The Kennedy Debutante

by Kerri Maher

  “Thank you both for coming,” said Kick, hiccupping now between laughter and tears.

  “Darling,” Sissy cooed, rubbing Kick’s back, “tell us what’s wrong.”

  “I miss my family,” she said, feeling the sobs gather again like a storm in her chest.

  “Of course you do,” said Debo, sliding down into a chair at the table. “They should be here.”

  Sissy went to make some tea, and after a few deep breaths, Kick said, “Of course they can’t be here because of the war and all—”

  “Kick,” interrupted Debo firmly, “there’s no need to pretend with us. We know you’re not talking about the Atlantic Ocean or the Germans.”

  “Have they written at all?” asked Sissy gently.

  “Nothing I’d want to share with you,” admitted Kick.

  But Sissy frowned and said, “I’m sorry. No one should be unhappy about starting a new life with a wonderful man.” Kick was so touched by this, she burst into tears again.

  Sissy actually laughed, and sat down next to her friend. “I didn’t think that was such a dangerous thing to say.”

  Sissy’s fine features blurred in Kick’s watery eyes. “It’s just that I wish, I wish . . .” she gasped.

  Debo reached over and put her hand on Kick’s. “We know. You don’t have to say more.”

  “Please don’t tell Billy,” Kick whispered.

  “Welcome to being a wife,” said Sissy.

  “Exactly.” Debo grinned slyly, and despite her pregnancy-plumped face, she looked exactly like the party girl of eighteen Kick had colluded with six years ago.

  Towheaded Julian wandered over to them and said to Sissy, “May I have a biscuit, Mummy?” Then, catching a glimpse of Kick’s red face, he asked in such a proper manner that Kick blushed at the absurdity of the moment, “Are you all right, Miss Kennedy?”

  Sissy intervened. “She won’t be Miss Kennedy much longer, Julian. You’d better start to practice calling her Marchioness.”

  Safely back in the territory of etiquette, Julian gave Kick a little bow and said, “I hope you feel better, Marchioness.” Clearly bewildered, he took a handful of digestive biscuits and rejoined the other children.

  Kick and Sissy and Debo dissolved into hysterical laughter, an absolute balm on her soul. Her friends’ visit also proved essential for her housewarming preparations, as they were able to advise her on the sorts of items that would be most useful in her post-honeymoon life in a hotel in Alton near Billy’s regiment. Debo said, “I’ve never been so bored as I’ve been as an army wife, so bring plenty to read.”

  Sissy removed the nicer dresses from the packed trunks, saying, “Leave those in storage. There won’t be anywhere to wear them in Alton, and while you honeymoon at Compton Place, well, I’m sure Billy won’t want you wearing much of anything,” and again Sissy and Debo exchanged amused looks.

  “Sissy!” Kick said, embarrassed but also flushed with anticipation.

  “She’ll likely have to dress for dinner once,” Debo pointed out. “Duke and Duchess might pop by for supper.”

  “Actually, speaking of . . . all that,” Kick said, hardly able to believe she was asking, “do you know anywhere I might be able to buy some satin sheets?”

  Sissy grinned and said, “They cost more than gold at Harrods because of the fabric restrictions, but I have a set to give you. Consider it a gift. David prefers cotton.”

  In the evening post the next day, a brown paper parcel arrived, and inside was Kick’s very own set of freshly washed yellow satin sheets that smelled like sunshine and dried lavender, and a note in Sissy’s hand that read, “A marchioness should sleep on satin sheets. Enjoy them.”

  In the same post was a short note from the duchess saying that earlier in the day, Debo had delivered Peregrine Cavendish safely into the world. “It appears our family is growing and growing, and I couldn’t be happier,” she concluded.

  Kick put the note between the pages of the Book of Common Prayer and packed it to take with her into her new life.

  CHAPTER 34

  As soon as Kick and Billy announced the engagement on May 4, the press devoured them. It was worse than either of them had predicted, with reporters taking their tea and meals on the pavement outside all their homes as they waited for one of them to exit, and calling the Cavendish family secretary at all hours of the day and night, begging for a comment. They even had the poor taste to call Debo right after the birth of her child. Billy, staying in the house his family had rented in Easton for the reception, called Kick and said crabbily, “I don’t dare say anything over the phone for fear it’s being monitored.” No one in the family could leave their homes without being attacked by cameras and pencil-at-the-ready reporters. Kick assumed it was happening to her parents and siblings, too, though they also made no comment. All Kick knew of her scattered family was their worrying silence, and the fact that her mother was in a hospital in Boston.

  Kick hunkered down in Marie Bruce’s apartment, allowing her mother’s friend to fuss over her and steadfastly not mention Rose or any other Kennedy, for that matter. Instead, Marie focused her energy on making sure Kick had a beautiful if last-minute wedding dress, which she insisted was a gift—and the milkman’s, it turned out, since she convinced him to give her a few of his fabric coupons when she didn’t have enough, promising to repay him with just as many of those plus some coveted bottles of wine when her next allotment came in. It was a knee-length dress made of a very fine crepe in the palest of pinks, reminding Kick of the peonies that bloomed in Hyannis Port in the early summer. Marie also wrapped up a box of brand-new lingerie she’d originally ordered for herself, and gave it to Kick over tea the afternoon before her wedding. “I can’t accept this,” Kick said, embarrassed by the charity as well as the unexpected frills and ties on the undergarments.

  “I insist,” Marie replied firmly. “A young bride needs to feel seductive. It puts some of the power back in your hands.”

  And she made sure Kick had a cake to serve to her guests. Because of the restrictions on sugar, even Claridge’s, whom Marie convinced to bake it, had to assemble it without frosting. But it would be chocolate, and that was a real consolation, to Kick’s mind.

  At last the morning arrived. Kick stood before Marie in the dress that had come off the sewing machine mere hours before, with drops of Vol de Nuit on her wrists and behind her knees. Her mother had bought it for her annually since that first trip to Guerlain.

  “You’re a vision,” said Marie, dabbing tears out of her eyes. They embraced, and Kick pretended for a moment that the other woman was Rose.

  Then Joe Jr. bounded into the apartment looking very smart in a dark wool suit and tie, and exclaimed with open arms, “Where’s the bride?” with such enthusiasm, Kick felt her heart soar.

  Ducking into a taxi, the three of them sped to the Chelsea Register Office.

  “Have you heard from Jack?” asked Kick.

  “No, and I cabled him the other day and told him he was a bastard,” Joe said.

  “I’m glad I could provide you with another excuse to malign him,” Kick said.

  “Yes, I appreciate that,” Joe replied. “He’s become Dad’s whipping boy, and it’s sad. But let’s not talk about sad things today. Let’s think about Debo’s new baby, and champagne in a few hours, and how pretty you look, and how you’ll become a marchioness today. Little Kathleen Kennedy of Boston, a marchioness! It’s quite a coup, little sister.”

  “Oh, Joe, don’t be vulgar,” said Marie, but Kick could tell she was amused by her brother’s bragging.

  “Kick loves vulgarity,” whispered Joe. “It’s one of her best-kept secrets.”

  He prattled on the whole ride, and Kick loved him for it.

  In its staid redbrick way, the Chelsea Register Office was a reassuring building even if it wasn’t Brompton Oratory or Westminster Abbey—may
be, Kick thought, because it was neither the Oratory nor Westminster. It was their place, hers and Billy’s, and she was suddenly happy about the uniqueness of it, the way it said, We made our own choice.

  “Ready?” Joe asked her with his most open and exultant expression, his hand on the door of the taxi as the reporters swarmed the black car.

  She closed her eyes and pictured Billy in her mind and saw his smile at the May Fair nearly a year ago when she’d returned. “Yes,” she said. And her brother opened the door.

  As the flashbulbs popped and the reporters shouted—“Miss Kennedy! Is there a Protestant priest inside?” “A Catholic?” “Did your parents call to congratulate you this morning?”—Joe put his arm protectively around her, and they ran from the taxi, up the steps, and into the building, which was mercifully free of the press. In fact, with all the neatly dressed people going about their quiet business, no one would ever know there was a tempest outside.

  A giddy Anne Cavendish stopped Kick in the hall and said, “You look absolutely beautiful! I’ve been sent to whisk you away so Billy can’t see you till you walk into the room. You should see him, by the way. A nervous wreck! I’ve never seen him so emotional about anything.”

  “I hope that’s a good sign!” Kick said, following this girl who would soon be her sister-in-law to a whitewashed room only big enough for a desk and two chairs. She wondered what it was used for. Joe went to check on Billy, and Marie to check on the flowers.

  “Of course it’s a good sign,” Anne reassured her. “I didn’t mean to worry you, only to let you know that he is rather overcome.”

  Kick longed to see him. It had been three whole days since she’d laid eyes on him. Anne chattered on about something to do with their parents, but Kick couldn’t focus on a single word. She was sweating. She hoped she didn’t stain her delicate dress!

  Soon, though, Joe knocked and put his head around the door and declared, “Showtime!”

  He handed her a bouquet of the pink camellias from Chatsworth that the duchess had brought down for the occasion. Kick put her nose to them and breathed in the sweet, springtime scent of her future home. She felt honored that Billy’s mother had wanted her to carry them toward him that day.

  Jutting out his elbow, Joe offered Kick his arm, and the two of them followed Anne down the hall to a room only a little larger than the one they had been in, equally unornamented except for the proudly displayed Union Jack, and a few vases of pink carnations and camellias blooming cheerfully around the room.

  Kick had thought that when she was finally in the room with Billy, she would look to him right away and their gazes would be romantically locked for the rest of the ceremony, but she found herself feeling suddenly and deeply shy. So instead of raising her eyes to the front of the room where Billy stood in his uniform waiting for her, she made grateful eye contact with her new family and old friends—Elizabeth, the duke and duchess, Anne, Nancy and Waldorf Astor, Debo, Sissy, David—and smiled with a slightly bowed, embarrassed head.

  A man at an upright piano in the corner played the most famous bars of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” for Kick’s short walk from the door to Billy on her brother’s arm. At last, she looked up at him, and his smile—that same smile she’d loved even when she feared she’d forgotten it, that smile she’d changed her whole life for—made everything else disappear. Their short ceremony was like an intimate prayer. I, Kathleen Agnes Kennedy, take you, William John Robert Cavendish, to be my wedded husband . . . I, William John Robert Cavendish, take you, Kathleen Agnes Kennedy . . . in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live. When he slid the eternity ring onto her finger, it looked new again. She gave him a golden band that clinked against hers when they kissed to seal their promises to each other. When their small audience cheered, Kick was startled to remember they were not alone.

  At the reception in the Easton town house, where two hundred guests gathered to wish them their best and enjoy the chocolate cake, Kick found that all she wanted to do was leave and be truly alone with her husband. Her husband! Even though this party was for them and about them, it didn’t feel nearly as merry and gay as any of their evenings at the 400. For Kick, the highlight of the tedious hours was the moment when the duke took her aside and said, just, “Thank you.”

  “Thank you, Duke,” she replied, and when he smiled, she knew that he understood she was talking about much more than the party or the sparkling bracelet, a Cavendish heirloom, he had given her as a wedding present.

  At last Billy came to her side, put a warm hand on the small of her back, and whispered in her ear, “Come with me.”

  Lacing her fingers through his—her husband’s fingers, she thought with a shiver of pure happiness—she followed him out of the drawing room, up the stairs, and into the bedroom where he must have been staying these past few nights, judging from the men’s grooming materials on the vanity.

  He shut the door, then scooped her into his arms and laid her down on the bed. Her whole body hummed with desire; even her toes were curled with it. He gently lowered his body onto hers and began to kiss her. First on the lips, and then her jaw, and neck, and even the tender space below her ears—what a revelation that such a small bit of skin could be sensitive enough to make the rest of her convulse with pleasure. She reciprocated, at last able to touch and kiss him the way she had dreamed so many times. His body was heavier on hers than she’d imagined, but she wasn’t afraid of his desire, even though she’d thought she might be when it came to it. When she felt him press against her, she moved her legs so that her knees were on either side of him, and she could feel him, the beginning of what it would be like to be fully one with him, and there was no fear, no hesitance, only an intense, resonant craving.

  Unexpectedly, Billy groaned roughly and then pulled away, rolling onto his side, and put one hand on her feverish belly.

  “What?” she asked, genuinely confused.

  “Not here,” he said. “Not the first time, with all those people downstairs wondering where we are.”

  “Oh, them? I’d forgotten all about them,” she said, and they both laughed, but with a note of dread that they did have to face them once more.

  It was another several hours before their train arrived in Eastbourne. They walked in the twilight to Compton Place, where a romantic meal with another bottle of champagne was waiting for them in the dining room, which they completely ignored in favor of retangling themselves as they had been earlier, and then as they never had before.

  * * *

  Sissy had been right. Kick wore very little real clothing in the next few days, and instead was extremely grateful for Marie Bruce’s generous stash of lingerie, not that she ever wore any single piece for long, as Billy became hilariously adept at untying, unsnapping, unhooking, and flinging away. Still, she wore every item and discovered that satin sheets felt even better, more shivery and supple, on her legs sliding toward his than she’d dreamed. She hadn’t felt this good and strong in her own body since she was a child glorying in the surf at Hyannis Port.

  They ate strawberries in bed and read bits of their favorite poetry and novels to each other, letting newspapers stack up outside their unopened door. When they did leave the room, it was to take long walks in the orchards or laze on chaises among the copious spring flowers in the gardens. Once they walked on the beach, getting themselves ice-cream cones and eating them even though the wind whipped their hair and made them freezing cold. It was fun to get warm again.

  They did initially accept the post into their little bubble, but it was a mistake they didn’t repeat, for among the plentiful notes of congratulation were envelopes full of vitriol, mainly for Kick. The worst of them were from strangers, Catholic matrons from Boston to Dublin. Whore! You little Judas. How could you do this to your mother? Other letters, from people she knew, were more tempered in their outrage, but she felt them just as sharply.

  While Bil
ly went through his own stack of missives, lying with her on the bed, she began to sniff back tears.

  “Darling, what is it?” he asked, suddenly alert and sitting up.

  She handed him one of the letters.

  “This is abhorrent,” he said.

  She nodded. “The thing is, this,” she said, crumpling one of the letters, “doesn’t bother me as much as knowing my mother agrees. I still haven’t heard from her. She’s gone down to a spa in Virginia, and she hasn’t even said hello, or . . . or . . . anything. I’d rather her get angry with me, and say something.”

  Billy kissed her on the cheek, then disappeared for a few hours that afternoon while she bathed and got some fresh air. The next day, the disagreeable mail had been tidied away, and all Billy said of it was, “Let me deal with the letters, since it’s my fault they’re arriving at all.” And two cables arrived. The first was from Jack, and it read:

  SORRY FOR THE RADIO SILENCE YOU’LL ALWAYS BE MY KICK GIVE ONE TO BILLY FOR ME I SAW YOU FIRST LOVE JACK

  She laughed till she cried, and pressed the telegram to her chest. Billy was pouring himself a whiskey and looking rather pleased with himself, and she asked, “Did you have anything to do with this?”

  He shrugged. “Your brother loves you, Kick. I don’t think he realized how much you were suffering.”

  She hugged him tightly and felt slightly more relaxed.

  A few hours later, another cable arrived from her father.

  WITH YOUR FAITH IN GOD YOU CAN’T MAKE A MISTAKE REMEMBER YOU ARE STILL AND ALWAYS WILL BE TOPS WITH ME

  “And this?” she asked Billy, showing him the second wonderful telegram.