The Second Mrs. Astor(30)

She remembered their kiss, their only one. His lips had been silky soft, his moustache scratchy. He’d tasted of mint and cigar and everything forbidden and unknown that she longed to explore, to sink her teeth and fingers and soul into. She’d felt herself expand with his kiss, her spirit swell and spill out of her like Katherine’s champagne overflowing from its shallow glass, and she couldn’t imagine that he looked at her without remembering it, too. Without craving more, as she did.

Without dreaming of more, as she did, waking up sweaty and breathless in the middle of the night.

Jack turned away from her, just enough to break their connection.

“Those ink-stained villains out there,” he said now, shaking his head. “I’m sorry about that. I can keep them off the property itself, but they’ve got free rein of the sidewalks and streets.”

“I know. It’s all right.”

“I despise how they harass you. I despise that it’s because of me.”

“Really. It’s all right.” She tried a smile. “I’m following the patented Astor method for dealing with them, you know. I won’t break.”

He exhaled, slow, quiet, beneath the ebb and swell of chatter filling the chamber.

Now, she thought. Ask me now.

Maybe he read her mind; maybe he only read her hope. When he spoke again, he sounded almost weary.

“You’re seventeen still, Madeleine. You’re so young.”

A surge of anger flooded through her, but she kept her tone carefully neutral. “So everyone keeps telling me. Young is not an unpardonable offense. Young does not mean I cannot make rational decisions, or abide by them.”

Her ire had revealed itself, after all. They gazed at each other in surprise.

“I beg your pardon,” Madeleine said. “I am young, I suppose, but I don’t feel especially young inside.”

“That’s curious,” he said somberly, “because people call me old, you know.” His lips twitched. “At least, they do behind my back. But when I’m with you, I don’t feel especially old.”

As quickly as it had washed over her, her anger evaporated. “Then we’re a pair, I guess.”

“I guess we are.”

With Lina looking coldly on, Jack took a step toward her, reached for her hand, and she let him, unmoving, barely breathing, feeling the scrutiny of two hundred of New York’s elite gather and center on them both.

“It’s going to be this way, you know. Forever and a day, we’ll be watched and followed, studied and analyzed. I fear you’ll know no peace with me.”

“Peace,” she scoffed, light—but her heart was pounding, fierce and strong. “What a tedious notion. Who requires peace, when one may have Colonel Jack Astor?”

He smiled at her, the corners of his eyes crinkling in that way she admired. And then, even though everyone around them was now blatantly watching, he touched her on the shoulder, running his hand down the cap of her sleeve, lingering on the exposed skin of her arm just above her glove. He did not look up into her eyes again, but kept his attention fixed there—his hand, her arm, the satin of her glove. The skin of his palm burned against her.

His next words were spoken so softly she had to strain to hear him.

“I’ll talk to your father tomorrow.”

“Good,” Madeleine said, and meant it.





CHAPTER 9


We kept our engagement private. It was important to your father that it not be publicly announced until after I turned eighteen, which by then was only four months away.

Four eternal months.

I understood his reticence, I did, but the burden of holding that secret inside me was like enduring a lump of hot lava burning behind my breastbone every day and night. My parents knew, naturally, and there was never any hope of hiding it from your Aunt Katherine. But your father didn’t even tell Vincent, not for the longest while, for fear it might end up reaching the ears of his former wife. And I know he definitely didn’t mention it to anyone else, because believe me, if he had, the papers would have exploded with the news.

As, of course, they eventually did.




July 1911

Newport, Rhode Island



Accounts of that February night had trickled out to the tabloids in dribs and drabs, but as there was no announcement from Colonel Astor regarding a betrothal, it wasn’t the juiciest of tales. Just the usual tattle, who had attended, what they ate, what they wore, how expensive were the favors. Most of the press still took care to refer to Madeleine as fair, or accomplished, or (especially) youthful.

A handful were starting to call her determined. Ambitious.

She wondered if they weren’t running out of even remotely polite adjectives. If they might not soon move on to oblivious, or obstinate, or desperate.

The Forces still summered at Bar Harbor, at least officially. The house was opened, aired, and occasionally they did stay there, a few weeks at a time. Jack would come to visit on the Noma, living aboard the yacht instead of leasing another cottage, and whenever he was in town, they would carry on as they had the summer before, tennis at the Swimming Club, picnics, dances at the Malvern or the Casino. But Madeleine (always accompanied by at least Mother or Father or both; appearances were strictly maintained) began to slip away, more and more, to Newport with him.