Tonight.” Oh, how sweet it was! This Christmas Eve, she was not Cinderella or a wallflower pretending that she enjoyed staying at home.
“You’re lying. You just don’t want me to wear it.”
“I don’t have to lie, Kellie. I can just say no. As it is, I’m wearing it. Sorry.”
Kellie’s face lost its hard, accusing look and bloomed into a smile. “That’s great, Lace. Who is it? Well, you don’t have to tell me,” she said when Lacette remained mute. “Why don’t we exchange? You wear my white dress, and I’ll wear your red one.”
Feeling triumphant and not a little wicked, Lacette said, “Not tonight, Kellie. I don’t feel virginal, and white is so . . . you know what I mean. I don’t want him to think I’m waving a chastity wand at him.”
Kellie’s frown deepened. “You’re just pulling my leg. You’re not going out of this house tonight.”
Lacette lifted her right shoulder in a slight shrug. “Hang around and see. Sorry about the dress, but you know red is my best color.”
Kellie’s face sagged, and she slapped her hands on her hips. “Well . . . I never . . .” Not even the prospect of an evening with a total stranger could dampen Lacette’s pleasure at having confounded her sister. The door closed behind Kellie, and Lacette sat up, her bravura gone. She walked over to the window and looked out at the star-covered sky. An idyllic night. Maybe he wouldn’t come. What if he wasn’t even registered in the hotel? She hadn’t thought to check. Perhaps she should call her father and tell him she was going out with a man who said his name was Jefferson Smith. Oh, Lord, she couldn’t do that; she was thirty-three years old.
“Grin and bear it, girl,” she told herself as she rubbed lotion on her feet and legs. Slowly and methodically, she completed her toilet and slipped into the long red sheath. Fendi perfume at her pulse points gave her added confidence. Gazing at herself in the full-length mirror, she could see that Jefferson Smith might think her a siren, but she didn’t feel like one, and rather than boost her confidence, the realization gave her the willies. Her stomach seemed to twist itself into a tight coil. What if Jefferson what’s-his-name thought she was coming on to him?
The doorbell chimed precisely at seven o’clock, and the sound of Kellie’s feet racing down the stairs brought to Lacette’s mind the speeding resonance of someone fleeing an out-of-control fire.
“I’m here to see Miss Graham,” the deep masculine voice said.
“I’m Miss Graham. Sure you have the right house?” Lacette paused at the top of the stairs to see how far Kellie would go and how audaciously she would behave.
“I gather you’re Miss Lacette Graham’s sister, since I see a resemblance.”
Lacette strolled down the stairs, relishing the moment. “This is my sister, Kellie. We’re twins. As you must have noticed, Kellie is full of pranks.” Her glance at her sister dispensed fiery daggers. “Kellie, this is Jefferson Smith.”
She handed Jefferson her coat. “You look ravishing,” he said, softly and with a tone of urgency, as if they were alone. “I’m a proud man.” He inhaled deeply. “Wonderful.”
“You deserve a good night kiss for knocking Kellie off balance,” she said to herself, pleased that he had found a black chesterfield and a tuxedo, obviously rented. As they walked to his car, he confirmed what she had guessed.
“I believe in doing things right, so I rented a tux.”
“Oooh,” she said, awed, when she saw the horse-driven hansom.
“You’ll be warm,” he said, tucking a blanket around her.
“You certainly went to great effort, Jefferson. This is idyllic.” She breathed in the smell of horse mixed with his woodsy cologne, leaned back and pinched her hand. No, she wasn’t dreaming.
His slight smile suggested to her that he’d done it before, but she didn’t mind; the one thing lacking so far was that Kellie couldn’t see them get into that hansom. She glanced at the hanging lanterns and let her hand graze the hansom’s electric-blue, plush interior, thinking that she would imprint the evening in her memory, for at last she had her “prom.”
“When I saw you gliding down those stairs, I knew it was worth the effort.”
Beguiling though he was, with his good looks, finesse, and penchant for saying just the right thing, she suspected that she could nevertheless resist him if she wanted to. She managed not to gasp when the hansom stopped at the famous Monocacy Inn, an elegant restaurant located in a pre-Civil War Federal house just outside of Frederick. An enormous and richly decorated Christmas tree stood near the stone fireplace in the dining room, and holiday wreaths decorated every candle-lit window. That, and the welcoming odor of green pine logs giving off showers of sparks as they burned lent the place an elegant, home-like atmosphere.
“Do you like it here?” he asked her.
“Oh, yes. Very much,” she said, and she did, but she wondered how he, a stranger to the area, found it, when she had lived more than a decade in Frederick without having seen its interior.
“It’s Christmas, so let’s have champagne,” he said when the waiter brought their dessert, a crème brulée with flamed cherries.
After having drunk two glasses of Chateau Neuf du Pape with her dinner, Lacette hesitated to drink champagne, but the evening had been perfect, so she accepted one glass of the Veuve Cliquot and declined to drink more.
Jefferson expressed regret that the restaurant didn’t have a band that evening as he had hoped. “Robs me of a chance to get you into my arms,” he added, his smile rueful. “Another time.”
Later in the foyer of the parsonage, he held her hand. “I want to see you tomorrow night. May I?”
“I’d love to, but I’m having dinner with my family, and we eat late. We’re dining at my aunt’s home, or I would invite you to join us.”
“I wouldn’t consider barging in.” His gaze grew more intense and more intimate. More possessive. If she were not already at home, she might be have been im
pelled to run. With his eyes, he disrobed her so completely that she covered her bosom with her left hand and arm. If he noticed her discomfort, he didn’t make it obvious.
“I want to kiss you,” he whispered.
Not much to ask for on Christmas Eve, she thought, and lifted her arms to his shoulders. But he demanded more than the pressure of her mouth against his. Stunned by his boldness, she parted her lips without thinking or intending to and took him in.
He didn’t abuse the privilege. “I want to see you the night after Christmas and the next night and the next, and the next.”
“We’ll see,” she hedged, although she knew she wanted to spend time with him, not because her heart or her libido demanded it, but because her ego needed the attention of a handsome and obviously successful man. “Yes,” she repeated. “We’ll see.”
“Who is that guy?” Kellie asked Lacette the next morning. “Where on earth did you meet him? That brother is a number ten and change. Whew!” She pretended to mop her brow.
“Maybe I should ask you why you tried to give him the impression that I impersonated you, that you are the only “Miss Graham’ who lives in this house?”
“Oh, for goodness sake, Lace. You get uptight about the damnedest things.” Typical Kellie, Lacette thought. If you got too close to the truth, she either became angry or got out of the way.
Around noon on Christmas day, less jubilant than a person looking forward to a family Christmas dinner should have been, Lacette hurried across the street to her aunt Nan’s house.
“You didn’t have to come so early, child, but I’m glad for the company. My, but you look so nice, just blooming.”
Lacette opened her arms and enveloped her aunt in a warm greeting, grateful for the woman’s presence in her life. “I brought something to wear while we’re cooking.”
Nan had already stuffed the turkey and rubbed it with oil and spices. “It tastes best when you cook it real slow,” she said, and put the bird into the oven. “Not much—if anything—for you to do.”
“What you so quiet about?” Nan asked Lacette. “You haven’t said twenty words since you been here. We aren’t preparing for a funeral, girl. We cooking Christmas dinner. You stop worrying ’bout Marshall and Cynthia. It’s not like they gone. You still have both your parents, but you have to stop thinking of them as a couple. Marshall told me that that marriage is history, and I believe him.”
“I know. Daddy’s intractable when he makes up his mind about something. I sure wish I knew what it was.” She finished setting the table, made a centerpiece of red poinsettias, holly, and candles and stood back to admire it.
“Now, that’s a work of art,” Nan said. “You better dress. It’s a quarter to six. I’m gonna run upstairs and put on something right now.”
Marshall arrived first, and Lacette relaxed; she had expected him to call saying that he had decided not to come. She went with him to the living room where an old black urn full of mulled cider exuded a mouthwatering aroma.
“Want some cider, Daddy? Aunt Nan put it here to give us something to talk about. It’s not fermented, and it’s delicious.” At least, she hoped it was. She hadn’t tasted it. As she poured the cider for her father, the doorbell rang, and seconds later Nan walked into the room with Kellie and Cynthia.
Kellie greeted her father, whirled around and advanced on Lacette. “When you left the house, you could at least have said where you were going. You got a phone call, but I can’t remember his name.”
“Try Smith,” Lacette said, her tone dry and matter-of-fact.
Nan walked over to Kellie and locked her hands to her hips. “This is Christmas, and everybody is going to be nice so I can enjoy my dinner. You hear?” Kellie opened her mouth as if to speak, but bit back the words.
“Thank God, she’s planning to show some sense,” Lacette said to herself, for she knew that if the evening soured with unpleasantness Kellie would have instigated it.
They took their seats at the dinner table, and it did not escape Lacette that her aunt had to urge her father to sit at the head of the table. “Do it because you’re the only preacher here, then,” she heard Nan whisper.
He sat down, bowed his head and said, “Dear Lord, we thank you for the blessing of this food and for the hands that prepared it. Amen.”
Lacette’s eyes flew open, and she stared at her father. No mention of the glory of Christmas and what it meant. And what about the prayer of grace that he always said when they ate? He couldn’t have chosen a more pointed way of reminding them all that their lives had changed. Cynthia and Kellie ate with gusto, but she, Nan, and her father hardly tasted the food.
“I hear you’re gonna be teaching next year,” Nan said to Cynthia.
“Yes, seventh grade, as before.”
When no one commented on that topic, Nan asked Lacette, “How’re things at the hotel? I have to get over there and buy a bread making machine.”
“You can’t make biscuits in them,” Lacette said, “or cornbread, either.”
“I like light bread once in a while,” Nan said, “and I’d just as soon make it fresh myself. A machine will save me time.” Hearing the desperation in her aunt’s voice, a hope that one of the other three would comment, Lacette fought back the tears. Her mother focused on the food, and she could see from her father’s demeanor that he would leave as soon as they finished the meal. Nan stopped trying to make conversation, and for the next twenty minutes, Lacette thought that that dining room was filled with the loudest and most jarring silence she had ever been present at.
When at last dinner was over, Marshall stood, placed a small package beside the plate of each of his daughters and handed one to Nan. “A blessed Christmas, everyone. Good night.”
Marshall left them to exchange gifts among themselves, but the joy of Christmas eluded them, and after Cynthia and Kellie went home, Lacette and Nan cleaned the kitchen in silence, each dealing with her own thoughts.
When Lacette spoke, her own voice startled her. “Dinner by myself would have been preferable to this. If I learned nothing else tonight, I learned not to try to make pearls out of fish scales.”
Nan nodded assent. “It was worth trying. Still, it don’t hurt to remember that you can’t get blood out of a turnip.”
“No, I guess you can’t. But you can bet I’ll think long and hard before I attempt another family dinner.” Later, when she got home, she went directly to her room and closed the door. The last thing she wanted was an encounter with her twin sister.
For the next six evenings, Jefferson Smith courted Lacette in the manner that she’d dreamed of during her adolescent days. He lavished her with attention, sent flowers each morning and telephoned her during the day. It occurred to her more than once that he might have invented the art of seduction, although it seemed natural, as if he automatically treated women in a courtly manner.
“If I don’t see you before I go out,” Lacette said to Kellie in the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, “Happy New Year.”
Kellie had been blow-drying her hair. She spun away from the mirror nearly dropping the dryer. “You’re going out with Jefferson Small tonight? New Year’s Eve?”
“His name is Smith, and I’m going out with him tonight.” What was more, she had bought a green-chiffon, figure-revealing evening gown for the occasion. I don’t know when he will leave or how far he intends to take our relationship. I just know that I’ve been queen for a week, that I no longer have to wonder what it’s like to be the object of a man’s unqualified admiration and pursuit. I’m not going to worry about tomorrow or what his intentions are. He’s what I need right now.
You were quick to find out whether Lawrence Bradley had a wife and family, but you haven’t dared to ask Jefferson whether he’s married, her conscience needled. She pushed the thought aside. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. He’s not wearing a ring, and there isn’t a print of one on his ring finger.
Halfway through the evening, it became clear to Lacette that
Jefferson Smith had planned an evening guaranteed to seduce any woman. Their round, linen-covered candle-lit table bore a centerpiece of tea roses and stood near a waterfall and beneath a crystal chandelier.
“You order,” she said to him when the waiter handed her a menu without prices. “Anything except brains, rabbit, and rhubarb.”
She hadn’t heard him laugh often, and never with such gusto. “Believe me, those are three things I would never order, because I can’t stand them, either.”
After a gourmet dinner topped off with champagne, he took her dancing at the hotel’s New Year’s Eve gala, where guests welcomed the New Year in colorful party hats and amidst blaring horns and showers of confetti.
“Happy New Year, sweetheart,” he said. “Kiss me.” He hadn’t previously called her by anything except her name, and she wondered at the change and its significance. She gazed up at him with what she knew was an inquiring expression, but his answer was the pressure of his lips on hers, the flickering of his tongue at the seam of her lips and the pressure of his fingers on her naked back. Gently, he stroked her spine, and then locked his arms around her and shifted from side to side until her nipples erected beneath the sheer fabric of her dress.
With a knowing and satisfied expression on his face, he slipped an arm around her waist and headed out of the ballroom to the elevator. Although heady with wine, champagne, and the dazzle of New Year’s Eve, she hesitated nonetheless and told herself to slow down, that the time wasn’t right. But as if he read her mind, or perhaps because he understood women better than she understood herself, his voice caressed her ears with the words, “Don’t you need me?” Tempting. Tantalizing. His woodsy cologne teased her nostrils, and his voice, dark and urgent, assaulted her senses.
They entered the elevator, he unlocked the top level floor stop with his passkey, and brushed his hand against her already erect nipple. “Come with me.”
Whatever It Takes Page 10
