"Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her"

Part 2

See part one for disclaimers, information, and distribution. (Author's notes follow)

*Sorry for the mid-sentence break. It's AOL-and-their-seven-page-limit's fault. For convenience, I'm repeating the last sentence of the last part.*

~S

**************************************************************************************************

He loosed the braid she had coiled her hair into (not caring if Jessica had the stamina to wear it down all day- the thought of her lustrous hair dragging in the dirt? Never!), and ran his fingers through it like a fork, separating it into thick strands. She smiled in pure contentment. Until he said:

"Why don't you take a nap, Jess. I'll cover for you."

The affection was there- oh, yes, it radiated off his features, illuminated his face, was patently obvious in his words and actions.

Not for her.

Never for her.

For *her* name, and her name only.

**************************************************************************************************

On the first day, Jessie-as-Jessiebelle tried to infiltrate the life of Scarlett O'Hara. She pricked herself embroidering flowers on a cushion, accidentally pulled all the heads off the flowers she was trying to arrange, and broke her parasol trying to get it open for a walk, ultimately deciding that none of these genteel accomplishments were really for her.

On the second day, she stormed about, and ordered servants everywhere, and was more of a bitch than she had been in simply *years.* She made Leilei cry, which she learned didn't require much effort, and practiced riding Jessibelle's palomino, Treasure, until she was quite sure she'd never be able to walk like a lady again.

On the third day, she realized how pathetic the entire situation was, and stormed up to her- their?- room, crying, and beat her head in rage against the fat, overstuffed pillows. She refused dinner, and overturned the makeup tray on the expansive mahogany dresser, and wondered what it would take for a person to get good and dirty in a museum like this. She felt like a gutter snipe in a gilded cage- was she so hot in the bloody corset that she'd be willing to roll in the mud?

God help us.

The antebellum spirit was rubbing off on her. It had to be changed.

She knew, however, that however long the days seemed, it was only four of them until her turn.

"She laughs best who laughs last" she told herself.

The fourth day was another manic, stir-crazy action day, and she decked herself out in the armoire's finest rags to go out and weed the tea roses, but only, of course, with Leilei standing over her with a parasol.

Freckles were, after all, *so* unfashionable.

**************************************************************************************************

They were seventeen, and he was going to marry this Southern belle who Jessie absolutely hated. That was the end of it.

He had no choice- it was between marrying Jessibelle (and what kind of name was that, after all?), and, at the same time, inheriting a huge fortune, and maintaining his sanity- and remaining poor as a church rat.

James couldn't stand her, she was assured. Ever since they were children together, she had been an absolute shrew, a stickler for etiquette that would put Emily Post to shame, and besides, like many things, she scared him.

Ick. She hated her instantly- this red-haired, short, sweet-smelling beauty with the voice from Hell, who dared threaten their lifestyle. OK, granted, it wasn't fancy- canned beans and cheap wine, an air balloon that needed a completely new bag, it had been patched so many times, and a cranky Meowth who considered himself the brains of the team.

But it was them. They *liked* their RC cola, damnit!

He ran away. From the abuse, the name-calling, the taunts at his expense, the family, the money- and her. Again. At the very same point that she could see from out one of the great, multi-paned windows of the big house, he had been waiting in that dank balloon, and he scooped her up and they flew away into the sunset.

That was years ago. Everyone had grown up since then. The bad-tempered Meowth had moved on to bigger and better things (the Boss had a new cat, to say the least), but they still drank cheap wine. The balloon had been retired along with their jet-setting lifestyle, but they were still paupers. Never conforming to authority, but not being trailed by hired assassins, either.

At least, she was still a pauper.

Jessie sighed, and moved away from the window. She rang the small bell that sat by the door, alerting Leila that she needed to be undressed. She would do it herself, except that all of Jessibelle's gowns were two-person operations. One didn't mess with them by themselves.

She didn't like it. Any of it. Not at all.

She could do without the fine, aged Grenache in the cellar.

It was the fifth day. At sunset, she couldn't help but feel more than a little hopeless and stupid.

**************************************************************************************************

Jessibelle faced the wall bleakly. She was beginning to wish she hadn't even formulated this stupid plan- it was getting nowhere! She wouldn't even *mind* the sweating and working with complete idiots if she was getting quality time with James... but no. It seemed that, as the week went on, he was just getting more and more withdrawn from her, and around her less- while she was at the wall-climbing seminar, he was practicing laps in the lake with the other drill team.

And, to make matters worse, in a day and a half, she lost him for a week to Jessie.

She looked up the wall, ten sheer feet of craggy rock footing.

*Damn it, why did I never climb trees when I was a girl?* she wondered.

*Because* the formal part of her mind was quick to scold. *What proper lady does such vulgar things? For shame!*

Jessibelle sighed delicately. Team Rocket was horrid. What she wouldn't give for embroidering in her garden... she's be lucky if she finished the final day of training alive.

**************************************************************************************************

James floated on his back, and looked up at the midday sky pensively. The rest of the group was drying off on the bank, but he was taking a few moments longer to relax, by himself. He needed it.

He asked himself, for the umpteenth time that week, what the hell was wrong with Jessie. It wasn't something he could put his finger on- too subtle. She simply wasn't *herself.*

There was something, he reflected, about the was she was acting- the way she talked, moved, reacted to the things he said- that was off. James had always secretly prided himself on his ability to read her, unfailingly, no matter what her temper. He was sensitive to her fits and quirks, and he couldn't figure her out at all. It was disturbing.

There were clouds moving over the sky, and it occurred to him that he must be crazy, swimming in January, but the cold water didn't touch him. On shore, the male members of the team jumped up and down like morons, shivering and red from rubbing themselves so vigorously with the nubby towels they had, and the females turned blue, and huddled in groups beneath the blankets they had brought to dry off under.

And there he was, drifting across the surface like a forgotten toy.

Distantly, he heard the leader calling his name in mild consternation, and he raised a hand to let them know he was still alive.

The faint murmurs that must have really been ebullient conversation quieted down to silence, and the wet rushing sound of water past his ears as he moved towards the center, completely isolating himself.

He didn't know what to think. All the stuff going on, his mother's death, the inheritance- would he ever grasp the fact that he was now a certifiable millionaire?- he didn't like to acknowledge how much he really needed her to be there for him. To slap him upside the head and say it would all be OK. To be waiting on the shore with a scolding and a cup of coffee.

He didn't like the simpering. All her newfound affectations were putting him off. Couldn't stand that in any woman- especially Jessie. It vaguely reminded him... shit, it reminded him a *lot* of Jessibelle.

James blinked, once, twice, and his eyes felt like ice cubes.

No, that was a horrible thought. Jessie wasn't like that. She's never turn out like that.

Still unconsciously shaking his head, half from garbled refusal to believe, and mostly from the freezing chill that was just catching up to him, he made his way towards the muddy bank, and dragged himself up and out.

**************************************************************************************************

"You're sure you'll be OK?" he asked, for about the ninety-ninth time that hour.

"Of course" she lied, for the same amount.

They were at the airport, and he was about to get on the airplane. The one that would take him back to her.

Everything in Jessibelle's heart screamed in her ears to say: "No, stop, I *won't* be OK, don't go!"

He would stop. She knew he would, if she asked him to, but that wouldn't be fair.

*Let that thing have her shot at him* she thought vindictively. She was quite sure it would be futile.

He must have gotten slimmer, if that was possible, and his face was drawn and tan from the sun. There were no small amount of concerns evident there.

"You really don't want to fly over with me?" he asked hopefully, disguised in the form of a joke, and she was glad, even though she couldn't answer the way she wanted to. He wasn't exactly excited over the prospect of seeing... her.

*Who is really his beloved Jessica* the spilt part of her mind reminded her.

She told that part to shut up.

They were announcing his flight over the loudspeaker, one way nonstop back to her competition.

"Well, that's it" she said reluctantly.

"Yeah" he answered distantly, and Jessibelle could tell his focus was no longer on her face.

"Take care, OK?" she said tentatively, taking a step towards him.

As if she had snapped her fingers in his face, he turned his neck quickly in her direction, and blinked, as if he had just noticed she was there. James bit his lip, and put a hand out, cupping her arm.

"Yeah. You too, Jessie, OK?"

She smiled weakly in response, and he gave her a commiserative final glance, and went to turn away. His back was to her.

Then, as if in a movie or something, he turned back again, his brow furrowed, and stared into her face as if searching for something.

Jessibelle forgot to breathe. He was going to kiss her! He just knew it!

In slow motion, his lips lowered. She closed her eyes- and felt them, warm and quick- over her cheek.

Trying to keep herself from bursting into tears, she pulled away, and managed a grin.

It was as if he was relieved.

"See ya, Jess" he muttered one last time, before heading for the gate.

"Jess" she mumbled sadly. "Jess*ibelle*"

**************************************************************************************************

They did end up transferring him mid-flight, the second the pilot got wind of who was skulking back in the coach section.

James could already tell he was going to abhor this "rich-boy" thing.

A private liner ended up flying him back to the estate, where the black-clad crew (former Rocket key corps, naturally) landed him on the freshly painted pad with a soft thud and kiss-ass obsequy.

He carried his own bags to the front door, nursing a huge, black-gray cloud over his head, and almost knocked, before remembering that it was his door to answer, now.

She was sitting, waiting, alone in the foyer, and if he didn't have a thinking head on his neck, he'd say she was a sight for sore eyes.

The late-afternoon sunlight trickled through the draw in the curtains, and she basked in the stray shaft, garbed in a simple white shift that, even after he blinked, seemed just *too* classic for Jessibelle. She, he reminded himself, preferred her garb gaudy- weighed down with innumerable bows, bustles, laces, ties, hooks, garlands, seams, and other useless furbelows and shiny trinkets.

Maybe she's had a revelation in the past seven days, he thought foolishly. It was a warm day.

She stood up, and, after tilting her head inquisitively at him- what, was he in the Twilight Zone, her *waiting* for him, quietly, actually looking welcoming?

"Hello, Jessibelle" he said, unnerved. He shrugged off his jacket, and before he could set it down on top of his suitcase, one of the faceless, anonymous, omnipresent staff they kept scurrying about at all hours of the day was waiting there to take it from him. He distinctly felt her eyes looking on in amusement as he clung to the fabric like a security blanket, almost afraid to let it go. He finally surrendered the coat, only to turn his back and realize the suitcase had been confiscated, too.

The look he presented her with when he turned again was one of wide-eyed haggardness, and Jessie had to bite down on her lip, hard, to keep from reacting the way she would have.

"It's good to see you too, James" she said at last, gratefully.

He just squinted, realizing he must look like quite the gentleman with all the staring going on, but not caring. He had never said it was good to see *her*- and, for some reason, there it was, and he was, too.

James had never, not once in his twenty-three years of existence, felt positively about himself or her when seeing Jessibelle.

Yet, in that two minute time period since he had walked in the door, he did. It was an easy feeling, one that made him feel like he might have an outlet in this godforsaken business.

What was he, on crack?

Her glimmering eyes looked down.

"If you're hungry" she ventured. "Dinner is in two hours. Of course, you might want to freshen up first..."

That was Jessibelle talking, no doubt about it- nasal inflection and all.

James cracked a smile, and she leaned in confidentially.

"Bohrer is down there licking his chops" she confided. "You may want to just plead jetlag and wait until the conference tomorrow at eleven. I've arranged it."

There was that short, familiar burst of bossiness, the kind he would get from... oh, never mind. He liked it.

"The flight was only two hours" he joked. "I must have a weak constitution or something."

She laughed, and then turned serious.

"Watch out for that lawyer" she warned him, as tentatively and stupidly as she knew how, just praying he would have one of his enlightened moments and get her point.

"I will" he affirmed, too tiredly to offer much reassurance.

He went up to his cold, cavernous room filled with dread and confusion, but with a smile playing on his lips.

What the hell was going on?

**************************************************************************************************

"As it stands, Mr. Kojiro, all things taken into consideration, minus the cost of lawyer's fees, tax, debts, funeral costs, notaries, and such requirements, and included, but not solely the properties in St. Croix and Valencia, the entire estate of this house, the land it sits on, the stock, the furniture, the vaults..."

Bohrer was grinning from ear to ear, discussion being one of his very favorite things, money. One of the lesser henchmen was reading the statement someone- likely the King o' No-fault himself- had prepared, and was nervously shoving his glasses up his reedy nose while Bohrer touched his pudgy fingers together. James closed his eyes.

"...to a total of ninety-million dollars."

Everyone at the table, the young lawyer himself, exhaled deeply, and the newly tapped millionaire looked more ashen than any rich man had the right to look.

Jessie was holding her hands under the table, equally to stop herself from reaching out for his hand, or the more likely option, which was standing up, knocking the chair over and sending it skittering across the venerable floor boards while she beat the self-assured, cocky-ass smirk off that smug bastard's face.

Silence filled the room. In their corner, the ten or so lawyers waited. At his place at the head of the table, James said nothing, his head down, contemplating. She sat directly to his left, cringing, wanting desperately to grab control of the meeting like the reins of one of those horses she had been struggling to ride, and finish the hellish process off. Bohrer oozed forward.

"I assume that my group and I have nothing else to do here, we look forward to hearing from you if we have any more problems settling in..." he began.

James looked up sharply, and as everyone watched, cut him off efficiently.

"No" he said. "I don't think you will, sir. My now being the sole caretaker of the affairs here, I am officially making it my first decision to get a new family lawyer." He turned to the dumbstruck secretary in the corner, and asked politely: "Did you get that?"

"Also" he continued. "I was up quite late last night reviewing the so called lawyer's bills, and I do believe that some of them weren't valid. You, Mr. Bohrer, can expect a call from my new attorney sometime next week."

He stopped to take a breath, and Jessie was by now sitting on her hands to keep herself from standing, applauding, and breaking out in a whoop of acclaim after seeing the look on the older man's face.

James looked a bit overwrought by the sheer magnitude of power he had just exerted, but joyous, and, for just a brief second, his eyes met hers, and he mouthed the word:

'Thanks.'

"'That's 'thank you', James'" she thought to herself. "'Thanks' is *not* the proper terminology!"

**************************************************************************************************

The funeral was the next afternoon, and a somber mess that Jessie desperately wished she could avoid altogether. Both of them, in fact, because if it was that hard for her to watch six dozen of Mother Kojiro's closest society friends wail like banshees and compare the stylishness of their mourning weeds, it must be that many times as difficult for James.

Personally, she thought that waiting three weeks after death for a funeral just so it could be a post-mortem straight out of a fashion magazine was stupid beyond comparison.

Who cared if one had a designer coffin? You were dead, and couldn't see it, anyway, and the end result was invariably the same despite the percentage of raw material in the silk lining.

It didn't rain, and she was glad of that. Jessie hated rain at funerals. It was cliched, and, far more despicable, it was a cliche that was still potent, because rain made people cry.

Not crying like the debutantes in the third-through-tenth rows of the small chapel, like paid grievers at a barbaric Egyptian rite, but true sorrow.

Was it possible to feel that for someone so cold and miserable?

James didn't hang around for the post-burial tea party. She longed to follow him, even if it wouldn't do to comfort him, but that wasn't a thing *Jessibelle* would do in that situation, which was the primary concern. Oh, no. Jessibelle would never miss out on an opportunity to scale her bitchiness against a murder of old crones.

**************************************************************************************************

That night, he asked her to take a walk with him. Finances, he explained wishy-washily, back ramrod straight against the doorframe of her room.

It was a lie, and they both knew it, dreamed up in a second before he formally knocked on her door for convention.

Jessie refrained from saying yes too quickly. All day long she had been waiting for him to come up to her and tactfully suggest that now it was time for her to go home, to her own plantation. He wouldn't be so blunt, of course, but it would make sense.

Sense was a good thing, and she almost lost it when he said he hadn't seen the rose gardens for a while, would she like to join him?

Almost, if not quite, she forgot that she wasn't quite sure if he was asking Jessibelle, or the way she was acting as Jessibelle, if it differed at all, to walk with him, and that maybe it was a test since Jessie knew nothing about roses, and that was one of Jessibelle's nauseatingly feminine and *appropriate* pastimes. She knew that roses were pretty and smelled nice.

In an hour or so, she said, after sunset, because she still hadn't finished preparing her correspondences for the week.

Yes, that was it.

She had to compose a letter to Giovanni apologizing for her complete and utter ineptitude at training last week, and beg for him not to terminate her job as a proud, low-standing Rocket member.

After all, Jessie hadn't been there, but she would have given her hairbrush to see Jessiebrat trying to crawl under the barbed wire.

**************************************************************************************************

Outside, the cicadas were whistling busily in the great trees that shaded the back of the huge lawn that served as passage to the myriad gardens, and it was dark, dark as midnight although it was only six or seven.

Stiffly, formally, he had offered his arm to her, and she had almost taken it, but stopped herself.

"You don't have to do that, James" she said quietly.

He whirled to look directly at her, confused.

"It's proper" he responded in like. "I didn't..."

"No, you didn't" she agreed. "I have learned" she said significantly. "That propriety can easily suffer for comfort's sake."

And then she congratulated herself for both formulating and executing that mouthful- it was what she wanted to say, just much fancier.

James pressed his tongue against his teeth, and decided not to put his hand on her forehead and ask:

Are you feeling all right? Are you dying? Do you need a doctor?

Because, he reasoned, her out-of-the-blue decision to act like a human could just be a test to see how much he would screw up. So she could ridicule him again.

He wanted to believe that it wasn't. He may have been escorting a ticking time bomb, but he let himself be led along.

"Fine, then" he said with a small smile. Almost flirtatiously, he looped her hand over his arm again.

"You could trip in the dark" he said, with a face devoid of meaning. "The gardener told me that the roots on these trees are dangerous."

**************************************************************************************************

The rose garden was maze-like, overgrown with blossoms that were violently red, and as full as the breadth of her hand. The intoxicating scent of old perfume wafted above their heads as they meandered in it, weaving in and out of the deep shadows caused by the antique light poles at the corners, that cast a faded yellow light over the entire garden.

James explained to her that every other plot on the land was meticulously kept, except for the roses, because someone, a while ago, had loved roses that grew out of control. He blushed when he said it, and admitted that their lover had, after they died, made sure that the roses would only be pruned as much was necessary to make the garden accessible.

She pricked her hand on a tangle of stems that ended in a natural bouquet, and wondered why Jessibelle, who had doubtlessly been through the rows of flowers a million times since their childhood, had never heard that vignette.

"The Rockets should adapt this as new, deadly technology" he joked as he pulled a crumpled tissue out of his back pocket, applying it to her hand. "I can just see it: thorn machine guns. About six of 'em could fire a second, see, and every time the enemy turned around, he'd get another shot in his as... behind."

She fought a smirk at his hasty correction, and failed.

James smiled broadly. What was going on? Him, having a good time with *her*? Cracking a semi-offensive joke and not having her hit him upside the head with her hat?

Surreal, he decided, wasn't the word for it.

They made their way around, until they came to an old, crumbling stone bench in the center, underneath a bower of perfect... pink roses.

Jessie caught her breath- it was that beautiful.

"Ah, the seat" James recollected fondly. "The only flowers that aren't red in the whole place."

"Why?" she asked, still spellbound.

James shrugged.

"Don't know. I guess that that's just another one of those mysteries."

They sat down on the bench, and she pushed aside a bend that nearly tangled in her hair. The of the full, dewy blossoms fell on her lap, and she unconsciously started to play with it, pulling the petals off one by one, and letting them drift away in the fragrant night breeze.

He watched her silently.

"So" she said, to break the silence. "What *other* mysteries are you talking about?"

James wrinkled his forehead briefly.

"Oh, you remember" she said. "All those secret passages... in the library, and behind the drawing room, and everything?"

She composed her face in a perfect mimicry of recollection.

"Ah" she said. "I remember."

"No, you don't" James said with a small smile. "Because I never showed them to you."

All the blood drained from her face in a second, and her heart jumped to her throat. *Shit* she cursed to herself, the Jessie in her turning annoyed, and, by default, profane.

"I.." she stumbled, and he shook his head.

"There's something up with you, Jessibelle" he said, dropping the stilted formalities, and speaking plainly, but not without a certain playfulness that she had never seen him address her with before.

*Oh my God, he's treating her like me* she realized.

"I don't know what you are talking about" she said simply, elusively, and went to get up.

"Oh, I think you do" he continued. "You haven't been... yourself these past three days."

She considered this.

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" she wondered.

"See?" he indicated, mystified. "When you talk to me like that, your voice... it's different."

"And you like that?" she pressed.

"I guess so... yeah, I think I do."

"Well, then" she said busily, standing up fully, and tilting the heavy weight of her hat in his direction. "I have done the good and proper thing and pleased the millionaire. I can retire now."

She turned to leave.

"Jessibelle.." he said, getting up also, his tone no longer bantering.

She turned around, and he was there.

"Just.. hold on a second" he said, out of breath although he had only jumped a few paces, and she turned back to him.

"Yes?"

And then he was, with the almost frightening deftness of a person who has spent his whole life around veils and bonnets, wide-brimmed hats and the best ways to get them off, pushing the heavy pile of straw and lace and ribbon off her head, and it caught on the thin, pink ribbon around her neck. Her pale face exposed, he ran a hand awkwardly over her cheek.

"Please the millionaire once more tonight" he asked formally. The way he said that was with something in her voice she had never heard before, in relation to Jessibelle or anyone, even her.

She didn't know what to do, what her counterpart would do in such a situation, but she got the very good impression it wouldn't be kissing her back.

It wouldn't be sinking back down on the seat with her face between his hands, their lips touching, chivalrous but hot, her eyes fluttering slowly closed, her white-gloved fingers going up, up, until they found by nonexistent memory his chin, his ears, his hair, running over it while he pulled back, slowly, and looked at her, like he needed further instruction.

Because she didn't know about Jessibelle. But Jessie had never kissed James, and that was what *Jessie* would have done.

**************************************************************************************************

He was thinking, thinking even as he said goodnight and good-bye to her at the door to her bedroom, that it was a thing he should not have done. There was a smile and a rosy tickle on his lips that hadn't been there a few minutes before, and he liked it.

That didn't change the fact that he had kissed Jessibelle. Not at all.

James went down the hall and upstairs a level to his bedroom, where he sank into the king-sized oblivion of his bed, and saw Jessie's face plastered across his mind. Jessibelle's and then hers, and then together, in split-frame on the surface of his mind, swirling in and out until they pushed into each other and became the same face. Beautiful- both of them stared at him out of one pair of eyes.

He realized that there was a reason he hadn't kissed- really kissed- Jessie at the airport, the way he had planned he would all week. He had thought about it, scrutinized it, considered it- and not gone through with it. And then, there he had been, all of the sudden, kissing the shrew he hated without even thinking twice, partially because he saw her face. Jessie's. And he felt the way Jessie treated him- in Jessibelle.

I'm going crazy, he though, dizzily. Her lipstick was probably poisoned or something, which would be like her.

It had been weighing on him ever since he got that telegram, clutched it in his hand, wearing his uniform, saw the words and cringed. Could he go back there? What would he do, now?

James sighed. He didn't want to settle down- he knew that, if his parents had any degree of fondness for him, that was their greatest wish, but at the time he just couldn't bear the thought of losing his freedom. He still didn't want that, but...

"I'm an adult" he thought, depressed. When did that happen?

He almost cursed his mother from the Great Beyond, for going and dying and leaving all that stuff of his shoulders. He had money, now. He had a hundred acre estate and the finances that went along with it to run, and what in the name of Hell was he going to do?

He would normally count on Jess to answer stuff like that for him. But Jess was acting weird, and then there was Jessibelle...

James wanted to believe she had changed. He really did, because an idea was taking shape in his head that he couldn't even believe he was thinking of, but it grew, undeniably. Persistently.

What if, for once in his life, his parents hadn't been wrong?

**************************************************************************************************

"About last night...."

"I'm so sorry. It was impolite..."

"I liked it."

"You did?!"

"Yes, actually."

Their second kiss was the next morning, when he was coming down the stairs to dinner. She was wearing something he had never seen her in before- an impressive feat, since he had every one of Jessibelle's immense catalogue of ball gowns mentally sorted by color, amount of crinoline required to hold it up, and sheer tackiness.

This one was black and plain and classic. The only ornamentation she wore on her white skin was a single silk ribbon tied around her neck, cutting a line across the pale.

Black and white and red.

She was waiting at the base of the stairs, studying the newel post as if she had just been introduced to it at a cocktail party, and he was so taken by the dual enticement of her beauty and not being aware that he had just come down that he lowered his head to hers and kissed her lips briefly.

A minor electric shock started at his mouth and made it's way through the rest of his body. He would have to stop doing spontaneous things like that.

She looked up, caught off guard, and nearly answered in her own voice:

"Hi."

"Good evening" he said casually, straightening the lapels on his dinner jacket. She would never tire of watching him get dressed up- the expensive suits, the good ties- they all fell well on his slim, tall figure, and made him look what *she* would have called 'dashing.'

Dashing to *where*, exactly? Jessie mused idly.

Her eyes met his, and they walked in silence to the dinning room. The middle of the table was set with a cut glass vase of fresh roses. (see part three).