O'hara's Choice - Leon Uris [95]
“Yes, like I neck with my new puppy.”
Dixie yawned and stretched. Amanda doused the light and adjusted the overhead fan, then lay with her arm about the girl. Amanda wanted to cry out, “I don’t feel anything!”
Dixie finally slept. Amanda got up quickly, not wanting to leave tears on the pillow. She went to an adjoining bedroom and crumpled up on the bed, gritted and gritted until she stopped her tears.
She’d never stop scanning every room she entered for sight of Zach. All summer, everywhere. What if she saw him with a girl on his arm? Was not seeing him better than seeing him with someone else?
There was a stirring and Amanda looked over to the connecting door to see Dixie standing.
“Do you love me?” the girl asked shakily.
“I love you very much, Dixie Jane.”
• 28 •
THE YANKEE
A Fortnight Later—Onde la Mer
The gentlemen’s smoking parlor would have made any prince of the desert proud with its Arabic-Ottoman furnishings and hangings and hand-beaten gold and jeweled objects of art and a flow of incense of biblical origin. The floor was covered by a silk carpet, the largest Hede ever imported, with nearly three million knots for every square meter. It was light sand-colored, like the desert, and one could only surmise its value.
This den was a fiercely held male domain that even Josephine respected. On special gatherings, such as Bastille Day or someone’s sixteenth birthday, children, the ladies, and other impostors gained entry. Otherwise nothing ludicrous took place, depending on one’s definition of ludicrous. Purple jokes and bawdy boys’ talk for the main but it could get rowdy, George Washington Barjac type of rowdy, and every Protestant kingpin millionaire hungered for an invitation.
Lieutenant O’Hara had not visited Onde la Mer for some time and came this night with Major Boone, almost on orders.
Zachary found himself with a disgusting cigar in his teeth delicately fencing and gracefully losing to Papa George, who, considering his age, was still a fairly decent swordsman.
. . . when Lilly opened the door wide and entered like a waif among the ogres, went directly to Zach, and signaled him to drop his weapon and follow her.
“I am requisitioning the lieutenant,” she said.
“But, Lilly, I am winning,” Papa cried, “and we are about to enjoy some cultural entertainment.”
Lilly stood on tiptoes, kissed her father’s cheek, and said, “Ta-ta, Papa,” and left with her prisoner, passing four turbaned musicians and a lady dancer of note entering.
At the center fountain, Lilly took the cigar from Zach and hissed it out in the water.
“Thanks for that,” Zach said. “I never did get the hang of these things. I must say that these smell better than the ones in my da’s saloon.”
Lilly started to load her cigarette holder, then retreated. “You don’t care for any kind of tobacco, do you?”
“My aunt Brigid smoked a clay pipe. She and my ma both died of consumption. I think Da felt that tobacco had something to do with it. Might have been the only bad habit he didn’t have.”
Zach took her holder, snuffed out her cigarette, and took a deep breath of pure, unfouled air.
“I missed you at our gallery showing. We hung a Turner,” she said.
“I’ve been burning the candle at all four ends,” Zach answered.
“Ben told me how obsessed you are with your work. No matter, I’ll be happy to give you a personal tour.”
Music whined Oriental from the parlor along with the crisp crackles of finger clappers.
“Fatima,” Lilly said. “I’ve seen her dance. A dozen years ago I was a fairly decent belly dancer, for special occasions. Would you see me to my villa gate?”
“Love to.”
All spokes led out to the bluff walk, where the sounds of the sea, Onde la Mer, took over. They walked until they were out of the light to a place of dancing flames between two torchlights.
“Are you playing some kind of bourgeois game with me? By bourgeois I mean—”
“I know what bourgeois means,” Zach said.
“You do? I’m intrigued. How?”
“Victor Hugo,” he said, and kissed her well, pulling her toward him