“I know it’s last minute, but Beth telephoned—a friend of hers is in town, Lord Furness, have you heard of him?” said Gloria, bending over the table with a fountain pen in hand to write a new place card. She looked up as a waiter arrived with a wicker-seated chair. “Reggie has. Apparently, he’s got more money than God. No—move that one,” she said, motioning to the waiter. Gloria picked up Lord Furness’s place card and switched it with the one next to Thelma’s seat. “Who knows?” she said. “Reggie and I met at your dinner party—one good turn...”
Thelma picked up the place card, watching the ink dry as she played with its edges. “I don’t know,” she said. “My divorce was finalized only a few weeks ago... How would it look?”
Gloria snatched back the card and set it down. “It’s dinner,” she said. “That’s all. You’ve been estranged from Junior for over a year. It’s time you started thinking about your future.”
Thelma frowned but let the card stay where it was. Gloria was right—she generally was, where Thelma was concerned. Still, she felt unsettled about the prospect of meeting someone new. She had fallen for Junior in the space of an evening—and spent the next three years atoning for it.
“It’s dinner,” Gloria repeated, and pushed a glass of champagne into Thelma’s hands. “Not the rest of your life. We ought to go. Do I need to touch up my hair?” They walked out of the dining room. “I’m not so sure about that maid of mine, she doesn’t use nearly as many pins as Joan used to. French...”
They went into the Petit Bar, which, along with the private dining room, Reggie had rented for Thelma’s party. She couldn’t help but marvel at the deference with which people acquiesced to Reggie’s demands—but then, that was the power of a Vanderbilt. She thought back to the juvenile conversations she used to have with Gloria, the dreams they shared before falling asleep in matching cots. It had all worked out for Gloria: a fairy-tale romance with a man who adored her. How very different Thelma’s own life had become.
Thelma felt a pang of longing as Reggie pulled Gloria close and kissed her tenderly, releasing her as the first few guests began to trickle through the bar’s painted-glass doors.
Though part of her still felt that the night would be better spent resting, Thelma put on a good face for Gloria. She picked up her glass of champagne and joined her twin at the door, smiling at the familiar faces, allowing Gloria to make introductions to the new ones.
Thelma brightened as a man escorting a woman in an unseasonable fur stole walked into the room. She turned to Gloria. “You didn’t tell me Harry was coming!”
Gloria laughed. “I wanted it to be a surprise,” she said, as Thelma pulled him into a hug.
Thelma hadn’t seen her brother since before her marriage. Back then, Harry had been readjusting to civilian life—and to a body permanently impacted by war. He had been gassed at Argonne, which had left him with a permanent tremor. Thelma looked him over, watching him blink back the tears that perpetually welled in the corners of his eyes. He’d regained some measure of control, it seemed, but he hadn’t lost that look of panic that had followed him since that day.
She pulled back. “You look like Papa,” she said.
Harry laughed. “A little less up here—” He rested a shaking hand on his thinning hair, then patted his waistline, “—and a little more around here. May I present my wife, Edith?”
She grasped Edith by the hands. Petite and blonde, with a sparrowlike tilt to her chin, Edith was someone Thelma had only heard about in Gloria’s letters. “I’m so pleased to finally meet you,” she said.
Thelma drew Harry and Edith into a corner of the bar and they began to chat, Harry tactfully avoiding any mention of Thelma’s divorce.
Fifteen minutes later, they were interrupted by the ring of a spoon against crystal. Thelma looked over at Reggie, standing at the bar with his glass high in the air.
“Gloria and I are so pleased you could join our little party,” he said, beaming at the crowd, “and I’m especially pleased to welcome my sister-in-law, Thelma, back to Europe. Bienvenue,” he said. He raised his glass in a toast and Thelma lifted hers in response.
He drained his glass, then set it on the bar. “And now,” he said, “we eat!” He held out his arm to Gloria and she took it; together, they walked through to the dining salon. With a nod to Thelma, Harry and Edith followed suit, guests pairing off to walk down the marbled hall. She looked round the emptying room, worried, for a moment, that she would have to walk through alone—then a man stepped forward and held out his arm.
She hadn’t noticed him among Gloria’s guests: he was older than her by a fair bit, of average height, with average features. His hair—strawberry blond—was parted down the middle and waxed back from his temples, his blue eyes morning pale. His only truly distinguishing feature was his suit: he wore an exquisitely tailored dress coat that cut close to his slim figure. A high collar and white bow tie; black-and-white wing tip shoes. British, Thelma thought, admiring the cut.
He smiled. “I spoke to Mrs. Vanderbilt on my way in and she tells me I have the pleasure of dining with you this evening. May I take you through?”
Thelma smiled back. “Certainly, Lord Furness,” she said, resting her hand on his arm.
* * *
“Marmaduke,” said Lord Furness, as waiters cleared plates. Despite his stiff jacket and collar, Lord Furness had visibly relaxed during his dinner: he leaned back in his chair, one leg crossed over the other, hands raised to the back of his neck. “I ask you—Marmaduke. Though,” he frowned, his northern accent strengthening, “I daresay it’s the reason I’ve been successful. Give a boy a bleeding poem for a name and he’ll have to amount to something to stop him getting his lights knocked out in the schoolyard.”
“Duke is a dashing alternative, though, wouldn’t you say?” said Thelma. She had enjoyed Lord Furness’s company at dinner more than she’d anticipated: conversation flowed easily between them, so much so that they had forgotten the other diners around them.
Lord Furness nodded. “Sounds better—stronger,” he said. “My friends call me Duke.”
Thelma smiled, picturing Lord Furness as a redheaded youth, rangy and ambitious, shaping his identity with quiet conviction. “Did that happen often? Getting your lights knocked out in the schoolyard?”
Furness chuckled. “More than a gentleman would like to admit. And you? Any childhood ghosts?”
Thelma shrugged. “A few playground crushes—perhaps the odd encounter with a bully or two. But we never stayed long enough in one school to develop any real rivalries. With Papa’s work in the diplomatic service, we were always moving from one place or another.”