The Last Dance

by Nan Ryan

  Blackie shuddered and deepened the kiss. His hand slipped around her knee, stroked slowly up the inside of her slender thigh, through the folds of her skirts.

  He felt her tremble against him, knew he had erotic control of her. He started to press his advantage, realized what he was doing, what he was about to do, and stopped. He tore his burning lips from Lucy’s, set her back from him.

  He heard her breath catch. She blinked at him in confusion. Her lips were puffy from so much kissing and the curves of her breasts and nipples were outlined against the soft fabric of her lilac dress. She was as beautiful as a provocative dream, and he wanted her. He fought the compulsion to take her, to have her, to make her his own.

  Blackie swallowed hard, took Lucy’s head in his strong hands, looked into her trusting eyes, and resisted the temptations that welled up in him.

  She broke the spell by asking, “Are you alright?”

  He exhaled with relief, laughed, hugged her, and said, “Hell no, I’m thirsty. What about you?”

  “Me, too.”

  “Let’s go down to the Boardwalk and drink an ice cold soda pop.”

  The moment and the danger had passed.

  Both were totally relaxed and getting sleepy when they stood outside Lucy’s door, saying their final goodnights sometime after midnight. Holding the fragile tortoise shell music box in her hands as if it were the most valuable treasure on earth, Lucy said, “You’ve outdone yourself, LaDuke. You made this day the most special of my life.”

  Blackie grinned, reached up and wrapped a wayward chestnut curl around his little finger. “Nothing to it. We’ll make tomorrow just as special. And the day after. And the day after that.”

  And so they did.

  The remaining days were all special. Too special to last. Those special days waned rapidly away until only one remained.

  One last golden day—and night—of summer.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  September 4th, 1899.

  The Labor day crowd swelling the population of Atlantic City on that first Monday in September was the largest of the season. Of any season. Larger even than the holiday hordes who’d poured into the seaside resort for the Fourth of July.

  Every hotel and rooming house was filled to capacity. Long lines formed at the front desks of every inn, large and small, up and down the Jersey Shore. Latecomers desperate to find lodging for the night. Everyone reaching for that one last fling of summer.

  The hotel dining rooms and fine restaurants and outdoor cafés could hardly cope with the swarms of hungry Labor Day revelers. The Boardwalk was so crowded that the famed rolling chairs couldn’t maneuver up and down the long wooden walkway. Business was phenomenal for the stalls and shops, the beaming proprietors managing to hear the sound of their cash registers ringing above the din.

  Below the busy Boardwalk the sandy beach was a solid sea of humanity. Only those who’d wisely gone down very early in the morning had enough room to spread a blanket on the sand. As the sun climbed higher and hotter into the sky, there was barely space to stand or sit, much less stretch out in the sun and relax.

  Blackie had warned Lucy what this day would be like. He’d spent holidays here before. He told her it would seem like every man, woman, and child in America was in Atlantic City for Labor Day.

  It proved to be true, but Lucy didn’t mind. Not at all. The crowds only added to the sense of excitement in the air. She was glad she was here. Right in the middle of it all. It was a good feeling. A wonderful feeling. That satisfying feeling that comes from knowing that, without any doubt, this was the place to be. And that Blackie LaDuke was the man to be here with. That she was the lucky one who was here at the place with the man.

  All week, Blackie had tried to persuade Lucy to eschew the Boardwalk and the beach for the holiday. He had suggested that they spend the day being lazy up on his penthouse terrace. There they could look down on all the activity, but not be a part of it.

  Lucy declined. She wanted to be a part of it. She wanted to mingle with the mobs on the Boardwalk and visit the amusement piers and hear the band concerts and swim in the ocean.

  And she wanted Blackie to do it with her.

  Please, Blackie, this one last time. Please.

  Easily swayed, he granted her wish.

  END-OF-SUMMER DANCE

  Monday, September 4, 1899

  Nine P.M.

  The Blue Room

  Don’t miss The Last Dance of the Season!

  Blackie stood directly in front of the large poster when Lucy stepped from the elevator around eight that Monday morning. His dark head was turned. He was looking away, his classic profile to her. She had a moment to examine him while he was unaware of her scrutiny. The sight of him took her breath away. He stood with his feet apart, his hands jammed deep into the pockets of his white duck trousers. The shirt he wore was navy-and-white striped cotton, open at the collar. His black hair glistened as if not quite dry from his morning shower. Unsmiling, he looked dark and dangerous, as though he might actually be the descendant of a proud Apache war chief.

  Blackie’s head swung around.

  He saw her and smiled.

  Lucy hurried to him, saying, “Am I late? I’m terribly sorry if I am. I’ve always considered it unforgivably rude to be tardy for an appointment and I certainly don’t want to…”

  All the while she chattered, saying what she knew were trivial, idiotic things, she was thinking how much she loved him, loved everything about him—his dark, olive coloring, the broad shoulders, the flat narrow waist, the proud nose, the sensual mouth, the beautiful midnight eyes, the curly, jet black hair.

  Grinning mischievously now, he looked like a bad little boy. A bad, charming, spoiled little boy who was a lot more fun to be with than any well-behaved child.

  “Want to go outside and play, little girl?” Blackie asked, and wrapped his lean fingers loosely around the back of her neck.

  “I do,” she said, and gently tapped his chest with the bamboo tip of her colorful silk umbrella, a birthday gift from Lady Strange.

  Blackie stepped away from the easel-mounted poster. Lucy’s eyes fell for a second to the large placard. She felt her heart squeeze painfully in her chest.

  She needed no reminder that today was the end of summer.

  Her eyes swiftly lifted and she pushed the poster and its meaning from mind. Blackie guided her through the crowded lobby to the beachside doors and out into the warm September sunshine.

  They played hard throughout the long hot day, behaving like two boisterous, carefree kids. They were constantly in the middle of the crowds, yet were jealously possessive, sharing themselves with no one but each other.

  As sundown approached, the huge crowds finally began to thin. The tide had drifted out and gulls were scavenging for food along the shore.

  Blackie and Lucy stood at the Boardwalk railing, looking out to sea, and placidly licking ice cream cones. Blackie finished his ice cream first. Lucy generously shared hers, smiling when he devoured the last bite of the crunchy cone.

  At last Lucy sighed and said lazily, “If I’m to look presentable for the End-of-Summer dance, I’d better go in and start getting ready.”

  Blackie’s dark head turned and he pinned her with his eyes. A devilish gleam appeared in their black depths and he said, “Jesus, Lucy, maybe you should have started sooner.”

  “Why you…!” She laughed, doubled up her fist and hit him on the shoulder.

  “Owwww!” Blackie howled and caught her wrist.

  He laughed, too, tucked her hand around his arm, and they headed back toward the Atlantic Grand in the summer twilight.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Lucy luxuriated in a suds filled tub as the summer dusk deepened. Her treasured oyster shell music box rested on a footstool directly beside the tub. The tiny, gold couple danced on their miniature mirrored dance floor while Lucy hummed along. As they danced, she languidly soaped herself, enjoying the bath and the music.

 
; Once she was out of the tub and had carefully dried off, Lucy did something she had never done before. She dropped the damp towel to the floor, picked up the delicate music box, and walked back into her room wearing nothing but a smile.

  She carefully placed the music box on the night table, then went about laying out all the articles of clothing she would wear tonight. She took the new underthings she’d saved for this special occasion from a drawer of the tall bureau.

  The cream, ribbed linen, waist-length bust support. The daring, thigh-high knickers trimmed with broderie anglaise. The ice blue satin-and-lace garters. And finally, a pair of sheer white silk stockings.

  Lucy spread each item out on the bed. She took from the closet a new pair of white leather shoes with openwork detail and louis heels. These too, she placed on the bed.

  She rewound the music box. Then she picked up the small crystal vial of expensive Bal Versailles perfume that the Colonel had given her for her birthday. She padded over to the long aqua sofa across from the bed. She sank down into the sofa’s softness and went about the pleasant task of applying smudges of the costly perfume to her clean, bare skin. She touched the tiny, crystal stopper to the sensitive spot behind her right ear, then her left. To the insides of her elbows. And the outsides of her ankles. Behind her dimpled knees.

  She carefully began to place the tiny, glass dauber back into the neck of the carved perfume bottle. Then all at once a wicked, un-lady-like, un-Lucy-like smile came to her lips and she blithely rose from the sofa. She moved with feline grace to the mirror, stopped, and stared. She whipped her head back, sending the abundance of unfettered, curly, chestnut hair off her face. She watched herself, fascinated, as she trailed the gleaming crystal perfume stopper down between her pale breasts.

  Her breath grew labored as she drew a criss-cross over her flat stomach, then delineated the faint line of wispy hair leading downward from her naval. Bottom lip caught between her teeth, Lucy turned about, and reaching around, touched the tiny perfume dauber to the top of the cleft in her buttocks.

  Lucy laughed gaily then, feeling wonderfully feminine and risqué.

  She set the perfume bottle aside, rewound the music box, and began to skillfully dress her hair. She swept the thick, curly, chestnut locks atop her head, using a half dozen plain, functional hairpins which she cleverly concealed beneath the glossy curls. She turned her head this way, then that, checking her handiwork. Satisfied, she picked up the decorative, pearl encrusted, gold hairpin that Lochlin MacDonald had given her for her birthday.

  Lucy slid the pearl pin into the left side of her hair. Generally she wore her hair adornments on the right side. But not tonight. Tonight she would be in Blackie’s arms, dancing the evening away. Her right temple would be pressed to his tanned cheek. She didn’t want her hairpin scratching his face.

  Lucy took one last appraising glance at her hair. Convinced it looked as good as possible, she went to the bed, sat down on the edge of the mattress, and began drawing on the sheer white stockings. Slender right leg extended, toes pointed toward the ceiling, Lucy carefully drew the sheer, shimmering silk up over her knee, wondering at herself.

  She was doing everything backwards this evening.

  Shoes and stockings were always the very last thing she put on, after she was fully dressed. Yet here she was, totally naked, pulling on her stockings. It seemed almost sinful. It seemed even more sinful when both stockings were on, the ice blue satin-and-lace garters encircled her knees, and the new white leather shoes with the louis heels were on her feet.

  And she was still naked.

  Sinful, yet strangely delightful.

  Exhaling softly, Lucy rose from the bed, ventured back to the mirror. She gazed at the shameless woman reflected there. This naked wanton before her couldn’t possibly be the spinster postmistress from Colonias, New York. Miss Lucy would never have been guilty of parading around in nothing but shoes and stockings. And she wouldn’t have dared admire herself in this state of provocative undress.

  Lucy smiled.

  Miss Lucy wouldn’t do such a thing. But then she was no longer Miss Lucy. She was Lucy. Simply Lucy. Lovely Lucy at the moment. A free spirited, daring, seductive Lucy who wasn’t afraid of admiring the slender feminine beauty of her own undraped body.

  A resounding knock on the door caused Lucy to jump and attempt to cover herself with her hands.

  “Yes?” she called, anxiously crossing the room to the closed door, throwing out her hands lest anyone should attempt to open it.

  “You decent?” came Blackie’s low baritone. “Let me in, Lucy.”

  “No,” she called to him, her face growing hot at the thought of Blackie, fully dressed, standing barely a foot away from her while she was naked. Only the door separated them. Helplessly obeying some erotic impulse, Lucy suddenly pressed her bare body flush against the door, pretending she was pressing herself against Blackie.

  “Lucy,” he said, “are you alright?”

  “Ahhh, yes, yes, I…my dress is not entirely fastened.”

  “My hands are deft,” he said, “I’d be happy to loan them to you.”

  Lucy’s bare belly involuntarily tightened. She swallowed convulsively. “Thanks all the same, but I can manage. Give me five minutes.”

  “They’re yours,” said Blackie.

  Lucy flew into action, snatching up her underthings and hurriedly putting them on. In seconds she was pulling the new, never-before-worn evening dress over her head and struggling to fasten it down the back. Successful at last, she put on her pearl drop earrings. She hurried back to the mirror where she’d stood naked moments ago.

  Her green eyes sparkled when she saw herself. She was so glad she had bought this special white tulle evening dress.

  The ball gown was exquisite, fashionable and flattering. A lace-edged off-the-shoulder neckline, large puff sleeves, fitted bodice, V-shaped panel, deep pleated cummerbund, and a flared skirt decorated with wide lace frills around the hem. She credited the dress with being so stunning it made her look pretty.

  And feel pretty.

  Lucy took a deep breath, crossed the room, and opened the door.

  Blackie stood framed in the portal, handsome in a tropical, off-white suit, a white gardenia in his lapel. He said nothing. But the way he looked at her sent an electrical charge through Lucy’s slender body. Her fingertips tingled when he handed her a fragrant corsage of ivory gardenias. Her hand began to tremble.

  “Allow me,” said Blackie, took the gardenias from her and pinned them to the low cut bodice of her evening gown, directly above her heart.

  He bent his dark head, inhaled the pleasing fragrance of the corsage and of her. Then he brushed his warm lips to the swell of her pale bosom, attractively revealed in the low cut gown.

  Lucy’s breath caught in her throat. She felt the overpowering urge to lay a gloved hand on the back of his dark head and press his handsome face against her breasts. To hold him close forever and…

  “God, you’re pretty,” Blackie murmured as he lifted his head and gazed at her. “And sweet. So sweet.” A muscle jumped in his lean jaw and he added, nearly inaudibly, as if thinking aloud, “Almost too sweet and pretty for me to…to…”

  Abruptly, he stopped speaking, cleared his throat. And Lucy could have sworn that he flushed slightly beneath his tan and a little shudder of emotion surged through his tall, lean frame before he grinned and said, “Let’s go to the dance.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  They were all there.

  Lochlin MacDonald in his wheeled chair was stationed near the ballroom’s entrance, smiling, greeting people. Hair slicked back, a blood-red rose in the lapel of his white dinner jacket, his eyes, if not his failing body, were alive with excitement.

  Lady Strange, in a flowing silver satin ball gown and sparkling diamonds, was comfortably seated on a long blue sofa against the wall. A pair of mother-of-pearl opera glasses, suspended from a silver chair around her fat neck, rested on her enormous, silver-drape
d bosom. In one plump hand was a glass of chilled champagne; in the other was a shrimp canapé. A plate filled with exotic, edible tidbits was balanced on her dimpled knees. Precious, in a diamond-decorated collar, dozed peacefully on the couch beside his mistress.

  The indulgent, attentive Colonel Cort Mitchell stood beside the sofa. The tall, impeccably groomed, silver-haired Colonel was an imposing figure in a superbly fitting dark suit that had been tailored in London. Lingering glances were being cast his way, lonely matrons and rich widows hoping the dapper southerner might favor them with a dance or two before the evening ended.

  The starry-eyed newlyweds from Pittsburgh were on the dance floor. Still starry-eyed. The prominent New York City physician and his sour, complaining wife bickered as they waltzed. The loud, boisterous family of eight—the mother and all six children with their flaming red hair—had arrived early, the rambunctious, redheaded youngsters descending like a cloud of locusts on the long, food-laden buffet table.

  Then there was the wealthy railroader and a widowed lady friend he had met at a Boardwalk arcade. The hypochondriac banker, complaining about his bad back. The fading stage actor, telling anyone who would listen that he would soon be going into rehearsals for a starring role in a big New York City theater production. The circus clown, minus his make-up. The recluse writer, who rarely ventured out of his room.

  Ninety percent of the registered Atlantic Grand guests had come down for the dance. Dozens of vacationers from the other hotels up and down the Boardwalk were also in attendance. The Grand’s last dance of the season had gained the much deserved reputation of being the season’s best; entertaining and exciting and enjoyable, an event above all others which was not to be missed.