Courting Susannah

by Linda Lael Miller

  “I reckon I’m happy, just to think about the dancin’ tonight. I do love my dancin’,” Maisie answered, eyes alight. “You pick out a dress to wear to the doin’s tonight, or was you too caught up in lookin’ after me?”

  A suckling sound filled the warm, steamy air of the kitchen as Victoria took her breakfast. Susannah rocked the chair slowly back and forth, taking her time answering. “I’ll attend to that later,” she said. When she raised her eyes to Maisie’s face, she knew her countenance was serious. “I think we should clear away Julia’s things and make that room into a nursery for Victoria, don’t you?” she asked.

  Maisie looked mildly alarmed and intrigued at the same time. “You speak to Mr. Fairgrieve on that account?”

  Susannah flushed and shook her head. “Not yet.”

  Maisie sighed and went on with her stirring and potlid raising, while the coffee perked on the back of the stove. “Like as not, he’ll be relieved to have those things put away. All the same, you’ll want to ask first.”

  Susannah nodded. She hesitated even to bring up Julia’s name to Aubrey, for whatever reason, but she would find an opportunity.

  “You’ve got to wear somethin’ fittin’ to that party tonight,” Maisie persisted. “Folks will be lookin’ you over real good, you can bet.”

  Susannah sighed heavily. “That’s precisely why I’m dreading the evening so much. Oh, Maisie, why does life have to be so complicated? Why can’t I simply take care of Victoria, teach my piano lessons, and keep to myself?”

  “Don’t reckon life works that way,” Maisie said with a shrug. She frowned thoughtfully, stirring something in a kettle on the stovetop, then brightened. “I know what we can do. You choose two or three of Mrs. Fairgrieve’s gowns, and we’ll take the sleeves from one and maybe the bodice from another and make somethin’ brand new. How would that be?”

  “I hardly see how we’ll have time,” Susannah reasoned, but she was feeling a little less bleak. True, she didn’t relish the prospect of facing the curiosity and disapproval of Seattle’s aristocracy, such as it was, but she cared even less for the thought of hiding in her room like a coward. After all, she had no cause for shame.

  “We’re a fine team, you and me. Got my dress ready in a jig, didn’t we? Let’s get to it.”

  “What about all the cooking?”

  “Mr. Fairgrieve is havin’ most of that sent over from the hotel dining room.”

  That settled it, then. Susannah nodded her acquiescence, though privately she still had her doubts that it was possible to prepare for the party and alter one of Julia’s gowns so extensively. The work they’d done on Maisie’s dress had been fairly simple, and with the two of them working, the job had gone fast.

  On the other hand, such hard work was bound to keep her mind off the difficulties she faced, and that was no minor consideration.

  Throughout that frenzied day, piano students came to the door, hopeful men with their hair slicked back and their hats in their hands. Rushed and trying very hard not to show it, Susannah politely turned them away, but only after assigning each one a lesson time the following week.

  In the intervals, she worked madly on the gown—with Maisie’s help, she altered a silk of the palest apricot, attaching full, creamy lace sleeves from another frock, tending the baby as the need arose. Aubrey came home in the late afternoon, found Susannah frazzled but flushed with excitement, and smiled to himself as he went to look at the freshly scrubbed and polished ballroom. She followed in his wake, without meaning to do so.

  The elegant chamber looked spectacular—the chandeliers had been lowered on their squeaky brass chains and polished, the heavy velvet draperies, royal blue trimmed in golden cording, carried outside and beaten, then rehung. The air was fresh, though a bit chilly, because Maisie and Susannah had opened the windows earlier to clear away the musty smell of disuse. Chairs had been carried to the small dais at the far end of the room to accommodate the orchestra. At the time of Aubrey’s arrival, Hawkins and two of the clerks from the mercantile were busily decorating the walls with bunting so white that it made Susannah’s eyes ache.

  Standing beside Aubrey, just inside the towering double doors, her sewing finished at last, Susannah pushed a stray tendril of hair back from her forehead. “Well,” she began when he was silent too long, “does it suit?”

  “Nicely,” he responded, and turned his head to let his gaze connect, jarringly, with hers.

  “Maisie has worked very hard.”

  “You are too modest, Miss McKittrick. It would appear that you have done your share, and then some. I hope you won’t be too worn out to dance.”

  The idea of dancing, of being held in this particular man’s arms, brought a blush to Susannah’s face; in her youth, she had learned the steps of the waltzes and reels she’d mostly only read about, but she’d long since resigned herself to her place as a wallflower. “I hadn’t expected—” she began, and faltered, because it made her dizzy to imagine whirling about the ballroom in Aubrey’s arms. “The fact is, I don’t know how. To—to dance, I mean.”

  “Then I’ll teach you,” Aubrey said, folding his arms.

  Her heart was thundering at the base of her throat, and she felt a need to sit down. She must have swayed, for Aubrey grasped her elbow and squired her to a nearby chair.

  At his touch, she felt an aching but ever more familiar heat rise within her. She thought of the dress she’d fashioned, the hopes she cherished against all reason and right, and knew that her dreams were very much alive, despite their implausibility.

  “I am very awkward,” she said. Her chin was quivering, and her eyes burned. She wished, as she had done many times before, for Julia’s easy grace, her laughing aplomb and seemingly unshakable confidence. Julia had always known what to say, how to charm everyone around her.

  He smiled. “Are you?” he responded. For one terrible and infinitely precious moment, she thought he was going to kiss her again. Instead, he laid an index finger briefly to the tip of her nose. “We’ll see, won’t we?”

  “Aubrey—”

  Unexpectedly, he took her into his arms and swept her out onto the center of the floor. Holding her right hand in his left, he curved his free arm around her waist and began waltzing her around and around in a graceful, ever-widening circle.

  His legs were long, and she scrambled to keep up with him, but soon she had learned to match his pace, and she realized with a breathless soaring of her heart that she was dancing, truly dancing, the way other women did. Women with beaux, women with husbands. Women with full, rich lives.

  For an interval, she felt less spinsterly than usual, but then she tripped on the hem of her calico gown and stumbled. Aubrey caught her immediately, restored her balance by hauling her hard against him. It was a matter of moments before he released her, and yet it seemed he had seared her to the soul, branded his image upon her very spirit. She looked up at him, blinking and miserable, wishing that she and Victoria were far away and, at the same time, wanting this man with a most unseemly degree of passion.

  She pulled out of his embrace and stepped back, and, once again, she nearly fell. Once again, he caught her, this time by the arm, and held her upright, but he did not try to draw her near. His expression, full of laughter and mischief only a heartbeat before, was solemn.

  “I—there are things to do—” she muttered, and tugged at her skirts.

  He sighed. “Yes,” he said, and thrust a hand through his hair.

  She took another step back. It was too soon, she told herself. Too soon after her arrival in Seattle, too soon after Julia’s death. All the same, the wanting was a great, yawning chasm inside her, and she was teetering on its brink. Turning on one heel, she fled through the dining room and the entryway and up the main staircase.

  Victoria was just waking from her nap, but since she seemed contented, Susannah went ahead and ran a bath. Already, the twilight was thickening into darkness, and the street lamps glowed, spilling soft golden light over c
rusted snow. The dress she had chosen lay across the bed, neatly spread, and even as she admired its lovely, full sleeves, its snugly tailored bodice and flowing skirts, she imagined lying there in its place, with Aubrey leaning over her.

  She closed her eyes and bit down hard on her lower lip. Whatever else she did, she must find a way to bring her thoughts and feelings under control. She could not afford such fancies; they could lead only to ruin, since Aubrey had freely professed that he did not love her.

  Susannah took her time with her bath, then dried off and generously applied scented powder to her pinkened flesh. Victoria sneezed delicately, then chortled with great good humor. She could not sit up on her own yet, but she was trying hard, so once again Susannah arranged a pillow behind her small back, and the infant peered over the side of the cradle, chattering all the while.

  Once she was dressed, Susannah brushed out her damp hair, then wound it carefully into a loose knot at the back of her head, securing it with the two tortoiseshell combs Mrs. Butterfield had given her the Christmas before. It made a soft, pale cloud around her face, which was flushed with excitement at the prospect of the evening ahead. Looking at her reflection in the mirror above the vanity table, Susannah felt almost like Cinderella preparing for the ball. The difference, of course, was that no prince would come tapping at her door with a glass slipper in hand. When this night was over, she would still be exactly what she was right at that moment: a spinster. Passed over. Unchosen.

  She sighed and rose from the bench just as Maisie came in, knocking on the inside of the door as an afterthought. Seeing Susannah, she let out a long, low whistle of exclamation.

  “Don’t you look like somethin’ in that there dress!” she cried.

  Susannah took note of Maisie’s green gown and upswept hair. “You’re a fair sight yourself, my friend,” she countered.

  Maisie grinned, showing her strong, ivory-colored teeth with their ingenuous gaps. “I ain’t never looked this good before,” she said in a gruff, embarrassed whisper. “Once we got the ballroom ready, there wasn’t much left to do ’cept for feed Jasper and fuss over the way I was decked out.” A worried expression sobered her. “Thing is, I don’t reckon I have any idea how to dance like fancy folks do. Like as not, I’ll mash some gent’s toes for him with my big ole feet.”

  Susannah laughed to hear her own private fears echoed back to her, in a slightly different vernacular from the one she would have used. “I’m sure everyone will come through unscathed,” she said.

  “Un—?”

  “Without getting hurt.”

  Maisie beamed. “Oh. Well, that’s good.”

  Just then, the sound of carriage wheels rattling over hard ground rose from the street below as the first guests arrived. Susannah stood a little taller, though a part of her longed to take refuge in her room and refuse to come out until everyone had gone. Another part wanted just as fiercely to dance with Aubrey, again and again.

  More carriages came, and the sound of jovial voices swelled on the night air. Susannah went to the window, pulled the curtain aside, and looked down to see a woman alighting from a sleek black coach, apparently the sole passenger. The driver bowed to his charge after helping her down.

  A light, feathery fall of snowflakes pirouetted in the lamplight and came to rest on the shoulders of the woman’s hooded velvet cloak.

  “Damnation,” Maisie breathed, standing beside her, and Susannah started, because she’d forgotten her friend’s presence until that moment. “She’s got some gall, comin’ here without no invite.”

  Something tilted inside Susannah, slid, and shattered. The woman just arriving was Delphinia Parker, of course. As though aware that she was being watched, Aubrey’s mistress—more precisely, his former mistress—lifted her head and looked directly at Susannah. Or, at least, it merely seemed so in that poor light.

  “Perhaps she did receive an invitation,” Susannah mused, turning away from the window with a hasty motion. “She is a—close friend of Aubrey’s, isn’t she?”

  Maisie made a disdainful sound. “She ain’t nobody’s friend, ’cept her own. When Mrs. Fairgrieve passed on, she probably figured he was goin’ to marry her. The gall.”

  Susannah moistened her tongue. Inexplicable tears throbbed behind her eyes, but she would not—would not—allow them to fall. “It seems unfair to place all the blame on Mrs. Parker,” she said. “Aubrey’s cooperation was required, after all.”

  “He was half out of his mind over the missus,” Maisie said, gathering up Victoria. “I got to make sure Jasper’s eaten his supper. You have yourself a fine time at the party, Susannah, and don’t let them old biddies downstairs get to you, no matter what. Ain’t a one of ’em fit to pour your tea.”

  With a soft, nervous laugh, Susannah kissed Maisie’s cheek. Then, holding both the other woman’s hands in hers, she asked, “What would I do without you?”

  Maisie looked mystified by the question. “Why, what you’ve always done, I reckon,” she said. She drew a deep, quivering breath to fortify her courage and let it out in a loud rush. “Well, guess it’s time to play fancy,” she said with happy resignation.

  Susannah squeezed Maisie’s hands briefly. “I’ve never had a friend like you,” she said, and it was true. Even Julia, she realized, had never cared a tenth as much about her feelings as this bluff, good-hearted housekeeper did. “I’m so grateful.”

  Maisie reddened with what must have been a profound embarrassment. “You hurry down there, now,” she blustered, opening the door with her free hand and gesturing for Susannah to precede her into the hallway. “Mr. Fairgrieve is lookin’ to show you off, and he cuts a fine figure in his own right when he’s had some spit and polish, I can tell you. Why, the two of you will set this here town back on its heels.”

  Susannah followed Maisie’s earlier lead and drew a deep breath, let it out slowly, then repeated the process. She didn’t feel much calmer in the end, but she came to terms with the fact that a combination of challenges awaited her and resolved to meet them as bravely as she could.

  Squaring her shoulders and tilting her chin upward a notch, she swept past Maisie and along the corridor, the silken skirts of her gown rustling like leaves in a soft breeze as she moved. At the head of the stairs, the swell of conversation and the first, faint strains of the orchestra rose to meet and surround her.

  For a moment, she couldn’t breathe.

  “Go,” she heard Maisie whisper somewhere behind her. “Show ’em. Show ’em all. And him, too.”

  Susannah rested a hand on the banister and took the first step, then a second, then a third. Momentum sustained her through the rest of the descent, although it seemed to take a lifetime with all those people staring up at her. She saw appraisal and suspicion in the eyes of the women, admiration and, yes, desire in those of the men. She thought she might choke on the panic and prayed she wouldn’t be called upon to speak before she’d managed to acclimate herself.

  Aubrey was waiting at the foot of the stairs, and he offered his arm the instant she was beside him. “My late wife’s closest friend,” he said, and though he was addressing the crowd gathered in the foyer, he was looking at her. “May I present Miss Susannah McKittrick?”

  There were murmurs, desultory handshakes, more curious looks. Susannah recognized various members of the Benevolence Society and figured if Aubrey hadn’t been holding on to her, she would have turned and dashed back up the stairs in terror. Nothing in her quiet, simple life at St. Mary’s or subsequently on Nantucket had prepared her for so demanding an occasion, and she felt like a swimmer being borne out to sea by a powerful current.

  “Breathe,” Aubrey urged in a whisper as they entered the ballroom and immediately took the floor. The music seemed to throb behind some barrier, muffled as it was by Susannah’s heartbeat.

  She took a great gulp of air. Around them, other couples rode the swell of notes from the small orchestra. “I don’t belong here,” she said.

  Miraculously, Aubr
ey heard her over the din of music and conversation. “But you do,” he countered. “You are the loveliest woman in the room.”

  She was breathless and told herself it was the exercise that caused this affliction, not the strange, sweet madness Aubrey had stirred within her. “You are a flatterer,” she accused.

  He laughed. “On the contrary,” he replied, “I never say anything I don’t mean, and I have no propensity whatsoever for flattery.”

  She had no answer at the ready. Out of the corner of her eye, Susannah caught sight of Mrs. Parker, saw the angry glare on that classically beautiful face. What an odd thing it was, she reflected, that she, Susannah McKittrick, should be dancing with the most attractive man in the room, while a woman like Delphinia stood idly on the edge of the festivities. An instant later, Susannah saw Maisie come through a doorway in her wonderful green dress and felt encouraged.

  “I plan to announce our marriage tonight,” Aubrey said. “Will you humiliate me with a public refusal?”

  Susannah’s knees turned to water; she stiffened them instantly. The room, filled with noise and candlelight, brightly colored gowns, and the glitter of jewels, became a blur. The music hid itself once again behind a pounding pulse. Her own. “Surely you aren’t serious. I’ve told you—”

  “I want you, Susannah. I need you. And I will teach you to want and need me in return.”

  She heard the words so clearly that she feared all the guests must have done so, too. “You have a great deal of confidence in your own prowess,” she said. It was a brazen statement, and she wasn’t entirely sure what it meant, but it served a purpose. Aubrey was silent.

  All too soon, however, the grin was back, in the company of an insufferable attitude of self-assurance. His hazel eyes glittered with mischief and something Susannah was not quite able—or quite ready—to identify. “One day soon, Susannah,” he said, “you will share that confidence.”