The Husband List Page 10

  Mama picked up her fork and stabbed a strawberry. “I knew I should not have let you stay here last night, Caroline. I am sure that Emmett Royce is sitting down and fattening Katherine’s dowry this morning.”

  “And I am sure Katherine will be very happy,” Caroline said, engaging in some wishful thinking that this was to be the end of the Bremerton campaign.

  “Katherine’s happiness is not my objective,” Mama said. “Yours is. In order to unwind this mess, I invited the Carstairs to a dinner party here on Tuesday night. They will meet you, and I expect you to show them that you are the correct choice for Lord Bremerton’s wife.”

  “Of course,” Caroline replied. She had always been very clear on Mama’s expectations, even if Mama still didn’t grasp Caroline’s concept of happiness.

  “Mildred and I have withdrawn ourselves from all engagements between now and Tuesday,” Mama said. “We will need the time to properly execute this event. While we are occupied, you three girls will follow your schedules with no deviation.” She shot a stern glance across the table to Caroline. “Especially you.”

  Since Caroline had already altered her schedule to include an afternoon lecture at the Redwoods Library and Athenaeum regarding the early monarchs of the Kingdom of Hawaii, she was perfectly happy to comply.

  “Yes, Mama,” she replied.

  “Fine, then,” Mama said before finally tucking into her soufflé, which had begun its downward descent. After a few bites, she added, “Eddie will be here for the dinner, since your father will not leave the city until the Conqueror is finished with its engine work. Any other ship is too slow in your father’s eyes. And since Mr. Longhorne remains in Paris, I will need at least one more single gentleman at the table.”

  Mrs. Longhorne looked deflated at the mention of her husband. Apparently considering his family duty done, Charles Longhorne had left for Paris on a vacation soon after daughter Esmé’s wedding, almost four years ago. The vacation appeared to be of the permanent variety.

  “I am sure Eddie would appreciate Jack Culhane’s presence,” Helen suggested while giving Caroline an arch look.

  “That is out of the question,” Mama said.

  Mrs. Longhorne perked up. “Agnes, is he not the one we heard this morning is conducting an affair with the Goelet governess?”

  So Jack had decided to distract dour Peek with a tale of love? Caroline did her best to hold back a laugh. Still, a choked sound escaped.

  “I am sorry if I shocked you, dear,” Mrs. Longhorne said to her. “That was blunt language in front of three young ladies, but it is the way of the world. One fancy French oiseau flits by, and a man is off to another nest.”

  “Not all men,” Mama said. “Your father is quite exemplary, girls.”

  All three sisters nodded in agreement.

  Papa was indeed faithful, unless one viewed his penchant for big game hunting as a substitute for a ladybird. But Mama tolerated tiger and zebra rugs far better than she would a mistress.

  Mama took a sip of her tea and then proclaimed, “Jack Culhane, however, is not showing himself to be an exemplary man.”

  Caroline wanted desperately to argue that statement but knew she couldn’t. The less she spoke of Jack, the better the chances of Mama warming to him. Or at least ignoring him.

  “Mama, I have seen Miss Beatrice Goelet’s governess, and she doesn’t seem the type to interest a young man such as Jack Culhane,” Helen said.

  Caroline wasn’t certain why Helen would choose to be helpful, but she was happy that was the case.

  “What do you mean?” Mama asked.

  “The governess is elderly,” Helen said. “I think she must be at least forty … much older than you.”

  Everyone at the table was aware that forty had come and gone for Mama. And everyone—including Mama—knew that she turned as soft as butter with a little flattery.

  “Yes, well…” Mama took another sip of tea before setting down her cup with a resigned sigh. “I suppose if I don’t make a place for him, Eddie will just tow him along and upset the numbers. Jack Culhane will do.”

  Caroline hid a smile. He would do perfectly.

  NINE

  Tuesday evening, Jack exited the hired coach that had brought him from the harbor to Da’s Touro Square house. The old brick villa bordered on bleak, and the sharply pointed wooden fence guarding it didn’t help, either. But to Jack’s tired eyes, the place looked like paradise. He paid his driver and made his way to the front door.

  Wilton, one of the former owner’s staff who Jack had kept on, greeted him once he’d stepped inside.

  “Good evening, sir. Your father is in residence,” the elderly butler/doorman/valet announced. “He is currently in the library.”

  Jack would have sooner believed that an impostor had wheedled his way into the house than that Da would be in Newport during the workweek. Either way, he headed toward the library. Wilton, who was remarkably spry given his bowed posture, followed Jack down the threadbare Persian runner that covered an equally scarred floor. The butler somehow reached past Jack to open the door.

  There, behind the heavy mahogany desk, was none other than Da. He had a cigar in one hand and tumbler of whiskey in the other. Jack looked away from the cigar. Cigars now reminded him of Heinrich Krantz, and Krantz was the reason he currently required a two-hour bath and ten-hour sleep. It had been a hot, stinking two days spent shoveling manure, but Jack wasn’t about to back down.

  “Hello, Da. Having trouble finding something to read?” Jack asked.

  Unlike the last time Jack had been in this room, random piles of books now dotted the floor and the shelves stood gap-toothed.

  “I was having more trouble finding you,” his father replied. “I came in before dawn Sunday and not a soul in this house knew where you were. It’s time you hired a personal secretary, or better yet, a minder.” His brows rose as he looked more closely at Jack. “I’m thinking you could use one.”

  Jack sat opposite Da in a deep leather chair. “No doubt. So why are you unshelving the books?”

  “Curiosity,” he said. “Harry Benton has no love for books, and he has even less love for banks. I’m looking to see if there’s money hidden, because sure as I’m breathing, Benton didn’t buy these to read.”

  “Any luck?” Jack asked.

  “Not yet,” Da replied. “And as long as we’re asking questions, would you like to tell me why you reek of dung?”

  Jack had cleaned up the best he could before boarding the late afternoon Newport-bound steamer, but he was numb to the scent of manure.

  “I spent the past two days mucking out stalls,” he said.

  Da tipped back his head and laughed. “That’s a fine one. Did you lose a bet?”

  “No, I’m buying another brewery.”

  “You have a strange way of going about business, son.”

  Jack smiled. “I suppose I do.”

  Da nudged his whiskey glass in Jack’s direction. “Drink up. You need it more than I do.”

  Jack shrugged. “Hard work never killed a man.”

  “True enough,” his father said. “But that’s not why you need it.”

  Taking Da at his word, Jack downed the rest of the whiskey. Its warmth as it made its way to his gut felt damn near life-giving.

  “So you’re here for a reason, right?” he asked his father.

  “Aye,” Da said. “Curiosity again. I decided I wanted to see this place, after all.”

  Jack shook his head. “You’re going to have to spin a better tale than that. You might care about money, but you don’t care about houses. If you did, you wouldn’t be trying to fob this one off on me.”

  “As it turns out, you won’t be needing it. Harriet Vandermeulen’s father will be building you a grand place as part of her dowry.”

  In almost any other circumstance, Jack would have enjoyed his father’s grin. But at the moment, he was bone-tired, blistered of hands, and short on a sense of humor. “You’re saying that Harri
et’s father came to talk to you?”

  “Aye,” Da replied. “He’s thinking you two would be a good match, and he wanted me to know that he’d be making it worth your while with houses both in the city and here.” He hesitated before adding, “You’re well off enough on your own, but falling in love with a rich girl isn’t a sin, you know.”

  “Oh, for…” Jack said before trailing off. He rubbed his forehead. A headache was setting in, but more of his father’s whiskey would evict it. He’d just have to find which stack of books was hiding the bottle.

  Da drew in on his cigar, then exhaled the smoke in a long stream. “It’s a rare thing, seeing you without words.”

  What could he say that Da didn’t already know? Jack was a grown man. And he couldn’t be bought.

  “Where are you hiding the whiskey?” he asked.

  Da laughed. “A fine start on talk.” He pulled open a desk drawer, reached in, and drew out a bottle. “I’ll bear up if there’s no money from Benton, so long as I find another bottle or two of this left behind.”

  Jack stood, took the offered bottle, and poured himself another two fingers of Ireland’s finest. He almost had the glass to his mouth when the library door groaned in protest as it swung open.

  Jack turned.

  “Mister Edward Maxwell,” Wilton announced.

  Eddie stepped into the room. He was dressed for a formal dinner and looking distinctly unhappy about it. Jack could sympathize.

  “Where the hell have you been, Culhane?” Eddie asked.

  “I’m assuming you’re not speaking to me, boyo,” Da said from his seat at the desk.

  “Oh, no, sir.” Eddie made a hasty bow and then came closer. “It’s good to see you, Mister Culhane. I was speaking to…” His moustache twitched. “What is that smell?”

  “Me,” Jack replied.

  “And you’re not dressed for dinner, either. Get cleaned up or we’ll be late,” Eddie said.

  It wasn’t that Jack was averse to the idea of cleanliness, but he didn’t need Eddie to tell him what to do. Da was covering that job just fine.

  “Late for what?” Jack asked.

  “Dinner. In an hour and a half. With my mother and sisters at Villa Blanca.”

  “I don’t think so,” Jack said before taking a swallow of whiskey.

  “When my mother invites you to dine, you go,” Eddie replied. “Otherwise, she has a way of making the punishment for declining to attend painfully worse than the dinner itself.”

  “Ah, but I wasn’t invited.”

  Da began riffling through the papers on the desk.

  “Not so true,” he said, holding up an opened envelope. “’Tis right here.”

  Jack blinked. “You opened my correspondence?”

  “I said you’re needin’ a personal secretary. If you had one of those, I wouldn’t be reduced to digging through papers to find where you might be.”

  “Your father has a point,” Eddie said. “Where were you?”

  “Working,” Jack replied. “And tonight I’m going to rest. I didn’t respond to the invitation. Unless you did that, too, Da,” he added while throwing a wry look his father’s way.

  “Of course I didn’t,” Da replied.

  “But I did,” Eddie said. “You’re committed.”

  Jack sat. “I am unmoved.”

  He planned to stay home with whiskey, quiet, and the first food he’d eaten since last night.

  “Be a friend, Jack,” Eddie said. “They’ve got Caroline all primped up and are trotting her out to meet Lord Bremerton’s hosts. Don’t make me watch the boring show alone.”

  Caroline and boring never happened at the same time. Eddie should have known that. And Jack should have known better than to be tempted by the idea of more time with Caroline. But he was.

  Jack swallowed the last of his whiskey and then rose.

  “Keep Da company while he takes apart the library,” he said to Eddie. “I’ll be back downstairs soon.”

  * * *

  CAROLINE LOVED her mother. She loved her enough to wear heavy, ice blue satin and what felt like pounds of pearls without a word of complaint. And on this hot and humid evening, that was a prodigious amount of love.

  Even the open doors from Villa Blanca’s Green Seaside Salon to the terrace beyond were providing little relief. A few miles offshore, angry clouds had gathered and a gray wash of rain was meeting the sea. Thunder rumbled. Caroline, who had always terrified her Mama with a love of storms, smiled at the thought of this one. Once it broke, the oppressive atmosphere would lighten.

  “Perfection,” Mama declared as she gave Caroline one final inspection five minutes before the guests arrived. Helen and Amelia had already passed muster and were whispering to each other on the far side of the room.

  “Wonderful. Now may I have a glass of water?” Caroline asked. She felt as though she were cooking under her corset.

  “Absolutely not,” Mama replied. “What if you spill and mark the satin? You must be flawless.”

  “Alive and able to speak might be advisable, too,” Caroline suggested.

  Mama undoubtedly had been about to tell her to watch her words, but Mildred Longhorne entered the room.

  Caroline had never seen a dress quite the shade of reddish purple that Mrs. Longhorne had chosen to wear. It reminded her of the grapes that grew wild along Rosemeade’s fence line. She hoped they hadn’t fallen victims to the recent renovations.

  “Did you tell Caroline the news?” Mrs. Longhorne asked Mama.

  “What news?” Caroline asked.

  It had to be something amazing, for Mrs. Longhorne looked ready to spin in a giddy circle.

  “Oh, it’s nothing at all,” Mama said in a cheerful voice. “Mrs. Longhorne is just pleased to have lobster salad on the menu, when her chef had said there would be none.”

  Mrs. Langhorne laughed. “Ha! Lobster salad!”

  Caroline’s mother shot her friend a quelling look. “Have another glass of champagne, Mildred. You seem overexcited.”

  Lobster salad was an odd passion, Caroline supposed, but she had heard of more peculiar.

  A servant bearing a tray of champagne coupes stepped forward to oblige Mrs. Longhorne. Caroline’s mouth watered. She glanced her mother’s way, but Mama shook her head no.

  “Do you think champagne does not spot?” her mother asked.

  “I think it was created by fairies and will leave only gold dust should it spill,” Caroline replied.

  Mama’s friend took a sip of hers. “Indeed! And it is the drink of a celebration such as this, too!”

  “Have more, Mildred,” Mama said. She sounded somewhat grim.

  Caroline, however, was feeling too sticky to puzzle out why. If she could have no champagne, she demanded air.

  “If you’ll excuse me?” she asked Mama and Mrs. Longhorne, but did not wait for an answer.

  Caroline walked outside and braced her hands on the stone balustrade that marked the terrace’s edge. She tried to draw in a deep breath, but that was not an option with her corset pulled almost an inch tighter than usual. Instead, she focused on the horizon. Lightning flashed from cloud to cloud, followed by a sharp split of thunder. A welcome breeze ruffled her hair.

  She wished she could escape from the dinner party, slip off her shoes, and walk barefoot across Mrs. Longhorne’s impossibly green lawn to greet the storm as it made shore. Of course, Jack would be waiting at the water’s edge. He would carry her to a small rowboat. They would slip offshore to his sloop, which he had naturally named the Caroline. He would show her the islands of the Caribbean before they explored South America. Once they’d seen their fill, they’d round Tierra del Fuego and head on to the Pacific. She would chronicle their adventures, and finally the newspapers would print something about her other than the supposed cost of the beadwork on her ball gowns.

  Caroline sighed at her fantastical turn of mind. Of course, Jack had no sloop that she knew of and he could hardly lift her in this blasted dress, let
alone wade into the surf with her. But he’d be at dinner tonight, and that would do. It had to.

  “Caroline,” Mama called a few minutes later. “You must come inside.”

  Caroline stepped back into the salon just as the butler announced, “Lord Bremerton and Mr. and Mrs. William and Lurene Carstairs.”

  Caroline thought she’d misheard, but three people were indeed entering the room. She looked to her mother. Mama refused to meet her eyes. The twins gave her sad faces of apology, and Mrs. Longhorne appeared pleased enough that one might have thought she’d conjured the Englishman from thin air.

  Caroline approached the wine-bearing servant and accepted a glass. Her deep first swallow was decidedly unladylike, and her second just as large.

  Lobster salad, indeed.

  “Lord Bremerton, it’s a pleasure to welcome you to Villa Blanca,” Mrs. Longhorne was saying.

  “Thank you,” the Englishman replied in a deep voice. “It was kind of you to add me to your party at the last minute.”

  Caroline felt compelled to admit to herself that he had a pleasant voice. If she were to be fair, she’d also have to admit that he might be a perfectly pleasant acquaintance, even if she had no desire to marry him. It was entirely possible—and to be hoped—that he would not wish to marry her, either. Fortified by champagne and positive thoughts, she hazarded a look his way.

  As it turned out, he was not unattractive. Her girlfriends would declare him sigh-worthy, even if she did not. He was tall, almost as tall as Jack, and certainly better dressed than she’d ever seen Jack. The Englishman’s evening clothes fit with a precise elegance, as though he kept a tailor on call around the clock. But Caroline was fonder of Jack’s more relaxed appearance.

  Bremerton’s hair was a sandy color and cut in a longer style than American men currently favored. He was pale, almost as though he never even walked in the sun. And his eyes were a startlingly pale shade, too. From her current distance, she couldn’t decide if they were blue or gray.

  His gaze settled on her.

  Caroline shivered. While a proper heiress was not supposed to admit to having hair on her arms, she could feel hers rising. And not with excitement, either. She had always been a firm believer in instincts, and hers were sounding an alarm. Since running headlong into the downpour that had started would not sit well with her mother, she gave the Englishman a polite smile.