Gypsy - Lesley Pearse [80]
He slid one finger up under the sleeve of her coat, as if to feel her pulse, and the intimacy of it made her blush. ‘Your skin is as soft and smooth as a baby’s,’ he whispered. When she dropped her teaspoon to the floor because he made her flustered, he reached down to get it and he put his hand on her leg, just above her ankle boot.
But it wasn’t only his touch that set her on fire, it was the way he spoke too. His voice was deep, but soft and cultured, and almost everything he told her, whether it was about his life back in England or the people he’d met since he’d been in America, he made so vivid that she could see it clearly.
‘Miss Marchment, my landlady, is living in greatly reduced circumstances,’ he told her. ‘She has the air of a duchess even though she’s old and frail and has nothing coming in other than the rent for the rooms she lets out. She sits all day in a purple velvet chair worn thin with age, a lacy shawl around her shoulders, and gives her orders to her maid as if she were still in control of a staff of twenty. The house is crumbling with neglect, the rugs threadbare, a thick layer of dust on her pictures, mirrors and ornaments, but she invites me in for tea and orders her maid to make it in the battered silver teapot. Such a gracious old lady!’
‘Does the maid clean your room for you?’ Beth asked, not liking the idea of him living in squalor.
‘Yes, she does, I guess she knows that if the tenants leave she’ll get no more wages. But the poor soul has so much to do that she just doesn’t have time to clean her mistress’s rooms thoroughly.’
‘Is she old too?’ Beth asked.
‘About fifty. She’s worked for Mrs Marchment all her life. But you don’t want to hear sad stories about old ladies. Tell me about the people in your house.’
Perhaps it was because he described people so vividly that Beth found herself doing so too. She told him about the crazy Irishman on the first floor who shouted out every time someone passed his door, and the strange little Polish man who scuttled down the street clutching a brown leather satchel to his chest, his eyes swivelling from side to side as if he was carrying state secrets and believed someone was going to snatch them. Theo roared with laughter, making several other people in the coffee shop look round at him.
‘I think it’s time we got some dinner,’ he said, chuckling as he took her hand again to kiss it. ‘It’s so good to be with someone beautiful who also makes me laugh. Most beautiful women, I find, have no sense of humour.’
By Thanksgiving Day in November, Beth was so deeply in love with Theo that she could think of nothing else from the moment she opened her eyes in the morning till she fell asleep at night.
She felt he loved her too, even if he had never said so, for he always made an effort to see her once a week, even when he had to go out of New York on business. Nor had he dropped her because she wouldn’t let him have his way with her.
He had asked if he could come up to her room the second time they went out but she refused because she knew she was likely to get swept away by his kisses and caresses once they were alone.
On their third meeting he suggested taking her away to a hotel for a night. She pretended to be affronted at the suggestion, but in fact she was tempted, for at least her neighbours wouldn’t know what she was getting up to. But sweet reason prevailed: she only had to think of what happened to her mother, and she knew she couldn’t take the risk, not just of having a child, but maybe of Theo throwing her aside once he’d got what he wanted.
Since then Theo was always saying how much he wanted her, but although he tried plenty of gentle persuasion, he was never forceful. And when he talked of the future, it was as if his plans included her.
Sad as Theo’s long absences made Beth, she was quite relieved that he was still away as Thanksgiving Day approached. Amy and Kate had decided that Beth and Sam’s first Thanksgiving