An Embarrassment of Riches (11 page)

‘There will be no getting out of the Grand Tour,' Alexander was saying resignedly. ‘If I'd had any sense I would have gone when Charlie went in '60.'

‘And when is it arranged that you will go to Europe now?' William queried.

‘At the beginning of next year.'

Because they were sitting with her father Alexander was unable to hold Genevre's hand. Instead of giving it a reassuring squeeze he looked across at her instead, trying to give her reassurance with his eyes.

The obligatory Grand Tour to Europe in order to finish his education was one there was no getting out of. Nor, if he was totally honest, did he wish to get out of it. But he would be away for nearly a year and he would miss Genevre badly.

Her eyes met his and he knew that they were both thinking the same thing. When he departed for Europe he would still be twenty years old, but when he returned he would be twenty-one and the pain of their separation would be totally forgotten in the joy of their being able to marry.

William Hudson frowned to himself, deep in thought. He knew it was customary for wealthy young Americans to finish their education by making an extended trip to Europe, but he also knew that Victor Karolyis intended Alexander's trip to be far more than merely educational. He would expect Alexander to put his time in Europe to good use and to return with a suitably aristocratic bride.

‘Such an opportunity is certainly not one to miss,' he said encouragingly to Alexander. ‘Paris, Rome, Florence, Venice and Vienna. It will be a wonderful experience.'

‘Perhaps we could make a trip to Europe at the same time?' Genevre suggested eagerly. ‘Then we could meet up with Alexander for a little while in Paris or in Rome?'

‘Perhaps,' her father said non-committally. ‘And now, young man, I think it is time you were on your way. Genevre is to go to a concert tonight with Mrs Jerome and her girls and time is getting on.'

Alexander rose reluctantly. He appreciated that William Hudson was an exceptional parent in that he allowed him to meet with Genevre when there was no question of them being formally engaged, but the times when they could meet were all too infrequent and all too often William was present, as now. For a passionate young man of twenty it was highly unsatisfactory and he inwardly fumed again at his father's intransigence.

If his father did not disapprove of Genevre and her father, then he could have suggested to him that the Hudsons were invited to Tarna. The mere thought of Genevre at Tarna made him ache with physical longing. At Tarna they would have been able to evade watching parental eyes. At Tarna they would have been able to escape into the countryside alone. At Tarna they would have been able to make love.

‘Goodbye, sir,' he said, taking his leave of William, the rising in his crotch so burning and insistent that he wondered for how much longer he would be able to continue forgoing the sexual pleasures he had been accustomed to at Josie's.

Genevre stood at her father's side and as he took her hand to say goodbye he knew that he would find the strength from somewhere. She was the love of his life and he was going to be as faithful to her now, before they married, as he fully intended being after they were married.

‘Goodbye,' she said lovingly, ‘and please don't fight with your father, Alexander. He may yet come round if we are patient.'

He had said nothing for he knew that she was wrong. His father was as stubborn as he was himself. Once his mind was made up, nothing would change it.

‘I've had second thoughts about your Grand Tour,' his father said to him two hours later when he had called him into his study. ‘The tutor who accompanied Charlie Schermerhorn is no longer free to accompany you the months we had planned he should do so. The arrangements will have to be changed.'

Alexander leaned against the door, his arms negligently folded, one foot crossing the other at the ankle. He knew damn well that the change of arrangements was nothing to do with Charlie's meek and mild tutor. Once he had agreed to Victor's initial dates it would have been more than his life was worth to have said then that they were inconvenient.

‘Changed in what way?' he enquired, sure that he already knew.

Victor faced him from behind his huge leather-topped desk. ‘You leave in a week aboard the
Persia
,' he said unprevaricatingly. ‘Because of the war blockades you may be inconvenienced, but the inconvenience will be slight.'

Despite the direness of the situation Alexander had to suppress a grin. As far as his father was concerned, inconveniences to other people were always slight, unlike inconveniences to himself which he always regarded as major catastrophes.

‘And what about the law office?'

On leaving Columbia he had spent a year at Harvard Law School and his father had then arranged for him to spend a further year working with his own legal advisers. The idea behind it was not that Alexander should ever become a lawyer, but that he should have enough legal expertise to be able to understand the ramifications of the many legislative housing acts and the small print on the leases and deeds of the vast Karolyis property empire.

‘To hell with the law office,' his father said graphically, doubting that Alexander had spent much actual time there. ‘Your itinerary is here.' He skidded a folder across his desk-top in Alexander's direction. ‘London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Berlin, Strasbourg, Vienna, Waterford …'

‘
Waterford?
'

‘It's in southern Ireland. You will be staying with Lord Powerscourt. I met him some months ago when he was here on business. He has a large estate and as an Anglo-Irish peer sits in the British House of Lords.'

‘I thought my trip was supposed to be educational, not social,' Alexander said scathingly as he uncrossed his legs and stepped towards the desk, picking up the folder and flicking through it with disinterest. ‘I notice neither Spain nor Italy feature very largely. What about the architectural glories of Madrid and Rome? Am I to be denied those because you think my chances of meeting with a Protestant aristocrat in a Catholic country would be rather thin?'

‘If you look closely you will see that both Rome and Florence are on your itinerary,' his father said tightly. ‘As to your last remark, a great deal of time and effort has gone into obtaining suitable introductions for you. I'm trusting that you will make the most of them. If you don't, then you know what the consequences will be.'

Alexander skidded the folder back towards his father. ‘Oh yes,' he said laconically, ‘I know.' And turning on his heel he left the room.

He lay on his bed, staring up at the gilded and cherub-encrusted ceiling. He knew damned well why his father had brought forward the date of his departure. It was because of Genevre. His father hoped that by separating them for nearly a year he would put an end to their love for each other.

He swung his legs from the bed and strode across to the window. That the separation would not do so he knew without a doubt. The months apart would be painful for both of them but they had long known that they would have to suffer nearly a year's separation when he went to Europe and they were both mentally prepared for it. By bringing the date forward his father had merely ensured that they would have to endure it sooner, rather than later.

He sat on the narrow window-ledge, one leg resting on it, the knee drawn high, the other leg swinging free. It was
incredible
that his father should still believe he would be looking for a suitable bride when in England or Holland or Germany or any other Protestant country. And if he didn't? Did his father's last threat mean that he would not only disinherit him if he married Genevre, but that he would also disinherit him if he came home from his trip an unengaged bachelor? Either way it looked as if he was facing a relatively impoverished future. Apart from Tarna.

His longing for the only place he really regarded as home was almost unbearable. There was no chance now of visiting it before he left for Europe. It would quite possibly be a year before he was able once again to stand in horse-filled meadows, gazing down at the slow-moving Hudson. That there was no time for him to travel there to say goodbye was yet another grievance to be laid at his father's door. But he would say goodbye to Genevre. He would say goodbye to her in the only way that would give either of them any comfort during the long, lonely months that lay ahead of them. He would say goodbye to her with his body. Somehow, some way, he would possess her before they parted. But where on earth could they meet in necessary privacy? How in the world would she be able to escape from her father's fond supervision?

‘Think, Alexander! Think!' he said aloud to himself in savage fervour. ‘Where would William Hudson freely allow Genevre to go without questioning the propriety of her being there and the time she spent there?'

The answer was so spellbindingly obvious that he couldn't imagine why he had never thought of it before. He sprang up from the window-ledge. His plan would need Genevre's full co-operation, but he knew that she would give it. She loved him just as much as he loved her. All he had to do was to have a few minutes private conversation with her in order to tell her of his near imminent departure, and his plans for both of them before he left.

‘You're leaving
when
?' Genevre asked incredulously, her face whitening.

‘A week today.' They were standing on the sidewalk outside the house of Genevre's singing teacher. The Hudson carriage was waiting for her only yards away and Alexander was thanking his lucky stars that William Hudson was not ensconced inside it.

‘We have to be able to meet alone before I leave,' he said rapidly, aware that one or two passers-by had recognized him and were regarding his tête-à-tête with prurient interest. ‘Let me tell you what I want you to do …'

‘I can't believe how easy it's been,' Alexander said euphorically, his hands crossed behind his head as he lay on Genevre's silk-draped bed.

‘But we might still be discovered!' Genevre hissed, wringing her hands in anxiety. ‘If my maid should hear …'

‘She's out enjoying herself, glad of an unexpected few hours of freedom.'

‘But Papa …'

Alexander removed his hands from behind his head and pushed himself up on to one elbow, regarding her sternly. ‘You said yourself your father never disturbs you when you are in your room. Now stop panicking. We don't have long and I haven't taken this risk in order for you to stand near the door wringing your hands like a poor man's Lady Macbeth and I lie here, yards away, on my own.'

Genevre ceased wringing her hands and clasped them in front of her tightly. She had been as eager as Alexander that they spend time alone together before his departure, but the reality of their sudden privacy, and of Alexander's frankly declared intentions, had unnerved her.

Seeing the apprehension in her eyes Alexander swung his legs from the bed and crossed the room towards her.

‘Don't be scared, Ginny,' he said huskily, taking her lovingly by the hand. ‘I'm not going to do anything to hurt or harm you. I just want to hold you, and love you, and make you truly mine.'

Her hand tightened in his. ‘That's what I want too, Alexander. Only …'

‘Only nothing,' he said gently, leading her towards the bed. ‘It's going to be nearly a year before I see you again, Ginny, and I'm going to miss you so very, very much.' His lips brushed her hairline, her temples, the corners of her mouth.

She leaned pliantly against him, not protesting as he lifted her on to the bed. He lay on his side beside her, looking down at her, knowing that somehow he had to control his raging impatience. Ginny wasn't one of the girls at Josie's. A display of sexual virtuosity was the last thing she needed from him. What she needed was gentleness and tenderness and loving self-control.

He ran his fingertips lightly over her cheek-bone, the curve of her chin, the long, lovely line of her throat. ‘Trust me, Ginny,' he said hoarsely as his hand moved lower, cupping a softly rounded breast.

‘Alexander, I …' Her eyes were dark with apprehension and then, as his thumb brushed her nipple, she gave a long, shuddering sigh. ‘Oh!' she whispered, ‘oh, I do love you, Alexander. I love you with all my heart and for all eternity!' and slowly, her eyes never leaving his, she began to undo the buttons of her bodice with trembling fingers.

Only afterwards, as he made his way along the long corridor towards the back staircase, did he realize the enormity of the risk he had run, and was still running. Genevre had descended the main staircase minutes earlier and was contriving to keep the household staff away from the upper floors and the back staircase on the pretext that she had mislaid a small piece of jewellery and needed to speak to them together in order to ask that they keep a vigilant eye out for it. About her father she had been able to do nothing. William Hudson was in his study and if he should take it into his head to venture into the region of the bedroom corridor or the rear staircase then the consequences would be catastrophic. Not only would he be horse-whipped, both by William and by his own father, but Genevre, too, would suffer terribly.

The corridor remained clear, the stairs remained empty. With an unsteady sigh of relief he let himself out by the tradesman's entrance and minutes later was safe and sound amid the hurly-burly of Fifth Avenue.

It had been worth it. If the risks had been a hundredfold more dangerous it would still have been worth it. From the moment Genevre had begun voluntarily to undo the buttons of her dress all restraint had been abandoned by both of them. It had been true love-making, love-making as he had never ever known it. ‘Poor Charlie,' he said to himself, thinking of Charlie's loveless and mercenary fornications at Josie's. ‘Poor chump.'

The iron-rimmed wheels of a horse-drawn hansom cab clattered deafeningly past him. Thinking of Charlie reminded him that he hadn't told him yet about his imminent departure and that as he was approaching the corner of 18th Street, now would be as good a time as any to do so.