 
# BY THE SEA Series

_  
_ "A riveting saga/mystery."

\--Rave Reviews

In the tradition of Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey, BY THE SEA is a four-book series that sweeps from the Gilded Age through the Gatsby Era's Roaring Twenties and then on to the Great Depression, culminating nearly a century later in Newport, Rhode Island, wealthy and alluring "City by the Sea." Set against a backdrop of mansions, the glorious America's Cup Yacht Races, and new money, the series traces the passions and adventures of three families from three different classes.

_Book One_ **: TESS.** From the wild decadence of late nineteenth-century Newport comes the tale of Tess Moran, a beautiful Irish housemaid in one of the grand summer "cottages," who makes a dark bargain with a man of commanding wealth — and falls in love in the bargain.

_Book Two_ **: AMANDA.** Marrying American money to an English title is a tradition of its own; but Amanda Fain, a brash heiress with money to burn, has a fondness for Bolsheviks and bootleg liquor that makes her an unlikely match for the reluctant, ironic, and impoverished English aristocrat Geoffrey Seton, who has been ordered to America to find someone who can pay the bills for the family estate back home.

_Book Three:_ **LAURA.** While the Great Depression grinds relentlessly on, Laura Andersson, a Midwestern farm girl with an improbable love of the sea, embarks on a bold adventure that promises riches but delivers passion, one that threatens all she holds dear.

_Book Four:_ **THE HEIRS** is the dramatic conclusion to the four-book series BY THE SEA. Economic hard times are a distant memory in high-flying, recent-day Newport, home of the oldest and most prestigious trophy in the world, the Holy Grail of sport--the America's Cup. Here, the descendants of Tess, Amanda and Laura play out their destinies, their paths crossing in unforeseen ways: Mavis Moran, Neil Powers, his daughter Quinta, and America's Cup skipper Alan Seton all find themselves caught in a web of mystery, sabotage, and conflicting desires.

_  
_"A quality novel [that] contains many of those little epiphanies, those moments of recognition. [Part 1, TESS,] is what makes Stockenberg's book stand out from the rash of novels on class conflicts between Irish servants and their Yankee masters."

— _Providence Journal_

"This was my first Antoinette Stockenberg novel. I read it not long after it was published ages ago, but her writing is so vivid I can still picture some of the scenes from the novel. This [was written] before the ghost or mystery plots were woven into her novels: it is purely a story of life and relationships. I have been a huge fan ever since."

— _A_ **reader**

# Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

### By the Sea, Book One: Tess

### Copyright © 1987 by Antoinette Stockenberg

### Original title: The Challenge and the Glory

Newly revised and edited, 2013

ISBN: 978-0-9857806-7-8

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

# Table of Contents

BY THE SEA Series

Copyright

Book One: TESS, Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

More for your e-Reader by Antoinette

About the Author

An Excerpt from BY THE SEA, Book Four: THE HEIRS

An Excerpt from KEEPSAKE

A MONTH AT THE SHORE Prologue

#  Book One: TESS, Chapter 1

Summer 1895

"Tessie! Tessie, wake up! Master James has spilled his port again."

Tessie Moran, eighteen and not yet in love, was dreaming of handsome young men and moonlight. She could not easily be roused from her enchantment.

The housemaid gave her a violent poke. "Tessie! If you want me to be waking your sister instead, then that's all right with _me_."

"Mmn? No ... no, leave her be. I'm ... awake." Slowly Tess dragged her unwilling body into a sitting position, forcing her eyes to adjust to the light of the maid's kerosene lamp, forcing her mind to accept the fact that it was two-thirty in the morning, the party was over, and now the linen must be done. Her head drooped. Her hair—thick, wild, auburn—tumbled over her shoulders, and her one thought was, _I shan't put on a cap—not at this hour._

_"Will_ you be lighting the lamp, or is it the entire night you expect me to stand here?" the maid asked in a low hiss.

"I'm sorry, Bridget," Tess answered in a sleepy yawn. She removed a match from its porcelain holder and struck it. The little burst of flame lit up a complexion white and smooth and sprinkled faintly, almost whimsically, with freckles. The eyes, long-lashed and deep bottle-green, were expressive, and their expression just now was of weariness, of exhaustion.

It was high season in Newport.

"Thank you for not waking Maggie," whispered Tess as she turned on the gas and touched the match to the night lamp. The lamp glowed and Bridget left instantly, bound for her own garret room down the hall.

As quietly as she could, Tess changed from her cotton nightgown into an even plainer cotton shift. The garment, devoid of any snippets of lace or other bits of vanity, nonetheless encircled her lovely throat, skittered around her tiny waist, and fell over her rounded hips with alluring perfection. Not one of the ladies at Mrs. Winward's dinner party that evening wore a gown sewn as subtly as that cotton shift. Tess was a sorceress with a needle, and she sewed only for herself.

For herself, and for her sister Maggie, who lay peacefully, for once, in the small metal-framed bed opposite her own. Maggie had slept through Bridget's interruption, and the dry, hacking cough that had plagued her nights lately remained undisturbed. Tess hovered over her sister, longing to caress her feverish brow but not daring to wake her. Maggie was two years older than Tess; she might have been ten. Shy, never robust, seldom joyous, Maggie was in every way Tess's opposite. She seemed to Tess not to fuss very much about this thing called life; her attitude was of one who waits, simply, and sees.

During their early years in Cork, and then later at the comfortable Meller estate in Wrexham, and now at the palatial Winward summer "cottage" in Newport, Maggie, of all the Moran family, had chafed the least at her domestic situation. In Ireland she'd been the meekest of scullery maids; in England, the gentlest of dairy maids; in Newport, the most resigned of laundry maids. Whether her mistresses were kind or harsh, Maggie smiled her faraway smile and did her work quietly.

That amazed Tess. Looking down at her frail, beloved sister, her brow damp, her thin chest rising and falling with the effort of breathing, Tess clenched her fists and swore an oath that was anything but meek. It was cruel: anyone could see that Maggie was too weak for the grueling job of laundry maid at such a large house. But when Tess had pleaded with the head laundry maid to assign Maggie less physical work like sorting and mending, she had been angrily dismissed from the interview. In retrospect, it had been a—what would her ladyship have called it?—a faux pas. A misstep. Tess had succeeded not only in alienating the head laundry maid by her impertinence, but she had drawn attention to her sister's illness besides. _Un faux pas. Absolument._

Maggie's eyes fluttered and opened. "You're dressed, Tessie." It was said without emotion. "They've done with their cigars, then?"

"Shhh. Back to sleep. Yes, they've done, and it's only the merest bit of a spill."

"Mother Mary—not the damask, is it?"

"Yes, it's the blessed damask, and it's nothing at all for you to worry over."

The damask tablecloth, twelve yards long and imported from London, weighed nearly as much as Maggie and cost far more than the entire Moran family had so far earned in their service to the Winward family.

Maggie struggled to get up, but Tess pushed her gently back onto her pillow.

"Margaret Moran, stop jumping about like a flea on a rug and listen to me. Don't I have the strength for two? And are you thinking that your influenza is a joking matter, by any chance?"

"Oh, Tess ..." A tear slid down Maggie's thin cheek. "It isn't influenza, is it."

Tess swallowed a lump as hard as a diamond. "I surely don't know what else it could be."

Maggie's voice dropped to a threadbare whisper. "Tessie, I spit up ... _blood_ this morning." Her wide eyes in her pale face looked not so much fearful as guilty.

"Ah!" exclaimed Tess with a righteous anger she did not feel. "And whose toothbrush is it that's always dry as a bone? Whose apple is it on the nightstand, all shriveled and uneaten? If it's your gums that are going to bleed, you've only yourself to blame." Tess forced her mouth into a stern, motherly smile as she tucked the blanket around her sister.

The two exchanged a long, infinitely sad look. "Yes ... it must be my gums," Maggie said in soft agreement.

Tess, not trusting her own voice, kissed her sister gently on the brow, took up the night lamp, and stole out of the room.

A kind of desperate anger scorched the edges of her thoughts as she made her way quickly down the three flights of stairs to the wet-laundry room. Maggie _would_ get well, if only she had enough rest. Her lungs needed the cool dry air of the dairy house on Lady Meller's estate, not the wet, steaming oppression of Mrs. Winward's laundry room. A soft word, a friendly smile—if only they'd never left England! The Moran family were as happy in Wrexham as they'd ever been in their lives. Except for her mother, all of them had flourished under Lady Meller's care: Will had learned his ciphers, and Tess, to read and write fluently, and when Maggie was laid low with scarlet fever, it was Lady Meller who'd nursed her, and actually got Maggie to laugh and joke about her bright strawberry tongue.

If only they'd never left Wrexham!

"Well, _you_ took your own sweet time, princess." It was one of the underfootman, a short, hostile young man, seated on one end of the laundry room table, his legs crossed with casual insolence. He was smoking a cigarette, which would earn him an instant dismissal if the head footman happened to come upon him.

Tess ignored his baiting greeting and walked past him to the laundry chute. The bin was filled almost completely by the damask tablecloth. Very carefully, Tess began to unload the heavy, figured linen, conscious of the scrutiny of the footman behind her.

Without turning around she said, "You needn't wait for me. I'll turn down the lights after."

"I'm in no hurry," he said lazily. "Besides, this is the best view in town."

Tess stiffened, and he added, "Where's your sister, anyway?"

"She'll be down soon," Tess lied.

"I don't know why; she ain't much use at washing. And she don't glaze linen worth a tinker's damn," he added. "So Enid says."

"Enid is wrong," Tess said as she gathered, with great effort, the cumbersome folds.

"She don't think much of you and your lippiness either, princess. If I was you, I'd stay on the sunny side of the head laundress. You'll go nowhere without her good opinion, that I know."

"Please move, Mr. Boot. I need the table." Tess spoke to the air just above the top of his slicked-down head. Peter Boot fancied himself a fine figure of a man, but he was much too short ever to serve upstairs. Unfortunately, the realization had made him quarrelsome and aggressive.

The footman dropped his cigarette over the side of the table onto the clean stone floor, then slid off and ground the butt under the sole of his shoe. "You're a stuck-up little princess, you know that? But you ain't got no title. You ain't got no money. So why, I ask myself, is she so stuck-up? Sits all to herself at the servants' mess; won't come out walking when a young man kindly offers to take her. I ask myself, is it because she can do her letters? They say a little learning is a dangerous thing," he added, his voice dropping to a soft, menacing whisper. "So what gives you the right to act like a stuck-up little ... princess? Hey?"

He took up a place beside her, close enough for her to tell that his pomade reeked of almond oil. Despite the rapid hammering of her pulse, Tess was not actually frightened by the footman's bravado: she was taller and perhaps stronger than he, if it came to that. But with Maggie ill, Tess dared not react to his provocation. She could not afford the simple luxury of slapping Peter Boot's face.

The footman, with a cunning developed during years of abusing lesser domestics, understood Tess's position exactly. "I could make things easier for you, princess," he said, "if only you'd let me."

He could not make things easier for Tess, but he certainly could make them more difficult. Tess refused to answer, instead focusing intently on fold after fold of the endless cloth, hunting down the offending stain. _Damn_ Master James and his port.

"You hold it in real good, princess, I'll give you that. In that way you ain't like the rest of the micks, are you? No little tempers always on display—all your fire's in your hair. And someplace else, I'll bet," he added slyly, slipping one arm around Tess's waist from behind and clutching at her breast.

She pulled away. "No! Please—please don't do that," she begged. "Only let me do my work."

Once before Tess had been plagued by a fellow servant: she was twelve, he was a hulking stable boy, and when she ran sobbing to Lady Meller, the boy had been sent packing. But Tess had hardly ever spoken to her American mistress, and the housekeeper always sided with the butler and the men. "I just want to finish my work and go back to sleep," she said faintly.

"You can't deny you like it," the footman insisted, dogging her heels as she put on a kettle of water. "You micks are all alike—all shy and holy on the outside, all hot and sassy on the inside."

"I'm not like that at all," she answered in some distress.

Rather self-consciously, she stretched the soiled portion of the cloth over a large bowl and secured it with a piece of twine, then sprinkled salt over the stain. All the while Peter Boot remained silent, watching her lazily. The heavy iron kettle on the furnace hot plate came to a boil, and Tess wrapped a cloth around its handle and prepared to pour boiling water over the wine spot from a height above the bowl.

"Stand clear lest you be splashed," she warned the footman, hoping he would simply go away altogether; but he did not move.

Suddenly from the sealed-off kitchen came the loud crash of a tray of cutlery falling to the floor and the sound of the cook's voice, angry and scolding. Tess jumped, and her aim faltered: the stream of boiling water hit the edge of the bowl and glanced sideways onto the underfootman's arm.

He hissed in pain and fell back. "You little slut. You did that a-purpose!"

"I never did!" she cried.

"I'll get even for that, you stupid bitch!"

A voice bristling with authority cut them short. "What's all this?"

It was Mr. Waterman, the butler. "Ah—a Moran. I might have known," he said in a pleasant, scathing voice to Tess.

Holding one hand over the sleeve of his scalded arm, Peter Boot muttered, "I was helping her with the cloth and the fool splashed boiling water on me."

Tess swung her look from the butler to Peter Boot, taking in with loathing the little man's thinning, carefully slicked hair, his narrow, closely set eyes with their heavy, drooping lids, his nervous, twitching hands, and said to herself: _he isn't worth it._ Aloud she said formally to Mr. Waterman, "I'm sorry, sir. It was an accident."

"I dare say." To the footman he said, "Come along, Boot, and get some bicarbonate for that." Mr. Waterman turned one more time to Tess. "Never let me see you without your cap again."

Tess was left alone with the damask tablecloth and twenty-four serviettes, which she set to soaking in a copper tub filled with soda solution. The stain was gone, but not so her suspicion that Peter Boot was right: she had done it on purpose.

#  Chapter 2

_I hate being in service._ That was her thought as she lay quietly in her attic room at dawn, careful not to wake her sleeping sister. The muslin curtains of the tiny dormered window hung slack; there was no breeze to fan them. The air was thick, hot, old, a mixture of August oppression and stale, used up vapors from the floors below. Tess thought with longing of the guest bedrooms, with their lofty ceilings and enormous French doors open to the cool ocean.

She had been one of the first of the staff to arrive from New York, shortly after the Morans entered the employ of the Winwards, to open up Beau Rêve for the season. With an upper housemaid, Tess had gone from room to room, awestruck, stripping away the huge muslin sheets from the lavish, priceless furnishings. Her imagination had recoiled from the gilded opulence of Mrs. Winward's bedroom, but she had found herself enchanted by the east-facing bedrooms of the Winward daughters, Isabel and Cornelia, who with their brother would someday inherit not only all of Beau Rêve but its domestic staff of nineteen as well.

To inherit. Tess turned the idea over in her mind, tormented by its possibilities. To inherit meant that you need never worry, really, about the future. It meant that you could send someone you loved who was ill to take the cure at Hastings, or on the south coast of France. It meant that fathers and brothers did not have to live separated from daughters and sisters. Perhaps it was true that the meek would inherit the earth. But the rich would inherit most everything else: good health, happiness, lovely manners.

It was a long night for Tess, filled with forebodings. _That's from Mother,_ Tess thought wearily. _Mother, who never saw the rainbow, but only the rain._

Ironically, Maggie had got her best night's sleep in a long time. For once she awoke without an unhealthy red flush in her cheeks, which made Tess immeasurably happy. Tess's feelings toward her older sister had always been oddly maternal; since their mother's death, more than ever.

Maggie came and sat on the side of Tess's bed, very much as she used to when the two were little girls in Cork. "I feel so much better today, Tessie. This afternoon when we've done with our work, let's go off for a walk along the beach. We'll have tea."

"So you plan to go leaping down the lane like a deer, miss, and all because you've had one good night's sleep?" Tess threw her blanket off and strode to the corner washstand. "Whatever next? You'll be off to join the equestriennes in the circus, I suppose," she teased. "My own thought on the matter is that it's early days to be thinking of hauling yourself cross-country," she said firmly. And then, in perfect imitation of the cultured tones of the mistress of Beau Rêve, Tess, a born mimic, added, "However, I daresay a stroll along Bellevue Avenue would suit you perfectly, darling. I shall arrange your hair, and you shall have my silk parasol."

"Oh, _never_ the silk one!" Maggie cried, delighted.

"Indeed, you shall have it."

But first the laundry. At most of the great Newport houses, Monday was set aside as laundry day. Articles were sorted and inventoried in the washing book, after which they were set to soaking in soda or lime solutions until Tuesday morning, when the fires would be lit for heating the huge copper tubs; and soon after, washing would begin. But at Beau Rêve, entertainment proceeded at a breakneck pace. Caroline Winward accepted invitations only from half a dozen among her exclusive circle of friends; mostly, she entertained. For practical purposes, there was little to distinguish a dinner party at Beau Rêve from a state dinner at the White House: Ambassadors and senators, English earls and European counts were summoned with equal confidence to the tables of both, the chief difference between them consisting, as the Duke of Marlborough once had it, "of several square yards more of elbow room, and several pounds more of food" for each guest at the Newport table.

At any rate the linen, being in constant use and of considerable value, required an uncommon amount of attention. As a result, the huge coppers were filled three times a week instead of once, and there was never a day when something was not being soaked, boiled, rinsed, rubbed, or wrung in the wet laundry; and mangled, starched, glazed, or ironed in the dry.

Still, this particular Sunday was less grueling than some others, perhaps because both sisters were in such cheerful spirits. Maggie was looking much better, smiling often in happy anticipation of the afternoon holiday. She coughed little, almost not at all, and insisted on helping Tess with the wet, unmanageable damask tablecloth.

"We really could use more help with this," ventured Maggie.

"With this and with everything," said Tess. "The Blessed Virgin herself would be hard put to keep up with this laundry, if her Son was to turn out a different miracle every day of the week. It's wearing _you_ to the bone, that it is."

"How did you ever manage by yourself in Wrexham?" asked Maggie.

"That was in a simple English country house, goose. The laundry was a bit of a simplicity by comparison. Do you think Lady Meller cared a fig if Lady Shaftesbury set a heavier damask? That wasn't the point, was it? But in Newport, it certainly is."

Tess shook her head and sighed. "The fact is, I don't understand _what_ the purpose of all this is," she said as she stretched the cloth over the massive, specially made drying rack. "To cart a piano, half a ton of silver, chinaware to fill a dozen lorries, and rugs and tapestries to cover up a soccer field, all the way from New York City to a wee speck of an island no one in Ireland has ever even heard of, and in eight weeks to be carting it all back again—whatever _is_ the point, Maggie?"

Tess looked more carefully at her sister, who had lost much of her animation. "Maggie?"

Maggie managed a trembly smile. '"Tis the air in here, Tess, I do believe it: I feel as if my breast were made of sopping wet sponges. Do you think we can go now?" she asked plaintively.

"In a bit, I should hope." Tess was not in a position to say yes; permission must be got from the head laundress, a lazy, flirtatious woman with good skin but very little else. She was married to the head coachman, although Tess had never once witnessed an exchange of affection between the two. After much hemming and hawing and a stern look or two, Enid granted the two girls their leave, admonishing them to be indoors by eight o'clock or to risk the considerable and probably tragic consequences.

Maggie's spirits rallied when they returned to their room and changed into walking clothes. She put on a blouse of navy blue poplin fronted in a multitude of pleats and tucking into a too-bright skirt of magenta poplin, edged with row after row of white braid. Tess settled for a simple, very proper dress of black twill, which fit perfectly and showcased her glorious auburn hair.

Maggie was fitting on a black straw hat, atop of which was perched a white feathered bird very like a large seagull. "How do I look, Tess?"

"Oh, quite grand, Mag," Tess answered affectionately. Maggie had little skill with the needle, and no good eye for fashion. She was drawn invariably to bright colors and outlandish hats, almost as if to compensate for her quiet, washed-out manner. Tess found the effect to be in marginal taste but utterly charming.

By the time the two young women slipped away from the great marble cottage into the hedge-lined servants' path, it was four-thirty and the carriage parade up and down Bellevue Avenue was in full swing.

The daily coaching parade was one of the more curious phenomena associated with the intensely competitive and mostly hollow rituals that characterized a summer's day in Newport. After a drawn-out, elaborate luncheon, Newport society would take to their _demi-daumonts,_ victorias, landaus, and four-in-hands for the traditional exchange of calling cards. Those who could compel their husbands to accompany them did so; those who could not had their children in tow, hideously bored but spotless in white gloves, clutching their own little card cases. The coachman, rigid with stateliness, his black boots polished to the same blinding perfection as the coach box he occupied, would bring the superbly bred horses to a stop in front of a prominent entrance along Bellevue Avenue (known simply as "the Avenue"), and a liveried footman would alight to deliver the occupant's card to the front door. No one was ever home, of course; each of the ladies was out dropping her own cards at the castlelike "cottages" of her friends.

Just as the great marble cottages were not actually designed to be homes, the dazzling equipages were not intended as mere transportation. They were entries in a grave competition of wealth, painstaking arrangements of rosettes and braided manes, issuing from huge stables and carriage houses that would humble virtually every home in America. Never mind that on this typical Sunday afternoon, many of the husbands were hiding on their yachts or had fled to the safety of their Wall Street duchies; never mind that the miserable young heirs and heiresses who were pinned to their carriage seats were forbidden to move a muscle. The important thing was that, to most of the participants as well as to the spectators, the display of opulence _seemed_ to have enormous significance.

Certainly Maggie thought so.

"Ooh, Tess, just look! It's Mrs. Astor; I could tell her anywhere, even without the blue livery, by the way she holds her head so high and still. Why, she don't see anything or anybody!" Maggie giggled and pulled at her sister's sleeve. "Would you be looking at _those_ two—in the barouche—fussing for her attention. There, now, she never saw 'em, and their heads spinning around like piano seats when they passed."

"And _look_ at the wheel spokes," Tess added in a scandalized tone, humoring her sister. "Caked with mud, and the sky without the merest cloud in almost a fortnight. Wait until I tell Father. Who are they, do you suppose?"

"Trash from New York, I'm sure," Maggie said flatly. "Bridget says most everyone new this summer is in trade. Bridget says it's got to where everyone's a millionaire and the 'Four Hundred' is soon to become the 'Four Thousand.' Bridget says, why, it's madness, and there's folks will gladly pay fifteen thousand dollars to be invited into one of Mrs. Astor's balls, only they'd be laughed at. Imagine that." Maggie never took her eyes off the snail-like progression that was inching its way up the Avenue as she babbled breathlessly on.

"And you're going to believe everything Bridget says, are you?" Something like affectionate jealousy crept into Tess's challenge.

"Well, of _course_ ," said Maggie equably. "If Bridget isn't the third cousin of Mrs. Astor's scullery maid, I don't know who is."

"The scullery maid! And I suppose _she_ hobs and nobs with the rich cottagers, does she?" demanded Tess.

"Oh, Tess, don't be that way, so standoffish with the other servants. Bridget regards you as the most haughty creature, and she'll never believe me that it's you're shy—"

"I am _not_ shy, Margaret Moran. And I am not standoffish. It's only that I have—other considerations on my mind."

"I know you do, Tessie," Maggie agreed, instantly repentant. "Don't I know that you're the one holds us all together? And that you're doing my work for me in the laundry? But soon that will change, Tess. I'm better today, and tomorrow I'll be better still, wait and see."

"I should think so, my dear Mag. And when you are, I'll make you my slavey and you shall do all the work while I loll on a chaise longue or knock about with the others at Easton's Beach."

The prospect of Tess, who possessed a rather fierce energy, lolling about on a longue or anywhere else caused both sisters to burst out in laughter so bright and merry that the occupants of a passing phaeton all turned as one to stare. The two women in the carriage, both of them young and pretty, lifted their chins and returned their attention to their companions. But the young men gazed on a bit longer, and one of them, wonderfully good-looking in his silk hat and dark mustache, smiled encouragingly. Instantly he was poked good-naturedly with an unopened parasol by the livelier of the two ladies, but not before poor Maggie, confused by the attention, waved her gloved hand timidly in greeting.

Aghast, Tess whispered, "Maggie, how _could_ you!"

A bright scarlet, an unhealthy shade of scarlet, suffused Maggies cheeks. "I didn't mean to be bold, Tess. Only, he seemed kind. I don't expect they're people of any consequence, Tess; it was only a phaeton, after all."

"And that's one phaeton more than you or I possesses. Oh Maggie, they were laughing at us, didn't you see that?" Now it was Tess's turn to blush, which only heightened the translucent beauty of her pale skin.

"There you go again, Tessie. It's what Bridget says: you don't trust anyone. He was only being friendly-like. And why shouldn't he? Aren't you prettier hands down than either of _them?"_

"It takes more than looks to make a lady, Mag," said Tess, a little wistfully.

"And who is it that's reading the works of Tolstoy in her room every spare moment she gets? Not theirselves, you can be sure," Maggie argued.

"Everyone in the world has already read _Anna Karenina_ , Maggie. Now stop."

"I'll bet a hat they haven't," insisted Maggie. "I haven't, and no one _we_ know has, and what does that tell you? That you're as good as they, or better."

"This is getting us nowhere at all, and—oh, look, Maggie, maroon livery!" Tess said, diverting her sister's attention to a footman perched atop a magnificent victoria that was parading north. "Would that be the Vanderbilts, do you think?" she asked innocently.

"I'm sure of it!" cried Maggie.

The Vanderbilts, having taken Mrs. Astor and her Newport by storm, had, for the last several years, been engaged in a ferocious competition among themselves to out-cottage one another. The mid-century era of summering in Newport's comfortable hotels became unfashionable with the advent of stick- style cottages—large wooden mansions designed to house one (and one's retinue) in luxurious privacy. Inevitably a competition resulted, and the Vanderbilts understood the game better than anyone else. In 1888 William K. Vanderbilt commissioned the illustrious Richard Morris Hunt to build for his wife the biggest and the best Newport cottage, and the aptly named Marble House was the result: an eleven-million-dollar neo-classic palace modeled after the Petit Trianon in Versailles.

All during the building of Marble House, which took place behind high walls in closely guarded secrecy, wild rumors swirled around the servants' halls: of a ballroom carved from gold; of an entire medieval museum inside for the old man's pleasure; of entry doors weighing as much as a coach-and-four. And then, after the grand housewarming in August of 1892, a hundred ladies' maids brought back confirmation: all of it was true. Alva's divorce of her generous husband two years later sent the servants' halls rocking once more, but even that paled against the captivating rumors a few months later of a grand coming-out party for Consuelo Vanderbilt. It was whispered that nine chefs would be serving dinner to five hundred guests, and that one of the courses required the flesh of four hundred different birds.

But Consuelo's coming out was not until late August, and meanwhile another Vanderbilt cottage was going up and another Vanderbilt daughter coming out, earlier in the month: that ultimate symbol of the Gilded Age, The Breakers, was to be house but not especially home to twenty-year-old Gertrude, her four siblings, and her parents. From the beginning, the Breakers project had captured the imagination of Newport's domestic class. Of its seventy rooms, thirty-three were designated for service, by far the greatest number of any place in Newport. A fair-sized house could be dropped into its two-story kitchen and never noticed. The building itself occupied nearly an acre of land; its entrance hall was four and a half stories high. The Breakers had more marble than the Marble House, and more of everything else besides. The Breakers overwhelmed you with its situation, crushed you with its significance.

Tess knew that, because she had sneaked down to the Cliff Walk one Sunday afternoon and had stolen a peek at the furiously ongoing construction. Before she was shooed away in Italian by a stonemason, she'd caught a glimpse of the mansion's stunning east-facing facade. Tess knew then that nothing built by the other millionaire barons would ever surpass it. If The Breakers did not actually represent the end of an era, it was certainly destined to be its apex. Although she'd flinched in the afternoon sun before its excesses, Tess had been left almost dizzy with longing: _to have that kind of wealth, that kind of power..._

"Tessie, look!" squealed her sister. "It's Bridget, dashing in the way of the Vanderbilt carriage. She must be mad; she'll be run over sure," cried Maggie, covering her eyes.

Tess snapped back to the present. "Maggie, open your silly eyes. The horses are barely moving; there's a delay ahead. Still, Bridget's a fool to challenge Mrs. Vanderbilt's right of way."

Bridget was making a beeline for the two sisters. Surprised, Tess said, "It's _us_ she's rushing for pell-mell."

Bridget, red-faced and out of breath, her bright orange hair still pinned to receive a cap, fetched up before the two sisters like a setter on a short leash. "Maggie! Tess! Come quick! The house is in anarchy! Cook has left, but first he spit in the soup, and two of the footmen as well, and Enid's run off with the butler, but first Mr. Waterman and the head coachman were rolling around on the stable floor like two schoolboys, and your father has one eye black as a lump of coal! Hurry!"

#  Chapter 3

The three young women ran back to Beau Rêve as fast as Maggie was able to manage, while Tess did her best to untangle the hopelessly knotted skein of events that Bridget had described. As far as Tess was able to make out, it all started when one of the lunch guests made a disparaging observation about French Catholics. One of the footmen had carried the comment straight back to the kitchen, and the overworked, temperamental chef, his Gallic pride flattened like a failed soufflé, dug in his heels and refused to serve lunch. Unfortunately, the remark was made just as the guests were being seated. For fifteen minutes Mrs. Winward and a dozen of her peers languished on gilt chairs and the _purée d'aspèrges_ sat in the kitchen, cooling in its Sèvres tureen, while the staff split up into pro- and counterrevolutionary forces.

"Cook was livid, he was," said Bridget. "And himself descended from six generations of chefs—he said not one at madame's table knew who their grandmother's father was, much less what faith, and then he said "Pfooey' and spat in the tureen, and may I burn in the deepest circle of Hell if he didn't! Then Jimmy Conner said, 'An Irish Catholic's still a Catholic for all that,' and _he_ spat in it too; and Herbert—a simpleton if ever there was one—he spat in the soup because Jimmy did."

"But what did Mr. Waterman have to say about all that?" Tess cried, shocked.

"Well, that's the amazing thing," Bridget continued. "He was for dismissing them on the spot, as you might expect. But just in the middle, if it isn't Enid herself bursts in from the laundry room and cries, 'I've taken about all I can from them pigs'—her family name being St. Onge, you know, though I couldn't say as she's seen the inside of a Catholic church in Newport or anywhere else—and doesn't she make straight for the tureen, but Mr. Waterman stops her. _Then,_ as God is my witness, and before you could say 'Bob's your uncle,' why, herself is in Mr. Waterman's arms, and crying, 'You promised to take me away from this hellish life, you did,' and meanwhile a queue is forming to spit in the soup tureen."

"Did _you_ spit, Bridget?" asked Maggie, wide-eyed.

"And I a Protestant? Whyever would I?"

"What about Mrs. Bracken? Where was she?"

"Yes, yes—the housekeeper!" cried Maggie. " _She_ didn't spit, then?"

"That wretched pill, if only she had!" Bridget, like most of the other women servants, had little use for the severe Mrs. Bracken.

"But how did my father get a black eye? Oh God, this is terrible!" Maggie's breath had become short, and the two others were forced to stand and wait a moment while she gathered up the last of her strength.

"Well, now, that _was_ unfortunate, and himself a perfect innocent in the matter, and only doing his Christian duty. It wasn't myself in the stable, you see, but Peter Boot. I was in the kitchen, afeard for my life. Well! Enid breaks from Mr. Waterman's arms and flies to the stable, where the coachman, without a thought in the world of the goings-on in the kitchen, to say nothing of the torridness that's caught up his wife, is in the harness room, about to put his horses to the carriage. In roars Enid and, pointing a finger at his nose, says, 'You forced me into this marriage, see if you didn't!' If the coachman didn't stare! Peter Boot says his mouth were open so, the flies had no place else to go. Hard on Enid's heels comes Mr. Waterman, and _then_ don't the fireworks begin."

Bridget paused for breath and for effect, her gray-green eyes wide in a sea of freckles. "As it turns out, Enid and Mr. W. was lovers at a house in Saratoga ten years before, when he was valet and she a lady's maid. That being a man's world, _she_ fell from grace while _he_ was let off with the merest warning. She only married the coachman after it was certain he was to accept a position here, you know," Bridget finished up loftily. "To be with Mr. Waterman. Imagine. And him always so much more grand than Mr. Winward, even."

Tess had her arm around her sister, who had begun, owing to her shortness of breath, to cough uncontrollably. Distressed, and irritated beyond endurance by Bridget's long-winded sensationalism, Tess snapped, "Can we get on to the part concerning my father's injury, or would that be hurrying you along, Bridget?"

"Don't you be uppish with _me,_ Teresa Moran," Bridget shot back. "Anyway, I've already told you: your father got between. He were in one corner of the harness room, burnishing some bit of metal, when the uproar begun. The coachman lunged for Mr. W. and they grappled and your father tried to pull them apart and he come down a cropper for his trouble," Bridget said with a nonchalant shrug. "When you think of it, what business has a groom to interfere with them as are above him?" she added spitefully.

Tess ignored the commentary. "Then who's gone? Who's staying?" she asked anxiously.

_"I'm_ staying. As for who else—I'm sure I couldn't say. Anyway, you're to go directly to Mrs. Bracken's room," Bridget said to Tess, "and if I was you I should keep my lips buttoned close up when I was in there."

"And if it's advice I want, I'll certainly know where to turn. Good afternoon to you, Bridget," Tess said, in a tone which allowed absolutely no room for another opinion.

****

The last time Tess had been in the housekeeper's private apartments was when she'd been interviewed for a position with the Winwards five months earlier, in the house on Fifth Avenue. The Moran family had just emerged from Ellis Island armed with letters of recommendation from Lady Meller. The letters were an unlooked-for act of kindness on Lady Meller's part, because Tess's mother, a cook, had earlier been found guilty by a court of assizes of stealing whatever spirits were not locked away in the Meller pantry and drinking them. (Mrs. Moran was often drunk and an uneven cook as a result, but this was not within the province of the court to punish.) Sir Meller, a fair man but unrelenting, had insisted on dismissal, and Lady Meller had softened the blow by writing accolades for everyone.

Mrs. Moran had died aboard ship on her way to America, and the family's grief was cut short by the need to find work. A cook was far and away the best paid member of a domestic staff; without Mrs. Moran, the family's prospects were grim. Still, there were always slots to fill in the larger houses, and the Winwards had more slots than most. To William Moran, who had been a smithy on the Meller estate, quite naturally fell the responsibilities of the groom, with young Will close at hand as stableboy. Maggie was assigned to the laundry, but Tess was offered a choice: still-room maid or laundry maid. She'd hesitated, torn between the higher, more appealing tasks of the housekeeper's assistant and the grueling duties of a laundry maid. She chose to work close to Maggie, of course; and Mrs. Bracken never got over the perceived slight. Mrs. Bracken remembered everything: every little inefficiency, every little mistake. Tess's mother would not have lasted out the week.

The younger maids were afraid of Mrs. Bracken, and the older ones resented her. No one had ever been favored with a soft smile or a kind word from this most thorough of professionals, which was why Tess approached the interview as she would a walk along a high wire.

Mrs. Bracken was seated at a large oak desk which was tucked into an alcove in the apartment. She motioned to Tess to take a chair alongside.

"You know, of course, of the madness that overcame the staff, Tess?" Her expression was haggard but businesslike.

"Some of it, ma'am. Bridget told me."

"Oh—Bridget! Believe very little of what that magpie says. And for heaven's sake, don't pass on any of her version of events; it would be most disloyal to Mrs. Winward. You understand, of course, that changes must be made affecting you and your family. It is most important that the staff be set to running smoothly again: a large party of guests is due tomorrow—indeed, some have already arrived—who will stay in anticipation of The Breakers Ball next week."

"Yes, ma'am." _Changes affecting you and your family._

"A new butler will take over within the week, a Mr. Ransom, who comes highly recommended. In the meantime," Mrs. Bracken continued in a careful voice, "I have sat down with Mrs. Winward in an effort to contain the damage as best we might. Bridget will replace Enid as head laundry maid."

"Yes, ma'am." _Bridget!_

"She has been an indifferent kitchen maid, and could never hope to rise to the position of cook. There is no talent there, as even she admits. Your father had to be let go—"

"Father!"

"—and as a result there seemed no point in keeping the boy on. It's unfortunate, but Mrs. Winward simply cannot tolerate fisticuffs among the staff."

"But Father didn't do anything!" Tess burst out angrily.

"He did, and he has the bruises to show for it. The matter is closed, Tess," she added brusquely. "It is not why I asked to see you, in any event. As it happens, but not in any way connected with today's events, young Miss Winward will soon be losing the services of Marie du Plait, her personal maid. Marie has announced that she is marrying and emigrating to Australia. Marie is under the illusion that she will find her fortune there. We shall see."

Mrs. Bracken, whose everyday expression was a stern grimace, pulled the corners of her mouth down a bit further. Her gray hair seemed to turn grayer; her bun, to coil a little more tightly. The housekeeper accepted the everyday insanities of the lowest class of servant, but had nothing but contempt for the indiscretions of upper-house domestics who should know better.

"In the meantime," she continued, "it has not escaped the notice of Miss Cornelia Winward that you are gifted with a needle, and she has asked for your services personally. It is, of course, a tremendous opportunity for you, Tess," Mrs. Bracken added unnecessarily.

There was no question in the housekeeper's mind that Tess would accept: the position promised prestige, better wages, better working conditions. It was a far better position than even the still-room maid's. Tess, reeling from the upheaval that had shaken the Moran family, was madly assessing their shifting finances: Her fathers and brother's wages had disappeared in one blow. For Maggie, no change. For Tess, half again as much. But could she afford to abandon Maggie to the hard labor of the laundry room?

"I assume, Tess, that the distressed look on your face means that you can't find appropriate words to express your gratitude." There was dry menace in Mrs. Bracken's voice; obviously she remembered Tess's agony of indecision months earlier in New York.

"Yes, ma'am," Tess answered with a touch of dryness herself, "that must be it." She would work it all out later, with Maggie, in their room.

"Good. It's settled then. For the next few weeks you will be instructed by Marie. If you can afford lessons in hairdressing, I should very much advise it; Miss Cornelia is very particular about her coiffure. Until Marie leaves, your chief responsibility will be to keep up Miss Cornelia's rooms and of course her wardrobe. You will occasionally accompany Marie and Miss Cornelia—to tea, tennis, a picnic, a ball, perhaps. I must also request, though I am well aware that it is not the ordinary thing, that for a while you help keep up the guest rooms as well. As soon as I can find additional chambermaids to replace the ones we've lost today, that temporary duty will of course drop away. Since it is summer and there are no fires to make up, your duties as housemaid are considerably reduced."

"Yes, ma'am. I understand."

"Well, then. For the moment, there is nothing further. You will get together with Bridget and bring her up to date on the present laundry routine; she has not worked in the laundry room in over a year, and meanwhile the Bradford washing machine has been installed. But first, I would very much like you to see Jinny about helping her prepare some of the guest rooms. She is quite overwhelmed; and meanwhile new carriages seem to be arriving on the half-hour. That will be all."

"Yes, ma'am," Tess said one last time. "Thank you, ma'am." She rose to leave.

Mrs. Bracken's eyebrows lifted in ironic surprise. "Tess," she said, calling her back in mid-exit, "I have a good opinion of you. You are a seemly young woman who avoids the idle gossip of the hall. You dress with attention and take pains with your hair and skin. It is to your great advantage that you have learned to read and write and have made an effort to rid yourself of the worst of your Irish accent and distressing colloquialisms. Do not think such ambition goes unobserved. You can do quite well for yourself, if only you apply discipline and diligence. Mrs. Winward is not an ungenerous employer, though she may seem remote at times. Remember that."

Tess, not yet eighteen, stunned by the dramatic mix of good fortune and unjust reversals, did her best to look the part of a well-mannered servant who was at home in the world of elegant carriages and costumed balls, trans-Atlantic liners and private railway cars. "I shall certainly do my best, ma'am, and I think that my best will suit Miss Cornelia very well."

Mrs. Bracken, thin and stiff, gave the tall and graceful Tess a long, appraising look. "I'd like to think so, too."

****

The next seven days could fairly be said to have transformed Tess's life. Although Tess was familiar with most aspects of domestic service, she knew little about the duties of a lady's maid. Lady Meller had been attended by old Prudhella, who'd served on the Meller estate all her life. As a result, Tess had never had occasion to lay out a riding habit or pack a trunk full of a lady's needs for a weekend. She spent the next few days under Marie's sometimes offhand tutelage, carefully noting Miss Cornelia's habits, from the time she preferred to be awakened to the temperature of her bath water and her favorite kind of tea.

Tess turned her mistress's wardrobe inside out, marveling at the superb craftsmanship in the gowns from Paris, brushing the satin boots with a light and loving touch. By the end of the week she had memorized the contents of the French provincial armoires that lined Cornelia Winward's dressing room. Miss Cornelia herself, intensely vain, had shown a keen interest in Tess's discreet suggestions for improving the cut or fit of one or two of her gowns, and by week's end had gone so far as to assert to her mother that Tess was the best lady's maid in Newport and that it was too, too bad that plain Gertrude Vanderbilt was not lucky enough to have Tess's good services for her coming-out party the following week.

Tess was dazzled. Only in her most far-flung dreams had she imagined being privy to the nonstop glamour that marked a Newport debutante's life. The laundry room might have been a million miles away from the mistresses' bedrooms. Tess had been often bored and always skeptical when the footmen and housemaids sat around the servants' hall exchanging garbled and inaccurate gossip about their masters and mistresses. But when Miss Cornelia and her older sister Isabel excitedly compared notes after a ball while their maids carefully removed the diamond tiaras from their heads, well—it did seem to Tess that the gossip was much more accurate. Besides, holding a tiara encrusted with diamonds and pearls, if ever so briefly, brought home to her the idea of boundless wealth far more dramatically than did carelessly spilled port on priceless damask.

Late at night, after Tess helped Marie to see their young mistress comfortably to her bed, she would return to the garret room that she would be sharing with Maggie for so little longer and pour wonderful gossip into her sister's ear. Maggie would be lulled into a respite from her racking, painful cough and into sleep, often with a dreamy smile on her lips. And then Tess would ease her arm out from under Maggie's head and creep silently over to her own bed, and next to it she would sprinkle a handful of rice on the floor and kneel on it.

"Dear Mother Mary, let Maggie get well," she would pray as the little grains cut into her skin. "Don't let me forget those I love best. Don't let me be jealous of a life I was not born to live, or abandon those who gave me the life I have. Make me remember. Amen." And then she would say a rosary, sometimes only half-consciously, before she swept up the little grains of rice with her hand into a box and fell exhausted into a deep, short sleep.

#  Chapter 4

Cornelia stood in the doorway of her mother's bedroom and stamped her foot. "No! I will not have my maid turning out beds for stupid guests. Isabel gets to keep a maid all to herself. Why can't I have Tess?"

"Because, darling," Tess heard Mrs. Winward say from within, "you have _two._ Once Marie leaves, you can have Tess all to yourself. But for now we're dreadfully short-handed, and if Tess doesn't mind doing the guestrooms, I don't see why you should."

"Because it's _embarrassing,_ mother! How would _you_ like it if _your_ maid cleaned out the slops of ... of some perfect stranger!"

"Tess cleans out _your_ slops, darling," Mrs. Winward said with a tolerant smile in her voice.

"Oh mother, that's perfectly different!" Cornelia said in a tragic voice, and she spun on her heel and marched unseeing past Tess, who was on her way to the opposite wing to turn out the Blue Room.

Tess was behind schedule, of course. Back in Wrexham Lady Meller had been fond of saying, "An hour lost in the morning has to be run after all day," and that was exactly what Tess was doing. She'd gotten up before dawn to do what she could in the laundry to ease the burden on her sister; from there it was on to Cornelia to prepare her for another exhausting day of entertainment; from there, on to her temporary duties as chambermaid.

It was late morning. Tess had thrown open the windows of the Blue Room and had emptied and rinsed the pans, scrubbed the basin, removed and cleaned the slop pail, and was in the process of shaking and turning the featherbed before placing the mattress back on top of it. It was an awkward job, better done by two; but Tess was making the best of it when a voice from behind her said, "Oh, blast! I've come at the wrong time, have I?"

Still clutching the ungainly featherbed, Tess turned to look behind her. "Oh, I'm sorry, sir," she said, surprised to see a guest in his room at that hour. She recognized the gentleman instantly: impossible to forget the dark, thick mustache and the alert, friendly blue eyes that had prompted poor Maggie to smile and wave. Besides, Tess had listened to Cornelia and her sister speculating at length one night about their houseguest. It was decided that Edward Hillyard could charm a hummingbird away from its nectar; but as for money, he had not enough.

The handsome guest made no move to enter the room, but only stood watching Tess with a somewhat distracted look.

"I ... I'm running a bit late," Tess explained. "Is there a convenient time when you'd like me to return?"

"No, no, stay right where you are," he said quickly, lowering his voice. "The plain fact is, I'm hiding from that insufferable ... well, never mind. But do me a favor, would you? No one can possibly think to look for me here, with you turning out the room. I'll just sit quiet as a churchmouse in that corner with my copy of _Town Topics,_ until you've done. They ought to be well away on their picnic by then." He favored Tess with a quick, almost shy flash of white, even teeth.

"Ehh ..." It was an Irish syllable, a stammer of indecision which she'd been trying desperately to purge from her speech pattern. "Ehh ... I ... don't think I ought to stay, sir. Truly ...."

"Nonsense! I'm going to neither bite nor compromise you, young woman. Stay and finish your work. I'm a fugitive from society just now, utterly desperate for a quiet moment. Do go on."

And that ended the matter. Mr. Hillyard took up a position in a frail-looking Louis XV chair, crossed his legs, opened the pages of his newspaper, and appeared to immerse himself in the latest Newport scandals.

Tess, at a loss for what to do, resumed her plumping of the featherbed. She was nearly finished with the room, but still, it was awkward—doubly so, since the man was the same who'd caused her the spasm of mortification on Bellevue Avenue.

Eventually the impatient crinkle of turning pages ceased, and Tess felt rather than saw his gaze addressed to her. It was a very different feeling to be stared at by a well-dressed gentleman while you worked than it was to be the object of a footman's gaze. Peter Boot's ardent intensity had been predictable, and also indiscriminate: he would stare at most anyone with a pulse. But when a gentleman noticed that you weren't just another piece of furniture—it was flattering. She colored, intensely self-conscious of the movement of her breasts as she fluffed and shook the cumbersome featherbed.

"Here, let me help you with that," he said, tossing his paper aside and approaching, despite her protests. "What's your name?"

"Tess, sir, and I'm managing quite well myself, thank you," she said in a gentle rebuff.

"Of course you are, but you'll never last at this pace. I've heard about the servants' mutiny last week—is there a house in Newport that hasn't been convulsed by one this summer?—and I'm willing to lay odds that you're doubling up as head coachman on Tuesdays and Thursdays."

That brought a grin of appreciation from Tess, although she cut it off almost as soon as it formed. "You're very kind," she said as she smoothed the featherbed into place with his help, then lifted the second mattress and placed it atop the featherbed.

He ambled back to his seat and took up the newspaper, but immediately he put it down again. "Surely I've seen you out and about somewhere. You haven't always been a chambermaid, have you?"

"No, sir," Tess answered as she smoothed the rest of the bedding over. "I'm only helping out for the moment. I attend to Miss Cornelia—although before that I did do work as a laundry maid," she added with scrupulous accuracy.

"Ah, Miss Cornelia's maid—of course. It was you who brought Cornelia her cape after the sea breeze set in during croquet the other afternoon. How could I have forgotten?" His blue eyes narrowed appreciatively at the memory. "At first I mistook you for one of the guests as you glided across the lawn with the cape on your arm. You quite outdazzled your mistress, Tess. I'm amazed the vain Cornelia has the confidence to keep you near," he said with a short laugh.

"Please—it's not for me to hear this," Tess said quickly. His idle chatter was giving her immense pleasure, but it had the odd effect of making her unsatisfied and unhappy. And fearful that he might be heard. Tess began gathering up her things; she was done.

For a moment the dark-haired guest said nothing. Then he stood up once more, and in two strides across the room had her hand in his. As Tess stood mesmerized, her look fastened on the elegant hands that held hers, Hillyard said quietly, "I hope you'll forgive me, Tess," and bent over her hand, dropping a light kiss on it. "I spoke remarkably out of turn. Thank you for putting me in my place. How unlike a woman of your situation not to smile and look flattered!"

He let go of her hand while Tess, feeling despairingly humble, juggled pails and rags and dirty linen.

"It's extraordinary," he said, more to himself than to her. "One who'd add luster to the Court of St. James itself is wasted here making beds, while all around her flit idle creatures with pasty faces and hearts like steel. Tess, _your_ heart is warm, I'm sure of it," he cried, inviting her assent.

Tess, by now staring openly at the earnest, impulsive guest standing between her and the doorway, said, "I'd like to think it is, sir."

He smiled reassuringly. "And I'd like to think there's intelligence, too, behind those green eyes. Is there, Tess? Or are you like the females you've caught me hiding from—all of them hop-hop-hopping along, never thinking why," he said in a voice filled with sudden bitterness.

When Tess said nothing, but waited patiently for him to move, he added in a tone that puzzled her with its earnestness, "Answer me, Tess."

"Answer you _how,_ sir?" Tess demanded in frustration. "You see my situation. Whatever the level of my intelligence, it can hardly affect the daily comings and goings at the Court of St. James, can it? As to a warm heart, your bed will be made equally well whether I possess one or not. Now, if you'll excuse me, sir," she said, brushing past him, "I have to go hop-hop- hopping along."

Afterward, Tess was appalled by her impertinence. A lady's maid ought above all to practice patience and discretion; she had shown neither. On the other hand, she'd been put to the test while wearing her chambermaid's cap, and the nobler virtues do not come easily to lesser domestics, she told herself wryly.

And why had Edward Hillyard fastened his attention on her in the first place? She relived the encounter yet again: the way he'd burst angrily into his room, eager to escape his friends; the way he'd seemed determined to see Tess as their equal; the kiss—it could not have been done in jest—that he'd bestowed on her hand. Tess was young, but she was not simple. She knew full well that chambermaids were an inevitable temptation for male guests. Newport hostesses adorned the upstairs rooms with their most presentable females, just as they lined their drawing rooms with handsome footmen; the malformed were kept downstairs. In such a situation, a certain number of seductions were inevitable. But few guests would be so indiscreet as to toy with a lady's maid. And Mr. Hillyard did not seem to be the type to trifle, in any case; he was far too ... earnest. It baffled her.

"Tessie, you're very quiet," Maggie said as the two lay in their little cots that night.

"I know, Mag. I'm a bit tired." She sighed and rolled over on her side.

"You know what the matter is, don't you, Tess? You're like a candle with both ends lit. And it's all because of me," Maggie added sadly.

"Put the thought right out of your head, Mag. I've told you I can handle everything easily." Tess turned back to her sister. "Any better today? You look better."

"Oh yes, I think so. Definitely better."

It was an act of hope, a prayer recited by the two girls together, for there was nothing for them to do but hope.

"Tess—Will was by today," Maggie said after a pause.

"Is something wrong, then?" Tess asked quickly.

"Well—yes and no. It looks as if Father will get the smith's job down at the wharves, though the pay is less than he'd hoped: Will says sixty cents a day to start. It's only part-time. But there's a bit of a snag. Mr. Needham insists that Father and Will be settled in someplace, and not to be staying with friends. They need eleven dollars for two months' rent. Have we that much, do you think?"

"Of course not, Maggie. Bring your head back down from the clouds, would you?" Tess snapped.

"Oh! I didn't—" Immediately Maggie fell into a fit of coughing, a racking, dry, utterly painful sound that brought Tess to her sisters side like a shot, stroking her damp black hair and holding her flushed cheek close to her breast.

"I'm so sorry, Maggie. Of course we'll find the money. Somewhere ..."

"Oh, Tess," Maggie moaned between coughs, "It's worse, it's worse, it's worse. I'm going to die, Tess."

"Shhh. Maggie Moran, you are not going to die. I won't let you. Shhh. Tess bit back her tears and cursed herself for her candor in front of Maggie, who no longer had any tolerance for cold reality.

"Poor Maggie," Tess crooned as she lulled her sister to sleep. "Poor sad little raven. Wouldn't it be the grand tour that you need just now?"

She began to describe, in great detail, the trip Maggie would someday take to the glittering resorts of Europe and the exotic spas of South Africa and Australia—as soon as they'd put "just a bit more by." It was a nourishing fantasy for the ailing sister, an amalgam of fact and Tess's vivid imagination. Tess dressed her sister in shimmering gowns, laced her round and round with diamonds and pearls, and piled bouquets of jasmine and violets and roses in her lap, pledges from her many adoring swains. Every one of the beaux was inordinately handsome, divinely rich, and every one of them was desperate to marry Maggie. And at every stop of Maggie's imaginary tour, the air was sweet and warm and dry.

But the reality of Maggie's life was that the laundry room was killing her.

#  Chapter 5

"Oh, Tessie, haven't you learned anything in the last two weeks? Pull me in tighter, you stupid creature!"

Miss Cornelia's face was bright red, but whether it was from excitement in preparing for Gertrude Vanderbilt's coming-out ball, or whether it was a result of Tess's having laced in her mistress's lungs to about half their former capacity, Tess couldn't tell.

"Tighter!"

It was Tess's first attempt at manhandling her mistress, and she would've liked to have practiced before an event of such magnitude as tonight's, but it couldn't be helped: Marie's fiancé had arrived by ship a day early, and that morning Marie, with Gallic imperiousness, had announced that she would not be available to Miss Cornelia in the evening. Some of Cornelia's steam was still being vented, and Tess had the scald marks to show for it. One thing was certain: Cornelia's waist would be somewhat over the eighteen-inch mark which was _de_ _rigueur_ for debutantes. Cornelia's midsection had been thoroughly compressed and artfully redistributed, and still there were three or four inches left over.

"I do believe," Tess said, gasping, "that there's nothing more to be done in that line, Miss Cornelia."

Cornelia stared stonily at her satin-corseted image in the full-length gilded mirror. "I shall never forgive Marie for this. Never," she said through clenched teeth.

It seemed to Tess that Cornelia's waist was less Marie's fault than it was too many of the summer ices and sweets for which Cornelia had a passion, but she said soothingly, "Your gown will hang on you like a flour sack if I lace you any tighter, Miss Cornelia."

"Do you think so?" Cornelia demanded petulantly. "Oh, and look at my _hair,"_ she wailed. "It's gone all droopy."

"The curling iron is heating, ma'am. You'll be good as gold when you step into the brougham. Now—shall we continue?" Tess asked dryly.

The wire bustle was belted on, nicely balancing the pneumatic bust—Cornelia had none, to speak of, of her own—that had been strapped on earlier. The physical adjustments and compensations to Cornelia's imperfect form were complete: she was ready for her gown.

Her dress was the latest and best that Paris had to offer, shipped at God only knew what expense to Newport with the waistline merely basted so that a final, perfect fitting could be made. The adjustments had required a great deal of Tess's time and skill, but the result was so outstanding that Cornelia, in a fit of rapture, had presented Tess with a tiny cloisonné box from France as a token of her gratitude. The locking mechanism was broken, but the floral pattern was rich and colorful and had given Maggie much pleasure.

One thing was true of Cornelia: she understood perfectly the nuance of color. Her straw-blond hair, which had been rinsed and re-rinsed with a special blend of tea leaves to produce gold highlights where once there were none, and her pale-pinkish skin were exactly suited to shades of blue and green. The iridescent gown was both, or either, depending on the light. By moonlight—Cornelia and Tess had tested it the night before on the loggia of the Beau Rêve—it shone blue; but by candlelight, green. The quandary was: sapphires or emeralds? Cornelia could not make a decision.

Then, after the last hook was hooked, after the last drooping curl was twisted back into a sprightliness it couldn't possibly feel, given the warmth of the night—after Cornelia was made as lovely a vision as careful artistry could devise, she did what all young ladies do occasionally, and changed her mind altogether. No sapphires. No emeralds. Only the one, spectacular, most prepossessing piece of jewelry she owned, a gift from her parents at her own coming out: a huge dog collar thick with gleaming pearls and marquise-shaped diamonds, calculated to bludgeon competing young debutantes into a general feeling of despair.

Around Cornelia's waist Tess fastened a chain of diamonds and hooked onto it a small, exquisite ivory fan.

"Well, Tess," Cornelia asked, surveying herself carefully in the mirror, "will I do?"

Tess, who'd been astonished by the thought and effort that Cornelia had poured into herself, smiled at the image in the mirror and said, "Yes, ma'am. I think you'll do."

The vision turned pouty. "Really, Tessie, I call that striking an attitude, I really do."

Tess opened her eyes wide. "An _attitude,_ Miss Cornelia!"

"Yes. It's not what you say, it's more what you _don't_ say. And you're too tall," she said, irritated. "You make me feel squat."

Tess bit her lower lip, trying not to smile. In Cornelia Winward's solar system, a personal maid was akin to a distant satellite of an outer planet. "I suppose I could try stooping a bit, ma'am," Tess said blandly, "if that would help."

"What would _help_ is if you'd be more like Marie and say pretty things to me once in a while, especially when I'm about to—I'm going to a _ball,_ Tess. Anything can happen at a ball. I could become engaged tonight! The last thing I need is your ... _attitude."_ Blue eyes above a turned-up nose glared at Tess through the mirror.

Tess was getting used to Cornelia's little bursts of tension. It couldn't be easy, she thought wryly, being the younger sister in a family of immense wealth. At the moment, most of the Winwards' attention was focused on finding a title for Cornelia's older sister. An English baronet had begun to nibble at the bait, but much care and patience would be necessary to reel him in. That left poor Cornelia with little to do but wait her turn. In the meantime it seemed to her that all around the list of eligible peers was dwindling at an alarming rate.

Her best friend Susy had landed an honest-to-goodness viscount, and a second cousin whom Cornelia absolutely despised had cast her dowry before some Slavic count and hauled him in like a five-pound bass. And of course everyone in Newport knew that Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt was about to buy the ultimate in peers of the realm, an English duke, for her scrawny stick of a daughter, Consuelo. Was there no justice in life? The question was often on Cornelia's lips.

As Cornelia adjusted her choker so that the largest of the diamonds lay perfectly in the center of her throat, a now-or-never determination glinted in her bright blue eyes. Gertrude Vanderbilt's coming out was unquestionably one of the major events of the season, even though it was being hosted by two pious, hard-working, decidedly unglamorous millionaires. Still, Vanderbilts were Vanderbilts, and absolutely anyone worth knowing—or being engaged to—would be there.

Cornelia instructed Tess first to turn down the gas lamps, then to light a dozen candles that stood in a gilded sconce from Tiffany's, in an effort to mimic the lighting of The Breakers' ballroom. If the success of a Newport debutante could be measured in her ability to extract the most out of face and form, then Cornelia Winward had done brilliantly. As each of the candles caught flame and danced, the facets of Cornelia's jewels took on a magical life of their own, winking and dazzling and spraying the room with shimmering rainbows. The taffeta of her gown promised blue, then slid mysteriously into green as Cornelia turned slowly round and round and round once more, a blond princess in a fairy kingdom of riches.

And Tess? Tess, in her plain but exquisitely tailored soft gray dress, Tess, whose natural beauty glowed where Cornelia's artifice blinded—Tess was awestruck. She knew half a dozen woman servants as pretty as Cornelia; yet adorn any of them with this gown, those jewels, and the result would be laughable.

Cornelia knew exactly how to stand, Tess thought. Exactly how to hold her head so that her chin line was smoothest, how to arrange her face so that her eyes looked roundest, how to force a dimple into her smile where none naturally existed.

"You're quite wonderful, Miss Cornelia," Tess said, and she meant it. Whether Cornelia was born with such magnificence or whether she was trained for it from infancy almost did not matter. Either way, for Tess and her six pretty servant-friends, it was too late. _If she and I had been switched in our cradles ...._

"Tess—wake up!" Cornelia demanded, snapping her fingers at the faraway look in Tess's eyes. "Miss Van de Stadt and the viscount will be here for me any moment, and so will the carriage for you. Where's my wrap, girl?"

Within half an hour a stately brougham was pulling out from under the limestone porte-cochère of Beau Rêve, filled to bursting with taffeta and chiffon and peau de soie. The laughing, excited debutantes inside had allocated a patch of maroon leather seat for the many bouquets that had been arriving all day; all of their dance cards were full. In the soft, twilit evening the brougham eased into the parade of carriages on Bellevue Avenue, the luckiest among them bound for The Breakers, the fabulous new cottage on the southeast coast of Aquidneck Island, which was throwing open its massive gates for the first time tonight.

In Tess's coach, which followed a little behind Cornelia's, the laughter of the maid-servants squeezed inside was no less excited, the gossip no less lively. Mostly it concerned The Breakers. By now everyone in Newport had heard about the water taps that were said to run saltwater and rainwater (both in hot or cold) and the priceless tapestries and oils that had been arriving from Europe by the crateload.

Susan Van de Stadt's maid Sarah was by far the best informed. "I understand there are only thirty for Gertrude Vanderbilt's pre-ball dinner. That's cutting it daringly close, if you ask me. Mrs. Vanderbilt is not the lioness she thinks she is, for all her millions. She's bound to put some very prominent noses out of joint. Why, it's not enough anymore to look above you and make sure your Astors and your Oelrichs and your Fishes have been invited. You must look around and below you, too, because most anyone may be someone to be reckoned with tomorrow."

"Especially if 'someone' happens to marry into nobility," another of the maids said slyly. "Would it be your mistress you're thinking of, Sarah?"

"Miss Van de Stadt—soon to be Lady Dennison, it's true—has nothing to apologize to Miss Vanderbilt for," Sarah sniffed. _"Her_ people were never in trade.

"Anyway, if you ask me," she continued, "it's a relief that Miss Van de Stadt wasn't invited to the pre-ball dinner at The Breakers. Because I understand," she explained in a confidential voice, "that Mr. Vanderbilt would allow only the most churchgoing of his daughter's friends to come. I expect the dinner conversation will sound drearily like an Episcopalian sermon. Whereas _his lordship,"_ she said with emphasis, "moves with a much smarter set."

_"I've_ heard that some of the women in his _lordship's_ set are breathlessly fast," the other maid said vindictively.

"Well, that's as may be. But Miss Susan is nothing if not absolutely proper," Sarah sniffed.

"And what about Miss Cornelia, Tess?" another maid asked, turning to Tess curiously. "Is she fast, or proper?"

It was the kind of lurid speculation that Tess despised. "I couldn't say," she answered coldly.

"You mean you _wouldn't_ say, Tess," the maid retorted. "Ooh-la-la; Miss Cornelia must smother you in silks to wring such loyalty from you."

"Oh, leave Tess alone, Livia. She's not like the rest of us, secure in her position. On trial the way she is, why, everything could slip through her fingers," said Sarah.

Surprised, Tess stared at her. On trial! She'd had no hint of it from anyone—not the housekeeper, not her mistress.

"Don't look at me like that, Tess. Everyone knows a person can't jump from laundry to lady's maid—leastways, not without running a risk o' falling flat on her nose. That's just what Miss Cornelia told my Miss Susan, see if it isn't."

"Why wouldn't I believe you?" Tess asked calmly, but inwardly she was trembling. She thought she'd been doing well, but obviously Miss Cornelia had some reservations. Didn't she admit as much to Tess an hour ago? Didn't she demand pretty words and compliments from Tess, the kind Marie thought nothing of showering on her?"

"Anyway, I can only do my best," Tess added, sick at heart.

"Which I'm sure is just fine," Sarah answered, patting Tess's knee with her special brand of kindness.

Pre-ball dinners were being hosted all over town. The house to which Misses Van de Stadt and Winward were invited was rather whimsically Tudor in style, and as the coaches rolled through the vast iron gates, Tess caught a glimpse of soaring stained-glass window-panels, lit from inside to reveal deep jewel-toned figures arranged in a tableau of some sort.

"That's Miss Julie's _bedroom,_ if you can believe it," said Sarah. "I've heard that the Pearsons sacked a cathedral in France for those windows, and all because their daughter thought she resembled a woman-figure in one of the panels. Well, I saw the panel close up, and she doesn't."

"Imagine that," Livia said breathlessly.

It was that way everywhere in Newport: absurd stories of Americans running amok all over Europe, not knowing what to buy first. Americans had money to burn; the number of millionaires who summered in Newport was staggering. What Americans did _not_ have, and seemed to crave, was lineage. Those who could, bought their way into titled families. But those who could not, settled for aping the ways of the British aristocracy. Mr. Pearson, tonight's host, had reproduced, down to his snuff-box, the life and times of English country gentry. His liveried servants were powdered, of course; but in Newport that was not unusual.

What _was_ uncommon, even in Newport, was the ferocious zeal with which Mr. Pearson mimicked the ways of a British sportsman. Hunting was his great passion. When the local farmers arose en masse to protest the fox hunts that were being routed across their fields, Mr. Pearson, alone among his peers, actually paid them for their inconvenience, thereby single-handedly keeping a doomed tradition limping along for several more years.

After that he turned to game-shooting, stocking the grounds of his estate with hand-raised pheasants. The birds were so tame that there was no sport involved, but he shot them anyway. Once he fired off a round at what turned out to be a gaily-feathered hat, still on the head of one of his female guests; word quickly went out that it was unwise to wander far from the main house. These days, however, Mr. Pearson was confined to his study and a soft hassock: he was afflicted with gout. Secretly he was pleased. It felt so very British to wave a cane and bark at the servants.

All of this amused Miss Van de Stadt's viscount-fiancé no end; imitation, after all, was the sincerest form of flattery. Of course, the viscount's stables back in Derbyshire did not have stained-glass windows at either end, or a gold nametag above each horses stall as did Mr. Pearson's. If the truth were known, _his_ stables were a bit down in the mouth, and the roof at the south end of one had all but collapsed. But no matter. The viscount had long since been forced to sell what little horseflesh he possessed and had no need for a stable roof, good or bad. In the course of dinner that evening, however, it was not the condition of the viscount's stables that was the subject of a few moments of dinner conversation, but the number of stalls. Of these, the viscount had thirty-eight. There was a murmur of approval around him before the conversation drifted off to another topic.

#  Chapter 6

Sarah was in a huff. "That was the _weakest_ tea," she said as she and the other maids piled back into their coach two hours later en route to their next, even grander destination. "I do believe their housekeeper ran that pot through _twice._ I never!"

"She's probably served tea to every lady's maid in Newport by this time of year," Tess said with a laugh. "I shouldn't wonder that she tries to cut back when she can."

"And her apartments! So plain, so unadorned. Even your Mrs. Bracken has a nicer table to set, Tess."

Tess and Livia exchanged looks; no one could manage condescension as well as Sarah. "How kind of you to notice," said Tess dryly.

Before long they were in a line of carriages waiting their turn to empty, and the maids within had gathered up their needlepoint satchels filled with combs and hairpins, needles and thread—well-thought-out survival kits for the harrowing moments before a ball. Their carriage had not quite reached their destination when the door was opened by a footman wearing pale blue Van de Stadt livery. The first two maids tumbled out quickly, but when it was Tess's turn to alight, a freakish accident occurred. The right mare, new to harness, reared up suddenly, causing the coach to roll back and Tess to lose her balance; she fell awkwardly to the ground, twisting her ankle.

"Tess! Are you all right?" asked Livia, helping her to her feet.

Tess wasn't all right, but she lied, forcing a smile through her pain.

"Good. I do have to go. Mistress gets a little wild with impatience before a ball."

"And Miss Susan will want to know why the mare reared up," Sarah chimed in. "Oh, there, look at her face—oh lord, she's furious," she moaned, suddenly less confident. "And all because of some stupid rabbit."

They scurried to their mistresses like small gray squirrels, leaving Tess to manage for herself. As she stood with her weight on her good foot, hesitant to step on the injured ankle, distraught lest she attract attention, one gentleman broke from a nearby pack enjoying their cigars and approached her.

"Good evening, Tess," said Edward Hillyard. "I saw what happened." His voice, like his dress, was more formal than before. "It seems I find myself once more offering assistance."

"And once more I find myself grateful but managing nicely, thank you, sir," Tess answered, resolutely allowing her weight to fall on the injured ankle. She gasped but did not falter.

"Tess, you _are_ hurt," he said, concerned. "Take my arm."

"Oh Lord, sir, I couldn't!" This was horrible. Hillyard's friends were staring curiously. And where was Miss Cornelia?

"You can and shall, my fair lass. Or would you rather I gathered you up in my arms and carried you through the Great Hall and past the receiving line—or in this case, throne? Have you ever dreamed of making a grand entrance, Tess?" he asked in a warm, teasing voice.

It electrified her. "I will take your arm, sir," she agreed quickly. Hesitantly she took a step, her hand barely touching his sleeve.

"Lean on me, dammit."

"I don't dare."

"Do drop this obsession with caste. _Lean."_

She did, and was grateful for his aid. His handsome form towered over her in the dark night, and for one split, hallucinatory second Tess pictured how it might be, if he were her partner at a ball.

Insanity.

Although the pain in her ankle was sharp, with every step she was becoming more used to it, and at the end of a dozen steps she said, "It isn't so bad as I thought, sir. I'm fine now." And with what was left of her strength she let go of his arm and hurried through the oak entrance doors to catch up with her mistress.

Inside she was dazzled by a vast expanse of spotless marble floor which led to another set of doors, these of massive wrought iron, beyond which was a second entrance hall. Cornelia was there, talking with friends. When she spied Tess she pounced. "You at last! Did you break your leg, that you idle so? Oh! You can be infuriating," she hissed.

Cornelia ascended a short flight of steps, and Tess, limping behind her, saw by the set of her shoulders that if for any reason the night was not a success, _she_ would be at fault.

_My days at Beau Rêve are numbered_ , Tess thought bleakly _._ _And Maggie's_ _as well. Where will we go?_

Now they were in the Great Hall, about which Tess had heard so much. Rumors had not done it justice. It was soaring, cavernous, beyond ornate. Four crystal and bronze chandeliers, each large enough to hold several footmen, hung thirty feet from the ceilings, and still they towered high over the guests. A balcony of massive wrought iron railings completely encircled the hall, allowing guests to look down on the new arrivals from a height of several stories. The hall floor, of polished marble and covered with a vast red carpet, was dotted with a dozen and a half silver-buttoned footmen in maroon livery who were positioned there for no other reason than to direct traffic. Awestruck debutantes were led to a vast, curved marble staircase leading to dressing rooms off the balcony above; their beaux were directed to a staircase descending to rooms below.

Cornelia, clearly staggered, did her best to affect a jaded response. "Such cleverness all around, don't you think?" she was saying to a young friend her own age. "See how they've worked the Vanderbilt acorn motif onto every possible surface. There are acorns everywhere: gilt, bronze, marble, wood. It does seem a bit too much," she added in a lower voice, "but then ...." And she lifted her eyes heavenward in a sweeping indictment of the excesses surrounding them.

The young friend tapped Cornelia's wrist with her fan. "Cornelia, you're such a cat," she chimed.

The two women took chairs at adjacent dressing tables and their maids got down to business. Owing to the skill with which Tess had arranged and pinned Cornelia's hair, it was holding up remarkably well. Cornelia's friend was not so lucky: her brown hair, very fine and distressingly limp, trailed off exhausted in different directions, and not until Tess got drawn into the reconstruction did an appealing effect result.

"Marvelous!" gushed Cornelia's friend. "Cornelia, hold onto this one, or I'll snatch her from you the first chance I get!" she warned.

Cornelia managed to look amused, but Tess saw the telltale vein in her temple begin to throb. "Yes ... if only her manners were as nimble as her hands," Cornelia said with a languid look at herself in the mirror.

Maid and mistress exchanged glances: Tess's, calm and apparently unruffled: Cornelia's, pouty and angry. The two debutantes rose to rejoin their partners and be announced by the butler to the dazzling assembly circling to the music of two orchestras in the glittering gold and white ballroom. Tess was on her own.

The night, as ball nights go, was in its infancy; Tess and hundreds of other attendants had a long wait ahead of them. The more seasoned of the maids had retired to quiet corners or to the servants' hall with their needlework, conserving their energy. The younger, livelier ones jockeyed for glimpses of the new arrivals and dissected their gowns with cruel deliberation. Tess, as usual, did not feel comfortable in either camp, and besides, her ankle, though better, was still painful.

For an hour or two she sat quietly, mulling over the future of the Morans, until at last an older maid, Mrs. Nevins, came up to her and said, "Tess, you look quite done in. Are you ill? Too much excitement?" She was a matronly woman, plump and kind and well liked, even by the younger, ruthless ones.

_"I am_ a bit ... off, just now," Tess said with a tentative smile.

"You come with me, my dear. A cup of tea and a breath of air is what you need."

Tess, limping slightly, let herself be led downstairs; the idea of tea sounded irresistible.

"You ought to have that ankle wrapped, you know," Mrs. Nevins said after Tess explained the coach accident.

Tess refused, but Mrs. Nevins was unimpressed. Her satchel contained repairs for any emergency, and she produced a bandage and a collapsible tin cup. "Now wrap the spot up snugly—go on, right over your hose is fine. And while you're doing that, I'll get you tea."

Tess did as she was told—it was heavenly, being attended to, for once—and in a few minutes Mrs. Nevins had her settled in nicely on a long bench of pine in a quiet corner of the servants' hall, sipping tea.

"I'll return your cup when I'm done," Tess promised as the woman took her leave.

_She's a saint,_ Tess thought. Something about her reminded Tess of Lady Meller, and tears of homesickness welled in her eyes. She did not want to be stared at, so she took her little tin cup of tea and slipped outside for a little air. Although most of the footmen were out in the Vanderbilt stables with the coachmen exchanging stories, a dozen or so of the bolder maids and younger men were lounging near the servants' entrance, laughing and flirting in the dark.

Tess stood a little away from them, nursing her hurt, nursing her sense of injustice. She despised herself for giving in to self-pity, but still the tears welled. Amid the gaiety around her, her tears seemed unbearably stupid; she brushed them away angrily. _It's my time of month, that's all 'tis. It's true, what they say; it_ is _a curse._

When she brought herself under control and looked up, he was there: talking to a footman, being pointed in her direction. Even in the dark there was no mistaking him, or escaping him. Quite irrationally, the thought that he was pursuing her left her devastated. One of Mr. Pearson's foxes might have felt the same as it found itself trapped in a rotted log, the sound of barking dogs clamoring in its ears.

"Ah, there you are, Tess," Hillyard said pleasantly. "What an elusive sprite you can be. I've inquired everywhere after you."

"Is your room not perfectly in order then, sir?" she asked dryly.

"I didn't deserve that, Tess. His voice was calm but slightly annoyed.

"In that case, sir, please accept my apology. Naturally I assumed that any inquiries on your part would be of a professional nature." She had drunk the last of her tea; now, with great deliberation, she collapsed the tin cup down, down on itself.

"Well, you assumed wrong. My inquiries are of a simple, humanitarian nature. Good God, Tess—Diamond Jim Brady doesn't get his dukes up as quickly as you! Now: is your ankle any better or not, dammit?"

There was such frustrated good will in his tone that Tess was barely able to keep the smile out of her voice as she answered, "Well—not to say worse, sir. I think it's better. I'm standing here with you, after all."

She _was_ standing there with him. Not only did Tess not feel any pain, she felt suddenly a little lightheaded and free-floating besides.

"I'm delighted, Tess—on both counts."

The aroma of good cigars clung to his jacket. His dark hair was smooth, unmussed. Somehow he did not have the look of a man who had spent the last two hours in compulsive merriment; that pleased Tess, somehow.

"Is the dancing as splendid as the Vanderbilt's new 'cottage,' sir?"

"You're asking the wrong man, Tess. I've scarely noticed. It's just another ball," he added. "Same orchestras; same roses; same silly cotillion danced by the same frivolous debutantes. Same family fortunes being compared and merged. Same idleness. Same emptiness."

"Same shortage of men, sir?" she asked mischievously. It was a notorious problem at Newport balls.

"Ah, Tess, you've hit on it there. They may not need me to break any hearts, but they _damn_ well need me to keep the ballgowns twirling."

Surprised at his bitterness, she said, "And yet there seem to be a great many naval officers present."

"Ah, yes, the military. Neat, precise; can be counted on to smile pleasantly and round out the guest list—same class of fellow as me."

"You're being very hard on yourself, sir."

"Not nearly hard enough. I shouldn't even be here," he said flatly.

"Oh, I know _,_ sir," she agreed, misinterpreting his remark. "It was very kind of you to inquire about my—" She paused to remember which part of her had been injured, it seemed so long ago. "—my ankle; but of course I understand."

"No, no—not here with _you._ I mean I shouldn't even be in Newport. It's an absurd, irritating town: a matriarchal society, run by and for women."

"Excuse me, sir. 'Matriar ....'"

"The men in Newport society, Tess, have neither dignity nor, for all I know, the right to vote. That's what 'matriarchal' means. It's demeaning to move about in such company. And the women here _are_ insufferable: insensitive, callous. Shockingly ignorant. Inarticulate."

"Why do you stay on, then?" she asked, taken aback. It was fashionable to speak of boredom with one's set; but _this ...._

He shrugged. "I stay because people ask me to. I've been with various acquaintances—I dare not call them 'friends' after that little diatribe—for the last several weeks. But it's pointless to stay on. I've been invited to New York to view the America's Cup races next month, but since there is no greater abomination than wallowing aimlessly in the ocean as part of a spectator fleet, I think I'll pass. I'll probably finish out the season in Saratoga."

"Oh. You have a house there?"

"I have a friend there."

"Oh. Are ... are the ladies in Saratoga so much more clever than in Newport, then?"

She had not meant the question to amuse him, but apparently it did, because he tapped her nose lightly with his forefinger and said, "In a strange way they are, lass. There is less hypocrisy. The men have their horses and their women-friends and—well, their amusements, in short. And their wives either put up with it or they don't set foot in the resort."

"Does that mean that Saratoga is pa ... patriar-chal?" she ventured timidly.

His dark eyes lifted over a smile. "Right you are, Tess."

"Mrs. Winward would never go there then, I suppose," she said wistfully. Mrs. Winward was definitely matriarchal.

He laughed out loud, which made the footmen's heads turn and Tess blush a shade of red nearly as deep as her hair.

"Out of the mouths of babes ..." Hillyard began. "Ah, Tess, you're a southwest breeze, fresh and cool from the ocean. I'd love to stay and talk to you all night, but I dare not miss the next cotillion." He pulled out a gold watch on a fob and angled it toward a lighted window. "Oh damn, late! Hell to pay now. Tess—" He took Tess's hand, and she yanked it away instantly, which made him laugh again. "A true sou'wester, you are. I must talk to you again. Soon. I'm delighted you don't hurt anymore. Good night."

Even before his form was swallowed up by darkness, one of the maids, young, rippling with envy, sidled up to Tess. "Aiming our bow a bit high nowadays, aren't we? Peter Boot will be interested to know of this little tit-a-tit, I think."

"I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

The maid laughed. "That's funny. In the halls they say you're too smart by half. But I guess I can tell them different, then."

"I don't see that it's your business to tell anyone anything," Tess answered, distressed. "I don't even know your name."

"Name's not important, miss. What I just seen _is._ Well, if you'll excuse me, miss. I have to get back to my own kind _."_ The maid dropped into an exaggerated curtsy and hurried back to a small knot of servants. Her sneering giggle sliced the darkness between Tess and them.

_Newport._ What else could you expect from a town devoted to idle pursuit? Everyone, from the wealthiest mistress to the lowliest scullery maid, was contaminated by the atmosphere. Tradesmen, shopkeepers—no one was immune. Everyone was jealous of everyone else, and a meanspiritedness seemed to lie over the town like a damp July fog. _It's because Newport is in America,_ Tess decided. Castles and servants in breeches belonged in England, but not in Newport.

"It's unnatural," she whispered, and re-entered the mansion. She had hours still to think about it.

****

It was five in the morning and Tess, sleepy-eyed and nursing a secret and quite irrational happiness, was removing the last of the pins from Cornelia's honey-blond hair.

Cornelia was even happier than Tess.

"Perfect! It was a perfect, divine evening, the best ball I've ever attended. Poor silly Isabel, having to pass it up. Oh Tess, it was wonderful! Could you hear the orchestra? Some said Alva Vanderbilt's ballroom at Marble House was grander, but that's ridiculous. What could possibly surpass perfection? If I snapped at you, Tess, I didn't mean to. But I was so nervous, and with good reason. I met—well, the most extraordinary—well, he's just—oh! So handsome, with such wonderful manners, and he dances—his eyes are piercingly blue—and wavy hair. Well! Everyone just— _stared_ at us, Tess. He claimed every waltz! Just tore up my card! I suppose we behaved scandalously," she finished with delicious satisfaction.

In Marie's absence Tess seemed to have been suddenly promoted to confidante. "He sounds quite wonderful, Miss Cornelia," she agreed, amused by her own new status. "Has he been in Newport all season?"

"Of course not! I would've noticed him instantly. And I daresay I wouldn't have escaped _his_ attention either," she added coyly. "No, he's just arrived from—" Her eyebrows tilted in a beguiling effort to repeat the name of his birthplace. "—from ... Nasdrovia? Is that how he pronounced it? It was rather hard, you see; his accent is enchantingly thick. Anyway, it's someplace in a northern Baltic country, I think. He owns millions of acres or whatever they measure land in. Oh Tess—I've got myself a baron!"

#  Chapter 7

Tess felt a keen disappointment the next day when Mrs. Bracken informed her that she was to be relieved of her temporary duty as a chambermaid. Now there was virtually no chance of her ever seeing Edward Hillyard.

Maggie, to whom Tess had blurted the events of the night before, was sympathetic. "It's a crying shame, if you ask me, when a decent woman can't have two minutes' conversation with a gentleman that's interested in her simple welfare without folks staring. Is this America or isn't it?"

"You know, I thought that last night, Mag. In Wrexham everyone was kinder, more relaxed about who they were. But here! Everyone walks around all puffed up, and they'd as soon boot you off the hill as let you come up and share the view."

"It's true, it's true," Maggie said with a sigh. "That's why your Mr. Hillyard is so to be revered. Tess," Maggie said, taking her sister's hand in her own, "you _must_ see him—just as he asks."

"But _how,_ Maggie? Where? And most important of all—why? Last night was a fairy tale, no more true than—"

"Than the pretty stories you make up about me? Oh no, Tessie; last night was _real._ No one can ever take it away from you."

"Take _what_ away, Mag? A few kind words? I've seen a gentleman more worked up about an injury to his favorite hunter. And yet ...."

"Tell me, Tess. And yet what?"

"And yet I want to know the ... _nature_ ... of his interest. I'm sure I'm a fool, and yet I have to know."

"Tessie, anything's possible. Wasn't it no more than three hours ago that Bridget told me Mrs. Ellerhaus's eldest son has fallen madly in love with his youngest sister's governess and taken her away?"

Tess had been peeling an apple for her sister with a pearl-handled purse knife that Lady Meller had given her for her sixteenth birthday. Shocked, Tess stopped mid-peel and said, "I don't believe it! To marry?"

"Well—not to say _marry,_ necessarily. Although, who knows? This _is_ America, Tess. Anything can happen in America. Isn't that why Father brought us all here, after all?" she finished timidly.

The fact was, Maggie, like their mother, had never felt comfortable with her family's emigration. She had allowed herself to be persuaded by her younger sister's enthusiasm: Tess, their father, and young Will had among them carried the day. And now that they were here, each of the Morans was reacting predictably to the pressures inherent in a land of opportunity. Emigration had killed Mrs. Moran and crushed Maggie; but it had fascinated young Will, seduced Mr. Moran, and ensnared Tess in ways she never could have imagined.

The week after the Morans were processed through Ellis Island, Tess's father, cocky and ebullient, had taken his children to see the Liberty Colossus in New York Harbor. High up inside the statue's torch, the Morans had been presented with a vista that had inspired thousands upon thousands of newcomers before them. But Maggie had shut her eyes and refused to look out, convinced that the torch was going to break off from all their weight and fall into the ocean. Tess herself had remained captivated and profoundly silent, while her father and young Will had jabbered on about ships and states and foreign trade. The males, at least, were ready for anything.

"I miss Will," said Tess suddenly to Maggie as she finished coring the apple and handed her sister half. "Margaret Mary Moran! What if I were to sweet-talk Bridget into giving you the afternoon? Would you like to come see Father and Will with me?"

"If you can do that, Tess, you've got the gift of blarney sure," Maggie answered with a grim smile. Bridget wanted everything done yesterday; Maggie was methodical and careful, but she was slow.

"You just watch me, my timid little turtle." And Tess flew off to negotiate two hours' freedom for her sister. The price was high: a fine lace handkerchief. But Tess didn't care. She craved a dose of her father's anything's-possible optimism.

"There now!" Tess's voice was triumphant as she flung open the door to their little garret room.

The smile died on her lips. Maggie had crawled between the covers, flushed and exhausted.

"What's happened? Mother of God, what is it?"

"Just a little ... fit, is all," said Maggie with a faint smile. "It will pass. Bridget ...?"

"Bridget said _fine_ to the afternoon off."

Maggie cleared the phlegm from her throat. "I don't believe it."

"Well, you'd better believe it. A cup of tea, and away we go," she said gently but without much hope. Maggie wasn't going anywhere that afternoon.

"Fine ... yes, tea ...."

Her eyes fluttered closed, and in another moment she was asleep. It was the best thing for her, Tess knew, so she left her asleep to make her way down to the waterfront. The weather was fine, the distance not far. Less than half a mile separated Bellevue Avenue from the waterfront, but every foot down the hill marked a drop of several thousand dollars' annual income for its inhabitants as the widely spaced Bellevue mansions of the great financiers quickly gave way to the comfortable clapboard houses of Newport's captains and merchants. Still farther down, the series of streets that connected Spring Street to Thames turned into little more than lanes, along which the shingled cottages of fishermen and mill workers were packed cheek to jowl. No carriage houses here; day workers couldn't afford horses. Nor had the fishermen any use for them; their boats—their first loves—were a mere spitting distance away.

The fishermen's cottages and shacks were home to the wives, but not to their men, obviously. Curtains were clean, but chimneys needed tucking; windows were washed, but roofs needed shingling. If any hand tilled the bits and patches of soil under the marigolds and herbs, it belonged to a woman whose man simply passed through their bed between trips to sea.

The fishermen without families sometimes rented out their houses while they were away. William Moran had managed to find such a place for young Will and him, and that made it possible for the elder William to find a job.

Tess dropped down to Thames, a crowded, bustling street lined with boat shops and bakers, cigar stores and bookstores, hat shops, liquor stores and produce marts, newspaper offices, druggists and dry goods shops. If you had money to spend, borrow, or deposit, you could probably do it on Thames Street.

Crossing Thames, Tess made her way toward Waite's Wharf and her father's place. The house was less a cottage than a shack, less a home than a shelter, tucked between a dark, ill-equipped chandlery and a small fish market and cordage shop. The shingles on the weather side had been blown off long ago, and sheets of tin had been hammered over the skeleton. The roof quite obviously leaked; Tess could see that the south-facing eaves beneath it had rotted away. If the shack had ever been painted, it was not in Tess's lifetime.

Lifting her skirts slightly, Tess treaded gingerly over a load of quahog shells that had been recently spread but not yet crushed by the wheels of passing wagons into a ground cover of small white pieces; the area reeked of the decaying shellfish. Fishermen passed Tess, staring; a wagon driver whistled and smacked his lips provocatively. Tess had got clear directions from her brother a few days ago, but he had not prepared her for the coarseness of it all, and she winced.

_I have grown used to the splendor of Bellevue Avenue,_ she thought critically. _I would rather not know that this part of town exists._ There was nothing so wrong with the waterfront, but it was a man's part of the world, without either glamour or softness. She wasn't afraid, but she felt out of place.

The door to the shack was of tongue-in-groove pine, warped and peeling and with a broken latch. Tess knocked and it swung inward.

"Father? Will?"

From within a pleasant baritone said, "Tess, is it? Come in, girl. And about time too."

Tess opened her eyes wide, trying to adjust to the dimly lit room—for it was no more than that. A cot and a straw mat placed end to end along one wall, and a table and two rickety chairs along the other, justified the landlord's claim that the house came furnished. A small filthy window let in just enough light to let Tess see, after a while, that her father was finishing his midday meal in a chipped and battered bowl. The dogs at Beau Rêve ate from better crockery.

Tess kissed her father shyly on his cheek and asked, "Where's young Will, Father?"

"Ah-ha! Wouldn't you just like to know," he said with the childlike good humor that she associated with him. "There's news at this end, girl. Will has got employ as a ball-boy at the Casino. What do you say to that now, hey?"

"I say that's good news indeed," said Tess, drawing up the other wobbly chair and sitting down gingerly on it. "Because I don't think Maggie will be kept on much longer as laundry maid."

"Well, if you get down to it, I never should've left you two up there, any more than I'd leave young Will to fend for hisself in the streets. A man's obliged to his family, and no mistake." He rubbed the back of his neck with a huge, calloused palm the way he had of doing whenever the world outside did not conform to the one inside his head. "Ah, well, no matter, really. Things'll work their way through. So you think Mag will be coming home, then?"

"Home?" The word sat like a stone on her tongue as she looked around her.

"It's true, the place needs a woman's touch," her father agreed sheepishly. "Knicky-knacks and such. But girl, I've been damned _busy_ at the smithy's. It's uphill work, all the way. Still, the place has a future for me, Tess." He folded one massive arm over the other on the table, which immediately disappeared. "I see me own business down the road a piece. Maybe a partnership; then, someday, all mine. See if I'm wrong."

She stared at him. _Here we go again,_ she thought. "Oh? How will you manage it, Father?" she asked him aloud. Always before, Tess had humored her father's sanguine moods, falling in with his endless happy forecasts of prosperity and good times for the Morans. For the first half of her life he'd convinced her that they would one day own a dairy farm; for the last half, he'd had his heart and high hopes set on being master of a river barge. He knew nothing of animal husbandry and less of navigation, but who cared? There was time enough to learn, time enough to save, and meanwhile—plenty of time to dream.

But the sands were running low; somehow Tess had to make her father see the peril they were all in. _"How will you manage it?"_ she repeated, nearly shouting. "Has Mr. Needham given you a raise? Or promised you a share? Has he given you a man to work under you, or started teaching you to keep the books? Has he adopted you or made you his heir?"

William Moran, taken aback by his daughter's vehemence, said, "What's this now? Am I in the dock for some crime I didn't commit?"

"But you _are_ guilty, Father—of putting stars in my eyes, and Will's. Now we must flush them out as best we may, and get on with the ... the everyday of our lives. Maybe Maggie was right; we should never have left Ireland. There's nothing for us here."

Tess listened to her own voice and heard something in her heart snap, like a twig underfoot in a dark, needle-lined forest: it was her dreams of Edward Hillyard.

"Don't you _understand,_ Father?" she went on, determined to get through to him this time. "You can't slice a dream the way you would a loaf of bread; you can't cover yourself with a dream on a cold night, the way you would with a blanket. Not another word of partnerships or ownerships or anything else! You and Will and I are the able ones; we must among us feed and care for Maggie. Three to care for one. We can do that. We must!"

"Maggie's no better, then?" he asked timidly, as if reality were just dawning on him.

Tess felt as though she'd thrown a pail of water over a songbird in its cage. "It comes and goes," she lied, and in a kinder, softer voice: "The work's too much for her at Beau Rêve. Without it she would get better."

"She's too damn good for that crazy house, anyway," her father muttered, making a fist. "We'll have her back where she belongs. And what about you, Tess? Come home, girl. You can find work as a casual. Or you could take in a little laundry of your own. Or be a nurse! There's money to be made—"

"Stop, stop!" Tess's laugh was half a wail. "Until we find that pot of gold, we'd best stay where we are and save what we can. I want you to promise."

She took hold of her father's huge hand, with its permanently blackened and crushed thumbnail, its scars from hundreds of flying embers. "Promise me," she repeated, lifting her gaze to his face. His hair had lately become shot with gray, and she noticed that one eyebrow was scorched.

He looked uncomfortable, then looked away. " 'Tisn't right to make me promise. If something came up—"

"Then at least promise you'll talk to me first."

He sighed. "What a meddlesome female you are, Tess. What a hard woman. All right. My word. But it isn't _right_ for a father to have to answer to his daughter. I can't say I like it and that's the God's truth."

Tess smiled her most distracting smile. "Tell me about young Will."

Her father took the bait. "Have you not heard about the trouble at the Casino, then?"

"Nothing at all," she answered. "Has something happened to the Tennis Tournament there?"

"It was very nearly canceled, is all. Here's the most important match of the tournament all set to go, and them heathens who calls 'emselves ball-boys demands a raise or out on strike they go. That very day! So the manager throws the lot of 'em out, and rightly so, and then hurries the word to Father Timothy among others that he needs replacements. It was a blessed hour that found young Will playing stickball behind the convent. Not thirty minutes after, off he goes to a paying job."

"Good for Will! But ... won't there be trouble with the striking ball-boys?"

"My very thought! It don't pay to fool with the radical element nowadays. But Will says except for a cry or two of 'scab' when he went in, it was peaceable enough. Well, you know how boys are." He chuckled to himself. "I did my share of name-calling back in old Eire. Oh, yes."

"Well, then," Tess said, relieved, "that's good news to offset the bad. It's like the other week, when you were let go, but I was moved up, and now you're up and so is Will. Well—it all balances out, doesn't it? I suppose there are times I worry too much." She looked around her. "I do wish I had time to clean this place up before I go off to see Will," she added. "Really, Father, it's such—"

"Don't say it. A mess."

"A _big_ mess! I'll bring rags and soap and some newsprint to clean the window. Do you have a bucket? And for heaven's sake, fix this broken floorboard. Rats can come and go like travelers on a train," she said, peering into a dark hole under the floor.

"Lord, you truly are meddlesome. Where do you get it from, I wonder?"

She looked up at him and grinned. "Straight from your sister Teresa."

"Ah, there may be something to that," he said, surveying his daughter carefully for the first time in a long while. "Same high cheekbones—funny as I've never taken notice before—but your eyes are brighter, though that may be youth. Your hair's thicker—again, youth. Your mouth's quite your own, in more ways than one, o' course. Turn to the side, girl."

Tess did. "Ha! There 'tis. Teresa all over. Same damn belligerent chin. The Lord preserve us all."

****

Tess felt a little brazen to be outside without a parasol, especially so when she reached the top of the hill on Bellevue Avenue and spied a group of young debutantes clustered in front of the Newport Casino dressed entirely and elegantly in white, with perfectly matched lace parasols, exquisite hats, and elbow-length kid gloves (their first pair of the day), all calculated to compete with the genteel matches taking place on the lawn courts within.

Something about the Casino intimidated Tess. Built in over a decade earlier by James Gordon Bennett, Jr., after he was nearly thrown out of the exclusive Newport Reading Room for having goaded a friend into riding his horse onto the club's piazza, the Casino instantly became a place to see and be seen. Tess ducked down a side lane, intending to ask for her brother at the back entrance.

But at the back entrance, too, there was a small group gathered. These were all men. All things considered, they were less intimidating than the women, and so Tess began boldly to walk in their direction. She wasn't aware of the landau behind her until its driver yelled, "Hey there, out of the way!" in an urgent voice and trotted his horse within a few feet of where she was walking.

Curious, Tess watched as the landau came to a stop alongside the huddle of men, who broke apart to reveal at their center a litter which lay on the ground. Someone was on it, injured, and Tess wondered, as bystanders do, how badly the victim was hurt. It was an awkward time to make inquiries about her brother; Tess was about to retreat and return to Beau Rêve when she heard one of the men say in an important voice, "All right, boys, easy up now. Don't tip it."

But the two who were lifting the injured person did tip the litter, slightly, and a scrap of red slipped off it and fell to the ground. Tess identified the object without thinking: it was a cap, a boy's golf cap. It cost twenty-three cents at Sullivan's on Parade Corner, and it had been the only red cap in a stack of gray, brown, and blue ones. Young Will had wanted it desperately, and Tess had said no, it would show dirt too easily, but Will had got around her by going straight to the top, and his father had said, "Boy wants a spot of color on 'im, let 'im have it." Tess had teased Will about it all the way home, calling him a cheeky little showoff, and Will had laughed.

"Will," Tess whispered, running up to the litter as the two men struggled without success to lay the litter across the carriage.

"Won't work," said a third. "Lift him off and over to me."

" _Will._ "

The official turned around. "And who might you be, miss?"

"That's my brother!" cried Tess, horrified to see a trickle of blood drying on the side of Will's head. There was no smile, no bright-eyed mischief in his wan face; it was so unlike him to be expressionless that Tess, for one insane moment, convinced herself that it was someone else's face. Anyone else's face.

"Will Moran is your brother?" asked the official.

"I _said_ he was, didn't I?" Tess cried. She climbed into the landau and took her brother from the man who was holding him.

"What happened, what happened?" she asked, cradling him and gently lifting aside the thick black hair that covered his wound.

Some of the other men had backed away a respectful step or two, but all eyes were on Tess. A well-dressed man, graying and with a pale, long face, began to speak, but the tournament official interrupted him.

"Never mind, Dr. Lamer. No need to drag you into this. The boy was hit with a rock, young woman, thrown by some ragamuffin in the street. It might have been one of the ball-boys on strike. Whoever it was got away, though inquiries are being made. I must hasten to add that the ruffian was _not_ on the Casino premises at the time of the incident, and the Casino does not hold itself responsible. If he _was_ a ball-boy, he must have broken away from the pack on Bellevue Avenue and followed your brother around to the back."

He paused, cleared his throat, and added, "It occurs to me that the bright cap made your brother's head into an irresistible bull's-eye."

"It occurs to _me,_ Mr. Thickwaite, that the cap may have prevented a worse injury," interrupted Dr. Larner. He turned to Tess and said, "My carriage will take the boy home. It's good you came on the scene. I can't leave the tournament, but I've arranged for another physician to look in on him. Dr. Wilkes may have trouble finding your house—no one seems quite certain where Will lives—so keep an eye out for his arrival," he added in a voice of kind authority.

"Yes ... yes, I'll post someone. What else can I do? When will my brother come out of this? Will he be all right after? How long—?"

"We have to wait and see, my dear. There's very little we can do except see that he's kept warm and comfortable." To the driver Dr. Larner said, "Take it slow, Jeremy. No wild horseracing down Levin Street, mind you. Nice and slow." He turned to the tournament official and said, "Well, Mr. Thickwaite. Now that you've established that the Casino is not responsible, I believe your business here is done." He inclined his arm toward the tennis courts, and Mr. Thickwaite had no choice but to fall in behind him. One last sympathetic grimace by Dr. Larner to Tess, and the party broke up.

Tess directed the driver to take Bellevue Avenue rather than Levin Street; society had by now abandoned their carriages for their conservatories and high tea, and the Avenue was the smoother, faster route. The driver, filled with self-importance, screamed at everyone within hearing range to make way, make way, as he headed south. Tess held her brother close, compensating for the bounces of the carriage wheels. Each new bump jolted her into deeper, hotter anger.

_Lord, what is it you want from us?_ she whispered, her head bent low over her brother. _Is there no one else to amuse you? No one else for you to toy with? Leave us alone, will you? Play your cruel little jokes on someone else._

She encircled Will more tightly, intent on warding off the malevolent God that seemed to be pursuing them _._

"Will, wake up," she said softly. It sounded so normal, like rousing him from a nap. "Are you awake?" She stared blankly at his pale face: peaceful, undisturbed, in a spellbound sleep.

"Oh, _leave_ us," she whispered to no one, the tears rolling down her face.

#  Chapter 8

The night that followed was a twisted hallucination, filled with wandering demons and long-lost emotions. Mourning came: the devastating sense of loss for her mother that Tess had been too seasick to feel at her death. And guilt, for having hated her mother at her trial in Wrexham for petty thievery. And sorrow, too: for Maggie's youth being eaten up by disease. Frustration: that with all her strength, Tess was powerless to help. But mostly Tess felt overwhelming pity, because that was all she had to give.

A sooty lamp flickered and died somewhere in the dingy room, lighting nothing but adding its noxiousness to the acrid air. Will lay still unconscious on the dirty, unmade bed. His father was cradling his head in his vast arms on the table, snoring lightly. Tess, stiff and sore from her vigil in the rickety chair she'd placed next to Will's bed, was bent over double, her head dropped between her knees, stretching her spine. Demons leave at dawn, leaving numbness behind.

****

"Ow-w! Who ... ow-w ... hit me?" They were his first words, full of bravado and pain.

"Will!" Lightheaded, Tess fell to her knees on the floor alongside her brother's bed. "Dear Will—someone threw a stone at you. Father, wake up," she called softly.

"A stone! Oh-h—what a dirty trick," Will said weakly. "And I know who—Billy Corcoran, that dirty rat." He moaned and rolled his head a little. "Ow—it feels like my head's been through a mangler .... " He tried to get up. "Wait'll I get—"

"Back down, boy," his father interrupted in a severe voice completed unrelated to the look of love on his face. "Plenty o' time for vengeance after. You give us a turn, you did," he added gruffly, approaching the bed.

Tess allowed herself, at last, to burst into tears.

"Gee whiz, Tess—it ain't anything," her brother protested feebly.

But Tess continued to sob, and no one could comfort her.

****

"I suppose you expect me to believe that? What will you use for an excuse the next time you stay out all night? That your father's been shot in a duel?" Cornelia Winward tapped a satin shoe on a parquet floor, not at all amused.

"It's the truth, ma'am. Will nearly died. Even now the doctor says he must be watched carefully."

"And at this rate he shall have more than enough around him to do that. You're very close to a dismissal," Cornelia added angrily. She brought her forefinger within a hair's width of her thumb. _"This_ close. If Marie hadn't been here, who on earth would've attended me? I don't feel I can trust you at all, Tessie. Your loyalties are ill-placed. Perhaps you're too young for this. I really think you're too young."

Tess drew a deep, slow breath. Should she fight for this wretched position? Did she have a choice? She exhaled slowly. "Of course I feel differently. I—" A knock interrupted her.

"Ah, Marie! Good." To Tess Cornelia said, "There's a rather elaborate picnic planned today; Marie will be accompanying me. Perhaps a quiet afternoon of reflection will allow you to put things in a better perspective," she suggested in a voice filled with meaning. "You might look over the ecru satin gown. I tore it last night learning a new mazurka. They do it differently—oh, never mind. See if the gown can be salvaged, but I'm sure it cannot. Do hurry, Marie."

Marie, pretty, dark, with a Frenchwoman's expressiveness. rolled her eyes at Tess and fell in behind her mistress.

Tess was left alone, with sewing to last her a week. (Cornelia was very hard on her wardrobe, having learned early on that a little well-placed sabotage worked just as well as begging and pleading all the time for new gowns.) Tess took up the torn dress, an off-white satin gown with fine lace appliqué spilling over the shoulders into a free fall down the back, over the bustle, and along the edge of the train. The tear, a diagonal rent across the fabric, was obvious. Tess thought about it for a while, at length deciding to sew appliquéd lace of a complementary design over the rip, though it meant introducing the new pattern randomly throughout the fall of lace. It would require hours, even days, of handsewing, but the gown was an exquisite piece of art, and Tess was determined to save it.

_Or am I really doing this simply out of malice?_ she wondered. _To thwart her?_ She laid the dress flat on a table in Cornelia's dressing room and smiled. _Probably._

After an hour of planning and sketching, she was ready to begin the painstaking work of separating lace motifs from the roll of exquisite appliqué that lay folded in tissue in one of a pair of tall French semainiers that stood side by side in the dressing room. Tess took out the appliqué, then wandered over to a small lead-paned window which opened out onto the manicured grounds.

Two elderly guests were touring the garden, companionably arm in arm, sharing a parasol. A small terrier trotted busily ahead of the ladies, then returned to shepherd them forward, determined to keep his touring party together and safe. The morning was perfect, another pearl strung onto a necklace of fine days, and Tess decided to take her work outside to her favorite bench in the servants' yard. The servants' yard was tiny, it was true, but much grander houses then Beau Rêve had no yard at all for their staffs. Space in fashionable Newport was dear; the whole of Aquidneck Island could have been dropped into the park of one large country house in England. Tess had been spoiled by Wrexham, but fortunately for her, her American employer was an outdoor enthusiast who firmly believed that fresh air was necessary to cleanse the body and make it more energetic.

Tess settled into an iron and pine bench tucked among high hedges and took up her scissors and the lace from her sewing basket. The work was so pleasant, the day so warm, and her daydreams so sweetly melancholy, that two hours passed as one.

The afternoon was in its most languid phase when Bridget rushed up to her and asked, "Have you seen Peter Boot?"

Tess shook her head and Bridget hurried on, but the thought that Peter Boot might be in the area made Tess reluctantly begin to gather up her things. The sound of a man's footfall on the path startled her into a panic; she stuffed the lace into her basket and jumped up, ready for flight.

"You're _here,_ Tess!"

Edward Hillyard was dressed, this time, in white flannels and a beautifully cut double-breasted blazer, with a yachting cap in one hand. In the bright sunlight the tips of his sun-bleached hair and even his mustache shone as brass as the buttons of his jacket. He was an outdoor dilettante, tan and fit and urbane all at the same time, an eminently decorative guest.

"Of course I'm here," Tess answered rather calmly, despite the knockdown that her heart had taken. "Where else would I be?"

"Down at the wharves, of course. I heard one maid tell another that the 'Moran girl' had gone to see her 'busted-up brother' somewhere near Howard's Wharf."

"Maggie Moran, that would be. My sister."

"Ah. Well—you're looking wonderfully serene. I assume that means your brother is mending nicely?"

"He seems to be." Serene! Her emotions were dragging her like a runaway horse.

"Good. In any case, if your sister had chosen to look out her brother's window, she would've spied a nattily dressed yachtsman skulking around the wharf like a water rat. That would be your servant, ma'am," he said with a bow and a flourish of his cap.

"But why?" The words floated from her, soft as the flight of a butterfly.

He shrugged. "Why. Who can say why? I'm bored, you interest me, the picnic was a fiasco—"

"Oh yes, the picnic. Miss Cornelia did say it was going to be 'rather elaborate,'" Tess interrupted, mostly for something to say.

Because he was just standing there, twirling his hat, or trying to. His dark brows were pulled together in concentration as he managed a wobbly circle. For one silly instant he looked like an eager, intelligent puppy, which endeared him to her.

He stopped, grinned, tossed the hat up, caught it by its visor and said, "Oh, it was an elaborate picnic, all right: Team A, which included half a dozen of us nautical types, was to take a new and completely experimental gasoline-powered yacht over to Price's Neck, there to anchor off and join forces ashore with Team B and several magnums—or is that 'magna'?—of champagne and mountains of pâté. I predict great things for the internal combustion engine, but not quite yet. Anyway, the damn thing sputtered and died around Castle Hill, and we were towed back by a steam yacht and flung up on one of the piers like the catch _du jour._ Give me a sturdy mainsail and a halyard to hoist it with anytime. End of picnic plan. Can you sit?"

"I can," she said with an impish look, "but I think the others may consider that you're trespassing."

"Ouch. Tossed out on my flannels by the servant class, no less. Ah well—may I walk with you a bit?"

"I don't think so." Her voice, soft and blurred, sounded unconvincing. "Why are you in our yard?" Clearly it wasn't to seek her out.

"My dear young woman, I'm ashamed to say. We're playing an inane version of hide and seek; the first three men to be found by the first three women have to exchange clothes with them. Some of them, anyway. It's absurd. Miss Cornelia's idea. She considered she was being brilliantly original, I suppose."

Tess and Hillyard had begun sauntering—technically, it was true, it could not be called walking—toward the entrance to the yard. Tess, dressed in her uniform of black, would have liked just once to be wearing white, extravagant and elegant and gay. She wanted the luxury of being able to laugh in the company of this man. To tease him. To be arch and clever and coy. But a maddening sense of propriety would not let her.

"So you are hiding from a game of hide and seek," she said wistfully.

"Which you would not, I gather? Am I to take it you enjoy games and amusements?"

"Oh, yes—in Wrexham we seemed to do so much more of that than here. And dancing, too. I love to dance. More than once Lady Meller and even Sir Meller surprised us in the hall and joined us in a romp around the floor."

You make England sound very democratic," he said blandly. "And yet when I was privileged to visit a very fine country house in Suffolk the year before last, it did not seem so to me. I would be walking through the house, minding my own business, and if I happened to come upon a servant—bam! Face to the wall she would go, flattening herself away from me. What do you say to that? And why are you so protective of the British, anyway? You're Irish, after all."

"I'm from the south," she said quietly. "There is not the hostility there. In any case, Lady Meller was always extremely kind to my family and me. I have no cause to resent the English."

"Then why did you leave?"

Tess looked away. "Father is adventurous," she answered lamely. After a pause she added, "There was some trouble. We had no choice."

"The fault could not have been yours," he said gently.

"What difference does it make? If there _is_ bad blood, it runs through all our veins. It will out; if not now, then later." She reined herself in, too late.

"What a preposterous idea! I suppose it comes from being Catholic, this sense of doom and gloom. Here you are, a beautiful woman with a gentle manner and a thoughtful mind—and yet, you seem to consider yourself worthless at best, a possible rogue at worst."

"Not at all!"

"Why bother to deny it? You have let your own good opinion of yourself be destroyed by the g _randes dames_ of Newport!"

"Ha. Not only by the women," she objected good-naturedly.

"But _mostly_ the women. They have the power to grind their husbands to dust—men with the will and the resources to buy and sell half the planet. Where does that leave _you_ in their regard? I'll tell you: to them you're less than human, an assembly of muscle and bone shipped to Newport for their convenience, along with the china and the plate."

"I see." Her eyes glittered, glazed over with tears. "And I suppose you are doing your utmost to raise my sense of self- worth."

"Admittedly, that was my intention," he said, suddenly conscious of his own vehemence. "I take it I've failed?"

"All in all, I think I prefer Miss Cornelia's cruelty to your kindness. But thank you for—well, for nothing," she said, suddenly angry with him for pointing out what every single day she tried to ignore. "Surely I'm keeping you? Is there not a box somewhere for you to stand on, a speech to make, a revolution to organize? That is, assuming you can find the time to tear yourself away from your picnics and your paté. Good afternoon, sir." She turned on her heel.

"Wait." He held her back, and his touch, electrically intense, sent her spinning back to him.

"What? What do you want?"

"To prove that you are equal to the best that Newport has to offer. You've accused me of being a dilettante, a hypocrite. All right! Then give me a chance to redeem my words. There is to be a servants' ball tomorrow night at The Ledge. Will you let me take you to it?"

The invitation staggered her. She hedged her answer. "A servants' ball? Like those we have on Boxing Day? Eh ... I've never heard of one in America. And, eh-h, it isn't Christmas."

"This is the Newport version," he said with a grim smile. "Will you go?"

"I ... I don't know. I've heard nothing about it—"

"Nor will you. It's a very exclusive, very secret affair. In fact, I want you to tell absolutely no one about this. There would be much hard feeling if you did."

A young woman's voice, clear, musical, edged with impatience, rang out somewhere on the other side of the hedges. "Edward! Oh Ed-ward! We give up. Come out, wherever you are."

Hillyard ignored it. "Will you go, Tess?" He held her by her wrist. The movement of his jaw, his short breath, his furrowed brow—all belied his earlier, offhand manner.

"Ed-ward! Where are you _?"_

"They'll find you here with me," she whispered, aghast.

"Not in a million years. Yes or no Tess?"

Her eyes dropped from his. "Yes, then."

"Excellent."

"But when—"

"I'll be in touch."

****

And he was, the next day. A small package, addressed in a careless hand, came for Tess. The housekeeper delivered it personally.

"How are you getting on with Miss Cornelia, Tess?" asked Mrs. Bracken in a casual way.

If Mrs. Bracken didn't know, then Cornelia Winward hadn't told her. "Very well indeed, Mrs. Bracken. Splendidly."

"Marie leaves the day after next, does she not? If Miss Cornelia feels, as apparently you do, that the term of probation was a success, you will be moving into the bedroom next to hers and will begin to take your meals in my room with the other senior servants."

"Thank you, ma'am. I shall look forward to it."

"And how are the family coming along?" the housekeeper asked in a voice bristling with efficiency.

It seemed incredibly nervy of her to ask, and Tess gave her a long, cool stare before answering in a soft voice, "As well as can be expected, ma'am. These are hard times."

"Yes. Well, I'm sure it's all for the best."

"Mrs. Bracken, about tonight—" Tess said, unsure how to begin.

"So you've already heard about the holiday?" interrupted Mrs. Bracken, annoyed. "Gossip simply tears through this house! Yes, you have the evening off. Miss Cornelia will not return to Beau Rêve tonight. As for the ball, I'm against the whole idea, from start to finish. It makes a mockery of our profession in an age that can ill afford it."

"Do you think so, ma'am? I think it will lift our spirits no end, especially coming as it does at the end of a hectic season ..."

The housekeeper fixed Tess with a withering look. "What an odd opinion!" And she left Tess thinking exactly the same thing about her.

Back in her room Tess held the hastily wrapped package in her lap as if it were a chest containing the crown jewels. On the front was a five-word address: _Tess Moran, Beau-Rêve, Newport._ No miss, no mademoiselle, of course; no return name. Slowly, lovingly, Tess untied the string as if it were gold braid, unwrapped the plain brown paper as if it were handpainted. The letter was inside the box, under an exquisite silver mask. Marveling, Tess put the mask aside and opened the heavy linen sheet.

"Tess—A hansom cab will pick you up at the corner of Bellevue and Ruggles at nine o'clock. Don't be late. Wear the ordinary day-dress of a lady's maid, and by all means put on the mask. I'll meet you at the entrance, and then we shall have some fun. Yours, etc. Edward Hillyard."

Puzzled but intrigued, Tess held the mask over her face and peered at herself in a small, bone-handled mirror. The mask covered two-thirds of her face. Never before had Tess gone to a servants' ball in masquerade. In England the balls were simple, jolly affairs: on the day after Christmas, Boxing Day, masters and servants changed places for the day, dancing together. Probably that was too straightforward for Newport.

A sound in the hall had Tess slamming the mask into a drawer, then sweeping the wrapping and the letter off the far side of her bed. Maggie entered as Tess swung round on her.

"Tessie, something is amiss in the laundry room," Maggie wailed, oblivious to her sister's embarrassment.

"Seriously amiss? Or just the normal amount?" asked Tess with a distracted smile.

"That's just it—I can't tell," Maggie answered, her eyes wide with apprehension. "There was a new girl poking about in the laundry rooms today. Bridget was taking her everywhere, showing her everything—machines, tubs, racks. Why would she do that if the girl wasn't coming to work here?"

"Which would be grand news for you, miss: less work," Tess answered, knowing full well where her sister's fearful logic was taking her.

"Less work, indeed! She's bound to be replacing me, and then I'll have all the time in the world."

"Don't talk nonsense, Mag. We would have heard."

"Well, it's not as though anyone else has ever been given warning," retorted Maggie, and she threw herself face down on the bed.

Tess sat alongside her sister and rubbed small circles into her lower back. "Mag, this is the merest anthill, and here you go making a mountain out of it. Couldn't the girl have been a friend of Bridget's from another house?"

"No," Maggie answered in a blanket-muffled voice, "or Bridget would've sworn me not to tell. No one's allowed. You know that," she added wearily.

"True enough—but on the other hand, Mrs. Bracken just spoke to me not half an hour ago and told me she was quite satisfied with your work."

If the remark were less than half true, was that a mortal sin?

Maggie rolled over onto her side. "Is that really true?"

"Would I lie?" Definitely a mortal sin.

Maggie rolled the rest of the way onto her back and sighed. "'I feel better, then."

"Good."

"Oh! Have _you_ been given the night off? Some of the chambermaids have, and the groom, and some of the footmen and the under-cook and the scullery maid. It's very odd. The house will be quiet tonight. Well? Have you?"

Obviously Maggie hadn't heard about the ball.

"Ehh ... the truth is, I'm still working on the lace appliqué. Another half-truth; another sin.

"Can't it wait? I have only one underskirt to iron. It shouldn't take me more than three or four hours, and then I'm sure I'll be let go for the night."

"No ... no. Miss Cornelia specifically asked for the gown to be finished as soon as possible." Each lie spawned another.

"Can you work on it here?"

"No. The light is better in her dressing room." That was at least technically true. "I'm sorry, Mag," she said when she saw the look of disappointment on her sister's face. But she had to go to this ball. No matter what, she had to go. It was as simple as that.

Tess changed the subject. "Come now; time for Fellows Syrup and cod liver oil."

"I'd nearly forgotten why I was here," Maggie admitted, but she looked at her sister strangely as she took her medicine with less then her usual grace.

#  Chapter 9

For this Tess lied: so that for two or three hours she might have an opportunity—no guarantee, just a chance—to be waltzed around a floor in the arms of a man with whom she could not possibly have a future. So far she had not even allowed herself the luxury of pronouncing his name, and yet this was the man who was quickly becoming her obsession.

"Edward." She whispered the name, shocked by the intimacy of it. "Edward, please ...."

What it was she was pleading for, she had no idea. In an age when girls were very, very innocent or very, very knowledgeable, Tess was a curious mixture of both. On the one hand, Tess had never shared a romantic moment of any kind with anyone in her entire young life. On the other hand, she did understand the mechanics and the consequences of sex: the stableboy who had fondled her at twelve had also, at about the same time, impregnated one of the housemaids at the Meller estate. Although the girl was sent away, she returned, utterly destitute, at the end of her term and threw herself at the mercy of Lady Meller.

The baby was born on the estate but its mother died. Young Tess, who had been sent to the midwife during the delivery with extra towels, had managed to be in the room at the moment when the two souls were delivered, one (as Midwife McCrenna later decreed) to "eternal perdition." The mother had died just before her baby was born, and in the panicky moments when the baby was being eased the rest of the way into the world, no one bothered with the young, wide-eyed girl who was hanging back in the shadows. The last, heartrending screams of the mother and the bloodied result of her labor had frightened Tess into a state of permanent virtue.

Almost permanent. In the last two weeks the memory of that traumatic childbirth had not so much dimmed as it had ceased to exist for Tess. Her mind would not go near the event; it skipped past it, much as a child, whistling resolutely, hurries past a graveyard with eyes averted

Besides, Tess was eighteen now. Her body had a will of its own, and kneeling on rice every night seemed to be doing little to tame it. Tess understood, more or less, about a man's love for a woman, but now she had a handsome face to picture, a voice to recall, a touch to re-live. This was new, and she let herself be drawn into the fantasy of it.

In a trance she pushed a chair against the door, then returned to the dresser drawer, took out the silver mask, and tied it around her face. In a trance she stared at herself in the mirror, lost herself in her deep green eyes, fell in love with herself as she hoped Edward Hillyard might. She became caught up utterly in the dream that was Edward, whispering his name, begging for more, more ....

"Tess! Mother of Mary, what is going on here?" cried Bridget from the other side of the door. "Open up!" She began rattling the doorknob back and forth without success.

Tess was up like a shot, tearing off the mask, removing the chair. She lived in a blessed fishbowl!

"I ... needed the chair to kill a spider," she explained as Bridget marched through.

"And a very big spider it must have been," Bridget said with her usual sarcasm.

"The chair was to _stand_ on, Bridget. Were you looking for me or for Maggie?"

_"You,_ silly. Maggie's in the laundry, finishing some smoothing. Has she told you a kind of holiday has been declared tonight?"

"She did say some had the evening off."

"And now more of us as well. We're going a-promenading in Freebody Park, even Maggie." Bridget lowered her voice. "Something is up. Mrs. Bracken acted queerly when she saw me a bit ago—but nobody can figure out what it is. We thought you might know, being a lady's maid and all." She waited expectantly.

"Miss Cornelia hasn't told me anything, Bridget." When Bridget looked skeptical, Tess added, "Some sort of entertainment is planned, I suppose."

Bridget's look turned frigid. "You don't say. Well—we're all leaving in an hour," she said curtly and left.

Was Tess the _only_ one from Beau Rêve invited to this stupid ball?

She made sure she was well away from the servants' quarters when the round-up for the promenade took place. Before long the house was quiet, and Tess left the safety of Miss Cornelia's dressing room to get ready for what she could not help feeling was a meeting with destiny. Hadn't Cornelia said "Anything can happen at a ball"?

From nowhere visions of Edward Hillyard sprang up before her. All she had to do was stroke the silver mask and he was there for her, with his thick, shining hair and his intense blue eyes. He was easily the most handsome man she'd ever seen, and tonight—well, tonight.

No one was left to notice her as she slipped out of the house and hurried to the corner of Bellevue and Ruggles. There was indeed a cab, facing south. Tess had only the vaguest idea where The Ledge was—she hadn't wanted to give herself away by inquiring—and was prepared to be humiliated by the driver, but he only said, "You the one's goin' to the Ledge shindig?"—and motioned for her to climb in.

Her mask was in her bag; she had no idea when to put it on. She was on such unfamiliar ground. Why the secrecy? Why the impromptu holiday, if the servants hadn't been invited? Tess didn't even know how much the carriage had cost Hillyard. She'd only traveled by trolley—five cents—and reports that a hired carriage cost two dollars or more simply staggered her. Newport! So rich, so jaded, so desperate to do things differently. How unlike the country houses of England. How unlike Wrexham, where the tradition itself was part of the joy. As long as Tess lived, she would never understand American society.

Her musings were interrupted by the clatter of a coach pulling out alongside her cab to pass it. The coachman wore the livery of Mrs. Hamilton Fish, one of the reigning queens of Newport Society. lt was dark and Tess could not tell how many were inside, but she was amazed to see an ordinary scullery maid in her kitchen-cap lean out the window. Obviously some servants were being given royal transportation.

Before long the hansom was pulling into the driveway of The Ledge. An assortment of coaches and carriages preceded them in the drive. Impressed by the kindness extended by some employers to their servants, Tess watched as a motley crowd of valets, chambermaids, cooks, butlers, and grooms descended self-consciously onto the drive, laughing and poking one another.

_I wish Maggie had been invited,_ Tess thought with dismay, scanning the faces for someone she knew. But it was too dark. She was the last to alight. Her cab left, Tess tied on her mask, and then she was at the door, lifting the knocker timidly. The door was opened, and Tess blinked. It was not a footman on the other side of the door but a gentleman's valet, with a feather duster in one hand and a kitchen pail in the other.

With utmost solemnity he bowed and said, "Good evening, madame," and showed Tess inside. Behind the bizarre costume the face looked familiar. A croquet lawn flashed through Tess's brain as she stepped into the hall before him, uncertain what to do.

He was eyeing her in a way no footman would ever dare. "Who shall I say is calling?" he intoned. "No—drat— _whom_ shall I .... No, I was right in the first place: _Who_ shall I say is calling, madame? Or does madame prefer to be known simply as Madame X?" he added, with a little wave of his feather duster toward her mask. His look was roguishly intrigued.

He was not wearing a mask, and neither was anyone else among the servants flitting back and forth behind him.

Confused and gripped by a sense of dread, Tess answered, "I'm not Madame X. My name is Tess Moran." She began to cast around for Edward Hillyard, but by now it had occurred to her that _everybody_ was in servants' dress. The valet—obviously not a valet at all—was stroking his chin with his feather duster, looking thoughtful. Then he snapped back into the pompous attitude of a footman and said, "If Madame Moran will wait here _un moment"_ —and walked over to a heavyset chambermaid who was polishing the floor behind him with broad sweeps of an oversized mop.

Tess felt as though she'd dropped down a rabbit hole into Wonderland. There was something grotesque about everyone's behavior—children run amok in a nursery.

She heard the valet in a loud stage whisper ask the chambermaid, "Have I invited a Miss Tess Moran?"

In a voice full of lemon peels the chambermaid said, "Tess Moran _?_ My dear, I'm sure you'd have remembered. Shall we look her over?"

In the meantime another man dressed in bizarre livery—his blue and gold breeches clashed comically with his maroon waistcoat, and he wore his wig backward—came up to Tess and offered to take her cape.

"Your cape, your cape, I really must have your cape," he insisted, dancing around her like a monkey.

Tess whirled to face him, baffled and frightened. He'd taken other coats, so he must be acting the role of cloakroom attendant. But when he began to reach for the ribbons of her mask, Tess backed away and her cape slipped to the floor. _These people are either drunk or quite mad,_ she thought wildly. _Where is Edward?_

The valet put down his pail and came back to Tess with his cohort the chambermaid. Together they stared with blatant curiosity until Tess felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Other servant-imposters passing gaily through the hall, wondering what new sport was afoot, began to gather around.

"I quite give up," the valet said, and tossed the feather duster over his shoulder. "Have you an invitation?" he asked bluntly.

"I ... no. I was asked by Mr. Edward Hillyard—"

"Eddy!" squealed a servant whose dress approximated that of a children's nurse. "However did he dare!"

"Mr. Hillyard has declined to join us tonight," the valet calmly explained to Tess.

"That Hillyard is a damned villain," muttered a chauffeur near her. "Never saw such an outrageous scene as this afternoon in the Casino."

_"_ I've heard he left immediately afterward for Saratoga," a woman's voice said.

"And a bloody good thing, too, before he got run out of Newport on a rail—damned misanthrope."

"You're too hard on him, darling. It's only women he has no use for."

"Why is she wearing a mask, do you think?"

"Ashamed to be seen with him, I suppose."

Everything. Tess heard every word. Like a trapped animal whose senses are on full alert, Tess saw and heard everything, despite the fact that her mind was reeling from a sense of its own stupidity. _Vain, blind creature! Now, can you see?_

_"En tout cas,"_ her host the valet was saying, "I'm sure we'd all be charmed to have you join our festivities." He offered her his elbow. "Will it amuse you to leave on your mask? I'll not reveal your name, and we shall let the company guess who your people are."

"Oh no, sir," Tess said in anguish, "you misunderstand—"

There was not a doubt in her mind that she was the only genuine article there; the rest of the party was made up of the usual collection of jaded society, who tonight had decided to ape the ways of simple folk. _That_ was the masquerade.

"Come, come," her host was cajoling. "Take off your mask then, if you prefer, and let us bask in the beauty that promises to shine forth from behind it."

Tess found herself being led into an anteroom by the valet, while behind them trailed a giggling, whispering knot of elite society in shambling costume. _This has to be a dream,_ she thought, utterly at a loss how to escape. _A horrible, endless dream._

They were in the dining hall now. Half a dozen "servants" were arguing and chattering noisily over the proper way to set a table. Tess, still in an unnatural state of awareness, had begun to pick out and recognize faces. Tessie Oelrichs, Mamie Fish, Oliver Belmont—the gayest and most influential members of Newport Society were here. She saw Harry Lehr, the self-appointed major-domo of practical jokes and arbiter of high fashion, pouring wine: he knocked a stemmed glass over onto the tablecloth, and a red stain widened as one part of her mind took it in. _My blood,_ she thought bleakly, _mine and Maggie's._

Behind her she felt a light tug at the ribbons of her mask. Do unmask, Miss Moran; we're dying to know."

"Who _is_ she, do you think?" someone whispered.

"Teresa Moran—the name means nothing."

Another tug.

"Harry, make her take it off."

One more try, and the mask fell from her face. A murmur of male approval went up among the guests. An equal but quite opposite murmur went up among the females: this was competition of a serious kind.

And then, from the other side of the room came a low, shocked gasp which was clearly her name.

_"Tessie!"_ The word was vibrant with scandal, as though Cornelia Winward had seen her maid cavorting naked at the Sunday service.

Tess stood quite still, filled with a sense that she was; indeed, playing out the role destined for her. It would be too absurd for her to apologize, and equally absurd to rail at the cruel and insensitive trick that had been played on her. Not now, anyway. Not here.

"Ah, Cornelia. Come here and identify this mystery maiden for us," said the valet-host, but some of his urbane manner had left him.

Cornelia had dressed quite predictably as a lady's maid. She was wearing one of Tess's best black dresses and a white apron. Tess saw that the sleeves and the hem of her dress had been cut back to fit the shorter woman and the raw edges left to show. It was hard to say who was more amazed at that moment, maid or mistress.

"Tessie! How _could_ you? I can't believe my eyes!" Cornelia went suddenly faint. She looked around helplessly at the company. "My maid .... This is so shocking ...."

Several men rushed to her side.

There was no hope for Tess now. She knew it.

"The shock is all mine, I can assure you, ma'am," Tess said clearly for all to hear. Something exploded inside her. She felt like a bottle of champagne just blown its cork. "I suppose I was bid here as part of the evening's fun. I may not have amused, but _clearly_ I have entertained." She threw her host a reckless smile, then lifted the hem of her dress and turned it out for everyone to see.

_"My_ dress is hemmed and fits, you see; it's inexcusable for a lady's maid to have scissored hems or turned up cuffs," she added dryly.

With both hands on her hips she circled slowly before the astonished company. _"This_ is how a lady's maid should look." Then she dropped into an offhand, graceful curtsy. _"This_ is how a maid curtsies." Finally, she dropped her gaze in a discreetly modest look. "And _this,"_ she said with deadly softness, "is how a maid averts her eyes from spectacles to which she should not, would not, be privy."

Then she raised her look defiantly, blazing at each embarrassed guest around her. "Surely there are some among you with the wit and intelligence to master the fine art of domestic service. See what you can do."

She spun on her heel, her skirts whirling around her, and began walking away from them with a hammering heart and burning cheeks.

"The wench belongs on stage," someone laughed, but Tess didn't care.

_To bloody hell with the lot of 'em,_ she thought furiously, and she turned for the hall door.

#  Chapter 10

But she had turned the wrong way. So much for the grand exit. She looked around her. There were no real footmen to direct her, of course, only the mincing, masquerading kind.

Tess retraced her steps and swept past them all. When she reached the door, it was held open for her by someone in a goatee and wearing a gardener's outfit.

"Allow me," he said. He was graying and rather slightly built and looked vaguely Mediterranean. He had a hawkish nose and carefully absent look. In one hand he held a small hand-rake.

She turned on him, ready for battle. "I don't suppose for a moment that you're a real gardener," she snapped.

"I'm a complete fraud, my dear," he agreed, closing the door behind them.

They were standing under a starless sky, and for the first time it occurred to Tess that she was several unlit miles from a house she dared not return to. No moon, and her new shoes hurt. A wave of despair, as sickening as her recent fury had been exhilarating, rolled over her.

"God. What now?" she whispered.

"I can hardly wait to see," the gardener offered.

She looked at him with contempt: another idle hanger-on, like Edward Hillyard. Newport was crawling with them. "Go away."

"Oh, my."

Was that a drop of rain? Tess hugged herself close. Her cape had been left behind, her best cape.

Let it rot.

She stepped gingerly into the drive. If only it weren't so dark. Her father would have to take her in, but she couldn't stay; there was no room. Tomorrow she would look for a job, but not in Newport. No one would hire her now, anyway.

"You understand that you'll be soaked through and run into a ditch before you're halfway to town, I assume," said the helpful gardener.

_Portsmouth._ There were large estates in Portsmouth. But no. Too close still. Providence. But how to watch over Maggie? Another drop of rain; and another.

"You might allow me to drop you off wherever it is you think you're going. At least you'll avoid pneumonia."

She turned to him in a daze. "I don't have pneumonia. What are you talking about?"

He was strolling beside her comfortably. "I'm talking about your prospects, my dear, which at the moment seem rather cheerless."

"Thank you so much for the information. I'm sure it will come in handy." She strode out ahead of him. He quickened his pace.

"All right!" he said, and stopped suddenly. There was such bedrock authority in his voice that Tess automatically stopped too. "You've had your moment in the spotlight, Miss Moran, and you were magnificent. Now it's time to face reality. You have no place to go and no way to get there. Short of striking out boldly into the night, _do_ you have a plan?"

_"Don't_ condescend to me," she nearly shouted. "I won't stand for any more of it. It's absolutely none of your business but yes, I do have someplace to go. My family lives on the harborfront."

"I'll take you there."

"Oh dear! And leave the merriment behind? I wouldn't hear of it!"

"I've told you," he said quietly. "The time for grand gestures is past."

He put his fingers between his teeth and whistled, a night-splitting sound that startled Tess, used to more genteel behavior in Newport. She jumped. She heard the droll smile in his voice as he explained, "It's the only way to get a cab back in New York."

Somewhere out of the blackness behind them a brougham emerged: black, shiny, unadorned by the family crests so favored by Newport's fledgling dynasties. The coachman wore no livery. Tess, whose father so recently had been a groom, was quick to see the spit-and-polish elegance of the rig, almost English in its understatement.

She turned to the man in gardener's clothes. "Just who _are_ you, anyway?"

"My name is Aaron Gould. Yes, I'm from New York and no, I don't have a little gilded cottage in Newport. I do enjoy the town, however, whenever I can. I'm an observer, and Newport is filled with spectacle. Where would you like to go?"

"I ... all right. Waite's Wharf."

He gave his coachman their destination and helped Tess into the brougham. Coach lanterns threw a golden glow over varnished cherrywood and polished leather. It was a beautifully cared for coach and reminded Tess of Wrexham, where she'd sometimes helped her father buff and shine Sir Meller's coach.

"This is very nice, Mr. Gould," Tess said pleasantly, and then she burst into tears. It was all over for the Moran family. Maggie would be dismissed for certain, and they would all end up in the almshouse. Keeping up a defiant, brave facade was not only pointless now; it was impossible.

"As bad as all that, is it?" Gould asked, not unkindly.

"It couldn't be worse," she cried between bitter tears. "It couldn't be worse."

"Do you want to tell me about any of it?" he asked, handing her a fine silk handkerchief.

So she did. Everything. From her mother's troubles in Wrexham to her brother's cruel mishap. It came out in bits and pieces, with long stretches of weeping as Tess reexamined each bitter blow in turn. Everyone in her family had looked to her; she was the strong one, the steady one, and now she had failed them all. The silk handkerchief had practically dissolved under her repeated nose-blowings; Tess stared at the stringy wet rag with a look of horror, and Aaron Gould laughed.

"I don't mean to seem callous," he said quickly. "It's just that the last time I saw a look like that was many years ago, when our young governess dropped our little daughter on her head. The child survived, and so, I expect, will the handkerchief. "

The hint of a self-conscious smile played over Tess's tear-stained, swollen face. She was not used to crying and had not learned to transform the act into an alluring appeal for help and sympathy. "I'm being so stupid," she murmured, realizing that she'd just poured out her soul to a stranger. "I don't even know you."

"It may require a certain leap of imagination," he said dryly, "but think of me as a surrogate priest. You needed to get something off your chest, and regular confession probably isn't until next Saturday. So? Feel better?"

She nodded and tried to smile, but new tears welled up, this time for no particular reason. The brougham rolled to a stop. Apparently they were at Waite's Wharf; she recognized nothing through her tears and in the drizzling dark. Sudden panic took over as she thought of facing her family with the news.

"What will I tell them?" she wailed. "I can't let them see me like this."

"Do you want more time?"

"Oh, please."

Gould thought for a moment, then leaned out the window and said, "To the launch." The brougham clip-clopped south along cobblestoned Thames Street.

"I need a plan," Tess said, almost fiercely. "I don't mind telling them about tonight, if only I can hold out some hope for them."

"Admirable psychology. What are your options?" He was leaning back in his seat now, facing her. The fingertips of his hands were pressed together in a considering gesture; the hazel eyes above them flickered with a let's-hear-your-offer interest. He might have been buying a piece of Manhattan.

"My options? I'm ... not sure. I have to find work. I'm very skilled with a needle, but a position as lady's maid is impossible now. Once I hoped to have my own shop, but I have no money. I could try to find work in the Fall River mills, but that's too far from home, and jobs are scarce now anyway. I could try finding work in New York—I have distant cousins there—but then I'd never see my family. And without a reference anyway—"

"What kind of shop had you hoped to set up?"

She looked away. "A milliner's shop. That was a silly dream; I never should have mentioned it, only—well, I've told you everything else, haven't I?"

"Everything? You've scarcely touched on Edward Hillyard," he said calmly.

Surprised into a blush, Tess answered, "What is there to tell? I allowed myself to become attracted to a man well above my station. I got no more than I deserved."

"You don't believe that."

She sighed. "No—no, I don't. It seems a very cruel trick."

"You think it was cruelty on Hillyard's part; it wasn't. He's idealistic but poor, which is an unhappy—and perhaps unavoidable—combination. It makes for an angry young man. He can be ill mannered but, I'm sure, not with you: no doubt there's a note of regret calling off the rendezvous in your room at Beau Rêve."

"Do you think so?" Her bottle-green eyes lit up with hope. If everything was only a misunderstanding ....

Gould's smile was sympathetic. "He's a homosexual, Tess. You knew that, of course."

She stared at him blankly. Was this a word she should know, like "matriarchal"?

"It's a barbarous word, I know: it means he might well prefer my company to yours, Tess, though only God knows why."

Still Tess stared. Snatches of conversation from the Servants' Ball shot meteorically into her consciousness, illuminating nothing. _It's only women he has no use for._

_"_ It wasn't because you're a maid that nothing came of it, Tess," he explained patiently. "It had nothing to do with you. Some men are simply like that."

_Some men .._.. A long-forgotten memory from her childhood returned, of a man who stopped her on the streets of Cork to ask directions in heavy, broken English. "Vich vay?" he had asked. His accent was odd but he looked even odder, with his brightly rouged cheeks and scarlet cravat, and Tess had giggled and run away.

"But ... Edward Hillyard?" She said the name so timidly that Gould gave her a sad and reassuring wink.

Her breath broke from her in a rush; she shook her head slowly, incredulously. And yet so many things made sense now: he had never kissed her, for one thing. And he despised the women in Newport. She felt as if she'd been pushed violently on a dark street by some stranger who wanted nothing from her and had no reason to harm her.

"Why?" she whispered to Gould.

He shrugged. "Put it out of your mind."

"How can I?" she cried. "I made a fool of myself, ruined myself and my family—but not for love? There was never any chance for love?"

"You are young; you believe in the power of love. And you are Catholic," he added with a smile. "You believe in miracles."

"Yes! Yes, I do!" Her breath was coming fast, and a slow, angry flush drove out the tear-stained paleness of her face. "I think you can do anything for love, all kinds of love—anything!" Edward Hillyard _could_ have loved her; he _should_ have loved her.

"Well, you may be right," Gould answered coolly. "I wouldn't know." Glancing out the window he added, "Here we are."

Tess had no idea how long the coach had been stopped, or why. "I'm sorry. I'm taking up your evening—" she began.

"I've told you, I'm an observer of human nature," he said, climbing out of the carriage ahead of her into the rain. "Do you think a drama half so interesting is unfolding at The Ledge tonight? In any case, the guests will be preparing their own meal, and I think we deserve better than sliced tomatoes and onions on toast, don't you? I have a business proposition for you, which I mean to discuss over decent food."

He turned to the coachman. "That will be all, Fagan. Good night."

The coachman touched his whip to his cap and murmured good night, and before Tess could cry out or further embarrass herself, the horses were pulling away, leaving Tess and Gould at the entrance to a small alleyway that led to a pier at the south end of Newport harbor.

Tess was not exactly afraid: Aaron Gould struck her as neither violent nor impulsive. She was less than a mile from her father's waterfront shack; she could bolt right now if she wanted to. But she didn't want to. In half an hour this man had learned more about Tess than any other man on earth, and he had a business plan to propose. She waited cautiously to hear what he had to say.

He took her arm. "What an odd couple we are—me in my gardening get-up, you in the dress of a lady's maid, both of us getting soaked in the rain. I hope my crew allows us aboard, or we'll _both_ end up in the street and starving."

"Aboard—what?" she asked, her heart leaping. "A ship?"

He was hurrying her toward the water. "No, Tess, not a ship. A yacht. My yacht."

A dark form stepped quickly out of the shadows, and Tess let out a little scream.

"Ah—there you are, Peterson."

"Beggin' your pardon, sir, if you'll wait here I can fetch some spare oilskins. Be but a minute, sir."

He left and Tess and Gould took up his place under the overhang of a closed-up shed. The rain was falling much harder now. A steady stream of water cascading from a break in the roofline above them was the only sound as they waited in silence for the crewman to return.

A business proposition. That could mean anything. His wife could need a lady's maid or his yachting blazer a spot of mending. He seemed kind; perhaps he knew of someone who needed a servant. Whatever it was, she would be glad to hear it.

The crewman returned with a black oiled cape-coat which he laid like a lead blanket on Tess's shoulders, and yellow oiled slickers for Aaron Gould. The three made their way quickly through the wind and rain to the west end of the pier, where a steam launch was tied up.

"Damn! I forgot about the tide," Gould muttered. "Can you climb down to the launch, Tess?"

Tess peered over the side of the dock. Ten feet below them, a sleek dark vessel pitched into the southwest chop. A ladder nailed to a pylon led down alongside the violently moving target. Tess nodded confidently, although it seemed to her a broken leg was the very least she could expect. She watched Gould scamper down the ladder with the ease of one who spends most days in a treehouse.

_In for a penny, in for a pound,_ she told herself, and swung her wet skirts around to the top rung. The patent leather needle-tipped toes of her shoes caught on each rung as she descended carefully. She held the rungs above her head in a death-grip, and when she lost her footing on the green slime on the bottom rung, it was the strength in her arms alone that kept her from falling between the launch and the pylons.

Gould's arms were around her instantly. "All right, girl?" he asked.

"Yes, yes—I can manage," she said impatiently, and he let her go to find her own way around the smokestack and boiler to the fantail seat. The leather cushions had been stowed out of the rain. Tess took up a place on the varnished seat next to Gould, bowing her head into the slashing wind.

"Peterson! What do we have in sou'westers?" called Gould to the crewman, who had scrambled aboard and was starting the engine.

"Under the seat, sir."

Gould pulled out two wide-brimmed, oiled hats and handed one to Tess as Peterson hauled in the dock lines, letting the wind blow them off the dock. He put the launch in gear, and Tess, steadying herself on a brass grabrail, peered out from under the brim of her hat at the white-capped harbor. The launch lifted and fell as Peterson expertly played the crests, easing the launch to windward. The small steam engine puffed along with a minimum of fuss, cutting through the turmoil.

"It's a stinking night, Tess," said Gould. "I'm sorry."

"The weather's not your fault, s—Mr. Gould," replied Tess. She backed away from the "sir." She hated the very word.

"You seem to be enjoying yourself, in fact."

"I am," she admitted. "It's exciting."

_Far more exciting than washing linen or brushing shoes,_ she thought. It was such a struggle to get where they were going; she assumed the end would be worth it.

Peterson positioned the launch alongside the gangway of an elegant black-hulled steam yacht anchored in Brenton Cove in the lee of the howling southwest wind. Peterson yanked at the launch's steam whistle, and before they reached the top of the teak and brass companionway, a uniformed crew member was waiting for them with a large black umbrella.

"Never mind, Pratt," said Gould, "we're soaked through, anyway. Take these oilskins. We'll find our own way below. Ask Oberlin to see me straightaway, would you?"

He took Tess's arm and hurried her along a side deck and through a paneled and windowed mahogany door, alongside of which hung a white life-ring with the vessel's name leafed in gold: _M/Y_ _Enchanta._ They were in the main salon, a large, beautifully paneled cabin marked by the unfussy elegance of a gentleman's study. Silver humidors on small rosewood tables and ashtrays in brass stands waited confidently next to overstuffed chairs, expecting to be needed. The walls were hung with old etchings and oil renderings of epic battles at sea. Brass oil lamps, set on brackets shaped into sea creatures, threw off a golden, flickering light. It was a man's refuge, devoid of a woman's touch, and Tess said so.

"As a matter of fact, before she died my wife had never been aboard. As all women do, she looked on boats as competition for her drawing room and her affections. She was right, of course." He was holding open a stateroom door for Tess. "You'll find dry clothes in there. When you've finished, join me in my cabin across the way. I'll have something hot brought in."

He excused himself and Tess was left standing on a silk Persian rug in her wet shoes. She unbuttoned them immediately and pulled them off, then tiptoed barefoot to the built-in armoire. Rather timidly, she slid open one of the paneled doors. Inside was a collection of exquisite dressing gowns in an array of flattering colors: creams, mauves, pale blues. They would not have belonged to Aaron Gould's wife, of that Tess was sure. They were too young, too utterly feminine, too intimate for a woman who apparently had preferred to spend her days presiding over high tea. Possibly they belonged to his daughter, who must be grown by now? Possibly.

She passed over the wraparound versions in favor of the only one with actual buttons, a heavy, creamy silk brocade. There was a selection of opera slippers in soft, luxuriant kid—in different sizes. _Not_ the daughter's, then. Tess's heart turned upside-down in her chest for a moment, then righted itself and went on beating: he had given his word, a gentleman's word, that she was free to go ashore whenever she chose.

But in the meantime her own dress was sodden; she had no choice but to change. She stripped down to her drawers and corset, no further than that, and slipped the dressing gown over her head. In the full-length brass mirror she looked too ... fine.

Never in her life had she felt the luxury of brocade next to her skin. Panic set in: _Off with the gown._

She was fumbling with the top buttons when a knock came on the door. It opened: Aaron Gould, in a wine-colored smoking jacket, said, "There are combs and brushes somewhere in that bureau. Is there anything else you need?"

She shook her head. He left, and Tess felt better. Aaron Gould was treating her with perfect courtesy. If the armoire was not stocked with muslin Mother Hubbard gowns and felt slippers, it was for the same reason that she was not standing on China straw matting just then: the wealthy did things differently.

She located the brushes, combed her hair as dry as she could and pulled it back with two tortoise-shell side-combs she chose from among a drawer filled with them. It seemed obvious to her that Aaron Gould had a lover, or a collection of them; but she pushed the thought away. She was not interested in his private life.

The door to his cabin was open. Tess stepped across the cabin sole and peeked in. Gould was staring out a brassbound porthole, absently scraping the bowl of a Meerschaum pipe with a pen-knife. Tess stepped boldly into the room.

He turned to face her. "Excellent. Almost nothing left of the poor drowned kitten." His look was coolly appreciative. He pulled a sturdily built mahogany chair away from a small linen-covered table, which glowed discreetly with candlelight and sterling.

"You look enthusiastic," he said with a smile. "Are you so very hungry?"

"Well—that too," she admitted, coloring. "But I was admiring your yacht. It's very pretty. Have you had it long?"

"Seven years. An intense love affair. I can't help thinking it contributed to my wife's death two years ago."

"You can't mean that!"

"I'm afraid it's true. We could never agree on the proper way to summer. I preferred knocking around in the _Enchanta;_ she liked to install herself in or near a European court. Two summers ago I was here, she was there, and during a hunt she was thrown from her horse and killed. If I'd been there I should have tried to prevent her going out."

"You don't approve of women riding?"

"I don't approve of the hunt. Secretly I cheer whenever the critter gets away."

"All the same, it must have been horrible for you."

"Very sad—but not horrible. We hadn't lived as husband and wife for years. Will you have an aperitif?"

Since she'd never had one before, Tess didn't know. "That would be nice," she said vaguely. He poured the sherry and she sipped cautiously. "Does your daughter enjoy the yachting life?" she ventured.

"As a matter of fact, no. She prefers winter sports. I suppose that comes of attending a school in Switzerland."

"But it's not winter now," Tess pursued.

"No. It's not."

Tess felt the rebuff and it showed, because he added, "Vanessa stays with an aunt outside of Paris in the summer. We aren't that close—at least, geographically. But tell me about your family, with whom you obviously _are_ close. Your mother died on board ship, you said? I truly am sorry to hear that."

"Well, it was all so sudden and most of the family was seasick. I think in an odd way that that eased the pain for us. We were all in steerage at the time." She felt obligated to spell out the difference between a first-class cabin and steerage: "In steerage the bunks are built of hard-edged wood along the inside of the ship; in our ship there was also a second row of bunks that ran parallel. In one of the very first storms my mother was thrown from her bunk into the corner of another one in the next row. She never got conscious after that."

Tess declined to say that her mother had been sleeping off the effects of a bottle when she was hurled out of her berth. That secret was stitched inside a canvas shroud, resting at the bottom of the Atlantic.

"I'm sorry. It must be painful for you still. Steerage can be a dangerous place in a storm. I once rode out some bad weather there myself, when I was a boy."

"You?"

"I emigrated from France with my father when I was twelve. My father had been an apprentice in one of Henri Rochefleur's banks. He came over here, eventually to oversee Monsieur Rochefleur's American interests. The Rothschilds had their August Belmont; Monsieur Rochefleur had my father. We arrived in plenty of time for the war, during which my father remained loyal to the Union and refrained from all but the most discreet profiteering, unlike many of his colleagues. A widower, he earned everyone's gratitude but no one's heart—it's never been easy being a Jew in Newport. He died wealthy but quite alone, and it became up to me, the junior Aaron Gould, to prove that it is possible to attain both love and money in one lifetime."

He gave Tess an ironic smile. "Unfortunately, I failed. Perhaps I was naive. It takes longer than one generation for new money to cool off. My well-born wife would never have accepted me if she hadn't been in dire straits financially. I have great hopes for Vanessa, however. She is beautiful, well-educated, fair-skinned, and nicely dowered. She also happens to be a very kind young woman." He poured himself more sherry. "Yes, about Vanessa I am quite sanguine."

The steward, wearing a silver-buttoned jacket, came in bearing a large silver salver. The repast he laid before them was simply prepared but substantial: galantine of veal, pigeon pie, boiled lobsters, fruits and cheeses, and a hot and spicy crab and spinach soup. Tess sat self-consciously still as the steward opened a bottle of champagne for them. When he left it was obvious that he was not expected to return, which bothered her.

Nonetheless, she breathed more easily after that, listening raptly to a lively but outrageous tale of how Aaron Gould saved his West Indian cook from the clutches of a holdout band of Carib warriors on the island of Dominique. That took them through the soup course.

An hour and a half later they were spreading creamy cheese on thin wafers, and Tess, filled with a sense of well-being, was complaining that her cheeks were tired from laughing so much. Aaron Gould was a raconteur of the first order, well-traveled, but not on beaten paths; well-spoken, but in a candid, self-deprecating way. She felt as though she'd known him for years. While the early part of the evening had seemed endless, now she did not wish it to end. She suspected she might be light-headed with exhaustion; or maybe it was the sherry. Tess had resolutely refused champagne, knowing of its potency secondhand. But it hardly mattered.

She sighed happily, allowing him to fill another of her glasses with a dark red liquid, and sipped. Fire! She put the snifter down too late; its magic heat was already racing through her veins. She smiled and tried to shake her head clear of its crystal cobwebs. "I must begin to think about tomorrow."

"But tonight brings good wine, good food, good company—is there more to life than that?"

"Yes, there is! Of course there is—but I can't seem to remember ... just _what,_ somehow. Tomorrow ...?" She sighed.

He hesitated, then said, "All right, then—tomorrow. Suppose we set your mind at ease about it, so that we can return to enjoying today." He dabbed at his lips, threw down his monogrammed napkin, and rose and went over to a built-in mahogany sideboard inlaid with intricate veneer. When he returned he was carrying an exquisite enameled box; he handed it to Tess.

"For you," he said, "with one silken thread attached."

More baffled than thrilled, Tess lifted the lid from the small rectangular box: it was filled with money. How much, she had no idea. She was seeing hundred dollar bills for the first time in her life.

#  Chapter 11

_So this is what drink does,_ she thought in fuzzy wonder. You _dream with your eyes open._ Without taking her eyes from the money she asked simply, "Why?"

"I want you to spend the night with me."

She looked up; he was serious.

"You will find one thousand dollars in there, enough to start a nice little hat shop in town. You can live above the shop with your family; you need never tug at a forelock again—except, of course, as a matter of better business. From what I have learned tonight, I have not a single doubt that you will be successful."

"Then make it a loan!" she said in anguish. "Charge me a fair—even an unfair—interest, and I'll gladly pay. You're right; I _would_ be a success. I'm clever, and I'd work monstrous hours. Even Cornelia would patronize me eventually. All I'd have to do was sell one hat to one of her friends; she couldn't bear it! Oh, I _would_ do well at it!"

"If I were an ordinary businessman, I might consider your offer. But look around you, Tess. Give me more credit than that. Surely you see that I am a collector of beautiful _objets_ _d'art_. The _Enchanta_ itself is such an _objet._ She is not the largest yacht in the harbor, or even the most opulent for her size, but she is by far the most beautiful, the most exquisitely fitted out. So it is with you, Tess. You are exquisite, and I want very much to have you."

She tried to cut through the sherry in her brain with only partial success. "But I'm not an ... an 'obe-zhay,'" she wailed. "I'm ... a _Catholic!"_

"Whatever you are, you're very desirable," he said seriously, and poured more cognac in her snifter. "Listen to me, Tess. Suppose I lend you the money with interest, as you suggest. Suppose we do it all quite legally, a business transaction. What do you think will be the reaction of Newport Society when you suddenly flaunt the means to open a smart little shop on Bellevue? Everyone knows I brought you away from the Servants' Ball; everyone will assume the worst in any case. Short of your posting sworn affidavits and the promissory note in your shop window, I can't imagine why they would think otherwise."

"You knew you were compromising me when you helped me!" she said angrily.

"And so did you, Tess. If you thought about it at all, you knew you were taking a risk."

"Out of desperation!"

"Absolutely. I'd be the first to admit that." He waited.

It was such an unadorned offer. So rational, so measured, so brutally logical. She stared at the delicately rendered cobalt and emerald pattern on the box, then stood up and tossed it across the table at him. It fetched up against his gilt-edged plate with a thunk and he winced; it was clear that Aaron Gould really was a devoted collector. It gave Tess a sharp little thrill to see that she'd caused him pain. She wondered why, as she walked away from him and stared out a porthole at the drumming torrents of rain.

After all, his offer was quite painless. The consequences—well, the consequences would have to be faced with or without his offer. What a fool she'd been before: blind with embarrassment and rage, utterly without foresight. Her pride again. It always came down to this: her fatal flaw, the source of all the bruising encounters she'd had so far in life, was her damnable, damnable pride.

She turned around to face him. He was seated at the small table still, his fingers gently rubbing the invisible wound on the enameled box, soothing and caressing.

"If I don't accept your offer?"

He reached behind him to a small panel lined with pushbuttons. "I'll have someone escort you ashore instantly." His lids lowered an infinitesimal amount, registering displeasure at her apparent distrust of him.

"That won't be necessary." She swallowed her damnable pride. "I agree to your terms, in the main, Mr. Gould," she said in as businesslike a tone as she could muster. "But there are some things I need to know." She lifted her chin the way she'd seen society ladies do. "Is it required that I enjoy myself, or act as if I am?"

"It would be nice; I don't insist on it."

"Will it involve"—here she blushed furiously—"cruelty or violence, or pain?"

He considered a moment, which sent her into a panic. "I shouldn't think so, but there is once in every woman's life—"

"I didn't mean that," Tess said quickly. "I meant—any other kind."

"Then the answer is no."

"How long am I obligated to stay?"

He matched her formal tone note for note. If he was amused by her whimsical negotiations, he gave no sign of it. With courteous reasonableness he brought out a watch from a pocket in his jacket and said, "The storm should blow itself out by early morning; when the wind goes around to the northwest the Cove will become an uncomfortable anchorage. I plan to head out for Fisher's Island Sound then, on my way to New York. You should be ashore by, oh, ten o'clock at the latest."

"I see."

And although you seem to have no great love for it," he added, I had intended for you to keep the enameled box." For the first time, he allowed himself a small, wry smile.

'That won't be necessary. The money will be sufficient." Sufficient! She almost laughed out loud at herself. "Well. When do we—?"

"Start? We've begun, dear lady. Please—join me." He stood partly up from his seat. "This really is an excellent cognac.

Tess came warily back to the table and took her seat. _Think of Maggie,_ she told herself. _Think of poor Will and of Father. Think of the shop._

So she did. While Aaron Gould rambled on pleasantly about the relative merits of various brandies, Tess spun quick fine dreams of the wonderful life she would provide for her family. Oh, how happy she would make them! Maggie would have the finest care and she would live to a wonderful age. Tess would see to it. They would never marry but would live together in a nice old house with a big front porch with a swing on it for Maggie. And Will would visit with his wife and children, and her father would live either with Will or with Tess; she would have to think about that. But none of them would ever be tenants and beholden again. Ever.

A few hours; it was a small price to pay.

While she nodded absently, smiling whenever Aaron Gould smiled, she was adding up the cost of outfitting her shop: veiling, twenty cents a yard; braiding, ten cents; silk trimming and gimp, ten cents; flowers and sprays and wreaths of silk and velvet, from four cents to eighty cents; ostrich plumes and tips, never more than a dollar and a quarter. No matter how hard she tried, she could not spend one thousand dollars. She would be able to afford to stock ready-made hats to get things rolling more quickly. The question was, Thames Street or Bellevue Avenue? On the whole, she thought perhaps Thames. Bellevue was too seasonal. Still, if that's where the money shopped ....

"Tess, I was prepared to encounter some asperity. I confess I did not expect dreamy-eyed vacantness." It was said with the regret of a client who, in looking over a fine Swiss clock, discovers that the chiming mechanism does not work.

Alarmed that he might yet decide to take her shop away, Tess quickly apologized. "It's the cognac, I think. I'm not used to drink. She fairly leaped back into the conversation. "You seem very knowledgeable about wine. At Beau-Rêve Mr. Winward always has the best wine on his table, but he leaves all the selection to his butler, since he himself knows very little. Nor is his son any more well versed."

She had hit exactly the right note.

"As a matter of fact, my people are from the Cote d'Or region in France. All of the last generation were expert winemakers. One uncle of whom I'm particularly fond was considered a genius in the fields. He emigrated to California for the great Gold Rush. Unfortunately, he dug a bit too far west of the Comstock Lode, which as we know had the ill grace to be discovered by Tessie Oelrichs' people instead. Which is why she has a grand cottage in Newport, and he has not. In any case, Uncle Ben returned to what he knew best: winemaking. I visited him the year before last. Quite a character, still."

"How did your father ever end up in finance?"

"Little by little he gravitated to the vineyard offices, obviously more comfortable with a pencil in his hand. Monsieur Rochefleur was impressed and brought him to work for him in the city. My father made a habit of never looking back. _Learn from that, Tess."_

The advice was given in a startling change of voice, intimate and urgent. Tess, who had been fingering the embroidered AG on her napkin, looked up; instantly she understood that they were entering a new phase of her contractual obligation.

"Enough talk about money, Tess. There are other things in life," he said in a low voice.

"For those who already have it," she could not resist saying.

"And now you do. Come here, Tess."

She rose and stood before him. He held her hands in his. "You're very beautiful. Even half-drowned, you are very beautiful. I should like to see you in your twilight years," he said rather wistfully. "I'm certain you will be a great beauty still."

And then he was standing eye to eye with her. As Tess waited for his kiss, the first kiss of her adult life, she thought, _Is there some other way?_

He took her by her shoulders and whispered, "Never, never look back." His mouth came down on hers, not at all in the wretched, clumsy manner of the stableboy in Wrexham, but in a sweet, slow caress, a butterfly's touch. It surprised her; she'd expected him, despite all the evidence, to grab eagerly at what he'd paid for.

A murmur of gratitude sounded deep in her throat. He responded to it, nudging her mouth open with his lips, taking advantage of her naïveté with his tongue. A tonguing kiss by a man of the world: it thrilled her. She had nothing to compare it to, but it seemed stunningly intimate. The warmth of cognac, the faint taste of cigar, the inviting, coaxing movement of his tongue—is this how sophisticated adults did it? And what about unsophisticated ones? Peter Boot, and Enid—and Bridget—and what about her mother and _father,_ dear God? Had they kissed like this, really?

He drew his mouth away from hers and guided her arms around his neck. "Your tongue is very sweet, Tess. Where did you learn to kiss that way?"

"I never learned!" she answered, shocked. "I never kissed that way—I mean, this is my first, that way."

"Oh my dear Tess," he said with a shaky laugh. "Then perhaps I'm too old for you, after all." And he returned to her mouth, nipping her lips gently, testing their softness, seeming to go more warily now. His trimmed-back mustache prickled the sensitive area above her mouth; his goatee brushed against her cheek as he dropped skimming kisses along the line of her jaw. They were reassuring kisses, attentive and charming, and she thought, _Even mother and father might have kissed this way._

But then he was at her ear, tonguing its curve, his warm breath heating the inner chamber. Gasping, she reconsidered. _But never like this._ There was something too dangerous, too irresponsible about lovemaking that tied your judgment in little knots and tossed it aside like a rag. _Only reckless people kiss this way. People with leisure and energy and privacy. Parents don't, nor Catholics, nor anyone else who has to work for a living. It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be possible._

She listened to the sound of the little steam launch that had brought her to the _Enchanta,_ but it was really the sound of her own breathing, a series of panting strokes that was leaving her dizzy. The cognac again; it was worse than the sherry.

"No, please ...." she said aloud, vaguely convinced that she was on her knees and begging for mercy. He withdrew his tongue but she kept her arms around him, steadying herself.

"Perhaps neither one of us is strong enough for the other," he whispered, and he led her to a settee covered in supple, tufted leather. She took a place beside him, thinking: _will it be here?_

Again he brought his mouth to hers. This time her lips parted automatically, inviting him in. She was intensely curious to know why his kisses took her breath away, intensely thrilled that they did. It didn't seem possible; she hardly knew him ....

She broke away. "I _do_ like this," she admitted, baffled.

It brought a low chuckle from him. "I promise not to tell," he murmured, dropping a light kiss on her nose. "Tess—whisper my name," he said wistfully.

"Aaron?"

"Without the question mark."

"I couldn't! Because you're ... older."

"Oh my God—say it, Tess." He began to unbutton the top button of her gown.

"Aaron?"

"Try again." Another button.

"Aaron ... no."

"Again." Another.

"Aaron, please ...."

Another, and another; and then two or three embroidered hooks, and the loose-sleeved gown fell away from Tess as easily as her illusions about the cruelty of the upper classes.

Because Aaron Gould was gentle, subtle, in a way she'd never have expected. His hands, finely sculpted and as soft as her own, were made to caress. Like any artist, he understood his medium well. The intricacies of her corset fasteners bothered him not at all; he had traveled the tortuous route through women's underclothing before.

But he wasn't kissing her as he undid the hooks of her corset, and that gave Tess time to reflect on it all—and to falter. "Eh-h—Mr.—Aaron." She searched for something to say. "The windows—people can see."

"My crew would never walk aft," he explained patiently. "But never mind; we can do better."

He led her through a door to his sleeping cabin, a small but richly appointed stateroom quietly aglow with hand-rubbed mahogany. The bed was a little smaller than full-sized, but had access from either side and was covered with rich red velvet—a far cry from the horsehair mattresses in steerage. She turned to Aaron, suddenly frightened out of her wits, but said in a brave little voice, "I feel silly, half dressed. I'd rather have on nothing at all."

He nuzzled the curve of her shoulder. "Are you expecting an argument from me?"

"No, but—I'll do it myself." Then she gestured for him not to look.

"Come now, Tess." For the first time there was a mild displeasure in his voice. But he took a seat in a handsome side-chair, crossed his legs, and waited.

In retrospect her attempt at independence did seem ill-conceived. Steeling herself, Tess undid the rest of her corset and let it drop to the floor. Next came her drawers, her hose, their supports and finally her tights and silk vest. Each new skirmish with a garment cost her dearly. Standing in the ruins of her modesty, not knowing where to put her hands, she tried to make light of the pain she was feeling. "I thought you promised that there would be no cruelty involved."

He was stroking the hairs of his chin. "If there is, it's on your part for having banished me. Step forward, Tess, to me."

She did, and an expression almost of pain crossed his brow. "What beauty," he whispered. "What perfect, exquisite beauty. Venus de Milo, rising from the sea."

Her mouth was slightly parted, her deep green eyes questioning. Her thick unbound hair felt strange on her bare back and shoulders. She had no idea what to cover first, so she let her arms hang naturally at her side. And yet, as the time ticked by she felt less embarrassment. There was something in his awestruck face that made embarrassment seem inappropriate. Did the sun feel self-conscious when it retired in a rainbow of glory, or the Milky Way, when it splashed across a midnight sky? Aaron Gould made her feel like those things, awakening Tess to the power of her beauty. Dizzy with a sense of her own allure, she gave him the first truly seductive smile of her life.

He rose and came to her, easing the combs from her hair, tossing them on the little pile of shorn clothing. Fanning his hands through the thickness of her hair, he said in a voice low with yearning, "I'll give anything to have you, Tess. Anything."

She saw his eyes close and his brows draw together as he slid his hands slowly along either side of the curve of her spine, over her buttocks, along the sides of her hips and the curve of her waist. He might have been blind; all of his senses seemed channeled into one: the sense of touch. He was drawing a picture for her of the curves of her body, and the picture pleased her very much.

He kissed her again, a deep kiss that left her dizzy. "Come with me to bed, Tess. Come with me now."

She stood alongside him as he pulled back the cover, aware that she had sold herself, aware that there had been no exchange of love between them. It would be impossible not to resent him and despise herself, and yet, if the world had ended then, Tess would have been disappointed. She had come too far.

She lay down and began to draw up the covers, but Aaron said, "Don't. It would be sacrilegious." He undressed himself carelessly, apparently unaware that Tess had never seen a man aroused before. She allowed herself one shy glance, taking in his slender build and the hairs on his chest. After that she focused on his attractive face, and then he was alongside her, stroking her hair.

Taking her hand in his, he whispered, "Touch me." When her eyes opened wide he smiled and said, "It won't burn."

So she did, startled by the baby-fine softness of the skin, so much softer than anything on her body. He began to kiss her again, and before long she was matching the rhythm of his tongue with strokes of her hand. His kisses became more fierce, and Tess responded with a fierceness of her own, until he tore his mouth from hers and said roughly, "No more, Tess," and drew her hand away.

"Am I doing it wrong?" she asked timidly.

"Only too right," he answered with a rueful look. "Let me cool down. Let me heat _you_ up."

"But I am heated up," she protested, not wanting to seem uncooperative.

That brought a grin from him. "Oh my darling, how little you know about yourself."

His worldliness distressed her. It was her first little taste of jealousy, but she didn't know it.

Nor did she have much time to analyze the emotion, because it was soon replaced by a far more powerful assault on her senses: with his tongue Aaron began slowly, methodically, to reduce Tess to cinders as he traced red-hot paths of fire along the inside curve of her shoulder, then down to the tips of her breasts. He lingered there, then lingered some more, until Tess cried for him to stop while at the same time lifting herself to his kisses.

Aaron went on to discover a dozen other flashpoints: the hollows under her arms; a small spot, easily missed, just below her ear; a rambling trail between her breasts and her belly button. She seemed to herself a pile of tinder, waiting to go up in flames.

The match was lit when Aaron moved lower. Tess was waiting for the moment; if all else was kindling, here was the pyre. But it was much more than she'd both dreaded and hoped for. The touch of his tongue on her not only destroyed her illusion of independence, but made him as necessary to her life as the air she was breathing.

"Oh no, oh yes ...." It was a whisper of despair. In one night she had gone from merely wanting one man to absolutely requiring another. And yet after a moment it didn't matter; nothing mattered—not survival or reputation or money—nothing except the intensity of the fire. It burned hotter and higher and she fed it with long, ragged gasps of oxygen until it consumed her, and her body was convulsed in a series of shudders, and she became convinced that her soul had fled forever.

Aaron came back up to her after that and she opened her eyes. "Why did you do that? That wasn't part of it," she murmured, exhausted and vaguely resentful.

He looked at her carefully and said softly, "But it was, Tess. Now you are relaxed."

His entry, in gentle stages, was surprisingly easy; Tess felt almost no pain. After that he lay completely still for a moment. Don't move, Tess," he said, near to a groan. "It will be over if you do."

She did as she was told. Something in her wanted to say, "It's your money," but she held it back. Odd snatches of thought floated like dust-bits through her head: just then was she technically still a virgin? Would it be less of a sin if she refused the money? Were all laundry maids whores, as popular wisdom had it? She was feeling more sad than resentful, more vulnerable than sad.

And he was hurting her, a little. Her face must have shown it, because he gave her a look of pained sympathy and soothed her hair as he whispered, "It will be better next time, my darling."

Tears glazed her eyes as she nodded a silent assent.

"But for now... oh my dear Tess, for now—"

He began a slow, easy movement back and forth inside her while Tess—guilty, sated, angry—did not at first respond. But the movement became more fluid, and with the end of pain came pleasure, first subtle, then devouring. Aaron paused, trying to hold on to the moment, but she clasped his face between her hands and pulled his mouth down on hers in a searing kiss. His rhythm quickened then, hurried on by Tess; a hundred rapid heartbeats later, he collapsed on her breast with a low, protracted groan of satisfaction.

"No—not yet!" she cried, and tried to keep the movement going.

His groan dissolved into a hoarse laugh of pleasure. "I'm sorry, Tess. Ordinarily I have more control than that. But you made me so ... hot."

"Did I?" A smile of baffled sweetness curled her lips. She hadn't tried to make him anything, and she couldn't help wondering: what if she _had?_

The question was still on her mind when she drifted off, still in Aaron's arms, into the sleep of the emotionally exhausted. It was not a satisfying sleep, but troubled and dream-ridden. One sequence particularly haunted her: she was trying to catch up to Aaron, to tell him something of great importance; but he was either in his coach or on his yacht or, once, on a sailing ship with neither helm nor helmsman and Tess, always on foot in her tight new patent leather-tipped shoes, could never catch him.

Deep in the night she was awakened by the sound of her own quick breathing; her pillow was wet with tears. A cabin light burning low oriented her to her new surroundings. Next to her lay Aaron, still naked, his breathing deep and even. The wind howled and the rain drummed the decks of the _Enchanta;_ the storm was at its peak. The tumult around them frightened Tess. It was too much like her life.

"Aaron?" she whispered, her warm breath falling on his sleeping form. He was awake at once. It occurred to Tess that on board a boat he had learned to be prepared for any emergency.

"Tess." He said only the one syllable, and yet she knew, suddenly, what it was that she needed and that he was willing to give.

"Love me, Aaron," she said in a voice filled with heat.

"Ah, Tess—gladly."

He came into her quickly. It was lovemaking without preamble, fierce, focused; satisfaction demanded and—in a single, thunderlit moment—achieved. It left her breathless with the shock of eroticism, but most of all, it left her in peace.

#  Chapter 12

Morning brought clearing and the strong northwest wind that Aaron had forecast. The _Enchanta,_ a hundred-foot, heavy-displacement yacht, rose and fell gently on her anchor, not enough to be uncomfortable, but enough to stir Tess from the best sleep she'd had all summer. Her eyes fluttered open: Aaron was sitting on the side of the bed, a dark green robe wrapped loosely around him.

"Good morning," Tess whispered, but she did not smile.

Nor did he, as he reached his hand out to move a strand of auburn that lay across her cheek.

She held his look. "Don't feel sorry for me," she said, though she was falling apart at the thought of leaving him.

A weak laugh escaped him. "Sorry for you! All my pity I reserve for myself, sweet lady—because I've run myself straight up on some rocks," he added sadly.

"If it's about the money—" she blurted out naively.

"The money?"

"I don't care about it, not at all." In fact she wanted no part of it, only the remembrance of their night together.

"You dear little witch—the money is nothing. Take ten times the money—only don't go, Tess. I can't let you go." His hand caressed the curve of her neck and shoulder.

She took his hand in hers and held it. "I can stay longer," she said, her eyes shining with pleasure. "Only I have to let Maggie know—"

"I don't mean for the morning, Tess, or for an extra day. Come away with me on the _Enchanta."_

"Away ... where?" she asked, stunned.

"Does it matter?" he asked lightly. But he saw that it did. "Not far—we'll tuck into half a dozen deserted harbors between here and New York. The _Enchanta_ is due among the spectator fleet for the America's Cup Races, which begin on the seventh of September. Stay through the races," he said in a soft voice. "It's not so very long."

"But—"

_"But_ —your family. I understand. Send the money ashore with a note."

She laughed out loud at the suggestion. "A note! It's not as if l'm declining tea!" In a softer voice she said, "I'd love to stay with you, but can't I see my sister first and explain all that's happened?"

She had no idea how she would manage her entry into Beau Rêve, but surely she could figure something out. "It wouldn't take long," she added.

He looked genuinely sorry. "I think not, Tess. If you want to stay on, decide now. We must weigh anchor at once if we're to catch a favorable tide through the Race. With or without you, the _Enchanta_ must be on her way. Tess!" he added in a voice that sent her blood racing. "Can you walk away from last night? Can you?"

Put that way, it seemed that she couldn't. Aaron had claimed her heart's secrets, and then her body, and now her free will. And yet he was making her feel as though it was she who had dominion over him. She shook her head slowly to herself. _One of us has become enslaved to the other, and I don't know which._

Aaron saw concession in her face; his own lit up. "You're staying. It's the best thing." He slid his arm around her waist and lifted her to him in a kiss of pure joy. As for Tess, she swept all thoughts of fallen women aside in her determination to take each day one kiss at a time.

And although time and tide wait for no man, they traded a little of both for the chance to make love again. Their coming together was lilting and carefree, the happy play of two children about to set off on a raft downriver, with all the world before them.

Afterward Tess had just time enough for one draft of a note to Maggie. It was horribly inadequate, but Tess promised a longer letter to follow. Aaron gave her the addresses of several yacht clubs which would hold mail for them: In Greenwich and Fishers Island in Connecticut; and in Larchmont and Manhasset Bay and New York after that. It seemed unlikely that the _Enchanta_ and a letter from poor Maggie could end up in the same place at the same time, but Tess knew that Maggie, who was barely literate, would probably not write.

_I will be back after the races_ , she finished up. _And then I will tell you the most amazing tale yet. Be happy, Maggie. Our lives will be so much better now. You need not stay at that house. Use these funds to find someplace nice for you and Will and father. All will be well, now. Be happy._

Tess put the note and fifty dollars in an envelope and sealed it, and Aaron had it sent ashore. The crewman had some machinework to do on an engine part ashore and would not rejoin the _Enchanta_ for days; Tess would not be able to learn her sister's fate until then. Not until that moment did the awful truth hit her: she was being separated from her family for the first time in her life.

Maggie would be on her own for the next week or two. There was little doubt in Tess's mind that her sister was about to be given the sack. But the money would arrive in time; Maggie could take a nice flat in town and wait for Tess. Maggie could shop, and buy treats, and dream of good times to come.

It was the best possible outcome, Tess told herself. She remained below in Aaron's cabin while the _Enchanta_ weighed anchor. Aaron had not asked her on deck, which bothered her. Nothing about him had struck her as overly discreet. Was he ashamed of having her on board?

_I'll have to learn proper protocol for floozies,_ she thought wryly as she stared out a cabin porthole, sensing the yacht being pulled link by link to its anchor. It was a brilliant and cool summer day. For only the second time, she was seeing Newport's shoreline. It was such a pretty little jewel, this city by the sea. Church spires poked through green trees as the town crept up the hill away from the historic, protected harbor. She searched for St. Mary's brown stone tower. Would Maggie go to mass this Sunday without her?

From her vantage she could see no evidence of the royal opulence that lined both sides of Bellevue Avenue, but farther down the hill and closer to the water she was able to pick out a dozen fenced-in widow's walks on the slate roofs of the well-built houses of Newport's sea merchants. There might be a wife on one of them now, pacing anxiously, absent-mindedly taking in the black hull of the _Enchanta_ as it glided out of the harbor, en route to—where?

"I must be mad!" she said, jumping up. "The deed is done, the money is mine, Maggie is as fearful as any captain's wife—and yet I sit cowering in a man's cabin, waiting to satisfy his immoral whims!"

She slipped back into the guest stateroom. Her black dress was in the armoire, dry and neatly brushed, and for a moment she thought she'd been too drunk to remember hanging it up. _A servant did this for me,_ she realized in a daze. _For me._ After changing out of the brocade dressing gown into her own clothes, she returned to the leather settee in Aaron's cabin.

He came in a little while later, wearing full yachting regalia: flannels, a blazer, a cap, and waistcoat.

He took one look at Tess and said, "I'm sorry, darling. There were one or two gowns in the other stateroom that might have fit you. Didn't you see them?"

That was another thing. Why were there women's clothes on this widower's yacht?

"I need to get off, Aaron," Tess said without preamble.

"Now?" His smile was wry.

"If you would. Or if not now, then at the first port you put in to." She tried not to look at him, focusing instead on the Rhode Island shoreline as the _Enchanta_ steamed south.

"I see." There was a pause. "Is it because you're frightened of deep water?"

"Don't be absurd!" Her lower lip trembled; she bit it angrily. "You _know_ why, Aaron."

"Let me guess. You're having too much fun?"

She swung on him. "Yes—you could say that," she answered, flushing. "If I were intended to lead this sort of life, I would have been raised—well, differently."

"And if the rose were intended to shrivel on its vine, it would have been made to look like a thistle," he said impatiently, drawing close to her. "Don't you see that, Tess? If you had stayed behind at Beau-Rêve like a good little girl, the chances are you'd have been wooed—perhaps seduced—by some lout of a footman. A life in service, a brood of brats—is that how you see yourself, Tess? What good would you be to Maggie then? And young Will?"

He touched her hair as if it were spun of glass. Once again, it was not only his logic, but his reverence for her beauty that brought her around. Tess felt more than flattered; she felt ... chosen. For what, she had no idea. It didn't seem to matter, somehow. The long-lashed lids of her eyes drooped and her full lips parted, waiting for his kiss: it was an opiate, and Tess was well on her way to addiction.

They kissed long and deep, until Aaron said in a voice slurred with desire, "Tess, you gave me your word that you would stay. It tore me apart just now when—damn you, Tess," he said weakly. "How can you torment me this way?"

The ache in his voice, more than his words, moved Tess deeply; she had never been the object of anyone's obsessive desire before.

"I'll stay," she whispered tenderly. "Until the seventh. I promise."

****

Three days later, the _Enchanta_ was tucked all alone in the lee of Shelter Island. It was hot and still, a typical late summer afternoon on Long Island Sound. Tess was seated on the afterdeck sipping a ginger-beer, her mood languid and pleasure-sated. In the morning she and Aaron had gone shelling on a deserted beach. When they returned to the yacht Aaron had wanted to make love, but first Tess had insisted on setting out her shell treasures all around them. Aaron had stood by patiently, complaining good-naturedly of the torture she was putting him through, and later Tess, without feeling any shyness at all, had rewarded him by satisfying him in the manner of the French. Afterward, as they lay in one another's arms, he confessed to her that his wife had steadfastly refused to indulge him in the act, which he said all men enjoyed to an intense degree. Tess found his confession fascinating, as she found everything about him fascinating.

She was also fascinated with the yacht. Aaron had given her a complete tour, from the wheelhouse to the engine room, and Tess had met Captain Oberlin and most of the crew. They called her Miss Moran and were brutally polite. Tess had not yet found the courage to look any one of them in the eye. It was much easier, she was discovering, to serve than to be served; it took skill and practice to accept a ginger-beer without feeling gratitude.

Lunch was being served to them on the afterdeck. After the last dish was set down, Tess sighed happily: they were alone again. It could not last, this isolation—they were getting closer to New York and to Aaron's circle of friends—but for the moment Tess was serene. She felt utterly feminine in the ice-blue gown he'd bought for her on the Connecticut shore. And she had a hat to match: In her time alone, while Aaron reviewed his stock portfolio, she designed hats. Hats and gowns, but mostly hats. She had a drawer full of sketches, and two or three actual hats she'd made from scraps of trim she'd scrounged from the small shops in New London. Aaron seemed genuinely impressed by her ability to create something from nothing. Tess had responded, "You must have terribly low expectations of women. Some of us can be quite useful ornaments, you know."

And he had scolded her, again, for being so defensive.

He was watching her now, in his thoughtful, appraising way, stroking his goatee, a look of beguiling tenderness in his eyes.

"You don't like this dress, after all," she teased. They had laughed over the fact that Mrs. Astor took ninety gowns to Newport with her for the season. Tess had three.

"The dress is perfect on you."

"What, then? You've hardly spoken in the last hour."

He reached into his blazer pocket and tossed a small envelope across to her. "From your sister," he said. "Mac came aboard at eleven."

"He's back then! What news of Maggie?" she cried, snatching up the letter.

"I assume it's all in there," Aaron answered in a terse voice.

"You should have told me about this at once," she said excitedly, tearing it open.

"Tess, must you look so damned _young?_ You look like a schoolgirl at Christmas holiday!"

Tess heard none of it. She read:

Dear Tess,

Well a surprize! How awful re M. Hillyard. The other man sounds ever so nice. I gave the man who bruought your note one $ to take this back, not too much I hope. It doesn't matter about my job because you will never guess. Birget is going it on her own & wants me. I may need a bit of your mony but only at frist. I do miss you. Yours sincerly with love, Maggie.

Tess's face skidded through half a dozen emotions before coming to rest in a bank of sorrow.

"Well? Has the wicked Cornelia extracted her revenge? Is Maggie cruelly dismissed?"

"Maggie doesn't say, but then she wouldn't," Tess admitted, oblivious to his sarcasm. "She would hate to alarm me. The head laundry maid has decided to start up her own business and wants Maggie. Of course, I should have guessed all this. Even though Maggie is much too slow for a rush-around like Bridget, Bridget will get around that—she'll pay Maggie by the piece and Maggie will work 'til she drops. Oh, damn. Oh, damn."

"May I see the letter?"

Tess handed it over, her mind and heart racing back to Newport. Aaron read it through and said, "Your sister sounds far more spunky than you give her credit for."

"You don't know her. She puts on a brave front."

"You're convinced that her health will suffer adversely if she goes to work for this Bridget?"

"Of course. What was I thinking of?"

"Hold on, Tess. Rein in that Irish fatalism for once. Send Maggie another letter offering her a job in your millinery shop. Spell out the terms—her wages and responsibilities. Be businesslike. Try not to sound like a mother hen, or a charity warden."

Her face lit up with gratitude. "That's just the right tone to take!" She reached across the table for his hand. "Aaron—oh, Aaron, I seem always to need bailing out. Why do you bother with me?" she murmured.

His look was steady. "Because I love you, Tess. Don't you know that?"

"I never thought of you and ... of love," she answered quietly, taking up her fork again.

"There are all kinds of love, Tess. You said so yourself."

She was afraid to ask which kind was his. For now, it was enough that he loved her. Without him, where would she be?

****

The _Enchanta_ continued on her rambling trek westward. Except for the time they put into New London for supplies, the _Enchanta_ had stayed to herself, searching out quiet anchorages which lacked the amenities that attracted the more glittering New York yachts. Tess rarely went ashore; with no chaperone aboard, there was not even the illusion of propriety. Besides, they were utterly content in one another's company. Tess had much to learn, and Aaron, it seemed to her, knew everything.

He liked things American: wine from California; Herman Melville's romances; the Caribbean watercolors of Winslow Homer. He railed against Newport's slavish and ignorant devotion to Continental art and went to great pains to explain to Tess that there was, indeed, life after the French Renaissance. Some of it she took in, some of it she didn't; but always, always she was in awe of him. And intensely curious: she never stopped asking questions, and he never lost patience with her.

One afternoon, about a week after they left Newport, the _Enchanta_ was anchored in a snug, clear lagoon behind Eaton's Neck, and Tess and Aaron were enjoying the afternoon, she with her sketchbook, he with his ever-present correspondence, when a large schooner-rigged yacht reached smartly up the narrow channel, headed into the wind, and dropped its anchor. Sails were lowered and furled, and a pretty little rowing skiff put over the side immediately.

Aaron, watching through binoculars, said, "It's the _Xanadu,_ Jim McAllister's schooner. He's coming over."

Tess stood up immediately, clutching her sketchpad. "I'll wait below."

"No, you won't. Stay where you are. From now on it's useless to hide." Aaron strolled forward to the gangway to greet his friend.

From her wicker chair Tess heard a loud voice boom out, "Pipe me aboard, you old son of a bitch! It was damn lucky that it's a spring tide and I could see you over the bar—and have the water to come in after you!"

"Lucky indeed," Aaron called down ironically.

Irony was lost on McAllister. Everything about him—from his bushy gray beard to his across-the-water voice, was exaggerated; subtleties escaped him. Introductions were made. He accepted Tess's presence implicitly. The wicker chair underneath him groaned as he leaned forward and said in a half-threat to Tess, "I suppose that like most women, you prefer steaming on an even keel to the heeled-over thrill of a sailing yacht?"

Before Tess could answer Aaron said, "Speaking of which, McAllister, that was some devilish sailing to bring the _Xanadu_ in here. It's a pity we won't be here to see you beat out the channel."

"Oh? Where are you bound?"

"Sandy Hook, of course, for the Cup Races."

"Why, man, you can be there in a day. Stay on: fill me in on the craziness at Newport. Is it true that that fool Lehr organized a dogs' dinner for a hundred canines? The papers were full of it over here; I remember something about a dachshund collapsed over its plate of _foie gras._ Have things really sunk so low as that?" he asked, chuckling over his pun.

"Mac, you know better than to believe the papers."

"It isn't true, then?"

"Not at all. In fact it was a plate of stewed liver."

The men exchanged grins and tapped their glasses together. It was obvious to Tess that they shared a contempt for the summer absurdity known as high season in Newport.

"Why are you a part of it?" she asked Aaron later when the _Enchanta_ was on its way again, steaming ever closer to their destination. "You just spent an hour with that man mocking the hollowness of Newport Society. So why do you share in their rituals?" She had never really forgiven him for having been a guest at the Servants' Ball.

"My Tess, a radical? I think I've told you that among that decadent crowd are two or three whom I call friends. And I confess I find Newport's vulgarity a refreshing change of pace: it's amusing, in a rather stupid way. And finally—well, I found _you_ in Newport. It will always have a place in my heart for that."

He took her in his arms then and kissed her, despite the fact that they were standing at the stern rail in view of some of the crew. "I begrudged McAllister's hour aboard, Tess; it was an hour less I had with you alone," he murmured, burying his face in her hair. "I suppose it can only get worse."

"Do we have to go to New York for the America's Cup Races?" she asked in a small voice.

"I'm afraid so, darling. I've watched every defense of the Cup for the last twenty-five years. It's become a sacred tradition between me and some of my friends. I can't let them down."

"In that case, can we hide the _Enchanta_ somewhere until the day of the first race?" she whispered, tracing the line of his brow in the deepening September twilight.

"I don't see how. She's not _that_ small a yacht."

"I dread having to face your friends, Aaron. I can't expect them all to be as indifferent to my position as Mr. McAllister was."

"Nonsense. Most of my friends are—call them philosophers, Tess. They're a tolerant bunch."

The sun's red flames hid the flush in her cheeks. "You mean, they all have lovers too?"

"It's not unusual, Tess. You see how it is in Newport: the wives are busy running their three-ring circuses while their husbands stay behind in the City earning the money to pay for it all. After all, to spend half a million in Newport in eight weeks is not unusual. Add to that, the marriages are almost never love matches. Does it surprise you that the men take lovers?"

"It surprises me that you speak of it so easily," she said quietly. "When Mrs. Gould was alive, did you—"

"Yes."

"Oh. And afterward—"

"Of course. But none, none like you. I sound like a dotard, I know. Well, maybe this is what age and experience have taught me: to know the real thing when at last I see it. But you are so young. How can you know the sound of truth when you hear it?" he asked her sadly. "I love you, Tess."

"You love your friends as well," she countered.

"There are many kinds of love, Tess. Do you care for Maggie any less because you are with me?"

"I suppose I must," she answered, staring at the dark, rippling wake of the _Enchanta._ "I'm taking from her to give to you."

"That's your head speaking, Tess, not your heart."

"It may be. No doubt it's my head that tells me I must make choices while you seem not to have the need."

"Let's not travel that road, darling," he said in a warning voice. Perhaps you should consider sending Maggie more money; I can write a check—"

"Maggie needs more than money. Money is not enough!"

"Money will have to do," he answered quietly.

They went below after that, and supper was a quiet affair.

At ten o'clock, when Aaron proposed going to bed, Tess begged off with the excuse that she needed to work up an inventory of materials for her shop. She stared resolutely at the list before her as he said, "Don't tire yourself. We have a long cruise tomorrow."

Two hours later, sleepy and unhappy, she dragged herself off to bed. A light was burning low, enough for her to see that Aaron was lying on his back, his arms cradled behind his head.

She began to undress herself in silence.

In a calm voice Aaron said, "Do you want Maggie to join us on the _Enchanta,_ Tess? Would that make you happy?"

Tess paused in her nakedness, holding a silk gown to her breast. "I would die of shame," she answered.

"Do you want me to release you from your promise to stay?" he asked, still staring at the overhead.

"I don't know," she whispered.

He rolled his head to look at her. "I can have you put ashore in the morning. No apologies, no regrets."

She winced, then sat beside him on the bed, the little French gown cast aside. "I have been so miserable tonight, Aaron, more than I ever thought possible."

"Is the converse true? Have you been happier these past few days than you ever thought possible?" he asked with a wan smile, trailing a forefinger across the top of her breasts.

"What do _you_ think?"

"Well—at least you haven't thrown me off my boat yet."

She sighed and bent over him, her rich red hair tumbling over her shoulders. "How can you laugh when we have so little time left together?"

"It's that or tear out my hair and rail at the gods, Tessie. I don't mind being an old man, but I'd rather not be a bald old man."

She smiled and climbed into bed alongside him. "How old are you really?" she asked, testing his shoulder with little bites.

"Ah. Old enough to have a daughter older than you: two score and nine well-worn years."

"Am I like Vanessa?" Tess asked in a voice muffled by the pillow.

"Not even a little bit. You're twice as mature, twice as pretty, twice as clever, and—"

"Twice as rich?" she finished, laughing at the absurdity.

"Maybe not yet. Give the stock a chance to grow."

She lifted her head. "I don't own any stock."

"Ah, but you do. I've put together a little nest of eggs for you. Shares in Standard Oil, American Telephone and Telegraph, Consolidated Edison, J. P. Morgan, Homestake Mining... Atlantic Richfield of course, and one other—ah, yes, U.S. Rubber. I should also do something for you in banks; I really should ...."

Tess became quiet. "I wish you hadn't told me that. I wanted to tell you that I love you, but now the words will sound cheap and forced."

He placed two fingers on her lips. "Save them, in that case—for after we've made love. They will sound dear and unbidden."

#  Chapter 13

The _Enchanta_ and her half-dozen guests bobbled aimlessly on the water with the hundreds of other yachts, steamers, and tugboats gathered around Sandy Hook Light for the start of the first race of the 1895 America's Cup defense. The winds were light and public fascination with the event was high: the result was a huge spectator fleet, including scores of small daysailers which had no real business out on the ocean—so, at least, said Captain Oberlin as he slewed the _Enchanta_ first to port, then to starboard, to avoid a twenty-foot sloop whose overladen, open cockpit was filled with cheering, waving young men and women.

The atmosphere was that of a carnival: sixty thousand spectators had taken to a small patch of the North Atlantic to see the American yacht _Defender_ do battle with the English yacht _Valkyrie III_. Anything that could be made to float, had. There was much bailing in the smaller boats; more than one sank out from under naïve owners who then had to be rescued by sturdier craft. Hairbreadth escapes from collisions were routine, as small, quick sloops darted under the bows and bowsprits of the larger, less agile yachts; fists that weren't raised in salutes were raised with hearty curses.

The air was filled with smoke from the stacks of double- and triple-decked excursion and ferry boats whose captains, plagued by the floating riffraff, seemed to be giving as well as they were getting. The din of horns and bells—and even, on one yacht, of bagpipes—made it difficult to hear or speak. Hopes were high for a repeat of the last race of the 1893 defense, which the American yacht _Vigilant_ won over the Earl of Dunraven's _Valkyrie II_ by a mere forty seconds, a race that _The New York Times_ had stated was "probably the greatest battle of sails that was ever fought."

America was eager to win again, and nobody liked the Earl of Dunraven anyway.

That was the consensus of the four men who hovered around Tess on the afterdeck of the _Enchanta_ , three of whom kept elbowing one another for the privilege of bringing her up to speed on the recent history of the America's Cup.

"The Earl of Dunraven is a rotten sport," claimed Henry Smythe, a Wall Street colleague of Aaron's. "The man dragged the New York Yacht Club through two long years of hair-splitting negotiations over the conditions governing the race. Outrageous, I say."

"You can't blame him for trying to get himself dealt a fair hand by the New York Yacht Club," interrupted Malcolm Landis, who had his own reason for sticking up for the British yacht with its Irish captain (he had applied for membership to the exclusive club and had been rejected).

He leaned in toward Tess. "The way it was, the Americans held all the cards. Look how they rigged the game: the New York Yacht Club had their choice of boats to put up for each race; the challenger got only one. The New York Yacht Club could build in secret; the challenger had to submit detailed plans of its yacht a full ten months before the race. What's more, the New York Yacht Club could and did tear up the conditions governing the America's Cup Races whenever they chose! There are those on both sides of the Atlantic who say that what it amounts to is this: it's New York's ball and it's New York's bat, and if they don't like the way the game is going, they move the bases."

"Now wait. Now wait," put in Mr. Clyde Jarvis, a much older man who kept brushing Tess's arm not quite accidentally. "Whatever the Club's faults, the fact is they've made good on them. It's a reasonably fair contest now, thanks or not to Dunraven, and a more exciting one, what with both boats sailing over the line at the gun."

He turned to Tess with a gaze far too intense for the subject under discussion. "Probably you didn't know that up until two years ago, the yachts had two minutes after the starting gun to get over the line; the crossing time was calculated into the final result and—"

"For God's sake, Clyde, what does a young lady care about your dry technicalities?" Landis cut in. "All he means to say, Miss Moran, is that all hell breaks loose now, with both yachts mowing down the spectator fleet to get over the line at the sound of the gun."

Smythe took a gold watch from his fob pocket and noted the hour. It was nearly time for the ten-minute warning. "I have it on good authority," he announced, "that Dunraven considers the Americans quite capable of cheating. If you ask me, he shows all the symptoms of paranoia. It just isn't sporting," he intoned.

"Not at all like the English," agreed Jarvis. "But then, the man ain't English, even if the challenging club behind him is." He turned to Tess again with an appraising look. "Will you be cheering for your Irish countryman, Miss Moran?"

Her first trap. Up until now Tess had considered the day a success. She was dazzled by the fleet, curious about the races, pleased to be the treated with such gallantry. She was grateful to Aaron for having seen to it that another young woman came aboard, even though she had become seasick instantly and had gone below, where she remained.

"I have no wish to see the Americans lose," she could in all honesty reply.

_"Ho!_ Tepid but tactful!" cried Jarvis. "Aaron, this protégée of yours has her own share of Irish diplomacy."

"Do you think so?" asked Aaron innocently. He had just joined the company after conferring with his captain. Leaning against the rail, his arms folded across his chest, he gave Tess a look of soul-melting intimacy as he said, "I seem to find myself scorched more often than soothed."

Flushing, Tess said, "I ought to see how Miss Appleton is faring. Perhaps I can make her more comfortable. Excuse me please, gentlemen." With her eyes she curtsied to each as she passed them, leaving each man smitten in her wake.

As for poor Miss Appleton: she was still green, still moaning. She waved Tess away and buried her face in her pillow; the sailor's life was not for her. Tess pulled a light blanket up over the invalid and stepped quietly from the stateroom. In the passageway she met Aaron.

"Any better?" he asked.

"Not until she steps on dry land again, I think."

"Tess, this is impossible," he said in a low voice, brushing her lips with a kiss. "I'm ready to sweep the lot of them overboard to have you alone again."

"It was your idea to come see the Races," she said with a smile not entirely free of malice. "Besides, everyone has been very kind to me."

"Oh, yes. You're a smashing success. And I shall personally smash old Jarvis in the face if he drools on you one more time."

"He seems harmless," she replied, shrugging.

"The very rich are never very harmless," he grumbled.

"I don't see why you—?"

And then she did. "Do you mean, you're afraid he'll outbid you for me?" she asked Aaron dryly.

He cradled the back of her head in his hands and gave her a long, searching look. "Maybe I am," he admitted. "You don't realize—you're so inexperienced. So young, Tess."

"That's right. And I draw the line when a man needs a cane to get around," she answered curtly, offended by his candor.

She pulled away from him and returned on deck in time to see both hundred-ton yachts jockeying for position at the starting line. A gun had gone off, obviously, because the cheering was thunderous. But from the start it seemed, even to Tess, not a close contest. The _Valkyrie III_ was majestic but outmatched. The first race of the ninth defense would in no way rival the last great race of the eighth defense.

"Well, Miss Moran, it looks as if the Cup will not be hauled away to the British Isles this go-around," said Malcolm Landis sympathetically. He actually sounded disappointed.

Tess suspected that he did not want America to lose so much as he wanted the New York Yacht Club to. "I think no matter how the race is resolved, everyone will have a good show," she said. "The yachts are thrilling to watch, are they not?"

They were. At nearly a hundred and thirty feet long, each carrying over twelve thousand square feet of sail and a practically unlimited number of crew, the two huge yachts were bound—just by having shown up at the line and engaged in combat—to impress most ordinary mortals.

Still, it was no contest. When the Irish nobleman's _Valkyrie III_ finally crossed the finish line nearly nine minutes after the Americans' _Defender,_ it was Aaron who ominously remarked, "Look out now; Dunraven likes to lose less than any man I have seen."

****

The cruise back to port was the usual march of triumph. Once again America was on her way: one down, two to go. She'd show England what was what. America had better boats, better sails, better technology. Naturally. She was a young country, an ambitious country, pitted against an old and complacent one. If the group aboard the _Enchanta_ seemed annoyingly confident, who could blame them? England still viewed yacht racing as a nice old gentleman's sport.

The brash, upstart Americans knew better.

There wasn't room to swing a cat in Gravesend Bay, so a lunch-hook was dropped, and after a cold buffet, more America's Cup talk, and a final toast to the Races, to Tess and to the unfortunate Miss Appleton (who was still nowhere to be seen), the party broke up, to regroup on the day of the next race. The guests, including a still-woozy Miss Appleton, were run ashore in the launch, and Tess and Aaron, feeling very much like worn-out hosts, were left to put up their feet over a pot of tea and a bottle of brandy in Aaron's cabin while the _Enchanta_ poked tiredly around the Bay, looking for space to bed down securely for the night.

"You were quite wonderful, Tess," Aaron said as he tamped tobacco in his Meerschaum.

Tess, in stocking feet and with eyes closed, was waiting for the tea to revive her. "I was not."

"Good Lord, Tess. Every man aboard fell in love with you today. Why do you say you were not?"

"Because I had too good a time! I found everything and everyone fascinating. I loved the Races, got caught up in the excitement—I didn't even have the decency to become seasick! In short, I behaved horribly unlike a lady," she said with a sigh.

"You're a disgrace to your sex," he agreed amiably.

"I mean it, Aaron. How must it have looked to the other yachts? Do you think I didn't notice the women aboard them? They appeared so fashionably bored, with now and then a condescending smile if they weren't too weary to manage it. I never saw any one of them venture anywhere near the sun—and look at me, burned to cinders!" She pressed her fingers to her hot pink cheeks. "I wanted you to be so proud of me, Aaron."

"Tess, you were toasted by two millionaires, a scion of one of New York's oldest families, and a tongue-tied artist who hardly got a word out all day, so enamored was he. Preston did manage to say, incidentally, how delighted he would be to paint you, but I discouraged him. He's not that good."

Tess replied: "The 'scion' you refer to has been disowned by his family; you told me so yourself."

Aaron sighed. "You hear only the parts you want to hear, my darling."

"Someone once told me," she said, still fretting, "that I could walk easily among society. It's not true. To society I look and act like what I am: _une fille de joie."_

"A woman of the evening? You are my lover, Tess—a very different thing."

"Is it?"

A little exasperated, he said, "You will be taken for my mistress, or my daughter, Tess—you must make your choice."

"I suppose ... there is no other?"

"None that I know of," he replied with a studied calmness, striking a match and putting it to the bowl of his pipe. "By the way, do you think our poor Miss Appleton will revive enough to attend the soirée aboard the _Matador?"_

Tess accepted the deliberate change of subject with grace, glad enough to retreat from so ludicrous a topic as the possibility of Aaron's marrying a laundry maid. "I did feel sorry for her," she admitted. "She told me before she left today that she considered throwing herself into the sea, only she was too ill to stand up." And then: "Is _she_ someone's mistress?"

Aaron shrugged. "Probably."

"Don't tell me whose. I don't want to know," Tess said, jumping up.

"Tess, what _is_ the matter with you?"

"Oh, I don't know, Aaron. I feel so ... irritable. I suppose I am thinking of my debut today," she explained with a wry look. She covered her face with her hands. "I'm sure that was Mrs. Van Anton on the schooner that came barreling past so close to us. After all," Tess said, beginning to pace, "the season is all but over in Newport. Everyone who isn't going to Hot Springs for the cure will be rushing back to New York to prepare for the fall season and another round of balls and parties—"

Aaron was watching her pace, mildly amused by her misplaced anguish. "What do you care whether Mrs. Van Anton—or Mrs. Astor herself, for that matter—saw you or not?"

"Well, I _do_ care," she confessed. She looked up at him. "Don't you?"

He hesitated before answering her, then said, "Let me rephrase the question. Can you possibly think _they_ care whether they saw you or not?"

"I suppose not. How silly of me," she said with a lift of her chin. Mrs. Astor could not have managed it better.

The sound of chain rattling through the hawsepipe made her say, "Look: we're anchored, and it's still early. I think you should go round to the _Matador._ I feel guilty keeping you from your little band of friends. After all, there is a victory to celebrate." It came out sounding like a dare.

He thought about it a moment, then said, "Only if you come with me."

Awful thought! Who knew who would be there? "No—no, I should lie down with a cool damp cloth over my cheeks. I'm sure I'll feel better by the time you return." She did not, of course, expect him to leave.

Aaron stood up and came over to her, brushing away a loose curl from the pink skin beneath it. "Come with me; I'm sure Mrs. Astor has an engagement somewhere else," he said with tender irony.

But it was not Mrs. Astor Tess feared running into; it was finding herself among a whole bunch of _filles de joie._

And so Aaron dressed, and kissed her, and Tess listened anxiously at an opened port as the huffing sound of his steam launch became more faint. She lay down fully clothed, and dozed, and awoke when the ship's bell rang eleven-thirty, and fell in and out of sleep for the next few hours. She never heard the launch return but was jolted awake by the sound of Aaron bumping into something in the dark and cursing; earlier she had turned the wick up high, and the lamp had burned out. Eight bells sounded; it was four in the morning. Tess lay utterly still, nursing her heartache.

When he climbed into bed beside her, she smelled alcohol and something more intimate, something harder to define. She waited without sleep for him to wake up, shaking out from her memory all the summer's tales of debauchery on the big yachts anchored off Newport's Gold Coast.

Jealousy and fearfulness: new emotions, both.

#  Chapter 14

The eighth of September was a lay day for the dueling yachts, and so was the ninth. Nonetheless, even though there was no racing, behind-the-scenes activity was intense. The rumor mill turned out reports of the Earl of Dunraven's continuing displeasure, and it was confirmed that both boats were remeasured the day after the first race, and their load waterlines marked at his insistence. (It was characteristic of the fever that afflicts Cup watchers that they could find endless suspense and drama in the simple act of loading up a given boat with its crew, gear, and sails and then seeing how deep into the water it sank.)

Tess, now as feverish as the best of them, listened to the news with fascination for those two days as a select trickle of Aaron's male friends came aboard, downed drinks, and offered educated (and sometimes wild) opinions about whether Dunraven's behavior was a bit of psychological cunning or the actions of a disturbed and distrustful man.

It was all very relaxed and oddly pleasant, nothing like the rigidly formal exchange of calling cards and empty phrases in the drawing rooms of Newport. Here the spirit of easy camaraderie prevailed; there, of mean-spirited competitiveness. It made Tess think that the men in Newport society who did not own boats were prisoners in their own castles.

When Tess told Aaron of her theory later that day, he smiled in melancholy agreement. "The men you saw today would cut me dead if they'd been with their wives; the poor bastards would have no choice."

"Because of me?"

He said offhandedly, "We're not married. And if we were, their reaction would probably be the same. I accept that, Tess. Why is it so hard for you?"

She turned away with a sigh. "I suppose, because the code seems so ... inflexible."

"It isn't, really. A son of old money can marry an actress and hope for the best. But if there are two strikes against one—if one's wealth is only second generation, and if one happens also to be Jewish—well, then one tries very hard not to strike out."

"—especially when one has hopes for a home run for one's daughter?" she asked, matching his tone.

"Especially then," he said softly. "I'm sorry, Tess. I never tried to mislead you."

Her back was still to him. She shut her eyes tightly, blotting out hopelessness, and then opened them and turned around. With a dangerous smile and a head held high, she said, "I don't care. I'll hit my own home run."

On the morning of the second race they were awakened by a brass band making the rounds of the harbor in a steam launch: it was eight o'clock. Tess knew, without looking through the porthole, that yacht club burgees and private signal flags would be flying from every masthead and American ensigns snapping from every stern rail: it was eight o'clock. The dew would have been wiped dry from every varnished hatch and rail, and smartly dressed crews would be finishing the scrubbing of yesterday's spills from silvery teak decks: it was, after all, eight o'clock.

The world of yachting was a comfortable blend of tradition and freedom, and it had appeal for Tess Moran. She would miss it when she returned ashore, even if it was to her own hat shop and a brand-new life.

She opened her eyes to see Aaron nearly dressed.

"What energy," she said with a sleepy smile. "You handle your champagne much better than I."

He bent over her and kissed her on her brow. "Is that what turned you so insatiable last night? In that case I'll have to lay in a supply before our cruise back to Newport."

"No-o, have mercy, Aaron!"

He sat down next to her. "Seriously, Tess. Something has come over you these past few days. You've used me up as a goddess does a mortal. I begin to feel you shall be my death," he complained with an ironic smile.

Tess chose to ignore his self-mocking tone. "I guess I must be competing—against all those women on the _Matador."_

He looked amazed. "Tess, those women are ... _nothing_ ! They're part of the scene, no more significant than—than the vendors who bring us the papers each morning."

She folded her hands across the blanket. "Have you made love to those women?"

"Does it make a difference?"

"It does."

"Then: no. To be honest, I no longer have the desire—or the strength."

"What do they offer that I don't?" she persisted. "We've done everything, tried everything..."

He smiled, then rubbed his lower lip, considering. He laughed again, to himself. "Would you let one of them join us some night?"

Wide-eyed, she pulled the covers up to her neck. "I would not!"

"Ah." He chucked her under her chin. "Then that, dear Tess, is the difference between you and them. Come, get dressed. Our guests will be here soon."

Tess and Aaron were finishing breakfast when the launch returned with Clyde Jarvis and the others. Jarvis put his arms round her and kissed her cheek; the others were content to take her hand. Malcolm Landis handed over a large packet of mail to Aaron and a single envelope addressed to Tess aboard the yacht _Enchanta,_ in care of the New York Yacht Club.

Maggie.

Tess excused herself and hurried below, where she tore open the letter to read:

Dear Tess,

The races must be on now and I hope this finds you happy. There is much news. Birdget is marrying a butcher, a fine match which is where the mony is coming from. I told her I did not want the job. She is gone from the house and I am too of corse. Miss C. was not too bad. _She_ is engaged to marry a Baron Levanaski—I cannot spell it or even say it. They say he is without a cent but why should she care? I had no need to take a room as Father has left. A friend told him there was a job as hand on the "Mary D" which is a fishing boat from here. Father says he can own a 1/4 share if he is good at it. He says after all he _is_ from Cork. He sailed Friday which they say is bad luck and I do hope it is not. So I am here with Will who is well but dizzy once when he played so hard. Your new shop does sound grand and you will be so good at it. I have all but 4 dollars that you sent so dont fear for us. We put the rest under a broken bord where it will be safe. When do you think you will be coming home? I think of you all the time. Your aff. sis. Maggie.

The letter was meant in every way to reassure, but in every way it left Tess disturbed.

The _Enchanta_ was steaming with the rest of the fleet toward the starting line for the second in the best-of-five series when Tess reappeared on deck and asked Aaron to see him alone.

"Maggie again, I take it?" he asked unenthusiastically. Tess showed him the letter. "I can't leave her alone on the waterfront like that. In that shack! The silly girl won't spend the money I sent. What can I do?"

"Nothing until after this race, certainly. Then I suggest—oh, bloody hell, Tess! You can't make someone do something she doesn't want to."

"You were able to," she shot back. "Why can't I?"

"We'll discuss this later," he said, irritated by her response. They rejoined Aaron's male friends—Miss Appleton, apparently, had found better sport ashore—and Tess did her best to keep her distress to herself. As before, the _Enchanta_ milled around the starting line with hundreds of other steamers and sailboats, waiting for something dramatic to occur. This time, they were not disappointed: a big excursion steamer filled with tourists positioned itself blithely between the two yachts and the starting line. The British challenger was able to clear the steamer's bow. _Defender,_ less lucky, was forced to duck under its stern.

"Damned if Dunraven doesn't have a point about the spectator fleet," shouted Jarvis. "That tomfool steamer blundered right in the way!"

"And now _Valkyrie_ and _Defender_ are on a collision course," said Aaron matter-of-factly as he watched the action through binoculars.

"Who must give way?" cried Tess, forgetting all else in the drama at hand.

_"Defender_ has the right of way; _Valkyrie_ is the burdened yacht."

"Now look what Syccy's up to," Landis cried, as the helmsman on Dunraven's yacht bore off and then luffed up sharply. "Too close, man, too close!"

Tess covered her eyes, then peeked through her hands to see the aft end of _Valkyrie's_ boom caught in the rigging of the American boat. _Defender's_ topmast, suddenly unsupported, bent over at a wild angle, threatening to crash down to the deck.

"Well God damn—excuse me, Miss Moran—well God damn it all!" cried Jarvis.

"There goes _Defender's_ protest flag up the halyard!"

"Chalk up another victory; the race will have to be given to us after this," said Landis.

_"Valkyrie_ doesn't seem to think so," said Aaron through his binoculars. "She's decided to keep right on going."

"What!"

Aaron shook his head, giving Tess a puzzled smile. "I can't explain it."

"And look! _Defender_ has decided to go after her!" cried Jarvis. "She's got a man up her mast already, making repairs. Ah, she's a feisty little Yankee! Never give up! That's what Americans are all about, Miss Moran. We never give up!"

In his excitement Jarvis grabbed Tess's arm with a strength that amazed her; he simply would not let go. He held on through most of the first leg of the race, convinced that the American yacht would somehow pull it off and fly past her British opponent. _Defender_ did not, but she came dose, forty- seven seconds on corrected time.

Not that it mattered: _Defender's_ protest was sustained and the race was awarded to her. Two down, one to go. Everyone was happy.

Except Tess. Late on the night of the second race, after their guests had gone, Tess slipped into the small stateroom that functioned as Aaron's library and office away from Wall Street and confronted him.

"I've decided to leave tomorrow morning, Aaron," she said with brisk resolve. "I've thought about it all day. You must let me go."

For a long time he was silent. "You're not a prisoner, Tess," he said at last.

"Of _course_ I'm a prisoner!" she cried. "Of my love for you; of your feeling for me; of all of _this,"_ she added, with a sweeping gesture at the elegant cabin in which she stood. "You can't know how seductive it all is, how hard it is to let it all go."

"You reassure me, Tess. I thought you'd come to scratch out my eyes for having been the cause of your ruin." It was said lightly, but his eyes were clouded with panic.

"I don't blame you for anything," she said quietly. "It was my decision."

He tried another tack. "Why tomorrow morning? Why not wait until the Races are over? We can return to Newport with all due speed."

"No. You told me never to look back. It's time to get on with my life. Besides, my family needs me."

" _I_ need you, damn it!" he suddenly shouted, slamming his hand on the desk top.

He jumped up and rushed to her, locking her in his arms, taking her breath, her soul, in a wildly passionate kiss. He covered her face with kisses, returning again and again to her mouth, pounding her resolve to rubble. It was an assault of the most devastating kind, and it left her reeling.

"Leave me and I die, Tess," he said in a voice breaking with passion. "I can't let you go. What will it take? What do you want? Take my money, take what you want, but stay, stay, _stay."_

"I can't," she choked out between kisses. "It isn't a real life—it's somewhere ... on the edge. I can't."

"Then marry me, damn you. Marry me and bring your whole damn family!" He was pulling her dressing gown away from her shoulder, searing the soft white flesh with his lips, moaning, incoherent with love. "Bring in all of Ireland, I don't care. Marry me; stay; marry me; oh God ..."

They made love after that, and again, and then a third time, and when Aaron, in a calmer and somewhat more rational mood, told Tess again to marry him, she said yes.

#  Chapter 15

Some people awake from a dream convinced that it is real; Tess awoke from the night before convinced that she had dreamt it all. Nothing in her life so far had prepared her for this fairy-tale turn. Her impulse was to pinch herself, pinch Aaron, get something in writing: it couldn't be true. She dressed quickly and went to look for him, but he'd taken the launch ashore. As always when he wasn't aboard, she felt uncomfortable among the crew—they seemed even more courteous then, which she took as a form of sarcasm—and so she waited in Aaron's stateroom, impatient and unbelieving.

It could never work. Or it might work. But she would never be accepted. Then again, she would still have her family. But what about Vanessa? And Aaron's family? _Anything for love,_ she told herself over and over. _Anything._

Aaron returned with Jarvis and the others an hour later. She met him at the top of the gangway and the two exchanged looks; Aaron's was dazed but tender. Obviously he hadn't told anyone. All talk was of the third race, and the scuttlebutt collected from around the harbor since the second.

As usual, Jarvis, who was a New York Yacht Club member, held the floor. As the _Enchanta_ steamed out with the rest of the spectators, Jarvis filled everyone in on the latest twist: Lord Dunraven had sent the Cup Committee a letter refusing to sail unless the course were kept clear.

"Can't blame him," put in Landis. "His last challenger sank like a stone over in England when she got hit trying to get around some fool boat before the start of a race there. Like a damn stone. A man died, you know, from injuries. It's a serious business, by God."

"I have not finished," said Jarvis. "This morning the Committee got another letter saying he _would_ race, on condition that the race be declared invalid if a spectator boat happens to interfere."

"That's a new one," muttered Aaron, hearing it for the first time. "What did they say?"

"What _could_ they say? There's no provision for that."

"Well, why the hell are we all headed out for the starting line? Will there be a race today or not?" demanded Landis, disgusted.

As it happened, the race was delayed for some time while several aggressive steamers were moved well away from the starting line. It was a slow, boring business, and Aaron gave the order to have a light meal served on the afterdeck for his friends who—like most of the fleet—were becoming fed up with Dunraven's antics.

Aaron and Tess stood away from the guests at the starboard rail, alone for the first time that day.

"See that single-stacker with the clipper bow? A nice bit of work, that," Aaron said to her in a pleasant, formal voice for everyone to hear. Then, in a whisper he added, "I meant what I said last night, darling."

"It's a beautiful yacht," agreed Tess in equally clear tones. Then, more softly: "I don't hold you to promises spoken in passion." She wanted him to insist.

"It won't be easy," he murmured, which she did not want to hear. "I have a quiet place on the South Shore of Long Island. We'll live there. It won't be easy," he repeated.

To Tess it sounded faint-hearted. She moved a little farther forward, away from the guests. "I've told you, Aaron: I don't take your offer seriously." There was injury in her tone.

"Tess, don't start," he pleaded. "I meant, it won't be easy for _you._ You will be isolated. As for me, I'll have all _I_ want," he added with a burning look.

Tess, feeling manipulative, shifted her gaze to the fleet around them. The _Enchanta_ had been shepherded out of the way with a cluster of other yachts, both sail and steam. Their captain had throttled back to allow a poky gaff cutter to creep to windward across the _Enchanta's_ bow. A steam yacht alongside them was doing the same. Idly Tess surveyed the elegantly dressed group of young men and women lolling on the port deck of the larger yacht. Women in white, men in blazers—a small handful of Society, indistinguishable from other handfuls on other yachts.

But there was one, taller than the rest, with a soldier's carriage, who caught and held her attention. He was laughing at someone's remark and he looked far, far handsomer than she had dared to remember.

She turned abruptly away, her blood draining from her face. Aaron, of course, had turned to see the reason for her paleness. "Well, well—Hillyard. You overreact, Tess; he isn't a demon from hell," she heard Aaron say behind her.

"To me he is," she said faintly. "Can we rejoin your guests?"

"Not until you compose yourself. Turn around, Tess. Look more natural." When she hesitated he added, "I must insist."

She did turn then, slowly, but her eyes were downcast, her cheeks now flushed. "This is very hard," she said in a choking voice.

"Tess, upon my word I do not like to see this," murmured Aaron. "You were bound to run into him sooner or later. How can your feelings run so deep?"

"I ... they run wide more than they run deep ... so many different emotions ..." She stared at her white shoes so that he wouldn't see her eyes glazed over with tears.

"Look up, Tess," Aaron commanded, "and watch me." He let go with a jaunty wave to Hillyard. "I could kill him now, but you see I am still capable of the small civilized gesture. That is what lets this world go round, Tess—the small gesture. You cannot hope to survive in the world of Society without mastering it, Tess. A mistress is permitted melodramatic behavior; a wife is not. It will be bad enough for you. Don't make it worse _._ _Look at him,_ _Tess_."

Tess lifted her gaze to the port deck of the elegant steamer alongside. Hillyard had seen them. He was gripping the rail with both hands, a stricken look on his face. His curt nod in their direction was less an acknowledgment than a threat.

Tess sucked in her breath, then let it out slowly. It cost her everything, but she managed a cool, offhand look in Hillyard's direction.

His face flushed a deep red, and he turned on his heel and left the small group of which he was part. One or two stared after him curiously.

_"Will that be all, sir?"_ Tess said under her breath to Aaron.

"There's the gun for the ten-minute warning!" cried Landis behind her. "At last we'll see a contest!" He sounded relieved. Landis, and everyone else, was ready to be diverted by a well-fought race.

The contest of September 12, 1895, was not fated to be that race.

There was, in fact, no contest at all. _Valkyrie_ dutifully sailed over the starting line, but then Dunraven brought the yacht back immediately and dropped its racing flag. It was over; the Americans had won by default. Dunraven's bizarre behavior had cost him the Cup.

History would show that the bad taste of the 1895 defense got more bitter still in the months afterward: charges of fraud were published and refuted in papers and magazines, and a committee of inquiry set out to investigate Dunraven's claims. It took the New York Yacht Club five hundred and fifty-odd pages of testimony to set the record straight. It would be almost ninety years before the cry of "Foul play!" went up again quite so loudly, and then it would be hurled by Americans—at the Australians.

But on this particular Thursday Jarvis spoke for everyone when he said, "If ever a fox went after sour grapes, it surely was that crybaby Dunraven."

The return trip from the last race was a desultory affair, with little cheering and lingering confusion among the spectator fleet; the sense of anticlimax was profound. Jarvis threatened to write a letter to the Cup Committee, and Landis predicted that diplomatic relations between the two countries would sink to an all-time low. Aaron sat a little to one side, scarcely allowing himself to look at Tess.

And Tess? Tess was still in shock. Her heart had sprung open like a suitcase fallen off a train, and all the feelings that had been packed carefully away lay scattered around her like jumbled clothes. She could not separate love from duty, passion from anger, hostility from hunger. One lone conviction stood out, like a bright red scarf among drab greys: _Aaron has just lost faith in me._

She stole looks at her lover, who had struck a carelessly elegant pose in his wicker chair: legs crossed, stroking his goatee, apparently immersed in Jarvis's amiable babble. How would she convince him now that she loved him? Given the tumult of her feelings, how could she be sure now that she did?

"Miss Moran—I say, Miss Moran—you really do look under the weather. Perhaps you ought to lie down."

Everyone became solicitous, and Tess took herself below to escape their scrutiny. She flung herself into her berth sick with tension. Whether it was the nausea, or some inner mechanism designed for survival, Tess fell asleep immediately and did not wake until she heard the clamor of chain running free; they were anchoring somewhere. She opened her eyes, drugged with sleep. The pillow beneath her lashes was wet.

A _few more minutes,_ she thought, _and then I'll face it._

She did not know how much later it was when she awoke the second time, this time instantly. Through the open port came the call, "Ahoy _Enchanta_! Ahoy _Enchanta!"_ There was no mistaking the voice: Edward Hillyard.

She sprang up to the brass-bound porthole in time to see Hillyard tie up a small skiff to the gangway and dash up it. Aaron was at the head. They exchanged a word or two, and then both men disappeared from her view.

"No, no," she whispered desperately. "I haven't worked it all out in my head yet!" It didn't surprise her that Hillyard had invited himself aboard; nothing surprised her any more. She ran to the stateroom door to listen. In a few seconds she heard them making their way to _Enchanta's_ library. It was late afternoon; she had no idea whether Jarvis and the others were still on board.

Something—the instinct of an eighteen-year old girl, not of a millionaire's mistress—made her turn the key in her door. If only she could be spared the pain and trauma of the scene to follow. She began pacing the length of the small cabin. Seven steps forward: _her feelings about Hillyard?_ Seven steps aft: _were of a woman scorned._ Seven steps forward: _it wasn't love, it was simple heartbreak._ Seven steps aft: _the heartbreak that comes from a first betrayal._ Seven steps forward: _Aaron hadn't taken away her innocence._ Seven steps aft: _Edward Hillyard had._

She went to the door, turned the key, and tiptoed down the passageway to the closed door of the library cabin. Hillyard's voice was loud, furious; Aaron's, controlled but scathing.

"She's a _girl,_ you bastard; a _child!"_

"It can't possibly be that you're jealous."

"That's far too noble an emotion to waste on you!"

"Then I confess: I'm at a loss as to your motive."

"Something you would never understand, Gould: to right a hideous wrong!"

"My dear young man, that's what I did. When first I laid eyes on Tess at the Servants' Ball, she was looking very wronged indeed."

There was a pause.

"That was unforgivable of me. I had some absurd idea of showing all of them up—"

"And instead you showed up only poor Tess."

"Not by choice, damn you! I ... I'd had a row with Mrs. Oelrichs at the Casino that afternoon. She got Henry to send a note uninviting me and threatening to call in a little loan if I had the temerity to show up at his place. _You've_ never been financially embarrassed; your father handed you a career in finance and a fortune to go with it. All I got was a two-hundred-year-old name."

"—which you seem determined to make a laughing stock of. What did you expect to gain by trotting out Tess as one of them? If it was something as stupid as a slap at Cornelia, then you succeeded. But the Hillyard name has become the longest-running joke in Newport in the bargain."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Of course you do. You proposed to Cornelia on the night of the Breakers Ball, and she laughed in your face."

"Because that fool Baron Lewandowski polka'd onto the scene!

"Not because of the Baron, dear boy. Not even because you're penniless—after all, Cornelia is looking for an old name to graft her fortune to, and you have that. No, Cornelia spurned you for the same reason that every debutante in town will: because she has no great desire to catch you in bed with another man."

"That's a filthy lie!"

"Is it? How old are you, Hillyard? Near to thirty? Perhaps it's time you learned a trade. Perhaps it's time you put aside your boyhood loves—and your love of boys—and settled down. With someone like Tess, for instance."

"You're a pig. You've finished with her, haven't you?"

"I said, _like_ Tess—"

"And now you're throwing her bones overboard to the sharks. You're an absolute pig—"

Tess heard a scuffle, and then the sound of someone being thrown against furniture, and glass smashing to the cabin sole.

_"Stand away from me, Hillyard!"_ came Aaron's breathless voice. "I'll shoot without thinking twice about it!"

A gun ... the small gun from his desk.

The library door was unlocked. Tess threw it open and hurled herself toward Aaron, crying, "Don't shoot him, Aaron!"

"Get out of here, Tess!"

But her mind, like a train, was locked in a track: _Get the gun, get the gun ... gun, gun, gun._ With both hands she lunged for it, clutched warm flesh and cold steel, as an angry child grapples with a playmate over a coveted toy.

"Tess, stop it! Will you stop—"

The gun went off, a horrendous noise which frightened Tess more than the sensation that a knitting needle had been jabbed through her knee. A distressed sound almost of embarrassment escaped her, as if she'd committed some _faux pas_ in Mrs. Astor's drawing room. And then the sense of self-destruction: searing, crippling. Her knee became a fireball, blinding her with bright pain, consuming her in itself.

And then black.

#  Chapter 16

To the north and east of the colonial section of Newport winds a road with a melancholy name: Farewell Street. Cemeteries, including the Common Burying Ground, line either side of it, and the casual traveler, finding himself surrounded on all sides by gravestones, inevitably drives a little more somberly in their midst. Sons and daughters of the Revolution are buried here, and witches, pirates, and privateers. Slaves who never got their freedom and dealers in the China trade are here. Ordinary citizens have stopped on here, and many servants, and a few masters.

Ball-boys are buried here.

Next to a mound of frozen brown earth, two young women set their backs to the raw northeast wind and prayed in silence for the soul of a skinny, cocky little boy who somehow slipped through the cracks of God's great design. One prayer, heartfelt and humble, was lifted straight to heaven on the wings of angels. The other, just as heartfelt but utterly defiant, hovered uncertainly over the grave and its mourners, like the smoke from Cain's sacrifice.

After a while the women moved on, the thinner one pinning her cape to her chest, trapping its heat to her thin frame; the more beautiful one, picking her way cautiously with a cane over the icy ground.

"Lean on me, Tess," begged the smaller, black-haired girl.

"And knock you clean over? Don't be daft, Mag. I'm getting quite used to hobbling over rock and ridge. I'd better," she added grimly.

A cab was waiting for them on Farewell; the horses stamped impatiently, eager to get back to their barn. In December there is no twilight: only sun and no sun, and the horses were aware, even if Tess seemed not to be, that another long, cold night was at hand.

The cab driver, an obliging, industrious fellow, jumped down from his seat to help Tess mount the carriage.

"Thank you, no. I will manage it myself," she said. Very slowly but very surely she pulled herself up by her good leg and then, with a small and almost controlled gasp, took her place inside.

"Oh Tess, you do seem to be in pain," said Maggie.

"No. It's awkward is all. Stop fussing over me, Mag. It's unnatural and I don't like it. I'm far more concerned over you. In three months you've lost a stone of weight. Did Father not watch over you at all?"

"At first he was off fishing most days, and then after that fell apart and he couldn't find anything more—well, he was fair ashamed, I think, and didn't like to be around. Besides, he was always, always looking for work."

"In every pub on Thames Street, I expect."

"Because that's where his connections were—fishermen and day laborers and such."

"At least he never considered going back into service."

"Oh no, never that. He took to saying that he didn't want to set an example for another generation of Morans to go down into slavery."

"Well, he got his wish, didn't he! None of us will."

"Why do you blame Father for Will's death, Tess? It was so sudden—one minute he was playing stickball, and the next he was dead. The doctor said the clot from the hit with that stone was like a bomb, just waiting to go off. No one could have prevented it."

"I could have! If I'd been here, minding the family instead of off chasing rainbows, I _would_ have!"

"You're very proud, Tess," Maggie murmured without looking at her sister. "But the good book says that pride goeth before a fall."

"I've fallen, Mag," Tess answered tiredly. "About as low as I can go. My pride is my crutch; it lets me walk away from despair."

"How can you despair? I don't understand it. Look at the good you've done already with your ... your settlement from Mr. Gould. You've been able to start Father along on his dream—"

"His latest dream!"

"—to prospect for gold. Why, anything could happen—look at Sutter's Mill, at the Comstock Lode. _Some_ _one_ had to be the first man to start digging in those places. That's what father says. He has a feeling about the Yukon; it's so lucky for him that he met someone who knows so much about prospecting."

"It's just another wild-goose chase, Mag. The song says there's gold in California. I never heard anyone singing there's gold in Canada."

Maggie shivered and pulled her cape closer. "I just hope the Klondike is not as cold as Newport is today."

Tess just shook her head, and the two sisters fell silent as the cab hurried along to the waterfront shack that had been Maggie's home since the day following the Servants' Ball.

"Tess?"

"Mmn?" Tess had been staring idly at the few passers-by on Thames Street, reliving it all.

"I met him. Mr. Gould. At Will's grave, a month ago."

Tess whipped her attention around to her sister, and Maggie recoiled from the intensity of it.

"He asked me not to mention it, but ...."

Still Tess stared, fierce and silent. Maggie rambled nervously on. "He was just standing there—he didn't seem to be praying or anything. At first I didn't see him. Then I tried to move away, but I was curious who he was, so I hung around, I'm afraid. He saw me and said, 'Am I holding things up for you?' I didn't know what he meant—I wasn't going to plant flowers or anything, not in November—so I said, 'No, just go right ahead with what you're doing, and so will I.' So I said a prayer for Will, and he stood alongside for a bit, then said, 'You're Tess's sister Maggie, aren't you?"

"Which amazed me, Tess," Maggie continued. "How he could ever have known—you and I are nothing alike—but I nodded and somehow—I suppose from your description of him as older and kindly, because he did look both—somehow I knew it was Mr. Gould. Then he looked at me, really _so_ kind and said, 'Tess loves you very much and she's coming back for you,' and I thought he was going to cry but he didn't, only saying not to tell, and he left."

Maggie looked at her agitated sister and added, _"_ Did _you_ want me to tell?"

"Yes. No. Oh, I don't know. God, I don't know." Tears, more tears, rolled steadily down Tess's cheeks. The information, told in such sweet good faith by Maggie, was devastating to hear. It meant that Aaron Gould had gone to Newport just before returning to New York for the last time; before taking his own life with the same gun that had shattered Tess's knee. He had seen the Morans, and he had been moved, and afterward he had left Tess even more generously provided for in his will. It broke her heart to know this new reason why.

Tess buried her face in her hands and said nothing until they reached the shack.

The driver let her descend on her own but came in to cart out Maggie's trunk and load it on the cab. Tess, under control now, took one last look around the cleaned up-hovel. There were pathetic little touches of the frail homemaker—a scrap of curtain, a little rag rug—but it was still a hovel. "How _could_ you have stayed here, Mag?" she asked sadly.

"It wasn't so bad, not until Father left. After that I was a bit nervous on the rowdy Saturday nights, but I don't know what for—no one knew about the money you'd sent, and they couldn't have wanted my virtue," she said with a forlorn smile.

"Hush that talk, Mag! After we settle at Saranac Lake, and after I've dressed you and fattened you and fixed your hair—well, we'll see whose virtue won't need protection all around the clock."

Maggie laughed at the notion, which made her cough, and then said almost wistfully, "Will the food there really be as good as you say?"

"Absolutely. I have it on the best authority. You won't be able to resist a single meal."

"But ... I'm afraid of doctors, Tess. And haven't I always been?"

"I know, I know. But these are no ordinary physicians. Some of them suffer from your own ailment, and yet they are able to go about their business with hardly a care. Just as you will be. And after that, we'll come back and show Newport who can win at their game. Just wait. Just see. If you knew the plans I have for us!"

"I want to hear them all," Maggie said, and she did sound eager, which heartened Tess.

Tess limped over to her sister and put her free arm around her. "Ah, Mag, now we need never part again. Come—let's run as fast as our battered bodies can take us, away from these sad memories."

****

The _Priscilla,_ newest debutante of the Fall River Steamship Line, lay tied up to bustling Long Wharf at the head of Newport Harbor, taking in passengers bound for New York. The four-hundred-forty-foot sidewheeler was luxury itself, with enough electric light wires to stretch from Providence to Boston, a powerful new double-inclined engine capable of moving smartly at twenty-plus knots, steam-heated staterooms for those who could afford them, a vast quarter-deck floored with tile and trimmed in marble, and a lavishly appointed and brilliantly illuminated grand saloon carpeted in the trademark red and gold pattern of the Fall River Line.

The _Priscilla_ cost a million and a half dollars to build, mere pocket money for some of the cottagers on Bellevue Avenue, but a wildly extravagant sum for a commercial vessel. Nothing was spared to transport the movers and shakers of Boston and New York in a style befitting their station. And if ordinary citizens could afford the fare, then they were welcome aboard as well.

Tess had reserved a stateroom for the trip to New York; Maggie was not in any shape to ride out December conditions on the ocean except in first-class comfort.

But Maggie objected to being tucked away in a cabin, no matter how luxurious, when there was so much to see and admire in their floating palace. And besides, she wanted to bid goodbye to Newport.

"Can I at least watch on deck as we leave the harbor?"

"No."

"Only five minutes?"

So they huddled together on deck as the _Priscilla_ threw off her enormous hawsers and worked her way away from the dock. Around them lay Newport: cold, damp, snowless. The once great seaport had never looked sleepier. A crisscrossing pattern of gas lamps twinkled on the streets; not an Astor or a Vanderbilt was in sight. Those who catered to them were gone, too, either holed up like fat squirrels in warmer climates or scratching out an existence in town during these, the lean months.

The _Priscilla's_ steam whistles bellowed an end to all of it for the two sisters.

"We were never really part of it, were we, Tess?" asked Maggie wistfully.

Tess shook her head. "Hardly anyone is. Newport is a waystation, a place to dance, a place to hustle. It's a town to take by storm. The slavers did it, and the British, and now the robber barons. Who will plunder it when you and I are gone, I wonder? It's too pretty to let live in peace, that I know. Poor, pretty little Newport."

The _Priscilla_ had already steamed past the Navy's torpedo factory on Goat Island and past Fort Adams—ordered built by George Washington, though never a shot was fired there—and was heading toward the open water of Rhode Island Sound. Maggie shivered and huddled closer to her sister.

"Will you ever forgive him, Tess?" It was said so softly, so sadly, that Tess had no choice but to answer.

"There's nothing to forgive, Mag. He fulfilled his part of the bargain, and more. We can do anything we want with our lives now, thanks to him."

"Oh yes, the _money._ But Tess, he asked you to _marry_ him ...."

"I never should have told you, I see that now. You will always wonder whether I held—hold—it against him that he changed his mind. Well, I don't. I am not the same person he asked to marry him," Tess said evenly.

_"_ You _are_ the—"

"I'm _not,_ you silly child! You'll never understand. _You_ look past the form, at the soul of things, Mag. But for Aaron—how can I explain this?—the form _was_ the soul."

"You're right. I don't understand." Maggie slipped her arm around Tess's waist and leaned her head affectionately on her sister's breast. "Did he love you, do you think?"

"He did."

"And now he doesn't? Because you don't walk the same?"

Tess sighed. Maggie was too simple, too good ever to understand. "The shooting created an enormous scandal, Mag," she said at last. "In the end it was too much for him." Tess hadn't the heart to tell her sister of the even more shocking scandal that followed. Word must have traveled to Newport of Aaron Gould's suicide; but Maggie did not move among the set who would have heard of it.

Maggie was silent for a moment, and then she said, _"I'll_ always love you, Tess."

"Which is quite enough for me," Tess answered, embracing her sister. "Now—to bed. I'll be along in a minute."

Maggie left reluctantly, and Tess was left to feel once more the lift and fall of a boat under her on the wide black ocean, this time alone. She clung to the rail, uncertain in her balance now, certain, only, of one thing: that she was completely and solely responsible for her sister's care.

And cure. Tess had heard wonderful things about a sanatorium in Saranac Lake in New York. Surely the clean mountain air of the Adirondacks would do wonders for Maggie. Between Mother Nature and Tess's money and will and devotion, Maggie's prospects were not only hopeful but practically guaranteed. It _had_ to be so.

As for Tess herself, she couldn't help feeling that she had left her youth completely behind her. Would she miss it? On the whole, she thought not. There were compensations: she had her beloved Maggie, and her stock portfolio, and the income from the trust fund that Aaron had created for her. She had her whole life ahead of her.

And a baby inside her. Her hand went to her stomach—again—to monitor the progress there. Instinctively, she wanted to protect the fatherless child she would eventually bear. Alone. If Aaron had known ... would it have made a difference? She felt sure that it would. He would not have abandoned himself to guilt and sorrow; he would have felt the same stirrings of wonder that she did.

_Aaron_. She felt a surge of awareness of him, unbidden and irresistible. The December cold stung her cheeks and made her eyes tear, but in her memory the night was warm, the moon was high, and she was smiling, laughing, in love.

Memories! If she could sell them the way she could her railroad stocks, she'd do it in an instant. Memories were unnecessary baggage, a burden to carry through life. She had her own life to live, another to save, and a third to nurture.

Never look back. Look only ahead.

"Miss Moran, is it?" It was a steward, touching his hand courteously to his cap. "There's a young girl in the main saloon who's in a fair bad way. She says she's your sister. Coughing and such. Could you come to her, please?"

#  Chapter 17

New Year's Day, 1897

Doctor Henry Whitman, the trim, handsome, and surprisingly approachable head of the medical team at the Phoenix Sanatorium in Saranac Lake, ascended the shoveled steps of the charming cure cottage with a certain spring in his step. He was there personally to invite Tess Moran, sister of the patient within, to the grand holiday feast that was slated for later that day.

His attentiveness was political, of course: Tess Moran had contributed a sizable amount of money to the institute which was open to all, including the poor—and as a result chronically pressed for funding. When Tess and her sister ended their stay at the sanatorium later in the week, he wanted them to leave with fond memories of the center that had promised, and delivered, a gratifying improvement to Maggie's health.

Maggie would never be entirely cured; but then, neither would the doctor himself, or many on his staff, including a number of nurses. They were members of a not-so-exclusive club of consumptives whose numbers seemed to be growing every year; not for nothing was tuberculosis called The White Plague. But in Saranac Lake its victims were among their own, in a town filled with enterprising types who were more than happy to build them cure cottages, or administer to their pharmaceutical needs, or cater to the lavish but healthy meals that were a hallmark of taking The Cure.

The overriding message at the Phoenix Sanatorium was always to think positive—conversations about one's illness, for example, were strongly discouraged among the patients—and Henry Whitman had soon discovered that Tess was the most positive of all. More than anything, she was the reason that Maggie had thrived over the past year. Theirs was the perfect example of how having family living with an ill resident could vastly improve the patient's prospects.

Tess was indeed a wonder: calm, intelligent, determined, and to boot, the most beautiful woman Whitman had ever seen. Her own health was robust, despite the handicap that affected her gait. Entirely in keeping with her character, she seemed unaware of her disability, and after a while, he was too. Tess Moran possessed the perfect attitude for dealing with adversity, and Doctor Henry Whitman was desperately sorry that she was leaving.

His attentiveness to her, in short, was not entirely political.

The sisters were bundled in chaise longues on their wraparound cure porch, their cheeks flushed from the cold and not from disease—heartening to see. Doctor Whitman greeted them with the affection he felt for them both. "A very happy new year to you, young ladies. I trust you slept well after last night's celebration?"

"Yes, we did—and right here, once again," Maggie said in a merry way. "It wasn't so very cold, or else I'm just used to it, and the stars were so lovely, and besides, I want to drink in every single breath of Adirondack mountain air that I can, before we leave. Oh, Doctor Whitman ... and won't I be missing our shivery nights out here? They have brought me such peace ... such sound sleep ...." Her voice caught; she was becoming emotional.

"The cure porch has served my sister well," Tess said, redirecting her sister's thoughts. "We will never be without an open porch again—as you can imagine, since Maggie _will_ insist on having a dog of her own once we are settled," she added with a good-humored roll of her eyes. "A porch should provide enough clear air for both of them, do you not think?"

"Tess does spoil me," Maggie said happily.

"So I have noticed." The doctor did not altogether approve of furry things that might compromise a patient's lungs, but a pet could also be quite therapeutic. He did not challenge their plan.

"Do you have time for tea?" Tess asked, sliding out from under her heavy eiderdown quilt.

"Always." He had a busy schedule, even on this holiday, but an invitation from Tess Moran was not to be refused, and for more than one reason.

Tess stood and allowed herself a tiny, discreet stretch in front of him which Whitman thought simply added to her charm. He saw hints of the young woman she still was, but he had come to know her well enough during the past year to realize that she had the wisdom and acumen of a woman twice her age.

The cure cottage that she had had built for Maggie and her was proof of that. As he followed Tess inside, Whitman marveled anew at the thoughtfulness of the design, a collaborative effort between Tess and a renowned architect from New York. Open and airy, with windows everywhere that looked out at beautiful garden structures and carefully chosen evergreens, the cure cottage—which the sisters had dubbed "Little Wren"—was the envy of the community, the best of all the cottages, and would be much sought after, once the sisters vacated it in a few days. The furniture, simple, cheery and casual, was to remain in the cottage, all of it a gift to the institute.

As usual, there were flowers in every room. Only Tess could have managed flowers in the Adirondacks in January. Fragrant flowers. No gardener, the doctor breathed deep and said, "Where? Where do you find these in winter?"

Her shrug was offhand. "I know someone."

That was another thing. Tess Moran knew men who mattered, and as a result she was able to coax generous contributions from them to the sanatorium. The funds were earmarked for the upkeep of cure cottages intended expressly for the servant class, and among the servant class, preference was to be given those who had worked in the brutal conditions of the laundry.

Laundry maids, Tess and her sister! And look at them now. Henry Whitman knew at least the broad outlines of the scandal in which Tess had been so intimately involved. He was not one to judge, but it seemed clear to him that Tess was no _femme fatale_. She was a young woman wronged, like thousands of others, only she had managed to rise above it all and become a force to be reckoned with.

He watched her move easily through the small but efficient space, preparing the tea and laying out a plate of fresh scones. In a corner of the kitchen stood her cane, unused for months.

The conversation turned, as it always did at the sanatorium, to the menu for the day. Even for The Phoenix, today's feast was special: "Fried filet of sole, tenderloin of beef, roast goose," the doctor began. "Creamed onions, of course. Sweet potatoes—"

"—and dessert, what for dessert?" Maggie interrupted as she came inside.

The doctor smiled. "Christmas pie, just for you. And ice cream. A new flavor. You will be surprised and delighted."

Maggie clapped her hands with glee, and Whitman wondered again at her childlike nature. She was impressionable and easily led, the perfect patient to be guided through an illness. It was hard to believe that she was Tess's older sister.

She said, "I weighed last night. And will you not be pleased to know that I have added nearly a stone and one-half to these frail bones since my arrival here?" She turned in a tight, quick circle, arms out, for his professional appraisal.

Definitely, Maggie was winning the battle against the insidious weight loss that so often accompanied her disease. The doctor was pleased, and he let her know that.

Just then a baby's cry came from one of the bedrooms, and Tess said quickly, "I'll see to him. Excuse me one moment." She left them to their tea.

It was a risk, having an infant in the same house with a consumptive, and Whitman had warned Tess of it, and what precautions to take to avoid infection for either her or her child. He had no doubt that Tess followed them to the letter.

In a moment or two Tess returned. "Wet nappy; he's back to sleep already."

But Maggie was looking a bit wistful now. "Will ever I be able to hold Aaron, Doctor Whitman? To cradle him in my arms?"

"Well, we'll have to see. Are you coughing?"

"No."

"Sneezing?"

"No. I feel ever so well, really I do," she insisted.

"Well, keep up the good work, and we shall see."

It was the best he could offer. He knew that Tess would see to it that they lived in widely separated and well-ventilated rooms wherever they chose to move, and there would certainly be a time when young Aaron would be able to play cautiously with his devoted aunt, but that time had not yet arrived.

Maggie remembered, suddenly, that she had a gift for the sanatorium that had given her a new lease on life. "I'll be right back. I wanted to wrap it first, but since you're here ... or maybe I _will_ wrap it! It won't take long. Don't go yet, please!"

She dashed away to her bedroom, and that left Whitman free to express a thought that was constantly on his mind.

"'Don't go yet.' Your sister has phrased my thought exactly," he said softly. "Must you move on, Tess? You could do so much for the institute. For its patients. For me: I can think of no more able assistant to be at my side. Must you go?"

There was a warmth in her emerald eyes that he had not seen before; it gave him hope.

"If I could, I would. You know that, Doctor Whit—"

"Tess! For pity's sake, call me Henry."

"Henry, then. I will never, ever forget The Phoenix. The center has given me back my sister; can you doubt that I will be forever grateful for that, or for all of your personal attention to Maggie? I'm overwhelmed to think of it."

He added a second sugar to his tea. "But not quite overwhelmed enough, hey?" he said in a rueful voice, stirring his cup.

Tess sighed, then rested her chin on the palm of her hand, her elbow on the table. She gave him a long, thoughtful, appraising look that had something in him turning over. She sighed again. And then she began to speak, hesitantly at first, and then with more emotion, in a way that he'd never heard before.

"Have you ever been brought so ... low, been so humiliated, before all of those who fancy themselves above you, that you wanted the earth to open and swallow you whole? I have," she admitted.

The flush in her cheeks was neither from cold nor disease but from raw recollection of the event. Whitman said quickly, "You obviously were young, Tess. Such moments are often blown much out of proportion when—"

"This moment was not!" she said, slapping her hand on the table. "I was mocked and demeaned by people I despise! I was Irish, a servant in Newport, less than nothing in their eyes! How can I forget that?"

Taken aback by her vehemence, Whitman said soothingly, "But if you despise them, what does it matter how they regarded you? Their opinion is not worth considering."

"Oh-h-h, it is, Doctor Whitman," she said in a dangerous voice. "It is. They understand one thing, and one thing only: money. Crushing amounts of it. That, they respect. I do not intend to beg for their respect; I intend to demand it."

He wanted to smile but did not. She was not yet twenty, but he knew her well enough to know that she would follow through on her threat. Or try to. Could she really take on Newport society? Even he was well enough acquainted with the town to know that a small coterie of women ruled there with iron fists. They would never permit an upstart maid to climb over the ramparts.

Impulsively he laid his hand over hers. "Tess ... don't. Don't do this to yourself. Use your remarkable talents to do good for others. Don't throw them away on the unworthy."

She began to draw her hand away from his, then left it. Some of the fierceness left her face. She became, once again, the most beautiful young woman he'd ever seen. She pressed her full lips together almost sheepishly and said, "I'm sorry. The memory smarts. But in any case, I think—I know—that I can do both."

"Both?"

"Demand their respect, and do good for others."

He had no hope of making her stay, he could see that now. So he ventured in a resigned and yet jaunty way, "And how exactly will you do that?"

She lowered her lashes almost modestly, and then returned his look with one that was as calm as it was confident. "I'm going to buy a mill."

"A mill." The way some people go to buy a pair of shoes. A mill. He had to take that one in for a moment. "Any particular kind of mill?" he asked.

"Well, I do understand textiles. And I do understand hats. So a mill that produces millinery." She said the words slowly, as if she were explaining something obvious like how to boil potatoes to a slow-witted student.

He smiled at her patience with him, but it was impossible for him not to imagine what the price of a mill could do for the sanatorium. Immediately he dismissed the thought. Tess had been and would be generous. And besides, she "knew people." With their help, who was to say that she couldn't make a go of it?

"I wish you well, then, Tess," he said, squeezing her hand. It occurred to him that he wanted to do more than squeeze her hand; he dismissed that thought, too.

She seemed to read his mind. "Will Mrs. Whitman and the boys be attending today's feast, then?" she asked, moving the talk onto safer ground. "The sledding is supposed to be particularly fast this week."

Releasing her hand, he sat back in his chair and matched her pleasantly conversational tone. "Yes, the twins have brought their Christmas sleds with them up from the City. No doubt they're risking life and limb even as we speak."

"They're fine young lads. How old are they now? Seven?"

"On the first of next month." He glanced at his watch and then at Maggie's bedroom door. "Ah, the time. I really ought to be—"

"Here I am!" Maggie said, bursting through the door with obvious excitement. "For you," she said, presenting him with a rectangular package wrapped in bright paper and tied with different strands of colored yarn. "Well ... for the gallery outside the dining room, I mean. If you like it, I mean. I worked ever so hard on it. Tess had to teach me. I'll never have her skill, but ... I did work ever so hard." She stepped back in shy anticipation and waited for him to open her gift.

"So prettily wrapped," the doctor said, prepared absolutely to love whatever it was. From between the wrapping he slid a framed piece of needlework about a foot square: of a russet-red cottage with a sign that said "Little Wren" above its dark-green door and the sentiment "Home Sweet Home" picked out in bright colors in its front-yard grass.

"Delightful," he murmured, touched by the obvious love that had gone into the work. "Truly delightful, Maggie. It will be an honor to have this hang where everyone can see and admire it."

Maggie was beaming. "Tess did the design for me, and she helped me with the hard parts—oh, those tiny letters!—but mostly it's my work. Well, you can tell that, can't you? By how uneven my tent stitches are, here and here. And this bit, too."

"Shh. It's a fine piece of work, Maggie," the doctor assured her. "And the fact that it has some of Tess's imagination in it makes it even more—"

He glanced at Tess. "More dear."

Tess colored and said, "I'm glad, and I know Maggie is, too, that you like it."

"Little Wren was our first real home," Maggie offered. "And now it will be for others, after we leave."

An exquisite silence fell over them then, a moment of sweet pleasure, unmarred by dread of the past or fear of the future: one of those moments that act as stepping stones through life, and that made all of them willing and eager to continue the journey forward.

# Afterword

This is the end of Tess's book, but not of her story. Learn more about how Tess and Maggie fared in life through other characters in Book Two ("Amanda"), Book Three ("Laura") and Book Four ("The Heirs") of BY THE SEA

There are two options for continuing reading the series BY THE SEA: go to your favorite eBook store and purchase a copy of Book Two, "Amanda" or purchase a boxed set of all four books in the complete BY THE SEA Series, now at a special introductory price.

#  More for your eReader by Antoinette

_The Complete BY THE SEA Series Boxed Set_

"A riveting saga/mystery."

—Rave Reviews

In the tradition of _Upstairs, Downstairs_ and _Downton Abbey,_ **BY THE SEA** is a four-book series that sweeps from the Gilded Age through the Gatsby era's Roaring Twenties and then to the Great Depression, culminating nearly a century later in Newport, Rhode Island, wealthy and alluring "City by the Sea." Set against a backdrop of mansions, yachts, and new money, the novel traces the passions and adventures of three families from three different classes.

Select here to read an excerpt from BY THE SEA, Book Four: THE HEIRS.

_Keepsake_

"Deeply emotional ... unforgettable"

— _amazon.com review_  
KEEPSAKE ... a postcard-perfect town in Connecticut. When stonemason Quinn Leary returns after seventeen years, he has one desire: to prove his father's innocence of a terrible crime committed when Quinn and Olivia Bennett, town princess, were high-school rivals. Class doesn't matter now but family loyalties do, and they're fierce enough to threaten the newfound passion between two equals.

Select here to read an excerpt from KEEPSAKE.

_A Month at the Shore_

"An addictive, captivating story of love, family and trust."

— _Romance Reviews Today_  
Laura Shore has fled her humble past on Cape Cod and made a name for herself on the opposite coast. But when she returns and joins forces with her two siblings to try to save Shore Gardens, the failing family nursery, she finds that she hasn't left the past behind at all. Kendall Barclay, the town's rich son and her childhood knight in shining armor, lives there still, and his hold over Laura is as strong as ever. Like a true knight, he's attentive, courteous, and ready to help -- until a discovery is made that threatens the family, the nursery, and Laura's deepening relationship with him.

Select here to read the prologue of A MONTH AT THE SHORE.

**BY THE SEA, Book Two: AMANDA**

"A quality novel [that] contains many of those little epiphanies, those moments of recognition."

— _Providence Journal_

Marrying American money to an English title is a tradition of its own; but Amanda Fain, a brash heiress with money to burn, has a fondness for Bolsheviks and bootleg liquor that makes her an unlikely match for the reluctant, ironic, and impoverished English aristocrat Geoffrey Seton, who has been ordered to America to find someone who can pay the bills for the family estate back home.

**BY THE SEA, Book Three: LAURA**

"A quality novel [that] contains many of those little epiphanies, those moments of recognition."

— _Providence Journal_

While the Great Depression grinds relentlessly on, Laura Andersson, a midwestern farm girl with an improbable love of the sea, embarks on a bold adventure that promises riches but delivers passion, one that threatens all she holds dear.

_Embers_

"A deft blend of mystery and romance ... sure to win more kudos"

— _Publishers Weekly_  
To Meg Hazard, it seemed like a good idea at the time: squeezing her extended family into the back rooms of their rambling Victorian home and converting the rest of the house into a Bed and Breakfast in the coastal town of Bar Harbor, Maine. Paying guests are most welcome, but the arrival of a Chicago cop on medical leave turns out to be both good news and bad news for Meg and the Inn Between.

_A Charmed Place_

"Buy this book! A truly fantastic read!"

—Suzanne Barr _,_ _Gulf Coast Woman_  
_USA TODAY_ bestselling author Antoinette Stockenberg delivers an original and wonderfully romantic story of two people -- college lovers separated for twenty years -- who have the chance to be happy together at last. But family, friends, an ex-husband, a teenaged daughter and an unsolved murder seem destined to keep the lovers star-crossed, until Dan takes up residence in the Cape Cod lighthouse, with Maddie's rose-covered cottage just a short walk away ...

_Dream a Little Dream_

"A truly wonderful modern fairy tale "

— Kristin Hannah, _New York Times_ bestselling author

**Three Generations Under One Turret** : from bestselling author Antoinette Stockenberg comes a witty, modern fairy tale of romance and family and ghostly star-crossed lovers.

_Beyond Midnight_

"Full of charm and wit, Stockenberg's latest is truly enthralling."

— _Publishers Weekly_  
In 1692, Salem, Massachusetts was the setting for the infamous persecution of innocents accused of witchcraft. Three centuries later, little has changed. Helen Evett, widowed mother of two and owner of a prestigious preschool in town, finds her family, her fortunes, and her life's work threatened —all because she feels driven to protect the sweet three-year-old daughter of a man who knows everything about finance but not so much about fathering.

_Sand Castles_

"A riveting story of selfishness, betrayal, and love that readers will find hard to put down."

— _Library Journal_  
Wendy Hodene thinks she has it all: a charming husband, a great kid, a house that she loves (even if it doesn't have enough closet space), and family nearby. And then her husband manages to win a multi-million-dollar lottery, kicking off a tidal wave that sweeps all of her assumptions into the sea like castles in the sand. The man she thinks she knows becomes a virtual stranger, and the stranger she hardly knows at all is the reason why.

_Tidewater_

"A spellbinding thriller that is both intense and riveting."

— _Romantic Times_  
Newly married to a man of wealth and reputation who's very willing to be stepfather to her child, Sara Bonniface would seem to have all she's ever wanted. But her young daughter has other ideas, embarking on a crusade to learn more about her birth father. And that's where Sara's life begins to spin slowly out of control ....

_Beloved_

"Richly rewarding ... a novel to be savored."

— _Romantic Times Magazine_  
A Nantucket cottage by the sea: the inheritance is a dream come true for Jane Drew. Too bad it comes with a ghost —and a soulfully seductive neighbor who'd just as soon boot Jane off the island.

_Safe Harbor_

"Complex ... fast-moving ...humorous ... tender"

— _Publishers Weekly_  
SAFE HARBOR. That's what Martha's Vineyard has always been for Holly Anderson, folk artist, dreamer and eternal optimist. If she could just afford to buy the house and barn she's renting, fall in love, marry the guy and then have children as sweet as her nieces, life would be pretty much perfect.

Poor Holly. She has so much to learn.

_Emily's Ghost_

RITA Award Winner

"Booksellers' recommended read."

— _Publishers Weekly_  
A showdown between a U.S. Senator (with a house on Martha's Vineyard) who believes in ghosts and a reporter who doesn't. What could possibly go wrong?

_Time After Time_

"As hilarious as it is heart-tugging ... a rollicking great read."

— _I'll Take Romance_  
In Gilded-Age Newport, an upstairs-downstairs romance between a well-born son and a humble maid is cut short of marriage. A hundred years later, the descendants of that ill-fated union seem destined to repeat history. Or not.

#  About the Author

USA Today bestselling novelist Antoinette Stockenberg grew up wanting be a cowgirl and have her own horse (her great-grandfather bred horses for the carriage trade back in the old country), but the geography just didn't work out: there weren't many ranches in Chicago. Her other, more doable dream was to write books, and after stints as secretary, programmer, teacher, grad student, boatyard hand, office manager and magazine writer (in that order), she achieved that goal, writing over a dozen novels, several of them with paranormal elements. One of them is the RITA award-winning EMILY'S GHOST.

Stockenberg's books have been published in a dozen languages and are often set in quaint New England harbor towns, always with a dose of humor. She writes about complex family relationships and the fallout that old, unearthed secrets can have on them. Sometimes there's an old murder. Sometimes there's an old ghost. Sometimes once-lovers find one another after half a lifetime apart.

Her work has been compared to writers as diverse as Barbara Freethy, Nora Roberts, LaVyrle Spencer and Mary Stewart by critics and authors alike, and her novels have appeared on bestseller lists in USA Today as well as the national bookstore chains. Her website features sample chapters, numerous reviews, many photos, and an enchanting Christmas section.

Visit her website at antoinettestockenberg.com to read sample chapters of all of her books.

#  An Excerpt from BY THE SEA, Book Four: THE HEIRS

THE HEIRS is the dramatic conclusion to the four-book series BY THE SEA. Economic hard times are a distant memory in high-flying, recent-day Newport, home of the oldest and most prestigious trophy in the world, the Holy Grail of sport—the America's Cup. Here, the descendants of Tess, Amanda and Laura play out their destinies, their paths crossing in unforeseen ways: Mavis Moran, Neil Powers, his daughter Quinta, and America's Cup skipper Alan Seton all find themselves caught in a web of mystery, sabotage, and conflicting desires.

****

Half-way up the hill from Newport Harbor and towering over the tallest masts on the largest sailboats, a Gothic spire rises up from the church where Tess Moran went to mass as a young girl in the 1890s; where a dashing young senator married a beautiful heiress in 1953 and later went on to become President of the United States of America; and where, thirty-six years after that, Quinta Powers—wearing an ivory silk gown a bit more restrained than the one that Jacqueline Bouvier wore when she married John F. Kennedy—walked down the aisle to be wed to the man she had loved since the day they got lost in their search for a puppy.

St. Mary's was full, which was not surprising. For all its sophistication, Newport was still a small town, and small-town people liked to pay their respects, whether to say their final farewells to friends and family, or to congratulate newly wed friends and family. Today's mood was one of joy (the bride and groom were made for each other) and relief (it took them long enough to make it down the aisle).

But make it they did, attended by a large party of wedding attendants that gave their wedding great poignancy. The ushers and the groomsmen were comprised of Alan Seton's old _Shadow_ crew, dressed in their _Shadow_ blazers, cream flannels, and deck shoes—but some of them minus their socks, a sailor's tradition. Alan's best man was _Shadow's_ tactician, which everyone said made perfect sense: who else could have managed to spring a bachelor party on Alan that was a complete surprise?

The bridesmaids were Quinta's four sisters, Eddie, Georgie, Bobbie and Jackie, all of them delighted for their youngest sister. (How had they not noticed before that _she_ was the fairest of them all?) The ring boy was Eddie's little hellion Tommy, and the flower girl was Jackie's little angel Sadie, who unfortunately was still a very young angel: she forgot to scatter rose petals as she walked with great concentration in front of the bride, and when she did remember, half-way down the aisle, she dumped the entire basket onto the white linen carpet to make up for her oversight.

Laura and Colin Durant were there, sitting ramrod straight in the first pew, determined not to show their age despite the arthritis that made their backs ache, beaming with pride for their youngest and most beloved granddaughter.

Alan's parents were there, of course, down from Boston, and so was his Uncle Dexter from Hampshire, England, where he lived happily with his wife in Seton Place, the lovely estate that would have been Alan's if his grandfather Geoffrey hadn't just as happily renounced his claim to it in favor of his younger brother Henry, Dexter's father. After all, Geoffrey had his American spitfire Amanda. She was all he had needed to keep him busy.

As for the rest? The aunts, uncles, cousins, cousins of cousins, and in-laws to all of them? They were mostly on Quinta's side. Alan's family, smaller by far, hardly made a dent in the assembly. His guests were the men and women he worked with in his Connecticut shipyard.

But Alan had Quinta. Like his grandfather Geoffrey before him, Alan Seton was able eventually to appreciate what mattered in life, and what mattered to him was the woman he loved and the shipyard where he learned virtually every skill he possessed. Let other men chase after fame and glory. It turned out that Alan cared not a whit for it. Anyone who saw his face as he watched his bride glide through a pile of bunched-up rose petals on her way to meet him at the altar could see that. The man was utterly in love.

#  An Excerpt from KEEPSAKE

Wonderful, witty, humorous writing

_\--The Romance Reader  
_

KEEPSAKE ... a postcard-perfect town in Connecticut. When stonemason Quinn Leary returns after seventeen years, he has one desire: to prove his father's innocence of a terrible crime committed when Quinn and Olivia Bennett, town princess, were high-school rivals. Class doesn't matter now but family loyalties do, and they're fierce enough to threaten the newfound passion between two equals.

*******  
**

Olivia Bennett had small, slender feet—she was pretty proud of them—but this was ridiculous. There wasn't a foot on the planet that could comfortably fit into the Victorian French-heeled shoe she was trying to wear. The handmade shoe was just one of a vast array of historically accurate reproductions that made up the evening ensemble she had committed to wear in her stint as guide on the Candlelight Tour.

"I feel like Cinderella's evil stepsister," she growled, jamming her foot into the narrow shoe. Which wasn't a shoe anyway—it was an instrument of torture, tight and stiff and with an outrageous tip that surged a good three inches past her big toe.

She threw up her hands in frustration and collapsed back on her white slipcovered tub chair. "I can't do this."

Eileen was standing over her like a maid-in-waiting who wasn't quite sure of her job description. "Maybe you'll get used to them. Try standing up."

"It's this _stupid_ corset!" Olivia said suddenly, grabbing at the stiff, steel-boned vise that was responsible for her current Barbie-doll look. "What was I _thinking?"_

"What did you expect? It's French."

"Well, screw the French! I'm not wearing it!" She began tearing at the half-dozen front hooks with a viciousness that she normally reserved for pickle jars.

"Hold it right there, _mademoiselle. You're_ the one who talked all the guides into wearing period getups."

Olivia sighed and tucked one of the wandering bust enhancers back into place. Her wool drawers itched. Her chemise was too tight. The petticoats were heavy. But Eileen was right—dressing for the period had been her idea.

"Bustle, please," she said grimly.

Eileen let out a little sigh of sympathy.

After some fumbling, they belted the elaborate wire framework onto Olivia's behind. Feeling like a bronco saddled for the first time, she resisted the urge to try to kick the thing off and said through gritted teeth, "Okay—the gown."

Eileen's response was a radiant smile. "This will make it all worthwhile." She fished the padded hanger out of the taffeta gown and slipped the dress over Olivia's upraised arms. Olivia disappeared in a swishy cloud of scarlet iridescence, then emerged from a low-cut bodice that was unquestionably more European than American.

The color scheme was as bold as the plunge of the neckline: a swath of bright scarlet draped up toward the outlandish bustle to reveal a purple skirt beneath, with silver-gray passementerie looped around the cuffs, the bodice, and the hem. The heavily beaded braid caught and refracted the light from the recessed spotlight above, rimming Olivia in glittering highlights.

Eileen stepped back with a startled look. "My goodness, that's daring."

"Oh, I don't know. The only thing daring about this outfit is the crotchless drawers," Olivia said, squirming in annoyance. "It's December, for pity's sake. These damn things give a whole new meaning to the expression 'freezing your buns off.' "

Laughing, Eileen said, "Well, think about it. How on earth would anyone go potty, once she was rigged in that getup?"

"Trust me, I don't intend to find out. Start buttoning; I've got to be there in half an hour. Thank God women from that era didn't go in for makeup. I'd be pummeling herbal extracts into a pot of rouge about now."

"All right, here we go. Suck it in, Miss Bennett."

Several painful moments later, Olivia was tightly skinned in scarlet. She had achieved the desired hourglass shape at last. The curves she exhibited, though not her own, were definitely spectacular.

She said in a breathless gasp, "I think I'm going to pass out."

"The things we do for !ove," Eileen said, amused. "Honestly, I wish we'd featured you like that on the flyers we posted around town. The Keepsake Preservation Society would be rolling in dough after this fund-raiser."

"Shoes! What do I do about shoes? Even assuming I could take more pain, I'd fall and break my neck if I went wearing these in the snow." Olivia kicked them off, furious for ever agreeing to be part of the Candlelight Tour. It would have been better to write out a check. She had inventory to stock, she had orders to place—what was she doing pointing out crown moldings and fruitwood étagères to the hoi polloi?

Volunteering seemed like _such_ a better idea at the time.

Swishing over to her closet, she yanked open a white louvred door and pointed to the shoe rack on the floor. "Take out the black Reeboks for me, would you?"

Eileen was scandalized, but she did as she was commanded, even tying the laces for her immobilized sister-in- law.

"All right, let's see what it all looks like," said Olivia, striding over to the full-length mirror.

"Smaller steps! Smaller steps! Your sneakers show."

They stood together in front of the mirror, these two best friends turned relatives: Eileen, tall and thin and blond and oh-so-Connecticut; and Olivia, shorter, darker, and somehow, despite the elegance of her wardrobe, just a little bit gypsy. Olivia was very conscious of the contrast. She wasn't especially bothered by it—she looked vaguely like her mother, whom she had always considered truly beautiful—but she was definitely aware that she did not have "the look."

She shrugged and said, "I guess I'll do."

"Do? You look fabulous," Eileen insisted. "That creamy skin, those natural curls, those bedroom eyes—what man could resist you?"

"Apparently they make the effort," Olivia said dryly.

"It's your fault. Why do you go everywhere with Eric on your arm?"

"Eric is very presentable."

"Eric is gay!"

"My mother likes Eric."

"What mother wouldn't? But it's keeping you from meeting the man of your dreams."

"I don't dream about men, I dream about fabric." Olivia frowned in the mirror, then grabbed a tube of lipstick from her dresser and ran it lightly across her lips.

"Okay, I'm ready," she declared. "Point me to the drawing room."

*****

Hastings House was built in high Victorian style for a man who, quite simply, loved wood. In 1882, Mr. Latimer Hastings bought a lumberyard just to have first crack at the boards, then spent the next two years in close company with an architect and a construction crew, milling, shaping, and carving those boards for his house on upper Main. The house became an obsession, and more: It became his reason to exist. It wrecked his marriage, it alienated the neighbors, and ultimately it became a bone of contention between his heirs.

It was a nightmare to maintain, with its curved piazza and its multi-gabled roofline, but it was something, really something, to see. Keepsake was nearly as proud of Hastings House as it was of the Bennett estate, higher up the hill. Most people knew they'd never get the chance to poke their noses in the Bennetts' dining room; but this year they could get a fairly good idea, for a mere four dollars, of how the Bennetts' dinner guests lived.

So they paid and they poked. Despite the biting cold and windy weather, the Candlelight Tour was enjoying an excellent turnout. Keepsake was a historic town with an active Historical Society backed by a mayor who understood the dollar value of tourism. Besides, the cause was worthy: The proceeds of the Candlelight Tour were split between St. Swithin's soup kitchen and free art courses for Keepsake's children.

Olivia felt at home in the heavily carved, overly ornate drawing room of Hastings House; when she was growing up she'd been a guest there several times. Standing straight as a board (she had no choice) near a crackling fire, she greeted each new visitor on the tour as graciously as Mrs. Hastings herself might have done before ultimately dumping her husband for another man with a simpler house.

It was fun. Olivia hadn't expected to enjoy playing the part of a Victorian socialite, and yet here she was, flirting and having a great time. _Playing_ at flirting, anyway. The pain of being laced into a state of dizziness had ebbed, replaced by the novelty of being the object of men's gapes and women's furtive looks. It was definitely a first for her.

"Either I've just discovered my true calling as an actress, or there's something to this corset business," she said, laughing, after two women she knew well expressed open amazement at the difference in her demeanor.

The women wandered out and another group wandered in: Eric and several of his pals, all of them history and architecture buffs. Olivia knew that one of them was an actor, so she poured it on, hamming it up outrageously until the men moved on, still laughing, to the next room.

And then there was a lull.

****

Quinn had heard voices in the room ahead of him—several men and a woman—who sounded as if they were having a damn good time. He was jealous; it had been a while since he'd laughed out loud. But by the time he escaped the clutches of the Victorian gentleman whose job it was to explain the Victorian library, the group had left the drawing room, taking their raucous laughter with them.

They left behind them a woman.

Her back was to Quinn, whose first impression was of a mountain of scarlet material bunched on top of a purple skirt. He saw that she wasn't tall, and yet her posture somehow made her seem so. She had dark hair, tied in a knot at the nape of her neck—without much success, Quinn could see; ringlets seemed to be escaping even as he stood unnoticed behind her.

She was standing in front of the fire with her hands extended to catch its warmth. He couldn't blame her for feeling cold: Her back and shoulders were as bare as any red-blooded man could hope for. The sight of her had sent his genitals lurching beneath his corduroys, and almost immediately he realized why.

She had the most impossibly beautiful figure he'd ever seen. He had no idea that in an age of protein and aerobics, women could still look like that: beautiful back and shoulders, tiny, _tiny_ waist, flared and intriguing hips. It was an old-fashioned fantasy, a heart-wrecking dream—and it was as erotic as all hell. He might have stood gazing at that hourglass shape forever if she hadn't turned around with a start.

"Oh, I'm sorry; I didn't hear anyone come—Quinn?"

He blinked. He knew the voice, knew the eyes, he definitely knew the voice... He blinked again in disbelief. In a moment of complete, humiliating weakness his let his gaze drop down to her cleavage. Was it possible?

"Liv?"

"Who else?" she said, with a wary smile. "You look the same."

"You don't," he said, stunned.

A couple walked in just then with questions poised: Was the price firm? Would the owner take financing? Had he had any offers? Olivia explained with dazzling grace that she was not the realtor—Good Lord, did she _look_ like a realtor?—and then the couple left.

Olivia turned her dark-eyed gaze back to Quinn. "I heard you were back. Somehow I didn't expect to run into you here, though."

He took it possibly the wrong way. "Yeah, well, you know how it is when you throw an open house. Riffraff's bound to get in."

"Oh no! Is _he_ here?" she said, rolling her eyes.

He chuckled. "Okay, I suppose I deserved that."

She shook her head. "You _haven't_ changed, have you? I'm ... I'm sorry about your father," she added. "I know how close you were."

Sympathy from a Bennett? No thanks; it felt too much like pity. "We did all right," he said, "once we got out of Keepsake. We had a good life."

"Yours isn't over."

"His is."

"Yes, but you said .... Well, I'm glad it worked out. It was an awkward time."

"Awkward?"

"That's the wrong word," she said quickly. "It was ... horrible, I guess I mean. For everyone."

"So people keep telling me. A girl is killed, my father is blamed, our lives are upended, and what do I hear? I'm the Grinch Who Stole Homecoming."

"Well, in all honesty, we haven't come even _close_ to a championship since," she said with a bland look.

He snorted. He remembered that about her now—her irreverent sense of humor. She was much less straightlaced than the rest of her clan, and that always had made her an interesting opponent. He jammed his hands in his parka pockets and rocked back on his heels. "So. Which of the Ivy League schools ended up rolling out the thickest red carpet?"

Smiling at the compliment, she said, "I decided to go with Harvard."

He waved a hand airily at her getup. "And this would be—what? A part-time job to pay off your student loans?" he quipped, fighting hard not to resent her. _Harvard._

He watched her flinch and then recover. "As it turns out, my dad was able to scrape together the tuition. But I did borrow money to get my MBA. Is that any comfort?"

"Not much," he said through a tight smile. "So what _do_ you do to pay the mortgage?"

"I own a shop in town, Miracourt ... on York Street? I sell high-end fabrics—interior, and some apparel."

He nodded. "Oh, well sure, a fabric store. It's logical, with your father owning a textile mill and all."

"My father has nothing to with Miracourt!" she said sharply. "It's entirely mine, bought and paid for with my own money."

How wearying, he thought: an heiress who insisted on making her own way. Not him. If someone had been willing to hand him a fortune, he'd have been more than willing to spend it.

In the next breath she confessed, "I do have another, larger store-—a mill-end outlet—that my father _is_ involved with."

Even more wearying: an heiress who was conflicted about her family's wealth.

A new batch of visitors, awed and deferential, tiptoed in behind him and began to ask questions in hushed, respectful voices.

_It's someone's front room, folks, not the Vatican_ , Quinn wanted to say, but he, too, was affected by the somber personality of the place, so he took himself over to the balsam Christmas tree that presided over the other end of the room and spent some time inhaling its fragrance while Olivia fielded inquiries.

He overheard all kinds of illuminating tidbits from her about pocket doors, Austrian chandeliers, coffered ceilings, and imported delft tiles, but mostly it was the sound of her voice that kept him rooted to the spot. He loved hearing it, loved the way it spoke in whole sentences free of Valley-speak and New Age clichés. It had an old-fashioned, finishing-school ring to it that blended perfectly with the scarlet gown.

And her laugh! It was the burbling of a brook, flowing and tinkling along its banks but never overrunning them. All in all, he was mesmerized. He felt like some lowborn character—who was it, Heathcliff?—in an English novel. He wasn't sure if he had the era or even the character right, but he damn well had the mood right. He felt... unequal, to all this. As if he were there, cap in hand, to announce to Madame that her carriage was ready.

And, boy, it pissed him off.

The visitors moved on and he moved back in, reclaiming his right to converse with the Princess. He'd paid his four bucks. He was entitled.

"What about you, Quinn?" she said, turning her attention right back to him. "Where did you end up getting your degree?"

If he'd needed a splash of cold water, that was it. "A degree?" He said wryly, "I decided to pass."

Clearly she didn't get it. "Are you serious? You could've pursued any kind of scholarship you wanted. Academic, athletic... _Notre Dame_ came looking for you!"

"Did they ? Well, they never found me and neither did anyone else. But then, that would be the whole point of living in hiding, wouldn't it?"

Chastised, she lowered her gaze from his and said simply, "Yes."

He felt like a shit, beating her over the head with his unrealized promise. He was doing it because he knew that, more than anyone else, she would feel the waste of it.

Apparently he was right. Her head came back up and she looked him in the eye and said, "You didn't _have_ to run, Quinn. You ended up throwing it all away, didn't you? College, a career, inevitable prestige. You could have done anything you wanted to do, been anything you wanted to be."

"Maybe I wanted to be a fugitive," he said coldly.

"But you weren't a fugitive. You were a fugitive's son. That wasn't as glamorous, surely?"

He remembered now that she had a damn sharp tongue. Annoyed, he said, "If I'd been after glamour, I would have gone to L.A."

"What _were_ you after? I've always wondered. Fame wasn't enough? You had to turn it on its head and go for infamy, too?"

"What the hell is that to you?" he countered, amazed at her bluntness.

"I'll tell you what it is to me. I grew up with you, Quinn. I thought we were friends."

"Friends? Isn't that pushing it a little?"

"All right," she said, coloring. "Intellectual comrades, then. Call it what you like. I can't tell you how shocked I was to learn—from the police swarming our grounds, no less!—that you had run off. Without saying boo, without a note, without a hint. I was so dismayed... so hurt..."

"Christ, it's always about you, isn't it?" he said, remembering that as well. "You know what? I was wrong. _You_ haven't changed, either. You—"

_"Hiii,''_ Olivia said suddenly to a couple entering the room with their teenage son. "Welcome to Hastings House."

Too late. The group knew they'd strolled into a fight, and no bright smile could hide the fact. The parents walked quickly through the room and then out. Their kid took a little longer, slowing down long enough to steal a burning look at Olivia's breasts.

The boy reminded Quinn of himself just minutes earlier. Quinn had acted like a hormonal jerk then, and for all he knew, he was doing it still. It wasn't Olivia's fault that he had cut and run. And it wasn't her fault that she couldn't understand why. Their lives were night-and-day different. No mother, timid father, nomadic lifestyle, never a mattress to call one's own-—these were alien concepts to a woman raised in the lap of luxury by a doting mom and a powerful dad.

Let it go, Quinn. Different worlds. Let it go.

"Look... what's done is done. Water under the bridge," he said gruffly. "Maybe we ... well. Good night." He turned to leave.

_No, goddammit._ He didn't have to run anymore, least of all from her.

He spun on his heel and faced her again. She looked completely bewildered, which gave him back the advantage. With a smile that he knew women considered disarming, he said, "You're not married, are you?"

"No!"

"Why don't we have dinner? You can fill me in on the last half of your life."

"Dinner? _Huh._ Dinner. That would be rather—"

"Daring?" he suggested, an edge in his voice.

"I was about to say, that would be rather nice," she said, snapping open her fan, "except that I have to be here tomorrow night."

"Ah," he replied, somewhat sheepishly.

She seemed agitated, fanning herself with quick little strokes. Intrigued, he waited to see what she would do next.

"Why don't we have lunch?" she asked with a brittle smile. "I could get away then."

"Fine," he drawled, making a victory fist in his pocket. "We'll do lunch."

****

He left, taking most of Olivia's wits with him. The encounter with Quinn Leary had left her completely unnerved. Her heart was hammering, her knees were shaking, and inside she was hot, hot, hot—hot enough that she found herself feeling downright grateful for the cold draft that wended its way from the front door and up her gown, fanning those oddly made drawers of hers.

_Oh, wow, this is unreal,_ she told herself. _This is not normal._ No man had ever affected her the way Quinn had just then. Flirting was one thing, banter another, but this was new, this was completely new ....

She began to pace the length of the drawing room, trying to work out the tension she felt. In a reverie of wonder, she tapped her closed fan on the palm of her hand and shook her head as she marched up, then down, the parquet floor, ignoring the visitors who wandered through. The tourists assumed she was playing the role of a character from a Victorian novel, but the tourists were wrong.

I don't have time for someone like him. I don't even have the inclination for someone like him. He's too proud, too prickly, too—much too—controversial. What would Mother and Dad say? They'd be appalled to have a Leary rubbed in their noses again.

Seventeen years. Olivia remembered rushing home after the news of Alison's death and finding her mother sitting alone on the sofa and sobbing. Teresa Bennett, being a Bennett, had quickly wiped her eyes as soon as she saw her daughter. But Olivia, who wanted so badly to hold and be held, had blurted out, "She didn't deserve to die; she never hurt anyone," and burst into tears for her cousin, and then she and her mother had hugged and cried some more, but in secret—because wailing was not allowed in the Bennett household.

The sad thing was, by the time of Alison's murder, Owen Bennett had had little contact with Alison's father Rupert. Olivia didn't know why the brothers had drifted so far apart, and she'd never dared to ask. Olivia's father had bought out her Uncle Rupert's interest in the mill, that much she knew. But she'd always had the feeling that there was more to the split than a difference in business philosophies.

In any case, the attendance of Owen and his family at Alison's funeral did nothing to breech the growing rift between brothers. After the murder, the rift became as wide as a canyon and stayed that way.

Olivia pushed away all of the memories; all of them were bad. No, Quinn was out of the question. He was too bound up with the worst period of her family's life for Olivia ever to be able to take him seriously. True, there was that box of stuff she'd been keeping all these years. But after she returned it to Quinn, that would be it. The town could deal with him any way it liked; it had nothing to do with her.

"Are these parquet squares the kind you buy at Home Depot?"

Olivia turned to the young couple who were linked arm in arm and studying the drawing room floor. "No," she said with a gracious smile, "they're Burma teak, and their value is priceless."

****

Quinn drove home in a state of near bliss. He'd gone on the Candlelight Tour for no other reason than to keep a high profile, and he'd come away with a date with the Princess.

Socially speaking, of course, he was a frog. He knew it, and it made the promise of taking her out all the more gratifying. Dating Olivia was something he never would have dared try back in high school, which was undoubtedly the reason he had enjoyed trouncing her in the classroom every chance he got. He had enjoyed it even more than trouncing her brother on the field.

But it was all such kid stuff. What a jerk he used to be. He laughed softly to himself as he drove his repaired rental past St. Swithin's Church, past the bank, past Town Hill with its lit-up tree. _Had_ he grown up? He hoped so. He hoped that his reason for wanting to be seen in Keepsake with Olivia on his arm was not because she was a royal and he was a commoner, but because she was smart and funny and, okay, knock-down gorgeous.

But he really wasn't sure.

# A MONTH AT THE SHORE Prologue

Antoinette Stockenberg

" An addictive, captivating story of love, family and trust."

\-- Romance Reviews Today

Laura Shore has fled her humble past on Cape Cod and made a name for herself on the opposite coast. But when she returns and joins forces with her two siblings to try to save Shore Gardens, the failing family nursery, she finds that she hasn't left the past behind at all. Kendall Barclay, the town's rich son and her childhood knight in shining armor, lives there still, and his hold over Laura is as strong as ever. Like a true knight, he's attentive, courteous, and ready to help -- until a discovery is made that threatens the family, the nursery, and Laura's deepening relationship with him.

Prologue

The day after eighth-grade graduation was the best and worst of Kendall's life.

He was minding his own business, which happened to be tracking down a snowy owl that had been sighted in a woods just outside of town, when he heard boys' voices farther up the trail.

He was sorry to hear them. He didn't want to be caught with a pair of expensive binoculars around his neck and looking for birds, so he got back on his bike with every intention of leaving the way he had come: quietly. As he pedaled off, the voices got more shrill—whoops and yelps, the sounds of small-town kids on the warpath. He would be fair game for them, he knew from experience, so he picked up his pace.

And then he heard the scream. It was a girl's cry, frightened and angry at the same time, and it sent chills up his back and arms. He slammed on the brakes so violently that his bike skidded on the soft path and went out from under him, falling on top of him and scraping across his pale, thin legs.

He righted the bike, but his hands and legs were shaking as he mounted it again and set off in the direction of the scream. Part of him was hoping and praying that it was all just fooling around; but part of him knew better.

He found them in a clearing next to the trail where he knew kids liked to hang out drinking and smoking—and, he had always assumed, having sex. Four boys had a girl cornered.

She was standing in front of the campfire rocks. Ken couldn't see her very well because she was shielded by the four boys. They were practically shoulder to shoulder, but one pair of shoulders stood higher and broader than the rest: they belonged to Will Burton, the doctor's son, a bully who had squeezed more than one allowance out of Ken on a Friday afternoon. Will's younger, red-haired brother Dagger was there, too, and two other kids that Ken didn't recognize.

"Hey!" he yelled at their backs, almost before he could think about it.

They all turned around at the same time, surprised and therefore pissed. But Ken wasn't looking at them, he was looking at her. He was stunned to realize that she had breasts; how had he never noticed that? She was clutching her torn shirt to herself, but he could see her dark pink nipple. Instantly he looked away. When he looked back again immediately, he saw that her face was all flushed and her cheeks were wet, and he felt desperately ashamed.

"Leave her alone," he said in a voice filled with fury.

Will Burton just laughed. "Ooh, I'm scared. What're you gonna do? Run and tell your daddy?"

The other boys snickered and approached him as he stood astride his bike.

He could have taken off. He didn't, because he wanted her to make a break for it. But she stayed right where she was! He couldn't believe it. She wasn't moving. It was like she was hypnotized or paralyzed or something. She was looking straight at him and nobody else. He was ashamed in advance for what he knew was going to happen to him.

He became aware of the crack of branches underfoot as one of the boys he didn't know took up a position behind him. Instinctively he glanced over his shoulder at him. At the same instant, Dagger Burton grabbed his binoculars out of his bike basket.

Dagger turned away and aimed the binoculars straight at her breasts while Ken and the others remained in their standoff. Everything seemed to go on hold while Dagger did his thing.

"Shit, I can't see anything," Dagger said after fiddling with the adjustments. "Everything's blurry. I must be too close."

Stupidly, Dagger began backing away from her in an attempt to get in better focus.

So that left three.

"Leave her alone," Ken said, controlling the quaver that hovered at the back of his voice. "Get out now, and I won't tell anyone."

Will Burton was only a year older than Ken but just then seemed twice his size, minimum. He snorted and said, "Who's gonna make me? You—Skinnykenny? What a dork."

Ken tried to make his voice sound strong. "Leave her _alone."_ But his voice broke and the last word came out like a hiccup, and everyone laughed, except her, of course.

He didn't dare look at her; he was so totally mortified. For her, for him, for both of them. He was rich and she was poor, but at that moment both of them were equals.

Hulking Will Burton waited until the snickers died down, and then in a voice that was way calmer and deeper than Ken's, he said: "Dork."

It was true. Ken was a dork; he knew he was a dork. But there was something about being called one in front of _her_ that made something inside of him snap. He threw down his bike and went wading into Will Burton: head down, arms flailing, landing punches half in the air. But he made contact, too—for the stolen allowances, for the snickers, and mostly for that exposed nipple, which he knew was now burned into his memory for life. He hated them all, hated them for their contempt for anyone who wasn't as cool as they were.

They punched him and kicked him and he tasted his own blood, but still he kept flailing. His eyes were shut, so he couldn't tell if she was taking off or not. Before he could get the chance to look, he felt a hard whack on the back of his head—he was pretty sure, from his brand-new binoculars.
