An Embarrassment of Riches (6 page)

Vanderbilt looked as if he had driven his own equipage to the meet. He was wearing the white top hat he habitually wore when playing the part of a charioteer, and dog-skin gloves. A very pretty, very flashily dressed, very young woman was clinging adoringly to his arm.

‘I'll trust my own judgement, thank you very much,' Alexander said, miffed that Charlie assumed Vanderbilt's knowledge of horse-flesh was superior to his own. ‘You forget I've been brought up with horses at Tarna. I'm every bit as good a judge as old Vanderbilt.'

Charlie made due apologies but didn't look totally convinced. He looked wistfully after the Commodore as Alexander firmly led the way in the opposite direction. Vanderbilt's gambling was legendary. It would have been fun to see which horse he fancied – and for how much.

‘Then tell me what you fancy,' he said, itching to off-load some of the bills bulging in his inside jacket pocket. ‘Are you going to go for Colourful Dancer or …' He paled as he saw the silver-haired, cigar-smoking figure directly in their path. ‘Land's sakes!' he hissed agitatedly. ‘It's Uncle Henry!'

His warning came too late for Alexander. He was sidestepping a couple of touts who were making a nuisance of themselves and the next thing he knew Charlie had taken to his heels and disappeared and the distinguished figure of Henry Schermerhorn III was bearing down on him.

‘What the devil are you doing here, young man? Why aren't you at Tarna with your father?' his distant relation demanded, furious at Victor Karolyis's young whelp catching him so publicly rubbing shoulders with the
hoi polloi.

Alexander ran a finger uncomfortably around the inside of his stiffly starched collar. The heat was stifling. He wondered wildly what would happen if he were to simulate a faint.

‘I … I … Pa's racing trainer is thinking of buying Colourful Dancer and I wanted to see how she ran,' he managed at last. ‘I'd take it as a great favour if you wouldn't let on to Pa I was here. He doesn't approve of my interest in horses.'

Henry didn't doubt the truth of his statement for a moment. He had never liked Victor Karolyis. The rest of society might have conveniently forgotten that the man's father had been a peasant from some God-forsaken village in Eastern Europe, but Henry Schermerhorn III hadn't. In Henry's eyes it was only to be expected that such a man would lack a gentleman's inborn love of the turf. It was obvious, however, that his son was of a different stamp.

He had recovered his equilibrium now and he continued to stare at Alexander, much to Alexander's increasing discomfiture. Despite Sandor Karolyis having being vulgar and impossibly ill-bred, Henry had always entertained a sneaking liking for him. He had been a man who had possessed enormous
chutzpah
and he, at least, had not possessed the cardinal sin of indifference where horse-flesh was concerned.

He remembered the stories of how, when Karolyis had first bought Tarna, he had outraged the country by riding recklessly hard and bare-back, like a Magyar peasant. He also remembered how he had scandalized Mrs Roosevelt when, at a dinner party so formal that the footmen had worn powdered wigs and silken knee-breeches, he had excused himself from the sumptuously laden table and disappeared in the direction of the kitchens. When tracked down by his hostess, who had never before stepped foot in the nether regions of her home, Karolyis was found with a salami in his hand, a pearl-handled clasp knife in the other. His ability to cut himself one-handedly thick slice after slice was lost on his hostess. He had never been invited to the Roosevelt mansion again. Henry doubted that he had cared.

It occurred to him that the boy before him was more like his grandfather than he was his father. There was the same careless nonchalance in his stance, the same go-to-the-devil recklessness in his dark eyes, the same effortless charm. Grudgingly Henry had to admit that, as he had liked the grandfather, so he felt himself warming towards the grandson.

‘Well, I do, my boy,' he said at last. ‘It's a royal sport and in the not too far future New York will have an American Jockey Club worthy of it.'

He began to stroll towards the track, obviously expecting Alexander to fall into step beside him. Relieved at the amicable outcome of the meeting, Alexander did so.

‘The city needs a track where blooded horses can run under gentlemen's rules,' Henry continued, avoiding a hawker selling pies of doubtful-looking quality. ‘I've already spoken to August Belmont and Leonard Jerome and William Travers about such a possibility.

They are familiar with European clubs and tracks and know the kind of thing I have in mind.'

Alexander nodded. Leonard Jerome was a notorious high liver who was reputed to stable his beloved horses in carpeted stalls fitted with hand-carved walnut panelling. Travers was his business partner. Together with Belmont they knew more about horse-flesh than the rest of New York put together. A Jockey Club with such a threesome at the helm would be a Jockey Club worth belonging to.

As they pushed their way through the crowds to the course Alexander was aware of Charlie desperately trying to keep them in view. He grinned to himself. Henry's reaction to discovering a Karolyis amid petty touts and ladies of light virtue would be far different to his reaction if he discovered a young Schermerhorn in such surroundings. Unless Charlie wanted the lambasting of his life he was just going to have to lie low.

‘Your father's trainer could be right about Colourful Dancer,' Henry was saying to him companionably. ‘Let's take the risk.'

Ten minutes later they were happily counting their considerable winnings, much to Charlie's almost tearful chagrin.

Henry was enjoying himself. Victor's whelp was proving to be entertaining company. ‘You must come with me to Harlem Lane one day,' he suggested, happily uncaring of Alexander's youth and the impropriety of encouraging him to attend dubious race tracks and to mix with the city's riff-raff.

‘I'd like that.' Alexander was beginning to like old Henry. Every other Schermerhorn he had ever met, apart from Charlie, had been insufferably priggish. Henry was definitely not priggish. Underneath his very dignified exterior he was proving to be a lot of fun.

‘You've never visited Tarna, have you?' he enquired as they strode towards the owners' enclosure. ‘My grandfather was passionate about horses. The stud he founded at Tarna is heaven on earth. Why don't you visit for a few days and see around it?'

‘Wonderful!' Henry's heavily lined face lit up with happy anticipation and then he paused, his elation dying. ‘However, my relations with your father are not exactly close and …'

‘And it might be better if you came when he was elsewhere,' Alexander finished for him. ‘I quite agree. But there isn't a problem. Pa is always on the move. I'll let you know when he's absent and you can drop by. After all,' he added, his voice full of mischief, ‘you are family.'

In any other circumstance Henry would have taken umbrage at being reminded that his own distinguished family and the upstart Karolyises were connected. Now, thinking of the incomparable horses of Tarna, he nodded agreeably. Victor Karolyis wouldn't take exception at his dropping by at Tarna. Victor never minded being troubled by his Schermerhorn relations. And he might be able to negotiate a very favourable price for an exceptionally good horse. All in all, the day was turning out far better than could have been expected.

Out of the corner of his eye Alexander could see Charlie edging along among the hordes to the left of them, his hands deep in his pockets. He was beginning to look distinctly woebegone and Alexander felt a pang of conscience.

‘I must be on my way now,' he said with genuine regret. ‘But don't forget the invite to Tarna. Karolyis horses beat what you've seen today hands down.'

Bidding his new-found friend goodbye he pushed his way through the throng towards Charlie.

‘Not before time,' Charlie said petulantly, seriously disgruntled. ‘Couldn't you have escaped from the old bore a little sooner?'

‘Henry isn't an old bore,' Alexander said, enjoying Charlie's fit of pique. ‘It's just that you're too immature to appreciate him.'

The remark was so patently ridiculous that Charlie ignored it, saying with interest, ‘Was he furious with you for being here?'

Alexander stopped his teasing. ‘I think he was more annoyed, at first, at my finding
him
here. When he got over that he didn't seem to mind. But then,' he added drily, seeing Charlie's look of disbelief, ‘I'm a Karolyis, not a Schermerhorn. I doubt if he would have been so easy on you.'

Charlie doubted it as well. ‘Let's find a likely tout and put some money on the next race,' he said, eager to get down to the business of the day. ‘Did Uncle Henry give you any good tips? Does he know the runners? Why the
devil
didn't you somehow let me know you were putting your money on Colourful Dancer?'

Alexander was barely listening to him. The race track was exciting but not as exciting as their next venture was going to be. How were they to storm Madame Josie Woods'establishment? Would she throw them out? Tell their fathers? And if she didn't? If she allowed them to stay? What then? Would he be able to acquit himself without making a fool of himself? He felt his sex harden. He had no intention of gaining his sexual experience via fumbled gropings with his father's domestic staff. It was a method Charlie had so far found satisfactory, but one which he knew he never would. If a thing was worth doing, it was worth doing well, and Josie's girls were reputed to be the very best there were.

His thoughts were so far from the race track that he barely noticed when his next horse trailed last to the winning post. It didn't matter anyway. Money wasn't important. There was always plenty more to replace any he might lose.

‘I hope to Christ we aren't seen and recognized!' Charlie said agitatedly the next evening as they approached the discreet front door behind which Madame Josie Woods kept house.

Well aware that Charlie was on the verge of losing his nerve, Alexander kept his voice placatingly cool. ‘Stop panicking, Charlie. If we are seen, we can always say that we mistook the house for the Commodore's.'

Charlie giggled. Cornelius Vanderbilt's house was only a spit away. ‘What if she won't allow us in? Rumour is that she only accepts as new clients people existing clients introduce.'

‘A Schermerhorn and a Karolyis?' Alexander asked with a quirk of his eyebrow. ‘She'll let us in all right, Charlie. Madame Woods is just as big a snob as the rest of New York society.'

The flutterings in Charlie's stomach became unpleasantly seismic. It was obvious that Alexander had no intention of turning tail. There was going to be no escape. Even as he tried desperately to think of an excuse for leaving the scene, the door was opened by a pertly uniformed maid.

‘Mr Karolyis and Mr Schermerhorn for Madame Woods,' Alexander said with a coolness he was far from feeling.

The maid stared at them, round-eyed. They were no older than herself and they had certainly never visited before. The names were, however, distinguished and familiar, too familiar for her to risk closing the door on them. ‘This way if you please,' she said dubiously, leading the way inside.

Alexander took a deep breath and followed her, Charlie hard on his heels. As they walked down a scarlet carpeted corridor he looked around him with interest. If this was a brothel, it was nothing like any of his imaginings.

It could have been the home of one of his relations or of one of his father's friends. There were festoons of silken drapes at the windows, elegant paintings and mirrors on the walls. The furniture was heavy and dark, the chandeliers opulent. They followed the decorously attired maid into a small sitting-room and acquiesced to her request that they be seated. Seconds later they were on their own.

‘I'm not happy about this, Alexander,' Charlie said, shifting uncomfortably on a ridiculously insubstantial damask-and-gold armchair. ‘The atmosphere's all wrong. It's too …'

He broke off as the door opened and Josie Woods swept majestically in on them, her floor-sweeping taffeta dress rustling and crackling around her. For a long moment she regarded them silently and then she sat down opposite them.

‘Yes?' she said queryingly. ‘Do you have a message for someone? How can I be of assistance to you?'

Alexander had only seen her before at a distance. A lady of middling years, she had always looked matriarchally magnificent, rows of pearls laying in splendour upon her awe-inspiring bosom. Near to she was even more matriarchally intimidating and he could hear Charlie's sigh of relief at being given an excuse both to retain his dignity and to tail off. Before Charlie could concoct some idiotic supposed message he said with a slight, disarming shrug of a shoulder, ‘We have no messages, Mrs Wood. We're here as prospective clients.'

Josie Wood was well aware of the fact. Her questions had merely been a way of stalling for time. She ran a rigidly well-ordered house and she was not in the business of corrupting minors. However, despite the fact that neither of her visitors had long been shaving, both were superbly over six foot tall. She was also mindful of the fact that young Schermerhorn was a scion of one of the most respected of all Old Guard families, and that young Karolyis, if he possessed even an eighth of his grandfather's and father's financial genius, would one day be richer than all her other unimaginably rich clients put together.

She adjusted the heavy taffeta of her skirt, saying pleasantly, ‘This establishment is a brothel, gentlemen. Not a nursery.'

‘We're not in need of a nursery,' Alexander said easily, refusing to be intimidated. ‘But we are in need of the kind of experience that your house can provide.' He grinned suddenly, and Josie was as aware of his devastating charm as Henry Schermerhorn had been. ‘Wouldn't you prefer that we gained our sexual experience here,' he asked disarmingly, ‘rather than our taking advantage of a family maid?'