The Second Mrs. Astor(10)

“Katherine . . .”

“My point is, we’re no longer bound by all those archaic rules hammered out by Mrs. Astor a generation ago. In fact,” Katherine finished, inspired, “there is no current Mrs. Astor. Not one who matters, anyway.”

And Mother had tilted her head to examine Madeleine, and Madeleine had examined her back and knew what exactly what she was thinking:

Yet.

“Miss Force,” the colonel greeted her now. He lifted the hand with the walking stick to tip his hat.

Madeleine strolled toward him sedately, casually, swinging her racquet by her hip in a slow, contained arc, the way she’d seen Stella sometimes do when talking to a beau. “Colonel Astor. I see you have a friend. Is it your dog?”

“She is. This is Kitty. Kitty, meet Miss Force.”

Madeleine had to laugh at the name. She came close and bent down, lifting her free hand. The dog leaned a little nearer and sniffed her fingers.

“Hello,” Madeleine murmured. “Hello, pup called Kitty.”

The dog—an Airedale, she thought—sat back on her haunches and gazed up at her with wary eyes.

“An outstanding game,” the colonel said. “There seems to be no end to your skills. Actress, athlete. What else do you have up your sleeve, I wonder?”

“Dog charmer, I hope,” she said, and smiled. “And you, sir?”

“Tennis dilettante.” He looked down and stroked Kitty’s head. The dog lifted her chin and began to pant. “Yachtsman. Adventurer, I’d like to think.”

“An interesting description. I’ve not met many adventurers before you, Colonel Astor.”

He arched an eyebrow. “But you have met others, Miss Force?”

“No,” she said, as placidly as she could manage with her corset pinching, her lungs burning, perspiration creeping down her back. “Actually, I have not.”

Another moment between them, stretching long and strange and lovely somehow, filling her with both elation and dread, because Madeleine understood then that, despite what she’d said to her mother, she knew she stood at the edge of a very steep cliff, and falling off of it would mean either flight or annihilation.

A lance of sunlight speared the clouds. From the corner of her eye, Madeleine saw a pair of figures approach. She turned to them in relief.

“I’m afraid my mother and sister are swooping in,” she said, returning Katherine’s wave. “Mother has been . . . quite keen to meet you. Do you mind?”

“Not in the least.”

“She’s very impressed with your flowers,” Madeleine said under her breath, and the colonel slanted her another look.

“Only she?”

“No. Not only she.”

*

Madeleine made the introductions. She heard herself making them, saying the correct words, using the correct tone, and everyone shook hands correctly as she watched from slightly outside of herself, still suspended in the fleeting light. Still standing at the edge of that cliff, wondering what would come next.

From the saltwater bathing pool walled off from the bay came echoes of splashing, of children shouting and nannies chiding, and cormorants screeching for scraps.

People were beginning to stare at them again.

Mother was speaking. Katherine was trying to catch Madeleine’s eye.

Colonel Astor tested the bottom of his stick against the grass and shifted on his feet, the wind flipping his jaunty striped tie this way and that. For the first time, she caught a hint of his cologne.

Sandalwood, rich and heady. Amber. Bergamot.

*

“I didn’t think dogs were allowed at the Club,” Katherine was saying.

The colonel’s eyebrows quirked. “Oh, aren’t they?” he asked innocently. “Alas.”

As if on cue, Kitty yawned, showing miles of tongue and teeth. Madeleine and Katherine burst into laughter, spontaneously, loudly, and both at once.

It was one of the hallmarks that branded them as sisters, their matching laugh: low and full-throated, bubbling up without reservation. It remained the despair of their mother (who feared it revealed a shade too much a bourgeois background) but was as natural as breathing to Madeleine and Katherine, who both brimmed with appreciation of anything absurd.

Throughout their childhood, Mother had dressed them identically, to the frustration of them both. Chocolate-haired and blue-eyed, the sisters might already have been twins, except that Katherine was always a little taller, a little merrier, more sparkling.

Even so, the colonel’s attention kept returning to Madeleine, instead of fixing upon the brighter star.

“Miss Force! Colonel Astor! A photograph? To commemorate Miss Force’s win in the tournament?”

It was a young man in a boater and tennis whites, already setting up his camera and tripod on the spread of lawn just ahead of them. He must have been a member of the Club, although Madeleine didn’t recognize him.

The colonel looked at her. “Would that be all right?”

“Yes,” answered Madeleine’s mother, and tucked a loose lock of hair back behind Madeleine’s ear before moving to stand beside her.

Katherine grinned. Madeleine pushed more hair behind her other ear, and they all four faced the photographer, gathering closer, pulling the dog into the frame. The colonel’s sleeve brushed lightly against her own, electrifying; she clamped her arms to her sides, hoping she didn’t stink of tennis and the fried cod she’d had for lunch.