The Gamble (I) (62 page)
“No one ever told me before,” she said to him, awed.
“Told you what?”
She wasn’t certain how to express all she felt—the wonder, the incredulity. “I thought it was ordained for procreation only.”
He laughed—thunder beneath her ear. “Violet told you.”
“Mmm... but not eloquently enough.” She drew back to look into his face. “Scott...” she whispered, touching his eyebrow, his cheekbone, needing so badly to articulate her feelings. But words would sound paltry in the face of such immense emotions.
“Yes, I know.”
“I don’t think you do. Not about the years I lived alone and longed for the simplest things, like someone to share a table with at suppertime, and a clothesline where I could hang baby clothes, and something besides a ticking clock to listen to—another human voice, a kind word. But this...” She touched the wedge-shaped scar on his arm, recalling the night she’d seen the knife lodged there, thinking how close she’d come to losing him. “You’ve given me so much. Gifts that can’t be bought and—”
“I haven’t—”
“No.” She touched his lips. “Let me finish. I want to say it.” As she went on, her fingertips outlined his lips, then rested beside his mouth. “To swim, to ride, to dance—those are things I never thought I’d experience. They freed me, don’t you see? I was earthbound until you gave them to me and made me feel no different from anyone else. But they were as nothing compared to Willy. I can’t ever thank you enough for Willy, and at times when I realize he’ll be ours forever, it still brings tears to my eyes.”
“Gussie, you were—”
But her heart needed spilling, for it could not contain all it had been given. “And as if Willy weren’t enough, you gave me a family, something I never had in my entire life. All these gifts you’ve given me... and now... tonight... this. Something more than I had ever imagined. Myself. Scott, you gave me myself.” As she kissed his lips lightly, her own trembled. “I want to show my gratitude, to repay you, but there’s nothing I can give. I feel... I... oh, Scott...”
Tears came to her eyes and she choked on the words.
He covered her lips with one forefinger. “And what about me? What do I get out of this marriage? Let me tell you somethin’. When I saw you step out of the bedroom door with Willy, it was like...” He rested his chin on her head, searching for the end of his thought.
“Like what?” she prompted.
“I don’t know.” He captured her eyes again, cradled her cheek in one palm. “It was too great t’ describe. You, lookin’ pretty as a magnolia blossom, dressed in that white dress. And Willy there with you, and everybody I love waitin’ downstairs, and the house full o’ people again. I felt like I’d been reborn. Gussie, I’ve been at loose ends for so long. Wanderin’, lookin’ for my place in the world. All those years I gambled on the riverboats, then the saloons, one after the other. You can’t know how empty I felt. I think, if I hadn’t met you, I’d have kept right on wanderin’, searchin’, not knowin’ for what. You’re the one who made me see that I had t’ come back here before I’d be happy again. You’re the one who made Willy possible in my life and who made me take a second look at what I had with Jube, which was only an imitation of what you and I have. You talk about gifts—do you think you haven’t given me any of your own?”
She burrowed against him again, pressing her cheek to his hard chest, closing her eyes, feeling as if another word would burst her full, full heart.
“I love you,” one of them said.
“I love you,” the other replied. It mattered not who spoke first, for the truth of it was absolute.
He kissed her, and when their lips parted, he looked solemnly into her eyes. “For always.”
“For always,” she repeated.
He rose to extinguish the lights. She watched the trellised shadows from the netting whisper across his skin and disappear as blackness stole him from her sight, but returned him to her in the flesh—firm, warm, and reaching.
In the dark his lips found hers. The yearning returned, and they welcomed it, nurtured it, and made love once more in the soft secret folds of night. And while about them Waverley spread its protective wings, and while the ghosts of its past mingled with the promises of its future, and while across the hall Willy slept, and outside the deer fed secretly on the boxwoods... L. Scott Gandy planted within his wife the greatest gift of all.
My sincere thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Robert Snow of Waverly Plantation, West Point, Mississippi, for allowing me to borrow their beautiful antebellum mansion and its ghost in the creation of this book.
—L.S.
Copyright © 1984 by LaVyrle Spencer. Author photo © 1995 by John Earle.
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
With love
to
Marian Spencer,
from whom I learned
so much about love