Enthralled (17 page)

"Yes." Chazz held a
struggling Teel at his side.
"
I
finally convinced her, and
since neither of us can take another vacation now, we're going to get married
right away and honeymoon later." His smile seemed to mesmerize Miss Daisy.
"Of course the wedding will be small." Chazz had to tighten his hold
on a now moaning Teel. But Miss Daisy took no notice of her. Her birdlike eyes
snapped in anticipation of Chazz's next words. "But we'd like all of
Teel's many well-wishers to join us for the reception.

"Never," Teel
promised.

"Delightful," Miss
Daisy exclaimed. "Where will you marry? Here in New York?"

"Never."

"We've haven't settled
that yet," Chazz said over Teel's answer.

"Lovely. How
romantic!" Miss Daisy clasped her hands and looked heavenward. Teel kicked
Chazz in the shins, but Miss Daisy didn't seem to notice.

"And we hope," Chazz
continued through gritted teeth, "that you'll tell everyone you meet. Teel
and I are so happy—we want the world to know—owww."

"Oh, dear. What happened?
Do you have a stitch in your side?" Miss Daisy focused her attention on
Chazz's middle, giving Teel the chance to pinch his rear end. But Miss Daisy
apparently forgot her question in the more delightful prospect of informing the
town of Selby that Miss Barrett was to marry—"Oh dear, I don't know your
name."

"Charles Herman, Miss
Butler, but everybody calls me Chazz."

Miss Daisy looked over her
glasses at him, frowning. "I shall call you Charles. I can't abide
shortened names."

Chazz smiled and
bowed gallantly from the waist, endearing himself to Miss Daisy for life, Teel
was sure.

"I really must go. There
are many people to see," Miss Daisy said vaguely, and she fluttered across
the lobby and out the door.

"The old dear can really
move when she wants to," Chazz commented wryly as he watched Miss Daisy
skip across the parking lot to her Edsel.

Chazz was still watching her
when Teel kicked him again. "Love, I wish you wouldn't do that."
Without releasing her, he bent down to massage his ankle.

"Now you've done
it," Teel accused him. "By nightfall she'll have everyone in the
county talking about our marriage. How could you?"

"Don't be so
surprised." Chazz looked down at her, his smile gone. "I'd do
anything to get you, angel. I thought you knew that." He kissed her mouth
again, paying no heed to curious onlookers. "Come on. I'll buy you
breakfast."

T
eel protested Chazz's
high-handedness
day and night. She was furious with him for going out of his way to inform
anyone he thought might not know of their coming nuptials. She seethed when Nancy placed a copy of
The New York Times
on her desk, folded open to the proper page, and she saw the
photographs of Chazz and herself.

"I'm giving
you a shower," Nancy said, then ducked out the door when Teel took a firm
grip on a paperweight.

The phone rang just then,
distracting Teel from the newspapers. She reached for it absently and said,
"Hello?"

"Hello,
darling. How are you this morning? I'm sorry I had to leave before you—"

"How
dare
you put those pictures
and that write-up in
The New York Times?"
she cried.

"Actually I'd have liked
a full-face picture of you better, but there wasn't one, so we used the
profile."

"You know
what I mean." Teel took a deep breath and lowered her voice. She rubbed
her forehead. "You're giving me another headache. I never had headaches
until I met you," she complained.
Lord,
i
want to marry him. I'm a
masochist,
she thought.

"You're too tense, that's
the problem," Chazz told her. "Just stop fighting me, darling, and
your ordeal will be over. Once we're married, you'll be in excellent
health."

"Bull."
Fight him harder, you fool,
Teel's
inner voice argued.
Drop dead,
Teel moaned to herself,
I want
to marry him.

"Oh, before I
forget," Chazz continued, "I talked to Aunt Tilda this morning. She's
relieved that her errant nephew is settling down—"

"Tell her to think
again," Teel snapped, determined to go down fighting.

"—and ready to marry the
woman of his dreams—"

"Twaddle." God
forbid he should ever know how much she wanted to be his wife.

"—so of course I told her
we'd be delighted to attend a party at her studio that she'll be hosting for
some of our friends tonight."

"What?" Teel
shouted. "What do you mean
our
friends? We don't have any friends together." Again she
tried to rally her defenses.

"We will," Chazz
soothed. "All my friends will be your friends, and all your friends will
be mine," he instructed as though teaching kindergarten.

"Balderdash."

"Do you never run out of
archaic epithets, my dove?" Chazz crooned, continuing on without waiting
for her answer. "I'll stay in town to dress here and I'll send the plane
for you. We can fly back home after the party. Bye, love."

Home! Did he really consider her house in Selby
home?

She set the phone back on its cradle and stared
into space.

Nancy
entered
the room with several application forms in her hand. For the rest of the day
Teel was kept busy studying the forms and checking to see which pupils would be
best suited for the facilities at Mary Dempsey School. But she had trouble
concentrating on her work— thoughts of Chazz crept repeatedly into her mind—and
the hours dragged. Finally, sometime after five o'clock, she cleared off her
desk and headed home.

Her phone was ringing when she
unlocked the door.

Because she had stayed later
at work than she had intended, she was running behind schedule. She dropped her
key, cursed, retrieved it, pushed open the door, and picked up the phone on the
fifth ring. Somehow she knew it would be Chazz. She didn't wait to hear him
identify himself.

"Do you have a
cold?" Teel asked, a little out of breath, trying to wriggle out of her
coat.

"I'm so glad
you remember my voice so well, sweetheart." The laugh was too high—not
Chazz's voice at all.

"Who is this?" Teel
demanded, her body stilling into alertness.

"Darling, why
are we playing games? It's Ben Windom. Didn't I just tell you that?" His
voice lowered. "I've missed you, angel."

"Don't call me
that!" Teel exhaled, her sudden, explosive anger surprising her.
"What do you want? I'm in a hurry."

"I just wanted to wish
you well. I'm sure we'll be seeing more of each other now that you're engaged
to such a powerful man. Herman and I move in the same circles, you know."

"Crap. Chazz wouldn't
travel in your circle because he doesn't frequent sewers. Good-bye, Ben."

"Wait—Teel—"

Teel slammed down the phone.
She didn't feel elated by putting him down; she only felt relief that she would
never have to see Ben Windom again. For a fleeting moment, she wondered how he
had gotten her phone number. perhaps he'd gotten her address from the
newspapers and simply called information. She shrugged, then rushed up the
stairs two at a time. Chazz's pilot would be sending the taxi for her soon and
she wasn't anywhere near ready.

Teel showered and
shampooed her hair in record time. While she blow-dried it, she pondered how
she would wear it, finally deciding to leave it hanging free, the way Chazz
liked it.

Her dress was a
sea-green silk, almost the color of the ocean in the painting above Chazz's
fireplace. Teel turned slowly in front of the mirror. She loved the feel of the
silk material, which was caught under her breasts in an Empire fashion. The
dress had puff sleeves and a hem that just touched her ankles. The square neck
was low cut in the Regency style. The dress had a piquant, old-fashioned look
that enhanced Teel's long neck and legs. The fabric fell straight, but when she
moved, a side pleat parted to reveal a slit from ankle to mid thigh. One of
Teel's friends from her college had gone into fashion design and made a
respectable living in New York running a small boutique in Greenwich Village.
She had designed the dress for Teel, who had then modeled it at the boutique's
last fashion show. Teel's shoes were
peau de
soie
sandals, the same color as the dress.

Teel frowned at
her image in the mirror. Her hair was wrong for the dress and the jade earrings
and pendant she was wearing. She recalled that Charine, the designer, had
wanted her to wear her hair pulled into a topnot with a fall of curls on one
shoulder.

Teel glanced at the clock and
groaned but decided to take a chance that she would have time to arrange a more
intricate style.

Clutching the curling iron in
one hand, she proceeded, grim-lipped, to curl several locks. Then she twisted
her pile of straight hair into a coil on top of her head and pinned it tightly.
Again she used the curling iron on the remaining locks of hair, twisting them
into two curls that fell down one side of her face. "Good grief, I'm a
giant," Teel whispered at her image, but as she turned in front of the
mirror she had to admit that the style suited her, giving her a Junoesque
grace.

The taxi honked twice as Teel
fumbled for her clutch purse. She threw a short evening jacket in white velvet
over her shoulders and ran down the steps, praying she wouldn't trip.

"The feller at the plane
sez we wuz to be there in fifteen minutes.. .thirty minutes ago." Monica
Binny, the taxi driver, glowered at Teel. "I hope I get a good tip for
this."

"Monica, don't try to con
me," Teel told her. "You've been tipped already."

Monica shrugged. "A
girl's gotta make a living."

During the rest of the trip
Monica regaled Teel with gossip about Selby inhabitants. As they pulled into
the small landing field, Monica glared at her in the rear-view mirror. "It
was Daisy Butler what told me about you gettin' married. You mighta told me
yourself, Teel. That Daisy acts so uppity if she knows something first."

"Next time I'll arrange
for you to know first," Teel promised.

Monica whirled in
the seat, her face reddening from the strain of heaving her bulk around.
"Ya mean it ain't gonna last? This one, I mean. You got another one on the
line, Teel?"

Teel snapped alert, her eyes
focused warily on Monica. "What? No—of course I haven't—oh, never mind. I
have to go. The pilot's waiting outside the building."

Monica faced front again,
looking slightly crestfallen. "Yeah, that's him.

'Bye, Teel."

Teel had never before flown in
a Lear jet. She found the sensation exhilarating. Before taking off, the pilot
doffed his cap and handed her flowers, a lovely nosegay of violets, the green
of the leaves and purple of the flowers a perfect foil for her dress.

Teel was amazed. "How did
Chazz guess what I was going to wear?" she asked, bemused, pressing her
face into the flowers.

"I don't know," the
pilot answered, smiling as he disappeared into the cockpit. Soon they were airborne.

The landing at La Guardia took
longer than the flight itself, but Teel didn't mind circling the field. She was
growing more nervous by the second about meeting Chazz's only relative.

When the plane taxied close to
a small hangar, she saw Chazz, dressed in a silk evening suit, step from the
building, the wind ruffling his hair. He spotted her in the window almost at
once, and smiled and waved.

The plane came to a halt and
an attendant opened the door for Teel. Chazz was waiting at the foot of the steps,
grinning up at her, his eyes a leaping, liquid gold in his tanned face.
"I've missed you," he said simply.

"Don't be silly,"
Teel said, feeling out of breath despite her protest.

When Chazz didn't move from
the bottom of the step, she was forced to pause. They stood face to face Teel
felt a silken net drop over her. "You just saw me this morning," she
whispered, nonplussed by his nearness.

"So I did. I've grown
accustomed to coming home to you when I leave work. I like that. Tonight I
didn't go home to you. I didn't like that." Chazz rubbed his nose against
hers.

"Oh!" She felt all
her senses stir and come to life.

"I want my kiss."
His nose moved alongside hers, his lips coming to rest on hers. When his teeth
nipped her bottom lip, Teel groaned. "You look beautiful, my angel. I'm
going to buy you a fur coat." Chazz nibbled her ear.

"No," Teel murmured,
her hands clenching and unclenching on his shoulders. "Don't wear real
fur. Save the seals."

"Right." He groaned
and kissed her again.