Taylor stiffened. "I did ask her to escort Dr. Montgomery, but I thought -"
Reva set her cup down with a clink. "Why don"t you go punch Hank?"
"I beg your pardon."
"I guess that"s not a good idea," Reva said. "After the way he took out Sam Ryan, I don"t guess you"d stand a chance. But, you know, you do have an advantage-you are engaged to Amanda. Tomorrow night she"s supposed to go to the carnival in Terrill City with Hank. Why don"t you invite her to the fair? She"d have to go with you since you two are engaged."
"To a fair?" Taylor asked, aghast. "I hardly think so. There is, however, a reading of Thackeray"s work tomorrow night at-"
"Reading?" Reva gasped, then leaned toward him. "When you proposed, how did you do it?"
"I believe, Miss Eiler, that such things are personal."
"Was it personal? Did you get down on your knees and swear undying love to her and say you"d die if she didn"t marry you?"
"I hardly think-"
"That"s what I thought." She leaned back on the hard little couch. "Hank would. If Hank proposed to a woman, believe me, it would be romantic. He"d probably hire violins, have a tub full of champagne handy, and he"d make the woman feel as if she were the most beautiful, most desirable creature on earth."
"I see," Taylor said, and he did see somewhat. Romance was what Miss Eiler was talking about. "Do you think Amanda would like that?"
"All women like to be courted. All women want a man to be pa.s.sionately obsessed with them. That"s what romance is-a man showing interest in a woman. It doesn"t have to be flowers and violins, it could just be a man wanting the woman to be near him all the time. Talking is romantic. A man being jealous is romantic. If you love Amanda, then you have to show her."
"I gave her a ring," Taylor said, defending himself.
"Which I"ve never seen on her finger since we picked it out. You didn"t by chance tell her I helped you choose it, did you?"
"I believe I did mention the fact."
Reva groaned. There was pa.s.sion inside him, she could feel it, but he had it locked somewhere deep down. He needed someone to help him thaw out. "Mr. Driscoll, if I may be blunt with you, you are losing Amanda. Unless you put up some fight for her, she"s going to run off with Hank Montgomery, or maybe with a traveling salesman."
Taylor just looked at Reva. How did one fight? Perhaps poems by Robert Burns would do it.
Reva could see his confusion. "Invite Amanda to the carnival," she repeated. "Take her to the carnival and show her a good time. Win her some prizes. Take her on a ride or two. Take her through the Tunnel of Love and kiss her wildly. Bring her home and try to force your way into her room. Make her think you"re going crazy with wanting her."
Taylor stared at Reva. He couldn"t imagine doing any of the things she mentioned with Amanda but he"d like to kiss Miss Eiler.
Reva saw his look, and more than anything in the world, she wanted to touch this man. There was something about the way he was so stiff and unbending that fascinated her. "Perhaps, Mr. Driscoll," she said softly, "you haven"t had enough practice in kissing women wildly."
"Perhaps I haven"t," he answered just as softly.
They leaned toward each other very slowly and when their lips touched, electricity shot through them. Taylor put his hand to the back of Reva"s head, holding her skull tightly.
She broke away first and looked into his dark eyes. Poor, she thought. Remember that. He"s as poor as a church mouse. Fall for him and you"ll end up with six kids and nothing to feed them. "Not bad," she said, "but you need work. Take Amanda to the carnival and practice on her. I must go now." She had to get out fast before she began "practicing" with him. "Good evening, Mr. Driscoll."
"But the shop isn"t open," Amanda said to Hank as they stood before the dress shop window. Hanging inside was a gorgeous silk charmeuse dancing dress with a bodice of Chantilly lace.
"You know the story of Aladdin? I happen to know the magic words to open the door at any hour, day or night."
She looked up at him. When he was smiling at her she felt a little weak-kneed. "And what are the magic words?"
"I pay cash," he said, and Amanda laughed. "Come on, the owner lives upstairs. Let"s get her to open the door and find you some clothes."
Amanda felt a little jealous at the way the store owner so readily agreed to open the shop for Hank-again. He"d bought her other dancing dress there too.
As they were walking down the stairs, the owner in front of them, Amanda said, "You two certainly seem friendly."
Hank stopped on the dark stairs, then pinned her against the wall. "If you and I were engaged or were really dating, I"d think that was a jealous remark. Are you jealous, Amanda?"
"Certainly not. How can I be jealous of you if I am in love with another man?"
"Who would you rather see kissing the pretty shop owner? Taylor or me?"
"I am most used to seeing you kiss any number of women. It"s a wonder you don"t put that as a requirement to join the union: All pretty women must kiss Dr. Montgomery before being allowed to join."
He laughed at that and moved so she could continue down the stairs. Inside the shop, Amanda forgot about men altogether. She hadn"t been inside a dress shop since she was fourteen and Taylor had arrived. She had been so busy since then trying to keep up with her studies that she hadn"t given much thought to clothes Taylor had chosen st.u.r.dy, simple clothes that covered most of her exposed skin. But here were dresses of fragile fabrics, with laces and beading, beautiful transparent silk georgettes, satins, crepe de chines.
She turned to look at Hank "Go," he commanded, laughing at her expression. "Try on everything. Buy whatever you want."
"Send the bill to my father," Amanda said before touching a sumptuous blue satin dress.
"I"ll pay for everything," Hank said quietly to the store owner. He very much liked the idea of having purchased what touched Amanda"s skin. "And put a couple of those in with the dresses," he said, pointing to pink silk crepe underwear sets that were trimmed with satin.
Amanda tried on the dresses and modeled each one for Hank. She couldn"t describe the way he made her feel, as if she were the most beautiful woman in the world. She chose five dresses and wore the one she"d first seen in the window. They walked together to his car, Hank carrying her packages.
"Do I look all right?" she asked. It was very dark, especially dark where his car was parked. "I mean, if you were a man and I were a woman, an unattached woman, that is, would you be interested... I mean, would you think I looked all right?"
Hank dumped the boxes in the pa.s.senger seat of his auto, then took Amanda"s hand and pulled her under the deep darkness of three palm trees. "Amanda," he said softly, "if you were mine right now, I would be so overcome with your beauty that I"d..." He lifted her hand to his mouth and bit the soft, inside fingertip of her longest finger. It wasn"t a kiss, it was more as if he were on the verge of devouring her skin. He began gnawing down her finger into her palm, biting the cup of her palm, sucking at it. His teeth and lips moved to the inside of her wrist, then up and up, pausing for a second at the inside of her elbow, then up again, kissing the most delicate, most sensitive parts of her arm.
Amanda had her head back, her eyes closed as his mouth moved over the lace on her shoulders then across her collarbone, over her right shoulder and down her right arm. He sucked at the palm of her hand then bit at her fingertips.
"Amanda," he said. He had two of her fingertips in his mouth and she could feel his tongue, his teeth, the hot wetness of the interior of his mouth.
"Yes," she said, and she meant yes to anything he asked of her.
"If you were mine, that"s what I"d do to you," he said.
Amanda looked at him, and even in the darkness she could see the hooded look of his eyes, the slight flare of his nostrils. In fascination, as a cobra watches a flute, she watched him move her fingers about in the interior of his mouth. Her body was beginning to weaken, and just as she was ready to fling herself at him, he dropped her hand.
"Let"s get something to eat," he said and walked to the car to help her in.
She got in, balancing the packages on her lap.
Hank didn"t say much on the way to the restaurant. He knew he was playing with a deadly substance, but he was like an addict and couldn"t help himself. He could take her away from Driscoll; he knew that. But it wouldn"t be fair to either of them. Under Amanda"s beautiful exterior was still the prim little lady he"d first met. She wasn"t the woman for him, no matter how sweet she tasted.
Amanda was thinking nearly the same thing. He was a poor rabble-rouser and he wasn"t the man for her. When he wasn"t touching her she could see him as he was. He was the sort of man a woman had a fling with, but he wasn"t a man a woman should love. The woman who loved him would have a painful future.
She tried to keep that in mind as she watched him driving, his profile outlined in the moonlight and the headlamps. But she kept watching his strong hands on the steering wheel, the way he gripped the shift lever. She saw the muscles in his thighs working as he moved from pedal to pedal.
Hank glanced at her, saw the hungry look in her eyes and forgot about common sense. He put his right hand on her knee and touched silk. "Do you ever wear anything except black silk stockings?"
"Taylor says black is the most refined, the most ladylike color."
Hank laughed. "He"s either a fool or a connoisseur."
"I don"t know which either," Amanda said into the wind.
The quiet little restaurant lay on the outskirts of town, and when Hank stopped the car he paused a moment to look at her.
When he started to say something, Amanda put her fingers to his lips. He looked as if he were about to say something serious. "Let it last while it can," she said softly. She removed her hand. "How would a fiance help his intended from the car?"
He smiled at her. It seemed that she knew the rules, that it was a game they were playing and nothing more. "First he might kiss her."
"Oh?" Amanda said and leaned her cheek against the leather seat.
Hank touched her face with his fingertips, moving back to her hairline. Every day her hairstyle had become looser and softer. "And then again he might not."
Amanda had been teased very little in her life and had never been teased in a playful s.e.xual way by a man. "You!" she gasped, then when Hank put up his hands as if to protect himself from a blow, she lunged at him, packages falling to the floorboard. She slapped at him while his protecting hands kept coming in contact with some of the more delicious parts of her body.
"I give up," he cried. "I"ll kiss you."
"You will not, because I won"t allow it," Amanda said haughtily and got out of the car.
Hank bounded out his side, caught her and spun her about in his arms. "Deny me, will you, wench?" he said, mocking the villain in the film they"d seen. "Either you give yourself to me or I"ll throw your old mother into the snow."
"But, sir," she said, turning her head away, "it is eighty degrees outside."
"Into the desert then. With no water. Now, wench, are you mine?"
Amanda gave one great twist, kicked him on the shin and started running. "Not on your life," she called.
Hank caught her within a few feet, holding her, her back to his front as she tried to twist out of his grasp. "I want all of you, your lips, your eyes, your b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I want to kiss you and caress you, make love to you all night long."
Amanda stopped struggling and turned in his arms. "To h.e.l.l with the hero, I"ll take you, the villain." She kissed him deeply, plastering her body close to his, feeling the hard maleness of him against her.
"Amanda," he said, crushing her against him, bending his body so that she bent backward. His leg slipped between hers.
Her heart was pounding and she wanted nothing more than to disappear into the darkness with him. "Are you trying to get out of feeding me?" she said at last.
He pulled back to look at her. "You"ve been starving since the first day I met you," he said, smiling at her. "Starving for more than just food."
"So you like to think," she said insolently and pushed him away. "I must look a mess. Get my handbag and take me inside so I can do something with my hair."
He obeyed her as if it were what he was supposed to do, and Amanda smiled. How wonderfully pleasant to tease and laugh and to order a man around. She smoothed her dress as he returned and they went inside.
It was the first meal they"d shared that they weren"t fighting. In the soft candlelight, he seemed almost as if he were the man she loved. For a moment Amanda wondered what they would talk about, but then it seemed as if there were a thousand things she wanted to know about him: where he grew up, how he came to teach economics, where he"d learned calculus, what his family was like, what he did when he wasn"t saving migratory workers.
"You race cars?" she said when they were on dessert. "Do you win?"
"About as often as I lose."
"Do you think I could come and watch you win, or lose?" she asked, then remembered that soon he"d be gone and she would still be here. She looked at her plate.
"Maybe you and Taylor can come and watch the races," Hank said. He meant to sound unconcerned but his voice sounded bitter. "I guess I better get you home."
Her head came up. "But you promised to teach me to dance. Remember the White House? It"s why we bought me a dancing dress."
He wanted to take her home, wanted to put some distance between the two of them, but at the same time he couldn"t bear to let her out of his sight. "All right. Dancing it is, but I warn you, don"t get too fresh."
"Or you"ll what?"
"Do anything you ask of me," he said more seriously than he meant to. He called for the check and they left the restaurant.
Chapter Fifteen.
Amanda stretched in bed, then slid back under the light cover and closed her eyes again. She didn"t ever want to get up, didn"t want to have to face sunlight or other people. She wanted to stay in bed all day and think of last night.
After dinner Dr. Montgomery had wanted to take her dancing, and after a few inquiries they found that the only dance in the area was on a barge floating down the Gla.s.s River near Terrill City. The barge had already left and wouldn"t be back until one a.m.
"We"ll make it," Hank had said, and the two of them went on a wild ride over dark, rutted roads until they"d reached the river, where he rented a rowboat and started rowing toward the barge. He could row like a demon. "Grew up in Maine, remember?" he said to her as she hung on.
As they neared the barge, the people stopped dancing and came to watch them and cheer them on as they drew closer. There were many hands to help them on board and tie the rented boat on the back of the barge.
"The lady wanted to dance. What could I do?" Hank explained, making everyone laugh.
They were the hit of the evening, and Hank was right-Amanda had no difficulty learning the dance steps. By the end of the evening she was dancing the waltz, the polka, the schottische, and square dances as well as the tango. Amanda knew she"d never had so much fun in her life. For once she wasn"t a freak; she was no different from anyone else. The men liked her because she was pretty and energetic, and the women liked her because she laughed.
They ate oysters and drank champagne and danced until the barge came back to home base and the band packed up and went home. By that time everyone knew everyone else"s name and they waved and called goodnight to each other.
Hank helped Amanda over the side of the barge and into the rowboat, then, slowly, in the moonlight, he rowed her back to the rental place.
"Tired?" he asked.
Her hand was trailing in the water. "I feel wonderful. I had no idea this is what other people did."
"Instead of calculus tests on Sunday morning?"
"I wonder how many languages those women speak."
"Touche," Hank said, laughing. "Am I proving to be a good teacher? You wanted to know something about the world."
She looked at him in the moonlight. He seemed to get better-looking every hour. What a heavenly night it had been. "You"re the best teacher in the world," she answered softly.