by Grace Walton
Rory knew he wanted her to follow his lead so, as the other ladies tittered in the background. She took her first step toward adventure. A sweet, doting smile settled on her face. She cooed to him. “Of course, darling, it was getting rather tiresome sitting there with you.”
His eyes told her he was impressed with her powers of improvisation. “I'm sorry.” He seemed the very soul of repentance. “I had no idea. The way your hands were roaming...” He seemed to gulp with embarrassment. Then an attractive red flush crawled up his tanned face.
Amazing, thought Rory with a kind of twisted admiration, the beast can blush at will. This sent the women standing before them off into new waves of silly giggling. He helped her to her feet and started bumbling and stumbling toward the door.
“We want all your gowns made up in white, don't we?” He didn't seem to need an answer. At the door, he stopped as if remembering something else. “And they should be fashioned with low necklines and narrow skirts. Sweet, that's the style in London this season, very low necklines and very narrow skirts.” And then he was gone.
Chapter Seven
Reba and Sukey began to work on Rory's new wardrobe. Bolt after bolt of pure white material was found where ever it could be had. White silk came from the ship stores. There was just enough of it to make one gown. The sheerest white muslin Rory had ever seen was found hiding in the pantry. It had been destined to wrap curing hams, but they went unwrapped. Three of her mother's beautiful lace table covers were pressed into service. But Rory found the best treasure of all carefully folded and covered with paper in an old trunk in the attic. The softest and most perfect length of snowy velvet.
A sailor's wife volunteered the copy of La Belle Assemblée her husband had brought back from London for her. Rory and the others poured for hours over the style book carefully deciding which material to make up into which new ensemble. Dylan was right about the daring necklines and the narrowness of the skirts. How in the world did ladies walk about in those skimpy skirts, Rory wondered? She refused even to spare a thought for the plunging necklines.
She didn’t see anything of Dylan or Bu Allah for several days. One night she'd heard muffled footsteps travel down the hall. She wasn't certain of the time, but she knew it had been well after the tall clock in the hall struck twelve. She'd never heard their return.
The next morning she'd met both Dylan and Bu Allah at breakfast. Neither seemed tired nor disheveled in the slightest. In fact, St. John looked disgustedly fit and well groomed. Rory was beginning to become annoyed. When was he going to let her know the details of his famous plan? For someone who professed to need her help, he wasn't being very obliging. When two more days passed in the same manner, she decided to take matters into her own hands. She went looking for him.
He wasn't in the stables. That's where she looked first. He wasn’t seen at the dock all day. The school was empty because all the girls had been put to work hemming her new gowns. The boys were helping ready the Rozelle. The date for sailing into Savannah was only a few days away.
That left the house. He was in the house somewhere. She was sure of it. Rory checked all the upstairs rooms, even his bedchamber. She found no one. She drifted through the downstairs rooms. Through the dining room into the library and parlor, she moved. Then she heard low voiced conversation coming from inside the music room.
She'd always thought calling this chamber the music room was rather pretentious. It was just a big bare room with a pianoforte at one end. Dylan was standing by the massive instrument speaking to Bu Allah, who played a delightful melody in a curious three-four time signature. At the sound of her entrance, both men stopped. They turned to see who had intruded into their conversation.
Dylan smiled his welcome, held a beckoning hand out, and called to her, “Come Rory. You're just the person I wanted to see.”
“You haven't wanted to see me lately,” she said sourly.
“What is it?” He took her reluctant hand and pulled her toward Sander at the piano bench. “Feeling neglected?”
“Sander,” she used the name she'd overheard when she came in, to full advantage. She’d known the black man was no Middle Eastern Potentate. “Please tell your master to mind his own business.”
The black man didn't know what to do or say. He remained silent. But he did look to Dylan for instruction.
St. John shrugged and answered, “Sander is a free man. He doesn't have a master.”
“I thought he was your slave,” she said, confused as she looked from one man to the other.
“No, Sander is not my slave. I refuse to own people. That's why I left Virginia in the first place.”
“What? You left Virginia?”
“It's a long and fairly tedious story. I'll not bore you with it now.” There was a cold, distant quality to his voice that told her not to ask any more questions.
It didn't stop her asking, “Well, if he doesn't belong to you who is he? I know he's not Bu Allah.” She was being a prig, and she knew it.
“He's my uncle,” Dylan announced blandly and then began a formal introduction. “Miss Aurora Windsor, please let me introduce my uncle, Mr. Lysander Goodman.”
Sander rose and bowed to her with great dignity.
“But, but how, how?”
“Don't try to understand it, Miss Windsor,” Sander said kindly. “Just take what Dylan tells you at face value. I assure you, that is what I find myself having to do most of the time.”
“He's your uncle?”
“Yes, Sander is my uncle. He claims a family resemblance.” Although Dylan said this with a perfectly straight face, Sander started laughing. Rory got the stubborn look in her eyes Dylan had come to recognize.
He deftly changed the subject. “Rory, do you dance?”
“Dance?”
“Yes dance,” he continued lightly. “You know, what men and women do together at parties and balls. What they do together in public during parties and balls at any rate.”
“Of course I dance.”
“Do you waltz?”
“No, I do not waltz.” She was losing what little patience she had left. “For your information, no one in Savannah waltzes. It's considered immoral. I've read about that dance. It sounds very improper.” The little prig was back.
“Rory,” he said. He sounded disappointed with her. “I hadn't thought you were so straight-laced. You'll have to get over all that if you want to become a proper spy.”
She shot back at him hotly, “I don't want to become a proper spy.”
“Understandable, I prefer the improper ones myself.”
Without waiting to hear her reply he nodded to Lysander and drew Rory firmly into his arms. Sander began once again playing the haunting melody he'd been practicing when she’d first come in. The one with the same odd time signature.
Rory looked at Dylan like his wits had gone begging. “What are you trying to do?” she asked in what she hoped were withering accents.
Dylan did not seem to notice her attempt at a set down. He replied with admirable forbearance, “I'm trying to teach you the scandalous waltz. But I must tell you sweetheart, you will never learn this dance correctly if you insist on keeping your entire body stiff. It’s like trying to dance with a marionette.”
She glared at him. “I'm not interested in learning how to waltz.”
“Whether you have an interest in it or not, learn it you will.” His voice was still deeply pleasant, but it now held a distinctly unbending quality.
She never had a chance to reply in kind because he began to guide her around the room in the graceful whirling motion of the dance. At first, Rory was so intent on not stumbling over her own feet, she didn't realize how intimately he was holding her. Once she became familiar with the lilting pattern of the waltz, she realized he was holding her almost in an embrace.
One of his strong hands pressed into the small of her back, the other held her own prisoner. They were close enough that her nose was teased with the scent of him, citrus and
spices. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembered reading that during the waltz, one should always maintain a distance of twelve inches from one's partner. He held her much closer, perhaps half that distance. She knew she should complain, any gently brought up girl would. Just when Rory opened her mouth to voice this concern, he reversed the direction in which they were moving. She found herself counting one, two, three, unconsciously over and over again.
Dylan watched her lips moving silently over the count of the beats and smiled. He'd deliberately stayed away from her these past few days. It wasn’t an easy task. He'd found himself wondering what she was doing and thinking. He'd wanted to know if she'd added any questions to her Heavenly list. He'd longed to see her face light up with the incandescent smile that was hers alone. And it all bothered him. So he'd stayed away. But they were to leave for Savannah very soon. For good or bad, he couldn't stay away from her anymore.
By the time she no longer needed the constant reassurance of counting the beats she discovered she thoroughly enjoyed the fluid grace and rapid pace of the dance. Rory looked up to confess that she'd quite changed her mind about waltzing. She found him smiling smugly down at her. Infuriating man.
“Aren't you holding me too closely?”
“No”
“I think you're holding me too closely,” she insisted belligerently. “The Savannah Gazette says waltzing partners must be twelve inches apart at all times.”
“At all times?” He appeared to be considering this statement with great care. “Even the most prudish of married waltzing partners aren't likely to maintain a constant distance of twelve inches. How would they ever have children?”
Rory refused to rise to the bait. “You are an impossible man,” she told his loosely tied cravat in scolding accents. She dare not raise her eyes any higher. “I still say you're holding me too closely.”
Dylan dropped his supporting arms. He stepped back and coolly assessed her. She was dressed as always in boy's clothes and riding boots. “Rory I want every old gossip in Savannah to see and remark on the depth of our supposed passion for each other. Waltzing at a distance of twelve inches will not accomplish that.” He sounded businesslike and more than slightly bored. The light teasing manner was gone.
“I didn't think of that.” She swallowed and nodded, chagrined.
His eyes softened at her weak apology. He raised her chin to meet his eyes with one gentle finger. “What we're doing is not logical. You cannot cipher it out and derive a reasonable solution. You have only to trust me. Can you do that sweetheart? Can you trust me?”
She nodded hesitantly and gave him a little brave smile. He placed her hand in the crook of his arm, and started toward the door coaxing all the while. “Now run up to your room and change into one of those new gowns. I want to see if you dance as beautifully in skirts as you do in breeches.” He stood and watched her up the stairs before returning to Sander.
The black man didn't look up. He just continued to play softly. After a while, he began to speak. “Very prettily done nevvy. I might even consider trusting you myself after such a stirring speech. If I didn't know you better that is. Was it spontaneous or did it require previous composition?”
“What do you think?” It seemed obvious St. John had no real interest in his Uncle's opinion.
“I think” He let his sentence trail away, then started back up again. “I think.” Again he didn't finish.
“Speechless, Sander?”
“I'm never totally at a loss for words Dylan,” he commented acidly. “But I really don't know what to think.”
“I see.”
Sander thought it was a thoroughly unsatisfying response. “Not about you and your powers of persuasion. You're certainly no mystery to me. But I just can't figure her out.”
“I see.”
“She's like two or three different people all inhabiting one delicious little body.”
“I see.”
“Can't you say anything but I see?” The black man was exasperated.
“I could. But I'm not going to.” Dylan leaned comfortably back against the piano watching his companion. “Tell me why you find Rory so difficult to understand.”
“For one thing she runs around this whole blasted island in breeches. And yet I believe she's the most completely feminine woman I've ever seen.” He stopped for a moment to marshal his thoughts. He turned a jaundiced eye toward the other man and warned. “Don't you dare say I see.”
Dylan spread his hands out in front of him innocently. He didn't utter a sound. His steady eyes told Sander nothing.
“Today I saw her sewing up an especially ugly gash on a sailor's hand at the dock. She could have been embroidering a pillowcase she seemed so unaffected by the gore. But when one of the sailors tried to steal a kiss, she jumped away like she'd been scalded.”
“Who was it?” Dylan's eyes narrowed dangerously.
Sander rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and moaned at his careless mistake. “It doesn't matter,” He was being as vague as possible. “He didn't get his kiss.”
“I think it matters. Tell me a name.”
“I don't know the fool's name. I was trying to stay out of sight. What was I supposed to do? Stroll up to the man and say, pardon me- Could you please tell me your name? You just tried to kiss my friend's wife and I believe he will like your name so that he will know who to kill.”
“I will thank you not to throw the term 'wife' around so freely Sander.”
“I won't if you promise not to hurt the boy.”
“Stuart?”
“No, you dunce,” he explained plaintively. “Sean, the lad with the cut hand. You know, the one who tried to steal the…” Sander realized he'd been trapped. Dylan chuckled darkly at his uncle's predicament. “You are not to injure that boy for a youthful lack of discretion.”
“Why would you believe I would injure anyone?” he replied with remarkable sang-froid. “I am not a violent man.”
“I know. You're as meek as a kitten. Let me fetch you a saucer of cream and a ball of yarn,” muttered Sander sarcastically. “No, on second thought, I will not bring you those things. It would be very difficult to explain to poor Mrs. Martin.” Now his voice seemed heavy with condolence. “Ah Mrs. Martin, we found poor Sean dead at the foot of the dock. There was a faint odor of milk, and he'd been strangled by a length of knitting yarn.”
“Sean Martin,” Dylan murmured thoughtfully. “Thank you Sander it would have been so tedious having to examine the hands of all the sailors.”
“Oh my wretched tongue,” Sander chastised himself. “I think you should...” He was searching for a good way to stall his nephew's revenge, but none was coming quickly to mind. “I think you might...”
“Back to that again are you?” St. John observed pleasantly. “I suggest you stop thinking. It appears to create quite a strain on you.”
Sander persevered, “I think you...” This time when he stopped his eyes widened as he looked out the open door. Then he proceeded with a great deal more confidence. “I think you would be wise to catch your breath while you can.”
Dylan glanced up to see her framed in the doorway. In the beautiful white velvet ball gown with light streaming in from behind her, Rory looked like something out of a child's fairy tale. A princess waiting regally for her prince. The bodice of the evening dress had been heavily embellished with brilliants and sparkled with her every movement. Luminous indigo eyes smiled toward him shyly. One of the maids finally succeeded in putting her hair up. And contrasting with the apricot perfection of her skin around her throat was clasped a string of black luminous beads.
Dylan walked silently toward her and offered his arm. He led her to the middle of the floor. She walked willingly into his embrace. He began to lead her in a slow romantic waltz.
Around and around the room they whirled, until her senses were reeling. Closer and closer he drew her into his strong embrace until she found there was no distance between them at all. They moved as one b
eing around and around the polished floor. She closed her eyes. She laid her head against his shoulder to savor their oneness. As the music softly stilled Rory stood unmoving in his embrace. When she opened her eyes and looked into his face, it was with a sense of wonder and reverence.
“You do that rather well.” Dylan's voice was deep, and his eyes were dark with an emotion she could not identify.
“I, I had a wonderful teacher.” Her voice was unsteady. And she cast around for something else to say. “How do I look?” It was hesitant.
Dylan stepped away from her before he replied simply, “You are lovely, incredibly lovely.”
“Is that the spy talking or my friend?”
“The spy is your friend, your only friend.” His tone was straightforward and composed and told her nothing. He distracted Rory by lifting the strand of beads encircling her throat. “Tell me about these, they aren't pearls.”
She smiled and drifted away from him toward the windows. “They are pearls of a sort.”
Even though he knew what was coming, he stood in the middle of the room waiting for her to explain. “They are rose pearls. I believe in England. They are called mourning beads, but my sister-in-law, Rozelle, taught me to make them to bring joy. That must seem very silly to you.”
Dylan shook his head. “No, it doesn't. I will confess to being curious. Tell me about Rozelle and your rose pearls.” He beckoned to her with an outstretched hand.
She moved to take his hand. He led her out of the room into the foyer. At the foot of the staircase, she began to explain. “Rozelle was a wonderful woman. I wish you could have known her. She and Tirzah raised me. She believed that verse in the Bible that says God will turn your mourning into joy. So when someone or something she loved died, she'd make a rose pearl. Most of these are hers.” Rory fondly touched the beads. “She told me that the death of the body was final. But the eternal life of a soul entrusted to Jesus was as sweet and everlasting as the scent of these rose pearls. When I catch the fragrance of the pearls, I remember her. And I know she's not truly dead, not the important part of her.” They were halfway up the stairs. “You don't believe in God do you Dylan?” It was a tentative question.