One Touch of Moondust Read Online Free Page A

breaking off of the engagement with his usual cool disinterest and gone off to Palm Beach to play polo with Prince Charles.
    If her parents had considered her breaking up with Townsend foolish, they found her business ambitions unladylike in the extreme. Women in the Clayton clan were supposed to inherit wealth—as her father’s sweet, but mindless sisters had—or marry it, as her mother had. They weren’t supposed to set out to attain it for themselves. She had disgracedthem by doing just that, first with a Charleston brokerage house, then by moving to New York where she could avoid their disapproving, bewildered looks.
    After the fuss they’d raised about her leaving home, she had sworn to make it on her own. Even at the outset in New York, she’d refused all their offers of money. She had weathered one stock market crash, only to lose her job a few weeks ago in a subsequent belt-tightening. Unfortunately there were plenty of other stockbrokers and analysts in similar straits, all fighting over the same few openings. Her savings had dipped precariously low. Even so, she knew she couldn’t go home again. She would suffocate under all that well-meaning interference. Ten minutes at home and she would revert to being six again, instead of a cool and competent twenty-six.
    She pressed the button on the intercom that connected her to the lobby and requested a taxi. It was an extravagance she could ill afford, but she refused to tote her belongings all the way to Brooklyn on the subway. Besides, it would take at least five trips just to get them downstairs. She refused to make twice thatmany trips back and forth to Brooklyn. She convinced herself that in the end, the taxi would be more cost-effective.
    In the lobby she said goodbye to the aging doorman, who’d taken to watching out for her. He had the manners of a well-trained butler, all icy propriety, with a glimmer of affection that dared to show itself in little kindnesses.
    â€œNow you be careful, miss,” he said when he’d tucked her into the front seat of the cab after helping the driver to load the trunk and back seat with luggage and boxes. “Stop by now and then.”
    â€œThank you, Robert. I will. You stay inside on rainy days now. You don’t want your arthritis acting up. Next time I get over this way, I expect to see pictures of that new grandson of yours.”
    The washed-out blue of his eyes lit up. “You can be sure I’ll have a whole collection of them by then,” he said. “Goodbye, miss.”
    â€œGoodbye, Robert.”
    As the cab pulled away, she was surprised to discover a tear rolling down her cheek. She brushed it away and watched until Robert wentback inside and the building disappeared from view.
    Thankfully the cabdriver, a burly man about her father’s age, wasn’t the talkative kind. He left her to think about endings and beginnings and all that went on in between. She was feeling gut-wrenchingly nostalgic all of a sudden. The driver, Mort Feinstein according to the ID tag located on the glove compartment door, glanced over occasionally. Gabrielle caught the growing concern in his expression and avoided meeting his gaze directly.
    As they drove into the neighborhood of the new apartment, the driver’s concern turned to alarm. He pulled to the curb in front of number six-blank-two and stared around disapprovingly.
    â€œIt’s not safe,” he decreed.
    â€œNo place in this city is safe. I’ll use locks.”
    â€œAnd stay inside? You shouldn’t walk down the streets. Take a look around.”
    â€œPlease, no lectures. Just help me unload my things.”
    â€œYou’re a nice girl. I can tell you’re froma fine family. What would they think, they should see this?”
    â€œThey won’t see it.”
    â€œYou know what I mean. What you want, you want your father should have a heart attack, he finds out you’re living in a