A Perfect Wedding

by Anne Robins

Genres: Gothic; Medieval Romance

Synopsis

A New Life
Rescued from the doomed Titanic moments before its sinking, stewardess Marjorie McTavish is determined to find happiness at last.  The dear friends who stood by her on that fateful night have vowed to help her now, and Marjorie, ever hopeful, accompanies them to the bustling port of San Francisco to begin all over again, far from the gloomy slums of Glasgow.  Anything is possible in America, it seems--especially romance...
A New Love
Dr. Jason Abernathy, dashing man about town, is beguiled by Marjorie's soft brogue and fresh charm. He has no way of knowing how much his gallantry delights her--or that his kindness to the less fortunate has already melted her heart.  If the shy lass from Scotland would just say yes, he would consider himself the luckiest man on earth...

Release date: May 16, 2013

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 352

Sample

September, 1915

The summer weather seemed to have gone into hiding, much as Marjorie MacTavish wished she could do. The air was chilly, and the fog had lingered into the afternoon. It swirled around her feet and crept up the walls of buildings like a cat burglar, slipping into rooms under doorways and through cracked windows and stealing the warmth therefrom. The atmosphere, damp and dreary, matched Marjorie’s mood.

She’d had enough fog in her youth and during her years as a White Star stewardess. Now she detested it and wished it would go away. For that matter, she wished she could go away.

“Third floor, ladies.” The elevator in which she had been riding clunked to a stop, and the operator pulled the lever drawing the double doors apart. Marjorie hesitated for a moment before stepping out into the hallway. She felt as if she were heading to her doom.

“I thought summers were supposed to be warm in California,” she said in something of a grump.

“It’ll warm up,” her companion assured her. “Summers in San Francisco are always a little foggy. It has something to do with the atmospheric conditions here on the coast.” There was no hesitation about her, and not a hint of gloom. She was bright as the morning sun—a good deal brighter than this morning’s sun, actually—as she led the way down the hall.

As ever, Marjorie thought darkly. Marjorie herself hung back as well as she could, although she didn’t dare be too stubborn. After all, Loretta Quarles, today’s companion and also the woman who employed Marjorie as her secretary, was almost nine months pregnant. What’s more, it was widely suspected that she was going to give birth to twins. Loretta was the healthiest specimen Marjorie had ever met in her life, but she didn’t want to cause her any trouble.

That didn’t negate the fact that she thought this was one of Loretta’s most harebrained ideas ever. And Loretta was full to the brim with harebrained ideas.

Not only that, Marjorie thought acerbically, but why a nine-months-pregnant lady should be displaying herself in public was more than she could fathom. Any woman with an ounce of propriety would stay at home if she were in Loretta’s condition.

But since she’d first encountered Loretta aboard the ill-fated Titanic, Marjorie had known her to be one of a kind. And that, if you asked her, was a very good thing. While Marjorie clung almost desperately to her conventional standards, Loretta flouted public opinion wherever and whenever she could. She also promoted every radical cause that came her way and had about as much truck with conventional behavior as she did with opera singing—and Loretta couldn’t hold a tune in a teacup.

“I dinna want to see this doctor, Loretta Quarles, and ye’re daft if ye think he’ll do me good.” As a rule, Marjorie did her very best to sound like a dignified, educated Englishwoman.

The sad fact of her life was that she’d been born in a slum in Glasgow almost thirty years earlier. But she’d overcome her beginnings. Every now and then, and especially when Loretta became particularly pushy or nonsensical, her origins came out in her speech.

“Fiddlesticks,” said Loretta stoutly, waddling quickly at Marjorie’s side. “You know as well as I do that you’ve been suffering terrible neuroses and phobias ever since the Titanic disaster.”

“Stuff!” Marjorie’s heart suffered a painful jolt, as it always did when she remembered that horrible night.

“It’s not stuff. That experience has given you a phobia of the ocean, and Dr. Hagendorf is just the person to help you get over it.”

Marjorie huffed, vexed. She didn’t like even thinking about the ocean . . . or that night, when she’d lost all that she’d ever held dear. She sure as anything didn’t want to chat about it with a stranger.

“Dr. Hagendorf and his wife Irene are my dear friends, Marjorie. William is a kind man, and a brilliant alienist. I’m sure he’ll be able to help you overcome your illogical fear of the water.”

“I deny that it’s illogical.”

“Pooh. It’s illogical to have such a terror of the sea that you can’t even go to the Cliff House to dine with me without suffering palpitations and spasms.”

“I dinna want to go to the Cliff House.”

“You’re being stubborn, Marjorie MacTavish. You know very well what I mean. You have a definite phobia of the ocean, and you need to overcome it.”

“Why?”

“Why ? Because it’s holding you back is why!”

“From what?”

“From life! From fulfillment! From joy!”

“Codswallop.”

“It’s not codswallop. It’s the truth.”

“Well, and what if I dinna want to overcome this so-called phobia?” Marjorie said through clenched teeth. “What if I consider my life fulfilled already and as full of joy as it needs to be? What do I want the ocean for? I dinna care to travel. I’ve had my fill of it.”

“But it’s so silly, Marjorie. Wouldn’t you like to be free from the debilitating anxiety that grips you every time you get near water?”

“Fah.” The truth was that Marjorie never wanted to see an ocean again as long as she lived. Every time she even smelled the sea, she thought about her lost darling, Leonard Fleming. She no longer had to fight tears twenty-four hours every day, thank the good Lord. It had been more than three years since that black night, after all. However, she still hated the ocean. As far as Marjorie was concerned, the ocean had taken her very life from her.

Perhaps if Leonard’s body had been recovered, she wouldn’t feel this empty, gnawing grief in her heart, this sense of business unfinished and a life full of promise that remained unlived, but there it was. Poor Leonard had been one of the more than eight hundred people who had gone down with the ship, and who, for all anyone knew, were still there, locked in its barnacled bulk like ghostly prisoners.

Sometimes Marjorie envisioned his bones lying in the remains of the grand ballroom, picked clean by fish and covered in cockles and sand, and the urge to cry assailed her anew. She fought it with all the strength she possessed. Marjorie wasn’t one to broadcast her woes to the world.

Since she lived in San Francisco, which was on the very edge of the Pacific Ocean, most of her days were endured with the smell of the sea in her head and the accompanying ache in her heart. But she didn’t have the energy to move farther inland.

Besides that—although Loretta occasionally drove Marjorie daft with her constant harping on rights for women, and votes for women, and this and that and the other thing for women—Marjorie knew she’d never get a job that paid as well, or with an employer as kind, as the one she had.

Because she’d learned the futility of arguing with Loretta early in their acquaintanceship, she only repeated, “Ye’re daft,” and stopped fighting.

So she had to spend an hour lying on a couch and babbling to a doctor. So what? The hour might be well spent, even if it only managed to silence Loretta on the issue of “Marjorie’s awful neuroses.” Loretta had promised not to fuss at her anymore about seeing the alienist if she agreed to keep one appointment. An hour wouldn’t kill her.

The building in which Dr. Hagendorf practiced his trade was a fairly new one, having been built after the earthquake and fire that all but destroyed San Francisco in 1906. It rose tall and shiny in its clean white bricks on Market Street, close to where Loretta’s father’s bank sat.

Glancing at the pretty desert scenes decorating the walls of the hallway, Marjorie murmured, “Dr. Hagendorf must have a flourishing practice if he can afford to have his office in this neighborhood.”

“That’s because he’s the best,” said Loretta, her confidence in her friend plain to hear in her voice.

Marjorie said, “Hmm,” and left it at that.

“Here we are.” Loretta sounded eager.

That made one of them. Because she didn’t want Loretta to strain herself, Marjorie hurried ahead of her and opened the door, a sign upon which proclaimed merely “William D. Hagendorf, M.D., Ph.D.” There was no mention of his speciality, Marjorie noted with interest. Evidently she wasn’t the only person in San Francisco who felt funny about being seen visiting an alienist’s office.

Dr. Hagendorf’s nurse-receptionist, in a pristine white uniform that reminded Marjorie of the crisp uniforms she’d worn as a stewardess for the White Star Line, greeted the two women with a smile. She sat behind a businesslike desk that sported a candlestick telephone and several pieces of paper.

“Mrs. Quarles, how nice to see you again,” she said. Glancing at Marjorie with an expression Marjorie could only deem as kindly, and which she resented, she went on, “And is this Miss MacTavish?”

With her usual cheerful ebullience, Loretta rushed to the desk, her bulk giving her a rocking gait not, Marjorie thought, unlike that of a corpulent bulldog. Or an ambulatory barrel. She would probably have grinned and relayed her notions to Loretta, who had a lively sense of humor, had she not been so peeved with her.

Loretta took the receptionist’s hand and shook it heartily. “How are you today, Miss Grindthorpe? It’s good to see you, too.”

“I’m fine, thank you,” gushed Miss Grindthorpe.

Marjorie had to fight a scowl. She considered Dr. Hagendorf and those of his ilk, not to mention the people who worked for them, no better than sly charlatans who preyed on gullible rich folks. If it weren’t for Loretta and her cursed bluidy fortune, Marjorie wouldn’t have to be going through this humiliating experience today.

As a rule, Marjorie loved Loretta like a sister. Sometimes, Loretta strained that rule beyond bearing, this being one of those times.

“Please take a seat, ladies,” Miss Grindthorpe said, sounding to Marjorie’s sensitive ears like the condescending mistress at a boarding school, not that she’d know anything about boarding schools. But she’d met plenty of nannies and governesses and rich people during her years as a stewardess, and she knew what they sounded like. “I’ll see if Dr. Hagendorf is ready for Miss MacTavish.”

Loretta immediately did as requested, subsiding into a chair with a grunt. She was very large. Marjorie sat, too, with less noise.

After Miss Grindthorpe had swished out of the office, Marjorie muttered, “ ’T’would be better to ask if I’m ready for him.”

Loretta playfully patted her arm, one of her favorite forms of communication. “Don’t be silly, Marjorie. This will be good for you.”

“So you keep telling me.”

Loretta only laughed.

A few minutes later, Miss Grindthorpe ushered Marjorie into Dr. Hagendorf’s lair—uh, his office. Her heart quailed when she saw the couch upon which she presumed she would be lying. Loretta had told her that Dr. Hagendorf used a “modified Freudian” method, whatever that was, in his practice. When Loretta had tried to explain it to her, Marjorie had become so embarrassed that she’d fled from the room. Therefore, she still had no idea what to expect.

If the wretched man lectured her about the sexual urge and how repressed hers was, Marjorie might have to flee from this room, too. As dear as Loretta was to her, and as much as she tried to please her, there were some things she wouldn’t do.

Perhaps couldn’t was a more honest word. When she wasn’t fighting for her emotional life against Loretta’s outrageous incursions, Marjorie acknowledged to herself that she did have a problem or two, the main one being that she’d lost the only man she’d ever loved in the most catastrophic ocean liner disaster the world had ever seen. And she was absolutely, deathly, stomach-churningly terrified of the ocean. Still and all, as little as she liked what Loretta called her “neurosis,” and as much as she would like to overcome it, she figured she’d earned it.

As soon as the door opened, Dr. Hagendorf, who had been sitting at his desk and writing something—probably a report on some other poor soul whose life he’d invaded—rose and walked toward Marjorie and Miss Grindthorpe, his hand extended. He had a nice smile, and he seemed friendly.

Marjorie wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but she hadn’t anticipated being greeted by this beardless man who looked more like a studious schoolboy than a doctor, with his thick-lensed eyeglasses, his rumpled suit, and his big grin. He had freckles across his nose, too, for heaven’s sake. Perhaps she’d thought he’d look more like Dr. Freud with his pointy beard and grim Germanic expression.

“Here’s your next guest, Doctor,” Miss Grindthorpe said brightly.

Marjorie thought, guest? That was a wee bit precious, in her opinion, and her initial evaluation of Dr. Hagendorf dipped a trifle lower. Having been born into the lower echelons of a society that placed a good deal of emphasis on class distinctions, she’d become an expert at hiding her inner thoughts as a child, so she didn’t indicate her opinion by so much as a blink of her eye.

“Miss MacTavish?”

“Aye,” Marjorie said, allowing a note of suspicion to color the word. Since he was still holding his hand out to her, she shook it, and firmly, too, as she tried her best to act as if she was as good as anybody else in the world, even though she knew she wasn’t. No matter what Loretta said, and no matter that she’d been living in the United States for three years, where everyone was supposed to be equal. Marjorie knew it wasn’t so.

“I understand Mrs. Quarles bullied you into visiting me today, Miss MacTavish, but I’ll try to make the experience worthwhile. Or at least,” he added with a laugh, “not excruciating.”

Surprised and faintly gratified, Marjorie returned his smile. She did so tentatively, still worried lest he get in under her guard and make her reveal more of herself than she wanted to.

The door closed softly behind them, and her fear returned in a rush. She was alone with the alienist! Then she scolded herself for being a gudgeon. This man wouldn’t hurt her. He was a professional doctor, for sweet mercy’s sake.

“Please, Miss MacTavish, take a seat.”

To Marjorie’s surprise, he gestured at a chair facing his desk. She’d always assumed that the crazy person was supposed to lie on the couch while the doctor sat at its head in a chair set so the patient couldn’t see him, smoked a pipe, and took notes. She sat, cautiously glancing around the office.

It was a cheery place, with windows that had their curtains pulled aside, inviting the sunshine—the nonexistent sunshine today—access to the room. This also surprised Marjorie, who had expected curtained windows, dark-paneled walls, tall bookcases laden with hundred-pound tomes, and framed certificates on the walls.

After seating himself on the business side of his desk, Dr. Hagendorf smiled at her. “I know Mrs. Quarles can be a handful. It was good of you to come in today, Miss MacTavish.”

Marjorie considered this statement, examining it carefully for hidden meanings, detected none, and said warily, “She only means the best.”

He laughed. “You needn’t fear me, Miss MacTavish. I’m not going to trap you into unguarded speech. I couldn’t do that if I wanted to, which I don’t. Anyhow, anything you say here stays here. I won’t tattle to Loretta if you want to unburden yourself. As wonderful a woman as she is, she often fails to take into consideration that other people don’t care to be, or are unable to be, as open and freewheeling as she is.”

Her defenses zoomed up, although he sounded as if he meant what he said. Still, Marjorie deemed it prudent merely to nod.

Dr. Hagendorf, clearly sensing her uneasiness, gentled his smile. “Would you prefer to remain in that chair during our session, Miss MacTavish? We have a couch, if you’d rather lie down. Sometimes it helps to relax people if they lie down.”

It would take more than a couch to calm her down. She didn’t know which option to choose.

Again understanding her trepidation, Dr. Hagendorf explained more fully. “If you want to, you can sit right there, and I’ll sit right here, and we can chat. If you’d feel more comfortable with me out of the way, you can lie on the couch, and I’ll take that chair.” He pointed to a chair that would be out of Marjorie’s sight if she lay on the couch.

She pondered her choices. She didn’t want to talk about the ocean or that horrid night, or Leonard with this man watching her. On the other hand, she’d feel uncomfortable with him sitting there, just out of her sight. She’d keep wondering if he was going to pounce.

Idiot, she scolded herself. The man’s na a panther. Besides which, if Loretta could be believed, he only wanted to help her. She sighed deeply, inducing Dr. Hagendorf to smile again, this time in understanding.

“Take your time, Miss MacTavish. In spite of what Mrs. Quarles might have told you, I don’t bite.”

Marjorie actually smiled at that. She made her decision. On the off chance that this appointment actually might be of benefit to her, she thought she’d be more comfortable if she couldn’t see the doctor. “I’ll take the couch.”

“That’s fine. Just make yourself comfortable.”

As if she could ever do that. Nevertheless, Marjorie arranged herself modestly on the couch. In anticipation of something like this, she’d worn a shirtwaist and a comfortable, loose skirt that she arranged neatly around the ankles of her high-topped shoes. She had always been a modest woman.

“Why don’t you tell me a little bit about your background, Miss MacTavish. Take your time.”

Marjorie hesitated, then began slowly. Although she hadn’t intended to spill her guts, once she got started, her narrative gained momentum. For the first time since she’d arrived in the United States, she told someone about her poverty-stricken beginnings, her family, and her early years. She’d never even told Loretta about her childhood in Glasgow.

“We were vurra poor,” she said softly, recalling her work-worn parents, who’d been beaten down by life before she was even born. “And we ate mainly cabbages and tatties.”

The sound of own voice lulled her strangely. She couldn’t recall ever talking so much at one time. By the time she’d talked Dr. Hagendorf onboard the Titanic, she didn’t think she could have stopped if she wanted to. But by that time, she didn’t want to. It seemed to her as if, for years, her life had been bottled up behind her. She’d blocked so much for so long that, once she began telling it, everything just spewed out.

When she arrived at the night of April 14 and the morning of April 15, 1912, she started crying, thereby humiliating herself totally. Still, she couldn’t stop talking. “Och, it was turrible. Turrible.” And, for the first time since the tragedy, she told someone about Leonard.

All this time, Dr. Hagendorf hadn’t said a word. He didn’t even offer her a “Hmm” or an “Mmm.” When Marjorie’s tale trickled to an end, however, he produced a clean white handkerchief. “Here, Miss MacTavish. You probably need this.”

“Th-thank you,” she sniffled, embarrassed to death. “I dinna know what came over me.”

“Please don’t be embarrassed,” Dr. Hagendorf said soothingly. “You’ve endured a good deal. It’s time you let it out.”

Mopping her tears and still feeling like an ass, Marjorie muttered, “Ye think so?”

Dr. Hagendorf chuckled. “It’s been my experience that people who keep their woes stuffed tightly inside themselves suffer more than people who share them with others.”

“Like Loretta.”

He laughed again. “You don’t have to go that far. It’s perfectly fine for a person to share his or her sorrow. She or he doesn’t necessarily have to make others suffer it as well.”

Marjorie could scarcely believe her ears when a chuckle came out of her own mouth. “Ye ken her vurra weel, Doctor.”

“All my life,” he confirmed.

She blew her nose. “She’s a wonderful woman.”

“That she is.”

“And a pain in the neck.”

“That, too.” The doctor laughed again. “You see, Miss MacTavish, the whole point of my practice is to give people a safe place to share their life. It often helps to talk about the things that worry us and that we don’t feel comfortable telling our friends about.”

That actually made sense to Marjorie. Pushing herself up, she swung her feet around and planted them on the plush carpet. Shyly, she glanced at the doctor, who still sat in the chair, smiling gently. “Well?” she said half defiantly. “What now?”

He got up from his chair and took her arm, helping her to rise and make her way to the chair. “That’s up to you, Miss MacTavish.” He gestured for her to resume her seat before his desk, and he sat on the other side once more.

She gave him a rueful smile, still dabbing at her leaky eyes. “Ye mean you’re not going to tell me what to do with myself?”

“I’m afraid I’m not able to do that. Only you can decide how to live your life. I did notice while you were speaking about things that, along with great struggle, poverty, and sorrow, you often seem to have turned to song as a means of brightening your life and easing your suffering.”

“I have?” Marjorie blinked at the man, startled. When she’d heard him say “turned to,” she’d anticipated the word “church,” or perhaps “religion,” to pop out next. And, while Marjorie considered herself an upstanding Christian woman, she didn’t really want to spend her days decorating the altar and pining for the minister like so many elderly spinsters she’d met over the years.

He shrugged. “You spoke of singing more than anything else, other than trying to better yourself—which, by the way, you seem to have done admirably.”

Shy all at once, Marjorie murmured something inaudible.

The doctor went on. “You’re not alone, you know. Often people who are forced to endure hard lives cling to some form of artistic expression to give them relief from the difficult world. You mentioned playing the piano and singing time and again. It seemed to me that you turn to music in your times of struggle. You’re fortunate to have been born with a natural talent, and you were wise to develop it.”

“Oh.” Marjorie thought about it, and came to the conclusion that the doctor might actually have a point. “Ye mean, like I sing now in the choir at church?”

“Exactly. And you sang in the chapel chorus aboard various ships when you were a stewardess.” He grinned. “I got the impression it’s the music, and not the religious aspects, that mean the most to you.”

She felt herself flush. “Aye. You may be right.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Religious feeling is fine, but I’ve come to the conclusion that not all of us respond as much to sermons as we do to hymns.” He chuckled. “I believe John Wesley came to that decision, too, some years back.”

In spite of this reference to the Methodist Church, which Marjorie didn’t particularly care for, a sense of confirmation settled on her heart. He understood. This young, bespectacled fellow, whom she’d never met before, understood. How astonishing. She murmured, “Aye, that’s so.”

“You might find that, as you conquer your grief for Mr. Fleming—and don’t worry about what Mrs. Quarles tells you, you have every right to grieve—you might consider music as a device to expand your world.”

Marjorie had never told Loretta about Leonard. Leonard was too precious to share—or so she’d always thought. She wasn’t sure any longer. She repeated in almost a whisper, “Expand my world.”

“Exactly. I understand that Mrs. Quarles is a delightful person and a generous employer, but I also sense that you might like to create more of a life for yourself, away from the Quarleses.”

Amazed by how precisely Dr. Hagendorf had hit the nail’s head, Marjorie actually jumped slightly in her chair. “You’re right!” she exclaimed, then pressed a hand over her mouth, embarrassed by having spoken so loudly. Then she admitted, “But I’m so afraid of new things, Doctor. So fleefu’. It really is a flaw, although I keep telling Loretta it isn’t.”

“You’re not the only one who’s afraid of trying new things, Miss MacTavish.”

Although she knew that already, hearing the respected Dr. Hagendorf say so made Marjorie feel slightly better. “D’ye think so?”

“Absolutely. Often a patient will come to me complaining that, while he or she wants or needs to do something, he or she is afraid to do it. Do you know what I advise them to do in that case?”

She shook her head.

“I advise them to do whatever it is, even though they have to do it scared.”

She blinked at him.

“There’s no law on earth or in heaven that mandates a person feel comfortable when he or she tackles a new behavior for the first time, Miss MacTavish. You’ve heard the expression, ‘practice makes perfect’?”

He lifted an eyebrow, and Marjorie nodded.

“Well, it’s true of human behavior, too. Practice is usually what it takes to ease a person’s nervousness if he or she is experimenting with something new. If you begin in a small way, you can work your way up to bigger things and, while you might feel uncomfortable for some time, you’ll avoid absolute panic along the way.”

“What a novel notion!”

“Not really. We don’t expect babies to start out running, do we? They have to learn how to turn over, crawl, and toddle first. It’s the same principle.”

“My goodness.” A crack in the wall keeping her from a whole new world suddenly appeared to Marjorie. It was a small crack in a formidable wall, to be sure, but Dr. Hagendorf seemed to have faith in her. That meant a lot to Marjorie.

The doctor grinned. “I think you’ll be fine, Miss MacTavish. Don’t let Mrs. Quarles worry you with her chatter about neuroses and phobias. You’re firmly grounded and are a proven survivor. I trust that one day, you’ll find the happiness you des. . .