And there it was—floating between them was the knowledge that of course May would go with him, if only he’d propose. Yet even under those circumstances—traveling together while affianced, not married—there’d be incredible scandal, as much as if they’d eloped. To May’s credit, he guessed she was ready to buck convention just that much, but no farther.
They started moving again, dancing in a circle. They’d argued on the periphery of this all week. Bickering about music, people they knew in common, even ice cream flavors. Never discussing the real issue before them, or, more precisely, before Ambrose. He could propose and endure what he knew would be immediate excitement and instantaneous pressure from both their parents. A round of frantic parties and planning that would tie them both to social expectation and derail his plans for a second time. He refused to be thwarted again. This time he’d be free, and he wanted May to share that feeling, that high so close to liberation. If he could just get her to see that one brave decision was all that was called for. After that they’d be free, both of them.
Ambrose always wanted something more, something extreme, the impossible. People had been telling him this since he was a boy.
She avoided his eye, slipped her hand in his back trouser pocket, and pinched his flask—a practiced move, meant to shock. She stole a quick nip of his gin with a little wink, never losing her footing. This had the stale feel of show to Ambrose, something she’d done before with other dance partners to establish herself as modern. These hackneyed moves sometimes disappointed him—small sneaking rebellions that never amounted to much. It gave him the tiniest glimpse of one possible future for her, as a debutante who’d been on the scene too long. And it made him more panicked that she come with him, that she avoid that particular fate by choosing daring and desire now.
“We’ll arrange to meet distant relations all along the way,” he continued, her swig of gin bringing him back, spurring him to push her, to make her see that it was possible. “And of course, Dicky will be with us.”
She put the flask back in his pocket with a scandalous pat. They’d stopped moving and now she started pushing against his arms, trying to get him dancing again.
“Dicky would be a wonderful chaperone,” she teased once they were moving. “My parents would be so reassured.”
He wished then that May would stop hiding behind what others thought—whether it was her parents or her friends. If she didn’t want to go because of what people would think, at least she could acknowledge that this was her conclusion and not hide behind her parents. He knew May thought for herself; when would she speak for herself, too? “Dicky’s so . . .” Ambrose trailed off, thinking of his friend’s joie de vivre. Though maybe not the deepest thinker, Dicky did as he pleased.
“Feckless,” May said.
“Unbound,” Ambrose corrected. “And kind. Look at him with a real Mrs. Grundy like Gretchen.” Gretchen Van Horn laughed nearby while Dicky pushed her around in a fashionable fox-trot. Of course he’d managed to charm himself back into her frumpy good graces.
“Perhaps,” May said. “But it’s easy for him to be unbound by convention. Young, all the money in the world, and . . .”
“And what?”
“And a boy, a man, I guess. Entitled to his pleasures.”
“Entitled?” Ambrose balked at the judgment in the word.
“He gets to do what he wants, anyway,” May said, turning her attention to the band.
Ambrose felt a tap as someone tried to cut in. “I believe I reserved this dance.”
Ambrose swung May around so that his back was to his rival, blocking her from him, as he said, “Buzz off. Should have got her shoe.”
May reached out and patted the intruder’s arm. “Next one,” she said.
Ambrose increased his grip on her, thinking of what it would be like for her in his absence—men circling.
“He probably wants advice on some girl,” she said, as if hearing his thoughts.
“Come with me,” he said again.
She stopped and drew back. “You’re leaving,” she said, quietly. “You chose that.”
“Choose to come with me.” Trust me, he was thinking. Trust that we belong together.
Perhaps his sister was right. Perhaps he was a romantic.
He saw Ethan step out of the French doors and scan the party, no doubt looking for them. Ambrose took care that May’s back remained to Ethan. Really, he didn’t know why he had to do that. He felt overwrought, and just before he swung her off the dance floor and into the grass, he saw Loulou take Ethan’s arm and lead him back inside. Did Ambrose imagine the tiny wave from his sister?
Ambrose clasped May’s hand and led her out of the garden and down a narrow path mown through an idle pasture that was filling in with saplings—locust and poplar and sassafras—a leftover from when this had been a working field.
“What are you doing?” May asked.
He tugged her along with a smile, heading for the pond on the other side of a meadow. Ethan had convinced their father to send his ballistics team, used for blasting out quarries, to come out to the farm and blast a pond into the back of his land. After the extensive dynamiting and dredging, the pond covered twenty-five acres and was a consistent sixteen feet deep, more lake than muddy swimming hole. To get in, one had to jump from a diving board jutting out from a stone walkway set between two bathhouses used for changing. There was no gradual wade-in on a silty floor of muck. This pond required strong swimmers.
“Nobody will see,” he said. “Nobody will care.”
“Am . . .”
He turned and kissed her then, her familiar taste mixed with spice from that ridiculous tea she’d been forcing on everyone. He was lost in her until he stopped, eyes closed, and took her hand and turned.
“I love you,” he said to the air in front of him, walking.
“You don’t. You’re only saying that now.” She stumbled a bit over a root in the path.
“I think I know who I love,” he said, and turned back to smile at her.
“Then stay with me. If you love me, stay.” With both hands she pulled him back, leaning her whole body toward the party.
“Come with me now,” he said, dropping her hand, which made her stumble backward, but she didn’t fall.
“This is all new to you, right?” she asked his back. “That’s why you’re being so cruel?”
The word “cruel” gave him pause for only a second, and then he kept walking, willing her to follow him. He wanted a piece of her that he could take with him. If she’d say yes to this now, perhaps there was hope for them when he returned.
He was two paces in front of her, not far at all, and yet he had to look back, compelled to know, right then, if she’d give in to him.
When he glanced over his shoulder, her smile was beautiful.
“Trust,” he said, as he tugged her into the little clapboard changing house. The women’s side had a fireplace hewn of river rock so ladies could warm up if the water was chilly. The inside smelled of moss, dark water, and dust. He laid his linen jacket down on the floor, and pulled her into his lap, her back to his chest. “You should trust me.”