Leonora plucked the grass stem, twirled it. “How so?”
“He was a sickly child. Wouldn’t know it by lookin’ at him. Doc said it was general malaise. What a load a crap! That first year, my Tommie nearly died more times than I could count. I nursed him, but I wouldn’t hold him, didn’t want to get attached. Sounds cold, eh?” The woman grimaced. “But I couldn’t do it. Only reason he made it is because his dad never put him down. He strapped little Tommie to his chest an’ brought him everywhere, just like a kangaroo with a joey in her pouch.” She chuckled then, but her forehead wrinkled. “Still get my heart stuck in my throat when I see Tommie, fearin’ something’s gonna happen to him.” She shook the ghosts away and slapped her knee. “Must be on account of those sickly years. Probably just the guilt I got for not holdin’ him. That stuff plays silly tricks on a sentimental woman.”
Mrs. Shelby picked at a loose thread on her dress, scanned the lake, the pepper tree and the purple violets hidden in the grass. “I’m sellin’ the property,” she said suddenly. “Tommie don’t know yet.” The woman lowered her eyes and her face paled, the skin around her jaw slacked. “Too many ghosts. I still wake up every morning lookin’ for my Tom snorin’ on the pillow next to me. Man’s been dead well over ten years an’ I still reach for him. Now the fields are filled with Will an’ John. Think I see ’em sometimes, movin’ with the wheat. Every time it breaks my heart. Like I’m losin’ ’em all over again, a hundred times a day.”
“Where will you go?”
“Don’t know.” Her lips straightened. “Can’t stay here, though. I’ll break right in two.”
Mrs. Shelby inhaled and closed her eyes, her voice hushed and drawn with effort. “My boys are dead. Can’t hardly breathe with ’em gone. Like I’m being choked all the time.” The woman’s chin shook quickly before hardening. “Thought I could handle it. When the boys left for the war, I prepared myself. Had hope but told myself over an’ over again, they might not come back. But you can’t prepare for death any more than you can prepare your stomach for starvation.” Mrs. Shelby touched her red hair, patted it down around her ear. “My boys are gone an’ it feels like there’s hardly anything in the world that’s not movin’ in a dream.”
Mrs. Shelby looked far into the distance, her pupils moving left and right and back again frantically searching for a world she recognized. She turned to Leonora then, looked over her features gently, the heavy words floating away like the seeds of a dandelion puff. “Look at me yabberin’ on.” She pulled out the basket and took out a bowl of strawberries. “Help yourself. Not worth waitin’ for the rest of ’em. We’ll have to drag ’em outta that lake.”
Leonora took a piece of fruit, the juices warm and sweet. She watched as James crawled out of the water, his skin slick, his pants slung low on his waist showing the bones of his pelvis. He hollered something out at Tom and then dived over his head. James emerged amid splashing hands and laughter.
“He’s a good man.” Mrs. Shelby’s tone was sober. Leonora knew who she was talking about and chewed the berry slowly.
“He’s in love with you, you know. Saw it the first time he looked at you. Never saw him look at anyone like that. Ever.”
Leonora’s whole body flushed, her throat too frozen to swallow.
“You love him, too.” Mrs. Shelby kept her gaze steady on Leonora’s face.
Leonora closed her eyes, wanted to cry. The words, now spoken out loud, made them all the more real. Her chest expanded with longing until her ribs hurt.
“This husband of yours,” asked Mrs. Shelby, “is he a good man?”
“No.” Leonora’s voice cracked and she couldn’t look at the woman. “No, he’s not.”
Mrs. Shelby rolled her eyes. “Wouldn’t be the first girl to marry a wanker.”
Leonora met the woman’s kind face and they chuckled shortly. But then Mrs. Shelby stopped. “You plannin’ on leaving him?”
The tears began in her throat and she pushed them down. “No.”
Mrs. Shelby nodded. “Then you got to let James go.”
Leonora squeezed a blade of grass in her fingers until it darkened and ripped.
“That boy’s like a son to me.” Mrs. Shelby looked off at the swimming hole, her face wrinkled with affection. “He’s honest. Good. Weighs everything in his mind. Feels things more than other people. A blessin’ and a curse for a man to feel so much.” Her face shifted and saddened. “He’s had a hard life, Leonora.”
Her head shot up and she watched Mrs. Shelby carefully, held on to her words.
“He’s had more loss in his young life than any human’s got a right to have. After Tess died, O’Reilly took it all out on the boy. Beat that poor child to an ounce of his life.”
Leonora covered her mouth in horror. Her ears throbbed with the words. Her throat closed and now the tears fell freely from her eyes, heated a trail down her cheeks.
“I’m only tellin’ you this,” Mrs. Shelby said kindly and with pity, “because that man don’t deserve more pain. If you can’t be with him, let him go. It’ll hurt him, but won’t kill him. If you wait an’ lead him on, it very well might. Better to do it now. Let James move on and find happiness, start a family. He’ll make a good father, a good husband, someday. But you gotta give him a chance to find his way.”
Mrs. Shelby stood and pressed down her skirt. “Know it hurts, Leonora. I can see it in your tears. But if you love him, you got t’stop it now. Poor man’s had enough pain to last a lifetime.”
The old barn filled with light, its beams blasting through the cracks and knots of the wooden planks. Before they even exited the car, the air vibrated with the hum of voices and laughter, the pulse of ragtime tunes atop male hoots and girlish squeals. The electric charge of the bodies and the music rippled along the patted dirt, drew the young in like moths to a candle flicker.
Ignoring the door handle, Tom hopped out the window of the parked Model T, barely able to contain himself after the stress and grief of the last few days. “A warnin’ to you both.” He pointed a finger at James and Leonora. “I’m gettin’ so snookered t’night, you’re gonna have to scrape me off the floor!” And catching the eye of a petite brunette, he added, “Or off of her. Hey, love, wait for me!” Tom was off like a shot, his eyes following every sway of the girl’s hips as she sauntered and teased her way into the barn.
Leonora smiled at the bouncing figure. “I’m guessing he’ll be true to his word.”
“Can count on it,” James promised. He put his hands in his pockets and stuck out an elbow for her to link. “Shall we?”
Leonora reminded herself it was just an arm. Shyly, she laced her arm into the waiting one, and the heat came quick and sharp. His biceps rubbed against her forearm, the muscle under his white shirt hard as bone. She tried to bring her focus to the ground, to the air, to the sounds of the barn, but the warmth of his body erased it all.
They headed over the gravel path to the flooded glow of the open doors, her heart picking up the rhythmic blast of music that grew and thumped in her rib cage. The room was alive, flowed and lived and breathed no different than a newly formed organism. The ground trembled under their shoes. The smell of tobacco and burning cigarettes filled the walls and formed a hazy cloud of smoke that hung and drifted near the rafters. A band in the corner took a break, smoking and laughing with one another. The victrola’s needle thumped and bounced and tapped as it played “Darktown Strutters’ Ball.” A strand of sloppily hung lightbulbs dipped and climbed along the corners of the barn. Hay bales, stacked in rows of two, edged the walls, seated the reclining bodies of women with dresses pulled up seductively near their knees while their beaus stroked their calves and ankles and kissed their necks.
Leonora’s fingers crept to her throat. The heat was everywhere. The smell of cologne-and-perfume-tainted sweat, of spilled ale and damp hay, of disturbed earth, made her dizzy. Bodies and touches and kisses and wanting, aching, waiting sex whispered from every end of the barn. Leonora dropped h
er arm from James’s bent elbow, turned away from him even as his heavy gaze burned into the side of her face.
Mrs. Shelby’s words still haunted—hurt her insides like an open wound. This trip had been a fantasy from the beginning. Tomorrow they would return to Wanjarri Downs; tomorrow she was Mrs. Alexander Harrington again. This—this was just a fairy tale, except her pumpkin was an expensive Model T and no glass slippers awaited the arch of her foot. Tomorrow she would be back walking on their broken shards.
But for right now, she was here. Leonora pushed tomorrow away and fell into the beat of trumpets and pianos and the deep, strumming bass. She shoved the heaviness away and tapped her foot to the music, scanned the details of the party. Clusters of young men and women stood in the corners, pointing, eyeing, and flirting with each other from across the room. Young, pretty women swayed in dainty dresses, brightly colored silks and cottons below faces flushed with ale and rouge. Men wearing everything from clean work clothes, to stiff-collared church shirts, to army uniforms chatted with lazy eyes and cigarettes suavely held between lips.
Tom stumbled through the crowd carrying two spilling pints of brown beer, his hair already wet with sweat under his hat. He pushed one at Leonora, sloshing the brew over her fingers, and gave the glass an exuberant clink. “Cheers! To the beginnin’ of the end.” He gulped down the ale like it was water.
Leonora giggled, flicked her wet fingers and looked at James’s empty hands. “Looks like he forgot yours.”
“I don’t drink,” he said flatly.
She blinked once before laughing. “Of course you don’t.”
He winced, tightened his brows. She reached over and touched his arm. “It wasn’t an insult, James,” she said softly through her smile. “You just never cease to amaze me.”
His face relaxed and he raised an eyebrow. “Be careful with that stuff. Some rogue might try and take advantage of you.”
“Thanks for the warning.” She sipped the dark beer, felt the warmth of it run down her throat and settle in her stomach, drown out the butterflies. The ale tasted bitter and awful and she liked it more than anything in the world.
Two women with mirrored smiles stopped short and screamed from the rim of the crowd, “Tommie Shelby!”
Tom turned and whipped off his hat, squeezed a twin sister in each arm, picking them off their feet with a loud, “Wooeee!”
“You’re a dog, Tom! Why didn’t you tell us you were back?” They stopped suddenly as his reason for being home became clear. “Oh, Tom. I’m so sorry about your brothers,” said the slightly taller one, her face genuinely remorseful.
Tom shoved away the sentiment that threatened his mood and grabbed the girls’ hands, pulled them toward the floor until the shorter one turned back and yelled, “James! My God, we didn’t see you there. Allison, it’s James!” The sisters were charming in their excitement and quite beautiful. Leonora lowered her eyes.
The women ran at James, threw their arms around his neck, nearly knocking him against the wall. “God, we missed you guys. Just not the same without you.”
Allison grabbed James’s hand. “Come on; I love this song.”
“Maybe the next one.” James squeezed her hand before letting go of it. “Besides, it looks like Tom wants you both to himself.”
The young woman glanced at Leonora and understanding crept through her face. “Pardon me, miss. I didn’t see you there. I’m—” But before she could introduce herself, Tom pulled her away into the throng of dancing bodies.
James pointed in their direction and leaned his mouth to Leonora’s ear. “Those are the McGinny sisters, Allison and Jessica. Two out of the five.” His breath caressed her neck and she found it hard to concentrate on the words.
Leonora thought about the pretty McGinny sisters, thought about Mrs. Shelby’s words again, realized her selfishness in coveting James’s attention. “Don’t you want to dance with them?” she ventured weakly. “They’re very pretty.”
“I’m not a dancer,” James said. And she was shamed by her own relief.
Tom emerged from the crowd, alone. His cheeks were red and flushed, his hair sweated at the tips. His face was so happy, they both had to laugh. Tom smiled and grabbed Leonora’s hand. “James might not be man enough t’dance with you, but I am.” He pulled the drink from her hand, thrust it clumsily to James. “Sorry, mate!” he teased, and pulled her to the dance floor.
James leaned against the wall and pushed his hand in his front pocket. He watched Tom and Leonora squeeze between the dancers. She wore a pale blue dress. Above the blue, her skin was pale peach, her lips salmon, her cheeks pink—she was a moving, living sunset. He found the air now; near her, he couldn’t breathe. It was a constant effort to keep his eyes off her, like they were meant to stare at her face and nothing else. James wafted through actions blindly and helplessly, flowing to her and then forcing himself back, and it made his bones tight, all that pulling back, fighting against every urge in his body.
James put the warm beer on the ground and wiped his wet hand across his trousers. He chuckled as his best friend twirled Leonora in the cramped space. Tom had no rhythm or etiquette for leading. He simply moved himself joyously in any manner his body wanted, taking poor Leonora along on his uncoordinated ride.
Leonora was laughing—laughing so hard James could see tears in her eyes as she tried to keep up with her swinging, spastic partner. He was relieved to find her so happy. Her mood had changed during the picnic earlier in the day. She had turned quiet and distant, her eyes sad. But leave it to Tom Shelby to blow away the clouds.
James watched Leonora, watched her smile, her laughter, her figure, her skin, her golden hair, the curve of her neck, the small waist, the perfect shoulders and the curved back. Tom faded into a haze along with all the others crowded into the space. James only saw Leonora. Even the pulsating music muffled, only the sensation of the beat touching his skin. James stopped smiling. He loved her. It was there now, in his chest and in his blood, in the unwavering certainty that set his jaw and made his muscles tight and his bones thick with knowing. He loved her—all of her. A fight grew now—pumped from the vibrating floor, fueled with the heat of stifled, hot bodies.
Tomorrow she would be back with that bastard. Just the thought of it hardened the lines in his face and straightened his back against the wall. Tomorrow this would go away. He loved her and the fight rose. He had tonight. Only. He would not hide. He could fight or disintegrate with waiting. Decision landed hard and swift. Let tomorrow shine with light or hide with darkness, but tonight he would fight.
James left the wall and strode through the crowd, his body tall and straight with singular purpose. From Tom’s swirling, Leonora saw James approaching and raised her eyebrows in a silent, mock cry for rescue. But then she saw the look on his face and stopped smiling, fell idle in Tom’s arms. James pushed past Tom and gripped Leonora’s waist firmly in his hands. Tom opened his mouth in complaint but then saw James’s expression and exited promptly into the moving bodies.
The song shifted to the slow serenade of “Any Time’s Kissing Time.” James pressed his palm into the small of Leonora’s back and loomed above her, held her eyes so it was impossible for her to look away. Her body trembled under his touch. “Thought you weren’t a dancer,” she whispered.
“Didn’t have the right partner.”
James pressed his fingers into her back, the soft silk of her dress unable to slip under his tight grip. He moved his hand up her spine surely and confidently, all restraint now gone. He held her helpless gaze with unwavering intensity, permitted the heat to close in and linger unextinguished. Longing and desire drowned out the other bodies. The voices and music blurred behind the stark beauty that he held in his hands. James tightened his fingers against her back. Her lips opened and gasped with the pressure, her heartbeat clear and fast against his chest.
Leonora did not belong to another man. She was not another man’s wife. Not here. Here, at this moment, she was his. Here, at thi
s moment, there was no station to return to, there was no past of loneliness or abuse, there was only her open face and her pink lips inches away.
As the song wound down with the last plaintive notes James stopped moving and held her still against his frame, kept his eyes glued to her wide and urgent pupils. He leaned his face down and whispered in her ear above her neck, “I can make you happy, Leo.” James saw the look of fear enter her eyes. “I will never hurt you,” he promised. “Ever.”
He would have kissed her square on the mouth right then and there, fully and without regret, had a drunken woman from the crowd, mistaking him for another man, not snatched him roughly out of Leonora’s arms and into the crowd.
In the lapse without him, the air caught in Leonora’s throat. Her head dizzied. The burn of his touch still smoldered along her back where his fingers had held her. And that look—the urgency in his eye that nearly crumbled her bones to dust. She couldn’t think. She clutched her throat and ran through the crowd to the open barn doors and out into the cool night air. She needed to get away, needed to clear her head.
The sounds of music and laughter wafted, followed her. Leonora looked into the dark sky, sought the fresh air greedily. The stars, millions of them, dotted the blackness. She kept walking past the carriages, past the few cars lining the lot, until the music and the crowd blended to one undulating sound.
Leonora leaned her arms against the split-rail fence, let the slight breeze cool her face as she stared into endless space. It would be so easy to give in. But she sank with the impossibility. It would be so easy to just say yes, to close her eyes, take his hand and leave every other person, memory, behind. But the black children would follow her. Their white eyes, their empty wails for their mothers and fathers ringing in her ears until she screamed. If she left Alex, she destroyed families. If she stayed, she destroyed James.
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