“I wonder about you sometimes. I truly do.”
“You know I’m right.”
“What I know,” said Katherine coolly, “is that when we are standing side by side before the colonel, I become your shadow. I become smoke, a foxed mirror. I’m invisible, because that man cannot tear his gaze from you.”
The wind picked up, sticky with salt. Katherine lifted her face to it, closing her eyes and holding back her hair from her cheeks with both hands.
“If you won’t believe in your own worth, Madeleine, at least have the sense to allow other people to believe in it.”
“Good day, Miss Force, and Miss Force.”
They both turned. Mrs. James Cardeza and Mrs. August Heckscher approached, clad in sturdy beige and diamond-link chains, and enormous straw hats that left their faces speckled with sunlight. Fearsome dragons, both: Madeleine had met them only once, and only briefly. They had attended a charity tea for the Traveler’s Aid Society in Manhattan months past, had made a single pass among the tables to assess the stature of the chamber’s occupants—and left as soon as they could.
Mrs. Cardeza dabbed at her temples with a handkerchief. “How very unexpected to find you here. I didn’t realize your parents were acquainted with the colonel. I don’t believe I’ve seen either of them in Newport in years.” She looked to her companion as if to confirm it, and the other woman nodded thoughtfully.
“Nor Rhinebeck,” Mrs. Heckscher said.
Katherine glanced at Madeleine, who stood mute, then took the lead. “No, ma’am. We’ve summered here for ages.”
“Of course. Your family summers in Bar Harbor,” Mrs. Heckscher said, with just enough delicate venom flavoring the words Bar Harbor to make her meaning clear.
“We find it delectable.” Katherine lifted a hand to take it all in, the grounds, the Renaissance sky, the huge mansion. “Don’t you think?”
Mrs. Cardeza cocked her head, birdlike, and the sun-speckles jerked bright and dark down the folds of her neck. “Tell me. How do your father and Colonel Astor know each other? Do they have business dealings together?”
“Oh, no,” Madeleine heard herself say, “I introduced them.” And then made herself smile as the silence ballooned.
“I see,” Mrs. Cardeza said slowly, trailing the handkerchief down her temple, her cheek, her chin.
A hot sense of recklessness took hold of Madeleine, a clenching in her chest that felt like anger and release entangled. If Katherine was right, if this was indeed a trial, she had no doubt it was going to be one of fire. Might as well burn.
“Colonel Astor saw me dancing on the stage, you see, and sought me out after.”
“Hamlet,” clarified Katherine. “A truly superior production put on by the Junior League last month, right here at the Bar Harbor Casino.” Katherine tapped her chin with one finger. “I forget. Was that when the colonel began sending you flowers?”
Madeleine flushed and did not answer.
“Flowers,” Mrs. Cardeza said. “How . . . extraordinary.”
“Yes, I’m sure that’s when it began,” Katherine continued. “Maddy played Ophelia, and I must say, she did a bang-up job. Colonel Astor thought so, too. Did either of you manage to catch it?”
Mrs. Cardeza’s nostrils flared as her mouth formed a downward curve, lending her the aspect of a disapproving sheep. “I’m afraid we did not.”
The pair of them swept off, pushed eastward by a fresh gust of wind.
Katherine shook her head. “A damned shame they missed the performance. I bet it’s about to become the talk of the town.”
Madeleine couldn’t even act shocked over the swear word. She could only watch the women leave, their shadows swaying long and righteous along the shorn grass. The clenching in her chest abruptly loosened, giving way to a dismal heaviness, and then nausea.
What had she done? Once Mother found out . . . Or—worse—Colonel Astor . . .
Her sister linked their arms once more, drawing her close, and kissed her on the cheek.
“Cheer up. You’ll dance again tonight, love, this time with him, in front of all of them. Let them look down their noses at that.”
* * *
It wasn’t a ball, it was only a dance. And it wasn’t in any sort of official ballroom, like the one at the Swimming Club or the Casino or even the auditorium at the Building of Arts. It was held inside the cottage itself, in a parqueted chamber that might have managed concerts, or theatrical productions, but tonight contained a small orchestra and tables of pastries and punch and garlands of crimson roses—dozens of them—draped along the ceiling and beveled glass doors, even around the brass chandeliers.
The other guests moved past the garlands as if they did not exist, those hefty red chains, as if they didn’t notice at all that they walked through clouds of perfume, a scent that seemed to diffuse from the opened blooms and then simply hang in the air, weighted and weightless at once, sweetening all that it touched.
Madeleine noticed. She stood by the champagne table as the colonel’s guests mingled and stared; she took deep, deliberate breaths of that perfume, and let her fingers drift along the petals of a particularly extravagant blossom.
She wished she wasn’t wearing gloves. She wished she could feel the texture of it against her uncovered skin.
The colonel and his son had greeted the Force family as they’d entered, so that was done. She hadn’t caught sight of him after that, and the orchestra was already on its fourth piece. Father was caught in a tangle of gentlemen lingering in one of the corners, sharing stock tips and snifters of brandy. Katherine had been twirled away early on at the behest of a strawberry tycoon from California (Thousands of acres, Mother had whispered happily, right along the coast!), and Madeleine was on her second glass of punch. She had not danced once, not even with the naval cadet across the room who kept throwing her flagrant glances. It was as if she wore some sort of sign, a placard yoked around her neck, unseen by her but read by everyone else: DO NOT TOUCH.
“Here he comes,” Mother warned. Madeleine lifted her head.
The colonel was a few paces away, shaking hands with a rust-bearded man in an admiral’s uniform . . . but his eyes were on her. He spoke a few final words to the admiral and then broke away, closing the space between them in rapid steps.
“A capital night,” enthused Mother, as soon as he was near. “Dinner was so delightful, and now this!”
“Thank you. I’m glad you’re enjoying it.”
“Maddy,” said Mother, “don’t you think it’s a capital night?”
“Most capital,” Madeleine said, stroking her hand along the garland by her hip. “And what lovely flowers.”
Colonel Astor frowned at one of the garlands. His shirt was ivory linen, immaculately ironed and starched; beneath the chandeliers, the ruby studs tracing a path down his chest flashed all the colors of the roses. “Do you like them, then? I feared they might be too much. I had Dobbyn arrange things somewhat on the spot, poor fellow, so I can’t blame him for the excess.”
“Everything is perfect. American Beauties are my favorite.”
“Are they really? They were my mother’s favorite, as well.”
Which, of course, Madeleine already knew. It had been mentioned in the papers more than once. She was not entirely without wiles.