by Nan Ryan
But he didn’t go upstairs to bed. With difficulty, he walked the length of the center hall to the very back of the house. He let himself out, crossed the back veranda and went cautiously down the steps, steadying himself with the cane.
Mitch headed directly for the stables, which lay beyond the vast lawns and manicured gardens. He was exhausted and in a great deal of pain by the time he reached the hay-filled stall where he kept his favorite mount, a coal-black stallion with stockinged feet. The black nickered a greeting and Mitch laid a hand on his sleek neck.
A dozing stable hand was awakened by the stallion’s whinnying and came to investigate. “It’s you, Mistah Longley,” said the boy. “You need anything?”
“Yes. Saddle my stallion, will you, Rupert?” Mitch replied.
“Now, Mistah Longley, you know you’re not supposed to be ridin’ ’fore you get better.”
“That day might never come,” Mitch stated flatly. “Saddle my horse, I’m taking a ride.”
“Yes, sir,” said the boy. “Whatever you say.”
Once the big mount was bridled, Mitch struggled to climb up into the saddle. It took every ounce of his strength, as well as the aid of the wiry stable boy.
The feat finally accomplished, a winded Mitch thanked the lad and told him to go back to sleep. On horseback for the first time since being wounded more than nine months ago, Mitch rode out of the stables with his walking cane stuck in the saddle’s rifle scabbard. He walked the responsive stallion slowly up the pebbled drive to the front property line of the estate. There he neck-reined the horse to the left, turning him onto the main road. Then Mitch put the mount into an easy canter. Soon he gave the stallion his head, and the blooded creature quickly stretched out into a graceful gallop. Pain jarred through his lean body each time the stallion’s hooves struck the ground, but Mitch didn’t turn back. He sucked his bottom lip behind his teeth and rode on.
When he pulled up on the reins to halt the stallion, he had reached the secluded cottage. For a moment Mitch stayed in the saddle, gazing at the darkened building where he had spent the happiest moments of his life. He debated whether he really wanted to go inside. He wasn’t sure. He knew it would be wiser to turn and ride away.
With a groan, Mitch swung down out of the saddle, looped the stallion’s reins over its head and took the bit from its mouth. The horse immediately lowered his head and began to graze on the summer grass surrounding the place. Mitch took his walking cane from the scabbard, then ground tethered the animal.
He drew a deep breath, slowly exhaled and went to the cottage’s front door. He opened it and stepped inside. Moonlight spilled into the parlor through the tall windows at the back of the room. He glanced at a lamp that sat atop the writing desk. He walked over to the desk, lifted the lamp’s globe, turned up the wick and struck a match to it. He replaced the globe, picked up the lamp and moved across the room, glancing at the familiar furnishings.
Cobwebs, dust and a faint musty smell—all were evidence that no one had been here in a long time. Mitch knew how long. Ten months had gone by since that snowy November afternoon when he and Suzanna had made love before the roaring fire. Mitch gazed at the cold fireplace and at the rug spread out in front of it. Once again Suzanna’s prophetic words came back to haunt him.
Kiss me as if this were the last time.
When she’d whispered those words to him, she had known that it was to be the last time. Damn her!
Mitch gritted his teeth and, carrying the lamp high, limped into the bedroom. He had decided he would try sleeping here tonight. He set the lamp down on the night table. One-handed, he began unbuttoning his shirt. His weight resting on the cane, he reached down, took hold of the top sheet and flipped back the covers.
Immediately, he saw the small article of clothing lying on the white sheet. Frowning, Mitch leaned closer to see what it was, and made an almost inaudible moaning sound in the back of his throat.
There in the center of bed was a lace-trimmed, blue satin garter. How well he remembered when he’d last seen that saucy feminine piece—and where it had been when he’d seen it. Memories of that frosty morning came flooding back. In his mind’s eye he saw the beautiful red-haired Suzanna wearing, just above her left knee, the blue satin garter.
And nothing else.
Mitch snagged the item with the tip of his little finger, walked out onto the back porch and went to the far end, where the canvas hammock hung. After leaning his cane against the back wall, he climbed into the hammock, carefully placed the garter in the middle of his bared chest and pressed it against his aching heart. He lay there unmoving in the silence, thinking about the woman, who was cunning beyond belief.
Just this evening, over dinner at his aunt’s, he had learned that Suzanna narrowly escaped a date with the executioner. Edna announced that General Edgar Clements, once her old friend, had used his considerable wealth and political power to rescue Suzanna from the gallows and then had promptly married her!
“The old fool deserves what he gets, if you ask me!” Edna had said, eyes snapping.
Now as Mitch lay sleepless in the hammock, he gave secret, silent thanks that Suzanna’s life had been spared. He also came to a decision. He would leave Washington immediately. He didn’t know where he would go and it didn’t much matter.
Just so long as it was far away from Mrs. Suzanna LeGrande Clements.
* * *
Suzanna turned and walked into the library, where lighted lamps illuminated the tall shelves filled with leather-bound books. She took one down, leafed through it, then returned it to the shelf.
She left the library and wandered down to the music room, where she moved toward the golden harp, but did not touch it. Then she crossed the room to the square, intricately carved piano that rested before tall floor-to-ceiling windows. She sat down on the bench and placed her fingers on the keys. It was the first time she had sat at a piano since those happy days long ago when she’d lived at Whitehall with her family.
Suzanna began to play Stephen Foster’s haunting “Beautiful Dreamer.” But by the time she was halfway through the ballad, her eyes were filled with tears.
She stopped abruptly, rose and left the room, determined she would weep no more. Not for Mitch, not for the South and not for herself. Chin raised, Suzanna went in search of the study. Once inside the cozy, masculine room, she headed straight for the carved decanters of liquor that rested atop a polished mahogany bar.
She unstoppered the brandy, poured herself a healthy portion of the amber liquid and raised the snifter in a toast to herself and to the kind old man asleep upstairs. She found a box of delicious-looking chocolates and popped one into her mouth. Then she sat down in an overstuffed leather chair and threw her legs over the arm, letting her feet dangle. And as she sipped the brandy and devoured the chocolates, she vowed that she would stop looking back. From now on, she would only look ahead.
After two snifters and four pieces of chocolate, a tipsy Suzanna climbed the stairs to her suite. Waving away the uniformed maid who waited there to help her undress, she closed the door behind the woman and began stripping as she went around the large room, turning out the lamps. By the time the last light had been extinguished, Suzanna was naked.
A lace-trimmed, long white nightgown lay across the foot of the turned-down bed. Suzanna didn’t immediately reach for it. Instead she crossed the darkened bedchamber to the tall French doors that were thrown open to the wide stone balcony. She peeked out and looked both ways, but saw no lights coming from anywhere in or out of the mansion. Cautiously, she stepped outside.
She sighed when a light breeze from out of the east stroked her bare, overly warm body. She stood for a long moment in the August moonlight, gazing out at the lights of the city. On this first night of freedom, after all the months in prison, she was reluctant to have the day end. She had learned that all the things she had once taken for granted were precious privileges to be enjoyed and savored. Like being allowed to soak in a suds-filled
tub. And having clean clothes to don once the bath ended. And sitting down to a delicious meal served on fine china and sparkling crystal. And being permitted to sleep in a big, soft four-poster in a very private bedchamber.
And best of all, keeping the double doors open to the outside because blessed freedom was now hers.
Suzanna finally began to yawn sleepily. Almost reluctantly, she turned and went back inside, but she left the French doors ajar. She picked up the long nightgown from the foot of the bed, raised it over her head and let it whisper down her body. Then she unpinned her upswept hair and shook her head.
She was just turning to get into bed when she heard a loud thud in the suite adjoining hers. Heart hammering, Suzanna rushed to the heavy door connecting the two suites. She pounded on it and shouted the old general’s name. No response. She yanked the door open and hurried inside.
General Clements, in his nightshirt, lay on the floor beside his bed. Suzanna fell to her knees, calling his name, but he didn’t answer.
“No!” Suzanna shouted. “No, no, no! Jules, come quick!”
The manservant appeared immediately and knelt beside Suzanna, feeling for a pulse in the general’s throat. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Clements,” he said, “the general’s gone. It was likely heart failure.”
Suzanna nodded and slowly rose to her feet.
A prisoner, a bride and a widow all in the same eventful day, Suzanna LeGrande Clements was now also a very wealthy woman.
Thirty-Six
“Suzanna, dear, I do wish you’d reconsider. Won’t you change your mind about leaving?” pleaded the perplexed Mattie Kirkendal.
“Yes, child,” Dr. Ledet agreed, “there’s no need for you to leave Washington. Johnson’s in office now and he’s an old-fashioned Southern democrat just as we are. We’re your friends. We want you to stay close so we can look after you. What will you do on the Continent?”
“Why, enjoy myself, what else?” said Suzanna, more flippantly than she felt.
She yearned so desperately for the handsome lover she had betrayed that it had become a physical pain for which there was no balm. She had learned that great wealth was no substitute for love. But she kept her own counsel, hid her heartache and pretended to be gay and carefree.
She never mentioned Mitch’s name. And Mattie and Dr. Ledet, acutely aware that she did not want to talk about him, didn’t mention him, either. If Suzanna wanted to bury the past and look to the future, they would respect her wishes.
Suzanna took consolation from knowing that Mitch had survived, and she wished more than anything that she could go to him and beg his forgiveness.
But she knew she could not.
She was certain that he now hated her as much as he’d once loved her. And so Suzanna had decided—less than a month after becoming a widow—that she would set sail for Europe. She was determined to forget Mitch and all that had happened.
Once she’d made the decision to leave Washington, she had posted a letter to her cousins in Baltimore, to whom she had sent her servants, Durwood and Buelah, during the war. Suzanna thanked the Thetfords for their kindness and confided that she could now afford to bring her servants back to her own household. She was planning a journey to Europe and the servants would travel with her. Suzanna also sent money, a generous sum to repay their kindness, as well as cover the pair’s train fare to New York City. She would, she stated, meet them in New York, where together they would board Cunard’s finest ocean liner, the SS Starlight, bound for Southampton, England.
Missy Thetford promptly replied to Suzanna’s missive. She wrote that, regretfully, old Durwood had passed away last winter after a bad case of influenza, but that Buelah was healthy and eager to accompany her mistress overseas.
Now, on the 29th of September, her last day in Washington, Suzanna had come to say goodbye to Mattie and Dr. Ledet.
“I really must be going,” Suzanna said. “I haven’t finished packing. And I need to give final instructions to Edgar’s servants.” She confided, “I intend to keep the old general’s full staff on duty and allow them to pretty much do as they please while I’m away. They are free to take time off to visit relatives and friends.”
“That’s most kind of you,” said Dr. Ledet.
Suzanna shrugged her shoulders. “No, it’s most kind of General Clements. They were like family to him. I’m sure he would want them to be well taken care of.” She rose to her feet.
“When will you be back, Suzanna?” Dr. Ledet asked, standing and helping Mattie get up.
“I’ve no idea,” she said truthfully. She laughed then and added, “When I tire of the grand adventure, I suppose.”
Mattie and Doc Ledet exchanged glances. “You’ll write to us?” asked Mattie.
In the foyer, Suzanna turned to face them. They wore identical sad expressions. Suzanna said, “Oh, you two! It’s not the end of the world. Be thrilled for me. I’ve always wanted to travel and now I can.”
Mattie sighed and put her arms around the younger, taller woman. “You forgive us for—”
“There’s nothing to forgive, Mattie. I’ve told you that over and over. Everything I did was of my own free will. Now let’s never speak of it again.”
The white-haired doctor put his arms around both women and said, “Suzanna, you’re young, rich and beautiful. Perhaps some thrilling escapades in London and Paris are just what the doctor ordered.” He paused, brushed a kiss to her cheek and added, “My dear, Mattie and I just want you to be happy.”
“I’ve never been happier, Doctor. I have everything I’ve ever wanted,” Suzanna replied breezily. Then she freed herself from their embrace, turned and walked out the door.
* * *
“You keep burnin’ the candle at both ends, you’re gonna lose your youthful beauty,” a concerned Buelah scolded as she helped Suzanna dress for yet another gala evening.
“Ah, well, I’ve a few good years left, don’t you think?” Suzanna replied. “I’ll try to make the most of them.”
The two women were in the spacious boudoir of an opulent hotel suite in the heart of London. They had been in the city for six months, and during that time Suzanna had hardly missed an evening out on the town with the smart set.
The darling of the day, she was squired to London’s most fashionable clubs—the Midnight, the Garrick, the Savage. She was invited to soirees for England’s royalty, lavish parties that were attended by European royals, sheiks and maharajas, barons, dukes and wealthy old earls. And fellow Americans with esteemed names like Vanderbilt and Astor.
She radiated a kind of confident charm that endeared her to everyone she met. The gentlemen were awed by her beauty and virginal freshness. Everything in her being hinted of sexual delight, therefore she easily dazzled the world’s most eligible bachelors. Many even fell madly in love with her.
On this chilly March night Suzanna was to join the handsome Charles W. Strickland, fourth Duke of Charlbury, for dinner and the theater afterward. At first Suzanna had found the duke to be witty and charming, and she enjoyed their evenings out, but she was quickly tiring of him, as she had of so many before him. Charles had, in the past few weeks, become a bit of a bore with his frequent proposals of marriage.
Marriage was the last thing Suzanna desired. Freedom was all she wanted or ever would want, and she had told the duke as much. The confession had seemed only to further pique his ardor, and she knew the time was at hand to break off the romance.
Now, as she stood before the freestanding mirror while Buelah fastened the tiny clasps at the back of her blue velvet ball gown, Suzanna said casually, “I’m tiring of London, Buelah.”
The maid’s nimble fingers paused and she smiled at Suzanna in the mirror, her dark eyes flashing with hope. “Me, too. Let’s go home.”
“Home? No, we’re not going home.” Suzanna quickly set her straight. “But perhaps we should go to Paris for a while.”
“Oh,” said a clearly disappointed Buelah.
Suzanna turned to face her.
“Why, you’re homesick, aren’t you.”
“Yes, aren’t you?”
She was, but she didn’t admit it. Not even to herself. “Heavens no! We’ve just begun our travels. Tomorrow morning you start packing and I’ll make arrangements for our departure to France.”
Buelah groaned.
Suzanna shook her head, picked up her long ermine cape, tossed it over her arm and walked into the suite’s drawing room to join the duke.
Charles Strickland came to his feet, beaming. Suzanna greeted him, then handed him the ermine and turned about. Strickland draped the lush fur around her bare shoulders, bent his head, pressed a kiss to the side of her throat and said, “Darling, marry me.”
“No, Charlie.”
“Please, Suzanna. I must have you, make you my own. I long to make love to you. Marry me!”
Suzanna exhaled with annoyance. “I do not wish to marry again.”
* * *
Suzanna LeGrande Clements became the toast of the Continent. The beautiful merry widow was pursued by princes and plutocrats and potentates. Wherever she went, she caused a stir. Instinctively, she knew all the places to see and be seen. Be it Paris, the City of Lights, or the Eternal City, Rome, romantic Madrid or the spas of Baden-Baden, she stayed in the finest hotels and resorts, dined in the best restaurants and wore expensive designer gowns. She spent money as if there were no tomorrow. She sipped champagne from crystal flutes, danced till dawn on polished floors and favored the handsomest of her suitors with kisses.
And nothing more.
She stayed out late each evening and slept in late each morning. She went from country to country, party to party and man to man. Suzanna did everything in her power to enjoy life to the fullest.
And to forget Mitch Longley.
Nothing worked.
No other love had ever—could ever—take his place.
Five years went by in a fog, a neverending pursuit of pleasure. But happiness continued to elude her. And so did peace.
And then one afternoon, as she sat alone beneath a giant umbrella on the sun-splashed terrace of her hotel on the Côte d’Azur, high above the blue Mediterranean, Suzanna realized that the memories had faded. At times she couldn’t remember exactly what Mitch looked like or how he sounded when he spoke her name. She felt confident that she was finally over him.