An Unlikely Suitor (44 page)

This can’t be real. I’ll blink and everything will be different.

Lucy did just that. She closed her eyes, then opened them again.

But nothing changed.

Dante was Edward DeWitt. Edward DeWitt was her Dante.

Not
my
Dante. Not mine at all!

Suddenly, she didn’t care about shadows or being discreet. She stepped toward the railing and gripped it like a lifeline.

“Get back here!” Agatha whispered.

Lucy felt hands tugging on her, trying to pull her back.

Dante was Edward. Dante had proposed. But Rowena was supposed to marry him. How could—?

Suddenly, Dante looked up.

He saw her.

His mouth opened.

Rowena saw the direction of his gaze, looked up, and waved happily.

He shook his head,
no, no, no
 . . .

Lucy turned.

And ran.

N
o!” Edward said. “No!”

Rowena didn’t understand. Just a moment ago he’d pulled her aside, wanting to talk with her, and then he’d looked up and seen Lucy peering down from the second floor railing. She was glad Lucy was getting the chance to see her costumes in the mix of the party.

“What’s wrong, Edward?”

She looked toward Lucy again, just in time to see her turn and run away.

“I have to go.” His voice was frantic.

Rowena grabbed his arm “But why? Tell me what’s—”

He stopped and looked down at her, his face a tragic mask. “I’m Dante. I’m Lucy’s Dante.”

She must have faltered, because he took her arms and held her up.

“I’m sorry, Rowena. I didn’t mean for it to happen. That’s what I was going to talk to you about tonight.” He looked toward the front entry. “I have to go. I have to find her and explain.”

But what about me? What about explaining it to me?

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m—”

His apology was as ineffectual as offering to kiss a gaping wound to make it better. He was sorry?

Rowena pulled her arms free. “How could you?” she whispered.

He opened his mouth to speak but offered nothing. Except . . . “I have to find her.” He kissed Rowena’s cheek, then ran off through the crowd.

“Oh dear.”

“Did you ever . . . ?”

Rowena was horrified to realize her humiliation was public. As if in slow motion she looked right, then left, to find multiple groups of onlookers, their heads bent one to the other, absorbed in discussing the drama they had just witnessed. Their faces revealed interest, revulsion, and embarrassment.

But no sympathy. No compassion.

And not a single person—for she would not dignify them by calling them friends—stepped forward to console her, or even to ask after the situation. Rowena was society’s pathetic cripple, the subject of pity, gossip, and gratitude that they weren’t as wretched as she.

She thought to excuse herself from their presence, then decided they didn’t deserve it. And so, she walked through the crowd, letting the venerable bastions of society fill in the space behind her.

Out, out, out, out
 . . .

Her focus was singular: escape. To be away from this party, this house, this moment.

This truth.

Her hurried departure set the doormen scurrying. “Did you have a wrap, miss?”

She shook her head and let them open the door before her and pull it shut upon her egress. Various coachmen flicked their cigarettes away and stood at attention.

“May we help you, miss?” one asked.

Could they?

“Morrie. Haverty.”

A coachman looked down the row of carriages, whistled, then called out, “Haverty! Yer wanted!”

Whatever energy she’d had left her, and Rowena’s legs gave out. The men came to her rescue, taking her arms, offering her a seat.

“Is there someone at the party I can call?” one asked.

“Just Haverty. Please.”

But before the man could call Morrie’s name a second time, he appeared from the line, hurrying toward her, resplendent in his coachman uniform. “Ro—” He caught himself. “Miss Langdon. What’s wrong?”

“I need to go. Please.”

“Of course. Let me get the carriage. It’s just five or six—”

She shook her head, knowing she couldn’t walk another step, nor stay here another second. She raised her arms in supplication. “I can’t . . . Carry me.”

He pulled her into his arms and she linked her hands behind his neck. “I gotcha now. No worries. I’ll take care of you.”

Rowena closed her eyes and nodded against his chest.

Lucy ran down the back stairs to the servants’ entrance and outside. But instead of turning left, toward the main driveway—which was lined with a parade of carriages—she ran around the side of the house toward the back. There were stone steps and balustrades and gardens, but finally only an open lawn stood between her and the sea.

Her lungs burned and she stopped to catch her breath. Glancing back at the house was like looking at a fully lit lantern, with the movement of the people its flame.

A red hot flame that burned her very soul.

The sound of music and laughter from the house mocked her.
See, you silly girl? You don’t belong here. Did you really think one of our kind would truly be interested in someone like you?

But then the sound of the sea swept over the sounds of the house, and she made her choice. The sea was impartial. The sea wouldn’t judge her. The sea, the sky, the stars . . .

She staggered toward the edge of the lawn, which in the darkness looked like a line marking the edge of the earth. With one misstep she would fall into oblivion. But then she found courage by focusing on the sea and the white foam of the waves reflecting the moon. When her feet found the path, she felt she’d moved to a place of safety, as if the world of the Vanderbilts, the Langdons, and the DeWitts couldn’t touch her here.

On the Cliff Walk the sea drowned out the very existence of the party, and each wave soothed her panic.

Lucy looked upward to see the stars, but found them washed out. The light of the house was to blame. She felt a sudden need to see them fully, so walked to the south, to find a place free from the intrusion of man.

Her progress was slow and careful, for as she achieved nature’s darkness, she lost the ability to see the path. She hugged the land side, letting her feet feel their way along the craggy trail. Lucy stopped a few times to test the sky, to see if the stars were visible, but walked farther and farther until the conditions proved right.

Finally, the stars pulsed in the black sky and the moon played peekaboo through wide strands of clouds. The path here had taken a downhill turn, with the view of its mansion entirely hidden. She leaned against the high bank, letting her head find support there. She closed her eyes and sighed. “How could I have been so blind?”

Had there been signs that her Dante was Rowena’s Edward? She raked her memories and found no clue but for his reluctance to tell her his name.

And yet she’d been quite willing to continue the game of “Dante.” Had she suspected something was amiss and avoided it?

She opened her eyes, looked out to sea, and remembered her time with Dante on this very path.
Go ask the sunrise
 . . .

The feelings they’d shared, the hopes, the plans, had been real. Above all else she’d never seen a bit of artifice in Dante. Their connection was genuine, and their feelings . . .

“I love him.” But what did she know of love? And so the words were repeated. “I love him?”

Lucy slid to sitting and wrapped her arms around her legs.
Please, God, I do love him.

But what about Rowena?
She
was supposed to marry Edward DeWitt. Her feeling of betrayal had to be as great as Lucy’s.

“Edward is to blame. He should have told me. He should have told her.”

She leaned her forehead against her knees and prayed a wave of wisdom would wash over her.

Or let her drown.

Rowena felt the carriage stop. The jostling and the sound of the horse’s hooves on the street were silent. But she couldn’t move.

After Morrie had swept her into his arms and taken her to the carriage, she’d pulled the headdress from her hair and let it fall to the floor. Then she’d turned onto her side with her hands to her cheek and lay upon the seat. She’d wanted to die, or at the very least, acquire the ability to become invisible. The rhythm of the horse’s stride ignited a mantra she repeated:
Not true, not true, not true
 . . .

Maybe if she repeated it enough, time would reverse itself and Edward would never look up and see Lucy, and there would be no moment of recognition, knowledge, and pain.

But even before he saw Lucy, he was wanting to talk to me, to tell me something.

Very true. It was all true no matter how much she wanted things to be different.

Edward was Dante. Edward loved Lucy.

And Lucy loved Ed—

The door to the carriage opened and Morrie’s gentle voice broke through her awful trance. “Come, Ro. I’ll take care of you.”

His words of comfort were as much a balm as the situation at the ball was a knife to her soul. Could one heal the other?

Morrie held out his hand and helped her step out of the carriage. “Can you walk?” he asked.

She nodded. Her legs felt stronger if for no other reason than he was beside her, ready to catch her if she faltered. It was then she noticed he hadn’t taken her to the main house, but back to the stables.

It was a relief. Although her family was at the Breakers—hopefully they were still there, hopefully they hadn’t witnessed her humiliation—she couldn’t imagine being in that huge house by herself.

“Come into my quarters and you can rest. I’ll send one of the boys to Mrs. Oswald’s to get you some tea.”

“That would be nice.”

Once there she sat upon a ragged chair and saw him limp away to get the boy. When they returned she said, “You limp, I limp . . .”

“We are a pair, we two.” He pulled a footstool close and sat upon it, looking ridiculous crouched upon its tiny frame.

“Here,” she said, standing. “You sit in the chair and let me sit—”

He pressed her back to sitting. “Nonsense, Ro. What kind of man do you think I am to ever take the best for myself?”

She knew exactly what kind of man he was. “Thank you for saving me.”

“I will always save you,” he said. “But you need to tell me what I was saving you from.”

She closed her eyes against the memories. If only she could just sit here with Morrie and not think about the other . . .

“Did DeWitt hurt you?” Morrie asked.

Tears came in a rush and she hid her face in her hands. “He loves Lucy! He’s her Dante!”

“Dante?”

Her words came with the same rush as her tears and she explained everything.

“He told you he loved Lucy?”

“He was going to tell me, but then he saw her and—”

“Did she know who he was?”

Rowena looked into the air between them and found it filled with the image of Lucy’s face. There’d been no satisfaction there, no complicity. Only shock and horror.

She looked at Morrie. “She didn’t know.”

“The cretin. To lead the two of you on—at the same time.”

His words ignited Rowena’s pain, and anger sparked. She rose from her chair, needing movement to fan the flames. “He did lead us on! He was supposed to marry me. He went on outings with me and made me feel as though he loved me, when all the while he was seeing Lucy and . . .” She remembered something Lucy had told her. “He left her love notes on the Cliff Walk. While he was courting me he was wooing her.” She stopped pacing. “How dare he do that to me? How dare he get my hopes up for a life together, and then destroy all of it? If only I hadn’t brought Lucy to Newport,
I
would be marrying Edward!”

Instead of offering support, Morrie sat motionless on the stool, his hands gripping his thighs.

“Aren’t you going to say something?”

He gazed at her a few moments, then said softly. “Are you angry because Edward hurt you or because you love him?”