by Peggy Webb
Although Gilly didn’t live her life to please outsiders, she didn’t want to give anybody cause for gossip that might embarrass her father. She imagined a ship this big would be like a small town, that the private lives of the passengers who weren’t careful would get bandied about and used as entertainment over afternoon tea. She didn’t intend to be anybody’s afternoon entertainment. And that included the handsome bandleader.
She wadded her fists into her velvet robe, anchoring herself, then pasted a smile on her face, turned away from the bandstand and pretended to pay rapt attention to everything Molly Brown said to her.
Her dinner companion was full of plans for turning the ballroom into a Christmas extravaganza.
“I’m going to drape everything that stands still with Christmas lights,” she said.
When another dinner guest asked Molly where she’d get the Christmas trees, the unflappable social maven from Denver just waved her hands about.
“Pshaw. Don’t you think I thought of that before I came onboard? This boat’s carrying sixteen of the finest spruce trees you ever saw, and enough Christmas pretties to make Mrs. Astor green with envy.” She squeezed Gilly’s hand. “You can help me decorate.”
“I’ll be glad to.” Unable to help herself, she glanced toward the bandstand. She’d do anything to take her mind off the bandleader who now appeared puzzled that he’d lost his enraptured fan club of one.
As the last remnants of dessert were cleared off the tables, the passengers began to thin out. Papa stood up and announced that he was heading to the common room to see if anybody wanted to get up a little game of cards.
“I’ll be right with you, Jack.” Molly hitched her chair back and stood up. “First there’s something I want to do.”
She marched up to the bandstand where the quintet was getting ready to take a break. Taking center stage, Molly announced in a voice loud enough to be heard on shore that she was having a Christmas party the fourteenth and everybody was invited.
“Spread the word,” she hollered, and then she left the stage to loud applause, and pranced out of the restaurant.
Gilly stood up to follow her. She had no intention of spending the rest of evening listening to William play love songs that were not meant for her, after all.
She felt a touch on her shoulder and heard a familiar voice that sent shivers through her.
“Are you leaving so soon?”
“Yes.” She couldn’t bear to turn around and look at him, not even to say goodbye.
Let him think she was rude. Let him think she was a coward. Let him think any gosh darned thing he wanted to. Gilly wasn’t about to sit around the restaurant swooning after a man she could never have.
As she sailed out of the restaurant, she heard William’s shoes making a staccato rhythm across the floor, and then the quintet stuck up a new tune. A Scott Joplin rag, she thought. What did it matter now what William played on his violin? Gilly’s only concern was how she would return his coat and how she could spend the rest of the voyage without having to lay eyes on him again.
She wished her friend, Margaret Finley, was there with her. She’d listen to every detail of Gilly’s afternoon without saying one word about the pitfalls of going off with a strange man. Then they’d sit in the middle of Gilly’s bed and Margaret would think up something outrageous to get them laughing, something like He probably has warts all over his back and snorts when he eats his soup. He might even have a forked tail.
Gilly found herself wishing she was back in Alabama. Things weren’t as complicated in her own back yard as they were in the middle of the ocean.
She was fitting her key into her stateroom door when she considered how silly it would be to waste the opportunity of a lifetime holed up with her misery. Papa had told her about the wonderful activities available on the Titanic, and she wasn’t going to let one crazy afternoon spoil her plans to see and do as much as possible.
She could change and go to the squash court or take a dip in the swimming pool. She might have a Turkish bath or even an electric bath. Anything besides waste her time thinking about her misspent feelings and her ill-spent afternoon.
CHAPTER FIVE
The first thing Gilly noticed when she opened her stateroom door was that her private quarters smelled faintly of William’s aftershave. His coat on the bed seemed to have grown ten times its size. It was as if William, himself, were in her stateroom, his gaze making her feel slightly dizzy.
She picked up the coat, intent on putting it out of sight in the closet, but his scent caught in the fibers buckled her knees. She sat on the edge of the bed and buried her face in the fragrant wool.
From somewhere in the distance, she heard the sound of the violin. Or was the music only in her head?
“Snap out of it,” she told herself. Then she marched across her room and hung the coat in the closet.
Out of sight, out of mind, her mother always said.
Of course, the saying wasn’t true. As Gilly stripped off her cloak and gown, all she could think about was how every piece of clothing she had would absorb William’s scent.
She jerked out his coat and her bathing costume at the same time. Going into the bathroom, she hung his coat across the towel rod and began to put on her wool swim bloomers and overdress, her black swim stockings. His scent was heady in the small space.
She whirled to glare at the coat. “Stop that.”
Feeling somewhat better and a bit more in charge, Gilly grabbed her bathing cap and one of the big bathing towels, and left to find the pool.
The hallway was empty, thank goodness. She imagined the rest of the passengers in the common room sharing a game of cards and a few drinks, or on the dance floor shimmying to one of Scott Joplin’s rags, or on the deck watching the moon rise over the water.
Thinking about what it would be like on the deck watching the moon with someone special, someone with black hair and a violin tucked under his chin, Gilly rounded the corner of the hallway and bumped straight into William Wesley.
His arms and his familiar scent surrounded her. Gilly’s toes curled under and her skin felt as if it were on fire. Still, she refused to look up at him.
“Turn me loose,” she said.
“Not until you tell me why you left the dining room so abruptly.”
“I decided to take a swim, and I’ll thank you very much not to waste my time with idle chatter.”
The full bodied chuckle she remembered so well took the edge off her anger. How could a man who found humor in the smallest things be a two-timing cad? Still, Gilly had her pride. If he insisted on holding her prisoner in the hallway, she would stand there like a fence post and refuse to look at anything except the front of his starched shirt.
“Gilly?” William cupped her face and tipped it toward his. “Look me in the eye and tell me what’s wrong.”
“I don’t have anything to say to a man with a fiancé waiting on the shore.”
When he laughed, Gilly balled her hands into fists and barely stopped herself from socking him in the jaw.
“You think it’s funny? You think you can dally with anybody you want just because you’re handsome and can play the violin?”
“If you think that highly of me, then all is not lost.”
“Hush up.” She pushed away from his chest and untangled herself from his arms. “I’m not that kind of girl.”
She was marching off when he caught her shoulders and came up so close behind her that she thought she was going to go up in flames right there in the public hallway.
Leaning close so his warm breath tickled her cheek, he whispered, “I don’t want you to be that kind of girl, Gilly. I want you to be my girl.”
“Three’s a crowd.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” He stepped in front of her. “I was engaged. For about two years. But I kept stalling a trip to the altar, and she finally got sick of me running off to sea.”
Gilly knew he was telling the truth. Not because she wanted so d
esperately to believe him, but because she had great instincts. Margaret always said she had a lie meter.
Still, there was more to the story, and she didn’t want to give him any guidance by asking leading questions. She stood poker straight and stared at him as if she were Chief of the Truth Police.
“She threw the ring at me and I took it to a pawn shop and got some of my money back. I was relieved. Judging by her speed in getting squired about by another guy, I think she was, too.”
She searched his face for signs of lying – eyes darting about, nervous tic in his jaw, insincere look. Finding none, she sagged with relief.
“Of all the things I hate, William, it’s a person who believes idle gossip without checking the source. I’ve been an idiot.”
“No, Gilly. You’re a beautiful, vulnerable woman who simply needed some reassurance.”
He leaned so close she thought he was going to kiss her. Instead he stepped back, leaned nonchalantly against the wall, and nodded his head to an elderly couple coming down the hall.
When they were out of sight, he pulled Gilly close and caressed her face. “I’d kiss you if we weren’t in the path of foot traffic who might spread vicious rumors about a love-crazed violinist spooning with a sassy woman in a bathing costume.”
Suddenly, Gilly was acutely aware of her bare arms and the daring way her swim bloomers outlined her curves. Instead of feeling self-conscious, she felt like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. She felt as if she might spread wings and fly.
“I have to play the second set, Gilly. Will you meet me afterward?”
She didn’t even have to think about her answer. “Yes. Where?”
“On deck. Where we were this afternoon. Midnight.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Until we meet again, sweet Gilly.” He traced her lips with fingers that could coax music from a piece of polished wood and strings.
She leaned against the wall and watched until he was out of sight. Then she found the swimming pool and started doing laps.
Water was her element. Born in Fairhope on the Alabama Gulf Coast, she’d spent summers in the water swimming, and spring and fall in her father’s boat roaring across the waves.
Eleanor claimed Gilly was part fish. She also claimed not to understand how a mother with her feet firmly planted on land could have given birth to a daughter who at six swore she was going to be a mermaid.
Gilly laughed aloud, the sound of it bouncing off the walls and echoing around the cavernous room. She slowed to a lazy crawl, then floated on her back for a while, body and mind both drifting.
Surely William would not have gone to the trouble to seek her out unless he truly cared for her. She dreamed about the evening ahead, shivering at the thought of seeing him again.
When she left the water, she had the buoyant feeling of a young girl finally becoming a woman. There were girls her age already married, already with children. Sheltered by her father’s money and her mother’s anxious protectiveness, Gilly was eager to find out what the future held for her.
Tonight she was meeting a man she loved. Who knew what the evening would bring?
o0o
Too anxious to wait, Gilly was at the meeting place long before midnight. Dressed as she had for dinner, in her French gown with the low-cut bodice and her diamonds and pearls, she held the velvet cloak close against the cold winds coming off the ocean. Her hair, still damp from her swim, had worked loose from the hair pins so that tendrils curled around her face and on her neck.
She hopped from one foot to the other, wondering why Papa hadn’t told her to bring wool lined boots instead of the frivolous pumps that left her feet feeling like blocks of ice.
What was keeping William? Had he changed his mind? Had he decided he wouldn’t compound his first mistake with a second? That he’d celebrate his narrow escape with a drink with the boys instead of a shipboard romance with a girl barely turned eighteen?
Arms closed around her from behind, and she smelled the spicy fragrance of his aftershave as she was pulled into the tight embrace of William Wesley.
“You waited for me,” he said.
“Yes. I waited.”
He turned her so she was facing him, their bodies so close Gilly could hardly tell when hers ended and his began. She lost her breath as he studied her face, lifted his hand and traced her high cheekbones, the bridge of her nose, the outline of her lips. He had the look of a man memorizing the map of home.
William leaned closer, his lips only inches from hers, his breath warm on her face. “Gilly, you can tell me no.”
“Yes,” she whispered, and then his lips were on hers, any words she might have added lost in the wonder of his kiss. It was not her first, by any means. Harry Hodgkins had given her a quick peck on her sixteenth birthday, and then later had asked her on a picnic and fumbled around trying not to bump noses as he leaned across the basket of fried chicken and kissed her.
But this was different. This was no fumbling, chaste, nose-bumping attempt. It was heaven in a touch. It was a man staking his claim on a woman. It a kiss that started sweet and tender then turned to something hot and hungry that threatened to devour them both.
Gilly felt herself melting into him, her bones and flesh vanishing until there was nothing left but the wild river of blood that coursed through her veins and a heart beating too fast.
“Tell me to stop, and I will,” he whispered.
“Don’t stop.”
Holding her close, William waltzed them deeper into the shadows of a hulking life boat. Protected from the wind and the prying eyes of any passengers brave enough to be on deck in the chilling winds, he slid his hands under her cloak, traced the length of her arms upward, blazed a trail across the tops of her breasts, young and proud and exposed by a style her mother declared scandalous.
Gilly didn’t feel scandalous. She felt undone, a girl leaving behind the familiar and embracing everything it means to be a woman.
His right hand slid into the top of her bodice and flatted against bare skin so that her heart beat into his palm.
“Are you afraid?” he asked.
“No. I’m excited.”
“Your heart is beating so.”
“It’s for you.”
“I’m falling in love with you, Gilly Debeau.”
“Truly?”
“As truly as a man can love a woman.” With his hand still holding her heart, he bent to kiss her once more. The kiss made Gilly ache for things she could barely fathom.
When William released her and stepped back, she felt as if she’d been wrenched out of warm blankets and plunged into a cold bath.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, sweet Gilly.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette. “If I keep kissing you, I won’t be responsible for what I’ll do next.”
She tried not to let her disappointment show as she watched his match flare in the darkness. Instead she focused on watching his face in the glow from the tip of his cigarette.
“Tell me about yourself, Gilly.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
She laughed. “I love the water. I love to swim and go boating; I love to wade the shallows and search for seashells. I love the feel of wet sand between my toes and the wind in my hair.”
He smiled. “A nature girl. I like that.”
“I enjoy reading and I like music, but I don’t like to sew. I can cook, but I won’t wring the neck of a chicken.”
He roared with laughter. “I’ll never ask you to wring the neck of a chicken.”
She whooped with joy. “I’m glad that’s settled. I guess we’ll have nothing to fight about.”
He gathered her back with one arm. “I’m not letting you go again. A woman with a sense of humor is too rare to risk losing.”
She leaned against him, content as smoke swirled around them, waves lapped the ship, and the stars turned as big and bright as Christmas lights.
“I could, too, but you might catch your death of cold.” He kissed the top of her head, then leaned down to capture her lips, lingering till the chill that had settled on them turned as warm as melting butter.
“I have to take you back.”
“I know.”
“Till tomorrow?”
“Till tomorrow, William Wesley.”
o0o
Back inside her cabin she stripped naked and wrapped herself in his coat. She’d meant to take it to him. Now she was glad that in her excitement, she’d forgotten.
He hadn’t kissed her again at the door, saying I don’t want to scandalize you.
She wanted to be kissed. She wanted to be scandalized. She wanted every delicious thing William Wesley had to offer.
Out her porthole she could see the moon making its journey toward morning. Gilly didn’t bother to put on her nightgown. Smiling, she cuddled into William’s coat, closed her eyes and dreamed about the man she loved.
CHAPTER SIX
The loud pounding on Gilly’s door jerked her out of sleep.
“Gilly? Are you all right?” It was Papa.
She jumped out of bed, stuffed William’s coat under the covers and pulled her nightgown over her head.
“Coming!” She grabbed a dressing gown and struggled into as she hurried to the door. Breathe, she told herself. Act normal. Though for the life of her, she couldn’t understand how she could act normal when all she dreamed of was being back in William’s arms.
She flung open the door, and there was Jack Debeau, his brow furrowed and his hat in his hands.
“You weren’t at breakfast. I worried you’d taken sick in the night.”
“No, Papa. I overslept.” She brushed her hair away from her hot face, hoping her flush wouldn’t betray her. “I guess it’s all the excitement.”