Perfect Wedding

by Duncan, Alice

  “And I, too, Miss MacTavish.” Mr. St. Claire rose, took her hand, and actually deposited a chaste kiss thereon. Marjorie wanted to snatch her hand back and wipe it on her skirt, but she didn’t. Anyhow, the kiss provoked a snort from Jason, so she guessed it wasn’t so bad.

  “Come along, Miss MacTavish.” Jason grabbed her other hand.

  Marjorie pulled it away. “One moment, if you please, Dr. Abernathy. I want to say good-bye to my friends.”

  As Jason fumed beside her, she took her leave of the Proctors and the other people who had come to the auditions. Most of them were members of the congregation, and Marjorie prolonged her leave-taking in order to fuss Jason even more.

  Surely, the devil was alive and well in San Francisco that evening, because it seemed to be firmly clinging to Marjorie’s heart and tongue. Marjorie knew she should be ashamed of herself.

  She wasn’t.

  Chapter Three

  Fog trotted along at their feet as if it were a playful puppy bent upon following them home. It curled around lamp posts and stop lights and made little curlicues in the air. Jason might have been amused by it if he weren’t so annoyed with everything else in his life.

  “That man is too much of a sissy for the part,” he said sourly, stomping along beside Marjorie. He had the strangest urge to put an arm around her shoulder and draw her close to his side. He couldn’t understand what the devil was wrong with him. “And that woman is an idiot. I don’t know how you can stand being with people like that.”

  “Which woman is that?”

  “You know very well who I’m talking about. That ninny who told me to call her Ginger. Huh. As if we were long-lost friends or something.”

  “You didn’t care for her?”

  Jason eyed Marjorie in the feeble light provided by the street lamps. She was staring straight ahead, but he detected an odd note in her voice. “I just told you. She’s an idiot. I don’t care for idiots.”

  “I’m sure she’s not truly addlebrained, Dr. Abernathy, or empty-headed. She’s only . . . well . . . young.”

  “Young women can be idiots, too,” he snarled. In truth, he had no notion in the world why he was so crabby. His mood had been pretty good when he’d auditioned. He’d been pleased to have the role of Pirate King bestowed upon him. And afterwards, when he’d been sitting beside Marjorie, he’d enjoyed himself. It tickled him that she always went on the alert when he showed up. He probably ought not to tease her so much—but she was such a good subject for teasing. She took everything so damned seriously.

  He realized Marjorie hadn’t said anything in response to his last barbed comment. Irked, he said, “Well? Can’t young women be idiots, too?”

  “Are you calling me an idiot, Dr. Abernathy?”

  He stopped walking. Since Marjorie’s hand was in the crook of his arm, this required her to stop, too. She frowned up at him. “Well? What did you mean by that too?” she demanded.

  “What too?”

  “You said that young women can be idiots, too. Were you implying that you consider me old and an—”

  ”Good God, no!” His roar bounced off the tall buildings near them and echoed into the distance, the fog muffling it eerily. “What the devil made you think that?”

  She sniffed. “I wouldn’t put it past you, is all.”

  “Nuts.” All right, he really had to stop needling the woman. He didn’t understand his compulsion to do it, anyhow. There was just something about her. Something . . . something . . . aw, nuts. He didn’t know what it was. Plowing through the fog as one might plow through snowdrifts, Jason contemplated Marjorie and the quality in her that seduced his wicked side out into the open.

  It was as if all of her warmth and passion were banked up inside her. Jason sensed womanly passion there, lurking, peeking out from time to time from behind her reserve, although she did everything in her power to hide it. He wanted see it. To experience it for himself. So far, all he’d managed to do was make her mad at him.

  He hadn’t had these problems with his late wife, Mai. Of course, Mai had been so grateful to him that she’d adored him completely and unconditionally. She’d all but worshiped him. He’d been crushed when she’d died, although he wondered now if he mightn’t have eventually felt smothered by her constant adoration. Even as he had the thought, guilt smote him.

  Mai had been his one true love. His soul mate. He’d never find a woman to take her place.

  That didn’t negate the fact that he found Marjorie MacTavish fascinating, irritating, alluring, and absolutely baffling. He knew all about her, of course. She’d been born in Scotland, grown up in Glasgow, became a stewardess for the White Star Line, met Loretta aboard the doomed Titanic, and the experience of its sinking had left her with an exaggerated fear of the water. It was a reaction Jason considered perfectly understandable, but which Loretta deemed a “phobia.”

  Since Jason was a medical man, he didn’t have any truck with phobias, per se. He doctored people’s physical ailments and left their mental and emotional problems to others. Therefore, he didn’t have an opinion on the phobia issue. He acknowledged that if he’d been forced to watch the destruction of his livelihood, not to mention watch hundreds of his friends perish, he might have a phobia or two himself.

  “You’re not an idiot,” he growled.

  “I should say not.”

  She sniffed, and Jason saw her pert little nose lift slightly. For so stuffy and upright a woman, she was remarkably . . . beguiling. And this was in spite of her best efforts to make herself unpleasant.

  All this contemplation and introspection made him incautious. Before he could think better of it, he blurted out, “Why do you try to make yourself unpleasant?”

  This time it was she who stopped walking. As the fog played games with her silly hat and deposited dewdrops on her gorgeous red hair, she gazed up at him in shock. “I beg your pardon?”

  He shrugged, feeling a little silly. He hadn’t actually meant to ask the question aloud. “Well . . . what I mean is . . . well . . .”

  “I do not try to make myself unpleasant,” Marjorie stated firmly. “I do try to avoid you. You’ve been awful to me since the day we met.”

  He had been. And he was ashamed of himself. “You’re right,” he said in a subdued voice.

  Her eyes opened wide. “I beg your pardon?”

  Irked, he said, “Stop begging my pardon, damn it. I know I’ve teased you a little—”

  “A little? It didna seem like a little to me. And don’t curse at me, if you please!”

  He felt like a little boy being chastised for using bad language. “All right, it was more than a little,” he admitted sheepishly. “But it was for your own good.”

  “My ain . . .” His explanation seemed to shock her. After the two words, her mouth merely hung open, as if she were unable to think of anything foul enough to say to him.

  “You see,” he said, feeling pressured to defend himself, although he realized what he’d done was probably indefensible, “I thought you needed to loosen up a little bit, that’s all.”

  “To . . .” Again, she stopped speaking. This time she sucked in approximately four gallons of fog-laced air. “And what,” she said in a voice he’d never heard her use before—it scared him— “would you know about my needs, Dr. Abernathy?”

  This time it was his mouth that hung open for a second or two. He hadn’t anticipated such a question. “Well . . . Loretta said that—”

  ”Loretta,” Marjorie interrupted, which was a sign of just how agitated she was, “is a wonderful woman, but she has na wee inkling of my needs. Or, indeed, of my life before we met aboard that accursed ship.”

  “Really?” Jason found this quite interesting. “I thought you two had been exchanging girlish secrets since the day you met.”

  “Codswallop. We Have’na. Nobody, not even Loretta, knows aught about me.”

  “Is that so?” He gazed down at her. She had delicate features and fine eyes, green most of the ti
me. He supposed technically they were hazel, but she wore green a lot, which brought out the color. Her hair was a brilliant coppery red and, even though she tried to keep it confined, just as she did her personality, it wisped out of its bounds and feathered around her face, giving it a soft look even when she was at her most withdrawn or irate. He knew about the latter, because she was definitely irate now.

  “Aye.”

  “Why not?”

  She blinked at him.

  He expounded. “I mean, why doesn’t anyone know anything about you? Your background? Your life before you moved to the United States? What are you trying to hide?” He grinned, knowing it would irk her. “Don’t tell me you used to be a bank robber back home in bonny Scotland.”

  Her lips thinned, and he backed off slightly. “I didn’t mean that, of course. Our Miss MacTavish would never do anything so outrageous as rob a bank.”

  “Nae, she wouldna.” Marjorie turned and started off again toward Loretta’s house. She didn’t take his arm.

  He rushed to catch up with her. “Say, Miss MacTavish, I didn’t mean to rile you—”

  “Ha.”

  “Honestly. I’m only curious. Why don’t you want anyone to know about your life before Titanic.”

  “Because it’s private.”

  “Well . . . but don’t you like to share things with your friends?”

  “My friends are all dead.”

  The declaration stunned Jason. “But . . . but . . .”

  She stopped again and turned around. He almost ran over her. “Anyhow, why should I want anyone to know about my life before I came to America? D’ye think it’d pay me to spill my guts to you, who denigrate every single thing I say or do? You’re daft, Dr. Jason Abernathy, if ye think that. And Loretta only wants to fix me, as if I were a watch that’s been wound too tightly.”

  He knew she was hopping mad, because she’d let some Scottish expressions slip out. “I don’t, either, denigrate you,” he cried, hurt.

  “Ye do.” She turned as abruptly as before and took off at a sturdy clip. He had to trot to catch her up.

  “Well . . . I’m sorry if you think that.”

  “I don’t think it, it’s the truth.”

  “I’m not that bad, surely.”

  “Ha.”

  “No, really, Miss MacTavish. I never meant to hurt your feelings.”

  “Fidditie-fa. Ye did, too. And it worked, ye’ll be happy to ken.”

  He wasn’t happy to ken it, whatever that meant. In fact, he was moderately chagrined that she thought so. “Well . . . Maybe at first I did, but I haven’t wanted to hurt your feelings for a long time.

  “That makes me feel ever so much better.”

  He winced. Her tone had been very dry. “In fact, I’d like to get to know you better.”

  “Well, ye canna,” she said flatly.

  “Bet I can.”

  “Over my dead body.”

  “I won’t go that far; I promise.”

  “Not funny,” she snapped.

  They walked in silence for about a block. The fog had thickened until it was like a mysterious, smothering gray mist out of a Gothic novel, and Jason began to feel depressed and misunderstood. He wished Marjorie wasn’t such a tough nut to crack. He supposed her attitude was at least partially his fault, since he’d been kind of rough on her at first.

  But anyone with half a sense of humor would have caught on to what he was doing and laughed. She was getting better at fighting back verbally, but he had thus far noticed not a whit of humor in her barbs. And all of his little barblets had been meant merely in fun, and besides all that . . .

  Oh, very well, he’d been downright mean a couple of times. It pained him to admit it to himself.

  But it hadn’t really been his fault. When he’d first met Marjorie, almost four years earlier, he’d still been reeling from Mai’s death and in the throes of violent grief. He’d seen Marjorie sitting on Loretta’s sofa, pale as a snow bank, all drawn into herself and nervous, with her lovely full mouth pinched up and with that red, red hair that fairly screamed of defiance in spite of her withdrawn demeanor, and something in him had reacted with rancor.

  Although Jason didn’t put as much stock in the new science of psychology as did Loretta, he now wondered if his instant antipathy toward Marjorie had owed something to his finding her attractive. At the time, such feelings about another woman seemed a betrayal of Mai. They still did, but he was far enough removed from the worst of his grief now that he could understand that, logically, they weren’t.

  “I truly am sorry I gave you such a hard time, Miss MacTavish.” Miss MacTavish. Jason gave an internal grimace. If she were any other female in the universe, they’d have been on a first-name basis for a couple of years by this time.

  She squinted up at him, her face softened by the fog, as if she were assessing the truth of his apology. Because he didn’t like having his sincerity questioned, he said, “I’m serious, Miss MacTavish. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. I promise never to do it again.”

  Her eyes widened. He raised his hand, palm out, in a gesture a Boy Scout would have been proud of. “I mean it.”

  “Vurra well,” she said at last. “I accept your apology.”

  “Can we be friends?”

  Another sharp glance at his face preceded her grudging, “I dinna know . . .”

  “Can we at least not be enemies?”

  “Well . . . Aye, I expect we can. If ye keep your promise.”

  Phew! Jason was exhausted after conquering that one teensy little barrier. He wondered if he was up to pursuing friendship with the woman. Peering through the fog at her, he opted to shift to a neutral subject. “I’m looking forward to being a pirate king.”

  “I expect you are. The role suits you.”

  Jason wondered why she thought so, but opted only to say, “Thank you,” and leave it at that.

  “I’ve never been in a production like this one before.”

  “Nor have I. It should be fun.”

  “Aye. I didn’t expect to be chosen as Mabel. I dinna know if I want that much responsibility.”

  “But you have a beautiful voice. I think you’ll be great in the part.” He mentally added, if you’ll loosen up and let yourself go.

  “Thank you.”

  He sensed that she was holding her breath, waiting for him to say something teasing, and another dart of guilt pricked his conscience. Because he was used to speaking his mind, and because he couldn’t see how it could hurt her feelings, he said—and diplomatically, too— “And it might help you come out of your shell a little.”

  Instantly, he cursed himself as an addle-pated fool. Before she could take him to task, he added, “I didn’t mean that in a negative way.” Oh, brother, what a stupid thing to say. When would he ever learn how to talk to this woman?

  “No? Well, and what if I don’t want to come out of what you and Loretta are pleased to call my shell, Dr. Abernathy? It might interest you to know that some of us don’t care to have our business shouted to the world. We like having a little privacy. Unlike some people I could mention, many of us aren’t comfortable fighting every rule known to mankind or marching for women’s suffrage or agitating for unions or orating on street corners. And there’s nothing wrong with that.”

  She opened her mouth, as if to say something else, but she shut it again. Jason wondered what she was keeping inside herself this time. She already had so much stuff jammed up in her smallish body, he marveled that she didn’t explode with it. “Absolutely,” he said. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “So you say.” She went on, much to his surprise. He wasn’t accustomed to having Marjorie stick up for or explain herself. If she got really mad at someone, she’d erupt, and then go back into her . . . her shell, damn it. “It’s a wonder to me that someone who claims not to want to injure a body’s feelings can do such a good job of it without, if you’re to be believed, half trying, Dr. Abernathy.”

  He flinched.
“Ow. I didn’t realize you were so sensitive, Miss MacTavish.”

  “Sensitive?” Her frown was as gloomy as the fog. “Sensitivity is a relative thing, Doctor. When one is accustomed to being flayed by a person, one automatically expects any comments from that source to be intentionally hurtful.”

  Another flinch. “I never intended to flay your feelings, Miss MacTavish.”

  She gave one of her ladylike snorts of disbelief.

  He cleared his throat. “Um . . . I don’t suppose you’d be willing to call me Jason, would you?”

  After eyeing him mistrustfully for a moment, Marjorie said, “Well . . . I dinna know . . . I suppose it couldn’t hurt. You may call me Marjorie.”

  Another hurdle oerleapt! Jason was right proud of himself. “Thank you. Marjorie.”

  They walked along in silence. The fog muffled their footfalls and blotted out everything farther away than a couple of feet in front of them. A taxicab emerged like a phantom carriage from out of the mist, giving Jason quite a start. He wasn’t normally a whimsical man, but San Francisco’s fogs could make anyone feel as though he’d wandered into another, and very sinister, world.

  Beside him, Marjorie shivered. Again, Jason had an impulse to draw her to his side. In spite of her having accepted his apology and agreeing to call him by his Christian name, Jason didn’t think he’d better go that far. Yet. “Are you cold, Marjorie?” Her name tasted sweet. How strange. That used to happen to him when he spoke Mai’s name, too.

  “A little. But we’re almost—”

  A screech of tires and a grinding of gears interrupted Marjorie’s sentence. Jason whirled around, stretching his arms out to protect her. Marjorie uttered a sharp, shocked cry, and the taxicab raced, backwards, out of the fog and shrieked to a stop right next to where Jason and Marjorie stood. The back door of the cab flew open, and a Chinese man hurtled out.

  “Jason! You’ve got to come now! There’s trouble and some bad injuries.”

  Jason, who had been primed to punch the daylights out of whatever thug had frightened Marjorie, stared in astonishment at the Chinese man. “Lo Sing!”