Chapter Eleven #2
“I didn’t bring my shoes either.” Sylvie sounded more regretful, but not regretful enough in Marly’s opinion. “Didn’t think tennis was in the cards. Shame, because I love tennis.” She actually fluttered her eyelashes a little, which Priscilla noticed and didn’t like.
“Tennis isn’t in the cards,” Cilla said tightly.
“Well, it can be,” Freddie said, draining the last of his coffee and giving Marly a resigned look.
“Great.” Marly was on her feet already. “You four can sit here and drink seltzer and watch the yachts while Freddie and I play tennis.”
“Freddie doesn’t want to play tennis with you, Marly dear,” Cilla said in that same cloyingly sweet voice, which carried a lethal undercurrent.
“He’s wearing tennis shoes,” Marly observed. “I think that shows he’s keen to play tennis.” Honestly. Who wanted to just sit around all day?
“Marly,” Mom said warningly.
“It’s quite all right, Mrs. Orcutt. I’m nothing if not a gallant host,” Freddie de Marche said in his lazy way. “And I’m awful fond of little kids.”
Marly glared at him.
“You’re most welcome to order more coffee or take a wander around the grounds. I’ll give Marly here a game or two and we’ll be back before you know it.”
Cilla’s face fell like he’d just said he was off to hike the Himalayas for a year. But Mom and Aunt Bet were melting at his graciousness.
“Isn’t he just the most perfect gentleman!” Mom was saying as Freddie led Marly away.
“She’s only saying that because she doesn’t know about your tendency toward molestation.”
“Drop it, short stuff, or I won’t play with you.”
Marly trotted to keep up with his long strides. “I should warn you that I’m better at tennis than I look. And you look like a guy who had tennis lessons growing up but lacks the killer instinct needed to win.”
“You’re a pain in the ass, you know that, kid?”
“Yeah.” She did.
He laughed and shook his head. “Come on, then. Let’s get you a racquet and you can show me your killer instinct.”
Freddie de Marche was good at tennis, but he was also good at making it fun and not just beating the hell out of her like her brothers did. They had a few volleys that left Marly breathless and laughing.
“That was great,” she said, deeply satisfied after three matches. He’d won all of them and seemed surprised she wasn’t upset about it.
“I’m used to losing,” she told him without rancor. “But only to brothers. When I play kids my own age, I wipe the court with them.”
“Even though your technique is appalling.”
“I’ve never had lessons,” she told him as they returned their racquets and crossed the lush lawns. “I’ve just got—”
“Killer instinct, I know.” He put his hands in his pockets and slowed his steps to match hers. “Sorry your brothers didn’t take you out on the yacht.”
“I told you they wouldn’t.” Marly glared at the sparkling bay.
“Well, in their defense, you are quite drownable.”
“Can you take me out on a yacht? Or at least in one of those canoes?”
“It depends on what your cousin wants to do. I don’t think she’ll forgive me if I ditch her all day.”
“But all they do is sit around,” Marly moaned. “And look at all this.” She swept an arm to the boats and the volleyball net and the croquet court. “There’s so much fun to be had.”
Freddie laughed. He seemed genuinely amused by her. “Patience, pixie stick. We’ve got all day.”
“No, we don’t.” Marly dragged her feet. “Because they want to get back early to curl their hair or their eyelashes or whatever for the dance.”
“Well, there you go. We can go for a sail while they do that. Then I’ll drop you home. Unless you need time to curl your eyelashes or whatever too?”
“Seriously?” She was surprised he was volunteering to take her out for a sail.
“Sure. Despite being a pain in the ass, you’re quite good company.
I was a bit worried I’d be bored here this summer,” he confessed, “and yet I’ve already been blackmailed by a criminal prodigy.
And my sisters won’t play tennis anymore—they don’t like to perspire in public—and everyone else at this place seems roughly the age of Methuselah.
” He laughed. “Although don’t expect this to continue after today.
I don’t make a habit of playing tennis with kids. ”
“Yeah, well, I don’t make a habit of playing with molesters.”
“Drop the m-word now, kid. I invited you here and played tennis. I’ve kept my side of the bargain.”
“I’ll downgrade the m-word to potential m-word, how about that?”
“And after the sail?”
“I’ll drop it completely,” she promised. “Provided you give me a dance tonight. Because no one else will and I want to try dancing at least once. Proper dancing I mean, not the kind you do at school. My mother says dancing is the closest thing to heaven and I’m determined to prove her wrong.”
He snorted. “Cilla or Sylvie might dance with you?”
“Don’t count on it.”
“Fine. I’ll dance with you if nobody else does.” He stopped dead. “Oh God damn it.”
“What?”
“It’s my father.”
Mr. Stanford de Marche looked like a man who’d be more comfortable in a uniform, Marly thought.
He was a stiff sort of man, with a military haircut, a ramrod-straight back, and a complete inability to engage in small talk.
Marly quite liked him. Freddie, on the other hand, couldn’t cope with him at all.
He went from being all lazy to being itchy and snappy and generally out of sorts.
Mr. de Marche wasn’t pleased to find his son had guests. “I’d planned to relax this weekend,” he’d growled at Freddie, not caring that Marly was standing right there. “Not entertain total strangers.”
“So don’t entertain them. Go drink a fifth and take a nap,” Freddie said in a flat voice.
“And who is this Priscilla girl anyway? What happened to Birdie?”
Marly joined in. “Yes, what happened to Birdie?” What kind of girl was called Birdie? And what would Priscilla think about this!
“Birdie’s in Capri for the summer with her parents,” Freddie said tightly, ignoring Marly. “And Pris is a friend.”
Pris? A friend?
“Wow,” Marly said, once the terse little conversation was over. “You’re such a gentleman.”
“Oh, hush up,” Freddy said, still glaring at his father’s retreating back. “Birdie and I aren’t serious, and neither are Pris and I.”
“Cilla,” Marly corrected. “She hates being called Pris.”
“She never complains when I do it.”
“No, well, she wouldn’t, would she?” Marly griped. “But trust me, she secretly hates it.”
Freddie de Marche of course made a point of calling Priscilla Pris all day after that. And Priscilla, the idiot, let him, even though Marly could have sworn she saw her eye twitch every time he did.
Mr. de Marche seemed to put everyone off as much as he put Freddie off, Marly noticed—even his own wife.
Mrs. de Marche was elegant and very, very thin and looked like she’d just licked a lemon, especially when Mr. de Marche was around.
They all had a rather stilted luncheon together in the dining room.
Marly’s lucky brothers missed the whole thing, still out on the bay in their yacht while Marly had to sit, bored as hell, at the end of the table next to a potted palm.
“He’s a bit much, isn’t he?” Mom murmured about Freddie’s father to Aunt Betty as they got ready to leave.
“Almost as much as she is,” Aunt Bet murmured back.
Cilla wasn’t pleased when she learned Freddie planned to take Marly out on the water. “You don’t have to,” she said, a frown forming.
“I know, but the kid was pretty heartbroken when her brothers left her behind this morning.”
Marly tried to look heartbroken.
“Maybe I’m heartbroken at not going out too,” Cilla said, looking sulky but trying to do it prettily.
“Don’t you need to curl your eyelash—” Freddie cleared his throat. “I mean, don’t you need to get ready for the dance?”
“There’s plenty of time,” Cilla lied. “And we haven’t been alone all day.”
“That’s settled, then,” Mom said cheerily. “Priscilla and Freddie will go for a sail while we go home and get ready. Come on, Marly.” She clicked her fingers at Marly like she was a dog.
“Sorry, kid, I tried,” Freddie murmured as they waited for the valet to bring the car.
“You better dance with me tonight,” she hissed at him under her breath. “Or the m-word is coming back out and I don’t care who hears it.”
Marly had never been to a dance before and she only had one dress that was at all appropriate: a yellow cotton sundress with tucks down the front.
It was missing a couple of buttons and her mother made her fish around in the button dish for replacements.
She stood in her robe waiting while Mom took forever to sew them on.
Sylvie lent her a poufy net petticoat to go underneath her sundress, but only after Aunt Betty intervened.
The bouffed-out skirt looked more grown-up, but not by much, and Marly only had her patent Mary Janes to wear.
Talk about little kid shoes. She looked like she was going to church.
Mom let her borrow a pair of white gloves with little floral eyelets all over the backs, and she tied a yellow ribbon in Marly’s loose hair.
“Lovely,” Mom said absently. But Marly knew she looked her fourteen years and no more.
Sylvie and Priscilla, on the other hand, looked like full-grown women.
Cilla’s blue tulle made her bust look bigger than it really was, and Sylvie was pert as heck in her pink chiffon with the big buckle at the waist. Marly’s brothers were in their sport coats, their hair Brylcreemed and their shoes shined to a high gloss (courtesy of Mom).
They had a flask hidden and kept passing it back and forth when Mom wasn’t looking.
On the way out to the car, Marly picked some seaside daisies and tucked them into the ribbon in her hair.