Like a naughty child, she tiptoed over to the side of the bed where he lay, facing away from her. “Theran,” she whispered, “I need you to loosen my corset laces.” Her face burned. She was afraid he’d say something bold and embarrassment would kill her.
He said nothing. But the bed springs creaked as he sat up behind her. Then he tugged her gently and made her sit down on the bed, facing away from him. His nearness warmed her and she realized she was chilled. She felt him untie the laces and then slowly stretch them, crisscross by crisscross, his fingers brushing her spine. As her corset stays finally released her, she sighed as she always did at the sudden relief. Before she could rise, Theran kissed the back of her neck and drew her back against him. “Don’t go away, my sweet bride,” he murmured. “Stay with me.”
She didn’t move, her breath suddenly difficult to find. Theran’s scent filled her head as he kissed her neck and held her spine to his chest. She felt their skin touch and she quivered with the sensation. Slowly, he turned her and drew her up beside him—so close she could hear his heart beating. Or was it hers?
“Trust me,” he whispered and she put her arms around his neck and sighed with his kisses.
In the morning, Theran in a shirt and slacks went out and brought in a bag of fragrant sweet rolls and coffee. She sat up in the brass bed, suddenly flushing to have Theran gaze at her even if she’d buttoned up her prim, high-necked nightgown.
“My blushing bride.” He chuckled and bent to kiss her. Then he opened the bag and handed her a paper napkin and a sweet roll. “I’m hungry and you must be, too.”
Thinking of how little sleep she’d had, she blushed again. He kissed her once more and sat down beside her on the creaky bed. With a grin, he poured steaming coffee into two chipped, mismatched cups on the nightstand, handed her one, and then settled back against the headboard. “We need to talk about practical things now. Then we can just concentrate on being together the rest of the day.” He gave her a private smile.
Chloe blushed warmer.
Theran chuckled and bit into his roll. After swallowing, he pulled out a small, black leather book from the nightstand drawer. “This is my bank book. I’ve already put your name on the account. It isn’t much, but it should help you out until most of my army pay starts arriving here.”
“Will you have enough?” His matter-of-fact acceptance of his leaving for war struck her as very brave.
He shrugged. “The army has to feed me and clothe me.” He looked suddenly almost boyish. “I know you’re used to the very best, Chloe. I promise I’ll be a good provider. This war will be over before you know it and I’ll get my career on track.”
Chloe wanted to remind him that the “very best” had carried a price tag she’d run away from, but she couldn’t. Not with him talking about leaving, about the war. She leaned over and kissed him, hoping her lips could say what her voice couldn’t:
I don’t want you to go. We’ve just started.
Theran rested a hand on her cheek, caressing it. Then he settled back and took another bite of his roll. “Also, I’ve written to my parents all about you and I’ve noted their address inside the back cover of the bank book. I hope you will write to them. They’ll help you if you need anything.”
Chloe digested this sobering thought. Surely Theran’s parents couldn’t be anything like her own. As if reading her mind, Theran went on, “They aren’t anything like your parents. I think you’ll like them.”
“I’m sure I will,” Chloe replied obediently, ignoring the skip in her pulse.
“Before I leave on Monday, I’ll show you the bank.”
“Don’t talk about Monday,” she whispered, suddenly losing her appetite.
“We’re not going to worry about this . . . war. I’m going to come home fine and we’ll have the rest of our lives together.” He kissed her lips, sugary-sticky from the sweet roll. This made her laugh and she wiped away a tear with the back of her hand.
“And you’ll have Kitty nearby and Minnie in town. This city has parks, museums, theaters, wonderful stores—” He chucked her chin. “—and I don’t want you moping around.”
“I thought I might volunteer to do some war work.” Chloe took a sip of hot, creamy coffee. “I read about it in the paper.”
“That’s my wife. You’ll do fine. I remember how strange it was when I came from Buffalo. But soon you’ll love it here.”
Chloe felt her spirits lift. “I know I will.”
Because Daddy will never find me here.
Theran rewarded her with a smile. “No man could ask for a sweeter, prettier wife than you, Chloe.”
She looked down at the black bank book. She’d only thought of escaping her parents. But even though Theran would be heading off to Europe and the war, he had thought of how to provide for her. She leaned her forehead against his. “You’re a good husband, Theran. I love you.”
He took the cup and half-eaten roll from her hands and pushed her back against her white feather pillow. “You love me, huh? Show me.”
On Sunday morning, for the second time in two days, Quentin Kimball brushed past Maisie, the McCaslin housekeeper, and charged into the sunlit sage-green and honey-oak McCaslin dining room. Looking at him, Roarke knew this scene would live in his memory forever—the morning sunshine blazing through the diaphanous white sheers and glinting on the sterling silver coffee urn on the oak sideboard. The smell of bacon, coffee, and melted butter. Maisie’s black face peering through the half-open kitchen door.
Kimball glared around and then stopped short, squaring off across the table from Roarke. “So you got home, McCaslin. Where’s my little gal?” Kimball looked upward at the ceiling. “Chloe!” he roared. “Chloe, sugar, it’s your daddy!”
Roarke watched the red-faced man and caught himself just in time to prevent a smile. Roarke had lost Chloe, but he still retained the pleasure of telling Kimball the truth.
“Good morning, Mr. Kimball,” Roarke’s mother said as politely as if the man usually dropped in unannounced for breakfast. “Would you like us to set a place for you?” All three would be leaving for church after they’d finished their coffee.
“I don’t want breakfast, woman! I want to see my daughter here with a McCaslin weddin’ band on her finger. Or I’m going to know the reason why.”
Swallowing hot coffee, Roarke looked into the man’s blotchy face, its nose reddened by too much booze. “Chloe’s in New York with her husband, Theran Black,” Roarke said, “so I don’t know why you’d expect her to be here, wearing
my
wedding band. I was best man at their wedding.” Even as he said it, each word pounded a nail in his own coffin. Chloe couldn’t have run away without his help. He was paying for that now and he feared the ache that weighed on him wouldn’t go away any time soon.
He watched Kimball gabble for a few moments before becoming coherent once more. “My
daughter
left my house in your care,” the man’s voice quavered with pent-up fury. “And you helped her run off and marry another man! You’re a fool!”
If Roarke thought her father’s outrage sprung from love of Chloe, he’d have been ashamed of himself. But he knew it wasn’t. It was just pique at losing one of his possessions, as if Chloe was a filly in Kimball’s stable. He wondered, had the man learned of Minnie’s leaving yet? Acid spurted in Roarke’s stomach. He longed to say, “You’re the fool.”
Kimball switched his glare to Roarke’s father. “Thomas, did you know this yesterday?”
“Of course Thomas didn’t,” Mrs. McCaslin said, looking outraged.
“Of course, I didn’t.” Roarke’s father agreed as he steepled his fingers and coolly returned Kimball’s stare. “If I had, I’d have told you when you came last night.”
Kimball turned to Roarke. “When you didn’t come home at a decent time, I came over to ask your daddy where you were—”
“At one in the morning,” Roarke’s mother slipped in, quietly disapproving.
“—and your daddy told me,” Kimball continued to bawl, “that he had expected his son home sooner, but in any event my daughter was safe in his son’s care. So where’s my daughter?”
“I told you,” Roarke repeated, fatigue rolling over him, “she’s in New York with her husband.”
And I’m too tired to be polite very much longer.
Losing Chloe stung him like poison nettles and his temper reflected that.
“Nonsense.” Kimball dismissed this with a wave of his stubby hand. “My wife is prostrate with worry. I want to know where our Chloe’s run off to.”
“Kimball,” Thomas spoke up in a sterner tone, “my son has told you where your daughter is. I don’t approve of his aiding her in an elopement. But I also don’t approve of a parent who burns letters from a girl’s honest beau who happens to be leaving for war. And in any event, what’s done is done.”
Kimball stared at Roarke’s father, his eyes narrowing. “Are you tellin’ me that someone burned my daughter’s letters? Who?”
“I believe you should discuss this with your good lady.” Thomas took a sip of his coffee. “In any case, your daughter is a married woman now.”
“It was my pleasure to help them,” Roarke commented and at last he permitted himself a smile. He would have rather buried his face in his arms on the table. He had lost Chloe.
Thomas held up a hand to stop Kimball, who’d just opened his mouth again. “Once more, I didn’t know when you came yesterday that my son was helping Chloe elope with another man. I had hoped my words were true—that Roarke, for whatever reason, had decided to elope with Miss Chloe himself. I apologize for misleading you, but that can’t be helped now.”
Roarke clutched his violet-sprigged china cup with both hands, holding on to his pride, his self-control.
Kimball reached out and gripped the top of the carved oak chair in front of him. His knuckles turned white as he stared at Roarke. “My daughter had no reason to run away. I told her the doughboy could write her.”
So you could include that patriotic note in your speeches.
Roarke’s mouth twisted into a mirthless smile. “Perhaps you should consult with your wife about that,” he repeated his father’s suggestion. Then he chewed his buttered toast slowly as if what Kimball wanted was of no importance to him, as if his love hadn’t pledged her faith to another man while he stood silently by.
“My wife?” Kimball let go of the chair, suddenly alert to what they’d been telling him.
Roarke’s mother nodded, touching a white linen napkin to her lips. “Chloe’s a sweet girl and I would have loved to have her for a daughter, but that isn’t what happened, Mr. Kimball.”
“Where is she? What’s her address?” Kimball demanded. “I’m going to bring her home.”
Roarke gritted his teeth.
Never. If it weren’t for you, Chloe wouldn’t have run away. She would have been mine.
He shrugged. “I don’t recall the address.”
Kimball’s index finger shot out at Roarke. “I’ll find out where she is and you’ll pay for this.” He shook his finger in Roarke’s face. “Mark my words. You’ll pay.” With a last glare around the room, the man stomped out.
In the silence that remained, Roarke’s mother motioned the housekeeper to pour more coffee. “What an unpleasant man to have at breakfast.”
Roarke hid a faint smile behind his cup. Leave it to his mother to say just the right thing. The smile was short lived, however. He knew the empty ache inside him would last a long, long time—maybe for the rest of his life. But then, he’d be drafted soon so that might not be as long as he feared.
In the midst of these dark thoughts, a fresh worry niggled at the back of his mind. He’d better call Kitty and tell her to warn Chloe that her father would be looking for her. He hoped Theran’s precautions would keep Chloe hidden. Roarke had given up Chloe to free her. And it had better work.
On Monday afternoon, Chloe—wearing the green-sprigged dress, straw hat, and white gloves she’d been married in—waited on the front steps of the red-brick rooming house. The day was warm and she had come outside to force herself to stop crying. When would Minnie show up? She leaned against the black wrought-iron railing and tried not to relive the wrenching memory of Theran marching with thousands of other doughboys onto the ship. His last jaunty wave to her would live in her mind forever.
A sob tried to swell in her throat; she forced it down. “How can I miss him this much already?” she whispered to herself. She remembered the sensation of lying in his arms, so loved, so protected. Now his ship, bound for France, was hours out to sea.
Theran, please come back to me.
Chloe caught sight of Minnie turning the corner toward her. The young black girl in a sober new gray dress and plain straw hat was staring up at the corner street signs and house numbers. “Minnie,” Chloe called and waved. “Minnie!”
The maid saw her and waved in return. “Miss Chloe!”
Chloe met her up the block and impulsively hugged her. “I’m so glad to see you. How did yesterday go?”
“I found a good colored church and I met some people,” Minnie said with a perky grin.
“I . . . I didn’t get to church yesterday,” Chloe confessed.
Minnie giggled. “I bet you didn’t.” Chloe blushed. Minnie giggled some more and gave Chloe a saucy look. “You sure did marry up with a good-lookin’ man.”
Again, it was as if they were girls again. Somehow leaving Ivy Manor behind had permitted them to go back in time. Chloe wondered if Minnie noticed this.
“People at church tole me how to get over here to you,” Minnie went on, “and give me the addresses of a couple of them employment places. Agencies, they call ’em.”
“Well done.” Chloe was impressed. “I’m ready to accompany you.”
Minnie turned and Chloe fell into step with her. “The subway station is only two blocks ’way from your place,” Minnie informed her. “That’s good ’cause then you can go anywhere you want, easy as pie. I rode the subway mostly yesterday afternoon so I kin get used to it and find places by myself.”
“Theran taught me this morning,” Chloe said, feeling a bit queasy. Subways made her stomach jump.
“New York’s a big place,” Minnie commented. “But I like it.”
Chloe nodded, hiding her own uncertainty. “I rode the subway back all by myself from seeing Theran off.” She heard her voice catch in her throat. Theran had left her. She pulled her white ruffled handkerchief from her pocket.