Diamonds and Dreams (40 page)

“Fern,” the timid maid answered. “Mr. West,
sir?”

“Yes, what is it, Fern?” Saber queried,
watching Goldie open her eyes. He planted sweet, tiny kisses along
the side of her face. “Good morning, poppet.”

The slow, intimate smile he gave her brought
back memories of the night. She felt herself blush. “‘Mornin’.”

“Mr. West,” Fern said from the hallway,
“begging your pardon, sir, but you have visitors in the
parlor.”

Saber frowned. Casting a glance at the
floor, he saw his breeches. He untangled Goldie’s arms and legs
from around him, got out of bed, and pulled his watch from his
pants pocket. “It’s seven o’clock, for heaven’s sake! Who’s come
calling this early in the morning?”

“The ladies said they were your aunts, sir,”
Fern explained. “I told them you were still abed, but they insist
on seeing you. I didn’t know what to—”

“My
aunts!
” Saber exploded, yanking
his breeches on. Good God! he thought, panicked. His aunts knew
perfectly well he was staying here with Goldie. He wouldn’t put it
past the two women to come upstairs to see the sleeping
arrangements with their own eyes! “Fern! Tell them—Give them tea!
Do something with them until I get down there!”

“Yes, sir,” Fern answered, and ran to do his
bidding.

Goldie scampered out of the bed, rushing to
the porcelain basin. She sloshed water into it, then splashed her
face. “Hurry up, Saber! Hurry and let’s go see your aunts! Oh, I’m
so excited about meetin’ ’em!”

Saber jerked his shirt on, his hands flying
over the buttons. Stuffing his shirttail into his pants, he
searched for his shoes, crammed his feet into them, then ran his
fingers through his hair. “Goldie, do I look all right to you?”

She examined him, loving what she saw. Sleep
still glazed his wonderful eyes, and his ebony hair curled
naughtily all over his head. His ill-buttoned shirt parted to show
her much of his smooth, broad chest. “You look real good,” she
assured him, her voice brimming with desire.

The luminous expression in her eyes didn’t
escape him. He took a step toward her, his gaze touching every part
of her bare body, heat spreading through him.

“Your aunts,” she reminded him, enchanted by
the softness in his eyes.

“My aunts,” he repeated absently. “My
aunts!” He raced to the door. “Goldie, stay here. I’ll—”

“I’m not stayin’ here!” she argued, stepping
into her dress. “I’m—”

“But I have to talk to my aunts first, and
then—”

“I’m goin’ too.”

He had no time to argue. He left the room
and bounded down the staircase. Taking a second to try to smooth
his hair, he entered the parlor.

The look on his aunts’ faces told him
everything he needed to know about his appearance. “I—I was
sleeping,” he tried to explain. “I didn’t want to keep you waiting,
so I dressed with haste. I—”

“The tops of your feet are showing,” Lucille
remarked, twisting her bracelet.

Saber looked down and saw he’d forgotten to
put on his stockings.

Clara held her reticule tightly. “And your
shirt is not buttoned properly. You’ve missed two buttons, and the
others are—”

“And your hair is mussed,” Lucille
continued, pushing her spectacles up.

“Your chest is showing,” Clara added.

Saber threw back his shoulders. “It would
have been good of you to give me notice of your impending arrival.
Had you done so I would have had time to make myself more
presentable.”

“We thought to surprise you,” Lucille told
him. “And it seems we succeeded,” Clara said, her voice dripping
with disapproval. “Moreover, this is not a social call. We are
going to be—”

“‘Mornin’!” Goldie greeted gaily, sashaying
into the elegant parlor. “Y’all must be Saber’s aunts! Great day
Miss Agnes, you just can’t know what a pleasure it is to meet you!
Since I don’t have much family, I really like bein’ with other
folks’ families. Someday I’m gonna have twelve kids, though, and
then I’ll have all the family I can handle.” She gave one woman her
right hand, and the other woman her left, shaking their hands
firmly and quickly.

Goldie’s brilliant grin brought a smile to
Lucille’s face. “Addison has told us about you, my dear.”

“And did he buy y’all those purty
dresses?”

Clara took a deep breath. “We—”

“Yes,” Saber broke in. “Addison has also
taken my aunts under his benevolent wing.”

Lucille smiled. “Goldie, I am Miss Lucy, and
this is my sister, Miss Clara. And this,” she said bending to pat
her panting spaniel, “is Margaret.”

“Miss Mae, would you be seated?” Clara
asked, her words more of a command than an invitation.

“Call me Goldie.”

“Very well,” Clara consented. “Goldie,
please be—”

“She can’t,” Saber blurted. “She can’t
because...because she has to—She has to take her bath.” As soon as
the words were out, he wished he could retrieve them. Gentlemen did
not discuss such things as a woman’s toilette. He waited for his
aunts’ reaction.

Clara began to fan herself.

“It’s all right, Miss Clara,” Goldie said,
noticing the woman’s distress. “I don’t have to take my bath right
now. I can take it later. I’m not all that dirty anyway. I’ll sit
down now just like you asked me to.” She plopped into a huge velvet
armchair, and began to swing her legs.

Clara saw Goldie’s naked legs and bare feet
and turned crimson. “You—My dear girl, you are without shoes
and—”

“I could only find one,” Goldie explained,
peering down at her feet. “I figured it would be better to be all
the way barefoot than to come down with only one shoe on. Did you
happen to see my other shoe this mornin’, Saber?”

Saber cleared his throat. “Uh—”

“This is not a proper discussion at all,”
Clara snapped at him, her fan moving violently. “Mari—”

“
Saber
,” Lucille cut in quickly.

Clara struggled for composure. “Sit down,
Saber
.”

He did. “Why—”

“Have we come?” Clara finished for him. “My
dear boy, why
wouldn’t
we come? We will be living with you.
Goldie needs a proper chaperone, as I have already told you.
Lucille and I are—”

“It isn’t that we don’t trust you, Saber,
dear,” Lucille said sweetly, “but for propriety’s sake, we felt it
was only right for us to stay with you. Surely you do not want
anyone to speak ill of Goldie, do you?”

Saber’s mind whirled. “I—No, of course not,
but I—”

“Goldie,” Clara said, “it is indecent for
you to share a house with Saber. Have you not thought about
this?”

“He hasn’t ravished me,” she assured the
worried aunties. “When I first met him I thought he was the
ravishin’ kind, but he’s not. I reckon I’m safe enough with
him.”

“The ravishing kind?” Clara nearly swooned.
“Oh! Lucille!”

“There now, Clara, dear,” Lucille cooed,
patting Clara’s hand. “He hasn’t ravished her.”

“I should say I haven’t!” Saber thundered.
“I—”

“Lucille, do you have my salts with you?”
Clara asked shakily. “I feel quite faint.”

“Miss Clara, you remind me a lot of
Henrietta Smelt back in Spinny River, South Carolina,” Goldie told
the distraught woman. “She was the faintin’ kind too. Everything
sent her to the floor. I remember one time when she wandered into
Searcy Hogg’s barn lookin’ for her lost cat? Well, Searcy was busy
matin’ his horses in that barn. I’m not real sure what all the
steps to matin’ are, but the sight did Henrietta in. She fainted
right into a pile of horse—”

“Goldie, have some tea!” Saber shouted,
desperate to cut her off before she could say anything more.

Lucille waved smelling salts under Clara’s
nose. “Saber, my boy, I am going to go upstairs with Goldie for a
while. Why don’t you stay and talk with Clara? Come, Goldie,” she
said, rising and offering her hand to Goldie. “Let us become more
well-acquainted, shall we?”

Goldie jumped out of her chair and took
Lucille’s hand, following the elderly woman out of the parlor.

When they were gone, Clara glared at Saber.
“Marion, I find this whole situation utterly shocking!”

He raised his chin. “Nevertheless, it will
continue until I choose to end it.”

Regally, Clara rose, walking the length of
the room, her reticule swinging from the crook of her elbow. “Do
not blow that air of authority in my direction, Marion. It will not
work.”

He crossed his legs. He intimidated many
people, but never his aunts, he mused. They knew and loved him too
much to stand in awe of him. It was one of the things he adored
about them. The thought softened his irritation. “Aunt Clara, I’m
well aware of how all of this is upsetting you, but there is no
help for it.”

“Yes, there is. Lucille and I could remain
here with Goldie, and you could rent another house.”

“She stays with me.”

His adamant declaration gave Clara pause.
She watched him for a long while. “I wondered if this day would
ever come,” she said softly, poignant emotion sweeping through her.
“You care for her very much, don’t you, Marion?”

Saber shifted in his chair. He still had no
name for what he felt for Goldie, and because of that he refused to
discuss it.

“Fidgeting,” Clara said. “When you were a
boy you squirmed when faced with something that made you
uncomfortable. You still do it. Explain to me why caring for her
makes you so ill at ease.”

“I don’t care for—I mean, I
do
care
for her. A lot. Some. As a friend. She—As a friend.”

“Do you love her, Marion?”

“No! I mean, no,” he said more quietly. “I
just told you that she and I are friends. Really close friends, and
nothing more.” He clenched his jaw, wondering if his tangled
explanation made any more sense to his aunt than it did to him.
Dammit,
why
couldn’t he understand, what it was he felt for
Goldie?

At the tortured look in her nephew’s eyes,
Clara almost laughed. “I see. The two of you are…
really
close
friends. Then you shouldn’t have any objections to our
moving in with you. You don’t have any, do you?”

“Would it matter if I did?”

Clara smiled lovingly. “No, I don’t imagine
it would.”

* * *

“Ladies don’t have legs,” Lucille tried to
explain.

Goldie stood in front of her bedroom mirror
and lifted her dress. She looked at her legs, then cast a
bewildered look at Rosie, who was watching the scene from the bed.
“What do y’mean we don’t have legs?”

“Nor do ladies speak of them,” Clara
added.

Goldie scowled and wrinkled her nose. “Is
there somethin’ nasty about legs?”

“And we cover them with underwear,” Lucille
said.

“We don’t, however,” Clara began, fingering
her reticule, “speak about underwear either.”

Goldie’s frown deepened. “If we don’t have
legs, how can we cover ’em with underwear?”

“An’ ’ow the ’ell can we walk without legs?”
Rosie ventured, glancing at her own pair.

Lucille hid a smile from Clara, then twisted
her bracelet.

“I won’t talk about underwear, though,”
Goldie promised. “I don’t have any to talk about.”

Clara gasped. “Young lady, are you telling
us that you wear nothing at all under your dress?”

Goldie felt embarrassed and wished Saber
were with her. But ever since his aunts had arrived a week ago,
they’d been intent on keeping her separated from him. “I—Can we
call Saber up here, please? Just for a few minutes?”

“Into your bedroom?” Clara asked. “Certainly
not!”

Goldie cast her gaze downward. “I’d wear
underwear if I had any, but I’ve never had enough money to get
any.”

“Oh, you poor, dear child,” Lucille clucked.
“You may be sure that Clara and I will see to the matter
straightaway.”

“I ain’t got none neither,” Rosie chimed in
hopefully.

Clara sighed, sat in a high-backed chair,
and folded her hands in her lap. “And when a lady sits, she does
not swing her feet as you have the habit of doing.”

“When she enters the room, she will choose
the straightest chair in it,” Lucille elaborated. “She lowers
herself into it slowly and gracefully. She does not sprawl in it,
but keeps her back stiff, her shoulders back. She never crosses her
legs. Her feet are together and flat on the floor.”

“But you said we didn’t have legs,” Goldie
pointed out, baffled. “If we don’t have legs, we don’t have feet,
either, right? Besides that, when I’m sittin’ in a chair, my feet
don’t reach the floor.”

“Maybe ya could jest sit right
on
the
floor, Goldie,” Rosie suggested. “Then yer feet could be flat on
it.”

Clara looked at the urchin and felt tender
pity. Addison, having gotten permission from Saber, had given
Goldie’s address to the trustworthy girl, and now Rosie visited on
a regular basis. She was company for Goldie, and every time she
came, she brought along some small gift for Clara and Lucille. A
bunch of wilted flowers, a package of needles, a few
rolls...whatever she’d been able to procure. Clara could not find
the heart to disapprove of her. Rosie, though hard on the outside,
was a kind and gentle person inside, and that made all the
difference to Clara.

She gave Rosie a benevolent smile, then
turned back to Goldie. “And barnyard activities are not suitable
for conversation,” she continued. “
Modesty
is the word to
remember, Goldie. Remember that, and all else will fall into
place.”

“Modesty,” Goldie repeated, deliberating on
the exact meaning of the word. “Before I met Saber I was modest as
modest can be. So modest that I was ashamed of my own body. But
Saber—”

“There is no need to explain further,” Clara
interrupted, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. “Lucille and I
understand your meaning. But in the future, Goldie, please do not
discuss your body. Most especially with Saber,” she added, her brow
rising.