Perfect Stranger

by Duncan, Alice

  He nodded. “Insightful.”

  “I’ve had years of practice.”

  Another gentleman claimed her hand, and Isabel was swept away in a waltz.

  And so it went.

  Somerset was as good as his word and invited not only Isabel and Eunice to the vaudeville show, but also Jason and Miss MacTavish and Lillian Blyley and Rebecca Steinberg.

  Isabel was sure he invited the two other adults because he was nervous about being more or less alone with three little-girl “geniuses.” She thought that was both sweet and sensible of him. The girls had a marvelous time, and Somerset took everyone to eat ice cream afterwards.

  Isabel wasn’t certain, but she deduced from his pallor and his state of exhaustion that he probably had a headache when he finally took them all home that evening. She didn’t feel unwell at all. In fact, she felt simply splendid when she finally tucked Eunice into her bed and lay down to sleep in her own.

  # # #

  At three o’clock, the sound of soft sobbing gently invaded a dream in which she’d been dancing with Somerset. Knowing instantly what the noise meant, Isabel sat up in bed. “Eunice?”

  “Oh, mama!” The little girl threw herself into her mother’s arms. “I had a horrid dream!”

  Isabel’s arms wrapped around her daughter, and she held her close. “It’s all right, sweetie. Everything is all right now.”

  “Why can’t I stop dreaming about the ship, Mama? I saw all those dead bodies floating in the ocean. It was . . . it was . . .” Tears flooded her words.

  “It was awful, wasn’t it, dearie?” Six-year-old children, no matter how intelligent, shouldn’t have memories like that one, Eunice’s mother thought, pain stabbing her in the heart.

  Eunice nodded miserably.

  “I’m so sorry, Eunice. I imagine that the dreams will lessen over time. It’s not unusual for people to have bad dreams after such a terrible experience. I know Miss MacTavish does.”

  Settling more comfortably on her mother’s lap, Eunice asked, “Do you have dreams about it, Mama?”

  Recalling her fast-fading dream and wishing she were still in Somerset’s arms, Isabel said, “Yes, I do. It’s probably the worst thing that will ever happen in your life, sweetie. And I’ll always be here when you dream bad dreams.”

  “You weren’t here the last time,” Eunice said, not accusingly. She was merely stating a fact.

  Guilt speared Isabel. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I was at work.”

  Nodding, Eunice said, “Yes, I know. But Miss Linden and Miss MacTavish were very kind to me.”

  “They’re very nice ladies.”

  “I wanted you, though.”

  Sometimes, Isabel thought as she gently rocked her daughter in her arms, life just sneaked up on you and grabbed you by the throat. Damn life, anyhow.

  Chapter Thirteen

  By the end of July, Somerset was willing to admit to himself that he loved Isabel. He was also beginning to wonder if he had a chance in hell with her. She was so excited about her upcoming dance contest, she could scarcely talk about anything else. Neither could the rest of the people who so often populated Loretta Linden’s Nob Hill mansion. He knew, because he spent as much time in their company as was humanly possible for a man with other responsibilities to attend to.

  Isabel and Jorge practiced for the contest as often as they could—and that was besides dancing together every night except Sundays and Mondays. It drove Somerset to distraction that they were so often together. Dancing together. In each other’s dashed arms.

  He’d never concurred with those stuffy souls who deplored dancing as sinful . . . until now. At the moment, he would cheerfully consign Vernon and Irene Castle and every other proponent of the healthful benefits of dancing to perdition. Except Isabel. He wanted to keep Isabel around until she realized he was the only man in the world for her.

  However, his wishing they wouldn’t didn’t affect the fact that Jorge and Isabel practiced all the blasted time. Except when they danced at the Fairfield, they practiced primarily in Loretta’s ballroom, sometimes using Loretta’s Victrola or her player piano, but more often using Marjorie MacTavish. Damned if the former stewardess, whom Somerset had scarcely pegged as human, much less musical, didn’t play the piano as if she’d been born to it.

  Eunice, always happy to help, manned the metronome, primarily as an aid to Loretta, who lost track of the beat more easily than the rest of them. Somerset FitzRoy, whom Isabel had forgiven—at least, he thought she had, since she was speaking to him again—and Jason Abernathy, whom Marjorie would probably never forgive, came to watch and to participate. Especially on Sunday afternoons, since Isabel and Jorge didn’t have to work at the Fairfield and nobody else had to work at all, they gathered in Loretta’s gigantic ballroom.

  “Loretta’s making me do this,” Jason said pettishly, wiping his sweating brow with his white handkerchief. He’d bought a dozen of the Chinese-embroidered handkerchiefs from a street vendor and given half of them to Somerset who had no use for them, but accepted them because he approved of Jason’s practical charity. “She says I have to learn how to dance better.”

  “You dance very well, Dr. Abernathy,” Isabel said kindly.

  “Better than I do,” Somerset grumbled.

  “You dance better than I do, too,” Loretta said, laughing. “I mainly need you here to partner me.”

  “Indeed,” agreed Isabel. “You’re both coordinated and graceful, and your partners need never fear for their lives or the lives of their feet when they dance with you.” She tactfully refrained from mentioning all the times Loretta had danced on Jason’s toes.

  Jorge snorted derisively, but they all ignored him. It was much the best way to deal with Jorge.

  Isabel went on, “You, Mr. FitzRoy, only need more confidence to be truly superb. Watch Jorge here.”

  Somerset didn’t want to watch Jorge. Jorge gave him a pain in a portion of his anatomy no gentleman should mention.

  “Jorge is always confident when he dances,” Isabel said. “Look at this.”

  Somerset looked. He didn’t like what he saw. As Marjorie’s hands skimmed over the piano keys and her fingers plunked out the merry melody to “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” Jorge and Isabel danced together as if they’d been crafted out of cloud fluff and then animated. They didn’t even appear to be working at it, although Somerset knew how dashed much energy dancing like that took. They smiled and flirted with each other, and if he didn’t know better—or hope better, perhaps—he’d have thought they were madly in love with each other. Then they turned a series of those tight little turns as if they’d been glued together before the beginning of time, their feet in perfect rhythm, neither of them ever getting in the other’s way. He’d tried that move in front of his mirror and had tripped—and that was without a partner.

  He couldn’t dance like that in a million years. As much as he hated the notion of Isabel entering the dashed dance contest with Jorge, and as much as he wished it could be he with whom Isabel won the funds to start her dashed dance academy, still more did he understand that Jorge was a better dancer than he. But the dashed woman had flatly refused his offer of funds to start up her academy. She wouldn’t even accept his money as a loan. Said she’d already taken too much from people. Bah.

  In short, the whole thing made him sick. Nevertheless, because he recognized jealousy when it attacked him, he joined Jason and Loretta in applauding the dancers when they twirled to a stop.

  “You see?” Isabel said, only slightly out of breath and her cheeks flushed with exercise. “Jorge never looks as if he’s trying to think of the steps or the choreography or anything other than having a good time.”

  Jorge buffed his fingernails on his lapel and appeared bored. Somerset exerted all of his self control and didn’t pop him one. “Yes,” he said, hoping it didn’t sound like a growl. “But I fear Jorge’s had more practice than I.” Somerset had more important work to do than dancing his life away.

 
; “You don’t need to practice dancing to portray confidence,” Isabel declared. “Here. Let me show you.” And she went over to him and held up her arms.

  With mixed emotions, Somerset took her in his arms. Not that he didn’t like having her there; he did. But he had trouble controlling his baser urges when he held Isabel. He had to fight the impulse to pick her up, march upstairs to her bedroom, and ravish her. He didn’t know which bedroom was hers, true, but that didn’t matter.

  However, as long as he had her there, and as long as ravishing her was out of the question, he aimed to enjoy the experience of dancing. Turning his head toward the grand piano, he said, “A waltz if you please, Miss MacTavish.” He wanted a slow waltz, but couldn’t quite make himself say so.

  Fortunately for him, Marjorie seemed to be in a slow-waltz mood at that particular moment. The lilting introduction to “Listen to the Mocking Bird” floated out over the ballroom, and Somerset set out with Isabel, for the first time wishing the contest would never arrive so they could keep practicing together forever.

  He held her firmly but loosely, as he’d been instructed, and tried to become as one with the music. He couldn’t do it. He was too desperately aware of Isabel in his arms. As the music lilted them across the polished parquet flooring, Somerset decided that she felt as if she belonged in his arms, as if God had intended this pairing.

  Ass, he told himself. God helps him who helps himself. Which reminded him of Jason Abernathy’s advice, which brought him back to reality.

  Glancing down at Isabel, he noticed her eyes had drifted shut and she had a dreamy expression on her face. “Isabel?” he said softly.

  With a small start, she opened her eyes and glanced up at him. She licked her lips, as if her mouth had gone dry. He knew his own mouth was longing for a taste of hers, but he didn’t suppose her problem was the same as his. Unfortunately.

  “There,” said Isabel, giving herself a tiny shake that Somerset barely felt. “See? You dance beautifully. Gloriously, in fact. But you need to lift your chin and look down at me as if we were the only two people on earth.”

  He thought that’s what he’d been doing. “That shouldn’t be any trouble at all.” Or it wouldn’t be if he had a gun. Not that he’d ever do violence to Loretta or Jason or Eunice, but he didn’t feel the same qualms about Jorge. Besides, it would be nice to be alone with Isabel.

  Did she blush ever so slightly, as if she understood the meaning behind his words? Somerset wasn’t sure, but he tried to appear confident. It would, of course, help if he felt confident. He didn’t.

  His ambience was the earth and its loamy soil and the plant life that grew therein, not the dance floor. He could plan out a garden like nobody’s business and grow roses that could win prizes at any rose contest in the United States. If you showed him a plant, he could tell you what it was called in three different countries and add the Latin botanical name, to boot.

  “You’re very smooth,” Isabel said softly. “I mean, your moves are smooth. I mean . . . Oh, dear.”

  She was blushing. “Thank you.” She was the most adorable woman he’d ever met in his life. Why the deuce wouldn’t she marry him?

  “What I meant was that you really do dance well,” she said, trying to recover her composure. Somerset danced her away from their friends, to the far corner of the ballroom. “All you need is to project more . . . more— Oh!” Her smile nearly sent him reeling. “I know exactly what it is. And it’s something Jorge has in abundance. Overabundance, actually. You need to portray arrogance!”

  Arrogance. Good word for Jorge, all right. Somerset’s erratic thoughts left the bedroom and returned to the dance floor. “Arrogance. Of course. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “Because you’re too sensible to be arrogant,” Isabel said, laughing. “But arrogance is what you need to portray as you dance. You’ve seen Jorge and me at the Fairfield. Now, on a daily basis, I’m not a dramatic person, but I am on the dance floor. Jorge, on the other hand, is arrogant all the time, but you can see that acting can be just as good as the real thing. At least, I think so. I mean, I do think Jorge and I make a good dance team, and I’m always acting when I dance with him.”

  “You’re an excellent dance team.” And, Somerset’s pangs of jealousy aside, it sounded as if that’s all they were. He decided to be bold and ask. “Ah . . . you don’t fancy Jorge as anything more than that?”

  Her eyes grew huge. “What do you mean?”

  “Well . . . I mean . . .” Damnation, she hadn’t married him, Somerset FitzRoy. Did she want that frippery popinjay Jorge Luis Savedra instead? “I mean, well, you don’t fancy Jorge as a husband, do you?”

  She made a false step in the waltz, and they very nearly crashed into a wall. Somerset had strong muscles, however—from hurling trees around, dash it—and he prevented a serious accident.

  “Jorge?” Her voice squeaked the name out. “Whatever made you think that?”

  He couldn’t tell if she was amused or irate. “Just wondered.” His still-festering sense of injury made him add, “I mean, you refused my proposal. I thought perhaps it was because your feelings were engaged elsewhere. With Mr. Savedra, perhaps.” And that was another thing: She called that greasy Argentine by his Christian name, yet she persisted in calling him Mr. FitzRoy. Bah.

  “Dear God.” She didn’t say anything else for several seconds, and Somerset wondered if he’d offended her. If he had, it was the second time he’d managed to do so without any conscious help from his own brain. He supposed he agreed with popular opinion: women were unfathomable.

  At last she said, “No, Mr. FitzRoy, my feelings are not engaged elsewhere. Especially not with Jorge. My refusal of your proposal had nothing to do with . . . with feelings. It was based on something else entirely.”

  The queer note in her voice made him frown. Peering down at her, he realized she had her own head lowered, so he couldn’t read her expression. Swell. True, even when he was staring straight into her eyes, he hadn’t a clue to her thought processes, but looking at her face might help. “Ah . . . would you like to tell me what your refusal was based on?” Miss Grimble, his third-grade teacher, would have smacked the back of his hand with a ruler if he’d used that sentence structure in her classroom.

  She lifted her head, and he saw that she was chewing on her lower lip. What’s more, she appeared flustered and a little sad. His heart lurched. “I’m sorry, Isabel. I had absolutely no intention of stirring up unhappy memories. Or anything. I mean . . . I didn’t . . .”

  “I know what you mean,” she said, rescuing him from a pit of jumbled words. “But I can’t . . . well, let’s just I don’t think I can talk about it.”

  “Oh.” What did this mean? Was she still so madly in love with her damned dead husband that she wouldn’t even talk about him? It didn’t make any sense to Somerset. Trying to be fair, he mentally acknowledged that he’d never known a love as great as all that. His few flings had been fun and physical. His feelings hadn’t been engaged.

  Until now. At this moment, he was relatively certain that if Isabel should vanish from his life, he’d never be able to fill up the gaping hole her absence would create. Dashed uncomfortable emotion, love. He wished it hadn’t hit him.

  “I’d prefer not to discuss it any longer,” Isabel said in a stifled voice. “If you don’t mind.”

  He did mind, actually, but he couldn’t, as a gentleman, argue with her, especially not in Loretta Linden’s ballroom with the whole world watching. “Not at all,” he lied, and he waltzed her back to the piano.

  # # #

  As Isabel prepared to take to the Fairfield’s polished parquet dance floor two evenings later, she contemplated Somerset FitzRoy. Never one to assume things—she’d done that once and it had nearly cost her everything, including her life—she went over the conversation they’d carried out in Loretta’s ballroom. She thought, although she wasn’t positive, that Somerset sounded as if he still wanted to marry her.

  She knew
for a certified fact that she couldn’t marry him without telling him her story. She cared too much for him to lie to him, and not confessing would be every bit as bad as a telling an outright lie. Isabel feared that her miserable past might be an insurmountable obstacle to achieving any kind of pleasant future. Offhand, she couldn’t think of anyone she’d sooner live out that future with than Somerset FitzRoy. Bother.

  Could she possibly tell him the truth about herself? She tried to envision the scene in her mind, but her mind wouldn’t cooperate. It balked at the mere notion of confessing to Somerset FitzRoy, the one person on earth whose good opinion truly mattered to her. Well, besides Eunice.

  Anyhow, Jorge and she were going to win the dance contest, and then her troubles would be over, because she’d be able to get rich San Franciscans to send their debutantes and sons to her dance academy. She’d still be able to see Somerset and all her friends. She knew she wanted more than friendship from Somerset but decided not to think about it right now. There were more important goals to achieve before she could solve the problem of what and how much to tell Somerset. She and Jorge had to win the contest. Isabel wouldn’t—couldn’t—settle for anything less.

  “Isabel!”

  Jorge’s peremptory voice jerked her out of her blue mood. “One moment, please!”

  Oh, Lord, she’d been mooning over Somerset and her past sins and poor Eunice, and she wasn’t ready. Jorge could become very unpleasant when Isabel kept him waiting. Jabbing a red feather into her head band, she peered in the mirror and readjusted the black ribband about her neck. Then she tugged at her left sleeve, and decided she was almost ready to face Jorge and a roomful of happy diners.

  “Beautiful,” a sultry Argentine voice behind her said. “Excellent.”