“I am most pleased to hear that,” Portia said; sure enough, she looked only at Troy as she said it. “Father Burns owes me a couple of favours,” she told him. “I am confident I can have you married by the week-end, and then that fool Dylan can harass your wife at his own risk.”
“I should like to see him try,” Troy agreed. “I do not suppose you have looked in on the poor girl –” His voice broke off as the doorbell rang out through the ground floor. “Well, who could that be this early in the morning?” he asked.
“Probably some silly business matter I’ll have to sign off on,” Portia said as Jameson stepped out to answer the door. “And no, I have not been back to look in on Celestine. I am entirely too disgusted to bother with her for the time being. I am quite content to let her stew up there until we can get Father Burns here.”
Neither of them was nonplussed when Jameson returned with two police officers in tow. “Good morning,” Portia said, standing up to greet them. “How may I help you gentlemen?”
“Ma’am, I’m afraid we’ve got a warrant for Mr. Russell’s arrest.”
“Arrest?” Troy leapt to his feet now as if to fight. Portia touched his good arm to calm him, but when he turned to look at her he saw his own fear reflected in her eyes.
“We’ve got credible reports you were involved in a gun fight yesterday, sir,” one of them said.
Troy gasped. “Well, I…”
“Troy, not a word!” Portia said. “I’m coming with you, and we’ll have this sorted out by lunchtime.” As she had no choice but to stand back and watch the officers handcuff Troy, she turned to Jameson and snapped, “My day coat, please, and send word to Mr. Walker’s office to meet us at the police station.”
“Naturally, my lady,” Jameson said, and he was off down the hall as the officers led a shocked Troy to the front door.
As soon as the door had shut behind them, Agnes ran out of the room and up the stairs as fast as her legs would carry her.
Dylan had struggled to get to sleep the night before. For all Relly’s reassurances that Celestine would be on the docks, he hadn’t felt sure at all. But that wasn’t all that had kept him awake into the wee hours. He’d also wondered how he would ever explain to his mother why she had arrived home to find Relly sleeping on their couch.
He needn’t have worried, as he discovered when he awoke to both women flanking his bed, shaking one shoulder each. “Dylan! Wake up, Dylan!”
He took one look at each of them, and panicked and sat bolt upright. “Ma, I can explain!”
Lorelei laughed. “Relax, honey, Aurelia has told me everything, and I’ll be delighted to take her on at the store. But you’ve got to get dressed and get down to the docks!”
“You’re sure Celestine will be there?” he asked Aurelia.
“I’d bet the farm on it,” Aurelia said. “Believe me, she won’t want to be anywhere near her mother after today!”
“Come on, Aurelia,” Lorelei said. “Let’s get you some breakfast, and let him get dressed.”
Now that one crisis was averted, Dylan had no trouble getting dressed hastily. He had, like Celestine, gathered together all the belongings he planned to take, but he’d had no need to hide them. With one last look at the bedroom he’d called his own for twenty years, he threw his sack over his shoulder and stepped out to find his mother and Relly drinking coffee in the kitchen.
Lorelei had something clutched in her hand, and she held it out to him. “Dylan, I want you to take this — no arguments.” She opened her fist to reveal her most prized possession: his late father’s pocket watch.
“Ma, I couldn’t!” Dylan said. “That’s yours, and I know what it means to you!”
“Exactly,” Lorelei said. “You can give it back to me when I join you in Polerma.” Then she grinned. “If you don’t miss the boat with your long goodbye!”
“Right.” Dylan nodded and smiled, and took the watch. “Thank you!” He hugged her goodbye.
She returned the embrace, and then said, “Right, enough of that. I’ll be seeing you soon, and give Celestine my love. Now, I’ve got to go open the store.” She grabbed her keys up from the table, and with a whirl of skirts she was out the door without another look at her son.
“Relly, how can I thank you?” Dylan asked his old friend.
“Do you really need to ask, silly?” she replied. “Haven’t you just got me a respectable job? Besides, I owed you! And Celestine!”
“Owed us what?”
“All those years at school, Dylan, I heard every hurtful word under the sun. She’s fat, she’s poor, and so much worse. But never from the two of you. You always treated me with respect when hardly anyone else did.”
“You didn’t owe us anything for that!” Dylan said.
“Well, you don’t owe me a thing either,” she said, opening her arms for a goodbye hug. As he welcomed her embrace, she added, “But I do wish you’d let me give you that freebie last night.”
“I’d never have explained it to Celestine.”
“I know,” Relly admitted. “But maybe she’d have appreciated you learning your way around a woman’s body?”
“I’d be lying to say I didn’t always wonder what your breasts felt like,” Dylan admitted with a guilty laugh.
Relly pulled her blouse up. “Have at, Dylan, I insist! Just make it fast!”
They were just as delightfully heavy and supple as he had always imagined, and her nipples were plump and felt lovely on his tongue as he kissed them one by one. Relly sighed with pleasure as he did.
With a final caress with both hands, he stood back up. “Thanks, Relly.” He kissed her cheek, and she opened the door for him.
Dylan remembered his manners well enough to say hello to everyone he passed in the streets who knew him. Somehow he couldn’t quite believe they didn’t all know it would be the last time they saw him; but then, he still wasn’t yet sure it really would be. Relly had seemed ever so sure of herself, but her story seemed so unlikely…
He had no choice but to run past Celestine’s house on the way to the docks, but at least there was no sign of Portia or Troy as he rushed past on the far side of the street. Down the block, he chanced a hopeful look at the restaurant — could Celestine be in there?
To his surprise, no one was there. Hanging on the door was a sign: “CLOSED for a personal emergency”. That stopped Dylan in his tracks — he’d never heard of Portia letting anything close the restaurant, not even the loss of her husband years before. But he had four blocks yet to run.
A bigger surprise awaited him at the end of those four blocks. Parked on the edge of the road by the dock was Celestine’s carriage. Suspecting some sort of trick, Dylan looked behind him, half expecting to see Troy pointing that gun at him again. But no one was there.
Dylan stepped gingerly up the street, angling for the quickest path onto the dock just beyond the carriage, where the ship was at anchor. If Troy was in there, there were too many witnesses for him to accost Dylan if he was quick enough, and wouldn’t he be just as glad to see him off to Polerma anyway?
Nevertheless, his heart caught in his throat when he saw the carriage door open when he was too close by to evade detection. And all at once his apprehension evaporated when Celestine stepped out, carrying her shoulder bag.