Romance Classics (126 page)

Kristen turned, with the two men, to watch a slender blond girl, hatless in the brilliant lights that turned her hair to pale, spun gold. She was moving unhurriedly.

“Hello, Lee,” she greeted him with a pleasant friendliness that held no shade of extra warmth. “Nice to be working with you again.”

“Nice to see you, Sherry,” Leon said politely. “This is Kristen Dillard, my dancing partner.”

Sherry’s delphinium-blue eyes swept Kristen, and though her smile was warm and friendly, there was a cool, measuring look in her eyes.

“Hi, Kristen,” she acknowledged the introduction. “This
looks like a lot of fun, doesn’t it? I can’t wait to see the weird place we’re going to—voodoo and everything.”

“Martinique, my chum, and from all I hear voodoo is confined to Haiti,” Casey reminded her.

He led the way up the gangplank, with the two girls directly behind him, Leon bringing up the rear. There was a crowd on the pier and, it seemed to Kristen, an even bigger crowd on board the ship. Casey managed to wangle a way through the crowd so that they could follow him to a companion way that was really a grand staircase; then along a corridor to a less impressive companionway. Casey said over his shoulder, “We’re in second class. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Just so long as it isn’t steerage,” said Sherry.

Casey flung her a chiding glance.

“My dear child!” he protested. “The Caribbean Queen is a luxury-liner. She doesn’t carry a steerage class! Only first and second, this run.”

He led them along a corridor to a door that he opened, revealing a small but very charming room with twin beds and, between them, an open door revealing a small but adequate bath.

“You two gals are sharing this stateroom,” Casey said, and stood aside for them to enter. “Lee, you’re bunking with me. We’re several doors farther along here. See you kids later. Topside, if you want to watch the sailing.”

The door closed.

“Not a bad little cell, at that,” Sherry drawled, and turned to Kristen, her eyes sharpening. “Known Leon long?”

Kristen smiled gently. “Long enough,” she answered, and busied herself unpacking.

“He’s quite a guy, isn’t he?” said Sherry.

“Quite a guy,” Kristen answered, masking her secret reservations, as she shook out a filmy, full-skirted chiffon frock and eyed it worriedly. “Funny, I thought I could pack this so the wrinkles wouldn’t show.”

“The kind of dancing Lee makes his partners do, nobody will notice any wrinkles,” said Sherry spitefully.

“Did you ever dance with him?” asked Kristen, hanging the chiffon frock carefully in the hope that the wrinkles would shake out.

“Professionally? Of course not; I’m not good enough,”
Sherry answered. “I can’t wait to see
you
dance with him. You’re probably sensational.”

“Let’s hope the paying customers think so.”

“Oh, you’re good or Lee would never have hired you,” Sherry answered. “Funny what a perfectionist he is, how determined that he’s going to be the greatest dancer in the world.”

“Oh, now, you’re exaggerating.”

“You think so? Then that proves you haven’t known him very long. I suppose you think he’s wildly conceited.” Sherry’s voice held a trace of accusation. “Well, he’s not. He knows he’s about the best-looking thing that ever walked, because women have been telling him that since he was out of rompers. But he simply accepts it as a part of his stock in trade. If he wasn’t so devastatingly good-looking, I suppose he would have followed some other profession.”

She considered that thoughtfully for a moment, as Kristen went on unpacking and hanging things carefully in the surprisingly capacious closet.

“Why don’t you like him?” Sherry asked.

Kristen turned sharply.

“What a thing to say! I do like him!” she protested.

Sherry eyed her with a scrutiny so sharp, so probing that Kristen felt color hot in her cheeks.

“But you’re not in love with him,” Sherry said.

“Of course not.”

“Then you can’t have known him long.” Sherry stated it firmly as a fact. “I have only one thing against him.”

Kristen waited.

“It’s that mental block he has,” she said dryly.

“Mental block?” Kristen was puzzled.

“Against marriage,” Sherry answered. “I’ve never known a man who was so terrified of any kind of bonds, and especially the ones of matrimony.”

Kristen laughed. “I seem to remember a man named Kipling who wrote something about, ‘He travels fastest who travels alone’.”

“Oh, of course, there’s something in that, only it seems to me it would be a very lonely road.” Sherry was deeply thoughtful.

“Well, from what I’ve seen of him since I began working with him, I’d say that Leon Westerman doesn’t allow himself
time to be lonely,” Kristen pointed out. “He seems to live, eat, sleep, and breathe what’s good for The Act.”

“I know. Ambition rides him like the devil himself,” Sherry agreed. “I just wonder what will happen when some day his knees stiffen and his joints creak and he’s no longer able to dance.”

“Why, he’ll do choreography for other shows, and teach other dancers.”

Sherry eyed her curiously.

“Do you really believe that?” she asked.

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“I think he’d be much better off having a wife. And I’m hoping that this engagement will open his eyes. That is, if you don’t get in the way.”

“You can relieve your mind of that fear, Sherry my friend!” Kristen was not quite conscious of just how grim her own tone sounded. “I am as uninterested in marriage as Leon is. I’m ambitious, too, and I want to go places.”

“And marriages between dancers don’t always work out, do they?” Sherry seemed rather pleased at the thought. “Well, I think I’ll go upstairs and say adios to the Statue of Liberty. Coming?”

“Shouldn’t you unpack?” wondered Kristen.

“Oh, plenty of time for that tomorrow,” she answered. “We don’t do our first show until after dinner tomorrow night.”

“But what about rehearsal?”

“Oh, the boys and I will run through my numbers tomorrow afternoon! I’ve been doing some of them so long I could do them in my sleep, and I’ve worked with Casey and the boys before. I suppose you and Leon will be rehearsing twelve hours a day.”

“Well, we do have a lot of work.”

Sherry grinned impishly. “Don’t I know it! You’ll still be rehearsing the day after the engagement ends in this weird place we’re heading for. Like I said—Lee’s a perfectionist—
and
a slave driver.”

She went out, and the door closed behind her.

Their first show found her somewhat apprehensive. Though the ship glided along as smoothly and as steadily as though the floor beneath her feet were on dry land, there was the feeling of motion; also, they had rehearsed for a couple of hours before tea time with the band. It was the first time they had worked with an orchestra, instead of the record player. And she knew that Leon had not been entirely pleased even with this dress rehearsal. So she waited with some trepidation as Leon joined her just before their cue.

“Butterflies?” he murmured anxiously.

“Why, no, not really.”

“That’s too bad. It’s a tradition in show business that you always have butterflies in your stomach just before opening night.”

“I know.” She smiled up at him. “I was holding them in reserve for opening night in Martinique.”

“But that’s not good enough.” She was startled at his tone. “A great many of the people aboard ship will remember us if we are good. This is advance publicity. We’ve got to be as good here as we’ll be in Martinque. We must take this show as seriously as we’ll take those later.”

“Of course. Butterflies, I promise,” she agreed.

Their cue came, and he swept her out into the glare of the spotlight. Smoothly, as gracefully as though she floated in air, she went through the routine, so that the applause, when the number was finished, brought them back for a bow, and then another; until Leon gave the orchestra the signal and they went into their encore number.

Afterwards, in the corridor, Leon frowned.

“It was good,” he told her almost as though he grudged the scant praise. “But it’s still a little rough in spots. We’ll have to get after those spots in the morning. Better get right to bed.”

He nodded good night to her and went on to his own quarters.

“Well, the nerve of the man!” Kristen raged to herself as she went down the corridor and to the room she shared
with Sherry. “I
know
we were good! There
were
no rough spots!”

She got out of her costume, grateful that it did not look wrinkled, and stood for a moment looking out of the window.

It was very late when Sherry came in, and Kristen had been long asleep. It wasn’t like Sherry to be considerate of the comfort of others, and so she came in boisterously, switching on lights, humming to herself in deep satisfaction.

“Asleep, Kristy?” she asked gaily.

Kristen eyed her grimly.

“I was.”

Sherry laughed.

“Oh, well, you can go back to sleep as soon as I tuck myself in,” she said airily. “Why didn’t you mingle with the paying customers after you finished The Act?”

“Leon felt there were some rough spots that will have to be rehearsed out in the morning.”

“Leon, Leon, Leon! Don’t you ever call him Lee?” queried Sherry. “All his friends do.”

“Maybe that’s the reason I don’t,” Kristen answered curtly. “I’m his dancing partner.”

“His hired hand, eh? And it never pays to get familiar with the boss—or, come to think of it, maybe it does!” Sherry chuckled. “Well, he may think
you
need a lot of sleep, but he doesn’t seem to think he does. He’s been dancing up a storm with just about the loveliest damsel any lucky guy ever held in his arms.”

Kristen stared at her, and Sherry nodded, her eyes brimming with malice.

“Seems she was frightfully smitten with him, and thinks he’s the greatest dancer that ever rustled a sock, so she had herself introduced to him, by the Captain, no less; and they’ve been dancing ever since. That is, until the boys in the band just plain went on strike. Afterwards I saw Lee and this dame parading the deck until her chaperone—get that, will you—practically dragged her away.”

Kristen pulled her pillows up against the head of the bed and leaned against them, watching Sherry as she slathered cold cream over her face.

“Who is she?” asked Kristen.

Working the cream into her face, Sherry laughed. “I thought that would rouse you out of your slumber. Her
name is Marisa Newman, and it seems she lives on this cockeyed island we’re going to. Her old man is pockets-heavy rich, and owns about half of the place. Marisa has been in New York, at school; and the chaperone is taking her home, now that her education is finished, to hand her over to Pops!”

“She sounds quite interesting,” Kristen managed, angry because she had been sent off to bed like a child, while Leon had had fun.

“Obviously Lee thinks so!” Sherry drawled.

“What’s she like?”

“Do you mean what does she look like? Like a dream walking, a dream of loveliness,” Sherry assured her. “Of course, just being a ‘canary’ with the band, I wasn’t important enough to meet her socially. But I watched them dance; and the gal is a born dancer if I ever saw one. She has hair that is so black it looks almost blue. And she has a figure that would drive a bathing-suit manufacturer out of his mind; though her gown was very young-girlish and entirely proper. It
was
the color of apricots, but on her it looked good. I’d say she’s about nineteen or twenty.”

Kristen settled herself once more for sleep and turned her back from Sherry’s probing gaze. But Sherry hadn’t finished. Her eyes were still bright.

“Well, what about it, Kristen?” she demanded.

Kristen eyed her, puzzled.

“What about what?” she asked.

“Will you take her? Or shall I?” demanded Sherry. “And don’t think I can’t—if you’re not going to.”

Kristen sighed wearily.

“Look, Sherry, it’s very late and I do have to rehearse tomorrow, so stop talking in riddles and let me get some sleep.”

“Who’s talking in riddles? I’m asking you whether you’re going to stand by and let this Marisa gal make a fool out of Lee? Because if you are, I’m not.”

Sherry was deadly serious, and Kristen’s chuckle died beneath the look in Sherry’s eyes.

“I don’t imagine any woman is going to find it easy to make a fool out of Leon Westerman.”

“Oh,
don’t
you? That’s because you haven’t seen Marisa,” Sherry pointed out. “I have! And I’ve seen the look in Lee’s eyes. He’s ready to go overboard for the gal; and it will
do him less than no good at all, because the gal is filthy rich, and you know as well as I do that her parents aren’t going to let her marry into show business!”

“Sherry, you really
are
an idiot!” Kristen said crossly. “Because a beautiful girl likes to dance, and appreciates a partner as good as Leon, you are already hearing wedding bells and smelling orange blossoms. Remember Leon? He’s the one with the mental block against marriage.”

“Ha!” Sherry’s voice was dripping with sarcasm. “And what it takes to dissolve that mental block, this gal’s got, but
good!
”

“So there’s not much we can do about it tonight, is there? So why don’t we get some sleep and argue about it tomorrow?”

Sherry moved to her bed. But Kristen heard her threshing around for a long time, before she herself was able to get back to sleep …

Leon had never permitted anyone to be present at rehearsals, except the band. But when Kristen entered the grand ballroom after her early breakfast, two women sat at a small table on the edge of the dance floor, and Leon was standing beside the table, chatting with them. He turned as Kristen came in, and his smile was eager.

“Come here, Kristen, and meet some friends of mine,” he said, and drew her to the table. “Madam Chapin, may I present my partner, Miss Dillard? And Miss Newman, Kristen.”

The elderly
grande dame
smiled politely at Kristen, taking her in from head to foot in a single comprehensive glance; but the girl stood up and said eagerly, “Oh, I’m so glad to meet you, Kristen. I wanted to see you after your show last night and tell you how wonderful you were.”