Authors: Roberta Latow
“And what did you give Cotille?” Arabella asked.
“Friendship, mostly. But I also introduced her to Dr. Booker St. John, a terrific guy.”
Arabella was touched. She said, “I can understand why Nicholas is so close to you, why you mean so much to him.”
Nicholas arrived just at that moment and smiled at her. As always, since the very first time they set eyes on each
other, she felt herself drawn to him. Unconsciously she took a step closer to him. He put his arm around her waist and they looked into each other’s face, smiling.
He said, “Hello there.”
“Hello.”
Someone passed by them at that moment and wished Nicholas luck. He had to release her to shake hands.
Then he said to Marvin, “It was really nice, didn’t you think so, Marv?”
“Yes, I sure did. It was a lovely kick-off for you, Nick. So far, so good. All’s going as planned, even better than planned. Wait till you read the telexes of support and congratulations! I’m beginning to think you should have run in California! You’re a very popular guy there, and the questions of why you didn’t run for office there are already coming in.”
He then turned to Arabella and said, “Arabella, don’t keep him up too late. We have a great deal to get through before we dock. Good night you two.” He picked up Arabella’s hands and kissed first one, then the other as he said, “Good night, glorious Arabella Crawford. I’m very happy you’re with us on this maiden voyage.”
“You like him, don’t you?” asked Nicholas, as he walked with her from the dining room.
Arabella said, “Yes, I do and I liked your glittering debut as well. The captain did you proud. I felt very privileged to be there with you.”
“I’m grateful to the captain. I thought it went off very well. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves tremendously. But I wanted you next to me. I must’ve looked across the table at you a hundred times! I’m so happy you’re here, Arabella.”
“So am I. I’m beginning to think more than I’ve realized.”
They were interrupted by a state senator from the Midwest and his wife who wished Nicholas well. They had taken only a few more steps when a well-known retired judge approached them, and then the chairman of the board
of a Fortune 500 company who offered his congratulations. Nicholas was gracious and charming. Standing next to him, Arabella realized he was sincerely touched by their good wishes and, yes, even a little humble.
They took the stairs down to the deck below and walked toward the Vanya Bar. They passed a door with a neat bronze sign that read “Linen Room.” Nicholas pushed the door open and, seeing the room empty, switched on the light. He looked up and down the empty passageway and quickly, before anyone could catch them, pulled Arabella into the room.
He stood with his back against the door. The walls were nothing but shelf upon shelf of bed linen — clean, white, sweet-smelling bed linen, stacks upon stacks of neatly folded white sheets and pillowcases. In the center of the room was a large trestle table.
He gave Arabella his best movie-star look of seduction, all the while grinning madly.
“You’re mad!” she said, laughing. “Someone will catch us.”
He turned and looked for the lock. There was none. “Never mind,” he said, laughing too. “You’re right. I’m mad — mad about you. Come here; no one’s coming in to look for linen at this hour.”
He took her in his arms and suddenly their laughter disappeared. He held her tightly to him and she felt herself giving way. Giving way most tenderly, most lovingly. He whispered in her ear, “I wanted to do this all evening and couldn’t wait one more minute.”
He released her just enough to enable him to look at her face, stroke her forehead, her cheek. Then he kissed her deeply, passionately. Every inch of Arabella’s skin began to tingle. She raised her arms and put them around his neck. The two looked at each other with both passion and affection.
His hands stroked her hair that had been piled up away from her face, then caressed ever so lightly the cascade of
white moth orchids that hung full and soft at the nape of her neck.
“I’ve never seen hair more lovely than yours this evening. Or, for that matter, a woman more lovely than you are.”
He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around so her back was to him, in order that he might have a better look at all of her.
He said, “You’re a miracle!” He caressed Arabella’s shoulders and her lovely, virtually bare back. He slipped his hands underneath her arms around toward the front and lingered on the firm full swell of her breasts while he kissed her several times over her back and shoulders.
Feeling passion rising in him, Arabella turned her head, trying to look at him. “Nicholas, this is madness.”
“Yes, it is madness,” he agreed in a husky whisper and removed a huge square-cut diamond earring from her ear, replacing it with his mouth. He kissed and sucked on her earlobe and said, “I can hardly help myself — you’re so delectable. I wanted to tell you all day how special you are, how much I think about you. I find you irresistible.”
Arabella removed the hand caressing the side of her breasts, turned the palm upward, and put it to her mouth to kiss it. He felt the touch of her tongue on his palm and a shiver of delight went through him. He put his cheek to hers and then slowly released her.
He turned her around and put the diamond back on her earlobe, then put the palms of his hands over the erect nipples he could see through the crêpe de chine dress. Nicholas held her that way for a few seconds, closing his eyes, trying to regain his composure.
Then he dropped his hands to his sides and asked, “Shall we go to my cabin or the Vanya Bar?”
“The bar, I think. We’re celebrating, remember? We’re celebrating Nicholas Frayne, Rhode Island, and America!”
He picked her jacket up off the table and helped her on with it. Very gently he lifted her hair off the nape of her neck, not wanting to damage the still fresh and succulent flowers.
Arabella straightened the jacket and then picked up the small purse she had laid on the table. She opened it and found her ivory Fabergé powder box. She checked her face in its small mirror, repairing the tiny smudges of lipstick at the corners of her mouth, and then used the powder puff. She closed the lid firmly by the clasp, an emerald cut in the shape of a leaf, and replaced it in her purse.
She then said, “Well, handsome, if you want me to vote for you for President, you had better get us out of this cupboard first! And you had bloody well get us out unseen! We hardly look like a maid and butler!”
He laughed and took her by the hand, opened the door a crack, and looked down the passageway to the left, then to the right. He turned to her and said, “All clear.”
Leading her, he was halfway out of the door when he heard people coming around the corner. Quick as a flash he pushed her back in the closet and closed the door. The fear of being caught made them both giddy and excited. They suppressed their giggles and were very quiet while the people passed the linen room.
Nicholas whispered, “I may be mad, but I also think I’m getting stupid! I have you alone in a room filled with sheets and pillowcases and haven’t even tried to take advantage of you! And there’s even this most exciting table to do dastardly deeds upon!” He raised his eyebrows and twirled an imaginary mustache. They heard the voices disappearing in the distance.
“Oh,” Arabella said, accepting the challenge. She placed her handbag on the table and then, looking him mischievously in the eye, she opened his jacket and proceeded to unzip his fly. He stood his ground bravely until she slipped her hand into his underpants, then he said, “Remember, Arabella, there’s no lock on this door!”
Arabella was dropping to her knees when he caught her by the elbows and pulled her up. They were both convulsed with laughter.
“Now you’ve done it!” he said. They both watched as he tried to tuck away a very substantial erection.
“What a wicked woman you are! You know very well how much I like that. I should teach you a lesson and make you carry through even though I know you’re afraid of being caught in the act. I’ll get you for this, you teaser!”
The affection, mixed with the sexuality, resulted in one very big bear hug. Nicholas put out the light and took Arabella close to him in his arms. After a few silent minutes in the darkened room Nicholas opened the door a crack.
He whispered, “The passageway is clear.”
She said, “Are you sure? I think I’d better double-check.”
She did, it was, and they left.
Arabella walked into the Vanya Bar on Nicholas’s arm. “It’s wonderful! Oh, Nicholas, what a room!” she said, as she looked up two stories to the silver-gilt-carved ceiling and the rock-crystal chandelier.
“I think it’s my favorite room on the ship. As a matter of fact, it might be one of my favorite bars in the world,” he said.
A magnificent seven-foot-long slab of jasper with chamfered edges five inches thick served as the bar’s top, resting on a carved base of the same stone with sections of rock crystal. The opaque, semiprecious stone, a quartz of rich violet — the rarest color of all — was exquisite. It was made even more interesting by the contrast with the very masculine look of the dark-paneled room. It was unmistakably Russian opulence, very Catherine the Great.
Nicholas walked her around the room to admire the paintings of Armenian dancing girls. They sat down in one corner in deep, comfortable, jasper-colored velvet chairs. The rock-crystal table between them had a huge ornate silver champagne cooler on it and two exquisite, cone-shaped crystal glasses, their stems and base of gold encrusted with amethysts and red coral beads.
A waiter arrived at once and opened a bottle of vintage Dom Perignon champagne and filled their glasses, “With the compliments of the gentleman in the corner,” he said. When he left Nicholas picked them both up and handed one to Arabella.
“Do you know him?” she asked.
“No, I’ve never seen him before.”
“This is your first bribe, then, as a politician!”
“Arabella, of course not. He sent it over to you, I’m sure. Look at him! He’s got puppy love, not politics, written all over his face.”
“Well, let’s both toast him then.” They raised their glasses in the direction of their benefactor, then they touched the rims together and Nicholas said, “To Tolstoy and Nabokov — how they would have loved this room! Ah, if they saw you here as I do, they would make you one of their heroines. Tolstoy would have woven a love story around you and made you even more dazzling than Anna Karenina.”
They looked at each other. Then with hands stretched out across the table, they clicked their glasses together again and drank.
Nicholas felt a little embarrassed, as if he had given a deep secret away. He hesitated and after a moment of awkward silence said, “What makes this room are the details. I would love to know the details about the details — how they carved that bar, where the materials came from, how the people lived who did the work and who they did it for. I suppose that’s really what my passion for history is all about — details.”
“I think I understand, Nicholas. You believe that people and places are extraordinary, that the combination of facts and backgrounds makes each one of us unique and full of promise.”
“Yes, that’s right. And I think what makes two people work as one happy couple is the right balance of similar and opposite in those details. And timing.”
“Timing. A year ago we never would have given each other a chance. I was so involved with my business and you were ensconced in Hollywood. Now we’re both at crossroads in our lives. Maybe that’s what’s making us so open to possibility.”
“Possibility and vulnerability. We’re both giving up things we’re sure we’re good at for a chance at something else.”
“It won’t be easy for you, Nicholas. There will be some terrible burdens.”
Nicholas took a long puff on his cigar. He then refilled
their glasses and, picking her hand up, he said, “You’re right. You see things so clearly. If it will be difficult for me to change, I think it will be just as difficult for you. My changes are more public, but yours may go even deeper. You are counting heavily on yourself. If you let me, I can help you, teach you. I have a knowledge of many things you want to do in your life. Please let me be part of it, enjoy life with you. I want to see you bloom with discovery. I want to be part of the joy and fun you’re going to have in your life now.”
Arabella was touched again by the all-American innocence, the kindness, the sincerity, and always the beauty — the handsome, masculine, physical beauty of the man. She had to control the desire she had to move over and climb into his lap, to be cuddled by him. Instead she took the hand that was holding hers and kissed it.
She said, “That would be heaven for me! Oh yes, yes, I accept. There’s so much I missed, so much you’ve done that I want to be a part of. I may be a good businesswoman, but I’m virtually ignorant of most of the classics. I don’t know how to ski, and I can’t remember the last time I took a walk in the woods. I know the work of a few painters, no more than one or two poets, a piece or two of Mozart, Haydn, Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, and touches of modern and other classical composers. But I’ve never had the time to sit back and enjoy them as I will now.”
“And how to cook,” he added. “I’m a pretty good chef but will have little time for cooking, so I’ll teach you. Oh, Arabella, we’re going to have a really fine time together!”
“Nicholas, it will be perfect. While you’re sweating over the major issues of the day and learning the ins and outs of federal legislation, I’ll be spending endless, frivolous hours at the hairdresser and in the shops, having lunch with girl friends and going to galleries and museums, decorating the most wonderful houses and planting enviable gardens ….”
A little tipsy by now, they both started laughing at their enthusiastic scenarios.
“We’re beginning to sound like an old movie — you know,
the one with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland: ‘Gee, my dad’s got a barn. We could put on a play!’”
Nicholas laughed and said, “The whole world will wonder how I’m able to keep such a great beauty at my side! They’ll all gasp with wonder and vote for me simply on the basis that if I’m clever enough to win such a lady, I’m clever enough to be their President.”
The second bottle of champagne was being opened and both of them were well on the way to inebriation.
“And what about me? What will the whole world say about me?” asked Arabella. “Who is she? How does she have the luck to have Nicholas Frayne, the Governor of Rhode Island, as a friend? Do you know that she makes a divine mayonnaise and spends most of her time in the hairdresser?”
Suddenly the two became giddy, could hardly stop laughing.
“That sounds ridiculous,” said Nicholas.
“It is,” said Arabella. “I can’t make mayonnaise!” The two of them burst out laughing again.
“Oh, stop, stop!” said Arabella. “I want to be serious. Talk to me. There’s so much I really want to know about you. Tell me everything so I can weave the details with the passionate man I already know. How will I be able to help you, support you, if I don’t know everything? I want to, you know, just as much as you want to be part of my life and help me.”
“Arabella, there are so many things I want to tell you about myself. I want you to know me. Where to begin?
“This sounds ridiculous, egocentric, but I don’t mean it that way. I suddenly feel in awe of us. It’s as if I, Nicholas Frayne, had climbed out of my skin and am standing a few feet away watching us sitting here. It could be that I’m in a state of wonder, astonishment, bewilderment at having arrived here this night.”
He squeezed both her hands in his and continued. “It’s been said that a man’s choices are conditioned by his past experience. I’ve always believed it to be true. I also believe
that I’m here because I’ve made the correct choices. It feels to me that it’s always been an easy thing to do — to make the right choice. Maybe that is my gift. In this unfair world I seem to have lived a charmed life. It’s possible that the one great tragedy of my life is that there is no tragedy. That there never has been, and I have a tiny spot in my brain that reassures me that there never will be.”
Nicholas told her how he had married his childhood sweetheart, why he loved her and left her, why she loved him and made him leave her. What a joy his son was to him, how supportive they were to each other, with a mutual respect and admiration, a deep love rarely found in a father-son relationship. He told her of Sylves, his mistress and best friend, the woman he loved but liked much more than he loved. The woman who had satisfied him sexually but who he had no passion for. Sylves and Nicholas — two friends who tried desperately for so long to love each other, who finally gave up and settled for friendship.
“I come from old New England stock who believe that you have to catch every gust of wind to form yourself. I’m from Newport, sailing people, people who believe that death is always with you, an inch away; that one must form oneself, use oneself up before death arrives. The life you live until that moment is strictly of your own making.
“That idea has served me well — from a happy childhood, through my college years and the navy, to being an actor. As a husband and a father sometimes I may have been less thoughtful than I should have, but I think I’ve matured now, and I have truly remarkable relationships with my ex-wife and son.
“I’m one of those uncomplicated people who has enjoyed their life and work completely.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone beyond six years of age with your optimism,” Arabella answered. “It’s wonderful. I can’t say that has always been the case for me, but I can say that it’s going to be. It’s extraordinary, the opposite experiences we’ve had. I’ve lived so much of my life with tragedy around me. I may never have been fatally
wounded, but I’ve been bruised. Even when the bruises healed, they did leave marks. No, I can’t say that I’ve enjoyed every minute of my life.”
“I want you to enjoy it now, with me. Arabella,” he went on, taking her hand in his. “I’m sure you know how reporters and fans love to spy on world-famous people. Especially world-famous lovers. It could make you paranoid, very secretive. I would hate to be even partially responsible for that happening to you, or to bring you any kind of discomfort. But I want you to be part of my life.”
The world disappeared for Arabella and Nicholas. They sat together, silenced by the thinly veiled declaration that they should become world-famous lovers. Having been previously conditioned to love a man in the shadows of his life, Nicholas’s announcement that they should parade their love for each other, out in the open, before the world, pricked Arabella’s emotions so deeply that tears appeared in her eyes.
Still silent, Nicholas reached out and picked a tear up from her cheek onto his finger. He waited and then, when he had given her a minute to calm herself, asked in a voice filled with concern and warmth, “Are you all right?”
She nodded, then she spoke. “Until this moment here with you, I’ve never realized how very alone I’ve been in the past. The realization combined with too much wine, the excitement of your celebration and your loving me is enough to bring a tear to any girl’s eye!”
She smiled at him, a tired but loving smile. The sensitive Nicholas understood. He said, “You must be exhausted. Come on, I’ll put you to bed.”
They left the bar with his arm around her waist, her head leaning on his shoulder. Nicholas took Arabella’s handbag from her as they approached her stateroom door. He found the key and let them in. They walked through the darkened staterooms to the bedroom where he put a small light on and walked her to the bed.
Arabella was physically and emotionally exhausted. She said, “Nicholas, I am so sleepy, but so very, very happy.”
She put her arms around his neck and laid her head on his chest. She was limp with tiredness and a sense of relief — somewhere in her soul she felt that she had found the man she hadn’t let herself believe existed.
He removed her diamond hairpins and said, “I’m going to undress you and put you to bed. I won’t stay because I think you should sleep. I’ll come for you in time for lunch. Until then do get a good rest.” He kissed her gently on the forehead, the way a parent kisses a sleepy child. Her gold and silver hair tumbled down around her shoulders. He ran his fingers through it. He stood back, still holding her, and took a long look at Arabella. He was filled yet again with admiration and love for the woman before him. He took the diamonds off her ears and helped her off with the sparkling, jeweled jacket and draped it over his arm.
As she sat on the edge of the bed, she said, “Nicholas? Do you think it’s possible to love two people at the same time?”
“Yes, my darling. But you can only be
in love
with one. You love in different ways,” he answered. “Why do you ask?”
“Emotional house-cleaning,” she said slowly, trying not to slur her words. She bent toward him and kissed him. The warmth of her soft lips and the depths of her passion were exquisite to Nicholas.
“Forgive me, Nicholas,” she said. “I’ve had too much wine.”
“I know,” he said, patting her on the cheek. “Don’t worry, you’ll soon be asleep.”
He bent down and removed her shoes, putting them neatly to one side. The slit of her silk dress had fallen open, showing her long, luscious legs. He ran his hands over them and up under the dress, peeled off her stockings, and kissed her naked thighs. He helped her off with her dress, and she stood naked before him. Gently he folded her in his arms and placed his head on her shoulder. He was surprised to find himself trembling with passion for her. He ran his hand over her lovely back and curvaceous bottom. Then he picked
her up in his arms and laid her down on the bed, partly covering her with the pale-peach satin eiderdown.
He went to close the curtains over the porthole. When he returned to her, she said sleepily, as she lifted the eiderdown, “Come, lie down with me. I want to feel you next to me until I fall asleep.”
No sooner had he taken his shoes off and was lying beside her than she was drifting off into the first stage of sleep.
He put his lips to hers and kissed her tenderly, lightly, not to wake her. Nicholas was amazed at how completely he had fallen in love with Arabella. Lying on his side and leaning on his elbow, he studied the woman he loved. He looked at her bare breasts, his eyes lingered over her midriff, the soft, supple flesh, lovely smooth skin. His gaze wandered to her luscious mound of golden hair and over the lovely contour of her hips.