The Second Mrs. Astor(66)

She looked up. From her chair three places down, Mabel was leaning toward her, her eyes shining.

“Oh,” said Madeleine, putting down her knife and fork.

“We should all be able to wed whomever we wish.” Mabel threw a fuming glance at her father, who took a bite of carrot off his fork without responding.

“Not this again.” Charles Fortune, her younger brother, blond and athletic, covered his mouth on a sham yawn.

“Yes, this again. Look at the colonel and Mrs. Astor, after all they had to endure to be together. Clearly marriage has worked out beautifully for them.”

“For them,” enunciated the eldest sister, Ethel. She pursed her lips over her glass of wine. “You, my girl, are not them. And neither is that jazz player fellow from Minnesota.”

“Mrs. Astor! Won’t you speak for me? Tell them how it is.”

“I . . .”

Margaret came to her rescue. “Love is a powerful force, Miss Fortune. There’s no denying it. But love and common sense don’t always go hand in hand.”

“I’m afraid that’s true,” agreed Mrs. Widener. “Hearts may be easily broken, young lady, just as promises made in the heat of the moment may be. It pays to keep a cool head in courtship.”

“But my heart is broken now,” protested Mabel. She shook her head, the tortoiseshell combs in her hair gleaming. “It feels like I’ll die without him.”

“Mabel,” interrupted Mrs. Fortune in a granite voice, “you will bore our companions. No one desires to hear about your heart, broken or not.”

Mabel ignored her, leaning forward once more, fervent. “Mrs. Astor! Please! Tell them.”

Madeleine glanced at Jack, who had observed the entire exchange with a dispassionate expression. But beneath the table, he took her hand.

“I will say this,” she offered cautiously. “I genuinely cannot imagine my life ahead without my husband by my side. He is my rock and my true north and my whole heart. I’m not afraid to say it.”

“There!” breathed Mabel.

“But,” Madeleine continued, “I would never hope for anyone else to undergo the ordeal we did to reach this place of happiness, this place where we are now. Especially anyone of a tender disposition. Society can be . . . extremely unforgiving.”

For a long moment, no one at the table said anything. There was only the low buzz of conversation from the other diners across the saloon, the stewards hurrying by, the music from the orchestra.

Charles tapped his fork against the china plate. “Speaking of stories. Alice has one, a real lulu, and it only just happened back in Cairo a few weeks ago. Tell them what happened, Alice.”

Alice Fortune, young and remarkably pretty, looked flustered for a second, then flashed a smile.

“Oh, it was the silliest thing. We were at Shepheard’s, sitting and having drinks one afternoon on the terrace. Do you all know it? No? Well, it’s really quite something, very inviting and open, and you can see all the people outside, walking and selling things and trying to get your attention, because they’d like you to buy a mummy or some papyrus or something. Anyway, this one little man in a maroon fez simply would not stop pestering me—”

“Thought I’d have to slug him,” Charles offered, concentrating on his mousse.

“He was waving his hands at me and practically hopping in place, so eventually I gave in. We had him brought to our table—I was very much afraid he was going to produce a severed mummy hand from his coat, or one of those pitiful dead cats—but it turns out he was a soothsayer. So he claimed.”

“The best one in North Africa, I wager,” Ethel said.

“Naturally! And he read my palm for me.”

“The right or the left?” asked Margaret, looking serious.

“The left. He was terribly intense about it, scowling and mumbling. Then he looked up at me and told me that I would be in danger every time I traveled on the sea—”

Charles snorted.

“—because he saw me adrift in an open boat on the ocean. He said I was going to lose everything but my life, and that I would be saved but that others would be lost.”

She laughed a little, but no one else joined in. A new silence descended over them all, heavy and strained.

“Then what happened?” Madeleine asked.

“Then,” said Charles, “I gave the bugger—excuse me!—the man the baksheesh he demanded, and that was the end of it. He went off to fleece someone else.”

“An unsettling story, though,” said Eleanor Widener, a line of worry creasing her brow. “I swear, you’ve given me a chill.”

And me, Madeleine thought.

Ethel rested an elbow brazenly upon the table, lifting up her wine. “I fancy we’re safe enough on this voyage. After all, Charles was right there with you, and the fellow never said a word to him about being stranded on a boat or dying.”

“That’s right,” Charles said. “Rather rude of him not to tell me if I’m going to die. I was the one who paid him.”

The stewards arrived in a spate of snowy jackets to clear their plates, bringing out the next course. The orchestra began a German waltz.

Margaret said lightly, “Has anyone else heard a rooster crowing from time to time? I swear I’m not crazy. I realize Titanic is thoroughly modern, but they don’t keep live poultry aboard for our meals now, I hope?”