Newport: A Novel (11 page)

Y
ou’re looking well.” Adrian opened Liriodendron’s back French doors, ushering Catharine Walsh onto the terrace with the formality of a trained escort.

“Thank you.” Her fingers slipped from the crook of his arm. “The years have been kind to you, too.”

He appreciated the cool distance between them. With so much time gone by, they were little more than strangers now. There was no reason to resurrect anything as messy as emotion. On the other hand, this was still Cassie Walsh beneath the fine clothes and stylishly bobbed curls. He recognized her reserve for what it really was: a diversionary tactic.

He leaned back against the stone retaining wall. “Cassie, surely you realize that I have questions for you.”

“Catharine.” Her voice was sharp. “You may call me Catharine or Miss Walsh.”

Her claws were still intact. “I understand,” he said.

“I thought you might, Mr. de la Noye.” The syllables of his last name tripped off her tongue.

He did not reply.

“Good.” Catharine gave a curt nod. “I’m glad to see that we’re in agreement.”

He saw that she had already determined which information she would share, regardless of the questions asked. Still, her wide eyes and set jaw could not divert attention from the trembling of her left hand. Despite all efforts, she’d been unable to fully submerge her apprehension. She was vulnerable—perhaps every bit as vulnerable as he himself felt.

He chose his words carefully. “Miss Walsh, it’s to your advantage that we find Mr. Chapman competent to amend his will.”

“Of course he’s competent.”

“That’s hard to defend when he says his marriage proposal to you is based on advice received from his deceased wife.”

The gauzy sleeves of her dinner dress fluttered in the breeze as she clasped her hands before her. “I can’t help that. It’s not my fault Elizabeth Chapman decided to surface.”

“Are you sure about that, Catharine?”

“Yes!”

“You’re asking me to believe that Mrs. Chapman is not a product of your imagination, something you’ve created for your own benefit.”

“She most certainly is not!”

Adrian paused, surprised by the flash of fear that crossed Catharine’s face.

“All right,” he finally said. “Suppose I take you at your word.
Surely you can see how convenient it seems that the ghost of this magnate’s first wife should so enthusiastically choose you to be his second.”

“Of course I see it.” Her eyes rested on the inky horizon. “I’m not a fool.”

“Yet you have no idea whatsoever why Elizabeth Chapman thinks Bennett should marry you.”

She whipped around. “No, Adrian, I do not!”

He raised an eyebrow. He could understand her determination to see this marriage through. Bennett Chapman was worth more money than most people dreamed about. But even the smack of the waves against the rocks could not disguise that jagged catch in her breathing. Perhaps Catharine had nothing to do with Mrs. Chapman’s arrival, but he’d wager that she knew a little more about the ghost’s edict than she was willing to share.

Once upon a time, he’d been privy to this woman’s hopes and dreams. He’d assumed then that he could interpret every turn of that pretty mouth, each veiled glance.

He’d been wrong.

He turned to scan Liriodendron’s serene façade. It rose high above the terrace, pale and gracious, glowing like a pearl in the soft moonlight. There were no signs of hastily withdrawn figures, no swaying curtains. As far as he could tell, they were quite alone.

He stepped closer to the woman before him and lowered his voice. “Catharine, I must ask you . . . the message Amy delivered at the séance . . .”

She glanced up to meet his gaze, her expression blank. “Which message? Mrs. Chapman seems to have quite a bit to say.”

“You know which one.”

She turned away, fingers trailing through the air in a dismissive wave. “That question goes beyond your professional purview, Counselor,” she said.

“Yet I have every right to ask it.” Without thinking, he caught her hand in both of his. It fit as if he’d last cradled it only minutes ago. Years peeled away, whipping about them in a whirlwind of unbridled memory. Surprised, Catharine leaned toward him, lips parted.

He should never have come here.

Catharine yanked her hand from his as if burned. “Have you any further questions?” she asked, struggling to catch her breath.

“Yes,” he said, voice hard. “So many. But I’d be much obliged if you’d just answer the one I’m asking. Was there a child?”

She raised her chin like a queen receiving subjects. “You needn’t worry, Adrian Delano. There is no child. Good night.”

He watched her leave the terrace on heels too low to cause the lack of balance in her walk. The response was classic Cassie. Of course there was no “child.” Any child that might have been had grown up long ago. Not exactly a lie, but perhaps not exactly the truth either.

She was as beautiful as she’d remained in his memories. Worse, she still possessed the magnetism that had drawn him to her in the first place, that spark he’d never been able to rationalize away.

He gripped the edge of the retaining wall. One more séance. That was all it should take to find the answer Cassie herself would not provide. Then he and Jim would draft the will and leave Newport forever.

February 1898

I
t was still afternoon when Adrian followed the housekeeper into the gardener’s cottage off Ruggles Avenue, but it might as well have been two in the morning. His fatigue ran far deeper than body alone. He tried to concentrate on the woman’s words, managing to catch the ones he thought might be most important: “I’ve had them place your trunks in your room . . . I’ll be in with meals . . . you’ll find me up at the house should you need anything else, Mr. Delano.”

“Thank you so much for your kindness, Mrs. Vickery.”

He jumped at the sound of Cassie’s clear voice behind him. Despite their shared streetcar ride across Newport, he’d nearly forgotten that she was still with him. How had he managed to ignore the
housekeeper’s raised eyebrows when they’d first entered the cottage together?

“Oh, dear,” Cassie sighed, mouth pursed in a fetching pout. “I’m afraid my little whim has proven inconvenient to everyone. Even Cousin Adrian had no idea I planned to travel with him today. It was a surprise, but perhaps an ill-conceived one. I apologize for my rashness.”

Adrian straightened. “No, I’m the one who should apologize. I should have offered both proper introductions and an explanation when we first arrived. Forgive me, Mrs. Vickery. I returned from Europe just yesterday, and exhaustion has played havoc with my manners. This is my cousin . . . Miss Kate Weld.”

His eyes met Cassie’s. Her glittering smile could have saved Alfred Dreyfus from Devil’s Island.

Oh, why the hell not. He’d told worse fibs in Europe. She’d be leaving in the morning, anyway.

He set Cassie’s carpetbags onto the tiled floor. “My cousin will be staying here tonight, leaving for Boston tomorrow.”

“I wish I’d known,” Mrs. Vickery began. “I’d have made up the second bedroom. If you’ll give me but a moment, I can—”

“Oh, no need to trouble yourself.” Cassie’s dimples flashed as she laid a confiding hand on the housekeeper’s arm. “If you send over the linens, we can certainly manage. It strengthens the character to fend for one’s self now and then. It will be fun, like family summers on the Cape. Isn’t that right, Adrian?”

“Quite.” He watched as she guided Mrs. Vickery to the door. He’d have to remind “Cousin Kate” that “summers on the Cape” included a small flotilla of household help.

Cassie waited until the garden gate clicked shut before turning
back to face him. “There,” she said with a shrug. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Adrian rested his aching forehead against the cool wall of the parlor. “I can’t even say that you’re ruining me, can I? I arrived in a compromised state.”

He jumped at the touch of her soft hand in his hair. Her fingers slipped down the nape of his neck to gently knead his tight shoulders.

“Perhaps you should rest,” she said. “I imagine we have plans tonight.”

In for a penny, in for a pound. He was too tired to resist, even when she insisted on injecting that awkward “we” into the conversation. “I’m invited to a late dinner at the Phillips’s home tonight. Peter Phillips is best man in the wedding, and his sister Marjorie will be hostess tonight.”

“Hmm. Who else will be there?”

“I have no idea. I haven’t been paying attention.” He closed his eyes. The soothing rhythm of those fingers against his shoulders was pure magic.

“Surely there will be a bachelor or two on hand. You’ve been invited, after all.”

“I suppose it’s possible.”

She stepped away, brow puckered in thought. “You must, of course, let our hostess know that I will be joining you tonight. It’s maddening to have unexpected guests intrude. Can you think of an acceptable reason to bring me along? Oh, I know! My visit is a surprise, but I’m just out of mourning for my dear papa and . . .”

He remembered that her inventiveness had always made him smile. “I haven’t invited you to join me.”

“Oh, Adrian, you must. Please. It’s my only hope. I won’t embarrass you, I promise.”

He turned toward her, surprised by the tinge of desperation in her voice. Her back remained as ramrod straight as ever, but he noted the slight slump of her shoulders, the faint circles shadowing her eyes. Her fragility took him by surprise. Somehow, he’d supposed her invincible, as utterly impenetrable as an ironclad warship.

“You’re as tired as I am,” he said.

The fact that she was too weary to argue spoke volumes.

He rested a hand on her shoulder. The bones beneath his palm were more delicate than he’d expected. “You can rest inside,” he said. “I’ll make the necessary arrangements for tonight’s dinner, then nap out here on the sofa. We can make up the other room later.”

“You’ll take me with you tonight then?”

He hesitated briefly, considering. It was only one night. What difference would it really make? “Yes,” he said.

“Thank you, Adrian,” she said softly. “For everything. I’ll never forget this kindness.”

Something in her eyes threw him off balance, made him feel as if he had no control over either the situation or his actions within it. He lifted his hand from her shoulder. “You’d best make your mark tonight, Cousin Kate, because I’m packing you off tomorrow.”

Undeterred, she stood on tiptoe to kiss his flaming cheek. “I understand,” she said, then turned toward the bedroom, closing the door softly behind her.

S
unlight streamed across Jim’s bed, bathing him in brilliance impossible to ignore. He flung an arm across his eyes in a useless attempt to ward off the brightness. Only a sap would forget to pull down the shades before falling into bed the night before. With a groan, he rolled over and burrowed his face more deeply into the soft down of his pillow.

Intoxicating images flickered against his closed eyelids. Amy cuddled in his arms, her pliable curves tucked up against him as if there were no place she’d rather be. He could still feel her satin strands of hair brush his chin as the ocean breeze wrapped itself around the two of them standing on the rocks. Her smooth skin . . . those incredible lips . . . the inscrutable look in her blue eyes as he’d bent closer and closer . . . Most amazing of all, it hadn’t been a dream.

He flopped onto his back, grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. Lord, he’d been such a jackass. His mind, always too active,
had wasted so much time analyzing how to make that first kiss perfect. Yet even without a well-constructed plan in place, kissing Amy had been as easy as eating ice cream. That first kiss had melted into another, the next one into even more, until he and Amy had ended up breathless, her small hand stroking his chest as he drew her close.

And, incredibly enough, it would probably happen again.

A loud knock on the bedroom door pulled him back into the daylight. He squinted at the clock on his nightstand. Seven forty-five. Later than he usually slept, but certainly not beyond the bounds of decorum.

“Who is it?” he called, hoping that Amy stood beyond the door.

“Adrian.”

“Um . . . just a minute.” He fumbled for his spectacles, not even bothering to hide his disappointment. Had he promised to meet Adrian this morning? His mentor rarely initiated meetings prior to breakfast.

He hopped from the bed, snatching his robe from a corner chair on his way to the door. The trousers he’d worn yesterday tangled in his feet and nearly sent him sprawling headfirst across the floor. He shoved them away with his foot, yanking his bathrobe over his union suit as he reached for the doorknob.

“Come in,” he said, cracking the door just enough to peer through.

Adrian tapped the door open and entered the room. His gaze flickered across the mound of clothing on the floor, traveling upward to rest on Jim’s face. Jim unconsciously raised a hand to smooth his ruffled hair.

“Late night, Mr. Reid?”

“Somewhat. You know how it is.”

Adrian closed the door behind him. “Possibly,” he said. “But perhaps you’d best tell me all the same.”

Jim shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

“Well?” Adrian waited.

“Sorry. There are some things a gentleman just doesn’t divulge.”

Adrian winced. “Oh, Jim.”

“What?” It was hard to appear cool while clad in an old blue bathrobe, but Jim did the best he could. “There’s nothing to worry about. We’re still welcome here. It was only a walk.”

“With Amy Walsh, I presume?”

No matter how casual his nod, Jim couldn’t prevent the hot flush that burned his fair Irish skin. He squared his shoulders. “Yes.”

Adrian left a long pause. Jim kept his mouth shut.

Adrian finally turned toward the window. “Would you be so kind as to draft Mr. Chapman’s will this morning? I want to leave for Boston immediately following tonight’s séance.”

“No matter what its outcome?”

“No matter what.”

“What of Nicholas Chapman?”

“Damn Nicholas Chapman.”

The tightness in Adrian’s voice was new. Jim unconsciously stroked his chin, considering. “He could ruin you.”

“I’ll take my chances.” Adrian’s gaze remained fixed on the distant horizon. “It’s time we left this place.”

Jim studied the other man for a moment. Adrian looked as well turned out as usual, dressed casually in cuffed white flannel trousers and a pale-green argyle sweater. But the lines bracketing his mouth were more pronounced this morning, and a slight puffiness around
his eyes made it clear that he’d gotten even less sleep than Jim had himself.

Unbidden, one of Granny Cullen’s favorite sayings sprang to his mind:
Even a small thorn causes festering.

With a sigh, Jim knotted the bathrobe cord more firmly about his middle. “Adrian. Do you remember that infamous night just before my first-year law school exams?”

A dry smile flickered across Adrian’s mouth. “The night I opened my front door to find you in a drunken heap on the doorstep?”

“That’s the one.”

“That would be a hard night to forget.”

They hadn’t talked about that incident in years, but it still had the power to make Jim cringe at his own stupidity. He’d studied until he was cross-eyed, yet emerged from the library with a sickening premonition of failure. Drinking the night away had seemed a perfectly logical solution at the time. He’d then compounded the error in judgment by giving the cabbie Adrian’s address instead of his own.

“I was mortified,” he said, shaking his head. “I still can’t believe I showed up in that state after you’d done so much for me. You probably wondered why you’d even bothered.”

“Nonsense. You were overwhelmed, that’s all. You needed no more than several cups of strong coffee and a soft bed.”

Jim crossed the room to stand by Adrian’s side. “The sympathetic ear and dose of reassurance you provided didn’t hurt, either. The point is, you listened without judging. Your faith in my character got me through a rocky time. I’ve never forgotten your kindness in the face of my idiocy.”

“It wasn’t idiocy, Jim.” Adrian buried his hands in his trouser pockets and turned to face him. “It was a youthful mistake, that’s all.”

“Which we all make on occasion.” Jim rested a tentative hand on his mentor’s shoulder. “Adrian, please. I can never repay the kindness and trust you’ve invested in me all these years, but let me try. I could never judge you harshly.”

Adrian held his gaze. “I’m not sure I know what you mean,” he said evenly.

“Oh, I think you do.” Jim plucked his spectacles from his nose, suddenly absorbed in cleaning them with the cord of his terry cloth robe. “You’re not in fighting form, and that’s unusual. I’m guessing the K.O. has something to do with Catharine Walsh.”

“Are you now?” Adrian’s face remained an immobile mask.

“Perhaps I can help. You should at least let me try.”

Adrian returned his attention to the window, staring so hard that it took everything Jim had not to peer outside as well. Instead, he lifted his spectacles up to the light for inspection, aiming for nonchalance.

“And what if the situation requires information from Miss Amy Walsh?” Adrian asked quietly. “You’re a good man, Jim. I’d hate to compromise your loyalties.”

Jim returned the spectacles to their proper perch on his nose, blinking until Adrian’s profile wavered into focus. “It’s a little late to think about that, isn’t it? I already compromised my virtue on your behalf at last night’s séance.”

For the first time since they’d arrived at Liriodendron, Adrian’s smile was warm and genuine. “So you did. Very well, then. I’ll have
the auto brought around after breakfast. Some conversations are best had off premises. Which reminds me: our little eavesdropper from the ferry is here.”

“The kid?”

“The same. I’ve made a few discreet inquiries but have no information.”

A clatter of footsteps in the hallway made them both jump. Chloe Chapman Dinwoodie flung open the bedroom door, not even bothering to knock. “Come!” she cried.

“What’s wrong?” Adrian hurried to her side.

“It’s Miss Amy. We were chatting in the dining room—she, Father, and I—and all of a sudden, Mother broke through.”

“I don’t understand,” Jim said. “Do you mean that . . . out of the blue . . . the late Mrs. Chapman has arrived? Without the trappings of a séance?”

Chloe’s nod was almost lost in a flurry of hair and fabric as she turned on her heel and raced back down the hallway. “Mother sent me to fetch you both, along with Catharine. But I can’t stay—I don’t want to miss a thing!”

The frenzied pounding of her feet faded as she ran toward Catharine’s room.

“Well,” Adrian said in a low voice. “Either Elizabeth Chapman is a very real entity with a mind of her own, or the Walsh ladies are every bit as calculating as Nicholas claims they are. What’s your opinion?”

Amy? Calculating? Someone so soft and sweet—someone who kissed the way Amy did—could never be calculating . . . could she? Arguments jumped and reeled through Jim’s mind, twisting themselves
until he could not determine where one ended and another began.

“I thought we believed in the Walshes’ veracity,” he said. “That Bennett Chapman isn’t nuts . . .”

“Oh, I believe our client is perfectly sane. But greater men than he have been taken in by well-woven schemes. Bennett has been given every reason to believe that the spirit of his wife is real. That doesn’t make him incompetent; it merely proves he’s a human being with an Achilles’ heel. It’s time we got to the bottom of this, don’t you think? Dress quickly; I’ll meet you in the dining room.”

Another of Granny Cullen’s sayings cut through the din in Jim’s mind as he turned from the door:
Put silk on a goat, and it’s still a goat.

Deep in thought, he shut the door with a solid thump.