A Fashionable Affair (16 page)

“It’s not
here,”
Michael said patiently. “It’s out in
the country, supposedly accessible to both farmers
and city workers.”

“Oh,” Patsy replied even more doubtfully.

They drove through Alton, another busy manu
facturing city, and then gradually the scenery
changed and farms started to appear. A sign on the highway indicated that food and lodging could be
found at the next exit, and Michael looked at Patsy.

“It’s dinnertime,” he said. “Do you want to find a
motel and stop for the night or do you want to go
on?”

“A motel,” Patsy answered promptly. She sighed.
“Do you know, Michael, I’m coming to the conclu
sion that I’d rather remain in ignorance about this shopping center?”

“It’s too late for that now,” he replied, and put
the blinker signal on for the next exit. It was a gray,
dark day and cars were switching on their head
lights as they turned off the highway.

MOTEL
, announced a neon sign on the right about
a mile down the road, and a
No Vacancy
sign was
underneath. Michael pulled into the drive and cir
cled around to the office. “Wait here,” he said to
Patsy, got out of the car, and disappeared inside.
He was back in five minutes. “Number eight,” he
said, driving
to
the back of the building.

Patsy slowly got out of the car and waited while
Michael got their suitcase from the trunk. She fol
lowed him to the porch and walked through the
door he was holding for her. Inside was a typical motel room, with a double bed, cheap fruitwood
furniture, and tweedie commercial carpeting. The
drapes were drawn, and the room was dark and
chilly and smelled slightly stale.

Michael put the suitcase down and switched on
the lights. “Not exactly the Taj Mahal,” he said
cheerfully.

“No,” Patsy said. She put her purse on the
dresser and stood there, gazing at it intently.

“What’s wrong, Red?” Michael asked from some
where behind her.

“Oh ...” She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t
know.

“Sorry you came?”

“No, it’s not that.”

“Well, then,” he sounded very patient, “what is
it?”

She stood where she was, her bent head afford
ing him an excellent view of her slim back and fall
of silky hair. “Do you know that scene in
A Farewell
to Arms,
where Frederic and Catherine go to a hotel
before he has to leave for the front?” she asked. “It’s a terrible hotel, with red plush and mirrors,
and Catherine says she feels like a whore. Well”—
Patsy’s gaze never left the expensive tan leather
purse that looked so out of place on the cheap
dresser top—”now I understand how she felt.”

There was silence behind her, and when he
spoke again, his voice was almost at her ear. “Is that
the book you’ve been reading lately? Do I remind
you of Frederic Henry?”

She shook her head and the red curls bounced
against her white neck. “No. You don’t remind me of anyone at all.”

“Sweetheart.” He put his hand on her shoulder and turned her to face him.

Her brown eyes were wide with unhappiness.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s stupid of me to play the
ingénue like this. I’m hardly an innocent virgin,
after all.”

His arms went around her, pulling her close.
“Not a virgin, perhaps, but most certainly an inno
cent,” he murmured, his lips in her hair.

She closed her eyes and rested against him. How
stupid she had been before this, she thought. How
could she have mistaken the shallow emotion she
had felt for love.

“Do you want to go on, after all?” he asked. “Or I
could get another room for you, if you like.” He
sounded as if it wouldn’t matter to him one way or
another what she decided to do, but Patsy was too
close for him to successfully disguise his feelings.
He was tense with forced control. Only Michael, she
thought, would understand how she felt. And only
Michael wouldn’t try to argue her into a more
receptive frame of mind.

She raised her eyes to his. “No,” she said. “I’d
rather stay here with you.” There was a line
between his black brows as he looked intently into her eyes. She smiled. “I feel much better, Michael,
really. I don’t feel like a
...”
She didn’t get the word
out because he stopped her mouth with a long,
hard kiss.

Michael’s kisses were like nothing Patsy had ever
known before. No one but he had ever gotten
beyond the sweet serenity that was the hallmark of
Patsy’s personality, no one had ever touched the
well of passion that lay hidden deep in the core of
her. But with Michael she lost all sense of separate
ness; what he wanted, she wanted, and her body
yielded sweetly before the pressure of his. Her eyes
were closed, and when she felt the edge of the bed
behind her knees, she went down willingly, drown
ing in passion, adrift in a land she had never found except with him.

It took a long time to recover herself again. He
was lying quietly, his arms around her, his head on
her breast, and she ran gentle, caressing fingers
through his hair. A poem from one of her favorite
anthologies came slipping, unbidden, into her
mind:

Put your head, darling, darling, darling

Your darling black head my heart above;

Oh, mouth of honey with the thyme for fragrance,

Who with heart in breast could deny you love?

Who with heart in breast could deny you love? Cer
tainly not me, thought Patsy, her eyes on the thick
black hair sliding so easily through her fingers. Not
ever me.

His head stirred a little. “If we’re going to eat,
we’d better get going,” he murmured.

Her fingers kept moving through his hair. “I
suppose,” she agreed softly.

She felt the sweep of long lashes as his eyes
closed. “That feels nice.” He sounded sleepy.

“There’s no need to rush,” she murmured.

“No.”

Her hand continued its mesmerizing stroking,
and his breathing slowed. In another minute, she
knew he was asleep. She lay quietly, with the weight
of his head on her breast, and the lines of the poem
going around and around in her brain.

In the end she drifted off to sleep too and didn’t
awaken until the following morning. When first she
opened her eyes, she was disoriented, not remem
bering where she was. Then she turned her head to
look at the man beside her. He was awake, lying
propped on his elbows, watching her. She smiled,
slowly and sleepily. Her glorious hair was tumbled
on the pillow, her throat and shoulders bare above
the drab green cover.

“Good morning,” she said, her voice still husky
with sleep.

“Good morning.” He didn’t smile back. “It’s
raining.”

“Darn.” Patsy pulled the covers over her shoul
der and curled up comfortably. “What time is it?”

“Seven.”

“Early,” she said, snuggling her head into her pil
low.

He buried his elbows in his own pillow and rested
his chin on his linked hands. “First,” he said, “we’ll
have breakfast. I’m starving. Then we’ll track down
this shopping center. Then I want to check out
some area stores to see if your line of sportswear is
on the racks.”

Patsy sighed. “Simon Legree. All right. As a mat
ter of fact, I’m starving too. And I want my shower.
Do you want to shave first?”

“No. You go ahead.” He sounded preoccupied
and withdrawn, and he didn’t even look as she got
out of bed and fished in the suitcase for her wrap.

Patsy put the robe on, collected her shampoo,
and hesitated, looking at his shadowed, unreveal
ing face. Then she walked to the bed and, bending,
kissed the hard line of his cheekbone. “I adore
you,” she murmured and went into the bathroom.
After she had gone, Michael slowly cradled his
brow in his laced hands and closed his eyes.

They had breakfast at a diner a little way down
the road, and since they were both hugely hungry
and the service was extremely slow, it was nine o’clock before they were on the road again.

And it was an hour later, as they were driving along a road, looking at acres and acres of empty
land, that Michael said, “This is where the shopping
center is supposed to be.”

Patsy’s heart sank. Until this minute, she realized,
she hadn’t really let herself believe that this was
going to happen. “Are you ...” Her voice came out
as a hoarse croak, and she cleared her throat and
tried again. “Are you sure?”

“It’s the route number specified and approxi
mately the area. We may be a mile or so off, but there isn’t a shopping center in sight, Red.”

“No. There isn’t.”

Michael had slowed the car to fifteen miles an
hour, and Patsy peered out her rain-streaked side
window. “What’s that over there?” she asked sud
denly.

Michael pulled off the road and stopped the car.
“Where?”

“Over there. See. It looks like some kind of build
ing has been started.”

“Come on, let’s look.”

The rain was coming down hard and a wind was
blowing over the fields, but Patsy didn’t complain as
she trudged after Michael through the wet grass.
They reached the construction Patsy had pointed
out and stopped. “I’m afraid that’s your shopping
center, sweetheart,” Michael said gently.

They were looking at the foundation of a large
building. The hole had been excavated and the
concrete poured and that was all. The work had
evidently been done a while ago, for weeds had
grown over the concrete, in some places completely
obscuring it from sight.

Patsy shivered.

“Cold?” he asked, and reached out to pull her
close.

Patsy pressed against him, absorbing warmth
from his body. She looked up, her face wet with
rain. “Oh, Michael,” she said desolately.

His arm tightened. “I’m going to get them, sweetheart. We’ll see if we can get some of your money
back.”

“It isn’t the money, really.” She stared at the
bleak, rain-sodden foundation. “It’s the rottenness
of it all. That Fred could do this to me.”

“Dante put the traitors in the bottom circle of
hell,” he said.

She shivered again. He had spoken very quietly
but something in his voice frightened her. She was
suddenly glad she was the victim of this particular
scam and not the perpetrator.

“Come on, Red,” he said, and his voice sounded
more normal. “Let’s get out of here. You’re freez
ing.”

They drove into the nearest town and dried off
in a coffee shop. Then they went department-store-browsing. They ended the day by driving back into
Alton and browsing there as well. In no store did
they find a trace of Patsy Clark sportswear.

“That’s it, then,” Patsy said glumly as they
returned to the car after their last excursion. “The
sportswear is a bust, too.”

He looked at his watch. “Do you want to get the eight-o’clock plane?”

“Yes.”

He smiled a little at her tone and started up the
car. “Okay. Let’s head for the airport. There has to
be a restaurant somewhere nearby where we can eat and get a drink.”

Patsy leaned her head against the car seat. “Sev
eral drinks, I think,” she murmured, and he
grunted in assent.

They stopped at a steak place not far from the airport, and Patsy went into the bathroom, where
she washed her hands and face, put on new blush
and lipstick, and tied her hair back with a scarf. Her
candy-striped blouse was undoubtedly a mass of wrinkles, but the cotton knit sweater she wore hid
most of it. Her green blazer and pink sailcloth
pants, however, had never recovered from their
earlier soaking. Oh, well, Patsy thought resignedly,
glamour isn’t everything, I suppose, and went out
to rejoin Michael.