Winter Cottage

by Mary Ellen Taylor

  Jimmy, with a huge grin, rushed to open the door for Victoria. “Miss.”

  Victoria smiled as she looked up at him with doe eyes that rendered men immobile. “I must insist on a dance with you tonight,” she whispered.

  “Miss?” Jimmy said.

  “Leave the poor man alone,” Robert said. “Let him enjoy his people without your interference.”

  “I’m not an interference.” Victoria made the most beautiful pouts. “And all I’m asking for is one itty-bitty dance.”

  Claire then stepped out and carefully removed her goggles. She dusted the bits of soot from her hands and lifted her burgundy velveteen skirts as she came around the car.

  “Claire, please tell Jimmy I’m a very good dancer,” Victoria said.

  “She’s quite good,” Claire said.

  Jimmy laughed. “Well, then, there’s the problem. I’m not a dancer at all. Never tried it once.”

  “I shall teach you,” Victoria said while the band was tuning up behind her.

  “Perhaps in a bit, miss.” Jimmy nodded toward a man in the crowd. “I see my old friend Eric Jessup.”

  Claire shifted from Victoria to the crowd. “I wonder if the boys are here as well.”

  “What boys?” Robert asked.

  “My brothers. The Jessups have raised them.”

  “Ah, I remember hearing something about that.” Robert regarded her as if he’d just glimpsed her as a real person. “I forget you come from this area and have a large family. Why haven’t you snuck away to see the boys?”

  “We’ve all been busy,” she said. The truth was, she’d been a little afraid. The last time she’d seen them, the baby had been crying, and the other two were begging her not to go as her father dragged her from the Jessups’ house. Her father had told her that her future was with the Buchanans, but she’d wanted to stay with her brothers and sisters and the life she had here on the shore. “I shall see them soon enough.”

  “I haven’t seen much of you either, Jimmy,” Victoria said. “You’re always out hunting with my father and his friends. You actually look as if you enjoy their company.”

  “I do,” he said.

  “I can’t imagine a worse thing than rising early and traipsing through the wet and cold,” Victoria said.

  “What about you, Miss Claire?” Robert said. “You don’t mind rising early, do you?”

  Had he seen her peering out her window in the mornings? “I’m an early riser because there’s so much to be done for the wedding. Just a few more days and so many last-minute adjustments to the gowns.”

  “Well, if your apparel is any indication,” Robert said, his gaze skimming her body, “then the ladies will be stunning.”

  “Tell me you brought your flask,” Victoria said to Robert. “You always have it.”

  “My job is to keep you sober,” Robert said. “Be a good girl for once.”

  “I don’t want punch.” Pouting, she moved toward Jimmy and slipped her arm in his. “I’m looking for a bit of whiskey or maybe something stronger.”

  Jimmy glanced back toward Claire as if he wasn’t sure what to say. Victoria was his employer’s daughter, and he knew he was on thin ice. “I don’t know about that, miss.”

  “Oh, of course you know, Jimmy,” Victoria said. “No need to treat me like china. I’ve had my share of nips before, isn’t that right, Claire?”

  “Mr. Latimer, would you do me a favor?” Robert asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Escort my sister around the dance floor a few times. Perhaps a dance will burn some of this restless energy of hers.”

  Jimmy looked taken aback, but nodded, and was not that disappointed.

  Victoria grinned and hugged Jimmy’s arm tighter. “I won’t tell Daddy if you three don’t. I’ve been locked up in that house for over a week, and if I hear one more story about who shot which duck, I might go mad. A dance is exactly what I need.” She tugged him into the crowd, looking just a little pleased with herself.

  “You must dance with me,” Robert said to Claire. “I’m feeling like an old third wheel.”

  “I could introduce you to a number of young ladies if you’d like to make their acquaintance.”

  “I’d much rather spend the time with you. I need an infusion of feminine common sense after sharing dinner with Victoria.”

  Claire wanted to tell him she was tired of being sensible tonight. She’d had a lifetime of sensible. “I don’t think that would be wise.”

  The band began to play “Pack Up Your Troubles,” a patriotic war song that had begun to make the rounds in New York and rouse many an audience. She was surprised the local band knew it.

  She studied the crowd of people, trying to recognize anyone from her childhood. This place had been her home for her first twelve years, but she was more of a stranger here than Victoria, who was already laughing and talking to the others as if they’d known each other all their lives.

  “Perhaps we should not be so wise right now,” Robert said. “We appear to be the true outcasts here tonight. I know no one, and even though you grew up here, I suspect you haven’t found a familiar face.”

  His insight was unsettling. “Everyone’s changed so much.”

  “Whereas I’m who I’ve always been,” he said, pleased with himself. “You know my good and bad traits. Dance with me. It will do both our spirits good.”

  Victoria and Jimmy were now lost in the crowd. “It would be my pleasure.”

  He offered her his hand. She took it, and he guided her out to the sandy dance floor where the other dancers were swaying in time to the tune. She placed her hand on his shoulder, and he settled his softly on her waist.

  “You’re stiff,” he said.

  “When have you ever known me to be carefree?”

  “Never,” he said, grinning. “But maybe tonight we can fix that.”

  “You’re more optimistic than I,” she said.

  He quickened his pace, forcing her to glance at her feet so that she could match his steps. “Just enjoy the dance.”

  He was an excellent dancer and guided her around with such confidence, her own worries quickly faded. Claire relaxed, and her smile lost the nervous edges and widened. When the song ended, they stepped apart, clapping.

  She readied to dance another song with him when another fellow approached. She didn’t recall the man’s name but decided his rawboned looks and coloring placed him in the Franklin family. Like the men in that family, he had a scruff of beard, and his dark, hollow eyes were sharp and wanting.

  Robert’s mild expression hardened, and he pulled away from her. “Claire, I have some household business to take care of with this gentleman. Save another dance for me.”

  She knew Robert pressed the edges of the law occasionally and that his father had intervened on his behalf a time or two. She didn’t know what he’d gotten himself into this time. “Of course.”

  As the strings and the guitars plucked out the next song, Claire stood on the sidelines searching for Victoria and Jimmy. The girl had vanished and taken Jimmy with her.

  “Claire, is that you?”

  Claire turned to see a woman in her midthirties with curly chestnut-brown hair tucked under a straw hat. A brown checkered dress draped over a rounded pregnant belly and skimmed thick ankles. The woman looked familiar, but Claire couldn’t place her.

  “I’m Sally Jessup,” she said, laughing. “We’ve corresponded for years, but I haven’t seen you since you were twelve.”

  Claire shrugged off her shock and hugged Sally warmly. “My goodness, you’re a sight to see. How have you been?”

  Sally pressed her hand to her belly. “Pregnant.”

  “You never told me.”

  Sally’s smile softened. “I wanted to make sure this pregnancy took. I couldn’t bear to write about another lost baby.”

  Over the years, there’d been four miscarriages that Claire knew of. “Well, you look wonderful. How are Eric and the boys?” She couldn’t brin
g herself to say my brothers, nor could she call them the Jessup boys as everyone in town did now.

  “My men are constantly messing up my house, eating every scrap of food in sight, and wrestling at the slightest provocation, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  “Are the boys here tonight?”

  “Eric is here, but Stanley has watch at the lighthouse tonight. He took Joseph and Michael with him. They all three marched out like fully grown men.”

  Sixteen years ago, they’d been babies and toddlers, and now they were men. She was disappointed they’d all not come. Surely they’d have known she’d be at the dance. “As soon as the wedding is over, I’d like to see them if I could.”

  “You’re always welcome in our home, Claire. If not for the gift of your brothers, I’d have lived the last years childless, and I doubt I could have survived the miscarriages.”

  Claire looked at her rounded belly. “You must be close to delivery now.”

  “Less than a month.”

  “May I?”

  “Of course.”

  Claire pressed her hand to the tight mound and waited and hoped for the baby to kick. “He’s sleeping, I think. Do you have a name picked out?”

  “Aaron if it’s a boy. Anna if it’s a girl.”

  “Lovely.” She wanted the child to kick, but it remained mutinously still as if it were avoiding her like her brothers.

  “He waits until I’m asleep in bed. Then he decides to dance his jigs.” The swirl of the dancers caught her gaze. “We were thrilled to hear about this party. It’s our last chance to get out before the baby. We both remember how confining it can be with small children.” She pressed her hand to her belly. “That sounds like complaining, but it truly is not.”

  “I understand. I recall how hard it was when Mama had a new one. No one got much sleep in the first few weeks.” She especially remembered the weeks after her youngest brother, Michael, was born. He was a pink and red-faced little fellow, and she alone had cared for him and her other siblings. It had been overwhelming and too much for her, but when her father had come home and announced the boys were moving to the Jessups’, she’d been devastated.

  Eric Jessup cut through the crowd, his broad shoulders and tall frame prompting people to step aside without a word from him. In his late thirties, he had a full, ruddy face and an easy grin.

  He wrapped an arm around Sally. “Ma’am.”

  “Eric,” Sally said, laughing. “It’s Claire.”

  “Claire Hedrick?” He shook his head, scratching his black beard. “I didn’t recognize you.”

  “Eric, you look well,” Claire said.

  He hugged Claire and then stepped back. “We’re doing well. And your brothers are fine men. Come and see them anytime.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Now, if you won’t mind, Miss Claire, I’ll be taking my wife for the dance I promised and then home where she’s to rest.”

  Sally kissed him on the lips. “He worries.”

  As he should, Claire thought. Sally had skimmed over the loss of her four other pregnancies in her letters, but each time Claire had read the accounts she’d feared her brothers would lose another mother. “Enjoy your dance.”

  A laugh rose above the music, and it drew Claire’s gaze away from Sally toward the smiling Victoria, who stood a hair’s breadth away from Jimmy and scandal.

  She did look stunning in the baby-blue dress. The soft silk draped her bosom, adding a seductive allure, and it nipped in at her very narrow waist. Blonde hair and her small pearl earrings caught the light from the torches ringing the dance floor. Every man at the party was aware of Victoria. The men of the peninsula were helpless to resist her siren’s call.

  Claire’s fingers absently went to the rose she’d pinned on her lapel. Suddenly, it felt bland and a silly attempt to win the attention of a man who was smitten with Victoria.

  The band on the stage tuned up again, striking a few lively chords to announce the next song.

  It took another few notes to break Victoria’s spell and for Jimmy to look up. When his eyes locked on Claire’s, he turned and said something to Victoria that immediately produced a pout that looked both charming and vexing. He then marched toward Claire with the same steady determination he’d had the day he’d pulled her from the bay.

  Before Jimmy could speak, Victoria rushed up and said, “Claire, you have bested me with this lovely man. He insists you get the next dance.”

  Claire wasn’t his first choice, but she wanted to be his best. “I would like that.”

  Victoria’s smile froze as if she’d expected Claire to stand down and give this victory to her. But Claire was going to be selfish.

  “And you’ll have the next,” Jimmy said to Victoria. “Everyone wins.”

  He held out his hand to Claire, and she accepted it. “I’ll warn you, I don’t dance as well as Robert.”

  “You saw us dancing?”

  “He’s accomplished.”

  The initial blend of fiddles and guitars was smooth until one of the string players hit a shrill note that had a few folks cringing. But eventually the quartet found the right melody.

  “I really don’t know what I’m doing,” Jimmy confessed. “I stepped all over Miss Victoria’s feet.”

  Claire pulled Jimmy’s hand to her waist and placed his other hand on her shoulder. “As I remember, you can tie any manner of rope knots when rigging a ship. This isn’t different,” she said, smiling.

  Talk of the boats eased some of the tension from his shoulders. “We’ll see shortly if you’re right, miss,” he said with a grin.

  She placed one hand on his arm, feeling the ripple of muscle under her hand. “We’re going to move in a simple square pattern. Pretend you’re sailing your sailboat across the bay. We’re the vessels, and you’re the captain.”

  He flicked his head, tossing back a thick sweep of blond hair. “That makes sense.”

  “You’re going to lead us back a step. Just lean toward me a little and nose us in the direction we need to go. Set your sights, just like you would on your sailboat. Then, when we take that step back, steer us one degree to the left and then retreat a step and then back to the harbor where we started.”

  “Sounds easy when you put it that way.”

  “It’s easy. It seems so complicated the first time, but I promise you that sailing one of your boats in a storm is harder. Ready to set sail?”

  He rolled his shoulders back like a sailor bracing for a storm. “Hold on to your oar.”

  Laughter bubbled, and he guided her back a big step that forced her to take two to his one. She nearly lost her balance and gripped his arm tight. “Steady there, Captain. You’re putting too much wind in this sail.”

  His brow knotted as he dropped his gaze to their feet and directed her to the left. His body was stiff, and he looked more pained than amused, but he took them back several steps and then over to the right. They did this several more times, neither paying much attention to the music. He was analyzing the challenge of dancing while she was savoring a feeling she’d not had since he’d pulled her out of the bay and hauled her nearly lifeless body into his boat. She felt safe, steady, and that allowed all the joys she’d never dared to dwell on to peek out from the shadows.

  The music picked up, and Jimmy quickly fell into a rhythm that smoothed out with each completed square. His hand on her waist eased up on its grip. He wasn’t doing anything fancy in terms of dance steps, but he’d mastered the sway of their bodies in their small inlet on the dance floor.

  “You’re very good at this,” Claire said. “I bet you could learn a few more dance steps.”

  “I’m not sure I’ll have a need for any more moves.” Talking threw off his next step. He frowned but righted their course almost immediately.

  “It’s supposed to be fun. Not a task to be endured,” she teased.

  “For the ladies, yes. We menfolk worry over stumbling in front of everyone and making a fool of oursel
ves.”

  “A good woman would not worry about a misstep. She would be happy to have you in her arms. I’m happy to be dancing with you.”

  His head cocked as if he sensed her deepest feelings for him. “Ah, but you were always a practical soul, Claire. Even when you were young, I remember how you’d help your mother in town with the supplies. She either had a little one on the way or one on her hip.”

  “You saw me with Mama?”

  “I did. I remember her by the dock. You were seven or eight, and she asked you about the supplies for supper. You knew better than she what was in the larder.”

  “It was the way in our house. As soon as I could stand on a chair and stir a pot, I was helping.”

  “And when your father sent you to live with the Buchanans, he lost the last anchor for his family, and it drifted away.”

  “He cut the rope binding us.”

  “Sometimes in a storm, a sailor must make hard decisions. He took no joy in sending you away.”

  She’d been so angry when he’d first sent her away, but as the months became a year, she’d begun to miss him. She’d started to write, believing he’d respond. “He never wrote me back.”

  “But he had me read your blasted letters to him over and over.”

  Comfort mingled with sadness. “That was kind of you.”

  He muttered something gruff and unintelligible. “Will you be staying on the peninsula?”

  “There isn’t a place for me here anymore. Once the wedding is complete, I shall return to New York. I have a good job there and good friends.” She’d been gone from the Eastern Shore longer than she’d lived here. Now she felt more like an outsider than a local.

  But in this moment, in Jimmy’s arms, she felt more at home than she had in years. She leaned into him a fraction, wanting to press closer but also fearing such a move would shock him. If she could wish for anything at this moment, it would have been Victoria’s daring.

  The music stopped, but Jimmy kept on a few more steps before he realized this sailing trip had ended. When the clapping of the other couples finally reached them, they looked at each other for an awkward moment and then each dropped their hands to their sides. A sense of loss rushed over her.