The Second Mrs. Astor(48)

“After that,” Margaret said, “I began to raise my voice. For charity, for laborers. For the rights of the miners, of women and children. To take a little—just a little, mind you—from the Thirty-Six and send it back to those who’d made their silk-stocking lives possible. The starving men dying in their tents, in the banks of snow. Their families left behind, left up there at altitude with nothing, trying to find their way in rags back to any kind of secure base.”

Margaret seemed to recall her tea. She looked at it with something like revulsion, then slowly lowered her hand to the arm of her chair. Without her mask of mirth, she seemed older suddenly, lined and fatigued.

“Those pinched-nosed biddies in Denver would sooner kiss the lips of the devil himself than invite me into their homes.”

Madeleine sat forward, tucking her feet beneath her. The fire in the hearth popped, a bright cherry burst.

“How courageous you are.”

“Courageous? No. Just saw the truth of things, that was all. Saw the truth, and tried to change it.”

“Did it work?”

“No.” Margaret sighed, resting back. “Maybe a little. Not enough. It’s never really enough. That’s not how our world turns.”

Madeleine felt, shockingly, her eyes begin to burn. A hot band of sorrow cinched her, constricting her chest. To control it, she made herself very still, exhaling silently through parted lips, her fingers curled beneath her legs. She blinked away the tears, scowling at her knees.

The fire. The maids. The hundred doors of this empty, haunted mansion, opening and closing. Men dying in tents.

It all echoed through her, over and over and over, all the ghosts rising up, taking command.

“Madeleine,” said Margaret carefully. “Are you feeling perfectly well?”

She freed a hand to wipe quickly at her eyes. “Oh, yes. A bit tired, that’s all.”

“A big house,” said Margaret again, very soft.

“I miss the heat, I think.” She rubbed her eyes again, then pushed the opal rings covering her fingers back into place. She stared down at them, so heavy and vivid, and heard herself say, “I ache to be warm. I know it sounds woebegone, it sounds silly, but honestly, I do. And not just warm by the fire as we are now, roasting on your left while freezing on your right, like a chicken half cooked. Warm from the air, from the green trees and the sun, surrounded by June. June! It feels as if this winter has dragged on forever, and it’s only December still.”

“The cold can whittle you straight down to the marrow, I swear. I do know that.”

“I just don’t—” She swallowed hard against the thickness in her throat—stop crying, don’t be stupid, don’t cry—and when she spoke again, the tremble in her voice had flattened out. “I just don’t know when it will be warm again. That’s all.”

The door to the room swept open on its silent hinges. Jack walked in, still shrugging out of his overcoat, trailed by Kitty and a footman. He tossed the coat back to the footman without looking (who caught it expertly mid-air in a slither of satin and wool), smiling all the while.

“Hello, sweet wife. Good morning, Margaret. Madeleine sent word that you’d come.”

He leaned down to kiss Madeleine on the forehead, his moustache prickling. She averted her eyes but lifted her hand to brush his cheek, her fingers falling away as he straightened. “Quite a brisk morning out there! I’m happy to see you both by the fire.”

“It does make a difference,” Margaret said. “As long as we don’t run out of wood.”

Jack laughed, headed to the tea service. “No chance of that.” He glanced around, impatient. “Wilton? I’d like some coffee, please. And whatever assortment of cakes or pastries the kitchen has on hand. Maybe some of those macaroons from yesterday, if there are any left.”

A new footman—not the one with Jack’s coat; Madeleine was still trying to remember everyone’s names—inclined his head and murmured, “Right away, sir,” before backing out of the room.

“Do you know, darling, I’ve been considering your idea about adjusting the meal schedule.”

Madeleine tried to sound interested. “Oh?”

“Breakfast was too early today, I think, because I’m half-starved now, and it’s nowhere near noon. Margaret, are you staying for lunch?”

“If you’ll have me.”

“Certainly.”

“Actually, if you’ll have me, I’m staying overnight.”

“Are you? Wonderful. Madeleine could use the company.”

They were nearly her own words, minutes before. Nearly, but she had said we, and he had not.

She kept her gaze on the window, the pallid light. She drew the air in past her teeth, blew it out again, slow, restrained, exhaling the tightness in her chest.

Jack planted himself on a cut-velvet settee, slinging an arm along the high, scalloped line of the back.

“What’s on the schedule for today, ladies? Shopping? A ride through the park?”

“Jack,” said Margaret. “Let’s talk about January, instead of today.”

He smiled again, tapping his fingers against the wooden scroll topping the settee, and for no reason other than that, Madeleine remembered him in their bed last night, the touch of his hands against her, hard and hungry and eager, burning warm, because the cold never seemed to infect him, not ever.