Newport Summer (7 page)

Gannon shook his head. “I have it on good authority
she’ll be at the polo grounds this afternoon”

“Then maybe things aren’t a complete loss after all,”
Lionel offered, gesturing that Gannon should go ahead
of him into the phaeton.

Gannon said nothing, merely climbed into the car riage and sat opposite Stella, complimenting her on
the cut of her ensemble in an attempt to dislodge Lionel
from the topic and change the conversation.

The match was already into its third chukker when
Gannon and the Carringtons arrived later in the afternoon. Various styles of open carriages lined the perimeter
of the field, filled with women holding delicate parasols
over their heads to ward off the summer sun while their
escorts studied the game. Today’s match was an intraclub
game between the Reds and the Blues. An occasional
Hurrah! broke out from the crowd as someone’s preferred
team scored a goal, but otherwise Gannon thought people
were more absorbed in their own conversations than they
were in the match.

During the three-minute intervals between chukkers,
some daring souls alit from their carriages and mingled. Gannon took advantage of the interval to seek out
the St. Clair phaeton. He found it almost immediately.
It was the conveyance surrounded with young men vying for Audrey’s attention. Apparently he wasn’t the
only one who found Audrey’s brand of beauty attractive. But he was the only who had carte blanche with
her mother.

Violet caught sight of him nearing the carriage and
gestured toward him with her closed fan, much the way
Gannon imagined Moses had raised his staff over the Red
Sea. The effect was the same. “Good afternoon, Camberly. Are you enjoying our American polo?” she called out. The people gathered around the carriage parted to
make way for the earl, a few of the younger men muttering under their breath.

Gannon approached and took Violet’s gloved hand,
bending over it gracefully. “I am enjoying the match
very much,” he replied. “This place is a delightful venue
for it.”

“Of course you’d like it,” Audrey put in. “It’s an old
farm” There was a conspiratorial gleam to her eyes that
Gannon took up at once. He bowed in her direction.
“You remember our conversation from dinner. I am flattered. Perhaps I could persuade you to show me about
the grounds-that is, unless the match is too riveting.”

Audrey seized on the invitation, gathering her skirts
about her and moving toward him. He was ready to help
her down. “I’d love to. Mother, we’ll be back shortly”

Gannon noticed she didn’t wait for Violet’s approval,
but the woman was smiling with supreme contentedness. “We’ll stay in sight, ma’am,” Gannon added, recalling Audrey’s warning from the prior night.

“This place is technically called Glen Farm,” Audrey
began as they strolled arm in arm. “It’s an old manor
farm that dates back to the 1600s. There’s nearly seven
hundred acres here.”

“It’s lovely,” Gannon said, meaning it.

“Is it like Camberly?” She turned her head toward
him, tilting it upward beneath her parasol.

“A little. Camberly is much larger. We have a home farm, a village, a church, fields, even a mill.” Gannon
couldn’t keep the edge of pride from his voice.

“Is it entirely self-sufficient?”

“Nearly so. At least it was,” Gannon conceded as they
neared a small pond, still within view of the polo field
but out of earshot. “Now, tell me your plan.”

Audrey found a large stone and sat down, taking care
to spread her skirts. She made a fetching picture in her
pale blue carriage dress and wide-brimmed hat, but it
seemed to Gannon that she took an inordinately long
time to begin.

“Before I start,” Audrey said, “are you willing to do
what it takes to see this plan succeed? There is a modicum of risk involved.”

“I am willing. You know I am.” Gannon smiled in
reassurance.

Audrey drew a deep breath. “All right. The problem,
as I see it, is that my parents want me married, preferably
to you or someone like you, and neither you nor I wish to
be married to each other or otherwise at this time. In addition, you need huge sums of money, true?”

Gannon nodded, although he was starting to think that
if he had to marry, he’d pick Audrey. She was beautiful,
witty, and plainspoken. He could fall in love with that.
He suspected he already was. But mentioning it would be
premature, and it would certainly hamper her plan, whatever that might be.

“The solution needs only be temporary. We have to survive until the end of the Newport Season. For purposes of my plan, I have defined survive for me as
escaping an engagement and for you as remaining unmarried but in possession of enough money to save Camberly. To this end, I propose the following solution. First,
you court me intently and exclusively. Let my parents and
everyone else assume there will be an offer at the end of
August. This will assuage my parents’ need to find me a
suitor, protect me from any unwanted proposals, and ensure my freedom when we publicly break things off at
summer’s end.”

“And my money?” Gannon asked, more for form’s
sake than anything else. He’d willingly squire this multifaceted girl around just for the pleasure of her company if he hadn’t been faced with a disastrous situation
of his own. Being with Audrey provided surprises at
every turn.

“Tut-tut, my impatient one, I am not finished yet,”
she scolded him with a coy look. “In exchange for your
exclusive attentions, I will see to it that you’re provided
with the opportunity to make investments of the safest
and highest order. I will show you how to do business in
America.”

Gannon shook his head. She wasn’t the only one
who could drive a bargain. “I need numbers. What are
we talking about here? I need twenty-five thousand additional pounds a year to keep the estate debt free” He
rather thought the number would swamp her. He personally found the sum staggering.

Audrey cocked her head to one side, considering. “You’ll need more than that. We’ll want to have something left to invest for the future. You need more than
one year’s bankroll,” she said thoughtfully. “I can make
you a hundred thousand British pounds.”

Gannon hardly dared to breathe. “Are you sure?”

Audrey smiled broadly. “Well, you’re going to have to
work for it. I am counting on your charm. I can only open
the doors for you and coach you a bit. But I am a mere
woman, and there are limits to what I can do”

Gannon laughed. “I don’t believe that for a minute.”

Audrey extended her hand in the American gesture.
“Shake on it? Partners?”

“Partners,” Gannon affirmed, taking her hand. After
all, he’d already lost everything else. He would be no
worse off if her gambit failed than he was now. And he
had a backup plan. He could still marry-although the
idea was becoming more and more unpalatable to him
by the day, and it was all Audrey’s fault.

Audrey shook Gannon’s hand with a confidence she
didn’t necessarily feel on the inside. If things went awry,
it would be all her fault. The plan made sense, but it
was one thing drafting it on paper and another actually
launching it. Her freedom and his fortune were at risk.
If the plan backfired, she could find herself betrothed to
this man and toted off to England.

She wondered if Gannon realized the risk she took in
trusting him to act his part. And she was trusting him. Maybe not with money and an estate, which were very
real things to weigh in the balance of their scheme, but
she was trusting him with something just as valuable. If
he chose to trap her at the end of the summer and refuse
to cry off as they’d agreed, she’d have no recourse. After a summer of courting, it would be impossible to persuade her mother to back down. Violet would force the
courtship to its logical conclusion if Gannon didn’t
play the jilt. Oh, yes, she didn’t have money involved,
but her risk was just as real.

Still, she didn’t relish failing Gannon. The money he
had available to stake on their venture was not replaceable. If she made a misstep, his funds would disappear
and not be replenished.

“So, we’re partners,” Gannon said, releasing her hand
after a brief squeeze. “What next?”

Audrey drew a deep breath. This was it. The game
started now, the great gamble for her future. “Tonight.
My family has been invited to Caroline Astor’s for dinner and a night of cards”

Gannon raised his dark eyebrows at the mention of
the great hostess herself. “Astor’s? So soon?”

Audrey shrugged negligantly. “It’s a small gathering,
very informal.” She gave him a wink. “Mrs. Astor won’t
serve more than eleven courses tonight.”

Gannon laughed. “Only eleven? Heavens, I’d better
eat a huge lunch, or I’ll starve to death”

Audrey tossed him a saucy look. “Enough! I’ve heard about your English Seasons. It’s not as if the peers are
all that frugal when it comes to setting the table. Tonight
is just for close friends. It will be a select group and just
the right sort of people for you to connect with in a situation where you can sit and talk”

Gannon gave her a piercing perusal that made her uneasy. She hoped he didn’t sense her nervousness. “You’re
sure you know what you’re doing?” Gannon said.

She smiled. “Absolutely. I learned business at my father’s knee. We weren’t always rich, you know.”

They turned and headed back to the carriages and the
polo field. “Really?” Gannon looked sincerely interested.

“Really,” she affirmed. “I remember growing up north of Manhattan-out in the country, in a small but respectable brick house-until I was twelve. My father ran
the local dry goods store. We were always comfortable,
but one day, when I was eight, a textile mill opened not
far from us, and father invested in it. Within a few years,
he owned the mill, he bought another, developed connections to sell fabric, and things took off from there”

“That’s incredible,” Gannon said, a thoughtful look
on his face.

“That’s how it happens for many of the men who are
here now.” Audrey waved a gloved hand toward one of
the carriages they neared. Her voice dropped as she gave
Gannon a biographical survey. “That woman’s husband
made his fortune in wholesale grocery. They’re worth
three million dollars now after a lifetime of porting vegetables from country to city.” She nodded in greeting
to a woman who waved from another vehicle. “They
made their money in dairy products.”

“Cows?” Gannon asked, incredulous.

He didn’t cover his surprise fast enough. “You’re
shocked,” Audrey said. “Is it my talk of money that has
you agape or the cows?”

“Both, I suppose,” Gannon admitted honestly. The
American millionaire and the methods of how he acquired his fortune were quite foreign commodities in
his world of the peerage. “It’s not as if I don’t work,” he
offered up defensively. “It’s just that I never thought of
making money from it.”

“Things are different in America,” Audrey said mysteriously.

“Yes, I can see that they are” Gannon gave her a look
that unexpectedly warmed her and left her with the feeling that he wasn’t talking exclusively about business
anymore.

They’d reached the St. Clair’s phaeton, and Gannon
handed her up under Violet’s scrutiny.

“Will you be joining us tonight at the Astors’?” Violet asked as Gannon saw Audrey settled.

“It will be my pleasure. I appreciate the invitation’s
being extended. I hope that it won’t be an imposition,”
Gannon said with the right degree of humility.

Violet smiled with delight, fixing Audrey with a
pleased gaze. “Caro welcomes all my friends,” she returned.

Audrey cast a quick glance at Gannon. She hoped he read all the messages contained in that simple sentence.
From the short bow he made over her mother’s hand,
she was sure he had. Tonight would be important. For
them both. There was money to be made and rumors to
be hatched.

Audrey dressed carefully for the evening in a peach
gown of summer silk trimmed in tiny seed pearls to
complement the simple pearl necklace that lay against
her collarbone. The ensemble was ideal for an elegant
but supposedly “informal” gathering at Beechwood.

During the short drive down Bellevue Avenue to Caroline Astor’s Italian-styled villa, Audrey mentally ran
through her game plan. She’d been dining at Beechwood
since she was old enough to put her hair up. Tonight’s
dinner would follow the same pattern these evenings always followed. Guests would arrive a half hour before
dinner and gather in the drawing room. Dinner would be
a three-hour affair that allowed Caroline to parade her
chef’s excellence and her bank account’s depth in front of her guests on the most expensive china in her extensive collection. Afterward, card tables would be set up,
and everyone would engage in games of whist while exchanging the latest gossip.

Normally, the affair would bore her. Audrey could
guess everything that would occur, right down to the conversations people would hold and whom they would talk
about. But tonight, having the key to that knowledge was
an advantage she wouldn’t hesitate to use. Tonight, she
was looking forward to dinner because Gannon would be
there.