The Second Mrs. Astor(38)

“Are they okay?” Madeleine asked, tugging her polo coat tighter around her chest. Jack rubbed a hand up and down her back, peaceful, unhurried strokes. She found herself leaning against him and he took her weight readily, not even shifting on his feet.

Kitty paced uneasy circles around them both, her nails tick-tick ing against the wood.

“Roberts will get them aboard, if anyone can. He’s the best there is. Don’t fret.”

“What luck to have come across them at all,” Father said.

They watched as the Noma’s lifeboat was lowered, slowly and smoothly, down to the water by the crew.

“Ahoy there!” called out an oarsman to the listing sloop.

“Ahoy,” came the response, much weaker.

“Blind luck,” Jack said. “They should count their blessings the gale cleared out when it did, and we came this way. On a night like this, we might just as easily have passed them by. They saw our lights, and Roberts heard them calling, if you can believe it. That was all that saved them. They didn’t even shoot flares.”

The lifeboat maneuvered through the crests and troughs of the waves, a misty smudge shaped like an almond, pale against the dark.

“Will we tow the wreck?” asked Father.

“I doubt it, although it’s up to the captain, of course. She looks too far gone. We’ll probably just wire her position back to shore and hope for the best.”

“How long do you think they’ve been stranded out there?” Madeleine asked.

His hand still at her back, Jack peered up at the inky vault of the sky. At the stars burning above them, diamond chips scattered in ribbons in the aftermath of the storm. “It’s after midnight. Hours, I’d say. Three or four. Must have seemed like an eternity to those wretched souls.”

Madeleine remembered her nightmare. The icy, suffocating pressure of salt water slamming over her, filling her lungs.

“How cold is the water?”

He looked down at her, his expression guarded; she had the sense he was trying to read her face, to gauge the level of her distress.

“Honestly,” she insisted. “How cold? Might they be in shock?”

“They might,” he said slowly. “It’s the middle of the summer, but it’s still the Atlantic. This far north, the water never truly warms.”

She tucked her hair behind her ears. She’d only had time for a swift, loose braid that hung in a rope down her back, and it was already unraveling. “I’ve read about maritime rescues, but I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve never even thought . . . I’ll go below to see about coffee for them. Some food and blankets.”

Jack looked at her sideways; she had the swift and unpleasant realization that this was not her yacht, not yet, nor was the food hers to offer, or the blankets.

“Would that be all right?” she asked, uneasy. “I only want to help.”

“Sweet girl,” said the colonel, breaking into a smile. “That would be a godsend, I am sure. But those pitiful men will think they’ve drowned and ascended to heaven after all when they encounter the indomitable Madeleine Force serving them hot coffee.”

*

She was becoming better at the cotillions, the dinners, the teas. She was becoming better at meeting coolness with coolness, with artificial smiles and softly spoken barbs. The Newport crowd loved to talk, it seemed, and they especially loved to talk about the colonel.

What they loved about Madeleine was to dissect her. They did it from a distance; they did it to her face; and when she and Jack turned a corner along a scrupulously swept sidewalk on their way to luncheon at the Muenchinger-King Hotel, Madeleine could only brace herself as an auburn-haired matron in slate silk and feathers strode toward them, lifting her hand in greeting.

“Jack,” called the woman, in a clear and carrying voice.

“Margaret.”

The three of them came to a halt, facing each other. Jack tipped his boater. Madeleine felt her fingers tightening on his arm—a nervous reaction, one she was starting to loathe about herself—and forced herself to unclench them.

The woman noticed, a quick indirect look (no flicker of expression to betray what she thought of that, of Madeleine’s gleaming white knuckles) then returned her attention to the colonel.

“Dobbyn told me you were back in town,” she said.

“Dobbyn,” replied Jack with emphasis, “isn’t supposed to talk, even to you.”

“You’re going to have to forgive him. I have such a sweet-talking way with men, I swear. He never knew what hit him.”

The woman shifted her gaze to Madeleine. Before Jack could introduce them, she stuck out her hand. “You must be Miss Force. I’ve read all about you, I’m afraid.” And she laughed, her onyx earbobs swaying.

“Oh,” said Madeleine, uncertain, extending her own hand.

Unlike nearly every other Newport matron Madeleine had met, instead of looking wearily to the side of her, or icily straight through her, this woman’s eyes bored into her own, greenish-gray and directly assessing. She had a strong face, not plain and not fair, exactly, but something of both, with even features and laugh lines around her mouth and very dark eyelashes. There was an air about her of barely repressed mirth, as if she knew some happy, hilarious secret she was determined to keep to herself.

The feathers of her hat drooped in graceful curves down to her chin. Madeleine resisted the urge to straighten her own hat, a simple French basket of navy-dyed straw; like everything else about her, it was the best she could do, even if it was not quite right enough for the Rhode Island set.