By the time Clay turned into his parents' driveway full dark had fallen. The headlights picked out the herringbone design of red bricks while upon them the tires hummed the note that by now Catherine unconsciously listened for.
The yard was dressed for winter. Leaves were but memories, while tree trunks were swathed in white leggings. The shrubs had hunched their shoulders and pulled mulch-quilts up beneath their chins. An occasional pyramidal bush was laced into winter bindings like an Indian papoose.
The house was lit from within and without. Catherine glanced at the twin carriage lanterns on either side of the front door, then down at the tips of her high heels as she approached the house. Her pocketed hands hugged her coat close as she tried to keep her growing apprehension from getting the best of her. Without warning, from behind, Clay's fingers circled her neck, closing lightly in a warm grip.
“Hey, wait, I have to talk to you before we go in.”
At his touch, she instantly turned, surprised. He left both hands on her shoulders with his thumbs pressing her coat collar against each side of her windpipe. Catherine needn't say it for him to be reminded that she'd rather not be touched this way.
“Sorry,” he said, immediately raising his palms.
“What is it?”
“Just a technicality.” Gingerly he inserted a single index finger into her coat sleeve, tugging until the hand came out of her coat pocket. “There's no ring on this.” Her bare hand dangled out of the sleeve. While he looked at it, the fingers suddenly clenched protectively, shutting the thumb inside.
“Grandmothers tend to become suspicious when they don't see what they expect to see,” he noted wryly.
“And what do they expect to see?”
“This.”
Still holding her coat sleeve, he lifted his other hand to reveal a jeweled ring riding the first knuckle of his little finger. In the meager light from the carriage lanterns it wasn't at first evident exactly what it looked like. Clay wiggled the finger a little and the gems glittered. Catherine's eyes were drawn to it as if he were a hypnotist using it to mesmerize her. Her mouth went dry.
It's so big! she thought, horrified. “Do I have to?”
He commanded her hand, sliding the ring onto the proper finger. “I'm afraid so. It's family tradition. You'll be the fourth generation to wear it.”
With the ring not quite on, she gripped his fingers, stopping them, feeling the ring cut into her.
“This game is going too far,” she whispered.
“The significance of a ring is in the mind of its wearer, Catherine, not in the fact that it's on a hand.”
“But how can I wear this with three generations behind it?”
“Just pretend you got it in a box of Cracker Jacks,” he said unconcernedly, completing the adornment of her third finger, pushing the ring all the way on. Then he dropped her cold fingers.
“Clay, this ring is worth thousands of dollars. You know it and I know it, and it is not right that I'm wearing it.”
“But you'll have to anyway. If it helps to relieve your mind, remember that the Forrester side of the family made a business of gems before my father broke the tradition and went into law. Grandmother Forrester still owns a thriving business, which she refused to relinquish when Grandfather died. There are hundreds more where this came from.”
“But not with this one's significance.”
“So, humor an old lady.” Clay smiled and shrugged.
She had no choice. Neither did she have a choice when, in the entry after he'd taken her coat, Clay returned and laced his hand half around her neck in that careless way of his. That was how they entered the living room, with him affectionately herding her along and Catherine doing her best to keep resilient under his touch.
They approached first a withered little pair of people who were dressed formally and sat side by side on a velveteen sofa. The man wore a black suit and looked like an aged orchestra conductor. The woman, in mauve lace, wore a little twinkling smile that looked as if she'd donned it seventy years ago and hadn't taken it off since. Approaching the pair, Catherine felt Clay's hand slide down her back, linger at her waist, then depart as he bent to take the woman's cheeks in both hands and plop a direct, noisy kiss on her mouth.
“Hi, sweetheart,” he said irreverently. Catherine could have sworn the old girl actually blushed as she looked up at Clay. Then she twinkled as she shook a crooked, arthritic finger at him—her only greeting.
“Hello, sonny,” the grandfather greeted him. “You get your grandma more excited with that word than I can anymore.” Clay's hearty laugh swept the two.
“So, Granddad, are you jealous?” He put an arm around the shoulders of the bald man who might have been stepping up to a podium with his aging slump. To Catherine's surprise, the two embraced unabashedly, chuckling together.
“I want you both to meet Catherine.” Clay turned back, reached out a palm and drew her forward. “Catherine, this is Grandma and Grandpa Elgin, better known around here as Sophie and Granddad.”
“Hello,” Catherine said, smiling easily, squeezing each parchment hand in turn. Sophie's and Granddad's smiles were so alike it was like seeing double.
Then Clay captured her elbow, turning her toward a woman who sat with a matriarchal air in a high-backed chair that need not be a throne to bespeak the woman's regal mien. The feeling was there. It permeated the very air about her. It was evident in her bearing, her facial expression, the faultless blue-white waves that crested her head, the shrewd eyes, the glitter flashing from her fingers and the glacial assessment she gave Catherine.
Before Clay could speak, the woman pierced him with an arch, amused look.
“Don't try those flirtatious tactics with me, young man. I'm not the blushing fool your Grandmother Sophie might be.”
“Never, Grandmother,” assured Clay, wearing a devilish grin as he lifted one of her bejeweled hands and bent over it quite correctly. He made as if to kiss its blue-veined back, but at the last minute, turned it over and kissed the base of her thumb.
Catherine found herself amused at these cat-and-mouse goings-on. The old lady's mouth pursed to keep from smiling outright.
“I've brought Catherine to meet you,” Clay said, dropping the hand, but not the half-smile. Again he urged Catherine near with a slight touch on her elbow. “Catherine, this is my Grandmother Forrester. I never call her by her first name for some reason.”
“Mrs. Forrester,” Catherine repeated, while her hand disappeared within all those flashing gems.
“My grandson is a precocious young upstart. You'd do well to watch your p's and q's around him, young lady.”
“I intend to, Ma'am,” Catherine rejoined, wondering what the old lady would think if she knew the extent to which p's and q's would need to be watched in the months ahead.
Mrs. Forrester raised an ivory-headed cane and tapped Catherine's shoulder lightly, perusing her with gray irises from beneath one straight eyebrow and one that was cocked in an aristocratic arc.
“I like that. I might have answered in just that way myself.” She rested the cane on the floor again, crossed her hands upon the ivory elephant with its sapphire eyes, and angled a bemused expression again at her grandson, asking, “Where did you find this perceptive young lady?”
Clay moved a hand lingeringly up and down the inner side of Catherine's elbow while he searched her face and answered his grandmother. “I didn't. She found me.” Then his hand trailed down, enclosing hers. Elizabeth Forrester's eyes followed it and registered the way the girl's fingers failed to clasp Clay's. The pair turned toward Claiborne and Angela who were pouring port and making room on a marble-topped table for the silver tray of canapés which Inella carried in at that moment.
Clay had a greeting for Inella too. He dropped a hand on her shoulder as she leaned to set down the tray. “And what kind of epicurean delights have you dreamed up tonight, Inella? Don't you know Father's been concerned about his waistline?”
Everyon
e laughed.
“Epicurean delights,” scoffed the pleased maid. “Where do you dream up such stuff?” She left, smiling. There followed a full-fledged hug between Clay and his mother and a clasp of hands with his father.
Catherine had never seen so much touching in her life. Nor had she seen Clay in this element before, warm, humorous, obviously loved and loving everyone in the place. The scene gripped her with something akin to envy, yet deep in some part of her, Catherine was slightly intimidated. But she could not pull away as the next warm touch fell her way and Angela's cheek pressed against her own while Claiborne—thankfully—only smiled on, and gave her a friendly verbal greeting.
“Young woman, sit here,” ordered Elizabeth Forrester imperiously.
Catherine could do nothing but perch on a loveseat at a right angle to Elizabeth Forrester's chair. She was actually grateful when Clay sat down beside her. His presence somehow made her feel fortified. Elizabeth Forrester's shrewd eagle-eyes assessed Catherine, probing like a laser while she made what appeared on the surface to be inconsequential conversation.
“Catherine . . .” she mused, “what a quaint and lovely name. Not clever and will-o-the-wisp like so many of today's insubstantial titles. I dare say there are many I'd be thoroughly ashamed to be plagued with. You and I, however, have each been preceded in name by an English queen, you know. My given name is Elizabeth.”
Catherine wondered if she were being given permission to use the name or being tested to see if she were so presumptuous. Assuming the latter, Catherine consciously used the more formal mode of address.
“I believe, Mrs. Forrester, that the name Elizabeth means 'consecrated to God.'“
The regal eyebrow raised a notch. The girl is astute, thought Elizabeth Forrester. “Ah, so it does, so it does. Catherine . . . is that with a C or a K?”
“With a C.”
“From the Greek then, meaning 'pure.'“
Catherine's stomach did somersaults. Does she know or does she want to know, Catherine wondered, making a great effort to appear unruffled.
The matriarch observed, “So, you are the one who will carry the Forrester name forward.”
Catherine's stomach tightened further. But Clay, whom she didn't know whether to damn or to thank, nestled closely beside her with his thigh against the length of her own, meeting his grandmother's probe directly.
“Yes, she is. But not without some persuasion. I think Catherine was a little put off by me at first. Something to do with our having different stations in life, which I had trouble convincing her didn't matter one damn bit.”
My God, thought Catherine, he's actually challenging the old girl!
Understanding that challenge very clearly, Elizabeth Forrester only chided. “In my day, your grandfather didn't pronounce vulgarities in my ear.”
Clay only grinned, sparring expertly. “Oh, Grandmother, you're sterling, pure sterling. But this is not your day, and a man can get by with a little more.” But then, feeling the muscle of Catherine's leg grow rigid, he dulcified his remark by adding, “Damn is hardly considered a vulgarity anymore, not even a crudity.”
She merely cocked the eyebrow again.
“Father,” Clay said, “bring your mother a glass of port. She's being testy tonight and you know how port always mellows her. Catherine, do you like port?”
“I don't know.”
Elizabeth Forrester missed not a word.
“White wine then?” her grandson suggested. The girl's reaction was curious. She attempted to move her thigh away from his. Unconcerned, he arose without waiting for an answer and went to get the wine.
“How long have you known Clay?” his Grandma Sophie asked then, leaning forward with birdlike tentativeness.
“We met this summer.”
“Angela says you are sewing your own dress for the wedding.”
“Yes, but I have lots of help,” Catherine answered, realizing too late that she'd left herself open for further questioning.
“Why, how nice. I never could sew a stitch, could I, Angela? Is your mother helping you?” Sophie's manner of speech was exactly the opposite of her counterpart's. Where Elizabeth Forrester was audacious and quizzing, this woman was shy and unassuming. Still, her innocent line of questioning made Catherine again feel boxed into a corner.
“No, some friends of mine are helping me with the dress. I do some sewing to help out with college expenses.”
“My, Clay didn't tell us you're in college.”
He came to her rescue then, returning with a stem glass of imported German liebfraumilch. As Catherine reached for it, the gems in her ring glittered like the lead crystal glass which held the wine. Before she sipped, she changed hands, resting her left, knuckles-down on her lap.
“Yes, she is. She's a clever girl too. She made the dress she's wearing tonight, Grandma. She's very good with her hands, isn't she?”
Catherine almost choked. Quickly she added, “I also type theses and manuscripts.”
“You do? My, my,” Grandma Sophie remarked inanely.
“You see, Grandma, now I won't have to pay to have my papers typed this year. That's really why I'm marrying her.” He grinned mischievously and laid his hand along the back of the loveseat as he said it, making Sophie's eyes soften in approval.
“Mother,” Angela put in, “Clay is up to his usual teasing again. Don't pay any attention to him.”
The talk moved on, interspersed with the nibbling of crab-stuffed petits choux and marinated mushroom caps. Clay relaxed beside Catherine, his knees lolling wide so there was the ever-present intrusion of his thigh against hers. He kept up the small talk, asked once, close to Catherine's ear, if she didn't like the crab, confirmed that's what it was she was eating, murmured just loud enough that the elder Mrs. Forrester overheard him tell his fiancée there were lots of things he'd teach her to like. He bantered with Elizabeth, teased Sophie, agreed to play racquetball with his father one evening soon, and through it all, managed to act as if he doted on Catherine.
By the time they went to dinner, she was nearly undone. She wasn't used to sitting so close to him, nor being wooed in so obvious a manner for the benefit of others. At the table it went on, for Clay was seated directly beside her, and now and then during the meal he rested his elbow on the back of her chair and spoke trumped-up confidences into her ear in a highly convincing way. He could laugh just softly enough, glance at her just beguilingly enough to make his grandmothers smile at each other over their salmon steaks a la Inella. But long before the meal ended either the steaks or Clay or both had caused Catherine's stomach to begin to churn. Add to that the fact that Elizabeth Forrester brought up the ring, and Catherine wondered if she'd make it through the meal.
“I see Angela has given you the radiant. How wonderful, Angela, to see it on Catherine's hand. What does your family think of it, dear?”
Catherine forced herself to continue cutting a cheese-encrusted Irish potato.
“They haven't seen it yet,” she answered truthfully, learning the game quickly, determined not to give the hawk-eyed woman an edge.
“It looks beautiful on such long, slim fingers, don't you think so, Clay?”
Clay picked up Catherine's hand, took the fork from it, kissed it, replaced the fork, and said, “Beautiful.”
“Would you like to prick my grandson with that fork, Catherine, just to let a little of that self-satisfied hot air out of him? Your fondling seems to distract Catherine from her eating, Clay.”
But it was as much the ring as everything else that was distracting Catherine.
Clay only laughed and delved into his food again. “Grandmother, I think I detect a note of testiness again. Nobody told you you had to pass the ring on to Mother. Would you like it back?”
“Don't be cheeky, Clay. As your bride, Catherine should and will wear the ring. Your grandfather would be thrilled to distraction if he could see it on a girl as beautiful as she.”
“I give up. For once you've left me speec
hless because you're right.”
Elizabeth Forrester was left to wonder if her suspicion was correct. The boy seemed incapable of stopping himself from fawning over the girl. Well, time would tell, soon enough.
In the car on the way home Catherine laid her head back against the seat, struggling with each passing mile to control her roiling insides. But halfway there Catherine ordered, “Stop the car!”
Clay turned to find her eyes closed, one hand convulsively gripping the console.
“What is it?”
“Stop the car . . . please.”
But they were on the freeway where controlled accesses made it difficult to stop.
“Hey, are you all right?”
“I have to throw up.”
An exit ramp beckoned and he pulled over, careened halfway up, drove the car completely over the curb and onto the shoulderless area of grass, then slammed on the brakes. Immediately Catherine rolled out her side of the car. He heard her retching, then she gasped and spit.
Sweat broke out under Clay's armpits. Across his chest the skin grew tight and hot, and saliva pooled beneath his own tongue as if he were the nauseated one. He got out, unsure of what to do, saw her huddled over, her hair hanging down over her cheeks.
“Catherine, are you all right?”
“Do you have a tissue?” she asked shakily.
He came up behind her, reached in his hip pocket and extracted his handkerchief. He handed it to her and took her elbow to lead her a few steps aside.
“This . . . is your . . . han . . . hanky. I can't use . . . your hanky.” Her ordeal had left her fighting for breath.
“Christ, use it . . . anything. Are you okay now?”
“I don't know.” She gulped air like a person coming up for the second time. “Don't you have any tissues?”
“Catherine, this is no time to be polite. Use the damn hanky.”
In spite of her wretchedness, it suddenly dawned on Catherine that Clay Forrester swore when he was scared. She swabbed the inside of her mouth with his clean-tasting handkerchief.
“Does this happen often?” His voice was shaky, concerned, and he left a solicitous hand on her arm.