He walked with her to the doors and then turned and gave his father a last, contemptuous look. ‘We’re going to bathe and change and then we’re leaving for Tarna. I don’t intend seeing you again. Not ever.’
Victor stared at him, knowing that he meant every word, recognizing in him his own implacable will. He had never intended that there would be a permanent rift between them and he was seized with a sudden surge of near panic.
‘I did it for your own sake,’ he said harshly, and it was as near to a plea as he had ever come to making. ‘I did it because I wanted you to marry Karolyis wealth to indisputable blue blood! I did it because I wanted you to become the uncrowned king of American society!’
Alexander opened the doors and stood for a moment, staring at him. ‘I didn’t want to be a king,’ he said at last, his voice thick with pain. ‘I only wanted Genevre.’
Outside the doors the footmen tried to look as if nothing was amiss. Alexander kept hold of Maura’s hand, finding it strangely comforting. ‘By rights, you should use the room that used to be my mother’s to bathe and change in, but it’s in the opposite wing of the house to mine. Do you mind using the guest room adjoining my own suite?’
She shook her head. After two weeks amid the stench and lice of steerage, the prospect of a hot bath was so blissful that she didn’t care where it was situated.
At the foot of a curving, gilded staircase he said to the nervously hovering Haines: ‘My wife requires a hot bath and someone to attend to her. She will be occupying the guest room adjoining my own suite.’
‘Yes, Mr Alexander. At once, Mr Alexander.’
‘And she requires a new wardrobe of clothes until such time as she can choose a new wardrobe for herself. Please see to it.’
Haines struggled to assess the new Mrs Karolyis’s dress size without committing the impertinence of looking directly at her. As she had arrived without any other luggage but an inadequate-looking carpet-bag he assumed that new apparel would be needed by the time she had finished her bath.
He gave Alexander an obsequious nod of the head and departed hurriedly in order to deputize a lady’s maid to wait on the new Mrs Karolyis. Then he sent a maid with a pleasing figure to the nearest exclusive gown-shop with instructions to buy lavishly in her own size and a third to A. T. Stewart’s for French bonnets, cashmere shawls and gloves.
Alexander began to escort Maura up the wide, crimson-carpeted stairs. Now that the long-awaited scene with his father was over he felt drained and exhausted. He still didn’t know how his father had ensured that none of his letters had reached Genevre and that none of her letters to him had been delivered, but he could guess. He wondered which of the Hudsons’servants had proved susceptible to bribery and how much his father had paid. It wouldn’t have needed to be much and yet the amount, whatever it had been, had destroyed his life. Ginnie had died without him being at her side. She had died believing him to be faithless.
Maura was well aware of his change of mood. He had the same brooding, grief-stricken expression on his face as he had had when he had stood on the first-class deck, looking unseeingly out at the ocean. For nearly two weeks she had wondered as to the source of his grief and despair. And now she knew.
She wondered what she was going to do about it. There hadn’t been time for her to marshal her own chaotic thoughts in order. One moment she had believed herself to be a happy bride about to be welcomed into the arms of her new family, the next she had been confronted by a truth so monstrous she still didn’t know how she was going to come to terms with it.
They walked down a corridor hung with Bouchier tapestries and paused outside a door flanked by two of the ever-present, knee-breeched footmen.
‘This is the guest suite adjoining my own suite,’ Alexander said in explanation. ‘Charlie often stays in it.’
He suddenly realized that he was still holding her hand. He felt himself flushing as he released it. She knew now why he had married her, what he had thought of her when he had done so. With a touch of sensitivity wholly uncharacteristic of him, he said: ‘I’m sorry for what happened in the Chinese room. For what I said … for what my father said …’
She couldn’t say that it was all right and that it didn’t matter, for it would have been a lie. It had mattered. She was proud of her Irishness and no-one had ever before attempted to make her feel ashamed of it. And her illegitimacy was her own affair. She had told him of it before they were married because, if he was to be her husband, she felt that he had a right to know. But it wasn’t for anyone else to know about.
As to his father’s description of her: she wondered how Isabel would have reacted if she had been called a whore. How Kieron would have reacted if the word had been used of either of them in his presence. A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. If Kieron had been in the Chinese drawing-room, there would have been more than an attempted murder. There would have been murder outright.
As he looked at the lovely curve of her lips, Alexander was suddenly sure that everything was going to be all right. Whatever understanding they came to, it would be an amicable one. No matter what his father thought, there weren’t going to be any difficulties. She would be sensible, he was sure of it.
‘I’ll see you in an hour or so,’ he said, feeling as if a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. ‘Tell your maid we’ll be leaving for Tarna as soon as possible.’
She was about to ask where Tarna was but the footmen had already opened the doors and she could see a maid waiting for her and could hear the blissful sound of gushing water. The whereabouts of Tarna would have to remain, for the moment, a mystery.
The bedroom she entered was as big as a salon and decorated entirely in rosewood and mother-of-pearl. A vast bed was raised on a dais and covered with a gold silk-brocade baldaquin. A rug of peacock tails fronted a dressing-table that looked as if it had been made for Louis XIV.
The maid, still out of breath after her run up the backstairs, bobbed prettily. ‘My name is Miriam, madam. And your bath is being run.’
‘Being run?’ It wasn’t a phrase Maura had ever heard before and there was no sign of a hip-bath or an army of maids ferrying giant jugs of hot water from the kitchens.
Steam issued from an open inter-communicating door. Intrigued, she walked across and looked into the first purpose-built bathroom that she had ever seen. In the centre of the room a giant, white china bath rested on four golden claws. At the far end of the bath were two gold taps and from one of the taps came a steaming stream of hot water.
She gave a sigh of sheer delight. Although Ballacharmish had been exquisitely furnished it hadn’t boasted the luxury of hot water from taps. Miriam came in and poured a phial of sweet-smelling oil into the bath.
‘Can I help you to undress, madam?’ she asked solicitously.
Maura nodded, never in her life had she been so eager to be free of her clothes. As she stepped out of the dress she had worn day and night since leaving Ballacharmish, Miriam picked it up. ‘Would you like me to … dispose of this, madam?’
Maura looked at the dress. While aboard the Scotia it had been stained by more than one child’s vomit and the hem had trailed in all kinds of nauseous substances. Despite the care with which she had repeatedly sponged it, marks and stains remained and it was fit only for burning.
‘No,’ she said, remembering the occasions when she had worn it at Ballacharmish. It had been the dress she had sometimes gardened in. The dress she had worn when she and Isabel had gathered raspberries and blackberries.
Miriam was looking at her in stark disbelief and she said gently, in explanation, ‘The dress has many happy memories for me. Would you have it laundered and sent on to me at Tarna?’
Miriam nodded, wondering if the new Mrs Karolyis knew exactly how far away Tarna was, wondering what happy memories a dowdy, horrendously stained dress could possibly possess.
For the next half-hour Maura luxuriated in the hot fragrant water, refusing to think of any of the issues that
had to be thought about. She would think about them later, after she had talked, to Alexander. For the moment all she wanted to do was to revel in the sensation of being sweetly clean again.
Miriam washed her hair for her, towelling it dry. An hour later, smelling fragrantly of French toilet water, Maura finally emerged from the bathroom and re-entered a bedroom that had been transformed. The palatial bed was submerged beneath a sea of gowns. Every chair and table was piled high with shawls and bonnets and gloves.
It had been years since Maura had lapsed into the papist patois of her childhood, but she did so now. ‘Heavens and all the saints!’ she exclaimed, staring at the dizzying array in stunned wonder.
Behind her, Miriam grinned. She was beginning to like the new Mrs Alexander Karolyis very much indeed. No American lady would ever have come out with such an expression and despite her lack of luggage it was quite obvious that the new Mrs Karolyis was a lady.
As well as gowns and shawls and bonnets and gloves, there were fine linen and lace-edged undergarments. With deep pleasure Maura allowed herself to be helped into them. She hadn’t fully realized until now what a shock to her system the experience of travelling steerage had been. Life at Ballacharmish had accustomed her to a standard of living that had been agony to forgo. Now it was once again hers, and in indecent abundance.
As Miriam laced up her stays she wondered how her fellow passengers were faring. They would be on Ellis Island now, enduring the indignities of medical inspections. She would ask Alexander how long they might expect to be detained there and then in another few days she would look up all of them who had been able to give her an address. However fortunate they may have been, having some family already in the city with whom they could stay, the conditions they would be living in would be overcrowded and grim. She would be able to help them. As Mrs Alexander Karolyis she would be able to help a lot of people.
There was a firm knock at the door and Miriam hastily handed her a flimsy peignoir.
‘Shall I answer it, madam?’ she asked uncertainly as Maura slid her arms into fragile lace sleeves.
‘But I’m not dressed …’ Maura began, certain that her visitor was Alexander. And then she remembered. He was her husband. Wishing that her cheeks would not flush so readily she said a trifle breathlessly: ‘Would you ask Mr Karolyis to give me another ten minutes, please.’
Miriam opened the door and proceeded to do so, but Alexander was unaccustomed to taking messages from female members of staff and strode past her as he would have done if he had been paying a visit on Charlie.
Maura sat down suddenly on the rosewood chair before her dressing-table, her hair streaming down her back, the gowns on the bed far out of reach.
Alexander came to an abrupt halt. She had looked personable aboard the Scotia and beautiful amid the lavish décor of the Chinese drawing-room. Now she looked more than beautiful. She looked infinitely desirable. He felt his sex harden. He had intended consummating his marriage at Tarna, but Tarna was several hours’ train ride and drive away.
Instead of asking her to be ready to leave in a half an hour, as he had planned to do, he said hoarsely, ‘I think we should talk.’
‘Yes.’
There was a hint of huskiness in her voice which he was beginning to like very much. He was beginning to like everything about her. He dismissed the maid and when the door had closed behind her he said, ‘I should have talked to you aboard the Scotia.’
She nodded, acutely aware of her near nakedness beneath the lace robe; acutely aware that if he wished he could look on her entirely naked and it would incredibly still not be at all improper.
‘Where would you like me to begin?’ Beneath the fragile lace he could see the creamy high curve of her breasts and the soft fullness of her hips.
Her eyes met his. At the heat she saw there, her heart began to beat in sharp, slamming strokes that she could feel even in her fingertips.
He crossed the room towards her and she rose to her feet unsteadily. His hands took hold of hers and she said thickly: ‘Tell me about Genevre.’
Chapter Twelve
He said simply, ‘I loved her. I loved her with all my heart.’
She remained silent, waiting for him to continue, knowing instinctively that he had never talked like this to anyone ever before.
His hair had fallen low over his brow again and he released his hold of her, brushing it backwards in a movement that was becoming familiar.
‘She was English,’ he said at last, turning away from her and walking over to one of the gold-brocade-draped windows. ‘Her father was William Hudson the Yorkshire Railway King.’
He stared down over a vast expense of immaculately cared-for lawn, his voice thick with emotion. ‘She was thirteen when I first met her. Seventeen when I fell in love with her.’
He thought of Genevre as she had looked at Leonard Jerome’s house-warming party, unimaginably beautiful in her white broderie-anglaise gown, her shining auburn hair swept high in a chignon, her eyes full of impish laughter. His hands balled into fists. ‘We wanted to marry … were going to marry …’ He swung round to face her, all his pain and fury once more resurfacing. ‘My father thought she wasn’t good enough for me. He wanted me to marry into one of the old, noble families of Europe.’
‘But how could she not be good enough for you?’ she asked, bewildered. ‘William Hudson is both a millionaire and a genius. In England he …’
‘My great-grandfather was an Hungarian peasant. Despite all the millions my grandfather made, New York high society never allowed him to forget the fact. My father forced them to by marrying a Schermerhorn.’
She still looked bewildered and he said, explaining further, ‘The only families that matter in New York are the old families; families that have been leaders of society ever since New York was known as New Amsterdam and governed by the Dutch. Marrying a Schermerhorn gained my father the social acceptance that had previously been denied him, but in New York people have long memories. To make the Karolyis name as unassailable as Schermerhorn or Stuyvesant or De Peyster, he needed me to marry even more prestigiously than he had done.’
Maura was bewildered no longer, her familiarity with Anglo-Irish high society enabling her to understand the closed-caste world he was describing.
‘At the end of last summer I left New York for a Grand Tour of Europe. I had known for ages that I would be going on it – everyone does. Neither Ginnie nor myself minded too much because we had made up our minds to marry the instant I returned home no matter what my father said or did.’
He swung on his heel, striding back towards the window again, every line of his body taut with tension. ‘I never heard from Ginnie again. None of my letters were ever answered. I had just determined to abandon my trip and come home to find out what the hell was happening when I had a riding accident.’ A pulse throbbed at the corner of his jaw. ‘It was six months before I could walk again and during those six months I learned why I had never heard from Ginnie.’
Once more at the window he rounded towards her, his eyes burning into hers. ‘My father had told her that I had become engaged to one of Lord Powerscourt’s daughters. He told the entire city. God alone knows how it never came to Powerscourt’s ears. And he saw to it that none of my letters ever reached Ginnie, and that none of her letters to me were ever posted.’
‘But how? I don’t understand …’
‘He would have bribed one of the servants,’ Alexander said savagely, having no illusions about the kind of methods his father would have used. ‘It was Charlie who wrote to me telling me of my supposed engagement. The minute I realized what my father had done I telegraphed Charlie asking him to speak to Ginnie immediately and to put her wise to what was going on.’
His handsome, finely chiselled face was a mask of pain.
‘When Charlie went to the Hudson mansion he discovered that Ginnie and her father had sailed for England. Powerscourt did his best to trace her for me, but although William Hudson had returned
to their family home in Yorkshire, Ginnie hadn’t done so. She was rumoured to be vacationing with an aunt.’
He stood with his back to the window, facing her but no longer seeing her, far away in a private hell. ‘The minute I could walk again I made plans to travel to England. I was so utterly sure I would find her … so utterly sure that for the rest of our lives we would be together.’
His voice cracked and she was filled with the uncontrollable desire to cross the room to him and to take him in her arms.
‘She was dead,’ he said with terrible simplicity. ‘By the time I read of her death in The Times she had been dead for five days.’ His eyes were dark with unspeakable torment. ‘She died believing that I no longer loved her. That I had been faithless to her.’
He remained standing at the window, his hands still balled into fists, his pain so deep that she didn’t know how she would ever be able to ease it.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said at last from the bottom of her heart, hating the inadequacy of the trite words. ‘It’s a terrible story and I understand now why you behaved as you did, downstairs.’
Alexander’s shoulders had been hunched. Now, as she obliquely reminded him of his father, he wearily straightened them. ‘I don’t want to see him ever again,’ he said, white lines etching the corners of his mouth. ‘Which means leaving as soon as possible. How soon can you be ready?’
Maura looked around at the cascading heaps of clothes. It would take Miriam hours to pack them all.
‘In half an hour.’ She would summon another dozen maids to help Miriam. Clothes that weren’t packed she would leave behind.
He nodded. There had been a moment, when he had first entered the room, when he had been almost overcome by the urge to make love to her, but that had been before Ginnie’s almost palpable presence had come between them. He crossed the room to the door, saying only, ‘I’ll meet you downstairs in the entrance-hall in thirty minutes.’
An Embarrassment of Riches Page 22