Perfect Romance

by Duncan, Alice

  Pressing a hand to her cummerbund, Loretta wrinkled her nose. “Not yet. I picked up a bug at the soup kitchen and haven’t felt much like eating lately.”

  He leaned down and stared directly into her eyes. “Are you telling me the truth?” His voice was gruff.

  Startled, she said, “Of course, I’m telling you the truth! Why would I lie about a bug?”

  Straightening, he said, “I don’t know.” He hesitated for a moment, making Loretta wish she hadn’t brought up the subject of a bug. “Are you sure you’re well enough for this party? I’ll take you home right now, if you want me to. I don’t give a hang about parties.”

  How sweet he was sometimes, even though he’d hate it if she told him she thought so. She smiled up at him, glad she’d put on her spectacles since she could see his concerned expression clearly. “Thank you so much, Malachai, but I want to stay here and play with the Ouija Board.”

  “Well . . . if you’re sure.”

  “I’m sure. Thank you.”

  For some inexplicable reason, Loretta’s eyes filled with tears. Fortunately, Malachai had already turned around and started for the dining room and didn’t witness her embarrassingly emotional reaction to his courtesy.

  Giving herself a hard mental shake and telling herself to shape up, Loretta went to the group gathered around the Ouija Board. Marjorie looked up from her seat on a nearby chair and smiled at her. Jason, Loretta noticed, was hovering behind Marjorie’s chair, looking as if he aimed to fight off any other man who intended to chat with Marjorie. Mrs. Linden nearly upended the board when she spotted Loretta and jumped to her feet.

  “Loretta! This is such fun! Come here and try it. Mrs. Phillips is a perfect angel to direct everything for us.”

  Mrs. Phillips, a plump, gray-haired lady with a wide metaphysical streak, glanced up and said, “I’m not directing it, Dorothea. I’m only channeling the spirit.” She spoke as if she meant it, so Loretta didn’t giggle or grin.

  Clasping her hands to her bosom, Mrs. Linden stepped aside. “Sit on the sofa, dear. Just put your fingers on that little triangular wooden thing—”

  “The planchette,” said Mrs. Phillips.

  “Er . . . yes. The planchette.” Mrs. Linden smiled upon Mrs. Phillips. To Loretta she added, “But don’t press heavily. The spirit Mrs. Phillips brought up—”

  “Princess Azizarozahata,” purred Mrs. Phillips.

  “Yes,” concurred Mrs. Linden, nodding like a bobble-headed doll. “Princess Azizarozahata, who was an Egyptian—”

  “Sumerian,” muttered Mrs. Phillips.

  “Yes. She was a Sumerian princess who had a disastrous love affair and was killed—”

  “Thrown to the royal tigers,” elucidated Mrs. Phillips. Loretta felt her nose wrinkling and stopped it at once.

  “Yes, she was thrown to the royal tigers, and she’s telling us all sorts of exciting things.”

  “It truly is entertaining,” murmured Marjorie, whose cheeks had flushed a becoming pink, probably under the influence of Jason’s continued presence.

  “Come here, dear.” Mrs. Linden gestured for Loretta to join her on the sofa, so Loretta humored her. She thought Ouija Boards were entertaining, if one didn’t take them seriously. And she didn’t, of course.

  # # #

  Malachai almost dropped his plate of food when he wandered into the parlor from the dining room and saw his beloved leaning over a table, her cleavage the focus of all masculine eyes. Damn them!

  He gave the room a general all-purpose glower that succeeded in averting all gentlemanly eyes except those of Jason Abernathy, who grinned at him like an imp from behind Marjorie’s chair. Malachai didn’t resent Jason’s knowing smirk too much; they were on the same side of the issue of marriage for Loretta and Malachai.

  Since he knew better than to bellow at Loretta to sit up straight and stop making an exhibition of herself, he strolled over to the sofa, attempting to act casual. He had to fight the urge to rip his evening coat off and throw it over her shoulders. That outfit she wore was pretty, but it was damned distracting. Malachai didn’t approve of it on the grounds that he preferred only himself to be distracted by Loretta’s feminine attributes.

  She noticed him and cried, “Oh, Malachai, this is such fun! We’re just getting started.” She sat up straight as she smiled at him, thus accomplishing the purpose Malachai’s coat would have served, and without the accompanying hullabaloo.

  “Huh,” he said, and popped a shrimp into his mouth.

  “I want to know if my daughter will ever marry,” said Mrs. Linden with a twinkling frown for Loretta and a big grin for Malachai.

  He stifled the impulse to roar at her that her damned daughter would be married right this minute if he had anything to say about it. Instead, he bit into a crab cake and smiled at her, hoping his temper didn’t show.

  “And I want to know if Loretta will e’er be a mother,” said Marjorie in a soft voice that didn’t sound at all like her usual one. Malachai chalked up the voice and the color in her cheeks to Jason’s presence, and decided he wasn’t the only one who had woman trouble. At least Loretta was his lover. As often as she could arrange it, bless her. Malachai doubted that Jason would ever succeed with Marjorie in any way whatsoever, the woman was such a stuffy prig. Marjorie went on, “I think she’d be an vurra fine mother.”

  “Marjorie!” Loretta’s cheeks were pink now, too. Malachai looked upon them with interest. For a female who put so much stock in being modern and in casting aside society’s rules and regulations, she sure got embarrassed easily.

  “Oh, that’s a good question, Marjorie,” cried Mrs. Linden. “Ask the board if you’ll have children, dear.”

  “Honestly,” said Loretta, clearly peeved. But she asked the question. “Princess Azizarozahata, will I ever be a mother?”

  The planchette zipped to the word “Yes” printed on the board, and parked itself.

  “Oh, my!” Mrs. Linden clasped her hands to her bosom again. Malachai knew her well enough by this time to understand this as a sign of pleasure. He’d often observed that older females doted on their grandchildren. He, of course, had no first-hand experience of the phenomenon.

  “A wee bairn,” whispered Marjorie. Her hands were clasped at her bosom, too. Malachai guessed it was one of those . . . what did they call ‘em . . ? Universal female characteristics or something like that.

  “Will it be a wee lad or a lassie?”

  Loretta, her cheeks a deep cherry color now, said, “This is silly.” Silly or not, though, she asked the question. “Will I have a girl or a boy, Princess Azizarozahata?”

  The planchette seemed to quiver in the middle of the board and didn’t move. Plucking a grape and popping it into his mouth, Malachai moved closer, interested in spite of himself. After all, they were talking about his progeny—or they’d better be.

  “Choose one or the other,” suggested Mrs. Phillips. “Perhaps the princess is confused.”

  “Good idea,” said Loretta. “Princess, will I have a girl?”

  The planchette zoomed to the “No.”

  “Oh.” Loretta sounded disappointed, but she didn’t have time to say anything, because the planchette then dashed to the “Yes.” She was surprised when the planchette zipped again to the “No,” then back to the “Yes.” It continued to do this for three or four times before Loretta asked another question.

  “I’m confused, Princess. Do you mean I’ll have a boy?”

  As if possessed, the planchette continued to zigzag across the board, hitting the “Yes,” then bouncing over to the “No.”

  “Well then, I guess I’ll have a girl?” Loretta sounded puzzled, understandably so, in Malachai’s opinion.

  The planchette continued its zigzag dance across the Ouija Board, Malachai looking on and nibbling on shrimps and crab cakes, Loretta squinting through her spectacles with a befuddled air.

  This state of affairs continued for several seconds until Marjorie suddenly gasped, clapped he
r hands to her cheeks, and cried out, “You canna mean you’re having twins! Oh, my!”

  The planchette zoomed to the “Yes,” and stopped. Malachai, watching in fascination, fancied the little wooden triangle was panting from its exertion.

  Then Marjorie’s question and the board’s answer struck him, and he dropped his plate. Fortunately, he’d consumed everything that had been resting thereon, and the carpet was a thick Turkish weave, so the plate didn’t break. “You what?” he roared.

  Loretta gave a start and looked up at him. “Twins?” she whispered.

  Mrs. Linden’s surprised glance went from Loretta to Malachai and back again. The room went silent.

  Chapter Twenty

  Without a care to propriety or anything else, Malachai took two long strides toward the Ouija Board, shoved Mrs. Phillips aside, reached across the table, and plucked Loretta up from the sofa. She squeaked in astonishment, but Malachai didn’t stop to excuse or explain himself.

  Carrying her in his arms, he marched them both through a frozen sea of surprised guests, out of the front parlor, and back to the French windows leading to the balcony. He kicked the windows open, marched outside, and kicked them shut again. Then he tore off his coat, threw it over Loretta’s shoulders, and stood her on the balcony squarely in front of himself, his broad back shielding her from any eyes that might attempt to pry into their business.

  He didn’t let go, but leaned into her, bending down to stare straight into her eyes. Someone rattled the knob on the window, and he kicked back, hitting the door with his heel. Whoever it was went away. “Are you pregnant?”

  She blinked up at him, as if he’d asked the question in ancient Sumerian. “Wha-wha—”

  So he asked it again, enunciating clearly. “Are you pregnant?”

  “P-pregnant? Why, I . . . I don’t . . . I . . . don’t know.”

  “You said you picked up a bug. What are your symptoms?”

  Stammering, Loretta listed them. “Well . . . I’ve been very tired. A bit queasy. I feel a little sickish, especially in the morn— Oh, my God!” The light dawned, and her mouth dropped open.

  “You are.” Malachai turned a full circle, sucking in thick, foggy air, his insides boiling. “You are.”

  “I . . . I . . .” Loretta looked as though she might faint for the second time in her life if given the least little push to do so. “Maybe I am.” Her voice almost wasn’t there.

  This was it. This was the final blow to Malachai’s patience. He couldn’t take any more. He stopped pacing in circles and stopped before Loretta. He put both hands on her shoulders. “Now see here, Loretta. I won’t take any more nonsense from you. We’re going to be married, and we’re going to be married now.”

  “I . . . I . . .”

  “I don’t care if you have to violate every principle in your entire body, you’re going to marry me!” He realized he was shouting and endeavored to lower his voice. It wasn’t an easy thing to do. He expected an audience was gathering in the hallway.

  “But . . .”

  “No buts!” He bent down further and said in a harsh voice, “Do you have any idea how I grew up?”

  He didn’t really expect an answer, but she shook her head. “N-no. You never told me.”

  “Well I’ll tell you now.” He took another deep, foggy breath. “I was a product of your precious damned free love, Loretta. I don’t know who my mother was, and she probably didn’t know who my father was, and I’m pretty damned sure he never even knew he had a son. I grew up in an orphanage, Loretta, succored by a herd of nuns who didn’t care if I lived or died. It was hell, but it was better than dying on the streets, which is what would have happened if the nuns didn’t run a charity orphanage and hadn’t taken me in. I’ll be damned if I’ll allow any child of mine grow up like that.”

  Her mouth had formed a shocked O. “I didn’t know . . .”

  “It was hell, dammit, and it’s the main reason I swore I’d never beget brats all over the world.”

  She gasped.

  “And I won’t beget bastards, either. No child of mine is going to grow up unloved and without knowing his parents. My children are going to bear my name, and I’m going to be their father, for as long as they live. And they’ll know me. And you, my dear, are going to be my wife. Whether you want to be or not!” There. He’d said it, and he meant it.

  “Oh, Malachai!”

  You could have knocked Malachai over with a feather when she threw herself into his arms and burst into tears. Uneasy with this emotional display from a woman whom he knew to disdain such things, he held her closely and patted her shoulder, wondering if he’d been a trifle too harsh with her.

  “I didn’t know any of that,” she sobbed. “You poor little boy. Oh, you poor, poor little boy!”

  “Well, now, I’m not a little boy any longer,” he said, embarrassed.

  “No, but you were. I had no idea!”

  He shrugged uncomfortably. “I made something of myself in spite of my beginnings,” he pointed out.

  “But it must have been so hard!”

  “Well . . . I guess it was kind of—”

  “Oh, Malachai, I love you so much!”

  She did? Malachai had suspected as much, but she’d never said it out loud before. It gave him a slushy, mushy feeling in his chest.

  Before he could stop himself, he whispered, “I love you, too, Loretta.” Again before he could stop himself, he added, “God help me.”

  # # #

  For some reason, the knowledge that Malachai wanted to marry her because he’d had such a difficult childhood comforted Loretta when she realized she was going to violate her feminist, free-thinking standards. It didn’t hurt that he’d admitted that he loved her, either.

  There were two frilly white, wrought-iron chairs on the balcony. Malachai had pushed one of them against the French doors. He’d been sitting in that one, so that no one could interrupt their tete-a-tete, for several minutes, Loretta on his lap, before she managed to regain control of herself.

  And that was another thing. She didn’t mind being so emotional now that she knew it was due to her impending motherhood.

  Motherhood! She was going to be a mother!

  “Our children aren’t going to be forced into specific roles, either, darling,” she whispered into Malachai’s lapel. She’d abandoned her spectacles, which now resided in Malachai’s evening coat’s pocket, and she’d probably ruined his clean white handkerchief by crying into it for so long. He didn’t seem to care.

  Malachai said, “Huh.”

  “I mean it,” she said, trying to sound as if she really did mean it.

  He gave her another “Huh.” She got the feeling he wasn’t quite as ardent about the role issue as she, probably because he was only glad he’d won his point at last and she’d agreed to marry him.

  “If we have a little girl and she wants to play baseball and climb trees, we’ll allow her to do it.”

  “That’s fine by me.” He nuzzled her hair. She had to push her black flower back into place, but she didn’t mind.

  “And if we have a little boy and he doesn’t want to play baseball, we won’t force him to do so.”

  He shrugged his large, comforting shoulders, and Loretta sighed. She really didn’t feel up to delivering a lecture on the unfairness of stereotypical roles for men and women. It had been a rather trying evening, all things considered, although it looked as if it was going to end happily.

  And they were going to be married! And she’d hardly had to sacrifice any of her principles to agree to it. After all, society being what it was, she couldn’t honestly expect a child to survive without various hurtful neuroses if it had to fight the label “bastard” all its days, could she? Even Malachai, who was ever so levelheaded and practical, had suffered from having been the product of a mother who wasn’t wed to his father. Loretta was as determined as Malachai that no child of hers would suffer unnecessarily.

  “Are you fit to go back to the party?�
� Malachai asked gruffly.

  She sighed again. “Do you really want to?”

  “No, but I suppose we’d better mend some fences. We left sort of abruptly, and after an announcement that probably shocked your parents.”

  Loretta’s conscience smote her. “Oh, dear. I suppose you’re right, although it wasn’t my fault that we left—” She couldn’t finish blaming him, because he covered her mouth—not with this lips this time, but with his huge hand.

  “I don’t want to fight right now, Loretta. What I want to do is go back in there and announce to everyone that we’re engaged to be married. Do you think you can keep from doing anything militant for ten minutes?”

  She knew she should resent his phraseology, but she couldn’t make herself do it. She also didn’t want to go back to the party. She wanted to stay here, on Malachai’s lap, with his strong, warm arms around her, for the rest of her life. Well . . . perhaps not that long.

  It was a somewhat chilly but extremely nice night, even if it was foggy. But that was romantic, in an odd way. The outdoor electrical lamps were blurry smudges, and gray tendrils of mist curled around Malachai’s feet. When she looked out over the grounds of her parents’ estate, she saw what looked like a sea of grayish foam, out of which the tips of fir trees peeked, like the masts of a sunken galleon.

  That made her think of her experience aboard Titanic, and suddenly the night didn’t seem so dreamy.

  “Very well.” She sighed yet again. “I suppose we do need to get back to the party. Poor Mother is probably beside herself.”

  The chair took that opportunity to groan piteously, and Malachai dumped Loretta off his lap and stood up. He held onto her until she’d gained her balance. “Those chairs are damned uncomfortable.” He squinted down at the offending piece of furniture. “I’m going to furnish our home with comfortable chairs.”

  “Our home,” Loretta repeated, a modicum of dreaminess returning. “Do you want to build one? Or stay in my house? It’s large enough for us and any number of sets of twins.” She shrugged off his coat and handed it to him.