Read Online Leon Uris by O'Hara's Choice - Free Book Online Page B

giving each of them a whirl with her and soon it all settled down to “great fun,” really great fun.
    Amanda had insisted—no, demanded that her father hire a second orchestra, a band of black musicians who could banjo and blow out the new ragtime craze. It was not quite proper for a high social affair, but Horace Kerr’s daughter was not a run-of-the-mill debutante.
    When the final waltz, gavotte, quadrille, and polka wound down, the black band took over and soon “Lisa Jane” and “Oh Them Golden Slippers” and “Baby Mine” reverberated off those sacred walls.
    By midball, the revelers needed a break while loaded platters refilled the buffet. Horace Kerr was delighted by the thought that the ragtime dancing would be the talk of the town for weeks to come. Actually, he was rather pleased that Private O’Hara had brought out a flair in his daughter. She may have picked a fight she will not win with him. Ah, to be able to listen to their verbal duel, he thought.
    Amanda led Zachary through the French doors.
    “Time for a stroll in the garden,” she said.
    They made their way down the broad stairs to the veranda, then down again to the most profound fountain in Maryland.
    They passed benches of pecking puppy lovers and moved oninto a dark part of the garden. There was still sufficient light reflected to really study the white silk flow of her gown. She was sleek and fine and different from the hoopskirted girls with buckets of tight, hanging curls. Their show of junior cleavage was poor stuff alongside Amanda. Amanda was quite freely dressed and Zachary could see the press of her nipples, right up to the point of impropriety.
    Her hair flowed easily, commanded by her slightest movement. Zach knew this girl’s eyes concealed a vast trove of wisdom and strength.
    “Well, how does it feel to be the ‘belle’ of the ball?” she asked.
    “I’m not quite sure,” Zachary said. “You’ve been the belle of the ball all your life, how does it feel, Miss Amanda?”
    “Please call me Amanda.”
    “Thank you, Miss Amanda. I’d like to know what whim passed through you to have me here in Inverness.”
    “Well,” she started, “I was sitting in the waiting room of Secretary Culpeper’s office waiting for Father. I could see you in the foyer but you couldn’t see me. My book was very dull and one naturally looks about when one is just sitting there and waiting for one’s father. He had completely forgotten I was even there. So, I made a game of studying you, standing there so forthrightly. I grew curious. Can you speak? Could you support a mustache? Do you ever blink your eyes?”
    “I do have a Marine buddy who has trained himself not to blink his eyes,” he answered.
    “ ‘Well,’ I wondered, ‘can I get past this mighty lion guarding the gate?’ Men rule by raw power. Girls rule by sleight of hand. How do you find them?”
    “Girls of sixteen can be very silly.”
    “And boys of nineteen even more silly.”
    “For your enlightenment, I am twenty and can support a beard,” he said.
    “So I diverted your attention; it was easy to get past you.”
    “If you had me ordered to Inverness to make me feel lowly and ill at ease, you have not succeeded.”
    Zachary delivered his words smartly, not avoiding the intensity of her stare. He seemed to understand and was prepared for the game he knew she made of reducing young men to silly boys.
    “Where did you learn to dance so well?” she asked, changing the subject.
    “I was born and raised in the Marine Corps. I learned in dance halls. My da first set me on the end of a bar when I was six years old.”
    “Oh . . .”
    “My da was a top-ranking NCO. When we were stationed in and about civilization, we’d join the local church with other NCOs and their wives and we’d dance at . . . charity affairs.”
    That stung! Quick now, Amanda . . . “And your mother?”
    “She died a few days after giving birth to me.”
    “Forgive me.”
    “Of