Halfway to Heaven by Susan Wiggs

Author:Susan Wiggs [Wiggs, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Historical, General
ISBN: 9781459247871
Google: GbJP2rEnH64C
Amazon: B0084ZXI5W
Publisher: MIRA
Published: 2012-06-14T16:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

“Try it. You’ll like it.”

“But it’s alive.”

“It’s just lying there waiting to be eaten. I promise, it won’t fight back.”

“And that makes it permissible to eat it?”

“Abby, live oysters are a delicacy. People of quality eat them all the time.”

“People of quality also hunt foxes and club them to death. That doesn’t mean I would participate in such a thing,” she stated with a sniff.

“Leave the poor girl alone, son,” his father said from the head of the supper table. “It’s a poor host who forces unwanted food on his guest.”

Jamie never took his eyes off Abigail. “Oh, she wants it. I can tell she wants it.”

“Truly,” his mother said, “autumn is the best time for bay oysters.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more, dear,” her husband said.

“Charles’s grandfather started the oyster beds a half century ago,” she explained to Senator Cabot, who happily sucked down an oyster followed by a swig of stout dark beer.

At the other end of the table, Helena and Rowan ate their share while flashing each other private looks and secretive smiles. Jamie couldn’t believe the senator hadn’t guessed his elder daughter was engaged in a love affair with the professor, but Franklin Cabot had glaring blind spots when it came to his daughters.

At the moment, the younger one was studying the oyster on her plate with a mixture of curiosity and revulsion. Something about her always made Jamie want to smile. She was that rarest of creatures, a woman devoid of pretense. For that reason alone, he liked her rather well. It had been a long, long time since he had found himself able to like a woman.

“Just one,” he coaxed, convinced she would thank him. “It’s just a little swallow, my dear.”

She glowered at him. “I am not your dear.”

“No one is,” he agreed. “It’s just an expression. Eat the oyster, Miss Cabot.”

“I will not.”

“My mother’s cook went to considerable trouble to gather and shuck them for supper.”

“If she’s the cook, why didn’t she cook them?” Abigail pushed her plate at him. “You should have it instead.”

He pushed it back. “Eat the damn oyster.”

“I will not.”

“Coward.”

“Bully.”

“And you call yourself a woman of science. You won’t even—”

“Must you argue about everything, Abigail?” Mr. Cabot asked.

Glaring at Jamie, she picked up the half shell. “Very well, but only to silence Mr. Calhoun.”

Jamie knew very well that wasn’t the reason she capitulated. Interesting and unfortunate, he thought, how quick she was to obey her father.

Holding the thing perfectly level in front of her face, she squeezed a lemon wedge into the shell.

“It moved,” she screeched, dropping the oyster to her plate.

Jamie picked it up again. “That was your hand, goose.” He leaned across the table, touching the edge of the shell to her lower lip. “Stop being a baby.”

She nearly went cross-eyed, looking down at the oyster in front of her. Jamie bit the inside of his cheek. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had made him want to laugh. Yet it happened all the time when Abigail was around.

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