Peter left her near the bandstand and wandered off, muttering about making an early night of it so he could rise with the birds in the morning. As she was accustomed to being more of a wallflower than the belle of the ball, Gussy was glad for the breather.
Only two minutes later, Billy Tuttle and someone’s vaguely familiar visiting cousin approached her at the same time, jostling each other out of the way. If they’d been even remotely sincere, Gussy would’ve been flattered. However, she’d seen Grandmother Throckmorton consulting with Alice Tuttle earlier in the evening and knew this was just another setup.
Billy held her so tightly she could feel the flask in his breast pocket. Although he wasn’t much of a dancer, he thought he was, and at least that saved her from making polite chitchat. They whirled around the crowded dance floor at double the speed of the rest of the couples. When they’d lurched to a stop in the farthest, darkest corner and Billy had pressed her so hard against a log pillar that she could feel the emblem on the flask in his pocket, Gussy was too out of breath to protest.
“Heigh-ho, Gus, you’re gorgeous,” Billy said, breathing hotly in her face. “I never noticed before.”
“Gosh, thanks,” she gasped.
Billy didn’t pick up on her sarcasm. “Whaddya say you and me board the Playmate? It’s nice and dark and—” he squeezed his arms around her “—private out on the water.”
Gussy turned her face aside, trying to avoid the eightyproof fumes. “Don’t you have one of your girlfriends here this weekend?”
“The old lady won’t let me have guests, and the Bobber & Buoy won’t extend my credit.” Billy slid a hand around to her breast and cupped it experimentally, still pressing himself against her. “You’ll do.”
“She’ll do nothing of the kind.”
Billy whipped his head around. In the darkness beyond the pavilion he could make out only a darker shadow, but the voice that had come from it was lethal enough to loosen his grip on Gussy. “Whozzat?” he slurred.
Gussy slumped against the pillar, her pulse escalating wildly. “Jed?”
It was Jed who stepped up to the platform, but a Jed she’d never seen before. Despite the sophistication of his tailored blue suit, he was all raw, seething male power. His face looked as if it’d been slashed from stone, hard and uncompromising, angular down to the jut of his chin. His clenched muscles pulsed with a tension so tangible the air seemed to crackle.
“I know you,” Billy said, backing away from Gussy. “You were in the solarium that day at Throckmorton Cottage. Your name’s, uh—”
“Machine Gun,” Gussy said. And now she knew why. On the ice, Jed must have been a barely controlled fury of motion and muscle. Gunning down his opponents, rat-atat-tat.
“You don’t need to know my name,” Jed said to Billy. He grasped the top of the cedar railing and vaulted onto the deck of the pavilion, his eyes blazing. Billy backed away another inch—or ten. “All you need to know is that I don’t want to see you near Gussy ever again.”
Billy turned mealymouthed. “Well, see, it really wasn’t my idea in the first place…”
Gussy set her back teeth. She just knew he was going to say that their grandmothers had forced him into it.
“You’re not going to be dumb enough to insist that she asked for it?” Jed’s posture and tone were threatening.
Billy twitched. “No.” He sidled off, keeping a cautious eye on Jed. “See ya, gorgeous,” he tossed at Gussy once he was safely away in the crowd.
Jed snorted like a Spanish bull and looked at her. “That’s the kind of guy you date?”
Stuck between a rock and a hard place, a weasel and a warrior, she was not willing to admit to the ignominy of her true relationship with Billy Tuttle. She shrugged. “He can be amusing.”
“Especially when he has his hand down your dress.”
“He didn’t…” Gussy swallowed the denial. There was no purpose in nitpicking. “I could have handled the situation myself, Jed.”
“Okay. Next time I’ll let you.” He turned to walk away. “See ya, gorgeous.”
Funny how it sounded so much better coming from Jed. Gussy watched him go, crestfallen that once her prince had arrived she’d run him off. But perhaps all was not lost. She could still flirt her way back into his good graces. “Oh, Je-ed?” she called. “Jed, honey?”
He looked over his shoulder, one eyebrow cocked.
“You weren’t going to leave without giving me a dance? Why, that would be too cruel.”
“I hadn’t noticed you lacking for partners.”
So he’d been watching her. She smiled inside and pouted prettily. “But now you’ve probably scared them all off,” she murmured. “They won’t come near me. I’ll be a wallflower.”
Jed came back. “You’ve never been a wallflower in your life.”
“How would you know?” Little did he know!
“I know your type.”
“Don’t be so sure,” she muttered into his shoulder as he took her in his arms. The band was playing “Moon River.” They danced with an easy harmony, a soothing silence building between them as their bodies grew attuned.
“Thanks,” Gussy said eventually. “For getting rid of Billy. Whatever you think, I’m not used to handling that sort of thing.”
“You usually keep your boyfriends under better control?”
He seemed to have a few wrong ideas about her, but she decided not to correct them. Maybe the new Gussy was a minx; it might even be what Jed liked about her.
The music was lovely; Jed was magnificent on his feet, athletic and graceful. Dancing with him should have been a perfect moment, a magical, princessy moment, but soon Gussy became aware of the glances, whispers and even blatant stares occurring behind her back. Many of the yacht-club members were simply wondering who the stranger was, but others—Vanessa Van Pelt, for one, dressed in acid green and dancing for a change in the arms of her husband—already knew. Word was sure to get back to Grandmother Throckmorton. And while an eminent garden designer like Jellicoe could perhaps be accepted socially, one with a fledgling operation like Jed’s surely wasn’t. Although that made no difference to Gussy’s feelings, she knew it would make a huge difference in the uproar their liaison—if she could call it that—would cause in the Throckmorton household.
Give me this one night, she prayed. Please let me have tonight.
Tomorrow was soon enough to deal with the consequences.
7
Baby Steps
ANDREWS CUT IN.
Gussy closed her eyes. Tight. She did not want to give this up.
She opened them when Jed whispered in her ear. “Meet me under the flagpole,” he said, easily relinquishing her. He tipped a salute to Andrews, glanced significantly at Gussy and faded away into the crowd.
Andrews’s mouth made a narrow, straight line, but then, it always did. “How did he get invited?”
Gussy blinked at the starry lights. “What?”
“Isn’t he just the gardener?”
“Does that matter?” She stiffened as Andrews put his arms around her and began to dance. Suddenly the band seemed all out of tune.
“I suppose he thinks he’s a celebrity because he was once a professional athlete.”
“You’re jealous?” Over me?
“Well, Gussy, you’re my—my…You’re my girl.” Andrews’s face paled, then flushed, then clenched as he clamped down on his emotions. “You’ve always been my girl. I thought that was understood,” he said starchily.
She was stricken. Apart from their interlude on the deck of his boat—nine years ago—she’d considered Andrews to be more of a friend than a boyfriend. They were companions, the comfortable, known-each-other-forever sort. It was only of late, at Grandmother Throckmorton’s prompting, that Andrews had begun to pursue her more romantically.
“Both our families are expecting it,” Andrews continued. “It’s obvious we’d make a good match.” He must have finally noticed the doubt in her face, becaus
e he paused uncertainly. “Don’t you think so?”
“Andrews, I…” Gussy stepped out of his arms. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she saw with a sudden clarity that she should never marry him, not even at the insistence of her family. “No, I do not think so,” she whispered, and ran from the pavilion as if all the Lowells and all the Throckmortons were chasing her.
JED HAD BEEN WAITING under the flagpole for twenty minutes, squinting toward the gleaming lights and music of the pavilion, listening to the clink of the pulley against the metal pole and the fwap-thwap of the yacht-club flag overhead. Now and then amorous couples slipped away from the dance and found hidden spots in the pocket park and surrounding grounds, their trysting positions identified only by soft murmurs and the occasional giggle or sigh that carried on the balmy night air. Jed was beginning to feel conspicuous, even in the dark, and very alone.
Another five minutes after he’d started to consider leaving without Gussy, he finally spotted her. She was trudging toward the parking lot, limp and disheveled, holding her blue shoes in one hand.
He caught up to her. “Leaving without me?”
She flinched, but didn’t glance up. “I’m sorry, Jed.” Her voice was monotone. “I can’t do this. I can’t do what any of you expect of me, but I’m so afraid I will because I’m not strong enough to…” She stopped suddenly and grabbed at him, her fingers closing around the silky fabric of his expensive suit. “You must have your truck. Can you give me a ride home? I don’t think I can get a taxi—Sheepshead Bay has only two of them. Isn’t that funny? They only have…”
Jed unclenched her cold fingers from his sleeve. “Ease up, Gussy.” She gave a shocked huff of laughter when he picked her up in his arms and carried her to his truck, parked at the back of the lot. Once she was safely deposited inside, he hesitated in the open passenger-side door, looking her over. The new party dress was limp and sodden and her hair hung in wet strings around a face that stared straight ahead without expression. “Gussy?” he said. Her lashes flickered. “Are you okay? Billy didn’t try something with you…?”
“No.”
“One of the other potential fiancés?”
She folded her arms, keeping her elbows in tight against her ribs. “Umm…no, not exactly. At least nothing I shouldn’t have seen coming.”
“You look—”
“I was sitting out on the rocks near the surf, okay?” Exasperation flashed across her face; he was glad she was coming back to life. “I’m sorry I forgot about you, Jed. Well, I didn’t really forget, I was just not up to—I mean, I didn’t feel like…”
Grim-faced, he took off his jacket, draped it over her shoulders and then shut the door. “Okay, Gussy, that’s enough,” he said, climbing behind the wheel. “No explanations are necessary. I’ll bring you straight home.”
“I’m a miserable failure,” she muttered, hunching under the jacket. He almost didn’t hear her over the sound of the ignition. “I can’t control even my own life.”
Jed drove away from the yacht club, turning the situation over in his mind. “You know what you need?”
“Bah!” Gussy bleated. “How about a backbone?”
He patted her hand. “Maybe tomorrow. Tonight you need a good hot meal.”
She peered at him through her long, dangling hair. “Food?” Her tone was hopeful.
“Something to stick to your ribs.”
She considered. “Not oatmeal?” She gave a short laugh. “That’s what my great-grandfather always says about oatmeal.”
“Not oatmeal,” Jed agreed. As Sheepshead Bay hadn’t yet been invaded by fast-food franchises, he drove across town to a roadside diner called Edie’s Eats. When Gussy insisted she was in no shape to go inside, even though she looked better bedraggled than most of the clientele did fresh pressed, Jed left her to place a takeout order. They ate bacon cheeseburgers, home fries and strawberry milkshakes in the cab of his truck, parked beneath a blinking sign that read Good Food in foot-high pink neon.
“I shouldn’t have,” Gussy said, “but it was good food.” She took a paper napkin and blotted her lips with dainty precision, then ruined the effect by licking the salt and grease off her fingertips. She made a smacking noise. “Really good.”
Jed chomped another fry. “So you’ve recovered?”
Embarrassed, she concentrated on the bent antenna of the pinstriped, fat-tired sports car peeling out of the parking area. “I was, um, slightly out of my head.”
“Maybe slightly,” Jed said, now relaxed enough to tease her.
She rolled her eyes. “I had a crisis of confidence, okay?”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She shook her head quickly. “No. I want to know about Arizona.”
Jed paused in collecting the greasy papers and cardboard trays. “Huh?”
“They don’t have hockey teams in Arizona, do they?”
“Nope.”
“Your parents retired there?” she guessed.
“Ah, no, but my older sister, Laurie, lives there with her family. I have both a niece and a nephew.”
“So you might have picked up a few souvenirs when you visited,” she said, satisfied that she’d cleared up the mystery behind the garish pillow in his living room, although she still found his taste lacking.
Jed was not quite following her. “I guess. But the only one I can think of is…oh, yeah, the pillow. And the chenille howling-coyote tissue cover. And the macaroni cactus my nephew made in kindergarten. And the purple, fringed—”
Gussy was giggling. “Jed, you have terrible taste! But it’s so refreshing to see here in staid New England.”
“I’d like to take credit, or blame, but that goes to Laurie. We send each other the cheapest, ugliest Christmas presents we can find on the condition that they can’t ever be gotten rid of. When we turn sixty-five, we’re counting on holding the tackiest rummage sale of all time and retiring on the proceeds.”
“What did you give your sister last Christmas?”
“Traveling so much with the team, I usually found something really terrible for Laurie, like the barbed wire toilet seat I bought in Calgary. But last year I was laid up with the knee injury, so I gift-wrapped my old cast. It’d been signed by all my teammates, complete with pornographic sketches and dirty limericks.” He grinned. “No one can ever accuse hockey players of being refined.”
Gussy almost snorted milkshake through her nostrils. “I am never going to exchange presents with you.”
Feeling happier, she settled back against the seat as they drove toward home. Soft music played on the radio and the pickup’s headlights sliced neatly through the darkness. Being with Jed tonight was as comfortable as curling up in front of a fire with Percy. Listening to the pleasant drone of him talk about his family, about how they’d moved from Montana to Massachusetts when he was eleven and he’d traded in horses for skates, she could nearly forget what she’d been running from. If only she could run away from home and stay with Jed forever…
“Here we are,” he said, easing the truck along the driveway that skirted the front of Throckmorton Cottage before veering toward the parking court. The portico was brightly lit. “Can you get those shoes back on your feet or do I need to carry you door-to-door?”
“I’ll manage,” she said. She wedged her blistered heels back into the shoes but made no move to exit the pickup. Trying not to think about Andrews’s near-proposal was like not thinking about pink elephants.
“Did you always know you wanted to play hockey?” she asked Jed abruptly. “Did you just fall into a career that suited you?”
He shifted behind the steering wheel, stretching his legs. Gussy’s face was intent, touched by the glowing lights of the dash as her shoulders tilted toward him. “Well, yes, I guess I did,” he said. “Sports came naturally to me, hockey most of all. I had to work at it, too, but it wasn’t that much of a struggle. I was lucky that way.” He looked into her huge, glistening eyes. “Is that what you meant?”
“Why?”
“Because then…” She bit her lip. “Well, because maybe then I would’ve had the courage of my convictions. Instead I’ve been drifting, waiting for everyone else to tell me what to do.” She sighed. “And they’ve been happy to.”
“It’s not too late, Gussy.”
“I’m almost twenty-five. Grandmother says that if I don’t find a husband soon all the good ones will be gone.”
Jed tapped his fingers on the wheel, working at keeping his tangled frustration at bay. Hearing her talk about snaring a husband, as if marriage was a commodity, bugged the hell out of him, but he didn’t want it to. If he could only be impartial, then he’d know Julie’s poison was out of his system for good.
“Is this the twentieth century or the nineteenth?” he asked sarcastically.
“Am I a woman or a mouse?” Gussy countered, more to herself than to him.
His gaze dropped to where the still slightly damp fabric of her dress clung to the curves of her breasts and the buttons of her hardened nipples. “Not much question of that from my perspective, Gussy, sweetheart.”
She pressed her hand to the flushed skin above her scooped neckline, a purely feminine gesture, and shrugged deeper into his jacket. “I was speaking figuratively, of course.”
He liked it when she got that uptight-village-virgin look on her face; it was so at odds with her amorous-heiress posturing. He reached out and rearranged some of the fuss and fluff of her skirt, listening for the quick intake of her breath, watching for the ripple of awareness and arousal shuddering over her skin. The look on her face also made him want to show her what’s what—if only he hadn’t decided that she already knew.
The Amorous Heiress Page 9