by Susan Wiggs
He headed straight for the crowded servants’ gallery. They stepped aside with a deference that made him feel like an interloper. June stood like a dark flower among all the maids and footmen. Her mouth formed a little O of surprise when she saw him, but she didn’t say a word as he grabbed her hand. Ignoring the curious glances, he led her out a side door to a colonnaded loggia that ran the length of the building.
A row of torches along the figured concrete railing burned in the summer night. The golden flames illuminated a formal garden and a view of Telegraph Hill, where an observatory had just been built. In the distance, the bay glistened under the stars.
Lucas looked left and right to be certain they were alone. A hot feeling prickled across his skin, and he felt the way he always felt around her—like the emperor of the entire world, like a tongue-tied idiot.
“Someone might see us,” she whispered, craning her neck to see toward the door.
She was right. They were seen. Mrs. Hatcher’s footman, a lean Irishman nearly seven feet tall, sauntered into the pathway. His companion, a Chinese man with a long, thin mustache, leaned over and whispered something to him.
A subtle chill of warning stung Lucas. “Ignore them,” he said. “Just keep walking.”
No such luck, of course. The Irish giant blocked the way. “Where are you going with the China girl?” he asked in a rough brogue.
“That’s none of your business,” said Lucas. “But I’ll make it mine, if you want.”
June put her hand on his arm. “Don’t provoke them. I beg you.”
Lucas glared at the Irishman, who towered a full head taller. Size was no object. If the son of a bitch bothered June, Lucas would flatten him. “Excuse us,” he said.
The Irishman grinned and grabbed a fistful of Lucas’s shirt, just under his chin. “What’s that, little man?”
June spoke up in Chinese, sounding calm but speaking rapidly. The man with the mustache stepped between them, prying Lucas’s shirt out of the Irishman’s hand and pushing the two of them apart.
“You shoulda said you were a Calhoun,” the giant said. “Don’t always do things the hard way, little man.” He and the Chinese man headed back inside.
Lucas’s heart hammered in his chest. June touched his hand. He wanted to hold her close, to whisper that everything was all right. Instead, he squeezed her hand. “Do you know that fellow?”
“A little. I’ve seen him at the joss house.”
“Did they scare you?”
“Yes. Bullies always scare me.”
Her honesty touched him. “I’m sorry that happened, June. I wish I could have stopped it.”
“You did stop it.”
“No, I didn’t. The fact that I’m a Calhoun stopped it. That’s not good enough, June. What good is a world that won’t let us be together?”
“It’s the only world we know,” she pointed out gently.
“It’s not right,” he said. “After I finish at West Point and serve in the army, I’ll run for office and change things.”
She smiled at him, admiration glowing in her eyes. “I believe you’ll change the world, Lucas.”
He felt like hugging her, but couldn’t figure out how. “I will,” he said. “I swear I will.”
“Have you told your father about West Point yet?”
He didn’t even want to think about that, so he didn’t answer. He took her hand and led her to the shadowed garden adjacent to the hotel property, which was terraced into the side of the hill behind the massive building. Unlike Sarah Jean, June had soft, warm hands that weren’t clammy at all. The garden pavers became their dance floor, and he boldly took her in his arms.
“Lucas!”
“It’s just a dance,” he said. “Remember, the way we learned from Miss Isabel.” They danced until the music stopped, and he wanted to laugh with the joy of holding her.
He brought her to a curved garden bench set beneath the blooming hedge. From here, they had an even better view of the bay. Ships too many to count outlined the wharves or lay anchored out in the water. Their lights twinkled like water-borne stars.
He turned to her on the bench, feeling more nervous and happy than ever. “I didn’t know you would be here,” he said.
She offered her special smile, the one that was both bashful and wise, the one he saw when he closed his eyes and thought of her. “Miss Isabel brought me along to help with her costume.” He thought she was probably blushing, but he couldn’t be certain because of the darkness. “She says I have a special talent with the needle.”
“Of course you do.”
She laughed softly, a bird warbling. “You wouldn’t know.”
“But Miss Isabel would.”
“She says I am a fine seamstress, but I would be an even better designer. She believes I should learn the art of dressmaking.”
“She’s the first woman my father has danced with since my mother died,” he admitted. June had that effect on him. She made him feel he could say anything.
“I hope she will make him a happy man,” said June.
“I hope so, too.” He realized that he meant it. He really did. Finally someone had come along who was seeking out the dark places inside his father, the places Lucas was forbidden to go. He could tell Father was trying to keep her away, but she was fearless and persistent. He admired her tenacity.
“Your aunts and grandmother think she should marry your father.”
Lucas’s eyes bugged out. “They do?”
“That’s what they said.”
His father. Married to Isabel. It was too amazing to contemplate.
“Lucas? Would that upset you?”
“I think it would be perfect.” His answer was swift and sure.
“I sometimes wish my mother would marry, too. But she never will.”
“Don’t be too sure of it. Look at my father. You never can tell.”
They sat quietly together, listening to strains of music from the ballroom.
“The party is a big success, yes?” June said after a while.
“According to my grandfather, it is.” He inhaled the phantom scent of flowers and inched closer to her on the bench. “But I’d rather be out here, with you.”
She turned slightly, and her knees bumped his. He studied every aspect of her. He could not take his eyes off her. “June Li—”
“Yes?”
“I’m trying to find the right way to tell you something, but I’m afraid the words will come out wrong.”
“Then just tell the truth.” She tipped her head to one side. Her straight black hair fell in a glossy curtain, inches from his shoulder.
He couldn’t help himself. He ran his fingers through her hair. Like silk. Thick black silk.
She made a startled sound but didn’t pull away.
“June Li,” he said, fumbling for words. “You are so beautiful. You’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
She shut her eyes. The smile that suffused her face showed him how inadequate his words were.
He captured her hands in his. “I think about you all the time,” he said.
With slow deliberation, she opened her eyes. “And what is it that you think?”
“Everything. I think of everything about you. The sound of your laughter. The way your hair smells. Your soft skin.” Feeling reckless, he slipped his arm behind her and pulled her close. She gasped, but didn’t pull away. In fact, maybe she leaned a little closer to him.
Bolder than ever, he said, “I think about how your lips would taste. I think about that all the time.”
She made a funny sound that came from her chest or throat. He had never heard the sound before but the sentiment it expressed was completely familiar to him. He recognized the yearning and frustration and, finally, the surrender.
Before he lost his nerve, he leaned forward and kissed her. Their noses bumped clumsily and their lips failed to come together in exactly the right place. A familiar disappointment sank down through him.
But then somethi
ng happened. He stopped thinking about doing it right. He stopped thinking about anything at all. He simply kissed her. He cupped her face, her beautiful flower of a face, between his hands and gently pressed his lips to hers, tasting and feeling everything.
Heated explosions went off inside him. He nearly shook to keep himself from smothering her with all of his wanting. Holding her was like holding a moonbeam. She was that beautiful and that mysterious. She tasted like spice, like a flower, like dreams.
Twenty-Eight
“Be careful, Dr. Calhoun,” said Isabel, following him outside to the loggia with two cups of champagne punch. “Someone might mistake that expression on your face for a smile.”
He turned to her, and her heart lifted. Heavens, but he was the handsomest of men. His broad shoulders were outlined against the backdrop of the glittering city, his hair slightly mussed by the breeze, his cravat loose, his collar lying open to the summer heat. And she had not been imagining the slight smile. It belonged more to his eyes than to his lips; in the torchlit facets of his eyes she detected slivers of amusement and quiet delight.
She knew him well enough to know those were rare commodities in Blue Calhoun. Rarer still was the notion that she had something to do with his mood. That was far more intoxicating than champagne punch.
“So tell me why you’re looking so happy after offending one of the richest men in the city,” she said, handing him a cup.
Keeping his eyes on her, he touched the rim of his glass to hers. The soft clink punctuated a moment of connection so intense that she forgot the question she’d just asked.
“We don’t need Florian’s donation. We’ve raised enough money to cover our operating budget for the year,” he said, then lifted the cup to his lips.
Though he was in many ways still a stranger to her, she understood this man. Sometimes, like now, the things he didn’t say held greater significance than the things he said aloud. She took a drink, finding the punch pleasant but a bit too sweet. “Congratulations.”
“It’s my family’s doing.”
“They did it for you.”
“The benefit is for the Rescue League.”
“They did it to make you happy. You see, I don’t believe you allow yourself to be happy simply as a matter of course. You always seem to need a plausible excuse for happiness.”
“Ah. You’ve been reading Dr. Freud again.”
“‘What we call happiness in the strictest sense comes from the satisfaction of needs which have been dammed up to a high degree,’ she quoted. “Yes, I’ve been raiding your library. Sometimes he makes perfect sense.”
“But not always?”
“Heavens, no. His thoughts about women are simply preposterous. He really has no understanding at all of our sex,” she said. “No wonder there are so few truly happy wives.”
Repressed laughter gleamed in his eyes. “So tell me, Dr. Fish-Wooten, what makes a wife happy?”
She gazed up at him, charmed but a little skeptical. Could he be flirting with her? Blue Calhoun? She touched her tongue briefly to her bottom lip, tasting a lingering drop of too-sweet punch and remembering the time he’d kissed her. She wondered if he could see the memory of that kiss in her eyes.
“To be honest, I am no expert on women,” she whispered, still watching him. They weren’t touching, yet she could feel a peculiar warmth thrumming invisibly between them. “I can only speak for myself.”
“Then do.”
She watched the way the night wind toyed with a lock of his hair. “I forgot the question.”
“It’s the one that has puzzled even the most brilliant minds for centuries. What pleases women? What pleases you?”
“In general, or right now?”
“Both.”
She broke the stare holding them spellbound and turned away. She went to the balustrade and stood looking out at the black-and-gold night world of the city, the sea and the stars. Above her head, a torch flame snapped in the breeze. “If I told you that, my air of mystery would be gone.”
“That’s the idea,” he said.
She felt him come up behind her. He didn’t touch her or even press close, but she felt that phantom warmth again, that burn of anticipation. She turned, drew a breath with an audible gasp. He took a step closer, all but trapping her between the railing and his tall form.
She kept thinking about dancing with him earlier and how it had been much more than a dance.
And this, she realized with a warm shiver, was much more than a conversation.
A low murmur of voices and laughter drifted from the opposite end of the long, colonnaded porch, reminding her that they were not quite alone. She slipped away from him, catching her breath as her full skirts whispered across his legs. He was not even touching her, yet his nearness felt as scandalous and evocative as an intimate caress.
Turning her back on him, she felt an unexpected attack of confusion. She had spent years transforming herself into a woman of sophistication. Urbane, well-traveled, impervious to inconvenient sentiment. But it was all a masquerade, and here was proof. Inside her lived an Isabel no one saw or knew existed, a needy creature who craved the love she saw in the Calhoun family, the deep contentment that grew from bonds that lasted, not just for one brief season, but for a lifetime.
Leaning her elbows on the rail, she said, “You’re crowding me.”
“You like it.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because you’d never tolerate something you don’t like.”
“How do you know that about me? You don’t even know me.”
“You go to great lengths to assure that.”
“I most certainly do not.” Isabel always had the same response when she was feeling cornered. She lied through her teeth. “My life is an open book. In fact, there happens to be a book about my family, if you care to know. The Fish-Wootens of Fakenham in Norfolk. But it’s all extremely tiresome, so no one I know has ever actually read it.” She quickly switched the topic. “Your family, on the other hand, is interesting in the extreme. If no one has written the Calhoun history, perhaps someone should.”
“We were discussing your family.”
“We were not. I much prefer yours. They’re charming and fascinating and delightful.” A smile touched her lips, but she stayed where she was, looking out at the city, safe from his penetrating gaze. She felt such ease with him when he was relaxed and not flogging himself with worries about Lucas, his patients, the Rescue League and ghosts of the past.
“I never said they weren’t,” he said. “And by the way, they think I should marry again.”
His words dropped like stones into a deep well.
She was grateful beyond measure that her back was turned. For a fraction of a second, she considered telling him about the conversation she’d had this afternoon with his sisters and Eliza, but decided against it. Trying to keep her voice light, she asked, “Is it because they want you to marry in general or were they referring to a specific…target?”
“You, specifically.”
She held her breath, then let it out. “Why me?”
He took her by the shoulders and gently turned her to face him. Then he grazed his knuckles under her chin so that she had no choice but to look at him. “Because,” he said, “they believe you’re in love with me.”
Everything in her simply stopped. She didn’t move a muscle, didn’t breathe, didn’t blink. Perhaps even her heart stopped beating. She could sense him standing close behind her, could feel the smooth painted concrete of the rail beneath her elbows. But she was very much afraid that she had lost the ability to move or speak. At the most critical moment of her life, she was frozen. Stuck. If she moved, she would fall to pieces like a cracked vase.
But she had to get past this terrible state of inertia. Of course she was in love with him. There could be no other explanation for the soaring joy she felt when she was with him, the restless sense of anticipation when she wasn’t and the dreams of him that haunted
her sleep. She probably started loving him the moment she’d forced him to treat her gunshot wound. Still, the last thing in the world she needed was to be found out.
Taking a deep breath, she moved her jaw from side to side, making certain she still had the ability to speak. Then, finally, she found her voice. “Well. If they expected you to marry every woman who fancied herself in love with you, then you would have been married a dozen times or more by now,” she said with a laugh. She pulled back from him, although the place where he’d touched her still pulsed with his warmth, and went back to gazing over the railing.
There. Moment over. She had neither confirmed nor denied his assertion.
They were completely silent for a long time. She felt him move, repositioning himself next to her at the viewing rail. The orchestra played on. The guests laughed and talked, random phrases floating like tobacco smoke through the air.
“I love looking out at the city at night,” she commented when their silence became unbearable.
“Any city?”
She thought for a moment. “All the ones that can be viewed from a vantage point like this. Prague Castle from the Charles Bridge. Paris from the steps of Montmartre. Although I must say the very worst I’ve visited is London. When the weather is fine, it’s decently pleasant to take a picnic up to Harding Mound and look down over the rooftops, but even then, you can see coal smoke belching from every chimney pot. A dreadful layer of soot coats everything. Now, Athens.” She took a peculiar pleasure in speaking about the places she’d been. Memories of her travels, she realized, meant so much more when she shared them. “Athens,” she repeated. “There’s a city that is beautiful to behold, particularly from the Temple of Zeus. Everything just glows. It’s as though the ancient stone of the buildings absorbs light and reflects it back.” She slid a glance over at him. “Before you confined yourself to this city, I don’t suppose you visited Athens.”
“No.”
“London?”
“No. Not Paris, and not Prague. I’ve never been anywhere that would impress you.”
“Never mind impressing me. You should go traveling. There’s so much to see in the world.”