The Charmers: A Novel(47)
He was eager, he was young, he was adorable. Of course I took pity on him.
The Delage was as luxurious inside as it was out; cushioned in cream leather, small posies in silver flasks at each side of the backseat, a burled-walnut bar built in behind the chauffeur’s seat, with crystal decanters and a silver ice bucket and tongs and lemon and … ohh just anything you might think of in a well-stocked bar. Plus a dish of sliced, fresh, out-of-season peaches, a bowl of sweet almonds, a carafe of ice water, and about a million tiny white linen napkins all emblazoned with his crest.
Looking at my new admirer, I thought this might not be love. But on the other hand, it could be.
37
Of course there was no question a woman like myself might become the wife of an earl, an English lord, a man with a powerful family and also, I assumed, with a titled-debutante already awaiting the engagement ring and probably already having fittings for her wedding dress, which, naturally, would be of virginal white satin scattered with pearls, and with a sweetheart neckline demure enough to be approved of by the bishop yet just low enough to be admired by the male wedding guests. It would probably take place at Westminster Abbey, or the smaller St Margaret’s, though they might opt for the venerable Norman stone church in the bride’s village, where locals would stand outside to watch and wave to the smiling bride, who had known them all since she was a child, and who had played with them then, and who now had envy behind their smiles.
This beautiful car, the very same Delage in which I now sat, as if I owned it, queen of the day in fact, would for the wedding be driven by a uniformed chauffeur to her stately home. The entrance would be ablaze with banners and buntings and great hoops of white flowers, maybe to remind the guests that the bride was, of course, a virgin. Or if she wasn’t then she had been very clever about it, and later in bed, she would have to be a whole lot cleverer. One never knows.
Whatever my speculation, I knew that bride would never be me and I accepted it. I was born who I was; I have become who I am; and right then it was enough. Enough to have this lovely young man so madly in love with me that I felt like a great lady; enough that after that first wonderful night when we entwined like two stalks of roses, scented and thorny and sweet and hard and pliant, all at the same time, my lover, Rex, as I called him, left our bed, tumbled and “smelling like a whorehouse,” I said laughing, to rush out to buy me a gift. Pearls. What else would a man like that think of as a perfect gift for a woman, lady or no lady?
I was asleep, still in that same hotly perfumed bed, hugging a pillow with his scent on it, when he came back, triumphant. He commanded me to sit up. I did so, clutching the soft linen sheets modestly over my breasts because somehow, with daylight seeping through the curtains and somewhere the smell of bacon that tingled my toes I wanted it so much, and a fully dressed man looking at me with a delighted expression of one who brings a great surprise, it seemed only proper to behave modestly and not command him to get back into bed immediately, though I should have liked that. Besides, he was holding something behind his back and I knew that meant a present. And not just the street-corner roses this time, he was too eager for me to admire what he had.
He looked so young, so serious, torn between wanting to give me his surprise and worry that I might not think it as wonderful as he himself did.
“For goodness’ sake, darling Rex, just give it to me,” I said, laughing as I lost patience. I was a woman just woken from sleep, I wanted to bathe, brush my hair, eat that bacon with a slab of homemade bread that tasted the way bread should taste in Paris, and besides, love him though I did, I did not trust his taste.
He came and knelt at my bedside. I reached out to stroke that little tuft of blond hair that spiked up at the crown of his head despite his applications of a delightful smelling pomade, purchased in London, I knew, from a firm called Trumper.
“My love, my only love,” was what he said to me as he offered me the long blue leather box, inscribed with the name of a famous Parisian jeweler who, I knew, designed for royalty.
Forgetting all about modesty in my excitement, I accepted the box and with first a long smiling glance at my young lover, I clicked it open.
It was lined in velvet, a dark violet color, across which lay a rope of evenly matched pearls in a true mouthwatering cream. Each pearl shone with a deep luster, and when I looked more carefully I saw each one was a tiny bit different, a slope to one side of the bead, another a little rounder, yet the whole absolutely perfect. The clasp was a lion’s head in gold, catching a pearl ball in its open mouth.
It was perfection. More, it was a gift from a man who truly loved me. Our tears mingled as he slipped the rope of pearls over my head, smoothed them over my breasts, kissed my neck where the golden clasp lay.
“I would like to marry you,” he said, his voice gentle yet strong.
Of course I knew he would, right that minute, that is, and I would have liked to marry him, but one of us had to be sensible, face facts, even at an emotional moment like this, when his declaration came with a fortune in pearls.
I allowed my mind to drift from the reality of who I was, to pretend for a few minutes that I was a real titled lady, that we lived together in his English manor house, with a cook in the kitchen and a nanny in the nursery taking care of our three children, a boy and two girls, and the two of us, ever young, ever in love … Dreams are like that. They can ruin reality.
I realized I was stepping on our dream when I smiled and thanked him with a million kisses for the pearls, assured him I would love him forever, when the truth, known only to myself, of course, was that I was never absolutely sure I loved him, or knew even what love was. I knew only that I cared deeply for him, that I admired him, that I loved his body, his eager youthfulness, that tuft of hair that sprang from the crown of his head. I loved his charm. But I knew it could not last.