The Awakening

by Jude Deveraux

  She reached over to her desk and there lay a new schedule, freshly made out by Taylor. Right now she was supposed to be downstairs wearing her pink-and-white-striped silk that made her look as if she were eight years old and eating two poached eggs and one piece of dry toast.

  She tossed the schedule back on the desk. It seemed so frivolous to stay here studying when so many people needed help. Frivolous, she thought, a word she’d often used to describe Hank.

  “Hank,” she said aloud, trying it on for size. It didn’t seem to suit him. It was too new, too modern, too unromantic. What was the name on his books? She took one out of the bookshelf beside the bed and opened to the copyright page. Dr. Henry Raine Montgomery.

  “Raine,” she whispered. It sounded like a knight of old, a strong, virile man who might fight for the common people. Raine, she thought, Sir Raine. Better yet, Lord Raine.

  She got out of bed, scratching and yawning, and put on a blue suit. It was too dark, too severe for her taste, and she thought that today she might stop by her dressmaker’s and choose a few new pieces of clothing, something Raine, er, ah, Hank might like.

  She went to the bathroom—at the wrong time according to today’s schedule—and on impulse, knocked on the door to the room where her mother spent her days and invited her mother to breakfast. “Father eats about this time. Perhaps we can eat together, just the three of us.”

  “Like we used to, before—” Grace said but broke off. She didn’t need to add, before Taylor came.

  It was a pleasant breakfast, and Amanda didn’t say much as her parents seemed to have hours’ worth to say to each other. Amanda occupied herself with thoughts of last night. Perhaps she’d been hasty in her judgments; maybe Raine—she meant Hank—did want her. Maybe she wasn’t just another woman to him.

  With her mind occupied, she bid her parents goodbye, unaware of how different she seemed with every step. Taylor was waiting for her by the car and she braced herself for the coming argument.

  “I would like to ask you not to go,” he said softly.

  “I’m needed there,” she answered.

  “And you’re needed here.”

  “Here no one knows I’m alive. I stay in my room all day with my books and papers. I’ve hardly seen my own parents in years. Please don’t make this harder for me, Taylor. I want to feel that I’m useful to someone.”

  Taylor put his hands on her upper arms. “You are useful to me,” he said, and there was desperation in his voice.

  Amanda almost said she’d stay with him but the memory of the hungry children stopped her. If she could help them in any way, she was going to do it. “It’s just until the hops are in,” she said. “I want to help see that there is a peaceful unionization.”

  “Unions!” he said, dropping his hands, the pleading look leaving his eyes. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Those people want to take the food out of our mouths. They want—”

  “So you beat them to it, is that it? You take their food first, before they can do it to you? Oh, Taylor, come with me. See these people. They aren’t thieves. They’re just—”

  He took a step away from her. “You forget that I’ve run the harvest for eight years with your father. I’ve seen them. They’re filthy—”

  “Good day, Taylor,” she said and walked away from him.

  On the drive into town, her mind seemed to whirl with a thousand conflicting thoughts. So much had happened to her in the last few weeks. Before Dr. Montgomery came she was content and happy, and now everything was confused. She didn’t know if Taylor was her teacher, the man she loved or her enemy. And Dr. Montgomery! Lover? Friend? Teacher? Enemy?

  It was already chaos at the union headquarters. Joe told her the mess was her fault because they’d heard free food was being passed out. He didn’t trust Amanda because she was a Caulden and he let her know it.

  Amanda went up the stairs to the room that she’d shared yesterday with Dr. Montgomery. In spite of telling herself that yesterday meant nothing, her heart was pounding as she reached the doorway.

  The man who’d made love to her last night was holding Reva Eiler in his arms and kissing her.

  It was as if the bottom of Amanda’s world fell out. She had been right about him. She was an experiment to him, nothing more. He’d wanted to see if he could “unionize” her, to see if he could make her stand up for her rights just as he persuaded the workers to stand up for theirs. Perhaps she should have had a translator explaining things to her as they went along. She thought of Taylor with longing. When the hops were in she’d be glad to go back to her schedule and an orderly way of life.

  “Good morning,” she said cheerfully and took her place at her desk. She heard Dr. Montgomery and Reva break apart but she didn’t look at them.

  “Good morning, Amanda,” Hank said softly.

  She didn’t look up. “Dr. Montgomery,” she said curtly, “shall we allow the people in? Or perhaps you’d like to use this room for private meetings? I could go down the hall. Yes, I think I’ll do that.” She started gathering papers.

  “Amanda, please let me explain.”

  She looked at him, and as her eyes locked with his she remembered every caress he’d given her last night, every word he’d spoken. Blood rushed to her face and she looked away. “Explain what, Dr. Montgomery?” She thought she heard him groan. No doubt he was upset at having one of his women see him with another of his women. “Explain these new translations? Explain how I’m to tell the people this is a union and not a soup kitchen? I’ll do my best.”

  “Explain about Reva. She—”

  “Threw herself at you?” Amanda’s eyes blazed. “You poor man. That seems to happen to you a great deal.”

  “Amanda, please, I—”

  She grabbed a letter opener from the desk. “You take one step closer to me and I’ll use this.”

  His eyes were angry now too. Calmly, he reached out, grabbed her wrist and squeezed until the opener fell to the desk. “Have it your way,” he said. “Let’s get busy. We have people waiting.”

  Amanda was glad for the noise, the confusion and all the people. They kept her from remembering last night. Reva kept smiling at her in an infuriating way, and a few times Amanda caught Dr. Montgomery glowering at her but she looked away.

  At one o’clock Hank clamped down on Amanda’s hand and said, “We’re going to lunch.”

  “No, thank you,” Amanda said. “I’m not hungry.”

  “The day you aren’t hungry is the day the world ends. Come with me or I’ll make a scene so bad you’ll never be able to hold your head up in this town again.”

  “I’m not sure I care, if it means being alone with you. Or do we take your other lady friends? Your harem, to be precise.”

  “I’ll carry you,” he threatened.

  Amanda stood and walked out with him but she wouldn’t allow him to touch her. He stopped at his car. “I will not get in that with you,” she said. “No matter what you do to me.”

  He almost smiled. “All right, then, we’ll try the diner.”

  He didn’t speak again until after they were seated and he’d ordered the special for both of them.

  “Thank you,” she said nastily. “I’m accustomed to having my meals chosen for me.”

  “What’s eating you? Is it last night? Or is it this morning? If it’s last night, I—”

  “I’d rather forget that, if you don’t mind.”

  “I’ll never forget it as long as I live,” Hank said softly and started to take Amanda’s hand, but just then the waitress arrived with their food.

  To the utter astonishment of both of them, Amanda burst into tears. The waitress heard and gave Hank a dirty look for whatever he’d done to cause her to cry in public. Embarrassed, Hank grabbed the tray from the waitress’s hand, put their plates of food and drinks on it, took Amanda’s arm and began pulling her toward the back of the restaurant. The kitchen workers looked up in surprise, and Amanda tried her best to keep from crying,
but it wasn’t easy. He didn’t stop until they were outside, several feet from the restaurant and in the shade of a big oak tree.

  He half shoved her to sit down. “Okay, talk,” he said, putting the tray down and sitting in front of her.

  “Dr. Montgomery, I—”

  “Don’t give me that doctor stuff, Amanda. After what happened last night we’re past the formal stage. I want you to tell me why you applied for a job with me, why you wanted me to make love to you and why you’re crying now.” Even as he said it, he knew that some part of him wanted her to say that she’d come to him because she was in love with him. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if she did say that, but after last night he was close to willing to ask her to marry him. To spend every night in ecstasy such as he’d experienced last night…

  “I was rude to Taylor this morning,” she said, and Hank’s shoulders fell. “And to Mrs. Gunston.”

  “Pretty horrible,” he said sarcastically. He’d hoped it was jealousy that had made Amanda so angry this morning. Reva had thrown herself at him, and Hank had wanted to see if another woman’s lips made him forget himself as Amanda’s had. They hadn’t. “So,” Hank continued, “you’re mad at me and crying because you were rude to Taylor this morning?” What about us? he thought. What about last night?

  Amanda was trying to get control of herself. Hank handed her a plate of food and she began to eat. She was beginning to associate food with this man. “I came to work for you because I think I realized you were right about something.”

  Hank gave her a hopeful look.

  “I don’t really seem to know much about life.”

  “Oh,” he said flatly.

  “I mean I do know about some aspects of life, but not about dating, and—well, Dr. Montgomery, I don’t seem to know much about love.”

  “You did all right last night,” he said softly, his eyes hot.

  She looked away. “In a way, it has been very kind of you to undertake teaching me what you have. I know I’ve been resentful because I didn’t want you for a teacher, but then when Taylor first came to me I resented having a schedule.” She gave him a little smile.

  “I can’t imagine resenting something like that,” Hank said.

  “Please do not be rude to me, Dr. Montgomery. You are the one who wanted to be my teacher, not the other way around.”

  “So what’s your point?” he asked angrily. “You came to see how the other half lives, right? So now you’ll go back to your teacher/fiancé and you’ll be better for having had your little fling. Is that it?”

  Tears came again to Amanda’s eyes and she set down her plate.

  “Oh damn,” Hank said and handed her his handkerchief. “All right,” he said softly, “tell me what’s bothering you.”

  “Everything!” Amanda said, and the word came from her heart. “I feel so discontent, so restless. I used to be so happy before you came. I studied all day, Taylor and I had such lovely evenings of poetry and music, but now—” She blew her nose. “Now I hear ragtime music in my head and I don’t want to stay home all the time and I want to use my knowledge. And I question what Taylor says and what my father says. And the poverty of those people who came to pick the hops! I feel like a princess who has been isolated in a tower all her life.”

  Hank wasn’t going to lecture her, wasn’t even going to tell her she had been isolated. “So you came to work for me to see some more of the world. Was last night part of the cure for your restlessness?”

  “I don’t know what last night was,” she answered honestly. “Last night just added to my confusion. I don’t seem to know who I am or what I want anymore. And Taylor seems so different. One minute he treats me as a little girl—he said he thinks of me as a little girl—and the next he’s promising me kisses if I do well on my lessons.”

  “He what?” Hank asked, astonished.

  Amanda didn’t answer him directly. “I think Taylor may be as confused as I am. I’m not sure he knows if I’m a schoolgirl or a woman. He’s been stuck with me so long that I’m not sure he remembers how to treat a woman.”

  Hank didn’t say that it was something one never forgot. He tried to look at her problem from a distance, as if she were his student and not a woman whose mouth had—Student! he thought. Think student. “Which would you like to be, Amanda?” he asked in his teacher-voice. “A woman or a schoolgirl?”

  She picked up her plate of food again. “I have been attracted to you, Dr. Montgomery, I can’t deny that.”

  Hank gritted his teeth to keep from saying anything.

  “But I don’t think I would have been if I knew how to make Taylor think of me as a woman.” She glanced at him and saw he wasn’t looking at her with anger and it made her relax. “There is a great deal of truth in some of what you’ve said to me. I am somewhat of a prisoner in my house, but it’s only because it hadn’t occurred to me to break out. When I decided to stop my studies and come to work with the union, I was able to do it. And this morning, Taylor…”

  “Taylor what?” Hank asked, keeping his voice cool.

  “This morning I was—well, I slept without my nightgown on and the door was open and Taylor walked by and he…he looked at me with interest. He looked at me as if I were a woman and not a child.”

  Hank set aside his plate. He couldn’t eat any more. “Oh?” he managed to say. Was that what last night meant to her? That at last ol’ steel-spined Taylor had realized she was a woman? “So he looked at a half-nude woman in bed and showed some interest, did he?”

  “You always manage to make Taylor sound less than human. Don’t you realize that he’s been my teacher since I was a child? Of course he’d think of me as a schoolgirl. That’s why when I kissed him he—”

  “He what?”

  “He was repulsed by me,” she answered softly, remembering the hurt. “He has kissed me since, but it wasn’t the same.”

  “The same as what?”

  “Well, you know,” she answered, her face turning red.

  “Perhaps you should tell me.”

  “Last night, what we did…It was as if I couldn’t help myself. You are so much more experienced than Taylor. I mean, women are everywhere around you. Reva kisses you, Lily Webster looked as if she wanted to do with you what we did, and I’m sure you have many women at your college.”

  “Hundreds,” he said. “Thousands. Everywhere I go women fall all over themselves to go to bed with me.” He couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice. She was making him feel like a gigolo while Taylor was a respected citizen with morals—someone worth having. “Where is this heading, Amanda?”

  “I wonder if maybe you’d teach me. I mean, you have been teaching me, but I’ve been a reluctant student but perhaps I could become a willing student.”

  “Teach you what? How to make love?” His eyebrows were nearly in his hairline. This is how a prospector felt when he struck gold.

  “No, of course not. You taught me that last night, and I’m grateful. I won’t be afraid of my wedding night now and I’ll know what to do.”

  “You’re welcome,” Hank said, and refrained from telling her he doubted if Taylor knew about the things they’d done last night.

  “Would you teach me the part of life that’s not in books? Such as dancing and motion pictures and whatever else men and women do together? Maybe if I quit acting as a schoolgirl, Taylor will stop treating me as one.”

  Taylor, Hank thought. He was beginning to hate the man. She looked on last night as a prelude to her wedding night with Taylor. So what else did Hank want? Did he want her to say that after last night she couldn’t bear to live without him? Did he want her to be another Blythe Woodley? He’d wanted to sleep with Blythe, then have her find some other man to marry, and now Amanda was offering him just that, but for some reason Amanda’s offer was making him angry.

  “Motion pictures, huh? Anything else?” he asked at least. “No more sex lessons?”

  She looked away, blushing. “I’m sure we covered everyth
ing last night.”

  “Tip of the iceberg,” he said, as if he were talking about the weather. “There are many other positions, such as you on top or standing or sitting or—”

  “Standing?” she asked curiously. “I mean, how…? I just wondered, physically, how…?”

  “I’d stand and you’d wrap your legs around my waist and I’d support your—” He cupped his hands as if to hold her buttocks. “And I’d set you down on my old man.”

  “Your—?” Amanda laughed, then stopped herself. “I think last night was enough teaching in that area. I think I’ll wait until my marriage to Taylor.” Although she couldn’t imagine Taylor setting her down on his…“Dr. Montgomery,” she said softly, “do you think I could have a baby from last night?”

  Hank choked on the iced tea he was drinking. “I hope not,” he said sincerely.

  “But I thought that what we did was meant for procreation. I am somewhat concerned about this.”

  “Amanda,” he said, exasperated. She was talking to him as if he were another woman. “I don’t know too much about this kind of thing. I’ve been to bed with many, I mean a few women here and there, and I don’t think any of them have had my children. In fact, I’m sure one of them would have mentioned the fact to me. And lovemaking is for procreation but it’s also somewhat pleasurable. Didn’t you enjoy yourself last night?”

  Amanda couldn’t look at him. Enjoy herself? She’d nearly died in pleasure last night. This morning she could have taken a gun to both him and Reva when she’d seen them touching. “Yes, I did,” she whispered. “But I thought one…mating equaled one child. Married couples…” She trailed off as she had no idea what married couples did.

  “Married couples,” Hank said quietly, “make love often. For example, if, say, you and I were married, I’d make love to you every night and in the morning before I went off to teach and I’d probably come home to lunch, too. You couldn’t possibly have a child every time.”

  “I see,” Amanda said. She was trying to keep this conversation on an intellectual basis, but her skin was beginning to feel strange. At lunch? In the daylight? She wondered what he looked like when he had no clothes on. She knew the feel of him but not the look. Were those shoulders of his as wide as they felt? Were his thighs—She cleared her throat. “I had no idea. Thank you so much for telling me.”