A Song Across the Sea (35 page)

They found a cast iron settee and nestled in it. She couldn’t see his face but it didn’t matter. His arms were wrapped around her as if he would never let go. She was content, at long last, just to be close to him.

While he talked, the breeze rustled the branches of a nearby coffee tree and carried the sweet perfume of roses and night-blooming jasmine from the gardens. He told her about his father, his mother, Marie Maxwell, Emory Millinder and about the act of violence whose reverberations kept him from Tara until it was almost too late.

She could feel the guilt that lay just beneath his surface as keenly as if it were her own. “But Reece—you didn’t
mean
to kill him.”

“He’s dead just the same. And for no reason. An insult so minor I couldn’t recall it when the effects of the drink wore off me. It was senseless.”

“Sure and it was an accident. Haven’t you punished yourself long enough?”

There was more to hear. Emory’s reaction when Reece called off his wedding to Miriam. Adrienne’s letter. Reece’s attempt to see his mother during the masquerade party, and the outcome. Why he had to see her before he left.

Tara was rudely snapped out of her reverie.

“No. No! You can’t mean it. To Europe?”

“It’s too late to back out of it now. The plans have been laid. Some generals are counting on me. It may well turn out to be important to the country.”

“How soon?”

“In two weeks’ time.”

She sprang up from the settee, her cheeks awash in angry tears. So it wasn’t to be after all. She’d been allowed just a glimpse of happiness—that was all.

“For how long?” she sobbed.

He came to her and tried clumsily to embrace her, but she wanted no false comfort from him at this moment.

“I don’t know,” he murmured brokenly. “It depends on the war, and on what the United States does. I’ll come back as soon as I can.”

If he came back at all. She guessed at the dangers in which Reece could find himself. “But you could get out of it, if you really wanted to.”

“I must go, now more than ever. Don’t you see that, Tara? I have nothing to offer you. Nothing. I’ve been disinherited. If airplanes prove themselves in this war, if I can help make that happen, I can get the backing I need for my factory. Don’t you see? Until that happens, there can be no real life for us. I want to give you everything you deserve to have, Tara.”

“It’s you that I want. Only you. The rest…we can work it out somehow.” She paused. “Don’t you care for me at all, Reece?”

In answer, he drew her to him and held her for a long time. “You know the answer to that.”

“Take me somewhere,” she murmured.

“Will you still have me, Tara? Knowing what kind of man I am? Knowing that I can promise you only an uncertain future?”

“Take me somewhere.”

He took her to the boarding house. They kissed on the front porch, in the hallway, on the stairs. Tara was trembling with weakness and desire by the time they got to his room—her old room. She slid out of her dress and chemise and reached forward to pull off his shirt, desperately wanting the feel of his bare skin against hers. They tumbled onto the narrow bed and the playfulness turned intense. He kissed her deeply and stroked her body until she writhed under him with need. Such a strange, wonderful, delicious feeling, she thought. Reece’s large hands were on her bare breasts, his fingers caressing them while his lips burned against hers. He kissed her shoulders and licked the soft hollow at the base of her throat, making her shiver.

Then he moved downward, with his hands and lips. She was shocked at the response he awoke in her. What a sensation! It was thrilling and yet unsatisfying, full of anticipation and need.

She’d a moment of—what was it? Fear? Uncertainty? A moment when her breath seemed to stop itself as he moved over her purposefully. She gasped in pain at the sensation and he pulled back, nuzzling her face in concern.

“Did I hurt you?”

She kissed him and caressed his back in answer, but he resisted.

“Tara, are you sure?”

She was sure.

With great tenderness, he moved against her gently until he felt her urging him to greater force. She loved the feel of him inside of her and surged upward against him, curling her legs around him. A strange new fever took hold of her. Reece sensed it and shifted the position of her hips with his hands so that soon a passion—a revelation—shook her with exquisite pleasure, again and again, in delicious waves, and left her entire body trembling and weak. Reece held her close and strained against her as if he wanted to make their two bodies one until he, too, stiffened in ecstasy and spent himself. He collapsed on her and then turned on his side, leaning back against the pillows, gathering her close to him, her back to his chest. He held her in his arms and stroked her hair, murmuring endearments.

She thought she could stay like this forever, their bodies together, their arms entwining each other in a warm embrace. So this was the mystery of love! This was what went on in the night between men and women, the secret life that that connected them in ways that the ordinary, public things they did together in the light of day never could. She wanted more of it.

He cleared his throat. “We’re going to be married, you know.”

“I know it.” And she did. It was not the dramatic proposal she might once have hoped for. That wasn’t necessary. That they belonged together until the ends of their lives was a simple, enduring truth that needed no fanfare. He was the other half of her. She, the other half of him. She chuckled.

“What?”

“You’ll think it’s silly.”

“Never. Tell me.”

“It’s just that…we ended up here. In this room. Many were the nights that I lay in this same bed and wished you’d come to me.”

“You don’t know how badly I wanted to.”

“When I heard of your engagement, I felt like I’d been stabbed. That bad was the pain. I couldn’t understand how I could fall in love with you when you had no feelings for me.”

He sighed. “Now you know that wasn’t the case.”

“Reece, once we’re married, Mrs. Millinder will be my mother-in-law.” She laughed out loud. “What will she do when she realizes that her son is married to an Irish maid.” She frowned. “Or will she ever learn it? D’ya think you’ll ever be on peaceful terms with her again? I don’t care about the money, Reece. Really I don’t. If you never get your inheritance, I wouldn’t mind. But I’d like to be a part of a family again. And there’s something about your mother, a loneliness, that makes me think she might welcome a daughter-in-law, even one from a background so different from hers.”

“I promise you, I will speak to her, and resolve this thing between us. And I think you’re right about her. She would embrace you. It’s me she has a problem with.” His tone grew grim. “And that’s not the only thing I need to take care of. Something will have to be done about Muldoon.”

She stiffened beside him. It had been nice, for awhile, to put Muldoon out of her thoughts, although she knew he eventually must be confronted, or else she would be forced to continue living this artificial life of hers.

Reece continued. “What he did to you. And Hap. Burning down the theater. I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to prove he was behind all of that, but we’ll find some way to stop him from terrorizing you in the future. And we’ll get you back onstage, where you belong. I’m so glad I had the opportunity to hear you sing.” He laughed softly. “Even Miriam had to admit that you’re a wonderful singer, and I think she was already jealous of you by then.” He turned toward her. “You do want to go back to your performing, don’t you?”

She propped herself up on an elbow. “What? And give up me glamorous life as a maid?”

They both laughed at that.

“My plan is to make my airplane venture so successful that you can be a lady of leisure, if you like.”

“I wouldn’t know how.”

“Or, just stay home with the children.”

She felt a tingly excitement just thinking about it. Children! His children! “Oh, we’ll get to that, all right,” she reassured him. “But I want to sing as well. And not just in vaudeville. I’ve me sights set on Broadway.” She paused. “D’ya think I’m good enough for that, Reece? You’ve been to Broadway shows. Am I foolin’ meself, to think that I could be up there some day?”

He hugged her to him. “You’re better than anyone I’ve ever heard. And I’m not just saying that because I happen to be crazy in love with you. You could sing on any stage you want to. You could sing for kings and queens.” He sighed. “It’ll all get worked out—Muldoon, my mother—when I get back from Europe.”

A long, comfortable silence enclosed the room. There was nothing beyond its four walls. No world. No people. The tears of the past and the war that hovered over their future didn’t exist in the twilight intimacy of this room, where they lay in a dreamlike state, somewhere between sleeping and waking.

Tara nestled her cheek against his chest. “I can hear your heart beating,” she whispered.

“You are my heart beating,” he said. Then he kissed her, and she him, and it all began again.

T
hey were married in a brief ceremony at City Hall, with only Sheila, Hap, Kathleen and Delores in attendance.

“I’m sorry, Tara. When I return, we’ll do things up right. Make a real celebration of it,” Reece promised.

Sheila recovered from her astonishment long enough to wish Reece and Tara well.

“Sure and you’re a sly one,” she scolded Tara. “Actin’ all this time as if you’d no use for men, then you up and marry this one just like that. Where were you hidin’ him? He’s a fine-looking lad, that’s for sure.”

“And I promise, I’ll explain the whole story to you just as soon as I have time to catch me breath,” Tara said.

Sheila was acting strangely these days. Her usual cheeky confidence was nowhere in evidence. It hadn’t been, Tara realized, for weeks. After Reece left, she’d have to sit Sheila down and find out what was troubling her. Until then, though, Tara intended to be supremely selfish and spend every moment with him. After being apart from him for so long, she deserved it.

Hap and Delores were predictably ecstatic for them.

“It’s about time!” Hap declared. “I never saw two people have such a darned difficult time getting to the altar.”

Delores embraced Tara warmly, blinking back tears. “I almost feel as if it’s my own daughter getting married.”

There was a tearful reunion with Kathleen, who begged Tara’s forgiveness.

“I was so angry with you. You don’t know how angry I was, and it wasn’t even your fault.”

“I don’t blame you for bein’ out of sorts. Let’s forget about it and move on.”

Delores assumed that Tara would stay at the boarding house while Reece was in Europe.

“No. Thank you, Delores, but I can’t. I’m keepin’ me job at the Millinder mansion until Reece comes back.”

Delores protested. Hap and Reece joined in the argument on Delores’ side, but Tara remained firm on that point. She would stay at the boarding house with Reece until he left, and go to her job every morning. Once he was gone, she’d not endanger her friends. Not as long as Muldoon remained a threat. Besides, they couldn’t afford for her to quit her job. Reece had no real funds coming in.

She overheard Reece and Hap talking about Muldoon later, in tense, worried tones.

“I’ve made inquiries,” Reece said. “The police know of him, but have nothing to hold him on right now. He was jailed for a short time for beating up a shopkeeper, but they had to release him when the man backed down from testifying. There were rumors that one of the man’s children was kidnapped. Then he miraculously reappeared as soon as the man said he wasn’t sure it had been Muldoon, after all. Too dark to really see his face.”

Hap snorted bitterly. “Muldoon’s thugs can be very persuasive, but taking a kid! How low can you go?”

“I’ve got a man working on finding him. I hope I’ll be able to deal with Muldoon before I leave. I don’t want to worry about Tara’s safety.”

“What are you going to do when you find him?” Hap asked.

Reece’s answer was too low for Tara to hear.

Less than two weeks! Tara lied about a family emergency and arranged for some days off from her work so that the two of them could spend all of their time together. For Tara, it was being young and carefree in New York in a way she’d never been able to before.

In his one remaining working automobile, a greatly banged up Model T, Reece took her to Coney Island, where they swam and drank pink lemonade and rode the Ferris Wheel, dizzy with happiness.

They couldn’t afford Broadway shows so they explored a new delight: moving pictures. For ten cents, one could take a seat in a makeshift theater and be mesmerized for an entire hour by black-and-white images flickering on a screen, to the accompaniment of piano music. Tara preferred western stories. Reece liked Chaplin comedies and, he said, the rather daring corset advertisements shown between the features. When lyrics for a sing-a-long appeared on the screen, Reece sat back and listened to Tara sing, although her wondrous voice was nearly lost in the enthusiastic cacophony produced by the rest of the audience.

“See?” she said. “I’m singin’ in a theater again after all.” It didn’t make him smile as she’d intended, though.

“We’re going to get you back to the genuine article, Tara. I only wish I had more time…”

Time felt suspended when he took her flying. Although she wore the leather jacket, goggles and scarf he insisted upon, the cold still stung her cheeks and lashed her body in the open cockpit of the two-seater biplane. It didn’t matter. Flying with Reece was yet another kind of rapture. The sharp spasm of fear she initially felt when the engine kicked into life and the plane began its jerky ascent passed quickly. She felt so safe with Reece that she soon relaxed and gave herself over to the experience with complete confidence.

What an amazing thing it was to fly! To see the farmland from which they’d taken off be transformed into small, neat rectangles of fields, and treetops shrink to pinpoints of green. After awhile she lost interest in the scenery below. It ceased to exist for her. There was only open, limitless sky, and she and Reece were the only two people in the world. When they passed through the fringe of a cloud it was like being in a cool, moist cocoon. A peaceful calm flooded through her. If only this ride could last forever! She wished they never had to return to the earth. Now she understood Reece, she felt. She understood what it was that fueled his dreams.