An Embarrassment of Riches (33 page)

Days later Kieron's letter arrived. He had begun affectionately,

lapsing into Irish.

Hello there, élainn
,
What a girl you are and no mistake. Two minutes out of my sight and marrying the first boyo you set eyes on. I hope to God he realizes his luck. And I hope to God he treats you like a queen for, if he doesn't, he'll have me to reckon with, and I'm not jesting. Matters this side of the water are hellish grim. Bicester is no Clanmar. He's evicting tenants right and left in his desire to improve his land and I want no part of it. I'm going to chance my luck in America. The next time you hear from me I will be in New York, God and the immigration department willing.

Kieron in New York! Maura felt as though her heart would burst. Until now she had tried not to think too much about New York. Although Alexander had been adamant that he would never have any contact with his father again, it had been obvious from the way he had talked that he anticipated spending some part of each year there and she had dreaded exchanging her blissful lifestyle at Tarna for a claustrophobic existence in a Fifth Avenue mansion. Now the prospect held no fear for her. Kieron would be near by. As well as an attentive husband she would have a friend. She felt as if her cup was full and running over, and to make her happiness complete it appeared that the terrible Civil War was about to come to an end.

Within days of their arriving at Tarna news had swept the country of an overwhelming Union victory. The battle had been fought just west of the small market town of Gettysburg and had decisively put paid to the Confederate invasion of the North. News of other victories had come thick and fast. In the South, Vicksburg had surrendered to Union forces after a bitter siege that had lasted from mid-May and further down the Mississippi the Port Hudson garrison had also laid down its arms. With the news that the entire Mississippi had been cleared of rebels church bells had rung out euphorically all over the North.

‘The war is going to be over by Christmas without me even having had a sniff of it!' Alexander exploded disgustedly to Charlie.

They were sprawling on a gently sloping lawn. Where the lawn ended the paddocks began, thick with grazing mares and foals. It was Charlie's first visit to Tarna since Alexander's return and for three days he and Alexander had done nothing but talk about old times and laugh uproariously at jokes that Maura had failed to understand.

She said now, from the comfort of a wicker garden-chair, ‘Did you intend to enlist?'

Her surprise was genuine. During the glorious weeks she and Alexander had spent together he had never once mentioned the possibility.

‘Hell, yes.' He pushed a tumbled fall of hair away from his brow. ‘I was simply waiting for my leg to mend fully and then I was going to enlist in the cavalry.'

Charlie looked across at Maura and both of them collapsed into helpless giggles – Alexander no longer had even the faintest vestige of a limp.

‘I
was
, damn the pair of you,' he said, aggrieved by their disbelief. ‘I fought like hell with my father over the issue before I left for Europe. Now there's conscription I'm certainly going to go.'

Charlie rolled on to his back, chortling. ‘Don't believe him, Maura. Anyone can escape the draft by paying three hundred dollars.'

‘But I don't want to,' Alexander said implacably. ‘I want a part of it before it's all over.'

Maura looked across at him, the smile fading from her eyes. It was understandable that he wanted to take part in the war savaging his country. They had talked about the war often and she knew that he felt passionately about it. Why then hadn't she realized that it was his intention to enlist? The answer filled her with shame. She hadn't realized because subconsciously she had assumed that his wealth protected him from such unpleasantness.

Charlie pushed himself back into a sitting position. ‘If you intended enlisting, why didn't you enlist weeks ago?' he demanded mischievously, already knowing the answer.

Alexander knew what Charlie was thinking, and Charlie was right. ‘You know damned well why,' he said, his eyes gleaming with answering amusement, bewildering Maura who couldn't possibly see how Charlie could know.

Charlie chuckled. If he'd been lucky enough to be holed up at Tarna with only Maura for company, he wouldn't have been in a hurry to leave either. He wondered how long Alexander's idyll would last. The marriage had already achieved all he had intended it to. Victor Karolyis was being cold-shouldered wherever he went, New York high society having unanimously decided that a father-in-law to an Irish emigrant was a man they could well do without at their dinner tables.

He had told Alexander that feeling was running high and that when he eventually decided that his act of revenge had run its course, and when he paid Maura off, he was going to have a devil of a job reinstating himself in society. Alexander had merely shrugged and the subject had not been pursued. Charlie didn't blame him for being indifferent. If he were taking Maura to bed every night, he wouldn't care about the opinion of New York's
haut ton
either.

He looked across at her and was startled by the anguish he surprised in her eyes. He frowned, wondering what on earth had caused her change of mood and then with a shock, realization came. It was because Alexander had spoken of enlisting. He felt a wave of pity for her. The end was going to have to come sometime and the sooner she adjusted herself to the idea, the easier it would be for her. He wondered what agreement Alexander had made with her about the eventual, necessary divorce.

His thoughts were interrupted as a footman approached from the direction of the house. Alexander rose to his feet, walking languidly to meet him. As he did so he passed close to where Maura was seated. Charlie saw him stretch his hand out, saw Maura take it and press it close against her cheek. He saw Alexander look down and smile.

Charlie gawped. He had known that Alexander was highly enjoying his escapade with Maura, but it had never occurred to him that their relationship was anything other than a passing act of recklessness. Now, for the first time, he began to realize that he had been wrong. Alexander was as in love with Maura as Maura was in love with him. He had been a fool not to have seen it within seconds of his arrival. In all the years he had known Alexander he had never known him to be so relaxed, so carefree. Not once had he exhibited a sign of his old, brooding restlessness.

Hard on the heels of his stunned amazement came overwhelming relief. If Alexander was truly in love with her, then it meant that Maura wouldn't vanish suddenly from the scene. When Alexander finally denied the marriage, as he would have to do if he were ever to regain his position in society, then Maura would still remain as his mistress and he, Charlie, would still be able to see her and remain friends with her.

Alexander had been speaking to the footman, now he turned, saying with a slight frown, ‘Pa's attorney has travelled out from New York to have a word with me. I'd better see what he wants.'

Charlie was aware of a feeling of gratitude towards Alexander's visitor. The longer Alexander was engaged in conversation at the house, the longer he would have alone with Maura.

‘When is it your friend arrives in New York?' he asked her, wishing he had the nerve to move a little closer to her chair.

Maura smiled affectionately across at him. In the short time that she had known him she had come to like him a great deal.

‘I don't know,' she said, wishing that she did. ‘Kieron didn't say when he was sailing, and even when he arrives here he may be delayed at Immigration.'

‘Immigration?' Charlie asked, startled.

‘He's Irish and he's coming here for good. From what Alexander told me when we were aboard the
Scotia
Immigration formalities can take quite some time.'

Charlie didn't doubt it. Despite the fact that Maura herself was Irish, it hadn't occurred to him that her visiting friend would also be Irish. Alexander had told him about Lord Clanmar rearing and educating her and somehow he had thought the friend a relative of Clanmar's. At the very least he had thought he would be respectable.

‘Kieron is a land-agent,' Maura was saying in amusement, well aware of the turn Charlie's thoughts had taken. ‘He was the very best land-agent in the whole of County Wicklow.'

Charlie's blond eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hair. ‘A land-agent?' he managed at last in a strangled voice. ‘You're not intending to invite him as a guest to Tarna, are you, Maura?'

‘To be sure and I am,' she said, teasingly lapsing into a brogue that could be cut with a knife.

Charlie shook his head in genuine perturbation. ‘I wouldn't do that if I were you, Maura. Alexander wouldn't …'

‘You're wrong, Charlie.' She had abandoned the accent and her voice was full of loving conviction. ‘Alexander won't mind. He isn't the snob you seem to think him.'

If he wasn't, it was news to Charlie. He was just about to say so when Maura changed the subject. ‘How soon do you think it will be before the war ends, Charlie?' she asked, her anxiety obvious. ‘Is it going to end before Alexander has time to enlist and to train?'

She had her back to the house and beyond her Charlie could see Alexander beginning to make his way back to them.

‘God knows,' he said truthfully. ‘Mobile and Charleston need to be taken yet. Both are centres of Confederate blockade-running and it's my guess that is where General Grant is going to turn his attentions now.'

Alexander was making swift progress and Charlie said hurriedly and in genuine concern, ‘Where will you go if Alexander does enlist?'

Maura stared at him, bewildered. ‘Go? I don't know what you mean, Charlie. Why should I go anywhere? Are you asking if I will go with Alexander to wherever he is posted? Do wives in America follow the Army around in order to remain near their husbands? If they do, then of course I will do so. If not, then I will remain here at Tarna. Until he returns.'

Now it was Charlie's turn to stare.

‘But you won't be able to stay on here after … after …'

He had been about to say after her marriage to Alexander had been annulled but the words wouldn't come. She didn't know about the inevitable annulment. He could tell she didn't know by the incomprehension in her eyes. And perhaps there wasn't going to be one. Perhaps his assumptions had been wrong. Perhaps Alexander really was so in love that he was going to remain married to her come what may.

‘After what, Charlie?' she prompted curiously.

Alexander saved him from making any reply. His shadow fell across them and as they looked up towards him, he said tautly, ashen-faced, ‘My father's dead. I'm returning to New York immediately.'

‘How? What happened?' Charlie asked pantingly as he tried to keep pace with Alexander on the return to the house.

‘Pa's private train derailed. He was concussed when they pulled him from the wreckage and never recovered consciousness.'

‘Jesus!' No-one Charlie knew had ever died before. Victor Karolyis had been old by his lights, but he had certainly not been sickly or infirm. The thought of him being struck down by death without so much as a warning was distinctly unpleasant. If it could happen to Victor, it could happen to anyone.

‘I'll come with you, of course,' he said breathlessly as he strode into Tarna hard on Alexander's heels. ‘What are you going to do about the funeral? Your pa was the richest man in New York. The entire city will want to turn out for it.'

Maura, half-running in order to keep up with them, had questions of her own she needed answering. Was she to accompany him to New York? Was he now deeply regretting the scene that had taken place in the Chinese drawing-room, between himself and his father? Was his father's death going to change their own happy way of life at Tarna?

‘I'll write you,' he said to her, answering the first of her questions. ‘There's going to be a devil of a lot to sort out.'

Maura nodded. She knew from Lord Clanmar's death that there always was a lot to sort out when a man of means died unexpectedly.

The attorney was waiting in the inner hall, suitably attired in a black frock-coat, his top hat held in the crook of his arm.

‘I'll be right with you, Kingston,' Alexander said to him tersely, striding past him towards the grand staircase.

In his bedroom Teal had already laid out suitable clothes for him to change into. Maura watched as he exchanged comfortable riding clothes for a white shirt with a stiff high-collar, a black necktie, a black cut-away coat and suit. The change was dramatic. He suddenly looked forbidding, almost a stranger.

As if sensing her thoughts he looked across at her. ‘I can't be sorry,' he said, speaking to her as she knew he would speak to no-one else, not even Charlie. ‘Because of him Genevre died without me being at her side. I can't forgive him, Maura. Not now. Not ever.'

She crossed the room towards him and put her arms around him, uncaring of Teal's presence, saying fiercely, ‘There's no need to explain. I understand.'

He held her close, knowing that she did so and that she would always understand. ‘I must go,' he said reluctantly.

It was only when the
Rosetta
was steaming full speed towards New York that he realized his action in saying goodbye to her had been bizarre. They were married. She should have accompanied him. She should most certainly attend the funeral.

‘Damn!' he said aloud, cursing himself for being an idiot.

‘What's the matter? Have you forgotten something?' Charlie asked, roused from his reverie as to the likely consequences of Victor's death.

‘No, I've just remembered something.'

Charlie looked across at him. It was odd to see Alexander so formally and soberly dressed. He looked almost as much of an attorney as Lyall Kingston. ‘I wondered when you would,' he said, supposing Alexander to be thinking of his father's will. ‘Has Kingston been able to give you the lie of the land?'