As the meadows petered out into open country she dug her heel harder into Halcyon Dream’s side. She needed to gallop. She needed to ride hard and recklessly in order to assuage the pain knifing through her.
The stallion went with a will, his mane streaming in the wind. Maura kept him heading in the direction of the river and for a blissful twenty minutes or so she was aware of nothing but the wind in her face, the power of the horse beneath her, the thudding of hoofs.
As open rolling country gave way to trees and the beginnings of woods, she slowed the horse to a canter and then to a walk.
What was to become of her marriage? She had known, almost from the outset, that Alexander had married her in order to seek revenge on his father. And it hadn’t mattered. He had been as passionately drawn to her as she had been to him, and that was what had mattered. Their instantaneous physical desire and need of each other had knitted them together as inseparably as if they had known each other from childhood and had only married after a long, tender engagement. At Tarna they had been as happy as any two people possibly could be. And they could still be happy if only Alexander would stop minding about being ostracized by Stuyvesants, De Peysters and Van Rensselaers and their like.
From behind her there came the distant sound of hoofbeats and she nudged the stallion around, mildly curious. Ever since they had left Tarna she had seen no other rider.
The rose-flushed sky was streaked with clear bands of blue, promising a hot day. The rider was heading straight towards her, almost as if he were in pursuit of her.
She shaded her eyes against the early morning heat haze, struggling to recognize him. The horse was black and powerful, the rider dark-haired and young.
Her heart began to slam in thick, heavy strokes. Still not sure she goaded Halcyon Dream into a trot, moving away from the trees.
There was absolutely no doubt now that he was heading straight for her. And absolutely no doubt as to his identity.
She could feel the blood beating even in her fingertips. He had come after her. Why? To demand a divorce? To demand that Felix return with him to New York?
She spurred Halcyon Dream towards him at a canter, filled with a mixture of fear and the fierce hope that her fears might prove groundless. She could see his face now, lean and hard and implacable. He had come to fight. Surely to God he wouldn’t be looking so savage if he had come for any reason other than to try and take Felix away from her?
Her hands were slippery on the reins. Whatever happened she wasn’t going to be parted from Felix. Alexander had to be made to see reason. They could remain married and yet live apart. It would half-kill her, but it would be better than losing him altogether.
He galloped towards her head-on, veering only at the last possible moment.
Both of them reined in. He was breathing harshly, his eyes so dark she couldn’t tell iris from pupil.
‘Alexander, I …’
He was out of his saddle. Before she could even think of dismounting herself his hands were on her waist.
‘Alexander …’
Everything she had been going to say vanished from her mind. He hadn’t come to fight. His eyes were hot and demanding. His hands hungry and proprietorial.
He pulled her down from the stallion’s back, hugging her tight against him. She could smell his sweat-streaked skin, the tang of horse, the linger of expensive French cologne.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said thickly. ‘Christ, I’ve been such a fool, Maura …’
Her tears were wet against his cheek. Even through the thickness of her riding skirt she could feel his desperate need of her. Answering desire roared through her veins. As his fingers frantically undid the frog-fastenings of her jacket, her own fingers were at his shirt, pulling it free from his riding pants.
His hands cupped her breasts and her own slid over the smooth, strong muscles of his back. With his mouth hard on hers, their tongues meeting, plunging deep, he pulled her down to the ground.
She went with him like wax. It was all right. Everything was all right. He had missed her. He had come to his senses. He loved her just as she loved him. She wasn’t going to lose him or Felix. Life was blissful again, full of such joy that she felt as if she had died and gone to heaven.
‘I love you … love you …’ she gasped as he rolled over on top of her, pushing up her riding skirt, crushing the knee-high, flower-thick grass.
Nearby the horses stirred and whinnied. A buzzard flew overhead. She could smell poppies and cornflowers. Beyond the trees the mighty Hudson could be heard, rolling ponderously southwards.
Her arms tightened feverishly around him, her legs lifting high to circle his waist as he entered her with rapacious unhesitation. There was dew in her hair and early morning sun on her legs. Every nerve-ending she possessed was aflame with pleasure and reciprocal need as she moved with him, climbing towards a summit of exquisite indivisibility. They reached the peak of physical and emotional explosion simultaneously, cries and groans changing in pitch to a scream of primeval female satisfaction and a bellowing shout of masculine triumph.
For a long time afterwards they lay, hearts slamming, limbs entwined. At last he edged his weight off her, resting on one elbow, looking down at her with an overwhelming sense of well-being and relief.
‘I thought I’d lost you,’ he said huskily.
She smiled up at him, touching his face tenderly. ‘You’ll never lose me. I’ll always be here. I’ll always love you.’
When they made love again it was with exquisite tenderness. A cornflower had become entangled in her hair and afterwards, as they lay sleepily in the morning heat, he removed it gently, tucking it inside his shirt.
‘Both Charlie and Henry told me what a fool I’d been,’ he said, knowing that he had to talk to her of what he had done. Knowing that he had to explain; that he had to apologize.
‘I know.’ She wasn’t sure that she wanted him to start trying to explain. She knew exactly why he had behaved as he had. She knew him far better than he would ever know himself.
‘I just didn’t know how to cut and run from the situation I had got myself in,’ he said with boyish truthfulness.
She nestled against him, her head on his shoulder, the scent of cornflowers and poppies as thick as smoke in the June sunlight.
‘But you have now,’ she said gently, ‘and that’s all that matters.’
His arm tightened around her. ‘Do you want us to stay on at Tarna?’
She wanted it more than anything else in the world, but she didn’t reply for a moment. Staying on at Tarna would be easy. Life had always been easy at Tarna. But if their marriage was to work, it had to be able to do so in New York. To stay on at Tarna would only be to hide from the real challenges that lay in wait.
‘I think we should return to New York,’ she said, her fingers interlocking in his.
He felt a stab of disquiet and immediately suppressed it. He knew why she had opted for New York. He knew also that beneath her vivaciousness and femininity she was a far stronger character than he was or ever would be.
He rose to his feet, brushing grass and flower petals from his pants. ‘Then let’s leave today.’
She accepted his outstretched hands, allowing him to draw her to her feet.
‘Miriam will threaten to seek employment elsewhere,’ she said with a grin.
They began to walk towards their grazing horses and her grin faded. Miriam would never leave Karolyis employment and she didn’t ever want her to, but there were a couple of other people she would be quite happy to see replaced. Haines’s superciliousness had become nearly unbearable and she no longer wanted to endure the nursery nurse’s high-handedness.
‘Haines doesn’t like having me as a mistress,’ she said as he helped her up into the saddle. ‘And Felix’s nurse makes me feel highly unwelcome in the nursery.’
‘Don’t worry.’ He sprang into his own saddle. ‘I’ll speak to them.’
She heeled Halcyon Dream into movement. ‘I’d like
you to do more,’ she said, determined for the sake of her future happiness to be tenacious. ‘As far as the nurse is concerned, I’d like you to pay her off, and I would like to ask either Caitlin or Bridget O’Farrell if they would be Felix’s nurse.’
His hands tightened on the reins. She saw the knuckles whiten and she was filled with a flash of fear. Was her request going to jeopardize their reconciliation? How on earth could he be expected to tolerate having his son cared for by an untrained Irish girl?
She said carefully, knowing that yet again she had placed their entire future on the line, ‘I want to spend more time with Felix than a professional nurse would expect me to. I want to be able to bath him sometimes and change his diapers and take him for walks in his perambulator. Neither Caitlin nor Bridget would object to me doing such things, but a professional nurse would see it as being interfering and intrusive. And you don’t have to worry about Caitlin’s or Bridget’s capabilities. They come from a big family and know as much about caring for little ones as any professional nurse.’
He didn’t turn his head towards her and her apprehension deepened. Then he began to chuckle.
‘Lord, but my mother must be turning in her grave. An Irish nurse it is then. You don’t have Kieron Sullivan in mind to replace Haines, do you?’
She laughed, giddy with relief. ‘No, Kieron’s happy enough where he is.’
He looked across at her as they cantered side by side, flashing her a dazzling, down-slanting smile. ‘I’m glad to hear it. You don’t mind if I make sure that Haines’s replacement is English and not Irish, do you? The English make by far the best butlers.’
Happiness made her lenient. ‘Don’t dismiss him, just speak to him about his manner towards me.’
‘I will.’
Her smile met his. Tarna could be seen white-pillared in the distance, the meadows around it thick with grazing horses and foals. The sun was high in the sky. Felix was waiting for them, sleeping safely in his crib.
‘Thank you, God,’ she whispered beneath her breath, her eyes shining as she spurred Halcyon Dream into a headlong gallop.
As she streaked towards the house Alexander raced at her side. No woman he knew could have ridden in the same reckless manner. No woman he had ever known had so shared his own inborn love of horses. In Maura he not only had a wife and a lover, he had a friend as well. The revelation was so amazing that he whooped in exultation, galloping down towards Tarna for all the world like an Apache Indian.
Their return to New York was completely different from any previous return. Invitations had arrived from various Schermerhorn ladies inviting Maura to call on them. Charlie’s mother had invited her to a Ladies Evening she was holding, while Henry’s spinster sister had invited her to a concert to be held in her home for the edification of friends and family. There was even a supper invitation for both of them from the Van Rensselaers.
Within minutes of entering the house Alexander had summoned Haines to his study. The Haines who emerged was one crushingly chastened. Maura allowed not the merest hint of satisfaction to show and within days Haines’s deference towards her was respectful enough to have altered the attitude of all other members of staff.
The nurse had next been summoned into Alexander’s presence. Alexander had paid her handsomely and summarily dismissed her. He had then suggested to Maura that not only one O’Farrell girl be engaged as a nurse, but that if they were willing, both of them should be employed to care for Felix.
Maura had been euphoric.
On her next carriage ride he had very publicly accompanied her, forcing the occupants of other resplendent carriages to reluctantly acknowledge her.
He had refused to meet with Kieron, whom he regarded as an Irish trouble-maker New York would be better off without, but he had ordered builders into the O’Farrells’tenement with instructions to insert many more windows and to provide adequate sanitation facilities. He had requested that a report be drawn up on the improvements needed overall to his properties and he had arranged for Rosie O’Hara to be admitted into a sanatorium.
Maura’s joy at the way Alexander was trying hard to change his attitudes and overcome his prejudices was increased tenfold with the discovery that she was pregnant again.
Charlie promised adamantly that this time he would be in attendance as a godfather and Henry insisted that the baby be christened in the Schermerhorn private chapel, with a full complement of Schermerhorns in attendance.
The only dispiriting news was from the battlefields. The slow, remorseless grind of siege warfare continued day after day, month after month, around Petersburg and Richmond. In late summer General Lee ordered fifteen thousand Southerners across the Potomac into Maryland. In little more than a week they were at the gates of Washington. Troops from General Grant’s army around Petersburg were rushed back to hold the city and the Rebels withdrew back into the Shenandoah Valley, putting property to the torch as they did so.
‘Grant’s now ordered the whole of the valley to be laid waste,’ Charlie said somewhat admiringly. ‘He doesn’t want Lee’s army to be able to feed in it.’
‘You mean he’s burning crops?’ Maura asked, aghast.
‘Apparently the orders he has given are such that crows flying over the Shenandoah will have to carry their provender with them,’ Henry said, sharing her distaste. ‘It’s called total war, my dear. And the sooner it comes to an end, the better.’
The heat in New York through August and September was nearly unbearable, but Alexander endured it without a murmur, knowing that he was making great strides forward in gaining social acceptance for Maura.
The vast majority of New York’s haut ton had fled to their country houses on the banks of the Hudson or Long Island Sound. The few that remained were not under as great a social pressure from their peers as normal. When it became known that the Schermerhorn ladies were extending invitations to the bizarre Mrs Alexander Karolyis, other invitations began to be received.
Most of them were initially sent out of curiosity. Would the Irish Mrs Karolyis wear shoes on her feet? Would she be able to eat with a knife and fork? Would her speech be understandable?
Alexander savoured their stunned amazement on meeting Maura with relish. Henry’s sister pronounced her quite charming. Charlie’s mother declared her to be wonderfully refined. The battle was being won, albeit slowly. Since he had squashed all rumours as to the probable illegality of his marriage, he had been barred from no clubs. The sprinkling of his fellows still remaining in the city had other things on their minds, namely the stale-mate between Union and Confederate forces and the reprehensible pushiness of the up and coming nouveaux riches.
Alexander was more than happy with the city’s reduced social circle. By the time the Old Guard returned en masse, Maura would have achieved a toe-hold of social acceptance that would quickly spread. Ariadne had retreated in stony silence to the Brevoort country home on Long Island, where he fervently hoped she would remain. Life was good and, apart from the war, trouble-free. It wasn’t to remain so.
‘You tell Mr Karolyis who I am, then he’ll see me!’ a high-pitched female voice shouted as a footman closed the door in her face.
Alexander and Maura were returning by carriage from lunch at Delmonico’s with Henry. At the sight of the fracas taking place on his doorstep Alexander frowned in impatience.
‘Why the devil was she let through the gates?’ he demanded, more to himself than Maura.
‘Perhaps she’s looking for work,’ Maura said placatingly, looking forward to a cup of tea and a rest. She didn’t feel as well in this pregnancy as she had done with Felix and even short journeys tired her.
‘Then she should be at the servants’entrance, asking to see the housekeeper.’
As their carriage rolled towards the foot of the sweeping stone steps the girl turned, her face lighting up with relief.
She began to hurry down the stone lion-flanked steps towards them and Alexander said curtly to one of the postilions, ‘See she is
removed from the courtyard, please.’
The postilion hurried up the steps towards her but she deftly evaded him, running breathlessly down the remaining steps and towards Alexander.
‘Mr Karolyis! Mr Karolyis, sir! Could I have a word with you, please?’
Close to, the girl was reasonably well dressed. She wore an ankle-length, brown-cloth coat and well-cared-for boots. Her appearance was that of a house-maid or ladies-maid and what had possessed her to try and enter the Karolyis mansion by the main entrance, thereby immediately antagonizing the footmen, Maura couldn’t imagine.
‘If you are seeking employment you would be advised to knock at the servants’entrance and ask for the housekeeper,’ Alexander said curtly, looking forward to a refreshing bathe and change of clothes.
‘I’m not here about a job, sir. I need to speak to you about something personal, sir. About something very important.’
Alexander sighed. The girl looked rational enough, but obviously wasn’t. He turned to the harassed postilion saying, with as much patience as he could muster, ‘Please escort this young woman into the street.’
The postilion seized hold of her arm and the girl’s eyes blazed as she tried to wrench it free. ‘You’ll want to listen to what I have to say when you know who I am, sir!’
Alexander was walking towards the foot of the steps, his hand beneath Maura’s arm. Despite the urgency in the girl’s voice he kept on walking.
An Embarrassment of Riches Page 38