Love and Dreams: The Coltrane Saga, Book 6 (32 page)

“Well, whatcha waitin’ for?” Buster Ranahan urged. “She’s just waitin’ to be ridden, and I’ll bet you can do it just fine.”

The temptation was too great. Jade hoisted her skirt, swung her leg up and over, realizing, of course, some people would be shocked at the sight of her ankle showing, but frankly, she didn’t care. All that mattered was that she follow Buster’s instructions.

He stepped beside her to hold up the bicycle, one hand on the middle of the bars, the other behind her on the tiny pear-shaped leather seat. She began to push down one foot at a time on the little square pedals, laughing aloud as the machine moved forward, Buster walking alongside, still holding on to the bicycle. She moved her feet faster, then rhythmically, and all of a sudden he let go, stepped back, and triumphantly yelled, “Okay, Mrs. Stevens, you’re on your own. Just stay balanced, and you’ll do fine—”

Laughing nervously, she clung tightly to the bars, awkwardly peddling, attempting some kind of cadence; then, suddenly, with a wobble to the left and a wobble to the right, the bicycle tipped, spilling her to the ground.

Buster rushed to help her up. “Are you hurt? Oh, you was doin’ so good, but everybody has to take a fall before they get the hang of it…long as you aren’t hurt.”

Jade allowed him to help her stand, then gently pushed him away as she smoothed her skirt, not really caring that her skirt was dirty in places—she had fallen in love with the bicycle. It meant freedom. She could ride from the house to the studio and back, all over New York. No more worrying about hackneys or such.

Glowing with happiness, she reached out and clasped Buster Ranahan’s hand gratefully. “I’m just fine and dandy, and you’ve just sold a bicycle, sir!”

She paid the price he asked, and he obligingly tutored her in the vacant lot for perhaps another hour. Then, when she felt proficient enough, she gave him a hearty wave, took off down the alley that led back to Broadway, and headed for Mrs. Huffstedter’s tea.

Jade knew people were staring as she breezed by them, for she had a broad grin on her happy face. She was exhilarated. She felt so free, so uninhibited. No matter that her ankles showed, or that her hat blew off as soon as she’d raced out onto the street. Mr. Ranahan said she was a natural—adapting to riding like hummingbirds to nectar. She liked the wind in her face, the feeling that she seemed to be flying. Most of all, though, she liked being independent.

Mr. Ranahan had told her to be wary of horses, carriages, pedestrians, other bicycles, so she slowed her pace. Next weekend, she promised herself, she’d ask Bryan to take the wonderful machine up to their Hudson River Valley estate. She could ride as fast as she liked on the winding country roads and not have to worry about anything getting in her way. Maybe Bryan would want to buy one for himself, and they could ride together. Oh, she was so excited she wanted to shout it to the world, but, instead, waved to people as she passed. Some smiled; most, however, shocked at seeing a young lady wheeling through the city, ankles exposed, just gaped, openmouthed and disapproving.

It took almost a half hour to make her way through town to Mrs. Huffstedter’s elegant East Side home, and Jade was a bit tired, but too intoxicated with joy to care. She rode right up the sidewalk, to the bottom of the narrow brick steps leading to the front door. She was late, by perhaps two hours, and some of the ladies were starting to leave, but she’d told Bryan she’d make an appearance.

Guests rarely stayed longer than it took to sip two cups of tea, nibble three cookies and one little frosted cake, and digest a few choice tidbits of gossip. Jade recognized Mrs. Adabelle Jenkins and her aunt, Miss Sophia Baldwin, as they came down the front steps. Both were too stodgy for her taste, and so she didn’t mind shocking them a bit.

“Greetings, ladies,” she called, swinging off the bicycle and carefully leaning it against the wall. Gesturing to the machine, she exulted, “Beautiful, isn’t she? Miss Willard calls hers Gladys, but I haven’t decided on a name for mine yet. What do you think?” She flashed her best pixie grin.

Miss Sophia frowned and gave a disapproving sniff. “If you ask me, I’d call it disgraceful. The very idea—a lady such as you, showing your legs that way!”

Jade’s glow did not dim. “Why, what a terrible thing to say, Miss Sophia. I thought if Miss Willard could do it, so could I!”

“Humph,” she snorted.

Mrs. Jenkins chimed in with her own grunt of disdain. “Everyone knows Miss Willard is eccentric. It’s expected of her!”

With a twirl of their parasols, they breezed on by.

Jade covered her lips with gloved fingertips, stifling a giggle. She went on up the steps and was about to knock on the door when it opened abruptly. Two more women appeared; one was Mrs. Huffstedter, saying goodbye to a guest…and the guest, Jade realized with a chilling flash of recognition, was none other than Triesta Vordane!

For an instant, Jade could only stand there, dumbfounded. She knew who she was, yet so preoccupied with her newfound pleasure was she that it took a few seconds for it to dawn on her. Then she blurted, “Mrs. Vordane. My goodness, it is you.”

Triesta stiffened, her eyes growing wide with…what? Fright? Tension? Surprise? Jade could not be sure. “Surely you remember me from the ship. There was an accident, but I’m fine, and—”

Triesta began to tremble, slowly at first, like someone coming down with a chill, small quivers that rapidly grew into violent shudders. Her mouth worked silently, nervously, as she struggled to speak, and all the while she was gripping the wrought-iron railing behind her, attempting to work her way down the steps, away from Jade. At last she was able to find her voice and crackled the denial, “No, no, I don’t know you.”

Mrs. Huffstedter, who had been curiously observing, suddenly became alarmed at the way Triesta was behaving. “Whatever is wrong? You’re so pale. Don’t you know Mrs. Stevens? She just returned from her honeymoon, and—”

“Of course she knows me, but not as Mrs. Stevens,” Jade interrupted, then spoke to Triesta. “You must re member me. The ship? We sat together. You and your daughter and I, and…” Her voice trailed off and she gasped with the sudden awareness of the consequences of what she was about to do. Everyone thought she’d come to New York from Ireland, where Bryan had met her as a distant relative of Marnia’s. If she kept on talking, Mrs. Huffstedter, along with the other ladies gathering behind her, was going to realize it was all a lie and that she wasn’t who she’d said she was. Oh, what was she thinking to stir up the dregs of the past?

With a quick shake of her head, she apologized, hoping her own terror was not obvious. “Forgive me, I thought you were someone else. I guess we don’t know each other after all.”

“No, no, I guess not.” Triesta actually laughed, almost bordering on hysteria in her relief. She backed down the steps, babbling, “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Stevens, but I really do have to be getting along.” She reached the sidewalk and almost broke into a run in her haste to get away.

Jade stared after her, confused. While she herself acknowledged she had a good reason for not wanting exposure, what could possibly be Triesta Vordane’s motivation? Perhaps her daughter, Lorena, had told her how she’d confided her problems to Jade; how she’d run away to Europe with a man and was being taken home against her will. If that were the case, then it was logical Triesta feared Jade would spread the juicy gossip.

That theory made sense, and Jade was able to brush aside the incident for the moment and turn in greeting to her hostess.

“Is that yours, dear?” Mrs. Huffstedter pointed to the shiny red bicycle.

Jade followed her gaze proudly. “You can’t know how wonderful it is until you try it, and—”

“That’s just what I intend to do!” With childlike glee, Jacobah Huffstedter hurried down the steps. “May I, dear?” she called out, and without waiting for permission, climbed on the machine.

Delighted, Jade quickly gave her instructions. A few of the ladies spilled from the house onto the street to observe and, hopefully, be allowed to ride also. There were some, Jade noted, who hung back, their faces cold masks of disapproval. Those soon left, but the women who remained neither noticed nor cared.

The afternoon passed so quickly no one was aware of the time until Horace Huffstedter arrived home from work and gasped at the sight of the usually prim and poker-faced friends of his wife jumping up and down on the sidewalk begging for their turns on the strange new two-wheeled machine people called a bicycle. He was even more astonished to see his wife leading the pack!

“What’s going on here?” he shouted, and at once, they all turned on him, anxious to share their wonderful discovery.

By the time Jade wheeled her way home, dusk was falling. She wasn’t surprised to see Bryan standing in front of the house. She knew he would be worried, and regretted not having called him. But then he saw her, and the bicycle, and his look of relief instantly dissolved into the same pinch-faced visor of reproach she’d seen often that day from others who disapproved.

“What in the world?” He ran toward her. “Jade, have you lost your mind? Your ankles…your legs…”

He reached her, grabbed her about her waist in an attempt to drag her in the house quickly lest the neighbors see, but Jade gripped the handlebars tightly. “Bryan, stop it!” she protested. “Let me go! Don’t—”

Then she lost her balance, and they both went tumbling to the ground in a heap, along with the bicycle. When Jade scrambled up, she took one look at the twisted spokes of the front wheel and screamed, “Oh, Bryan! Look what you’ve done! You’ve ruined it!”

“Good!” He struggled to his feet, kicked out at the bicycle. “I can’t believe you’d do something so foolish. Now let’s get inside before someone sees you!”

She strained against him, trying to stand her ground as she resisted his tugging. Her eyes narrowed to slits of resentment. “Like Jacobah Huffstedter?”

“Huh? What?” He blinked, then nodded. “Yes, of course. She’d think such a thing disgraceful.”

With a mighty jerk, she yanked away from him, ran back to kneel beside her bicycle for close scrutiny of the damage. He stared after her, bewildered.

Turning to glare up at him angrily, she continued her tirade. “And Elisa Pomeroy? Claudia Whitfield? Jerusha Ledbetter? We don’t want any of those ladies to see me riding my wicked bicycle, do we?”

“Of course not. Now please come in the house.”

Deciding the damage wasn’t as bad as she’d first thought and Buster Ranahan could fix it good as new, she stood, wiped her hands on her already dirtied skirt, and faced Bryan defiantly.

“Let me tell you something—I taught every one of those ladies how to ride my bicycle this afternoon, and first thing tomorrow they’re buying one for themselves, and we’re talking about starting a riding club.” Then she started toward the house, stomping as she went.

“In fact,” she whirled around to tartly inform him, “you’d better get one for yourself, because we’re all planning to take our bicycles up to the Valley next weekend and do some riding together there.”

“Ridiculous.” He doggedly trailed after her, shaking his head. “The silliest thing I’ve ever heard of.” But he didn’t protest any further, because he knew when she had her mind made up about something, nothing could change it.

Besides, he thought with a warm smile, she looked rather cute on her bicycle. He might just buy one, too; despite his conservative and somewhat Victorian ideas and opinions, he had to admit he found his wife’s rebelliousness, at times, quite stimulating.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Bryan was not as enthused as Jade over her discovery of the bicycle but had to admit it was in keeping with her personality of a free spirit. However, he did preach moderation. “One of those little three-wheel tandem tricycles would be better for you, or we could get a quadric-cycle and ride together.”

“I love my two-wheeler,” she stubbornly insisted, “and if you’d try it, you would, too.”

They had gone together to Buster Ranahan’s shop to have Jade’s machine repaired, and after he assured her it would be good as new by the weekend, she began cajoling Bryan to buy one for himself.

He said he’d think about it.

“But if you’ll do it by this weekend, we can ride together with everyone else,” she persisted. “It’s the rage, Bryan.”

She turned to Buster for corroboration. “Tell him. Tell him how everyone is riding, touring.”

The store owner was only too happy to oblige. “That’s a fact, sir, and thanks to the little lady here, I’ve almost got more business than I can handle. Everybody wants one for that party up in the Valley.”

“Please, Bryan,” Jade implored, squeezing both his hands as he looked down at her in adoring amusement. “Go ahead and order your bicycle, and we’ll have it delivered upstate with mine, and then we can buy two more to use here in the city. Please!”

He laughed softly, nodded to Buster. “All right. Pick out what you think I’d like and send it up, with two more to our house here.” He gave him his card for delivery and billing purposes; then he and Jade left to shop together for the coming weekend.

The gala was being hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Leland Hayes, because relatives of Mrs. Hayes were visiting from Holland, and that was a good excuse for a lavish time. The festive weekend was to begin Saturday morning with a breakfast on the beach at the bottom of long, narrow steps down the bluff of the riverfront estate. Sailing had been planned for the afternoon, but once word spread about Jade’s idea for touring the countryside on bicycles, everyone wanted to join in the adventure.