The Marriage Arrangement

by Patricia Ryan

  He spun around and left; she heard his footsteps on the stairs.

  “What was that all about?” Teddy asked.

  Izzy sighed deeply.

  “It’s not like he’s never seen you naked before,” Teddy said. “Although... has he ever seen you in that?”

  Teddy nodded toward the garment Izzy held in front of her. She looked down to see the slinky black silk-and-lace nightgown that she’d bought for Prez and never had a chance to wear. Tags still dangled from the spaghetti straps.

  “No,” Izzy said woodenly.

  “That may account for it,” Teddy decided. “Still...”

  “Aunt Teddy, I’d like to get dressed now.”

  “Go ahead.” A slight pause. “Oh. You want me to get lost, just tell me to get lost.”

  “Get lost, Aunt Teddy.”

  “Outta here.”

  Izzy finally found a fresh flannel nightgown—the cleaning lady had hung them up in the closet—and put it on. Her robe went over that. She ran a comb through her hair, which sprang right back out into damp curls, and then went downstairs.

  “He’s in the basement,” Teddy said from her favorite location at the kitchen table, where she liked to read. Given her aunt’s temperament, her taste for steamy romance novels and homespun ballads struck Izzy as odd.

  “The basement?” It had been locked since she’d moved in here. Clay had told her it was for storage.

  Teddy shrugged. “He looks like a man who can use a nice double scotch on the rocks, if you ask me.”

  Izzy rolled her eyes, but she poured the drink, and a glass of milk for herself, and took them down to the basement.

  She paused at the bottom of the stairs to look around. The basement was unfinished, a concrete cavern with a furnace in one corner, a water heater in the other, and lots of boxes and old furniture shoved against the walls. It was a little musty, but not too bad, and it felt warm and dry.

  Clay sat with his back to her on a threadbare couch, evidently not having heard her descend the stairs in her slippered feet. He leaned forward, elbows on knees and head in his hands. In front of him, on a braided rug directly in the center of the room, stood what looked like a big square table with a drop cloth over it. The cloth was evidently there to protect something on top of the table, because she could make out forms beneath it, a landscape in canvas. A work lamp hung over the table, providing the only light in the otherwise dark cellar.

  Izzy came around to the front of the couch and said his name softly.

  He looked up and met her eyes for just a moment. She thought he looked drained. His tie was loosened, his sleeves rolled up. His gaze lit on the glasses in her hands. “I sure as hell hope that scotch is for me.”

  She handed him the drink, and he took a long swallow. Without looking at her, he said, “I’m sorry about walking in on you before.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  He drained the glass and sat back, gazing at her with a grim expression. “Don’t you want to know why I was so late getting home?”

  She hadn’t expected him to bring it up. After buying a moment with a quick sip of milk, she said, “It’s none of my business.”

  Frown lines creased his forehead. “You don’t care?”

  Her heart felt as if it were being squeezed in a fist. “You said you’d be discreet, and I appreciate that.”

  He just stared at her.

  “It’s not that I don’t care, exactly,” she went on, “but I don’t want to know. I don’t want you reporting in every time you—”

  “You little idiot.” But he was smiling—kind of. He patted the sofa next to him. “Sit down.”

  She hesitated for a moment, then joined him on the couch. The old springs complained as she settled down, legs tucked under her.

  “How bad a rep do I have?” he asked, setting his empty glass down on the floor. “Don’t answer that.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He raked a hand through his hair. “Yeah, but I’m afraid I do. You think I was messing around with someone else ten days after getting married to you.”

  Someone else? Like he’d ever messed around with her. “Well, it’s not like... well, like you don’t have the right to. We have an understanding.”

  “An understanding,” he repeated softly, as if the words fascinated him. “Yeah, we have an understanding, all right. We’re a couple of real sophisticated grown-ups here.”

  His smile was more sad than anything else. He sank back and rubbed his hands over his face, then let out a long, weary groan. “Mercer-Hest issued a press release today.” He opened his eyes and looked at her. “Everything went totally batshit at the office after that.”

  It took Izzy a second to switch gears. “Why? What was in the release?”

  “They’re starting up their own extreme recreation magazine,” he said. “Testing the Limits, I think they’re calling it. It’s gonna be this huge, slick, four-color monster, plus interactive website, plus a line of athletic wear with the magazine’s logo all over it. They’ve even partnered up with a video game developer. They’re gonna promote the fuck out of it, sponsor extreme sporting events, buy a sixty-second Superbowl spot... The competition will be... it could eat us up alive.”

  “They couldn’t buy The Rush, so they’re setting out to destroy it?”

  “Jack’s not that devious,” Clay said. “He’s just a businessman, a good businessman who wants to make his company a lot of money. Extreme sports are hot. He can’t have The Rush, but he still wants a piece of that market, so he’s starting a competing magazine. Only problem is, Mercer-Hest is such a well-oiled machine, they could very quickly end up with the whole goddamn market. They could drive us right out of business—unless we take action right now to keep that from happening.”

  “That’s why you were late?” Izzy asked.

  Clay nodded. “The release came out late this afternoon, and it was like they’d dropped a bomb on us. Everyone lost their shit. They’re all worried about their jobs, and I can’t blame them.” He took a deep breath. “I called a meeting, and then another meeting, and then we ordered in Chinese and sat around and tried to come up with strategies. I even made Marie drive into the city so we could get her input. She had to bring Hazel with her, ’cause there was no one to watch her. Did I tell you she’s widowed?”

  “What? No. God, she’s so young.”

  “He was older, and a real...” He grimaced. “Let’s just say she’s better off without him.” He shook his head. “Anyway, Marie had some good ideas, and so did the rest of the staff. Maybe we can fight this, maybe not. But I won’t lie down without a fight.”

  Izzy drank some of her milk, wondering whether it would sound too “wifey” to say, You could have called.

  “I should have called,” Clay said. “I just... I’m not used to having someone waiting for me at home, and I got so caught up in the whole disaster mentality. By the time I remembered, it was already a quarter to—”

  “It’s all right.”

  “No it’s not.”

  “Sure it is. Anyway, you really shouldn’t feel like you have to check in with me, or like you can’t, well... do the things you did before we got—”

  “Please don’t tell me again that it’s okay for me to fuck other women.” The vehemence of his reaction startled Izzy. He shut his eyes briefly, then closed his hand over hers. “Please,” he repeated. “I don’t know why, I just don’t want to hear it.”

  Izzy swallowed. “All right.”

  His gaze lingered on her eyes, and then her mouth, and then traveled down her throat to her chest. Releasing her hand, he reached out and slid his fingertips just beneath the collar of her robe. She held her breath, gripping her glass tightly as he edged the chenille aside to reveal the neckline of her nightgown.

  “Too bad,” he murmured. “I was thinking maybe you had on that black thing with the lace.”

  Heat stung her cheeks. She forced a smile. “I thought you liked flannel.”

&nb
sp; “I do.” He caressed the soft fabric between his fingers, the back of his hand grazing her chest. Izzy wondered if he could feel the hammering of her heart. “It’s great, but that black thing... You must look incredible in that.”

  “I’ve never worn it. Probably never will.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, it’s not really... for sleeping in. You know?”

  He gave her a lopsided smile. “Yeah, I think I catch your drift.” Looking down, he saw the sash of her chenille robe, and lifted it, rubbing it as he had the flannel. “I like this stuff, too. Everything looks good on you.” Half closing his eyes, he lightly stroked the end of the sash over his beard-darkened jaw. Suddenly he looked completely shot—understandable after such a traumatic day.

  “Why don’t you come upstairs?” she said.

  “I like it here.”

  Izzy looked around. He liked it here? She noticed him studying the tarp-covered table as he softly brushed the tip of the sash back and forth over his chin.

  “What’s under there?” she asked.

  He stilled. “Something from when I was a kid.”

  “I thought you grew up in Manhattan.”

  “Mostly, yeah. I spent a lot of time in the Swiss Alps, too, when I was real young, before the divorce. My parents used to take me out of school for weeks at a time so we could ski.”

  So that’s why he’d been such a crackerjack skier at such a young age. Odd that she’d never known this while they were hanging out together during their adolescence, but then, he’d never liked to talk about his childhood. She wondered why he was willing to do so now. “Sounds like a pretty sophisticated take on the old family vacation,” she said.

  “I don’t know about the ‘family’ part. They went their way, I went mine. Anyway—” he sat forward, his gaze on the table “—every once in a while, they’d dump me off here, in NoMo, with my grandfather. Of course, they were just trying to get rid of me while they went off on their own, but the joke was on them, ’cause I really loved it here.”

  He got up off the couch and stood at the table with his back to her, running his hands over the canvas. “Grandpa Tom was this incredible guy. Different from everyone else in the family. A self-made man, for one thing. My father would have you think we’re from old money, but the family fortune actually dates from Prohibition.”

  Izzy sat forward, grinning. “Your grandfather was a bootlegger? Wait, he would have been just a kid back then, wouldn’t he?”

  “He got involved in smuggling whiskey and beer from Canada when he was just seventeen. That would have been around 1927, I guess.” Clay slowly circled the table, his gaze fixed on the mysterious shapes beneath the canvas. “Then, when he realized they were going to legalize booze, he started investing his rum-running profits in other things. He had a knack for knowing how to make a buck. I gather he had a way with the ladies, too, and he played the field pretty actively, but when he was forty, he fell madly in love with my grandmother, and he told me he never looked at another woman after that. They got married two months after they met, and my dad was born nine months later.”

  “Sounds like an interesting guy.” She set her glass on the floor.

  “You don’t know the half of it. He served in army intelligence in World War II and Korea. He was a natural historian and conservationist, a wildlife photographer, a brilliant sculptor...”

  The artist in Izzy was intrigued. “He sculpted?”

  “That hawk on my night table—that’s his.”

  “Seriously? He was good.”

  “No kidding. And he’s the one who started collecting sporting art. I’ve just kind of taken up where he left off.”

  Standing on the opposite side of the table from Izzy, he lifted an edge of the canvas and tilted his head to look beneath.

  Izzy let out a little growl of exasperation. “Are you gonna tell me what’s underneath there, or do I have to beat it out of you?”

  He smiled slyly, his eyes sparking. “I’d like to see you try.”

  Before she could summon up a clever rebuttal, he grabbed the edge of the canvas with both hands and whipped it off in a cloud of dust, tossing it onto the floor.

  Izzy sat transfixed for a long, heart-stopping moment, and then rose slowly from the couch.

  CLAY WATCHED IZZY approach the table, her fathomless eyes wide with wonder as she took it all in. “Cool, huh?” he said.

  “Cool?” She laughed a little breathlessly, her gaze roaming over the hills and valleys, the meandering streams and green pastures, the woods and orchards and vineyards, the tiny village with its thatch-roofed cottages and wattle-and-daub church, and of course, the castle. Her attention kept straying back to the round stone keep with its towers and battlements, the moat, the crenellated curtain walls, and the little oak drawbridge, now in its raised position. Sections of the project had fallen into disrepair, but it clearly still had the power to impress. “I don’t think ‘cool’ is quite the word for it. Spectacular, maybe. Awesome. Who did this? Your grandfather?”

  Clay walked back around the table to join her. “We both did, over a period of years.” He noticed her hand move toward one of the tiny deer in the forest clearing, and then pause. “You can touch it,” he said, coming up behind her and taking her hand to guide it toward the deer. “Go ahead.” Her skin felt like satin. He leaned forward to breathe in her scent, mostly showery, but with an intoxicating hint of olive oil.

  Intoxicating? Olive oil? You’re still in trouble, Granger.

  She must have used it after her shower. He recalled the way her skin had gleamed, upstairs, during the endless split second before she’d covered herself—a perfect nude in tones of sepia and espresso... high, round breasts, a narrow waist, shapely hips and legs...

  Deep, deep, deep, deep trouble. What are you gonna do about this?

  Absolutely nothing.

  She gingerly trailed a fingertip over the minuscule creature’s back, then leaned down to inspect it more closely. “It’s carved from wood. Hand carved.”

  “Of course. Grandpa was a sculptor. Everything’s made by hand. All the animals, the people, the buildings—”

  “People?”

  He pointed out the man and woman in medieval garb, hunting with falcons at the edge of the meadow.

  “Wow,” she whispered. He felt a warm rush of satisfaction at her reaction. This miniature world was special to him. He couldn’t help wanting it to be special to her, too. Resting a hand on her back—he couldn’t seem to keep his hands off her—he indicated the archer hiding behind a tree as he aimed an arrow at the deer she’d so admired. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “He’s shooting Bambi!”

  “Bambi was a major source of protein back then,” Clay said.

  “I hate hunting.”

  “Then I guess I shouldn’t tell you that Grandpa Tom used to take me hunting all the time.”

  She straightened; Clay dropped his hand. “You hunt?”

  “I used to, with my grandfather. He had a certain philosophy about it. He only hunted with arrows, and he always ate the meat. He made a mean venison chili.”

  She nodded and turned back to the landscape on top of the table. “It’s a shame about that section of the castle, the way it’s kind of crumbling. And those cottages, and this part of the hill.”

  “It’s old,” Clay said. “Old stuff falls apart.”

  “Have you ever thought about repairing it?” she asked.

  “Not seriously. It just always seemed kind of like the natural order of things to let it...” He shrugged.

  “Slowly disintegrate? Why should it, if you can stop it? It’s important to you. You should fix it.”

  His gaze traveled over the undulating landscape with its multitude of tiny features, each one perfect in every detail. “It would be a lot of work.”

  “So?” She turned to face him fully, drawing him into her dark gaze. “Some things are worth holding on to.”

  He stifled the urge to grab her and close his mouth over hers. Ea
sy, Granger... “I, uh, I’ll think about it.”

  She rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the table. “What prompted you guys to do this?”

  “It was Grandpa’s birthday present to me the year I turned nine. He took me down here and showed me this big mountain of stuff—wire mesh, plaster, hardwood, granite—and then he showed me this sketch of his idea. See, he knew I was a big medieval buff, ever since I saw Robin Hood when I was nine—that Kevin Costner movie, remember? He said we’d make this thing together, and then I could have it. I told him we’d never get it out of the basement, it was too big. But he said that was okay, because he was leaving the house to me when he died.”

  Clay smiled as he remembered... “And then he took me upstairs and we made a birthday cake together, from a mix.” He shook his head. “I’ll never forget the sight of that big, rugged old man in an apron, baking me my cake. We had cake and ice cream for dinner that night. I can still taste it.”

  “Sounds like a pretty memorable birthday celebration.”

  “It’s the only time in my life I ever had a birthday cake. It’s seared into my memory.”

  “What do you mean, the only time? That can’t be true.”

  He shrugged. “My parents weren’t into that.”

  She gaped at him; he would have laughed, but her outrage seemed so genuine. “Let me get this straight. Your own family never celebrated your birthday?”

  “They gave me presents,” he said, bending over to lift the wad of canvas up off the floor. “Generous presents—TVs, game systems, sports equipment... They’d have them sent to the apartment if they were out of town.”

  “Out of town?” she said incredulously. “On your birthday?”

  He did laugh then, as he shook out the canvas. “I got used to it. They were busy—”

  “Too busy to recognize their own son’s birthday?”

  Her fury moved him, but Clay had insulated himself against that particular hurt a long time ago, as a kind of emotional survival mechanism. “I appreciate your indignation, coffee bean,” he said gently. “I honestly do. But it’s over and done with now. It’s history. Here.” He handed her one edge of the drop cloth. “Give me a hand covering this back up, okay?”