Highroad

by Jeanie P Johnson

  “You sting my heart,” he moaned.

  “Be thankful it is just a sting,” she responded.

  “Don’t think you have discouraged me,” he informed her.

  “Heaven’s Max. Your persistence nauseates me. Do save your energy for something else. I hear women of the night may accept your virility. If the price was right,” She laughed.

  “Your every word endears me,” he mumbled. And Lavonia continued to laugh.

  The dance over with, now Lavonia could focus on flirting with all the young men in the room, who would be more enjoyable to talk to, and exciting to tease. It was not that she hated men altogether. She just did not prefer one in her bed. Let alone ruling her every move. She liked her freedom to do as she pleased and no man or husband was ever going to put a damper on that, she resolved.

  Grange leaned languidly against the wall, jotting down things in his small note pad. The pencil lead broke, as he stabbed a period at the end of his sentence, and he realized it was his own frustration, that was getting the better of him. Even if he wrote charming accounts of Lavonia’s flirtations, it wouldn’t change anything. His sarcasm of her, is what always brought her to his door, and her ire was better than nothing, he decided. At least it gave him a chance to cross wits with her, which he always found exhilarating for some god awful reason. At the same time, his heart always sank, the moment she walked away, usually in a huff, but his handsome lips were always turned up at the corners, because he knew he could always bate her in one way or another.

  Now she was dancing with a young man, he believed to be younger than Marybeth, and he chuckled to himself. The woman attracted men like a moth to a flame, regardless of their age, and she loved her power, more than she could ever love any man, he believed. He wondered what it would be like to gain her passion in bed, every time he saw her passion placed on other things?

  She was a rebel, and it would take a certain kind of man to tame her. But Grange did not want to tame her. He wanted to share her rebellious ways. He wanted to stoke that passion, and make it burn even brighter.

  He knew in the morning she would be out riding, not properly like most women in a sensible side saddle, but astride, with her skirts flowing over the rump of her horse. He wondered if that is the only pleasure she would ever feel between her legs? Maybe that was her way of satisfying her lust, or passion, if she ever had any of those inner longings.

  He would make a point to be out when most of the society group rode through the park, to gossip about the festivities of the night before. By then, Lavonia will have had a chance to read the morning news, and of course she, as usual, will be in the gossip column.

  If he was to prepare the type for the morning sheet, he needed to leave, he told himself, but he longed to stay a moment longer, just to watch her graceful frame glide across the dance floor.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “The nerve, calling me a peacock in a plum dress! Anyone with a sense of color would know it was burgundy, not plum!” Lavonia, growled, as she slapped the paper against her knee. “Listen to this, father.” She opened the paper once more. “The alluring Miss Hampton, strutted across the floor, like a proud peacock in a plum dress, with every gangling fool that would accommodate her. Her suitors, as usual raging from young men barely out of the school room, to widowers who already know what charmingly lay beneath her lace. And yet her upturned nose never lowers an inch in anyone’s direction. Dear Lord, is there no man that can bring her tumbling from her pedestal? Can you believe such balderdash? The man is simply jealous!” she jeered.

  “As he should be,” Hector responded, smiling to himself. He could tell by the way Grange always looked at his daughter, that the man was besotted. But then every man that came near her was, so what need to mention it?

  “I’m going to go change, and go riding,” she announced, as she threw the paper across the room into the fireplace. She watched with dark eyes as the paper caught flame, and envisioned Grange’s handsome face, going up in flames. Pedestal indeed, she fumed to herself, as she stamped up the stairs.

  She took great care to put on one of her most alluring dresses, which would show off the tops of her pale white breasts, rising above the lace collar, and her long graceful arms, bare, extending down below the double puffed sleeves, while her hands would be covered in short riding gloves. “I’ll show him plum!” she bellowed, as she pulled on her short plum gloves that matched the plum dress she had chosen to ride in. It was actually a little too delicate to waste on a horse, but she had a point to prove. “Peacock, am I? He is the cock, not I, and is just sparing for a fight!” She stabbed her hat pin into the felt hat, that covered her brow, and then pulled down the lace to shade her eyes, and keep the bugs out of her face. The feather, a peacock feather, to be exact, bobbed behind her from the hat, as she walked downstairs and headed out to the stables.

  She mounted her bay, that was waiting, as the groom held it. She adjusting her skirts about her, and then took her whip and gave the horse’s rump a tap. Shortly, she had joined the other riders in the park, and she knew eventually, she would cross the path of Grange. He always made it a point to come to the park to enjoy the stir his newspaper articles made.

  “If it isn’t Miss Hampton,” his familiar voice called to her, and she turned in her saddle to see the very man she wanted to use her whip on, coming up beside her.

  “Dear, Grange, have you not learned your colors yet? If you are going to write about a woman’s attire, at least get the color right! What I am wearing today, is plum, not what I wore last night. That was definitely burgundy!”

  Grange grazed his eyes over Lavonia’s dress, but he wasn’t looking at the color. He was admiring her well rounded globes, that seemed to dominate his mind at the moment. Oh to touch those glorious mounds. He cleared his throat, and tried to focus his eyes somewhere else but was having a hard time accomplishing the task. “Plum, do you say?” he snickered.

  “And I do not hold myself up on a pedestal!” she frowned.

  “When you come tumbling down, you will discover the error of that statement,” he murmured.

  “Why do you write such trite? Are you just trying to rile me on purpose?”

  “You are so astute!” he smiled. “Don’t you know that when you are riled, your eyes flash, and your breast, almost pop right out of your gown, which I keep hoping for, and your face is the most delicious color of pink. I do know pink when I see it, my dear,” he chuckled.

  “You just never give up taunting me,” she snapped.

  “Why should I. You rise to it so easily. Didn’t I tell you, you were predictable?”

  “Oh!” she spewed. “You are impossible!”

  “Not as impossible as you, my darling,” he laughed.

  “Stop calling me your darling. I shall never be your darling, and you know it.” She put her nose in the air, and he watched her breast bounce, as her horse started to trot, so he nudged his horse in order to remain at her side, enjoying the view.

  “I have no doubt you will never find a man to call you darling, so therefore, I give you the title as a mere gift for your ears,” he smirked.

  “My ears don’t need any gifts,” she responded, looking over at him. His smile was so dashing, she hated looking at him, when he smiled at her, like that, so she turned her head back.

  “You seem in high spirits, today,” he continued. “How many proposals did you turn down last night?”

  “Please…..” she moaned.

  “If you have no intentions of ever getting married, why do you flirt so with the men to give them hope?”

  “What else is there to do with silly men but see how predictable they are,” she laughed.

  “For such a beautiful face, you have a cruel heart.”

  “You know nothing of my heart,” she snapped. “Nor will any man,” she added.

  “I know it must be made of ice. Your horse is the only creature that will ever be between your thighs.”

  “How insightful of you,” she qui
pped. “You have a few brains after all!”

  At that moment, Marybeth came cantering up, and she reined in her horse and turned it to join them, placing herself on the other side of Grange. “Goodness, Lavonia, how can you spread your legs like that over a horse’s back?” she asks, frowning. “It is simply indecent!”

  “There are certain pleasures to such a seat,” she said, tauntingly towards Grange. “Grange and I were just discussing it.”

  “Oh,” Marybeth breathed. “How scandalous!”

  “Would you like me to describe it?” she asked with a smirk.

  “I certainly would,” Grange responded, and Marybeth tapped his arm with the but of her whip.

  “For shame, Grange. There is at least one lady in your company,” she simpered.

  “Dear me, there is Max, coming this way. I fear I must part company,” Lavonia cried, and turned her horse in the opposite direction and gave it the whip.

  The bay kicked up pebbles, in its retreat, and Grange looked over his shoulder as Lavonia galloped over the path, with perfect control of her mount. He wished she would ride him like that, he found himself thinking, but his fantasy was interrupted by Marybeth’s voice, purring at him. “I don’t understand what men see in her tomfoolery!”

  “Someday you will be enlightened,” Grange murmured.

  Lavonia managed to make her escape from having to talk to Max, and decided since she had her words with Grange, she might as well return home. There were bills to go over, and more heirlooms to separate from the rest, to see what kind of prices they could bring.

  She left her horse for the groom to take care of and wondered how long before she would have to sack the groom and the carriage driver? Before long, it would just be her and her father trying to run the massive house. She had already closed most of it off to save on coal, but she didn’t know how much more she would need to do to put enough money aside to keep the house in good repair, and a roof over their heads.

  By evening, she had collected an assortment of objects she had never been overly fond of, and placed them in an apple crate. Tomorrow she would take them into the shops, and see what she could get for them. It was humiliating, which is why she always went to a near by town, to do her business, where no one knew her, except through reading Grange’s gossip column. His sketches never did her justice, though, she laughed to herself.

  She sat down at her father’s massive desk, in the study, to go over the bills and divide the money she would pay for each bill. The room was depressing with its dark paneling and masculine furniture. Books lined the wall, and before long the only entertainment she was going to have was reading those books, she thought angrily to herself. She cursed her father again for his gambling, thinking he could get more money out of thin air.

  Lavonia, went to the middle shelf, and pulled out a huge book, that she could barely lift, and took the cash box out from behind it. She was constantly having to find new places to hide the money, she grumbled to herself. She took the cash box and put the little key she took from a nook in the roll top desk, into the lock and turned it. When she lifted the lid, she started screaming. “Hell and damnation! You good for nothing, sly bastard! You found the money again!” The box was empty.

  She knew where she would find him, and this time she was so furious, that she didn’t care what people thought! She would drag him out by the ear, if she had to! After all the pains she had been going through to scrape up the small amount of money she could, and he took it to gamble it away again!

  Lavonia ordered the carriage, and told the driver to take her to the club. He knew what club she was referring to, since it was the only gentleman’s club in the town, and all the men frequented it. No women allowed! Well, what woman in her right mind would want to be in such a club with a bunch of childish men who sat around drinking, talking about the races, smoking those god awful cigars, and gambling every penny they owned, for the thrill of becoming destitute?

  The moment the carriage pulled up to the front steps, Lavonia bounded from its door, not even waiting for the door man to come and help her down. He wouldn’t have done it anyway, when he saw she was a woman. She practically sprinted up the steps, to greet the wide eyed door man, as she tugged at the door.

  “I’m sorry, Miss, but there are no women aloud,” he told her.

  “Balderdash!” she spit. “How are you going to stop me?”

  She managed to get the door open and started storming through the building to look for her father. “Heavens, Lavonia,” Grange exclaimed. “What in the duce are you doing here? You do know this is a gentleman’s club.”

  “Gentlemen, my foot!” she shot. “Where in the hell is my father?”

  “You don’t need to swear,” he smiled, loving to hear the words spill from her mouth.

  “I’ll do more than swear, once I get my hands on him,” she bellowed.

  “I believe he is in the card room,” he told her, trying to keep the corners of his mouth from lifting, because he could tell she was in a state.

  “I know that! Where else would he be? Just where is the damn card room?”

  “I’ll get him for you,” he offered. Already there was a group of men gathering about them, all laughing and demanding someone remove her from the club.

  “No you won’t! You are no better than he is!” Lavonia was bawling at Grange. “You will probably help him escape! Just point the way!”

  “My word, this is outrageous,” one of the men in the group bellowed, “I never thought I would see the day, when….”

  “Get out of my way,” Lavonia ordered, as she pushed him aside and strode past him, following behind Grange who was headed to the card room. Her skirts rustling about her seemed to echo off the walls. A sound that few had probably heard in this room, she thought almost smugly.

  The door to the card room was flung open as the crowd of men, led by Grange and Lavonia, headed towards the door. “What is the commotion all about?” the man who had flung the doors open questioned.

  “Where is my father,” Lavonia demanded, as she strode past the man at the door. All heads in the room lifted and glared at her in disbelief.

  “Lavonia! Heaven’s girl, get yourself out of here at once!” Lavonia’s father, cried, when he saw her storming up to his table.

  “I should say the same to you,” She scolded, as she held out her hand. “Where is the money? Hand it over right this moment!”

  “Gad, man, are you going to let your daughter talk to you like that?” a man at his elbow asked in astonishment.

  “Right this moment!” Lavonia repeated, her seething eyes stabbing at her father.

  Her father slowly lowered his head. “It’s on the table, and no longer belongs to me,” he told her.

  “What? You have lost the money?” she shrieked.

  “Not only that,” he murmured, “but I lost the house as well.”

  “No!” Lavonia growled. “You didn’t! Tell me you didn’t!” she begged, grabbing him by the collar.

  “I am afraid he did,” she heard a voice across the table, and she lifted her head to see Max sitting across the table from her father. “It belongs to me, now, as soon as he signs over the deed,” he informed her.

  “How could you?” Lavonia shrieked at her father, as tears started to spill from her eyes.

  Grange had never seen Lavonia in such a state, before. He didn’t think she had a tear in her to cry, and this surprised him, as his heart went out to her.

  “I see you are quite distressed,” Max continued. “I am a fair man. I will let your father play one more hand. If he wins, I will give him back the money and the house. If he loses, I will still give him back the money and the house, but you will take it’s place, as my wife.”

  “No!” Lavonia breathed, backing away from the table. She would almost be willing to lose it all, rather than marry the man.

  “As you wish,” Max said, as he started to pull the money and the IOU, from the center of the table towards him.

  �
��Wait,” Lavonia, choked quietly, gaining composure again. Grange took in his breath. She was her cool self once more. “Let him play one more hand,” she whispered. He had to win it, she prayed to herself.

  Someone shuffled the cards and dealt them out, and Lavonia stood frozen in her spot, watching on as the men played. Only the sound of the cards sliding in their hands disturbed the silence of the room, as all eyes were glued on Hector Hampton. Grange wanted to reach out and touch Lavonia’s shoulder to reassure her, but he knew instinctively that she would resent it. She was too proud to lean on a man’s strength.

  As the last hand was played, Lavonia whimpered when she saw that Max beat her father’s hand. “Take your money and house,” Max said quietly. Then his eyes lifted to Lavonia’s. “I will see you in the church in one week. Don’t try to escape, my dear, there are too many witnesses here that know you have agreed to marry me.”

  Lavonia turning stoically and numbly walked from the room. Her father came to her side to take her elbow, but she shrugged it off. “You are not my father!” she hissed.

  Grange looked on sullenly, she had finally toppled from her pedestal, he thought, and the crash is going to be the end of her. If there was anything he could do to save her, he would, but he knew there was nothing she would accept, and he would have to abduct her against her will to get her out of this mess, and that would never work either.

  She looked straight ahead, as the group of men parted to let her walk through. Max stood at the gaming table with a smile of satisfaction on his lustful face. Grange was torn between elation of finally seeing Lavonia put in her place, and disappointment that he would never have a chance to have her himself. Fate had not been kind to either of them.

  “Do you need a ride?” Grange asked her as she stood watching her father get into their carriage, refusing to get in beside him.