Arlene James - A Bride To Honor

The old rage filled him, useless, impotent, and she sensed it at once, her sweet face going slack and troubled. “Is something wrong?”

He forced a grim smile and shook his head. “No.” His hands were shaking and cold. Rubbing them together, he thought of the coffee she’d promised him, and his mood lightened slightly. “I could use a hot drink.”

She stepped back and swept him an elegant bow, one arm swinging out in invitation. “This way, good sir.”

He laughed at her antics, feeling warmed just by her manner. He followed her through the darkened shop into the sewing room, smiling at the fanciful decorations along the way. Her mind seemed to teem with ideas and visions, which she obviously translated into actuality. He realized suddenly that he envied her that.

She had set up a table for them in one corner of the room. It was draped with what looked like an old paisley shawl trimmed with gold fringe and accented with a bouquet of decoratively folded lace handkerchiefs and old, silver teaspoons. In addition to a ceramic pot suspended over the flame of a tiny candle, she had placed on the table a pair of antique-looking cups and saucers, mismatched dessert plates, a creamer, sugar bowl and an intricately cut-crystal platter with a selection of mouth-watering pastries. Not a thing on the table matched another, and yet it all worked together with charming originality. Obviously she had gone to some trouble to indulge her creative bent in his honor, and he felt unaccountably touched.

“This is lovely,” he said, lightly stroking the rim of one cup.

She had the grace to blush. “Thank you. The, um, coffee’s flavored. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” he said, surprised to find that it was so. Normally he hated the pretentiousness of flavored coffees, but nothing about this particular woman was pretentious in the least, just the opposite, in fact. He indicated the pot. “May I?”

“Of course. Help yourself.”

The aroma of amaretto seemed to fill the small room as he poured a steady stream of hot black coffee into one of the cups on the table. He moved the spout over the second cup and looked up in question. Smiling, she nodded, and he poured a cup for her.

“Take anything with that?”

“Just a touch of milk.”

He tilted the tiny milk pitcher over the cup and let a few drops trickle in, then stirred the brew to a rich brown before passing cup and saucer to her.

Reaching for a puffy chocolate muffin, he looked around for a chair. She had placed one at a slight angle, facing away from the drawing board to which it obviously belonged. She herself was hovering over a stool on rollers next to her sewing machine. He placed the muffin on a plate and handed it to her. She flashed him a smile of surprise. “Thanks.”

“My pleasure.” Choosing a sticky bun for himself, he pulled the chair close and sat down. The coffee tasted surprisingly rich and only faintly flavored. “Excellent,” he said, placing the cup on the saucer and picking up the sticky bun. To his surprise he was ravenous, and he ate half the bun in one bite, polishing it off with the next. Swigging coffee, he looked over the serving platter again, torn between a strawberry tart and a little cake frosted with smooth white icing and decorated with a plump raspberry. He went for the tart, laughing when strawberry filling oozed out as he set his teeth into it. Cassidy laughed, too, and set aside her own goodies to come to his rescue with one of those absurdly delicate handkerchiefs. He wouldn’t let her touch him with it, shaking his head and twisting aside as he licked the fingers that held the tart.

“You’re going to get it all over you,” she scolded playfully.

He grinned at her. “I’m a big boy. I can play with strawberry goo if I want to, one of the privileges of adulthood.”

She laughed at that, too. “You may be grown-up, but you look like a little boy caught with his fingers in the jam jar.”

He couldn’t help himself. Dropping the tart to his plate, he reached out with his sticky hand and wiped strawberry “goo” onto the tip of her nose, chin, and cheek. Her mouth dropped open, and she danced back out of his reach before suddenly doubling over with laughter. Setting aside both plate and saucer, he went after her, catching her easily in one arm as she squealed and tried to defend herself with the handkerchief.

“This, Miss Penno,” he teased, “is how little boys play with jam!”

Laughing and struggling, she twisted her body against him. Playfulness fled before a very adult surge of lightning-hot desire, and he found himself looking down into her upturned face, marveling, as she grew still, at how attuned she seemed to be to his every thought and mood. He pushed away the knowledge that he had no right to secure this young woman’s affections and very deliberately wiped his sticky fingers across her mouth before lowering his head for surely the sweetest kiss he’d ever known. Her arms slid around his waist, holding him lightly as he forced her head back, licking and tasting and finally swirling his tongue around the inside of her mouth.

Gradually she pulled away and cleaned her face with the handkerchief. He saw in the bleakness of her moss green eyes that she knew what a foolish, pointless thing he had just done. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, retreating to his chair.

“It’s all right,” she said softly, offering him another hanky.

He took it this time, smiling wryly. “No, it isn’t.”

She sighed. “Whatever you say.”

He retrieved the cup and saucer, but had lost his appetite for the pastry. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I usually have better sense—and manners.”

“You’re probably just feeling trapped,” she said offhandedly, wavering between her own disappointment and compassion for his obvious misery.

“You know don’t you? I suppose William told you everything.”

She shrugged. “He told me that your grandfather set up his will so that you have to marry a certain woman.”

“Betina,” he said bitterly.

“Betina of the Halloween costume party,” Cassidy reminded him gently.

He smiled in spite of everything. She had such a way about her, this tall, slender, angelic woman. Meeting her had been the bright spot in the dark sky of his future, the oasis in the desert that had become his life, but that’s all she could be, momentary, transitory, just a short stop along his way. She was right, of course, about him feeling trapped, and no doubt that had colored and intensified his every response to this woman. It wasn’t fair, not to her and not to him and not to the marriage that he was obligated to try to build with Betina, but he’d be damned if he wouldn’t enjoy his moments with Cassidy Penno. He had a right to that much, didn’t he? So long as he didn’t step over the line again. Mentally he drew that line boldly for himself: They could laugh together, talk together, work together, but there it stopped. He would not kiss her or touch her in a “romantic” fashion again. That gave him something to look forward to in the coming weeks but at the same time protected them both. His smile broadened. He drank his coffee and watched her drink hers.

Finally she set her cup aside. “We’d better get to work,” she said, reaching for a blue plastic measuring tape, which she draped about her neck. Next she found a sheet of paper with a silhouette of the human body and lined brackets representing different measurements printed on it. She fixed the paper to a clip board and slid a pencil behind one ear, then positioned her stool in the center of the floor and motioned for him to stand before her. He did as she indicated, spreading his blue-jeaned legs slightly.

She wrapped the tape around his waist and snapped it apart again instantly before snatching the pencil from behind her ear and scribbling a notation on the paper. She measured his hips, legs, arms and shoulders in the same manner. “Man, you’re good at this,” he said, chuckling.