Circled Heart (33 page)

“You think he’s only acting a part? Why would he do that?”

“Because it’s part of the game.”

“What game? What are you talking about, Johanna?”

“Drew Gallagher has pretty manners but by his own admission he sometimes enjoys doing the unexpected or the outrageous in order to shock people. I fear he sees women as fair game so I’m left to wonder if he means anything he says.”

“Don’t try to convince me you aren’t drawn to him. I can tell by the sparkle in your eyes and the color in your cheeks that you enjoy his company.”

I arranged a brightly striped silk shawl around me like a sash, the jeweled tones of emerald and sapphire and ruby in brilliant contrast to the black dress.

“That is very true, Crea. More true than I wish sometimes, but I can’t let down my guard with him. He’s too apt to read it as weakness and pounce when I least expect it.”

“You make it sound like a hunter and his prey.” I smiled at that but didn’t respond. “I know about these things the hard way, Johanna,” Crea continued, “and I’d guess you can trust Drew Gallagher.”

“Are you suggesting I should let down my guard with him then, and find out what happens?” Crea hesitated.

“When you wear black, you turn into a stranger, so maybe not tonight, not looking like that.”

I grinned as I slipped into my shoes and picked up my bag. “We’ll see. If it is a contest, I’d like to come out the winner.”

“In Drew Gallagher you may have found someone you can’t beat. Love has its own rules.”

“I never mentioned love.”

This time Crea grinned. “You didn’t have to.”

When Levi pulled up in front of Drew’s house on Prairie Avenue, light from every window spilled out onto the accumulating snow, the party already in full swing. A man and a woman went up the front walk together, her laughter shrill and loud in the crisp night air, the unmistakable sound of someone who’d consumed too much alcohol.

“I could wait, Johanna,” Levi said, his expression disapproving as he came around to help me out.

“Thank you, Levi, but I’ll beg a ride home later. I’m sure Mr. Gallagher’s Fritz will bring me home, and if not, I’ll call. Crea will hear the phone and let you know.” Levi still stood with one hand on my arm.

“I don’t know if your grandmother would approve of my leaving you.”

I laughed as I pulled the hood of my cape over my head to protect my hair from the wet snowflakes and said, “Grandmother thinks the sun rises and sets on Drew Gallagher. She’d be here with me if her health allowed it, so don’t worry.” Then, as an afterthought, I added, “Happy New Year to you and May, Levi. I don’t know what we’d do without either of you. You both deserve a wonderful 1913.” I went up the walk, knocked on the front door, and as the door opened, turned to see the motorcar creep slowly away from the curb and disappear into the falling snow. Oddly and for just a brief moment, I felt abandoned and had to resist the extraordinary impulse to turn and run after Levi. Then at the sound of Drew’s voice, the unsettled feeling passed, and I stepped over the threshold into warmth and light.

“You came.” Drew lifted the cape from my shoulders and held it as I turned to face him.

“Wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Who could resist a house full of peculiar and eccentric people?” I looked past his shoulder to the room beyond where I could hear conversation and laughter against a backdrop of a piano. “You must have a great many friends, Drew. The house seems bursting.”

“I have more friends now than I ever did when Douglas was alive.” His dry statement brought my attention back to him.

“Because you’ve settled into a more traditional and acceptable life? Because you won the Starr Award?”

“Because I inherited a great deal of money.” He gave a smile and good-natured shrug. “But come and meet my guests and make your own decisions. They’re a lively group so I know you won’t be bored.”

To my mind Drew’s earlier description of his guests as peculiar and eccentric was not an accurate representation of the people I met that evening. Witty and intelligent perhaps or urbane and cosmopolitan or even selfish and unkind. Depending on the persons I conversed with at the time, any of those word pairs would have been more correct, whether the actress whom I recognized from her picture on the theater marquee as she sat drinking from a long-stemmed glass in solitude or the debonair black man fingering a tune on the piano or the small group engaged in heated argument about the value of abstract art. People wandered in and out of rooms, smoked, ate and drank, argued and laughed, all of it a far cry from a traditional McIntyre family gathering or a communal meal at the Anchorage. I was fascinated and entertained for most of the evening.

Drew did his best to introduce me all around, but his duties as host often pulled him away and left me to my share of solitary wandering, which suited me because I was as interested in the house as the guests. On previous visits, I had managed to see only a few specific areas, but tonight most rooms of the house were open and lit, a buffet table set up in the dining room and drinks flowing freely from a well-stocked cabinet in the library. I found my way to a small room that might have done duty as a proper parlor in any other residence but was bland in tone and furnishings in order, I guessed, to provide a neutral backdrop for the gorgeous paintings displayed on the walls.

As I examined one of the paintings, a man behind me commented, “Impressionism is old hat now, I’m afraid, but I’m sure these are Douglas’s acquisitions, not Drew’s. Drew would enjoy the shock of a Picasso or a Duchamp, not the banality of flowers in a vase.”

“But I don’t find these particular flowers banal. Perhaps the old adage about beauty being in the eye of the beholder is true.”

The man, who held a glass of clear liquid in one hand, stepped next to me to study the painting before us before responding, “Perhaps, but still not Drew’s style.”

“And you would know because—”

“Because Drew and I go back several years and have enjoyed the kind of common experiences that forge friendship.” His tone was slightly mocking and his words slurred enough to support the fact that it was gin in his glass. He turned toward me. “I saw you come in and have been trying to get your attention ever since.”

I found the man attractive in a brittle way, his speech clipped and British, dark brown hair, matching eyes, and a pencil-thin mustache.

“Why?”

“Do you believe in love at first sight?”

“Only in works of fiction.”

“How cynical. I didn’t expect that from a woman with eyes like yours. I’m Byron Stanhope, by the way.”

“Johanna Swan.”

“Miss Swan, I hope.”

“Yes. You sound British.”

“Expatriate, I’m afraid, with no plans to return.”

“No?”

“The authorities would be waiting at the dock. The London police have a long memory.”

“That sounds serious.”

“Not really. British society is too stuffy for its own good. Americans are more open-minded about life. But let’s not talk about me. I’m much more interested in Johanna Swan.”

He was a smooth man, in some ways a dark version of Drew Gallagher but lacking Drew’s warmth and, I guessed, Drew’s honesty.

“How do you know Drew?” he asked.

“Mutual business interests.”

“A woman of means then. I don’t suppose it could be my good fortune that you’re an heiress.”

“You’re right, it has nothing to do with your good fortune at all.” Stanhope slipped my hand under his arm.

“Miss Swan, I’m in love. Let me get you a drink.”

“I’d prefer food, thank you.”

“I can arrange that as well.” He kept up an amusing commentary as we walked toward the dining room. At the sound of a woman’s singing voice coming from another room, we stopped to listen. “Viola both looks and sounds beautiful,” Stanhope remarked.

My heart sank. “Viola?”

“You know her?”

“We’ve never been introduced. Brunette and beautiful?”

“And a longtime friend of Drew’s. Yes, that’s Viola.” I didn’t expect to feel so lost and hurt at the news. Hadn’t I told Crea earlier this evening that my interactions with Drew might be part of a game and contest? “Drew’s taste in art may be questionable, but never his taste in women.” We stepped into the room where Viola lounged against the piano, singing in a low, beautiful voice to the accompaniment of the black man I’d seen there earlier. “Sit down, Miss Swan, and I’ll bring you something from the dining room. Any requests?”

A man too poised to please, I thought critically, and suddenly wished him—or me—elsewhere.

“I’ll let you surprise me.”

Stanhope quickly returned with a heaped plate. “I hope you really are hungry and weren’t just trying to get rid of me.” He set the plate carefully on my lap, retrieved his glass from the table, then sat down beside me, his right thigh pressing purposefully against my leg.

“You’re not eating?” I asked.

“Love is the food of the gods,” he answered, watching me over the rim of his glass as he sipped. “Now tell me about Johanna Swan. Why haven’t I ever seen you before?”

“We probably move in different circles,” I observed.

Viola, dressed in a sleek white gown with black fur trim at neck and wrists, stopped singing and moved slowly in our direction. Her elegant languor fascinated me, something sensual and catlike about her that would draw any man’s attention, and of course there was that red slash of a mouth. Beside her I felt childish, gauche, and provincial.

“Byron, I didn’t see you arrive.”

“I’m not surprised,” my companion answered easily, “with such a crowd of admirers cluttering your view. Have you met Miss Swan?”

She gave me a long and unblinking look before favoring me with a slight smile. “I’ve heard the name but not had the pleasure. Be careful with this one, Miss Swan. He eats little girls like you for breakfast.”

I knew she patronized me and I wanted to dislike her for any number of reasons, but her brown eyes had a flicker of humor in them and she was so incredibly attractive, I couldn’t work up any real aversion.

“Then he must like them fattened up because he just brought me enough supper for the Turkish army. You have a striking voice. I wish you hadn’t stopped singing.” My compliment surprised her, I think. At least it made her pause before replying.

“Thank you. I dabble, but it’s New Orleans Joe at the piano who has the talent. If you stay late enough, he’ll loosen up and give you a show of ragtime and jazz.” Of Stanhope she asked, “Byron, have you seen Drew? He owes me a drink in exchange for the entertainment.” Then looking past us, she answered her own question. “There he is by the fireplace, glaring at us. One of us must have done something very naughty for Drew to look like that but don’t worry. I’ll protect you.” She drifted off.

“I don’t think I’m hungry any more,” I stated, setting the plate to one side and rising. “You should circulate, Mr. Stanhope. I bet there are all sorts of heiresses present this evening.”

Still seated, he took my hand and raised it to his lips. “The name Byron from your lips would sound like music.” The words made me laugh out loud.

“Do men really talk like that in England? I can’t believe the country that gave us Shakespeare, Keats, and Browning can’t do better.” He laughed, too, the first natural and unaffected thing he’d done in my presence all evening.

“I thought it was pretty good for being spontaneous.”

“It wasn’t pretty good and it wasn’t spontaneous.”

He laughed again and, still holding my hand, said, “I do like you, Johanna Swan. You’re not leaving before midnight, are you?”

“No.”

“Good. When we ring in the New Year, I’ll be in line for the obligatory midnight kiss.”

I didn’t answer, just pulled my hand free, gave him a genial look, and walked out into the hallway, forgetting Byron Stanhope almost immediately. I had other matters on my mind. Drew had every right to ask anyone he chose to his own party, but Viola’s presence still cast a shadow over the evening. Jealousy on top of everything else, I thought with disappointment. How humbling to accept that I was so typically and unremarkably human. I found the kitchen at the end of the hall and entered without invitation.

“Johanna!” An aproned Yvesta, busy filling trays with sweets, looked up with a smile on her face. Beside her Fritz was stacking glasses on more trays and in the background, sitting at one of the tables, was Yvesta’s elder daughter wiping cutlery.

“A family affair I see,” I said, smiling. “Hello, Yvesta. I hoped I’d get to see you. Happy New Year.”

“And to you, Johanna, but I don’t have much time to visit right now.”

“I can see that, and I promise not to get in the way, only I have to report back to Hilda and Eulalie that you’re doing well. Are you?”

Yvesta stopped what she was doing long enough to smile and nod.

“Ya. Very well.”

“You’re treated fairly, I hope, not overworked, and you’re paid a decent wage, too, aren’t you? How are your living quarters?”

Behind me, Drew said, “Paid! You mean I’m supposed to pay Yvesta? I don’t recall that was part of the arrangement.” I heard more exasperation than teasing in his tone, but Yvesta and Fritz both grinned, so perhaps I misread him.

Turning, I said, “I was only asking, and if you didn’t sneak up behind people and listen in on their private conversations, you wouldn’t run the risk of having your feelings hurt.”

“My feelings are remarkably impervious to insult.” From his voice, I decided I wasn’t mistaken. For some reason, Drew was out of temper with me.

“Well, good for you. That undoubtedly spares you from the small pains and easy griefs the rest of us mere mortals are forced to endure. I was only saying hello to Yvesta.”

“And accusing me of—what?—white slavery?”

“I wasn’t accusing you of anything. I was—” But Yvesta intervened, lifting one of the trays and shouldering past both of us.

“Johanna, I am glad to see you, but I have work to do, so please, both of you, go away.” She threw a quick glance in Drew’s direction and added, “Sir,” before she exited the kitchen. Drew took hold of my forearm and tugged me inelegantly out into the hallway.

“It’s never wise to cross Yvesta when she gives a direct order. Come along, Johanna.” I pulled loose.