The Shadow Queen (21 page)

Wallis helped herself to another slice of her mother’s delicious lemon drizzle cake. “They are, but Win’s father is now a Chicago stockbroker and his family line, like ours, goes back to the early 1600s.”

“There now!” Alice said triumphantly to her sister. “Lieutenant Spencer is just as well-born as the Montagues and Warfields, and the only reason we’re not familiar with his name is that he isn’t a Baltimorean.”

Bessie, who had no desire to spoil Wallis’s homecoming by continuing to express doubts about the suitability of her new beau, changed the subject by saying out of the blue, “Rosemont has been sold and is going to be turned into a very luxurious hotel.”

“Sold?” Wallis left the slice of cake she had just taken untouched on her plate. “But where has the duke gone to live? And what about … about …” It was so long since she’d said their names aloud, she could scarcely get them past her lips. “What about Pamela and John Jasper? I thought they would be making their home at Rosemont.”

Alice flashed Bessie a look of fury. Bringing the former Pamela Denby and John Jasper Bachman into the conversation was the last thing she had expected her usually so-sensible sister to do.

Bessie ignored the look. She wanted Wallis to remember that it wasn’t so long since she was head over heels in love with John Jasper, and not to be as impulsive where her new beau was concerned. “The duke has married a Californian and, according to the rumors, is building himself a mansion in the style of a Florentine Renaissance palace on top of a mountain somewhere south of San Francisco.”

The shock Wallis had been given was one she was already over. It wasn’t as if she were still in love with John Jasper. Win had cured her of those feelings, and she now thought of John Jasper in the light of a youthful first crush.

“So where are Pamela and John Jasper living?” she asked, not distressed by the subject, but interested. “In the very best part of town, I assume?”

Alice’s eyes widened. “You mean you don’t know that they never even came back to Baltimore to honeymoon? They’re still in London—and with that terrible war still going on nearly everywhere in the world but America, I guess that’s where they’ll have to stay until the world comes to its senses.”

Wallis felt relief flood through her. She had no intention of leaving Pensacola to live again in Baltimore, but at least she now knew she could pay visits home without fear of unexpectedly running into either of the newly married Bachmans.

“What do Henry, and the officers serving under him, think about the war, Wallis?” Bessie’s kindly face was taut with concern. “I’m so afraid America will get drawn into it. President Wilson is enlarging the army and so, though he
says
America will never get involved, it isn’t a very good sign, is it? Do you hear news on the air station that perhaps we don’t get?”

Wallis wasn’t sure whether she did or not, but as everyone stationed at Pensacola was a military man, the pros and cons of the war were a constant subject of conversation, and she was well versed in what was going on in Europe and the Middle East and Russia. She doubted that her aunt would want to know, though, that every man taking part in those conversations was desperate for America to enter the war so that he could see action and hopefully cover himself with glory.

Not touching on the subject of Pensacola’s eagerness to be part of the war, she said, “The news at the moment—at least the news from France—is quite good. The French have dealt a massive blow to the German lines in Champagne, and the British have achieved the same result in Flanders.”

Some of the tension left Bessie’s face, and Wallis felt no guilt at not adding that Henry thought it likely the positions taken would be speedily retaken, with the stalemate on the Western Front continuing well into the winter.

T
he next afternoon she paid a visit to her Uncle Sol at his bank downtown. He was so pleased to see her that she felt quite affectionate toward him. Her spirits lifted even more when he told her that her grandmother had left her four thousand dollars in her will and that his own allowance to her would continue as before.

It was as she was walking away from the bank, down sundappled Calvert Street, that a familiar voice called out from the other side of the sidewalk, “Wallis Warfield! Don’t dare walk on without giving me a few minutes of time!”

Across the street, a very well-dressed Edith Miller was waving furiously in her direction.

Wallis, who had always liked Edith despite the fact that she lacked spirit, waved back and waited while Edith crossed the street toward her.

“No one told me you were back in town.” Edith hugged her tight. “Where is it you’ve been all this while? With relatives in Louisiana? Or was it Florida?”

“Florida.”

“Well, you sure look well on all that Florida sun. You just wait till I tell Violet and Mabel that you are back in town. They are both married now—so is Pamela Denby, but I guess you know all about Pamela’s marriage to John Jasper Bachman. Mrs. Bachman—John Jasper’s mother—is great friends with my mother, and so I get to hear all the news. They live in London, and because Pamela’s mother is married to an earl, they move in the very highest of social circles.”

“How very nice for the two of them.” Wallis found it hard to sound suitably sincere, but with great difficulty, she managed it. Then she bade Edith a swift good-bye, not wanting to hear another word about Pamela and John Jasper.

Both of them were in her past now. She wasn’t in love with John Jasper anymore. She was in love with Win—and when she returned to Pensacola, she was determined to make him even crazier about her—so crazy he would have no option but to make her a proposal of marriage.

Chapter Thirteen

W
in’s reception of her when she returned was ardent. He’d missed her—and he made her well aware that he had missed her badly.

Wallis was jubilant. Though her nerves had been so shredded by Rob’s death and the all-too-regular sound of the bloodcurdling crash siren that she’d needed to escape the air station for a little while, she had done so with a fear she had barely allowed herself to acknowledge: the fear that on her return, Win would have transferred his affections to someone else.

That he hadn’t filled her with supreme confidence in the hold she now believed she had over him.

There was only one fly in the ointment.

Win’s relationships had previously nearly always been with married women. He was a man accustomed to full sexual intimacy—an intimacy Wallis had no intention of providing. To give way to the temptation—a temptation so strong she often had to exert all her considerable willpower in order to resist it—would, she knew, ensure they would never walk down the aisle together.

It was Win who solved the problem by showing her how, in the dark of the movie theater where most of their kissing and cuddling took place, she could, by sliding her hand into his pants and allowing him to guide her hand, satisfy him.

She found doing as he asked—and the stifled grunting noises he then made and that she had to cover by coughing as hard as she could—both exciting and bizarre. She had never been afraid of being daring, and being so now was all part and parcel of her campaign to bind Win to her forever—and she was also determined to perfect her new ability so that Win would get more pleasure from it than anyone else had ever given him.

Other kinds of lessons also continued. Whenever he was a guest at the Mustins’, which was regularly, he kept the promise he had made to teach her how to make a great variety of cocktails.

She spent Christmas in Baltimore with her mother and Aunt Bessie, and by then she could make a White Lion, a brandy smash, a Golden Slipper, a whiskey julep, and an applejack sour, as well as a good half dozen other cocktails.

The problem was ingredients. Between them, her mother and aunt could rustle up bourbon whiskey, gin, rum (though not Santa Cruz rum, which Win insisted was the only possible sort for White Lions), Madeira wine, a bottle of maraschino, raspberry syrup, and lemons and limes.

A gentleman friend of her mother’s obligingly bought Santa Cruz rum, Yellow Chartreuse, curaçao, crème de violette, and cider brandy for the applejack.

It was, the friend in question said when the holidays were over, the best Christmas he had ever had, or ever expected to have.

For a Christmas present, Win gave Wallis a bottle of heliotrope perfume. It wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted a ring. She gave him a silver-plated money clip engraved with his initials. She didn’t care for the perfume but wore it—and hoped that something more to her liking would come her way later in the year.

In January it was Archie Crosby who took her to one side for a private word, rather as Rob Allinson had done shortly before he had been killed.

This time, as it was now well accepted she was Win’s girl, she didn’t expect a declaration of love from Archie, but neither did she expect what came.

“I don’t want you to get upset at what I’m goin’ to say, Wallis,” he said, his homely face looking desperately uncomfortable. “I like you far too much to want to upset you, but it’s something I’ve wanted to say for a long time, and I just hoped time would take care of things and that I wouldn’t have to say it.”

Wallis stared at him in bewilderment. “You’re not making a lick of sense, Archie.”

Archie shifted his feet uncomfortably and then said bluntly, “It’s you and Win, Wallis. I’d just rather you weren’t getting so heavily involved with him. He’s not the sort of guy you need.”

Wallis’s bewilderment changed to amusement. It hadn’t occurred to her that Archie wanted to step into Win’s shoes where she was concerned, and he had so little chance of doing so she found it funny.

Keeping a straight face with difficulty, she said lightly, “Please don’t worry about Win and me, Archie. The two of us are just swell together—and you’re wrong in thinking he isn’t the guy for me. He is
exactly
the kind of guy for me.”

Instead of letting the subject drop, Archie stubbornly held his ground. “You only see one side of Win, Wallis, because when he’s with you he’s always out having a good time and enjoying himself.”

“Well, of course he is!” Wallis’s amusement was fast fading, and she was beginning to get cross. “What’s wrong with that? You wouldn’t want him to be miserable when he was out with me, would you?”

“No, of course I wouldn’t. I just want you to know that isn’t the real Win Spencer. Please don’t get me wrong about what I’m about to say, Wallis. I like Win. Hell, as a buddy and in a tight corner he’s the best there is. But he’s the moodiest guy you’re ever likely to meet, and I know that’s a side of him you’ve never seen.”

Wallis shrugged her shoulders. “So what? Everyone gets moody at times.”

Archie gritted his teeth and then said, “When Win gets moody, he gets violent. Especially when he’s had too much to drink.”

Wallis’s amusement returned. She knew that when the men stationed at Pensacola wanted to let rip, they didn’t do it at the country club, but visited the bars in town. If Win, as an officer, had had occasion to break up the brawls his trainee pilots no doubt often got into, she didn’t mind one little bit. That Win was so obviously a tough guy, not to be messed with, was one of his main attractions for her.

Seeing her uncaring reaction, Archie looked as if he were steeling himself to say a great deal more. Bored with the subject, Wallis didn’t let him. Tucking her arm into his, just as she had done with Rob, she said firmly, “No more talk about Win, Archie. I don’t need to hear it. Let’s talk about Lieutenant Johnson’s young single sister-in-law who is visiting at the moment. She’s in her early twenties—just the right age for you—and a glorious redhead. Now, are you going to move in on her fast or let some other clown beat you to it?”

T
he subject always uppermost on everyone’s mind was the Great War, which, in the spring of 1916, because of the main belligerents’ vast empires, seemed to involve every country on earth except America.

“And all President Wilson suggests is that when the war is over, a league of nations should be formed in order to keep the world at peace and that the United States would be willing to join such an international organization!” Henry said explosively over the dinner table one evening when no guests were present. “How, in the name of all that is holy, is the world ever to be at peace without America pitching in? The Allies need our help so badly, it’s pitiful.”

“Well, we are helping in every way we can, honey.” Corinne hated any talk of the war, and she certainly hated the thought of American boys going into battle on foreign fields. “We’ve cut all our economic ties to Germany, and we’re supplying Britain with practically everything she asks for.”

“Except fighting men.” Henry rarely spoke harshly to Corinne, but he did so now.

To Wallis’s surprise, Corinne didn’t back down. Instead she said spiritedly, “That’s because the war is a European thing which doesn’t involve America. It’s only spread over such a large part of the world because the countries involved have empires which most Americans—including me—don’t approve of!”