A Scandal in Newport

by Pamela Sherwood

  Sally slid her gaze away. “I don’t know what you mean, Geneva…”

  “I think you do, dear.” Geneva’s voice was gentle but firm. “I’m not going to judge you, Sally, or try to get you in trouble, but at this point, any detail, however small, could help the police find Amy that much sooner.”

  The younger girl’s color deepened at her words. If she wasn’t lying, then neither was she being completely honest, Thomas realized. He had no difficulty deciphering Geneva’s hint: that Sally had slipped away to meet someone. Might that person have witnessed Amelia’s kidnapping? And if so, why hadn’t he—or she—come forward?

  He leaned forward, determined to add his own plea to Geneva’s. “Miss Vandermere, if you saw anything at all, anything that might prove even a little helpful—tell us, please.”

  He could see her wavering, visibly. Was it concern for a beau, or concern for her reputation that kept her silent, despite her own qualms of conscience and the knowledge of how much she owed to Amelia? Even as he watched, her lips parted…

  “Mr. Ogden and Mr. Van Horn,” the butler announced from the doorway.

  Hell and damnation! Thomas barely managed to suppress an oath as two beefy young men muscled their way into the room. Ogden carried an extravagant bouquet, Van Horn an equally ostentatious box of sweets. Both made a beeline for Sally, ignoring anyone else in the room. Thomas saw Geneva’s lips compress in a thin line, though whether from displeasure at such discourtesy or from some other reason, he couldn’t begin to guess.

  “Tony, Theo.” With obvious relief, Sally turned her attention to them. “What brings you here this morning?”

  “I just had to see how you were, after your dreadful ordeal,” Ogden said earnestly, presenting his flowers.

  “I haven’t been able to think of anything else since I heard,” Van Horn assured her, handing her the sweets.

  Geneva set her spaniel on the floor, looped the lead about her wrist, and stood up. “Thank you for seeing us, Sally. We should be on our way.”

  Thomas shot her a questioning look, but she gave a small shake of her head. Reluctantly, he got to his feet as well. “Thank you, Miss Vandermere. If anything further should come to mind, please let us know.”

  “Of course.” Intent on her swains, she spared neither him nor Geneva a glance as they started for the door.

  But as they approached Sally’s suitors, a low, menacing growl suddenly broke from the spaniel’s throat. Thomas stared at the dog in surprise—Geneva’s pet had always seemed docile and friendly.

  “Clemmie, behave!” Geneva exclaimed, but the spaniel’s growl only intensified, her lips curling back from sharp white teeth, her small body tense with hostility and obvious dislike.

  Ogden glanced at the dog, edging away uneasily. “Geneva, can’t you control that little beast?”

  Geneva flushed. “I’m sorry—she’s usually so gentle…”

  Something flickered behind Van Horn’s eyes as he too drew back from the snarling dog—something furtive, something shifty…

  Thomas was moving before he was consciously aware of it, guided by nothing more than instinct—and a growing certainty. With a speed and ferocity honed by schoolyard fights, he seized Van Horn by the collar and shoved him back against the nearest wall, ignoring Geneva’s gasp and Sally’s shocked exclamation.

  “Where is she?” he demanded, slamming his forearm against the struggling man’s throat to pin him in place. “Where is Amelia, you bastard?”

  A second of frozen silence as the accusation sank in, then the room erupted into chaos behind him as Clemmie began to bark and Sally burst into noisy sobs. A corner of Thomas’s mind was dimly aware of Geneva trying to soothe both the dog and Sally, while doubtless glaring daggers at her sister’s former suitor. Her abductor.

  “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Van Horn began feebly, though his sudden flush, along with his shifty eyes, betrayed him.

  Thomas leaned in more heavily. “The hell you don’t!”

  “You were behind the kidnappings, Van Horn?” Ogden exclaimed, his eyes wide with shock. “Why, you blackguard, you swine—”

  “You traitor!” Van Horn snarled, as well as he could from behind Thomas’s pinioning arm. “If I’m going down for this, Ogden, I’m taking you with me!”

  Chapter Seven

  O my America! my new-found-land,

  My kingdom, safeliest when with one man manned,

  My mine of precious stones, my empery,

  How blest am I in this discovering thee!

  —John Donne, Elegy XIX: To His Mistress Going To Bed

  * * *

  Even before opening her eyes, Amy sensed that she was not alone.

  She lay still for a moment longer, then risked cracking her eyes open, half-dreading what she would find. But the last thing she’d expected to see was a red-haired girl of perhaps eighteen, wearing a maid’s uniform and carrying a tray. A girl who looked absolutely terrified.

  Even as Amy watched, mute behind her gag, the girl set down the tray and approached her tentatively.

  “Miss, I’m after bringing you your breakfast,” she began, with the faint lilt of an Irish accent. “I’ll have that gag off in a trice—if you’ll be promising not to scream.”

  Given how dry her mouth and throat felt, Amy doubted she’d be able to scream, though she had no intention of remaining meekly silent either. For now, however, she gave a small nod of acquiescence, and the maid moved behind her and began to untie the gag.

  Amy sighed with relief to find her mouth free at last. “Where,” she rasped, but immediately began to cough.

  The maid helped her into a sitting position, then held a cup of water to her lips and she drank gratefully. The water itself was tepid, but the sheer wetness relieved her parched mouth and throat.

  Removing the cup, the maid asked, “Do you want anything else, miss? Some help with the,” she blushed but continued gamely, “the chamber pot, maybe?”

  “What I want,” Amy emphasized each word, “is to go home. And to see the men who kidnapped me arrested, as they richly deserve!”

  “Don’t upset yourself, miss,” the maid began, almost beseechingly.

  Amy shook her head vehemently. “I was abducted, taken away from my family and friends! From my fiancé—how could that not upset me?”

  The girl looked miserable. “You’ll be back with them soon, I’m sure! Mr. Theo says—”

  “Theo?” Amy interrupted, thunderstruck. “Theo Van Horn? He’s one of the kidnappers?”

  A young man of good family, a stodgy but respectable Knickerbocker clan… who would have suspected him? She’d thought him a fortune hunter, never dreaming that he’d turned his hand to something much more nefarious. Was Tony Ogden in on this too? Amy wondered. Helping out his old college chum, or hoping to profit from this wicked scheme as well?

  Biting her lip, the maid turned away. “I’ve already said too much—”

  “Wait! Please don’t go,” Amy entreated. If she could make an ally of this girl, who was clearly unhappy at what she was being made to do… “Please,” she repeated. “You must see how wrong this is! Theo—and whoever he’s working with—they’re kidnappers! Unless I’m much mistaken, they’ve done this before. In New York, to three other girls!”

  “Three?” the maid echoed, wide-eyed.

  Seeing her dismay, Amy pressed on, “Yes, three! I know them all, and they were deeply affected by what happened—one even had a breakdown and had to be put in a sanatorium. I gather Mr. Theo didn’t tell you any of that?”

  The girl shook her head, looking more wretched than ever. “I worked as a housemaid for the Van Horns, until they turned off about half the staff two months ago! I couldn’t find a new place, and I needed the money—for my mam and little brothers! Mr. Theo said he had work for me, just so long as I kept me mouth shut and didn’t ask no questions!”

  Amy held the girl’s eyes with her own. “If you help me to escape, my family will reward you. We�
��ll find you a position, and we’ll stand up for you in court, if necessary. The Newbolds may not be as old a family as the Van Horns, but we have plenty of influence where it counts—and enough money that we don’t need to kidnap anyone for it!”

  The maid wavered a moment longer, then capitulated, raising her chin with a hint of defiance. “My mam didn’t raise me to break the law or help criminals. I’ll help you, miss.”

  Amy smiled at her. “Thank you, my dear. What is your name?”

  “Eileen, miss. Eileen Molloy.” The maid began to undo the rest of Amy’s bonds.

  “Where are we, Eileen?” Amy asked, chafing her wrists after the maid untied them. She knew she was still on the island. The kidnappers couldn’t have taken her too far, not when she’d fought them every step of the way. Not a warehouse, either… someone’s private home, perhaps?

  “The Sands, miss.”

  “The Sands?” Amy echoed. “The Schuylers’ cottage?” Conveniently empty for the summer, she remembered, and boarded up as well.

  “That’s right.” Eileen knelt to start working on the ropes around Amy’s ankles.

  “So they’re in on this kidnapping scheme too?”

  The maid shook her head. “Just Mr. Willie, I think.”

  Willie Schuyler, the older son and heir. Amy didn’t know him well: he’d always struck her as an oddly unobtrusive young man, sandy-haired and pale-eyed. Close to Andrew’s age, a recent graduate of Yale—like Theo and Tony, though less physically impressive. A young man who, in light of his family’s recent financial difficulties, might have found it profitable to turn his hand to less estimable ways of making a living. It made a sickening amount of sense.

  And Willie’s sister, Edith, had married Frederick Waddington last fall—and then hosted that Christmas party where Geneva had been abducted. Amy doubted that Edith Waddington had any idea of what her brother had been doing. Yet he would have been welcome in his married sister’s home—and known his way about the premises. Known how to spirit Geneva off the grounds with no one else seeing or hearing her. Had he perhaps been the mastermind behind all this? Certainly he’d been the most prudent of the conspirators, lying low and not showing his face in Newport. And his unprepossessing appearance would have worked in his favor…

  The ropes around her feet slackened, then fell away. Eileen straightened up with a grunt of satisfaction. “There, miss! Can you stand up?”

  Amy grimaced as circulation returned to her numb feet—all pins and needles. But after flexing her ankles several times, she felt the prickles subside enough to be bearable. Grasping the bedpost, she managed to haul herself upright, take an awkward, slightly painful step.

  “I’ll manage,” she told Eileen, who was watching her anxiously. “Just a bit stiff.”

  “Lean on me, then, miss.” The maid moved to support her. “We’ll take the back stairs—escape through the servants’ entrance. But we’ll have to hurry, before Mr. Schuyler comes to check on you.”

  They were halfway to the door, when they heard the sound of running footsteps—and froze, staring at each other in dismay. Amy looked around frantically for something with which they could defend themselves. The breakfast tray, a chair, anything…

  Then she heard a beloved voice shouting. “Amelia! Sweetheart, where are you?”

  Relief flooded through her, making her knees as weak as water. “It’s Thomas,” she breathed to a wide-eyed Eileen. “My fiancé.”

  Taking a deep breath, she called back, “In here, my love!”

  The door burst open, and there he was. Disheveled, wild-eyed, chest heaving from his run up the stairs: the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen.

  Amy took a step towards him, but he was already striding across the room, catching her up in an embrace that took her breath away. Half-laughing, half-crying, she banded her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder, breathing in the scent of clean linen and him.

  “Thank God,” he said thickly. “I’ve got you, sweetheart! And I’ll never let you go…”

  The police caught Willie Schuyler trying to flee out the back door of The Sands, and escorted him to the police station to share a cell with his fellow kidnappers. In the days that followed, Amy would learn more about the conspiracy hatched between him and Theo Van Horn. And of how they’d later recruited Tony Ogden, chafing under what he felt to be an insufficient allowance after his parents’ refurbishment of their summer cottage. Of how the three had singled out debutantes in their first year, counting on the girls’ youth and naïvete—as well as their fathers’ wealth—to make them easy marks. Of how they’d chosen to lie low after Maisie’s near-demise after her ordeal, only to start up six months later in Newport. And to be thwarted—ultimately and most satisfactorily—by two women, an artist, and a King Charles spaniel!

  Now, however, all Amy wanted was to go home, and Thomas was all too willing to oblige her, sweeping her past the police with the high-handed declaration that Miss Newbold would be giving her full statement later. Amy beckoned to Eileen, hovering uncertainly on the periphery, and the young maid followed with obvious relief.

  They piled into a carriage and before long, they were alighting in front of Shore House. The front door opened almost at once, and Amy’s family stood there, their faces alight with relief and joy at her return.

  Her parents. Amy let them embrace her, felt her father’s careful hug as though he feared to crush her, felt the wetness of her mother’s tears against her cheek. She smiled at Andrew as he took her by the shoulders and looked her up and down, but all the while she never let go of Thomas’s hand.

  “Mama, Papa—this is Miss Eileen Molloy, who was helping me to escape.” She gestured towards the girl, who came forward shyly. “I told her she could stay with us, for now.”

  “Of course, my love.” Adam beckoned to the butler. “Brooks will show you to a room, Miss Molloy.”

  After venturing a glance at Amy, who smiled reassuringly, Eileen bobbed a curtsy. “Thank you, sir.”

  Laura, meanwhile, was hovering over her daughter. “Are you all right, my dear? I can have the doctor sent for—”

  “I don’t need to see the doctor, Mama” Amy broke in, “but I’d give a kingdom for a bath right now!”

  “I’ll tell Mariette to draw one at once,” her mother promised and hurried upstairs.

  Some minutes later, after repeatedly assuring her family that she was unharmed, Amy escaped upstairs, with Thomas at her heels. To her surprise, her parents did not make the slightest move to stop either of them. Gratitude towards Thomas for rescuing her, perhaps? Or was it just that they understood that she wanted only him right now?

  Even Mariette, waiting in Amy’s room, was gently persuaded to step aside and leave her mistress to her fiancé’s ministrations, though the Frenchwoman departed with a certain glint in her eye and a faintly knowing smile on her lips.

  Thomas closed the door behind them, shutting the rest of the world out, while Amy made a beeline for her private bathroom. Every modern convenience, and gleaming with cleanliness: the sink, the vanity, even the water closet! Her spirits rose at the mere sight of it all.

  Thomas peered around the door as she was wrestling with her bodice. “May I help?’

  Amy accepted his offer with gratitude, shuddering when she finally stepped out of her crumpled masquerade costume. “I never want to see this dress again!”

  “You won’t,” he promised, kicking the soiled rose satin aside. “Now, let me help you with the rest of all this.”

  His hands unlaced her corset with the utmost gentleness. But then, he must have had years of practice. Amy choked down a lunatic giggle at the thought—the last thing she needed was Thomas thinking she was hysterical.

  The rest of her underclothes soon formed a heap on the floor, and a soft cotton robe was waiting for her. Slipping it on, she let Thomas lead her into the next chamber where Mariette had already drawn a bath for her. Steam rose in soft curls from the surface of the water, tinted pale green by
the surrounding tiles.

  Blessed hot water, gushing lavishly into the tub with a mere turn of the tap! To think of all the times she’d taken that luxury for granted. Never again. All she wanted was to sink into it up to the neck, washing away the grime and the sweat of her abduction… and the fear. She shivered, and felt Thomas’s gaze on her, sharp and searching.

  “It’s all right,” she lied. “Just a bit—cold now. I won’t feel it once I’m in the bath.”

  He tested the water carefully, then gave a nod. “You might find it a trifle hot. I can add more cold water—”

  Amy shook her head emphatically. “The hotter the better,” she declared and let the robe fall to the floor as she stepped into the tub.

  The heat made her gasp for a moment, and Thomas instantly gave the cold water tap another quarter-turn. But Amy lowered herself into the tub as quickly as possible, the momentary discomfort replaced by relief. Soap, her favorite scented soaps—just within reach! And a flask of shampoo as well.

  She soaped and scrubbed vigorously, again and again, washing away every vestige of the last two days. She was just about to do her back, when Thomas perched on the rim of the tub and took the sponge from her.

  “Let me do that.” He moved the sponge gently along the curve of her neck, down the line of her back, as gently as if he were bathing a child.

  “Mmm.” Amy sighed, relaxing beneath his ministrations. “That feels wonderful! I could purr like a cat just now.”

  “Trust me, darling, no cat I know would react with such equanimity to being bathed. I even have the childhood scars to prove it!” he added darkly.

  She giggled, then without warning, the giggle became a hiccup, and tears flooded her eyes, spilled down her cheeks.

  Thomas cursed under his breath and dropped to his knees beside the tub. “Amelia, sweetheart—”

  Amy dashed the tears away with an impatient hand. “I’m not going to cry! I refuse to cry—I’m safe, Thomas, safe. And the kidnappers have been stopped, for once and for all!”