Shannon's Daughter (50 page)

Palm
Beach—1959

Chapter
Forty-six

The
first months of their now very public romance were filled with revelations for
Kendall.
 
Or perhaps he simply hadn’t
thought beyond Peg’s reaction to their new possibilities.
 
It certainly should not have surprised him
that their family—the Shannon’s collectively, his mother and Peg’s father in
particular—leapt on those possibilities as though they had nothing else of
interest in their lives.
 
Still, he was
somewhat taken aback by their enthusiasm.

He was
also surprised by just
how
public
their relationship became and how quickly.
 
When he’d joked about having their picture taken in New York, he hadn’t
expected that to result in their names being instantaneously linked in the
social columns there.
 
Despite his
noteworthy position with one of the world’s great orchestras, he hardly
considered himself a celebrity.
 
In
London, at the time of his promotion, word had spread without affecting his
life beyond the requisite interviews and the increased demand for copies of his
most recent photograph.
 
However,
according to the New York press, he was “highly respected,” even “wildly
popular,” and in the case of one imaginative journalist, the “handsomest man to
carry a violin onto a London stage this century.”

Privately,
their relationship took on a new rhythm, one he found pleasing if not as
breathtaking as the papers might have depicted it.
 
Their written correspondence was replaced by
regular telephone conversations, something Peg insisted on despite his protest
at the cost.

“Don’t
be ridiculous, darling.
 
Budget is not a
factor.
 
We need to keep in touch, and
since touching is out of the question, we at least need to stay in
communication.
 
Everyone else is talking
about us.
 
Your mother actually wrote to
my father, you know?”

“She
mentioned she planned to.
 
Just to let him know where she stood on ‘us.’”

“I
smell a conspiracy.
 
I told Dad I might
make a quick trip to London this spring, and he said he was sure Aunt Eloise
would insist that I stay with them.”
 

“Don’t
you
dare!
 
I
love my mother, but I love you more.
 
The
thought of subjecting you to her round-the-clock attention is out of the
question.
 
Brown’s is your home away from
home here.
 
Let’s keep it that way, shall
we?”

“Oh,
don’t worry.
 
You know I want to keep
things as much the same between us as I can, in spite of their involvement
now.
 
At least everyone seems to
approve.
 
I had a note from Agnes.
 
She says it’s about time we decided to come
out in the open.
 
We’re not, as she
pointed out, kids anymore.”

“Agnes
is bitter.
 
Don’t listen to her.
 
You’re still just a teenager.”

“I’m
past twenty-one, Kendall.
 
In some
circles, that’s spinster territory.”

“And
I’m past thirty, just hitting my prime, love.
 
I’ll wait for you to catch up, how’s that?”

“Perfect.
 
They can all spin their wheels while we enjoy
ourselves.
 
Oh, I almost forgot to tell
you!
 
Did you know that according to an
unnamed source, we just spent a romantic weekend in the south of France?”

“Did
we?
 
Sorry I missed that.
 
Not a bad idea though.
 
I could probably swing a romantic weekend in
Blackpool if you can manage to get yourself on this side of the Atlantic sometime
soon.”

Peg
laughed, that warm, husky chuckle guaranteed to arouse him.
 
“June.
 
I’ll definitely be there in June, I promise.
 
Not Blackpool, though.
 
I thought we might go to Paris for a
weekend.
 
Would you like that?”

“And
just what would we do in Paris that we can’t do right here?”

“Oh,
see the Eiffel Tower, walk the Champs Elysees.
 
Make love in French.”

“Ah,
now I see where you going with this.
 
You
want to test my versatility.”
 
More
laughter and he gave a moment’s consideration to the cold shower he’d need by
the end of this call.
 

“Do you
speak French?
 
I never asked.”

“Do
you?’

“Of
course.
 
With a Boston accent, I’m pretty sure.”

“All
right, I’ll bite.
 
Why
a Boston accent?’

“Sister
Urban was from Boston.
 
The first time I
went to France, I realized no one there came anywhere close to her
pronunciation.
 
I never venture past
parles vous anglais
, for fear of being
laughed at.”

“Have I
ever told you how much I enjoy these conversations, despite the ungodly sum
they must be costing you?” he asked when he could contain his own laughter.

“I’m so
glad.
 
I miss you, you know.
 
It’s funny, missing you used to be just part
of our secret affair, but now it’s much more unpleasant.
 
Maybe I won’t wait until June.
 
I could come in April.
 
Dad’s going up to Cornell for a
reunion.”
 

“April,
next week, tomorrow, all fine with me, sweetheart.
 
I’m sure the London papers are looking
forward to their turn with us.
 
I hear
from Mr. Kemper that a photographer was around snapping pictures of the front
door, no doubt preparing for some sort of exposé.”

“That’s
awful!
 
Your poor
landladies!”

“Oh, I
wouldn’t be surprised to find they’d given an exclusive interview to some
smarmy journalist.
 
‘We knew him when’
sort of thing.”

“Oh
dear.
 
I’m sorry.
 
I never dreamed it would get around so quickly.
 
But it’s your fault for being the handsomest
violinist to ever grace the London stage or whatever that ridiculous woman
said.”

“Now
see here, I think I’ll take exception to that.
 
I thought she was very gracious.
 
No one else has ever paid me that sort of compliment in print, although
some fellow on this side of the pond did call me young and dashing, as opposed
to old and paunchy in comparison to my predecessor, I assumed.”

Her
chuckle was followed by weighted silence.
 
“Seriously, do you mind?
 
Our
being the subject of gossip now, I mean?”

“Not
really.
 
Do you?”

“No.
 
It’s just that sometimes I sort of miss the
privacy.
 
It won’t ever be just the two
of us again, the way it was.
 
And there
will be pressure from our parents, I’m sure.”

“Nothing
we can’t handle.”
 
Desperate to raise her
mood again, he went on, “Some of what we do together will always be private,
brat.
 
I promise you that much.
 
I’m a master at prevarication and outright
lying when it comes to it.
 
If you’d
like, I’ll don a funny hat and glasses and sneak in the back door at Brown’s to
visit you.”

Peg
laughed softly, but he had the sense their earlier mood had been lost.
 
Since that aspect of their future wasn’t
likely to get brighter, he could only hope she wasn’t too reluctant to have her
name forever linked with his, at least in the papers.

They
managed to spend time together here and there fairly frequently in the first
year.
 
Peg came to London for five
frantic days in April.
 
They took their
weekend trip to Paris during her month-long stay at Brown’s in June.
 
In late September they met at Michael’s cabin
in Maine for eight glorious days alone, and Kendall flew to Florida just in
time to see in the New Year with at least a hundred of Palm Beach’s wealthiest,
many, like Michael Shannon, winter transplants from the Northeast.
 
It didn’t take Kendall long to realize that
he was more comfortable in this new phase of their relationship than Peg seemed
to be.

“You
were a big hit tonight, you know.
 
At
least ten of those old ladies, and a lot more of the younger ones, were
knocking themselves out to get to dance with you.”
 
By two a.m. they had returned to Michael’s
recently acquired gated estate, where Peg had lured him to her wing of the
sprawling mansion with whispered promises of a few moments to greet the New
Year in private.
 
Her bedroom, done in
palest pastel greens and blues, seemed afloat in soft lamplight, or perhaps it
was simply
an
hallucination brought by too many hours
without sleep.

“You
could have cut in any time.”
 
He
struggled to focus as she turned her back and tucked her head, waiting for him
to unzip her dress.

“I
know.
 
But I love watching you dance
almost as much as I love dancing with you.
 
And I did cut in before Mary Frances Fitzgerald could drag you away for
another slow dance.
 
She always was too
sure of herself around boys, even when we were in cotillion together.”

“And
you weren’t?
 
Sure of
yourself
,
that is?”
 
Easing the dress off her shoulders,
he laid a kiss on the nape of her neck and felt her shiver.

“I
wasn’t even interested.
 
You know
that.”
 
She walked away, stepping out of
the dress and carefully inserting a hanger.
 
With one sweeping move, she drew the long black slip over her head and
tossed it onto a chair.
 

“I
recall when you were fifteen you complained that boys had sweaty hands.
 
By the time you were eighteen, you had no
such aversion to my hands, if my memory serves.”
 
Following her, he took a moment to appreciate
the scraps of silk that passed for undergarments, before drawing her into his
arms.
 
 
“Happy New Year, brat.”
 
Her face tilted up conveniently and kissing
her seemed the obvious thing to do.

“Happy
New Year,” she murmured against his cheek.
 
“Stay with me tonight?”

“Won’t
your father object?
 
Assuming he’s in any
condition to notice.”
 
He watched as she
stepped away to the dressing table, removing the pins from her hair and shaking
it free.

“No.
 
He says we’re grown-ups and what we do is our
business, as long as we make sure his grandchild isn’t born too soon after the
wedding.”
 
She made a face at his
reflection in the mirror.

With a
bark of laughter, he wrapped his arms around her, taking advantage of so much exposed
skin.
 
“Putting it rather too bluntly for
you?”

“He
seems to expect us to make a big announcement any day now.”
 
Turning in his arms, she studiously examined
his tie before tugging at the knot.

“And
that bothers you?”
 
As her fingers deftly
freed the studs, opening his shirt and sliding inside, he closed his eyes and
groaned.

“I like
things the way they are.
 
Don’t you?”
 

Considering
she was systematically removing his clothes, he could hardly pose an
objection.
 
“I love things as they are.
 
But I do see your father’s point.
 
He expects me to do the proper thing at some
point and he mentioned something about grandchildren to me, too.”
 
He toed off his shoes as his trousers slid to
the floor, kicking them aside at the same moment his shirt went sailing across
the room.
 

Now it
was Peg who laughed, if without much humor.
 
“I can’t imagine being someone’s mother.
 
I don’t know the first thing about children.”
 
Looking up suddenly, she said, “But you said
once you wanted a family.”

“I did.
 
And if we decided to have children, I’m sure
you’d learn whatever you needed to know about them.
 
Don’t look so horrified, darling.
 
That’s hardly something we have to worry
about at this stage of the game.”
 
Drawing her closer, he kissed the top of her head.
 
“Your father’s just teasing you.
 
I’m sure he understands the problem with our
rushing into marriage.
 
As things stand
now, we live on opposite sides of the Atlantic and a few days out of the year
are the best we can give each other.
 
Now, before the New Year is old, what say we give it a proper
welcome?”
 
Without allowing her time to
protest, he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed.
 
“In the past twenty-four hours, I’ve come all
the way to Florida on a bloody airplane, danced until my feet are numb and
watched a lot of very rich people get as drunk as lords, just so I could be the
first man to kiss you in the New Year.”