America's First Daughter: A Novel(57)
His hands tightened on mine. “Then you’d make me the happiest man who ever lived.”
His words radiated warm joy through me, but his answer didn’t tell me what I needed to know. “And what of our future . . . ?”
He smiled. “If you could give up all thoughts of the convent, our future depends upon the orders your father is awaiting from America. Your father has asked that in his absence, I be appointed in his place as chargé d’affaires with commensurate salary. If I receive such an appointment, then I can present myself to your father as a worthy suitor. Otherwise, I’m afraid he’ll consider me a wandering wastrel without employment.”
“He would never!”
Mr. Short chuckled mirthlessly. “You think not? I have in my possession a letter from your father lecturing me on the need to build my fortune. The most memorable line reads: This is not a world in which heaven rains down riches into any open hand.”
How churlish of Papa, but had I not, from the youngest age, also received letters filled with his lectures? “You mustn’t worry, Mr. Short. If my father requested your appointment, then it’s sure to come. But until it does, how can I be sure of your intentions in asking for my love?”
I didn’t expect him to laugh. “You’re Jefferson’s daughter, to the bone. You want evidence. Well, give me the chance and I’ll give you the proofs you require—both of my love and of the world you should love too much to abandon even for God. I wouldn’t have you enter a convent, much less love, in ignorance.”
“What do you think me ignorant of?”
With mischief twinkling in his eyes, he stopped, drawing me into a grove of trees. Beyond us, in the ditch, we heard boys playing a ball game in the dim lamplight. Somehow, in the dark, Mr. Short’s fingertips found my cheeks, and his mouth stole over mine. This first kiss was soft and tender. As if he feared frightening me. Nevertheless, it shocked me. It was like my heart was a loaded cannon he’d held fire to, and it threatened to shoot out of my chest. But I wasn’t frightened and I didn’t pull away. Instead, it seemed quite the most natural thing to kiss him back, mimicking what he did, glorying in every soft, sweet sensation.
At the feel of my lips teasing softly at his, he groaned and pulled back. “Oh, my heart . . .”
The sweet taste of him still on my lips, our breaths puffing in the night air, I asked, “Have I done something wrong?”
He held my cheeks in his hands. “The error was all mine. I’d beg your pardon if I could bring myself to regret it, but I never want to regret anything with you, so tonight I must content myself with one kiss.”
Only one? I wanted to lavish a thousand kisses on his face. His lips, his cheeks, his ears. The desire was a sudden hunger, a desperate plea inside me echoing like the cry of peasants for bread. “What if I’m not yet content? Wasn’t kissing me meant to be the proof of your intentions?”
“No, Patsy. Kissing you, then stopping before satisfaction, is the proof of my intentions, which I hope you’ll see are honorable and directed toward your happiness.”
This made no sense to me whatsoever, but I followed as he led me a little farther, to a copse of trees near my father’s gate. Then, taking one of the hanging lanterns down, he reached into his boot for a knife—one that I didn’t know he carried there. He took it, holding the lamp with one hand and carving the tree with the other. When he finished, he showed me a heart, inside of which he’d carved his own initials. “Like mine, this heart is waiting for you, Patsy. Every morning, I’ll come look, and when I see that you’ve carved your initials here, with mine, I’ll have my answer.”
I’D BEEN KISSED! And I wanted to die of the delirious pleasure of it, if only I wasn’t so delighted to be alive. All night, I tossed upon my pillow, touching with my fingertips the place Mr. Short’s lips had been. Thinking, all the while, of how much I wanted him to kiss me again.
Though I’d been dreading the arrival of Papa’s orders, I was suddenly eager for them, because they’d no doubt name Mr. Short as the chargé d’affaires. Then, he’d ask me to marry him.
I was sure of it.
In the morning, I wanted to rush down first thing and declare myself. I wanted to go straight to the kitchen and find James’s sharpest knife to carve my initials in that tree and take William Short there to see it. But such an act of imprudence was forestalled by the whole household already at an early breakfast before I could get Sally’s help with my laces. And Papa called up that I must hurry because the men needed to be off to Versailles.
When I rushed down, Papa snapped his fingers. “Candlesticks! Yes, that’s it, isn’t it? There were silver candlesticks on the table. They’re missing. Sally, did you take them to polish?”
Sally had been quietly refilling the new silver urn on the sideboard with hot coffee, and at this question, she overpoured with a quick shake of her head. Hissing as the coffee burned her fingertips, she made haste to clean up the spill. “I wouldn’t presume.”
Of course she wouldn’t. On our plantation, counting and polishing the silver was a task for the mistress. A task my mother claimed as her own. My father frowned, but the mood was quickly dispelled when Mr. Short grinned and set down a gauzy little bag of confections with a pink bow.
“Chocolate drops!” Polly squealed. “For me?”