Hooked (12 page)

Meg thought about Mr. Wilberforce's bare feet. She hadn't told Ruth or Hildegarde how she'd actually met him. Only that he was a guest in the hotel, and he'd come to call on her and take her out for a rowboat ride.

Ruth spoke up, “We forgot to tell you the most important thing.”

“Yes!” Hildegarde's smile bracketed her mouth. “The most important thing.”

The pair glanced at each other, then Ruth declared, “He called her sweetie cakes.”

Sweetie cakes?
Meg would much rather drink tea than be called such a syrupy endearment. “That's nice for Johannah,” Meg eventually remarked.

“Margaret,” Ruth began, stirring a squeeze of lemon juice into her tea and continuing in a slow voice, “you haven't mentioned your Mr. Wilberforce once today. In fact, you haven't shared much at all. Why, when you told us about him after Sunday's church services, you downplayed the whole thing. Is he that ordinary?”

Extraordinary
was more like it. But Meg—who all during her girlhood shared the intimate details of her crushes with her two best friends—didn't feel comfortable elaborating on the new feelings that Mr. Wilberforce evoked in her. A woman didn't discuss such things as kisses and discovering that a man could make her heartbeat race with just one look. It didn't seem dignified to Meg.

“What is it that he does for a living?” Hildegarde's question intruded on Meg's thoughts.

Sitting straighter in her chair, Meg refused to be anything but proud of his occupation even though it wasn't one that evoked community respect. A traveling man was often thought of as less than noble. “He's a Bissell carpet sweeper salesman.”

“My mother says carpet sweepers are the bane of her existence,” Hildegarde supplied while itching the bridge of her nose. “The bail on ours is broken and all the dirt gets redistributed around our parlor rather than being caught inside the case.”

“Maybe you should tell your Mr. Wilberforce to pay a call on Hildegarde's mother,” Ruth suggested.

“I didn't know he was
her
Mr. Wilberforce.”

Meg toyed with the edge of her napkin, wondering
about that herself. One afternoon at a lake, discussing fish of all topics, didn't constitute a man's belonging to a woman. But he had kissed her. That had to mean a lot. Unless he'd been trifling with her. She hated to think that, much less have it be true.

With Mr. Wilberforce, she felt blissfully happy and fully alive. It didn't matter that she forgot herself at times in his presence. He didn't seem to notice. In fact, he openly admired her—something Meg wasn't used to from men.

As if by Meg thinking about him, precisely at that moment Mr. Vernon Wilberforce walked by the tearoom.

Meg's mouth fell open when he paused—as if he caught a glimpse of her through the lace curtains—and to her utter surprise, he stared right at her.

“Margaret!” Ruth whispered loudly. “Who is that man?”

“He's a man all right,” Hildegarde seconded.

She found her voice and calmly said, “That's Mr. Wilberforce.”

The two girls gasped.

Hildegarde talked behind her hand. “Oh, Margaret, he's divinely tall and divinely dressed and divinely handsome and he's just plain . . . divine.”

With the pretext of dabbing her mouth, Ruth spoke into her napkin. “Did you ever! I didn't know a carpet sweeper salesman could be such a knight of appliances. No wonder you're carrying a torch for him, Margaret. He's dreamy.”

“And he's coming inside,” Hildegarde noted.

Even though Meg felt an intense pleasure as Mr. Wilberforce walked to their table, she tamped down her enthusiasm as she'd been taught. With a calm she
didn't feel, she pretended she hadn't noticed him and took a sip of her awful tea.

“Miss Brooks.” His masculine voice evoked an awareness through her that she could almost tangibly touch.

Looking up, she casually returned, “Oh, hello, Mr. Wilberforce. What are you doing here?”

It took all her effort not to longingly sigh at the sight of him. His chin sported the slightest bit of dark shadowed beard that made him all the more appealing. The easy smile on his mouth had her wanting to be kissed by him again. And those eyes with their intensity and coloring seemed to smolder as he gazed at her.
Or did she imagine they did?

“I was out for a breath of fresh air and I saw you through the window. By thunder, a coincidence if there ever was one.”

Words failed Meg for a moment; the ridiculous language he had barely used yesterday in her company was back. Pushing aside her disappointment she recovered and said, “I didn't notice you were standing outside.”

Ruth cleared her throat and prompted Meg.

“Oh. These are my friends Miss Ruth Elward and Miss Hildegarde Plunkett.” Then to the two girls who sat opposite her with their jaws practically hanging open, she made the proper introduction. “This is Mr. Wilberforce.”

He put a finger to his hat brim. “Ladies.”

Mr. Wilberforce leaned over first Hildegarde's, then Ruth's, hand and brushed a light kiss over their gloved knuckles. Meg watched in stunned silence as he moved to her and took her fingers in his. She hadn't had the good grace to leave her gloves on and his mouth
touched her warm skin, seemingly searing her with just the faintest contact.

Her eyes locked with his and she grew breathless, nearly forgetting her manners and herself.

Then Mr. Wilberforce let her hand go, and she lowered her arm to her lap without even being aware of doing so.

“I won't keep you,” he said. “I just wanted to say that I'll see you at your party. It sounds splendid.”

Meg had hoped, fervently
wished,
he would come. “I shall see you there,” she remarked in her most dignified voice when she really wanted to say,
“It wouldn't have been any fun without you.”

He departed, leaving Meg so full of expectation, she could barely think.

An electrified silence hung over the table for a full minute before anyone even moved.

Then Ruth pushed her teacup away and set her napkin in front of her. “My heavens,” Ruth said in an awed tone. “There goes a real man.”

“He was a man all right,” Hildegarde murmured.

Meg had quite a few words about Mr. Wilberforce. But she would never admit she'd written about him in her diary.

Hildegarde put her cup to her lips and absently drank, even though it held no tea.

The girls sat for a while in compatible contemplation.

“Well,” Ruth said at length, “come on, Hildegarde. If we're going to make any kind of impression at all at Margaret's party, we'd better get home so we can prepare ourselves.”

“My mother says a cucumber paste face mask isn't worth the effort to put on unless you leave it on for
a full half hour,” Hildegarde commented as she adjusted her pink tea hat and sheer veiling, then smoothed unseen wrinkles from her best jersey gloves.

Ruth followed suit and the two of them put themselves in apple pie order.

Such a bother, Meg thought. All this to be a lady. She used to be able to leave the house in under a flat minute. Now it took her at least fifteen at the mirror above the hall table to fix and fuss.

Meg stood, pondering the idea of a cucumber mask for herself. But she didn't have time to spare. “If I don't leave now, I won't have everything set up by four.”

“I hope there will be some men there as handsome as Mr. Wilberforce,” Hildegarde said, standing. “I'd even settle for mildly handsome if he said he had a chance at winning that thousand dollar prize.”

Ruth rose to her feet. “A wife could fill a home with comfort using that kind of money.”

“See you at four,” Hildegarde said.

Ruth popped her parasol open. “Good-bye for now.”

The look of unabashed hope on their faces stayed in Meg's mind as she left the tearoom. Each of them was pining for a beau—knowing that if they didn't find a man by the end of summer, it was all over. They'd be the next Crescencia Stykems of Harmony.

Cressie had gotten married at the age of twenty-two, but such a thing was so rare . . . a girl
had
to believe she'd be married by twenty.

Or else.

6

A
man wearing a collapsible brown fishing hat that had a huge round brim like a sombrero pumped Gage's arm in a firm handshake. “Hamilton Beauregarde. My friends call me Ham. Gurney hot water heaters and radiators. Got a house that needs heating, I'm the man to see. No job too big or small. Ham's seen it all.”

Gage gave him a mild reply. “I rent.”

“Damn shame!” he shot back in a voice that boomed, causing Gage to dislodge his hand and take a step backward. “Sir, that's the trouble with the country these days. Too many people want to do things on a temporary basis. What happened to material prosperity? Buy and own your own home. Have a wife and passel of kids. Even get yourself a good hunting dog. A man's all set when he's got himself a good hunting dog and a missus who sets a fine table.”

Half listening to Ham, Gage scanned the hotel lobby—rather, the guests who occupied the room. His gaze sought and fell on Meg as she stood by a table
that had been decorated in green and white. In the center sat a bowl of live goldfish with a dozen or so miniature fishing rods dangling over the crystal rim. At the end of each rod, a narrow green ribbon line extended across the table—one going to each plate. Partygoers were supposed to pick a plate attached to the line as a souvenir. Some had celluloid fish or small fishing baskets filled with candy. Gage had to admit, the scene was clever as all hell.

The fiddler, on the other hand, should have been embalmed. Every note he struck sounded dead. Gage recognized the man—the porter. Even though he couldn't play a decent melody, the musical touch made for a lively, if not conversational, atmosphere.

“Mr. Wilberforce, there you are.”

Gage turned to the sound of the woman's voice and recognized Ruth Elward from the tearoom this afternoon. She looked like a big bloom of pink begonias. From her hat to her dress to her shoes. Trailing behind her, Hildegarde Plunkett, another hothouse flower looking ready to wilt. She gave him a demure smile and a slight wave.

“Hello, Mr. Wilberforce,” Hildegarde said as she came to his side. “We're delighted to see you once more.”

Ham Beauregarde panned his gaze over the pair, then let his eyes linger on Ruth. She was the fairer of the two. Gage didn't find either woman particularly attractive, but he remained pleasant while being assaulted by their clouds of clashing perfumes.

“Ham Beauregarde here,” the salesman said with the brassiness of a tack. “And who might you two lovely ladies be?”

In spite of her cool exterior, Hildegarde tittered. Ruth glared at her and made the proper introductions.

The trio's conversation drifted away from Gage as he looked across the room once more and saw Meg. He thought her very relaxed and self-assured as she went from person to person and engaged herself in small conversation before moving on. Once she glanced at him, smiled, and turned away.

Gage hadn't spoken to her since the tearoom, which he wouldn't have even passed if he hadn't been on his way to the secondhand shop to buy that Smith Premier and sneak the typewriter up to his room.

He shouldn't have gone inside Rosemarie's. He had to remind himself that Wilberforce was married. Only Calhoon at the Harmony post office knew about the letters. As a favor to Wilberforce, Gage mailed a letter each day to a wife in Battlefield. When handed to him through the delivery grate, the postmaster had never looked twice at the daily envelopes.

“Do you know many of the gentlemen at the party, Mr. Wilberforce?” Hildegarde asked with a wide smile.

“Ah, no, Miss Plunkett,” Gage replied. “I dare say, I haven't met any of them but Mr. Beauregarde.”

“I know them all, Miss Plunkett,” Ham supplied while pointing to a portly gentleman. “That's Orvis Schmidt. Ohio Electric Works—need a necktie light, he's got them. Got your battery table lamps, electric belts, and fan motors.” He moved on to the lean fellow who stood by the window. “That there is King Merkle. Rubifoam—liquid dentifrice for the teeth.” In a lowered tone, Ham added, “Get a load of King's choppers. Dentures if you ask me. So much for keeping his teeth with that poison he peddles.”