Regret Not a Moment (52 page)

After about fifteen minutes, Francesca, gasping for air, said, “I’m getting too cold. I’ve got to get out.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Francesca hoisted herself from the brook, sheets of water raining down from her and muddying the bank. Jesse followed. “I’ve got towels,” he said, running toward his horse.

“You do? You really came prepared today.”

“Well, you always bring the food.”

Jesse grabbed two towels from his saddlebag and came toward Francesca. She was still standing by the bank of the river. Her cutoffs clung to her, but were thick enough to be no more revealing than when dry. On top, Francesca wore a sleeveless cotton top under a plaid cotton blouse. The outfit was modest, more modest than a bathing suit. Jesse was relieved she was not wearing only a T-shirt.

But, as if reading his mind, Francesca said, “As long as you have a towel, I may as well hang this up to dry.” She removed the plaid shirt and, for one brief moment, Jesse saw the outline of her sturdy white bra through the sleeveless top. The wet cloth sank into her cleavage, now as full as a woman’s, and Jesse could not help but stare.

Francesca’s face turned crimson as she followed his gaze. Snatching the towel from Jesse, she hurriedly wrapped it around her.

Together they went to the picnic blanket and sat down. To cover their confusion, they occupied themselves with unloading the contents of the saddlebag.

“Mmmm, chicken salad sandwiches, sweet pickles, olives, potato chips… Hey! My favorite! Roast beef!” said Jesse, happily absorbed in the feast.

“Jesse,” said Francesca, ignoring the food, “can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“How come you don’t have a girlfriend?”

Jesse gave her a bold stare. “What makes you think I don’t?”

“Well… you never talk about one. And you spend every Saturday and Sunday with me.”

“Just days,” Jesse said mysteriously.

Francesca’s eyes widened. “Who’s your girlfriend?”

“Rosie Hammersmith.”

Francesca felt a sudden stab of jealousy as she thought of Jesse spending time with another girl. “Reverend Hammersmith’s daughter?”

“Yep.”

“She’s pretty,” Francesca admitted. She waited a beat before continuing. “Don’t you want to know if I have a boyfriend?”

“Nope,” said Jesse with feigned indifference. He reached for a roast beef sandwich and bit into it.

Francesca tossed her glossy black curls and pushed out her lip in a pout. She was annoyed that Jesse didn’t seem to want to know whether she was attractive to boys. “Well, are you going out with your girlfriend tonight?”

“She goes to Bible camp in summer.” Jesse chewed his sandwich, wishing that Francesca would stop staring at him. “Listen, would you stop asking questions and just eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Hah, that’s a first for you!”

Francesca ignored the remark and continued her line of questioning. “Jesse… did you and Rosie ever
do it?”

Jesse’s eyes widened in outrage. “Frankie! That’s none of your business.” Guiltily he thought of his trysts with Rosie behind her father’s church. Jesse had been troubled by the locale, but that had only seemed to excite Rosie more. “We’ll move back fifty feet if you’re going to be so prissy about this,” she had mocked him, “so we won’t be on hallowed ground.” But she had been so hot and willing that he would have been unable to resist her no matter what the circumstances. He had not known that women could be so
eager.

Rosie, though, had departed ten days before, and immediately afterward Jesse had become aware of Francesca’s blossoming womanhood. The dreams that left him wet and tormented at night were no longer about Rosie. And the guilt he had experienced with Rosie was nothing compared to the taboo attached to his lust for Francesca—which only made it all the more excruciating.

Francesca thought that Jesse looked as though he’d been caught doing something wrong, and once again her jealousy flared. She thought of Jesse kissing another girl, touching her, and she suddenly had the urge to show him that she, Francesca, could arouse him if she wanted to. If she wanted to.

“Well,” she said casually. “I don’t think I’m ever going to get dry if I keep this towel around me,” she said, dropping it around her waist. Jesse immediately averted his eyes, but not before he noticed her nipples poking through the wet cloth. Against his will, he felt himself stir. He dropped his sandwich on his paper plate and rolled onto his stomach, cradling his head in his arms.

“I’m not hungry anymore,” he announced. “I’m going to take a little nap. And I don’t want you to bother me for at least a half hour.”

“Fine!” she said pettishly, annoyed that he would literally turn his back on what she considered a most intriguing conversation. She glared daggers at the fuzzy curls on the back of his head, willing him to turn around and face her. But Jesse remained immobile, as though he were already asleep. His pose reminded her of summers past when they had dozed for hours in the hot sun, not saying a word all afternoon. In all that time, there had never been the tension between them that existed now. It must be my fault, Francesca chided herself. Suddenly, she was ashamed of her behavior. What was I trying to do? she asked herself. Jesse’s my friend. Do I want him to kiss me, to touch me? Of course not! Jesse’s like a brother. But, of course, he was not her brother.

DEVON‘S sporty Jaguar pulled up in front of the glossy black double doors of Mason Wilder’s Georgetown mansion. The neoclassical structure occupied two acres of a neighborhood in which most of the houses were no more than twenty feet wide. The town on the outer boundaries of the District of Columbia had once been the most sought-after residential area of Washington, had tumbled into a period of decrepitude, then had been resurrected into the high-style real estate that it would remain. Wilder’s family had been there from the beginning, his house a sightseer’s landmark in a town filled with landmarks.

Devon emerged from her racing green convertible, brushing her full-skirted dress in a vain attempt to smooth out some of the wrinkles that had formed during the drive. She fluffed her hair with her fingers as she climbed the wide brick staircase that stretched across the entire facade of the house. With its massive white pillars and twenty-foot ceilings, the house was a monumental structure.

Before she could reach the front door it was thrown open by Mason, who wrapped Devon into his huge embrace. He kissed her on the lips with fervor, unwilling to release her until he heard the footsteps of his butler behind him.

“Owens, would you please take the bags to the ivory room,” he said with a conspiratorial wink at Devon. The ivory room was connected to his by a door. As always, he was certain that they fooled no one. Still, appearances had to be maintained.

“Devon, I’m so glad you could make it,” Mason said, ushering her into the house. “It will be good to have you by my side as hostess tonight. Entertaining is always more gracious with a hostess present, don’t you agree?”

“Of course,” murmured Devon, avoiding yet another of Mason’s broad hints.

“Would you care for tea, a cocktail?” Mason asked, leading her to the terrace at the rear of the house. Terrace, perhaps, was too modest a word for the multilevel expanse of herringbone-patterned brick that stretched for two hundred feet in either direction. It was interspersed with fountains and specimen trees, a pergola and an orangerie; all of it constructed in a formal style that perfectly suited the palatial lines of the home. At the outer reaches of the structure stood a pristine Olympic-sized swimming pool surrounded by black wrought-iron tables and chairs sporting red and white umbrellas.

“This looks like a perfect setting for a glass of lemonade,” Devon remarked.

“Lemonade it is then,” said Mason, picking up a telephone and pressing a button that accessed the kitchen.

A few moments later, a gray-uniformed woman emerged carrying a silver tray. She brought with her not only a pitcher of mint-sprigged lemonade but also a three-tiered tea tray filled with dainty miniature sandwiches, fruit tartlets, and petits fours.

“Are you trying to sabotage me?” Devon joked, unable to resist a quarter-sized lemon cookie covered in confectioner’s sugar.

Mason laughed and helped himself to three smoked salmon sandwiches. “We’ll be dining at nine, so I thought you might need something to tide you over.”

“Thanks.” Devon smiled, biting into the cookie.

“How long will you be able to stay?”

“Just the weekend this time. We have to get ready for Saratoga. Less than two weeks away. I can hardly believe it.”

“Renting the cottage again?”

“As always.”

“How’s Francesca?”

“Good. But I’ll tell you this. Any hope I might have had of this jockey thing being a whim has been dashed. Jeremiah says she’s his most valuable exercise rider. He thinks she has real talent. And, of course, she feeds off his praise. She’s up every morning at four-thirty. Can’t wait to get to the stables. She used to stay in bed until noon!”

“Well, it’s good when young people are motivated.”

“I know,” Devon admitted, “but I think I may have a problem motivating her to do well in school. She’s completely absorbed with horses!”

“I thought girls that age were completely absorbed with boys,” Mason teased.

“Not Francesca. Oh, boys
have
started to call, as you saw when you were at Willowbrook.”

Mason nodded and smiled, thinking affectionately of how Francesca had bloomed over the past year. She had been so certain that she would turn out ugly!

“But,” Devon continued, “I’ve never heard her mention a special one. And you know how teenagers are. They won’t tell you anything about what they’re thinking!” She sighed.

“You’re luckier than most. At least Francesca admits to having a mother,” said Mason with a comical look.

“So my friends tell me.”

“Devon,” said Mason, shifting in his seat, “I didn’t invite you here strictly for this party tonight.”

Devon raised her eyebrows inquiringly.

“I feel that I must speak my mind to you, even if I risk losing something very precious.”

“By all means,” Devon murmured.

“We’ve been dating—God, I hate that word—perhaps I should say ‘keeping company,’ for about seven years.”

“You could say ‘lovers,’” Devon said with a wink.

Mason chuckled. “The term lacks a certain dignity, so you’ll pardon me if I stick to more euphemistic phraseology. In any event, I feel that the time has come for us to marry or to put this relationship aside.”

“You can’t mean that!” Devon protested. “Why would you say such a thing?”

Mason thought a moment before answering, then he said bluntly, “Because you’re in love with another man.”

Devon’s mouth popped open, so shocked was she at his words. For a moment she was confused. Something that had been firmly suppressed in her subconscious began to surface. No! She tried to push the feeling back into dormancy. It can’t be true! You know it’s true, a mocking voice within her insisted. But I refuse to let it be, she argued back silently. I don’t have to act on it. I don’t have to do anything at all. It will pass. And until then, I’ll carry on as before.
It will pass.

Devon suddenly became aware of Mason’s intense gaze. He was waiting for her to respond. But how? Were her feelings really so obvious that he had recognized them even before she herself had? What if John, too, had guessed her love for him? Oh, the embarrassment! And their friends. Had they guessed? Had they laughed at the three of them, caught in the classic triangle of jealousy, friendship, and love? No, she refused, absolutely refused, to admit the truth aloud. Instead she asked, “If you believe that—and I’m not saying it’s true—how can you want to marry me?”

“Because I, my dear, am in love with you,” Mason admitted, turning his hands palms up in a gesture of helplessness. At the look of distress on Devon’s face, he hurried on. “Oh, I’m no masochist. You are a woman of honor. If you marry me, I know you’ll be faithful. And I know that you love me in your own way. I also doubt that you’ll ever be willing to marry the man with whom you are in love. So, you see, you might as well marry me.”

The reference to Devon’s honor made her feel ashamed. Resolving to be as honest with Mason as he was with her, Devon asked, “But why should you settle for second-best like that?”

“You could never be termed second-best, Devon. You are the best there is in this world.”

Devon blushed. “I don’t mean—”

“No, of course you don’t,” said Mason, leaning forward and taking her left hand in his right one. “But let me ask you this: Do you ever intend to marry John?”

Devon started again at hearing his name spoken aloud. Oh, she hated herself for the involuntary thrill she felt at the sound of that one syllable! The odd sort of relief she felt at being able to confide in her trusted friend Mason. She felt like a volcano that had erupted. But like the lava that flowed from a volcano, her love would have a devastating effect, Devon knew. For Mason was not just her friend, he was her lover—and he wanted to be her husband.

As alive as Devon’s love for John made her feel, she wished it did not exist. She did not want to make the same mistake twice. She did not want these feelings of tremulous yearning, of a battle raging within her. But there it was. She couldn’t help it.

That’s not true, the strongest part of her argued. You
can
help it. Keep it hidden. Keep it hidden until it goes away.

Mason watched her face intently as Devon mulled over these thoughts. He saw the confusion, the longing, then the firm resolve. Finally, she spoke. “I do
not
intend to marry John,” she said emphatically.

Mason believed her. Devon could be inflexible. She could be stubborn. But these traits also meant that she could be strong. He knew there were many unhappy memories associated with her first marriage. But one of the unhappiest was that it represented failure to Devon. And Devon did not like to fail. This encouraged Mason to press on. “Then I’ll repeat my question: Why not me?” Mason’s voice was an urgent whisper as he leaned closer to Devon. He watched her with an air of expectancy.