The Adventuress (28 page)

“I have always fancied fireworks,” Jeremy said, eschewing a mug of steaming chocolate for a quick sip from a flask of whisky, relying for warmth on that and the scarf wrapped firmly around his neck. “From now on, I shall insist on them nightly when I am in residence at Woodsford. Can't imagine why I didn't think of it before.”

In my mind, I could hear Amity's
You are simply too very
even before she said it, but I did manage to resist rolling my eyes, which was fortunate, as no sooner were the words out of her mouth than she had turned to me and clutched my arm. “Walk with me, Emily.”

“You do not want to miss the finale, do you?” I asked, hope in my voice. She did not care about the fireworks, however, and I had no choice but to walk with her the length of the dock and then turn onto the promenade at La Croisette. The pavement was crowded with other tourists, but there was little movement on it, as nearly all of them had stopped, their heads tilted up, to watch the colorful explosions in the sky.

“Christabel and my mother have been filling my head with poison—well, not Christabel so much, but I remain unconvinced she believes me,” Amity said. “Please tell me, were you and Jeremy out together this afternoon?”

“I promise, hand on heart, we were not,” I said, “and I have no reason to lie to you. If we had gone somewhere together, why would we hide the fact? You know we are friends. That is no secret.”

“And there is nothing more?” Her voice was hesitant. I heard a loud sigh behind me.

“Are we back on to this?” Margaret said, coming up behind Amity. I shot her a look of gratitude. “Surely you must be tired of it, Amity?”

“Exhausted, in fact,” Amity said. “It is so difficult to convince others that they are obsessed with a worthless rumor of their own making.”

“Ignore them,” Margaret said. “And come with me, now.” She guided Amity back to the edge of the railing, where the others were standing. I did not follow, instead remaining at the railing of the promenade, perpendicular to them, watching the color of the fireworks bathing their faces. Jack's eyes focused not on the sky, but on Christabel. Christabel, standing awkwardly next to Mr. Fairchild, paid Jack not the slightest attention. Margaret was ribbing Jeremy about something, and Amity was looking away, past Colin.

“I have already instructed my daughter to speak with the duke about his attentions to you,” Mrs. Wells said. I had not seen her approach. “I do hope you will have the decency to support me in this matter.”

“Mrs. Wells, I believe I look forward to your daughter's marriage perhaps even more than you do,” I said. “Let me assure you that I shall be the first to offer my best wishes to her after the happy event.”

“I was certain that once you felt your own reputation was under threat—”

“My own reputation has never been under threat,” I said. “You ought to better consider what your own gossip is doing to Amity. No one else sees the problems you are so keen on revealing to the world. I wonder what you can mean by it?”

“Do you have a daughter, Lady Emily?”

“No, only three sons.”

“Then you shall not know the tribulations caused by a girl who—” She huffed. “I shall say no more.”

“Are you concerned that Amity has done something wrong?” I asked. “Mrs. Wells, your daughter is exuberant and not particularly interested in following the conventions you may think necessary and appropriate, but she…” My voice trailed and I paused. On consideration, I realized that although I was not particularly fond of Amity, she was more similar to me than I cared to admit, and watching her sometimes felt like seeing a painful mirror image of myself. Like me, she pushed boundaries, in a different way, granted, but I felt I should defend her nonetheless. She might have no academic interests, but she wanted her own voice, and I ought to support that position.

“You, Lady Emily, have no inkling as to what I have dealt with, and I would be grateful if you would not encourage my daughter to flaunt the rules of decent society.”

“Did something happen before you came abroad with her?”

“Did you not only just now warn me of the evils of spreading gossip, Lady Emily? Now you seek it out?” She did not wait for me to reply, but turned and marched away so quickly that I feared her enormous hat—replete with yet another of her signature stuffed and mounted birds that looked ready for flight—would fly off her head. I waited a few moments, and then followed her to my friends.

The fireworks having finished, there was general conversation about what to do next. Spirits were high, particularly amongst the gentlemen, and before long Amity was encouraging them to find rowboats and set off on a nighttime sea adventure. Knowing it was unlikely that even Jeremy would consider this appalling suggestion, I removed myself from the others, taking Margaret with me.

“Could you telegram your mother for me?” I asked. “She may be able to offer us an insight into some most intriguing comments Mrs. Wells has offered.”

“Telegram? She has got a telephone in New York. Insisted Father get her one of her own so that she would never have cause to step into his office at the house. Let's ring her at once,” Margaret said, as soon as I had further explained the situation. The hotel manager was not on-site, but the desk clerk agreed to let us use the office for the call, and, although I could not precisely hear Mrs. Seward's words in response to her daughter's questions, it was evident from the unbroken stream of sound coming from the receiver of the telephone that she had a great deal to say on the subject.

After Margaret had returned the earpiece to its cradle, she pushed back from the desk on which it stood and let out a long, low whistle.

“Sometimes, you know, I nearly forget that you are American,” I said. “And then you whistle like a cowgirl.”

Margaret grinned. “What makes you think only cowgirls know how to whistle? Amity Wells has a rather colorful history that her parents have gone to great lengths to hide.”

“Do tell.”

“Evidently, two seasons ago, she was deeply infatuated with the son of one of the lesser railroad barons. My mother would not tell me who, and I suppose it does not much matter. Mrs. Wells and her husband never gave the situation any serious regard, as they considered the gentleman far below their daughter's status.” Margaret rolled her eyes. “When he approached Mr. Wells to ask for Amity's hand and was rebuffed, the matter would have been closed, except that Amity did not take the news lying down. She arranged to run off with him, in the dark of night, and they planned to elope somewhere upstate. She was thwarted, however, by a servant who heard her coming down the stairs with a valise she could barely carry, and the whole affair was hushed up as much as possible.”

“Hence the need to take her abroad to find a suitable husband,” I said.

“According to my mother, that was always Mrs. Wells's plan,” Margaret said. “She has had it in her head for ages that Amity ought to marry someone with a title. The failed elopement only spurred her to act sooner than she had originally planned.”

“Poor Amity,” I said, feeling more sympathy for the girl than I had before. “I have been so very hard on her because I thought she was only pretending to be what she thinks Jeremy wants, but now I wonder if she is only doing what she can to help her forget the man she truly loves.”

“The worst part is that the man she loved has recently announced his engagement. I have no doubt Mrs. Wells is aware of the fact, but it is possible that Amity doesn't know.”

“I suppose it is hardly of consequence, is it? She has accepted that she must do as her parents wish. It is rather sad.”

“Do you think she truly cares for Jeremy?” Margaret asked.

“I do believe she does, in her way,” I said. “She has already been thwarted once in love and it would not surprise me to find that she is holding back a small piece of her heart. Could you blame her?”

“No,” Margaret said, “although I do very much blame her for going along with her parents' scheme.”

“She must think she has no choice,” I said. “Given the … er … force of her personality, she would not otherwise have agreed to their plans. I am going to endeavor to be kinder to her.”

“Take care that she doesn't mistake it for pity,” Margaret said. “She would resent that.”

“Ring your mother back, Margaret,” I said. “I should like to know the name of the rejected suitor. Could it be that he is bent on disrupting her wedding and disposing of her groom? Perhaps he is trying to escape an engagement forced on him by his own parents.”

“Capital idea,” Margaret said, and returned to the phone. It took a considerable amount of begging for her to convince her mother to reveal the name. Mrs. Seward insisted she would not stoop to the level of forwarding gossip, but at last relinquished the information. Margaret then placed another call, this time to an old friend of hers in Manhattan, who, she insisted, knew everything about everything and everyone. After a chat of nearly a quarter of an hour—I shuddered at the thought of what these calls would cost—she could not control her excitement.

“Yes?” I prodded, knowing how she loved to prolong the anticipation of her audience when she was in possession of particularly desirable information.

“Mr. Marshall Cabot sailed for France the day following the announcement of his engagement,” Margaret said. “The
Herald Tribune
reported his arrival in Paris two days before Mr. Neville's death. Should we go there directly, do you think?”

“We can make discreet inquiries,” I said. “Do we know if he is still there?”

“I have the name of the hotel. Shall we ring them?”

“Not quite yet,” I said. “Let us consult with Colin and Cécile. You have not yet told me what you learned this afternoon.”

*   *   *

Margaret and I extricated Colin and Cécile from a game of poker Amity had started at a table in the lobby; while Amity looked less than pleased, Cécile made no attempt to hide her relief.

“
Mon dieu,
” she said. “Such a dreadful game. So coarse. It makes me hope to never again see a deck of cards.” She had insisted that we go to her rooms, where there were two bottles of chilled champagne waiting for us. “I would rather have absinthe with dancing girls, and you know I do not drink absinthe.”

“What did Marie and the others have to say to you today?” I asked.

“Unfortunately, nothing of note,” Margaret said as I refused her offer of the champagne she was pouring for the others. “I do not believe they have any more information that can help us. We asked about people who were less fond of Hélène, and spoke to two waiters and a baccarat dealer. The dealer was jealous of the second waiter, whom he correctly suspected of being in love with Hélène, and his ire at the girl resulted from his incorrect belief that she returned the sentiment.”

“But you made it sound as if the second waiter was also less than fond of Hélène,” I said.

“Well he was,” Margaret continued, “once he began to think the baccarat dealer was a serious rival. Hélène objected to his possessiveness, and quite threw him over.”

“And the first waiter?” Colin asked.

“He believes that she put on airs by speaking too much about the ballet in Paris, where she felt she belonged,” Margaret said. “As for neighbors, none of them spoke a word against her. They all described her as sweet.”

“Sweet,
oui
,” Cécile said, “but it was clear that they wished she would abandon her occupation. They feared it was too closely connected to, shall we say, undesirable outcomes. What is interesting is that they did not entirely judge her for dancing. They felt, it seems, that she could still be saved. The son of the cheesemonger, who lives two streets over from the Soucy house, had hoped to pay her court, but she refused to let him, telling him she was not worthy.”

“Was he angry at the rejection?” Colin asked.

“Not in the least,” Cécile said. “He viewed her response to him as nothing more than an opening gambit.”

“And what about your day, Colin?” I asked. “What can you tell us about Jack?”

“Genuinely loves army life. Bainbridge has arranged things for him financially so that he never need worry, even should he leave his chosen profession. I do not believe he has any designs on his brother's title.”

“I could have told you that,” I said. “I did practically grow up with the two of them.”

“And, as such, are a terribly biased and unreliable—although extremely charming—witness,” Colin said.

“There is one more thing that we have been desperate to show you,” Margaret said. “I am confident you will admire our restraint in not pulling them out with the others present. Or during the fireworks. We searched both the dressing room in the casino and Hélène's room at the Soucys' and found these hidden amongst her things.” She handed me a small leather box that contained a pair of gold cuff links engraved with the arms of the Bainbridge family.

 

Amity

“There was no need for Emily to disrupt your game,” Birdie said.

“Mother, you are causing a scene,” Amity said through clenched teeth. “Do sit down or go upstairs. People are beginning to stare.” She flung her cards down onto the table.

“It is fortunate my own mother is not here,” Jeremy said. “I am quite certain, Mrs. Wells, she would never stand for ladies playing poker. You two might have come to blows.” His attempt to lighten the mood fell flat as his soon-to-be mother-in-law scowled at him.

“Are you defending Lady Emily?” Birdie asked. “Suggesting, perhaps, that your mother would have found her to have been a more suitable bride?”

“Please excuse me,” Jack said, rising from the table, discomfort writ all over his face. “I quite forgot a letter I must write. Mother will never forgive me.”