Did Joyce and David still steal into the garden on hot nights like this one? Shed their layers, dip into thigh-deep water? Did the servants spy, catching a glimpse of their mistress’s moon-pale skin gleaming in the wan light as she frolicked with her husband?
And could any maid or footman serve bacon and eggs the next morning without blushing? Surely it was impossible to look at someone the same way again after you’d seen them in the altogether?
Or maybe it didn’t really matter. Maybe it was just like looking at a Greek statue. After all, we’ve all got the same parts, so one naked person was probably much like another. And yet, I couldn’t help but think it wasn’t really like that. Surely if I ever saw Jeremy naked, I’d never be able to look at him the same way again.
I blushed and tried to force myself to think of something else. But of course once something like that’s fixed in your mind you can’t get it back out again.
Jeremy must have joined us for those childhood swims sometimes. But hard as I tried, I couldn’t remember him being there. He’d made less of an impression in those days. Now, however, I couldn’t help but imagine him ducking under the water, coming up slowly, rivulets running down his face, arms, and legs, clothes plastered to his body.
Or perhaps no clothes at all …
You should take Jeremy as a lover.
I went to douse my face in water again, and when I returned to the window, I saw one of the men walking around the pond, smoking. I could just make out his outline and the occasional flare of orange from the tip of his cigarette. I couldn’t tell who it was: any of the men in the house might have had reason to need a late-night stroll to calm his thoughts or cool down. But I laid my forehead on the glass and watched him for a while anyway, wondering if he saw me. After a few moments, he flicked his cigarette away and headed into the house.
I crawled into bed and tossed until I managed to find a cool spot. I pressed my face against it and clenched my hands so they wouldn’t go wandering where perhaps they shouldn’t. I fell asleep like that and dreamed of Jeremy, coming out of the pool, dripping wet and gleaming. But when I reached out to touch him, he turned into marble. Hard and cold, like Galatea in reverse.
Chapter Twenty
“She’s ready!” David crowed, galloping into the dining room at lunchtime the next day.
The rest of us blinked at him until Joyce said, “Oh! The plane! Of course. I might have known he’d never be so excited about an actual woman.”
“Don’t ruin it,” David scowled, taking his seat.
“Same goes for you,” Laura said to him.
“When do we get to see it?” I asked. “Or her. Why her, anyway? Why are ships and planes and things always women?”
“We men like being reminded of lovely things, and what’s lovelier than a woman?” David responded with an ingratiating smile toward his wife.
“Hear, hear!” Freddie crowed.
“Besides, airplanes and ships tend to be staffed with men,” David continued. “There aren’t too many men who want to spend all their time in another man.”
“I don’t know that that’s true,” Laura remarked.
Freddie guffawed. “You sure take the cake, you know that?” he said to Laura.
“So when do we get to see her, David?” I asked again.
“End of the week?” he suggested. “Thursday?”
“No, not Thursday,” Joyce protested. “I’ve got the Ladies’ Benevolent Society coming about the fete on Thursday, and I need Astra.”
“You do not,” I argued. “Can’t you face them down yourself?”
“Let her go with the boys, Joyce, if that’s what she really wants,” said Laura. “I’ll help you manage the Benevolents. With a name like that, how bad could they be?”
“Huh,” Joyce grunted. “Just you wait and see.”
* * *
Now that we were under a ticking clock, Laura and I took Freddie off to the study immediately after lunch to try to work some backbone into him. But after a good hour and a half, it was starting to feel hopeless.
“Honestly, Freddie, you couldn’t convince a rabbit to take a free carrot from you right now,” Laura groaned. “Have some verve! Find your vim!”
His forehead puckered. “I’m trying. Vim’s dashed hard to find sometimes.”
“Try again!” she ordered. “Convince me to buy your tires, Freddie.”
I wasn’t much help. A sleepless night and overcrowded mind left me flaccid and easily distracted. I drooped, unable to come up with anything useful to say. Worrying one moment about the company going under, the next about Jeremy never wanting to speak to me again. And then wondering what sort of notes Millicent was receiving today.
“Astra! Are you listening?”
I started and sat up. “What’s that?”
Laura shook her head in disgust. “You’re both hopeless. Astra, go and finish thrashing things out with Jeremy will you? Purge your mind of this nonsense so you can get down to the business at hand.” She waved toward the doorway, where Jeremy was waiting, with a smile both kind and apologetic. I’d been so lost in thought I hadn’t even noticed him arrive. My heart lifted even as my stomach knotted. He’d come back! But what would he say?
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” he said.
“No, please do.” Laura waved us both off. “Take her away and have another ripsnorter, you two. Make sure the air’s well and truly cleared.”
He looked questioningly at me. An expression that said, “Could we talk?”
We returned to the library, and I went to stand next to the windows, where there seemed less risk of us being overheard. I wasn’t sure what to say; every time I looked at him, all I could see was that dream. The rivulets of water trickling down a perfect Grecian body. And that body going hard and cold. Unreachable under my touch.
He, too, seemed uncertain. He cleared his throat several times, went to the fireplace, then joined me. “I’ve come to beg your forgiveness,” he announced.
“I don’t like the thought of you begging me for anything,” I quickly rejoined.
He smiled momentarily. His posture eased a little. “All the same, I overstepped last night, as you so rightly pointed out. I had no business making claims on you or your time. I’m very sorry. And I’m sorry that I accused you of having ulterior motives for wanting my help in finding that man a job.” He looked away from me and flinched, looking disgusted. “I can’t imagine what you must think of me. As if I couldn’t imagine helping someone simply because it was in your power to do so.”
I touched his arm. “I think you were upset and speaking purely in anger.”
“You’re generous and kind. More so than I deserve.”
“Not at all,” I said, sighing. “I haven’t been blameless. The way I’ve been behaving with you, of course you’d think …” I took a deep breath. Tried not to think of the dream.
“But you’ve been very clear from the beginning that you aren’t interested in anything more, and I should have respected that.” He cleared his throat again and stepped back. My hand fell from his arm.
No!
“Good heavens, Jeremy, who’s still keeping their New Year’s resolution in August?” I asked with a shaky laugh.
He looked up at me and blinked. His expression turned the tiniest bit hopeful.
“I’m sorry, I—I don’t know what this is!” I burst out. “I don’t know what any of it is! I don’t know how to be with you, and there are so many things happening for me just now and so many … complications. I don’t know how to manage it all, so I’m just making mess after mess.” I threw up my hands. “And who am I to ask for advice? My mother can’t help me. Joyce is miserable and, now, too busy. Cee would just turn gooey and romantic, and Laura says I should just take you as a lover!”
What was I saying? I felt the blood shoot straight up from my neck to meet the roots of my hair. I could have made toast on the heat coming off my face.
Jeremy was taken aback but then burst out laughing.
“Did she really?”
I couldn’t help it. I started to laugh too. It was like turning a faucet: neither of us could seem to stop. We laughed and laughed until tears came.
“Well,” he said, once we were spent and starting to regain control of ourselves. “You know what everyone else thinks. What do you want?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. What did I want? To be friends? Yes, but more. There was more there—I could reach out and just brush it with my fingertips. I wanted to grasp it and hold it, pull it close. I wanted to sit by the fire or in the garden with him. Tell him all my adventures and hear his and have some together. Make plans and tease and comfort. Take his hand as the fire died and the sun went down, and go upstairs …
Did I want the surety, the finality of marriage? To know that he was mine, and mine alone, forever? Or should I cling to my freedom and be his lover, as Laura said? Shock the world and make a scandal? Become the woman they all thought I was?
“I don’t know,” I repeated, feeling stupid, childish, helpless. And angry with myself because of that.
Jeremy smiled that beautiful smile of his. As always, it went straight through me. He stepped forward and gently brushed one of the lingering laughter tears off my cheek.
“We may be getting ahead of ourselves,” he said. “We don’t need to make any decisions about anything just now. We can … just be, for a bit.”
“Probe and winnow out all our faults and foibles?”
He chuckled. “If that’s an invitation, I’m happy to do a bit of foible probing.”
My heart sped up. His hand was still on my cheek, cupping my face now. I saw him swallow hard, and then he lowered his head and kissed me. Soft and sweet, like a summer’s rain. But I tingled all over and my heart went pit pit pit and my face felt hot and I thought, Yes! Yes! Yes!
And then it was over, and we were looking at each other and smiling.
Then Laura was there, saying, “Sorry to interrupt, but Astra, I’m about to say ‘uncle.’ Freddie’s hopeless.”
I concentrated very hard on not killing her with the nearest blunt object.
“Yes, all right, Laura,” I said tightly.
“What is it you’re trying to do?” Jeremy asked.
“Freddie and I need to convince the owner of an airplane factory to start buying tires from us,” I explained.
“Could I help?” Jeremy suggested.
“You know what? I think you could!” said Laura, grabbing him by the arm and hauling him back into the study. She stood him in front of Freddie, stepped back, and said, “Now, Jem, show Freddie your best ‘I’m in charge, and you’ll do as I say’ glare.”
Freddie already looked terrified.
“I don’t think that will help,” said Jeremy. “Freddie, why don’t you and I go somewhere? Change of scenery will do you good.”
“Right-o!” Freddie was out the door like a spaniel after a rabbit.
“Back in a while,” Jeremy promised.
“Don’t get him drunk!” Laura bellowed after them. She turned back to me with a sigh. “Well, now I’ll be bored and you’ll be jumpy. Distraction is needed. Tennis?”
I let her put me through my paces for a solid two hours, until we saw Jeremy’s car coming back up the drive. Freddie leapt out as we approached and dashed toward the house, but Laura was too fast for him. She grabbed his arm as he passed and turned him to face her. “Alcohol,” she declared in the voice of a detective inspecting a dead body and proclaiming, “Arsenic.”
“Oh.” Freddie’s eyes darted to Jeremy, who rolled his slightly. “Just a little pint. A half pint! Not even a full half pint. I think the barman was cheating us.”
“My fault, Laura,” Jeremy said. “One drink at The Fox. Just the one, I promise.”
Laura released Freddie, who fled inside. “You’ll undo all my good work,” she growled at Jeremy, waggling a finger menacingly at him. “All of it. And she won’t thank you for that.” She jabbed the finger in my direction, then stomped off toward the tennis lawn, muttering about thankless tasks.
“I thought the poor boy needed some release,” Jeremy apologetically explained.
“It’s all right. He’s earned a little something. Did it help?”
“Oh, enormously. I’ve seen plenty of others like him, meek and bullied. They just need a little building up. Those sisters of his have spent their whole lives haranguing him. Putting him with Laura was hardly going to build his confidence. But I can keep working on him, if you like.”
“I do like, if you don’t mind,” I answered, trying to pour all my gratitude into the look I was giving him. “I need him in top form for the factory visit. Are you coming?”
“Yes, I think I might. David’s talked about this plane so much I feel as if I know it already. It’ll be nice to see it all put together.”
I smiled at him. “Good. It’ll be quite the excursion, then.”
He smiled, then reached out and very gently pulled me closer, lowering his head so his lips were next to my ear. “I don’t want to alarm you,” he murmured, “but I have reason to think someone here is keeping an eye on you.”
“I know someone is,” I told him. “How did you find out?”
“Lady Millicent has shown her hand,” he answered. “She telephoned me this morning, quite out of the blue, and asked if I might show her around Midbourne Abbey. Some of the things she said suggested she knew that you and I had quarreled.”
“And she thought she might strike while the iron was hot?” I shook my head. “She certainly knows an opportunity when she sees one, and takes it.”
“Well, she’ll be disappointed, then, because there’s no opportunity here.” His voice had a hard edge to it. I looked up at him in surprise, and he explained: “I know what she did to Mustard. And to you.” Off my shocked expression, he continued, “Mustard had a glass or two of brandy the eve of the wedding and spilled, but swore me to secrecy.”
“He hardly needed to do that. You’re too much of a gentleman to slander a lady,” I observed. “Although it doesn’t serve me well in this instance, it’s one of the things I admire about you, Jeremy.”
“I hope you don’t think less of me for not doing more to defend you,” he said, looking embarrassed.
I reached out and took his hand. “You did what you could. I know that. And I appreciate it, I really do.”
“Well, I want you to know that Millicent has no hope with me. I made that very clear to her. As you know, I’m not one to suffer bullies.”
“That’s very good to hear.” We grinned at each other, still holding hands. “Are you staying for a while, or must you rush back home?” I asked.
“I have nowhere to be but here.”
“Well, then,” I said playfully, “I’m going to take a bath. And afterward, why don’t we go back to the library and give that spy something really interesting to report?”
Chapter Twenty-One
Off to the airplane factory, where the lads and I were greeted by a box-shaped man with thinning hair who smirked at me and said, “Who brought the wife?”
“I’m not anyone’s wife.” I offered a hand to shake. “I’m Astra Davies.”
He very delicately took my hand, as if he thought it might shatter, then gave David some backslaps and the other men hearty handshakes.
“How’re things, Dicky?” David asked him. “Everyone, this is Richard Linklater. Owner and airplane builder extraordinaire!”
“Too kind,” said Linklater. “You’ll want to see your little lady, I suppose?”
“Of course!” David replied.
Linklater glanced at me. “Want her to wait with my secretary?” he asked David.
I felt Jeremy, standing beside me, stiffen. I answered with a tone and smile equally bright, “Oh no, please, I want to see the plane too!”
Linklater finally lowered himself to address me directly: “It’s very loud inside.”
“I think I can manage,” I replied, my voice cooling even as my smile widened.
“She’s a tough bird is Astra,” Freddie piped up.
“All right,” Linklater grumbled. “Come on.”
He wasn’t lying about the noise: the machinery clattered and clanged deafeningly. Shiny bits of airplanes moved past on conveyor belts. Men with tools swarmed them, and away came wings and propellers. In a corner, the more delicate work of building an engine was underway. Linklater pointed this way and that, talking, but none of us could hear. Freddie nodded mechanically and tried to look like he knew what was going on.
We were taken through a back door, to a long drive where the finished planes were lined up. Linklater continued talking as we passed them, and now we were out of the din of the factory, we could actually hear him.
“We specialize in racing airplanes, but we’re doing some passenger carriers as well,” he explained. “Loads of orders coming in for that. People have gone off airships since that crash last year, and they love that they can get places so much faster by air. Only a week to get from Croyden to Karachi now. Imagine that! We’re just about to sign a contract with Empire Airways. They want to start a London-to-Moscow route next year and add more Paris flights. For the ladies, you know,” he added, smirking at me.
“You’ll be building quite a lot of planes, then,” I commented, already noting how large their output appeared to be.
He seemed a little surprised to hear me speak but just shook his head and stopped in front of one of the planes. “Here’s David’s baby!” he declared with a flourish.
“Ahh, yes! Yes!” David murmured, leaping toward the shining, bright yellow biplane. He ran his hands over the body, along the wings, down the wheels, his face glowing. “Isn’t she beautiful?”
“A modification of the Cirrus III Avian,” Linklater explained. “One of ’em cinched the King’s Cup just last year.”
“Flown by a woman, if I’m not mistaken,” Jeremy put in, with a smile my way.
“Yeah, well … This one’ll win next year for sure, won’t it, David? That’s if the wifey lets you fly!” Linklater chuckled.
David paused to roll his eyes, then swung into the cockpit.
A Bright Young Thing Page 28