The Earl's American Heiress. Carol Arens
Chapter Fifteen
Santa Monica Beach, an afternoon in May 1889
One did not need to open one’s eyes to appreciate the majesty of the Pacific Ocean.
It was better, in fact, to keep them closed. Doing so made it easier to ignore the hustle and bustle of high society as it went through its prancing and posing at the Arcadia Hotel, grandly squatted three hundred yards down the shore from where Clementine Macooish stood.
With closed eyes one could better feel the rush of a cold wave across one’s bare feet and the tickle of shifting sand between one’s toes as the salt water retreated into the sea.
“Once the ocean laps at your toes, it will summon you home forever,” she muttered softly, even though no one was within shouting distance. “Or with one’s dying breath—no, not that—with one’s first gasp of eternity!”
That last was a vastly more positive thought. Beautiful thoughts often came to her when her eyes were closed. She would write this one down and share it with her students at Mayflower Academy.
Moist air, the cry of gulls circling overhead... Sensation became sharpened without the distraction of the outrageously incredible vista glittering all the way to the western horizon.
Without sight, what a simple thing it was to draw in a lungful of salty, fish-scented air and imagine being as free and weightless as a pelican gliding over the surface of the water. Free to dip—free to swirl in feathered—
“Clementine Jane Macooish! What in blazing glory do you have on?”
She opened her eyes and turned when she heard the voice she loved above all others approaching from behind.
“Good afternoon to you, too, Grandfather.” She fluffed the gaily dotted ruffle of her bodice. “This is a perfectly respectable bathing gown, and you know it.”
“Respectable for underwear. Cover those bloomers with a proper skirt, girl.”
“Don’t look so shocked. If you walked the shoreline from the hotel you’ve seen this costume a dozen times on other ladies.”
“I came down the cliff steps, every blasted ninety-nine of them.” Her grandfather was trim, fit and in excellent health, so she doubted the stairs had been a burden on him. “Besides, those women are wearing stockings and booties. Your feet are bare as hatchling birds. And your hair! Surely you’ve not come without a hat.”
“It’s around here someplace.” She glanced about and didn’t see it. Perhaps it had tumbled away with the onshore breeze or been carried away by a gull. “Stand beside me and close your eyes.”
She snatched his sleeve to draw him closer.
“Folderol,” he grumbled, but did as she suggested.
She plucked the bowler hat from his head and tucked it under her arm. “Now there, doesn’t the ocean breeze feel lovely gliding over your scalp? The sunshine so nice and warm?”
With a sidelong glance, she noticed a smile tugging one corner of his mouth. Truly, he was far more handsome than most seventy-year-old men. With his gray beard and mustache, neatly trimmed, and dark brows arching dapperly over intelligent brown eyes, it was no wonder he drew the attention of ladies of all ages when he passed by.
“Fine for me,” he said, opening his eyes and pinning her with one arched brow. “I’m bald on top while you’ve the hotel ball to prepare for. I can’t think how Maria is going to do a thing with that thicket of hair, not with salt and sand stuck in it.”
“In that case I might have to stay in my hotel room tonight.”
Of course Grandfather would never permit it, but it was what she wanted to do, and she was duty bound to say so.
“Do not test me, child. You are a well-bred Macooish woman and will represent the family as such. And besides, you are quite lovely, even given the dishabille you are now in.”
Grandfather would think so, of course, since he had been the one to raise her. The truth was, her hair was far too red to be considered fashionable, her eyes green rather than the desired blue. But it was her nose that was her biggest beauty fault, being a bit too sharp. Unless she was smiling, her countenance had a slightly severe appearance, bordering even on arrogance, or so Grandfather had warned.
Her younger and prettier cousin, Madeline, had a nose that looked sweet no matter her mood.
And Clementine’s temperament? She was far too direct and opinionated to be considered socially graceful. Truly, she smiled only when she felt like it, not when it was required. Her smiles were quite genuine, to be sure, but never given away simply to put someone at ease during an awkward conversation. Sadly, on those occasions she tried, the gesture came out more as a grimace.
Madeline was far better at playing the hostess. Indeed, she excelled at charming people. Her cousin was petite, with fairy-blond hair. Her blue eyes were lit from within by a gracious spirit. Madeline had a gift for making a stranger into a friend.
It was why Grandfather had elected Madeline to be the one to cross the ocean and marry a peer of the realm—a lofty earl, no less.
Every morning and night Clementine thanked the good lord that she was not the charming granddaughter.
Which allowed her to be the one who was free to stand on the beach in her bathing costume, wiggle her bare toes in the sand and dream of being a pelican.
Since she was not doomed to become a countess, Grandfather had given his blessing on her desire to become the schoolteacher she had always yearned to be. Truly, she wanted nothing more in life than to direct young minds toward a sound future.
And of equal importance to her, marriage could wait until she was good and ready for it.
“If I do stay in my room, no one will miss me.” She returned her grandfather’s arched brow with one of her own. It must be a family trait, that—putting someone in their place with a lifted brow. Her cousin didn’t share it, though. Only she and Grandfather used the expression. Perhaps her parents and Madeline’s had it, but they had all died so long ago that she knew them mostly as portraits in the formal parlor. “Madeline will make up for my absence.”
“Madeline has run off.”
All of a sudden she could not hear the surf crashing on the sand, and the gulls went silent.
Run off?
“To the dressmaker, no doubt.”
“She’s run away with some charlatan. Left a note admitting it.”
Clementine ought to have suspected that might happen.
While she and Madeline both tended to be freethinking, as Grandfather had raised them to be, her cousin’s temperament sent her flying headlong into adventure.
Clementine was of a settled nature, happy to be at home, cozy and content in the smallest room of the sprawling mansion she had grown up in. Her best nights were