Page 8 of The Daring Times of Fern Adair
“Fern.” His voice was like a pistol shot. “What are you doing?”
She scowled and set her spoon back into her mousse. “Finishing dessert.”
A muscle in his jaw jumped. “The ladies are waiting for you.”
She pushed back her chair. “I highly doubt that.”
If only the others had failed to notice her absence for another minute, she might have had an answer from Mr. Black.
Buchanan shifted his attention toward him. “The staff are waiting to clear the dinner table.”
The chill rolling off him could have frosted the crystal chandelier above them. Mr. Black, however, smiled and got up. He buttoned his suit jacket while staring her brother down.
Buchanan stayed at Fern’s side the short walk to the White Room, with Mr. Black behind them, and Buchanan’s friend bringing up the rear. No one spoke. Tensions weren’t much better in the White Room,though at least there, a record was playing on the cabinet Victrola, and with drinks in hand, people appeared happy to have something else to focus on.
Her father, with palpable displeasure, offered Mr. Black a whiskey.
“No, but I’ll smoke if you don’t mind.” He glanced at Fern’s mother for permission, which she granted with a tremulous wave of her hand.
Mr. Black lowered himself into the corner cushions of the snowy white sofa and extracted a silver case from his breast pocket. He busied himself with the task of lighting a cigarette. By all indications—the staccato conversation, the tight hold of nearly every pair of shoulders in the room—the evening was going to end within fifteen minutes. Any other night, it would have been a relief to her. But not tonight.
Fern had descended the spiral staircase earlier that evening with every intention of surprising her parents and brother, and the guests that had gathered, especially the bachelors, who had already formed expectations about her. She’d been ready and willing to endure her mother’s wrath and her father’s disappointed glares. But the enigmatic Mr. Black had derailed the night so effectively Fern hadn’t even had the chance.
Mr. Black inhaled his cigarette, and the tip glowed. She set her shoulders and took a seat on the ottoman in front of the sofa where he lounged. She crossed her legs to keep them from trembling.
“May I?” Fern gave a pointed glance at the cigarette pinned between his thumb and forefinger. His high-end clothing had been a goodruse, but the way he held his cigarette all but screamed that he was not of their social class.
Little gasps fired off around the room, and the distinct burn of multiple stares daggered her in the back.
Mr. Black ignored them and reached for his silver case. He released the catch, and the cover, etched in a checkered pattern, sprang open. He didn’t lean forward or stand to bring her the cigarette. Oh no. Their strange guest was far too composed for that. He simply held the case in his steady palm, which forced her to stand on her rather wobbly knees.
About ten long, thin cigarettes were underneath a levered bar designed to hold them in place. With a practiced tip of his hand, one cigarette rolled free into a cradle. She took it.
“Fern, darling, whatareyou doing?” Mrs. Adair demanded from the plushy, winged chair that couldn’t possibly have been any farther away from Mr. Black’s position on the sofa.
She and the other ladies had gathered in a crescent near the windows, the scattered chairs clearly rearranged moments before Mr. Black had entered the White Room.
“Simply relaxing, Mother,” she said without a glance in her direction. Had Fern done so, her will might have crumbled.
Mr. Black rolled the wheel on his butane lighter with practiced motion, and a small flame shivered into view. This time, he had the decency to lean forward and not force Fern to bend at the waist over him. She put the cigarette to her lips and passed the tip over the flame.
The hand holding his lighter was coarse, not as well maintained or manicured as the other gentlemen’s in the room. Mr. Black’s thumb knuckle had a long, white scar on it. Fern knew what aged scars looked like, and this one had been inflicted long ago.
She drew on the cigarette and captured the smoke in her mouth. Sweet Betsy, it tasted awful! The smoke stung her throat and filled her nasal cavity, her eyes watering. As Mr. Black capped the lighter and took his place on the sofa once again, his expression changed for the first time all evening. A little smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, and his eyebrows furrowed together in amusement. Fern’s chest was tight with the smoke she’d inhaled, but with every last gaze in the room fixed on her, she was determined not to dissolve into hacking coughs.
“Really, Fern!” her mother cried. “What on earth has gotten into you?”
Congressman Davis attempted a little levity. “A little rebellion, of course. It seems I can’t go for a drive or walk these days without seeing at least a dozen young ladies of good breeding with clouds of smoke around their heads. Count yourself lucky, Mrs. Adair, that your daughter still has all her hair!”
Fern took another puff on the cigarette, much smaller than the last, as the conversation chugged slowly back to life. Buchanan stood at the wet bar with a glass of gin and soda in his hand, his jaw tight. He glared at Fern, his nostrils flaring. She rolled her eyes at him. As if he didn’t see ladies smoking every day. No, he wasn’t furious with the fact that she’d lit a cigarette—he with furious with the man who’d provided the flame.
A bootlegger—which wasn’t that uncommon these days. How else was everyone supposed to get their booze? The Anti-Saloon League had driven the temperance movement into federal law, but no one heeded the ban on liquor. Not when a fortune could be made in supplying the illicit stuff. More than once, she’d heard her father grumble about how Prohibition would only end up churning out more drunks than there had been before, when alcohol was legal.
And look—here everyone sat with their cocktails in hand, and yet, they were treating Mr. Black like he was some lecher off the street. Hypocrites, all of them.
“We were interrupted earlier,” Fern said as Mr. Black tapped his ashes into a heavy glass tray perched on the arm of the sofa.
He moved the tray to the cushion beside him, putting it within her reach too.
