by Nan Ryan
“Roll on, thou dark and deep blue ocean. Roll on…”
Mary Ellen Preble trembled.
She looked on the handsome face of the boy she had known for almost as long as she could remember. She saw him now as if for the very first time. Right then and there she knew. She was in love with Clay Knight! Further, she knew that she would love him until she drew her last breath.
And she could hardly wait to tell him.
Soon as the last bell rang that afternoon and noisy children poured out of the old red schoolhouse, Mary Ellen dashed out the front door, looking anxiously about for Clay. He was, as usual, waiting for her.
He was leaning against the exterior of the school-house, his shoulders pressed against the rough red brick. He stood there in the cold, his black hair ruffling in the winter wind, his arms crossed over his chest.
His pale eyes immediately lighted when he caught sight of Mary. He smiled and pushed away from the building. His smile slipped a little when he saw the solemn expression on Mary’s perfect features.
“What is it?” he asked, stepping close, searching her serious face for clues. “Something’s happened,” he said, and felt his chest tighten with worry.
“Yes,” Mary Ellen confirmed, nodding, “something’s happened. There’s something I must tell you.”
“So tell me,” he said, trying to sound calm, to keep his tone level. “What? What is it?”
Mary Ellen shook her blond head forcefully. “No. Not here. I can’t tell you in a crowd.” She indicated the pupils swarming down the steps around them.
“Then where? And when?” he asked. “You know I have to go straight to the cotton office.” Clay now worked after classes to save money for his preparatory school education.
“I know.” Mary Ellen glanced at the street, saw the big black brougham with the Preble crest on the door. “Sam’s here waiting with the carriage to collect me. We’ll drive you to the cotton office. I can tell you on the way.”
Once inside the roomy carriage, Clay leaned comfortably back against the smooth claret velvet seat, attempting to conceal his growing nervousness. “Now what is it?” he said. “What’s troubling you, Mary?”
The carriage wheels began to turn. The big black brougham pulled out onto the busy thoroughfare.
Mary Ellen’s dark, expressive eyes met Clay’s squarely. She took hold of his right hand in both of her own and said in a clear, girlish voice, “I love you, Clay.”
His breath caught in his chest, but only for a second. Certain she meant that she loved him just as she had always loved him—as a friend—he replied evenly, “I know you do, Mary. And I love you.”
“No, no, you don’t understand.” Excitedly she squeezed the tanned hand she held, then drew it up to clasp it to her bosom. “I mean I am in love with you. I want to be your sweetheart, I want you to love me back. Will you?”
It was the moment he’d been waiting for for more than a year. Now it had finally happened, and he was so dumbstruck, he couldn’t react. For a long moment he stared at this beautiful young girl who had just confessed her love for him and wondered if he were dreaming. Had she really said it? Did she really mean it?
“Mary,” he said finally, his gray eyes soft and warm, “you are my sweetheart. My very own precious sweetheart. I have loved you for as long as I’ve known you. I’ve been in love with you since that January day last winter you came back from South Carolina and kissed me.”
“Since I came…But, Clay,” she said, incredulous, “that was more than a year ago.”
“I know.”
Mary Ellen giggled happily then, just like the very young girl she was. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Clay lifted his free hand, touched the silky pale hair at her temple. “I was afraid. Afraid you might not feel the same way. Afraid you were too young and—”
“Too young?” she scoffed. “Too young! Why, I’m fifteen years old.”
“I know,” he said, smiling, so totally charmed, so much in love with this pretty child-woman, it was all he could do to keep from wrapping his arms around her and squeezing the very life out of her. “I know, sweetheart.”
“My goodness, my mother married my father when she was eighteen,” Mary Ellen told him, “and she had me when she was nineteen and…and…Why, I have an unmarried cousin in South Carolina who is twenty-one and everyone says she’s an old maid. So don’t you dare go thinking that I’m still a child, because I certainly am not.” She paused, smiled, and told him, “I’d kiss you, but I don’t know how. Will you teach me how?”
“I don’t know how, either,” Clay admitted.
“Okay, let’s learn,” she said, closed her eyes, puckered her lips, and leaned eagerly to him.
“Mary, I can’t kiss you here. There are people all over the street.”
Her dark eyes opened. “Oh! You’re right, of course.” She laughed then with the sheer joy of being young and happy and in love. She pressed Clay’s hand more closely to her bosom. “Feel my heart, Clay. I may die any minute, it’s pounding so hard and so fast.”
His hand opened directly below her left breast. He felt her heart beating strongly, rapidly, against his palm. It thrilled him so, his own heart started to race.
He looked into her dark, flashing eyes and said, “Promise me, Mary, that your heart will never beat this way for anyone but me.”
“How could it when it belongs to you?”
4
FOR ALMOST A YEAR, their sweet innocent romance remained just that: a sweet innocent romance. Hand holding and chaste, awkward kisses. They made no attempt to hide their feelings for each other. And since they didn’t, Mary Ellen’s parents didn’t worry too much about them. The Prebles, specifically John Thomas Preble, felt sure that if anything were actually going on between the two youngsters, Mary Ellen’s and Clay’s behavior would reveal it. Neither child acted the least bit guilty. They were as free and open with each other as they had been when they were little.
John Thomas Preble reasoned that it was entirely natural for Clay to be Mary Ellen’s first real or imagined beau. The two had grown up together. Clay had watched after Mary Ellen, had been her best friend and fierce protector. She looked up to Clay, depended on him, trusted him. So now, anxious to be all grown up and have a beau like some of her more mature girlfriends, Mary Ellen had chosen Clay to step into the role.
Temporarily.
“She will outgrow him, won’t she, darling?” Julie Preble asked.
“Yes, of course she will, my sweet,” said John Thomas Preble.
It was bedtime.
Julie Preble, wearing a flowing sky blue negligee, sat at her vanity table, brushing her long silken hair.
Suave and handsome in a maroon satin smoking jacket and dark trousers, the master of Longwood crushed out his newly lit cigar, closed the book he was reading, and rose from his easy chair. He walked directly to his seated wife, went down on his knees behind her, and cupped her milky white shoulders with his strong hands. He leaned close, pressed his warm lips to the nape of her neck, then kissed a slow, wet path around to the side of her throat. At last he raised his head and his dark eyes met his wife’s in the mirror.
“Mary Ellen thinks she’s a woman,” he said, half amused. “But she isn’t. She’s only a child, and she’ll fancy herself in love a dozen times before she grows up.” He smiled reassuringly at Julie. “Soon there’ll be so many eager young suitors coming to call at Longwood, we’ll have trouble keeping track of them.”
Julie Preble nodded thoughtfully.
Concerned with their only daughter’s happiness, they had discussed Clay Knight’s relationship with Mary Ellen before. While they had nothing against the boy personally, he would hardly be an acceptable candidate for the role of future son-in-law. Both agreed that while they thought the world of Anna Knight and were certainly fond of Clay, the Knights were of a decidedly different class. A lower class. Cruel as it was, the Knights were considered “poor white trash” by the Prebles and their el
ite circle of patrician friends. A blue-blooded Preble could not consider marrying the son of a shiftless drunk and a common seamstress. It simply was not done.
John Thomas Preble said, “Give Mary Ellen a little time. She’ll forget Clay Knight exists.”
Convinced, Julie Preble laid the gold-handled brush on the vanity and leaned comfortably back against her husband’s supporting chest.
She smiled then and said, “You’re right, John.
You’re always right. Mary Ellen’s such a pretty, bright, and curious child. I imagine she’ll set many a young man’s head to spinning in the next few years.”
“She will indeed,” agreed John Thomas Preble. Then he added gallantly, “Just as her beautiful mother makes my head spin.”
His dark, penetrating gaze holding his wife’s blue eyes in the mirror, he slowly, provocatively peeled the gossamer negligee and matching nightgown from her pale shoulders. He languidly slipped the frothy fabric down her arms and over her full breasts. He didn’t stop until her slim white arms were freed and the gauzy garments were pooled around her flared hips.
“Ah, yes, my love,” he murmured hoarsely, “just the sight of you sets my head to spinning.”
Julie Preble drew a shallow breath and began to tingle with building anticipation. She knew what her husband was going to do to her—with her—and she could hardly wait. She purred and stretched her bared upper body like a seductive feline. Her husband rose to his feet behind her. His hands gently clasping either side of her head, he bent and kissed her shimmering blond hair.
Then he reached for her, lifted her easily into his arms. He carried her across the room to their giant four-poster, the half-off, half-on nightclothes encircling her hips spilling over his arms.
Julie Preble sighed softly and watched in the room’s many gold reflecting mirrors as her husband gently lowered her to her feet, stepped back, and allowed her blue negligee and gown to slither to the plush carpet. Fire leapt into his dark eyes as he openly admired her nude female form. When she reached out, tugged the sash of his maroon smoking jacket, then pushed the rich fabric apart over his naked chest, he shuddered deeply.
Everything and everyone outside that suite was forgotten for the next glorious hour as the married lovers leisurely, expertly pleasured each other in their big four-poster bed.
“Kiss me,” Clay murmured anxiously, “kiss me again, sweetheart. Never stop kissing me.”
Mary Ellen kissed him again, her lips opening eagerly beneath his, her tongue seeking his.
They had learned a great deal about kissing since the first time they’d kissed. Together they had experimented, tested, researched the wonder and the ecstasy of it. Instinct had led them to discover that kissing was more—much more—than simply the blending of two pairs of lips. While they were still not fully skilled in the finer arts of kissing, they had come a long way since the first time they’d kissed.
Their very first kiss had come on a raw February afternoon a week after Mary Ellen’s confession that she was in love with Clay. The delay was through no fault of their own. Circumstances beyond their control made it impossible for them to find the privacy they so longed for. As fate would have it, they weren’t left by themselves for a minute, much to their mutual disappointment.
Finally, after the longest, most agonizing week either had ever spent, they were able to seize the unexpected chance to be alone. They stole a few quick moments of privacy in the summerhouse on the lower terrace of Longwood’s winter-browned lawn.
There Clay guided Mary Ellen into the vine-covered, latticed gazebo and down onto one of the pair of matching white settees. He took the other directly across from her. For a time nothing happened. Nervous now that this opportunity had presented itself, Clay tried to work up his courage. His breath was coming fast, his palms perspiring despite the coldness of the February day.
He said again, as if he needed to fully explain his ineptness, “Mary, I don’t know how to kiss. I’ve never kissed a girl.”
She leaned forward on the settee, reached for his hand. “I’m glad,” she told him honestly. “Nobody ever kissed me. We can learn together. Can’t we?”
“Yes,” he said, “we can. We will.”
His heart hammering in his chest, Clay scooted forward to the edge of the white settee. Mary Ellen did the same. Their knees touched. Their faces were only inches apart. Mary Ellen held her breath when Clay’s cold, tanned hands gently framed her face. He looked into her eyes.
Mary Ellen shivered, then said with childlike frankness, “I…I…don’t know where to put my hands, Clay.”
He smiled at her. “Anywhere you want to, sweetheart.”
She swallowed hard and tentatively placed her hands on Clay’s knees. Her sensitive fingertips felt the hardness of muscle and bone beneath the rough corduroy fabric of his trousers. Clay’s somber silver eyes turned warm and tender. He gently tilted Mary Ellen’s chin up, lowered his tanned face, and kissed her. Mary Ellen’s fingers tightened their grip on his knees when his mouth, smooth and warm and soft, touched her own trembling lips.
It was a brief, totally innocent kiss. Two shy pairs of lips meeting, touching, retreating. But it was thrilling to the naive young pair engaging in the sweet, chaste kiss.
When Clay’s lips left Mary Ellen’s, he pulled back a little, looked at her glowing young face, and was filled with so much love for her, he felt his heart would surely explode. He was suddenly very possessive, half jealous.
He said, “Don’t ever kiss anybody else, Mary.”
“I won’t,” she told him happily.
“I couldn’t stand it if you did. You’re mine, for now and for always. You belong to my heart. No other lips must kiss you but mine, no other arms must hold you but mine. Do you understand?”
“I do,” she murmured dreamily. “Oh, I do. Now, please, Clay. Kiss me again.”
Their kisses, their touches, their need for each other, had changed dramatically since that cold winter day.
Now Clay had passed his seventeenth birthday in May and Mary Ellen’s birthday was less than a week away. On Saturday, the twenty-seventh of June, she would turn sixteen.
More than a year had gone by since that initial shy kiss in the summerhouse. Their kisses were now deeply stirring, so hot and intense that no matter how much they kissed and no matter how tightly they held each other, it wasn’t completely satisfying. Kissing was no longer enough.
They loved each other.
They wanted each other.
Each time they were together their kisses grew more heated, more passionate, more dangerous. The deep yearning, the acute frustration, grew steadily for them both. But it was even worse for Clay than it was for Mary Ellen. He wanted her so badly that he could hardly bear it, yet he felt obligated to keep her safe, even from himself. He was older than she, and he was responsible for her. He had always taken care of her, kept her from harm. He promised himself he would not take advantage of her.
But, Lord, he wanted her so much, it hurt!
Clay wasn’t sure how much longer he could endure the pain. He couldn’t sleep for thinking about her. Night after night he tossed in his narrow bed, miserable, unable to rest, tortured by his all-consuming passion for Mary. He blamed himself, not Mary. And manfully he fought against the demons of his dark sexuality, which were compelling him ever nearer to the irreversible act of seducing his fair angel.
Clay fought it, but he wasn’t convinced he could win the battle much longer.
5
THE BIG DAY ARRIVED.
Saturday. June 27.
Mary Ellen Preble’s sixteenth birthday.
Gold engraved invitations had gone out a full month before the big event. The menu was planned weeks in advance, and a pair of noted chefs were summoned from New Orleans to oversee a staff of hand-picked cooks. Late Saturday afternoon a gigantic white birthday cake arrived fresh from the oven of Gambill’s Bakery. The huge cake was to be but one of a dozen sweet confections that would top off the evening
’s feast.
Magnums of champagne chilled in ice filled silver buckets and bottle after bottle of Madeira, port, sauterne, and sherry had been brought up from the wine cellar. Hard liquor would be available for the gentlemen, peach and blackberry brandy for the ladies. And, of course, there would be a delicious fruit punch for the younger set.
Garlands of white roses and sweet peas were delivered late in the afternoon and artfully arranged through the lower rooms of the mansion. Japanese lanterns, strung from sparkling silver ropes, crisscrossed the vast backyard, where square white-clothed tables and matching chairs were set up around a temporary parquet dance floor specially constructed for the evening.
It was a young girl’s dream of magnificence.
As the sun began to set on the River City, a cortege of carriages rolled up the circular pebbled drive of Longwood. Upstairs in her white-and-yellow bedroom, an excited Mary Ellen sucked in her breath while her personal maid, the ever-placid Letty, hooked up the back of the snowy white organza dress.
Music was already playing. The sound of the coronets and violins drifted up through the open, ceiling-high windows of Mary Ellen’s bedroom. She could hardly stand still, she was so anxious to get downstairs. Letty left her, and Mary Ellen took one last minute to examine herself in the free-standing mirror.
What she saw disappointed her.
She looked no different from the way she had looked last week. Or last year.
She had so hoped that by her sixteenth birthday she would be a real woman, would look more like the grown-up Brandy Templeton. The Templetons were the Prebles’ closest neighbors. They lived in an imposing red-brick mansion a quarter of a mile down River Road from Longwood.
Brandy Templeton was tall, dark haired, and glamorous. She was eighteen but looked like a woman of twenty-one. And she acted like it as well. Although the Templeton mansion was near, Brandy never came to Longwood. Her parents visited often, but Brandy never did. Brandy had attended the snooty St. Agnes Academy for Young Ladies for the past two years, and everyone said she had become so cultured, so elegant, she was very likely to nab Memphis’s most eligible bachelor, the blond, patrician college man, Daniel Lawton.