LaVyrle Spencer - Spring Fancy

"Oh, hello, Paul. I'm sorry I missed you in the church lobby, but things were so hectic. We were swept outside before I could catch my breath."

Jo-Jo Duggan watched as the tall perfectly groomed man slipped his hands around Winnie's ribs and dipped his head to kiss her briefly on the cheek. "You… look… sensational, darling." As he straightened, his head caught the brim of her hat, and her hand flew up to hold it on.

"Do you like it?" She smiled at the prepossessing man whose blond head towered above hers by a good ten inches.

"Like it!" Hildebrandt backed off and ran his eyes down to her hem and back up again. "I love it. The hair and the hat-" he captured her hands and squeezed them for emphasis "-and the dress." Once more his eyes dropped to assess her more feminine points while she wished Jo-Jo would politely refrain from watching every place Paul touched her and looked at her. "You look ravishing."

From the corner of her eye she saw Jo-Jo grimace, and felt a thrill ripple along her skin. She returned the pressure of Paul's hands and turned him toward her escort. "Paul, I want you to meet the best man, Joseph Duggan. Joseph, this is my fiancé, Paul Hildebrandt."

They shook hands. "Hildebrandt." Joseph nodded.

"Hello," Paul greeted simply.

"So you're the lucky guy, huh?" Jo-Jo transferred his amiable smile from Hildebrandt to the woman on his arm. "She's been talking about you a lot while we were out doing the after-wedding joyride."

"Oh-oh. I'm probably in trouble."

"Not at all. Everything she said was highly complimentary."

Hildebrandt's eyes rested on his betrothed, then made another tour of her appealing hairdo and hat. It suddenly irked Joseph Duggan to watch the man assessing her as if she were a pink-and-white striped parfait in a stem glass, and he'd just been given a spoon. Hildebrandt surprised Duggan by returning, "Today it looks like you're the lucky man, escorting her when she's dressed like that." Then with scarcely a glance at Jo-Jo the suave executive type turned the maid of honor away by her arm. "I'll bring her right back. I have to talk to her for a minute."

Joseph watched the "computer man" commandeer Winnifred Gardner's elbow and appropriate her. Hildebrandt was dressed in an impeccable three-piece suit of proper navy blue, accompanied by the expected baby blue shirt and striped tie of muted wines and gray blues. His haircut looked like something out of Gentleman's Quarterly, and his shoes were polished like mirrors. As the pair turned away, Hildebrandt's arm slipped around Winnifred's shoulders, and he pulled her up tightly until she was tipped against his ribs and hip. Her face was raised and wearing a radiant smile as he spoke down at her, then she replied and together they laughed.

The sight of them that way made Duggan want to drive his fist into the wall.

"There's got to be some private corner where we can hide for a minute," Paul was saying.

"To what end, Mr. Hildebrandt?" Winnie teased coquettishly.

He hauled her hip against his, and his hand rode higher up her side, almost to the armpit, fingertips extended toward her breast. "Find me that corner and I'll show you."

She laughed and they rounded a corner, then walked down a broad central hall and eventually came upon what must have been a butler's pantry in its day. Pushing open a swinging door, they found a long narrow room with built-in glass-doored cabinets on their left, bearing wide storage drawers for linens and silverware. There was another swinging door at the far side of the walk-through and to their right a broad window rising from a waist-high counter top to the twelve-foot ceiling. The blue sky beyond was framed by an arching tangle of ivy vines, bare of leaf now, but swollen with buds.

When the door swung closed behind them, Paul confiscated her basket of flowers, set it aside with careful deliberateness, then circled Winnie with both arms, pulling her securely against his body as he dropped his head to kiss her and pressed her hips back against the rounded edge of the ivory-painted cabinet below the window. "Mmm…" he murmured as his tongue slipped seductively into her mouth, which opened willingly. His head moved, and his hand pressed the side of her breast, then kneaded it firmly.

"Mmm…" she echoed into his mouth, smiling beneath his open lips, running her hands over his smooth back.

He lifted his head and backed away only enough to see her but still held her prisoner between himself and the cabinet. "If you look even one-quarter this tantalizing on our wedding day, I'll have a hard time keeping my hands off you in front of the entire congregation."

She ran her fingertips demurely under both of his lapels. "Well, now, wouldn't that be something? The unflappable Paul Hildebrandt, losing control. I think I'd like that."

"I'm far from unflappable where you're concerned, and you know it."

She kissed his chin. "Not in public, you're not. Otherwise you would have kissed me back there in the entry instead of sneaking off into this pantry with me." Was it a subconscious wish to show Jo-Jo Duggan her fiancé desired her that made Winnie voice that comment? She pushed Duggan from her mind and lifted up on tiptoe, seeking Paul's mouth again. But in the middle of the kiss her hat began slipping, and she jerked free, both hands flying up to the long pearl-headed hat pin.

"Oh, shoot. We're not done taking pictures yet, so I have to keep this thing on and make sure my hair doesn't get messed. But I'll be able to get rid of it at the dance tonight, then we can take up where we left off here."

With characteristic seriousness Paul backed away from her and slipped a hand into his trouser pocket. "About the dance, Winnie…"

Already her hands were on her hips-angrily. "Paul Hildebrandt, if you tell me you're not staying for the dance, I'm going to throw a fit right here and now!"

"Winnie, quiet down before somebody finds us in here. It isn't that I won't stay for the dance. I'll just have to leave a little bit earlier than I expected."

She tucked her lips against her teeth and made a pair of tough fists. "So what is it this time? Did the Almighty decree that he needed the lowly Mr. Hildebrandt to process some data before-"

"Winnie, you're being shrewish again."

"Shrewish!" She spun to face the window, presenting her back. "I have a right to be shrewish after you promised." She whirled again to face him. "You promised. You said we'd dance until the last dog was hung, and that nothing would make you miss it. So what came up?"

"Must you sound so antagonistic?"

She considered his question seriously. "Yes. Yes, I must, because I'm sick and tired of taking a back seat to your computers and your incessant late hours. It is your contract work again, isn't it?"

"They need it by Monday, and this extra money is going to come in so handy when we move into the house."

"Paul, how many times do I have to tell you, I don't care about the house. I can live with a card table and two chairs and a pair of fifteen-dollar bean bags! I don't need four thousand dollars' worth of carefully chosen decorator furniture. We'll have the rest of our lives to buy furniture. Now-especially tonight-I wanted to be ours."

"I know." His voice was repentant, and he slipped his hands inside the bell-shaped sleeves of her lace overdress, running them up past her elbows. "I know, Winnie, but I have… ideals. Goals. And one of them is seeing that you start with nothing but the best. Everything you deserve. You know I've given my solemn promise to your mother that I'd see to it."

But the subject of her mother was one Winnifred could not quite confront head-on in relationship to Paul Hildebrandt. If she voiced her true feelings on that score, she feared she'd sound neurotic, or at the very least, petulant. She dropped her head forward, staring at the crisp crease in Paul's trousers as she sighed deeply.